Countywide : Motion in Stuart Tay Murder Case Rejected

A Superior Court judge Wednesday rejected a motion to prohibit all Orange County judges from ruling on a request to dismiss indictments in the Stuart A. Tay murder case.

Defense attorneys in the Tay case and a handful of other criminal cases pending in the county want the indictments dismissed on the grounds that there were too few Asian Americans and other ethnic minorities on the Orange County Grand Jury during the past few years.

Because Superior Court judges are involved in approving each year’s final grand jury panel, defense attorneys want a judge from outside the county to decide whether the indictments should be dismissed.

The four defendants in the Tay slaying were indicted by the 1992-93 grand jury.

But Superior Court Judge Theodore E. Millard said during a court hearing Wednesday that he denied the defense request as both untimely and lacking a legal basis.

Defense attorneys say they will ask a higher court to review their request. Defense attorney Marshall M. Schulman, who represents teen-ager Robert Chan, the alleged ringleader in Tay’s New Year’s Eve slaying, said he will ask the 4th District Court of Appeal in Santa Ana to review the issue.

“We just don’t think the judges who do the selecting should rule on their own selections,” Schulman said outside the court.

In a related matter, Superior Court Judge Kathleen E. O’Leary held a closed-door hearing Wednesday in the murder case. O’Leary ordered attorneys not to reveal the issues discussed, the attorneys said.