Defendants in two high-profile murder cases will be in Moore County Superior Court today for a judge to hear argument on motions.

Superior Court Judge John O. Craig III will hear four motions by Jonathan Silverman, the attorney who represents Sherrod Nicholas Harrison, charged with killing a 12-year-old Vass girl nearly three years ago. The Harrison case is set for an 11 a.m. hearing.

At 2 p.m., Craig will also hear a motion from attorneys for Robert Kenneth Stewart to return him from custody at the Moore County Detention Center to Central Prison in Raleigh for safekeeping. He is charged with shooting and killing seven elderly patients and a male nurse at Pinelake nursing home in Carthage last March.

Harrison and another defendant, Michael Graham Currie, face first-degree murder charges and could be sentenced to death if convicted of killing Emily Haddock. She was home sick from school Sept. 21, 2007, when intruders broke into her home on Marks Road outside Vass and shot her several times with a .22-caliber handgun.

Three others — Ryan Jermar White, of Sanford; Van Roger Smith Jr.; and Perry Ross Schiro, both of Cameron — were also charged in the case, but none of them are facing the death penalty.