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The article reports that the U.S. Supreme Court has considered whether Lee Malvo, who terrorized the Washington region in 2002 with a series of deadly sniper attacks, may challenge his sentences of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The article examines the role of liberal U.S. legal scholars in re-defining the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to justify the individual's right to bear arms. Precedent denying that right are cited. A March 2007 U.S. Court of Appeals ruling striking down District of Columbia firearms regulations on such grounds is presented. Professor Lawrence Tribe cites his own research as justifying the ruling, and describes his personal discomfort at his conclusions.

The article reports on a March 2007 decision from the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit regarding gun control laws in effect in the district. According to the article the court threw out a gun control law that forbade the possession of a handgun in D.C. homes. The chance of the ruling being appealed to the Supreme Court is discussed.

Reports that the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the cases of two reporters facing up to 18 months in jail for refusing to testify about conversations with their confidential sources. How the case of reporters Judith Miller of "The New York Times" and Matthew Cooper of "Time" magazine returns to Federal District Court in Washington, DC, where Judge Thomas F. Hogan will hear arguments relating to their sentencing; Comments of Miller, who has said she will go to jail rather than testify; Significance of the case, which comes at a time when the news media are under growing pressure and scrutiny under issues of accuracy, credibility and political bias; History of the case, which arose after the identity of a covert Central Intelligence Agency officer was disclosed by Robert Novak in a syndicated column; Issue of the obligations of reporters to comply with final court orders in cases involving confidential sources; Outlook. INSET: Case HIstory.

The article focuses on the decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit regarding the claims for flood damages. It states that the court reversed a ruling from a lower court that flood damage claims are only applicable for permanent or inevitably recurring flooding. It states that the activities of the Army Corps of Engineers give rise to the case which was periodically flooded 23, 000 acres along the banks of Black River in northern Arkansas.

The article reports on arguments over drug-sniffing dogs in the U.S. It mentions that the debates involve dog sniffing around near homes without probable cause and search warrants. It notes the Supreme Court's statement regarding the home privacy which is protected by the prohibition of unreasonable searches of the Fourth Amendment. An overview of the comments from judges Antonin Scalia, Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Sonia Sotomayor on the case is also presented.

WASHINGTON -- A big part of Magistrate Judge Stephen W. Smith's job in Federal District Court in Houston is to consider law enforcement requests for cellphone and e-mail records. It requires him to apply old laws to the digital age and balance the government's interest in solving crimes against the importance of protecting privacy. That is hard enough. What he has trouble understanding is why all this is kept from public view. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Justice Antonin Scalia said in a television interview on Wednesday night that the Supreme Court's bitterly divided decision upholding President Obama's health care law had not led to a falling out with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. The chief justice joined the court's four liberal members in upholding the health care overhaul law. Justice Scalia and three other justices signed a bitter dissent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

WASHINGTON -- The day after Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. joined the Supreme Court's four-member liberal wing to uphold the health care overhaul law, he appeared before a conference of judges and lawyers in Pennsylvania. A questioner wanted to know whether he was ''going to Disney World.'' Chief Justice Roberts said he had a better option: he was about to leave for Malta, where he would teach a two-week class on the history of the Supreme Court. ''Malta, as you know, is an impregnable island fortress,'' he said on Friday, according to news reports. ''It seemed like a good idea.'' [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

WASHINGTON -- Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. has a favorite quotation from one of the giants who preceded him on the Supreme Court. Assessing the constitutionality of a law passed by Congress, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. once wrote, ''is the gravest and most delicate duty that this court is called on to perform.'' In finding a way to uphold President Obama's health care overhaul law on Thursday, Chief Justice Roberts performed the task with exquisite delicacy. That he did was a surprise from a judge whose rulings and background, including legal work in the administrations of President Ronald Reagan and the first President George Bush, suggested a conventionally conservative worldview. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld President Obama's health care overhaul law, saying its requirement that most Americans obtain insurance or pay a penalty was authorized by Congress's power to levy taxes. The vote was 5 to 4, with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. joining the court's four more liberal members. The decision was a victory for Mr. Obama and Congressional Democrats, affirming the central legislative achievement of Mr. Obama's presidency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Courtruled on Thursday that a criminal defendant may be retried even though the jury in his first trial had unanimously rejected the most serious charges against him. The vote was 6 to 3, with the justices split over whether the constitutional protection against double jeopardy barred such reprosecutions. The case arose from the death in 2007 of a 1-year-old Arkansas boy, Matthew McFadden Jr., from a head injury he suffered while at home with his mother's boyfriend, Alex Blueford. The prosecution said Mr. Blueford had slammed Matthew into a mattress; Mr. Blueford said he had accidentally knocked the boy to the floor. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

