The Georgia Supreme Court on Monday is scheduled to hear oral arguments in the contested case of a man charged in the abduction and slaying of 12-year-old Ashleigh Moore.
District Attorney Larry Chisolm is challenging a Chatham County Superior Court ruling throwing out the kidnapping,murder case against Bobby Lavon Buckner because prosecutors violated his right to a speedy trial.
Judge Penny Haas Freesemann’s May 30 ruling has become a central issue in Chisolm’s bid for re-election to office in Tuesday’s General Election.
Although the Supreme Court will hear arguments on Monday, the justices would not be expected to rule until sometime after the election.
Ashleigh, a seventh grade honor student at DeRenne Middle School, disappeared from her home early April 18, 2003. A body police identified as Ashleigh’s was found three weeks later near the Savannah Marriott Riverfront.
Buckner, a convicted child molester and live-in boyfriend of the victim’s mother, was arrested for violating his probation the day after the child disappeared and has remained in custody under a sentence in an unrelated crime.
Freesemann ruled in May that prosecutors deliberately delayed Buckner’s trial and his ability to defend himself had been prejudiced and threw out the indictment.
Central to her finding was the fact prosecutors sought the death penalty on the eve of trial, then withdrew it just four months later.
Chisolm now argues Freesemann abused her discretion in her ruling and contends the state did not deliberately delay the trial process.
His argument before the Supreme Court is that her finding that 53 months was uncommonly long was not correct.
Further, he argued, the allegation by Buckner’s attorneys that evidence was deliberately and improperly withheld to impair Buckner’s defense “is baseless.”
But Buckner’s attorneys Newell Hamilton Jr. and Jason Clark with the Georgia Capital Defender’s office contend “the pretrial delay in this case far exceeds the one-year benchmark for presumptive prejudice and it is unusual even in comparison with other non-capital cases.”
They also contend Freesemann’s finding that prosecutors sought the death penalty “solely to gain a continuance … and to gain some leverage of Mr. Buckner” was proper, calling the prosecution conduct “egregious.”