A former pub landlord accused of murdering five prostitutes has appeared in court for a second day ahead of the start of his trial.

Steve Wright, 49, of Ipswich, Suffolk, denies murdering Gemma Adams, 25, Tania Nicol, 19, Anneli Alderton, 24, Paula Clennell, 24, and Annette Nicholls, 29.

Wearing an open-necked white shirt and a single-breasted black suit, Wright listened intently as the lawyers in the case discussed legal issues for 20 minutes at Ipswich Crown Court.

The jury of 10 men and two women, who were sworn in on Monday, did not attend Tuesday's proceedings.

The prosecution, led by barrister Peter Wright QC, is due to open its case against Wright at 10.30am on Wednesday.

Wright's defence team is headed by Timothy Langdale QC.

The five women were found at remote locations near Ipswich during a 10-day period in December 2006.

Instead, the Superior Court commissioner heard a day of closed-door testimony from Kevin Federline and witnesses to a bizarre situation this month in which police took the pop singer to a hospital after a standoff in her home when she refused to return the boys to Federline's bodyguard after a visit.

Commissioner Scott Gordon then ruled that a Jan. 4 emergency order suspending her visitation rights and giving custody to Federline would remain in effect. He scheduled another hearing for Feb. 19.

"The word victory is not something Mr. Federline or his counsel would ascribe to this. There is no joy. This is a grave situation for all," Federline's attorney, Mark Vincent Kaplan, said outside the courthouse.

Although Federline thought the ruling was correct, Kaplan said, "his goal, his hope for the future is at some point he will be able to parent the children with the participation of their mother."

Kaplan would not answer questions.

Court spokesman Allan Parachini said those who testified were two Los Angeles police officers; Paula Strong, the court-appointed monitor who was present for the visit at Spears' home; Lisa Hacker, a parenting coach who has been working with Spears and Federline; and Lonnie Jones, the bodyguard.

Parachini did not reveal what the witnesses said during their testimony.

Gordon's order noted that during an officer's testimony there were two exhibits, one described as a photocopy of a police report and the other as a "photocopy of Application for 72-hour Detention for Evaluation and Treatment." All exhibits were ordered sealed.

Neither Spears nor Federline were required to attend, but Federline arrived early, sporting a mohawk-style haircut and dressed in a suit. Spears didn't arrive until early afternoon.

A sport-utility vehicle took her into a civic center garage, but only her attorneys got out before it left. It later stopped outside the courthouse, where Spears got out of a passenger seat and took over the driver's seat. It was not clear in the crush of photographers whether she or a companion was at the wheel when it left.

Gordon scheduled Monday's hearing at the same time he issued a Jan. 4 order suspending Spears' monitored visits with sons Jayden James, 1, and Sean Preston, 2, and giving full legal and physical custody to Federline, who previously had temporary custody.

Gordon issued that order the day after police were called to Spears' home when she refused to return the children to Federline after a monitored visit and officers had paramedics haul the pop star off to a hospital for undisclosed reasons. She was released after a day and a half at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

Police officers monitoring the paparazzi outside the courthouse warned them to stay on the sidewalk, and several were issued citations for being in the street.

Spears married Federline in 2004 and filed for divorce in 2006. Throughout 2007, her behavior was erratic — and highly public, as a train of photographers trailed her everywhere.

A court ordered her to undergo random drug and alcohol testing, and to temporarily give the boys to Federline. Spears' attorneys asked the court this month to be relieved as her counsel because of a "breakdown" in communication. That motion is scheduled to be heard on Feb. 4.

The U.S. Supreme Court declined Monday to consider a ruling that terminally ill patients have no right to be treated with experimental drugs not yet approved by the Food and Drug Administration -- even if that means the patient will likely die before the medicine is approved.

The court, without comment or recorded dissent, let stand a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which said the terminally ill have no constitutional right to drugs the agency had considered safe enough for additional testing.

The justices questioned whether evidence in criminal cases should be suppressed following arrests that violate state laws. At issue is the cocaine conviction of David Lee (Chubs) Moore, who was pulled over by Portsmouth, Va., detectives who suspected he was driving on a suspended license. Instead of sending Moore on his way after writing a court summons -- as required by Virginia law -- police arrested him and found crack cocaine in his jacket. The Virginia Supreme Court threw out the case and overturned his five-year prison term after concluding the search following his arrest was unconstitutional.

Three law firms have filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of victims of last weekend's Fernley flood - the second such complaint in two days.

In their suit filed Friday in Lyon County District Court in Yerington, the Reno firms of Maddox & Associates, Leverty & Associates and Dunlap & Laxalt are seeking unspecified damages from the Truckee-Carson Irrigation District.

The complaint came a day after Reno lawyer Robert Hagar filed a
suit in Washoe County District Court on behalf of Judy Kroshus, whose home was among hundreds flooded after a storm-swollen irrigation canal ruptured Jan. 5. That suit, which also seeks class-action status, names the irrigation district, local governments and homebuilders as defendants.

