A former executive at the New Castle Funds LLC hedge fund pleaded guilty on Wednesday to an insider trading conspiracy that also ensnared Galleon fund founder Raj Rajaratnam, but he is not cooperating with the investigation.

The executive, Mark Kurland, 61, is the eighth person to plead guilty in Manhattan federal court in the probe of illegal trading involving the earnings forecasts and mergers and acquisitions of some of America's best-known companies.

At New Castle, Kurland was a colleague of Danielle Chiesi, 44, who was indicted along with Rajaratnam last month. Rajaratnam and Chiesi have pleaded not guilty to the charges. All three were arrested on October 16 last year.

U.S. prosecutors said that recorded telephone conversations between Rajaratnam and Chiesi revealed that Rajaratnam, Kurland, Chiesi and a cooperating witness received information directly or indirectly from insiders and provided it to each other for trading purposes.

The California Supreme Court on Thursday questioned the constitutionality of a provision of "Jessica's Law" that lets authorities indefinitely confine sexually violent predators.
It's the first of two decisions the court is expected to issue in the coming days over the legality of the law that was passed as Proposition 82 by 70 percent of voters in 2006.

The Supreme Court is scheduled to rule Monday on a separate legal challenge to a provision prohibiting released predators from living within 2,000 feet of a school or park.

On Thursday, the court dealt with the issue of whether sexually violent predators can be treated differently than other violent felons, who can only be held for defined terms in mental health facilities after prison.

In a 5-2 decision written by Justice Carlos Moreno, the Supreme Court offered suggestions about how government lawyers should approach the case.

Moreno said it could be that mental disorders make it likely that sexually violent predators will re-offend. Or, they could "pose a greater risk to a particularly vulnerable class of victims, such as children," Moreno noted.

Nonetheless, Moreno concluded the government had not produced any evidence to distinguish sexual predators from other violent offenders. California Deputy Attorney General Bradley A. Weinreb, who argued the case before the Supreme Court, didn't return a telephone call.

The wife of a former high-ranked Bush administration lawyer who was charged earlier this month with her attempted murder has brought a civil suit against him for $30 million.

As previously reported, John Michael Farren is accused of flying into a rage after his wife served him with divorce papers on January 6, beating her unconscious with a metal flashlight, and then attempting to strangle her. She fled to a neighbor's house with their seven-year-old and four-month-old after triggering an alarm which brought the police to arrest Mr. Farren.

In her affidavit, Mary Farren makes some unusual arguments for why she not only needs $30 million but needs it right now, prior to any judgment in her case and before her husband can use any of the couple's assets to post his $2 million bond.

In a landmark decision over corporate governance, a Wisconsin appeals court on Thursday threw out a $6.5 million jury verdict against business owners accused of looting their company.

Banks and labor unions blasted the decision, saying it would allow corporate insiders to enrich themselves at the expense of their creditors and employees.

Even the District 4 Court of Appeals agreed its ruling could allow owners of dying companies to use assets for their personal benefit without having any obligation to pay off their debts first.

The three-judge panel acknowledged that the decision could make Wisconsin banks tighten their oversight of corporate loans, driving up the cost of doing business. But the judges said that under a problematic 2004 Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling, they had no choice but to overturn the jury's verdict and dismiss the case.

The panel called on the Supreme Court to fix the earlier decision, but that appears doubtful. The high court deadlocked 3-3 on the matter last year, which sent the case back to the Madison-based appeals court.

The state Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 vote Tuesday that the governor has line-item veto power on sections of legislation that place "conditions or restrictions on previously appropriated funds.”

The decision handed down Tuesday ends a legal challenge from Senate President Pro Tempore Glenn Coffee, R-Oklahoma City, and House Speaker Chris Benge, R-Tulsa.

"This was never a hostile lawsuit, nor was it an attack on the governor’s constitutional right to line-item veto,” said Benge, R-Tulsa. "We were merely seeking clarification on the proper use of the line-item veto, which we have now received from the courts.

"While we disagree with the ruling, and agree with the dissenting opinion, we respect the court’s decision,” he said.

Legislative leaders filed two lawsuits asking the Supreme Court to decide whether Gov. Brad Henry has the authority after he used the line-item veto to change certain sections of legislation that affected agency budgets. Attorneys for Coffee and Benge argued that the governor only had the power to veto portions of appropriation bills.

Villiger was reacting to a ruling by the Federal Administrative Court last week that the transfer of customer data broke the law. His comments were published by the German-language Tages-Anzeiger newspaper on Wednesday.

The court decision has cast doubt on the agreement reached between the authorities in the US and Switzerland last year under which the Swiss agreed to hand over data on an estimated 4,450 bank customers.

Villiger said in the newspaper interview that the ruling had placed the bank and the country in a “extremely difficult situation”.

There have been calls within Switzerland for UBS to take responsibility for its past actions, which encouraged US tax payers to transfer funds to Switzerland in order to avoid paying taxes, something Villiger rejected.

“There can be no solution without an agreement between states,” he said. He further pointed out that those at the bank who had been responsible for the crisis had now left.

He added that it was difficult to draw up a sustainable strategy for the bank when there was so much uncertainty about many aspects of its work, including the future of bank secrecy.

The Missouri Supreme Court overturned a death penalty sentence for man who is mentally retarded. Andrew Lyons, 52, was convicted of first-degree murder in 1996 and sentenced to death for the 1992 killing of his estranged girlfriend.

Lyons filed a petition in mandamus, claiming to be mentally retarded and therefore ineligible to be executed.

A court-appointed master supported Lyons' claims. The master concluded that Lyons' IQ was in a range of 61 to 70, that Lyons had continual extensive related deficits in two adaptive behaviors, and that the symptoms were present and documented before Lyons had turned 18.

"Although there is evidence, as noted earlier, that Lyons manifested these conditions before age 18, the state contends there was insufficient documentation of these conditions," the court wrote in a unanimous opinion.

"The state vigorously notes the lack of an IQ test result from prior to age 18 and the scant school records and other evidence with respect to the adaptive behaviors.