Court TV Host: Chat with former prosecutor, Hofstra University criminal law professor, and author Alafair Burke. Chat about her newest crime thriller, Close Case, as well as her analysis of the Edgar Ray Killen case and the Michael Jackson acquittal. Close Case, Burke's third novel featuring her character, deputy district attorney Samantha Kincaid, is about the murder of an investigative reporter. Read an excerpt of the book.

Court TV Host: Alafair Burke, welcome, thanks for being our guest this afternoon.

Alafair Burke: Thanks for having me. Just to introduce myself, I'm a criminal law professor at Hofstra Law School in New York. I am also a graduate of Stanford Law School and was previously a prosecutor in Portland, Oregon I sometimes sit in on Catherine Crier Live as a guest, and, of course, I have a third novel coming out, Close Case, that features Deputy District Attorney Samantha Kincaid. And I didn't write it in crayons :-)

Question from Andrea: I'd like to hear Ms. Burkes opinion of the MJ trial if that's okay?

Question from Bubblegum: What is your analysis of the Michael Jackson acquittal?

Alafair Burke: My perspective is as a former prosecutor. When you have a child accusing an adult of molestation, and that adult has previously been accused of the same conduct and admits sleeping in a bed with the accuser and other children, I think you have to take that claim seriously. I think the prosecution did what it could with the evidence it had, but ultimately the standard of "beyond a reasonable doubt" can be an extremely tough one, especially with the credibility problems in this case, particularly of the mother. I took the jury verdict not as vindication, or an affirmative finding that MJ was innocent, but instead as a finding that they just weren't sufficiently convinced given the legal standard.

Question from truthseeker: As a former prosecutor, Alafair, how do you think the Jackson prosecution team should have been better prepared?

Alafair Burke: I don't think the problem was lack of preparation. If anything, they threw so much evidence as the jury, some of it of questionable relevance, that there were days where they probably lost the jurors. If they hadn't pursued the conspiracy count, it would have been possible to keep the mother off the stand, or at least reduce her importance. She was so combative and confrontational on the stand, and had such credibility problems, that I think her issues bled over into the jurors' consideration of the accuser's credibility. She is the one who primarily raised the boy, and has access to him of course throughout the accusation and the trial. Jurors ultimately may not have been able to separate their assessment of the accuser from their opinion of his mother.

Question from Deano_unplugd: Why the title "Close Call?"

Alafair Burke: It's Close Case, actually. No problem But the title refers to Samantha Kincaid's willingness to try a "close case." I said, for example, that I thought the MJ prosecutors did the most they could with the evidence they had. The jury could have gone either way. That's a close case, and it takes a tough prosecutor to be willing to go after a trial like that.

Question from GTE: Portland, Oregon? That's where I am from.

Alafair Burke: I was a prosecutor there for several years before I moved to New York to join the Hofstra faculty. My novels are also set there. It's a terrific, beautiful, interesting city. It's also a great place to set a mystery novel in. It's big enough to have its share of corruption, tawdry tales, and crime, but small enough that a prosecutor like my fictional Samantha Kincaid will know most of the cops and political types.

Question from Deano_unplugd: 10 'not guilty' verdicts -- that's close?

Alafair Burke: It also took a week of what the jury said were tough deliberations were them to decide. What I mean by a close case is a trial where the prosecutor knows it's going to be a tough fight, but believes it's a fight worth taking on. In my book, Close Case, Kincaid has to fight to keep every piece of evidence in as she pursues the murderer of an investigative reporter. That's what I mean by close.

Question from Andrea: I was wondering as a prosecutor how did you leave work at work and not bring some of the trial home with you?? Didn't some of the cases just keep you up at night??

Alafair Burke: That to me was the hardest part of the job and, quite frankly, why I eventually chose to become a law professor instead. I remember the night after I went to a training session on child sex abuse. I had spent two full days watching videos of children talking about what daddy did to them and where uncle Joe had touched them. I saw doctors point to slides depicting the physical evidence of child abuse during exams. I went home and just couldn't have a normal night. Those images stayed with me in bed. I have a ton of admiration for the people who can pick up that gauntlet for life, but I wasn't one of them.

Question from googler: How did you come up with the character of Samantha Kincaid? Is she a lot like you?

Alafair Burke: Sam's taller, funnier, hotter, and can run way faster than me! But, sure, she's sort of an alter ego. She works in the same DA's Office I was in, runs with the same kind of crowd, and has the same sensibilities as me for the most part. A little more neurotic and hot-tempered, though, to make it interesting. I started the books right after I left the D.A's Office, so she very much embodies my experiences there.

Question from Alice: Will the trial of Killen go on if he's hospitalized?

Alafair Burke: I know of one case where a trial was held without the defendant in the courtroom, but there was overwhelming evidence the defendant had intentionally made himself unavailable. If Killen's not able to attend court, the judge will be in a difficult spot. He could excuse the jurors for now and wait a few days to see if they can resume, but he's got them sequestered. I can't imagine, though, that he'll continue the trial in Killen's absence.

