A jury sentenced a 28-year-old Nevada man to death for raping and killing a college coed after sexually assaulting two others in Reno more than two years ago.

The same Washoe County District Court jury that convicted James Biela (BEEL'-uh) last week deliberated about nine hours before reaching a unanimous verdict Wednesday.

The former pipe fitter from Sparks will be sent to death row to await execution by lethal injection.

Biela's public defenders asked the jury to spare Biela's life because he had no previous criminal record and had been abused growing up in poverty in the Chicago area.

Nineteen-year-old Brianna Denison was raped and strangled to death during a string of attacks that shook the Reno community in early 2008.

The Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to will decide whether student doctors are students or employees when it comes to collecting Social Security taxes.

The high court will hear an appeal from the Mayo Clinic of Rochester, Minn., and the University of Minnesota, which says the IRS shouldn't have made it collect the taxes.

Medical residents, who are studying to be doctors, routinely work in hospitals and pay income taxes. But Mayo Clinic officials say residents fall under a Social Security tax exemption for student employees whose work is part of their education.

The Treasury Department changed its rules to take away the student exemption for medical students who work more than 40 hours per week. The Obama administration said that Social Security taxes for medical residents can be as much as $700 million a year.

Mayo Clinic officials want the court to overturn a federal appeals court ruling and restore the student exemption for medical residents.

Universities, medical schools and hospitals backed Mayo, saying the issue is an important one and that federal appeals courts around the nation have reached differing decisions regarding medical residents.

Argument will take place in the fall or winter. Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan would not take part in the case if confirmed because she signed the government's brief defending the IRS' position.

Two former managers of a company convicted of supplying substandard concrete to the Big Dig highway project in Boston have avoided prison time for their roles in the scheme.

A federal judge on Wednesday sentenced 64-year-old Robert Prosperi of Lynnfield and 53-year-old Gregory Stevenson of Furlong, Pa., to three years of probation, including six months of home confinement.

Federal prosecutors had requested prison sentences of at least seven years for each former manager at Aggregate Industries Inc.

U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz said the government was "disappointed" with the sentences because they do not "reflect the seriousness of the offense."

The men were convicted in August of 135 felonies, including conspiracy to commit highway project fraud. Their lawyers argued for leniency because they did not profit personally from the scheme.

A panel of judges has decided that the city of Los Angeles did not violate billboard companies' constitutional rights when it enacted a ban on outdoor ads.

The ruling this week by the 9th District Court of Appeals reverses a federal judge's 2008 decision that exceptions to the ban raised free speech concerns because they gave city officials too much leeway in deciding which signs to allow.

The appeals' court judges also vacated a contempt order against the city that was issued after it issued citations against outdoor advertising company World Wide Rush, one of the companies that challenged the sign ban.

Messages left with World Wide Rush's attorney and the Los Angeles city attorney's office were not immediately returned.

The justices agreed to hear Henry Skinner's appeal. On March 24, they granted him a stay about an hour before his scheduled execution to give them more time to decide whether to take up his case.

In an order issued Monday, the Supreme Court said it decided to rule on the issue presented by his case. Arguments are expected to be heard in the upcoming term that begins in October.

Skinner's lawyers maintain that his rights under the civil rights law were violated by authorities' refusal to grant DNA testing after his conviction.

In the United States, post-conviction DNA testing has exonerated more than 250 people, including 17 prisoners who served time on death row, according to a group called the Innocence Project.

Skinner was convicted and sentenced to death for the murders of his girlfriend and her two adult sons on New Year's Eve in 1993 in the small town of Pampa, Texas. He has always maintained his innocence.

Skinner's attorneys are seeking DNA testing of key evidence from the crime scene, including a bloody towel, two knives and a man's windbreaker, and swabs from a rape kit.

The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Microsoft Corp's appeal in a case that could have reshaped the standards used in court fights to determine if patents have been infringed.

Lower courts had found that the date-picker tool in Microsoft's Outlook calendar infringed a patent held by French telecommunications equipment maker Alcatel-Lucent. The companies have an unresolved fight over damages.

In its appeal, Microsoft argued that a patent could be held invalid if evidence is presented in a court case that was not available at the time the patent was granted. It also said that the standard for invalidating a patent should be a "preponderance" of evidence, rather than "clear and convincing" evidence.

Courts are increasingly relying on military service records in deciding sentences for veterans accused of crimes.

Since 2008, 31 so-called veterans courts have been established to exclusively handle the criminal cases of veterans.

Veterans in those courts are typically sentenced to probation and counseling rather than prison and must stay clean and sober.

There's debate over whether such special treatment is fair. And even the supporters disagree over what crimes committed by veterans who suffer from post traumatic syndrome, severe brain injuries and other service-related maladies should qualify for leniency.