The U.S. Supreme Court is deciding later this month whether it wants to get involved in a Georgia death penalty case that involves a murder suspect who says he was in jail for two years without an attorney.

It's the latest test for Georgia's justice system, which has come under scrutiny in recent years. The state's new public defender program has had funding trouble ever since the $3 million Atlanta courthouse shootings trial and the Georgia Supreme Court has been criticized for not reviewing death penalty appeals closely enough.

The U.S. Supreme Court will decide after a closed-door conference Sept. 27 whether it wants to intervene in Jaime Ryan Weis' case. He is accused of killing a 73-year-old woman.

A Florida man known for his sports-related philanthropy pleaded guilty Wednesday to running a multistate Ponzi scheme that prosecutors say left investors with up to $100 million in losses.

Nevin Shapiro pleaded guilty in New Jersey federal court to one count of securities fraud and one count of money laundering as part of an agreement that still has him facing up to 17 years in prison at his Jan. 4 sentencing.

Prosecutors say 41-year-old Shapiro of Miami Beach, used a Florida-based company called Capitol Investments, USA, Inc., to raise nearly $900 million from investors who thought they were buying into a wholesale grocery distribution business.

Charges filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission claim Shapiro promised investors risk-free annual returns as high as 26 percent by persuading them to invest in a "grocery diversion" enterprise — a practice of buying low-cost groceries in one region of the country and reselling them in higher-priced markets.

Shapiro allegedly siphoned at least $35 million of the proceeds for personal use, including $23 million for salaries and commissions for himself, $5 million for a Miami Beach mansion and $400,000 for courtside Miami Heat basketball tickets. He also spent lavishly on luxury cars, a high-stakes gambling habit, and a pair of diamond-studded handcuffs given to an unnamed prominent athlete, according to court documents.

An Indiana money manager who once led a high-flying lifestyle pleaded guilty to five securities fraud counts on Wednesday, nearly two years after he tried to fake his death in a Florida plane crash to escape the crush of financial and personal problems.

Marcus Schrenker, 39, admitted the charges in a plea agreement under which he agreed to a 10-year prison sentence and prosecutors dropped four other charges. He also agreed to pay more than $600,000 in restitution. Prosecutors say he bilked friends, family members and other investors of more than $1 million.

He will remain in jail until his Oct. 7 sentencing, when Hamilton Superior Court Judge Steven Nation is expected to rule whether Schrenker serves the sentence at the same time as a federal sentence or afterward.

Schrenker, shackled at his wrists and ankles and wearing an orange jail T-shirt emblazoned with "Inmate 453" on its back in large black letters, told Nation he has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and has taken medication for it since 1992.

His attorney, P. Chadwick Hill, said afterward that Schrenker didn't blame the disorder for his actions.

A federal appeals court says a group of dairy consumers can proceed with parts of a lawsuit alleging that several national retailers and an organic dairy company falsely labeled the dairy's milk.

Aurora Organic Dairy, based in Boulder, Colo., is the nation's largest provider of store-brand organic milk.

Customers sued Aurora and retailers including Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Wild Oats Markets Inc., Target Corp. and Costco Wholesale Corp., claiming Aurora's milk was misleadingly labeled. The appeals court blocked their claims that Aurora is not an organic dairy because the certification remains in effect.

But ruling requires the trial court to hear claims that the milk isn't produced in the kinds of farms the labels describe.

A Michigan Court of Appeals judge urged lawmakers Wednesday to clarify the state's medical marijuana law, saying the "inartfully drafted" measure has resulted in confusion and arrests.

Judge Peter O'Connell issued his call Wednesday in a 30-page opinion on an Oakland County case in which the court upheld marijuana possession charges against two Madison Heights residents. The judge said the law is so confusing that users "who proceed without due caution" could "lose both their property and their liberty."

The appeals court decision comes as Metro Detroit leaders struggle to interpret the law, which was intended to allow marijuana prescriptions for medical purposes. But O'Connell argued in his separate, concurring opinion that sections of the law contradict Public Health Codes that make possession and manufacture of the drug illegal.

Raids last month on clinics in Ferndale and Waterford Township resulted in arrests and the seizure of marijuana and medical records. A week later, Lapeer County Sheriff's deputies searched a medical marijuana dispensary in Dryden, confiscating marijuana and cash.

"To me, our dilemma is magnified by the events of the last few weeks," said Berkley Mayor Marilyn Stephan, who is faced with the expiration in November of a 180-day municipal moratorium on the medical marijuana law.

An appeals court overturned the conviction of a woman found guilty of helping with a notorious 2001 ecoterror attack that destroyed a university research center, concluding the judge made mistakes that cast doubt on the fairness of her trial.

Briana Waters, 34, was convicted of serving as a lookout during the Earth Liberation Front attack on the University of Washington's Center for Urban Horticulture in Seattle and was sentenced to six years in prison plus $6 million in restitution.

A unanimous three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday that the late U.S. District Judge Franklin Burgess made several errors that raised questions about the fairness of her trial.

Waters' lawyer, Dennis Riordan, of San Francisco, said he was delighted and would move quickly to have her released pending another trial, if prosecutors decide to pursue one. Being imprisoned in Danbury, Conn., far from her young daughter, has been difficult, he said.