Lawyers want words banned in Chris Lane trial
Chris Lane was gunned down while jogging.
Lawyers for a teenager accused of shooting dead Australian baseball player Chris Lane as he jogged down a Oklahoma street are attempting to have four words banned from his trial.
Attorneys acting for 17-year-old Chancey Luna have filed a motion arguing the words “thrill kill”, “bored” and “thugs” would be prejudicial.
Luna’s attorneys have also requested that the first-degree murder trial - set to begin next month - be moved out of Stephens County, where the case rocked the local rural community.
Luna, 17, and Michael Jones, 19, are both charged with first-degree murder of Mr Lane in the August 2013.
The youngest accused, James Edwards Jr, who was 15 at the time of the shooting, is facing an accessory charge after becoming a prosecution witness.
The 22-year-old Mr Lane was living in the US while completing a baseball scholarship at Oklahoma’s East Central University.
The day after the murder Duncan Police Chief Dan Ford said Luna’s then 17-year-old co-accused, Michael Jones, told investigators: “We were bored and didn’t have anything to do, so we decided to kill somebody’.”
The quote made global headlines and US President Barack Obama issued a statement saying his thoughts and prayers were with the Lane family.
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