LAS VEGAS, Nevada — Judge Elizabeth Halverson took the stand late on day two of her disciplinary hearing as she continued to defend herself against a host of allegations that she abused her staff, fell asleep while presiding over trials and had inappropriate communications with jurors during her seven months on the bench last year. Called by the special prosecutor, Halverson got defensive at times as she offered explanations for her communications with deliberating jurors, her treatment of her staff, and statements she made in May 2007 in an interview with Nevada Public Radio. She denied falling asleep in court during trials or using disparaging language against her staff. She conceded, though, that there were times when she lost her temper with her staff. Halverson denied many of the allegations her former bailiff Johnnie Jordan testified about on Monday. Halverson said she never asked him or anyone to be a spy for her.

But her battle isn’t only in the Las Vegas Convention Center where the Commission on Judicial Discipline is meeting this week. Halverson has taken the matter to federal court. Here’s how that happened. The Commission had told both sides that this hearing must conclude by Friday of this week. Each side has had to curb significantly the number of witnesses to be called. Halverson says she is being denied due process by not being able to put on all her evidence. On Monday morning of this week, she filed a 1,000-page writ with the Nevada Supreme Court seeking to stop the disciplinary hearing. As of the end of the day on Monday, the Nevada Supreme Court had not taken action on the matter. So, in the absence of a decision from the state’s highest court, Halverson went to federal court at 5:00 p.m. Monday afternoon. She filed a motion for a temporary restraining order. That means she wants the court to halt the proceedings now because of the due process violations until she can have a hearing on the merits of that claim. In the middle of Tuesday afternoon, two civil attorneys representing Halverson appeared at the disciplinary hearing. The hearing stalled briefly as the Commissioners mulled over the news that they are named in the action and ordered to appear in federal court at 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday morning. In federal court, they must “show cause” why the disciplinary hearing should not be stayed pending yet another hearing.

Assuming a federal district court judge does not stay the disciplinary hearing, Halverson will be back on the stand Wednesday afternoon. The special prosecutor is expected to wrap up her evidence by the end of the day.

Earlier in the day, Halverson’s former court clerk testified about constant verbal attacks toward her and others. Katherine Streuber recalled that Halverson called her assistant (and Streuber’s friend), Ilene Spoor, an “idiot” and law clerk, Lisa Carroll, a “faux-Jew.” Streuber testified that she heard Halverson call her husband a “stupid bitch.” One day, she and Spoor were called into chambers. Streuber was ordered to administer an oath to Spoor. Halverson then questioned Spoor in depth about conversations with other district court judges. Halverson next called her own husband, Ed, into chambers and ordered Streuber to administer an oath to him as well. Halverson questioned her husband about progress he was making in cleaning their house and yard before her mother’s visit. While Streuber was uncomfortable with the questioning of Spoor, she conceded that the questioning of Ed Halverson was more of a joke.

Beth Karas, In Session correspondent

LAS VEGAS, Nevada — Johnnie Jordan, Jr., Judge Elizabeth Halverson’s former bailiff, told a panel of Commissioners from the Nevada Commission on Judicial Discipline today that she humiliated him on a daily basis by requiring him to perform tasks outside his job responsibilities.

Jordan was Halverson’s bailiff from January to April 2007. During that time, he says, she asked him to spy on court personnel. Halverson thought there were cameras around the courthouse monitoring her moves and wanted to know what others were saying about her. Jordan recounted how he had to change her shoes daily and even massage her feet when they would swell. He had to massage her neck and heat up her lunch. The microwave was in the bathroom and he would have to go in there right after she used it. He said she napped daily both in the courtroom and in chambers. In chambers, he would have to put a pillow under her head and cover her with a blanket then guard the door to make sure no one disturbed her.

Jordan choked up at the end of his direct examination when asked how working for him made him feel. His teary response escalated to yelling. He said it made him feel like a “house (expletive).” Fighting the tears, Jordan jumped out of his chair and said: “It’s not right. What does it say about America? What does it say about our President? If you allow her to stay in office, what does it say about you?” Jordan sat down and hung his head. The commissioners took a break before cross examination.

On cross, defense attorney (Michigan attorney and former partner to Geoffrey Fieger), Michael Schwartz, challenged Jordan’s recollection and pointed out inconsistencies from his testimony at a hearing in July 2007. By the end of his testimony Jordan was clearly annoyed with Schwartz and Halverson.

Tempers were flaring not just inside the hearing room. As soon as Jordan walked out, Halverson’s husband followed him into the hall (along with several members of the media and other observers) to serve him with a subpoena to testify later in the week as a defense witness. Jordan refused service but not without loudly expressing his disdain for the reason he’s even here today.

