A Montgomery County judge said he would not postpone the trial for the woman accused of killing her coworker at an upscale Bethesda yoga store.
Judge Robert Greenberg said defense attorneys for 29-year-old Brittany Norwood didn’t articulate why they needed more time to prepare for a potential plea of not criminally responsible.
The so-called insanity plea would mean Norwood’s attorneys would argue that she was too mentally ill to be held responsible in the brutal beating death of Jayna Murray. Murray, 30, was killed in March at the Lululemon Athletica where the pair worked.
Greenberg set a Sept. 12 deadline for defense attorneys to file a not criminally responsible plea and disclose their expert witnesses.
An attorney for Norwood said a mental health expert found that she had a “major” mental illness and needed more time to study interviews and her medical and educational records.
Prosecutors argued there was no reason that couldn’t be done in time for the Oct. 24 trial.
