Second Brown's trial delayed

The trial of the second man charged in the 1993 Brown's Chicken slayings will not start Feb. 13 as scheduled, officials confirmed Wednesday.

That date had been set as the day to begin determining the fate of James Degorski, the 35-year-old Fremd High School graduate accused of participating in the gruesome killings that took seven lives in the Palatine restaurant.

But attorneys and Cook County Judge Vincent Gaughan agreed that fast-approaching date won't work, thanks in large part to prosecutors' pending appeal of Gaughan's decision to bar Degorski's brief video statement from being played in court.

The video shows Degorski admitting a role in the crime.

No new trial date has been set, but the two sides are set to be back in court Feb. 20.

Authorities allege Degorski and his friend Juan Luna went to Brown's on Jan. 8, 1993, and fatally shot the two owners and five workers in an effort to "do something big."

The men were arrested in 2002. In May, a jury convicted Luna -- who was linked to the scene through DNA -- of the killings and sentenced him to life in prison; a lone juror spared him death.

Degorski has pleaded not guilty. If convicted, he could face the death penalty.

Efforts by his defense team to eliminate that possibility were denied on Wednesday.

In other developments, the defense team is seeking outtakes and other footage from an NBC 5 interview with one of the case's star witnesses. The interview, which aired this fall, featured Anne Lockett -- Degorski's old girlfriend and the woman who tipped off police in 2002 -- repeating many themes that came out in testimony in Luna's trial.

Attorneys for the television station are requesting that the subpoena be nullified.

All involved will be back in court Feb. 26 on that issue.