South Dakota Governor has halted the state's first execution since 1947. The Governor's decision was based upon a discrepency between the lethal injection protocol in state law and the one the department of corrections planned to use, according to a story in the Rapid City Journal by Kevin Woster.

Former Whitewater prosecutor Ken Starr has filed a cert petition in the United States Supreme Court seeking review of a Ninth Circuit ruling which held that an Alaska high school principal violated a student's First Amendment rights by suspending him for holding up a banner proclaiming "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" at a 2002 Olympic Torch rally. The Associated Press story story reports that Starr and two of his colleagues at the Los Angeles firm of Kirkland & Ellis are arguing that the lower court ruling was improper. The ruling in Frederick v. Morse is here