SUPREME COURT

President Barack Obama declared August 26 -- the 91st anniversary of the Constitutional amendment that granted women the right to vote -- Women's Equality Day in a proclamation on Thursday.

A New York judge dropped all criminal sexual assault charges against ex-IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn on Tuesday, leaving him free to return to Franceand rebuild a shattered career.

A New York Supreme Court judge dismissed charges against former IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who was accused of sexually assaulting a hotel maid in May.

A New York judge dropped all criminal sexual assault charges against ex-IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn on Tuesday after prosecutors lost faith in the credibility of his accuser.

The sexual assault case against Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who hoped to be the next French president, collapsed because what prosecutors believed was strong testimony deteriorated into a fabric of lies.

A New York state judge granted the request of dozens of investors including pension funds, insurers and several Federal Home Loan Banks to intervene in Bank of America Corp's proposed $8.5 billion settlement with investors who lost money on mortgage-backed securities.

Former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer was hit with two libel lawsuits seeking $90 million by former Marsh & McLennan Cos executives over a column posted on Slate.com about an insurance bid-rigging scandal.

A summary of all-things Washington for Monday, August 22, 2011.

Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley Jr. aka West Memphis Three are now free men. Nearly after two decades, the trio, imprisoned for murdering three eight-year-old boys in Arkansas in 1993, walked out of a courtroom on Friday proclaiming their innocence.

Women who were part of a massive class action lawsuit against Wal-Mart Stores Inc will have until the end of October to file individual lawsuits against the company, a judge ruled.

The West Memphis 3 gets freed with an unusual plea deal where they get to maintain their innocence.

A man convicted of raping and killing an elderly Virginia woman was executed by lethal injection on Thursday, the first inmate put to death in that state this year, the attorney general's office said.

A judge has called a surprise hearing for Friday concerning three men - known as the West Memphis Three - convicted of satanic killings in 1993 of three 8-year-old Cub Scouts in Arkansas.

Wisconsin voters have gone through a summer of historic and bitter recall votes for state legislators -- the most in U.S. history -- at a cost of about $40 million in campaign spending.

The California Supreme Court declined on Wednesday to review the 2009 murder conviction of music producer Phil Spector, turning down an appeal that had been filed by his attorneys.

Jerry Terrell Jackson set for execution by lethal injection.

Protests swelled across India on Wednesday in support of a self-styled Gandhian anti-corruption campaigner fasting to the death in jail, with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's struggling government at a loss over how to end the standoff.

The 2010 U.S. Health Care Act could hinge on the votes of two justices, Chief Justice John Roberts (front center), and Justice Anthony Kennedy (front, second from right). Roberts on occasion refuses to join the court's conservative bloc; Kennedy has been one of the justices most protective of state power vs. the federal government.

The legal fate of President Barack Obama's signature healthcare law will likely come down to two Republican appointees on the U.S. Supreme Court -- Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Anthony Kennedy.

The 2010 U.S. Health Care Reform Act will likely be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2012, in a case that pits individual liberties concerns versus the U.S. Government?s authority to limit public health care costs via universal insurance. If the court hears the case by the spring 2012, it could issue a ruling in June 2012.

An appeals court dealt a blow to President Barack Obama's healthcare law on Friday, leaving a mark on constitutional law, the healthcare industry, U.S. politics and U.S. states.