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.

In a suit against ex-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and individual U.S. military officials, the four men argued that the defendants had engaged in criminal conduct.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled 3-0 that the men should have invoked a different law when they filed their lawsuit.

"Criminal conduct is not per se outside the scope of employment," a requirement for bringing a claim under the Alien Tort Statute, said the decision by appeals judge Karen LeCraft Henderson, an appointee of President Bush's father.

The four men challenge the methods Rumsfeld and the military officers used, but the former detainees don't allege that the defendants "acted as rogue officials or employees who implemented a policy of torture for reasons unrelated to the gathering of intelligence," the court said.

"Therefore, the alleged tortious conduct was incidental to the defendants' legitimate employment duties," the ruling added.

The four British men also brought constitutional claims and claims under the Geneva Conventions and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

Rejecting all of the men's allegations, the appeals court overturned the only part of a lower court decision that hadn't already been dismissed. That was the alleged violation of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

"Because the plaintiffs are aliens and were located outside sovereign United States territory at the time their alleged RFRA claim arose, they do not fall with the definition of 'person,'" the court ruled. The law provides that the "government shall not substantially burden a person's exercise of religion."

The ruling came on the sixth anniversary of Guantanamo Bay being used to house detainees gathered from around the world as part of the U.S. war on suspected terrorists.

The other two judges in the case are Janice Rogers Brown, an appointee of President Bush; and A. Raymond Randolph, an appointee of Bush's father.

The defendants in the case include retired Gen. Richard Myers, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The four who sued are Shafiq Rasul, Asif Iqbal, Rhuhel Ahmed and Jamal Al-Harith, all British citizens and residents. They were sent back to Great Britain in 2004.

The appeals court ruling comes at a time when the Supreme Court is considering whether other prisoners still detained at Guantanamo Bay have a right to challenge their confinement in U.S. courts.

Rasul, Iqbal and Ahmed allege they traveled to Afghanistan from Pakistan to provide humanitarian relief the month after the Sept. 11 attacks. Al-Harith says he traveled to Pakistan the same month to attend a religious retreat.

All four wound up at Guantanamo Bay. There, they allege, they were beaten, shackled in painful stress positions, threatened by dogs, subjected to extreme medical care and communication. They also allege they were harassed while practicing their religion, including forced shaving of their beards, banning or interrupting their prayers, denying them copies of the Koran and prayer mats and throwing a copy of the Koran in a toilet bucket.

Al-Harith says that he was first imprisoned by the Taliban who accused him of being a British spy. When the Taliban fell, he says he contacted British embassy officials to secure his evacuation, but that U.S. forces in coordination with British officials sent him to Guantanamo.

The West Palm Beach, Fla., law firm of Rosenthal & Levy is suing a former associate and his new law firm, claiming he is trying to steal clients.

Rosenthal & Levy filed the suit in Palm Beach Circuit Court against former associate Andrew Frisch and the Orlando, Fla.-based firm Morgan & Morgan, which Frisch joined in November. Frisch works in Morgan's Davie, Fla., office.

West Palm Beach attorney G. Michael Keenan, who is representing Rosenthal & Levy, said Dec. 26 that the other side has initiated settlement discussions, and he said the case may be settled out of court.

The suit seeks an injunction to prohibit Frisch from soliciting clients from Rosenthal & Levy, which specializes in personal injury, workers compensation and other employment-related cases.

The eight-count complaint filed Dec. 14 seeks damages for lost profits and asks for punitive damages. The suit alleges breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, unfair competition, misappropriation of trade secrets, civil conspiracy and other counts.

Reached by telephone Dec. 17, Frisch denied doing anything wrong. He said he "followed in every way" the Florida Bar's packet of ethical guidelines for attorneys who switch firms "to a T" when he left in November.

Frisch said he had not heard about the Rosenthal & Levy suit against him until he received the call seeking comment.

Frisch was a Rosenthal & Levy employee from April 21, 2006, to Nov. 21, 2007, according to the suit. Before leaving, the suit claimed, "Frisch contacted clients of Rosenthal and began the process of soliciting Rosenthal's clients to follow him to his new place of employment."

Frisch sent letters notifying Rosenthal & Levy clients he was changing firms and solicited them to switch their business to his new firm -- all without the knowledge of Rosenthal & Levy and in violation of Bar rules, the suit claimed.

The Florida Bar rules for lawyers switching firms state, "Absent a specific agreement otherwise, a lawyer who is leaving a law firm shall not unilaterally contact those clients of the law firm for purposes of notifying them about the anticipated departure or to solicit representation of the clients unless the lawyer has approached an authorized representative of the law firm and attempted to negotiate a joint communication to the clients concerning the lawyer leaving the firm and bona fide negotiations have been successful."

