Defense attorneys for Kinta Stanton, 17; Ameer Best, 18; and Nashir Fisher, 17, ended their cases yesterday with several character witnesses and a psychologist, who examined two of five teenagers originally arrested in the March 26, 2008, attack that ended with Sean Patrick Conroy's death.

Common Pleas Court Judge Jeffrey P. Minehart had wanted to have the jury hear closing arguments yesterday from defense and prosecution lawyers.

But the start of court was delayed almost three hours after Best was taken into custody Thursday night for violating house-arrest terms.

After the trial ended yesterday, Best was brought before Minehart and explained that he was 15 minutes late getting home because of delays caused by a suicide on the tracks of the Market-Frankford Line. Best's situation was complicated by telephone problems that kept court officers from reaching him at home.

Assistant District Attorney Jacqueline Juliano Coelho asked the judge to keep Best in custody until the trial ends, citing an earlier telephone problem preventing officers from reaching Best.

But Minehart said he did not want to change Best's situation this late in the trial.

"You're to go right home and stay in the house all weekend," Minehart warned Best.

When the trial resumes Monday, each defense attorney - Lonny Fish for Stanton, Stephen Brown for Best, and Lee Mandel for Fisher - and prosecutor Coelho will make closing arguments to the jury.

Minehart will then instruct the jurors in the relevant law, and they will begin deliberating.

The three Simon Gratz High School students are charged with third-degree murder and conspiracy in the unprovoked attack on Conroy.

Conroy, 36, died of a stress-induced asthma attack after being jumped and beaten as he walked in the concourse at the 13th Street station of the Market-Frankford Line.

Stanton was the only one of the three to testify in his own defense. He said neither he nor Fisher struck Conroy, but he implicated Best as an assailant along with three others - two classmates who have already pleaded guilty and a third who was not charged but who authorities say dared the others to "hit the first person they see" to prove they were not afraid.

Though Best and Fisher did not testify, in their statements to homicide detectives when they were arrested, they denied hitting Conroy.