Thursday marks the second day of the juvenile court trial in eastern Ohio. The testimony focused on how phones belonging to the defendants and others were gathered by investigators.

Prosecutors and defense attorneys earlier had focused on the girl’s level of intoxication and whether she consented to sex.

The case has riveted the small city of Steubenville amid allegations that more students should have been charged. It made international headlines after pictures of the alleged attack began circulating on Facebook.

The hacker collective group Anonymous then threatened several people who witnessed the alleged attack apologize or face retribution.

Steubenville High School football players Trent Mays and Ma’Lik Richmond maintain their innocence.

A visiting judge is hearing the case without a jury.

Attorneys for 18-year-old T.J. Lane asked the trial judge in Geauga County east of Cleveland for permission to make their case in a sealed document.

The defense didn’t elaborate in the motion filed late Monday.

There was no immediate comment from prosecutors, who have opposed moving the trial. The judge has indicated he wants to wait and see if an unbiased jury can be selected in Chardon.

Lane’s trial is scheduled to begin Jan. 14. He faces up to life in prison without chance of parole if convicted in the attack last Feb. 27 at Chardon High School.

The jury started deliberations Thursday, resumed them Friday and took a long weekend off. They returned Tuesday to U.S. District Court in Cleveland.

The members of a breakaway Amish settlement are accused of hate crimes in what federal prosecutors say were attacks motivated by religious differences. They say the defendants cut off Amish men’s beards and women’s hair because the hair carries spiritual significance in their faith.

Defense attorneys acknowledge that the hair-cuttings took place but contend that prosecutors are overreaching by calling them hate crimes.

All the defendants could face lengthy prison terms if convicted.

Dewey Jones was sentenced to life in prison in 1995 for murder of an elderly man, but recent DNA testing showed blood found at the crime scene did not comes from Jones.

A Summit county judge yesterday ruled that throws into question the state’s entire case against Jones.

Attorney Anthony Vegh told a federal judge in Akron that information about the threat by Douglas Wright of Indianapolis when he was 12 years old would prejudice the jury.

The judge said Thursday he will take up the issue next month.

All five men have pleaded not guilty. They allegedly tried to detonate what turned out to be a dud bomb provided by an informant.

Brief details of the alleged school threat were included in a transcript of the FBI’s interview of Wright. He told the FBI agent he never carried through on the school threat. No bomb materials were found.

Derris Lewis sits calmly by his mother in a small conference room on East Livingston Avenue. He’s less than a mile down the road to Franklin County’s main jail where he spent the last year-and-a-half accused of murdering his twin brother, Dennis. Today he’s a free man.

Lewis and his mother, April Lewis, wear T-shirts with Dennis’s picture on the front. Above the photograph is the phrase “It Is What It Is”. They say that was Dennis’s motto: to let things be.

As media fills the room, mother and son share a tender moment.

“What can we do without each other? Nothin’”

After Lewis’s trial ended in a mistrial in March, Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O’Brien called for further testing of their only piece of evidence to link Lewis to his twin’s murder – a quote unquote “bloody palm print”. Contradictory testimonies during the trial from two expert fingerprint witnesses prompted the additional testing. One expert said Lewis’s print was in Dennis’s blood. The other said the print was above the blood. Tests yesterday concluded the print was not in blood. Lewis’s release from the jail was expedited.

One might think the 19-year-old would be angry, but he says he’s not.

“No. No. I’m not. I gave it to God,” Lewis said.

But he said he would like something from the Columbus Police. He’d like them to say they’re sorry. “I would like a public apology as far as what they put me through and me and my family period,” he said.

So why was the testing – that took one day – not done any sooner? Lewis’s attorney, Adam Nemann, agreed it should have been done earlier, but he explained why it was not.

“Fingerprint evidence is fallible. And so for us to concede it was his print would be saying a lot for a defense attorney. We wanted to challenge the evidence at trial just like in any other case. We did that. And in fact in the trial we conceded it was his print for the most part in our argument. Throughout the trial we never disputed the fact that it was his print as much as we disputed it was not his print in blood,” Nemann said.

While in jail Lewis said he read the Bible a lot. He said prayer got him through the nights. Lewis called his family very spiritual. When asked if he thought the mistrial – which in the end prompted his release – was a divine blessing he said yes.

“Oh, yes. That has been a blessing. I mean, it could’ve went the whole opposite. You know, it could’ve went a 360. But it didn’t. That was a true blessing. And I believe that after that that’s when everything was coming into place for this day. I’m sitting in front of you today. So yeah,” Lewis said.

