Trial date bumped back for accused boys

Sept. 14 is new start date for Jake Eakin and Evan Savoie

The trial date for Evan Savoie and Jake Eakin has been pushed back to Sept. 14 — more than a year and a half after the boys were arrested for the murder of playmate Craig Sorger.

The boys were in Grant County Superior Court Monday morning for their first pre-trial conference after they had been formally charged for the crime.

A second pre-trial hearing has been scheduled for July 19.

The case will see one new player, and the return of two old faces. Judge Kenneth Jorgensen will preside over the case after defense attorneys filed an affidavit of prejudice against Judge John Antosz, who ruled the boys should be tried as adults.

Monty Hormel and Brent DeYoung, who represented Savoie and Eakin

respectively during their eight-day declination hearing to decide whether they would remain in juvenile court, were appointed by Jorgensen to act as co-counsel for public defenders Randy Smith and Alan White.

Jorgensen said Hormel and DeYoung should act primarily as consultants because of their experience in the case, with Smith and White retaining the title of lead attorney.

Both Smith and White said they have not been provided discovery material by the prosecutor's office.

Jorgensen said the official addition of Hormel and DeYoung should allow for the lead attorneys to receive copies of those documents.

"There should be no issue with regards to discovery," Jorgensen said.

Savoie and Eakin are charged with the first-degree murder of 13-year-old Sorger on Feb. 15, 2003 at Oasis Park in Ephrata. They have been held in the Grant County Juvenile Detention Center since their arrest in February 2003 on a $1 million bail.

Sorger was stabbed 34 times in the head and chest and beaten to death. The boys were the last two people to have been seen with Sorger when they went to his house and invited him to go for a walk in the park.

Savoie and Eakin say Sorger fell from a tree and someone else may have killed him.

At 12 years old at the time of the alleged crime, Savoie and Eakin are

believed to be the youngest juveniles in Washington state to be charged

as adults.

Defense attorneys have appealed Antosz' decision to decline juvenile

jurisdiction of Eakin and Savoie.