Court TV is live blogging the penalty phase of the Scott Peterson trial. It sounds like the jurors are bored, inattentive and have tuned out. If that's the case, they should be ashamed of themselves. The law and the oath they took as jurors do not allow them to make up their minds--or close their minds--before all of the evidence is in and they have received legal instructions. Some of the comments:

Michael Jackson's trial is set for January 31 and the Judge does not want a continuance. As TChris reported yesterday, new search warrants were executed at his Neverland ranch in Santa Barbara Friday and Saturday. Now we learn Jackson also submitted to a demand yesterday for a mouth swab test for DNA. All the dozens of hours spent in Jackson's home during the execution of untold number of search warrants, and they didn't have his DNA? Unlikely. They could have gotten it off a glass, a toothbrush, underwear, anything. They didn't swab him when he was arrested? Sneddon didn't save any DNA after the intrusive exam that was done on Jackson's private parts after the 1993 allegation?

It sure doesn't sound like this prosecution has its ducks lined up. We see an overzealous prosecutor, a man on a mission to make a case; a young accuser who has denied Jackson did anything improper; an accuser's mother with highly suspect credibility issues; an inprobable timeline; an official report concluding the charges were unfounded; and more.

Then there's the role of the 1993 accuser's lawyer, hired by the current accuser's mother, who sends the current accuser to the same psychologist, who lo and behold just happened to come up with a similar molestation opinion:

Dr. Stan Katz, a Beverly Hills psychologist ... interviewed the 13-year-old boy in this case. Dr. Katz also assisted in the 1993 case. He reported the allegations in the current one in June 2003 after a therapy session with the boy. In an odd twist, defense attorneys revealed that both the alleged victim and the private investigator who worked for Mr. Geragos, Bradley Miller, were patients of Dr. Katz.

Sounds to us like the prosecution is scrambling...for a continuance to avoid going to trial on a very shaky case.

Let's see if TChris can top this one: A teenage couple in Florida called the police to tell them their pot was stolen and they needed it back so they could sell it:

According to the police report, the couple returned to the home they share and found the home broken into and a quarter-pound of marijuana missing. They immediately called authorities to report the break-in and theft.

Police said the couple told them they were going to resell the marijuana and allowed the detectives to search the apartment. Investigators discovered several marijuana stems among other drug paraphernalia during the search, The News Herald in Panama City reported for Saturday editions. They were taken to the Bay County Jail and are each being held on $17,500 bond.

John McCain is threatening baseball with new legislation for mandatory drug testing in the wake of the media's revelation that Bonds told the grand jury his trainer, since indicted for steroid distribution, gave him substances to take while training.

McCain's threat to impose drug testing standards on professional athletes -- Congress has the authority under the U.S. Constitution's interstate commerce clause -- significantly escalates a long-simmering battle between the federal government and the national pastime over drug use.

McCain is the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee. I think the question McCain should be asking is who leaked Bonds's grand jury testimony? While witnesses before the grand jury can discuss their testimony, prosecutors and agents are forbidden to discuss matters occurring before the grand jury including witness testimony. Bonds' lawyer denies he used steroids and says Bonds is the victim of a government smear campaign.

Bonds said he thought the substances he was given were flax seed oil and arthritis cream.

Rodriguez Orejuela, along with his brother, Miguel, founded the infamous Colombian Cali cocaine cartel. Now 64, he has been in a Colombian jail for 9 years. Friday night, he was extradited to the U.S. and en route to Miami to stand trial. Big prize for law enforcement. Big unnecessary prize.

U.S. customs and immigration agents are bragging they spend over 100,000 man hours on the project to extradite Orejuela and that he will be the biggest druglord ever tried in the U.S. While there's no mention of the number of hours the FBI or DEA spent on the case, you can bet they were similarly huge.

Once again, Osama bin forgotten. Why weren't these customs and other agents tracking down terror threats? John Ashcroft came out with a gloating statement on the extradition today. The same John Ashcroft who cut the FBI's anti-terrorism budget by $58 billion just before September 11.

The Cali cartel was not into massacres of public officials. Their deal was bribery of political officials in Colombia.

