PROVO — The trial of a man accused of trying to kill his girlfriend during a December fight has been pushed back a month.
During a lengthy pre-trial conference Friday for Alonzo Mosley, 35, 4th District Judge David Mortensen ruled that confusion over potential witnesses should be cleared up to avoid damaging Mosley's constitutional rights.
"With due process, we must give people not just their day in court, but a meaningful day in court," Mortensen said. "I think Mr. Mosley deserves a meaningful day in court."
Mosley is charged with first-degree attempted murder for allegedly attacking his 37-year-old girlfriend. He's accused of punching her in the face then holding her head underwater in a bathtub until she passed out.
Defense attorney Richard Gale told the judge there had been some confusion between his office and the Utah County Attorney's Office regarding notification of "expert witnesses" — the doctors who treated the woman at Utah Valley Regional Medical Center.
Gale said that early in the case, government prosecutors provided a list of several doctors who might be asked to testify, but didn't provide contact information for all of them.
Before he ruled, however, Mortensen voiced hesitation about delaying the trial for a second time, because he had spent the last week gathering a large jury pool. A large pool is needed to find enough jurors who haven't been unduly influenced by media coverage of the case.
Gale also asked that other charges in Mortensen's case, which include a third-degree felony witness tampering and a class A misdemeanor of violating a protective order, be separated from the attempted murder charge.
Gale said the witness tampering was alleged to have happened at a different time than the alleged attempted murder and involved a person other than the alleged female victim.
Prosecutors say that during two 15- and 7-minute recorded phone calls from the jail, Mosley confessed to the attack and tried to harass the man on the other line, who had been a witness of the attack.
But Gale argued that parts of those conversations are highly prejudicial and shouldn't be allowed as evidence. Any information they contain could instead come from witnesses' testimony during trial, he said.
Yet prosecutors say those tapes are crucial to the case and link the witness tampering to the attempted murder charge, despite the time difference.
"Of course (the tape) is prejudicial," said Deputy Utah County Attorney Chad Grunander. "When someone admits to a crime, of course it's prejudicial. But it's a very important piece of evidence."
The attorneys will argue several other motions on April 20, and the three-day trial will begin May 8.
E-mail: sisraelsen@desnews.com