Firedoglake, the good people who did such a great job of covering the Scooter Libby trial, have brought a special guest on board to cover the Padilla trial which started today here in Miami: Introducing … Lew Koch! (Koch has been called “an old-fashioned ass-kicking Chicago investigative reporter, trained by the same guys who trained Seymour Hersh.”)
Mr. Koch will have to deal with things like unwritten rules barring the press from asking questions — even when court is not in session! (Just to be clear – this rule barring questions near the courtroom might well be reasonable under the circumstances, in order to protect the jury from overhearing something. But it would, I think, need to be formally ordered by the judge in writing or orally in open court, in order to be valid.)
Another good source for links to information is of course the judicious Southern District of Florida blog. Personally, I'm not going to try to blog every twist and turn, just the most interesting bits: I have exams to grade.
