Celebrity Mound

Jury questioning begins Monday in the drug conspiracy trial of Anna Nicole Smith’s doctors and her lawyer-boyfriend, with prospective jurors quizzed on everything from their own medical histories to what they think about the charges.

Superior Court Judge Robert Perry hopes to have a panel seated in two days. Opening statements are scheduled for Wednesday.

The judge said questionnaires filled out by prospective jurors show most of them know something about the model’s life and death.

“I was a little disappointed with the responses to the question, ‘What have you learned about the case?’” he said. “The answers were, ‘Only what I saw on TV.’”

Perry indicated more needs to be known before a jury is selected for the trial of Dr. Sandeep Kapoor, Dr. Khristine Eroshevich and Howard K. Stern.

The defendants have pleaded not guilty to conspiring to illegally provide the former Playboy model with massive amounts of opiates and sedatives. They are not charged in Smith’s 2007 overdose death in Florida.

Perry said he won’t allow testimony about the cause of Smith’s death because it is not part of the charges.

“Most of the jurors have heard there was an overdose in Ms. Smith’s case,” he said. “Another case I’m aware of where a celebrity died, a doctor is charged with involuntary manslaughter in the death. You don’t have that here. ”

The reference was to the case of Dr. Conrad Murray, charged in the death of Michael Jackson.

Perry said it was clear the prosecutor would like to try the three defendants on a similar theory but there is no jurisdiction for that in Los Angeles.

“I don’t know why it wasn’t tried in Florida,” the judge said.

The case took a new twist Friday when Deputy District Attorney Renee Rose made the surprise announcement that she will allege that Smith was a coconspirator in the actions that brought the defendants to trial after Smith’s death. It was unclear how the claim could affect the case.

The judge said he found the new turn of events “remarkable.”

Rose also said she would claim Stern’s sister, Bonnie Stern, was another uncharged coconspirator, helping to arrange deliveries of drugs to Smith in the Bahamas. A phone listing for Bonnie Stern could not be found.

The judge barred several items from evidence, including a famous video of Smith in clown makeup, which prosecutors said showed she was drugged. Perry also said the 2006 drug overdose death of Smith’s son, Daniel Smith, is irrelevant and would not be explored.

The flamboyant judge brought to fame in the fight over Anna Nicole Smith’s remains says he believes someone is guilty of manslaughter in the starlet’s death and second-guesses his own decision over where she is buried in a book to be released Tuesday.

Larry Seidlin, the former Fort Lauderdale judge, is harshly critical of Smith’s lawyer-turned-companion Howard K. Stern, and of the police investigations into the deaths of the Playboy Playmate and her son. But as provocatively titled as “The Killing of Anna Nicole Smith” is, Seidlin offers no evidence either death was anything more than the accidental drug overdoses they were deemed.

“I think enablers should be punished,” Seidlin writes, then refers directly to Stern. “How about keeping her off drugs while she was alive? He was with her every day; how about saying no …”

Then, the judge says, “we won’t have all this celebrity blood on our hands.”

Seidlin presided over the six-day televised hearing into the fate of Smith’s body, shortly after her February 2007 death. His jurisdiction was limited to control of Smith’s body; Florida never charged anyone in connection with her death.

Seidlin’s hearing became a national obsession, with a cast of characters suited for reality TV. Bronx-born Seidlin, a former New York cab driver, was full of smart-alecky one-liners and nicknames for attorneys and witnesses. Dr. Joshua Perper, the medical examiner, became “Dr. Pepper” and lawyers were nicknamed “California” and “Texas,” after their home states.

“I’m not going to talk about this case ever again,” he promised at its close. But, of course, he did and he remained in the news, including the book from Canada-based Transit Publishing, which specializes in celebrity biographies.

In a phone interview Monday, Seidlin said he wrote the book because he was troubled by the deaths of Smith and her son. “When I was sitting in that trial,” he said, “red flags were flying in front of me and I had a lot of sleepless nights.”

Seidlin has also signed a deal for a television show called “Psychic Court,” in which he’ll seek the input of tarot card readers, astrologers and other psychics to help him decide family court and small claims disputes. He said it was slated to premiere in Fall 2011. Los Angeles-based production company Mighty Oak Entertainment said it’s shopping the show for syndication or cable.

