A self-described pimp who once posted online images of himself with fists full of cash told a Las Vegas judge on Wednesday that he had no money to hire a lawyer to defend himself against charges that he killed three people in a shooting and fiery crash Feb. 21 on the Strip.

Ammar Harris, 27, stood in shackles and told Justice of the Peace Deborah Lippis that he understood he faces 11 felonies, including murder, attempted murder and seven discharging a weapon counts.

Harris wasn't asked to enter a plea. The judge appointed two public lawyers to defend him, ordered him held without bail and set his next court appearance for April 29.

Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson said the case is a top priority and prosecutors will consider seeking the death penalty.

Harris is accused of firing fatal shots before dawn Feb. 21 from a black Range Rover into a Maserati sports car that then slammed into a taxi, killing the cab driver and a tourist from Washington state.

Defense lawyers David Schieck and Randall Pike said Harris plans to plead not guilty and fight the charges. They declined to speak about evidence in the case.

Tehran Boldon, younger brother of taxi driver Michael Boldon, who was killed, called it difficult to maintain composure in the courtroom, where Harris avoided eye contact.

Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford must appear in court two days after running for a vacant congressional seat to answer a complaint that he trespassed at his ex-wife's home, according to court documents acquired by The Associated Press on Tuesday.

The complaint says Jenny Sanford confronted Sanford leaving her Sullivans Island home on Feb. 3 by a rear door, using his cell phone for a flashlight. Her attorney filed the complaint the next day and Jenny Sanford confirmed Tuesday the documents are authentic.

The couple's 2010 divorce settlement says neither may enter the other's home without permission. Mark Sanford lives about a 20-minute drive away in downtown Charleston.

Republican Mark Sanford is trying to revive his political career that was derailed by an extramarital affair that ended the couple's marriage. He faces Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch on May 7 as he tries to regain the 1st District congressional seat he held for three terms in the 1990s.

Spokesman Joel Sawyer said the Sanford campaign had no immediate comment on the court documents.

Issues dealing with church and state will always be among the toughest the nation's courts deal with and there's no easy test for deciding them, former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said Monday.

"Religious pluralism lies at the very heart of the American political tradition and I think it remains a major concern as our country becomes ever more the home of larger and larger communities of people from widely different ethnic and religious backgrounds," the first woman appointed to the high court told a legal symposium focusing on a constitutional test she proposed in a high court ruling almost 30 years ago.

The symposium at the Charleston School of Law was sponsored by the Charleston Law Review and the Riley Institute at Furman University.

O'Connor's endorsement test proposed that a government action can violate the First Amendment's separation of church and state if a reasonable observer sees that action as either endorsing or disapproving religion. But O'Connor, who is 83 and who retired from the court in 2006, said that there is no grand unified theory for applying to such cases. Over the years the Supreme Court has made seemingly contradictory decisions.

DNA may be the building block of life, but can something taken from it also be the building block of a multimillion-dollar medical monopoly?

The Supreme Court grapples Monday with the question of whether human genes can be patented. Its ultimate answer could reshape U.S. medical research, the fight against diseases like breast and ovarian cancer and the multi-billion dollar medical and biotechnology business.

"The intellectual framework that comes out of the decision could have a significant impact on other patents - for antibiotics, vaccines, hormones, stem cells and diagnostics on infectious microbes that are found in nature," Robert Cook-Deegan, director for genome ethics, law & policy at Duke University, said in a statement.

"This could affect agricultural biotechnology, environmental biotechnology, green-tech, the use of organisms to produce alternative fuels and other applications," he said.

The nine justices' decision will also have a profound effect on American business, with billions of dollars of investment and years of research on the line. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has been awarding patents on human genes for almost 30 years.

What happens in Vegas shouldn't necessarily stay in Vegas, the Rhode Island Supreme Court said Friday as it ruled a Providence man who called a friend from Sin City to borrow $8,500 for gambling losses must pay it back despite an old law that says otherwise.

The court opinion ends a long legal dispute over the money given to Juan Catala by David S. Vogel, a Providence attorney who ran for Congress last fall as an independent. But despite the ruling from the high court, Catala said he'll never repay his former friend.

"I'll go to jail before I give him a dollar," Catala told The Associated Press.

According to court documents, Catala and his fiancée were on a trip to Las Vegas in 2007 when Catala called Vogel for help. According to Vogel, Catala said he had lost a substantial sum of money gambling and needed to recover his losses. Vogel agreed to wire $8,500 to the Bellagio Hotel.

After Catala refused to repay the loan, Vogel sued. Catala initially disputed that he had received the money but later argued that the loan was void because of a more than century-old Rhode Island law that invalidates loan agreements when the lender knows the money would be used for gambling. On Friday, Catala said Vogel gave him the money as an investment, with the understanding that he would be paid back only if Catala won.

Security screeners at a Honolulu courthouse noticed something moving inside a defendant's bag as it passed through an X-ray machine earlier this week.

After initially refusing to open it, the bag's owner reluctantly revealed that his pet was inside. When he opened the bag, screeners found a live duck and a bottle of beer, Department of Public Safety spokeswoman Toni Schwartz said.

Deputies told Michael Hubbard that his pet and beverage wouldn't be allowed inside Circuit Court, so he left. He returned a short while later and asked that deputies look after his belongings while he went inside for an appointment, Schwartz said, adding that visitors are allowed to leave their things outside at their own risk.

A judge in Las Vegas is expected to hear evidence in a felony case alleging entertainer Flavor Flav attacked his longtime girlfriend and her teenage son last October.

The 54-year-old former rap and reality TV star is due Wednesday before a Las Vegas judge who agreed twice before to postpone his hearing.

Defense attorney Tony Abbatangelo has said he hoped to settle the case, but prosecutor Jake Merback says nothing is resolved so far.

The entertainer's legal name is William Jonathan Drayton Jr.

He's accused of pushing his girlfriend of eight years to the floor Oct. 17 and wielding two knives while allegedly chasing and threatening the woman's 17-year-old son.

He could face prison time on assault and child endangerment charges.