The federal courts in Vermont have agreed to allow journalists to carry computers, iPhones and other electronic newsgathering tools past security checkpoints at federal buildings.

The Supreme Court said Monday it will hear a new case on the intersection of religion and government in a dispute over prayers used to open public meetings.

A 54-year-old inmate was sentenced to death Wednesday for killing a Washington state corrections officer in a prison chapel two years ago. More >>

A federal judge has rescheduled the trial of an inmate accused of participating in a deadly prison riot last year in Mississippi.

Two brothers will get jail time for their part in a car chase that ended in a fatal accident.

BATTLE CREEK, Mich. (AP) - An exhibit coming to Battle Creek aims to show that when it comes to segregation, the city is similar to Detroit. The Battle Creek Enquirer reports ( http://bcene.ws/ZZ4dSd ) that the Women's Co-op is hosting "We Don't Want Them: Race & Housing on Trial," a traveling exhibit put together by the Michigan Roundtable for Diversity & Inclusion.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The California Supreme Court dealt a blow to the state's faltering medical-marijuana industry on Monday by ruling that local governments may outlaw dispensaries that sell the federally banned drug.        

A 21-year-old Ohio prison inmate has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity in the slaying of a cellmate.

When police saw a parolee shove his hand in his waistband, they believed he was trying to hide something. He was, according to Stark County Jail records.

Robert Breest had the chance to walk out of prison on parole, after spending nearly half his life there -- if he admitted to committing a 1971 murder. But the former Lowell carpenter, now 75, steadfastly refused.        

BILLINGS, Mont. - The three-decade fight for freedom by a Montana man convicted of the 1979 slaying of a teenage classmate entered what could be its final stage this week, when the Montana Supreme Court ordered him back to prison and took away his brief taste of normal life.

Bond was set Monday at $750,000 for a homeless man accused of trying to kidnap a 12-year-old boy Friday. Teddy L. Meyer, 52, a registered sex offender, appeared in court Monday after postal workers in East Peoria thwarted an alleged kidnapping behind the city’s post office Friday.

DETROIT — Detroit is broke and faces a bleak future given the precarious financial path it's on, according to a new report out by the city's state-appointed emergency manager. The report was released late Sunday by bankruptcy attorney Kevyn Orr and is his first on Detroit's finances since officially taking the job in March. Under state law, the report was due within 45 days of Michigan's newest ...

A Florida administrative law judge has struck down a decision by the state’s parimutuel regulator to award a license to a north Florida track that offers betting on Quarter Horse barrel racing.

York, PA - A sitting judge and a former U.S. congressman are squaring off for a 10-year term on the York County Court of Common Pleas.

Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad announced Friday he has commuted the life prison sentence of Rasberry Williams, a 67-year-old who has served 38 years in prison after a 1974 shooting outside a Waterloo pool hall. “Mr. Williams’ record while incarcerated has been extraordinary,” Branstad stated in an April 26 letter to the Iowa Board of Parole. [...]

A 22-year-old man is sentenced to life in prison for his role in the killing an Iowa City landlord.

By Eric M. Johnson TACOMA, Washington (Reuters) - A U.S. Army sergeant was sentenced to life in prison without parole on Thursday for killing five fellow servicemen in a shooting spree in Iraq, one of the worst cases of violence by an American soldier against other U.S. troops. In a deal that spared him the death penalty, Sergeant John Russell pleaded guilty last month to killing two medical ...

El Paso County Commissioners Court on Monday banned the sale and use of aerial fireworks in all unincorporated areas in the county as the drought index in El Paso is the highest in Texas.

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Judge Joseph Fahey said Friday he will take a few days to make his decision after closing arguments in the trial of two New York brothers accused of stealing a winning $5 million lottery ticket.

CLEVELAND (AP) - The attorneys for a Cleveland man accused of keeping three women in captivity for about a decade say he will plead not guilty. Attorneys Craig Weintraub and Jay Schlachet tell WKYC-TV More >>

Convicted of drug charges in Nicaragua, Washington native Jason Puracal was held in a notoriously dangerous prison for two years before and appeals court acquitted him.

