Jury selection is now set for Nov. 28 through Dec. 2, and the trial is scheduled to begin Dec. 5
FORT WORTH, Texas — A new trial date has been set for Aaron Dean, the former Fort Worth police officer who fatally shot Atatiana Jefferson at her home in 2019.
Jury selection is now set for Nov. 28 through Dec. 2, and the trial is scheduled to begin Dec. 5, according to a scheduling order from 396th District Court Judge George Gallagher.
Gallagher also ordered a jury questionnaire to be finalized by Nov. 14, and dates for pretrial hearings were set for Nov. 16 and Nov. 18.
The trial, if the schedule remains intact, would start more than three years after Jefferson’s death in October 2019.
Dean’s trial was originally scheduled to happen this spring, and then again in June, but several setbacks and delays pushed the trial to the latter half of the year.
Dean is charged with murder in Jefferson’s death. He fatally shot her while responding to a welfare check at her home, police said.
In June, the judge on the case, David Hagerman, was recused from the case after Dean’s attorneys made allegations of bias against Hagerman.
Gallagher was then appointed to the case.
Dean’s attorneys, Miles Brissette and Bob Gill, accused Hagerman of having an attitude toward the defense that showed he would not be fair or impartial during proceedings against Dean.
Hagerman declined to recuse himself, referring the request to the Eighth Administrative Judicial Region, where Judge Lee Gabriel presided over the case and decided to recuse Hagerman.
Brissette and Gill had first filed a motion this summer, asking Judge Hagerman for a delay in trial – citing several scheduling conflicts that also involved a bench trial set to begin the same day as the Dean trial.
But on June 3, Hagerman said the defense attorneys failed to prove a conflict with Dean’s scheduled trial date and ruled the trial will begin on June 23.
Hagerman was reportedly testy throughout the delay hearing proceedings, as Brissette and Gill brought up that some of their expert witnesses weren’t going to be available for the trial date due to other commitments.