A New York psychiatrist is expected in federal court to discuss the religious writings of the man accused of abducting Elizabeth Smart.

According to Dr. Michael Welner, some of Brian David Mitchell's writings claim that Smart went with him willingly and with the permission of her parents.

Mitchell drafted the "Book of Immanuel David Isaiah II" after his arrest and interrogations by police in March 2003.

Welner is testifying as part of a 10-day competency hearing to determine whether Mitchell can stand trial in U.S. District Court. The competency hearing enters its second week Monday.

Mitchell is charged with kidnapping and unlawful transportation of a minor across state lines.

Prosecutors contend Mitchell is competent and faking an illness to avoid prosecution.

Condemned killer Kenneth Biros could become the first person in the country put to death with a single dose of an intravenous anesthetic instead of the usual — and faster-acting — three-drug process if his execution proceeds Tuesday.

The execution could propel other states to eventually consider the switch, which proponents say ends arguments over unnecessary suffering during injection. California and Tennessee previously considered then rejected the one-drug approach.

Though the untested method has never been used on an inmate in the United States, one difference is clear: Biros will likely die more slowly than inmates put to death with the three-drug method, which includes a drug that stops the heart.

Lethal injection experts on both sides of the debate over injection say thiopental sodium, which kills by putting people so deeply asleep they stop breathing, will take longer.

How much longer is unclear: Mark Dershwitz, an anesthesiologist who advised Ohio on its switch to the single drug, has written death should occur in under 15 minutes.

Ohio inmates have typically taken about seven minutes to die after the three-drug IV injection, which combines thiopental sodium with the drugs pancuronium bromide — which paralyzes muscles — and potassium chloride, which causes cardiac arrest. Dershwitz also said in a court filing last week that a single dose of thiopental sodium would take longer than the three drugs, though he didn't specify a time.

Former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich would claim his 5th Amendment right against self incrimination if asked to testify in a civil lawsuit spurred by his federal corruption indictment, his lawyer says.

Attorney Jay Edelson told The Associated Press on Thursday night that the former governor also would assert legislative privilege. That right protects state lawmakers and other officials from being bombarded by suits over legislation.

Four Illinois gambling casinos have filed suit to recover $90 million they were forced to pay Illinois racetracks under measures signed by Blagojevich.

The federal indictment says Blagojevich conspired to squeeze a racetrack owner for a campaign contribution in exchange for signing one of the measures in 2008.

An Indiana teenager accused of strangling his 10-year-old brother and dumping his body in a park has pleaded not guilty to murder.

Seventeen-year-old Andrew Conley showed no emotion during Friday's court appearance in Ohio Circuit Court in Rising Sun, the teen's hometown along the Ohio River about 90 miles southeast of Indianapolis.

His parents were at a viewing for his brother Conner Conley's body and did not attend the hearing.

Prosecutors say Conley confessed to police that he intentionally strangled his brother while they were wrestling at the family home on Sunday. They say Andrew Conley told investigators he had dreamed of killing someone since he was in eighth grade.

If convicted of murder, Conley could be sentenced to up to 65 years in prison.

A federal appeals court has temporarily  A 2008 Supreme Court ruling giving Guantanamo Bay prisoners the right to challenge their indefinite detention does not apply in the case of two detainees who committed suicide, the Obama administration says in newly filed court papers.

The Justice Department made the argument in a lawsuit brought by the families of two Saudi detainees who, according to the U.S. government, hanged themselves at the island prison on the same day in June 2006 after more than four years in captivity.

A year and a half ago, the Supreme Court overturned part of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 that had stripped federal courts from hearing challenges to the indefinite detention of hundreds of Guantanamo Bay prisoners.

The decision "had no effect" on another provision of that act that says no court has jurisdiction to hear a challenge "relating to any aspect" of a Guantanamo Bay prisoner's detention, the department said in court papers filed Friday.

blocked construction of a massive gold mine project in northeast Nevada that critics say would harm the environment and ruin a mountain several tribes consider sacred.

A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed part of an earlier decision denying a preliminary injunction sought by conservationists and tribal leaders. The groups had sought the injunction to force Barrick Gold Corp. to postpone digging a 2,000-foot-deep open pit at the Cortez Hills mine 250 miles east of Reno.

The 17-page ruling issued Thursday in San Francisco said the U.S. Bureau of Land Management failed to adequately analyze the potential for the mine on Mount Tenabo (tuh-NAH'-boh) to pollute the air with mercury emissions and dry up scarce water resources.