Olympic champion LaShawn Merritt was cleared to defend his 400-meter title in London next year after the American won his appeal Thursday against an IOC rule banning doping offenders from the games.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport annulled the International Olympic Committee rule that bars any athlete who has received a doping suspension of more than six months from competing in the next summer or winter games.

The three-man CAS panel said the rule, adopted in 2008, was "invalid and unenforceable" because it amounted to a second sanction and did not comply with the World Anti-Doping Agency code. It said the rule amounted to a "disciplinary sanction" rather than a matter of eligibility.

Merritt, the American 400-meter gold medalist in Beijing, had been ineligible under the IOC rule to compete in London even though he completed his doping ban this year after testing positive for a banned substance found in a male-enhancement product.

Former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, the first Hispanic attorney general in U.S. history, has joined one of Nashville’s largest law firms and will play a role in mentoring younger lawyers.

Gonzales, 56, will focus on government relations, government investigations and white-collar defense for Waller Lansden Dortch & Davis LLP, the firm said Wednesday.

He also will be involved in the firm’s diversity initiatives, which include a mentoring program.

“It is a great honor for me to join Waller Lansden, a firm that I greatly admire,” Gonzales said in a statement. “Waller Lansden has a reputation for providing incisive legal representation while caring deeply for its clients. The firm’s breakthrough initiatives to encourage diversity in the workplace are admirable.”

Gonzales became the first Hispanic attorney general in U.S. history when President George W. Bush appointed him in 2005.

But he left the post in 2007 under a cloud of controversy stemming from allegations that, under his watch, the U.S. Justice Department improperly hired and fired several U.S. attorneys for political reasons.

According to Scott Cole, within days of being hit with a class action lawsuit for failing to offer meal and rest breaks to its California workforce, Guitar Center fired the man who pioneered the lawsuit and allowed its workers to parade the named plaintiff’s final paycheck around the workplace. In immediate reaction to these events, the plaintiff’s attorneys at Scott Cole & Associates amended the Complaint today to allege a wrongful termination and invasion of privacy claim.

“If Guitar Center thinks it can send a message to its workers that standing up for their rights will cost them, this new wrongful termination claim sends a stronger message right back,” says Scott Cole, the principal lawyer on the case. “Firing our client was a big mistake.”

The lawsuit is entitled Pellanda v. Guitar Center, Inc.

Oakland-based Scott Cole & Associates, APC is one of California’s premiere class action law firms and is devoted to representing individuals in employment and consumer rights litigation. For more information about our practice and cases, visit www.scalaw.com or call (510) 891-9800.

The Supreme Court seemed split Tuesday on whether to require police to read Miranda rights to prison inmates every time they interrogate them about crimes unrelated to their current incarceration.

The high court heard arguments from lawyers from the state of Michigan who want a federal appeals court decision overturning Randall Lee Fields' conviction thrown out.

Fields was serving a 45-day sentence in prison on disorderly conduct charges when a jail guard and sheriff's deputies from Lenawee County, Mich., removed him from his cell and took him to a conference room. The deputies, after telling him several times he was free to leave at any time, then questioned him for seven hours about allegations that he had sexually assaulted a minor. Fields eventually confessed and was charged and convicted of criminal sexual assault.

Fields was then sentenced to 10 to 15 years in prison but appealed the use of his confession, saying that he was never given his Miranda rights on the sexual assault charges.

On appeal, the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati threw out his confession and conviction, ruling that it is required that police read inmates their Miranda rights anytime they are isolated from the rest of the inmates in situations where they would be likely to incriminate themselves.

This case is another example of the courts' recent struggle to clearly define Miranda rights, which have been litigated since they first came into being in 1966. The courts require police to tell suspects in custody they have the right to remain silent and the right to have a lawyer represent them, even if they can't afford one.

The tale of returned mail and a missed deadline might seem comical, if it did not involve a man trying to stave off execution. Supreme Court justices had harsh words Tuesday for lawyers who abandon their clients and a state legal system that does not seem overly concerned.

At the end of a lively hour of arguments, it appeared that the court would order a new hearing for Alabama death row inmate Cory Maples, who lost the chance to appeal his death sentence because of a mailroom mix-up at the venerable New York law firm Sullivan and Cromwell and the diffidence of a local court clerk.

Two Sullivan and Cromwell lawyers were pressing Maples' claim that his earlier legal representation was so bad that it violated the Constitution -- until they both left the firm without telling Maples or the Alabama courts.

Deadlines usually matter a lot at the Supreme Court, where a few years back a defendant who was late to file an appeal because the judge gave his lawyer the wrong date still lost his case. Another principle to which the court often holds dear is that it's tough luck for defendants whose lawyers make mistakes.

But Tuesday's case, perhaps because it involves the death penalty, was the rare instance when the court seemed prepared to grant some leeway on both counts.

The Supreme Court won't hear a Maryland man's argument that the Second Amendment allows him to carry a gun outside of his home for self-defense.

The high court on Monday refused to hear an appeal from Charles F. Williams Jr., who was arrested in 2007 for having his legally-purchased handgun outside his home without a state permit.

The high court has ruled there is a right to keep a gun in the home for protection. But gun advocates say people also have the constitutional right to carry their guns outside the house for self-protection.

Maryland courts say if the Supreme Court agrees with that theory "it will need to say so more plainly." The high court refused the opportunity on Monday.