Chan Arraignment in Tay Case Delayed : Courts: New attorney for alleged ringleader in honor student’s murder hadn’t had time to review facts. D.A. doesn’t object.

Arraignment for Robert Chien-Nan Chan, the alleged ringleader in the murder of high school honor student Stuart A. Tay, was postponed Friday because his new attorney has not yet reviewed all the paperwork pertaining to the case.

Chan’s attorney, Marshall Schulman, said his client would plead not guilty at his arraignment Jan. 29. Four other juvenile suspects have pleaded not guilty to murder charges, and they face a hearing Feb. 5 to determine whether they will be tried as adults.

The four juveniles, all students at Sunny Hills High School in Fullerton, have in police statements pointed the finger at Chan as the architect of the plan to kill Tay.

But Chan’s attorney on Friday said he was not worried about the other suspects shifting the blame to his client, explaining that such a defense would not be “the best trial tactic.”

“Historically, when there are multiple defendants, when they start attacking each other they’re only making the prosecutor’s job easier,” Schulman said in an interview before the court session. “If the prosecution’s theory has any merit--that’s an if--pointing the finger at someone else and trying to relieve themselves of responsibility will probably backfire.”

Chan, a senior at Sunny Hills High School in Fullerton, and the other defendants are accused of luring Tay to a co-defendant’s Buena Park home, bludgeoning him with baseball bats and a sledgehammer and burying him in a back-yard grave.

Police believe that Tay was planning a computer heist with the five youths and that they killed him because they feared that he was backing out.

Chan, who has been in Orange County Jail since his arrest Jan. 4, bowed his head to avoid photographs as he awaited the opening of the court session Friday morning. Asked whether he approved the change of attorney, Chan at first just nodded, then uttered a soft “yes” after the judge told him he had to speak his answers.

Chan’s mother sat silently with a friend during the brief hearing, then rushed from the courtroom, refusing to make any comments.

In court, Schulman told the judge that he received 80 pages of documents regarding the case Thursday and had read only half the material. The district attorney’s office made no objection to the postponement.

Schulman, who was hired earlier this week, said he did not know why the Chans switched lawyers. “They’ve made no adverse comments” about the previous attorney, Schulman said. “The family seems to be more comfortable with me, and I think that’s the bottom line.”