Georgia's public defender system is still trying to recover its financial footing five years after a courthouse gunman racked up a $3 million taxpayer-funded defense tab on the way to his conviction.

The state's ailing system to defend the poor has struggled almost since its start in 2005, hamstrung not just by the costly Brian Nichols case but also because of the lukewarm support from legislators and a dismal economy.

The state now can't afford to pay to defend the accused in several capital punishment cases, leaving them waiting in jail for years before their trials start. Some, like Khan Dinh Phan, have appealed to the Georgia Supreme Court for help. They have asked that their cases be dismissed because the delays violated their right to a speedy trial.

Georgia has faced similar problems before. State legislators created the public defender system precisely because individual counties struggled to provide adequate legal defense for the poor. But prosecutors and defense attorneys say it may take drastic measures to recover from the Nichols' case, one of the statewide system's first high-profile tests.

Prosecutors said Nichols' defense should have cost about $500,000. But expenses ballooned with expert witnesses and attorneys fees. Nichols was spared death and sentenced to life in December 2008 for killing of a judge, a court reporter, a sheriff's deputy and a federal agent during the rampage.

Pratt & Whitney said Tuesday a federal appeals court granted the jet engine maker's request for an expedited appeal of a lawsuit it lost as it tries to move 1,000 jobs out of Connecticut.

The subsidiary of United Technologies Corp. filed five proposed issues in its appeal to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals of a Feb. 5 decision halting its plans to move engine repair jobs to Columbus, Ga., Japan and Singapore.

U.S. District Court Judge Janet C. Hall in Bridgeport ruled in favor of the Machinists union, which sued Pratt & Whitney to halt efforts to shift the jobs. The union said the company violated its contract with the union that requires it to make every effort to preserve jobs in Connecticut.

Among the issues Pratt & Whitney said it may raise is its contention that Hall was wrong in how she interpreted the definition of "every reasonable effort" to preserve jobs. Pratt & Whitney said it is not required to save jobs if it results in lower profit.

The company also said Hall substituted her own judgment for Pratt & Whitney's business judgment in how it measures profit and financial performance.

In a request filed last week, Pratt & Whitney said a decision is needed soon to avoid financial harm because the company plans to shut two Connecticut plants immediately after its union contract expires in December.

The court said the two parties may file legal papers in April and May and an appeal may be heard as early as the week of May 31.

A lawyer for the union would not immediately comment. The union's chief negotiator did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

Oklahoma City Council members hired a private law firm Tuesday to lead upcoming contract negotiations with the city’s police and firefighter unions.

The firm, McAfee and Taft, was hired in part because negotiations with the unions have gone poorly in recent years.

"It’s just broken,” Ward 4 Councilman Pete White said of recent negotiations with the public safety unions.

Two of the firm’s labor attorneys will be paid $225 an hour each to lead negotiations with the unions for the next fiscal year, according to a contract council members unanimously approved Tuesday.

City officials hope the arrangement helps improve a damaged relationship with the public safety unions.

"It’s just to put a new face on it,” White said. "The people that do the hardest jobs we have in this city are the police department and fire. For the relationship to be this acrimonious ... is not acceptable.”

City attorneys handled past negotiations and will assist with the upcoming negotiations.

The negotiations figure to be tense because the city will likely ask for concessions from its public safety unions in order to meet next year’s budget, which will be much smaller than this year’s.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday denied an appeal by Pacific Investment Management Co challenging class-action certification for a lawsuit alleging the world's largest bond fund manager tried to corner a market for U.S. Treasury note futures.

A U.S. appeals court in Chicago upheld a judge's ruling that certified as a class more than 1,000 investors who seek more than $600 million in damages.

Pimco, a Newport Beach, California-based unit of the German insurer Allianz SE appealed to the Supreme Court, but the justices turned down the appeal in a brief order without any comment.

The lawsuit accused Pimco of boosting its percentage stake in futures contracts on some 10-year Treasury notes to 42 percent from 12 percent over a two-week span in the spring of 2005. The relevant contracts traded on the Chicago Board of Trade.

In its appeal to the Supreme Court, Pimco argued that class-action status should not have been granted because some plaintiffs did not lose money and the class suffered from serious conflicts of interest that precluded certification.

The U.S. government argued on Friday that it should be allowed access to people's cell-phone records to help track suspected criminals.