WASHINGTON -- There have been many hundreds of varied rulings in the lower courts on when the use of Taser stun guns by the police amounts to excessive force, and sooner or later the Supreme Court will have to bring order to this area of the law. Next week, the justices are scheduled to decide whether to hear an appeal from three Seattle police officers who say they are worried about the future of what they call ''a useful pain technique.'' The case involves Malaika Brooks, who was seven months pregnant and driving her 11-year-old son to school in Seattle when she was pulled over for speeding. The police say she was going 32 miles per hour in a school zone; the speed limit was 20. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

WASHINGTON -- Ending a case that gained national attention after reaching the Supreme Court last year, the government granted asylum to an informer who said he feared execution if he were returned to his native Albania, his lawyers announced on Tuesday. The informer, Edmond Demiraj, had agreed to testify against an Albanian mobster charged with human smuggling a decade ago in exchange for what he said was a promise from federal prosecutors that he and his family would be kept safe. When the mobster, Bill Bedini, fled the country before his trial, the authorities deported Mr. Demiraj to Albania. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Courtruled unanimously on Tuesday that private lawyers hired by municipalities to conduct investigations are entitled to protections against lawsuits generally available to government lawyers. The case arose from an investigation of Nicholas B. Delia, a firefighter in Rialto, Calif., who had been suspected of improperly taking sick days after becoming ill while responding to a toxic spill. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court is usually the most remote and mysterious branch of American government. Not last week. Over three days of intense arguments on the future of President Obama's health care law, the public got a vivid glimpse of an institution at once immensely powerful and intensely human, one packed with brainy, funny and assertive justices prepared to confront and decide the most urgent issues of the day. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court on Monday ruled by a 5-to-4 vote that officials may strip-search people arrested for any offense, however minor, before admitting them to jails even if the officials have no reason to suspect the presence of contraband. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, joined by the court's conservative wing, wrote that courts are in no position to second-guess the judgments of correctional officials who must consider not only the possibility of smuggled weapons and drugs, but also public health and information about gang affiliations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

WASHINGTON -- The way to frame a Supreme Court argument meant to persuade Justice Anthony M. Kennedy is to talk about liberty. It is his touchstone and guiding principle, and his conception of liberty is likely to determine the future of President Obama's health care law. If the administration is to prevail in the case, it must capture at least one vote beyond those of the court's four more liberal justices, who are thought virtually certain to vote to uphold the law. The administration's best hope is Justice Kennedy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

WASHINGTON -- When Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. takes his usual center seat on the Supreme Court bench on March 26, he will begin presiding over an extraordinary three days of arguments that will determine the fate of President Obama's sweeping health care law. The decision in the case, expected by June, will have practical consequences for tens of millions of Americans without health insurance, and it may affect Mr. Obama's re-election chances. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

WASHINGTON -- Mark W. Miller did not think Cincinnati should be spending money on a streetcar project, and he said so on Twitter. He urged his hundreds of followers to vote against the project, which was on the local ballot last November. Here was a typical Twitter message: ''15% of Cincinnati's Fire Dept browned out today to help pay for a streetcar boondoggle. If you think it's a waste of money, VOTE YES on 48.'' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

WASHINGTON -- Several members of the Supreme Courtappeared frustrated on Monday as they surveyed the available options and looming deadlines in a major voting rights case from Texas that could help decide control of the House. ''We are all under the gun of very strict time limitations,'' said Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. Primary elections in Texas have already been moved back to April, and the court must act very quickly to avoid further delays. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

