The ruling by Judge Ronald Giles came after the mayor apologized to the court, saying it won't happen again.

The judge says he would have given the same treatment to any criminal defendant.

Kilpatrick's attorneys say they immediately will appeal the ruling.

Earlier Thursday, Kilpatrick waived his right to a preliminary hearing and will head to trial on perjury and other criminal charges.

Deborah Curling, a former production assistant, sued Barker, CBS and production company FremantleMedia North America in October, claiming she faced retaliation after testifying against Barker in another wrongful termination lawsuit.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Malcolm H. Mackey tentatively dismissed several claims against Barker on Wednesday, saying he could not be sued for wrongful termination because he was not her employer.

Curling's attorney, Nick Alden, can amend the complaint to try to prove that Barker inflicted emotional distress, but Mackey dismissed that allegation for now.

Mackey also dismissed several claims lodged by Curling against FremantleMedia, but will allow Alden another chance to argue they should be included.

Attorneys for CBS and FremantleMedia declined to comment after the hearing.

Osvaldo Aldrete Davila, who was wounded in the buttocks while fleeing from an abandoned marijuana load in 2005, was sentenced to 9 1/2 years in prison for his role in two other smuggling efforts later that same year.

His sentencing came a little more than a week after a federal appeals court upheld lengthy sentences for the two agents convicted in his shooting, Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compeau. Several members of Congress have called on President Bush to commute the agents' sentences or pardon them.

Aldrete was shot in February 2005, and testified against the agents in their 2006 trial, telling jurors he was unarmed when he was shot as he ran toward Mexico after a brief scuffle with Compean. Ramos and Compean argued they believed Aldrete had a weapon.

Aldrete pleaded guilty in April to two counts of possession with the intent to distribute a controlled substance, and one count each of conspiracy to import a controlled substance and conspiracy to possess a controlled substance.

Steven Phillips responded by removing a tracking device that had been strapped to his ankle since December, when he was released from prison on parole. He held up the ankle monitor to a cheering courtroom packed with a dozen family members and at least six fellow exonorees, who collectively served more than 100 years in prison until DNA tests proved their innocence.

"There was a lot of faith involved — the faith of my mother, the faith of my friends and my own faith," said Phillips, 50. "It's a wonderful day."

The judge's recommendation comes about a year after DNA testing showed Phillips was innocent of a 1982 sexual assault and burglary. Additional DNA testing earlier this year linked the crimes to Sidney Alvin Goodyear, who died in prison in 1998.

Phillips will be officially exonerated once the state Court of Criminal Appeals upholds the judge's recommendation or Gov. Rick Perry grants a pardon.

Phillips said he spent his time in prison writing letters to his mother and three children. Two were in court Tuesday, including Spc. Zachary Phillips, who wore his dress uniform and has served two tours in Iraq.

"I would wake up and say, I'm innocent ... ," Phillips said. "Sometimes that was all there was to hang onto. Unfortunately, it took 25 years to come into play."

Phillips is one of 19 men in Dallas County since 2001 proven innocent by DNA testing, a national high, according to the Innocence Project, a New York-based legal center that represented Phillips and specializes in wrongful convictions.

Faced with a $15 billion budget shortfall and a testy State Legislature, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is dealing with a host of critics, including pro-tax Democrats, tax-averse Republicans and a public increasingly displeased with him.

Now, even the state’s computers seem to be against him.

Last week, with no budget agreement in sight, the governor issued an executive order terminating thousands of part-time and temporary state employees and slashing the wages of about 170,000 of the state’s full-time workers to the federal minimum wage.

But the California controller, John Chiang, says the state’s payroll system — which uses a programming throwback known as Cobol, or Common Business-Oriented Language — is so antiquated it would take months to make the changes to workers’ checks.

“In 2003, my office tried to see if we could reconfigure our system to do such a task,” Mr. Chiang told a State Senate committee on Monday. “And after 12 months, we stopped without a feasible solution.”

David J. Farber, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University, said using Cobol was roughly equivalent to having “a television with vacuum tubes.”

“There are no Cobol programmers around anymore,” Mr. Farber said. “They retired centuries ago.”

Mr. Farber said California was not alone in having out-of-date systems — or handy excuses.

“It’s old technology, and you can’t find a repairman who knows how to fix it,” he said. “It also a neat way of figuring how not to get your salary cut.”

Even before his remarks to the Legislature, Mr. Chiang, a Democrat, had made no secret of his dislike for the order by Mr. Schwarzenegger, a Republican, saying he would refuse to follow it even if the state’s computers could handle the job. The governor, in turn, has threatened to sue Mr. Chiang to force the pay cuts, saying Mr. Chiang was violating a 2003 California court decision mandating that state employees take minimum wage if the Legislature does not pass a budget.

The current budget expired on July 1. Negotiations among lawmakers have been as sluggish as the state’s computers.

A judge has disqualified a lawyer from representing a woman suing former state Sen. Gary George, saying his law firm has a potential conflict of interest.

The firm must withdraw because it employs former Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager and her deputy, who have confidential information that could be used against George, U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb ruled.

She ordered Victor Arellano of Lawton & Cates to stop representing Delilah Tucker, who once worked in George's Capitol office.

Tucker is suing George and his former chief of staff Dan Rossmiller for violating her constitutional rights to free speech. She claims the two retaliated against her after she raised concerns about having to do personal and campaign work for the Milwaukee Democrat. She says she was ultimately fired and replaced by "a European beauty."

Child Protective Services filed petitions asking Texas District Judge Barbara Walther to place the six girls and two boys belonging to four different mothers back in foster care.

The children, ranging in age from 5 to 17, will be allowed to remain with their mothers until a hearing scheduled for Sept. 25, said CPS spokeswoman Marleigh Meisner. None currently lives at the Yearning For Zion Ranch in Eldorado.

CPS filed petitions detailing alleged involvement in underage marriages by the children's fathers or stepfathers, submitting sect marriage documents, notes from suspected underage brides, photos and journal entries from Warren Jeffs, the jailed leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

Two of the girls are daughters of Lloyd Hammon Barlow, a doctor indicted last month on three misdemeanor counts of failing to report child abuse, according to court filings.

Five other sect members, including Jeffs, were charged with sexual assault last month, but their children are not among those in the CPS petitions. The other six children are related, by blood or marriage, to men who are not under indictment but are accused by child welfare authorities of participating in or blessing underage marriages.

An FLDS spokesman did not immediately respond to a call seeking comment Tuesday.

CPS has continued its investigation of the 440 children taken from the Eldorado ranch since the Texas Supreme Court ruled in late May that the children should not have been swept into foster care under a blanket petition and hearing. The court said evidence showed no more than a handful of girls were abused or were at risk of abuse.