(Watch video after the jump)

The defense has accused jurors of not being impartial in their deliberations. Last week, I talked to the presiding juror, who explained how the jury approached the case for a story published Sunday in the Eagle.

Marten has set a hearing for 9 a.m. June 29 to take up the arguments.

The men were convicted in April of conspiracy under the Racketeer Influence and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO. A sixth defendant was acquitted of racketeering charges but convicted of an ammunitions offense.

“We have jury instructions longer than the Psalms, except there is no poetry in them,” defense lawyer Paul McCausland said of the jury instructions given Friday by U.S. District Judge J. Thomas Marten.

That was just one of several biblical references by defense lawyers trying to explain complicated charges stemming from RICO, the 1970 Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations act.

Lengthy legal instructions frequently lose jurors with complex vocabulary, grammar and legal rhetoric, experts say.

“Bad jury instructions aren’t just ignored, they can also actively confuse jurors,” said Anne Reed, a trial lawyer and jury consultant from Milwaukee, in a discussion on Twitter.

While she hadn’t seen the packet for this trial, I asked Reed her definition of “bad” jury instructions.

“Frankly most instructions qualify,” she answered.

Dennis C. Elias, a social psychologist who runs a Phoenix jury consulting firm and blogs about juror issues, agreed that jurors don’t always understand complicated instructions.

“Jurors don’t share vocab, context, logic path, or meaning with authors of instructions,” Elias tweeted. “Confusion reigns as result.”

After U.S. District Judge J. Thomas Marten gives legal instructions and lawyers present closing arguments, the jury will get the case.

Marten gave jurors the day off Thursday, as he worked with the lawyers on finalizing the legal instructions that will guide the jury in reaching its verdict.

Follow live updates on the trial via Twitter.

Put yourself in the jurors’ seat for this exchange between Kristen Neuhaus and prosecutor Barry Disney during the trial of George Tiller Monday. Tiller is charged with performing abortions in an illegal business relationship with Neuhaus, another doctor.

In the following video, Neuhaus appears to take pains to keep from saying she “worked” for Tiller, even has she compares what she did in Wichita to a doctor she “worked for” in Kansas City, Kan. This video lasts less than three minutes. Jurors have had to listen to days of this kind of testimony:

U.S. District Judge J. Thomas Marten told defense counsel that he would allow me to file live posts, via Twitter, from his Wichita courtroom. Twitter is a micro-blogging social network platform that allows users to file and follow short posts of 140 characters or less.

“Twitter is on,” Marten told the lawyers in a brief hearing this afternoon. Marten said he will allow attorneys to file any objections they have for the record.

Marten is tech-savvy, and led efforts to make sure the renovation of the 1932 federal courthouse in Wichita included updates for a wired environment. The courthouse has wireless Internet connections that allow attorneys to access files back at their offices from the courtroom, for example.

I’ve covered several trials, hearings and other proceedings in state court during the past year. But this will be the first time I’ve been allowed to do it in federal court.

Federal court traditionally has tighter rules. For instance, federal courts do not allow cameras, video or audio recording in the courtroom.

“I don’t see this as prejudicial,” Marten said.

Marten will tell jurors not to view news coverage, including the posts on Twitter, which also feed into this blog and accompany related stories on Kansas.com.

Bloggers covered the federal trial of Scooter Libby in Washingon D.C., filing “live updates” while sitting in an adjacent press room in 2007.

A federal judge in Sioux City, Iowa allowed a reporter for the Cedar Rapids, Gazette to live blog a tax fraud trial last year.

