The Willis High School junior who drew national attention last week after she was forced to spend 24 hours in jail for missing four days of school will not have to endure a tarnished record after all.

Dharun Ravi, the 20-year-old Rutgers student convicted of bias intimidating and privacy invasion in the Tyler Clementi webcam peep case, has been sentenced to a relatively scant 30-day jail term, The Newark Star-Ledger reports.

A U.S. District Judge in California has allowed a suspected armed robber to remain out of jail while he awaits trial on condition that he spend at least an hour and a half each day reading and writing book reports.

A woman injured while having sex in a hotel room is entitled to workers' compensation, an Australian federal judge ruled today.

How long will we allow "the system" to persecute innocent marsupials and their impassioned human defenders? We are slyly referring, of course, to the case of Irwin Kangaroo, the well-dressed formerly paralyzed kangaroo and registered therapy pet owned by Oklahoma kangaroo owner Christie Carr.

Here's one way to avoid being imprisoned for life on a felony charge: Try to be in jail on a less-serious misdemeanor charge at the same time that the felony crime occurs. This strategy worked for LaDondrell Montgomery, whose armed robbery conviction was just overturned by a Harris County, Texas judge.

Shohn Huckabee is a 24 year-old Texas man who was arrested during a trip to Mexico in 2009, charged with drug trafficking, and given a five year prison sentence. He says that he was innocent, tortured by police and set up. His case became a cause celebre for activists, and he's finally been released after serving more than two years in Mexican prison.

Two British judges have decided that Wikileaking lothario Julian Assange can petition the British Supreme Court to consider his appeal against extradition to Sweden, where authorities want to ask him about two alleged sexual assault incidents. This means he won't have to cancel his holiday plans, which included adapting the contents of diplomatic cables into Christmas carols (probably).

Maricopa County, Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio has earned his status as "America's Worst Sheriff" mostly for being proactive in his awfulness and insanity. But he also deserves his title for the many things he does not do—such as "his job."

Calling the death penalty "as practiced... unfair and unjust," Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber announced today that he won't allow any executions his term in office, and will soon ask the legislature to consider reforms—if not abolishment.

Remember James Arthur Ray, the Oprah-endorsed "guru" who hosted a sweat lodge "vision quest" that caused the deaths of three people and "vomit everywhere"? The one overheard stating "It's a good day to die" while people literally died in front of him?

Unless you're an exhibitionist, you might consider canceling your annual pick-pocketing expedition to Providencia, Chile this year. As this video shows, local townsfolk have adopted a new vigilantism-based strategy to curb purse-grabbing: strip the would-be thief completely naked and leave him in the street. Naked as a jaybird! Naked as a jailbird!

The Supreme Court heard arguments today in a case about whether the police have the right to track your every movement electronically without a search warrant. Things got awkward when an attorney for the government conceded that, under the government's view, even Supreme Court justices could be tracked.

As we predicted, international man of mystery and leaky things Julian Assange has lost his appeal against extradition to Sweden, where the authorities still want to ask him some questions about those two alleged sexual assault incidents. Assange won't have to leave his adoptive party pad in Norwich just yet: his lawyers can appeal to the British Supreme Court, and this will require hearings that will delay Assange's actual extradition. But he's definitely running out of legal options—not that he'd ever admit it.

Justice gets at least one positive bit of justice news this week: the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 went into effect yesterday, bringing the huge disparities in sentencing for powder cocaine vs. crack cocaine somewhat closer to sane levels. According to the NYT, there was previously a 100 to one disparity between the amounts of powder and the amount of crack that would draw equal sentences; now, it's 18 to one. Yeah, that's... somewhat less terrible. U.S. lawmakers truly are beacons of fairness.

Hawaii residents Nicole and Marcin Leszczynski recently went to jail and lost custody of their daughter for about 18 hours, all because they forgot to pay for a $5 sandwich at the Safeway. If their story were a Lifetime movie it would be titled Police State in Paradise.

I'm no law enforcement expert, but the vast variety of sources where I get my news routinely suggests that an essential part of a police officer's job is to arrest people who haven't committed any crime whatsoever. So why did police reject Orlando Robinson II's request to be arrested for doing nothing wrong?

A Swedish court just acquitted two men who pulled down an 18-year-old woman's shirt while she was passed out from too much drink and, without her knowledge, photographed her bare breasts. Apparently this photo, which shows the men celebrating their conquest, was pretty much irrelevant, because photographing naked people without their knowledge or consent is still totally legal in Sweden, The Local reports.

Big news from the Michael Jackson manslaughter trial/snuff porn festival! Dr. Conrad Murray has abandoned his original defense, that Jacko "accidentally killed himself by self-administering Propofol." It's not clear what Murray's new defense will be.

With a made-for-Hollywood name like Peggy Sue Thomas, you can probably do anything: Organize a sock hop on the fly, meet hot guys during your shift waiting tables at the malt shop, or even convince a judge that you have to take a two-week road trip across five states while waiting for your murder trial to begin.