Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals News

It's now up to a federal judge in New Orleans to decide whether to put a challenge to campaign finance restrictions on a faster track to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Justices John Paul Stevens and Antonin Scalia disagree with the U.S. Supreme Court's refusal today to decide whether the statute of limitations bars prosecution of a Klansman convicted of kidnapping two black youths who were drowned 45 years ago.

Reputed Klansman James Ford Seale lost one appeal argument Monday before the U.S. Supreme Court in his quest to overturn his 2007 federal kidnapping convictions in the deaths of two black teens more than 45 years ago.

A federal judge has turned away an effort to block a new federal law that restricts how tobacco is marketed and gives the U.S. Food and Drug Administration authority over it.

A man convicted of fatally beating and shooting an East Texas man during a burglary almost 12 years ago was executed Thursday, in a case that gained notoriety because jurors may have consulted a Bible to justify his death sentence.Khristian Oliver, 32, was pronounced dead by lethal injection at 6:18 p.m.He told his victim's children, who watched ...

A federal appeals court has reinstated a Metairie man's conviction for a 1999 crime spree in east Jefferson, ruling that a federal judge erred in finding the man's leg shackles violated his right to act as his own attorney during his trial.

A federal appeals court has affirmed a lower court ruling against three Latino voters who tried to change how council members are elected in a Dallas suburb.

One witness who saw 64-year-old Joe Collins being beaten over the head by a rifle-swinging assailant compared it to someone getting pummeled with an ax or a golf club.

Usually when the U.S. Supreme Court declines to take up an appeal, that fact is noted only in a single line on an orders list.

A U.S. appeals panel had tough questions on Monday for the receiver in Allen Stanford's civil fraud case, who is suing to recover proceeds from several hundred investors in the firm's offshore bank.

The U.S. Supreme Court has refused appeals from three Texas death row inmates, including one set to die this month.

The Supreme Court on Monday left in place a judge's ruling that allowed prosecutors to charge a reputed Ku Klux Klansman with kidnapping more than 40 years after two black men were abducted and killed in rural Mississippi.

In the court of law, it never really mattered whether Roland Carnaby was a spy , as he claimed just before police gunned him down along the highway following a high-speed chase.

A federal appeals court has upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit that a New Orleans man filed against the federal government after his wife fell to her death during a rescue attempt by a Navy helicopter in Hurricane Katrina's aftermath.

NEW ORLEANS - A federal appeals court has revived some of the claims in a lawsuit that a former Kenner city official filed after he was arrested for allegedly misappropriating relief supplies in Hurricane Katrina's aftermath.

In a surprising decision, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has held that private property owners in Mississippi can continue with their global warming lawsuit against oil, coal and chemical companies.

A challenge to Mississippi's method of lethal injection has been laid to rest for now, more than a year after the state's most recent execution.

A federal judge in Texas has been assigned to preside over an Alabama attorney's lawsuit that alleges imprisoned attorney Richard "Dickie" Scruggs and several others conspired to defraud him of millions in legal fees.

After all, both judges are lawyers, trained in a similar matter. Why wouldn't they reach the same result? But the fact is that the law is rarely so obvious.

Which industry will the trial lawyers go after next? A suit filed by Mississippi property owners who had losses from Hurricane Katrina might provide a glimpse of the mischief to come.