But prosecutor Chris Lamiero said he hopes the case against Your Black Muslim Bakery handyman Devaughndre Broussard, 21, will remain on track to go to trial in late February.
Broussard is now scheduled to return to Alameda County Superior Court on Jan. 2 to potentially set a trial date and review other pretrial matters.
His attorney, LaRue Grim, said Thursday that he won't be ready to go to trial in February because he needs more time to review evidence that recently was turned over to him by the prosecution.
But Lamiero said, "My hope is that we will stick to the unofficial game plan," which calls for the trial to begin in late February.
The decision will be up to Judge Morris Jacobson, who oversees the trial calendar and is known for aggressively pushing cases along.
Bailey was shot three times and killed at about 7:30 a.m. on Aug. 2, 2007, as he was walking from his home near Lake Merritt to his job as editor of the Oakland Post at 405 14th St., near City Hall.
The shooting on 14th Street near Alice Street, less than a block away from a McDonald's restaurant where Bailey, 57, had stopped to have breakfast, shocked the Oakland community and journalists around the country and the world.
Broussard told Oakland police shortly after the incident that he killed Bailey because he was upset about the journalist's reporting on the bakery's financial problems.
But questions remain about whether Broussard acted alone or was even directly involved at all because he later recanted his confession and said the only reason he confessed in the first place is that Your Black Muslim Bakery leader Yusuf Bey IV, 22, told him to do so.
Oakland Assistant Police Chief Howard Jordan said the day after Bailey was shot that police believed that Yusuf Bey IV, who's the son of bakery founder Yusuf Bey, was involved in Bailey's death in some fashion.v But Bey hasn't been charged and Broussard is the only defendant in the Bailey homicide.
However, Bey is in custody for a separate case in which he and several associates are accused of kidnapping and torturing two women in Oakland in May 2007 as well as several other cases in several different counties.
Bey also is awaiting sentencing for his no-contest plea on July 30 to eight felony counts for leading a group of bakery associates who vandalized two West Oakland liquor stores Nov. 23, 2005.
