Lawyer Leslie P. Smith brooded over what he knew for a decade: information that might spare the life of an inmate on Virginia's death row. He had thought about disclosing it long ago. But back in 1998, he had been told not to jeopardize the interests of his own client.

The case he could not forget was that of Daryl Atkins, who was convicted in a carjacking murder in York County, Va., and whose appeals spurred the U.S. Supreme Court to a landmark ruling that banned executions of mentally retarded inmates. Ironically, Atkins remained on death row in spite of the historic decision, his own mental limitations still under debate.

All the while, there was Smith, a solo practitioner in Hampton, sometimes pondering his vow of silence. He had been the attorney for Atkins's co-defendant. And what he felt he knew was this: His own client had been coached in his testimony to help ensure that Atkins got the death penalty.

Last spring, Smith, 64, unexpectedly decided to raise the issue again, writing a letter to the Virginia Bar. This time, he was urged to tell what he knew, he testified in court. And the outcome of that revelation came Thursday evening: Atkins's sentence was commuted to life in prison, bringing apparent finality to a case that has bounced from court to court for a decade.

In the end, it seemed one man's disclosure had changed everything. Many lauded Smith for coming forward, although others asked why he waited so long.

"The court finds that Leslie Smith's evidence was indeed credible," Circuit Court Judge Prentis Smiley Jr. said Thursday as the low-key Hampton lawyer watched quietly in the courtroom. The judge noted that Smith had "absolutely nothing to gain."

Atkins's own counsel told the court, "He comes forward at great personal cost to himself."

To some, Smith might seem an unlikely man for the spotlight.

After the ruling was handed down, he left the courthouse without comment. A day later, he was working in his office in Hampton, even though it was a state holiday. Not a showman, not a tough talker, Smith has practiced law 37 years -- half real estate, half criminal work. Other lawyers describe him as honest, forthright.

"He's just a pleasant, down-to-earth, plain-spoken kind of guy," said Ron Smith, a Hampton lawyer who has known him 20 years. "What he did was extraordinary, and he wrestled with it a long time."

"Somebody's sitting on death row, and you know there's evidence . . . they don't know about," said Ron Smith, who is no relation to Leslie Smith. "That's an awful situation for a lawyer to be in."

Over his long career, Leslie Smith has handled five or six capital cases, including the one involving Atkins's co-defendant.

The U.S. Supreme Court declined Monday to consider a ruling that terminally ill patients have no right to be treated with experimental drugs not yet approved by the Food and Drug Administration -- even if that means the patient will likely die before the medicine is approved.

The court, without comment or recorded dissent, let stand a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which said the terminally ill have no constitutional right to drugs the agency had considered safe enough for additional testing.

The justices questioned whether evidence in criminal cases should be suppressed following arrests that violate state laws. At issue is the cocaine conviction of David Lee (Chubs) Moore, who was pulled over by Portsmouth, Va., detectives who suspected he was driving on a suspended license. Instead of sending Moore on his way after writing a court summons -- as required by Virginia law -- police arrested him and found crack cocaine in his jacket. The Virginia Supreme Court threw out the case and overturned his five-year prison term after concluding the search following his arrest was unconstitutional.

In a suit against ex-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and individual U.S. military officials, the four men argued that the defendants had engaged in criminal conduct.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled 3-0 that the men should have invoked a different law when they filed their lawsuit.

"Criminal conduct is not per se outside the scope of employment," a requirement for bringing a claim under the Alien Tort Statute, said the decision by appeals judge Karen LeCraft Henderson, an appointee of President Bush's father.

The four men challenge the methods Rumsfeld and the military officers used, but the former detainees don't allege that the defendants "acted as rogue officials or employees who implemented a policy of torture for reasons unrelated to the gathering of intelligence," the court said.

"Therefore, the alleged tortious conduct was incidental to the defendants' legitimate employment duties," the ruling added.

The four British men also brought constitutional claims and claims under the Geneva Conventions and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

Rejecting all of the men's allegations, the appeals court overturned the only part of a lower court decision that hadn't already been dismissed. That was the alleged violation of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

"Because the plaintiffs are aliens and were located outside sovereign United States territory at the time their alleged RFRA claim arose, they do not fall with the definition of 'person,'" the court ruled. The law provides that the "government shall not substantially burden a person's exercise of religion."

The ruling came on the sixth anniversary of Guantanamo Bay being used to house detainees gathered from around the world as part of the U.S. war on suspected terrorists.

The other two judges in the case are Janice Rogers Brown, an appointee of President Bush; and A. Raymond Randolph, an appointee of Bush's father.

The defendants in the case include retired Gen. Richard Myers, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The four who sued are Shafiq Rasul, Asif Iqbal, Rhuhel Ahmed and Jamal Al-Harith, all British citizens and residents. They were sent back to Great Britain in 2004.

The appeals court ruling comes at a time when the Supreme Court is considering whether other prisoners still detained at Guantanamo Bay have a right to challenge their confinement in U.S. courts.

Rasul, Iqbal and Ahmed allege they traveled to Afghanistan from Pakistan to provide humanitarian relief the month after the Sept. 11 attacks. Al-Harith says he traveled to Pakistan the same month to attend a religious retreat.

All four wound up at Guantanamo Bay. There, they allege, they were beaten, shackled in painful stress positions, threatened by dogs, subjected to extreme medical care and communication. They also allege they were harassed while practicing their religion, including forced shaving of their beards, banning or interrupting their prayers, denying them copies of the Koran and prayer mats and throwing a copy of the Koran in a toilet bucket.

Al-Harith says that he was first imprisoned by the Taliban who accused him of being a British spy. When the Taliban fell, he says he contacted British embassy officials to secure his evacuation, but that U.S. forces in coordination with British officials sent him to Guantanamo.

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.