Berman was traveling and could not be reached for comment.

Avvo Chief Executive Mark Britton declared victory, saying he had been confident that the court would reach that decision.

"This was a case that should have never been filed. It was aimed at chilling and censoring our opinions, the opinions of consumers and even the opinions of other lawyers," said Britton, the former general counsel at Expedia who founded Avvo last year. "We are gratified. We are very happy."

There is the possibility of an appeal.

The suit, which was brought by Berman on behalf of Seattle attorneys John Henry Browne and Alan Wenokur shortly after Avvo's launch last June, claimed that the attorney rating service was severely flawed since some accomplished lawyers scored lower than those with disciplinary actions.

For example, the suit noted that Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Samuel Alito received the same rating as an attorney in prison for conspiracy and other charges.

The suit also said that attorneys could manipulate the rankings by updating their profiles on Avvo, citing one example of a Bellevue attorney who boosted his Avvo rating by posting athletic awards on his profile page.

But Lasnik wrote Tuesday that the Avvo ratings -- which assign rankings of 1 to 10 on attorneys -- are "subjective opinions."

"To the extent that their lawsuit has focused a spotlight on how ludicrous the rating of attorneys (and judges) has become, more power to them. To the extent that they seek to prevent the dissemination of opinions regarding attorneys and judges, however, the First Amendment precludes their cause of action," Lasnik wrote.

Lasnik also questioned why Browne would use his rating as a "Super Lawyer" by Washington Law & Politics magazine as evidence against his sub-par Avvo rating, noting that the court did not want to determine if one system was better than the other.

Avvo, which has raised about $13 million from Benchmark Capital and Ignition Partners, has attracted more than 4,000 lawyers who have claimed profiles on the site. About 2,000 of those are from Washington state.

Despite the legal action, Britton said that he spent little time on the case and most of the employees stayed focused on the job at hand.

"I think the team took it for what it was worth, rather than getting worked up by it or getting distracted by it," he said.

William Rothstein suffered severe internal injuries when he skied into a wall at Snowbird in February 2003. He sued and claimed the resort was negligent.

A lower court had said Snowbird Corp. was protected from a lawsuit because of two waivers signed by Rothstein when he obtained a season pass at the popular resort near Salt Lake City.

The high court overturned that ruling and said the releases go against a state law that is designed to keep insurance rates affordable for resorts but not shield them from all liability.

The releases signed by Rothstein "are contrary to the public policy of this state and are, therefore, unenforceable," the 3-2 decision said.

Snowbird spokeswoman Laura Schaffer said the resort doesn't comment on pending litigation.

In court papers, the resort maintained Rothstein skied off a connecting trail to an area that was marked off by rope. But the rope had a gap, which Rothstein mistook for an entrance to an open trail. He hit a wall made of railroad ties that was obscured by a light covering of snow.

Snowbird won the earlier ruling on two releases Rothstein had signed, assuming all risks and specifically mentioning cases "including the negligence of Snowbird, its employees and agents."

The Supreme Court's ruling Tuesday restores Rothstein's lawsuit and clarifies state law.

"What it will do is to encourage ski resorts to be more careful in their operations," said Jesse Trentadue, an attorney for Rothstein.

In the brief submitted to the high court late Monday, attorneys from the University of Texas School of Law argued that the 30-year sentence violates Christopher Pittman's Eighth Amendment protection from cruel and unusual punishment.

Such a lengthy sentence is "unconstitutionally disproportionate as applied to a 12-year-old child," according a copy of the petition provided by Juvenile Justice Foundation. It said Pittman "is the nation's only inmate serving such a harsh sentence for an offense committed at such a young age."

Zoloft is the most widely prescribed antidepressant in the United States, with 32.7 million prescriptions written in 2003. In 2004, the Food and Drug Administration ordered Zoloft and other antidepressants to carry "black box" warnings - the government's strongest warning short of a ban - about an increased risk of suicidal behavior in children.

Patterson could face as many as 25 years in prison when he is sentenced in April, prosecutors said.

Two other men — Kevin James, 31, and Levar Haley Washington, 28 — pleaded guilty in the case last week. A fourth, Hammad Riaz Samana, has been declared mentally unfit to stand trial and is undergoing psychiatric care at a federal prison.

