While the media goes 24/7 on Virginia Tech, I have my office tv tuned to Court TV.

Closing arguments are finishing up and being televised live in the Melanie Maguire murder case. The prosecution is up now giving its rebuttal closing, and TalkLeft pal Joe Tacopina gave his closing yesterday.

Also today, Robert Kennedy, Jr. is on the stand in Greenwich, CT testifying for Michael Skakel in Skakel's bid for a new trial. When closings are over in Maguire, Court TV will provide televised coverage. TalkLeft pal Mickey Sherman, Skakel's original defense lawyer, is also expected to be a witness for Skakel.

Jury selection is underway in the Jose Padilla trial. Another TalkLeft pal, Bill Swor, is representing his co-defendant Kifah Wael Jayyousi.

Law Prof Randy Barnett has an op-ed in the Wall St. Journal today praising criminal defense lawyers,Three Cheers for Lawyers, using the lawyers for the Duke lacrosse players as an example.

More....

Last night's MSNBC's Countdown spent the hour on the Va. Tech massacre, which is on every news website today.  Questions were raised about why the campus was not locked down after the first shooting which was two hours before the mass murder.

Who could expect that this would be the one in a million chance that one murder would turn into 32?

For a more poignant perspective, ABC News this morning interviews survivors and family members and shows many pictures taken from the campus on cellphones by students waiting it out.  And, do not forget the Va. Tech website itself discussing today's events on campus.

Remember the dead, comfort the living, but consider the possibilities in a calmer, more sober light light.  Now is not the time for fingerpointing because it will take awhile to gather all the facts.

Bump and Update (TL): 33 dead (including the shooter). I just got to the airport to fly back to Denver and this is all over the tv monitors. It's now officially the largest mass shooting in U.S. history. The gunman is dead.

Second update (TChris): 28 additional victims were taken to the hospital. It isn't clear whether the shooter was responsible for bomb threats earlier this week.

The first two victims were killed at about 7:15 a.m. local time at West Ambler Johnston dormitory, Virginia Tech Police Chief Wendell Flinchum said. Police said they didn't close the campus because they believed it was an isolated incident and the shooter had left the grounds.

"We secured the building, we secured the crime scene," Flinchum said. "You can second guess all day. We acted on the best information we had."

More here.

original post:

Tragic news at Virginia Tech:

At least 20 people were killed this morning at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University after a shooting spree at two buildings on the campus. ... The university's Web site later posted a notice that 22 had been confirmed dead.

The three innocent Duke Lacrosse players and North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper appeared on "60 Minutes" tonight. Coper explained how the many stories of the accuser in the Duke lacrosse players alleged sex assault case fell apart.

DA Mike Nifong's actions were so inexcusable. As for his apology the day after the players' exoneration, it's too little too late.

As player Dave Evans said, "Rape will always be associated with my name." He'll always be known as one of the charged players.

At least, thanks to Roy Cooper, it will be followed by "he was innocent."

Now its time for Nifong to take his lumps -- either in the disciplinary hearings or in civil lawsuits by the players or both.

Michael Skakel's hearing on a Motion for New Trial begin Tuesday in Connecticut. Court TV will be televising it. The hearing is expected to last two weeks.

The hearing will center on a 2003 interview in which Gitano "Tony" Bryant reportedly implicated two friends in the 1975 bludgeoning of 15-year-old Martha Moxley in Greenwich.

Lawyers for Skakel, 47, the nephew of Ethel Kennedy, must prove Bryant's account surfaced after the trial and likely would have changed the verdict.

Robert Kennedy, Jr., and Skakel's original defense lawyer (and good TalkLeft pal) Mickey Sherman will be witnesses.

I expect there will be a lot of evidence presented about documents withheld by the prosecution in discovery.

TalkLeft's past coverage of the Skakel case is here. I think there was a paltry amount of evidence against him, most of which came from non-credible sources.

Take for example, Gregory Coleman, the dead drug addict who for all intents and purposes was allowed to testify from the grave.

More...

Fox News, Scripps Howards newspapers and others are now naming the accuser. Fox has published photos of her.

Should she be named now? Her name, Crystal Gayle Mangum, has been all over the internet for many months, as have details of her prior criminal record.

I have never approved of the media policy of withholding the name of the accuser while publishing the name of the accused.

Nonetheless, I have insisted that on TalkLeft and on the TalkLeft Duke Forums (on which more than 59,000 comments have been posted on more than 1,200 threads) her name not be used.

Tonight, I'm ending the ban on the use of her name on both sites. She has officially been declared not to be a rape victim. She is a false accuser. She has no right to be shielded any longer.

I'll also have an op-ed in tomorrow's Washington Examiner on the case, titled "The Travesty of the Duke Case." It focuses on how the Duke case should forge a new frontier to protect those who are wrongfully accused.

The North Carolina Attorney General's office is making its announcement on the outcome of its investigation into the Duke lacrosse players alleged sex assault case.

You can watch live here.

I'll be live-blogging.

What reason will they give? Will it be lack of evidence to support the charges, a conclusion that the accuser was lying, or that the accuser has asked them not to proceed (a la Kobe Bryant)? Or something else?

