Twice this month, Egypt's highest appeals court has struck down harsh sentences against Mohammed Morsi, the elected Islamist president overthrown by the military in 2013, giving some hope to thousands of his supporters, who were jailed or sentenced to death by hasty verdicts following mass trials.

Mohammed Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood is outlawed as a terrorist group, and the court has upheld heavy sentences against its members. But its quashing of some of the faultiest rulings has led lawyers to see the appeals court as a last refuge for justice.

President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi and other top officials have long insisted that Egypt's judiciary is independent of the government and does not engage in show trials.

But a series of swift, mass verdicts issued in the tumultuous months after Morsi's ouster, as security forces were cracking down on his supporters and violently dispersing protests, raised the possibility that Egypt might execute the Brotherhood's leadership.

Many judges on the lower courts openly expressed their disdain for the Islamists and their desire to impose order after the turmoil that followed the 2011 uprising. Defense lawyers say they often relied on faulty police reports citing anonymous security sources.

Among the most notorious rulings were those by a court in the southern city of Minya, which sentenced more than 1,000 alleged Morsi supporters to death in two mass trials that each lasted only a few days. Some of those death sentences were later rescinded by a religious authority, and many of the defendants appealed the rulings and were granted retrials. None were executed.

Scores of other cases were reversed by the Court of Cassation, whose members are appointed by the Supreme Judicial Council, a panel of the country's most experienced and well-respected judges.

Rights lawyers see it as a refuge for those who have been tried, convicted and condemned by the lower courts, as well as public opinion.

A suspended sheriff in Ohio who has denied stealing prescription drugs and misusing office funds is due in court to change his not guilty plea.

Sandusky County Sheriff Kyle Overmyer is scheduled to attend a change of plea hearing Monday in Fremont.

Overmyer had pleaded not guilty in August to six felony charges in a 43-count indictment.

The two-term sheriff was charged with stealing medications drug disposal drop boxes, deceiving doctors into giving him painkillers and misusing department funds.

A judge recently sent him back to jail after deciding he violated terms of his bond by contacting potential witnesses.

Overmyer has said the investigation was politically motivated. He was suspended but kept his sheriff's title. He lost his re-election bid about two weeks ago.

A Toronto court will hear arguments on an attempt to bar the Cleveland Indians from using their team name and logo in Ontario.

The legal challenge by indigenous activist Douglas Cardinal comes on the same day the baseball team takes on the Toronto Blue Jays in Game 3 of the American League Championship Series in Toronto.

Cardinal's lawyers will ask the court Monday to bar the usage of the name and logo by the team, Major League Baseball and Toronto team owner Rogers Communications, which is broadcasting the game in Canada.

The logo, called Chief Wahoo, is a cartoon man with red skin and a feather in his headband.

Cardinal says they shouldn't be allowed to wear their regular jerseys, the logo shouldn't be broadcast and the team should be referred to as "the Cleveland team."

Polish prosecutors have opened an investigation into the head of the country's Constitutional Tribunal to determine if he abused his power in not allowing judges appointed by the ruling party to take part in rulings.
 
The investigation into Andrzej Rzeplinski, which opened Thursday, is the latest development in an ongoing conflict between the Polish government and the constitutional court, whose role is similar to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The government's conflict with the court has raised international concerns about the state of democracy in Poland, and the political opposition and other critics have slammed the investigation into Rzeplinski as an attack on the separation of powers.

Amid the conflict, Rzeplinski has emerged as one of the key symbols of resistance against the right-wing government, which has moved to centralize power since winning elections last year. The investigation is seen by many as an attempt to discredit him since he enjoys, at least for now, immunity from prosecution. His term as head of the court also expires in December.

The first U.S. church official convicted over his handling of priest-abuse complaints could soon leave prison after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court agreed Tuesday that his conviction was flawed.

Monsignor William Lynn, who served two cardinals at the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia, has been imprisoned for almost three years for child endangerment.

But the high court Tuesday declined to reinstate his 2012 conviction. A lower appeals court had found the trial judge allowed too much indirect testimony from other church-abuse victims.

Defense lawyer Tom Bergstrom will ask that his client be released this week. Lynn, 65, has nearly served the minimum of his three- to six-year term.

"He was in the middle of this thing, by direction of the cardinal," Bergstrom said. "He was thrown into this melting pot of awfulness, without a whole lot of experience (and) without a whole lot of education. ... And he did his best."

Prosecutors after two grand jury investigations found that Lynn played a key role helping the archdiocese transfer known pedophile-priests through his job as secretary for clergy from 1992 to 2004.

The trial revealed that his bosses kept a half century of abuse complaints in secret, locked files under Lynn's control and that he reviewed them to compile lists of suspected pedophiles.

Lynn was charged, though, with enabling the abuse of a single, 10-year-old altar boy by a priest transferred to the parish despite other complaints.

Common Pleas Judge M. Teresa Sarmina, in sentencing Lynn, said he had "enabled monsters in clerical garb ... to destroy the souls of children."

Lynn's novel case has reached the state Supreme Court twice, and he has been in and out of prison amid several rounds of appeals.

Prosecutors could ask to retry the case. A spokesman for District Attorney Seth Williams said the office would review its options.

Lynn, during several grueling days on the stand, said he tried his best but "my best was not good enough."

The Philippine Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed a plunder case against former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and ordered her freed immediately after nearly five years of hospital detention — a decision the grateful ex-leader indicated can help her deal with those who "through self-serving interpretation and implementation of the law" made her suffer.

The 15 justices voted 11-4 to grant Arroyo's petition seeking to dismiss the case before the special anti-graft Sandiganbayan court because of insufficient evidence, Supreme Court spokesman Theodore Te said. The case involved the alleged misuse of 366 million pesos ($7.8 million) from the state lottery agency, the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office.

Arroyo thanked the court "for finally stopping the persecution I had unjustly gone through the last five years" and President Rodrigo Duterte "for allowing due process to take its course."

She released a statement while still detained in the hospital, with the serving of the court's order for an immediate release apparently delayed by paperwork.

"It is my fervent hope that nobody else will suffer the persecution that had been levied on me through self-serving interpretation and implementation of the law," she said. "And that the disregard for truth for which I was made to suffer be dealt with accordingly at the soonest possible time."

Arroyo was detained under former President Benigno Aquino III, who accused her of corruption and misrule. Aquino's successor, Duterte, however, has said the plunder case against her was weak. She rejected his offer of a pardon because it would require that she be first convicted, preferring to fight the allegation.

Aquino has not commented on the court decision. But his former justice secretary and now Senator Leila de Lima said the Supreme Court seems to have assumed a role as a "trier of facts" in the case, supplanting the anti-graft court's assessment when it declared there was insufficient evidence of guilt.