The trial of Aaron Thompson — accused of causing the death of his daughter Aarone and systematically abusing seven other children — has been moved to June 2009 from November and scheduled for six weeks instead of the original two.
Arapahoe County District Judge J. Mark Hannen made the change Thursday after prosecutors and defense lawyers said the complexity of issues surrounding the case, plus the fact the child witnesses will be in school in November, demanded a new trial date.
Thompson faces 60 criminal counts, including child abuse resulting in death, conspiracy to commit child abuse, accessory to a crime, false reporting to authorities, abuse of a corpse, concealing a death and multiple counts of child abuse resulting in injury.
Thompson reported Aarone missing Nov. 14, 2005, claiming she had run away. But investigators believe she died in the summer of 2002. Her body has never been found.
Investigators said the children living in the Thompson home said they were beaten with baseball bats, belts, electrical cords, a folded-up magazine and bare fists and told to lie about when they last saw Aarone.
Among the issues that must be determined at pretrial hearings now scheduled for mid-October, mid-November and early February are whether police conducted illegal searches at Thompson’s Aurora home and whether statements he made to investigators will be admitted at trial.
Both the prosecution and defense said the battle over the searches of the home and Thompson’s statements will take at least 10 days of pretrial hearings.
The lawyers also told Hannen that jury selection is expected to take at least a week.
Thompson on Thursday readily waived his speedy-trial rights, which originally would have forced prosecutors to bring him to trial by Dec. 25.
Under the new speedy-trial deadline, prosecutors have until Sept. 30, 2009, to put Thompson on trial.
Defense lawyer James Karbach told Hannen the defense has a lot of issues to examine, including lining up experts.
And co-counsel James O’Connor told the judge the defense will fight admission of all statements Thompson made to investigators in the days and months after he told authorities Aarone had run away.
Prosecutors maintain Thompson’s statements are admissible because it was Thompson who called police, reported Aarone missing and came to the police station to follow up on the report.
The defense also claims that police for several days routinely entered the Thompson home and yard without first obtaining a search warrant, which the defense claims resulted in the illegal seizure of evidence.
A series of officers are expected to testify in October about the search of the home.
Hannen on Thursday refused a defense motion to throw out all statements made by Thompson to police and a motion that prosecutors immediately tell the defense which of Thompson’s statements they intend to admit at trial.
Howard Pankratz: 303-954-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com
