Justice Graham Panckhurst announced yesterday the retrial start had been further adjourned from August this year to February 16 next year.
Reasons given were "fair trial" and to allow scientific evidence to be finalised and made available for the defence's evaluation.
The judgement, made after a hearing in the High Court at Christchurch last week, also made several other rulings on evidential and trial issues, but was suppressed, as "much of the evidence is yet to be heard and because High Court rulings may be the subject of appeal".
David Bain is charged with five counts of murder after the deaths of his immediate family in their Dunedin home in 1994.
He served 12 years in jail for the murders before the Privy Council quashed his convictions last year and the New Zealand Solicitor-general ordered a retrial.
The retrial was originally scheduled for May 5, but was adjourned to August after both sides said they would not be ready by May.
University of Otago law dean Prof Mark Heneghan said delays so far were "not totally outside the ballpark" in terms of High Court trials, but if the retrial was delayed again in February, questions would have to be asked.
"Then you would say, 'Well, is this just a tactic going on here, are people just playing the system out and hoping it goes away?"
People were entitled to wonder why it was taking so long when all the pre-trial work that usually took time - for example, the police investigation and depositions hearings - was already done, he said.
"It was just a matter of getting it out of the cupboard rather than starting from fresh."
He could understand the need to retest evidence using the best available technology, but hoped the same argument did not come up again in February.
"There is a point at which you go, 'It's so long ago now and that's it', but in this case it's been 14 years, so an extra few months is not going to be here nor there."
However, there would come a point when people lost confidence in the system, Prof Heneghan warned.
"I think people want this matter cleared up. [The trial has] got to be fair and all the rest of it, but you can't keep going on like this forever. The public patience starts wearing out at a certain point and maybe that's being tested, but not quite. I think February would have to be it unless there's a major development."
Prof Heneghan conceded there may be a lot of information for both sides to trawl through.
"You could spend 10 years going through things, but there's got to be a balance between that and justice being seen to be done, because delay denies justice at a certain point.
This is not quite tipped that way yet, but if it keeps going, it will start to.
"The prosecution has a very strong interest in getting on with this - I don't think they would be agreeing here if there wasn't some benefit to themselves."
Extending the start date of the retrial would extend the costs for both teams, Prof Heneghan said.
A team of up to six police officers will be based in Christchurch during the retrial and more than 30 police staff have worked on the team preparing evidence to date.
More than 130 witnesses - including 69 who live in Dunedin and others from places further afield, including Invercargill, Gore, Lake Hawea and Wanaka - will be accommodated in Christchurch for the retrial.
The whole case has previously been estimated to cost more than $15 million.