WASHINGTON -- Think of them as Mad Libs, Gitmo edition. Recent opinions from the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit are studded with redactions that call to mind the zany game, the one where players fill in blanks in little stories, sometimes to absurd effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court heard arguments Monday in two cases concerning what should be done when criminal defendants pass up favorable plea bargains based on unprofessional work by their lawyers. Several justices noted that some 95 percent of criminal convictions were the result of guilty pleas. Just last year, the court ruled that ''the negotiation of a plea bargain is a critical stage of the litigation for purposes of the Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel.'' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear an appeal of a ruling that the placement of crosses on the side of Utah highways to honor fallen state troopers violated the First Amendment's prohibition on government establishment of religion. As is its custom, the court gave no reasons for declining to hear the case. Justice Clarence Thomas issued a 19-page dissent, saying the court had rejected ''an opportunity to provide clarity to an establishment-clause jurisprudence in shambles.'' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court started its new term on Monday with arguments in a difficult and consequential case over California's attempt to cut Medicaid payment rates. The justices were not focused on the ultimate question of whether state officials were entitled to address the budget crisis there by lowering payments to medical providers. Rather, they considered the threshold question of whether the providers and Medicaid recipients were entitled to sue over the move. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

WASHINGTON The sentence was resolutely bland and nicely hidden in a long Supreme Courtdecision issued on the last day of the term. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

WASHINGTON That sound in the distance at the Supreme Court these days is the debate over same-sex marriage. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article reports on the efforts of rich libertarian lawyer Robert A. Levy to challenge the Washington D.C. ban on handgun ownership. Though he has never owned a gun, he has fought and single-handedly financed the case to fight the ban. He selected six plaintiffs in a planned way and moved to the appeals court. Unperturbed by the rejection of five plaintiffs by the court, he moved ahead. Now the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the District of Columbia v. Heller case.

The article reports on an announcement made by mayor Adrian M. Fenty of Washington D.C. that the U.S. Supreme Court will be asked by Washington D.C. to hear its appeal of a decision in March 2007 regarding gun control law. The decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit was the first to hold the law unconstitutional. The law was held unconstitutional on the ground that the Second Amendment's guarantee of the right to bear arms protects individual rights.

The article reports that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has refused to revisit one of its earlier decision of March 2007, that stroke down parts of a gun control law in the district. This led to one step closer to U.S. Supreme Court's consideration of the Second Amendment's meaning.

The article reports that Washington Supreme Court Judge Richard B. Sanders was reprimanded by a special panel of the court for visiting McNeil Island Special Commitment Center, the correctional institution for sex offenders who had served their sentences, in January 2003. The court hearing a case concerned with the constitutionality of the state law under which inmates were committed to the institution at that time. According to the panels, his visit created an appearance of partiality.

Reports on the statement of federal judge, Thomas F. Hogan, that he would send journalists Matthew Cooper of the "Time" magazine and Judith Miller of "The New York Times" to jail in one week if they did not agree to testify before a grand jury about their confidential sources in the meantime in Washington D.C.

Reports on the ruling by a panel of the U.S. federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., that two reporters who refused to name their sources to a grand jury investigating the disclosure of the identity of a covert Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer should be jailed for contempt. Contention that the reporters, Judith Miller of "The New York Times" and Matthew Cooper of "Time" magazine, may have witnessed a federal crime; Details of the decision; Background on the case, in which the name of CIA agent Valerie Plame was disclosed after her husband, former diplomat Joseph C. Wilson, criticized President George W. Bush's statement about Iraq's efforts to buy nuclear weapons material in Africa; The judges' debate over the existence and potential scope of a common law privilege; Reactions of Arthur Sulzberger Jr., chairman of The New York Times Company and publisher of "The Times," and Norman Pearlstine, editor in chief of Time Inc.; Reference to the rise in subpoenas seeking reporters' sources.

Reports that a Virginia jury has spared the life of Lee Malvo, the younger of the two snipers who killed 10 people and was sentenced to life imprisonment in Washington D.C.

