Stories you shouldn’t miss:
1. After winning some key pretrial victories, defense lawyers for Johannes Mehserle are going for more, asking a judge to exclude testimony about an angry confrontation between Oscar Grant and then-BART cop Anthony Pirone just before Mehserle killed Grant, the Trib reports. Mehserle’s lawyer Michael Rains doesn’t want the jury to hear about a shouting match between Grant and Pirone in which Pirone punched Grant and hurled a racial slur at him. Rains says the testimony could prejudice the jury against Mehserle, even though he wasn’t involved in the confrontation. But if Mehserle heard the exchange, then it could help the jury decide whether the ex-BART cop shot Grant on purpose or by accident.
