Court Stays Assignment of Judge in Denny Case : Trial: The action delays proceedings while the appellate panel studies one defendant’s claim that the appointed jurist would not be impartial.

A state appellate court issued a stay Thursday temporarily preventing Superior Court Judge John H. Reid from presiding over the case of three young men charged with attacking truck driver Reginald O. Denny and other victims during the early hours of last spring’s riots.

The stay comes in response to a 27-page petition filed last week by lawyers James R. Gillen and David W.M. Jacobs, who represent defendant Antoine Eugene Miller. Miller--along with Damian Monroe (Football) Williams and Henry Keith (Kiki) Watson--had been scheduled to make his first court appearance before Reid on Monday.

The stay marked the latest wrinkle in a complicated and controversial search for a judge to hear the highly charged riot case. It at least temporarily delays Monday’s proceeding while the appellate court considers the argument that Reid should not be allowed to hear the case.

“I’m very pleased by the stay,” Gillen said in an interview Thursday. “It’s promising. . . . We’re very confident that the appellate court will see that our client is being denied due process.”

In his petition, Gillen charged that “Judge Reid raises serious questions in Petitioner Miller’s mind about his judicial temperament, his fairness and his ability to serve as an impartial jurist in this case.” The petition did not elaborate.

Other defense lawyers say they have no problem with Reid, but his appointment created a stir after prosecutors removed the first judge assigned to preside over the trial. That judge, Roosevelt F. Dorn, is black, and some supporters of the three defendants charged that prosecutors removed Dorn because of his race--an accusation that prosecutors vehemently deny.

All three defendants are black.

The first alternate judge, George Trammell, was removed by defense lawyers. The case then fell to Reid, who is white. Prosecutors and defense lawyers have suggested the appointment of a compromise jurist to hear the case, but the supervising judge has indicated that he has faith in Reid and does not intend to remove him unless there is a legal reason to do so.

Under state law, each side in a criminal proceeding may exercise only one peremptory challenge, and defense lawyers in this case already used theirs to remove Trammell. They may be permitted an additional challenge, however, if they can show that the interests of the three defendants are so different that they cannot be considered a single “side” of the case.

To show that, Gillen has argued that Miller is prepared to testify against his co-defendants at the trial.

“Miller will testify that he did not perpetrate the Denny beating, but in fact that his co-defendants did beat Denny,” Gillen stated in his petition.

The appellate court’s stay does not indicate which way the court is prepared to rule in the matter, but it postpones any court hearings in the case until the appellate judges can review transcripts of a closed meeting between defense lawyers and a Superior Court judge. Gillen was ordered by the court to file those transcripts within 10 days.

Frank Sundstedt, one of the prosecutors in the case, said he was surprised by the appellate court’s decision to stay the case, but declined to speculate on its significance.

“I guess it means I don’t have a court appearance Monday,” Sundstedt said. “Beyond that, I don’t know.”