According to court papers, prosecutors say that the evidence against Phillips includes testimony of cooperating witnesses, law-enforcement officers, documents and tape-recorded conversations involving Phillips.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Linwood C. Wright Jr. said that as many as 100 witnesses may testify for the government and that the trial could last more than three months.
Federal authorities, tipped off to Phillips' operation in 2001, took six years to untangle the wide-ranging drug network and to charge him and his associates.
Phillips - who has been in federal custody since his arrest in September 2007 - and 10 others were charged by superseding indictment in January 2008 with drug conspiracy and related offenses. Phillips has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
But the most serious charges - conspiracy, use of interstate-commerce facilities in committing murder for hire and murder, tampering with a witness, victim or informant - have been lodged against Phillips and justify the death penalty, the feds say.
Prosecutors filed notice with the court last June that they intended to seek the death penalty against Phillips.
Phillips' attorneys sought dismissal of the death notice and a court order last October. They contended that the death penalty is unconstitutional because it operates in an arbitrary and capricious manner, is imposed invidiously on the basis of race and is cruel and unusual. Joyner denied the motion Dec. 10, saying it lacked merit.
In addition to Phillips, two other defendants in the case - Sherman Kemp and David Garcia - also have pleaded not guilty.
Kemp allegedly managed Phillips' drug-trafficking business in the Baltimore area.
Garcia allegedly worked for Ramon Alvear, the founder and leader of a Texas-based organization that supplied Phillips' organization with multikilogram quantities of cocaine received from Mexico.
Alvear has pleaded guilty in the case.
