The New York Times reports, "A federal judge in New York said Thursday that he was 'disappointed' in how investigators from the Central Intelligence Agency had handled videotapes documenting the harsh interrogation of detainees from Al Qaeda." The article also notes that the judge, Alvin K. Hellerstein of Federal District Court in Manhattan, went on to add that he was considering questioning agency officials who had watched the tapes about why they had made no record of them in their files.

"More than five years after his case made legal history with a U.S. Supreme Court ban on executions of the mentally retarded, Daryl Atkins was spared his own long-held place on Virginia's death row when a judge commuted his sentence to life in prison Thursday," reports The Washington Post. According to the report, "The reprieve came for reasons that few would have guessed during the ever twisting, nearly 12-year course of the case, which had focused largely on Atkins's mental limitations. Instead, it came because of a Hampton lawyer's allegation of evidence suppression by prosecutors as they prepared for Atkins's murder trial in 1998."

The Associated Press reports, "The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday against investors who sue businesses that help manipulate stock prices of publicly traded companies." "In a 5-3 decision that split along conservative-liberal lines," explains the report, "the court gave a measure of protection from securities lawsuits to suppliers, banks, accountants and law firms that do business with corporations engaging in securities fraud."

"A legal battle ended at the Supreme Court on Monday over whether terminally ill patients who have run out of medical options have a constitutional right to try experimental drugs that have not yet received federal approval," reports The New York Times. According to the report, "Advocates for patients lost the battle when, without comment, the justices refused to hear an appeal of a ruling by a divided federal appeals court that there is no such right."