Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis speaks during a news conference on the Fulton County Government constructing in Atlanta, Aug. 14, 2023.
Joshua Lott | The Washington Post | Getty Images
The Atlanta district attorney prosecuting the Georgia election interference case against former President Donald Trump and 18 others asked a judge Tuesday to order that defendants granted so-called speedy trials be tried together.
Fulton County DA Fani Willis also asked Judge Scott McAfee to set a deadline for defendants within the case to file requests to sever their cases. McAfee has discretion on whether to sever the cases for separate trials.
To date, just two defendants within the criminal case, attorneys Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell, have asked for a fast trial on racketeering and 6 other charges they face.
Only Chesebro’s trial has been scheduled up to now, for late October.
But defendants soon could make similar speedy trial requests, which might require their trials to start by Nov. 3.
Trump and several other other co-defendants are less prone to desire a quick trial on charges related to their efforts to reverse his loss to President Joe Biden in Georgia’s 2020 election.
In her court filing Tuesday, Willis said she opposed, “at this juncture,” severing the cases of defendants in order that they’d be tried either in 19 separate trials or in smaller groups.
Willis argued, “All Defendants needs to be tried together, but at an absolute minimum, the Court should set Defendant Powell’s trial and that of another defendant who may file a speedy trial demand on the identical date as Defendant Chesebro’s.”
Chesebro, who was the primary to ask for a speedy trial, last week was granted one starting Oct. 23 in Fulton County Superior Court.
Powell, a day after, filed her own speedy trial request. But she has not yet been given a trial start date.
Under Georgia laws, defendants who want one have the correct to be tried quickly in the event that they are criminally charged.
If that request is just not granted before the court’s next regular term, they’re acquitted of any charges.
Willis last week asked McAfee to set trial for all defendants — including Trump, his former lawyer Rudy Giuliani and White House chief of staff Mark Meadows — on the identical Oct. 23 date Chesebro received.
Trump’s lawyers quickly opposed that request in their very own court filing.
McAfee, in setting Chesebro’s trial start date and other deadlines for pre-trial motions, wrote that “right now, these deadlines [for Chesebro’s case] don’t apply to any co-defendant.”
This can be a developing story. Please check back for updates.
