NEW YORK – Roxana Saberi is free. The Iranian government had accused the young reporter of spying but, under international pressure, Iran reduced the eight year prison sentence to two years and suspended it. So she's coming home and that's good news.

Laura Ling, far right, with her mother, center, and sister Lisa Ling, left

But there has been no such outcry about Laura Ling and Euna Lee, two other young reporters, behind bars in North Korea. It’s hard to know why some stories take off and others do not. But I do believe that more Americans would care about Laura and Euna if they knew about their plight.

The North Korean government says the women are spies but they are not; they are journalists, and more. Laura is a daughter and a sister. Euna is a mother, with a four-year-old daughter Hannah, who misses her mother terribly.

Who will tell little Hannah that coverage of the "Octo-mom" or the First Lady's wardrobe are more important than her mother? Unlike too many in our profession, Laura and Euna are serious journalists; they were filming a documentary about starving North Korean refugees. For that, they each face up to ten years in prison.

Euna Lee, right, with her daughter Hannah

Last night there were public vigils across the country to raise awareness: In Orlando, Chicago, Portland, Los Angeles and New York. The vigils were a cry for help. Perhaps our colleagues in the media will hear the call to let people know about Laura and Euna. Perhaps our government will fight to bring them home.

-Jami Floyd, In Session anchor

CAPE MAY COURT HOUSE, New Jersey–The jury sat intently listening all day Thursday to expert witness and engineer Richard Ruth at the trial of New Jersey State trooper Robert Higbee. Ruth, a former manager at Ford Motor Company, had flown into southern New Jersey from Dearborn Michigan to be one of the crucial witnesses for the prosecution. Higbee is charged with two counts of vehicular homicide in a September 2006 crash that claimed the lives of Christina and Jacqueline Becker.

Prosecution witness Richard Ruth on the stand

Ruth testified on direct that 25 seconds prior to impact, the defendant began an acceleration that went from 62 to 79.6 mph. Ruth said that Higbee hovered on the brake of his police cruiser, tapping it four different times when he was close to a warning sign that preceded the actual stop sign near where the crash occurred. Ruth told jurors that close to, but before entering the intersection, Higbee's brakes were applied to try to avoid the collision.

The jury will be instructed they can use this testimony to help determine whether Higbee was reckless as he approached and entered the intersection.

According to those close to the case, this is the first time an automotive "black box" has been used to prosecute a law enforcement official in the state of New Jersey.

Ruth testified that the Ford Motor Company's black box was not designed to be used in accident reconstruction cases but was meant to be used as a safety system for the vehicle. Ruth, who left Ford in 2006, has testified as a private consultant in New Mexico, Idaho and Michigan as to this automotive black box data.

New Jersey State Trooper Robert Higee is facing up to 20 years in prison if convicted. He has pleaded not guilty, saying the crash was a terrible accident, and that he was pursuing a speeding motorist when the incident occurred.

–Jean Casarez, In Session correspondent

CAPE MAY COURT HOUSE, New Jersey–The New Jersey trooper charged with vehicular homicide for killing two teenage girls was driving 65 mph when he crashed into a mini-van carrying Christina and Jacqueline Becker, an expert testified Thursday. Richard Ruth, a former Ford Motor company engineer who analyzes so-called “black box” data in automobiles, said Robert Higbee drove up to 79.6 mph in the last 25 seconds before impact.

Trooper Robert Higbee's vehicle after collision

Prosecutors say the trooper was driving recklessly and consciously ignored a stop sign as he attempted to catch a speeding motorist. The defense says the trooper was following standard operating procedure and that he did not see the sign until it was too late. He has pleaded not guilty.

When testimony resumes next week, Higbee's defense attorneys will continue cross-examining an accident reconstruction expert. As the case winds down, the county engineer who was responsible for replacing the stop sign in question and the medical examiner are expected to testify.

Stay tuned to In Session as correspondent Jean Casarez brings you all the latest details in this case.

