The court said Monday it won't disturb a ruling by the federal appeals court in New York that the rights belong to Penguin Group Inc., and the heirs of John Steinbeck's widow, Elaine. Author John Steinbeck died in 1968; his wife in 2003. The heirs include her sister, four children and grandchildren.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said a lower court judge misapplied copyright law in awarding the rights in 2006 to the son, Thomas Steinbeck, and granddaughter Blake Smyle. Both already receive a portion of the proceeds of sales.

The decision issued Friday by the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington doesn't address the main issue in the 17-year-old case of whether the trademark is racist. It upholds the lower court's decision in favor of the football team on a legal technicality.

The court agreed that the seven Native Americans who challenged the trademark waited too long to sue over the trademark issued in 1967.

The appearance of Howard K. Stern and Drs. Khristine Eroshevich and Sandeep Kapoor in Superior Court set the stage for a preliminary hearing that all parties said could last at least two weeks.

Deputy District Attorney Renee Rose said there are 1,400 pages of discovery in the case, which was investigated for two years before charges were filed. Court Commissioner Kristi Lousteau ordered documents in the case sealed, although attorneys said that about a quarter of the material has already been made public.

The hearing was brief and Smith's name was never mentioned.

Stern, Eroshevich and Kapoor stood before Lousteau with their lawyers. The defendants said "yes" when she asked if they were pleading not guilty and when they agreed to delay the matter until June 8 for setting of the preliminary hearing date. They declined to comment outside court.

Stern's lawyer, Steve Sadow, said he wanted the preliminary hearing to begin as soon as possible.

Jonathan Sheldon told a federal appeals court Tuesday that the failure of Muhammad's trial attorneys to tell a judge about their client's mental health issues violated his constitutional right to effective counsel.

A lawyer for the state of Virginia argued that Muhammad's competency was never an issue in his trial for one of the 10 murders committed by Muhammad and teenage accomplice Lee Boyd Malvo. Muhammad was sentenced to death, and Malvo is serving a life term for the 2002 Washington, D.C.-area shooting spree.

The federal appeals court in Richmond, Va., is expected to rule in several weeks.

A Los Angeles judge has blasted one of the nation's leading plaintiffs firms in asbestos litigation for attempting to obtain an upper hand in the case through what he called a "type of judicially sanctioned extortion."

The judge's statements came in a lawsuit filed by Waters & Kraus on behalf of a Los Angeles man who died of mesothelioma in December 2007. Six months before, the man had been deposed in Texas, where the case was first filed. The case has since been re-filed in California. During the past month, industrial product manufacturer Crane Co. sought to exclude the man's deposition from the case. In court papers, Crane argued that the information gleaned from the deposition, which under Texas law is limited to six hours, was insufficient to obtain summary judgment in California.

On April 7, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Aurelio Munoz, while refusing to grant summary judgment, concluded that Waters & Kraus had re-filed the case in California intentionally as a means to force a settlement. Calling such tactics a "waste of the court's time," Munoz noted that Waters & Kraus has played the same "grisly game of asbestos litigation" in at least nine cases.

Peter Kraus, managing partner of Dallas-based Waters & Kraus, told The National Law Journal that the judge "got it 180 degrees wrong." While not denying the firm's actions, Kraus said that its attorneys must file asbestos cases in jurisdictions where ailing clients don't have to endure lengthy depositions.

"And if they die, the facts necessary to prove their case die with them," he said.

Lawyers for Crane, in an April 24 appellate petition, said that the dispute could affect "potentially hundreds of pending and future asbestos personal injury and wrongful death actions in California."

"I definitely think this is something the defense and plaintiff's bar are going to watch very, very closely, and it will have very important ramifications regardless of whichever way it goes," said Alexandra Epand, a partner in the Los Angeles office of Nixon Peabody who handles asbestos litigation.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Krause outlined the government's position while requesting the maximum sentence for Lori Drew. Probation officials have recommended Drew receive a year of probation and a $5,000 fine.

Krause argued that Drew "coldly conceived of a scheme to humiliate" Megan Meier, a neighbor in a St. Louis suburb, by helping create a fictitious teenage boy on the social networking site and sending flirtatious messages in his name to the girl.

The fake boy then dumped Megan in a message saying the world would be better without her. She hanged herself a short time later.

Drew used her then-13-year-old daughter and a business assistant in the scheme, which played on Megan's insecurities, Krause said.

"Both the callousness of defendant's criminal conduct and the extraordinary harm it caused mandate a sentence of more than probation," Krause wrote.

Drew was convicted in November of three counts of accessing computers without authorization. Besides up to three years in prison, she could face a $300,000 fine at sentencing set for May 18.

Drew's attorney, Dean Steward, has asked U.S. District Court Judge