NATION : Delay OKd in Racial Killing Trial
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NEW YORK — A judge today reluctantly agreed to a month’s delay in the trial of four young white men accused of killing a black teen-ager. The prosecution had sought the delay to find a missing key witness.
Judge Thaddeus Owens had first ruled that jury selection should begin today as scheduled. “If you can’t move the case, that’s your problem,” he told the prosecution.
But he changed his mind less than an hour later after prosecutors insisted they were not ready to proceed.
The four defendants are among seven young white men who are charged in the slaying of 16-year-old Yusuf Hawkins, who was surrounded and killed Aug. 23 after he ventured into the predominantly white Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn to look at a used car.
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