Defendants question delay in murder trials over teen’s death

ST. LOUIS (AP) — Two men who’ve been behind bars since 2019 awaiting trial in the shooting death of a 15-year-old St. Louis boy are questioning whether their rights to a speedy trial have been violated. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that prosecutors this week dropped, then refiled, murder charges against 49-year-old Brian Lee Potter and 57-year-old Joseph Renick in the August 2019 killing of Sentonio Cox. Attorneys for the men say prosecutors made the move after a judge denied their request to delay both men’s trials, set to begin this week. Defense attorney Travis Noble says he will seek dismissal of the new case against Potter as a speedy trial rights violation, and Renick’s lawyer called prosecutors’ actions “an abuse of the system.”