It was another gruesome day at the Ira Einhorn murder trial Monday as a bookstore owner testified that Einhorn sought a book on mummification three to six months before his arrest. Einhorn's lawyer says the witness' timeline is off, and that according to prosecutors, Holly had been dead for months during that period. Ira's lawyer also said Ira denies seeking out such a book.

Then there was this testimony today from Ira's downstairs neighbor:

"Einhorn's former neighbor Paul Herre testified he heard screams and six loud thumps coming down from Einhorn's apartment in the fall of 1977. "I heard pounding and screaming coming from my living-room area, coming from the apartment above. . . . It was a female voice," Herre said."

"During that same autumn, an overwhelming stench took over Herre's kitchen. Herre said the smell was worse than the 1976 summertime garbage strike in the city, and was so bad that his roommate left for a time. He testified that he traced the stink to a storage area in his kitchen - directly below Einhorn's closet."

"Herre said he discovered the odor on Sept. 26, 1977, after returning home from a weeklong trip to his sister's wedding. " Holly was last seen alive two weeks earlier.

Then the police chemist testified about the decomposition of the body inside the trunk.

The prosecution expects to rest its case by Wednesday. After that, the jury may hear from defense witnesses, including Ira.

Aileen Wuornos, the Florida woman whose stay of execution was granted a week ago by Governor Jeb Bush so that a psychiatric examination could be performed to establish her competency, has been found competent and is scheduled to be executed on Wednesday.

Ms. Wuornos wants to die. She fired her lawyers some time ago. But a lawyer recently appointed to represent her is convinced she is mentally ill. Others argue that by killing her, Florida is engaging in "state-assisted suicide."

"Wuornos is not the first female killer to be put to death in Florida since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976 and Florida resumed executions 3 years later.
In 1998, the state executed Judi Buenoano, dubbed the "black widow," by prosecutors for the poisoning deaths of her husband, son and a boyfriend. Before that, the last woman executed in Florida was a slave girl named Celia, who was hanged in 1848 for beating her master to death."

Here's a wrap-up of Fridaymorning's testimony in the Ira Einhorn Murder trial:

"On Thursday, James Jafolla, who lived below Einhorn and Maddux during his years as a graduate student, testified about an encounter with Maddux in which she was crying in front of their building. He asked her if she needed help and she said no, then taped an open note under the doorbell to the apartment she and Einhorn shared and left.

''It said: 'To the woman that's coming to visit Ira, I want you to know that he's throwing me out of the apartment so he can spend the night with you,''' Jafolla testified.

Defense attorney William Cannon has been trying to establish that Einhorn and Maddux were involved in an ''open relationship'' by mutual agreement, but prosecution witnesses have said that it was generally one-sided.

Also testifying on Thursday was Cindy Grady, who met Einhorn through their common interest in the paranormal and said he once asked her to help him dispose of a trunk he said contained ''top-secret Russian documents on psychic warfare.''

''He said that the KGB was after him and it was very dangerous for him and for everyone,'' she said. She refused and soon after severed ties with Einhorn, saying their meetings to discuss parapsychology were nothing more than opportunities for Einhorn to talk about himself.

At their final meeting in Einhorn's apartment, sometime after Maddux's disappearance, Grady testified that she smelled a ''putrid'' odor that made her cut the visit short.

The Associated Press reports that "prosecutors who won a murder conviction against Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel are upset about a planned movie they say gives undue credit to Mark Fuhrman, the former Los Angeles police detective who wrote a book about the case. "

Prosecutor John Benedict says of Furhman's role: "This is a guy who was trying to jump on a train that already left the station."

Fuhrman has been widely credited by himself and writer Dominck Dunne with uncovering a report by Skakel family investigators in which both Tommy and Michael Skakel provided different versions of what they were doing the night Martha Moxley was killed than those they gave to police as teenagers. As adults, both told the family nvestigators they had been masturbating outside in or under a tree on the Moxley property. Tommy's revised version was that he and Martha were mutually masturbating on the ground under the tree. Jurors in Michael Skakel's trial never heard about Tommy's statememt, although he was the chief suspect in the murder for almost 20 years. Ultimately, he was given immunity to testify before the grand jury, and did not testify at trial.

Prosecutor Benedict denies Furman uncovered the book proposal and says the authorities already had it. "Every piece of information he had we had months in advance of the book coming out," Benedict said. "He's trying to take credit for things he simply did not do."

The movie airs November 15 on the USA network. Law and Order star Christopher Meloni" plays Fuhrman.

If you are interested in the war crimes trials going on in the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in the Hague, you can stay up to date and even view the proceedings on the internet. Go here , pick the trial you are interested in viewing and click the audio-visual icon.

On days the Slobodan Milosevic trial is in session, you can also watch it live here.

