SHALIMAR - Quadruple-murder suspect Jeffrey Hutchinson was compelled on Tuesday to provide a palm print that prosecutors hope to match to a bloody print found at the scene where a woman and her three children were gunned down almost two years ago.

The bloody print was found on a telephone used to place a 911 call on the evening of the Sept. 11, 1998, murders of Renee Flaherty and her three children.

Also Tuesday, Hutchinson repeated his mistrust of defense lawyers Stephen and Kimberly Cobb, claiming they were "working hand-in-hand with the prosecutor," Assistant State Attorney Bobby Elmore. He also claimed they were "fabricating evidence in this case."

"One of the main reasons I want to fire my attorney is I don't trust him with my life," said Hutchinson, referring to Stephen Cobb.

Hutchinson, 37, is charged with four counts of first-degree murder in the slayings. Flaherty and her children were killed with a 12-gauge shotgun in the home he shared with them on John King Road, just south of Crestview. He could face the death penalty if convicted.

The Cobbs were appointed by the court to represent him after the Public Defender's Office developed a conflict of interest in the case, and another team of lawyers was dismissed when the defendant could not get along with them.

No action was taken on Hutchinson's motion, filed last week, to fire the Cobbs. That motion is expected to be argued on Aug. 7.

Unlike his first attempt to dismiss them, the defendant is no longer trying to represent himself as he did in May.

The tension between Cobb and his client became evident Tuesday when Hutchinson started to say something to Okaloosa Circuit Judge G. Robert Barron and Cobb somewhat testily told the defendant, "Let me handle this."

Elmore is recuperating from a heart attack and bypass surgery earlier this month. For that reason, the state was represented in court Tuesday by Assistant State Attorney Ace Grinsted, who argued that obtaining a palm print from Hutchinson was not an unreasonable intrusion.

"The (Florida Department of Law Enforcement lab) has said the palm print on the telephone is 'friction-rich detail in blood,' " Grinsted told Barron. "We need his palm print to exclude him, or include him, as a contributor (to the palm print found on the phone)."

Cobb argued that Florida law provides for granting fingerprints but not palm prints and "if the drafters of the rule had meant palm prints, they would have stated that."

"This print's in blood," Barron said. "The court grants the motion."

Later, Cobb complained that Hutchinson, manacled and in orange jail garb, was taken twice through groups of people to and from the room where the print was taken, adding, "My client was a perfect target."