After an extended midterm recess, the justices if the U.S. Supreme Court return today for a private conference. Next week oral arguments resume.

In the meantime, here is a look a the legal headlines:

Something in the salami isn’t clean: Several federal agencies are investigating an outbreak of salmonella infections which has been linked to Italian-style sausage products including salami. (Lawyers USA)

Free to fee: The Legal Services Corporation, the federally-funded organization that provides civil legal aid for the nation’s poor, has repealed a regulation prohibiting it from claiming, collecting and retaining attorney fees. (Lawyers USA)

Biting COBRA: A measure extending unemployment COBRA benefits has been cut from the Senate version of the jobs bill. (Lawyers USA)

Unsolved mysteries: Although homicide charges have never been never brought, prosecutors are gearing up for the trial of three men on obstruction charges in the case involving the slaying of prominent Washington attorney Robert Wone. (The Washington Post).

Crazier things have happened: Could Barack Obama’s next job be Supreme Court justice? (The Washington Post)

Conservative instruction: Virginia Thomas, wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, is behind the launch of Liberty Central, a website designed to provide “history and philosophical instruction to Tea Party activists and those dissatisfied with the current direction of American government.” (Hot Air)

As the federal government finally reopens today after digging out from underneath a blanket of more than three feet of snow, Washington lawmakers are unveiling their plan to deal with the Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. FEC.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen

Sens. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., have outlined legislation they plan to file addressing the ruling, which eased campaign finance limits on corporate spending in presidential and congressional elections.

Since the ruling found the limits on corporate spending in elections violates the First Amendment, Congress cannot simply pass legislation overturning it. Instead, the lawmakers presented a framework for limiting the potential ill effects they say the Court’s ruling will have.

Among other things, the bill lawmakers are planning would ban

Sen. Charles Schumer

expenditures from foreign interests, federal contractors and TARP recipients, require corporate spending to be publicly disclosed via enhanced reporting, and require CEO and donor information to be disclosed in political ads.

“The legislative framework I am releasing today with Senator Schumer will serve as a guide to our legislative response to this ruling in both the House and Senate,” Van Hollen said in a statement. “We have a multipronged approach to restrict the corrosive influence of special interests and to ensure that corporate activities in campaigns are fully disclosed to the public.”

Schumer said the rules would prevent funders of political messages from hiding behind ‘dummy corporations.”

In other legal news:

X-ray mission: The Food and Drug Administration has launched an initiative aimed at reducing unnecessary radiation exposure from medical imaging procedures. (Lawyers USA)

Text free juries: New proposed jury instructions for federal courts warn jurors against text messaging, tweeting or using other forms of electronic social media to discuss cases. (Lawyers USA)

SCOTUS halfway point: The U.S. Supreme Court term is half over, but there are still many big cases for the justices to decide in the second half of the term. (Lawyers USA)

Lifting the smoke screen: The Food and Drug Administration will for the first time require tobacco companies to disclose ingredients of cigarettes and other tobacco products. (Lawyers USA)

ABA jab: During a Senate Judiciary Committee meeting today, Sen. Harry Reid offered up criticism of the ABA’s process of evaluating nominees for the federal bench, saying judicial experience isn’t necessarily a measure of qualification. (BLT Blog via ABA Journal)

UPDATE: Becker’s nomination was blocked in the Senate Tuesday afternoon. The lawmakers voted 52-33 to move forward with Becker’s nominatoin, short of the 60 needed to overcome a filibuster.

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Today Senate Republicans, fresh off the addition of a 41^st member in Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown, may test their filibuster power on one of President Obama’s nominees for the National Labor Relations Board.

Members of the Senate are set to take a procedural vote on Craig Becker’s nomination, which would fill one of three vacancies that has hamstrung the normally five-member agency. It takes 60 votes to end debate over Becker’s nomination and send it to a full vote. But if Republicans join in opposition, that number won’t be reached.

Even Sen. Ben Nelson, a conservative Democrat, said he would join GOP members in voting no on Becker.

“Mr. Becker’s previous statements strongly indicate that he would take an aggressive personal agenda to the NLRB, and that he would pursue a personal agenda there, rather than that of the administration,” Nelson said in a statement.

Some lawmakers cite legal writings by Becker supportive of measures such as card check elections. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has been vocal in its opposition. But Sen. Tom Harkin, chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said the criticism is unwarranted, a single NLRB member couldn’t implement such massive changes to the labor law system even if he wanted to.

