Herbert Phipps will be sworn in as the next chief judge of the state Court of Appeals next month, the court announced today.

Phipps’ ascension to the position of chief had been expected. The court’s judges select their own chief but follow a tradition of transferring the chief judge spot by seniority. Phipps was next in line after the current chief, John Ellington. A press release issued by the court today said Phipps’ election to the chief post was unanimous.

Governor Roy Barnes appointed Phipps, Ellington and M. Yvette Miller to the appeals court on the same day in 1999, but by random selection, Phipps was deemed to follow the other two in seniority. Phipps previously had been a judge on magistrate, juvenile, state and superior courts in Dougherty County.

Phipps will be sworn into the new position in a ceremony in the Court of Appeals courtroom on June 25 and will officially take over the job on July 1, the court’s release said. Two years ago,  Phipps swore in Ellington as chief in an unusually low-key investiture held in the court’s banc room.

Anyone who has ridden the subway in New York or Paris or any number of other international cities is likely familiar with the street musicians who can easily charm a crowd or brighten up an otherwise weary commute with impromptu serenades.

Not so in Atlanta, where MARTA police arrested a traveling violinist after his impromptu concert inside the Five Points station downtown.

The MARTA violinist spent five days in jail.  It’s a good thing that world class violinist Joshua Bell opted for the Washington D.C. Metro instead of MARTA when he decided in 2007 to play incognito for tips.

In Washington, Bell was just ignored.

TV crime drama fans are being misled, according to Jerry Scott, agent in charge of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation’s Statewide Crime Scene Program and coordinator of the GBI’s Body Recovery Team.

Scott was speaking at “Guns 101: What journalists need to know to shoot straight and get it right when reporting on firearms,” a seminar at the Georgia Press Association offices Thursday.

After presenting diagrams showing possible lines of travel for bullets and close up pictures of gun shots that look like those in TV crime shows such as CSI, Law & Order and Castle, Scott was asked,  what’s his favorite crime show?

“I don’t watch any of them,” he said. Of their realism, he added, “They’re not even close.”

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Following reports that the state Department of Natural Resources instructed state parks to remove Bibles from cabins and lodges after a citizen complaint, Governor. Nathan Deal has ordered the books returned. (View the first report on the issue here: http://www.myfoxatlanta.com/story/22250958/bibles-removed-from-state-lodges-and-cabins)

“Out of an abundance of caution to avoid potential litigation, the commissioner removed the Bibles from rooms – though they were still available on site – after a complaint from a visitor,” the governor’s office said in a written statement. “The attorney general and I agree that the state is on firm legal footing as we move to return the Bibles to the rooms. These Bibles are donated by outside groups, not paid for by the state, and I do not believe that a Bible in a bedside table drawer constitutes a state establishment of religion. In fact, any religious group is free to donate literature.”

A spokeswoman for Attorney General Sam Olens confirmed the Law Department is reviewing the matter.

“Nothing in the Constitution prohibits private organizations from purchasing Bibles and placing them in a public lodge, so long as other groups wishing to place their own literature are offered similar accommodation,” the AG’s office said in a written statement.

Georgia State Constitutional Law professor L. Lynn Hogue said having donated religious books in state park cabins and lodges does not present a violation of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause, unless the state parks were soliciting them.

“If the Gideons volunteered them, and the state-owned inns allowed them to be put in the rooms, that presents no Establishment Clause problem,” Hogue said via email.

“The more pertinent issue is whether placing the Bibles in inn drawers transforms them into something like a public forum, which would open them to others with religious books to provide,” added Hogue. “ If I am right, and other religions wanted to place their books in the drawer (say books from other non-traditional or non-Christian religions) they would have to be allowed to do so.  If the drawer fills up, access could be rationed on some neutral basis or they could all be removed at that point.  They could not be removed based on preference for particular religious faiths.”

A federal grand jury in Atlanta has indicted a Buckhead couple of forcing a 17-year-old who lived with them into prostitution, federal prosecutors announced today.

The grand jury indicted Steven E. Thompson and Tierra Michelle Waters on charges of sex trafficking a juvenile.  The couple, who had invited the teen to stay at their Buckhead condominium, informed her after she moved in that she would have to have sex with men they solicited in order to earn her rent, federal prosecutors said.

Additional details are in the U.S. attorney’s news release.

The Wall Street Journal’s editorial columnist Gerald F. Seib notes in a column today that Bondurant Mixson & Elmore partner Jill Pryor – a nominee for the U.S. Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals – has been waiting 689 days for the U.S. Senate to act on her nomination.

In the column, headlined “Judicial Vacancies Typify Capital Dysfunction,  Seib noted that Pryor shares that distinction with Rosemary Marquez of Arizona, a  nominee to the U.S. District Court in Arizona,  who has waited 689 days for the Senate to act.

Seib’s column notes that 85 federal judgeships sit vacant, about 10 percent of the federal judiciary, and offers that while President Obama must shoulder some of the blame, “The lion’s share of the blame lies with the Senate, a body that’s becoming an embarrassment to itself and that increasingly infects the rest of government with its paralysis.”

