First Trial

Lawyers for Scotland E. Williams want a judge to punish Anne Arundel prosecutors for allegedly withholding information by barring them from seeking the death penalty for their client.Prosecutors say they have turned over everything the defense team asked for as soon as they could.Williams, whose conviction for the execution murders of two lawyers on May 16, 1994, was overturned on appeal, is to be tried again in April. And his lawyers say they still are waiting for prosecutors to provide information crucial to their preparation.

Prosecutors trying to get Scotland E. Williams convicted in a second trial in the 1994 slayings of two Washington lawyers will be allowed to use again one of their most important pieces of evidence.Anne Arundel County Circuit Judge Pamela L. North ruled yesterday that photocopies of shoe prints taken from Williams in prior unrelated arrest may be used in the slayings trial."It is a very important piece of evidence to us," said Anne Arundel County State's Attorney Frank R. Weathersbee, adding that he was "very gratified" by the ruling.

SANTA MONICA, Calif. -- O. J. Simpson's civil trial on wrongful-death charges, now in its fourth month and scheduled to go to the jury late tomorrow, has lacked the high drama and excitement of his criminal trial on murder charges.But it has not been without its moments, including Simpson's taking the stand for the first time, the judge's ruling that race could not be made a major issue in the case and the plaintiffs' suddenly producing 30 photographs that raised fresh doubts about Simpson's contention that he did not kill his former wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald L. Goldman.

Hollywood -- Nearly five years after the longest and costliest criminal trial in American history was put to rest, the sensational McMartin Pre-School child molestation case is being reopened for a TV movie. Falling on unsympathetic ears are the cries of protest from parents and former students of the old Manhattan Beach, Calif., preschool, who have worked hard to close that painful chapter in their lives.The producers, including Oliver Stone, argue that their HBO movie will tell the story of the "real" victims in that case: primarily Raymond Buckey, who spent 1984 to 1989 in jail without bail, and his mother, Peggy McMartin Buckey, who spent two years in jail before her bail was set. Although Mr. Buckey was tried again after the first trial ended in only a partial verdict, neither he nor anyone else at the school was convicted of any crime.

The criminal prosecution of former Catholic schoolteacher John J. Merzbacher Jr. is to begin today, pitting more than a dozen men and women who accuse him of molesting and raping them two decades ago against a defendant who says their motive is money.But the opening of the first of what could be a series of trials involving different alleged victims won't provide quick answers to the questions that have swirled around the 53-year-old Essex resident since he was charged nearly a year and a half ago.Baltimore Circuit Judge Robert I. H. Hammerman, who is hearing the cases, said he believes the first trial could take about a month.

County prosecutors are seeking convictions of two men for first-degree murder in separate homicide cases that go to trial in Howard Circuit Court this week.In one case, starting tomorrow, Troy Lynn Brooks of Baltimore County is accused in the execution-style slaying of a man outside the Woodstock post office in October 1992.In the second case, which begins Wednesday, Dwayne Romaine Briggs of Columbia stands trial for the second time on charges that he killed a neighbor over a $50 debt in June 1992.

Jury selection has begun for the Baltimore Circuit Court's second consolidated asbestos liability trial -- a complicated proceeding in which almost 11,000 people are hoping for compensation, and defendants are pursuing cross-claims against one another.Judge Richard T. Rombro said the trial is expected to last three to six months, and the problems of managing a proceeding with dozens of lawyers will require high-tech solutions -- perhaps earphones for lawyers to hear bench conferences, or laptop computers for them to read near-instant transcriptions from the court reporter.

A Columbia man could face a 30-year prison sentence after accepting a plea agreement yesterday in the June 1992 shooting death of a neighbor who owed him $50.Dwayne Romaine Briggs, 34, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and a weapons violation shortly before jury selection for his second trial was to begin in Howard Circuit Court.Briggs originally was charged with first-degree murder in the slaying of 21-year-old Lawrence Rico Evans III at the Beeches Farm apartment complex, where both men lived, on June 9, 1992.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. -- For months, a special prosecutor has worked with little public display on a variety of questions involving the Whitewater case. But today, one aspect of that investigation will assume a more visible role as the prosecutor, Robert B. Fiske Jr., and his team of lawyers conduct their first trial.The case involves two men accused of conspiring to defraud the Small Business Administration.Whether this otherwise garden-variety trial involving defendants peripheral to the overall Whitewater investigation will disclose any new details of the operations of the Whitewater Development Co. depends on the possible testimony of David Hale, a former municipal judge cooperating as part of a plea agreement.

Prosecutors will retry the case of a Westminster man whose first trial on charges of sexually abusing his 17-year-old stepson resulted in a mistrial.During a hearing to waive Maryland's trial-scheduling rule, Carroll Circuit Judge Luke K. Burns Jr. gave prosecutors the go-ahead to try the man on June 22. In Maryland, all Circuit Court trials must be scheduled within 180 days of an attorney's appearance in the case unless a judge rules otherwise.In February, Judge Burns had declared a mistrial after a day of often- rancorous testimony.

