photo by: Hearing screenshot/Douglas County District Court

Douglas County District Court Judge James McCabria speaks to the prosecutors and defense counsel for Rontarus Washington Jr. during a hearing on March 17, 2021. This screenshot was obtained by the Journal-World with permission provided by the court.

Two attorneys defending Rontarus Washington Jr. against a murder charge have requested to withdraw as counsel, possibly delaying the six-year-old case even further.

Adam Hall and Angela Keck, the two attorneys representing Washington, filed their motions to withdraw from the case on Tuesday, court records show. During a hearing on Wednesday, they met privately with Judge James McCabria, who is presiding over the case, for almost two hours to discuss the matter.

After the meeting, McCabria did not rule on the attorneys’ request to withdraw, noting that an expert witness Hall and Keck previously requested was scheduled to conduct an examination on Thursday. In February, the defense arranged for another expert to examine footwear evidence related to bloody footprints found at the crime scene, the Journal-World reported.

McCabria said he wanted to allow Thursday’s examination to take place, then consider the withdrawal requests during a hearing on Friday.

“The reality is, this is a 2015 case, and it is 2021 and there are very important decisions that need to be made that will affect where this case goes,” McCabria said, noting that he ordered the attorneys to stay on the case until the examination was completed.

It’s unclear why the attorneys requested to withdraw from the case. Hall said at the beginning of the hearing that the defense wanted to meet with McCabria in private because the defense believed the prosecutors could gain a strategic advantage if they learned of the defense counsel’s reason for requesting withdrawal.

photo by: Journal-World

Rontarus Washington Jr., center, listens to arguments from prosecutors during a motions hearing Friday, Nov. 13, 2020, in Douglas County District Court. At left and right are Washington’s attorneys, Adam Hall and Angela Keck.

Washington, 24, is charged with first-degree murder and aggravated burglary in connection with the November 2014 death of his neighbor, 19-year-old Justina Altamirano Mosso. Washington’s attorneys, Hall and Keck, have suggested Altamirano Mosso’s estranged husband, Felipe Cantu Ruiz, as a possible alternative suspect. The jury hung after Washington’s four-week trial in September 2019, and following delays due to the coronavirus pandemic, the retrial is scheduled to begin Sept. 27.

As the Journal-World has previously reported, the defense has filed a motion to dismiss the case because of alleged prosecutorial error. McCabria said in February he hoped to rule on the motion no later than March 12. However, last week the defense filed a supplemental memo to the motion, arguing that the defense never received a 2017 affidavit for an incident related to Cantu Ruiz that the defense requested a copy of in 2018.

During a hearing on Monday, McCabria said he did not rule on the motion to dismiss the case because of the new memo. The parties were scheduled to continue discussions related to the memo on Wednesday, but that did not happen because Hall and Keck filed their motions to withdraw.