Defense Attorneys

Michael Maurice Johnson is scheduled to stand trial starting Tuesday in the death of North Carolina teenager Phylicia Barnes, with court proceedings that could include prosecutors playing a sex video and defense attorneys revealing details from an internal affairs investigation of the lead detective in the case. Barnes, 16, disappeared in late December 2010 while visiting her half-sister Deena Barnes in Baltimore. Her body was found four months later floating naked in the Susquehanna River.

If Baltimore prosecutors want to show jurors a video of teenage murder victim Phylicia Barnes and the man accused of killing her engaged in "sexual relations," they must do so in open court, a city judge has ruled. The ruling, which denied a prosecution motion to close the court during the playing of the tape, came last week after one of three unlisted hearings, but appears in documents available at Baltimore Circuit Court. A public schedule had said a hearing would be held Tuesday.

A city judge cleared the way Monday for new trials of two men accused of slashing the throats of three children in a grisly triple murder nine years ago, settling a slew of legal disputes over years-old testimony and forensic evidence. A March 11 trial has been scheduled for Policarpio Espinoza Perez, 30, and a separate trial for Adan Canela, 25, will likely follow. The defense and prosecution agreed to give the co-defendants separate trials. They had been tried together in 2005 and 2006.

WEATHER: Sunny, with highs in lower 50s . Tonight is expected to be partly cloudy, with a low around 37. TRAFFIC: Check our traffic updates for this morning's issues. TOP NEWS O'Malley likely to introduce gun control legislation : Gov. Martin O'Malley said Tuesday he will likely introduce a gun control package in the coming legislative session and reiterated his opposition to assault weapons like the one used in the Newtown massacre.

Defense attorneys for the man accused of murdering Phylicia Barnes have filed motions claiming to have a witness who saw the teen alive in Cecil County and attacking the credibility of the lead police detective who investigated the case. In a motion filed in Baltimore Circuit Court, defense attorneys for Michael Maurice Johnson say they intend to call an "alibi witness" named Robert Hickman Fields when the case comes to trial in January. Johnson was charged with murder April 25 in the high-profile disappearance of the North Carolina teen.

An effort to revive more than 13,000 lawsuits filed by people who contend they were sickened by absestos was met with sharp objections Monday by lawyers for potential defendants. Plaintiffs' attorneys said consolidating some of the lawsuits would help people who have seen their cases languish for years. But defense lawyers told a Baltimore judge that the proposal — which made a fortune for the Law Firm of Peter Angelos previously — was unworkable and unfair. Opponents criricized the Angelos fim's suggestion for these cases, for people with a range of cancers but not mesothelioma, which has been closely linked to asbestos exposure.

The Bowie State University student charged with fatally slashing her randomly assigned roommate in their shared suite last year was acquitted Thursday of every charge against her, as jurors apparently believed she was acting to protect herself in a sprawling melee. After about 21/2 hours of deliberation, jurors found Alexis Simpson, 20, not guilty of first-degree murder and a host of lesser charges in the September 2011 slaying of 18-year-old Dominique Frazier. They rejected even the idea that Simpson acted in a grossly negligent way in the death.

When Kiheem Taylor was charged with kidnapping two teenagers at a Timonium light-rail station and raping one of them, prosecutors struggled with an all-too common problem — they didn't have enough solid evidence. But Taylor gave prosecutors a break when he made phone calls from the Baltimore County Detention Center. Just months earlier, authorities had begun recording inmates' phone calls, and Taylor implicated himself while talking to an ex-girlfriend. Judge Robert N. Dugan said at the time that the call was "overwhelming, damning evidence of [Taylor's]

The encounter between police officers and a University of Maryland student after a basketball game in 2010 lasted only 10 seconds, but how a jury interprets those moments, captured on video, will determine the fate of two veteran Prince George's County police officers on trial this week. The officers, Reginald Baker and James J. Harrison, are charged with first-degree assault and misconduct in office. Prosecutor Joseph Ruddy opened the government's case against them Monday by slamming his palm against a wooden railing in a Prince George's County Circuit courtroom, eliciting a loud thwack.

The trial of Michael Maurice Johnson, who's charged with murdering North Carolina teen Phylicia Barnes, was rescheduled for early next year at the request of prosecutors and defense attorneys, who told a Baltimore judge Monday that they're sorting through thousands of pages of evidence. The new city circuit court date is January 21 at 9:30 a.m. Prosecutors have handed over digital images of roughly 17,000 documents from their investigation to defense attorneys during the past two months, since Johnson, 28, was arraigned in June on a single count of first-degree murder.