“I don’t have any illusions that those important changes can somehow be accomplished administratively and neither does Craig Becker,” Harkin said.

The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to release one or more opinions today, the last major activity expected from the Court until the justices conference again Feb. 19. Among the issues yet to be decided this term is whether judges can enhance an attorney fee award based on “the superb quality” of the lawyers’ performance, whether prosecutors can be shielded from immunity after allegedly fabricating evidence and then introducing it at trial, and whether sentences of life without parole for juveniles is unconstitutionally cruel and unusual. We’ll keep you posted on any newsworthy rulings on this blog and on Lawyers USA online.

In other legal news:

Lead a little too far? The Consumer Product Safety Commission is concerned that the recently-enacted law banning lead paint in children’s products extends to a number of products that were not intended to be covered, according to a report the agency sent to Congress on the enforcement of the law. (Lawyers USA)

Gitmo flip flop? In an apparent reversal of policy, the government will continue to hold almost 50 Guantanamo Bay prisoners without trial. (Courthouse News Service)

Article of impeachment: A House task force has recommended that Congress impeach Louisiana federal Judge G. Thomas Porteous for corruption. (AP via Washington Post)

Change 2.0: President Barack Obama is reconstituting the team that helped him win the White House to counter Republican challenges in the midterm elections. (New York Times)

GOP seeks seats: Meanwhile analysts say the number of Congressional seats up for grabs in November appears to be growing as the GOP taps more candidates. (New York Times)

The Supreme Court is back in session today for the first oral arguments of 2010.

And one of today’s arguments is a big one for criminal attorneys: Briscoe v. Virginia, a case that gives the justices a chance to define some of the parameters of the ruling last term in Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts.

In that case the Court ruled in a 5-4 split that Confrontation Clause requires prosecutors to call lab analysts to testify at trial before introducing forensic evidence. Today the Court will consider if prosecutors may introduce forensic laboratory reports into evidence without the testimony of the analyst if the defendant has a right to call the analyst as a witness under state law.

Court watchers will be paying particular attention to the Court’s newest jurist, Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Retired Justice David Souter voted with the majority in Melendez-Diaz, but Sotomayor – a former prosecutor – may see things differently than her predecessor.

In other legal news:

Prop 8 trial begins: The trial in the case challenging the constitutionality of California’s same-sex ban begins today, the first step in a road that will almost surely lead to the Supreme Court. (Washington Post)

Wait, already? And the Supreme Court is already involved! Gay marriage opponents are asking the High Court to block the broadcast of the trial on YouTube.com. (AP)

Estate tax confusion: It’s a new year and the estate tax is gone. And for trusts and estates lawyers, things have never been more confusing. (Lawyers USA)

Big year for bias claims: Workplace discrimination charges filed with the EEOC hit the second highest level ever, according to the latest statistics from the agency. (Lawyers USA)

IRS rules: The IRS issued proposed regulations for tax return preparers earlier this week that for the first time would impose requirements of registration, testing and continued education for all preparers. (Lawyers USA)

Today the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to release orders in pending cases and certiorari grants and/or denials. No opinions are expected, according to SCOTUSblog. Then the justices begin their holiday recess and – unless an emergency order is needed – not a creature will be stirring at the High Court until January.

Meanwhile, as the Senate continues to try to find a health care reform plan that will please everyone – or at least a voting majority – here’s a look at the legal headlines.

Candidates await decision: The Court still hasn’t released an opinion in the case challenging the Federal Election Commission’s limit on campaign spending for documentary films, which is leaving politicos readying 2010 election campaigns in a lurch. (Politico)

Pentagon contempt: A federal judge in Washington found the Department of Defense in contempt of court for not videotaping the testimony of a Guantanamo Bay detainee for the press and public. (Courthouse News Service)

Bill passed, with strings: Congress has passed President Obama omnibus spending plan, but earmarks and other items in the budget will be political fodder for some Republicans later. (The Washington Post)

Only 5 shopping lawmaking days left…: Although member of Congress would like to break for the holidays on Friday, there is still a lot of legislative work to do. (New York Times)

In a report that is sure to buoy the ongoing class action suits of homeowners claiming property damage and illness from drywall imported from China, A new federal study has found a “strong association” between the material and high levels of hydrogen sulfide.

The plaintiffs claim that the material not only caused their homes to literally corrode from the inside out, they also allege that noxious fumes emitted from the drywall made them sick.

