Georgia's top court has ruled in favor of a former Atlanta police officer who sought immunity after being charged with murder in a shooting of a 19-year-old who was killed while the officer was investigating a report of a vehicle break-in.

The state Supreme Court on Monday upheld by a 6-1 decision a lower court ruling in favor of former officer Raymond Bunn, who claimed he was acting in self-defense when he shot 19-year-old Corey Ward in a parking lot in 2002.

Bunn contended that Ward was driving the SUV straight at him when Bunn shot at the window, hitting Ward twice in the left side of his head.

Prosecutors said Bunn was not directly in front of the vehicle, which belonged to Ward's mother, when he fired.

The Supreme Court majority ruled that the preponderance of evidence favored Bunn's story, despite conflicting evidence.

The U.S. Supreme Court is deciding later this month whether it wants to get involved in a Georgia death penalty case that involves a murder suspect who says he was in jail for two years without an attorney.

It's the latest test for Georgia's justice system, which has come under scrutiny in recent years. The state's new public defender program has had funding trouble ever since the $3 million Atlanta courthouse shootings trial and the Georgia Supreme Court has been criticized for not reviewing death penalty appeals closely enough.

The U.S. Supreme Court will decide after a closed-door conference Sept. 27 whether it wants to intervene in Jaime Ryan Weis' case. He is accused of killing a 73-year-old woman.

A Florida man known for his sports-related philanthropy pleaded guilty Wednesday to running a multistate Ponzi scheme that prosecutors say left investors with up to $100 million in losses.

Nevin Shapiro pleaded guilty in New Jersey federal court to one count of securities fraud and one count of money laundering as part of an agreement that still has him facing up to 17 years in prison at his Jan. 4 sentencing.

Prosecutors say 41-year-old Shapiro of Miami Beach, used a Florida-based company called Capitol Investments, USA, Inc., to raise nearly $900 million from investors who thought they were buying into a wholesale grocery distribution business.

Charges filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission claim Shapiro promised investors risk-free annual returns as high as 26 percent by persuading them to invest in a "grocery diversion" enterprise — a practice of buying low-cost groceries in one region of the country and reselling them in higher-priced markets.

Shapiro allegedly siphoned at least $35 million of the proceeds for personal use, including $23 million for salaries and commissions for himself, $5 million for a Miami Beach mansion and $400,000 for courtside Miami Heat basketball tickets. He also spent lavishly on luxury cars, a high-stakes gambling habit, and a pair of diamond-studded handcuffs given to an unnamed prominent athlete, according to court documents.

An appeals court overturned the conviction of a woman found guilty of helping with a notorious 2001 ecoterror attack that destroyed a university research center, concluding the judge made mistakes that cast doubt on the fairness of her trial.

Briana Waters, 34, was convicted of serving as a lookout during the Earth Liberation Front attack on the University of Washington's Center for Urban Horticulture in Seattle and was sentenced to six years in prison plus $6 million in restitution.

A unanimous three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday that the late U.S. District Judge Franklin Burgess made several errors that raised questions about the fairness of her trial.

Waters' lawyer, Dennis Riordan, of San Francisco, said he was delighted and would move quickly to have her released pending another trial, if prosecutors decide to pursue one. Being imprisoned in Danbury, Conn., far from her young daughter, has been difficult, he said.

A high-profile Canadian law firm has filed suit against the makers of PoliGrip and Fixodent, alleging that the companies failed to warn consumers sufficiently about the zinc contained in both products.

The suit, filed by Tony Merchant of Saskatchewan, is the latest consequence of a 2008 article in the magazine Neurology linking denture cream and serious nerve damage.

In a press release, Merchant acknowledged that the "companies have placed warnings and recognize the dangers." Still, Merchant says, those warnings failed to warn consumers adequately of the risks inherent in excessive zinc consumption.

PoliGrip manufacturer GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has moved aggressively in the past year to address the zinc issue. Last October, the company began outfitting PoliGrip packages with warnings that excessive zinc intake can cause "serious health effects," and advised customers to talk with their doctors.

Proctor and Gamble, which makes Fixodent, provided similar warnings.