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A Miami-Dade County court approved a new postponement of the trial against Derek Rosa on Thursday. The teenager is accused of murdering his mother, the Cuban Irina García, in their Hialeah home in October 2023.
The judge Richard Hersch accepted the request of the minor's defense lawyers, rescheduling the trial start date to January 26, 2026, nearly two years later than originally planned.
The decision was made during a hearing held on July 17, where both parties—the defense and the prosecution—presented their arguments regarding the necessity of postponing the process.
The defense attorneys for the minor argued that the complexity of the case requires more time for adequate preparation and for carefully reviewing all the evidence, as well as for filing new motions before the court.
The jury selection will take place in January 2026
The judge set the jury selection for January 20, 2026, one week before the formal start of the trial.
During the hearing, the defense also requested that the court not review any evidence in the case until November 2025, a request that was also granted.
Both parties must submit their final evidence by mid-month, which is expected to be a crucial stage of the process.
Additionally, this court session focused on the judicial calendar for the coming months, as well as the current status of the evidence and pending motions.
The defense seeks to exclude key elements from the trial, such as the interrogation conducted with Rosa after the events, alleging irregularities in the procedure and potential violations of rights. That motion is still awaiting resolution.
The Prosecutor's Office is ready to proceed
Despite the postponement, state prosecutors asserted that they are prepared to take the case to trial at any moment, both on the original date—scheduled for September 2025—and in the new timeline.
They pointed out that the postponement will not affect the strength of their legal strategy or the approach to the case, which they believe is sufficiently grounded to support the charge of first-degree murder.
A case that has shaken the community
Derek Rosa was arrested in October 2022 after allegedly stabbing his mother while she was sleeping in the apartment they both shared in Hialeah.
According to initial reports, the minor called 911 shortly after the incident and remained on the line while explaining what had happened.
Due to the seriousness of the accusation, Rosa was transferred to the Metro West adult jail, where she remains in custody.
Although he faces charges of first-degree murder, due to being a minor, he is not eligible for the death penalty, but he could be sentenced to life in prison or a minimum sentence of 40 years.
Multiple motions and legal strategy underway
This Thursday, key motions related to the admissibility of evidence and the protection of the defendant's rights during the judicial process were also discussed.
In parallel to the criminal proceedings, the adolescent's family has begun preparations for a civil lawsuit, as confirmed weeks ago by the family's lawyer in exclusive statements to local media.
According to reports, Irina García's family is facing a new and painful affront: the circulation on social media of explicit images of her lifeless body.
This serious violation of privacy prompted the family to file a civil lawsuit against four government institutions in order to identify and penalize those responsible.
The family’s lawyer, Stephan López, has confirmed that he is in the process of preparing a civil lawsuit.
“The Hialeah police, the detectives from Major Crimes, the Miami-Dade County prosecutor's office led by Kathy Fernández Rundle, the medical examiner, and the court clerk of Miami-Dade County had access to private information about Irina’s body,” stated López in comments to Telemundo 51, directly referencing the four government entities that are now under scrutiny.
These institutions were formally notified, and according to the lawyer, an internal investigation is to be carried out over a period of six months.
The objective: to clarify how the leak occurred and determine who the material or intellectual authors were of what López describes as a “misdeed.”
This breach has raised alarms about how highly confidential and sensitive material, under the custody of the authorities, ended up in the hands of others and even got published.
The photographs, as they report, come directly from the crime scene and should have been safeguarded by the entities responsible for the investigation.
According to López, the photos in question are not the ones that Derek Rosa allegedly shared with a friend on social media after the crime.
It is, he asserts, images taken by the police and the medical examiner, which only people involved in the investigation could have access to.
The publication of the photos represents, in her words, at the very least "negligence" and a "violation of the rights as a human being" of both Irina García and her immediate family members.
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