Question from Andrea: Oh, so some of the characters in the DA's office are based on your former coworkers?

Alafair Burke: No. Real people belong in the real world, and fictional people should be fictional. I do hope that the atmosphere of a courthouse and the interaction between police and prosecutors that I show in the books is realistic, though. My one exception is that I have one friend in the books, David Lesh, who is what you'd call a "real character." He kindly agreed to let me use him as a character, and he appears as a judge in the books. A very funny, off-color judge.

Question from JERRY: Alafair, are you related to James Lee Burke?

Alafair Burke: JLB's my father. He's delighted to see someone else in the family start writing some fiction. My law degree's only use for his purposes was interpreting every move on Law & Order!

Court TV Host: In "Close Case," there's a detailed description of a coerced confession -- how close are the police tactics in that passage to actual police tactics you've seen?

Alafair Burke: That's actually my favorite part of the book. I spent the most time writing that chapter than perhaps any other, because I wanted to show what the pressures of an interrogation room can be like. With recent exonerations of defendants based on DNA evidence, we now know that innocent people sometimes admit guilt, which is completely counterintuitive. In the scene in the book, Detective Mike Calabrese never pulls out the proverbial rubber house, or smacks the suspect upside the head with a phone book ala Sipowitz. But the prolonged questioning, the psychological pressure, the misleading question, the shifts in dynamics - all of it can be enough that you begin to question whether the suspect is really admitting to what he did, or whether he's just saying what he thinks he's supposed to say to get the questioning to end. And that atmosphere of the interrogation room is something the jurors will never see unless the entire session is videotaped. All they'll get is the confession itself.

Question from LawMan: Why even answer questions?

Alafair Burke: It's amazing, isn't it? In the books, I talk about "the out." "The out" is what every suspect thinks he's going to find if he's just smart enough. The out's the story that's going to let him leave the cell that night. But they rarely find it. They just dig themselves in, even though they've been read their rights. Sometimes they're even eager to sign the waiver. It's the oddest thing I've ever seen.

Court TV Host: In that passage in the book you go on to say "It's the belief in the out that convinces suspects to waive their rights...locking themselves into an untenable defense from which they cannot escape at trial." If there's one thing in our society you think people would learn from watching not only cop shows, but also televised trials, it would be that point -- don't talk to the police and certainly don't talk to the police without a lawyer -- why is it that so many people who are interrogated have NOT learned that?

Alafair Burke: I'm convinced it takes a incredible amount of fortitude to invoke. By invoke, I mean assert your Fifth Amendment Miranda rights. Imagine it - you're in custody, you're about to spend a night in jail, the police are confronting you with evidence that suggests you did it. The average person thinks, "Hey, if I don't say something, they're going to assume they're right about me and start shoring up their case. I better think of something." Interestingly, the familiar Miranda warnings we all know tell a defendant he has a right to remain silent and that anything he says can be used, but it doesn't really make clear that his silence CANNOT be used against him. And the reality is that silence does create the appearance of guilt. Jurors might not be allowed to consider it, but they probably do at some level. And during the investigation, it clearly makes a difference when the police are deciding how to steer an investigation. Can you imagine what we all would have thought if the runaway bride's fiancé had refused to talk to the police? So, yeah, we all know our rights. But then the reality of human psychology kicks in, and people sign their waivers and start babbling.

Question from AZMimi: Society should be grateful they have not learned that lesson, doesn't it boil down to the fact the suspect thinks he is smarter than the system and can beat it?

Alafair Burke: I get my students in criminal procedure to think through that question all the time. Should we feel sorry for defendants who confess when they should have kept quiet, or consent to searches when they shouldn't? Or should we be happy they're so stupid? Your views on that are probably shaped around your views of police and suspects, and also whether you assume most of these people are actually guilty.

Question from Julie2inCA: I had to explain Fifth Amendment rights to my autism spectrum son. I told him that the police will sometimes promise things to get you to confess, even if you didn't do it.. He asked me, "Where is the honor, Mom?" Where is that honor behind the badge and do you have any insights as to why they continue to interrogate this way?

Alafair Burke: Because when a cop is convinced he's got the right person in the box, and thinks the only way to give the prosecutor a slam dunk is to get the confession, he'll steer the conversation in any way the Supreme Court lets him do it. Police are allowed to use at least some deception in interrogations, and so they do it all the time. The problem, of course, is what if they're wrong? What if the guy's innocent and confesses anyway? That's one of the things I explore in the new book, Close Case.

Question from JERRY: Have any of your books been made into a movie?

Alafair Burke: Not with my permission - ha! No, I haven't had any conversations with Hollywood that are worth talking about. I don't suppose Angelina Jolie's out there somewhere in our chatroom?

Court TV Host: Any closing thoughts?

Alafair Burke: Thanks for the terrific questions. I always love chatting about the latest trials, and I appreciate people taking the time to hear about my new book. Some have said these books are Sex and the City meets Law and Order, so maybe some of you would enjoy them. Thanks again. You can visit my website at www.alafairburke.com.