–In Session staff

NEW YORK – A Minnesota judge has ordered a 13-year-old boy to get treatment for his Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. But Daniel Hauser’s parents want to use alternative medicine to treat his cancer. Now they've gone missing.

Daniel Hauser

News organizations are reporting their decision as based on religious beliefs. Maybe it is. But if you know anyone who has a child who has suffered through traditional cancer treatment, you know how devastating it can be.

These are hard cases. If an adult refuses treatment, preferring to live what days he has left with dignity, we can respect that; but when the patient is a child, there is tension between the parents, medical professionals and, in some cases, the law.

Doctors say Daniel has a five percent chance of survival on the parents' plan but a 90 percent chance with chemotherapy and radiation. Sounds like an easy choice; but it's not, because the doctors do not tell parents the whole truth about pediatric cancer treatment. They play down the awful side-effects and the long-term disabilities. (Over sixty percent of these survivors have long-term and very serious health and mental disabilities.)

I would never question a parent who chooses traditional treatment for a child. (I know I would.) But neither should we judge parents who make the other choice. Because we don't have all the facts.

Cancer is the leading cause of death by disease in the U.S. for children under the age of fifteen; but funding for pediatric cancer clinical trials has gone down every year since 2003. Childhood cancer treatments have not changed significantly in more than a decade.

Our past successes with beating cancer shouldn't keep us from finding more humane treatments for children battling the disease. It is time for the harsh reality of childhood cancer treatment to be known.

If you care and want to know more, click here for the link to  IcareIcure.org. It's the first step toward finding a gentler cure for childhood cancer.

-Jami Floyd, In Session anchor

CAPE MAY COURT HOUSE, New Jersey–In our current live trial, Robert Higbee's defense team continues to mount their argument before Judge Raymond Batten that subsequent safety changes to the intersection at the center of this case should come before the jury.

Robert Higbee

A collision in September 2006 claimed the lives of Christina and Jacqueline Becker when Higbee, a New Jersey State trooper, proceeded through the intersection of Stagecoach and Tuckahoe Roads in Cape May County without stopping at a designated stop sign. At the time of the crash, Higbee was closing the gap with a speeding motorist, who was later identified. He faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted of two counts of vehicular homicide.

Defense attorney William Subin argues the information is relevant to show Higbee was not reckless the night the collision occurred.

To convict a defendant of vehicular homicide in the state of New Jersey, three elements must be met: (1) the defendant was driving a vehicle, (2) the defendant caused the death of the victims, and (3) that the defendant caused the deaths by driving the vehicle recklessly.

The defense argues that 26 accidents at the same intersection from 2003 to 2006 demonstrate the dangerousness of that crossing. Changes to the intersection after the collision in September 2006 include: enlarging the stop sign, putting reflective tape on both the stop sign and warning sign poles and installing a flashing light in the middle of the street.

Prosecutor David Meyer does not take part in much of argument on the issue, but Judge Batten has continued to rule that subsequent remedial changes to the intersection are not relevant to the issues in this case, which center on whether the defendant acted as a reasonable trooper would have when entering the intersection.

The judge has said the changes will merely confuse the jury and that unless the defense can show design defects that violated administrative codes or standards, the changes will not come in as evidence.

Subin counters with constitutional arguments that Robert Higbee is being denied due process, his right to a fair trial and is being denied his right to confront witnesses on the alleged visibility hazards at that intersection.

An October 2006 resolution by the Township Committee of Upper Cape May County, obtained by In Session, shows the group voted that month to adopt a 2005 resolution supporting the installation of traffic control devices at the intersection of Stagecoach and Tuckahoe Roads.

The 2005 and 2006 resolution cited change was needed because of new residential and commercial construction in the area, proposed construction of a major shopping complex and an increase in the number of traffic accidents.

