The man convicted of killing a 7-year-old girl who became the namesake of Megan's Laws across the country should be allowed to pursue claims that his lawyers were ineffective, a state appeals court ruled Tuesday.

But the appeals court did not agree with Jesse Timmendequas' argument that his kidnapping, sexual assault and murder conviction should be overturned and he should be released from prison.

Instead, the appeals court ordered a state judge to consider whether there's merit to Timmendequas' arguments about faulty representation.

Timmendequas was convicted in 1997 and given a death sentence with the provision that if the death sentence was vacated by a court, he would still serve consecutive life sentences for murder and first-degree kidnapping. The state Supreme Court affirmed the conviction and the federal Supreme Court refused to hear his appeal.

The suspected leader of a Colombian cocaine cartel had planned to plead guilty Tuesday to a drug conspiracy charge, but opted at the last minute to go to trial instead because the deal prosecutors offered meant he would likely die in prison.

An exasperated U.S. District Judge Patricia Seitz warned Jaime Alberto Marin-Zamora that the latest continuance in his case — the third — would be his last. She scheduled a trial for Sept. 26.

"That's the drop-dead date," Seitz told Marin-Zamora, who was clad in tan prison garb and was using earphones so he could hear an interpreter translate the judge's words to Spanish.

Defense lawyer David Fernandez told The Associated Press after the hearing that prosecutors offered a plea deal that would effectively mean a life sentence, which is the maximum Marin-Zamora faces if convicted of cocaine trafficking conspiracy at trial.

"We're not going to take a plea that would let him rot in jail for the rest of his life," Fernandez said. "We were looking for a number we could live with and my guy wouldn't die in jail."

Fernandez declined to discuss specific details of the negotiations.

The Supreme Court on Monday unanimously upheld a Nevada ethics law that governs when lawmakers should refrain from voting on official business because they might have a conflict of interest.

The court reversed a Nevada Supreme Court decision that said elected officials have a constitutional right to vote on official business that the state law violated.

The decision came in the case of Michael Carrigan, a Sparks, Nev., council member who voted on a casino project even though his campaign manager served as a project consultant.

Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the court, said an elected official's vote "is not his own speech but a mechanical function of government — the commitment of his apportioned share of the legislature's power to the passage or defeat of a particular proposal."

Scalia said conflict-of-interest rules similar to Nevada's "have been commonplace for over 200 years."

The Nevada Commission on Ethics found that Carrigan's vote violated a provision of the ethics law that lays out various relationships that should disqualify an official from voting, including the official's relatives and business associates.

The ethics panel said Carrigan should have abstained from voting because his friend and campaign manager, Carlos Vasquez, also worked as a consultant for the Red Hawk Land Co., which was backing the Lazy 8 casino project.

The Supreme Court will decide whether a couple must pay taxes on the bankruptcy sale of their family farm.

The high court on Monday agreed to hear an appeal from Lynwood and Brenda Hall.

The Halls were forced to sell their family farm for $960,000 to settle their bankruptcy debts. That sale brought about capital gains taxes of $26,000. The Halls wanted the taxes treated as part of the bankruptcy, paying part of it and having the court discharge the rest.

The IRS objected to that plan, saying all of the taxes must be paid and the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco agreed with the tax agency.

The high court will review that decision.