WBRZ - Baton Rouge

A new judge has been assigned to preside over the trials of five Angola inmates accused of killing a security officer during an escape attempt in December 1999.

An order signed by state Supreme Court Chief Justice Catherine D. Kimball names retired Orleans Parish Judge Jerome M. Winsberg to hear the cases.

The order also terminates the appointment of retired Judge Dennis J. Waldron to hear the cases.

Waldron held pretrial hearings involving all five defendants this year and was presiding over the first-degree murder trial of Jeffrey Cameron Clark in St. Francisville when it ended in a mistrial in July.