Rolling Hills murder trial - take two

Retrial gets underway this afternoon in Torrance for Joe Nino and Miguel Torres, who are accused of killing a friend they had disputes with. They allegedly conspired together to get a bullet in 20-year-old Juan Vasquez's head in a drainage ditch behind Rancho del Mar Continuation School in Rolling Hills in 2001.

They were convicted of capital murder in 2003 and sentenced to life in prison without parole.

However, their convictions were overturned in July 2007 by the appellate court, which found prosecutors wrongly booted minorities from the jury.

Opening statements will begin this afternoon, but not expected to conclude until tomorrow. We'll have a full story after everyone gets a turn in Friday's Daily Breeze. Until then, I'll try to do some updates here and Twitter bits from the courtroom @dbreezecourts. You can also check out my Twitter feed over there ---->

The trial is sure to have some drama, partly because Torres' attorney, Matthew Fletcher, is a, uh, strong advocate. We've heard he's already been tossed from the courtroom at least once by Judge Eric Taylor after refusing to drop an argument about whether his client should be called "Miguel" or "Michael" during trial. In the first trial, he was close to being held in contempt and jailed by now retired Judge James Ideman after Fletcher ignored Ideman's order to not ask a certain question of a witness. Fletcher has gone to jail on at least one other case.