A judge today suspended in mid-testimony until Oct. 19 a hearing about whether to keep separate in jail and in court two married men accused of killing a Tracy woman.

Lt. Kimberly Moule of the San Joaquin County Sheriff's Office was explaining how it is those in charge of the county jail decide which prisoners should be kept from the general population when Judge Bernard Garber cut the hearing short. He said he’d allotted only an hour for the hearing, which started about 20 minutes late, and stopped it prematurely because he had to preside over the picking of a jury in another case.

At issue is how defendants Jorge Morgan, 24, and Robert Anthony Morgan, 39, are being handled by county jailers, who have ordered the men kept apart from each other and from some of the other inmates, who include relatives of the woman they are accused of killing Aug. 6, Cynthia Ramos, 58.

The defendants have complained that their defense is being impeded because they are unable to talk to each other, either at the jail, in the bus on the way to court hearings, or in the court holding cells, where they have no contact with each other.

So they’ve asked the judge to let them ride the bus together and stay in the same cell in court, and Garber has asked the county to justify its decision that the pair should be kept apart.

Moule had been on the stand for about 20 minutes and was being cross-examined by Robert Morgan’s attorney Charles Slote when the hearing was postponed.

Moule said jailers take in account several factors before deciding how to house an inmate, and decisions are made to best keep inmates safe. The Morgans were classified as gang drop-outs, and they were in rival gangs, Moule said, so other inmates may want to hurt them for that reason.

That plus their criminal history, their mental state at the time of booking, the publicity of the case to make it known to other inmates, and other factors go into how the two defendants are housed. They are in separate buildings at the jail, and spend most of the time in a cell by themselves, she said.

Robert Morgan at a hearing earlier this week told the court that other inmates have spit in their food, and Jorge Morgan was spit on once getting off a bus. Morgan also the two were "legally married."

The defendants are accused of killing Ramos in her home at the Green Oaks Mobile Home Park on MacArthur Drive. They pleaded not guilty to charges of burglary, robbery and murder. Because they were convicted of at least two prior serious felonies, this case could earn them life in prison if convicted.

More than a dozen relatives and friends of the victim attended the Morgans’ court hearing, wearing purple ribbons pinned to their shirts.

The hearing will continue at 9 a.m. Oct. 19.