BELLEFONTE — The judge who presided over former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky’s child sexual abuse case said Tuesday that defense lawyers can have an evidentiary hearing to explore their claim that they lacked sufficient time to prepare for trial.

Judge John Cleland’s one-sentence order set the proceeding for the Centre County Courthouse on Jan. 10, the same location and time as a previously scheduled argument on Sandusky’s post-sentencing motions.

When Sandusky’s lawyers requested the hearing last week, they said it would probably take less than two hours.

At issue is Cleland’s refusal to delay the trial “based on the defendant’s inability to integrate the vast amount of material turned over by the prosecution to the defense when trial was imminent.” Defense lawyers argued that violated Sandusky’s rights by preventing them from being able to use those materials in his defense.

Sandusky’s attorneys repeatedly raised the same issue before and during trial, saying they were swamped by the material produced by the attorney general’s office during a three-year investigation.