I just left the Los Angeles Criminal Justice Center where I watched the arraignment of Howard K. Stern and two of the late Anna Nicole Smith’s doctors.  They’ve each been charged with felony conspiracy to furnish drugs to Smith and prescribing, administering or dispensing a controlled substance to an addict. Surrounded by more than a dozen lawyers, they pled not guilty to the charges brought against them.  The Commissioner took a recess to consult with the Coordinator for long-cause matters because, according to Stern’s attorneys, the preliminary hearing alone is anticipated to last two weeks.  Usually preliminary hearings can last an hour up to one day.  The long-cause coordinator approved the matter and the preliminary hearing is set for June 8 in Department 102. More details on this to come later today.

John Demjanjuk may have just taken the last flight of his life. Monday evening, the 89 year old retired Cleveland auto worker boarded a plane for a Munich prison, where an arrest warrant implicates him as an accessory to 29,000 murders as a Nazi death camp guard. The infirmed Ukrainian-born Demjanjuk and his family denies Germany’s accusations, saying he was held by the Germans solely as a Soviet prisoner of war. Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center said Demjanjuk deserves to be punished and that this will probably be the last trial of someone accused of Nazi war crimes. Demjanjuk will be brought before a judge and formally charged this week. We trust Lady Justice is now sharpening her sword deep in the Rhineland.