All except Samana, a citizen of Pakistan, are American-born Muslim converts. The men were indicted in 2005 for what authorities said was a plot to attack American military facilities, Israeli government offices and synagogues in the Los Angeles area.

Prosecutors said the plot was orchestrated by Washington, Patterson and Samana at the behest of James, an inmate at California State Prison in Sacramento and founder of the radical Muslim group Jamiyyat Ul-Islam Is-Saheeh.

Patterson has cooperated with authorities, according his attorney, Winston Kevin McKesson.

"He volunteered to work for the government after finding out James lied," McKesson said. "James misled them in what the Quran says."

The plotters were within weeks of being able to carry out an attack before they were discovered about two months before the Jewish holiday Yom Kippur, officials said. Police uncovered the plot in July 2005 while investigating a string of gas station robberies that authorities say were committed to finance the attacks.

Former U. S. Rep. Tommy Robinson would spend six months in jail if a federal district judge agrees with a recommendation outlined Friday in U. S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas.

In overruling Robinson’s request to sue two of his creditors, their attorney and the Chapter 7 trustee in his personal bankruptcy case, U. S. Bankruptcy Judge James Mixon said the threatened lawsuits represented frivolous interference with bankruptcy court proceedings and an attempt to bully those involved in Robinson’s case.

“I think you are in criminal contempt,” Mixon told Robinson, who represented himself after his attorney’s withdrawal from the case earlier this week.

Mixon said he would recommend to U. S. District Court that Robinson serve six months in jail, a sentence that he suspended in April when Mixon found Robinson to be in both civil and criminal contempt of court orders.

Robinson, who served one night in jail as a result of the civil contempt finding, has appealed the April ruling by Mixon to U. S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas, where the matter has been assigned to Judge James Moody.

“You’ve just got to stop filing the same complaint with this court,” Mixon told Robinson.

“You lost,” the judge said, referring to Robinson’s allegations that his two former partners in a Monroe County hunting lodge, Bill Thompson and Boyd Rothwell, had committed fraud.

Robinson said his estranged business partners have “stolen more with a pen than Jesse James stole with a pistol.” In July 2006, Robinson served five days in jail after pleading no contest to charges of second-degree assault and disorderly conduct, misdemeanors that arose from a scuffle Robinson had in a Brinkley barbecue restaurant with Thompson.

Mixon said he had heard “maybe three times” the argument that Robinson’s partners secretly signed an August 2004 agreement with the U. S. Department of Agriculture and personally benefited from the sale of a roughly 2, 500-acre conservation easement for $ 1. 7 million.

“I’ve already ruled against you,” Mixon said. “You’re an intelligent person. Why do you keep raising the same issue over and over ?” Mixon promised to schedule a hearing within 30 days on his latest recommendation that Robinson be found in criminal contempt, “so you will have time to get counsel and present evidence,” he told Robinson.

Mixon denied Robinson’s request Friday that the judge recuse himself from the case, but he said Robinson was free to file a complaint about Mixon with the Judicial Council of the U. S. 8 th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Robinson said last week that he is seeking to remove Mixon from office by filing such a complaint.

Robinson also is free to file a criminal complaint about Thompson, Rothwell and their attorney, Stuart Hankins, with the U. S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Arkansas, Mixon said.

“I have no jurisdiction over such matters,” the judge said.

Mixon also overruled Robinson’s objection to Trustee Frederick Wetzel’s proposed sale of a city lot in Brinkley that belongs to Tommy Robinson and his wife, Carolyn.

Robinson and his wife were forced into personal bankruptcy in March 2005 by Thompson and Rothwell, and Mixon confirmed the case in September 2005. The following month, in schedules filed with bankruptcy court, Tommy Robinson listed $ 3. 6 million in liabilities and Carolyn Robinson listed $ 3. 4 million. They share many of the same debts, including more than $ 1. 5 million owed to the U. S. Department of Agriculture.

Four companies owned by the Robinsons also have been involved in bankruptcy court. Two were liquidated in 2005 and two others are in the process of being liquidated.

