Judge Sets Trial Date for Huckaby

STOCKTON - Melissa Huckaby, the Tracy woman accused of kidnapping, raping and killing 8-year-old Sandra Cantu, is set to face trial late next year.

San Joaquin County Superior Court Judge Linda Lofthus set a trial date of Oct. 18 after a 30-minute hearing Friday at which the 28-year-old Huckaby was present.

The judge also set Feb. 16 as the day she will consider a defense motion to suppress evidence. She did not set a date to hear a separate defense request to dismiss a grand jury's indictment.

Lofthus has sealed pretrial motions and issued a gag order in the case, so details of prosecutors' case against Huckaby still are unknown to the public.

Prosecutors had been pushing to begin the trial quickly over worries that the memories of some young witnesses will fade. But San Joaquin County Deputy District Attorney Thomas Testa did not object Friday to the trial date.

Huckaby is charged with murdering Sandra, a playmate of her daughter's who was a neighbor in the Orchard Estates Mobile Home Park in Tracy. Sandra disappeared March 27.

Days later, farm workers found Sandra's body in a black suitcase that had been dumped in a rural drainage pond a couple of miles north of Tracy. Huckaby also is accused of drugging a 7-year-old girl and a 37-year-old man.

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.

On Friday, attorneys hashed out plans for evidence sharing and other procedural issues but revealed few details. Testa said the defense motion to suppress evidence required him to subpoena authorities in Los Angeles. In an unrelated discussion, he mentioned he had handed over a disc of handwriting analysis to the defense.

San Francisco attorney Michael Burt, who is assisting Huckaby's lawyer, San Joaquin County Deputy Public Defender Sam Behar, requested instructions that were given to the grand jury that indicted Huckaby. Burt, a star death penalty defense attorney who led or assisted in the defenses of Lyle Menendez, Charles Ng, Richard Ramirez and Cary Stayner, said part of the defense's basis for asking that the indictment be tossed is that they believe the jurors were not instructed correctly, but he did not elaborate.

The October trial date could change if there are delays in the months before. That could happen if the defense successfully moves the case out of San Joaquin County.

Behar missed Friday's hearing because of illness.