“Lawyer Reposa loses bid to overturn contempt finding”: Chuck Lindell of The Austin American-Statesman has this post today at that newspaper’s “Austin Legal” blog.

And the “Tex Parte Blog” of Texas Lawyer today has a post titled “Austin solo Adam Reposa, who made obscene gesture before judge, loses fight at CCA.”

You can access today’s unpublished ruling of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, that State’s highest court in criminal matters, at this link.

“Court of Appeal: Vulgar Language in Text Messages Was Not Obscene.” Today’s edition of Metropolitan News-Enterprise contains an article that begins, “The Third District Court of Appeal yesterday reversed the delinquency adjudication on a juvenile for making threatening or obscene telephone communication to his ex-girlfriend in a series of text messages which included a multitude of expletives derived from sexually-related themes. In the published portion of its decision, the panel explained that isolated words cannot be extracted from a private message for purposes of imposing criminal liability based on their abstract offensiveness and that the vulgar language employed by the juvenile, a 16-year old identified as C.C., was not obscene.”

And at Wired.com’s “Threat Level” blog, Kevin Poulsen has a post titled “Appeals Court Says Swearing In Text Messages Isn’t a Crime.”

You can access yesterday’s ruling of California’s Court of Appeal for the Third Appellate District at this link.

“Appeals court reinstates Zicam lawsuit”: Howard Fischer of The East Valley Tribune has a news update that begins, “A federal appeals court on Wednesday reinstated a shareholder lawsuit against Scottsdale-based Matrixx Initiatives over what company officials knew about potential dangers from its popular Zicam cold remedy.”

My earlier coverage of today’s Ninth Circuit ruling appears at this link.

“Attorneys argue Conahan, Ciavarella liable for actions on bench”: The Times Leader of Wikles-Barre, Pennsylvania has a news update that begins, “Attorneys appeared before a federal judge today to argue whether former judges Michael Conahan, Mark Ciavarella and certain other defendants are immune from liability in a lawsuit that alleges juveniles were improperly incarcerated.”

The Citizens Voice of Wilkes Barre has a news update headlined “Ciavarella in court today for hearing.”

And The Associated Press reports that “Judges seek immunity in Pa. ‘kids for cash’ case.”

“Batmaker found liable for baseball player’s death”: The Helena Independent Record has this news update.

And The Associated Press reports that “Mont. jury awards $850,000 in aluminum bat lawsuit.”

Unanimous three-judge Ninth Circuit panel issues a decision holding that “a national community standard must be applied in regulating obscene speech on the Internet, including obscenity disseminated via email.” You can access today’s ruling of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit at this link.

XBIZ.com — which describes itself as “the leading adult industry news source” — reports on the ruling in an item headlined “9th Circuit: Obscenity Should Be Defined by U.S. Community Standards.”

“US appeals court reverses dismissal of Zicam complaint against Matrixx”: Reuters has this short report on a ruling that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued today.

Things not mentioned earlier today at “How Appealing”: 1. Game one of the 2009 World Series is tonight, as the New York Yankees host the Philadelphia Phillies. The Honolulu Advertiser today contains this related article. As noted in this post from May 2009, my son and I had the pleasure of rooting for the Phillies at the new Yankee Stadium earlier this year.

2. Today is my 45th birthday. The Associated Press, The New York Times, and Wikipedia provide information about other even more noteworthy things that have happened on October 28th.

“Ceded lands suit to be dismissed”: Today’s edition of The Honolulu Advertiser contains an article that begins, “The Hawaii Supreme Court yesterday ordered the dismissal of claims by the final plaintiff in the ceded lands case, setting the stage for the end of 15 years of litigation.”

And The Associated Press reports that “Hawaii Supreme Court ending ceded lands case.”

You can access yesterday’s ruling of the Supreme Court of Hawaii at this link.

“Supreme Court election crucial to redistricting, leaders say”: This article appears today in The Philadelphia Inquirer.

And today in The Philadelphia Daily News, columnist John Baer has an op-ed entitled “Judicial campaigning under the rule of flaw.”

“Judge Alex Kozinski apologizes for distributing crude jokes; A panel concludes its investigation of the 9th Circuit’s chief judge after he says he has stopped e-mailing his ‘gag list’; No action is taken against him”: Scott Glover has this article today in The Los Angeles Times. Yesterday’s ruling of the Judicial Council of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit does not yet appear to be freely available online.

If this sounds like deja vu all over again to you, you’re right.

Update: The Third Circuit Judicial Council’s ruling that is the subject of today’s article in The Los Angeles Times is dated May 28, 2009 and can be accessed here (via “Patterico“).