Tension filled a Sacramento courtroom Thursday as attorneys in the long-pending UC Davis “sweethearts” murder case battled over a defense bid to postpone the trial until mid-June.

Jury selection for Richard Joseph Hirschfield is scheduled to begin March 19, though Sacramento Superior Court Judge Michael Sweet said that date may be off by a few weeks, given the numerous pretrial motions that have yet to receive rulings.

But to delay the trial for months — Sweet already granted the defense a three-month continuance back in December — “I just don’t think that’s the right decision,” the judge said. “This is a very old case, and it needs to have its day in court.”

Ginger Swigart, whose niece Sabrina Gonsalves allegedly was kidnapped and killed by Hirschfield along with her boyfriend, John Riggins, on Dec. 20, 1980, praised Sweet’s ruling.

“I’m extremely excited that there are no more delays,” Swigart said. She, along with a core group of Riggins family friends, has been a constant presence in court since Hirschfield’s 2004 arrest.

The basis for the defense motion was their lack of a mitigation expert in the case. Sacramento prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against Hirschfield, and should the trial proceed to a penalty phase, the defense is required by law to present mitigating evidence of their client’s social history.

Hirschfield lawyers Linda Parisi and Ken Schaller say they have hired a mitigation coordinator, but not an expert who will testify on the stand. One has been contacted, but won’t commit to working on the case unless he’s assured the trial begins in June, they said.

Parisi acknowledged that the defense erred, discovering months ago that their penalty-phase investigation “was not up to constitutional standards,” she said. “In a perfect world … we wouldn’t be here in this predicament, but we are.”

Moving forward without a mitigation expert in place puts the case at risk for reversal due to ineffective assistance of counsel, she added.

Deputy District Attorney Dawn Bladet was having none of it. With audible frustration, the prosecutor said Parisi’s request “smacks of an intentional tactic to delay this trial once again.”

“The defense should not be rewarded” for its failure to secure a mitigation expert, Bladet said. “Witnesses have been dying the last seven, eight years this case has been pending. Of course we’re going to be prejudiced by another three-month delay.”

Arguments went on for nearly an hour, with each side blaming the other for the case’s numerous postponements.

In the end, Sweet ruled the case should move forward as planned.

“The trouble I have with your request is, you’re talking about a penalty phase that may or may not exist,” Sweet told the defense. If it does, he added, it would follow what’s expected to be a lengthy jury-selection process, as well as a guilt phase lasting multiple weeks.

“I just don’t see that (the mitigation expert) as good cause to delay this,” Sweet said.

Pretrial hearings in the case continue next week with testimony regarding the DNA evidence that identified Hirschfield as a suspect in the case back in 2002.

Additional issues, such as the admissibility of Hirschfield’s prior convictions and the defense’s plan to introduce evidence that another group of suspects killed the UCD students, are scheduled through mid-March.

— Reach Lauren Keene at [email protected] or (530) 747-8048. Follow her on Twitter @laurenkeene

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