Half of the country's 404 Intermediate People's Courts, which carry most executions, now use lethal injections, the China Daily quoted Jiang Xingchang, vice president of the Supreme People's Court, as saying.

Lethal injection "is considered more humane and will eventually be used in all Intermediate People's Courts," Jiang said in the report. He did not give a time schedule for the change.

China does not officially release capital punishment figures, but it is believed to execute more people each year than the rest of the world combined. Death penalty recipients include some people convicted of nonviolent crimes such as fraud.

The human rights monitoring group Amnesty International says China executed at least 1,770 people in 2005 — about 80 percent of the world's total. The true number is widely believed to be many times higher, however.

China has attempted to reform its capital punishment system following reports in 2005 of executions of wrongly convicted people, and criticism that lower courts arbitrarily impose the death sentence.

An amendment to China's capital punishment law, enacted in November 2005, restored to the Supreme People's Court the sole right to approve all death sentences, ending a 23-year-old practice of allowing provincial courts alone to sign off on executions.

In his appeal, Blom appears to make five different claims: that the district court did not apply the appropriate standard when reviewing his petition for postconviction relief; that his confession was coerced and, therefore, its admission into evidence violated his constitutional rights; that the district court improperly asserted subject matter jurisdiction over federal charges by leading him to believe that his confession would result in resolution of federal firearm charges and by issuing orders interfering with Blom's access to his federal public defender; that he has been improperly denied the opportunity to develop evidence demonstrating his actual innocence; and that he is being improperly held out of state to prevent him from perfecting his appeal.

Carlton County Attorney Thom Pertler prosecuted Blom.

"He was tried and convicted by the jury," Pertler said last Thursday night. "I think the Supreme Court recognizes that you give deference to the jury and what they decide on the merits of the case. The issues that he was raising — although difficult to ascertain what they were — were looked at by the Supreme Court and it was determined that the claims he was asserting had been previously asserted so he wasn't entitled to any relief."

Blom is serving a life sentence. Now 58, and formerly of Richfield, Minn., Blom was convicted of abducting Poirier from the Moose Lake convenience store where she worked May 26, 1999, strangling her on his nearby vacation property and then burning the body.

After his arrest, Blom confessed to strangling the woman. He later recanted the confession, but it was used in his trial. He was convicted of first-degree murder on Aug. 16, 2000, at the conclusion of a 10-week trial in Virginia. The conviction was automatically appealed to the Minnesota Supreme Court and affirmed. He filed another appeal last January, which led to Thursday's decision.

Blom is serving a life prison sentence without parole for Poirier's murder and a 19-year, seven-month sentence on a federal gun charge. He is being held in a Pennsylvania prison, where his anonymity among inmates can help protect his safety.

The notice, issued by the IRS on Monday, provides guidance about the standards of conduct that must be met by a tax return preparer to avoid a penalty for an understatement of tax that may result from a position taken on a tax return.

"It is important to note that the regulations expected to be finalized in 2008 may be substantially different from the rules described in this notice, and in some cases more stringent," the IRS notice said.

The IRS guidance applies to large companies such as Jackson Hewitt Tax Service and H&R Block Inc as well as to private attorneys and accountants who prepare tax returns.

A tax preparer may rely in good faith upon information furnished by the taxpayer or another adviser or third party, and is not required to independently verify or review the items reported on tax returns to determine if they are likely to be upheld if challenged by the IRS, the agency said. However, the tax return preparer must make "reasonable inquiries" if the information appears to be incorrect or incomplete, it said.

The IRS notice also asked accountants, industry groups, consumer groups and the public to submit comments by March 24 on how the agency should define "tax return preparer" in its overhaul of regulations.

That provocative possibility has long been whispered in legal and political circles ever since Sen. Hillary Clinton became a viable candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination. Now a respected conservative law professor has openly predicted a future President Clinton would name her husband to the high court if a vacancy occurred.

Pepperdine Law School's Douglas Kmiec said, "The former president would be intrigued by court service and many would cheer him on."

Kmiec worked in the Reagan and Bush 41 White Houses as a top lawyer, but said he has no personal or political "disdain" for Bill Clinton.

CNN talked with several political and legal analysts of both ideological stripes, and while several laughed at the possibility, none would rule it out completely. And all those who spoke did so on background only.

There is precedent for such a nomination: William Howard Taft, who called his time as chief justice, from 1921 to 1930, the most rewarding of his career. He was president from 1909 to 1913.

As one Democratic political analyst said, "You may recall recent trial balloons that Mr. Clinton was perhaps interested in becoming U.N. secretary-general. If he is grasping for a similarly large stage to fill his ambitions and ego, what better place than the nation's highest court, where could serve for life if he wanted?"

