The state Supreme Court on Wednesday denied tobacco companies' appeals of a San Francisco jury's award of $2.85 million in damages to the family of a woman who died of lung cancer after smoking cigarettes for 26 years.

Leslie Whiteley of Ojai sued Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds before her death in 2000 at age 40.

She testified that she started smoking at 13, using her lunch money to buy cigarettes, and paid little attention to the warning labels because tobacco companies promoted the benefits of smoking and the government allowed the sales. She smoked two packs a day until she was diagnosed with cancer in 1998.

A jury awarded Whiteley and her husband $1.7 million in compensation and $20 million in punitive damages four months before she died. It was the nation's first verdict in favor of a smoker who took up the habit after 1965, when the government first required warnings on cigarette packages.

A Nevada inmate lost a U.S. Supreme Court bid to challenge what jurors were told about DNA evidence against him in the 1994 sexual assault of a 9-year-old girl.

The nation's highest court ruled Monday that it would not hear the evidence issue but did give Troy Don Brown, 38, another chance to argue before a federal appeals court that he received ineffective legal representation at trial.

State Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto called the Supreme Court ruling a victory for prosecutors and Nevada after they lost arguments about the DNA evidence in lower courts.

Paul Turner, an assistant federal public defender in Las Vegas handling Brown's appeals, has argued that the conviction should be overturned if the DNA evidence was insufficient.

The high court did not hear oral arguments before reversing a Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that an analysis of DNA evidence overstated the likelihood that body fluids found at the rape scene were from Brown.

The Supreme Court pointed to an evidence standard set in a 1979 case calling for courts to consider all the evidence in a case, not just evidence being challenged.

At trial in Elko County, the chief of the Washoe County crime lab testified the chance that Brown's DNA matched the DNA found at the rape scene was 99.99967 percent.

The witness also told jurors that one in three million people randomly selected from the population would also match that DNA.

A federal court turned to historians Tuesday as it considers the constitutionality of Proposition 8, an amendment that banned same-sex marriage in California.

Harvard professor Nancy Cott told a federal court in San Francisco that child rearing was only one of several purposes of marriage, not "the central or defining purpose," the Los Angeles Times reports.

She noted that that divorce rates rose steeply in the 1960s and marriage continued to be viewed negatively in the 1970s as heterosexuals advocated "open marriages" and "swinging." But divorce rates hit a plateau in the 1980s, and marriage is now held in high esteem in the U.S., she said.

She attributed the higher status of marriage to advocacy by the Christian right and the growing clamoring of gays and lesbians to participate in it.

During cross-examination, lawyers for the Proposition 8 campaign noted that racial restrictions on marriage in the U.S. were never as "uniform" or widespread as the ban on same-sex marriage. He also asked Cott if it was possible to predict the consequences same-sex marriage would have on society.

The Massachusetts parents accused of killing their 4-year-old daughter by overdosing her with prescription drugs will be tried separately.

Assistant District Attorney Frank Middleton said in court Wednesday that prosecutors decided to hold separate trials for Carolyn and Michael Riley after the judge ruled certain statements each of the Rileys made might incriminate the other and could not be heard. Those statements could be used in separate trials.

The judge on Monday denied a defense motion to dismiss murder charges against the Rileys. Their lawyers argued that the murder indictment should be thrown out because a new medical report from a prosecution expert acknowledges that the girl had pneumonia. The defense claims that caused her death.

The Lustick Law Firm of Bellingham has opened a new branch office in Mount Vernon.

The new branch office is at 413 West Gates Street, in the office suites once used by the Skagit Argus newspaper. The firm's local phone number is (360) 873-8882. Fax is (360) 873-8881. The standard hours of operation will be Monday through Friday 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The Mount Vernon branch attorneys will handle criminal cases (felonies and misdemeanors) and legal matters involving real estate, aviation law, military law, and family law. The office will be accepting cases in federal court and in Washington state Superior or District Court and in the various city municipal courts within Skagit, Snohomish, King, and Island counties.

Attorney Sharon Fields will serve as the acting branch manager in the Mount Vernon office, and will focus her practice on criminal and family law. Fields studied at the University of Utah where she received a bachelor's degree with honors in 1993 and a law degree in 1996.

More information about the Lustick Law Firm can be found at Lustick.com