For the first time, California will spend more on incarcerating inmates than it does on higher education.

The last part of a death penalty trial, the part where the jury decides whether the defendant will live or die, is a sort of referendum on capital punishment. A significant majority of Americans support the death penalty in the abstract, as an idea. But checking a box in a public opinion survey is not the same as voting to send a particular man to his death. In the polls that count, the ones that follow testimony and tears, jurors are increasingly rejecting the death penalty.

(CNN) -- "When I have children one day," Samantha Krieger of Dallas, Texas, wrote to CNN.com, "they will know of the legacy that Dr. Jerry Falwell left." But what will that legacy be? To Krieger, who had personal connections to Falwell -- she attended the college he founded; he officiated at her wedding; her husband was his nurse -- the evangelist "was a great leader and hero." Victoria Kidd of Winchester, Virginia, believes the exact opposite: "The damage he has done to the Christian faith is immeasurable," she wrote to CNN.com Others would prefer to think that he has no legacy at all. "He should be erased from every history book and media story," wrote Brian Pippinger of St. Petersburg, Florida. Jerry Falwell was the evangelical minister who founded the Moral Majority, the Christian right political movement, in 1980. He died Tuesday at age 73, and it's clear from the differing assessments of his legacy that he was a controversial figure.

"He made it comfortable for churches to get actively involved in politics," says the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. "His strategy will be continued by his would-be successors -- a focus on hot-button issues like gay marriage (rather than significant moral issues like child poverty and health care), and an eagerness to make outrageous statements to the media, in order to build a religious-political empire." Many now remember him most for outrageous statements he made after leaving the Moral Majority -- in 1999, his house organ the National Liberty Journal warned parents that the Tinky Winky TV character was secretly gay and morally dangerous; in 2001, he blamed the September 11 terrorist attack on "pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America."

LYNCHBURG, Va (May 15, 2007) -- The Rev. Jerry Falwell, the folksy, small-town preacher who used the power of television to found the Moral Majority and turn the Christian right into a mighty force in American politics during the Reagan years, died Tuesday at 73. One of Falwell's most memorable opponents was Hustler kingpin Larry Flynt, who had a very public legal battle with the Reverend over freedom of speech rights. At the heart of the case was a satirical ad that ran in Hustler in 1983 with the headline "Jerry Falwell Talks About His First Time," in which the magazine described a drunken Falwell having an incestuous encounter with his mother [in an outhouse]. Falwell sued Flynt (pictured together on "Larry King Live" in 1997), alleging libel and intentional infliction of emotional distress. However, the Supreme Court ruled that a public figure could not recover damages over distress based on satire under the umbrella of free speech. Upon hearing of his death, Flynt released the following statement to Access Hollywood:

A couple of tips before arguing in the California Supreme Court: Don't give an impudent answer or try to sneak in evidence that's not before the court. Two attorneys, both well respected in the appellate world, recently made those mistakes during oral arguments in a case about malicious prosecution, and each time the offender was put in place -- sharply.

The American Association for Justice, the renamed Association of Trial Lawyers of America, filed an ethics complaint last week against Washington, D.C., administrative law judge Roy Pearson Jr., who's suing a local dry cleaner for $65 million for losing a pair of his pants. Pearson's dispute with the cleaners may ring a bell with his ex-wife from whom Pearson sought spousal support a few years ago. The trial judge in that case found that Pearson drove up legal costs with "unnecessary litigation."

A long tradition of father-daughter pairings among Supreme Court law clerks is about to be carried on by a Northwestern University law school graduate. Jessica Phillips. daughter of veteran Supreme Court advocate and onetime Warren Burger clerk Carter Phillips, begins this summer as a law clerk to Justice Samuel Alito Jr. Alito said through a Court spokeswoman that Jessica Phillips will have no involvement in cases in which her father's firm, Sidley Austin, participates.

A young lawyer who fell to his death from the top floor of the Tate Modern [in London] had undergone years of treatment for cannabis-induced mental illness, an inquest heard. Oxford-educated Matthew Courtney, the 27-year-old son of former World Cup referee George Courtney, had been working up to 14 hours a day at a top City law firm [Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer] in the run-up to his death. The day before, Mr Courtney had told his psychiatrist that he was worried his long hours were triggering a relapse of manic depression, for which he had been receiving treatment for seven years. After finishing work at 8.30pm on Friday, February 9, Mr Courtney had gone to the Thames-side art gallery and was using his BlackBerry wireless phone on the seventh floor when he fell to his death. Yesterday's hearing at Southwark Coroner's Court was told it may have been an accident and that he had sat on a banister without realising there was a gap between it and the wall. . . . [T]he day before his death, Mr Courtney rang his psychiatrist, Dr Mike Bellew, saying he was worried that his hours – frequently from 8am to 10pm – and problems getting to sleep meant he was heading for a relapse.

