SANTA ROSA, Calif. -- A Sonoma County judge refused Wednesday to grant a second defense motion to dismiss the child pornography case against the one-time suspect in the JonBenet Ramsey murder case.

John Mark Karr's lawyers had argued that prosecutors deliberately withheld information they learned from Karr's ex-wife. Lara Knutson had said she wasn't sure the computer on which the illegal images were allegedly found was operational at the time investigators seized it.

A prosecutor said she hasn't deliberately withheld anything and Sonoma County Superior Court Judge Rene Chouteau agreed, saying Karr "should have had knowledge of the state of the computers," making their reliance on Knutson unnecessary.

Last week, a different judge refused to toss out the misdemeanor case after the defense filed a dismissal motion based on the loss of evidence.

Investigators have acknowledged they lost Karr's computer, which allegedly contained the five images of child pornography, but said they found a "mirror image" of Karr's hard drive on a sheriff's department computer. Defense lawyers have since filed a motion to exclude that evidence, but a judge hasn't heard arguments or ruled on that request.

Defense lawyers also want the judge to exclude a computer printout cataloging the evidence found on Karr's hard drive and to invalidate the search warrant that led to the confiscation of the computer, saying investigators were relying on information from a confidential informant who was mentally ill and unreliable.

Those two motions are pending and Chouteau was expected to hear arguments Thursday.

Defense lawyer Robert Amparan revealed Wednesday the printout made by sheriff's deputies cataloging the contents of Karr's hard drive, which they're now seeking to exclude, showed the computer had never been used while Karr lived in California.

"Nothing has been accessed on that computer since 1998, two years before the Karrs moved from Alabama to California," Amparan said.

Divorce records indicate Karr, his former wife and their three children moved from Alabama to Petaluma in 2000.

Chouteau stopped Amparan's arguments prematurely, saying they weren't relevant to the motion to exclude the printout.

But at least one observer said if Karr obtained the images more than a year before charges were filed, a judge could throw out the case because the deadline for bringing charges had expired.

"If they can show that computer wasn't even accessed after 1998 and the last time it was accessed he was in another state, as well, then there's some serious problems," said Joseph L. Stogner, an attorney and professor at Empire Law School in Santa Rosa.

Karr, 41, was charged with possessing child pornography in 2001, but the former teacher fled before his trial later that year.

Karr was arrested in Thailand in August after suggesting he killed JonBenet, a 6-year-old beauty queen, in her Boulder, Colo., home in 1996. He was returned to the U.S. by Boulder authorities, but the Ramsey case quickly collapsed after DNA failed to connect him to the crime.

The Boulder District Attorney later admitted she had no other evidence other than his confession when she had him brought halfway around the world from Thailand. On Wednesday, the district attorney's office asked for more money from County commissioners as a result of the costs incurred in investigating Karr.