• The details I don’t, and won’t, report about the brutality of the crime are the ones that keep me awake at night.
• There is no way to try to make sense of a senseless crime.
• Here’s something else that doesn’t make sense. Even after being convicted, under overwhelming evidence , Thurber told a psychologist a version of how he claimed to kill Sanderholm — by stabbing her — that could not be supported by any other physical evidence.
• Defense attorney Ron Evans gave one of the most stirring closing arguments I’ve ever heard. But even that didn’t convince a jury to spare Thurber’s life.
• In a country where everyone is guaranteed the right to a legal defense, I have to respect lawyers such as Ron Evans and Tim Frieden, who choose to represent defendants charged with the worst crimes.
• Cowley County Attorney Chris Smith asked that people remember the Thurber family’s suffering, even after he’d spent two years working to prosecute Thurber. I’ve known Smith for years, and that tells you how compassionate he is.
• For some, the stress doesn’t stop — assistant Kansas Attorney General Vic Braden will go from prosecuting this case to being deployed to Afghanistan for the Kansas National Guard in April.
• Cindy Sanderholm, Jodi’s mother, told me she realized that large groups of people had offered support to their family throughout the past two years, but Thurber’s family had little community support.
• Brian Sanderholm, whose family had been in the news spotlight for two years, thanked reporters after the trial for their sensitivity. It’s something you don’t hear often in my job.
• Burying myself in my stories is a way to deal with the pain I see in the courtroom.
• “It’s given me insight into our court system that I hadn’t had before.” Comments like that, from Skyler Lovelace, and others who follow my coverage on Twitter, remind me why my job is important.
• I woke up with chest pains Tuesday morning, before the verdict, caused by the anxiety of the trial.
• I was in tears on the drive back to Wichita from Winfield Tuesday, trying to absorb all the emotions I’d experienced.
• I celebrated my birthday and my wedding anniversary during the trial.
• I just have to sit in the courtroom and hear words and see pictures. The police are the ones who actually see the crime up close and live with it.
• I especially have to admire the police who sifted through the waste tank at the lakeside latrine where they retrieved Jodi Sanderholm’s shoes, jacket and belongings. Anyone who’s held their nose while using such a restroom can only imagine the dedication that must take.
• I wonder how Dave Falletti of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, the lead investigator of the case, digests all the brutality he’s seen.
• The police in Arkansas City, a town of 12,000, showed the same high level of investigative skills as what I’ve seen from Wichita police in similar cases. That speaks well of law enforcement training, no matter what the department’s size.
• After seeing the pictures of the crime scene and the state of Jodi Sanderholm’s body, I keep asking myself, “What would enrage someone to the point they’d be capable of this?”
• They were some of the most disturbing crime-scene photos I’d ever seen.
• I have no doubt Jodi Sanderholm was tortured.
• After I go through weeks like this, I make sure I have someone to talk to about the worst of it.
• I hope more testing is done on Thurber’s IQ and mental state before his death sentence is carried out.
• After a decade of covering capital murder trials, and seeing the violence people are capable of inflicting on each other, I’m still not sure how I feel about the death penalty.
• There is nothing more sobering than watching 12 people condemn another human being to die.

Now Andrea, 20, is volunteering with Wichita’s chapter of Parents of Murdered Children. Andrea and her family said Parents of Murdered Children helped them through their difficulty navigating the court system as they waited more than two years and watched three defendants in the case of Chelsea’s killing at age 14. It ended just two weeks ago with the sentencing of Elgin Robinson.

This week, Andrea was in court with another family enduring a tragic loss: that of Kailee Hundley, the 13-month-old girl who died accidentally at day care. Jessica Cummings, the day care provider, was convicted Wednesday of involuntary manslaughter, as Andrea helped console Kailee’s family.

“I decided I wanted to give something back,” Andrea said. “Because Corinne helped me so much.”

There’s rarely a murder trial in Wichita where you won’t see Corinne Radke, who founded the local chapter of Parents of Murdered Children. She has been a steady shoulder for the tears of those who have lost loved ones, as she lost her son, to violence. I’ve even seen Corinne in trials where we were the only ones in the gallery: no family for either the victim or defendant.

If you want to volunteer for, or need help from, Parents of Murdered Children, call the local office at 316-265-1600.

Judge Clark Owens said lawyers will try again next week, literally. A new trial has been set for Monday. That’s the same day as Jones’ murder trial is set to begin.

The court will decide Thursday whether either trial will proceed next week.

Kansas legislators enacted Magnum’s Law, or Scruffy’s Law, in 2006, when Apollo, a a four-month old Dachshund mix puppy, died of blunt force trauma. Witnesses said at a preliminary hearing in December that Eason threw the dog down the stairs.

Lawrence Williamson represents Eason; Aaron Smith is prosecuting. The trial is set to begin Monday before Judge Rebecca Pilshaw.

Also set for trial Monday is Tiffany Berry, charged with felony murder stemming from a home invasion robbery in which a man died.

Prosecutors say Miguel Moya was shot multiple times in a house at 104 E. Eighth St. and Keena Elam was injured in a robbery that netted just over $400 in cash.

Berry, 26, is the first of two defendants to go to trial. Michael E. Phillips, 26, remained at large in the Nov. 19 shooting until he was arrested after a traffic stop on July 6.

Richard Ney is defending Berry against prosecutor Margaret McIntire before Judge David Kaufman.