A Justice Department attorney urged a federal appeals court in Philadelphia to overturn lower court rulings denying it the right to seek information from communications companies about the call activity of specific numbers that authorities believe are associated with criminal activity.

But civil rights lawyers argued that providing information such as dates, times and call duration, and which cell towers the calls used, would be an invasion of privacy and a violation of constitutional protections against unjustified arrest.

It's been more than a decade since "Amy," as she's known in court papers, was first sexually abused by her uncle. The abuse ended long ago and he's in prison, but the pictures he made when she was 8 or 9 are among the most widely circulated child pornography images online.

Now the 20-year-old woman is taking aim at anyone who would view those images and asking for restitution in hundreds of criminal cases around the country.

Her requests and those filed by other victims of child pornography are forcing federal judges nationwide to grapple with tough legal questions: Is someone who possesses an abusive image responsible for the harm suffered by a particular child? And how much should that person have to pay?

"It is hard to describe what it feels like to know that at any moment, anywhere, someone is looking at pictures of me as a little girl being abused by my uncle and is getting some kind of sick enjoyment from it. It's like I am being abused over and over again," Amy wrote in court papers.

Long before teacher Tetyana Nikitina was shot to death Friday, she said she feared for her life.

In fact, according to divorce records filed in 2005, the 34-year-old Ukranian immigrant also said she was terrified her then-husband would kill their two children.

Nikitina was gunned down Friday afternoon as she left the Salt Lake Head Start school where she worked. Police say she was fatally shot by her former mother-in-law, 70-year-old Mary Nance Hanson.

Unified Police executed a search warrant Monday on the Taylorsville home of Nikitina's ex-husband and Hanson's son, Dale Jankowski. Police said they hoped they could piece together the circumstances that led to Nikitina's death.

For his part, Jankowski said in voluminous divorce records filed in 3rd District Court that Nikitina was trying to set him up with false accusations of domestic abuse, and he was deeply afraid that she would flee the United States with their children — which resulted in a battle over the children's passports.

"There is no label for him (such as person of interest)," Unified Police Lt. Don Hutson said. "He is just a relative of the suspect." Hutson said investigators are interested in the relationship Nikitina had with Hanson, who called 911 after the shooting.

The New Hampshire Supreme Court on Thursday put a dent in the state budget by rejecting the state's claim to $110 million in surplus from a fund that underwrites medical malpractice insurance.

In a 3-2 decision, the court upheld policyholders' claim they had a constitutionally protected contractual right to the money. The court said the state could not change its law to apply retrospectively to contracts with policyholders.

"I'm disappointed. I thought it was going to be a close call to begin with," said Gov. John Lynch. "We'll manage through it."

Lynch said the decision means the state will have to find $45 million over the next 17 months. He was not specific on what he will do.

Republicans, who are in the minority in the Legislature, have repeatedly called the state's claim an attempt to "steal" money from doctors and health care providers.

On the 17th floor of the Phillip Burton Federal Building in a city known for being at the edge of social change, a federal trial is under way that could lead to a landmark ruling on same-sex marriage in America.

Perry v. Schwarzenegger, which began Jan. 11 in the US District Court for Northern California, challenges the constitutionality of California's voter-approved ban on gay marriage. Over the past 10 days, lawyers have made a broad-based case against Proposition 8, ranging from arguments that it reflects prejudice against gays and lesbians to discussions about the nature of modern marriage, and the notion that homosexuality requires special protections like gender and race.

Many gay-marriage advocates say the case is ultimately destined for the US Supreme Court and represents the best path to legalizing same-sex marriage. They hope this lawsuit will be their Loving v. Virginia – the 1967 case that ended race-based restrictions on marriage.

But not all activists are on board. Some worry the stakes are too high: a federal challenge at a time when most states and voters reject gay marriage could be premature. Even if the Supreme Court eventually takes the case – bound to be appealed by the losing side in San Francisco in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and then to the Supreme Court– the court has historically been reluctant to move too far ahead of the people. A defeat in the Supreme Court would deal a huge setback to a movement that has seen significant gains over the past decade.

"The national marriage project was assiduously avoiding a federal court challenge. They were working slowly toward [it]," says Marc Spindelman, a law professor at Ohio State University and an expert on gay and lesbian rights. But, he adds, "if there's a circuit court that's likely to recognize same-sex marriage" it's the Ninth Circuit, under which the district court falls and which is often branded the most liberal.