NEW YORK — There are always arguments to be made against war crimes tribunals.

Cambodia: too little, too late? The Cambodian people have waited 30 years for the leaders of the Khmer Rouge, which starved and slaughtered nearly two million men, women and children, to be brought to justice. A hybrid international/Cambodian tribunal, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), which I visited last December, is holding five geriatric Khmer Rouge leaders now, awaiting a trial that has been in the works since it was authorized a decade ago. Speak to any Cambodian and you’ll get the same answer: “They killed my parents.” “My sister.” “Right before my eyes.” “This is the tree they swung children against until they were dead.” It is heartbreaking stuff. Let’s move this tribunal along, can’t we?

The ECCC is moving slowly in part because it’s breaking new legal ground by giving a significant role to victims, allowing them to be present as parties to the action, allowing them to ask questions of the perpetrators directly or through attorneys, and to seek compensation. It is also in desperate need of funding. Japan and many European countries have donated millions; the United States, which contributed to the rise of the anti-American Khmer Rouge by its bombing of Cambodia in the early 1970’s, nothing.

Darfur: too much, too soon? The sitting president of Sudan, Omar al-Bashir, faces an arrest for genocide and war crimes in connection with the genocide currently under way in Darfur. Already China and others have criticized the move as having the potential to cause further unrest. When a quarter of a million people have already been killed and over two million displaced, when rape of women and girls is widespread, not acting for fear of causing “unrest” is a sick joke.

After the horrors of the Holocaust became known throughout the world, the rallying cry of “Never again!” has been repeated often. Unfortunately, we have not lived up to it. Genocide did happen again, in Cambodia, and the world knew and did nothing. Again, in Iraq, again, in Bosnia, again, in Rwanda.

Perpetrators of genocide can’t be brought to justice too quickly. Every victim deserves to see the world community join together to stand with them in support of war crimes tribunals. They are in their infancy, and imperfect. But they beat the alternatives, brutality, war, and unredressed injustice.

–Lisa Bloom, In Session anchor

Like Anna Nicole Smith, Heath Ledger died young and left behind a will that failed to provide for his baby daughter. Both of them drafted their wills before their little girls were conceived or even contemplated.

Matila Ledger’s name and foot imprints outside the Ledger residence in New York.

Anna Nicole’s will, inexplicably, specifically excluded any future children she might have, leaving everything to her son Daniel. Daniel died before Anna Nicole, and she never updated her will, leaving her legal affairs in chaos at her death.

Heath Ledger’s will was drafted in Australia, but at least parts of it will be administered in New York, which frowns upon cutting children out of a parent’s estate unless it’s done explicitly. Ledger’s will was written in 2003, before he met Michelle Williams and had a baby with her, Matilda. Matilda will now need to contest the will, arguing that his failure to update his will was an oversight.

This is a good reminder to all of us to update our wills after a major life event – marriage, divorce, death of a loved one, birth of a child, even moving or buying or selling significant assets.

– Lisa Bloom, In Session anchor

NEW YORK – It is not the least bit surprising that Roger Clemens may now be investigated by the Justice Department.

His sworn deposition testimony and his statement under oath to the House Oversight Committee always seemed to me to be a setup, a slow pitch, for this obvious end result: legal action against him. If they can’t get him for the steroids, they can try to get him for perjury.

Martha Stewart.

Scooter Libby.

Why on earth would Clemens, represented by competent counsel who surely advised against it, fall into this trap? Why do prominent people testify under oath when they don’t have to, knowing this will give hostile authorities new ammunition?

Must be a combination of ego and denial that scientists have not yet cracked.

– Lisa Bloom, In Session anchor

NEW YORK – A jury in Ohio, as I write, is faced with the agonizing decision of whether to recommend the death penalty for convicted double murderer Bobby Cutts, Jr.

The single most determining factor, proved by study after study, as to whether an American murderer is sentenced to death or life imprisonment is surely something that will never be breathed aloud during those deliberations: Race. An African-American defendant who kills a white victim is far more likely to be sentenced to death than other murderers.

Racial bias in administration of the death penalty has led to its ban in New Jersey and a moratorium in Maryland. The U.S. General Accounting Office and Amnesty International have expressed grave concerns about the significantly enhanced likelihood of African-American defendants, or killers of white victims, receiving death sentences.

