BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - Lawyers for the man charged in the 2018 slaying of LSU basketball player Wade Sims says the trial should be moved away from the Baton Rouge area.
The Advocate reports that attorneys for Dyteon Simpson, of Baker, say Simpson cannot get a fair trial in Louisiana’s East Baton Rouge Parish because of “pervasive and prejudicial” news coverage.
The parish district attorney, Hillar Moore III, disagrees.
Authorities say Sims was shot in the face when he intervened in a fistfight outside a fraternity party near the Southern University campus.
The defense lawyers are asking state District Judge Ron Johnson to move Simpson’s second-degree murder trial to another parish.
“Before and after Mr. Simpson’s arrest, the media coverage in this matter has been significant and unending on a local and national level in large part due to the victim’s status as an LSU basketball player,” Simpson’s court-appointed lawyers, Lindsay Blouin and Margaret Lagattuta, said in a change of venue motion filed Wednesday.
Blouin and Lagattuta added that coverage will increase as a trial nears. A trial date has not been set.
Moore opposes a change of venue.
“This coverage has not been at the direction of police or prosecutors nor has any legal strategy by any of those involved in the case been disclosed in the media,” he said. “We believe the coverage surrounding this case is not a basis to change venue.”
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