Update: Guilty all counts.

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The jury has reached a verdict in the trial of defrocked Priest Paul Shanley. It will be read later this afternoon. Background here.

Bump and Update: The pillorage continues.

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Ohio Supreme Court Justice Alice Robie Resnick got a D.U.I. last week. She refused to take a breath or blood test so she lost her license for a year. The cop used a portable breath teast on her which is not admissible in Ohio courts and it came out at .216, a number she immediately said had to be wrong.

Her conversation with the cop was recorded as standard procedure. What is not standard procedure is that the newspaper has released three videos of her interacting with police to the public on its website. Can she get a fair trial after this?

Her state-owned jeep was impounded and returned to the Court. She said she will make arrangements for someone to drive her to court in Columbus (from Toledo where she lives) at her expense.

Robert Chambers, who served 15 years in prison for manslaughter in what was known as "the preppy murder case," has rejected an offer to plead guilty and serve four months for possession of two straws and an empty tinfoil that had traces of drug residue on them. The maximum he could receive if he went to trial and lost is one year.

Cops stopped him in Harlem last year and ticketed him for driving with a suspended license. The straws and tinfoil turned up in a search of the back seat of his car.

Were they even his? Does anyone else go to jail in New York for drug residue? He and his lawyer are not talking.

The Judge has granted Michael Jackson another exemption from the gag order and his lengthy and exclusive interview with Geraldo airs tonight at 10 pm ET on Fox News.

In case news:

Court documents filed by the District Attorney in the Michael Jackson case show the prosecution is seeking to preclude evidence at trial regarding the accuser's mother and:

• her lawsuit against WalMart JC Penneys in which she received a settlement of $137k after she alleged store security guards assaulted her and her sons in the store's parking lot;
• Her alleged use of "psychiatric medication."
• Her alleged extra-marital affairs
• Her refusal to waive her attorney-client privilege with respect to what she told one or more lawyers she consulted about Michael Jackson.(pdf.)

Why could this information be relevant?

[If you have no interest in Michael Jackson, scroll on by. No need to tell us as we do have an interest in his trial.]

The New York Times quotes legal case watchers for the proposition that Jackson should dress down for trial. I disagree. He is unique and he should be himself. No one is going to think that Jackson wearing a jumpsuit makes him more likely to molest a child. On the other hand, if he disguises his persona by dressing in ways he's never dressed before, he appears shifty, calculating and loses credibility. Just my view. Michael, be yourself.

Bump and Update:

• The New York Times: Eve of Trial : Jackson Begs for Fair Trial
• The Guardian: About a Boy
• I'll be doing a live chat for the Washington Post Monday at 3pm ET. If you have any questions, you can submit them in advance. [Transcript of chat available here.]

DA Sneddon is getting his wish. Over 1,000 journalists have decamped at Santa Barbara for the trial.

Announcing the prosecution in November 2003, he smiled into the assembled cameras, and declared: "I hope that you all stay long and spend lots of money because we need your sales tax to support our offices."

As we said back then, he's a man on a mission. For all of our news and analysis of the Michael Jackson news, go here.

There was a Perry Mason-type moment* in the trial of defrocked Priest Paul Shanley in Boston today, as the accuser broke down on the witness stand, multiple times, and then begged the judge not to make him return tomorrow.

The accuser is not under subpoena, so if he doesn't show to complete the cross-examination, a mistrial will be requested by the defense.

This case is a repressed or recovered memory case in which the accuser suddenly remembered, 20 years later, that he was abused after reading about allegations of others, including some of his classmates, in the news. He immediately hooked up with a personal injury lawyer and settled for $500,000. Tough cross-examination is a necessity in the case. Cross- examination has been called the greatest engine ever invented for ferreting out untruths in the courtroom. (Wigmore on Evidence)

No reputable psychological, scientific or medical organization endorses repressed memories. Or the theory that trauma causes children who were repetitively sexually abused to somehow block out the memory years and years. (At most, some say they can't for sure rule it out.)

Former Democratic VP candidate John Edwards' brother, Wesley Blake Edwards, is coming to a hoosegow near us on May 10. A 40 year old electrician living in North Carolina, the younger Edwards got a DUI ticket in Colorado in 1993 and never appeared. After his brother was named VP candidate, the ticket surfaced.

He pleaded guilty today in Arapahoe County, Colorado to the lesser charge of driving while impaired and got 60 days with work release. Why so stiff? It was his fourth alcohol-related driving conviction, and his license had been suspended after the third.

Calling John Grisham, here's an idea for your next novel: The Government seizes oil wells in 2005 that it says it can trace to a pot smuggler convicted in the '70's.

A few bad apples?

The [five]activists - all employees of the John Kerry campaign - are accused of flattening the tires on 25 vehicles rented by the state Republican Party to get out the vote and deliver poll watchers Nov. 2.

Yes, if they did it, it's wrong. But let's not forget the presumption of innocence. Watch out for a big legal battle in this case, though. Milwaukee uber-lawyer James Shellow represents Sowande Omokunde, one of those charged. Omokunde is the son of Rep. Gwen Moore, D-Wis., and Michael Pratt, the son of former Milwaukee acting mayor Marvin Pratt.

The Kerry campaign has acknowledged the five were paid employees of the campaign but maintains that they were not acting on its behalf.

The Judge in the Michael Jackson case today ruled that an "expert" on how children behave after being abused may testify at the trial. Jackson's lawyer had a good argument against it but it didn't work:

Jackson lawyer Tom Mesereaux told the court: "What if they are flat-out liars? They have a history of lying in school, lying in acting school, lying in the community. What if they testify falsely in order to help their mother (obtain money)."

....Mesereaux said the prosecution hoped the expert witness would "bolster the credibility of their witnesses. They have a weak case. Our whole position is they should not be allowed to bolster (their witnesses) sheer lack of credibility."

by TChris

A New York state senator, Kevin Parker, "flew into a rage after a fender bender in Brooklyn yesterday, tossing a citation into a traffic agent's face and then slugging him, police said." A "source close to the senator" claimed a "renegade" traffic agent was trying to cover his own assaultive behavior, but that isn't the way a witness saw it.

Before flinging punches, Parker tried to throw his weight around, a witness said. "Don't you know who I am?" he asked the agent, according to Luis Perez, 20, who works at a nearby bodega. Perez ... said the traffic enforcement agent struck back after absorbing a push, verbal abuse and several punches. "He's lucky it wasn't a regular cop," Perez said of the hot-tempered senator. "He would have gotten shot."