SPOKANE, Wash. (Court TV) — Tension ramped up in a Washington courtroom on Thursday when a defense attorney refused to participate in a motions hearing.
Cynthia Khaleel appears in court for a pretrial hearing (KREM)
The motions hearing was scheduled to be the final hearing ahead of a murder trial scheduled to begin Monday for Cynthia Khaleel. Khaleel is charged with murder in the death of her ex-boyfriend, Justin Daniel, who was stabbed to death.
Investigators say Daniel called 911 on April 13, 2024, to report that Khaleel had come to his home in violation of a no-contact order, The Spokesman-Review said, citing court documents. When police arrived at the scene, the victim was dead in a pool of blood with 48 stab wounds and three gunshot wounds. Investigators said there were kitchen knives scattered at the top of the stairs, blood smears on the walls and multiple broken windows in the home.
Khaleel’s trial has been continued and rescheduled a total of 10 times; on Thursday, Khaleel’s attorney, Stephanie Cady, appeared in court to request another delay. “We have been diligently trying to comply with the court’s orders with regard to the motions in limine and being prepared for trial,” Cady said. “Unfortunately, we are not ready.”
Cady blamed prosecutors for filing late motions after the court-ordered deadlines, and said that they were only recently given key pieces of evidence. “Frankly, we haven’t been through all of the discovery,” she said. “There is so much discovery,” Cady noted that she had worked 130 hours in Khaleel’s case just since the beginning of March.
Prosecutors said they were ready for trial, but Cady said there was no way the defense could be prepared to move forward on Monday. “I think the state is in a different position than the defense, and I don’t know that everyone, unless they have actually been on this side of it, understands that the state has law enforcement at their disposal,” Cady argued. “They have all of the programs that they need and they can contact all of those people. We have one investigator in our office who is not law enforcement. We have two paralegals in our office that help us with discovery…we don’t have any of the resources that they have.”
Cady asked to move the trial approximately six weeks to the beginning of June, but Judge Jacqueline High-Edward flatly refused, saying the trial would proceed on Monday as scheduled.
“I will just let this court know that I will be standing here during the trial and I will let the jury know that I’m ineffective,” Cady said. “I will not pick a jury. I will not participate in trial because I will be ineffective if I do so.”
High-Edward acknowledged the objection and attempted to move the hearing forward to discuss motions in the case, but was stymied when Cady repeatedly responded, “I’m ineffective” to every question, including ones posed about a brief that she herself had written.
“You are being in contempt of this court by not arguing a case you fully briefed,” High-Edward said. “Ms. Cady I’m shocked. This is not how I’ve known you. And you are bullying this court.”
High-Edward then adjourned the hearing for several hours.
