BARTOW, Florida - Closing arguments are now scheduled for Monday in the trial of Alejandro Ferrer. Ferrer is charged with fatally stabbing Colin Zeiler during the early-morning hours of May 17, 2007.

Alejandro Ferrer in court Friday

Prosecutors rested their case after deciding not to call Heizel Gonzalez-Martinez, the woman at the center of the so-called “love triangle”, to the stand.

If convicted, Ferrer faces the death penalty.

In Session will bring live coverage of the closing arguments Monday morning.

-In Session staff

NEW YORK - It’s Halloween and I'm going as the president. Not the president we have now, George Bush. And not the one we could have after Tuesday, Barack Obama or John McCain. No, I'm going as the scariest possible president of them all - Sarah Palin.

Gov. Sarah Palin's doppleganger, anchor Jami Floyd, on In Session set

Because if Sen. McCain wins next Tuesday, this woman will be a heartbeat away from the Oval Office. And maybe she's ready. Maybe all you need to be president is a good hairdo, a pair of non-reflective lenses and a red suit. Heck, I've got all of that. Maybe I should run?

After all, lots of Americans say they can relate to Sarah Palin. But I can't. Because we just don't have all that much in common. She's a Republican. I'm a Democrat. Her kids play hockey. Mine play soccer. She lives in a state with a population of 700,000. I live in a city of 8 million. They hunt moose in Alaska. In New York, we hunt cockroaches. She's got a $150,000 wardrobe. Me not so much.

But what do I know? She's a maverick. She can see Russia from her backyard. So maybe she is ready to take that 3 a.m. call. But be careful what you wish for. Because after tonight I can take off this Sarah Palin costume. But Palin may just one day find herself president. And we may all pay the price.

-Jami Floyd, In Session anchor

BARTOW, Florida - After only two days of testimony in the Alejandro Ferrer murder trial in Bartow, Florida, the case appears to be winding down.

Heizel Gonzalez-Martinez is the woman at the center of the "love triangle"

The prosecution will almost certainly wrap up on Friday, which means the jury of nine women and three men should begin their deliberations on Monday morning. If they convict Ferrer of the top count of First Degree Murder, the trial would then move into a penalty phase – where those same jurors would then be asked to determine whether or not Ferrer deserves the death penalty.

On May 17, 2007, the day victim Colin Zieler was killed, Alejandro Ferrer was interviewed twice by police detectives. The tape recording of his second interview was played for the court on Thursday and by the end of the interrogation, Ferrer concedes that he was the one who first introduced a knife into the altercation that ended in Zieler’s death. But to the end, Ferrer insists in his interview that he stabbed Zieler only in self-defense. It remains to be seen whether the jury will believe him.

In Session will continue its live coverage of the trial.

-In Session staff

NEW YORK - This week we are covering the trial of Alejandro Ferrer in Florida. And his case raises the problem with the defense of self-defense. It only works in court if the jury believes the defendant's fears were reasonable and that he used reasonable force to defend himself.

Alejandro Ferrer in court with defense team

Sounds good in theory but it often doesn't work in practice. Think about it: What is reasonable can vary from situation to situation, person to person. Remember Bernard Goetz, the subway vigilante here in New York? Most people thought his fear was reasonable when he shot four black teenagers late at night on the subway. But the experts agree that if a black man had shot a bunch of white kids, his fear would have been considered unreasonable by most Americans.

A woman’s fear of her husband can also be hard to believe, especially in the context of an upstanding middle class family. The law should allow a jury to take into account years of abuse when deciding whether she acted reasonably and in self defense; but it doesn’t.

In the Ferrer case, we have the classic man to man fight and it's easier to apply the law of
self-defense. But only two people really know what happened. And one of those two people is dead. And that shifts the burden from the prosecution to the defense. And it is more often than not a burden that cannot be met.

