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As the clock ticked down Friday to next month's hotly anticipated trial in Utah's largest-ever political scandal, a judge gave prosecutors until Monday at 5 p.m. to provide attorneys for John Swallow with a synopsis of the testimony they expect from 19 people newly added to their list of proposed witnesses.
So ordered 3rd District Judge Elizabeth Hruby-Mills at what was dubbed the final pretrial hearing in the public-corruption case against the former Utah attorney general.
The directive came in response to a motion filed by Swallow's lawyers late Thursday seeking to exclude those witnesses or postpone the trial set to start Feb. 7.
The revised list of potential witnesses from Salt Lake County prosecutors was filed with the court a few days before Christmas, leaving Swallow's defense team little time to prepare, attorney Scott C. Williams argued Friday.
The list includes names that could not be found easily through computer searches of case evidence, nor had contact information for the witnesses, including five expert witnesses, been provided, Williams told the court.
Deputy Salt Lake County Attorney Chou Chou Collins asked the judge for more time.
"No," Hruby-Mills said.
The judge also ordered prosecutors to provide a similar synopsis about all of the other 33 witnesses to the defense by Wednesday and denied the defense request to delay the trial. She similarly ordered the defense to provide the state with information about its list of 68 potential witnesses.
Unlike prosecutors, the defense has not filed a list of its witnesses with the court.
Swallow has pleaded not guilty to multiple felony and misdemeanor charges, including counts of accepting a prohibited gift, receiving or soliciting bribes, tampering with evidence, obstructing justice and participating in a pattern of unlawful conduct.
If he is convicted, he faces up to 30 years in prison.
On Friday, prosecutors asked the court to call a pool of 200 potential jurors, saying the case has been so much in the news that it was more than likely that many would know something about it and would have formed some opinion about Swallow.
"I know that's a huge number," Deputy District Attorney Fred Burmester said. "I just think this is not even like a well-publicized murder case. This is something that, quite frankly, we just don't do."
Williams agreed.
Jurors are expected to be called in late January to fill out a survey that contains about 100 questions, according to statements made in court Friday.
Attorneys then review those responses and whittle the pool to a smaller number of potential jurors, who would be screened during the voir dire process in the first days of the trial.
Also on Friday, the judge gave prosecutors until Jan. 19 to respond to a late Thursday filing from Williams asking the court to reconsider its earlier decision not to hold an evidentiary hearing to determine whether a cache of privileged emails between Swallow and a previous defense lawyer had been read and used by state prosecutors and investigators.
In court papers, Williams said recent actions by prosecutors the list of new witnesses, 270 pages of new trial exhibits and the filing of amended criminal charges that eliminated one count would seem to require "access to, review of, and investigation in relation to the discovery material." And prosecutors have never explained how they have managed to handle the evidence without a review of the protected material, he wrote.
"Under the circumstances," court papers say, "this court simply does not have an evidentiary basis upon which to have any confidence that it is meeting its constitutional duty to protect Mr. Swallow's constitutional rights."