Michael Jackson Pre-Trial Hearing Today
DARYN KAGAN, ANCHOR: The Michael Jackson case goes back to court this hour. But don't expect that circus-like atmosphere that surrounded his arraignment last month. Our senior legal analyst, Jeffrey Toobin, is in Santa Maria, California, for today's pretrial hearing. And Jeffrey, I imagine things look quite different in front of the courthouse this morning.</s>JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN LEGEL ANALYST: Hey, D.K. Yes, it's a little bit more of a serene scene here today. Maybe a couple of dozen fans, but I am standing about 30 feet from that surreal -- where that surreal scene took place a few weeks ago, where Michael Jackson danced on top of his SUV. Michael Jackson will not be in court today. It should be a fairly straightforward proceeding, but there are going to be a lot of important issues discussed in the case.</s>KAGAN: We'll talk about those issues in just a second. But to compare celebrity trials here, why is it okay for Michael Jackson not to show up for these pre-trial hearings but, for instance, we see Kobe Bryant at almost every one of his?</s>TOOBIN: Well, it really is up to the judge and the parties in the case. It is not all that unusual for defendants to be excused from proceedings in criminal cases. It's just a matter of getting the judge's permission in advance, getting the prosecutor's permission in advance. Obviously if someone -- it has to be consistent with their bail conditions. But it's not common to miss pretrial proceedings, but it does happen as long as the judge gives permission.</s>KAGAN: All right. Let's look at some of the business of the day. No. 1, setting a date for the preliminary hearing.</s>TOOBIN: Right, that will be the day when the prosecution lays out its evidence for the first time. As many people remember from the Robert Blake preliminary hearing, the O.J. Simpson, Scott Peterson preliminary hearings, all in California, they tend to be rather short, you know, at most about a week. And the government can put on hearsay evidence, so it means basically police officers testify about what they learned in the course of their investigation, and the government virtually never loses one of these. That should be set. The date should be set based on the usual practice here in about six weeks. And that will be the time when the government really has to lay out its case for the first time, because we don't really know what the government's evidence is in this case.</s>KAGAN: All right. Well, and part of that is the media would really like to see inside some search warrants, and there's going to be a push for that. What's the likelihood of that happening?</s>TOOBIN: Well, that is the -- really the big issue today, because the news media has asked for the search warrants to be release -- the affidavits in support of search warrants. And that's where the government lays out why it searched Neverland, what it thought it was going to find there, and that's really going to be the core of the government's case. For that reason, the defense has said, don't release this material. It will be too prejudicial; it will be played everywhere. It will damage Michael Jackson's chance at a fair trial. At the arraignment, the judge agreed to keep it secret, but that decision will be reviewed today. And the defense feels very strongly, and it's going to fight very hard to keep that secret today.</s>KAGAN: All right. Jeffrey Toobin will be tracking it for us from lovely Santa Maria, California. Jeff, thank you for that.