The second witness was an deputy district attorney, Lisa Luzaich Rego, who tried a 23-count sexual assault case before Halverson in March 2007. We saw a 20-minute official court video of Halverson speaking to the jurors on a Friday, at the end of day two of deliberations. Absent (and not even invited to court) were the defendant and both attorneys. Not only did Halverson advise jurors of the common admonishments before excusing them for the weekend but she engaged them in colloquy, answering several questions. The next week, the jurors acquitted a father of 10 counts of sexual abuse of his daughter; they hung on the remaining 13 counts. (The case will be retried next month.) Commissioners learned that the court reporter was later ordered by Halverson to delete from the official record the discussion with jurors that was captured on videotape.

It’s hard to believe both sides will get their evidence in by Friday. On day one, there were numerous breaks and lots of argument in and outside the hearing room. But the Commissioners insist the evidence must be concluded by Friday afternoon.

In Session is airing this case live, beginning at 1 p.m. ET.

–Beth Karas, In Session correspondent

LAS VEGAS, Nevada–A Las Vegas judge faces a public disciplinary hearing this week that could result in permanent removal from the bench. Hon. Elizabeth Halverson is accused of violating several canons, or ethical rules, that govern judges during her seven months on the bench. She was elected in November 2006 and took the bench in January of last year. By May, her assistants and bailiff were no longer working for her; her bailiff had also filed a discrimination suit against her.

The allegations against Halverson include improper ex parte communications with jurors, berating attorneys appearing before her, falling asleep while presiding over a trial, requiring her bailiff to put her shoes on and take them off, not compensating her bailiff for overtime, requiring her bailiff to massage her neck and shoulders and heat her lunch, and putting her husband under oath then asking him for assurance that certain chores would be completed before her mother’s visit.

Halverson uses a scooter, in part, because of her weight and requires oxygen for a respiratory condition. She denies the allegations against her.

After a closed hearing on July 16, 2007, a seven-member panel of the Nevada Commission on Judicial Discipline issued an interim suspension order finding that Halverson posed “a substantial threat of serious harm to the public or to the administration of justice.” Halverson has been suspended since then with pay. This week’s hearing follows the subsequent filing of formal charges. Halverson is represented by Michigan attorney Michael Alan Schwartz.

The panel’s decision does not have to be unanimous. If imposed, sanctions range from requesting a public apology to permanent removal from the bench.

Halverson is up for re-election this year. In Session will cover this hearing live.

–Beth Karas, In Session correspondent

NEW YORK–There is no decision, yet, on whether a murder charge can be refiled against Cindy Sommer. The case against Sommer was dismissed last April, on the District Attorney’s motion, after new evidence raised doubt that Sommer was responsible for the arsenic poisoning death of her husband in 2002. In fact, the new evidence raised doubt that Todd Sommer was poisoned at all.

Earlier this year (and more than a year after Sommer was convicted of murder), the District Attorney discovered additional tissues of the victim which had never been tested for arsenic. The tissues, preserved in paraffin, were sent to a private lab in Quebec, Canada. Surprising to many, though perhaps not to Sommer and her defense team, the results showed no arsenic present in any of the tissues. Sommer was promptly released from custody. She had been locked up since November 2005 and faced a new trial in May. The defense maintains that this new evidence proves Todd Sommer’s death was not even a homicide.

Attorneys and Sommer were back in court last Friday as the defense seeks to have the case dismissed forever. The District Attorney wants the option to charge her again at some future date. Judge John Einhorn wants Sommer and her attorney, Allen Bloom, to decide how they want to proceed on their motion to dismiss with prejudice. If granted, Sommer would never face a murder charge again for the death of her husband.

The defense wants the matter to go before the trial judge, Peter Deddeh, currently assigned to another courthouse. Judge Einhorn says he’ll send it to Judge Deddeh if the defense challenge only deals with the trial evidence. Judge Einhorn will keep the case if the defense challenge includes not just evidence at the 2007 trial, but also allegations of government misconduct during and after it; in particular, in retaining the victim’s tissues but not testing them until earlier this year.

Bloom has indicated that his challenge will be limited to the evidence, in which case the matter will likely be sent to Judge Deddeh who, arguably, knows the case best.

The next court date is September 26, 2008.

