The locked-out NFL players don't want to go back to collective bargaining with the league. They have now made a move to allow their former union boss to be present if court-supervised talks take place between the two sides.

Attorneys for the NFL and the players held a conference call Friday to discuss mediation with U.S. District Judge Susan Richard Nelson, who is currently deciding whether to lift the lockout.

League spokesman Greg Aiello confirmed the call took place and said Nelson wanted details to remain private. Jeffrey Kessler, a lawyer for the players, declined to comment.

The most notable development Friday was the formal addition of DeMaurice Smith as an attorney for the players. Smith is the executive director of the NFL Players Association, which is now officially a trade association and not a union. Lawyers who practice in a different state must file for approval through the court.

NFLPA spokesman Carl Francis confirmed that the move allows Smith to participate in any mediation sessions that might take place under Nelson's supervision.

After a hearing Wednesday on the players' request for an injunction to stop the lockout, Nelson urged both sides to resume talks toward a new labor pact. Negotiations broke down last month.

Both sides expressed a willingness to talk again after the hearing, but the NFL wants to resume negotiations before a federal mediator in Washington while the players prefer to remain in Nelson's court.

The U.S. Supreme Court blocked the first scheduled execution of a Texas death row inmate using a new drug cocktail on Tuesday, although the proposed lethal mix was not mentioned in the court's decision to reconsider the merits of the condemned man's appeal.

Cleve Foster was to have been executed hours later for the 2002 slaying of a Sudanese woman in Fort Worth — the first Texas execution since the state switched to pentobarbital in its three-drug mixture. The sedative has already been used for executions in Oklahoma and Ohio.

On Tuesday morning, the high court agreed to reconsider its January order denying Foster's appeal that raised claims of innocence and poor legal help during his trial and early stages of his appeals.

Foster's lawyers also have argued that Texas prison officials violated administrative procedures last month when they announced the switch to pentobarbital from sodium thiopental, which is in short supply nationwide. Foster's lawyers contend that the rules change in Texas required more time for public comment and review. Lower courts have rejected their appeals and attorneys had planned to take their case to the Texas Supreme Court.

A court has overturned a decision granting a new trial to a convicted rapist who claimed his rights were violated when a poem written by the victim was kept out of evidence during trial in Wayne County.

The poem expressing regret about alcohol and sex was written before the woman's encounter with Dustin Wiecek in 1999.

A federal judge says the exclusion hurt Wiecek's ability to fully confront his accuser at trial about her personal life. But a U.S. appeals court on Wednesday disagreed, saying Wiecek's lawyer had much opportunity to challenge the woman's credibility.

Wiecek was accused of using GHB, known as a date-rape drug. He's already served 41 months in prison, more than the minimum sentence. He's been free on bond since fall 2009.