Defense seeks to limit access to visitation records in cruise ship murder case

The defense attorney in a federal murder case filed a motion to limit access to the records of who has visited the defendant in prison.

The motion on behalf of Kenneth Manzanares was filed Thursday in Juneau Federal Court. It also would restrict access to any calls and correspondence with him at Lemon Creek Correctional Center.

Manzanares is charged with first-degree murder in the 2017 death of his wife Kristy Manzanares aboard a Princess Cruises ship. Because the Emerald Princess was in territorial waters, the case is in the federal system.

The motion says allowing prosecutors to access the records could force the defense to choose between investigating Manzanares’s mental state at the time of the death and keeping the defense strategy confidential.

The trial was pushed back from this fall to allow time to recruit potential expert witnesses. The trial is now scheduled for May 2019.

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