A Texas court scrapped a $26 million verdict against the drugmaker stemming from the first trial. The court found no evidence that Robert Ernst suffered a fatal heart problem from a blood clot triggered by Vioxx. He had been taking the now-withdrawn drug for eight months before being stricken in May 2001.

A New Jersey appeals court separately voided $9 million of the nearly $14 million awarded to John McDarby in 2006 by a jury in Atlantic City. The panel found that New Jersey's Product Liability Act was pre-empted by the federal Food Drug and Cosmetic Act.

Dustin Turner is hoping to overturn his conviction based on a confession by a fellow trainee who also went to prison for the crime. A hearing was to resume Thursday morning in Virginia Beach Circuit Court.

On Wednesday, Billy Joe Brown testified that he alone killed Jennifer Evans in 1995. He said he became a Christian in prison and realized he had to come clean.

Brown also gave a sworn statement taking full responsibility for the killing in 2003.

After a judge determines whether Brown's confession is credible, the state appeals court must decide whether it would have changed the outcome of Turner's trial.

This expansion of employee rights stands in sharp contrast to a series of pro-business rulings limiting the rights of workers that were made last year by the Supreme Court.

Tuesday's decisions do not amount to a sharp change in the law. Most civil rights laws already protect employees against being punished for complaining of bias based on their race, religion, gender, national origin or age.

However, in both cases the court read an older law broadly to give employees more rights to sue for discrimination.

The results mark the first time in over three decades of polling that more California voters have approved of extending marriage to gay couples than have disapproved, said Field Poll director Mark DiCamillo. The survey of 1,052 registered voters was conducted over the phone.

"I would say this is a historic turning point or milestone," DiCamillo said. "We have speculated in the past there would be some time in the future when a majority would support same-sex marriage. Well, the lines have crossed."

The poll found that 51 percent of respondents backed legalizing same-sex marriage and 42 percent opposed it, DiCamillo said.

In 2006, when participants were asked, "Do you approve or disapprove of California allowing homosexuals to marry members of their own sex?" 44 percent said they approved and 50 percent objected. In 1977, the first year Field posted the question to voters, 28 percent approved and 59 percent were opposed.

The poll was conducted from May 17 to May 26 in the days after the California Supreme Court handed down its historic ruling legalizing same-sex marriage in the nation's most populous state. A smaller percentage of respondants_ 48 percent — said they agreed with the court's decision and 46 percent disagreed.

That closely watched ruling, which made it easier for inmates to get new hearings on DNA evidence that emerges after their trials, and the fallout from it have left House in limbo while a prosecutor methodically battles every effort from the courts to have him retried.

Federal judges have done as the high court ordered: They reviewed his murder case and concluded new evidence raises reasonable doubt about his guilt. Not allowed to overturn the conviction, they took the extraordinary step of giving Tennessee a six-month deadline to bring House to trial or release him.

And still House, 46, is locked up in a Nashville prison.

An appeals court ruled in his favor this month, but that ruling also reset the 180-day countdown at zero.

U.S. District Judge Harry S. Mattice Jr. has scheduled a hearing for Wednesday to consider terms and conditions of House's release, but prosecutors are taking their time in setting a date for a new trial.

"The Supreme Court has said, 'You just got the wrong person.' You would think ... that there would be some respect for that situation," said U.S. Circuit Judge Gilbert S. Merritt, who has heard portions of House's case and believes he isn't guilty of murder.

District Attorney Paul Phillips said he plans to retry House with old evidence from the first trial and some new evidence he wouldn't describe. He promises he has "proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. House is guilty or we would not be re-prosecuting him."

For House's mother, it's hard not to think the state is delaying on purpose.

"What I really think, and I'm not the only one, is they just want him to linger in there until he dies. Then it will all go away, they think," Joyce House said recently at her white ranch-style home in Crossville, a town of about 10,000 some 100 miles east of Nashville.

Phillips denied prosecutors are intentionally putting off the case and noted the inmate's doctor testified House could live for decades with his illness.

"They just don't want to admit they made a mistake," Joyce House said. "They're not the only state that's ever made a mistake."

A report examines 123 terrorist cases from the past 15 years, and the study's two principal authors say that the courts were able to produce just, reliable results while protecting national security.

The report comes at a time when the Bush administration's system of military commissions remains mired in delays.

Whether the case is the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993 or the East African embassy bombings in 1998, judges, juries, defense attorneys and prosecutors are able to get the job done correctly, they say.

Although the justice system is far from perfect, it has proved to be adaptable and has successfully handled a large number of important and challenging terrorism prosecutions, said New York lawyers Richard Zabel and James Benjamin of the law firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld.

Denver's Holland & Hart is merging with Hale Lane Peek Dennison in Nevada to create a law firm with more than 415 attorneys in seven states.

"We've had Hale Lane on our radar for a long time," John Husband, chairman of Holland & Hart's management committee, said Tuesday.

He credited Hale Lane as being an expert in real-estate fractional ownership, or where a purchaser buys a fraction of a property. Both firms also have strong business litigation and natural resource practices. Financial terms of the transaction weren't disclosed.

The deal reflects the continuing consolidation of regional law firms. In the past two years, Denver's Brownstein Hyatt Farber merged with Nevada and California firms to strengthen its gaming and water resource law practices.

Holland & Hart, the largest firm based in the Mountain West, has 365 attorneys in 14 offices and expanded into Nevada in 2006. Hale Lane was founded in Nevada in 1971 and is one of Nevada's largest firms.

Husband and Timothy Lukas, Hale Lane's managing shareholder, described the two firms as sharing similar cultures in terms of how they serve clients and conduct community work. Holland & Hart opened an office in Las Vegas in 2006 and Reno in 2007, while Hale Lane has offices in Las Vegas, Reno and Carson City.

The Las Vegas and Reno offices of the merged firms eventually will be consolidated into one physical location, but Husband said he expects employment overall to grow over time.