Both lawsuits allege that the irrigation district did not properly maintain the canal and failed to minimize damage once the breach occurred in the fast-growing town 30 miles east of Reno.

Ernie Schank, TCID president, said the district reacted as quickly as possible after learning about the rupture, which was reported at about 4:20 a.m.

"This will be a complex case," lawyer Cal Dunlap told the Reno Gazette-Journal. "A lot of this is unknown territory. It's not immediately clear which laws apply."

Judges will have to certify the lawsuits as class actions, meaning that the suits represent all plaintiffs affected by the flood.

"It's unusual for two class actions to be certified," said Jeffrey Stempel, a law professor at the William S. Boyd School of Law at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. "Filing first is always an advantage."

Stempel maintained the irrigation district generally would be liable for flood damage.

"If you've penned up an animal and the animal escaped and hurt
someone, it's usually your responsibility," he said. "In this case, the district penned up water and it got away from them."

The irrigation district operates the canal under a contract with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which owns it.

Schank has said he realizes the district will be targeted by lawsuits, but was unsure whether it's liable for flood damage.

Betsy Rieke, area manager for the reclamation bureau, has said her agency thinks the district would be liable.

Rieke's agency continues to investigate the cause of the breach, which occurred after unusually heavy rain.

The court recently rejected a petition to appoint a trustee for the chimp, named Matthew Hiasl Pan, the Vienna-based Association Against Animal Factories said, and subsequently vowed to contact the European Court of Human Rights over the matter.

The court's decision follows in the footsteps of a similar ruling last fall. In September, a provincial judge in the city of Wiener Neustadt dismissed the case, ruling the Association Against Animal Factories has no legal standing to argue on the chimp's behalf.

The legal back and forth began in February, when the animal shelter where Pan and another chimp, Rosi, have lived for 25 years filed for bankruptcy protection.

Activists want to ensure the apes don't wind up homeless. Both were captured as babies in Sierra Leone in 1982 and smuggled to Austria for use in pharmaceutical experiments. Customs officers intercepted the shipment and turned the chimps over to the shelter.

Donors have offered to help with the upkeep costs, but under Austrian law, only a person can receive personal gifts.

Organizers could set up a foundation to collect cash for Pan, whose life expectancy in captivity is about 60 years. But they argue only personhood will ensure he isn't sold to someone outside Austria, where he's protected by strict animal cruelty laws.

The Supreme Court's long-running debate over the meaning of federalism took a new turn in a case the justices heard on Monday.

The question was, What happens when a state chooses to give criminal suspects more protection than the federal Constitution requires? If an arrest is improper under state law, does that mean that a search the police conduct in connection with the arrest is necessarily improper as well, even if the arrest met constitutional standards?

It is a question that has divided courts around the country, since it is not unusual for states to offer more vigorous protection for individual rights, either by their own constitutions or by statute, than that provided by the federal Constitution, as interpreted by the Supreme Court.

In this case, the police in Virginia arrested a man for driving with a suspended license. Under Virginia law, that offense is a misdemeanor that does not justify an arrest, except in unusual circumstances. Ordinarily, the police are limited to issuing a summons and a notice to appear in court.

Nonetheless, the police took the man, David L. Moore, into custody and in the search that followed found 16 grams of crack cocaine (about a half ounce) and $516 in cash. Mr. Moore was convicted of the drug offense and sentenced to five years in prison. The Virginia Supreme Court dismissed all charges, ruling that because the arrest was unlawful, so was the search.

Under the United States Supreme Court's precedents, searches that are "incident to a lawful arrest" are considered valid. During the argument on Monday, there was general agreement that the arrest itself was supported by probable cause, the standard under the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution. But given the state law, could the arrest be considered "lawful"?

Arguing for Virginia, which was appealing a decision by its state Supreme Court, Stephen B. McCullough said that "there was a violation of state law, but it wasn't a constitutional problem."

Mr. McCullough, a deputy state solicitor general, told the justices: "You have clear rules. Why would you trade them in for a morass? An arrest is constitutional if the officers have probable cause to believe a crime has been committed."

The rules were actually not quite so clear. Michael R. Dreeben, a deputy United States solicitor general who argued for the Justice Department in support of Virginia, told the justices that "admittedly, I think neither side is able to point to a case that squarely addressed and conclusively resolved the issue that's before the court."

Nonetheless, Mr. Dreeben maintained that it would be counterproductive to declare a search to be unconstitutional under these circumstances. "It's clear that imposing such a Fourth Amendment rule would do nothing other than discourage the states from providing additional restrictions as a matter of their own state's law that may serve to protect citizen privacy interests above the floor that this court has identified as required," he said.

