Mark Geragos, attorney for Scott Peterson, accused of killing his wife, Laci Peterson, and the couple's unborn child, filed a change of venue motion today. Geragos wants the trial moved to LA. His motion cites studies showing that 98% of the people in Modesto have heard of the case (no suprise there) and that 75% have formed an opinion. That's a problem, in our view. The trial clearly needs to be moved.

"The lynch-mob mentality that has been created in this case has become so poisonous that the nature of the news coverage has in many instances been reduced to nothing more than vilification," Geragos wrote. "The widespread, pervasive and negative nature of the police reports surrounding this case have made it impossible to seat a fair and unbiased jury in Stanislaus County."

By T Chris

In non-Saddam news ...

Having presented testimony from mental health experts that Lee Boyd Malvo had been so influenced by John Muhammad that he was incapable of knowing right from wrong, the defense is expected to rest Monday. Over defense objections, prosecutors are likely to present rebuttal evidence in an attempt to establish that Malvo lied to the defense experts.

Update: the Defense has rested and the prosecution will now begin calling rebuttal witnesses on the issue of Malvo's mental health.

By T Chris

Mark Geragos announced that he will be filing 8,000 documents in support of a request to change the venue of Scott Peterson's murder trial. Geragos contends that media coverage of the case (as reflected in the documents) will impair Peterson's ability to obtain a fair trial in his hometown of Modesto.

Given the nationwide publicity Peterson's case has attracted, it will be difficult to find a pool of jurors anywhere that hasn't been tainted by the media coverage, despite Geragos' deft attempts to encourage coverage that favors Peterson. Nonetheless, residents of the Modesto area are likely to be so attuned to the case that finding local jurors capable of disregarding everything they've seen and heard before the trial would be an impossible task.

Geragos should be able to make a persuasive case that fairness requires a change of venue.

The defense in the trial of accused sniper John Lee Malvo presented a psychiatrist today who testified Malvo was insane at the time of the sniper shootings:

Sniper suspect Lee Boyd Malvo "displayed a pathological loyalty" to John Allen Muhammad and was so brainwashed by him that he no longer knew right from wrong, a defense psychiatrist testified Wednesday.

Malvo "was merged with Mr. Muhammad," Diane Schetky said at Malvo's capital murder trial. "He was acting as his proxy ... He was like a puppet in his hands." Asked by defense lawyer Craig Cooley if Malvo was able to distinquish right from wrong - the legal standard for insanity in Virginia - Schetky said, "I believe he was not."

Update: A second psychiatrist testified for the defense today, offering the opinion that Malvo "was unable to distinguish between right and wrong and unable to resist the impulse to commit these offenses."

The psychiatrists and a forensic psychologist who testified earlier all agree that Malvo suffers from a a dissociative disorder which one of the psychiatrists defined as "a loss of identity combined with psychological numbness, 'caused by the coercive persuasion' of Muhammad.

Malvo is expected to rest his case after the prosecution finishes cross-examining the second psychiatrist tomorrow.

Ever wonder what Michael Jackson would look like today if he hadn't had plastic surgery? Take a Look. [link via Victory Briefs]

Two new articles catch up on the Tommy Chong case. An LA Weekly article delves into the wierdness of the case in Chong Family Values. Sounds like an Ashcroft-driven affair all the way through.

According to [defense lawyer Stanford] Levenson, the deal he struck with the prosecutors allowed them to prosecute Tommy Chong and Chong Glass (effectively shutting it down), in exchange for leaving wife Shelby, who had signed the family’s loan checks, and [child] Paris alone. Tommy cooperated with the government and was the first of Operation Pipe Dreams’ defendants to plead guilty. But while the feds told Levenson they were not necessarily seeking jail time, their legal body language said otherwise.

City Beat analyzes the case and interviews Chong at the Taft Correctional Institution where he is serving his nine month sentence.

A grand jury in Rhode Island has completed its investigation into last February's night club fire in which 100 people died as a result of pyrotechnics used by a band during a show. Indictments charging involuntary manslaughter were returned against the owners of the nightclub and the band's tour manager.

Smoking Gun has a confidential Los Angeles Department of Children & Family Services memorandum detailing the Los Angeles child welfare agency's February 2003 investigation into sexual abuse allegations against Michael Jackson by the cancer-stricken accuser who is now the purported victim in the forthcoming criminal case. The report concludes the charges are unfounded. Details here.

A confidential investigation by Los Angeles police and child welfare officials concluded earlier this year that allegations Michael Jackson sexually abused a cancer-stricken boy were "unfounded," according to an internal government memo obtained by The Smoking Gun.

The probe's findings were based, in large part, on interviews with the alleged victim, his two siblings, and the boy's mother. According to the memo, when the child was questioned in February by a social worker assigned to the Sensitive Case Unit of L.A.'s Department of Children & Family Services (DCFS), he "denied any form of sexual abuse" by Jackson and said that he never "slept in the same bed as the entertainer." While not specifically named in the DCFS memo, the 45-year-old Jackson is referred to repeatedly as "the entertainer."

The report says the probe began with a call from a school official to an abuse hotline after the airing of the 20/20 documentary in February. [link via Drudge]

Update: News coverage: Here and here.

After deliberating five hours, a jury found Rep. Bill Janklow (R-SD) guilty of manslaughter. He faces up to ten years in prison and a House ethics committee investigation.

Update: Janklow resigned. There will be no ethics investigation.

The trial of South Dakota Congressman and former Governor Bill Janklow is in the jury's hands. Here are the details of the defense closing argument. Among the issues the jury will be deliberating are these.

The defense suffered a setback today when the Judge refused to allow a defense psychologist to play a power point presentation showing John Lee Malvo's life and views --evidence of his state of mind. The Judge sided with the prosecution and ruled it was filled with inadmissible evidence. The psychologist was allowed to testify--but without the video evidence.

Many are noting that so far the Malvo defense team has not presented evidence of remorse, which was a key factor to the Muhammad jury. Will that make the critical difference? Possibly, in our view. Jurors may be more willing to accept the indoctrination defense as a mitigator if they believe he's over it now. If he hasn't repudiated Muhammad, the prosecution may be able to convince the jury that Muhammad is likely to be a future danger while in prison, even if only to other inmates.

Talk about prejudicial 404(b) evidence coming in at trial--this has to be very damaging to Bill Janklow in his manslaughter trial:

Eight months before Rep. William J. Janklow (R-S.D.) allegedly sped through a stop sign at a rural crossing and killed a passing motorcyclist, Janklow's white Cadillac evidently ran the stop sign at the same intersection at more than 70 mph and came within "a few feet" of hitting another driver, the jury in his felony manslaughter trial was told Wednesday.

We're surprised the Judge let it in. We think the prejudice outweighs the probative value by a mile. Great grounds for appeal.