“Appeals court hears case of ‘enemy combatant'”: The Associated Press has a report that begins, “Lawyers for a U.S. citizen who was detained nearly four years as an ‘enemy combatant’ asked an appeals court to reinstate a lawsuit against former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other officials.”

“Will Obama admin take a stand in Shell human-rights case?” Lawrence Hurley of Greenwire has this report.

“Kevin Ring, Author of Scalia Book, Gets 20 Months in Abramoff Scandal”: Jess Bravin has this post at WSJ.com’s “Washington Wire” blog.

“Obama Health Care: Supreme Court May Decide In Mid-November Whether To Hear Cases.” Mike Sacks of The Huffington Post has this report.

“St. Louis federal courthouse repair could cost $10 million”: The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has this news update.

The newspaper’s earlier coverage of the matter appeared in articles headlined “Eagleton courthouse gets a soaking” and “Fired contractor blamed for water leak at St. Louis federal courthouse.”

“Justices could talk health care cases on Nov. 10”: The Associated Press has this report.

“Crimes, Courts And Cures: Why the justice system does a bad job of separating defendants who deserve punishment from those who don’t.” Law professor Paul G. Cassell has this book review today in The Wall Street Journal.

“Business Group Files Opposition To $3.4B Cobell Settlement”: At “The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times,” Mike Scarcella has a post that begins, “A conservative think tank that advocates for free enterprise and limited government is challenging the $3.4 billion settlement in a Native American class action in Washington, saying the judge in the high-profile case should not have certified a class.”

You can access the group’s amicus brief filed yesterday in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit at this link.

“Health cases set for Nov. 10”: At “SCOTUSblog,” Lyle Denniston has a post that begins, “The Supreme Court will take its first look at the challenges to the new federal health care law at its Conference on Thursday, November 10.”

“Patriot Act Turns 10, With No Signs of Retirement”: David Kravets has this post at Wired.com’s “Threat Level” blog.

Access online the text of the prepared remarks of Seventh Circuit Judge Diane S. Sykes at the recent memorial service for Seventh Circuit Judge Terence T. Evans: Yesterday, in a post that you can access here, I noted that the Seventh Circuit had posted online a video of the memorial service.

Late yesterday, I received this PDF file containing the prepared text of the remarks that Judge Sykes delivered at the memorial service. Following law school, Sykes worked as a law clerk for Judge Evans. Later in her career, Sykes served as a Justice on the Supreme Court of Wisconsin and then became one of Judge Evans’s colleagues on the Seventh Circuit.

“Bougainville residents can sue Rio Tinto company”: Today in The San Francisco Chronicle, Bob Egelko has an article that begins, “South Pacific islanders can sue a multinational mining company in U.S. courts for alleged complicity in their government’s slaughter of its people, a federal appeals court in San Francisco ruled Tuesday, adding its voice to a legal controversy now before the Supreme Court.”

And Ginny LaRoe of The Recorder reports that “Splintered Circuit OKs Alien Tort Case Against Rio Tinto.”

My earlier coverage of yesterday’s en banc Ninth Circuit ruling appears here, here, and here.

“As It Turns 10, Patriot Act Remains Controversial”: This audio segment appeared on today’s broadcast of NPR’s “Morning Edition.”

And in today’s edition of The Washington Post, Nicholas Merrill has an op-ed entitled “How the Patriot Act stripped me of my free-speech rights.”

“Defenders want accused Cole bomber’s jury told if acquittal equals freedom; In the war on terror detention system the Bush and Obama administrations built, a captive can be executed if he’s convicted of a capital crime and kept forever if he’s acquitted”: Carol Rosenberg of The Miami Herald has this report.

“The death penalty: valid yet targeted; No serious constitutional argument can be made against the death penalty; The endless campaigns to ban it cost taxpayers millions to defend.” David B. Rivkin Jr. and Andrew Grossman have this op-ed today in The Los Angeles Times.

“Defense details Komisarjevsky’s troubled youth as death penalty phase begins”: The New Haven Register contains this article today.

And today’s edition of The Hartford Courant contains an article headlined “Komisarjevsky Defense: ‘Doomed From Birth’; Attorney Says Secretive, God-Fearing Family Relied On Prayer To Treat Mentally Troubled Boy.”

“Push for ‘Personhood’ Amendment Represents New Tack in Abortion Fight”: This article appears today in The New York Times.