A federal appeals court on Tuesday cleared the way for the roundup of more than 2,000 wild horses in California and Nevada, rejecting critics' claims that the free-roaming mustangs have a legal right to remain on the range.

In an after-hours order, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco refused to grant an emergency stay sought by animal rights groups ahead of the scheduled roundup Wednesday.

The order came as lawyers for the Obama administration mounted their most vigorous defense to date for rounding up wild horses in the West, arguing in court filings that leaving the overpopulated herds on public rangeland would do the mustangs more harm than good.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Ignacia Moreno said in a court filing that the range cannot support the current population of horses, whose numbers were expected to grow. "The growing population of wild horses will have devastating impacts on the other resources in the area and on the wild horses themselves," Moreno wrote.

Justice Department lawyers were defending the roundup on behalf of the Bureau of Land Management and its plans to begin its biggest roundup of the year along the California-Nevada border, about 120 miles north of Reno. That number represents up to 80 percent of the existing herd.

A former B-2 bomber engineer who marketed and sold his stealth expertise to China is facing life in a federal prison following his conviction for bartering U.S. military secrets.

Noshir Gowadia, 66, was found guilty Monday on charges that he designed a cruise missile component for China and pocketed at least $110,000, which he allegedly used to help pay a $15,000-a-month mortgage on a multimillion-dollar oceanview home he built on Maui's north shore.

Prosecutors said Gowadia revealed classified information to foreign powers at least twice: during a PowerPoint presentation on his cruise missile technology, and when he showed the technology's effectiveness by comparing it to American air-to-air missiles.

"This case was unique in that we litigated know-how, the very concept of exporting your knowledge base that you derive, in whole or in part, from your activities working in United States classified programs," Assistant U.S. Attorney Ken Sorenson said. "If you can take that and go sell it or market yourself on an international stage in secrecy to other governments and not suffer criminal sanctions for it, then we're in trouble."

Gowadia's defense attorneys argued during the nearly four-month trial that while it's true he gave China the design for the cruise missile part, he based his work on unclassified, publicly available information. Gowadia plans to appeal.

Lawyers who represent children in dependency proceedings say it’s time for these children – regardless of which state they live – to have a right to legal counsel.

Meeting yesterday at the 2010 American Bar Association Annual Meeting in San Francisco, a panel of children’s rights advocates discussed eliminating the barriers that prevent lawyers from representing these children in life-impacting legal proceedings.  

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services there are more than half a million children in foster care and under the jurisdiction of family courts.  These are children who have been, for example, removed from their homes, placed in temporary shelters and possibly separated from siblings.

When it comes down to who is looking out for the rights and interests of the children in the courtroom – a lawyer, a guardian ad litem or an attorney ad litem -- there is no clear-cut, uniform answer.

“Every state has a different model,” says Hilarie Bass, a Miami commercial litigator who does pro bono work representing foster kids.

She points out the obvious — that there are too many children who need help, without enough money in the system to serve them.  Despite those hurdles, Bass, who is also incoming chair of the American Bar Association Section of Litigation, says she expects the section to make a recommendation on the right to counsel for children that should come up for debate before the ABA’s policymaking body in 2011.

“It would be a recommendation to provide for counsel and representation of children in delinquency and dependency proceedings,” says Bass. 

ABA President Carolyn Lamm says the ABA is an association interested in promoting the best interest of children and finding solutions “before we have a crisis situation.”

Lamm adds, “These citizens are the most vulnerable of course, in terms of no one to defend their legal rights.  The ABA does so much work in the public interest.  This is a segment of the public that needs us and we are strong and forceful advocates for children and the rights of children to be represented."  

So far, the U.S. Supreme Court has not spoken on the issue of whether children have a constitutional right to counsel in dependency proceedings.

Georgia attorney Trenny Stovall directs the DeKalb County Child Advocacy Center and represents children in dependency proceedings every day.  She says children who don’t have their own lawyer do not have a voice.

“When children don’t have a lawyer, their ability to be considered a living being with rights is vastly diminished.  Without representation, they become a widget in the eyes of the court,” says Stovall.

Children like 16-year-old Trevor Wade — who has been through the dependency court system — will tell you that having a lawyer makes a difference.  He says his lawyer fought against a system that would have placed him back with an abusive father.  These days he’s an intern in a public defender’s office, helping kids who are going through the court system.

Wade hopes to go to law school and is zealous in his advocacy on this issue.

He says that when states and courts make decisions not to provide lawyers for children, the question that needs to be asked is, “What is the price of a child’s success?”

A state juvenile court judge on Tuesday rejected the request of a Christian convert's Muslim parents to order their daughter to continue chemotherapy for uterine cancer.

The request from the parents of Rifqa Bary does not meet the legal requirement of a medical emergency needing immediate treatment, Franklin County Juvenile Court Magistrate Mary Goodrich said during a hearing.

Goodrich made the ruling at the beginning of what's expected to be the final court appearances by Bary, who remains in foster care in state custody until she turns 18 next week.

Bary wants Goodrich to determine that reconciliation with her parents is impossible. The stakes are higher than a family reunion. If the judge agrees with Rifqa Bary, an undocumented immigrant from Sri Lanka, the girl could also receive a special status allowing her to stay in the country.

Bary underwent successful cancer surgery in May and then was scheduled for 45 weeks of chemotherapy , which would give her an "80 to 90 percent chance" she'd be fine, Omar Tarazi, an attorney for Bary's parents, told the judge.

Instead, Bary stopped the chemotherapy after two or three rounds, deciding she'd been healed, Tarazi said. In a court filing last week, the girl's parents claimed she stopped after visiting a faith healer.

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg says judges can look to foreign law for good ideas without diminishing their ability to apply U.S. law faithfully.

Ginsburg told a meeting of international lawyers Friday that American judges can learn from their foreign counterparts when seeking solutions to "trying questions."

Ginsburg said high court nominee Elena Kagan got it right when she told senators at her confirmation hearing that she was in favor of good ideas "wherever you can get them."

Ginsburg acknowledged that other justices, including Antonin Scalia, are sharp critics of the use of foreign law in Supreme Court decisions. Still, she predicted the high court will continue to look to courts in other democracies for occasional help.

The court-appointed trustee seeking to recover billions of dollars lost by jailed financier Bernard Madoff sued three entities Thursday to get back more than $30 million that he said the Madoff family had invested, mostly in oil and gas properties and technology companies.

The three lawsuits filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan by Irving Picard are a follow-up to a lawsuit he filed in November seeking nearly $200 million from family members who he said lived lavishly while using the family finance business like a "piggy bank."

Picard wrote sarcastically in the latest lawsuits that Madoff was "quite generous" with the money he stole from thousands of customers in history's largest Ponzi scheme.

"Foremost among the recipients of Madoff's gifts of customer funds were his closest family members, including his wife Ruth Madoff, his brother Peter, his two sons Andrew and Mark and his niece Shana," Picard said.

"With respect to Mark and Andrew, the lawsuits are without merit, both factually and legally," said Martin Flumenbaum, a lawyer for Madoff's sons.