Defense attorneys for the man accused of murdering a UC Davis couple more than 30 years ago have asked for a delay in his Sacramento Superior Court trial that is scheduled for Aug. 16.
The attorneys, LInda Parisi and Assistant Public Defender Kenneth Schaller, say they need to finish going through approximately 220,000 pages of discovery before they'll be ready to defend their clieht, Richard HIrschfield, 62.
A hearing on their motion to delay the trial was itself continued today to June 24 by Judge Michael W. Sweet.
HIrscshfield is charged with murdering John Riggins and Sabrina Gonsalves in December 1980.
Included in the documents the lawyers said they still need to peruse are reports, transcripts and other information from the prosecutions of serial killer Gerard Gallego in Contra Costa County and in Nevada.
Gallego died of cancer in a Nevada prison in 2002.
Yolo County authorities had initially arrested four people they linked to Gallego. Prosecutors had charged that the four defendants murdered Gonsalves and Riggins to create an alibi for Gallego.
Murder charges were dismissed against the four in 1993 after a DNA test excluded them. Additional tests on the DNA sample -- taken from a semen stain on a blanket found in a van the slain couple had been driving -- linked it to Hirschfield.
He was charged in the case in 2004.
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