A Superior Court judge ruled Friday to postpone a preliminary hearing Wednesday in the case of basketball star Lonnie Baxter after defense attorneys requested time to review a new D.C. law.
Baxter remains incarcerated without bail. Attorneys Harold Martin and Richard Finci said they plan to challenge the constitutionality of new crime-emergency law that anyone caught in possession of a firearm without a permit is danger to society and not entitled to bail.
The District passed the so-called rebuttable presumption legislation on July 21 as part of this summer’s crime emergency.
“We’re arguing that this is unconstitutional,” Finci said after the court hearing. “The crime emergency created this rebuttable presumption, and we think that without it Baxter would have been released.”
Former Maryland Terrapin and Washington Wizard Baxter and his acquaintance Francis Martin have been charged with illegally possessing a handgun. They were arrested near the White House on Wednesday when witnesses saw a gun fired from a vehicle that resembled the one Baxter and Martin were driving.
