TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV) – Donna Adelson is scheduled to go to trial in a few weeks and her defense team has asked the judge to move her trial from Courtroom 3G to a smaller courtroom down the hall, Courtroom 3B.

Donna Adelson will be the last to stand trial for the July 2014 murder of her former son-in-law, FSU law professor Dan Markel. She is accused of a murder-for-hire plot that prosecutors say was fueled by a bitter custody battle between Markel and her daughter Wendi.

All previous defendants who stood trial in this case – Sigfredo Garcia, Katherine Magbanua and Charlie Adelson – were tried in Courtroom 3G.

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Courtroom 3B is the courtroom where District Judge Stephen Everett normally presides, but Courtroom 3G is much larger, accommodating more potential jurors during jury selection and more spectators during the trial.

“By limiting the size of the audience, this Court limits the likelihood of emotional outbursts and reactions in the audience,” defense attorneys Daniel Rashbaum and Alex Morris wrote in their motion. “Simply put, a larger audience in the audience elicits stronger reactions to the testimony and thereby has a greater chance of influencing the jury.”

Donna Adelson’s defense team cited several examples from Charlie Adelson’s 2023 trial, pointing out that someone in the gallery took a photo of a note exchanged between him and his lawyers and posted it on social media, others attempted to secretly record the proceedings, and, perhaps most significantly, they say, people in the gallery made facial expressions and hand gestures toward the jury.

“Actions such as these can clearly impair the jury’s ability to independently evaluate witness testimony and thereby compromise the defendant’s right to a fair and impartial trial,” the motion states.

The defense also hopes to limit the information the jury receives about Donna Adelson’s arrest as she and her husband boarded a plane to Vietnam. On Monday, it filed a motion asking the judge to prohibit the state from considering the attempted flight as evidence of Donna Adelson’s “consciousness of guilt.”

“Here the evidence is clear,” the defense attorneys wrote, “that Donna Adelson did not ‘escape’ and leave because she felt guilty about her involvement in Professor Markel’s murder. She did not conceal her trip. She applied for a visa at the State Department; she spoke openly with friends about her trip; a ticket was booked in her name (not a pseudonym) at the local airport; and she used her own passport. In fact, her trip was open and notorious,” the defense attorneys wrote. “If Donna Adelson ‘escaped’ because of a ‘guilty conscience,’ she would have had to have fled nearly a decade ago, when it was clear that she was a prime target and a prime suspect.”

The motions are two of nearly a dozen filed Monday, as attorneys for both sides had until Aug. 12 to submit pre-trial motions, witness lists, exhibits and more.

It is unclear when the judge will schedule court hearings to review and decide on the motions.

The witness lists and transport orders filed with the court include the names of all four people already convicted in connection with the contract killing, including Donna’s son Charlie Adelson.

A transport order says Charlie Adelson is being held out of state and will be returned to Tallahassee in time for trial. The order lists him as a “state witness,” but it’s not clear if he will be called to testify against his mother.

The judge signed a deportation order on Monday for Katherine Magbanua, who became a key witness after being sentenced to life imprisonment in connection with the plot.

The judge had previously signed a transportation order for Luis Rivera, who is being held in a federal prison. Rivera accepted a deal shortly after his arrest that offered him 19 years in prison in exchange for his testimony against the other defendants.

The trial of Donna Adelson is scheduled to begin on September 17.

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