The judge at Wecht's first trial did not follow proper procedure in declaring a mistrial after jurors said they couldn't unanimously agree on a verdict, but that wasn't enough to dismiss the 41 counts against him, the appeals court ruled.

Wecht, 77, has earned millions investigating deaths, including those of JonBenet Ramsey, Elvis Presley and Vince Foster.

He was accused of using his former Allegheny County coroner's staff to benefit his private business and trading unclaimed county morgue cadavers for office and lab space at a university where he taught. Wecht was also charged with mail fraud for allegedly overbilling his private clients for bogus travel expenses.

His first trial lasted seven weeks and jurors deliberated for more than 50 hours before telling U.S. District Judge Arthur Schwab on April 8 that they were "essentially deadlocked." Schwab then declared a mistrial.

But, in a blunt demonstration of who is in charge in the tense zone around South Ossetia, Russian soldiers turned back a United Nations convoy. And the Georgian government said Russia reinforced its positions on the outskirts of the Black Sea port city of Poti over the weekend.

The World Court case opened a new legal front in the battle between Georgia and Russia for control of South Ossetia and Abkhazia and began as French President Nicolas Sarkozy arrived in Moscow with a European Union delegation for talks aimed at easing the standoff.

But Russia's Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko said Monday just before the EU delegation sat down for talks with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that Moscow was against an autonomous EU monitoring mission.

He said such a force would lead to unnecessary "fragmentation" of international monitoring efforts by the U.N. and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

Banks killed 13 people in a 1982 shooting rampage in northeastern Pennsylvania. Five of the victims were his own children.

Judge Michael Conahan agrees with defense attorneys that Banks is psychotic and unable to comprehend his death sentence or participate in his defense.

Conahan issued the ruling Monday, several weeks after a hearing on Banks' mental state.

The judge had decided once before that Banks couldn't be put to death. But the state Supreme Court ordered a fresh hearing after finding that Conahan improperly barred a prosecution psychiatrist from testifying.

Prosecutors concede Banks is mentally ill but maintain the execution should go forward.

Clark County District Court Judge Jackie Glass turned down the request Monday during a hearing on motions before prospective jurors were summoned for questioning.

The judge says questionnaires filled out by prospects asked whether they were familiar with Simpson's other trials, and she is not going to relitigate those cases.

Simpson and a co-defendant are accused of robbing two sports memorabilia dealers in a hotel last year.

Simpson was acquitted of the 1994 slayings of ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman, but was found civilly liable for their deaths.

Isaac Zamora made the chilling comment twice at the brief hearing in Skagit County District Court while investigators wrapped up their work at eight crime scenes. The 28-year-old is being held on $5 million bail in the wake of Tuesday's rampage, which left six people dead and four injured.

District Court Judge Warren Gilbert read each charge and the penalties, which carry a maximum sentence of life in prison. That doesn't mean the death penalty is off the table, according to the Skagit County prosecutor.

"Do you talk about it? Sure you talk about it," Prosecutor Rich Weyrich told the Skagit Valley Herald. "Where it goes, it's way too early to decide that."

Zamora was not required to enter a plea Friday. The charges filed in District Court allow Zamora to be held in custody for 30 days. He will later be formally charged in county Superior Court.

In a precedent-setting move, a divided Federal Communications Commission last month determined that the company is violating a federal policy that guarantees unfettered access to the Internet.

Comcast challenged the FCC decision Thursday in the U.S. District Court of Appeals in Washington.

Comcast executive vice president David L. Cohen said in a statement that the company is seeking "review and reversal" of the FCC order and that the commission's action was "legally inappropriate and its findings were not justified by the record."

The Comcast case arose from complaints by users of a type of "file-sharing" software often used to download large data files, usually video.

Tests by The Associated Press and others found that file-sharing transmissions were aborting prematurely. It was later discovered that the company was cutting off transfers without informing customers.