FORT WORTH, Texas — The murder trial for former Fort Worth Officer Aaron Dean, who is accused in the October 2019 shooting death of 28-year-old Atatiana Jefferson, was granted a continuance on Wednesday afternoon.
This is the third time that Dean's trial has been rescheduled. It had previously been scheduled for November and then January before being slated most recently to take place beginning on May 16.
But due to concerns over lead defense attorney Jim Lane's health and late-submitted evidence to the defense by the prosecution, District Judge David Hagerman said the trial will now begin on June 23, with jury selection to start on June 20. That day may change because county offices are scheduled to be closed that day for Juneteenth.
Hagerman said this new date would hold "without exception" and provided Lane's two co-counsels on the defense three guidelines for being properly prepared for the new dates: hire a new lead chair, try the case on their own or hire a new third chair to join them. In December, when he pushed the trial to may, Hagerman said "no further continuances will be granted.”
Earlier in the proceedings, Dean’s attorneys told Hagerman that Lane had been dealing with serious health issues. Lane was not present during the hearings that began last week, which considered both a possible delay and a possible change of venue.
But the defense team said they didn't know when Lane would be healthy enough to participate.
The District Attorney's office noted that the two other defense attorneys on the case, Miles Brissette and Bob Gill, have been part of the proceedings since February of 2020.
“You’re basically asking the court for a blank check to continue it indefinitely," Hagerman said of the defense. "That I won’t do.”
Judge Hagerman said the defense's concerns over Lane's health represented "a valid request" and was "not contrived."
“The community deserves a trial," Prosecutor Dale Smith argued." This family deserves a trial. They have rights too.”
This trial has now been delayed three times. It moved from November to January because the defense said one attorney wasn’t ready. Then it was moved to May because expert defense witnesses wouldn’t be available. Now it has moved again.
WFAA reporters Susanne Brunner and William Joy have been listening in at the hearing and obtained a copy of the defense's motion.
In addition to the lead attorney's health issues, the defense team said they'd been given three new pieces of evidence in the last week. That includes what they say is around 50 pages of psychological testing data.
According to the defense team, the data was requested by the State of Texas in March 2020.
"The defense was unaware of the existence of this material and is surprised by the material," the team wrote in their motion.
Judge Hagerman also said "the state is substantially to blame" for the delay by withholding evidence relating to the trial from the defense.
Attorneys for Dean have additionally sought to move the trial out of Tarrant County -- unsuccessfully.
Earlier Wednesday afternoon, Judge Hagerman denied that change of venue motion, stating that, while initial media coverage of the case had been pervasive and possibly even prejudicial, it was not inflammatory. For two and a half days, the defense team showed around 20 hours of local news stories to make its case.
The judge added, too, that enough time had passed between Jefferson's death and the pending start of Dean's trial to dilute the media's coverage of her death, thus preventing it from likely swaying a jury pool.
"There has been extensive, pervasive, prejudicial pre-trial publicity against Mr. Dean, and this trial should be moved out of Tarrant County," Defense Attorney Bob Gill said.
“The vast majority of those stories happened over two years ago," Dale Smith responded. "There’s been no drawing of making a nexus of those stories and the impact they would have on a potential juror today.”
Dean is charged with murder.
On the night Jefferson was killed, a neighbor had called the police requesting a welfare check after he saw the door open at Jefferson’s Fort Worth home.
Jefferson was playing video games with her then-8-year-old nephew when Dean walked into the backyard. She grabbed her gun and had gotten up to look out the window when she was shot, police records show. Jefferson died at the scene.
An arrest warrant stated three times that Dean did not announce he was a police officer when he walked around the house. Dean declined to give a statement to Fort Worth investigators.
Dean resigned before he could be fired, Fort Worth Police Department officials have said.
Note: The following video was uploaded in November 2021.