A complete record on video, with audio in English, is available here for each day of the Milosevic trial. Currently, the video is archived by court session, which generally means one session in the morning, and one in the afternoon. The segments range in length from 30 minutes to three hours. You will need Real Player to view the segments.

The Ira Einhorn trial gets more bizarre daily.

First we have the defense's unusual attempt to show bias and thereby impeach two prosecution witnesses who testified they had seen bruises on Holly's face while she was living with Ira.

Defense Lawyer William Cannon "implied during cross-examination, then confirmed to reporters later, that he believed the women were testifying about Einhorn's alleged beatings of Maddux because the women were jealous of the hippie's romantic relationship with the beautiful Texan."

"Although male witnesses yesterday testified about Maddux's beauty, Cannon never inquired about their marital status or implied that they had been lusting after Maddux."

"I think most of the women we have seen so far are the kind of ladies who were very much part of the pro-feminist movement, who could be termed as man-haters," Cannon told reporters. "I felt these women might have a bias based on antagonism against Mr. Einhorn."

One of the women is a lesbian and lives with the tv critic for the Philadelphia Inquirer, and the other woman said she was not openly gay.

The next day, Mr. Cannon moved to the "free love" lifestyle of Mr. Einhorn and Holly. Saul Lapidus, a prosecution witness, testified that he had been having an intense affair with Holly for a month and that he knew Ira had been having an affair with Hilda, who happens to be Lapidus's ex-wife. Lapidus said, "I was told by Holly that she was physically put out of her apartment when my ex-wife was there...He bodily picked her up and put her out of the house."

Lapidus also testified Holly was staying with Lapidus when she received a phone call from Ira during which Ira said he was going to throw her things out in the street. Holly flew home and that's the last Lapidus saw of her. Prosecutors allege Holly was beaten to death a few days later.

On cross, Mr. Cannon tried to show that Lapidus had made up the story about Ira throwing Holly's things in the street because he was jealous of Ira's affair with his ex-wife.

"By establishing through other witnesses yesterday that Einhorn encouraged Maddux to have sex outside their relationship - just like he did - Cannon said he threw doubt into the prosecution's theory that Einhorn was so enraged about Maddux's new boyfriend that he killed her."

We can't wait to see what tomorrow brings. Stay tuned....

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Enron Chief Financial Officer Andrew Fastow surrendered today on a federal Complaint charging him with securities, mail and wire fraud and money laundering. He was released on a $5 million dollar bond pursuant to an agreement between prosecutors and Fastow's lawyers. The agreement called for Fastow to be released upon posting four parcels of real estate and $3 million in cash as security for the bond.

The criminal complaint was filed along with a civil SEC complaint. According to prosecutors, "The complaint filed by federal prosecutors, along with a civil complaint filed by the Securities & Exchange Commission, makes clear that Enron's strategy of selling ailing assets to the Fastow-controlled entities was intended to help the company "manipulate its balance sheet" and "manufacture sham earnings."

...."The criminal complaint outlines a pattern of "secret agreements" between Fastow and others at Enron that would require Enron to buy back assets sold to LJM if another buyer could not be found. These agreements apparently were kept from Enron's board of directors."

"In addition, it alleges that Fastow and Causey -- although he's not identified by name -- manipulated Enron's balance sheet in a complex transaction that involved back-dating of documents."

We said in a comment to Skippy's post on Fastow today that we think it likely a deal is in the works. Otherwise, the feds woudn't have been so cooperative about letting him surrender and make bail in one day.

After posting that, we learned who is representing Fastow: John Keker of San Francisco and David Gerger of Houston. We don't know Mr. Gerger personally but we do know John Keker through the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and he's a fighter and outstanding trial lawyer as well as a great strategist who often goes to trial--so there may not be a deal inked yet. Add to that Mr. Keker is not a fan of talking to the media, so details may not come out as quickly as they have with other high-profile defendants.

If Fastow does make a deal with the Government, any plea he makes will result in a sentence determined by application of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines. For the fraud and the money laundering counts a key variable is the amount of loss. The greater the dollar amount of the loss, the higher the sentence, up to the statutory maximum allowed for each count. The statutory maximums are 20 years on the money laundering counts, ten years on the securities fraud and five years on each of the mail and wire fraud counts.

In order for Fastow to get less time than the guidelines specify for his conduct (taking into account his prior criminal history or lack thereof) he has to cooperate and provide information that assists the Government in the investigation or prosecution of others.

So Fastow is between a rock and a hardplace if he wants to avoid a trial. If he chooses to take a deal, it will be interesting to see how much time he gets chopped off his sentence for cooperating and who he gives up.