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

–Jean Casarez, In Session correspondent

NEW YORK–Last month, on the one-year anniversary of her release from a San Diego County jail, Cindy Sommer reflected on the events in her life that led to that day. She had spent two and half years in jail on charges that she murdered her husband Todd in 2002, an active-duty Marine.

Cynthia Sommer

Sommer wasn’t arrested for almost four years, and only after the Navy decided to test some of Todd Sommer’s tissues preserved from autopsy. The tissues had fatally high levels of arsenic, leading authorities to reclassify his death a homicide.

By this time, Sommer had started a new life in Florida with her four children. She always denied poisoning her husband, but a jury disagreed, and convicted Sommer of first-degree murder in January 2007.
Sommer faced life in prison without the possibility of parole but, after much litigation, the trial judge didn’t sentence her. Instead, in late November 2007, he set aside the conviction and granted Sommer a new trial, in part because of the ineffectiveness of her attorney at trial.

Sommer had to sit in jail awaiting the new trial. In the meantime, convinced that earlier tests finding arsenic were flawed, her new attorney demanded that the prosecution look for more preserved tissues taken at autopsy. Luckily for Sommer, the state found some tissues that were frozen in another government lab. These samples were tested for arsenic in early 2008 and yielded a totally unexpected result: negative for arsenic. The San Diego District Attorney immediately moved for Sommer’s release. The charges were dismissed, for the time being, and Sommer walked out of jail on April 17, 2008.

Sommer now wants the dismissal of the murder charges to be “with prejudice,” which means they can never be reinstated. At the moment, the dismissal is “without prejudice.” And that’s where the matter stands right now. Sommer’s court date earlier this month has been rescheduled to August 28, at the prosecution’s request. She is hopeful that the DA will concede, on that date, that the matter should go away forever.

Meanwhile, Sommer is trying to get her life back and appears to be doing well. She is focused and driven. Sommer is enrolled full-time at a university where she is studying business, and also works about 30 hours a week. She has custody of her two older children, Jenna, 17, and Graham, 14. She is trying to get full custody of the younger children, Bailey, 13, and Christian, 9, who is Todd’s son. He was not even two years old when his father died. At the moment, Sommer shares custody of Bailey and Christian with her brother, who raised them during the years she was incarcerated.

I spoke with Sommer recently. She described her daily struggle to transition back to life on the outside. At one point, Sommer compared herself to a fire victim, whose possessions are all lost. But a fire victim, she said, doesn’t lose her bank account and credit history. Nor does a fire victim have to explain to potential employers what she does: a big hole in her resume—what she was doing between November 2005 and April 2008.

Recently, Sommer reached out to organizations like the Innocence Project where, no doubt, she could be a great asset. While Sommer resents the hurdles that come with explaining her arrest, trial, conviction, and dismissal, she has a lot to be thankful for. She came very close to being sentenced to state prison. Once there, an appeal based on the very same issues the trial judge heard, post-conviction, would have taken years and could have resulted in an affirmance of the conviction, especially if, after several more years, those frozen, arsenic-free tissues could no longer be located.

–Beth Karas, In Session correspondent

NEW YORK - We talk a lot about the Caylee Anthony's of the world; the Natalee Holloways and the Adam Walshes; and of course, the JonBenet Ramseys. We should I suppose. No innocent child deserves to die.

Chicago Police investigate the scene where a young boy was found dead

But there’s another thing these children have in common that we don't talk about: They are all white. Their stories are tragic and compelling. But so are the stories of the three dozen children who have been murdered in Chicago this year.

These children are innocent too, killed while playing in the park, riding on the bus, or sitting in the back seat of the family car. But these children were different because they were not white; and so, the coverage has been almost nonexistent.

Think about it: When was the last time we voraciously followed the case of a missing black child – or, after the body is found, covered the nation-wide manhunt for the killer. We haven't.

That says a lot about which lives we value in America - and which lives we don't.

Our sister network CNN, to its credit, has reported the story, but that's pretty much the extent of the national coverage. Click here to view the story. 