–Beth Karas, In Session correspondent

NEW YORK — Cindy Sommer will be back in court Friday as her attorney argues that a pending murder charge should be dismissed with prejudice, meaning she could never face a retrial. Sommer was convicted of the arsenic poisoning of her husband, Todd, an active duty Marine, in January 2007. She was never sentenced to the mandatory term of life without parole because the judge ordered a new trial after finding her trial attorney made errors that tainted the process. The new trial was scheduled to begin last May but in April the San Diego District Attorney suddenly moved to dismiss the charges without prejudice. The mother of four had been in jail since November 2005 for a crime she says she did not commit. She was immediately released and has been living with relatives in northern California since then.

Earlier this year, in preparation for the new trial, the District Attorney had discovered more tissues from Sommer’s husband, taken at autopsy, and stored separately from tissues tested and used at the first trial. If Sommer had, indeed, murdered her husband by feeding him arsenic-laced food or drink, then these new tissues should have tested positive for arsenic. But they did not. There was no arsenic in any of the tissues which, incidentally, were taken from the same organs as those used at trial where arsenic was present. The difference was in how they were stored and where they were tested. Some samples were preserved in formaldehyde and others were frozen. The new tissues had been preserved in a third way, in paraffin blocks. The tissues used at trial were analyzed at a government lab. The new tissues were analyzed at a private lab in Quebec.The defense has always maintained that the samples used at trial were contaminated.

A new judge, John Einhorn, is hearing the motion to dismiss but Sommer’s attorney, Allen Bloom, wants the matter to go back to the original trial judge, Peter Deddeh, who is currently assigned to a different courthouse. The District Attorney’s position is that since the case was dismissed a few months ago there is no matter pending before Judge Einhorn and, hence, he has no jurisdiction to consider the motion. Sommer’s attorney, Allen Bloom, says that Einhorn or Deddeh has jurisdiction to hear it and that the court can consider not only evidence introduced at the trial but also the new evidence of arsenic-free tissues from Sommer’s husband that led to her release from jail.

–Beth Karas, In Session correspondent

NEW YORK — The Los Angeles District Attorney just filed a motion in Phil Spector’s pending murder case. The motion seeks to admit at the upcoming retrial yet another incident where Spector threatened a woman with a gun. Jurors in Spector’s first trial last year heard from five women who detailed remarkably similar experiences between 1988 and 1995.

 According to the filing, prosecutors learned about this new incident earlier this year. Norma Kemper had just been hired as Spector’s assistant in September 1996, a position she would hold for the next four years. Unlike one of Spector’s prior assistants, Dorothy Melvin, who also testified against him at last year’s trial, Kemper says she was never romantically involved with him.

The day after she was hired, Kemper was invited to dinner at Dan Tana’s with Spector and his friend, Jay Romaine. Kemper told investigators that Spector drank a lot during the meal and, at one point, leaned across the table to kiss her. When she rejected his advances, Spector allegedly opened his jacket and revealed a small handgun in a shoulder holster. He said: “You know I could kill you right now.”

An angry Kemper eventually calmed down. After leaving Dan Tana’s, they went to House of Blues, where seven years later Spector would meet Lana Clarkson. After some time, Kemper says she asked Spector to take her home. When he refused, she found a ride with a friend at the club.

Kemper told investigators that when Spector drank and took his psychiatric medications, his personality changed and he would become “mean.” It was established at last year’s trial that Spector was taking psychiatric medication on or about February 3, 2003 when Lana Clarkson died in the early morning hours by a single gunshot wound to the head. He had been drinking extensively throughout the evening.

The District Attorney wants to put Kemper on the stand to further establish Spector’s pattern of violence against women especially when he was drinking, was romantically interested in a woman who wasn’t necessarily interested in him and whom he wanted to control.

–Beth Karas, In Session correspondent

NEW YORK — Gerald Robinson, a defrocked Roman Catholic priest in Ohio, lost his first appeal last week. Robinson was convicted in May 2006 of the 1980 murder of Sister Margaret Ann Pahl. Pahl was stabbed 31 times in the sacristy of a chapel at Toledo’s Mercy Hospital. A suspect since 1980, Robinson was not arrested until 2004. In a lengthy decision, a three-judge panel of Ohio’s 6th District Court of Appeals rejected numerous claims by Robinson including ineffective assistance of counsel and improper arguments by the state.

Robinson claimed his attorneys failed to file a motion to dismiss before trial because of preindictment delay since nearly a quarter of a century had passed from the murder to the indictment. During that time, police reports were lost and witnesses died. In a thorough analysis of the record and the law, the appeals court found no error in the failure to dismiss the charges on the grounds of delay.