Nemann said after the trial a juror told him had deliberations continued they likely would have delivered a not guilty verdict. Nemann said the juror said at the time the trial was declared a mistrial nine jurors wanted to acquit Lewis. Three others were on the fence.

Lewis indicated he may want to pursue a civil suit for his wrongful incarceration. “I lost my freedom and my education. And those are the two most important things that I have as a citizen of these United States. But, again, that’s not all, I would like a personal apology, but we will go further, you know,” he said.

Nemann said he and Lewis have not had time to discuss a civil suit but…

“I would not rule it out though,” Nemann said.

Lewis, who was an honors student, missed his senior year of high school. He said the good news is his college scholarships were reinstated.

“I’m still planning on being a buckeye,” he said.

But Lewis is not forgetting about Dennis’s murder, even though it’s considered a cold case. Lewis said he will not rest until it’s solved.

“I will find out who did this. You know, if it takes me way down the years. I will. I will find out,” Lewis said.

Dennis Lewis was bludgeoned and shot to death during a robbery at their mother’s Linden home in January last year. He was 17-years-old.

After a mistrial in March 19-year-old Derris Lewis set to go to trial again for the murder of his twin brother Dennis. Instead, he was released from the Franklin County Jail on South Front Street after spending almost 18 months behind bars. Lewis was accused of shooting his twin during a home invasion in January 2008.

“I would certainly say on behalf of the system that I would apologize for the confinement where the charges are dropped,” Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O’Brien said.

O’Brien said his office requested further testing of its key evidence, a quote unquote bloody palm print, after two expert witnesses gave conflicting testimonies during the first trial. One expert said the print was in blood, the other said it was above it.

O’Brien said testing showed the print belonged to Lewis, but there was no presence of blood on the print.

Lewis at one time had lived in the house and he used to visit his brother often. O’Brien says the mistake was made during the murder investigation.

“They did everything pretty much correctly other than the miscommunication about where the print was located on the wall and what substance it was located in,” he said.

Lewis faced life in prison is he had been convicted. Attempts to reach Lewis at his mother’s home were unsuccessful.

The defense called Dianne Lewis, Derris’ older sister, to testify. From the witness stand she described her brother Derris, who is accused of killing his twin, as the passive one.

“Derris was the peacemaker, he’s the peacemaker. He’s more like the preacher type you know he wants to make peace with everything,” she said.

She portrayed the victim, Dennis, as a “firecracker.”

“Dennis was the outspoken one.”

The defense claims a group of masked men committed the murder. Prosecutors have tried to establish money as a motive for why 19-year-old Derris may have killed his brother.

Dianne Lewis testified her brother Derris needed a new car at the time of the murder. His car had a bad transmission. Prosecutor Doug Stead cross-examined Dianne Lewis.

“How was he going to pay for it if his brother hadn’t been killed? We would’ve gave him money like we normally do,” she said.

Instead, Dianne gave Derris money donated to the family following Dennis’s death. Derris used it to buy a used car.

Dennis was killed in his mother’s home on the city’s East Side. Dianne testified family members, including Derris, cleaned the house once police had finished investigating it as a crime scene. She said during the clean up Derris found an envelope of money in his brother’s dresser. But prosecutor Stead suggests Derris may have planted that money.

“Do you know where they found that envelope? They said the third draw down. Who said that? Christian and Derris. Did you actually see them find the money? No, I was in the living room.”

But Dianne testified that Dennis did not save his money and money would not have been in the house.

“He’s a heavy spender. OK. What kind of things…Clothes and shoes. He’s crazy over clothes and shoes.”

In other testimony, Two former roommates of Derris’s say he was at his home at the time of the slaying.

The first trial for Charles McCoy Junior ended in a mistrial on Sunday after jurors deadlocked on whether to convict him or whether to find him not guilty by reason of insanity.

Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O’Brien says based on what he now knows about McCoy’s severe mental illness, he thinks dropping the death penalty specification is the appropriate thing to do.

He says the severity of McCoy’s paranoid schizophrenia would outweigh the aggravating circumstances in the death of 62-year-old Gail Knisley.

McCoy’s lawyers acknowledge he was the gunman. The issue during trial was whether his mental illness kept him from knowing his actions were wrong.

Defense attorney Michael Miller said after the meeting, “There’s not a shred of a chance that a jury would give him death.”