Q&A: George Huguely murder trial evidence released

About three months ago a Charlottesville jury found former University of Virginia lacrosse player George Huguely V guilty of murdering his ex-girlfriend, Yeardley Love, in May 2010. On Tuesday and Wednesday, the public will have access to some of the evidence that was presented during that trial.
Here are answers to some questions that you might have, and you can pose additional questions in the comments section below. I will try to answer those questions throughout the day.
Wasn’t this evidence already made public during the trial in February? No. The jury had full access to the evidence in making their decision, but the general public and reporters did not. The Charlottesville courtroom is set up differently from most courtrooms: the jury sits in two rows in front of the judge and facing the audience (to see this, take a look at the sketch to the right). 
Sketch of the Charlottesville courtroom during George Huguely’s trial.
(The Associated Press)
That means that spectators could not see the monitor where prosecutors played Huguely’s videotaped police statement and showed text messages that Huguely had sent other women hours before Love died. Prosecutors also gave jurors copies of heated, profane e-mails that Huguely and Love exchanged days before her death, instead of reading those e-mails aloud in court.
So why now? During the February trial, The Washington Post, Gannett and several television outlets asked to see the exhibits. Charlottesville Circuit Court Judge Edward L. Hogshire denied that request, saying that it would have interrupted the proceedings, which were delayed by a longer-than-expected jury selection and the illness of a defense attorney. The media outlets have continued to push for access.
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08:50 AM ET, 05/15/2012 |
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American University graduate pops the question at commencement

Sarah Cooper and Sam Miller met during an American University freshman orientation event. Within a week, they had gone on their first date to Georgetown Cupcake. About three months in, Miller says he knew Cooper was the one.
But their families encouraged the two college students to wait until after graduation to tie the knot.
So, after Cooper received her diploma from AU’s School of Public Affairs on Sunday morning, there was a surprise waiting on the end of the stage: Miller, dressed in a dark suit and with a ring in hand.
He got down on one knee. She said yes. As the crowd cheered, the couple embraced. Awwwww. Here’s the video evidence:
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03:09 PM ET, 05/14/2012 |
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University of Maryland student behind @FakeWallaceLoh outs himself

A University of Maryland senior history major named Greg Nasif has just confessed to being the guy who runs a Twitter account that parodies U-Md. President Wallace D. Loh, @FakeWallaceLoh.
On Friday afternoon, the fake president tweeted about undergoing surgery and then sent out a link to a column in the student newspaper that is headlined, “I am Fake Wallace Loh: And so can you!”

The real University of Maryland President Wallace Loh.
(Christopher Anderson)
In the column, Nasif wrote that he got the idea for the parody account last year while watching an episode of “The Colbert Report” that featured the guy behind @MayorEmanuel. Nasif says he does not despise or disrespect Loh, he just found that the president provided “excellent comedy fodder.” Plus, some of the funniest jokes were simply hashtags that played off Loh’s name — like #OverLohd, #UnstoppLohble and #GetLoh.
“Never would I have thought social networking could be so much fun,” Nasif wrote. “I tried my best to stay on top of every major event at the university, from athletic cuts to bar cLohsures, $7.2 million mansions to phantom tornadoes.”
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06:18 PM ET, 05/11/2012 |
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Mitt Romney’s prep school and college days: What do they really tell us?

Universities like to sell themselves as providing the four most formative years of your life. The same sell is often used by expensive, private high schools. But is it true? Just how formative are those years and how exactly will they influence who you are later in life?
Those are the type of questions that I saw pop up on Twitter and Facebook as people discussed an article about GOP contender Mitt Romney’s prep school days, which was published on The Post’s Web site on Thursday. The article detailed several “pranks” that Romney pulled in the 1960s in Michigan, including allegedly attacking a fellow classmate and cutting his hair. Romney apologized Thursday for any pranks, hijinks or “dumb things” he did as a student that hurt or offended anyone.

Mitt Romney’s senior photo, 1965.
(Courtesy of Cranbrook Schools)
Earlier this year, The Post published an article about Romney’s college years at Brigham Young University, where he reportedly abandoned his prankster ways and “turned to the traditional Mormon tenets of family, faith and hard work.”
Romney isn’t the first politician to see his high school or college years discussed by a nation decades later. President Obama included details of his teenage drug use in his memoir. George W. Bush’s Yale University transcript shows that he was a C student. Bill Clinton rehashed having tried pot while a Rhodes scholar at the University of Oxford.
Outside of the race for the president, Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan’s undergraduate years at Princeton University were scrutinized during the confirmation process when her senior thesis and a student newspaper column became public.
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01:02 PM ET, 05/11/2012 |
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On a college wait list? Keep waiting.

The first week of May is usually the final deadline for accepted students to commit to a college by mailing in a deposit check. Once that deadline passes, admissions offices have a better idea of how many more bodies they need to fill the freshman class — and if they need to dip into the wait list.
Ah, the college wait list: You didn’t get in, but you didn’t get rejected. There is still a glimmer of hope that you might still be accepted. But at many schools, especially prestigious ones, only a limited number of students make it off the list.

An American University student tour guide talks to prospective students and their parents in 2010.
(Astrid Riecken for The Washington Post)
Locally, Johns Hopkins University has 1,446 applicants on its wait list and, at this point, has no plans to accept those students. Howard University just added a formal wait list this year, but it has yet to accept any of the 200 applicants on the list. Catholic University in the District put nearly one in four applicants on a wait list, and doesn’t plan to accept many — if any — of them. Georgetown University doesn’t release the length of its list, but reports having accepted about 50 wait listers this week. George Washington University wait-listed more than 700 applicants and expects to accept about 25.
Nationally, many of these lists have grown from hundreds to thousands in recent years, as school officials keep their options open: They don’t want to accept too many applicants, as that could raise their admit rate and make their school seem less selective. But they also don’t want to under-estimate and not have enough tuition-paying, well-rounded students show up in the fall.
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11:31 AM ET, 05/10/2012 |
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