Kastner, wearing jail clothing and restraints while he served as his own lawyer, objected to that distant of a setting asked Tulsa County District Judge Clancy Smith to schedule a trial for no later than the second week of May.

First Assistant District Attorney Doug Drummond requested a trial date in August or September.

Drummond said he already has two other murder trials — both involving death penalty requests — scheduled for April and June.

Kastner noted that Drummond was not the only prosecutor who represented the District Attorney’s Office at prior court sessions in Kastner’s case.

After deciding on an August date, Smith asked Kastner if that would “work for you.” “It will have to,” Kastner replied.

In asserting that he has a right to a speedy trial, Kastner — whose hair is notably shorter than when he was arrested — read some written remarks while standing in a jury box occupied by other seated Tulsa Jail inmates whose cases were also on Monday’s docket.

Kastner, a former Webster High School teacher, is accused of killing his wife, former Oklahoma Supreme Court attorney Lori Moon Kastner, on June 25 at

Lori Kastner, 44, was shot twice in the head.

John Kastner, 51, is not a trained attorney. He maintains that he is innocent of the murder accusation, Assistant Public Defender Marny Hill has said. Hill had been handling Kastner’s defense until he elected to represent himself and now serves as standby counsel to assist with legal issues as needed.

In court Monday, Hill said she turned over discovery material — information about the case that is provided by the prosecution to the defense — to Kastner.

Kastner was charged and arrested June 27. He noted that the trial date requested by Drummond is more than a year after his arrest.

Drummond said a trial date in August is “not atypical” in terms of the time it takes to get a first-degree murder case tried in Tulsa County.

That length of time “certainly is not out of the ordinary, given the tremendous caseload the criminal courts have,” Drummond indicated in an e-mailed statement to the Tulsa World.

“Ultimately the goal for everyone is for Mr. Kastner to get his day in court before a judge and jury. We certainly anticipate that will happen Aug. 17,” that e-mail said.

At a preliminary hearing, a police investigator said Kastner blamed the killing on an intruder. Kastner said he was shot in the hand during a struggle with that intruder, Detective Jeff Felton said.

Prosecutors will not seek the death penalty if Kastner is convicted. Drummond said previously that he thinks there is no aggravating circumstance, as defined by statute, that would be applicable to support a death penalty request in this case.

Aggravating circumstances include such things as an especially “heinous, atrocious or cruel” homicide and that the defendant knowingly created a great risk of death to more than one person, committed the murder to avoid or prevent a lawful arrest or prosecution, likely would constitute a continuing threat to society or was previously convicted of a violent felony.

Jurors must find that at least one aggravating circumstance exists to impose a death sentence.