Attorneys

Third-place primary finishers have been a hot commodity as the two remaining candidates for Los Angeles city attorney duke it out before the May 21 general election. Private attorney Greg Smith failed to make the runoff but has racked up a successful record suing Los Angeles and other local governments by representing police officers and firefighters in discrimination and whistle-blower cases. Last week, Smith endorsed former lawmaker Mike Feuer, who is challenging City Atty. Carmen Trutanich for the post.

A musician and a retired attorney were found fatally stabbed Monday inside their home in Davis. Oliver “Chip” Northrup, 88, and 76-year-old Claudia Maupin were found dead Monday morning inside a home on Cowell Boulevard. Officers initially went to the house to do a welfare check, as the two had not been seen or heard from all day. Northrup played guitar in a group called the Putah Creek Crawdads. They performed Saturday at the Davis Farmers Market. Northrup was also a retired attorney, dealing with court of appeals-level cases.

About 100 potential jurors have been summoned to a downtown Los Angeles courtroom Monday in the legal clash between Michael Jackson's mother and three children and entertainment powerhouse AEG over the death of the pop singer. For days, potential jurors have been asked to determine whether they could spend up to four months weighing the wrongful death case. Those who made the cut will now be questioned by attorneys before a jury is sworn in. Jackson's mother and children contend that AEG negligently hired and supervised Dr, Conrad Murray, who gave the singer a fatal dose of the anesthetic propofol on the eve of what was to be Jackson's comeback tour.

SHERMAN, Texas - Sgt. John Russell designed his new house here so there would be room for everyone: for him and his wife, Mandy, his wife's parents and his own. There was a doggie door for Louie and Queenie - "the little ones," he called them in his emails. It was where he wanted to spend the rest of his life when he got home from Iraq, he'd say as he shared photos of the latest construction. After a dispute with a co-worker, Russell fretted that he'd get demoted and would not be able to make the payments.

Prosecutors charged an attorney with half a dozen felony counts for allegedly trying to smuggle heroin into an L.A. County jail inside a greeting card. Stephen Beecher, 61, who was arrested April 9, faces counts including conspiracy, bringing drugs into jail, transportation of a controlled substance and bringing a firearm into a jail, said Jane Robison, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County district attorney's office. The Sherman Oaks resident was released on bail Thursday and scheduled to be arraigned May 1 in a downtown courtroom.

CENTENNIAL, Colo.  - Defense attorneys for James. E  Holmes tried to plant a seed of doubt about the trustworthiness of law enforcement officers in the Aurora movie massacre Wednesday, speculating that if they lied about leaking information to a reporter they might not be credible on other matters. The new scenario emerged as Holmes' lawyers continued their quest to force Jana Winter, a FoxNews.com reporter, to reveal the identity of two unidentified law enforcement sources who gave her information about a notebook Holmes sent to his psychiatrist last summer.

The mystery behind the body buried in a San Marino backyard, defense attorneys argued, came down to this: The victim's wife did it. Linda Sohus had vanished in February 1985 around the same time as her husband, John. She was frustrated living with a mother-in-law who was controlling and drank too much. Two months after she disappeared, several postcards written by Linda were sent to loved ones from France. Lawyers for Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter acknowledged that their client was a notorious con man who once masqueraded as a member of the Rockefeller family, but said that he was not a killer.

Former lawmaker Mike Feuer, a candidate for Los Angeles city attorney in the May 21 runoff, had raised $308,000 by April 6, the first campaign reporting deadline, and had collected an additional $350,000 in taxpayer matching funds, according to a document filed Wednesday with the City Ethics Commission. Feuer turned in his campaign finance report a day ahead of Thursday's filing deadline. He showed more than $540,000 in cash on hand. The report indicated Feuer made a $15,000 payment to Shallman Communications, his consulting firm.

The civil trial in which Michael Jackson's mother and three children have blamed entertainment powerhouse AEG for the music legend's 2009 death is expected to include a string of witnesses -- a list both lengthy and celebrity-studded. Attorneys for the plaintiffs have listed 97 possible witnesses and the defense 113, many of which overlap. Among those who could testify are Jackson's mother, Katherine' two of his children; his ex-wives Lisa Marie Presley and Debbie Rowe; and nearly all of his siblings.

The legal showdown between Michael Jackson's family and AEG has yet to begin, but sparks are already flying between attorneys. For more than a week, jurors have been brought into Superior Court Judge Yvette M. Palazuelos' courtroom in groups of 35 and asked whether they had the ability to serve on a trial that is estimated to take as long as four months. On Wednesday, after Palazuelos mentioned the court could schedule a couple days off to accommodate jurors during the trial, attorney Brian Panish objected to prolonging proceedings in any way. “I don't have 1,000-plus lawyers in my law firm and I don't have 20 lawyers working on this case,” said Panish, who represents Jackson's mother, Katherine, and the pop star's three children.