'DEADLINE' IS A STRONG TERM: The House and Senate missed their July 15 deadline to adopt a budget. So, proving that it's good to be the ones who make the laws, they gave themselves more time. Meanwhile, the state court system, unsure over whether it can make payroll next month, sure would like to see a budget.

BILLS, BILLS, BILLS: There's no budget yet, but that doesn't mean the House and Senate aren't working. Key votes came this week on bills to shore up the Beach Plan, to allow challenges of racism to death sentences and to stop requiring sexual assault victims to pay for rape kit exams.

SOFT ON CRIME?: Judges were in giving moods this week. First U.S. District Judge W. Earl Britt released Sam Currin, a former judge, federal prosecutor and state Republican Party chairman, who had served a fraction of his sentence for money laundering and obstruction. Then Superior Court Judge Donald Stephens decided that former House Speaker Jim Black can serve his state time concurrently with his federal prison sentence.

IN OTHER NEWS: Attorney General Roy Cooper says he will work to get money that was diverted away from crime victims. Unemployment in North Carolina has hit African Americans especially hard. Attorney and Senate hopeful Kenneth Lewis has hired Joe Trippi, who ran John Edwards last presidential campaign to help with fundraising.

Sam Currin, a former judge, federal prosecutor and state Republican Party chairman, was ordered released from prison after serving a fraction of a nearly six-year sentence for money laundering and obstruction.

Senior U.S. District Judge W. Earl Britt made the order Monday. Federal prosecutors recommended in May that Currin, imprisoned since 2007, have his original 70-month sentence cut in half following his testimony against a co-conspirator, David A. Hagen.

Thomas Walker, one of Currin's defense attorneys, argued in court Monday that the fallen federal prosecutor and former state judge should be granted the kind of leniency he often opposed for criminals.

Walker asked the judge to reduce the sentence to 29 months to allow Currin, 60, to be home in Raleigh in time to see his son graduate from law school next year.

"He has suffered greatly," Walker said. "We're begging for the court's mercy."

Britt, who handed down Currin's original sentence and presided over the Hagen trial, went even further, commuting Currin's sentence to time served.

A Republican and close aide of the late U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms, Currin served from 1981 to 1987 as the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina, a jurisdiction that sweeps from Raleigh to the coast. He was a Superior Court judge from 1987 to 1990 and elected as the state's GOP chairman in 1996, serving until 1999.

At his sentencing in 2007, Currin admitted to laundering $1.3 million on behalf of Hagen, an e-mail spammer who authorities said ran one of the most prolific spamming operations in the world, peddling everything from mortgages to stock picks.

Hagen was convicted in May on three counts of conspiracy to commit securities fraud, conspiracy to commit mail/wire fraud, and conspiracy to commit money laundering. He faces up to 45 years. (N&O)

A federal judge in New Bern found this morning that the sons of Lt. Gov. Bev Perdue were not responsible for a 2003 boating accident on the Trent River.

Senior U.S. District Judge W. Earl Britt ruled that the collision was completely the fault of Phillip Amerson, who was in his boat with his wife when it was struck by a boat owned by Emmett and Garrett Perdue, reports Ben Niolet.

"It is a 100 percent exoneration of Garrett and Emmett Perdue," said Scott Lewis, a Wilmginton attorney for the Perdue brothers.

Britt ruled that Amerson's boat did not have the required lights lit and that Amerson saw the other boat coming and did nothing to avoid the collision. He will be 100 percent responsible for paying whatever Britt orders is due to three women who were injured in the collision. One of the injured women is Amerson's wife. She sued the Perdues as well as her husband. The other two women were passengers in the Perdues' boat.

Britt also found that Emmett Perdue, who was operating his boat at the time of the accident, was not impaired, Lewis said. According to testimony, both Perdues had a shot of liqueur and a few beers to drink before the incident.

Britt will next file a written order and decide how much to award the women.