Gov. Chris Christie approved a law firm with expertise in federal transit issues to help challenge a $271 million tab the federal government says the state owes for a canceled rail tunnel.

Christie's office said the governor had signed off Thursday on the selection of the Washington, D.C., firm of Patton Boggs. Rodney Slater, who served as U.S. transportation secretary under President Bill Clinton, and former Republican U.S. Sen. Trent Lott are among the partners.

"We're delighted to have been engaged by the state," said Stuart Pape, the firm's managing partner. The firm, which has an office in Newark, is assessing its strategy, Pape said.

Christie killed the $8.7 billion tunnel from New Jersey to New York City on Oct. 27, citing potential cost overruns that he said could add $2 billion to $5 billion or more to the price.

The federal government and Port Authority of New York and New Jersey each contributed $3 billion to the project, while New Jersey's share was $2.7 billion. The state and Port Authority were responsible for overruns.

Christie is fighting a bill for the return of federal money already spent on engineering and construction of the tunnel. The Nov. 24 bill from the Federal Transit Authority seeks payment within 30 days.

"It's not surprising that the same federal transit agency that had no clear way to pay for cost overruns of a project already hurt by poor planning and inequitable cost sharing is relying on bureaucratic power plays to wring even more money out of New Jerseyans," Christie said in a statement Thursday.

The contrasting views emerged in arguments over a federal court order forcing the nation's largest state prison system to cut its inmate population by some 40,000 to fix longtime problems with inadequate medical and mental health care.

The justices seemed divided along ideological lines, with conservatives appearing sympathetic to California's arguments and liberals sharply questioning its position. Conservatives have a slight majority on the court.

The court took the case under advisement after the arguments and is expected to issue a ruling by June.

The case involves two-class action lawsuits filed in federal court by inmates who challenged the health care conditions in California state prisons in 1990 and 2001. A trial began in 2008 and a three-judge federal panel ruled against the state last year.

Improving conditions in California's prisons has become a major legal, political and budget issue in view of the state's budget crisis and high unemployment.

Carter Phillips, the attorney representing the state, said the lower court had violated federal law by failing to give sufficient weight to the potential adverse on public safety of cutting the prison population.

"I guarantee you that there is going to be more crime and people are going to die on the streets of California," he said.

California's 33 adult prisons were designed to hold about 80,000 inmates but currently hold about 145,000. The state has lowered its prison population through changes in parole and sentencing policies and by transferring inmates to private prisons in other states.

The U.S. Supreme Court has turned down an appeal from a Texas teenager who got in trouble for illegal downloading of music—a potential blow to students who might claim to be “innocent infringers” of copyright laws after downloading music without paying and bogging down campus networks.

Whitney Harper of Texas acknowledged she used file-sharing programs to download and share three dozen songs, claiming she didn’t know the program she used was taking songs from the internet illegally.

She also said the money she owes the recording industry should be reduced because, as a 16-year-old, she didn’t know that what she did amounted to copyright infringement.

The fate of the largest job bias lawsuit in the nation's history — a claim that Wal-Mart Stores Inc. shortchanged women in pay and promotions for many years — hinges on whether the Supreme Court will let the class-action case go to trial.

The court is likely to announce as soon as Monday whether it will hear the retail giant's appeal asserting that a single lawsuit cannot speak for more than 1.5 million employees.

Business lawyers and civil rights advocates are closely following the Wal-Mart case for its implications for class-action litigation.
"This may sound like just a technical, procedural issue, but because of the economics of it, class-action certification is often the most important issue to be decided," said Washington lawyer Roy T. Englert Jr.

If the high court permits the Wal-Mart case to proceed as a class action, it will put enormous pressure on the retailer to settle, he said. The plaintiffs have not specified the damages they would seek, but given the size of the class, it could mount into billions of dollars.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and several large corporations have joined with Wal-Mart, the nation's largest employer, in urging the high court to hear the appeal and to restrict the use of class-action claims.

They argue that it is unfair to permit plaintiffs' lawyers to lump together many thousands of employees from stores spread across the country and to rely on statistics to prove illegal discrimination.

The Georgia Supreme Court ruled Monday that two men will be eligible for the death penalty if they are found guilty of killing a Bibb County sheriff's deputy even if they didn't know he was a law enforcement officer.

The state is seeking the death penalty against Antron Dawayne Fair and Damon Antwon Jolly for the 2006 killing of deputy Joseph Whitehead. In a 5-2 decision, the Supreme Court said the death penalty should not be barred.

Whitehead was a member of a team of officers attempting to serve a "no-knock" warrant on a house in Macon that was suspected of drug trafficking. He was killed moments after entering the home.

Fair and Jolly were charged with murder, and prosecutors cited the killing of a police officer as an aggravating circumstance.

It was the second time the case has been appealed to the Georgia Supreme Court in an attempt to block the state from seeking the death penalty. Trials have not been scheduled for either defendant.

Defense attorneys contended in the latest appeal that the statute that lists aggravating circumstances permitting the death penalty violates constitutional rights to equal protection. They said a person who kills an undercover officer without knowing it should not be treated the same as one who knowingly kills an officer.

The state’s highest court on Thursday overturned the conviction of a Brockton woman who was convicted five years ago of second-degree murder in the 1985 death of her toddler daughter.

Margaret Earle was convicted in 2005 — 20 years after her daughter died. Her boyfriend was convicted of first-degree murder for stomping on the girl’s stomach.
Medical testimony established that Rachelle Pelletier’s small bowel was severed, which caused bacteria to build up and led to organ failure and death.

Prosecutors had argued that Earle failed to seek appropriate medical attention for the 21-month-old. But the Supreme Judicial Court ruled that the evidence of malice was “legally insufficient” to support Earle’s second-degree murder conviction.

Earle’s lawyer, Michael Schneider, said his client still feels “horrible” about the loss of her child but was “thrilled” with the court’s ruling.

“Peggy has known in her heart that she had no involvement in this thing whatsoever,” he said. “Twenty-five years later she’s glad to put it behind her.”
Plymouth District Attorney Timothy Cruz, whose office prosecuted the case, said he was “gravely disturbed” by the reversal.