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HONOLULU -- While the Navy was staging war games and hunting down "enemy" submarines with sonar off the island of Kauai two summers ago, more than 150 lost and disoriented whales were swimming chaotically in the shallows of Hanalei Bay. That mass stranding was a scene neither the Navy nor environmentalists want to see repeated as 40 ships from eight countries return to the islands this month for the world's largest international maritime war games. But the two sides agree on little else, including whether sonar was to blame for that incident. The continuing dispute highlights a deep divide over...

Los Angeles -- A federal judge issued a temporary restraining order Monday barring the Navy from using a particular kind of sonar allegedly harmful to marine mammals during a Pacific warfare exercise scheduled to begin this week. The order comes three days after the Navy obtained a six-month national defense exemption from the Defense Department allowing it to use "mid-frequency active sonar." Environmental groups had sued to stop the Navy's use of the sonar in the Rim of the Pacific 2006 exercise off Hawaii. The use of sonar in the war games was set to start Thursday. U.S. District Judge...

NASHVILLE — Just hours before Tennessee was set to execute two inmates, a federal judge issued a stay of execution for one of the convicted murderers. Judge Todd Campbell halted the Wednesday execution of Paul Dennis Reid and ordered a hearing on whether the inmate is mentally competent to stop appealing his seven death sentences for a string of 1997 murders. In the past 45 years, Tennessee has executed one inmate. Campbell's order Tuesday put a stop — at least temporarily — to the state's preparations to administer lethal injection to two condemned murderers on the same day. Reid, who...

Newark, N.J. -- A federal judge ordered the government to find 11 Hondurans it deported last year and bring them back to testify in a human trafficking trial. U.S. District Judge Joel Pisano said Tuesday that Luisa Medrano's rights to a fair trial were violated by the deportations, which included people who claim to have evidence that she is innocent. "Ultimately, if the trial of the indictment is a search for the truth, then I believe we need to have all of the witnesses available," Pisano said. The judge did not say who would pay for the search, or what...

Two mothers should be allowed on birth document, judge says Found in breach of Charter, Ontario told to alter rules to include lesbian parents KIRK MAKIN From Wednesday's Globe and Mail An Ontario judge struck down a birth registry provision yesterday that prevents lesbian couples from being registered as parents of babies conceived through artificial insemination, saying that the regulation causes them unjustified "pain and hardship." Mr. Justice Paul Rivard of the Ontario Superior Court ruled that the province violated the litigants' right to equality by stopping them from adding their names to the Statement of Live Births after their...

SACRAMENTO - California schools chief Jack O'Connell said he will ask the state Supreme Court on Friday to overturn last week's ruling that brought California's high school exit exam to a sudden halt. The ruling, which came just weeks before high school seniors around the state are scheduled to graduate, was welcome news for nearly 47,000 12th-graders who have not yet passed the exit exam, a diploma requirement for the first time this year. But O'Connell sees the test of 8th- to 10th-grade math, English and algebra skills as a way to hold students to higher academic standards, and to...

MEMPHIS — The fight over Ophelia Ford's removal from the state Senate isn't over, even though a majority of senators voted for it, a federal judge said Tuesday. In granting a request from Ford to block appointment of an interim replacement by the Shelby County Commission, Judge Bernice Donald said she must decide if the Senate's decision to remove Ford was proper. "There may be no vacancy for the county to fill," Donald said. Ford won a special election to the Senate by 13 votes last year, but senators decided in April to overturn those results, citing evidence of two...

ATLANTA -- A judge has struck down Georgia's ban on same-sex marriages, saying a measure overwhelmingly approved by voters in 2004 violated a provision of the state constitution that limits ballot questions to a single subject. The ruling by Fulton County Superior Court Judge Constance C. Russell had been eagerly awaited by gay-rights supporters who filed the court challenge in November 2004, soon after the constitutional ban was approved. Russell said the state's voters must first decide whether same-sex relationships should have any legal status before they can be asked to decide whether same-sex marriages should be banned. "People who...

SACRAMENTO -- The judge who suspended California's high school exit exam for this year's graduating class ruled Tuesday in favor of the state in a separate lawsuit over the test. Alameda County Superior Court Judge Robert Freedman rejected a request from Californians for Justice Education to grant a writ suspending the exam until the Legislature has time to consider alternatives. The lawsuit claims Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell and the state Board of Education broke state law by failing to properly consider other assessments for students who can't pass the exam. The judge agreed the state did not fully...

