All 6 Oglethorpe Mall shooting suspects appear in court Tuesday

SAVANNAH, Ga. (WTOC) - All six suspects charged in the Oglethorpe Mall shooting appeared in court with their lawyers on Tuesday. Both sides argued pretrial motions ahead of a future trial.

Attorneys for the defense are seeking to exclude any evidence tied to alleged gang activity, focusing in part on limiting or blocking testimony from the state’s ‘gang expert’. One of the main issues discussed in court was whether criminal gang-related evidence outside of the 71-count indictment should be allowed.

Investigators are planning to use data from the database ‘Formulytics’ in trial. It’s a site that registers people as gang members, according to law enforcement, and analyzes gang data with their software.

One of the defendants in this case isn’t in the database, something attorney Jonah Pine says is beneficial to his client.

“If he isn’t in the massive gang database, then I should be able to demonstrate to a jury that he is not in that database, not a confirmed gang member,” said Jonah Pine, attorney for Dahmil Johnson.

“Your Honor, I did verify with investigators Mr. Pine’s client is not in Formulytics,” said Lyle Burnham, Chatham County Prosecutor.

Prosecutors indicated the investigation is ongoing, and it remains unclear what gang-related evidence will ultimately be presented at trial.

A ballistics report in the case is being completed by the ATF.

The judge did not hear motions that revolved around the medical examiner’s testimony as to cause and manner of death, which is expected to be a big point of discussion for defense attorneys.

Some of these defendants are asking to inspect the pacemaker and even the defibrillator used to try to save Tina Smith from her heart complications that day at the mall.

“I have discussed that an item in particular that Mr. Hymon is indicating he wants to review is the physical defibrillator,” said Kaitlyn Walker, attorney for Aujawan Hyman.

Judge Morse also wants to set a trial date and stick to it, tentatively looking at October.