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Update on 2012 death penalty cases
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The death penalty case of Rodney Renia Young is still scheduled for next month, but Pablo Fernando Maldonado's case has been postponed until the spring.

Prospective jurors have been sent questionnaires for the Young trial, which is still scheduled to begin Feb. 6. Young has been in the Newton County Jail since 2008 after being charged in the bludgeoning death of his ex-fiancée's son, 28-year-old Gary Lamar Jones.

According to the prosecution, Jones came home from church and was attacked. His mother found him when she came home from work around 11:30 p.m., bound to a chair, stabbed in the neck and bludgeoned with a hammer.

Young has pleaded not guilty and will be defended by attorneys from the Georgia Capital Defender's Office. His case will be heard in the courtroom of Judge Samuel Ozburn. Requests from Young's attorneys to continue the case until March were denied last year.

The death penalty case against 24-year-old Pablo Fernando Maldonado was originally scheduled to be heard in the courtroom of Judge Horace Johnson Jr beginning Feb. 25. It has been continued until April 23.

Maldonado is accused of acting as ringleader in the 2009 murder of Conyers landscaper Timothy Clements. He, along with three others - Christian Caldwell, 19; Brittney Beasley, 20; and Katria McClain, 18 - are accused of kidnapping Clements, robbing him, killing him and dumping his wrapped body in Snapping Shoals Creek. They reportedly stole his truck and fled to Alabama. According to McClain, who took a plea deal last year, the group planned the murder out the night before.

A request from Maldonado's attorneys - who are also from the Capital Defender's Office - for a change of venue in October was denied.