At Thursday's hearing in Craig Stephen Hicks' death penalty case, Superior Court Judge Orlando Hudson scheduled a motions hearing for Jan 31.
Hicks is charged with three counts of first-degree murder in the Feb. 10, 2015 deaths of Deah Shaddy Barakat, 23, of Chapel Hill; his wife Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha, 21, of Chapel Hill; and her sister Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, 19, of Raleigh.
The FBI is conducting an investigation to determine whether the murders were a hate crime.
In April 2015, Hudson ruled that Hicks qualified for the death penalty because the state of North Carolina found that at least two aggravating factors were present in the shootings.