Meanwhile, Stern and two of Smith’s doctors are scheduled to go on trial Aug. 4 on charges that they illegally funneled sedatives and opiates to the model. They have pleaded not guilty and are not charged with causing Smith’s death.

Seidlin says in the book that Stern “exercised a great amount of control over Anna Nicole by maintaining and reviewing her drug desires and addiction.” He calls for reopening investigations into the death of her 20-year-old son, Daniel Smith, in September 2006 and of the model five months later, noting Stern was present at both. He says police bungled the original investigations.

Stern’s attorney, Steve Sadow, said “Any allegations made by Judge Seidlin against Howard K. Stern are truly unworthy of response.”

Much of Seidlin’s book rehashes the Smith hearings, reprinting court transcripts with commentary mixed in. He tries to burnish his image as a judge, but also appears to question the one decision he made in the case.

“I want her buried with her son in the Bahamas,” he said through tears at the time. “I want them to be together.”

Throughout the book, though, Seidlin is sympathetic to Smith’s mother, Virgie Arthur, who fought for her estranged daughter’s burial in her native Texas. He calls for her reburial there, or possibly in California, saying “Her soul and Danny’s soul need to be placed on sacred ground in the Lone Star state with people who grew up with her and loved her in her simpler days.”

Lawyers for the estate of Anna Nicole Smith have appealed a ruling that gave her none of her late billionaire husband’s fortune.

The appeal filed Thursday seeks a full review by the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and continues a case that has outlived both parties.

In a March 19 ruling, a panel of the court sided with a Houston jury that decided in 2001 that Texas oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall never intended to leave any of his $1.6 billion estate to Smith.

Marshall’s will gave most of his estate to his son, E. Pierce Marshall.

David Margulies, a spokesman for the Marshall family, said Friday the family will continue to defend its case with the “same vigor and resolve it has in the past as this case hopefully nears an end.”

Smith and Marshall married in 1994. He was 89 and she 26.

Smith had argued that her elderly husband had promised to leave her more than $300 million.

The case previously reached the U.S. Supreme Court, and attorneys for Smith’s estate vow to again appeal to the nation’s high court if necessary.

Smith died of a drug overdose in 2008 and named her 3-year-old daughter Dannielynn as heir.

The former Playboy model’s ex-boyfriend Larry Birkhead and attorney Howard K. Stern were placed in charge of her estate.

Smith initially challenged the will in Houston probate court and lost.

However, a bankruptcy court in Los Angeles awarded her $474.75 million, which was later reduced to $89.5 million.

The legal dispute has centered on which court ruling to follow.

The elderly Texas billionaire who married Anna Nicole Smith in the last year of his life never intended to leave the former stripper any portion of his vast fortune, a federal appeals court ruled Friday.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with a Houston jury that said J. Howard Marshall was mentally fit and under no undue pressure when he wrote a will leaving nearly all of his $1.6 billion estate to his son E. Pierce Marshall and nothing to Smith.

The ruling was the latest development in the bitter 15-year legal battle. Smith said the elder Marshall promised her more than $300 million, even though there was no written documentation.

The fight between Smith and E. Pierce Marshall started in a sleepy Houston probate court and stretched all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court while outliving its two combatants.

It may reach the high court again.

Kent Richland, a lawyer for Smith’s estate vowed to appeal the latest ruling, possibly to the Supreme Court on different issues than those it first considered.

“It really is a unique decision,” Richland said. “We have to take it farther.”

Pierce’s widow and two sons said they hoped the legal battle was close to ending.

“Our only wish would be that Pierce were here to see his vindication,” the family said in a prepared statement.

The decision – if it holds up – is bad news for Smith’s ex-boyfriend Larry Birkhead and their 3-year-old daughter Dannielynn. The child was named Smith’s heir in 2008 after she died of a drug overdose at 39 at a Florida hotel.

Birkhead and attorney Howard K. Stern were placed in charge of Smith’s estate. Neither returned calls seeking comment.

Stern and two other people have pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiring to provide thousands of prescription pills to the former model before her death.

