An Oregon jury is considering whether to sentence to death a convicted killer who has already been given the death penalty three times.

A Deschutes County Circuit Court jury in Bend on Wednesday will be the fourth to decide whether Randy Lee Guzek should die.

The 41-year-old was convicted of aggravated murder in 1988 for killing Rod and Lois Houser at their home in Terrebonne, just north of Redmond.

His death sentence has been overturned three times since his conviction.

Guzek was 18 when he and two other men shot and stabbed the Housers, then ransacked their house.

A tearful Guzek apologized for his crimes and told the jury he now blames himself, not an abusive father or drugs.

The lawyer for a woman charged with killing three university colleagues in Alabama says a new murder charge brought against her for the 1986 shooting death of her brother could be used in an insanity defense in the Alabama case.

Roy Miller said Thursday that if the insanity defense is used in Alabama, Amy Bishop's life would become "an open book." If that happens, he says the Massachusetts killing of her 18-year-old brother, Seth, would definitely play a role.

But District Attorney Robert Broussard in Huntsville said the indictment, announced Wednesday in Boston, could aid the case against her in the February shooting rampage that killed three professors at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.

A Texas judge charged with closing her court before a death row inmate could file a last-minute appeal is headed before a state disciplinary panel.

Judge Sharon Keller on Friday faces five counts of judicial misconduct. The hearing comes nearly three years after she said "We close at 5" while attorneys for a condemned man scrambled to file an appeal hours before his execution.

Keller is presiding judge of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. The State Commission on Judicial Conduct could dismiss the charges or recommend she be removed from the bench.

Keller faces no criminal charges. The commission has urged removal of a judge who wasn't under indictment only six times since 2002.

Prosecutors say they'll present a case where the removal option is "on the table."

In today’s speech to the Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms Conference in Italy, American Bar Association House of Delegates Chair William C. Hubbard inspired lawyers to re-commit themselves to the hard work of protecting human rights and strengthening the rule of law.

Hubbard said, “Lawyers and human rights advocates struggle with crises old and new … against genocide and mass atrocities and their consequences. … We struggle against terrorism while seeking to protect due process for the accused. … We struggle to help the corporate sector make a positive impact on human rights and remedy conditions that compromise basic human dignity for workers. … We struggle to secure the human rights of women and girls and combat all forms of violence against women. … From wherever we come … lawyers speak the same language.  We defend liberty for all.  We pursue equal justice for the mighty and the lowly.  We share a mission and a common sense of purpose, and we have much work before us.”

Hubbard represented the ABA at today’s meeting at the request of association President Carolyn B. Lamm.  He presented his remarks to international lawyers and legal scholars convening in Rome to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.

He stressed the essential connection between a country’s rule of law and its citizens’ daily quality of life.  

“The ABA has long endorsed the founding documents of modern human rights law and supported the international community in its efforts to extend basic legal protections to all people. …  In fact, the ABA regards the promotion of universal human rights and the rule of law as part of its core mission as an organization,” said Hubbard.

Hubbard outlined the ABA’s role in establishing three key entities to track human rights and rule of law around the world:  the ABA’s Center for Human Rights, the Rule of Law Initiative and the now independent World Justice Project with its ever-growing Rule of Law Index.

With nearly 400,000 members, the American Bar Association is the largest voluntary professional membership organization in the world.  As the national voice of the legal profession, the ABA works to improve the administration of justice, promotes programs that assist lawyers and judges in their work, accredits law schools, provides continuing legal education, and works to build public understanding around the world of the importance of the rule of law.

Follow the latest ABA news and updates at www.abanow.org.

A central figure in Pennsylvania's legislative corruption case — former lawmaker Mike Veon — is scheduled for sentencing in Harrisburg.

The former state House Democratic whip is to appear Friday before Dauphin Court Judge Richard Lewis.

Veon stands convicted of 14 counts of theft, conspiracy and conflict of interest, involving the illegal use of public resources for political campaigning. Veon was one of 25 people arrested in the investigation into alleged corruption among Democrats and Republicans in the Legislature.

The state attorney general's office is seeking a 12- to 17-year prison sentence for Veon.

Veon's lawyer says he will ask for a sentence that includes probation but no prison time.

The Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that Florida can undertake beach-widening projects without paying beachfront property owners who lose exclusive access to the water.

The court, by an 8-0 vote, rejected a challenge by six homeowners in Florida's Panhandle who argued that a beach-widening project changed their oceanfront property into oceanview. Justice John Paul Stevens took no part in the case in which the court affirmed an earlier ruling.

Private property advocates had hoped the court would rule for the first time that a court decision can amount to a taking of property.

The court's four conservatives — Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas — were prepared to rule that way, even though the homeowners still would have lost in this case, Scalia said in his opinion for the court. But they lacked a fifth vote.

The Constitution requires governments to pay "just compensation" when they take private property for public use.

The city's former chief crane inspector apologized at his sentencing Wednesday for taking bribes to fake inspection and licensing exam results and said other inspectors didn't deserve the notoriety he brought them.

James Delayo was sentenced in Manhattan state Supreme Court to two to six years in prison for taking more than $10,000 in payoffs.

"I'd like to apologize to the city in general for letting them down ... and to my family especially and the Buildings Department who do a difficult job and don't get recognition," Delayo said.

Looking gaunt and often coughing, the 61-year-old Delayo commended other inspectors for the difficult and important work they do, saying, "They don't deserve the bad publicity I brought them."

The charges against Delayo — filed in 2008 — stemmed from a crackdown on corruption in the construction industry that began after two deadly crane collapses that killed nine people.

Justice Thomas Farber said imposing the sentence was difficult because of Delayo's work supervising the crane operations at ground zero after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.