The appeals court also rejected Robinson’s argument that the state improperly injected Satanism into the case as a motive. Robinson took issue with the state’s explanation for a round mark of blood on the Sister Margaret Ann’s forehead. The state argued that Robinson anointed her using her own blood after first dipping in blood the round end of the letter opener used to stab her. The state also argued that the victim’s body, covered with an altar cloth, was stabbed nine times in the form of an inverted cross. A witness for the prosecution explained that this behavior made a mockery of the rituals of Catholicism.

Twenty-two more stab wounds were also inflicted to the neck and face. Sister Margaret Ann’s lifeless, exposed body was found on the floor of the sacristy. Her stockings and undergarments had been rolled to her ankles and her dress and brassiere were pulled up.

Robinson has always denied killing Sister Margaret Ann on Holy Saturday, April 5, 1980. He intends to appeal last week’s decision to the Ohio Supreme Court.

–Beth Karas, In Session correspondent

WOBURN, Massachusetts – Something was wrong in the Entwistle household in December 2005 and January 2006. At least that’s the impression eBay fraud investigator Jeremy Roybal gave jurors as he detailed buyer complaints about a non-responding seller, Neil Entwistle.

As I write this, jurors still don’t know what was being sold on eBay but they learned that the five accounts were opened between 2003 and 2006. The last account was established on January 5, 2006-apparently the only one in Rachel Entwistle’s name.

The DA says that financial troubles were a motive for defendant Neil Entwistle in the killing of his 27-year-old wife and 9-month-old daughter. The Entwistles had relocated to the U.S. from the U.K. in the fall of 2005. By mid-January 2006, Neil Entwistle was still unemployed and whatever income he generated from online sales had apparently dried up.

Enwistle’s mother, Yvonne, lost her composure in court last week as she watched her son sob while viewing the crime scene video that included the bodies of his wife and daughter in their new home. Friday, she sat stoically in court with her husband, Clifford, and younger son, Russell. On the other side of the courtroom, equally stoic, sat Rachel Entwistle’s mother and stepfather, Priscilla and Joe Mattarazzo.

Testimony continues today.

–Beth Karas, In Session correspondent

WOBURN, Massachusetts – At the trial of Neil Entwistle today, the Hopkinton police officer who found the bodies of Rachel and Lillian Entwistle on a Sunday evening in January 2006 testified that a strong, foul odor led him to the second floor master bedroom. According to prosecutors, the bodies had been there since Friday morning. Entwistle is charged with killing his wife and daughter. The defense has painted Entwistle as a doting father who would not harm his family.

Jurors listened attentively as Sergeant Michael Sutton described how he carefully lifted a corner of the comforter and saw a foot. Sergeant Mary Ritchie of the Massachusetts State Police testified that she processed the bedroom crime scene later that night. She described to a hushed courtroom how the bodies were uncovered. Rachel lay on her left side with her right arm over her 9-month-old daughter cradled against her body. There were no signs of a struggle. The baby had been shot in the chest. The bullet appeared to have passed through the infant and into the mother.

Elsewhere in the large colonial home, bathwater was drawn in a tub, classical music played in the baby’s room, and the television blared downstairs in the living room.

Rachel Entwistle’s mother and stepfather sat through today’s testimony. Neil Entwistle’s mother, Yvonne, however, left before hearing the description of the bodies.

The day ended with Sergeant Ritchie displaying a .22 caliber Colt revolver. Jurors will soon learn that this is the gun allegedly used to kill Rachel and Lillian.

–Beth Karas, In Session correspondent

WOBURN, Massachusetts –The Commonwealth called a parade of witnesses today to corroborate prosecution witness Joe Matterazzo’s alibi for Friday, January 20, 2006–the day 27-year-old Rachel Entwistle and nine-month-old Lillian Rose were murdered. Matterazzo, Rachel’s stepfather, is the owner of the .22 caliber revolver used to kill Rachel and her baby. His whereabouts that day were fully accounted for, according to co-workers.

New information came out today from Matterazzo. It turns out that Entwistle called him daily from England for four consecutive days after the murders–January 23 through January 26. On one of those days, Entwistle told Matterazzo that he wanted Rachel and Lillian to be buried together “because that’s the way I left, I mean, I found them.” Entwistle never admitted to killing them but he did say to his father-in-law: “Joe, I don’t know how things got like this.”

Rachel’s mother, Priscilla, and her husband, Joe Matterazzo, sit in the front row of the public gallery on the opposite side of the courtroom from the Entwistles. I’ve seen no interaction between the families.

–Beth Karas, In Session correspondent