A state judge set a Jan. 12 trial date Thursday for the alleged triggerman in the 2006 murder of an LSU student outside the Olive Garden restaurant on Siegen Lane.
Tracy Young, 30, is charged with first-degree murder and attempted first-degree murder in the shooting death of 21-year-old Aaron Arnold of Zachary and the wounding of 28-year-old Dionne Grayson.
Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.
Young’s alleged accomplice, 23-year-old Sanchez Brumfield, was convicted May 28 on the same charges Young faces. The jury recommended that Brumfield die by lethal injection.
District Judge Todd Hernandez is scheduled to formally sentence Brumfield on Dec. 2.
In setting Young’s trial date for Jan. 12, Hernandez bumped another capital murder trial set the same day for the Baton Rouge man charged in the October shooting death of a security guard at Pete’s Farmer’s Market on Airline Highway.
Derrick Williams, 25, was scheduled to stand trial Jan. 12 in the shooting death of 71-year-old Alfred Mequet.
Prosecutor Aaron Brooks asked Hernandez to set Young’s trial for Sept. 29, but Young’s attorneys — Mark Marinoff and Margaret Lagattuta — said they have too much work to do in the case to be ready for that date. They also said the court transcript of Brumfield’s trial is not yet available.
The defense lawyers added that they continue to investigate claims that Brumfield told another inmate he knows who actually shot Arnold and Grayson — suggesting that someone other than Young might have pulled the trigger.
Brooks told the judge that indications from Brumfield’s attorneys are that Brumfield “does not wish to participate at all’’ in Young’s case.
When Lagattuta noted that the Olive Garden case precedes the Pete’s Farmer’s Market case and suggested that Young’s trial could be moved into Williams’ Jan. 12 trial date slot, Brooks agreed as long as the Young trial is not delayed further.
Arnold and Grayson were shot the night of Sept. 8, 2006, in the parking lot behind the Olive Garden while Arnold was helping Grayson put gas in her car.
The jury found that Brumfield, who was sitting in a parked car, ordered the shooting of the victims during a botched robbery attempt.
Brumfield’s attorneys argued that Brumfield and Young pulled into the parking lot to switch seats because Young was too drunk to drive. Young saw Arnold and Grayson and made a split-second decision to rob them, leaving Brumfield in the car as an unwilling accessory to the robbery and murder, the defense claimed.
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