Welcome to the first day of In Session and our new blog, Sidebar.

At Sidebar, our distinguished anchors and correspondents will bring you the latest breaking trial news, along with expert legal analysis. We’ll tell you what’s coming up on the docket. Our correspondents and anchors take you behind the scenes. We’ll give you our observations, insights, comments and opinions on what is happening in and around America’s courtrooms. We are excited about our new home at CNN.com and look forward to your suggestions and ideas as we continue to develop this new venture

– Marlene Dann
Executive Vice President
In Session

The no-good-deed-goes-unpunished award goes to the Democratic leadership in Congress, which is trying to clear the way for the nation’s telephone companies to get sued for assisting the government’s anti-terrorism effort in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attack.  It has now been disclosed that when the country was reeling from the attack, government intelligence agencies notified the companies that the President had authorized a surveillance program to try to head off follow-up terrorist strikes.  

They asked the communications companies to help, and most of them did.

Now, the Democratic leadership is blocking the enactment of a permanent surveillance statute because the President wants to include a provision to grant the telephone companies immunity from lawsuits by people who say the surveillance violated their privacy.  If they succeed in denying the companies immunity and the companies are hit with expensive lawsuits, it would remain to be seen what the response would be the next time the country is under attack and the President goes to corporate America for help.

Congress will take up this matter in the New Year, and it is unclear how hard the Democrats will fight to keep the companies vulnerable to lawsuits.  Plaintiffs’ lawyers are heavy financial donors to the Democratic Party, but there may be limits to how much heat the Party is willing to take to uphold the right to sue these companies.

Somehow it seems unlikely that Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid would relish including in their list of accomplishments upholding the right of the trial lawyers to sue companies who responded to the President’s plea for help when the nation was under attack.

– Fred Graham

Since this is the  last day of 2007, I thought to reflect on the year in court.  

The year started with Anna Nicole Smith dead and the fight over her body and her baby — not to mention the inquiries into her death and that of her son, Daniel. We had Phil Spector, an eccentric billionaire record mogul, on trial for murder and the Las Vegas sports memorabilia heist allegedly led by former Heisman winner O.J. Simpson. 

Cynthia Sommer, a Marine widow, enhanced her appearance after her husband’s death,  thereby enhancing her chance for conviction. (She was.)  NFL Star Michael Vick went down for illegal dogfighting.

We had Warren Jeffs, the leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, convicted as an accomplice to rape and a hung jury in the trial of a man named Orange. A grown man named Scooter went down for lying about leaking.

Here’s the good news for 2008:  Crime is the gift that keeps on giving.  The Phil Spector and OrangeTaylor cases will be retried this year.  Cynthia Sommer also gets a new trial.  Michael Vick still faces charges in state court.  And O.J. hasn’t even begun to fight. 

While Court TV becomes Tru TV in primetime, never fear. Court TV news will be In Session.  I hope to see you right here in 2008.

– Jami Floyd