Thomas C. Goldstein, arguing for the defendant, told the justices that under English common law, an illegal arrest was considered a form of trespass. "Because at common law you could not search someone pursuant to an arrest that was a trespass," he said, "the search itself is unconstitutional."

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. was not persuaded. "It's not a lawful arrest," he said. "But that's a different question than whether or not it is an arrest. Our precedents say if it's an arrest, you can search ‘incident to the arrest.' "

"I disagree," Mr. Goldstein said. The court's precedents, he continued, indicated "that it has to be an arrest that is lawful under state law." The case came down to a simple concept that would be easy to administer, Mr. Goldstein said: "A rule that simply says to the police officer, ‘If you're allowed to arrest him, arrest him; if you're not, you're not, and you can't search him constitutionally.' "

Several justices pressed Mr. McCullough, Virginia's lawyer, on where, given a variety of dubious arrests, he would draw the line between valid and invalid searches. Justice Antonin Scalia asked whether, as a Supreme Court justice, he could search a neighbor's house on suspicion that marijuana was being grown there.

Yes, if the justice, as a federal employee acting on behalf of the government, had probable cause, Mr. McCullough said.

How about a "federally employed janitor?" Justice Scalia asked. "His neighbor is growing marijuana, and he's just as offended as a Supreme Court justice would be. Can he conduct a search?"

The lawyer replied, "I think if he's doing it on behalf of the state, the answer is yes."

Justice Scalia said, "Wow."

The case is Virginia v. Moore, No. 06-1082.

W. Bruce Shirk hasjoined the Washington, D.C. office of Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLPin the firm's Government Contracts practice group.  Shirk most recently led Powell Goldstein'sGovernment Contracts practice in Washington, D.C. 

Shirkfocuses his practice in the areas of government and construction contract lawand litigation, including cost accounting issues, defense and aerospacecontracting, Medicare and Medicaid contracting and related areas of lawincluding Medicare coordination of benefits and data sharing requirements.

"We are thrilledto welcome Bruce to the office," said Ed Schiff, managing partner of thefirm's Washington, D.C. office.  "Hisbackground is a perfect fit for our formidable Government Contracts group." 

"With close tofour decades of experience, Bruce brings with him a wealth of governmentcontracting knowledge and expertise in resolving a variety of disputes,"commented John Chierichella, a senior lawyer in the firm's D.C. GovernmentContracts practice.  "He will be agreat asset to our clients, as we continue to grow our robust practice."

CommentedShirk, "I look forward to working closely with John and the top-notchgroup of attorneys in the D.C. practice. I am greatly impressed by Sheppard Mullin and its reputation as a'go-to' firm for government contracting clients."

Shirk'slitigation experience includes the conduct of trials and appeals, including bidprotests and other complex litigation and related discovery proceedings, beforeBoards of Contract Appeals, various federal administrative tribunals and statecourts, Federal District courts, the U.S. Court of Federal Claims and the U.S.Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. He has represented both state and federalgovernment entities in litigation and has served as an arbitrator in a numberof construction arbitration proceedings under the rules of the AmericanArbitration Association.

Shirk'sexperience as a counselor includes review of contracts and provision of adviceto clients in both the public and private sectors in negotiation andadministration of contracts and grants; administrative prosecution of claimsagainst the government and defense of civil claims and criminal proceedingsbrought or instituted by the government, including claims arising under theMedicare statutes and regulations; defense of claims against public sectorentities; conduct of internal inquiries related to contract and regulatorycompliance, the latter including government claims for reimbursement ofMedicare payments.

Shirkhas conducted assessments of the practical impact of the law on the conduct ofbusiness with the government for clients, working closely with experts inrelated fields such as cost accounting and data analysis to formulaterecommendations for managers responsible for corporate decision-making andresolution of disputes; the establishment of compliance programs and advice andcounsel to clients regarding pricing and cost accounting issues. He has a special interest in the principlesand implementation of internal controls in the context of performance ofgovernment contracts and grants.

Shirkearned a J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1969 and received a B.A., cum laude,from Harvard College in 1962.  He servedin the U.S. Marine Corps on active duty as a lieutenant from 1962 to 1966.

About Sheppard Mullin Richter &Hampton LLP

Sheppard Mullin is a full service AmLaw 100 firm with more than 520 attorneysin 10 offices located throughout California and in New York, Washington, D.C.and Shanghai.  The firm's Californiaoffices are located in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Santa Barbara, Century City,Orange County, Del Mar Heights and San Diego. Founded in 1927 on the principle that the firmwould succeed only if its attorneys delivered prompt, high quality andcost-effective legal services, Sheppard Mullin provides legal counsel toU.S. and international clients.  Companies turn to Sheppard Mullin to handle a full range ofcorporate and technology matters, high stakes litigation and complex financialtransactions.  In the U.S., the firm'sclients include more than half of the Fortune 100 companies.  For more information, please visit www.sheppardmullin.com.