The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Texas law making it illegal to sell or promote obscene devices, punishable by as many as two years in jail, violated the right to privacy guaranteed by the 14th Amendment.

Companies that own Dreamer's and Le Rouge Boutique, which sell the devices in its Austin stores, and the retail distributor Adam & Eve sued in federal court in Austin in 2004 over the constitutionality of the law. They appealed after a federal judge dismissed the suit and said the Constitution did not protect their right to publicly promote such devices.

In its decision Tuesday, the appeals court cited Lawrence and Garner v. Texas, the U.S. Supreme Court's 2003 opinion that struck down bans on consensual sex between same-sex couples.

"Just as in Lawrence, the state here wants to use its laws to enforce a public moral code by restricting private intimate conduct," the appeals judges wrote. "The case is not about public sex. It is not about controlling commerce in sex. It is about controlling what people do in the privacy of their own homes because the state is morally opposed to a certain type of consensual private intimate conduct. This is an insufficient justification after Lawrence."

The Texas attorney general's office, which represented the Travis County district attorney in the case, has not decided whether to appeal, said agency spokesman Tom Kelley.

Phil Harvey, president of Adam & Eve Inc., said the 5th Circuit Court's decision was a big step forward. He said his business plans to expand to sell in stores and at home parties, something company consultants had been fearful of doing because of the Texas law.

"I think it's wonderful, but it does seem to me that since Texas was one of three states in the country — along with Mississippi and Alabama — that continued to outlaw the sale of sex toys and vibrators, that it was probably past time," Harvey said Wednesday.

Alabama is in the 11th Circuit. But now it's unlikely that the law in Mississippi, which also is in the 5th Circuit, will be prosecuted, some legal experts said.

Virginia's law barring obscene items is a bit different from other state laws and does not appear to apply to sex toy sales, said Harvey, whose company distributes nationwide.

Louisiana, Kansas, Colorado and Georgia had laws barring obscene devices, but courts have since struck them down. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down a Georgia law banning the advertising of sex toys, which can be sold under some approved circumstances.

The 5th Circuit Court's decision is encouraging for Sherri Williams, who has been fighting the issue in Alabama for a decade. Williams, who owns Pleasures stores in Alabama, sued in 1998 after state lawmakers banned the sale of sex toys there. A year ago, she lost her fight again when the U.S. Supreme Court refused to consider a lower court decision upholding the Alabama law as constitutional.

Williams hopes that lawmakers will take notice of the recent Texas case and support a newly filed bill in the Alabama Legislature to overturn the ban on adult toy sales.

"I think the courts are finally listening to the people," Williams said Wednesday. "You have 'Sex and the City,' 'Desperate Housewives' and other shows promoting what society is doing. I think the courts have finally opened their eyes and looked around, which is a miracle in the South."

U.S. District Judge Janet C. Hall awarded the payments to Gary Mastronardi, a former FBI agent turned lawyer, for his representation of Tristan Roberts, a 17-year-old Ansonia High School junior, and his mother, Paulette Bolling, last fall.

Michelle Laubin, a Milford lawyer representing the school system, challenged both the system's liability for legal fees and the $400 per hour Mastronardi requested for his work on the case.

The judge found that Mastronardi successfully obtained Roberts' return to school by convincing her to issue a temporary restraining order against the Board of Education's expulsion. That led to a Nov. 14 settlement in which the school board rescinded the Oct. 22 expulsion and allowed Roberts to return to school the next day.

Hall did reduce Mastronardi's hourly fee request to $350 for each of the roughly 51 hours he spent working on the case.

Roberts was suspended and then expelled from the high school after police arrested him in September on a marijuana possession charge in the Riverside Apartments housing project in Ansonia.

The incident occurred several hours after school closed for the day and several miles away from the high school. Police said they found eight small bags of marijuana and $13 in Roberts' possession during his arrest. The charges, however, were resolved under the youthful offender laws, with no incarceration and no criminal record.

Hall granted Mastronardi's request for a temporary restraining order against the expulsion.

At that time, Mastronardi said the judge advised schools that "they'd better make sure before expelling a student for engaging in after-hours, off-campus misconduct that the conduct disrupted the school's operation."

As part of the settlement, Bolling withdrew her federal lawsuit against the Board of Education, Supt. of Schools Carol Merlone and Ansonia High School Principal Susan H. McKernan.

Neither Laubin nor Mastronardi could be reached for comment Tuesday.

A federal judge ruled Monday the matter belongs in Monongalia County Circuit Court. That's where WVU filed the case after Rodriguez resigned to take the head coaching job at Michigan.

WVU had argued because it's an arm of state government, it can only be sued in state court.

U.S. District Court Judge John Bailey agrees. He says the university is not an independent body.

The ruling also says it's clear the outcome of the case will have an impact on state funds because any money paid to or held by the university is considered the state's money.

The three-judge panel rejected the 66-year-old R&B singer's argument that his sentence was unreasonable due to his age, poor health and lack of proof that the federal prison system can provide him adequate health care.

In its ruling, the appellate court said the trial judge was correct in sentencing and "best balanced the need to sanction Mr. Isley's `pathological' tax evasion against the need to accommodate Mr. Isley's poor health."

Isley was sentenced in 2006 after being convicted of five counts of tax evasion and one count of willful failure to file a tax return.

Prosecutors said Isley avoided paying taxes numerous times over a three-year period and declared bankruptcy after the IRS seized his yacht, cars and other property in 1997.

He was discharged from bankruptcy four years later, but then did not file tax returns for the years 1997 to 2001 and in 2002 did not sign his return and failed to pay all taxes due.

Isley suffered a minor stroke in July 2004, but got married one year later and continuously performed concerts at that time. He is incarcerated at the Terre Haute Federal Corrections Institution in Indiana and his projected release date is in April 2010.

Isley was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and was part of the Isley Brothers, whose hits included "Twist and Shout" and "This Old Heart of Mine (Is Weak for You)."