The convoluted dispute over J. Howard Marshall’s money has its roots in a Houston strip club where he met Smith. The two were wed in 1994 when he was 89 and she 26. Marshall died the next year and his will left his estate to his son.

Smith challenged the will in a Houston probate court, alleging the billionaire’s son illegally coerced his father to exclude the former Playboy model from sharing the estate. She alleged that her husband promised to leave her more than $300 million above the $7 million in cash and gifts showered on her during their 14-month marriage.

While the probate case was pending in Houston, Smith filed for bankruptcy in Los Angeles, alleging in federal court filings that her husband promised her a large share of the estate.

In late 2000, the bankruptcy court awarded Smith $474.75 million, which a federal district court judge reduced to $89.5 million in 2002.

Between those two decisions, a jury in the Houston probate court ruled in March 2001 against Smith. The jury found the billionaire was mentally fit and under no duress when he wrote out a will that left everything to his son.

Since then, the two sides have been fighting over which court to obey.

Smith argued that the federal courts were in charge because the bankruptcy court was the first to rule.

Pierce Marshall countered the decision was the jurisdiction of the probate court, because that’s where the first legal action was filed and the site of the only full-blown trial.

“Every piece of evidence was considered and every witness exhaustively examined,” said Eric Brunstad, the Marshall family’s lawyer. “That really should have been the end of it.”

On Friday, the unanimous three-judge panel said the bankruptcy court didn’t have the authority to decide a probate dispute and thus its $474.75 million award was only an advisory opinion.

The appeals court also said U.S. District Court Judge David Carter should have relied on the probate jury’s decision against Smith and tossed the case entirely instead of merely reducing the award to $89.5 million.

A judge has denied a request from prosecutors in the Anna Nicole Smith case to show in court three photographs of the late celebrity model and her psychiatrist, saying the images would further sensationalize a hearing and appear on television and the internet if they were presented as evidence.

The pictures were not described in court, but a search warrant affidavit refers to a scene of Smith and her psychiatrist Dr. Khristine Eroshevich naked in a bathtub.

“I don’t want to sensationalize this hearing any more than it has already been sensationalized,” Superior Court Judge Robert J. Perry said Monday.

Deputy District Attorney Renee Rose, who argued for admission of the photos, said that they would illustrate the lack of professionalism in Eroshevich’s doctor-patient relationship with Smith.

“We are not trying to be salacious,” Rose said. “We did not create these photographs.”

Perry said he already understood the prosecution’s argument about a doctor-patient relationship being “blurred,” and he suggested prosecutors did not need the pictures to bolster their case.

Eroshevich and co-defendants, Dr. Sandkeep Kapoor and Howard K. Stern, Smith’s former lawyer-boyfriend, are charged with conspiring to illegally provide Smith with controlled substances.

A preliminary hearing is being held to determine whether there is enough evidence to order the defendants, who have pleaded not guilty, to stand trial. The three are not charged in the death of Smith who succumbed to an overdose of at least nine different medications on Feb. 8, 2007.

The judge said prosecutors have “put on a rather compelling case of excessive prescribing” by Eroshevich.

Her attorney, Adam Braun, objected to showing the photos, saying the publicity would prejudice potential jury members for an eventual trial.

Proceedings were set to resume Tuesday when focus is expected to shift to Kapoor, Smith’s personal physician who prescribed medication to her for pain. An expert in pain management was scheduled as the next witness.

Dr. Timothy Botello, an expert in psychiatry, testified Monday that he concluded from reviewing records in the case that Smith was addicted to prescription drugs and Eroshevich should have known it. He said he could find no legitimate medical reason for the dosages she was prescribing for Smith toward the end of her life.

“Given the history of substance abuse, you would be careful to give the lowest amount” of drugs, he said.

Testimony indicated Eroshevich began her relationship with Smith as a friend and neighbor. Botello said that made it doubly important that she separate the personal and medical relationships while prescribing drugs.

Testimony suggested that Eroshevich was trying to help Smith recover from the 2006 death of her son, Daniel, when she began prescribing sedatives.

Braun has said that Eroshevich acted with good intentions.