Washington state's Supreme Court has lifted the stay of execution for a death row inmate who claimed the state's method of lethal injection violated constitutional bans on cruel and unusual punishment.

The high court unanimously ruled Thursday that Cal Coburn Brown's claims are moot because the state Department of Corrections changed its method of execution earlier this year from a three-drug cocktail to a one-drug system.

The court issued a stay last year just hours before Brown was set to die for torturing and killing a Burien woman in 1991. The state can now reschedule the execution, but the earliest it could happen is September.

American Association for Justice Announces Waters, Kraus & Paul Partner as President-Elect

Gary M. Paul, a longtime champion of victims’ rights and a partner with one of the nation’s most prolific plaintiff’s firms, has risen through the ranks of the American Association for Justice (AAJ) to be named president-elect of the organization. Mr. Paul will take office as AAJ president in July 2011.

Mr. Paul is a partner in the Los Angeles office of Waters, Kraus & Paul—the West Coast practice of Waters & Kraus. Nationwide, Waters & Kraus has taken more asbestos-related trials to verdict than any other plaintiff’s firm. In addition, Mr. Paul has more than three decades of experience in complex civil cases ranging from product liability to medical malpractice. His extensive background in plaintiffs’ rights, combined with his dedication to AAJ’s mission to obtain justice for victims of misconduct or negligence, give Mr. Paul a broad frame of reference for the challenges and opportunities ahead.

“There have been many changes within our ranks, and I am sure next year will be no different,” Mr. Paul said. “Change is difficult. But, as the American abolitionist and statesman Frederick Douglass once said, ‘If there is no struggle, there is no progress.’ I am absolutely confident that AAJ will emerge more powerful, more united, and with more members.”

Mr. Paul has been a member of AAJ since 1981 and has served in progressively significant executive roles since 2006, when he was elected parliamentarian. In addition to his leadership with AAJ, he is a past president of both the Consumer Attorneys of California (CAOC) and Consumer Attorneys Association of Los Angeles (CAALA). He has also been twice named as CAALA Trial Lawyer of the Year, and has appeared on the Thomson Reuters Southern California Super Lawyers® list six times, from 2005 to 2010.

With more than 100 jury trials to his credit, Mr. Paul currently focuses on mesothelioma asbestos cases — two of which were named by The Recorder (published by ALM) on its Top California Verdicts of 2009 list. Together with the nationwide Waters & Kraus team, several asbestos cases have resulted in high-profile plaintiffs’ verdicts in the last five years — along with a number of qui tam/whistleblower settlements.

Mr. Paul was among several AAJ officers announced in July during the group’s annual convention in Vancouver. Other officers include President C. Gibson Vance of Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles, P.C., in Montgomery, Ala.; Vice-President Mary Alice McLarty of The McLarty Firm, P.C., Dallas, Texas; Secretary J. Burton LeBlanc of Baron and Budd, P.C., in Baton Rouge, La.; Treasurer Rhonda Hill Wilson of the Law Offices of Rhonda Hill Wilson, P.C., in Philadelphia, Pa.; and, Parliamentarian Larry A. Tawwater of the Tawwater Law Firm, P.L.L.C., in Oklahoma City, Okla.

About Gary M. Paul
Gary Paul is a partner in the firm’s West Coast practice — Waters, Kraus & Paul. With more than three decades of experience in complex civil matters ranging from consumer and medical product liability to commercial and insurance litigation, Mr. Paul is both a respected author and popular speaker in the field. He is a member of the State Bar of California, the International Academy of Trial Lawyers, the American Board of Trial Advocates, the American Association for Justice (AAJ), the Consumer Attorneys Association of Los Angeles (CAALA), and Consumer Attorneys of California (CAOC). Mr. Paul is also a former president of the Pound Civil Justice Institute, a think tank of accomplished trial attorneys working to strengthen the practice of trial law through educational programs, publications, and research grants.

Before graduating from Loyola Law School in Los Angeles in 1974, Mr. Paul worked as a missile and space engineer for a decade, and was involved in the design of spacecraft that orbited and landed on Mars. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Arizona State University and a master’s degree from the University of California, Los Angeles. Mr. Paul is a native of Springfield, Ohio.

About Waters, Kraus & Paul
Waters, Kraus & Paul is the West Coast practice of Waters & Kraus, LLP — a nationally recognized plaintiffs’ firm concentrating on complex product liability and personal injury/wrongful death cases. The firm's diverse practice includes toxic tort litigation (mesothelioma-asbestos), qui tam (whistleblower) cases, pharmaceutical and medical product liability litigation, and elder financial abuse cases, among others. With offices in California, Texas, and Maryland, Waters & Kraus, LLP, has litigated cases in jurisdictions across the United States on behalf of individuals from all 50 states, as well as foreign governments.

