NEW YORK — Last night my son, who is all of five years old, couldn’t fall asleep. He was afraid, he told me. And lots of kids are afraid at night. But he wasn’t afraid of monsters under the bed or in the closet. Instead he was afraid of kidnappers.

And not the kind most kids worry about. “No, mommy,” he told me, “like the ones who took those prairie kids.”

The prairie kids he was talking about, of course, are the children removed from the polygamy ranch in Texas. And the monsters my son is afraid of are the state agents who took them from their mothers.

I wanted to tell my little boy not to worry. To tell him that the police don’t just take little children from their mothers without proof that a child is in danger. But I couldn’t tell him that because apparently they do.

So last night my son fell asleep in an America in which he felt a little less safe from the government that is supposed to protect him. And that makes me angry. As a mother and as an American.

And that’s the Last Word. Watch the Last Word on video

– Jami Floyd, In Session anchor

SEATTLE, Washington – At the Jewish Center shooting trial, Detective Don Ledbetter continued to introduce items of evidence, and some of the pieces seemed to carry more significance after worker Dayna Klein’s emotional testimony.

Among the evidence: the blood-stained telephone from Klein’s desk and the weapon Haq left in her office after holding it to at her head for several minutes. The detective also testified about bullet trajectories, evidence prosecutors undoubtedly hope will make clear that Naveed Haq was a man with a clear mind and excellent aim as he pulled the trigger each time inside the offices of the Jewish Federation.

Haq, a Muslim American, is accused of killing one woman and wounding five others. He is mounting an insanity defense.

– In Session staff

NEW YORK – In Session is live in the state of Washington this week as correspondent Beth Karas covers the case of Naveed Afzal Haq, accused of killing one woman and wounding five others in a shooting at the Jewish Federation in Seattle. In addition to murder, attempted murder and kidnapping charges, prosecutors added malicious harassment, the state’s hate crime law.

According to witnesses, before Haq, a Muslim American, began the deadly shooting spree, he announced that he was “angry at Israel.” Haq faces life in prison, and claims he was insane at the time of the shooting. The trial, which is being broadcast live, is expected to last several weeks. Stay tuned.

In Session producers are also hard at work taping trials for future broadcast. In Michigan, another insanity defense is being mounted for Anthony LaCalamita, accused of killing one and wounding two at his former office a year ago. The defense says LaCalamita was legally insane when he entered Gordon Advisors and started firing a shotgun. LaCalamita’s boss, Alan Steinberg, told jurors that LaCalamita asked him “Do you want to get shot?” four days after he was fired from the suburban Detroit accounting firm.

In Florida, Victoria Walker faces sentencing today after being convicted of a misdemeanor battery charge stemming from an altercation at Disney World. Walker was found guilty of attacking another mom who accused her of skipping the line for the Mad Tea Party ride. Walker was acquitted of felony battery in the case. She could face up to a year in jail.

The Michigan and Florida cases will be broadcast on In Session in the future.

– Carolyn Purcell, In Session senior executive producer

NEW YORK – The DNA tests and upcoming custody hearings for more than 400 children seized from a polygamist sect’s West Texas ranch are only the first chapters in what will likely be a lengthy and complex legal nightmare. Read more

The state obviously has a duty to protect children from abuse, but the debate will rage as to whether the constitutional rights concerning religious liberty and freedom from unreasonable search and seizure were upheld.

Now it seems the tip that led to police descending upon the Yearning for Zion compound with body armor, automatic weapons and an armored personnel carrier may have come from a Colorado woman who has a history of false reporting to authorities.

In court filings seeking the termination of parental rights, Child Protective Services officials say being born into the sect ensures child abuse, describing “a widespread pattern and practice … in which young, minor female residents are conditioned to expect and accept sexual activity with adult men at the ranch upon being spiritually married to them.”

We’ll have to see what that evidence of abuse is. Sect lawyers say the searches of the 1,700-acre compound violated First and Fourth Amendment protections as well as the Texas Constitution.

Despite this, people arguing the government overreached its authority may have a difficult time making a case if allegations of abuse turn out to be true.

The government certainly hopes history is not repeating itself, with this ending up being another Short Creek, the 1953 raid at a compound on the Utah-Arizona border that seemed to strengthen FLDS leaders who were Warren Jeffs’ predecessors, drove a governor from office and possibly discouraged officials from taking action against the group for decades.

Times have changed. Jeffs is behind bars, sentenced to two consecutive five-year sentences to life in prison in Utah for being an accomplice to the rape of a 14-year-old girl who married her cousin in 2001.

