ATLANTA — Judge Scott McAfee signed an order to start the Georgia election RICO trial for at least one defendant on Oct. 23.
It remains possible dates will change, and Judge McAfee stipulated in his order issued Thursday that, "At this time, these deadlines do not apply to any co-defendant."
The order came after the Fulton County District Attorney's Office, responding Thursday to a speedy trial demand by Georgia attorney Kenneth Chesebro, asked for an ambitious new timeline.
D.A. Fani Willis requested the Oct. 23 trial start date, now set by Judge McAfee for at least Chesebro. That's roughly five months earlier than her initial request for a March 4, 2024 trial start.
Willis' request was written to apply to all 19 defendants - it's still unclear how McAfee might assess a trial timeline for the other 18. Former President Donald Trump has already registered his opposition to an October trial.
Chesebro had made a formal speedy trial demand the previous day.
Willis filed her response in such a way that she was not necessarily in agreement with Chesebro's justification for a speedy trial, but nonetheless signaling a willingness to accommodate it.
"Without waiving any objection as to the sufficiency of Defendant Kenneth John Chesebro's filing, the State requests that this Court specially set the trial in this case to commence on October 23, 2023, which falls within the term of the 'next succeeding regular court term' after the July-August, 2023 term of the Superior Court of Fulton County, Atlanta Judicial Circuit."
Speedy trial demands are not unusual - Young Thug's attorney filed at least two in that RICO proceeding.
It had seemed unlikely any trial could begin as soon as October, given the opening for pretrial motions that figure to get filed in this case.
Melissa Redmon, a University of Georgia Law professor and former Fulton County prosecutor, told 11Alive last month that the pretrial process was likely to get drawn out in this case.
"You have the election cycle coming up, so their motivation would be to not have to deal with this until later on, so I think it would be more pretrial motions, appeals of however those motions - whichever way the judge rules on those motions - so that would lend to a delay before you even get to jury selection," she said.
Redmon added there were several complicated steps to work through.
"You'll see the pretrial motions to dismiss, and attorneys stating why the case should be dismissed, so those should be the initial motions and then if the case survives, then motions on what type of evidence is admissible or should be excluded, so then those get litigated," she said. "All that would happen before you actually get to scheduling when the trial would occur."
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