One of his most high-profile early cases involved working alongside the Innocence Project and Cardiff University law students, which resulted in the murder conviction of a man wrongly sentenced to life being overturned on appeal.
But where earlier cases involved quirky issues like dog fights, funeral protests and the Seven Aphorisms of a fringe church called Summum, the marquee First Amendment cases this term involve issues of sweep and consequence.
In his summing up, he dismissed the possibility that her murder was connected with those of Smith and Tabram, as the lethal weapons were different in those cases, and neither of the earlier cases involved a slash to the throat.
The earliest case involving CIA interrogation after 9/11 was that of Abu Zubaydah, who ran terrorist training camps and was associated with some of Al Qaeda's top leaders before he was captured in March 2002.
He added that earlier cases involving Princess Caroline had a greater impact on the media.
In only one of the earlier cases, involving a Brooklyn killer named Darrell Harris, did a jury impose the death penalty.
The justices dismissed the two earlier cases, involving suits against Florida and Arkansas, when those states settled the suits under political pressure from disability rights advocates.
The criminal charges, if they were brought, would push prosecutors in a decidedly new direction, toward evidentiary hurdles they have not had to face in earlier cases involving Enron, the onetime energy giant.
But, in a change from earlier cases involving allegations of financial impropriety by big banks, the deal also required UBS's Japanese unit to plead guilty to wire fraud, which is a felony under US law.
However, any such move would be symbolic in nature since it has already forced Motorola products off German store shelves after winning earlier cases involving file system and text messaging patents.
