photo by: Sara Shepherd

Steven A. Drake III appears in Douglas County District Court during a hearing on Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2019.

The murder trial for a Lawrence man who shot and killed another man on his doorstep has been delayed again, at least until this summer.

In September of this year, it will be two years since the homicide occurred.

Steven A. Drake III, 22, was scheduled to face a jury starting Monday in Douglas County District Court. On Thursday, however, Judge Kay Huff agreed to Drake’s request to continue the trial again.

“New developments came to light,” according to the Douglas County District Attorney’s Office, assistant to the DA Cheryl Wright Kunard said, in an email response to an inquiry from the Journal-World.

The DA’s office “did not join” in the defense team’s request to delay the trial. This is the fourth time the trial has been continued.

Huff declined to comment further on the pending matter, her assistant said Friday via email.

No new trial date has been set, but a status hearing is scheduled for June 4.

Drake’s appointed attorney Angela Keck has said that she plans to argue he’s not guilty of first-degree premeditated murder as charged because he acted in defense of himself or others. Drake’s previous request to have the charges dismissed altogether because he acted lawfully under Kansas’ stand-your-ground law did not succeed.

The fatal shooting of Bryce S. Holladay, 26, of Lawrence, happened Sept. 19, 2017, in the doorway of Drake’s home in the 2000 block of West 27th Terrace.

According to Drake and three other people at the house with him, Holladay was taking items from the home and refused to leave, even after the four of them tried to physically force him out the door. Witnesses testified at a preliminary hearing that Holladay was trying to punch them and force his way inside the house when Drake retrieved a handgun from a bedroom and shot him in the face at close range.

Drake previously rejected a plea offer that would have settled the murder case and two other pending criminal cases against him in exchange for prosecutors recommending a sentence of 15 and a half years in prison. If a jury convicts him of first-degree premeditated murder, Drake could face life in prison with no possibility of parole for 50 years.

photo by: Contributed photo

Lawrence police officers are pictured outside 2013 W. 27th Terrace, the scene of a fatal shooting shortly before 10 p.m. Sept. 19, 2017.