The Michigan Court of Appeals says a man who had a teenage romance with a girl he later married doesn't deserve to be on the state's sex offender list.

Robert Dipiazza had a consensual relationship when he was 18 with a nearly 15-year-old in 2004. A teacher contacted authorities because the age of consent is 16 in Michigan.

A third-degree attempted criminal sexual conduct charge was eventually erased from his record, but he still had to register as a sex offender. He says he had trouble finding jobs and became depressed.

The state appeals court on ordered a Muskegon County judge to strike his name from the registry, calling it cruel punishment. Dipiazza and his girlfriend were married in April and had a baby during the summer.

Berkshire Hathaway Inc., the company that agreed to buy Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp. in its biggest takeover, accepted a lower-than-usual breakup fee in a sign Warren Buffett expects no one will top his bid.

Berkshire will receive $264 million if Burlington, the biggest U.S. railroad, cancels the agreement, according to a filing yesterday. That’s less than 1 percent of the deal’s value including net debt and compares with the 2 percent to 3 percent that is typical of these deals, said Elizabeth Nowicki, a professor at Tulane University Law School.

“Berkshire recognizes there’s a very, very small chance Burlington is going to have the desire or the opportunity to back out,” Nowicki, who is a former mergers and acquisitions lawyer at New York-based Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, said in an interview. “In this difficult economy, I doubt the Burlington board is going to have other bidders wanting to acquire them.”

Buffett, who built Berkshire over more than four decades, is taking on debt and spending the company’s cash as the economic crisis curbs expansion at some U.S. firms. Berkshire agreed to pay $26 billion for the 77.4 percent of Fort Worth, Texas-based Burlington it didn’t already own and assume $10 billion in net debt.

The California Supreme Court is set to hear arguments challenging a key section of a law aimed at protecting children from sexual predators.

Jessica's Law prohibits registered sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of a school or park.

It mandates that all those paroled after Nov. 8, 2006 — when the law took effect — must comply or face more jail time.

The case to be heard Tuesday claims the requirement violates the constitutional rights of sex offenders.

Four registered sex offenders have sued the state, arguing the law makes it impossible to find a place to live.

Attorneys for John Allen Muhammad, mastermind of the 2002 sniper attacks in the Washington, D.C., area that left 10 dead, asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday to stop his execution.

The 48-year-old Muhammad is scheduled to die by injection on Nov. 10 at a Virginia prison. In court papers, his attorneys say the execution should be put off while the court considers whether his trial lawyer was ineffective.

Muhammad was convicted of killing Dean Harold Meyers at a Manassas, Va., gas station during a three-week spree in October 2002 that spanned Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia.

Muhammad and his teenage accomplice, Lee Boyd Malvo, were also suspected of fatal shootings in other states, including Louisiana and Alabama. Malvo is serving a life sentence.

Muhammad's lawyers also have asked Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine for clemency, saying Muhammad is mentally ill and should not be executed.

Roman Polanski has re-appealed to the Swiss courts to be released from prison on bail, officials said Tuesday, the latest step in the director's protracted legal battle to avoid extradition to the United States.

The Swiss Criminal Court declined to comment on the contents of the appeal, but the Justice Ministry said it was an offer that the government has already turned down in part because it lacked a cash guarantee.

Folco Galli, the Justice Ministry spokesman, said it was an appeal of a release request that was rejected last week. Such re-appeals are common under Swiss law.

The 76-year-old filmmaker has suffered a string of setbacks since he was arrested Sept. 26 in Zurich as he arrived to receive a lifetime achievement award from a film festival. Authorities in Los Angeles want him extradited for having sex in 1977 with a 13-year-old girl.

The court confirmed Tuesday that it received the appeal, a day after a lawyer for Polanski said the request had been filed and included adequate guarantees that he would not flee justice if released. Attorney Herve Temime had earlier said the appeal would include a significant cash amount, but did not repeat the claim on Monday.

A prominent Fort Lauderdale law firm is asking a Florida court to dissolve it amid allegations that substantial amounts of money are missing from accounts created by the firm's co-founder, Scott Rothstein.

The possible dissolution of Rothstein Rosenfeldt Alder PA would amount to a repudiation of the politically well-connected Mr. Rothstein by his law partners and pose a potential embarrassment to the many Republican politicians in the state who have enjoyed his support. The 47-year-old attorney has boasted of a rags-to-riches ascent from a modest New York childhood in the Bronx to a lifestyle of luxury cars and sumptuous homes.

If the firm is dissolved it could meet the same fate as Dreier LLP, a New York law firm that was closed after its founder, Marc Dreier, was arrested for defrauding investors by selling bogus notes. Earlier this year, Mr. Dreier was sentenced to 20 years in prison. It is still unclear, however, whether the Florida firm would have to disband.

Mr. Rothstein didn't respond Monday to requests for comment. In an email exchange with The Wall Street Journal last week, he said he had "nothing to hide at all." Mr. Rothstein's attorney, Marc Nurik, didn't reply to requests for comment.

A spokesman for the law firm said it has launched an internal probe focused on a business Mr. Rothstein started that involved selling purported legal settlements to investors. He said the firm has contacted the U.S. attorney's office in Miami. At least one of the investors—Banyan, a Fort Lauderdale investment firm—has also contacted the U.S. attorney's office, which declined to comment on the matter.

The Ohio Supreme Court on Wednesday set two new execution dates even as the state continues to rework its procedures for putting condemned inmates to death by injection.

The execution dates are the first in four and a half months set by the court, which had been scheduling executions about once a month.

The death penalty is temporarily on hold in Ohio while the state develops the new policies. The update follows a botched execution on Sept. 15 that was halted after two hours when executioners couldn't find a usable vein on inmate Rommel Broom.

The court's decision Wednesday set a May 13 execution date for Michael Beuke, 47, convicted of the 1983 murder of Robert Craig, a man he met while hitchhiking on Interstate 275 in southwest Ohio.

Beuke shot Craig twice in the head and once in the chest, dumped his body in the bushes and stole his car.