The state Supreme Court ruled on Friday that possession of more than 8 pounds of marijuana is a serious enough charge to warrant forcing medication on a defendant so he is competent to stand trial.

The high court's 7-0 ruling came in the case of 30-year-old Christopher Seekins of Torrington, who authorities say has been ruled incompetent to stand trial because he refuses to take psychotropic medication for bipolar disorder. Justices upheld a lower court judge's order to medicate Seekins against his will.

State law says a defendant can be involuntarily medicated if the crime is serious enough and there is an overriding law enforcement interest in determining whether the defendant is innocent or guilty. Seekins argued that possessing marijuana isn't a serious crime.

Seekins' lawyer, Richard Marquette, declined to comment on the ruling Friday through an employee at his Hamden law firm.

Seekins also made headlines in 2005 when he painted large pictures of marijuana leaves on his Winsted home with the word "hemp" beneath them after being charged with growing marijuana, saying it was in support of legalizing the drug. He later agreed in a plea bargain to remove or cover up the paintings, which caused a ruckus in town because they were visible from busy Main Street.

Justice Richard Palmer, a former prosecutor, wrote in the Supreme Court's ruling that the basis for determining whether a crime is serious is the severity of the sentence it potentially carries. Palmer noted that Seekins faces a mandatory minimum sentence of seven years in prison if convicted of just three of the many charges he faces.

The former spokesman for the Los Angeles County Superior Court claims false rumors that he leaked information to a celebrity news website were used as pretext for his firing.

Allan Parachini was fired Monday after eight years of handling the media covering high-profile cases including those involving Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan.

Parachini, a former Los Angeles Times reporter, told the newspaper he met with court Executive Officer John A. Clarke on Oct. 25 and was told administrators had lost confidence in him because of a perception that he had leaked privileged materials to TMZ.

Parachini said in the report published Friday that he was not provided with specifics but Clarke said he talked too frequently with TMZ's founder, Harvey Levin.

"I responded, 'Guilty as charged. I talk to a lot of reporters on the phone. That's my job,'" Parachini said.

He denied any impropriety and contended that the allegations were a "pretext" for his dismissal.

The real reason, Parachini claimed, was that court administrators wanted him to stonewall requests from the Times and the Bay Area News Group for what Parachini considered to be public information.

The state Supreme Court stepped into a years-long family dispute involving one of the world's largest beef jerky companies Tuesday, when the son of the Wisconsin company's founder asked justices for a better valuation of a South Dakota subsidiary.

Jay Link, a son of Link Snacks Inc. founder Jack Link, contends that a circuit judge undervalued his shares of LSI Inc. when he ruled they were worth $16.55 million.

Attorney Jon Sogn asked the South Dakota Supreme Court on Tuesday to direct that Jay Link's shares of LSI be purchased for $21 million or order a new trial to set the shares' value.

Sogn argued that the circuit judge mistakenly discounted the value because of the risks to an outside buyer. Appraisers had said a third-party buyer would be leery of investing in a privately held company that sells to only one customer, corporate parent Link Snacks.

A divided Wisconsin appeals court says police did nothing wrong when they found two illegal shotguns after removing other weapons legally in possession of a man taken into protective custody.

Jason Kucik appealed his convictions for possessing the illegal shotguns, arguing St. Francis police had no legal basis for seizing the guns he legally owned.

The 1st District Court of Appeals on Tuesday ruled 2-1 against Kucik, saying police could take the legal guns because they were in plain view and police had probable cause to believe they could be evidence in a crime.

Police went to his apartment after Kucik's cousin said he had been attacked by him earlier in the day.

Anti-death penalty lawyers say the execution of a Texas man whose plea for DNA testing was ignored shows procedures and laws covering capital punishment need to be changed.

The Innocence Project, a New York legal center that uses DNA to exonerate inmates, said Friday in Houston that the execution of convicted killer Claude Jones 10 years ago occurred only because then Gov. George W. Bush wasn't aware Jones' lawyer was asking for DNA testing on a tiny piece of hair prosecutors used to link Jones to an East Texas liquor store slaying.

Tests now have shown the hair did not belong to Jones.

Barry Scheck, co-founder of the Innocence Project, said while the DNA test doesn't prove Jones was definitely innocent, "in and of itself this is pretty significant."

The Arkansas Supreme Court says Conway police didn't follow proper procedures to obtain a statement from a suspect and has overturned the man's conviction.

Antwan Lavan Fowler entered a guilty plea on the condition he be allowed to appeal a circuit judge's decision to allow into statements and evidence into the record. The court ruled Thursday that the judge was wrong and ordered a new proceeding in which the evidence and Fowler's statements aren't considered.

Fowler was arrested in 2007 for fleeing and was held on an alleged parole violation. The court found that police improperly sought a statement from Fowler in which he admitted to other crimes, which led to drug, firearm and theft counts.