VIDALIA — The only person charged in the fatal four-car accident on the Mississippi River bridge last May has been to court a few times before, but now the question has arisen — in which court should he be?

Cedric A. Hunter, 25, of Natchez, is charged with two counts of vehicular homicide in relation to the incident.

He was scheduled for a status hearing in Louisiana’s Seventh Judicial District Court earlier this week, but that matter was continued until later this month because his attorney has questioned if the incident did, in fact, happen in Louisiana, Seventh District Attorney Brad Burget said.

“(Hunter’s attorney David Adams) has questioned if the accident initiated in Louisiana or Mississippi,” Burget said. “When the state lines were drawn, the boundary was the center of the river, but the river is not where it was when they drew the lines.”

The prosecution will use the measurements from the accident investigation and GPS coordinates to determine which state the crash site is in, Burget said.

“If it is in Mississippi, it will be (Mississippi’s Sixth Judicial District District Attorney Ronnie Harper’s) case, but if it is in Louisiana we will continue as we have,” Burget said.

Initial police response to the accident was at 4:01 a.m., May 18, 2008. It was on the eastbound bridge, and was initially investigated by the Vidalia police.

At the time, police said those in the vehicles had just left a Vidalia nightclub and were involved in illegal racing on the bridge when the accident occurred.

Two men, 20-year-old Terrence Johnson and 22-year-old Kelvin Keys, died from injuries they received during the crash. Keys and Johnson were in the same vehicle, and a third victim in the vehicle with them was injured but eventually recovered.

Others involved in the accident reportedly fled the scene before police arrived, and when Hunter was arrested he was first charged with DWI — first offense.

Harper said he has never had a case transfer into his jurisdiction from Louisiana, but he could think of one instance in which Natchez police had charged a suspect but later transferred the case to Louisiana.

If the case does end up in a Mississippi court, the charges against the subject might be different, Harper said.

“Louisiana’s statutes are different from ours, in some cases very different,” Harper said.

“If the investigation indicated there had been a violation of some statute here, then charges would be brought, and it would proceed to the grand jury, and we would proceed from there.”

Harper said he believed that it would likely be proven that the accident happened in Louisiana.

“I was under the impression that you very nearly had to be all the way across the bridge to be in Mississippi,” he said.