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The Harvey Weinstein rape case will not be just another celebrity trial, but rather a focal point for a worldwide reckoning on sexual violence and workplace gender discrimination.

Weinstein’s attorneys, led by star litigator Benjamin Brafman, will have their work cut out in finding jurors who can set that context aside and evaluate the case with fresh eyes.

“I think this is almost an impossible case to win for Brafman,” said Bennett Gershman, a professor of law at Pace University in New York, who predicts that the case will not even get to a trial. “Weinstein is the poster boy for sexual predatory conduct. He’s the most reviled sexual predator in memory. There are so many pressures on Weinstein to avoid a trial and take a plea.”

It is, of course, early to say how the case will go. Weinstein faces three counts, including first degree rape, third degree rape,...

A California man who spent two decades in prison on attempted murder and robbery charges was released on Tuesday by a Los Angeles judge, according to NBC Los Angeles.

Marco Contreras, now 41, was originally convicted of attempted murder and attempted robbery for a 1996 incident at a Compton gas station, according to a letter from prosecutors that was obtained by People. He was serving a life sentence plus seven years.

Now, he’s looking forward to good Mexican food and time spent with family and on his faith, according to CBS Los Angeles.

“Keep fighting,” Contreras said in Spanish after his release,...

Chicago — Accustomed to wearing Vera Wang gowns on red carpets, singing at the Grammys or autographing her weight-loss memoir, Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson will take on a new role under a very different spotlight – in Chicago's drab criminal courts building at the trial of the man charged with murdering her mother, brother and 7-year-old nephew.

The Hollywood star's presence, and the accompanying media hubbub, is bound to affect the proceedings, which begin Monday. That's when presiding Judge Charles Burns plans to start questioning would-be jurors one by one, trying to weed out anyone who could be swayed by Hudson's celebrity status.

Hudson is expected to be at the trial every day once testimony begins, court officials say, and she's on the 300-name list of witnesses who could testify. While the judge will warn prospective jurors to avoid watching TV coverage of the trial, they may see Hudson on "American Idol" on Thursday.

Legal experts say that a new inquiry into the 30-year-old death of actress Natalie Wood is highly unlikely to lead to charges against the late actress’ husband, Robert Wagner, or anyone else. “Based on what we’ve heard so far, the chances [of the investigation leading to criminal charges] are zero to nothing,” Laurie Levenson, a professor at Loyola Law School, Los Angeles, told TheWrap. “I would classify this as silliness -- not the drowning, which was tragic, but the idea that 30 years later a witness comes forward and tells what he...

Witness says Wood fought with husband Robert Wagner on fatal night but sheriff's department denies he is suspect

At the time, they called it the curse of Rebel Without a Cause: Natalie Wood's principal co-stars in that seminal film of 1950s teenage rebellion – James Dean and Sal Mineo – had both met untimely deaths, Dean in a car crash and Mineo murdered. On 29 November 1981, it was Wood's turn.

The triple Oscar nominee, who played Maria in West Side Story and turned Warren Beatty's young head in Splendor in the Grass, fell overboard and drowned after a drunken party on the yacht she owned with her husband, Robert Wagner. She was 43.

The incident awakened the armchair Agatha Christie in many newspaper pundits and gossipmongers. Was it significant, they wondered, that Wagner and their guest that evening, the actor Christopher Walken, had argued bitterly? Had either man made enough of...

Week two of the Conrad Murray trial gets underway Monday morning, and the doctor has already taken quite a pummeling. With prosecutors effectively laying out their case in week one, the defense faces an uphill battle. Last week, lead defense attorney Ed Chernoff (below) revealed his team's strategy -- to show that it wasn't just the Propofol administered by Murray that killed Jackson, it was an additional dose that the singer took himself. "That's a tough way to go," said former federal prosecutor Laurie Levenson, now director of the Center for Ethical Advocacy at Loyola...

By Alex Dobuzinskis

Los Angeles (Reuters) - Michael Jackson's former doctor faces a tough challenge clearing himself of involuntary manslaughter charges in the pop star's death as his trial, which promises to avoid many dark aspects of Jackson's life, begins with jury selection this week.

While it is Dr. Conrad Murray, who will be on trial when attorneys begin selecting a panel on Thursday, the "Thriller" singer's infamy will loom large over the proceedings.

Jackson was one of the world's most recognizable singers, dubbed the King of Pop, when he died in June 2009, at age 50. He also was known to have battled an addiction to painkillers, and Murray's attorneys had hoped to present evidence of his past drug use at the trial.

But in an obstacle for the defense, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Michael Pastor barred testimony from a half-dozen doctors whom Murray's attorneys had indicated in court...

It'll cost how much? In 1998, Nancy Myers directed a remake of Disney's "The Parent Trap". The budget was widely believed to have been in the $80 million range. At the time, it seemed like a lot of money for a film without an A-list star. As of Tuesday, it seemed like the good old days. Delivering its annual report, the MPAA took the wraps off a domestic boxoffice record ($9.63 billion), an international boxoffice record ($26.7 billion) and this number: $106.6 million. That's the average negative and marketing cost on a major studio production these days. It's also $5 million more than the average a year ago. News at the studios' specialty divisions was no better, with the cost of a specialty unit title jumping 54% to $74.8 million.

Two for one: Columbia Pictures hasn't had a president since 1999 -- now it has two. The studio this week bumped up co-heads of production Doug Belgrad and Matt Tolmach to share the post last held by Amy Pascal. The move locks in a team that helped put Sony atop the studio heap in 2004 and '06 with such hits as "Casino Royale", "The Da Vinci Code", "Superbad" and the "Spider-Man" franchise.

Pellicano watch: Bombshells. That's what we're all hoping for, right? That, and the prospect of Anthony Pellicano cross-examining Farrah Fawcett (she is on the witness list, y'know). Whatever emerges from the former P.I.'s trial on wiretapping charges that began this week, you can be sure that someone's going through the mud. "It's what is making people out there nervous," Loyola Law School professor Laurie Levenson says.