Do you feel safer tonight knowing that Mr. Orejuela, a relic of a drug dealer, will spend the rest of his days in a U.S. jail instead of one in Colombia, fighting and appealing the charges against him, while the world's leading terrorist freely roams Pakistan, Iran or Afghanistan, or wherever he is? Your tax dollars at work. How clueless can this Administration get?

by TChris

A search warrant was executed at Michael Jackson's Neverland ranch today. The ranch was last searched more than a year ago. The reason for and results of today's search are unknown.

Jackson is scheduled for trial in January on charges of child molestation.

by TChris

Selling stolen property on eBay, for the whole world to see, isn't bright. But greed overcame the tempered judgment of James Estrella who, by virtue of his 15 years as a police officer, had good connections: he bought the stolen property from thieves he encountered during his employment.

Estrella started his internet-based resale business in 1999. He took a leave of absence from the San Diego Police Department at the end of last year to pursue the business full time.

by TChris

James Tobin, President Bush's former New England campaign chairman, has been indicted for participating in a scheme to jam telephone lines used by Democrats in a "get-out-the-vote" drive on Election Day 2002.

In 2002, six phone lines run by the Democrats and the Manchester firefighters union were tied up for 11/2 hours by 800 computer-generated hang-up calls. Federal prosecutors said Tobin and other Republicans had hired a company to make the calls to disrupt the organizations' get-out-the-vote efforts.

This summer, the former executive director of the New Hampshire Republican Party "admitted paying $15,600 to a Virginia telemarketing company that hired another business to make the calls." Some are questioning why the Justice Department waited until now to indict Tobin.

"I think it's unfortunate the Justice Department delayed, for whatever reasons that it did, until after the election," state Democratic chairwoman Kathy Sullivan said. "I hope this was not delayed for political reasons."

Jurors are hearing evidence in the penalty phase of Scott Peterson's murder trial. The prosecution gave its opening argument, the defense has reserved the option to make one at the beginning of its case. Only four witnesses will testify for the prosecution, all members of Laci Peterson's family.

Update: Because this is a defense site, we will not be commenting or providing news updates of the prosecution's evidence in the death phase. We're not even following the tv versions--prosecutor analysts are a dime a dozen. We're not a fan of victim impact evidence and firmly believe that jurors should be life-qualified at the beginning of a capital case, not death qualified. We'll return to the case when Geragos begins presenting evidence in support of a life sentence.

There's not much print coverage yet of the press conference held this afternoon by lawyers for Chai Soua Vang, the 36 year old Hmung man from Minnesota being held in the shooting deaths of six hunters. The only news article I've seen so far is this one which doesn't mention the lawyers statements, only that of Mr. Vang's daughter who stated she was shocked that her father would be involved in such an incident.

I watched the conference live and commented on it for Fox News today. Here's a recap: Mr. Vang has three retained lawyers. A fourth lawyer, representing leaders of the Hmong community, was also present. All provided information on different aspects of the case.

The lead lawyer, Steven Kohn, began by acknowledging the tragedy and the families, friends and community of those killed. He said he did not want to shift the focus of attention from them. He would not be trying the case in the media but in the courtroom. The press inquiries have become so numerous, they figured the best way to respond was by press conference.

by TChris

Kevin Winson called the police when his 16-year-old daughter came home drunk. His attempt to teach her a lesson backfired when she returned the favor, leading police to his hidden stash of drugs and guns.

Great news for Sandy Murphy and Rick Tabish. They were acquitted of murdering Las Vegas casino son Benny Binion. At their last trial, they were both convicted.

After deliberating for about 18 hours, the jury returned on Tuesday morning with their verdicts. They found the defendants not guilty of murder but convicted them of conspiring to commit "burglary and/or larceny" as well as burglary and grand larceny. They were charged after sheriff's deputies discovered Mr. Tabish, less than two days after Mr. Binion's death on Sept. 17, 1998, digging the casino owner's fortune in silver bars and coins out of a vault sunk in the sand near the desert town of Pahrump. While he was in the desert, cellphone records showed, Mr. Tabish spoke at least three times with Ms. Murphy, a former stripper who lived with Mr. Binion until his death and with whom Mr. Tabish had been having an affair.

The two were accused of murdering Mr. Binion, 55, in his Las Vegas home by forcing him to ingest a large quantity of drugs and then suffocating him.

Court tv has all the details. It carried the trial live last year. We even commented on the case during opening arguments for CTV as we happened to be in NY that day.