The suit claimed Frisch did not draft a joint letter with Rosenthal & Levy, and Rosenthal & Levy was not aware Frisch was contacting clients in hopes of luring their business to his new firm.

The alleged solicitation continued after Frisch joined Morgan & Morgan, targeting cases "in which either liability could be easily proven and/or damages were significant," the complaint said.

Frisch went after "the most desirous of Rosenthal's employment and labor clients in an attempt to have those clients transfer their cases to Frisch and Morgan," the suit said.

The suit said Frisch's "illegal" and "unethical" actions "confused Rosenthal's clients and left them with the impression that Rosenthal either did not wish to continue representing the clients or that Rosenthal did not have the expertise to continue said representation."

Solicitation letters sent by Frisch on his new firm's letterhead "caused Rosenthal's clients confusion, anxiety and frustration" as well as "fear that their cases will be abandoned, that Rosenthal had closed its offices and that it would cost the clients more money to have their cases prosecuted," the suit said.

Frisch's primary motivation "was for financial profit and gain," the suit said.

Morgan & Morgan had no prior business dealings with the clients of Rosenthal & Levy prior to Frisch's mailing, the suit said.

"We are in the process" of determining if Frisch's letters got any clients to switch their business to Morgan & Morgan, Keenan said. He claimed the client list and their addresses were proprietary information of Rosenthal & Levy.

The case in U.S. District Court in Detroit stems from an accounting scandal at Delphi that led to the company restating financial results going back several years in June 2005, the law firms said. Deloitte was Delphi's outside auditor.

The plaintiffs, who were seeking to represent investors who bought Delphi securities from March 7, 2000 to March 3, 2005, sued Delphi, some company officials, Deloitte and certain other entities, the law firms said.

Most of the defendants, including Delphi, have already agreed to settle the case, said Stuart Grant, lawyer for one of the law firms representing plaintiffs in the case.

The value of the settlement with Delphi is about $204 million, with plaintiffs expecting to be paid in the company's common stock and warrants once it emerges from bankruptcy, Grant said.

Delphi, formerly a unit of General Motors Corp, filed for bankruptcy in October 2005 and plans to emerge from Chapter 11 in the first quarter of 2008.

Besides Grant's law firm Grant & Eisenhofer, other firms representing the plaintiffs are Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann; Schiffrin Barroway Topaz & Kessler; and Nix, Patterson & Roach.

The settlement agreements need to be approved by U.S. District Judge Gerald Rosen, the law firms said.

A Washington, D.C., tax corruption case that has resulted in tens of millions of dollars being stolen from D.C. government coffers now allegedly involves an IRS manager who is said to have been involved in the fraud scheme.

Robert Steven and his wife, Patricia Steven, were arrested in Maryland Thursday and charged with receiving stolen property and aiding and abetting in the fraud.

According to an affidavit prepared by FBI Agent Matthew Walsh, Robert Steven had an apparent affinity for Jaguars, saying, "Records obtained from a local automobile dealership indicate that between 2003 and the present, Robert O. Steven purchased four Jaguar automobiles for a total of $257,866, the most recent being a 2007 Jaguar convertible for $96,770.95."

The affidavit also notes that Steven worked as a division director for the Modernization Information Technology Systems at the IRS and had an annual salary of $143,471.

The case came to light when a bank employee tipped off the FBI to an alleged scheme run by Harriette Walters, a manager at the D.C. Real Property Tax Administration Adjustments unit and Diane Gustus at the D.C. Office of Tax Revenue.

The pair allegedly approved and issued fraudulent property tax refund checks that averaged $388,000 per check. Investigators say the funds were used to buy luxury goods, including jewelry, homes and clothing.

According to affidavits filed in the case, Walter's annual salary as a District of Columbia employee was $81,000, but from September 2000 to the present, she is said to have spent more than $1.4 million at Neiman Marcus.

Court records and an affidavit filed in the case allege that 11 checks totaling almost $2.8 million were issued and deposited into a bank account held and used by Robert and Patricia Steven. The documents claim that a check authorized by Walters on June 30, 2006, for the sum of $490,000 was deposited into the Steven's bank account July 10, 2006.

"Agents and prosecutors in Washington, D.C., and Maryland are working diligently to trace every dollar that was stolen from the D.C. Tax Office. My advice to anyone who profited from this scheme is to call the FBI today, and don't wait for us to contact you," said Rod Rosenstein, U.S. attorney for Maryland.

The case has been prosecuted by the U.S. Attorneys for Maryland and District of Columbia working with agents from the FBI and IRS Criminal Investigation. Court documents filed in November revealed that in addition to allegedly spending more than $1.4 million at Neimen Marcus, Walters also purchased several properties, including a $420,000 house in Washington and two homes in New Jersey.

The New Jersey homes include a $389,000 home in Washington and a $855,000 property in Bridgeport purchased by Walters.