Verdict

Lately, celebrities have been launching their own jewelry lines faster than you can say "B-list baubles." And even though stars drape themselves in millions of dollars worth of fine diamonds when they walk the red carpet, when it's time to get down to business, they are more likely to go the bargain route. Here's a cheat sheet on the newest lines. The line: Grayce by Molly Sims The look: '60s sex kitten The stats: Model-turned-actress-turned-designer Sims launches her jewelry line after success selling at HSN. Inspired by vintage jewelry scored at estate sales, the collection is priced from $75 to $250 online at graycebymollysims.

The judge in  Oracle Corp.'s copyright-infringement lawsuit against  Google Inc.  may accept a partial verdict. U.S. District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco said Friday that he had a "strong inclination" to accept a partial verdict in the case, an outcome that Google opposes. The jury has been weighing whether Google infringed parts of Oracle's Java programming language to develop the Android operating system for smartphones, now running on 300 million devices. The panel heard two weeks of testimony from Oracle and Google executives, including their chief executive officers.

In introducing Judge Sonia Sotomayor as his first nominee to the Supreme Court, President Obama said that she satisfied three criteria: a rigorous mastery of the law, a recognition that judges "interpret, not make, law," and an understanding, rooted in experience, of how ordinary people live. If there were any doubts about that characterization, they were dispelled by the nominee's impressive performance last week at her confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - The litany of abuses was chilling: mass murder, rape, sexual slavery. Forcing children to fight. Chopping off victims' limbs. Former Liberian President Charles Taylor's conviction Thursday by an international tribunal in the Netherlands on charges of abetting such war crimes in the West African country of Sierra Leone sent a powerful message to other warlords that they will eventually face justice, human rights activists and prosecutors say. But it also highlights what can be a wrenching tension between pursuing justice or peace first in some of the world's most violent, chaotic corners.

The judge in  Oracle Corp.'s copyright-infringement lawsuit against  Google Inc.  may accept a partial verdict. U.S. District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco said Friday that he had a "strong inclination" to accept a partial verdict in the case, an outcome that Google opposes. The jury has been weighing whether Google infringed parts of Oracle's Java programming language to develop the Android operating system for smartphones, now running on 300 million devices. The panel heard two weeks of testimony from Oracle and Google executives, including their chief executive officers.

Re "Rampart Verdicts Voided," Dec. 23: For 32 years, I tried hundreds of jury trials as a deputy district attorney--many of them being high profile, such as William Bonin, the freeway killer. The evidence produced in the courtroom in the Rampart case was insufficient to ever base a conviction on. It is indeed insufficient for a district attorney even to go forward with a criminal prosecution. The judge should have dismissed the case before it ever went to the jury. All the legal commentators before the verdict believed there was going to be an acquittal, not because they wanted that but from an experienced judgment on the evidence.

The Feb. 12 Morning Report item "Out of Tune" grossly misrepresented the actual jury verdict in the Dan Lofing suit brought in Sacramento Superior Court. While I understand and appreciate Calendar's requirements for brevity, such requirements should not come at the expense of an accurate presentation of the essential facts. Specifically, regarding the outcome of the Lofing suit: The jury found against Lofing's claims for damages of $385,000 and against his allegations of fraud, mental distress and breach of expressed warranty.

The plate glass windows of Mimi's Fashions tell the story of hard-knock Oakland today, as the city awaits a verdict in the trial of Johannes Mehserle, the white transit police officer charged with murder in the shooting death of an unarmed black man. The window on the left bears a black-and-white poster with the likeness of the smiling young father who died on New Year's Day 2009 as he lay face down on a BART station platform. "Justice for Oscar Grant," it cries. The poster on the right-hand window shows a big red heart with yellow wings and a prayer: "LOVE not Blood for the streets of Oakland."

A court's decision Friday to postpone the much-awaited verdict in a politically sensitive case against opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi fits into a broader pattern of Myanmar's military rulers using timing, leverage and blunt force in the interest of political survival, analysts said. Suu Kyi, 64, faces up to five years in prison on charges of harboring an American who swam across a lake in May and stayed for two days at her home, where she is under house arrest.

Putting an end to years-long litigation, a judge Thursday threw out a multimillion-dollar jury verdict awarded in 2007 to six Nicaraguan men claiming they were sterilized by a pesticide while working on American-run banana farms. The six were the last remaining plaintiffs in cases brought in Los Angeles by purported Nicaraguan banana workers against produce giant Dole Food Co., which applied a pesticide banned in the U.S. for possibly causing sterility in men in its Central American plantations in the 1970s.

