Lawyers for John Albert Miller IV, the New York man charged last summer with strangling 17-year-old Shen Dullea Poehlman of Eldersburg, told a judge yesterday that they will have Miller's trial moved to another county.

The legal move, aimed at trying the case where there has been less pretrial publicity about the crime, will delay Miller's trial -- scheduled in Baltimore County for March 15 -- for several months. The new site has not been decided.

Baltimore County prosecutors Robin Coffin and Mickey Norman are seeking the death penalty for Miller, who is charged with first-degree murder, attempted rape, first-degree sex offense, robbery and false imprisonment in the July death.

He was charged in Poehlman's death after her body was found in the back seat of her blue Honda. Miller had hired her to baby-sit his children in Reisterstown.

Yesterday, Assistant Public Defenders Jerri Peyton-Braden and Jerome M. Levine told Circuit Judge John G. Turnbull II that they were moving the case to another county. Under state law, a defendant facing the death penalty has that right.

Almost two dozen relatives and friends of the victim gathered in the courtroom.

Miller, 26, of Rochester, N.Y., appeared briefly in handcuffs and leg chains, wearing a New York Yankees shirt and sweat pants.

After yesterday's brief hearing, the girl's father, Charles Poehlman, said the delay will be "extremely difficult. It's an unbearable feeling to have to wait this long. You start to heal and feel a semblance of normalcy, then the whole horror and violence comes to the surface."

He said each court appearance "just brings more pain to myself and to my family."

Pub Date: 3/06/99