Many people in his situation believe they have no choice but to take the deal, particularly if they have young children as Fastow does. They don't want to miss all of their kids' childhoods and they feel a responsibility to get out and resume supporting them as soon as possible. Family loyalty usually wins out over loyalty to co-conspirators.

It didn't used to be this way, not back in the 70's and early 80's. The change began with the enactment of the Federal sentencing guidelines in 1987. That's when the rule came in that the only way to get out from under a stiff sentence mandated by the guidelines was to cooperate with the Government. It's proven to be an effective hammer.

We think it's a terrible system that turns everyone into rats. The system was initially devised to reduce disparities in sentences around the country. What it has done instead is remove judicial discretion from the sentencing decision to where judges do little more than approve or modify the parties' mathematical calculations and rubber stamp the Government's assessment of a defendant's cooperation.

Rittenhouse has the Ira Einhorn update for today. He's not impressed with the defense, in fact, he's offended by it. One witness described it yesterday after her testimony as "homophobic misogyny."

Ira Einhorn's murder trial began today with opening statements. His lawyers told the jury he will take the stand and tell them as much as he knows.

Ira was charged with murder in 1979. He ran away to France before his trial which was scheduled for January, 1981. There he married and settled in the South of France. During his absence from Philadelphia, he was tried in abstentia. The United States wanted him back, and in 1997 he was located in France.

After four years of fighting extradition, during which time Ira was free again in France, an agreement was worked out. Ira would get a new trial here and the death penalty would not be an option. This is the trial that is beginning this week.

For a chronology and description of what transpired between 1979 and today, read IRA EINHORN: A LOOK BACK.

We'll follow important events in the trial as they occur.

Noelle Bush got a favorable ruling from the court today. The court decided that employees of the the drug rehab center where she is receiving treatment do not have to answer police questions about crack cocaine that was allegedly found in her shoe.

"Circuit Judge Belvin Perry ruled that federal law protecting a drug treatment patient's privacy outweighed the interest of police officers in a criminal investigation."

"If the drug treatment counselors were forced to give testimony, then "all patients who suffer relapses could be hauled out of treatment programs and into criminal courts on the whim of a state prosecutor or police officers," the judge wrote."

We agree. There is a far larger issue here than whether Noelle Bush is receiving special treatment. A ruling forcing the employees to provide testimony against her or to disclose what they observed or heard her say during treatment would have a chilling effect on all patients of such programs. If drug treatment is to be effective, it must remain subject to the strictest privileges so that patients can be confident that their words and deeds won't get reported and further incriminate them.

We don't know how we missed this before, particularly since he so closely follows our thinking, but we did. Check out Alas, a blog for his thoughts on the case, including:

"Guilty or not, it seems likely that - had Reyes' confession and DNA evidence been available at the time - more of the defendants, or perhaps all of them, would have been acquitted."

Isn't that the real issue now? Would the verdict probably have been different had the jury known of Reyes admitted involvement and that DNA tests confirmed it? If so, these defendants are entitled to have their convictions vacated and a new trial.

"Guilty or not, if the defendants - or their parents - had known enough to insist on a lawyer, they wouldn't have been convicted. Because no lawyer would have let them confess, and without the confessions the prosecution had no case."

We agree. And if the jury had been told the truth, that the parents were kept waiting for hours while the police were questioning, threatening and making false statements to the kids to get them to confess--as well as driving the kids to the scene of the crime where the police fed them with enough details to enable them to regurgitate them during the videotaped confessions--and that the parents were only allowed to be present for the final videotaping of the confessions, which occurred after-the-fact of the real interrogations--who can dispute the substantial likelihood that the verdicts would have been different?

The key here is that no physical evidence ties the five youths to the crime of rape. The sole evidence against them consisted of the videotaped confessions. Had the true circumstances surrounding those confessions been brought to the attention of the jury, we think it more than likely that the verdicts would have been not guilty. And that is enough for a new trial, if not an investigation into the conduct of the prosecutors who were present the evening of the interrogations.

Some officials are now doubting the guilt of the five youths in the Central Park Jogger case. Journalist Jim Dywer has details of the current re-investigation into the crime in today's New York Times.

Dwyer says interviews with two of the five youths, Mr. Richardson and Mr. Santana, had a "powerful impact on the people investigating the attack." The investigators are working for the District Attorney's office.

The Distict Attorney's office "declined to comment on the inquiry yesterday, but it is clear that the prosecution spent a great deal of energy on reviewing the case. All the evidence still available has been re-examined using advanced DNA testing, and none of it links the five men to the crime. At the trial, the prosecution had argued that hairs found on Mr. Richardson's clothes came from the jogger. Recent DNA tests show that claim to be wrong. "

Jim Dwyer is also the co-author, along with Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld, of the book Actual Innocence.