MOULTRIE, Ga. — A Colquitt County man accused in a quintuple murder is scheduled to be in court Thursday in his first court appearance since May 2017.

Attorneys defending Jeffrey Alan Peacock and prosecutors are set to argue defense motions in the case. Some 80 defense motions have been filed, and three days, including Friday and Aug. 24 if needed, have been set aside for Colquitt County Superior Court Judge James E. Hardy to hear attorneys from both sides.

Peacock was indicted in March 2017 on five counts each of malice murder and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony as well as three counts of aggravated cruelty to dogs and one arson charge.

Prosecutors say that on May 15, 2016, Peacock shot Jonathan Garrett Edwards, Ramsey Jones Pidcock and Aaron Reid Williams, all 21; 20-year-old Alicia Brooke Norman; and Jordan Shane Croft, 22. The five were shot in the head at their 505 Rossman Dairy Road residence before the wood-frame house was set ablaze.

If convicted, Peacock could be sentenced to death or life imprisonment without possibility of parole.

Among the legal motions attorneys with the Georgia Capital Defender’s Office have filed, a number of them deal with jury selection. Specifically, those include not asking jurors several preliminary questions dealing with the familiarity, beliefs of guilt or innocence, or opinion on the death penalty prior to questioning by attorneys with the prosecution and defense; several that have the intent of making sure a jury panel representative of the county population in terms of race and ethnicity is selected and present for the jury selection process; and requiring potential jurors to fill out a lengthy questionnaire on topics including occupation of themselves and family members, their physical and mental fitness to serve, whether there any hardships that would prevent serving with a jury that could be sequestered for several weeks, to what kind of books they read, where they get their news and whether they read any “true crime” books.

The defense also has requested that potential jurors be questioned one by one with the others not in the room, and that a conscientious objection to the death penalty not be used to disqualify any of those in the jury pool.

Defenders also asked the judge to move the trial elsewhere due to widespread media coverage of the case.

Other requests deal with evidence, alleging an improper search of Peacock’s truck at the scene of the fire.

According to Colquitt County Sheriff’s Office reports, Peacock was at the residence when firefighters and deputies showed up. He reportedly told the first officer with whom he spoke that he had gone to Moultrie to get breakfast for himself and his five friends inside and saw the smoke of the burning house as he was returning.

Peacock made one of the first calls reporting the blaze, according to the Colquitt County E-911 Center.

Among other motions filed by the defense are to have the judge instruct victims’ friends and family members to not sit directly before the jury and to refrain from making “any show of emotion whatsoever” in court and to have any photos shown of victims before and during autopsy be relevant to the case and be shown in black and white instead of color.

The defense also has requested that the public and all media be prohibited from all court proceedings, including those scheduled for this week and Aug. 24, up to and until a jury and alternate jurors have been selected and sequestered.

The motion hearings initially were scheduled for September of last year, but one of two attorneys left Peacock’s team and all clients in capital murder cases in the state must have more than one attorney present at court proceedings.

Peacock pleaded not guilty during the 2017 court appearance.

Prosecutors announced their intention to seek the death penalty in the days prior to that hearing.

No trial date has been set in the case.