I hope they say more than "after conducting through interviews of all involved and the witnesses, we have concluded that we are not likely to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt."

In other words, will they have the guts to exculpate the players or will they hide behind the "not provable" scenario? (Update: Yes they do, Kudos to the AG's office.)

Ok, live-blogging below the fold.

Tomorrow appears to be the day the North Carolina Attorney General's office will announce its decision on whether to drop or proceed with sexual assault charges against the three former Duke lacrosse players.

Smart money says the case will be dismissed. Two of the defendants, Reade Seligman and Colin Finnerty traveled to Durham today, and the press is swarming around.

Question: If the charges are dropped because of lack of evidence or because the accuser won't cooperate, what should be the remedy for the boys? Their lives -- and that of their families -- have been turned upside down and into a hell for the past year. Their schooling has been interrupted, their reputations trashed.

Duke's reputation has taken a hit. The lacrosse team season was cancelled. Unpleasant racial issues surfaced.

I put much of the blame for this travesty of a case on D.A. Mike Nifong. If he hadn't glommed on to the media and made outrageously inappropriate comments in the beginning, jumping to the support of the accuser before the facts were in, much of the damage could have been avoided.

I think the State Bar will hold him accountable, but it still can't undo the damage.

Update: I'll be live-blogging the AG's press conference in a new thread. Or, you can watch it on your computer's here.

As TalkLeft reported weeks ago, Bernie Kerik, Giuliani pal and NYC former police commissioner Bernie Kerik, best known for his short-lived nomination by Bush as Homeland Security chief, appears headed for indictment.

Today's update:

Federal prosecutors have told Bernard B. Kerik, whose nomination as homeland security secretary in 2004 ended in scandal, that he is likely to be charged with several felonies, including tax evasion and conspiracy to commit wiretapping.

Kerik's indictment could set the stage for a courtroom battle that would draw attention to Kerik's extensive business and political dealings with former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who personally recommended him to President Bush for the Cabinet. Giuliani, the front-runner for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination according to most polls, later called the recommendation a mistake.

At least Kerik should have plenty of money for legal fees.

Records filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission show Kerik had earned more than 6.2 million dollars in pretax profits through stock options he was granted by Taser International, a manufacturer of stun guns.

It’s a bit over the top to blame a single tax cheat for the inadequate funding of D.C.’s school system. Shouldn’t blame be equally apportioned to the “no new taxes” crowd who refuse to raise the money needed for school improvements? Shouldn’t we at least recognize that tax fraud (pdf) is a widespread problem?

Federal prosecutors instead assigned the blame for D.C.’s financial woes to Walter Anderson, who tried to conceal $365 million in personal income and thus avoided paying $40 million in taxes to the District.

"At the Dunbar High School gym, the place is an embarrassment," said prosecutor Karen E. Kelly. "The toilets don't work; soap, paper towels and toilet paper are missing; . . . and students choose to go back to class rather than use the showers. The Cardozo High School pool has been closed for 10 years, and the sports program for the entire D.C. school system is run on $1.9 million." she continued. "Do you dare to imagine the program they could have implemented with $40 million of Anderson's tax money?"

She might have dared ask why the administration has tried, rather unsuccessfully, to privatize tax collection while failing to provide sufficient funds for IRS auditors who are more likely to ferret out wealthy tax cheats like Anderson.

Prosecutors say Anderson also failed to pay an estimated $140 million to $178 million in federal income taxes.

Remember David Stockman, President Reagan's budget director and eventual critic of "trickle-down" economics? Stockman became a top executive at Collins & Aikman Corp., a company that ended up in bankruptcy court in 2005. Now Stockman finds himself under indictment for securities fraud, bank fraud, wire fraud, and associated crimes.

At a news conference, U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia said Stockman and his co-defendants "resorted to lies, tricks and fraud" from 2001 to 2005 to hide the truth about his failing company from investors and creditors. Garcia said Stockman let the company's employees mislead creditors about the company's revenues and the ability of Collins & Aikman to pay its bills ...

After live-blogging the Scooter Libby trial, it seemed natural to me to give it another try for the insider trading trial of former Qwest CEO Joseph Nacchio. I live-blogged the jury selection, opening arguments and first day of testimony last week, over at 5280.com

David Kopel, writing in Saturday's Rocky Mountain News, has this review of internet trial coverage.

Denver criminal defense lawyer and civil liberties advocate Jeralyn Merritt runs the TalkLeft.com weblog, which sets a great example of how to write about legal issues in an intelligent way while still connecting with readers who haven't gone to law school. Merritt has been live-blogging the Nacchio trial for 5280 magazine's weblog, Elevated Voices.

She provides a running semi-transcript of courtroom events, in far greater detail than you can find anywhere else while the court is in session. She doesn't attend every day of the trial, but when she's there, Elevated Voices is the best Web site for up-to-the minute coverage.

The trial runs Monday through Thursday. This week I'll be there live-blogging Monday and Tuesday. TChris will be blogging here.