photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

Rodney Marshall, from left, and his attorneys Matthew Cohen and Clive Boone, are pictured at a hearing on March 4, 2025, in Douglas County District Court.

A Douglas County judge denied a request on Tuesday to continue the double homicide trial of a Lawrence man, which led the man’s attorney to threaten to withdraw from the case just weeks before the trial.

“I don’t find that credible at all,” Judge Amy Hanley told attorney Matthew Cohen when he said that he may not be adequately prepared for trial if the continuance were denied. Cohen was appointed to the case more than a year and a half ago.

Cohen and his co-counsel, Clive Boon, represent 54-year-old Rodney Marshall, who is charged with two counts of first-degree murder and numerous other crimes in connection with the shooting deaths of Shelby McCoy, 52, at 1115 Tennessee St. and William D. O’Brien, 43, of Lawrence, at 325 Northwood Lane on July 31, 2022. Marshall is alleged to have then led law enforcement on a chase during which he repeatedly fired a pistol at police out of his truck’s window.

Rodney Marshall appears at a hearing on March 4, 2025, in Douglas County District Court.

Cohen and Boone asked the court last week for a trial continuance for nearly the same reason a continuance was granted in January, which related to medical records of one of the victims. The first request was to obtain the records, but the latest request was to review the records and find an expert to testify about what the records may mean to the case. Cohen argued the motion to continue on Tuesday while Boone sat silent.

Hanley had granted the continuance requested in January and ordered the state, represented by Deputy David Greenwald and Senior Assistant District Attorney Ricardo Leal, to make sure the records were given to the defense by the end of January.

Greenwald said on Tuesday that the KU hospital that had the records first delayed the state’s subpoena by asking the state to send the subpoena to another department. Greenwald said they later found out the department they were directed to was also the wrong department. He said the hospital’s “malicious compliance” delayed the records beyond the deadline.

Hanley then asked why she was not informed of the delay sooner when the deadline for the records to be given to Cohen and Boone was at the end of January. She said that she only heard of the delay mid-February when the records still hadn’t been sent to the state. She said she personally resolved the issue with a phone call to KU hospital.

“I have no excuse for that,” Cohen said, regarding the failure to inform the court.

Hanley said that the 185 pages of medical records were not much to review considering the volumes of pages the attorneys had already reviewed. She said the defense was on notice that the medical records were coming and asked why they had not secured an expert in anticipation of the reports.

Cohen said they have an expert in toxicology but had not contacted an expert to review the ballistics. Hanley asked whether the report received last week had been sent to an expert, to which Cohen responded “no.” Cohen said that he gave the records to Marshall the day after he received them and that Boone had begun to review the 185 pages, but he personally had not looked at the documents.

Greenwald said the state would not object to the use of the reports at trial.

Hanley said she had reviewed multiple cases to find precedent for denying or granting Cohen’s request for a last-minute continuance based on expert reports. She said she found multiple examples of expert reports being introduced days before and even as late as during a trial in which defense attorneys asked for a continuance for a chance to review and prepare and were denied. She said in each case she reviewed, the Supreme Court upheld the lower court’s decision to deny the request for a continuance.

After Cohen’s request was denied, he made an additional appeal to Hanley, saying that he just wanted to get it right the first time. He said that Marshall had had issues with attorneys in the early stages of the case but that Cohen and Boone worked well with Marshall.

“We want to get this right the first time. That’s what we are asking for more time,” Cohen said.

As the Journal-World reported, Marshall sought to have at least one of his attorneys removed as recently as January.

Hanley said that if Cohen had contacted her in January when the state’s deadline had passed for the records to be handed over, she would have worked with the attorneys.

“No concern was raised at that time,” Hanley said.

Hanley said even when she stepped in to expedite the records request from the hospital, Cohen had assured her the defense would be ready for trial.

“I don’t believe there is any good cause,” Hanley said of the requested delay.

Cohen then said that if the continuance weren’t granted, he believed he and Boone would be ineffective in representing Marshall and they would file a motion to withdraw from the case at the next hearing on March 21 ahead of trial.

She said that Cohen and Boone were both well-qualified attorneys and that if Cohen were to file a motion to withdraw that she would be the one to rule on it. She said that Cohen and Boone had been on the case for a year and a half and that the trial date was set more than nine months ago.

“I couldn’t disagree more. I don’t find that credible at all,” Hanley said before abruptly ending the hearing.

Marshall remains in custody at the Douglas County jail on a $1.5 million bond.

photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

Attorney Clive Boone appears at a hearing on March 4, 2025, in Douglas County District Court.