Before a packed house at the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s 18th annual mock trial in Washington, D.C., this week, three U.S. Supreme Court justices sat on the Supreme Court of Messina for the night to consider a divorce case involving characters from Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing.”

More than three decades after agents of the Islamic Republic of Iran imprisoned and abused 52 Americans for 444 days, former hostages and their families are asking the Supreme Court to weigh in on the so-called devil’s bargain that has been at the center of their legal battle to hold their captors responsible.

The California Supreme Court’s tough threat to clamp down on lengthy habeas corpus petitions with monetary sanctions was quickly withdrawn on Tuesday when the court ran into an unrepentant defense lawyer and a courtroom packed with his colleagues wielding a threat of their own.

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed today to repair the growing rift among lower courts over the retroactive effect of its landmark ruling that requires lawyers to advise their clients about the possible deportation consequences of pleading guilty.

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