This time for sentencing in the murder of Masumi Watanabe, and this time Lankford's wife is expected to take the stand to talk about accusations against her husband.

Under a new law the jury, not judge Karl Sakamoto, will decide if Lankford's life sentence will be with or without the possibility of parole.

On Friday, the judge did rule prosecutors can present another case where Lankford was accused of assaulting a woman in 2006.That evidence was tossed out during his criminal trial.

"Circumstantial evidence satisfies the court that we can proceed and have the jurors make the ultimate determination of whether that incident did in fact occur," said Karl Sakamoto.

Lankford's attorney objected to the ruling, pointing out that police decided there wasn't enough evidence to charge Lankord.

The reason? A year after the attack, witnesses could not identify Lankford in a lineup, but those same witnesses did copy the license plate of the vehicle where the assault took place and it turned out to be Lankford's termite truck.

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