A motion to dismiss a murder case against two Evanston men will continue in court on March 28 after the judge postponed the ruling Friday.

Cook County Judge Preston Bowie did not rule at the motion hearing because of a discrepancy about the time when the defense was informed that the Illinois state crime laboratory returned the rental car in which the crime occurred to The Hertz Corp.

Assistant State’s Attorney Joan Pernecki said in court Friday that lawyers for defendants Jamal Jones and Carlos Priester knew in February 1999 that the crime lab had released the car to Hertz. But defense lawyers said they did not know this until April 2000, more than a year after the Jan. 4, 1999 shooting death of Gerald Kennedy.

Jones and Priester, both 23, were charged Jan. 23, 1999 with first degree murder and illegal possession of weapons in the killing of Kennedy, also of Evanston. The victim died from two gunshots to the head, suffered inside the rented blue Mazda 626 that all three men were driving that afternoon on Chicago’s West Side.

Defense attorneys Salvatore Miglore and Dana Woodberry filed the motion to dismiss the case in April 2000 when they learned the car had been returned – despite a judge’s Jan. 23, 1999, ruling to preserve the car as evidence so the defense could examine it.

“Our clients cannot get a fair trial without this car,” Miglore told The Daily.

Chicago police officers took 32 photographs of the car at the crime scene, but there are no pictures of the floorboard. The alleged presence of bullet holes in the floorboard – not documented by the police – would help the defense lawyers argue that their clients committed the shooting in self-defense, Woodberry and Miglore said.

Both sides plan to bring experts to testify at the continuance of the hearing next month at 9:30 a.m. in room 203 of the Cook County Criminal Courthouse, 2600 S. California Ave., in Chicago.