MOULTRIE, Ga. — Attorneys and a Colquitt County Superior Court judge made quick work on Thursday of the vast majority of some 80 pre-trial motions in a death penalty case.

Defense lawyers for Jeffrey Alan Peacock and prosecutors had prior discussions of many of the routine matters such as the sharing of evidence with the Georgia Capital Public Defender’s Office.

Peacock, who is accused of shooting five friends in the head with a shotgun and then setting their house on fire in 2016, is represented by two attorneys from that office.

Two more days of hearings are scheduled, today and Aug. 24.

On Thursday, some of Peacock’s family members were seated in the section behind him, totaling about eight in number. Friends and family of the victims numbered more than 25 or so in the morning.

Today, only one pre-trial motion is scheduled for discussion — a defense request to “suppress all evidence (gathered) in the course of any illegal search and seizure.”

The only matter scheduled for the following Friday is a defense motion to suppress Peacock’s statements and for an order from the judge excluding certain other statements.

Judge James E. Hardy wasted little time in rejecting some of the requests made by the defense team composed of Gerald T. Word, director of the defender office, and Allan Sincox, who worked in the Cook County, Illinois, Public Defender’s Office for more than 20 years, spending about 11 years on a unit that specialized in murder trials.

Requests denied by the judge included one asking that trial jurors be paid the salary per day that they would ordinarily earn at their private jobs instead of the $25 per day awarded to jurors and to have daycare provided for parents.

“I’m not going to require the county to do that,” Hardy said. “The county can’t afford that.”

Word said that providing that financial assistance would allow jurors who wanted to serve, but would not be able to due to the financial burden it would impose, to do so.

Hardy replied that in his many years in court he did not recall anyone who requested to be seated on a jury if they otherwise could avoid it.

In another issue dealing with jurors, Hardy instructed that he be informed of any potential jurors’ requests for exemption from the jury pool.

“If anybody wants to get off the jury, I’ll instruct the (court) clerk to have them call me,” he said.

Hardy did not immediately issue rulings on some of the issues brought up by defense attorneys.

At the end of the session on Thursday attorneys were asked to discuss another pre-trial motion with the judge. The defense has asked that the public and news media be removed during arguments for the hearings today and on Aug. 24.

Word said that testimony that will come during those court hearings could get into some evidentiary matters in the case. That, in turn, could make it impossible to seat a jury in Colquitt County because of publicity.

“I put this out there in an abundance of caution, because this is a small county, and we’ve put a change of venue motion in,” Word said. “It’s a prophylactic measure to avoid the (tainting) of our jury pool. This is a pre-trial measure to protect the integrity of the trial.”

Senior Assistant District Attorney Jim Prine, who works out of Thomas County, responded that he expects any discussion of evidence during the hearing to be minimal.

“I think it has to be a compelling reason to close a courtroom,” he said.

The issue that took the most time on Thursday was for a request denied by the judge. The defense had asked that Peacock’s indictment be thrown out because, it said, the makeup of the grand jury was not representative of the county’s diversity in terms of race, ethnicity and gender.

After hearing testimony from Colquitt County Court Clerk Lynn Purvis and a statistician, Hardy denied that motion.