COUPEVILLE — The attorney defending accused killer James “Jim” Huden is asking a Superior Court judge to order Island County Prosecutor Greg Banks to hand over internal emails in which Banks bickered with the county sheriff over what Banks called a flawed investigation into the 2003 murder of Russel Douglas.

Detectives claim Huden shot Douglas in the head as he sat is his car at a remote Freeland property, waiting to pick up a Christmas gift for his wife.

Earlier this month, the Record reported that local authorities have been looking at three suspects in the case — Huden and his mistress, Peggy Sue Thomas, and Brenna Douglas, the wife of the murder victim — and the newspaper published details of emails where Banks and then-sheriff Mike Hawley fought over the timing of an arrest warrant for Huden that would bring the fugitive into custody.

During a hearing Monday in Island County Superior Court, Peter Simpson, Huden’s attorney, said he should be given copies of the emails that the newspaper had obtained.

“They may be pertinent to the defense,” Simpson told Judge Alan Hancock.

Banks, however, noted that the emails — which were traded between Banks and Hawley in early 2005, following the initial completion of the murder investigation — were confidential emails between an attorney and his client.

Banks said one email was “apparently improperly and probably unlawfully released to the South Whidbey Record,” and discounted the veracity of the email’s contents.

“There’s nothing factual in it,” Banks said.

Hancock declined to make an immediate decision on the emails, and asked the attorneys to prepare for a hearing on the request.

“I’m going to need some briefing on that issue, before making a decision,” Hancock said.

The judge did, though, grant Huden’s attorney additional time to review the details of the case.

Simpson had asked for a delay to the start of Huden’s first-degree murder trial, “given the nature of this case and the voluminous discovery.” He also said Huden was willing to waive his right to a speedy trial.

“It seems like, the more we look at it, the more we find that we have to look into it deeper,” Simpson said of the case.

The trial had been expected to begin Nov. 29. It is now scheduled to start March 13, 2012.

Huden is currently in Island County jail on $10 million bail. Thomas was released on bail earlier this month after posting two properties in Langley and Nevada as security on $500,000 bail.

In an earlier interview with the Record, Banks downplayed the discord apparent in the 2005 emails, and praised the work of the sheriff’s office on the case.

The emails showed the sheriff at odds with the prosecutor over delays in issuing an arrest warrant for Huden, which the sheriff claimed was “sucking the momentum out of the investigation.” At the time, police had already retrieved the murder weapon, a Bersa .380 pistol registered to Huden, and had talked to a friend of Huden’s in Florida who said Huden had admitted killing Russel Douglas.

Banks responded with an email to then-sheriff Hawley that was highly critical of the murder investigation, and stressed that the murder case was still his “top priority.”

“The issues with the investigation are that (1) the investigation has so many flaws, it seriously undermines our ability to prosecute; and (2) the last information I had reviewed was tailor-made for a defense of ‘someone else did it,’ and (3) we suspect that there were two other participants in the crime, and moving prematurely on Huden would likely foreclose their prosecution. I would like to make sure that we have a solid case before we bring him into court.,” Banks wrote in the Jan. 13, 2005 email.

“Mike,” Banks concluded in his email to the sheriff, “don’t forget, we are on the same team. Merely making an arrest is not the goal of our criminal justice system. A sustainable conviction is.”

Hawley later asked the Homicide Investigation and Tracking System Unit of the Criminal Justice Division of the state Attorney General’s Office to review the county’s investigation, and experts there told county officials that probable cause existed to arrest one, two or three suspects in the murder of Douglas.