But as child welfare officials in Texas move some 437 children to temporary foster care facilities before custody hearings in May, authorities have not seen the last of the FLDS, which has an estimated 10,000 members across the United States, Mexico and Canada.

– Bob Regan, In Session senior executive producer

SEATTLE, Washington – At the trial of Naveed Haq, the accused Jewish Center shooter, we got a glimpse of Dayna Klein’s “heroic” ability to composure herself under pressure. She repeatedly fought back emotion during a clear and compelling account of the events of that terrifying day.

Klein, who was pregnant at the time, recalled how she was shot in the arm and leg, and then dragged herself across her office floor to call 911. She stayed on the phone even though she knew the gunman had threatened to kill anyone who did so.

Klein also described the horrifying moments as she left the building. Police officers told her “Don’t look,” but she did anyhow, and saw her friend Pamela Waechter lying face-up on the steps, shot in the head.

“I asked the officers if I could please stay with Pam so that she wouldn’t have to be by herself until she was identified,” said Klein, sobbing on the stand. They did not allow her to.

– In Session staff

NEW YORK — Let’s all take a deep breath and a big step back to see this polygamy story more clearly. Today the state of Texas is taking DNA samples from children, 437 of them, without their parents’ permission.

Meanwhile, it looks as though that young girl, Sarah, who called the authorities to complain about abuse? She doesn’t exist. And that’s a problem. Because, without her, where is the proof that underage girls are being abused? Proof. Not suspicion.

Because in this country suspicion is simply not enough for state agents to storm your home and take your children. That’s what the Fourth Amendment is all about. Maybe we don’t like these fundamentalist Mormons.

But what if you are a Christian Scientist or a Scientologist? What about the Rastafarians, Hasidic Jews? How about the Amish? Heck if you’re are an atheist, a vegan, even a gay person with children, the government’s mere suspicions about the affect of your lifestyle on your children are not enough for state agents to take them away.

And that is the Last Word.

– Jami Floyd, In Session anchor

SAN DIEGO, California – When I interviewed Cindy Sommer at the Las Colinas Women’s Detention Facility here a week ago, neither one of us had any idea that she was spending her last days behind bars. She was a free woman four days later.

I traveled to San Diego to interview Sommer on April 13 in preparation for her retrial in mid-May. She had been convicted of the arsenic murder of her husband, a Marine, but that conviction was thrown out on the grounds she received ineffective counsel.

The women’s jail looks deceptively small from the outside. The one-story building in rural Santee where visitors can spend 30 minutes with an inmate is actually one of a hidden compound of buildings that houses about 750 inmates. I expected that we would go through a rigorous security screening but, surprisingly, there was none—not even a metal detector. As it turns out, there are no contact visits at the jail; hence, little need for such security checks. Immediately to the left off the entrance hall is the visitors’ room. There is a row of 19 metal stools bolted to the floor. Each stool is in front of a window. A wooden box around the window gives a semblance of privacy. There is a telephone receiver on the wall to speak to the inmate.

Our interview was scheduled for 9:15 am. At precisely that hour, Sommer suddenly appeared before me on the other side of the window. She was wearing prison garb and smiling widely. Her face was made up and “camera ready.” We grabbed our receivers but they hadn’t been turned on yet. All telephones were then activated simultaneously and our 30-minute chat began. Almost all the visitors’ stools were occupied so the din from multiple conversations made it a challenge to hear each other.

Sommer was remarkably optimistic about her upcoming retrial. She always maintained her innocence. She cried when talking about her children and all the milestones in their lives that she had missed in more than two years’ incarceration. She emphasized that she hoped the truth would come out this time—that she did not kill her husband. The interview ended mid-sentence when the phone lines were cut 30 minutes after they were activated. We just looked at each other and waved goodbye. I thanked her for the interview and said I’d see her in court next month.

I returned to New York the next day. Three days later, I was back in San Diego, this time speaking to Sommer as she dined on shrimp with family and friends just hours after her sudden release. Sommer didn’t sleep that night. She sat next to me the next morning on air with In Session. Still reeling from her release, Sommer was exuberant. She said she was angry with the prosecution but her anger certainly didn’t manifest on our air. Watch the interview

As I look back on the developments in her case from her conviction in January 2007 to her release last week, lessons come to mind from my years as a DA in Manhattan. A senior DA took me aside during my first year and told me to watch the old Western movie, “The Oxbow Incident,” which deeply moved him. In the movie, based on the book, three innocent men were lynched by a mob when law and order were abandoned.