Reports on the jury decision to spare the life of convicted sniper, Lee Malvo. Sentence of life in prison without parole; Death penalty which was given to his mentor and partner, John A. Muhammad in the crime spree which killed several residents in the Washington, Maryland and Virginia area; Rejection of the insanity plea during the trial for the death of Linda Franklin; Other trials ahead for both criminals; Comments from jury members.

Reports on the conviction of Lee Malvo on two counts of capital murder for his part in the Washington sniper crimes; Rejection by the jury of his defense of insanity; Sentencing phase which is expected to last several days; Option of life in prison or the death penalty for the jurors to choose from; Details on the jury; Conduct of the trial.

Reports on the murder trial of Lee Malvo for his role in the 2002 sniper killings in the Washington D.C. area. Witnesses' description of Malvo's boyhood in Jamaica to the months preceding the sniper attacks; Lead prosecutor Robert F. Horan Jr.'s objection that much of the testimony was irrelevant to Malvo's defense of insanity; Death sentence imposed on John A. Muhammad, Malvo's companion in the shootings.

Details the defense strategy for Lee Malvo, one of the snipers involved in the Washington, D.C.-area shootings. Allegations that Malvo was brainwashed by main suspect, John A. Muhammad; Accounts made by detectives and prison guards on Malvo's behavior; Malvo's shooting ability resulting from video games and other forms of simulators.

Reports on news conferences held by the lawyers of Lee Malvo, who is accused of participating in the sniper attacks in autumn 2002 in the Washington region. Contrasting styles of Malvo's two lead lawyers, Craig S. Cooley and Michael S. Arif; Highlights of the jury selection process; Prosecution of the case by Robert F. Horan and Raymond F. Morrogh.

Reports on the trial of John Muhammad who faces murder charges from the Washington, D.C. area sniper attacks of 2002. Current trial against Muhammad which encourages lawyers for the second suspect, Lee Malvo; Comments from Malvo attorney, Michael S. Arif, who says he will pursue an insanity-by-indoctrination defense; Background on the crimes; Defense strategies; Reluctance of the prosecution to aggressively pursue charges of terrorism against both defendants as the new law is untested by the courts.

Reports that lawyers for Lee Malvo, the younger suspect in the Washington D.C.-area sniper attacks last fall, have abruptly changed their strategy, arguing in a court filing that he is not guilty because he was insane at the time of the shootings. Claim that Malvo had been subjected to intense indoctrination by the other suspect, John A. Muhammad; Reaction of the prosecuting attorney; Comments by Craig S. Cooley, one of Malvo's lawyers; Developments in Muhammad's trial; Different defense strategies being pursued in the Malvo and Muhammad trials; Comments by legal experts on the risks of an insanity defense.

Reports on the decision of Matthew Cooper, a reporter for Time magazine, to testify before a grand jury after he received a surprising communication from his source in Washington.

Reports that the White House has refused to answer any questions about new evidence of the role of Karl Rove, senior aide to President George W. Bush, in leaking the name of an undercover Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer. Earlier statements by the White House that any administration official involved would be fired; Demands by Democrats that the administration provide a full account of any involvement by Rove; Concerns of Republicans about possible effects on Bush's second-term agenda; Comments of Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York; Refusal of the White House press secretary, Scott McClellan, to address questions about Rove in news briefings; How new evidence suggests that Rove discussed the CIA officer with a reporter from "Time" magazine without identifying her by name; Background on the criminal investigation into how the CIA officer's name came to appear in a syndicated newspaper column two years ago; Issue of Rove's standing as among the most powerful men in Washington, D.C. and his place in the innermost councils of the White House;. INSET: The White House on the Leak.

WASHINGTON -- Four months before Mitt Romney signed his health care plan into law in Massachusetts in 2006, he told a conservative group that the state's tax code would be the hammer that would make the plan work. For those who refused to comply with the state's mandate to buy health insurance, he said in remarks to the Heritage Foundation, ''they are going to lose their personal tax exemption.'' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]