Of course we should care about crime victims who are young, pretty and white. But the child victims in Chicago are just as worthy of our time, attention and compassion.

-Jami Floyd, In Session anchor

NEW YORK – There's news coming out of Capitol Hill today which suggests Senate Democrats will not provide President Barack Obama the funds requested to close Guantanamo Bay prison in January. The Pentagon and Justice Department were looking for $80 million to relocate 241 detainees.

Camp Justice at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba

The developments over the last week concerning the remote U.S. Naval Base in Cuba have been coming fast and furious begining with Obama's decision to reverse course and restart military tribunals for a small number of Guantanamo detainees, saying it's "the best way to protect our country, while upholding our deeply held values." Last year Obama blasted the commissions, calling them an "enormous failure," but rules are changing and there may be several new legal protections for the accused.

The Wall Street Journal reported that another Obama plan is being floated with Congress to detain Guantanamo terror suspects in the U.S. - allowing them to be held in prison without a trial indefinitely. But the House and Senate have made it clear in proposed legislation that they would block the transfer of detainees to the United States.

ACLU executive director Anthony Romero believes the detainees should be tried in U.S. federal courts, saying, "We have the best system of justice in the world, and rather than jerry rig or fix an already broken system, we ought to use the one that works." Zacarias Moussaoui, the alleged 20th hijacker on 9/11 and alleged "dirty bomber" Jose Padilla have been tried and convicted in federal courts.

There is also an argument that detainees should be tried within the courts-martial system which is used to prosecute our own service members and has due process rights similar to those in federal courts.

Despite all of the conflicting views, the Pentagon says it believes Gitmo will still be closed by January, but Congress will need a detailed White House plan.

-Bob Regan, In Session senior executive producer

NEW YORK – Last week, I was called for jury duty. No surprise there; but I was surprised at how many friends, family members and even viewers offered suggestions of how i might get out of it. Others offered their sympathies. But no sympathy is necessary because, unlike too many Americans, I actually like jury duty - cherish it, in fact.

I believe in our constitutional system of justice and the jury is at its core. It is an honor and a privilege to serve.

That is why so many Americans fought for the right to do so. African-Americans weren't permitted to sit on juries until 1867. Women didn't get the constitutional right to serve until 1975. If you were black or a woman, a jury of your peers really wasn't.

No one understood this better than Judith Kaye - the first woman to sit as chief judge for the state of New York, and the longest sitting chief ever. Judge Kaye did a whole lot to make jury duty more meaningful - and more pleasant too.

The criminal courts run 24/7 in New York; so imagine my surprise when I got down to the courthouse last week to find the whole process streamlined, with far less waiting around time than in previous years; friendly clerks, downright funny even, who understood that good humor goes a long way in a room full of grumpy New Yorkers.

Most significantly, Judge Kaye did away with automatic exemptions. People groused at first, but the practical effect is wondrous: The pool is much bigger and that means each New Yorker is summoned less often - with six years in between stints, if you serve.

In fact, Judge Kaye called it jury service, not jury duty. She was right. Jury service is one of the few things your country asks of you. And a fair and impartial jury of your peers is what you will ask for, if ever you are seated on the other side of that courtroom.
 

-Jami Floyd, In Session anchor

NEW YORK – A week after the 9/11 attacks, I was reporting from ground zero for Court TV, now In Session, when I received a call from my father that my older brother, Joseph, had taken a turn for the worse.

In Session correspondent Beth Karas

Joe had had many brushes with death but this would be his final one. The next day, I was at his hospital bedside in Massachusetts when he passed away.

I spent another hour with him after he died, saying goodbye, and contemplating his life and that of my younger brother, Jonathan, who passed away eight years earlier. While they are in my thoughts daily, today is special for it’s International MPS Awareness Day. For full story click link to CNN.com Health page.

-Beth Karas, In Session correspondent