Tony Slone, 43, entered the plea in Superior Court in Victorville, said Susan Mickey, a spokeswoman for the San Bernardino County district attorney's office.

Slone was charged with sexually abusing his now 13- and 16-year old stepdaughters over the last four years. His wife was charged with child abuse for allegedly letting her elder daughter continue to have contact with Slone after he fathered her 13-month-old child.

Tony Slone was arrested June 4 in Chester, N.Y., where he had traveled for work, and was extradited to California on Sunday. He is a registered sex offender and previously served an eight year-prison sentence for lewd acts with a child.

Prosecutors say they learned of the abuse when a high school student reported reading sexual text messages on her friend's cell phone from her friend's stepfather.

Mickey said an attorney from the conflict panel was appointed for Slone. No one at the panel's offices was immediately available to comment. Slone's next court date is June 30.

Anita Slone, 47, reached a plea deal with prosecutors last week. She pleaded guilty in exchange for no more than 180 days in county jail and five years probation, said Kathleen DiDonato, a deputy district attorney.

DiDonato said the probation would help protect the daughters until they are adults. Anita Slone is scheduled to be sentenced in July.

A panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday upheld a lower court's rejection of child survivor benefits for Brandalynn Vernoff, who was born nearly four years after her father's death in 1995.

The case involved sperm that Bruce Vernoff's widow, Gabriela, had a doctor extract after he died unexpectedly from an allergic reaction. In 1998, she used it for in vitro fertilization and gave birth to Brandalynn in a Los Angeles hospital on March 17, 1999.

Gabriela Vernoff later applied for child survivor benefits from the Social Security Administration but was rejected. A federal judge in Santa Ana also rejected her claims.

The appellate panel ruled that while there was an "undisputed biological relationship" between Brandalynn and her father, the girl was not a dependent at the time of his death as defined by Social Security regulations and by California law on the establishment of paternity.

The three-judge panel noted that California law only grants inheritance rights to children conceived within one year after a parent has died. The ruling also said there was no evidence that Vernoff consented to his wife's artificial insemination, which under state law would be required to establish his paternity.

Gabriela Vernoff "has not provided any evidence of consent to the conception by the insured or his willingness to support Brandalynn," the ruling said.

A message left for the widow's attorney was not immediately returned Thursday.

Travelers had been named in lawsuits alleging that it tried to hide dangerous health effects of asbestos. The company argued that asbestos claims be paid out of a trust created by Johns Manville in the 1980s and approved by a federal bankruptcy judge.

Travelers settled with several groups of plaintiffs with the caveat that federal courts make clear the company would not have to face any new similar lawsuits.

The 2nd U.S Circuit Court of Appeals in New York overturned lower-court approval of the settlement, saying a bankruptcy judge lacks the authority to act so broadly.

The high court overturned that decision.

The decision may have limited impact because the federal government and 47 states already have laws that allow convicts some access to genetic evidence. Testing has led to the exoneration of at least 232 people who had been found guilty of murder, rape and other violent crimes.

The court ruled 5-4, with its conservative justices in the majority, against an Alaska man who was convicted in a brutal attack on a prostitute 16 years ago.

William Osborne won a federal appeals court ruling granting him access to a blue condom that was used during the attack. Osborne argued that testing its contents would firmly establish his innocence or guilt.

In parole proceedings, however, Osborne has admitted his guilt in a separate bid for release from prison.

The high court reversed the ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. States already are dealing with the challenges and opportunities presented by advances in genetic testing, Chief Justice John Roberts said in his majority opinion.

Last month, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia overturned his 1988 convictions and double life sentence in the murders of a Florida couple in 1983 in what prosecutors described as a drug deal gone bad. The court wrote that the evidence presented at trial was not sufficient to warrant a verdict of guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

Such reversals, in which no new evidence is presented, are considered extremely rare.

Kamienski, 61, was released from South Woods State Prison on Tuesday afternoon. Standing across the street from the prison, he spoke softly and fought to hold back his emotions. He expressed thanks for the friends who stood by him during the lengthy appeal process and said he would take time to let it all sink in.

"It's hard to put into words how I feel," the lanky Kamienski said. "I'm just going to try and get my life back together, do some thinking, do some unwinding."

Prosecutors contended Kamienski helped two friends dispose of the bodies of Barbara and Henry DeTournay after one of the friends, Joseph Marzeno, shot the couple during a 1983 robbery involving $150,000 worth of cocaine. Their bodies were dumped in New Jersey's Barnegat Bay and discovered several days later.

Marzeno, Kamienski and a third man were convicted of the murders, but the trial judge later threw out Kamienski's conviction for a lack of evidence. A state appeals court reinstated the conviction, however, and New Jersey's Supreme Court declined to hear the case.

Enter Timothy McInnis, a lawyer who heard about Kamienski's case at a holiday party in New York in the late 1990s and decided to take it on.