Sacto 9-1-1

Richard Hirshjfield[1].JPGBy Andy Furillo
afurillo@sacbee.com

The prospect of the murder trial getting under way this year in the 1980 Davis "sweetheart" killings appeared remote after a brief hearing in defendant Richard Joseph Hirschfield's case today in Sacramento Superior Court.

Defense attorney Linda Parisi informed that court that she has two other death penalty cases that have lined up ahead of Hirschfield's capital punishment trial.

Hirschfield (left in 2004 jail booking photo), 51, is accused in the Dec. 20, 1980, killings of UC Davis students John Riggins and Sabrina Gonsalves.

Parisi and Deputy District Attorney Dawn Bladet were back in court along with the defendant today to possibly have Judge Michael W. Sweet set a trial date.

Bladet said prosecutors provided the defense with a DNA analysis that had been holding up the trial, but Parisi said that she needs to get together with prosecutors and court officials to establish a scheduling order on the murder trials to which she has been assigned.

Besides Hirschfield, Parisi also is representing Lalesh Kumar, who is accused in the meat-cleaver slayings of a woman and her son in 2005, and Jay Patrick Johnson, the defendant in a 2007 spree-shooting that killed two people.

Johnson's trial date is set for Oct. 5. No trial date has yet been set on Kumar. Bladet also has been assigned to prosecute Kumar.

Call The Bee's Andy Furillo, (916) 321-1141.

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