A Memphis judge is banned from a Florida resort. He's accused of sexually harassing an employee. Eyewitness News Everywhere uncovered this is not the first time Criminal Court Judge Fred Axley has been accused of sexual harassment. The first incident happened at 201 Poplar, where Judge Axley works. Two of his clerks filed lawsuits against him, saying they had been sexually harassed. When Judge Axley was teaching a class at the University of Memphis, two students and another faculty member filed complaints against him. He was banned from the university. Now he has been banned from a resort in Destin, FL, after an employee there says he sexually harassed her last week. On Wednesday, the Okaloosa Sheriff's Department was called to the Silver Shells Beach Resort in Destin because of Axley. He was not arrested, but he was given a written trespassing warning. On it, a manager at the resort said “this subject is barred permanently for sexual harassment of employees.” The Okaloosa Sheriff's Department says if he returns to the resort again, he will be arrested. When we called the resort, an employee who asked not to be named, told us Axley had propositioned a massage therapist there for oral sex. The employee also said Axley had been to the resort once before, had made inappropriate requests then too, and had been asked not to return.

TACOMA, Wash. -- A Pierce County jury has acquitted a man accused of having sex with the family dog. Michael Patrick McPhail, 26, of Spanaway, was found not guilty Wednesday in Pierce County Superior Court of first-degree animal cruelty. Assistant Pierce County Prosecutor Karen Watson said last fall that McPhail was the first person charged in the county under a new state law that made bestiality a felony. "I'm glad that justice was able to see it wasn't an action of my doing," McPhail said as he left the court building. He said he believes his wife made up the story because she is seeking to end their marriage.

A Hampden County man who allegedly tricked his brother's girlfriend into having sex with him by impersonating his sibling in the middle of the night cannot be convicted of rape, the state's highest court ruled yesterday in a controversial decision that affirms the court's long-held view that sex obtained through fraud is no crime. The Supreme Judicial Court unanimously ruled that a judge should have dismissed the rape charge against Alvin Suliveres , 44, of Westfield, because Massachusetts law has for centuries defined rape as sexual intercourse by force and against one's will, and that it is not rape when consent is obtained through fraud. If the Legislature wants to make sex through fraud qualify as rape, it should follow the lead of several other states -- including Alabama, California, Michigan, and Tennessee -- and change the law, the court said.

By Joshua Partlow
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, May 11, 2007; Page A12
BAGHDAD, May 10 -- A majority of members of Iraq's parliament have signed a draft bill that would require a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. soldiers from Iraq and freeze current troop levels. The development was a sign of a growing division between Iraq's legislators and prime minister that mirrors the widening gulf between the Bush administration and its critics in Congress. The draft bill proposes a timeline for a gradual departure, much like what some U.S. Democratic lawmakers have demanded, and would require the Iraqi government to secure parliament's approval before any further extensions of the U.N. mandate for foreign troops in Iraq, which expires at the end of 2007.

More than 20,000 individuals who have asbestos-related tort claims pending against the Robert A. Keasbey Co. scored a major victory Tuesday, as Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Richard Braun ruled that the defunct insulation giant's insurers may be liable for hundreds of millions of dollars in coverage. The ruling came in an unusual defendant class action -- in which the class constitutes a defendant, not the plaintiff -- initiated by the Keasbey Co.'s primary insurers, plaintiffs Continental Casualty Coverage and American Casualty Co. of Reading, Pa. In their class action, the insurers sought a declaratory judgment holding that their policies were exhausted by $8.7 million in previously made payments. In the alternative, they argued, numerous equitable doctrines precluded the defendant class members from pursuing their claims. Braun disagreed, and found that the insurers may be liable for upwards of $250 million.

