NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- A man accused of kidnapping and killing a 9-year-old Girl Scout selling cookies spoke Thursday morning in court.

Jerome Barrett's hearing wasn't specifically about the Marcia Trimble case, but the issues discussed in court indirectly related to Barrett's upcoming trial for her 1975 murder.

Barrett asked for a new trial in the Sarah Des Prez case, claiming ineffective counsel. He filed 10 pages of handwritten reasons why he should get a new trial. Barrett's attorney in the Des Prez case also filed a motion to be dismissed.

Barrett was convicted in January of killing Des Prez, a Vanderbilt University student, in her apartment days before Marcia disappeared.

When Judge Steve Dozier called Barrett to the stand, Barrett asked Dozier about Sheldon Anter, a witness who testified against him in the Des Prez case.

Anter is a former inmate with Barrett who has said he overheard Barrett confess to killing four people.

Barrett said, "There was a revelation, I call it, on April 3 in the Tennessean concerning the state's witness, and what I wanted to do was, see, I feel like that's a …"

At that point, defense attorney Kerry Haymaker interrupted, saying, "Can I have one moment, Your Honor?"

Barrett's attorney stopped him from asking the question, but the judge referenced that it was issue No. 29 in the 10 pages of handwritten reasons Barrett filed as to why he should get a new trial.

Barrett wrote, "Because state witness Sheldon Anter believed his ICE proceedings, which were ongoing, would be helped by the state, defendants right to due process was denied when the district attorney Tom Thurman told the jury no deal was in the offering or motive or Anter."

Barrett said Thursday in court he was only concerned that Anter might be lost as a witness because he was going to be deported because he's an illegal immigrant.

"The thing I was concerned about was the possibility of losing a witness," Barrett said. "That's all I was, that's where I was going with that."

Wednesday in court, deputy district attorney general Tom Thurman said that he was in a fight with the federal government trying to prevent Anter from being deported so he can testify in the Trimble case but said he wasn't sure if that would be possible since Anter is now in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody in Louisiana.

Thurman said there was no deal worked out with Anter.

The hearing on Thursday's court proceedings was reset until June 30.

Reporter Deanna Lambert contributed to this story.