A German-born man who is charged with killing his 91-year-old socialite wife and who a doctor has said was delusional will spend at least another month in a mental health hospital, a judge decided Wednesday.

A judge ordered Albrecht Muth, 47, held for another month during a mental health hearing in D.C. Superior Court.

Muth is charged in the August strangulation and beating death of his wife, Viola Drath, a German journalist. He was sent from jail to a psychiatric hospital in February for a competency screening after a doctor said Muth was delusional and claimed the Archangel Gabriel tells him what to do.

A report filed in court Tuesday said a psychologist who examined him at Saint Elizabeths Hospital had concerns about his current ability to rationally understand the proceedings against him and his ability to help his attorneys with his case. The hospital said it believes Muth's mental health is likely to improve with time and treatment, however.

Muth's lawyers and lawyers for the government agreed the hospital should be given additional time to treat him.

District of Columbia Superior Court Judge Russell Canan encouraged Muth to work with the hospital staff. Muth nodded but did not say anything during the hearing. Canan scheduled the next hearing in the case for April 25.

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The Nebraska Supreme Court on Friday rejected a death-row inmate’s claim that his lawyer failed to properly represent the convicted kidnapper, rapist and murderer at his sentencing.

Jeffrey Hessler had argued that his trial-court lawyer should have demanded a competency hearing when Hessler moved to represent himself at his sentencing. The state Supreme Court rejected that argument, saying allowing someone to serve as their own attorney did not constitute ineffective counsel and Hessler failed to show he couldn’t adequately represent himself at sentencing.

Hessler was convicted of first-degree murder, kidnapping, first-degree sexual assault of a child and use of a firearm to commit a felony in December 2004. He was sentenced to die for the 2003 kidnapping, rape and shooting death of 15-year-old Heather Guerrero. She was delivering newspapers on her morning route just blocks from her home when Hessler grabbed her and forced her into his car.

A jury found that Hessler took her to an abandoned house at nearby Lake Minatare, raped her and then shot her in the head on Feb. 11, 2003. Guerrero’s body was found the next day at the house, about 12 miles from where she disappeared.

Hessler claimed in his appeal that his trial lawyer was ineffective and failed to tell the court that he suffered from mental health problems, including hallucinations.

Scotts Bluff County District Judge Randall Lippstreu dismissed that claim earlier this year, saying Hessler and his attorneys seemed to have had philosophical differences between the time of Hessler’s conviction and sentencing hearing. But, the judge said, that did not constitute ineffective counsel.

Conservative interest groups and Republican lawmakers want Justice Elena Kagan off the health care case. Liberals and Democrats in Congress say it's Justice Clarence Thomas who should sit it out.

Neither justice is budging — the right decision, according to many ethicists and legal experts.

None of the parties in the case has asked the justices to excuse themselves. But underlying the calls on both sides is their belief that the conservative Thomas is a sure vote to strike down President Barack Obama's health care law and that the liberal Kagan is certain to uphold the main domestic achievement of the man who appointed her.

The stakes are high in the court's election-year review of a law aimed at extending coverage to more than 30 million people. Both sides have engaged in broad legal and political maneuvering for the most favorable conditions surrounding the court's consideration of the case.

Taking away just one vote potentially could tip the outcome on the nine-justice court.

Republican lawmakers recently have stepped up their effort against Kagan, complaining that the Justice Department has not fully revealed Kagan's involvement in planning the response to challenges to the law. Kagan was Obama's solicitor general, the administration's top Supreme Court lawyer, until he nominated her to the high court last year.

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.

Judge Pamela Rymer of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has died after a years-long battle with cancer.

The federal court on Thursday announced the passing of the 70-year-old Rymer, who had been in failing health in recent months. The court says Rymer was diagnosed with cancer in 2009 and died Wednesday with friends at her bedside.

President Ronald Reagan first appointed Rymer to the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles in 1983. President George H.W. Bush elevated her to the appeals court in 1989.

Rymer was born in Knoxville, Tenn., and raised in the San Francisco Bay area.

The court didn't list any survivors and said Rymer requested no services.

Two scholarships in her name have been established at Stanford University, where she graduated law school in 1964.