SLOATSBURG, N.Y. (AP) — A man involved in a legal dispute with a woman fired a sawed-off rifle in a courtroom, striking a window several feet above a judge’s head, police said. Leo Lewis, who is in his 60s, was arrested as he tried to flee the courtroom following Monday night’s shooting, police said. Lewis was charged with attempted murder and criminal possession of a weapon, police said. He was scheduled to appear in court Tuesday. It was not immediately known whether he had an attorney. Shortly after 6 p.m. Monday, Sloatsburg Justice Thomas Newman called the case of the unspecified dispute between Lewis and the unidentified woman to trial. As the trial was about to open, police said, Lewis pulled a .22-caliber sawed-off rifle from an envelope and fired at the woman, who was sitting in the row in front of him. The round missed her and struck a few feet above where the judge was sitting, police said. A police officer who was in the courtroom for traffic court fired off a shot, then chased him down and, with the help of a bystander, tackled him, Detective Sgt. John Lynch said.

Ron Callan Jr. left an estate worth about $2 million, but the most hotly contested item in the late businessman's Tennessee probate court case is his 13-year-old golden retriever, Alex. The four-way fight over custody of Alex was so intense that a judge appointed an attorney to represent the dog's interests. A judge on Monday approved a consent order to split custody of the dog based on the recommendations of the guardian ad litem, The Commercial Appeal reported. "Obviously, this is a very unusual set of circumstances," attorney Paul Royal wrote of his four-legged client. "At first glance, the petition seems almost frivolous, but after speaking with all parties, it is evident that this is a highly emotional issue for all involved." Callan, whose New Year's Day shooting death was ruled a suicide, left no will, leaving the court to decide what to do with the dog and the rest of the estate.

The latest round of associate salary raises is spreading like a virus through the state's biggest firms -- and it has some corporate counsel feeling a little queasy. Just days after three big California-origin law firms raised starting pay to $160,000 for in-state associates, Latham & Watkins; Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher; and Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker followed suit Tuesday. The rash of raises has some big-firm clients worried. "There seems to be no end in sight," said James Hall, director of intellectual property at Silicon Valley's Quantum Corp. "At some point I think it has to impact how much I'll pay in legal services ... That money has to come from somewhere." Susan Hackett, senior vice president and general counsel of the Association of Corporate Counsel, said the recent round of raises doesn't take clients into account at all. "The decision is completely divorced from any recognition of the value that's provided," Hackett said. "I don't see how those people who got paid $10,000 less yesterday got any more talented today."

Google’s already-busy legal staff got a bit more work dumped on their desks today when law firms Proskauer Rose and Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossman together filed a copyright infringment case against the company. Here’s a copy of the complaint. The lawsuit follows closely on the heels of Viacom’s recent copyright infringement suit against Google . . . ., and contains allegations similar to Viacom’s: namely, that Google, the owner of YouTube, violated federal copyright law by posting video clips on YouTube without authorization. But there’s one key difference between today’s filing and the Viacom case: today’s aspires to be a class action. The lead plaintiffs? The Football Association Premier League Limited (a.k.a. the English soccer league known as the Premiership), and Bourne Co., the holder of numerous copyrights in, according to the complaint, some of “the world’s most beloved and well-known songs.” (For those curious, the list includes “Inka Dinka Doo,” “Popcorn” and “San Antonio Rose. . . .”) The complaint asks for Google to take down the offending clips and for an unspecified amount of damages. To our ears, the most surprising thing about the filing is the Proskauer-Bernstein team-up. Proskauer is often thought of as a general interest large corporate firm, albeit with particularized specialties in labor & employment and sports law. Bernstein Litowitz handles some defense-side work, but is mostly known as a plaintiff-side securities class-action shop. So why the tag-team?

In March, for the first time in the nation’s history, a federal appeals court struck down a gun control law on Second Amendment grounds. Only a few decades ago, the decision would have been unimaginable. There used to be an almost complete scholarly and judicial consensus that the Second Amendment protects only a collective right of the states to maintain militias. That consensus no longer exists — thanks largely to the work over the last 20 years of several leading liberal law professors, who have come to embrace the view that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to own guns. In those two decades, breakneck speed by the standards of constitutional law, they have helped to reshape the debate over gun rights in the United States. Their work culminated in the March decision, Parker v. District of Columbia, and it will doubtless play a major role should the case reach the United States Supreme Court.

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (AP) -- As advanced science plays a larger role in courtrooms across the country, judges who earned degrees in English or the humanities face the daunting task of making informed decisions about some very technical disputes. That's why judges from across the Southeast gathered Friday for a crash course with medical and genetics experts at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. About 60 judges are attending the conference, which is exploring emerging and often contested areas of science. Unlike other judicial seminars, this three-day intensive training session -- dubbed The Southeast Regional Science and Technology Boot Camp -- aims to prepare judges for some of the most politically charged issues of the day: gene therapy, genetic discrimination, genetically modified foods, human cloning and stem cell research.