“Hydrogen sulfide gas is the essential component that causes copper and silver sulfide corrosion found in the complaint homes,” said a statement from the Consumer Product Safety Commission on the study. “In ways still to be determined, hydrogen sulfide gas is being created in homes built with Chinese drywall … While drywall-related corrosion is clearly evident, long term safety effects are still under investigation.”

Many homeowners have joined major class action lawsuits alleging property damage and physical injuries. Hundreds of other lawsuits against builders, contractors, suppliers and manufacturers are also pending.

For more, see today’s Lawyers USA story. See also “Chinese drywall litigation on fast track,” from Lawyers USA.

The Obama administration will announce today that accused Sept. 11 attacks mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and three alleged co-conspirators will be tried in federal court in New York instead of a military commission.

Attorney General Eric Holder is expected to make a formal announcement at a press conference later today.

President Obama, speaking to reporters in Japan, said the federal trial will come with the same accountability standards as a military trial. “I am absolutely convinced that Khalid Sheik Mohammed will be subject to the most exacting demands of justice,” Obama said. “The American people insist on it, and my administration will insist on it.”

More on the developing story from The Washington Post and The New York Times.

In other legal news,

Preemption problems: “Mess,” “Muddle” and “chaos” were words used do describe the state of the doctrine preemption after the Wyeth v. Levine decision – by people on both sides of the issue – at the Federalist Society’s National Lawyers Convention. (The BLT)

Med-mal HIPAA change: Medical malpractice defense lawyers may not know that they are likely covered by new HIPAA rules on privacy breaches of health data. (Lawyers USA)

Massey overturned again: For a third time, the West Virginia Supreme Court has overturned a $50 million judgment against Massey Energy – the case that went all the way to the Supreme Court, which ordered a rehearing of the case without the judge who received campaign contributions made by Massey’s CEO. (Charleston Gazette)

Gitmo casualty: Sources tell The Washington Post that White House Counsel Gregory Craig will resign as early as today, ending a tenure marred by the struggle to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center. (WaPo)

Those claiming that their pet monkeys, reptiles or ferrets are service animals under the Americans with Disabilities Act should take heed of new regulations set to go into effect soon.

Those regs, issued last year but delayed until the Obama administration could get its Justice Department Civil Rights Division fully in place, are set to be enforced by the end of the year.

The new clarified standards bar rabbits, farm animals, ferrets, rodents, amphibians, and wild animals – including monkeys or any other primate born in captivity – from being used as service animals.

Even Fifi, your lovable Bichon Frise, won’t qualify unless she has been individually and specifically trained “do work or perform tasks for the benefit of individuals with disabilities” under the Act, such as retrieving a phone or medication, assisting during a seizure, providing physical support or navigation assistance. Just being cute won’t cut it. “[A]nimals whose sole function is to provide emotional support, comfort, therapy, companionship, therapeutic benefits, or promote emotional well-being are not service animals.” Sorry, Fifi.

More here from The Seattle Times.

Three justices of the Supreme Court  – Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., Justices Antonin Scalia and Stephen Breyer, are in London celebrating the United Kingdom’s new Supreme Court.  But after falling on the plane and being hospitalized, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg stayed home.

But even aside from Ginsburg’s fall, it was an eventful week for the justices. In addition to the oral arguments the justices heard, the Court added a number of cases to its docket, including a case that will determine if a man accused of holding a woman as a sex slave can be tried under a sex trafficking statute if some of the conduct occurred before the statute was enacted.

The Court also took up ex-Enron official Jeff Skilling’s appeal, agreeing to decide whether a law that makes it a crime for employees to deprive their employers of “honest services” is unconstitutionally vague. The Court also agreed to decide whether federal law preempts a state court lawsuit against a government contractor that administers benefits provided in accordance with the statute. You can see all the latest DC news from Lawyers USA here.

In other news,

Slow judiciary changes: Liberal activists are not pleased with the progress President Obama has made in infusing federal courts with a new cadre of judges. (The Washington Post)

Parity guidance delayed: Regulations under the mental health parity law will be delayed until some time next year, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. (Lawyers USA)

Pressing for exclusions: The American Bar Association, which has filed suit to stop the application of the “red flags” rule to attorneys, praised the intentions of a new bill that would exclude lawyers in small firms. But ABA officials say the bill doesn’t go far enough. (Lawyers USA)

High courting: What is one of the perks of being a former law clerk of Justice Sonia Sotomayor? Well, you may get to say your wedding vows at the Supreme Court – with Sotomayor presiding over the ceremony! It happened last week. (New York Daily News)