-Jami Floyd, In Session anchor

BARTOW, Florida - More dramatic testimony expected today in the capital murder trial of Alejandro Ferrer. The State of Florida contends that Ferrer ambushed victim Colin Zieler in May of 2007, stabbing him over 40 times.

Aaron Zieler testified about finding his brother Colin's dead body

Prosecutors are playing the second interview Alejandro Ferrer gave authorities. In that version, the defendant admits that he is the person who killed Zieler, but insists that he acted only in self-defense. He also claims that his girlfriend, Heizel Gonzalez-Martinez, told him she had been raped by Zieler.

It’s also likely that we’ll hear from Dr. Stephen Nelson, who performed the autopsy on victim Colin Zieler.

The most dramatic witness to take the stand Wednesday was Aaron Zieler, the victim’s brother. He recalled being awakened in the early morning hours by a noise he believed was thunder or a lightning strike. But when he looked out the front door of the apartment the brothers shared, he saw a stranger covered with blood – a man he later identified as defendant Alejandro Ferrer.

-In Session staff

BARTOW, Florida - The capital murder trial of Alejandro Ferrer is underway in Bartow, Florida, located along central Florida’s infamous I-4 corridor. He’s accused of the vicious, stabbing death of Colin Zieler. The issue for jurors is whether this was an intentional, premeditated murder or a justified killing in self-defense. Ferrer traveled an hour from Orlando to Lakeland in the early morning hours of May 17, 2007. He arrived at about 4:00 a.m. Within minutes, Zieler was dead, a bloody mess lying below a broken fence outside his apartment. While a few sleepy residents, including Zieler’s brother Aaron, heard some crashing noises, no one apparently witnessed the fight.

Colin Zieler was stabbed over 40 times

The link between the two men is a woman, Heizel Gonzalez-Martinez. Years earlier, Zieler met her when she was an exotic dancer in Tampa. She got pregnant and bore his fourth child, Isaiah, in 2004. Zieler and Gonzalez-Martinez never married nor did their relationship last. But, Zieler, who lived in Texas, paid her monthly child support and saw his son whenever he could. Gonzalez-Martinez stopped dancing and became an insurance agent. She sold Zieler a $500,000 life insurance policy a year before his death naming her the beneficiary.

As of mid-May 2007, Ferrer had been dating Gonzalez-Martinez for about three months. She drove Ferrer to Zieler’s apartment that early morning but later told police she thought Ferrer was going to speak “man-to-man” with Zieler. Nothing is really clear about what happened during those critical minutes of the attack. What is clear is that it was a vicious fight; that Zieler suffered what appeared to be numerous defensive wounds; and that Ferrer was the only one who wielded a weapon.

Ferrer confessed to killing Zieler but he said it was in self-defense. He also said that earlier in the evening Gonzalez-Martinez told him that Zieler had raped her a few days before. Ferrer wanted to find out whether her allegation was true. There’s never been any corroboration to the alleged rape. It was never reported to the police, at least not until it became a part of statements made after the killing.

It’s unclear if Ferrer will testify but it’s common to see a defendant take the stand when self-defense is asserted.

Stay tuned for daily live coverage of the trial on In Session.

-Beth Karas, In Session correspondent

NEW YORK - Former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick begins serving a four month sentence today for obstruction of justice and assaulting a police officer. In September, Kilpatrick resigned in exchange for jail time, after his prolific sex text messages to a staffer landed him in hot water. But this was by no means the first sex scandal to bring down a politician and it won't be the last.

New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevy left his statehouse, and his wife, after his affair with a male staffer became public. We famously lost Governor Spitzer in New York after he admitted he'd patronized a prostitute. Toe-tapper Larry Craig is holding on to his senate seat for dear life - but only for another few days. And of course there's my old boss, Bill Clinton. Ah, the private foibles of middle-aged male politicians.

Is it weakness? Perversion? Corruption? Or is it, as the judge said when sentencing Kilpatrick, just plain arrogance. And do we really expect anything different? Do we really think our male politicians are having more illicit sex now than they have had in the past? Has something changed? Not the sex. Not the men. But here's what has changed: The news media.

