The man convicted of a fatal road-rage stabbing in Bel Air will get more time to prepare to make his case for a new trial. Michael Razzio Simmons, 21, was scheduled to appear in court Wednesday, but a judge granted his lawyers’ request to delay the trial until Jan. 7. His lawyers say he will bring in witnesses who will testify he was defending himself in the April 2006 stabbing behind the Harford County Health Department.

Simmons, who had pleaded guilty in April to second-degree murder for stabbing 23-year-old Patrick Walker, got a 30-year prison sentence.

Requesting the postponement, his lawyers said they needed more time to review all the evidence. Kenneth Ravenell, the new lawyer hired by Simmons after his plea, argued in July that previous defense attorney David Henninger had not interviewed all the witnesses or provided Simmons with all the evidence available to him.

“Not only did Mr. Henninger neglect to interview all the witnesses, he did not communicate the facts he did have,” Ravenell said.

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Ravenell said witnesses, including Simmons’ brother Vincent, could have given testimony that supported the defense’s version of events: that Walker got out of his car and confronted Simmons, and Walker fell on the knife he carried for self-defense.

But employees of the health department and one of Simmons’ passengers told police Walker never left the car and said Simmons had leaned in the window and apparently stabbed him in the neck, witnesses said.

Vernon Gentile, an assistant state’s attorney, attempted to have the request thrown out after finding that Simmons had not signed his own request for a new trial. But Circuit Court Judge William Carr dismissed Gentile’s motion. Stephanie Walker, Patrick’s mother, said she was upset to hear the process would go on even longer.

“It’s never-ending,” she said. “We’d just like to see it over with, but there’s still no closure to this.”

msantoni@baltimoreexaminer.com