But a conservative lawyer who argues regularly before the high court noted Chief Justice John Roberts is fully entrenched in his position, and that might be the only high court spot Clinton would want. He also might not enjoy the relative self-imposed anonymity the justices rely on to do their jobs free of political and public pressures.

"Court arguments are not televised, and most justices shy away from publicity as a matter of respect for the court's integrity," said this lawyer. "Could Justice Clinton follow their example?"

Politics, however, may trump family ties. Perhaps three justices or more could retire in the next four to eight years, among them some of the more liberal members of the bench. The new president might face competing pressures to name a woman, a minority — especially a Hispanic or an Asian-American — and a younger judge or lawyer to fill any vacancies, three qualifications a white male in his 60s like Clinton would not have.

"This particular idea has zero chance of coming true," said Thomas Goldstein, a top appellate attorney who writes on his popular Web site, scotusblog.com.

The more immediate effect of such talk might be more practical: it could help motivate conservative voters in an election year to ensure no Clinton ever reaches the White House or the Supreme Court anytime soon.

The West Palm Beach, Fla., law firm of Rosenthal & Levy is suing a former associate and his new law firm, claiming he is trying to steal clients.

Rosenthal & Levy filed the suit in Palm Beach Circuit Court against former associate Andrew Frisch and the Orlando, Fla.-based firm Morgan & Morgan, which Frisch joined in November. Frisch works in Morgan's Davie, Fla., office.

West Palm Beach attorney G. Michael Keenan, who is representing Rosenthal & Levy, said Dec. 26 that the other side has initiated settlement discussions, and he said the case may be settled out of court.

The suit seeks an injunction to prohibit Frisch from soliciting clients from Rosenthal & Levy, which specializes in personal injury, workers compensation and other employment-related cases.

The eight-count complaint filed Dec. 14 seeks damages for lost profits and asks for punitive damages. The suit alleges breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, unfair competition, misappropriation of trade secrets, civil conspiracy and other counts.

Reached by telephone Dec. 17, Frisch denied doing anything wrong. He said he "followed in every way" the Florida Bar's packet of ethical guidelines for attorneys who switch firms "to a T" when he left in November.

Frisch said he had not heard about the Rosenthal & Levy suit against him until he received the call seeking comment.

Frisch was a Rosenthal & Levy employee from April 21, 2006, to Nov. 21, 2007, according to the suit. Before leaving, the suit claimed, "Frisch contacted clients of Rosenthal and began the process of soliciting Rosenthal's clients to follow him to his new place of employment."

Frisch sent letters notifying Rosenthal & Levy clients he was changing firms and solicited them to switch their business to his new firm -- all without the knowledge of Rosenthal & Levy and in violation of Bar rules, the suit claimed.

The Florida Bar rules for lawyers switching firms state, "Absent a specific agreement otherwise, a lawyer who is leaving a law firm shall not unilaterally contact those clients of the law firm for purposes of notifying them about the anticipated departure or to solicit representation of the clients unless the lawyer has approached an authorized representative of the law firm and attempted to negotiate a joint communication to the clients concerning the lawyer leaving the firm and bona fide negotiations have been successful."

The suit claimed Frisch did not draft a joint letter with Rosenthal & Levy, and Rosenthal & Levy was not aware Frisch was contacting clients in hopes of luring their business to his new firm.

The alleged solicitation continued after Frisch joined Morgan & Morgan, targeting cases "in which either liability could be easily proven and/or damages were significant," the complaint said.

Frisch went after "the most desirous of Rosenthal's employment and labor clients in an attempt to have those clients transfer their cases to Frisch and Morgan," the suit said.

The suit said Frisch's "illegal" and "unethical" actions "confused Rosenthal's clients and left them with the impression that Rosenthal either did not wish to continue representing the clients or that Rosenthal did not have the expertise to continue said representation."

Solicitation letters sent by Frisch on his new firm's letterhead "caused Rosenthal's clients confusion, anxiety and frustration" as well as "fear that their cases will be abandoned, that Rosenthal had closed its offices and that it would cost the clients more money to have their cases prosecuted," the suit said.

Frisch's primary motivation "was for financial profit and gain," the suit said.

Morgan & Morgan had no prior business dealings with the clients of Rosenthal & Levy prior to Frisch's mailing, the suit said.

"We are in the process" of determining if Frisch's letters got any clients to switch their business to Morgan & Morgan, Keenan said. He claimed the client list and their addresses were proprietary information of Rosenthal & Levy.