One of two men accused of traveling to Sonic to rob and kill a man in 2016 could see his day in court later this year, records show.

Dacedric Deshun Ward, 26, was indicted in January 2017 on two counts of capital murder in the shooting death of 18-year-old Jason Ender West at the Sonic restaurant on County Line Road in December 2016. His trial was set to begin March 15 but got bumped to Sept. 13 due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

“This matter is a capital murder case and must be treated differently from all other criminal matters,” Limestone County Circuit Court Judge Chadwick Wise said said in an amended scheduling order filed Feb. 23. “… The Court successfully conducted a civil jury trial the week of February 8, 2021, but is hesitant to move forward with trying this case in light of the present restrictions in place because of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

However, that’s not to say attorneys will be doing nothing in the meantime. Attorneys on both sides filed several motions leading up to the March 15 trial date.

Among them is a claim by the defense that the second count of the indictment — capital murder from a vehicle — should be dismissed because the law was passed in response to gang violence and drive-by shootings. While court records filed shortly after the murder describe Ward claiming he shot West “so everyone would know he was a gangster,” defense attorneys say there isn’t enough evidence to claim West’s murder was the result of gang violence.

Prosecutors noted in their response that the Alabama Supreme Court has refused to amend the law to restrict its use, further noting that state law defines “streetgang” as any group or arrangement of three or more people that engages in criminal activity. In this case, Ward and Trevor Davis Cantrell, who has also been charged in the murder, drove to meet West for an illegal drug deal in the restaurant parking lot. Additionally, Ward was inside the vehicle when he robbed and shot West.

Another motion filed by the defense asks that Ward’s statement be excluded. Madison Police Department referenced in an incident report a security video from Sonic that showed West walking up to the vehicle in which Ward and Cantrell were sitting, jerking forward and clutching his chest, then falling to the ground.

Defense attorneys allege the video may have existed at one point but was never made available to the defense and instead “was allowed to be overwritten.” In the motion, they claim the video was used during an interrogation to coerce a statement from Ward, which should now be excluded from the case as a result.

Prosecutors said in their response that not only are investigators not required by law to prove evidence mentioned in their interrogation actually exists, “advising a suspect that the incident was captured by surveillance video is not coercive.”

“The State expects the evidence in this case to be that in his interview with investigators, the defendant initially claimed that his co-defendant shot and killed Jason West,” the response reads. “After investigators told defendant they did not believe him because there was ‘video and everything,’ the defendant said, ‘I can start over from fresh.’ The defendant then admitted he was the shooter.”

Defense also mentioned possible spoiling of evidence because the video is no longer available. Prosecutors noted in their response that there is no available proof that MPD ever possessed the video, acted in bad faith when failing to retrieve the video before it was lost or that the video would somehow clear Ward of guilt in the case.

A hearing to review the two motions, as well as a motion related to the state’s intent to seek the death penalty in the case, has been set for May 21. Wise has also ordered that Ward and his defense team be allowed to visit the scene of the crime and be given time to privately discuss the situation with his attorneys while there.

A trial date had not been set for Cantrell as of Wednesday. According to MPD, Cantrell was the first of the two men to be arrested after the shooting and told investigators that he set up the meeting at Sonic “under the pretext that they would sell 89 Xanax pills to him for $300.”

MPD said Cantrell admitted to planning to rob West instead but didn’t know Ward planned to shoot him. Cantrell also said Ward gave him $24 for setting up the robbery.