Murder Involvement Petition Hearing Postponed to New Year

By Andrew Michaels
– December 4, 2024
court | Daily Stories | murders | Shoot | Suspicious | Victim |

The hearing of a motion to join the cases of Joseph Coates and Joseph Walker has been postponed until mid-January 2025 to allow the former’s new defense attorney to review the resolution of the murder of 26-year-old Marvin Jackson.

On Dec. 4, defense attorney Brandon Mead told Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Melissa K. Copeland that he had filed his appearance in the Coates case two days earlier and had not yet received an evidentiary hearing from prosecutors. A motion hearing was originally scheduled for Dec. 3, when Mead and Walker’s attorney, Staci Pipkin, was scheduled to argue with prosecutors to join the co-defendants’ cases.

An assistant district attorney and Mead, who represented both co-defendants in Wednesday’s proceedings, agreed with Judge Copeland’s decision to postpone the motion’s hearing until Jan. 17, 2025, before Judge Yolanda A. Tanner.

Coates, 40, and Walker, 50, are both charged with Jackson’s murder on Dec. 15, 2023, when he was shot in the 1800 block of Aiken Street. The co-defendants are charged with two counts: first-degree murder, armed robbery, conspiracy to commit armed robbery, use of firearms in a felony or violent felony, conspiracy to use firearms in a felony or violent felony, and possession of firearms as part of a felony conviction.