"My life has been dedicated to supporting social justice" Chavez said. "It is an honor to join The Cochran Firm."

Among the cases in which Chavez will take part is litigation against Tyson Foods Inc., Pilgrim's Pride and other large poultry processing corporations on behalf of at least 7,000 workers who are seeking back wages, according to the firm.

Jose Magallan, a Deputy assigned to the United States Marshal's  McAllen office, has pleaded guilty to two counts of exceeding his authorized access to information on a U. S. Government computer and accepting money for the information, United States Attorney Don DeGabrielle and Special Agent in Charge of the Department of Justice Office of Inspector General Dallas Field Office announced today. 

At a hearing before United States District Judge Vanessa Gilmore held today,   Jose Magallan, 52, of  McAllen, TX, admitted that on two separate occasions, in November 2006 and in January 2007, he accepted money from a private citizen to conduct an unauthorized search of the U. S. Marshals Service's computer system to obtain and deliver information.   Magallan admitted to receiving $500 for information he obtained in the first unauthorized access to information search and $450 for the second such search.  

Judge Gilmore, who accepted the guilty pleas and convicted Magallan of two counts alleged in the indictment, has set sentencing for October 9, 2007.  Magallan faces up to five years imprisonment and up to a $250,000 for each count of conviction.

Magallan, who has been free on bond since his arrest in April 2007 following return of the two count indictment,  has been permitted by the court to remain on bond pending his sentencing.

The investigation leading to the indictment of Magallan was conducted by Special Agents of the Dallas Field Office of the Department of Justice Office of Inspector General.  The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U. S. Attorney Jim McAlister.  

A judge ruled Monday that no pair of pants is worth $54 million, rejecting a lawsuit that took a dry cleaner's promise of "Satisfaction Guaranteed" to an extreme.
 

"A reasonable consumer would not interpret 'Satisfaction Guaranteed' to mean that a merchant is required to satisfy a customer's unreasonable demands," wrote District of Columbia Superior Court Judge Judith Bartnoff.

Bartnoff ordered Pearson, an administrative law judge, to pay clerical court costs of about $1,000 to the defendants. A motion to recover their tens of thousands of dollars in attorney fees will be considered later.

A divided Supreme Court yesterday stopped an atheist group's lawsuit against President Bush's faith-based initiative, ruling that the plaintiffs do not have standing in the case and thus enabling Bush to continue a program he created by executive order without congressional approval.

The decision was made on a day when the high court showed its increasingly conservative tilt, approving restrictions on student speech, loosening limits on corporate- and union-paid advertising close to Election Day, and siding with developers in an environmental suit.

All four cases were decided by 5 -to- 4 votes, with both of Bush's picks -- Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who replaced the late William Rehnquist, and Justice Samuel Alito, who was confirmed after Sandra Day O'Connor retired -- siding with the majority. Rehnquist was a solid conservative, while O'Connor was widely viewed as a centrist swing vote.

The decisions show that "President Bush got exactly what he hoped for, a court substantially further to the right," said Tom Goldstein, a Harvard Law School lecturer on Supreme Court litigation who has also argued cases before the high court. If O'Connor were still on the court, he said, all four cases might have been decided differently.

The faith-based case is particularly important, Goldstein said, because it protects Bush's programs from legal challenges and indicates that the court will be "less concerned about keeping church and state separate, so later decisions will be more sympathetic to government's cooperating with religious institutions."

The plaintiffs in the case, including taxpayers from the Freedom From Religion Foundation, had argued that the funding of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, violated the established separation of church and state, putting the government in the position of steering hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to groups with strong religious affiliations. The plaintiffs argued that Bush was spending taxpayer funds to hold conferences at which religious groups were urged to apply for federal grants.

But the Supreme Court, while not ruling directly on the First Amendment church-state issue, found that the taxpayers who sued the government can not do so simply because they pay taxes.

Writing for the majority, Alito said the federal budget is so big "it is a complete fiction to argue that an unconstitutional federal expenditure causes an individual federal taxpayer any measurable economic harm. And if every federal taxpayer could sue to challenge any government expenditure, the federal courts would cease to function as courts of law and would be cast in the role of general complaint bureaus."

