Jury questioning is slated to begin Monday in Los Angeles in the drug conspiracy trial of Anna Nicole Smith's doctors and her lawyer-boyfriend.

Superior Court Judge Robert Perry says questionnaires filled out by prospective jurors show most of them know something about the former Playboy model's life and death. Jury questioning will help determine how much they know and what they think about the charges.

Perry hopes to have a panel seated in two days. Opening statements are scheduled for Wednesday.

Dr. Sandeep Kapoor, Dr. Khristine Eroshevich and Howard K. Stern have pleaded not guilty to conspiring to illegally provide Smith with massive amounts of opiates and sedatives. They are not charged in her 2007 overdose death in Florida.

A federal appeals court has ordered two executives convicted in a $1.9 billion corporate fraud case to be resentenced.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati said Wednesday the government hadn't proved Donald Ayers and Roger Faulkenberry were guilty of money laundering. Their convictions of conspiracy, securities fraud and wire fraud remain in place.

Faulkenberry is serving 10 years in prison, and Ayers is serving 15 years. They were convicted in 2008 with four other top executives from National Century Financial Enterprises, a Columbus health care financing company. Federal prosecutors likened the case to the Enron scandal.

The court said the government didn't prove that advances Faulkenberry and Ayers made to medical companies were designed to conceal the money's source.

The court-appointed trustee seeking to recover billions of dollars lost by jailed financier Bernard Madoff sued three entities Thursday to get back more than $30 million that he said the Madoff family had invested, mostly in oil and gas properties and technology companies.

The three lawsuits filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan by Irving Picard are a follow-up to a lawsuit he filed in November seeking nearly $200 million from family members who he said lived lavishly while using the family finance business like a "piggy bank."

Picard wrote sarcastically in the latest lawsuits that Madoff was "quite generous" with the money he stole from thousands of customers in history's largest Ponzi scheme.

"Foremost among the recipients of Madoff's gifts of customer funds were his closest family members, including his wife Ruth Madoff, his brother Peter, his two sons Andrew and Mark and his niece Shana," Picard said.

"With respect to Mark and Andrew, the lawsuits are without merit, both factually and legally," said Martin Flumenbaum, a lawyer for Madoff's sons.

A founding member of a terrorist group has pleaded guilty in the kidnapping of 16 people, including four Americans, at a Philippine resort 15 years ago.

During an appearance in federal court Wednesday, Madhatta Haipe admitted that he and several armed members of the Abu Sayyaf (AH'-boo SEYE'-yahf) Group kidnapped the vacationers for ransom.

Haipe was extradited from the Philippines to the U.S., and at his sentencing Dec. 14 he will face up to life in prison on each of four counts of hostage taking.

Abu Sayyaf is suspected of having received funds and training from al-Qaida and is on a U.S. list of terrorist organizations.

Its bombings, ransom kidnappings and beheadings of hostages have made it the Philippines' most brutal rebel group.

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.