Melvin Brunetti

Melvin Brunetti, a federal appeals court judge for the last 24 years whose opinions included upholding anti-hate crime legislation, broader Pentagon scrutiny of homosexuals' security clearances and the death penalty for Robert Alton Harris, has died. He was 75. Brunetti died Friday at his home in Reno after a long battle with cancer, his family told the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, to which he had been appointed by President Reagan in 1985. He had been on senior status with the appeals court since 1999, a semi-retirement in which a judge is replaced on the active roster but continues to handle a reduced caseload.

Melvin Brunetti, a federal appeals court judge for the last 24 years whose opinions included upholding anti-hate crime legislation, broader Pentagon scrutiny of homosexuals' security clearances and the death penalty for Robert Alton Harris, has died. He was 75. Brunetti died Friday at his home in Reno after a long battle with cancer, his family told the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, to which he had been appointed by President Reagan in 1985. He had been on senior status with the appeals court since 1999, a semi-retirement in which a judge is replaced on the active roster but continues to handle a reduced caseload.

Two federal appeals judges raised doubts in a hearing Monday about key legal claims by Robert Alton Harris, while a third member of the panel who had blocked the condemned killer's execution issued an unusual attack on unnamed state lawyers for their public comments about the case. Harris, 37, was convicted and sentenced to death for the murders of two San Diego teen-age boys in 1978.

Two federal appeals judges raised doubts in a hearing Monday about key legal claims by Robert Alton Harris, while a third member of the panel who had blocked the condemned killer's execution issued an unusual attack on unnamed state lawyers for their public comments about the case. Harris, 37, was convicted and sentenced to death for the murders of two San Diego teen-age boys in 1978.

American Indians' right to a fair jury is not violated when federal criminal trials in Arizona are transferred from Prescott to Phoenix, where the Indian percentage of the population is much lower, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday. In a 2-1 ruling upholding a Navajo man's convictions for sex crimes, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said the disparities were irrelevant because there was no evidence that Indians were systematically excluded from the jury.

A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that a team of federal, state and Los Angeles law enforcement officers can be held liable for raiding a parolee's home while he was in jail and allegedly terrorizing his girlfriend and their 5-week-old son. In a 2-1 decision, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated a civil rights lawsuit brought by Darla Motley, whose boyfriend is an alleged member of the Four Trey Crips gang. U.S. District Judge Margaret M.

In the first appellate court review of a sweeping overhaul in federal sentencing regulations, judges of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday questioned whether a commission appointed by the President should have the power to dictate sentences for federal crimes.

Convicted Unabomber Ted Kaczynski on Friday lost his appeals for rehearings, although one judge wrote a stinging dissent that a federal court had treated Kaczynski as less than human. It was the second time this year that Kaczynski has failed to win a new trial. He may now take his appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Unabomber was arrested in 1996 at his remote cabin in Montana, ending the longest and costliest manhunt in the nation's history.

Renewing a claim that was rejected last month by a three-judge federal appellate panel, convicted murderer Robert Alton Harris said in legal papers filed Wednesday that he deserves a hearing to show that he was denied competent psychiatric help at his trial 11 years ago. Harris said an 11-judge board of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals should review the 2-1 decision the three-judge 9th Circuit panel issued Aug. 30 that rejected his claim and denied his death penalty appeal.

A federal appeals court on Wednesday rejected a renewed bid for a new trial for Robert Alton Harris, the condemned killer who could become the first person to die in the state's gas chamber in 24 years. A panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals held that Harris' latest legal claims came too late, and voted 2 to 1 to reaffirm a ruling it made last August upholding Harris' death sentence for the slayings of two teen-age boys in a robbery in San Diego in 1978.

Responding to prosecutors' claims that Robert Alton Harris should die, defense attorneys insisted Monday in a fat legal brief that the condemned murderer instead is due a hearing on his new claim that mental disorders drove him to kill two teen-age San Diego boys. Without that hearing, Harris' San Diego defense lawyers said, the federal Constitution's promise of a fair trial "will be a cruel hoax." The legal papers, filed late Monday with the San Francisco-based U.S.

A federal appeals court on Friday gave prosecutors the green light to proceed with criminal conspiracy and fraud charges against General Dynamics Corp. and four officers in connection with the development of the Sgt. York weapon system. The firm and the officers were indicted in 1985 in Los Angeles on seven counts of conspiring to lie about $7.5 million in cost overruns on a nearly $40-million contract to produce prototypes of the York anti-aircraft gun.