About the American Association for Justice
The American Association for Justice (AAJ) promotes a fair and effective justice system and supports the work of attorneys to ensure that any person who is injured by the misconduct or negligence of others can obtain justice in America’s courtrooms, even when taking on the most powerful interests. Formerly known as the American Trial Lawyers Association (ATLA), AAJ was founded in 1946, and today represents the world’s largest trial bar as a broad-based, international coalition of attorneys, law professors, paralegals, and law students.

A mother whose three children were found starving after being shut away in a Dallas hotel bathroom for as long as nine months changed her plea to guilty Friday, bringing her trial to a sudden end.

Abneris Santiago's plea on the third day of her trial comes one day after she apologized to her 12-year-old daughter in a tearful courtroom reunion, saying she wasn't strong enough to stop the abuse.

Sentencing is expected to happen later Friday. She faces up to life in prison on one charge of injury to a child.

Police last summer rescued the then 11-year-old girl and her two younger half brothers from a bathroom in an extended-stay hotel along one of Dallas' busiest freeways.

The emaciated children, whose skeletal structures were visible beneath their flaky, stretched skin, were near death from chronic starvation. Authorities say the girl was repeatedly sexually assaulted by her mother's boyfriend.

Alfred Santiago was convicted Tuesday of injury to a child and continuous sexual abuse. He was sentenced to two 99-year prison terms, to be served concurrently.

Canada's top court is upholding six murder convictions of a pig farmer accused of butchering women and feeding them to pigs.

Canada's Supreme Court said Friday that Robert Pickton's right to a fair trial was not violated the first time around, and denied his request for a new trial.

Pickton was convicted of murdering six prostitutes in 2007 and sentenced to life in prison with no parole for at least 25 years.

Six gay couples in Hawaii are filing a lawsuit Thursday asking for the same rights as married couples, three weeks after Gov. Linda Lingle vetoed a same-sex civil unions measure.

The lawsuit doesn't seek the titles of "marriage" or "civil unions" for gay partners. Instead, it requests that the court system extend them the benefits and responsibilities of marriage based on the Hawaii Constitution's prohibition against sex discrimination.

"We continue to be discriminated against," said plaintiff Suzanne King, who has been in a relationship with her partner for 29 years. "We're a family unit, and we live our lives just like everyone else, but we aren't treated the same."

The legal action in state court comes as a response to the Republican governor's veto July 6, when she said voters should decide whether to reserve marriage for couples of a man and a woman.

Five other states and the District of Columbia permit same-sex marriage. Five more states essentially grant the rights of marriage to same-sex couples without authorizing marriage itself.

Hawaii passed the nation's first "defense of marriage" constitutional amendment in 1998, giving the state's legislature the power to reserve marriage to opposite-sex couples. The amendment is silent on civil unions and rights for same-sex couples.

Most Hawaii residents don't want the government to endorse equal rights for gay couples, said Garret Hashimoto, chairman for the Hawaii Christian Coalition.

A Utah Supreme Court decision that overturns polygamous church leader Warren Jeffs' 2007 criminal conviction won't automatically make him a free man. Even if Utah doesn't retry him, Texas and federal prosecutors are waiting to move forward with their own cases.

Justices on Tuesday unanimously said Jeffs should get a new trial because state attorneys overreached in their argument that performing the marriage of a 14-year-old girl to her 19-year-old cousin amounted to facilitating a rape.

Utah officials now have two weeks to seek a rehearing before the state's high court and then a month to decide if they'll retry the 54-year-old head of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints on charges of first-degree felony rape as an accomplice.

A judge Wednesday set an Aug. 18 date for a hearing on a motion from Jeffs' defense attorneys seeking a "speedy trial before a jury of his peers."

Meanwhile, authorities in Texas are trying to get Jeffs sent there to face charges in connection with his own alleged marriages to underage girls in 2005. A federal indictment stemming from Jeffs' stint as a fugitive on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list is also pending.

A leading Appalachian coal company is asking its counterparts to pool their money for a political offensive against Democrats in Kentucky and West Virginia.

International Coal Group is calling on other mining companies to join an initiative that would take advantage of a U.S. Supreme Court decision loosening restrictions on corporate contributions to political causes.

ICG Vice President Roger Nicholson said in an e-mail that he wants to target Democratic U.S. Reps. Ben Chandler of Kentucky and Nick Rahall of West Virginia, and Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Jack Conway in Kentucky. The e-mail, first reported by the Lexington Herald-Leader, was obtained by The Associated Press on Wednesday.

Nicholson said the Obama administration and the Democratic-controlled Congress are "fiercely anti-coal."