This case presents both to an all-white jury.

– Lisa Bloom, In Session anchor

NEW YORK – Bobby Cutts Jr., surprising everyone, took the stand Monday and testified that his killing of his nine-months-pregnant girlfriend, Jessie Davis, was an accident.

According to his tearful testimony, he pointed his finger in her face, and she bit it. Cutts tried to leave, but Davis grabbed his arm and told him he couldn’t. Pulling his arm away, he says, he threw his elbow back, it landed on Davis’ throat, and she fell, hard, to her death.

That bleach spot investigators found on Davis’ floor? Cutts, a former police officer, says he tried to revive her with the bleach, not cover up forensic evidence.

He loaded Davis’ body in the back of his truck and dumped it in a park, he testified. Watch the testimony

This sounds a lot like Joran van der Sloot’s recently broadcast statements. He claimed that he was fondling Natalee Holloway on an Aruban beach when she shivered and stopped breathing in his arms. Like Cutts, he didn’t call the police or get her to a hospital. Instead, he says, he enlisted a friend to dispose of her body, dumping her in the sea.

Are young women really so fragile that we spontaneously drop dead from a bump or a kiss? Are these men so morally bankrupt that their only reaction to a medical crisis is to hide a body?

Cutts’ and van der Sloot’s stories are absurdly implausible, and van der Sloot himself now says he was lying. Yet the “I didn’t do anything wrong, but then I panicked and disposed of the body” defense has worked in a recent high-profile American case.

Billionaire Robert Durst convinced a Texas jury that he shot his elderly neighbor in self-defense, and then chopped up the body and dumped it in Galveston Bay. Acquitted. The jury said it had to separate the killing and the cover-up.

Still, Cutts’ tearful testimony is unlikely to help him. Upended furniture and the disarray of Davis’ home indicate a struggle far greater than one elbow strike that hit the mark. The more he spoke yesterday, the less we liked him. He didn’t intend to leave his 2-year-old son alone for two days, he says, but he did. Cutts had the right to remain silent, but not the ability.

The case should go to the jury late Tuesday afternoon.

– Lisa Bloom, In Session anchor

NEW YORK – The multimillionaire movie star paid no taxes – none at all, didn’t even file returns – from 1999-2004. Now on trial for tax fraud, his lawyers concede he must pay millions of dollars in back taxes, penalties and fees, but they claim no fraud took place because he was open in his refusal to pay.

Huh?

The jury is out as I write. He could face up to 16 years in prison if convicted, and his lawyers say even if acquitted, he’ll have to work for the next 20 years to repay his civil debt to the IRS. Read about the trial

Reminds me of Michael Vick. A man at the top of his game, who had it all, and who threw it all away for illegal behavior that is incomprehensible to most of us. He risked losing his high-flying NFL career over . . . dog fighting?

Wesley Snipes. Riding high as a worldwide film star, who risked his reputation, wealth and freedom to . . . join a merry band of tax avoiders? Guys who claim the IRS has no jurisdiction over wages earned in the U.S.?

Huh?

– Lisa Bloom, In Session anchor

NEW YORK – Some commentators have made much of Judge Glass’ strong words to O.J. Simpson in court yesterday, but clearly only one thing mattered to O.J.: getting out of jail, which he did, after the brief tongue-lashing. He’s free again, as he will be until trial.

O.J. Simpson sits in court with attorney Yale Galanter.

How could the judge find he violated a condition of bail and yet spring him? Because he’s entitled to bail in this non-capital case. The judge did all that she could do: gave him a stern warning, raised the bail, required him to pay 15% of the new $250,000 amount.

O.J.’s friends – he’s always got entourage – came up with the money, and he’s home free, again.

As one of the few people who actually read O.J.’s 2007 book,” If I Did It,” I cannot help thinking of his vivid description of his long, tortured relationship with Nicole Brown Simpson, his explanation of he did it WHY he did it (hypothetically) — that skirt was too short for his taste on the last day of her life — and HOW he did it (hypothetically) — driving home via a different route than everyone thought.

In my view, the only interpretation of his book is that he is now a confessed double murderer, and yet no jail can hold him. He’s a master at playing the system.

– Lisa Bloom, In Session anchor