The state appealed to the Supreme Court. The justices said they would decide whether Hoffman is entitled to the plea deal, even though he was later convicted and sentenced in a fair trial.

Hoffman was one of three men charged with the murder of a woman who served as a police informant in a drug deal. Hoffman slit Denise Williams' throat and another man stabbed her. Both men tried to bury her beneath rocks, eventually killing her with a blow from a rock.

The other two defendants avoided the death penalty. Hoffman, however, refused to plead guilty on the advice of his attorneys, even though prosecutors told him that if he refused the plea deal they would seek the death penalty.

One of Hoffman's attorneys — William Wellman — told Hoffman he believed that a recent appellate court ruling out of Arizona showed that Idaho's similar death penalty scheme was unconstitutional, and that it was only a matter of time before Idaho's death penalty scheme would be overturned in court.

But Idaho's death penalty scheme wasn't immediately overturned, and on June 9, 1989, Hoffman was sentenced to death.

The appeals court said Wellman made two mistakes that warranted overturning the death sentence.

"We do not expect counsel to be prescient about the direction the law will take," Judge Harry Pregerson wrote for the three-judge panel. "We nonetheless find that Wellman's representation of Hoffman during the plea bargaining stage was deficient for two reasons: first, Wellman based his advice on incomplete research, and second, Wellman recommended that his client risk much in exchange for very little."

That error, combined with Hoffman's compliant personality, meant that he was harmed by the attorney's recommendation, the court found.

Idaho's lawyers told the Supreme Court that the 9th Circuit made it too easy for defendants to prove that their lawyers were ineffective. The decision shouldn't turn on whether the advice was right or wrong, but on whether a competent lawyer would have made the same recommendation, the state said.

A law firm said on Monday it had filed an investor lawsuit against Washington Mutual Inc, alleging it pressured a unit of First American Corp to inflate the appraisal value of homes.

The lawsuit comes after New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo sued First American and its unit eAppraiseIT last week for allegedly colluding with Washington Mutual to inflate the appraisal values of homes. Cuomo did not name Washington Mutual as a defendant in his case.

The latest suit, which seeks to represent investors who bought Washington Mutual shares between July 19, 2006 and Oct. 31, 2007, also names certain officers and directors of the largest U.S. savings and loan, the law firm, Wolf Popper LLP, said in a statement.

Washington Mutual spokeswoman Libby Hutchinson said the company doesn't comment on the specifics of litigation.

But she added, "The integrity of our appraisal process is very important to us, and we work hard to make sure that it operates properly."

The suit, which was filed in U.S. District Court in New York, alleges claims for securities fraud, the law firm said.

The complaint alleges that inflated appraisals led to Washington Mutual's financial results to be misstated, it said.

During closed court hearings, iRobot discussed three areas in which it claimed the company's trade secrets had been stolen by Robotic FX. Gertner refused to issue an injunction covering two of the areas, saying iRobot had revealed some of the information in a patent filing, thus undermining its status as a trade secret. But Gertner said there was good evidence that Robotic FX may have misappropriated iRobot technology used to make the rubber tracks that propel its robots. "While Ahed claims that he developed the track independently, this court will not credit his testimony," Gertner wrote. Because the tracks are vital to the operation of the Negotiator robots, the injunction is a major barrier to continued manufacturing operations at Robotic FX - at least until a trial is held in April.

Officials at Robotic FX did not return calls seeking comment.

The injunction is the second major setback in the past 10 days for Robotic FX. Last week, the Army said it was freezing its contract with the company, pending an investigation of whether Robotic FX, with only about 10 employees, could supply up to 3,000 robots over the next five years.

Stevenson, who represents Callahan, said he expects both Alabama execution dates to be called off.

"There is every indication these will be stayed. The question is by whom and when?" he said.

The U.S. Supreme Court has allowed only one execution to be carried out since it agreed to hear the Kentucky case. That execution occurred in Texas on Sept. 25, the same day the court agreed to take the Kentucky case.

Assistant Attorney General Clay Crenshaw said the U.S. Supreme Court has not ordered a halt to all executions.

"Hopefully the Supreme Court will allow these to go forward. You are talking about cases that have been litigated over 20 years," Crenshaw said.

Arthur had been scheduled to die Sept. 27, but Gov. Bob Riley delayed the execution temporarily to allow the state Department of Corrections to change its execution procedures. The new procedures provide more checks to make sure an inmate is unconscious before receiving drugs to stop the lungs and heart.

Arthur, 65, who has maintained his innocence, was sentenced to death for the Feb. 1, 1982 killing of Troy Wicker, 35, of Muscle Shoals. The victim's wife, Judy Wicker, testified she had sex with Arthur and paid him $10,000 to kill her husband, who was shot in the face as he lay in bed.

At the time of his arrest for the Wicker killing, Arthur was serving a sentence at a prison work release center for an earlier slaying.

Callahan, 60, was was convicted of the abduction and asphyxiation of Jacksonville State University student Rebecca Suzanne Howell, who disappeared from a Calhoun County washateria on Feb. 4, 1982.

Callahan and death row inmate Willie McNair have filed court suits challenging Alabama's legal injection procedures as unconstitutionally cruel. U.S. District Judge Keith Watkins has combined the two cases and tentatively scheduled them for trial the last week of November.

Later Wednesday, Ryan's lawyers took his fading hopes to the U.S. Supreme Court, where they asked Justice John Paul Stevens to keep Ryan out of prison while he asks the full court to step in.

"No jury trial is perfect — to be sure. But perhaps no federal trial has ever been as deeply and fundamentally flawed as this one," Ryan's attorneys wrote, saying his corruption conviction stemmed from chaotic and unfair jury deliberations.

Ryan's chief defense counsel, former Gov. James R. Thompson, acknowledged that getting the Supreme Court to set bond would be unusual.

Ryan, 73, has been free on bail since he was convicted in 2006 of steering state contracts to friends, using tax dollars to run his campaigns and covering up drivers license bribery.

The verdict capped one of Illinois' biggest political scandals, bringing with it nine years of investigations and trials that wrecked Ryan's career and sent dozens of others to jail.

"The voluminous record here demonstrates that the appellants were guilty of the crimes with which they were charged," Wood wrote.

Ryan and Warner had sought a new trial based on chaotic jury deliberations at the end of the trial. Two jurors were dismissed and replaced with alternates after the jury had deliberated for eight days. One juror brought an outside legal document into the jury room as a persuasive tool in defiance of the trial judge's instructions.

The appeals court said Ryan and Warner had shown no "reasonable probability" that the U.S. Supreme Court would take their case or reverse their convictions.

Ryan's wife, Lura Lynn, said when reached by phone at the couple's Kankakee home that her husband was not available. "We had not heard this," she said. "I have no comment."

Warner's attorney, Edward Genson, was not immediately available for comment, his office said.

Ryan has been assigned to the federal correctional institution at Duluth, Minn., a minimum security camp. But he is trying to get his assignment switched to the correctional center at Oxford, Wis.

Warner has been assigned to a federal prison in Colorado.