A former West Virginia sheriff will spend a year in federal prison for his role in the December 2010 beating of a robbery suspect.

DIXON – A convicted Dixon pedophile, in prison since 2005, pleaded not guilty Wednesday to accusations that he had sex with a 6-year-old girl in 2003.

Man pleaded guilty in February.

The accused sex trafficker "Mr. Money" will soon have to spend some of his hard-earned cash on attorneys. The Mid-South man is accused of recruiting teenage girls to the sex industry.

A local man accused of murdering his 5-year-old son will spend 18 years in prison as part of a plea agreement. Kalman Eteuati, 27, of outer Southeast Portland pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of first-degree manslaughter on Monday, May 20, in connection to the death of his son, Mahonarye Noa. Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge Eric Bergstrom then sentenced Eteuati to 260 months, or 18 years ...

In the sea of literature about the injustice and capriciousness of the death penalty, few books make a clearer or more viscerally affecting argument than Bruce Jackson and Diane Christian’s “In This Timeless Time.”

When the Notre Dame men's tennis team opens 2013 NCAA Tournament action today at Ohio State versus Washington, the Irish will take the court looking to extend a coaching career that has spanned nearly half a century. Bobby Bayliss - nearing the end of his 26th season at Notre Dame and 44th overall as a Division I head coach, plus a couple early years assisting on various levels - is set to ...

Attorneys for Patriot Coal are arguing in a federal courtroom.

ATLANTA (AP) — The Supreme Court of Georgia has ruled that a former Fulton County Commission chairman is fit to be reinstated as an attorney in the state. The unanimous ruling, announced Monday morning, involves Demetrios John Skandalakis. The high court had disbarred Skandalakis in 2005 after he pleaded guilty in federal court in 2003 to making a false statement to an FBI agent during a ...

A divided Colorado Court of Appeals panel on Thursday upheld the firing of a man for off-the-job medical-marijuana use, concluding that, because marijuana is illegal under federal law, employees

Saturday May 18, 2013 DAVE GRAM Associated Press MONTPELIER -- The Vermont Supreme Court ruled Friday that a man with multiple drunken driving convictions can sue the state's largest hospital for drawing his blood at the request of police. But the court said it's up to the Legislature to consider whether state law governing when drunken driving evidence can be

The teen accused of killing his Middle Georgia State College classmate made his first court appearance Thursday.

A former southwestern Pennsylvania police chief faces prison for offering paid protection to undercover agents he thought were dealing drugs and taking money to buy them stun guns only lawfully used by police.

HASTINGS, Minn. - A former West St. Paul pastor has been sentenced to five years in prison after an alleged affair with a 16-year-old girl who was a parishioner.

MINNEAPOLIS - A Minnesota judge has found a Missouri man guilty in the shooting deaths of three people at a Brooklyn Park home day care last year.

WATERLOO, Iowa --- The Iowa Court of Appeals sided with the city over the sale of a road for housing development.

Story by Mike Clary / Sun Sentinel Posted by Miranda Grossman / CBS12 News POMPANO BEACH, Fla. -- The county bus which critically injured a boy after his hand became stuck in the door accelerated to 18 miles an hour and traveled 100 feet before the teen could no longer keep up running and dropped to the pavement, attorneys for the child's family said Wednesday. ...

PHOENIX (Reuters) - A U.S. federal judge refused on Thursday to block Arizona's Republican governor, who has long clashed with Washington over immigration reform, from denying driver's licenses to young immigrants granted temporary legal status by the federal government. Civil rights groups had filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Phoenix in November against Governor Jan Brewer and two ...

SALT LAKE CITY -- Out of the grip of the federal prison system, environmental and climate activist Tim DeChristopher plans to make Harvard Divinity School his next stop. DeChristopher, 31, has achieved folk status and inspired a documentary airing Monday - all for grabbing a bidder's paddle and running up prices at a federal oil-and-gas lease auction, trying to safeguard wild lands near Utah's ...