A U.S. subsidiary of India’s largest pharmaceutical company pleaded guilty today to felony charges of manufacturing and distributing adulterated drugs in violation of federal food and drug laws, the U.S. Justice Department announced today.

The firm, Ranbaxy USA Inc., also agreed to pay fines and forfeitures totaling $150 million and pay an additional $350 million to settle civil whistleblower claims filed under the federal False Claims Act.

In addition, Ranbaxy USA also pleaded guilty to four counts of making material false statements to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which has oversight over the manufacture and distribution of prescription drugs in the U.S. , the DOJ said. The charges stem from violations at the parent manufacturing plant in India that dated back to 2003.  The U.S. contends that Ranbaxy manufactured and distributed drugs with strengths and quality that differed from the drug’s specifications.

The adulterated drugs distributed by Ranbaxy USA included Sotret – a generic brand of isotrentinoin, which is used to treat cystic acne; gabepentin, which is used to treat epilepsy and nerve pain; and antibiotic ciprofloxacin, also known as Cipro, according to the DOJ.  Ranbaxy USA also admitted making false statements about tests that resulted in unreliable results concerning the shelf life  of other drugs—including Cefaclor, cefadroxil, amoxicillin and clavulanate potassium—that were manufactured in India for U.S. distribution, the DOJ said.

“The investigation that led to this settlement uncovered evidence showing that certain lots of specific drugs produced at the Paonta Sahib facility [in India] were defective, in that their strength differed from, or their purity or quality fell below, that which they purported to possess,” said John Roth, director of the FDA’s Office of Criminal Investigations.

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A convicted terrorist who plotted from his prison cell to behead federal agents and witnesses was sentenced to life in prison earlier today by a federal judge in Raleigh, N.C.

U.S. District Senior Judge W. Earl Britt  sentenced Hysen Sherifi, 29, to life for what federal prosecutors said was a “sinister murder for hire plot” against six witnesses, including three FBI agents, who had testified against him during his 2011  trial, the U.S. Justice Department in Washington announced.

Britt also sentenced co-defendants Shkumbin Sherifi, 23, to three years and Nevine Aly Elshiekh, 48, to 3 ½  years in prison for their roles in the plot.  Federal prosecutors said that the two men pleaded guilty in November to a charge of conspiring to engage in a murder-for-hire plot and testified at the elder Sherifi’s trial last year on the murder-for-hire charges.  Shkumbin Sherifi is the younger brother of Hysen Sherifi; Elshiekh was a local school teacher who assisted the elder Sherifi brother in raising funds to hire an assassin to kill the six witnesses.

In 2011, Hysen Sherifi – a Kosovo native living in Raleigh who had become a permanent legal resident of the United States — was convicted of conspiring to provide material support to terrorists, kill federal personnel and murder or otherwise harm people in a foreign country, as well as multiple counts of possession of a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence. He was serving a 45-year prison sentence.

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A former vice president and senior commercial loan officer of the failed FirstCity Bank of Stockbridge was sentenced earlier this week to more than seven years in federal prison for his role in the bank’s 2009 collapse.

U.S. District Judge Steve Jones on Tuesday also ordered Clayton Coe to pay $19.6 million in restitution, a punishment shared with other banking officers who have been convicted in connection with the bank’s failure.

Coe pleaded guilty last year to charges of bank fraud and making false statements.  His attorney, Richard Rice Jr., declined to comment on the case.

Coe is the third Stockbridge bank officer to plead guilty to criminal charges associated with the bank’s demise.  Last year, Mark Conner – the bank’s former chairman, president and CEO – pleaded guilty to charges that he had conspired with Coe and the bank’s former attorney  to routinely mislead federal and state bank regulators to conceal a scheme in which he reaped more than $7 million, federal prosecutors said. Conner is currently serving a 12-year prison sentence.

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A late push by many firms jockeying for position pushed the Legal Food Frenzy way past its goal of $55,000 in online donations on Friday.

As of 5:15 p.m., the Georgia legal community had raised $59,656.20 for the state’s food banks, which can stretch those funds into nearly $420,000 worth of food for hungry people.

Final results in the competition among legal groups are not available yet, as actual food and cash donations will be collected next week.  And the online results could change as the final hours of the contest tick by, given how close the top competitors are.

For now, however, Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton has regained its lead, with $6,555 in online donations.  It eclipsed Georgia Tech’s legal department, which has $6,021.  King & Spalding holds a narrow lead on Alston & Bird for third place, with $5,575 over A&B’s $5,530.

The rest of the four-digit field looks like this:

DeKalb County Solicitor-General: $4,373.45

Georgia Department of Law: $3,815

Southern Company/Georgia Power legal department: $2,900

Hunton & Williams: $2,540

Atlanta Legal Aid Society: $1,470

Coca-Cola Co. legal department: $1,375

Kutak Rock: $1,285

Siemon Law Firm: $1,220

Rogers & Hardin: $1,170

Daily Report: $1,152.

For more information or to donate, go to this site: http://engage.acfb.org/site/TR/LegalFoodFrenzy/GeorgiaLegalFoodFrenzy?fr_id=1560&pg=entry