The lawyer for Matthew Higa asked for a new judge yesterday, just 10 days before his trial on murder charges that he allegedly threw a toddler from a freeway overpass was scheduled to begin.

“;I don't think that my client can be fairly treated at this point in time based on what's transpired in the past with this case and another case that I'm having before Judge (Dexter) Del Rosario,”; said Randy Oyama, Higa's lawyer.

Oyama did not elaborate on why he thinks the judge is not impartial.

Higa, 25, is awaiting trial for second-degree murder for allegedly throwing 23-month-old Cyrus Belt off a pedestrian overpass into traffic on the H-1 freeway Jan. 17, 2008.

  Matthew Higa's lawyer motions for new judge

 

Lawyer wants a new judge because he says the current judge can't be fair.

[ Watch ]

 

He previously waived his right to a jury trial because Oyama said it would not be possible to select a fair jury due to the amount of pretrial publicity about the case.

Circuit Judge Del Rosario is scheduled to hear opening arguments Jan. 25. He will rule on Oyama's request to disqualify himself next week.

City Prosecutor Peter Carlisle is prosecuting the case. He opposes having a different judge hear and weigh the evidence.

  “;I think it would delay the trial significantly,”; he said.

And since Del Rosario has been handling the case since the beginning, it would be appropriate for him to see it to its conclusion, “;absent some extraordinary circumstance,”; Carlisle said.

Del Rosario did rule yesterday that Carlisle can use as evidence in trial statements that police officers said Higa told them immediately after the incident.

According to their police reports, three officers said Higa told them a lady gave him a baby and told him to throw it off the overpass before her husband beat her up or killed her.

Higa gave similar accounts to the mental health experts the court had appointed to determine his mental fitness to stand trial.

Oyama affirmed yesterday that Higa will not claim insanity as his defense. But he said he plans to use the officers' statements to prove Higa made up the story because he suffers from a memory disorder.

“;Basically, it's filling in blanks when he's speaking to people to, basically, appease other people, tell them what they want to hear,”; he said.

When a Honolulu Police Department homicide detective interviewed Higa the day after Belt's death, Higa repeatedly said he did not know the identity of the baby he threw off the overpass. After the detective told him several times it was Belt, Higa said, “;OK, I guess, yeah, maybe the baby was Cyrus,”; according to a transcript of the interview.

And when the detective repeatedly told Higa there was no lady on the overpass to give him the baby, Higa suggested the mother's boyfriend handed him to him.