By Janice Morse
The Cincinnati Enquirer

DAYTON - A judge postponed a hearing Monday in which he was to decide whether a lawyer would be jailed for refusing to testify in a 1999 missing-child case.

In the latest round of a two-year legal battle, Montgomery County Common Pleas Judge Michael Hall put the case of attorney Beth Lewis Trimmer on hold until a federal judge decides in which court the case belongs.

The decision means that the family of Erica Baker, who was 9 years old when she disappeared five years ago, will have to continue to wait to find out whether Trimmer knows anything about Erica's fate.

Trimmer represented Jan Marie Franks in an unrelated federal case. Authorities and Erica's family thought that Franks might have been inside a van whose occupants disposed of the girl's body after the van hit her.

Authorities obtained a confidentiality waiver from Franks' husband after Franks died. Three courts have said that waiver allows Trimmer to disclose confidential information that Franks might have revealed about Erica. But Trimmer says attorney-client privilege requires her to keep the information secret.

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E-mail jmorse@enquirer.com