At the behest of Mayor Sheila Dixon's legal defense team, the theft and perjury charges against the mayor will be separated into two trials. Her lawyers aren't talking about the strategy behind the shift, but other attorneys tell The Sun's Annie Linskey that trying the charges separately might make Ms. Dixon look less culpable - it lessens the possibility of a cumulative effect on jurors in which a profusion of charges might make her seem guilty -...

GREENBELT - The courtroom was filled with familiar faces. The judge, the two prosecutors, the defense attorney and the defendant - all had faced each other before. The only thing different was the jury. As the retrial of former Prince George's County schools chief Andre J. Hornsby got under way yesterday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Pauze made the same broad-stroke accusations that he had at Hornsby's previous trial, which ended in November with a deadlocked jury. But Pauze, in an encore he had not envisaged, appeared determined yesterday to establish a firmer, more credible case, to drive his points home with greater clarity, lest a similar fate befall Hornsby's new trial.

GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba -- A complex of canvas Quonset huts arrayed like dominoes has risen on an abandoned airfield here, where just a year ago the Pentagon envisioned a $125 million permanent judicial center in which terrorism suspects would be brought to trial. The battlefield-style Expeditionary Legal Complex, which can be quickly dismantled once the war-crimes tribunals of the Guantanamo detainees are over, reflects the shrinking mission of the controversial procedures created by the Military Commissions Act of 2006.

A forensic scientist testified yesterday at the triple-murder trial of two Mexican immigrants that a newly discovered "blue granular substance" from the crime scene could not be identified - meaning what could have been new evidence is more likely a nonstarter. Policarpio Espinoza, 24, and Adan Canela, 19, are on trial for a second time in Baltimore Circuit Court on charges that they murdered three young relatives in May 2004. Their first trial ended last summer in a hung jury. Prosecutors asked the Baltimore Police Department crime lab to re-examine several pieces of evidence in October, after the mistrial, and a lab worker testified Wednesday that she spotted a blue substance on several articles of clothing from the crime scene in Northwest Baltimore.

HOUSTON -- Five years after Andrea Yates drowned her five children in the bathtub of her suburban home, a jury is hearing evidence for the second time on the question of her criminal responsibility for the deaths. Yates, 41, was convicted of capital murder in 2002, but an appeals court threw out the case, ruling that the erroneous testimony of a key prosecution witness might have prejudiced the jury. During opening statements in her retrial yesterday, defense attorney George Parnham told the jury that Yates was seriously mentally ill and thought that Satan was living inside her. The only way to keep him from getting her children, she believed, was to kill them while they were still innocent.

A second trial begins today in Baltimore Circuit Court for two Mexican immigrants accused of slashing the throats of three young relatives - a case with no clear motive that ended its first trial 10 months ago in a hung jury. Defense attorneys for Policarpio Espinoza, 24, and Adan Canela, 19, expect this trial to proceed much differently, with the younger suspect now blaming the older one in the killings. "This time around, we're going to concentrate a lot more on showing the lack of proof against Adan and the extreme amount of evidence that relates to Policarpio," Canela's attorney, James Rhodes, said yesterday.

NEW YORK - L. Dennis Kozlowski, the former chairman and chief executive officer of Tyco International, and his top lieutenant were convicted yesterday on fraud, conspiracy and grand larceny charges, bringing an end to a three-year case that came to symbolize an era of corporate greed and scandal. Kozlowski and Mark H. Swartz, Tyco's former chief financial officer, were convicted by a New York State Supreme Court jury in lower Manhattan on all but one of 31 counts of grand larceny, conspiracy, falsifying business records and securities fraud.

NEW YORK -- Former Tyco International Ltd. Chief Executive Officer L. Dennis Kozlowski and former finance chief Mark Swartz "systematically looted" the company of more than $150 million in bonuses, prosecutors said yesterday as the two executives' fraud trial began. "This case is about how ... the two defendants stole $150 million from a company named Tyco," Assistant District Attorney Owen Heimer told jurors in his opening statement in the retrial of the two men. "Unknown to the investing public, they were systematically looting that company."

FAIRFAX, Va. -- Convicted sniper John Allen Muhammad -- who briefly acted as his attorney in his first trial and told jurors he was at the fatal shooting of the man he was accused of killing -- has considered a reprise of the lawyer role for his second capital murder trial. His attorneys informed a judge presiding over the case of that possibility during a bench conference in July, according to a transcript of the discussion that was unsealed yesterday. "I take it what you're telling me is that I need to have my Feretta warning close," Fairfax County Circuit Judge Jonathan C. Thacher said in the bench conference, referring to the warning a judge must give a defendant who wants to act as his own attorney.

FAIRFAX, Va. -- Lawyers for John Allen Muhammad failed yesterday to prevent a second capital murder trial in Virginia for the convicted sniper, after a judge ruled that another prosecution for his alleged role in the sniper shootings does not constitute double jeopardy or violate state law. However, Fairfax County Circuit Judge Jonathan C. Thacher delayed ruling on a defense claim that Muhammad's right to a speedy trial was violated. Although he was arrested in October 2002 and indicted the next month, his lawyers say, prosecutors waited until May to hand him the documents charging him with killing 47-year-old FBI analyst Linda Franklin.