Alito noted that the Supreme Court had previously made an exception under which taxpayers could sue if Congress appropriates funds in a way that violates the separation of church and state. But in this case, Alito wrote, the faith-based initiative funds were "paid for out of general Executive Branch appropriations" and therefore were not directly funded by Congress.

"We have to understand you can fight the war [on terrorism] and lose everything if you have no civil liberties left when you get through fighting the war," said Lamberth, appointed by President Ronald Reagan.

The judge disagreed with letting the executive branch alone decide which people to spy on in national security cases.

"The executive has to fight and win the war at all costs. But judges understand the war has to be fought, but it can't be at all costs," Lamberth said. "We still have to preserve our civil liberties. Judges are the kinds of people you want to entrust that kind of judgment to more than the executive."

Lamberth was named chief of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in 1995 by Chief Justice William Rehnquist. He held that post until 2002.

The court meets in secret to review applications from the FBI, the National Security Agency and other agencies for warrants to tap or search the homes of people in the U.S. in terrorist or espionage cases.

Shortly after Sept. 11, Bush authorized the NSA to spy on calls between people in the U.S. and suspected terrorists abroad without court warrants. The administration said it needed to act faster than the court could and that the president had constitutional authority to order warrantless domestic spying.

The provisions of the decree relating to Google's attempt to intervene are mostly set to expire in November. The consent decree -- part of a settlement among Microsoft, the Justice Department and a number of state attorneys general -- resolved litigation that began in 1998 and bars Microsoft from taking specific actions that harm rivals' software products.

Last week, Microsoft agreed to revise its new Vista operating system under a compromise with federal and state officials monitoring the firm's compliance with the decree and in response to a complaint raised by Google last year. The revisions would allow users to select a default desktop search provider in the same way they choose a default Internet browser. Microsoft will also add links to make it easier for users to add other desktop searches, such as Google Desktop Search, said a company executive, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the company had not given him permission to be quoted.

"Microsoft went the extra mile to resolve these issues in a spirit of compromise," said Jack Evans, a Microsoft spokesman. "The government has clearly stated that it is satisfied with the changes we're making. Google has provided no new information that should suggest otherwise in their filing."

David C. Drummond, Google senior vice president and chief legal officer, acknowledged in an e-mail that "the remedies won by the Department of Justice and state Attorneys General from Microsoft are a positive step." But, he said, "consumers will likely need further measures to ensure meaningful choice. Ultimately, these issues raise the need for continued judicial oversight of Microsoft's practices, to ensure that consumers' interests are best served."

In its court filing, Google asserted that "Microsoft will continue to show its own desktop search results" when Vista users run searches from various access points on their computer, such as the Start menu.

Microsoft officials countered that nothing precludes a user from launching a Google Desktop Search from a computer running Vista. "There's at least four different ways" to launch it, said the company executive.

Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly is scheduled to hold a status conference today on Microsoft's adherence to the consent decree with Microsoft, Justice Department officials and representatives of state attorneys general. Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said in an e-mail statement yesterday he believes the court should consider permitting Google to provide more information.

But Theodore Bolema, a law professor at Central Michigan University and former Justice Department attorney handling antitrust issues, said he found Google's complaint ironic. "We've got companies that pride themselves on being upstarts," he said, "and now they're looking for the heavy hand of the government to come in and basically regulate." He noted that Google's complaint "seems focused on protecting Google," a competitor, rather than on protecting consumers, which is a tenet of antitrust law.

Court oversight will continue into 2009 over discussions concerning the documentation of some of Microsoft's software.

Former U.S. Rep. Melissa Hart has rejoined Pittsburgh law firm Keevican Weiss Bauerle & Hirsch LLC as a member.

Hart was defeated by Jason Altmire last November after serving three terms as the Republican representative from McCandless.

Keevican Weiss Bauerle & Hirsch launched in 1988 and has offices in Cleveland and Harrisburg. In 2003, the firm, then ranked as Pittsburgh's ninth largest and known as DKW Law Group PC, filed for protection from creditors under Chapter 11 of the federal bankruptcy code, emerging successfully later that year. It adopted the current name in early 2006.

Hart said in a statement that she was "happy to be back in a professional capacity at a first-rate organization among long-term friends and colleagues."