Because we now have a press that prefers to report on sex than to utter the real dirty word in politics: "Issues". The economy, the energy crisis, health care, and the wars we are fighting overseas, just to name a few, too often take a back seat to sensational reporting on the sex lives of elected officials.

Of course it's easier to gossip about a politician’s personal problems than it is to grapple with the real problems that affect us all. But we can't afford these distractions anymore. It's time to start focusing on what our elected officials are doing in office. Not on what they are doing in bed.

-Jami Floyd, In Session anchor

BARTOW, Florida–After a frustratingly lengthy period of jury selection, the trial of Alejandro Ferrer finally began here late Tuesday afternoon. If Ferrer is convicted of the first-degree murder of Colin Zieler, the former lover of his live-in girlfriend, he faces a possible death sentence. So far, the jurors have heard opening statements from each side; the State of Florida will begin calling witnesses Wednesday morning.

Alejandro Ferrer faces a possible death sentence if convicted

Both sides acknowledge that Zieler died a particularly violent death, stabbed over 40 times. The prosecution believes that defendant Ferrer ambushed Zieler, killing him with premeditation. But the defense says that Ferrer confronted Zieler only because Heizel Gonzalez-Martinez, Ferrer’s girlfriend, claimed she had been raped by Zieler, the 31-year-old father of her child. They insist that Ferrer acted only in self-defense, protecting himself after the confrontation between the two men escalated into violent chaos.

Stay tuned to In Session for live gavel-to-gavel coverage of this case.

–In Session staff

NEW YORK–How can you not feel sorry for Lisa Nowak? I'm guessing that even you tough-on-crime, law and order types feel some sympathy for this obviously troubled woman.

I mean, here was a top notch astronaut with a stellar career. But as her professional star was rising, her personal life was spinning horribly out of control. Now, her marriage is over, her family torn apart, and her career destroyed too. Sure, the other woman in this love triangle appears to be genuinely afraid of Lisa Nowak. And who can blame her? But who can really believe that prison is the answer in this affair of the heart?

This is one case which, I think we can all agree, calls not for criminal sanction, but for compassion. And that's the Last Word.

–Jami Floyd, In Session anchor

NEW YORK—The criminal case involving former NASA astronaut Lisa Nowak heads back to a Florida court on Tuesday. This time, justices from the Fifth District Court of Appeal in Daytona Beach will hear oral arguments on what may determine the future of this case.

Lisa Nowak is escorted to a court appearance in February, 2007

Last November, following two extensive hearings, the Ninth Judicial Circuit Court suppressed admissions Nowak made during her almost six-hour interrogation by an Orlando Police Department detective. The court also suppressed evidence they determined was obtained from an unlawful search of her car.

Nowak was charged in February 2007 with burglary of a conveyance with an assault or battery and attempted kidnapping with intent to inflict bodily harm or terrorize, and battery, after driving from her home in Houston to Orlando to confront a woman she believed was her competition for her romantic interest, former astronaut Bill Oefelein.

According to legal documents, Nowak, dressed in a trench coat and wig, approached U.S. Air Force Captain Colleen Shipman in baggage claim at the Orlando International Airport and followed Shipman to her car. Once there, Nowak admitted to investigators she sprayed a type of pepper spray into Shipman’s car.

Following the interrogation, police searched Nowak’s car, finding, among other things, diapers she allegedly wore during the trip, opened packages for pepper spray and a buck knife, along with a map to Shipman’s home.

Now, Kellie Nielan, an Assistant Attorney General, will be arguing for the State of Florida that Nowak’s statements to the Orlando Police Department were of her own free will. The state will also assert that police had probable cause to search Nowak’s vehicle and Nowak voluntarily consented to the search. Without this evidence, prosecutors still will be able to present to jurors what Nowak was carrying that morning, which included a brand new steel mallet and buck knife.

–Jean Casarez, In Session correspondent