The NBA deliberated for a long time, interviewed Metta World Peace and the player he elbowed, and announced a seven-game suspension without pay for the Lakers forward 51 hours after he sent James Harden crumpling to the court. World Peace will miss the regular-season finale Thursday at Sacramento and the Lakers' next six games, the league said Tuesday. He will also forfeit $347,849 in salary. It was the 10th time World Peace was suspended since 2003, a stunning number for any player in any sport.

The Los Angeles riots were sparked by the acquittal 20 years ago of four police officers in the beating of Rodney King, but civil rights attorney Connie Rice says the kindling for the fire was laid years before, by decades of hostile policing in black neighborhoods. "The reason we had this riot was because we had the total emasculation and humiliation of an entire community," she said. "It was kindling built on kindling built on kindling. " Rice reflected on the riots Sunday at the L.A. Times Festival of Books along with former L.A. County Dist.

The trial of a former Oakland Raiders defensive end accused of murder ended in a mistrial Wednesday when jurors failed to reach agreement on a verdict, according to authorities. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Carlos A. Chung terminated the trial after jurors were unable to reach a verdict on whether Anthony Wayne Smith was involved in the killing of 31-year-old mechanic Maurilio Ponce on Oct. 7, 2008. The jury, which deliberated for nine days, split 8 to 4 for a guilty verdict, said Sandi Gibbons, a spokeswoman for the L.A. County district attorney's office.

It's history they were talking about. The verdict that landed like a slap in the face. The smoke that rose over the city in columns of protest. The rampant looting and savage beatings. They were talking about nothing less than the evolution of a city and their place in it, of their crushed hopes and surviving dreams. Twenty years have been wiped off the calendar, but for a dozen regular customers who gathered in L.T.'s Barber Shop to hold forth on the riots Thursday, there is no separating today - or what may come tomorrow - from those epic days in April of 1992.

A jury in New Jersey on Friday convicted Dharun Ravi, a former Rutgers student, of hate crimes, invasion of privacy and other charges related to his spying on his gay college roommate, Tyler Clementi, who later committed suicide. Ravi, 20, sat silently and with no visible expression on his face as the verdict was read. He faced a total of 15 counts in the case, which made national news in September 2010 after Clementi, who was 18, hurled himself from the George Washington Bridge in the New York City area after learning that Ravi had set up a secret webcam and captured him in an intimate encounter with a date in their dorm room.

The International Criminal Court in The Hague on Wednesday found former Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga guilty of using children as soldiers, the first verdict in the panel's 10-year history. He could face life imprisonment. After a three-year trial, the court convicted Lubanga of recruiting boys and girls younger than 15 as soldiers during a civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2002 and 2003. Although his militia was accused of massacres, rapes, torture and ethnic killings by human rights activists and witnesses, the court charged him only with the recruitment and use of children to fight.

Ford Motor Co. lost a bid to reduce an $82.6-million verdict stemming from a rollover crash after a state appeals court in San Diego said that amount was justified based on a review ordered by the U.S. Supreme Court. Dearborn, Mich.-based Ford said it would appeal the ruling.

Oliver L. North's ever-loyal supporters rallied to his side and belittled the jury's verdict following his conviction Thursday on charges arising from the Iran-Contra scandal. But Democratic lawmakers and others troubled by North's activities said the verdict proved that North had obstructed Congress and undermined the Constitution. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Lomita), a close North friend and ally, described the former Marine lieutenant colonel as "absolutely elated" by his acquittal on 9 of the 12 charges he faced.

Like a grandma dogged by bad luck at the bingo table, federal prosecutors in Alabama have failed for a second time to score any courtroom convictions in the state's high-profile political corruption and gambling case. On Wednesday, a jury found six defendants -- including Milton McGregor, owner of the VictoryLand casino; two former state senators and a sitting senator -- not guilty of charges stemming from accusations that they either offered or accepted bribes related to a 2010 gambling bill, according to the Birmingham News . A casino developer, two lobbyists and a state representative pleaded guilty to corruption-related charges after an extensive federal investigation and testified against the defendants in court.

A former California Highway Patrol officer fell to the floor overcome by emotion in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom Monday as a jury convicted her of murder in the shooting death of her husband. In a case filled with allegations of anger management and domestic violence, the verdict in the rare prosecution of a law enforcement officer on murder charges proved to be dramatic. As the guilty verdict was read, veteran CHP Officer Tomiekia Johnson shook, then slid under the table where she had been seated alongside her attorneys.