Witnesses

The Georgia Supreme Court on Monday turned down a death row inmate's request for a new trial, even though most of the key witnesses in the case have recanted or contradicted their earlier testimony. Troy Anthony Davis, 39, was convicted of killing a Savannah police officer after a 1991 trial based entirely on witnesses' accounts. Seven of the nine who implicated Davis have since changed their story in sworn affidavits, with several claiming they were pressured by police in their earlier statements.

Prosecutors investigating Michael Jackson's death have called the girlfriend of the singer's personal doctor to testify before a grand jury today, according to the woman's lawyer and sources familiar with the matter. The Los Angeles County district attorney's office is asking the grand jury only to take testimony from Nicole Alvarez and that the panel is not being asked "at this time" to determine whether Dr. Conrad Murray should be charged with a crime, the sources said. Murray has been identified in court papers as the target of a manslaughter probe related to Jackson's death, and the sources told The Times that his girlfriend, a 27-year-old actress, has not been cooperating with detectives.

No one can agree on what exactly happened the day a Colorado man spotted Dick Cheney strolling the streets of a ski resort town and decided to give the vice president a piece of his mind. Steve Howards, 55, says he walked up to Cheney and delivered his message -- "Your policies in Iraq are disgusting" -- then lightly touched the vice president's shoulder. The White House photographer says he saw Howards slap Cheney on the back.

The former chief military prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay said Thursday that he would be a defense witness for the driver of Osama bin Laden. Air Force Col. Morris Davis, who resigned in October over alleged political interference in the U.S. military tribunals, told the Associated Press that he would appear at a hearing for Salim Ahmed Hamdan. "I expect to be called as a witness. . . . I'm more than happy to testify," Davis said in a telephone interview from Washington.

A teenager who witnessed his friend being fatally shot by a Los Angeles motorcycle officer offered a dramatically different account of the encounter than police Friday, saying the man was killed while trying to surrender and wasn't carrying anything in his hands. A police official overseeing the shooting investigation confirmed that the teenager gave investigators a similar account, but said detectives believe he is lying.

A former car salesman testified Thursday that he sold a Mercury Sable station wagon to one of two elderly women accused of using the vehicle to kill a homeless man in a murder-for-life-insurance scheme. Mario Medina is the first eyewitness to tie Olga Rutterschmidt, 75, to the car that prosecutors say was the murder weapon in the death of Kenneth McDavid, 50, in an alley in West Los Angeles in 2005.

Dwayne Giles, who shot and killed his ex-girlfriend in Los Angeles, asked the Supreme Court on Tuesday to overturn his murder conviction because he was denied the right to "confront" her in court. "He never had a chance to cross-examine" the victim, said Marilyn G. Burkardt, a Los Angeles lawyer representing Giles. Burkardt called the prosecution's use of his ex's reports of his threats "highly prejudicial." Though it sounds far-fetched, Giles' claim could prevail in the high court.

Two witnesses gave dramatic accounts Wednesday of how a high school football star was gunned down earlier this year near his Los Angeles home, opening a tense courtroom hearing packed with relatives of the victim and the alleged gunman. Jamiel Shaw II, 17, was talking to his girlfriend on a cellphone when she overheard a voice ask him "Where are you from?" the teenage girl testified. There was no response and then the line went dead, she said.

Former Orange County Sheriff Michael S. Carona instructed an employee to lie to investigators about a sexual relationship she had with him, federal prosecutors alleged in a motion filed Friday. Prosecutors asked U.S. Dist. Judge Andrew J. Guilford to allow them to call the woman as a witness at Carona's upcoming corruption trial because, they say, she could corroborate a charge that he encouraged another witness to lie to a grand jury.

The judge in the Phil Spector murder retrial gave prosecutors tentative permission Tuesday to use Court TV footage of the testimony of a witness who died after the legendary producer's first trial ended in a hung jury. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Larry P. Fidler said he would make a final ruling after he screened a DVD of Dianne Ogden's testimony, but said video was more accurate than reading transcripts. Spector's attorneys had asked that jurors rely only on the transcripts.