My colleague wanted me to understand the immense power of a prosecutor and the need to reign in a “rush to judgment” mentality. He emphasized that doing justice doesn’t always mean trying to secure a conviction but doing what’s right whether it’s lowering the charges or dismissing them outright.

Sommer’s case may not have been a classic rush to judgment since there wasn’t even a criminal investigation until 15 months after Todd Sommer’s death. Moreover, Sommer wasn’t arrested until November 2005, more than three years after her husband’s death. Despite the holes in the prosecution’s case—the most glaring being no link between Sommer and arsenic—a jury of twelve San Diegans found her guilty. She was facing a sentence of life without parole.

San Diego District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis says the system worked in Sommer’s case. When they recently found more tissue samples of her late husband, the D.A. sent them for testing at a private lab. The absence of arsenic in the tissues led to Sommer’s release last week. The most Dumanis will now say is that there is reasonable doubt. She won’t go as far as Roy Cooper in North Carolina when he declared the three former Duke lacrosse players innocent. But in the eyes of many who followed her case closely, Sommer has now been totally exonerated.

– Beth Karas, In Session correspondent

NEW YORK – Newly discovered evidence proved enough to convince Superior Court Judge John Einhorn to drop murder charges against Cynthia Sommer in San Diego yesterday. Read more

Correspondent Beth Karas is on the ground, reporting from outside the San Diego courthouse. Stay tuned to In Session, which will feature a live interview with Cynthia Sommer and her attorney today at 12 ET.

Sommer was convicted last summer of poisoning her husband, Todd, with arsenic, but the verdict was later thrown out when the trial judge ruled Sommer’s defense team was ineffective. A new trial was scheduled, but recent discovery of tissue samples from Todd Sommer threw a wrench into those plans.

The tissue samples were tested by an independent lab, and found to have to have no arsenic in them. Sommer and her defense team have always maintained that the 23-year-old marine died from a heart attack.

Sommer has always maintained her innocence, telling Beth Karas earlier this week in an exclusive jailhouse interview that she did not kill her husband and was confident a new jury would find her not guilty.

Late yesterday District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis filed a motion in San Diego Superior Court asking that the charges be dropped, and Sommer was freed. Dumanis said, “the case was dismissed because after consulting with experts, we concluded there was reasonable doubt.” When asked if the system failed Cynthia Sommer, Dumanis stated, “the system has not failed her and we did acted in an appropriate and timely manner.”

Watch In Session for the latest on this developing story.

– John Alleva, In Session field producer

NEW YORK – Newly discovered evidence in Cynthia Sommer’s murder case may delay the retrial, currently scheduled for May.

Sommer was convicted last year in San Diego, California, of first-degree murder in the slaying of her husband, Todd, a Marine. But the verdict was set aside, and she received a new trial when Superior Court Judge Peter Deddah ruled that her defense team had been ineffective.

Sommers’ new lawyer, Allen Bloom, told In Session he will be seeking a delay in the new trial. He was recently informed by prosecutors that untested tissue samples from Todd Sommer were located in the Naval lab that did the initial investigation into the marine’s death. Prosecutors have now sent the tissues, preserved in paraffin more than five years ago, for testing at an independent lab.

At a hearing Friday, Bloom expects to ask for a lenghthy delay in the trial. He said he expects no opposition from the San Diego County District Attorney’s office.

Todd Sommer, 23, died suddenly at his home on Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, on February 18, 2002. Initially, the death was believed to be from natural causes, cardiac arrhythmia. Although Todd Sommer was cremated, some of his organs and tissues were preserved for testing.

The results of the recent tissue testing may also be available at Friday’s status conference.

In May 2003, the Environmental Lab of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Gaithersburg, Maryland, tested several tissues and found severely elevated levels of arsenic in his liver and kidneys.

Following a lengthy investigation, the death certificate was amended to a new cause of death, arsenic poisoning, and a new manner of death, homicide.

Cynthia Sommer was arrested and charged with first-degree murder in November 2005. She has always maintained her innocence.

She says the tissue samples may have been contaminated at the lab or somewhere along the way in the lengthy chain of custody. The results of the new tests could bolster the state’s case if elevated levels of arsenic are present. Then, again, those results, if negative for arsenic, will go a long way in supporting Sommer’s claim of innocence.

– Beth Karas, In Session correspondent

DETROIT, Michigan — The jury has just found Jean Pierre Orlewicz, 18, guilty of first degree murder, felony murder and mutilation. The jurors did not look at anyone as they filed in. Daniel Sorensen’s father began to sob. The family of the defendant remained stoic. Jurors deliberated for 10 hours and 40 minutes over two days.

– Jean Casarez, In Session correspondent