Robinson, 65, was Pulaski County sheriff from 1981 to 1984 and represented central Arkansas’ 2 nd Congressional District from 1985 to 1991. Originally elected as a Democrat, he switched to the Republican Party in 1989 and ran unsuccessfully in the 1990 Republican gubernatorial primary and in the 2002 1 st Congressional District race.

Carolyn Robinson has served on the Arkansas Parole Board since June 2002. Her current term expires in 2013.

Denison first tried to log into the ISO's computer system, but was unsuccessful because his computer privileges had been suspended, investigators said. Denison broke a glass cover that protected an emergency shut-off button, meant for use in case of fire or other calamity, according to the release.

Denison allegedly went home after shutting off the power to the computers, and told a friend the next morning that he had pressed the emergency button and had tried to "shut off the power grid," according to prosecutors.

The ISO manages high-voltage lines owned by Pacific Gas and Electric Co., Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric Co. The April 15 outage disrupted CalISO communications for about two hours, leaving the grid vulnerable to electricity shortages. The ISO used back-up systems to reconnect to the energy market.

Denison is scheduled to be sentenced by U.S. District Judge Garland E. Burrell Jr. at 9 a.m. on Feb. 29. The maximum penalty for attempting to damage an energy facility is five years imprisonment, a $250,000 fine and a three-year term of supervised release. Denison originally had also been charged with making a bomb threat.

The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigations's Joint Terrorism Task Force, composed of federal, state and local law enforcement agencies.

After 10 days of deliberations, the jury was unable to reach a verdict on the manslaughter charges against Alexander Pring-Wilson, 29, who was being tried for a second time.

Pring-Wilson said he acted in self-defense after he was attacked by 18-year-old Michael Colono and his cousin, Samuel Rodriguez, outside a Cambridge pizza parlor as he walked home from a bar on April 12, 2003.

Rodriguez testified that Pring-Wilson became enraged when Colono ridiculed him for stumbling home drunk.

The case attracted widespread media attention because of long-standing tensions between Ivy Leaguers and working-class Cambridge residents.

Pring-Wilson, the son of Colorado lawyers, was studying for his master's degree in Russian and Eurasian studies at Harvard. Colono, a high school dropout, had fathered a child at 15. He had earned his high-school equivalency diploma and was working as a cook at a Boston hotel when he was killed.

Pring-Wilson will remain free on bail. Prosecutors said they will put him on trial a third time.

"We will honor the memory of Michael Colono by continuing to fight for justice on behalf of him, his family, and the commonwealth," Middlesex District Attorney Gerry Leone said in a statement.

Pring-Wilson was convicted of manslaughter in 2004, but won a new trial eight months later when the state's highest court ruled in another case that juries should be allowed to consider a victim's violent history if it is relevant to a claim of self-defense.

During the second trial, jurors were given details about Colono's criminal record, including a 2001 episode in which he threw money in the face of a cashier at a pizza restaurant, then kicked in the front door and shattered the glass.

Pring-Wilson testified Colono and Rodriguez both pounded him relentlessly in the head, and he pulled out his folding knife because he was afraid they would kill him.

The fight between Pring-Wilson and Colono broke out as Pring-Wilson walked by a car Rodriguez and Colono were sitting in as they waited for a pizza order. Pring-Wilson said he approached the car because he heard someone call to him and thought they needed directions.

But Rodriguez said Pring-Wilson pulled open the car door and started the fight after Colono ridiculed him. Colono was stabbed five times in the chest and abdomen.

The prosecution focused on the lies Pring-Wilson acknowledged telling police during a 911 call he made seconds after the fight ended, and during police interviews the next morning. He initially said he had witnessed a young man being stabbed, but described himself as a bystander.

Pring-Wilson's attorney, E. Peter Parker, said the deadlock showed that at least some jurors rejected the prosecution's claim that Pring-Wilson was the aggressor.

"We are thrilled that a number of jurors at this trial saw the commonwealth's case for what it was, and found that Alex's conduct was a justified act of self-defense," Parker said.

Colono's brother, Marcos, and mother, Ada, did not immediately return a call seeking comment.