Now that the last patiens have been removed, the Administrator of King Harbor hospital in Los Angeles has a new mission:  Save the hospital.

The judge in the Phil Spector murder trial ruled Tuesday that the defense violated evidence rules by presenting surprise testimony that Lana Clarkson did not immediately die after she was shot at the record producer’s Alhambra mansion four years ago.

"There is a deliberate, knowing violation of discovery," Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler said, citing the law that requires attorneys to preview trial evidence for their opponents, so that the other side has a fair chance at rebuttal.

The defense’s violation involved a dramatic courtroom revelation by forensic pathologist Michael Baden, who said scientific evidence indicated that Clarkson had lived for several minutes after she was shot. Baden testified that Clarkson’s lungs tripled in weight after filling with blood and other body fluids — an indication, he said, that she lived for several minutes after the fatal shot.

The coroner testified that Clarkson died instantly after the bullet severed her spine.

Baden’s assertion could explain the presence of Clarkson’s blood on Spector’s jacket, which prosecutors have argued indicates that he was holding the gun when the actress was wounded. The defense argues that Spector rendered aid to Clarkson after she shot herself and that she could have coughed up blood, staining his jacket.

With jurors cleared from the courtroom, prosecutor Alan Jackson said the defense had "sandbagged and blindsided" him by not giving notice that it would present Baden’s theory. Jackson heatedly questioned Baden, at one point stopping himself to calm down.

The judge said he needed time to think about a sanction to impose on the defense.

Despite its explosive nature, Baden’s testimony did not visibly stir Spector. Moments after Baden said that Clarkson had clung to life after her shooting, the defendant was slumped in his chair with his eyes shut.

Oakland lawyer Jon Eisenberg calls the case of Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation v. George W. Bush the strangest he has ever handled. How strange? Eisenberg was required to write one of his briefs in a windowless government office, without notes or lawbooks, under the watchful eye of two federal security guards.

When he got hungry, one of the guards brought him a banana. And when he finished, a security official shredded all his drafts — and even the banana peel, Eisenberg said.

The brief-writing session was just one facet of the extraordinary secrecy surrounding the Al-Haramain case, Eisenberg said. Al-Haramain is one of dozens of plaintiffs across the nation that have filed suit, claiming they were illegally spied on by the government as part of the war on terror.

In most of the cases, including Al-Haramain’s, the government has contended that any disclosure about the surveillance program would reveal state secrets and has refused to say whether the plaintiffs were wire-tapped. It has then moved to dismiss the complaints.

But in the Al-Haramain case, the Treasury Department inadvertently disclosed National Security Agency call logs stamped "top secret" indicating that the charity and two of its attorneys had been surveilled. Last year, U.S. District Judge Garr King ruled that the logs — referred to in the court papers as "The Document" — gave the charity standing to sue in federal court.

Today, Eisenberg and Justice Department lawyer Thomas Bondy will each have 20 minutes to argue over King’s decision before a three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Although the argument will be conducted in public, much of the information in the case, including what was in "the Document," remains veiled in mystery.

Many of the government’s motions have been filed under seal, and those lodged publicly contain gaps; one government brief reads: "REDACTED TEXT. PUBLIC TEXT CONTINUES ON PAGE 6."

Some of Eisenberg’s briefs have been redacted as well, because they are considered too sensitive for the public to see. But although Justice Department lawyers can see Eisenberg’s redactions, he isn’t allowed to see theirs.

In the Al-Haramain case, Eisenberg has had to respond to a government filing he was not allowed to see.

Asked Monday if there was any way, under the government’s interpretation of the law, that someone could contest the surveillance program, a senior Justice Department official replied, "In the current context, no."

Georgetown University constitutional law professor David Cole, who is not involved in this case but has represented individuals in similar situations, said the Al-Haramain case presented a daunting undertaking for a lawyer — and a threat to the rule of law.

The Justice Department is putting the final touches on regulations that could give any Attorney General important new sway over death penalty cases in various states, including the power to shorten the time that death row inmates have to appeal convictions to federal courts.

The rules implement a little-noticed provision in last year’s reauthorization of the Patriot Act that gives the attorney general the power to decide whether individual states are providing adequate counsel for defendants in death penalty cases. The authority has been held by federal judges.

Under the rules now being prepared, if a state requested it and if the Attorney General agreed, prosecutors could use "fast track" procedures that could shave years off the time that a death row inmate has to appeal to the federal courts after conviction in a state court.

The move to shorten the appeals process and effectively speed up executions comes at a time of growing national concern about the fairness of the death penalty, underscored by the use of DNA testing to establish the innocence of more than a dozen death row inmates in recent years.

Amid the public debate, the number of people executed in the U.S. has declined steadily since the mid-1990s.

And, o f course, there is the political side as this move gives the Democrats another reason to critize Atty. General Gonzales and blame the execution of innocents on President Buish. Then there are the bleeding hearts that say the way the states administer a three-drug lethal cocktail unnecessarily risks excessive pain for the inmate and therefore violates the constitutional bar against cruel and unusual punishment. Of course, nobody seems to care about the excessive pain the convict inflicted on his or her victim.

Prosecutors say many death penalty cases take far too long to resolve even when the issue of guilt is clear. Especially in the West, where the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco has blocked many executions, cases can take decades to wind through the courts. In its most recent term, the U.S. Supreme Court restored the death penalty in three cases in which the 9th Circuit had reversed the sentence.

One of the cases involved a two-time Arizona murderer who told the sentencing judge: "If you want to give me the death penalty, just bring it right on." He was sentenced in 1990.

Some Arizona officials say the new procedures are long overdue. "If you are going to have the death penalty at all, it shouldn’t take 20 to 25 years," said Kent Cattani, the chief capital litigation counsel in the Arizona attorney general’s office. "Either get rid of it altogether, or try to have a good system in state courts and then accelerate it through the federal courts."

It would also impose strict guidelines on federal judges for deciding such inmates’ petitions. Federal district judges would have 450 days, appeals courts 120 days. Proponents say that would prevent foot-dragging by liberal judges.