Silva: Each NFL team enters the offseason with a series of pressing needs. Sometimes a team can address them all, sometimes they ignore them all. But if a team's smart, they'll listen to us. These are the most crucial aspects for NFC teams.
SportsTalk: Albert Pujols signs with the Angels and Prince Fielder joins the Tigers. Which team is better now?
Ryan Callahan scored for the fifth time in four days and defenseman Ryan McDonagh snapped a second-period tie to lift the New York Rangers to a 3-2 victory over the Washington Capitals on Sunday.
Kobe Bryant hit a baseline jump shot with 4.2 seconds left and the Los Angeles Lakers wrapped up a six-game road trip by holding on to beat the Raptors 94-92 on Sunday, their eighth victory in nine meetings with Toronto
Arc's five up, five down: After No. 11 Michigan State's 58-48 upset of No. 3 Ohio State, you'd be a fool to discount the Spartans' national title chances now.
Miami coach Al Golden says the worst is behind him, but his headaches figure to continue now that former booster Nevin Shapiro, now in jail, says his involvement with the Hurricanes program will result in stiff penalties.
Golf's dream pairing - Woods and Mickelson - is on the course in the final round at Pebble Beach. Jason Sobel has hole-by-hole reports.
The United States completed a 5-0 rout of Switzerland in the Davis Cup on Sunday, with 19-year-old Ryan Harrison and John Isner winning closing singles matches.
Euro Roundup: First-place Manchester City won 1-0 at Aston Villa on Sunday on Joleon Lescott's goal in the 63rd minute, maintaining its two-point lead over Manchester United in the Premier League.
Tessa Worley of France fought off gusting winds to win a second consecutive World Cup giant slalom Sunday in the Andorran Pyrenees. Overall leader Lindsey Vonn was more than a second behind and finished eighth.
Robins: It’s the Year of the Dragon on the Lunar calendar, and this Chinese influence could extend to it also being the year of the Pekingese on the green carpet at the 136th Westminster Dog Show on Tuesday.
TRENTON, N.J. - Legal experts are hailing Jayson Williams’ lawyers for their brilliant defense of the former NBA star, acquitted of killing a limousine driver at his mansion.
Williams was exonerated on the most serious count, aggravated manslaughter, but was convicted on four of six lesser charges related to the death of Costas “Gus” Christofi. Williams could be retried on a charge of reckless manslaughter, which the jury was divided on.
Williams’ attorneys were able to win the acquittal by bogging down prosecutors with testimony from weapons experts that diverted the jury’s attention from the shooting, the observers said after the verdicts were announced Friday.
Defense attorney David M. Schwartz said prosecutors did a “thorough job” but were forced into playing the defense’s game — allowing weapons experts and the allegations of a misfiring shotgun to blur what should have been the main thrust of the state’s case: the killing itself.
“I think sometimes prosecutors, especially in these cases, have a tendency to overcomplicate the case and I think that’s where the gun expert testimony came in,” Schwartz said. “Just the fact that he pointed a loaded gun while being drunk at another human being, that alone was recklessness.”
John J. Fahy, a former prosecutor who now does defense work, said prosecutors made a big mistake by withholding notes and photographs of a weapons expert from the defense. The disclosure of the evidence late in the trial allowed the defense to reopen its case after a three-week delay.
Fahy said it did not matter whether the jury understood the legal issue but said the delay made the difference.
“All they’ve been hearing about is gun stuff, gun stuff, gun stuff, so when they got into the jury room all they were thinking is gun stuff, gun stuff, gun stuff,” Fahy said.
“For five weeks all they’ve been focusing on is the gun. They kept their focus on that and that’s why there was no conviction as to the shooting.”
Williams’ lawyers have preserved several issues they could raise on appeal.
One of the most relevant points deals with a charge of fabricating physical evidence. The jury found Williams guilty of providing clothes not worn during the shooting. That might be grounds for appeal because the defense has argued that Williams turned over the clothes after the police requested them.
A detective testified he asked Williams for his clothes so Williams turned them over. The clothes, however, were ones Williams had changed into after the shooting.
The defense said it was not up to Williams to read the mind of the officer. He had given the bloody clothes to a friend.
Other appeal possibilities deal with charges of improper conduct by the prosecutor before two grand juries that returned indictments against Williams, allegations that were rejected by the trial judge.
The defense also accused the prosecution of improperly excluding black men from the 16 jurors who were empaneled, but the judge found no wrongdoing.
The defense also sought a dismissal of all charges in April, accusing the prosecutor of misconduct in connection with the withheld notes and photographs. The prosecutor admitted that he failed to give some material to the defense before the trial started. He turned it over after the defense rested, but said the error was inadvertent.
The defense maintained it was part of a pattern of egregious behavior that deprived Williams of a fair trial, but the judge said it was unintentional and could be corrected by allowing the defense to reopen its case.
Kobe Bryant hit a baseline jump shot with 4.2 seconds left and the Los Angeles Lakers wrapped up a six-game road trip by holding on to beat the Raptors 94-92 on Sunday, their eighth victory in nine meetings with Toronto
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Silva: Each NFL team enters the offseason with a series of pressing needs. Sometimes a team can address them all, sometimes they ignore them all. But if a team's smart, they'll listen to us. These are the most crucial aspects for NFC teams.