KOBE BRYANT TRIAL Defense expected to waive hearing

If that happens the Lakers' player will go to trial sometime next year.
DENVER (AP) -- Authorities are tightening security before Kobe Bryant arrives in Colorado for a preliminary hearing Thursday that might not even take place.
Dozens of threats against the prosecutor, the judge and Bryant's 19-year-old accuser helped prompt the tougher steps. Armed guards will be at the courthouse, one entrance will be locked, and a metal detector will be set up at the other door for only the third time in years, a sheriff's spokeswoman said Monday.
The question is whether there will be a hearing to determine whether the Los Angeles Lakers player will stand trial. Many believe that for tactical reasons, his attorneys will waive his right to a preliminary hearing, which would clear the way for a rape trial sometime next year.
"If the defense doesn't waive it, what's going to happen is that the public, and of course potential jurors, is going to be left with an image of what happened in that room -- and it's going to be an image that goes unrebutted," said Norm Early, a former Denver district attorney. "I think it would be very detrimental to Kobe Bryant and I just don't see him risking that kind of exposure."
Prosecutors have said they plan to call a sheriff's detective as a witness to discuss the investigation and conclusions reached by a nurse who examined Bryant's accuser.
Victim won't testify
Legal experts say the defense will probably waive the hearing, in part because the judge has ruled the woman cannot be forced to testify and undergo cross-examination by the defense.
Either way, Bryant still has to appear Thursday before Judge Frederick Gannett to show he is complying with conditions of his $25,000 bail. He will have to return to Colorado this week from Hawaii, where the Lakers are training.
Earlier Monday, Gannett ruled that Bryant's attorneys cannot have immediate access to notes taken by a rape crisis center worker during an interview with the alleged victim. A higher court will hold a hearing on the matter first.
The judge has acknowledged receiving letters containing death threats, and two men have been charged with threatening Bryant's accuser.
In Los Angeles, Patrick Graber pleaded innocent Monday to charges he approached Bryant's security team with an offer to kill the woman for $3 million. An Iowa college student has pleaded innocent to charges he left a death threat on her answering machine.