Judge to consider new delay in Richie DUI trial

A file photograph shows Nicole Richie in a booking mug released to Reuters by the Glendale Police Department December 11, 2006. Lawyers for celebrity socialite and reality TV will get a chance on Wednesday to argue for another postponement of her trial on a charge of driving under the influence of drugs and alcohol.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Lawyers for celebrity socialite and reality TV star Nicole Richie will get a chance on Wednesday to argue for another postponement of her trial on a charge of driving under the influence of drugs and alcohol.

Richie's attorney, Shawn Chapman Holley, appeared in court on Tuesday to ask that the trial date be pushed back to August 5 because a physician she planned to call as an expert witness will not be available to testify until then.

Superior Court Commissioner Steven Lubell set a hearing for the next day for both sides to present oral arguments on the matter. Lubell had granted a two-week trial postponement last month.

Richie, 25, who co-stars with hotel heiress Paris Hilton on "The Simple Life," was not present and is not required to attend Wednesday's hearing, said Jane Robison, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office.

Media interest in Richie's case has grown sharply with reports circulating in celebrity magazines and tabloid press that she is three months pregnant and plans to marry her boyfriend, Joel Madden, vocalist for the band Good Charlotte. Richie's publicist declined to comment on those reports.

Richie was charged in February with driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs. The charge stemmed from a traffic stop two months earlier in which police said she was driving the wrong way on a Los Angeles freeway.

If convicted, Richie, daughter of singer Lionel Richie, faces a minimum sentence of four days in jail because of a 2003 DUI conviction, Robison said. She added that a jail term could range up to a year.