All eyes are on O.J. Simpson who is getting ready to stand trial. And jury picks have officially begun. However, where, oh, where will you find a juror who is actually unbiased regarding O.J. I mean, this is O.J. (killer) Simpson we are talking about. This is a man who probably wishes he were convicted of murder back in the day because life on the outside has been unbearable. Most people hate him, some love him but it isn’t going to be easy to find a juror who has absolutely no opinion of the football star/actor who fell from grace.

Five-hundred prospective jurors were questioned and many confessed that they couldn’t put aside how they felt about the 1995 acquittal on Simpson’s double-murder charges of Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman. And anyone who says they have no feelings on the subject matter are probably lying. So, what’s a Judge to do?

Judge Jackie Glass personally lectured the jurors on the subject. “If you are here thinking you are going to punish Mr. Simpson for what happened in Los Angeles in 1995, this is not the case for you,” said Glass. “If you’re looking to become famous because of your service in this case, write a book, then this is not the case for you.”

Good luck with that one!

Simpson faces a dozen charges including felony kidnapping, armed robbery, conspiracy, burglary, coercion and assault with a deadly weapon in connection with the alleged robbery of two sports collectibles dealers last September in Las Vegas.

If convicted, he could be a jailbird lifer. And the likelihood of this happening due to his last trial is a high possibility. It’s very rare to get lucky in the hot seat twice.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Talk about a good day in court. Mary Winkler, who was convicted of voluntary manslaughter in the 2006 shooting death of her Church of Christ minister hubby in 2006, is not only out of jail after 12 days and two months in a mental health facility but she has now been granted custody over her two children.

“She is absolutely overjoyed,” said Rachael Putman, a custody attorney.

Now, call me crazy but most likely not even close to overjoyed, has got to be the slain man’s parents, Dan and Diane Winkler. Caring for the children, ages 11, 9, and 3, the grandparents did allow visitation with their mother (probably because they were forced to by the courts), however, Mary is now going to take over full parental responsibility in her home near McMinnville, about 60 miles southeast of Nashville.

“It should be seen as a sign that the family is healing,” Putnam said of the custody arrangement. “It’s a good thing for everyone.”

When an attorney representing Dan and Diane Winkler were contacted, they did not immediately return the call for comment.

Tried for murder after her husband was found dead by a shotgun blast to the back, she was instead found guilty of voluntary manslaughter after describing the years of abuse she endured.

Popularity: 8% [?]

Chucking the old phrase, “just tell em’ what they want to hear” right out the window is famed Wyoming trial lawyer Gerry Spence. Having begun his own blog, Spence is brutally honest with his readers, questioning the law, speaking out about the unfairness of the legal system and referring to law school and the bar exam as a “fraud.” According to Spence, it costs $100,000 to get through law school but a “law school graduate doesn’t know enough to pass the Multi-state Bar and has to spend another $5,000 or more to prepare for that.”

And what makes the exam a fraud?

Spence writes: “The exam does not help the law profession to determine those who will fight for people, who are honest and who have courage-the most fundamental requirements of a lawyer for the people. The bar exam only tests the applicants ability to play their mostly silly word games.”

Spence goes on to say that he’d prefer a nurse than most lawyers fresh out of law school to assist him in trial. “Lawyers know little about listening,” said Spence. “The nurse chose her profession because she cares about people. Lawyers are not taught to care.

“They are engorged with the rare niceties of legal gymnastics often taught by ponderous-headed professors who have never looked into the painful eyes of a client and who have never tried a single jury trial for a human being.”

Spence writes that in law school, professors remind their students that they don’t teach justice, they teach the law. Being able to teach an eighth-grader in twenty minutes how to brief a case, explained Spence, a law student’s education doesn’t prepare him to actually walk the walk in the courtroom.

“The matriculating young lawyer is as qualified to represent a client with the education he has suffered through as a doctor who has never seen a patient, who has never held a scalpel in his hand and who learns surgery by having read text books about it and becomes skilled in surgery, if ever, after having stacked up piles of corpses who represent his pathetic learning process.”

Spence continues by emphasizing the importance of art and literature and how it strengthens the lawyer within. Self-expression, communicating through poetry and painting are a few examples of how he suggests learning to better connect with clients and jurors. Unlike what lawyers are taught, which is to “shield” themselves against their feelings, Spence thinks that they start to find it almost impossible to get in touch with them. And without that, it is also impossible to connect with jurors who “make their decisions based on their feelings.”

“Little wonder that lawyers,” said Spence, “disabled by all of the stifling, mostly useless mental exercises they have suffered, have trouble relating to jurors much less to the rest of mankind.”

Popularity: 8% [?]

Once upon a time in New York, a black man named John White was found guilty of fatally shooting a white teen. However, in December, 2007, one of the jurors came out of the courtroom closet, so to speak, stating that he helped convict the man for shooting and killing the boy but felt pressured by other jurors and the judge to change his vote to guilty during a deliberating session.

Convicting White (54) of second-degree manslaughter in the August 2006 shooting of 17-year-old Daniel Cicciaro, Jr., the man faces a prison term of five to 15 years and remains free on bail. Defense attorneys argued that White feared a “lynch mob” had come to attack his family when a group of white teens came to White’s house to confront his son.

Juror Francois Larche said that during a long weekend where the jurors were stuck in a room trying to come to a decision, he endured a lot of “pressure” by fellow jurors and the judge to close this case and go home.

“I thought about my family and the families of the other jurors,” Larche said. “It was not worth it in the end.”

Jury forewoman Maureen Steigerwald denied that the judge, a 12-hour deliberating session on Saturday — the fourth day of deliberations — or the holidays played a role in the jury’s decision.

However, if one juror is feeling badly about his final decision, this brings up a big problem. Although this case was closed (until the appeal) several months ago, the juror’s statement should still be mentioned today. With a man’s life at stake, better instructions and possibly a time limitation (that exclude weekends and offer break periods) may need to be considered. After all, sending someone to prison for many years to wrap up a case isn’t a fair deal. But then again, who ever said the law was always fair?

Popularity: 7% [?]

On trial in Los Angeles for distributing videos of sexual fetishes, including acts of bestiality and defecation is porn filmmaker Ira Isaacs. However, that’s not where the story lies. Are you ready for this one? Alex Kozinski, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals chief judge overseeing the case is the real one under the courtroom’s microscope.

And why is that?

Well, it turns out that Judge Kozinski isn’t unfamiliar with the porn industry. In fact, he’s got it all over his personal site. Ooh, la, la! Kozinski is in the X-rated house! Due to this recent discovery, Kozinski has granted a 48-hour stay in the obscenity trial after prosecutors requested time to explore “a potential conflict of interest concerning the court having a…sexually explicit [web site] with similar material.”

While Kozinski admitted to posting some of the graphic content on his site, he threw his son Yale under the bus, stating that he must have downloaded the majority of it. Sure, we believe you! Wink, wink.

“Yale called and said he’s pretty sure he uploaded a bunch of it,” Kozinski wrote in an e-mail to Abovethelaw.com, a legal news website. “I had no idea, but that sounds right because I sure don’t remember putting some of that stuff there.”

The moral of today’s Pop Legal story is based on that old, cliché saying: Never throw stones if you live in a glass house full of porn.

Popularity: 7% [?]