A citizen activist says he was wronged by the failure of a small Ohio city to give him 20 years of 911 tapes he sought, which were long ago recorded over. The city says he can prove no harm and that he didn't even want the tapes — he wanted the thousands in penalty dollars for requesting records that no longer exist.

Attorneys for both sides argued Wednesday before the Ohio Supreme Court, disagreeing on whether Timothy Rhodes was "aggrieved" by the failure of the city of New Philadelphia to retain the thousands of daily tapes he requested in 2007.

If the court decides in his favor, Rhodes and plaintiffs in about half a dozen similar suits around Ohio could collect big — and, their lawyers say, they will also have scored a big victory for government transparency.

Rhodes' attorney Craig Conley argued it is wrong to paint his client as a money grubber, after Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor asked whether only one party could "cash in" under the law as he read it.

"First of all, I don't agree with ... 'cash in.' The case law is clear: This is not compensation to the requesting party, this is a penalty designed to punish and deter," he said. "And without it, the right of access without a remedy is a meaningless right."

New Philadelphia attorney John McLandrich argued a decision in Rhodes' favor would "set off a gold rush" of citizens seeking records they know are no longer available. He said a person doesn't need a pure motive for wanting to look at the records, but they have to have some kind of motive.

A federal appeals court has revived a lawsuit that claims that an inmate at a privately run jail was denied mental health treatment and did not shower or leave his segregated cell for nine months.

The U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals said last week that the lawsuit against Corrections Corporation of American should not have been dismissed by a lower court in 2009. The divided court opinion said there was a genuine question about how much physical injury inmate Frank Horton suffered while incarcerated.

CCA spokesman Steve Owen said company lawyers are assessing the opinion and still deciding what the next step will be.

Mary Braswell filed a federal lawsuit in 2008 against CCA accusing the private prison operator of treating her grandson inhumanely at the Nashville jail and violating his constitutional rights.

She claimed that Horton was mentally ill and deteriorated severely while he locked up for a non-violent probation violation from December 2005 to April 2008.

Court records say that Horton has a history of mental illness, and he was segregated from the general population in the jail because of behavioral problems. CCA guards had to use force at times to get Horton to take a shower and to keep him from fighting with other inmates, the records say.

The Utah Supreme Court on Tuesday wrestled with the issue of who has the final say over state law as part of a long-running battle for control of a communal land trust tied to Warren Jeffs' polygamous church.

The question comes on the heels of a February federal court ruling, which found that the state of Utah violated the religious rights of members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints when it took over the church's land trust in 2005.

The ruling from U.S. District Judge Dee Benson could undo some six years of decisions by a state judge.

Attorneys for the FLDS believe the ruling should stand, while other parties dispute the right of a federal judge to meddle with a state judge's decision and to essentially override state law.

"Somebody's got to sort this out," said Utah Justice Thomas R. Lee, noting that Benson's decision leaves the high court wondering which iteration of the trust is in place and which trust managers are in control.

Valued at more than $114 million, the United Effort Plan Trust holds most of the land and homes of church members in Hildale, Utah, Colorado City, Ariz., and Bountiful, British Columbia. The Utah courts seized control of the trust in 2005 amid allegations of mismanagement by Jeffs and other church leaders.

A federal judge has amended an order granting visitation rights between a former Aryan Nations lawyer and the wife he's accused of trying to have killed.

U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill approved the highly monitored visits between 65-year-old Edgar Steele and his wife, Cyndi Steele, while he is being held in the Ada County jail pending trial.

Edgar Steele has pleaded not guilty to hiring Larry Fairfax to kill his wife and claims he's a victim of a government conspiracy.

Edgar Steele was allowed visits from his wife while being held in a Spokane, Wash. jail. His trial was moved to Boise last month, and Winmill's order permits one visit per week with his wife. They are barred from discussing the case.

New York man who claims ownership in Facebook is now seeking 50 percent of the site's value from founder Mark Zuckerberg.

Paul Ceglia of Allegany County originally sought 84 percent in a federal court complaint against Zuckerberg last year. He cited a contract he says he signed with the former Harvard student in 2003 that gave him half the business, plus more if it launched late.

A revised complaint dated Monday amends the claim to 50 percent and indicates that Ceglia agreed to waive the late-penalty clause just before the site launched in 2004.

The suit in federal court in Buffalo says Ceglia gave Zuckerberg $1,000 to help Zuckerberg get his fledgling Facebook idea off the ground.

A U.S. Supreme Court decision that breathed new life into a decades-long water-rights dispute on the Great Plains has renewed concerns among southern Nebraska farmers about what could happen to their livelihoods.

The dispute centers on the Republican River, from which Kansas contends Nebraska took more than its share of water in 2005 and 2006. In addition to some $72 million in damages, Kansas is seeking to force Nebraska to stop irrigating about 500,000 acres in the Republican River basin — about half of the basin's 1.2 million irrigated acres and nearly 9 percent of the basin's total 5.8 million acres.

"That would be devastating to our operation and just the whole economy here," said Dan Nelsen, 30, who farms 5,000 acres — half of them irrigated — near Curtis, Neb. "Irrigation plays a big part in our operation. It keeps our cow and calf operation viable. Without that, we'd have to liquidate our herd."

The Kansas attorney general's office maintains Nebraska hasn't lived up to its end of a 1943 pact among Nebraska, Kansas and Colorado that governs the Republican River's use. The Supreme Court earlier this week gave Kansas permission to file a new petition over allegations that Nebraska used 25.7 billion gallons more in water from the river in 2005 and 2006 than it was due.

According to Jasper Fanning, general manager of the Upper Republican River Natural Resources District, if Kansas were to get its way, scores of farms in southern Nebraska and even the state's entire economy would be hurt.