The Iowa Court of Appeals said Officer Michael Mette's trial judge had no testimony on which to base her ruling that he could have walked away from a fight with another man — but didn't.

Mette had argued self-defense in the 2005 fight in Dubuque with Jake Gothard that left Gothard with a fractured nose, cheek and jaw.

In November 2006, 1st Judicial District Judge Monica Ackley found Mette guilty of assault causing serious injury and sentenced him to five years. She said Mette was not the initial aggressor but could have retreated.

The case prompted an outcry in Chicago, where prominent officials — including Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, Cook County State's Attorney Richard Devine and Chicago Police Superintendent Jody Weis — had called for Mette's release.

In its ruling, the appeals court found that there was no testimony to support Ackley's findings.

Several lawyers and government watchdog groups said Wednesday they are mulling legal action to block any changes without the approval of voters, who passed a two-term cap by referendum in 1993.

Bloomberg was expected to announce Thursday that he will ask the City Council to pass a bill giving him and other officeholders the option of running for a third consecutive term.

Even before the specifics of the mayor's plan have been revealed, the idea has already inflamed some critics who are promising a fight.

Public advocacy lawyer Norman Siegel said he has received calls from several people urging him to file a lawsuit, including a political candidate whose campaign plans would be disrupted by a change in term limits.

"The legal question is, can you undo a public referendum by legislative fiat?" Siegel said.

He promised "a hard look" at a legal challenge, a vow repeated Wednesday by other attorneys.

"Lawyers all around the city are going over this with a fine-toothed comb," said Gene Russianoff, a senior attorney for the New York Public Interest Research Group.

Veterans of similar fights, however, say Bloomberg's opponents might not find much solace in the courts.

State and federal judges in New York have a history of rulings that would seem to affirm the City Council's authority to extend or repeal term limits without going back to the voters.

A state appeals court ruled in 1961 that Buffalo's City Council could legally repeal voter-approved term limits without holding a new referendum.

A lower-level appeals court backed New York's City Council when it made minor alterations to the term limits law in 2002 to erase a quirk that would have limited some of its members to no more than six consecutive years in office, rather than eight.

The unusual request, from Louisiana and the Bush administration, was based on the failure of anyone involved in the case to take into account a federal law from 2006 that authorizes the death penalty for members of the military who are convicted of child rape.

The state argued that the case should be reopened because Justice Anthony Kennedy relied in part on what he called a "national consensus" against executing convicted rapists. The court split 5-4 in the June 25 ruling.

The justices, by a 7-2 vote, issued an amended opinion Wednesday that adds a footnote concerning military law, but otherwise leaves the essence of the decision untouched.

The provision of military law setting out punishments for rapists "does not draw into question our conclusions that there is a consensus against the death penalty for the crime in the civilian context and that the penalty here is unconstitutional," Kennedy wrote, joined by the four liberal justices who formed the majority in June.

Reopening the case would have taken five votes, including that of at least one justice who voted to ban the death penalty for rapists.

Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas voted to hear the case again.

Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Antonin Scalia dissented from the original opinion, but voted against reopening the case.

The Hague appeals court re-convicted the four Dutch nationals of Moroccan descent for plotting attacks, and said trial evidence showed they were part of a single group, as prosecutors had argued.

Judges cited their adherence to a single violent belief system, their training with firearms, and their coordinated efforts to find the addresses of Dutch politicians on a hit-list, including the prime minister.

The court's judges added a year to the sentence of ringleader Samir Azzouz, 22, giving him a total of nine years in prison. Azzouz had videotaped a suicide testament.

Both defendants and prosecutors had appealed the original ruling. The defendants asked for acquittal and the prosecutors sought longer sentences, including 15 years for Azzouz.

Azzouz "has made it apparent that he despises Dutch society," judges said in a written ruling. "He has shown that he has no respect for those who have different views and knows no compassion for the potential victims of the acts he planned."

Azzouz evaded jail twice in investigations into alleged terrorist activities. The first time, he was caught with bomb-making materials, but he was released without charge on a technicality.

He later was charged with planning an attack, but was acquitted when the judges ruled his preparations were not advanced enough to prove a terrorist intent.

The Iowa Court of Appeals said Officer Michael Mette's trial judge had no testimony on which to base her ruling that he could have walked away from a fight with another man — but didn't.

Mette had argued self-defense in the 2005 fight in Dubuque with Jake Gothard that left Gothard with a fractured nose, cheek and jaw.

In November 2006, First Judicial District Judge Monica Ackley found Mette guilty of assault causing serious injury and sentenced him to five years. She said Mette was not the initial aggressor but could have retreated.

The case prompted an outcry in Chicago, where prominent officials, including Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, Cook County State's Attorney Richard Devine and Chicago Police Superintendent Jody Weis, had called for Mette's release.

In its ruling, the appeals court found that there was no testimony to support Ackley's findings.

A three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati denied the Ohio GOP's request that, at the very least, ballots cast during the weeklong period be segregated from other ballots cast for the Nov. 4 presidential election.

A federal district judge in Columbus declined to rule on the matter Monday. The Ohio Supreme Court upheld the early voting window in a 4-3 decision the same day, while a federal judge in Cleveland also sided with Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner.

The appeals court noted that the lower district court did not rule on the matter of the voting window, and said the argument involves facts about how election officials handle absentee ballots that must first be presented to a lower court.

Bill Todd, a lead attorney for the Ohio GOP, said the party was discussing its options Tuesday night. It wasn't known whether they planned to further appeal.

The appeals court also gave Brunner a second victory, rejecting a GOP challenge to her advisory that county boards of elections weren't required to allow poll observers during early voting.

A federal judge in Columbus issued a temporary restraining order against Brunner's instructions Monday. But the appeals court overturned that ruling, saying the district court had abused its discretion in granting the order.

Thousands of Ohioans went to the polls Tuesday for the first day of early voting. Ohio's largest counties had several hundred voters each, and a small portion of them also registered Tuesday.