One dictionary defines "nonsensical" as "foolish, silly, absurd," a definition to keep in mind while pondering the political and legal flap over California's high school exit exam. It is difficult to decide which is the more nonsensical -- a judge's decision to block the state from denying diplomas to nearly 50,000 high school seniors because they haven't passed the exit exam, or the test itself. Last Friday, Alameda Superior Court Judge Robert Freedman enjoined the state from enforcing the test requirement, a decision clearly rooted more in ideology or philosophy than the law. He endorsed, for example, the plaintiffs' contention...

An Alameda County judge granted the wish of 47,000 high school seniors Friday after abolishing the exit exam as a graduation requirement this year. Superior Court Judge Robert Freedman ruled that students who earn enough credits may receive a diploma, regardless of their performance on the test. State Superintendent of Schools Jack O'Connell is expected to appeal the injunction immediately. The state will seek a reversal that would become effective before the end of the school year, according to a request for a stay on the decision filed today. The decision deals a significant blow to the future of the...

Just flashed on Fox, jury has a verdict, to be read at 4:30PM EST!

WASHINGTON - U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth has raised many an eyebrow with his adjective-laden opinions in favor of the thousands of American Indians suing the government for mismanaging billions of their dollars. On Tuesday, an appeals court panel was asked to decide whether his rulings show he is too biased to continue with the 10-year-old lawsuit. "It is exceptionally rare for us to make this request we are making today, and we make it urgently," Assistant Attorney General Peter Keisler said, arguing that Lamberth should be removed from the case to "restore the appearance of fairness." Lamberth, a Texas...

Jones and his family were under marshals' protection in December. In the days after U.S. Judge John E. Jones III issued his decision in Dover's intelligent design case, outraged people sent threatening e-mails to his office. Jones won't discuss details of the e-mails, or where they might have come from, but he said they concerned the U.S. Marshals Service. So, in the week before Christmas, marshals kept watch over Jones and his family. While no single e-mail may have reached the level of a direct threat, Jones said, the overall tone was so strident, marshals "simply determined the tenor was...

<p>WASHINGTON – Now that she's left the Supreme Court, Sandra Day O'Connor has a few things to get off her chest. One of the first was to warn that the nation could slide into dictatorship if harsh critiques of the judiciary – from the likes of Texas Sen. John Cornyn and Rep. Tom DeLay – go unanswered.</p>

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor used a speech at Georgetown University to attack pro-life lawmakers who sided with Terri Schiavo's parents in their efforts to prevent their daughter's euthanasia death. She claimed a Congressional effort to have federal courts review the case was a first step towards a dictatorship. O'Connor, who backs abortion, announced her retirement last year and was recently replaced by federal appeals court judge Samuel Alito, who pro-life advocates hope will be more open to upholding laws that protect the right to life. "We must be ever-vigilant against those who would...

A Metro General Sessions judge summarily retired dozens of traffic tickets scheduled to be heard earlier this month, including one for House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh. Metro General Sessions Judge Casey Moreland says he doesn't think he did anything wrong when he cleared 72 of the 74 tickets for people that showed up to traffic court on Feb. 16. The decision to retire the tickets had nothing to do with Naifeh, the judge said. The judge said he was in a buoyant mood after learning he would be running unopposed in this year's election. "It just happened to be 30 minutes...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. Officials have identified three more felons voting in a disputed state Senate election in Memphis. Officials said today the three push the total number of improper votes to 12, one shy of the 13-vote margin of victory for Democratic state Senator Ophelia Ford. The election victory placed Ford in the state Senate seat her brother John Ford held for three decades before resigning in May under a federal corruption indictment. Republican challenger Terry Roland and his supporters have said as many as 150 other votes were improper. The full Senate voted last month to void the election, but...

WASHINGTON -- A federal judge on Monday blocked the Defense Department from putting in place new personnel and pay rules, saying they would erode bargaining rights for 650,000 employees. U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan said the proposed workplace rules also would make it unfairly hard for employees to appeal unfavorable personnel decisions. The suit was filed in November by the American Federation of Government Employees and nine other federal employee unions. Another federal judge last year barred a similar plan from taking effect at the Homeland Security Department.

Jatin M. Patel, long the Windsor Police Department's leading suspect in the 1996 murders of his mother and sister in his parents' Massow Lane home, has lost a civil-rights lawsuit against the police chief and the lead detective in the case. Patel, 45, has failed to appeal the decision, made by Judge Stefan R. Underhill in U.S. District Court in Bridgeport on Sept. 16, and the deadline for an appeal has passed. As a result, Underhill's decision in favor of Windsor Police Chief Kevin Searles and Detective Debra Swanson is final. Patel alleged in the lawsuit, filed in 1999, that...