LAWYERS PUSH FOR DOWNEY'S RELEASE

Attorneys for actor Robert Downey Jr. told an appeals court in Los
Angeles on Thursday that he should be released from prison immediately
because a judge didn't say how his sentences should be served.

Attorneys Ross Nabatoff and Robert Walters claimed that when Superior
Court Judge Lawrence Mira sentenced Downey to three years on drug
charges, he failed to say whether that sentence would run concurrently
or consecutively with three previous misdemeanor convictions against
the actor.

They said the law provided that any sentence not otherwise specified
should run concurrently.

Downey had already served 53 days in a drug rehab "lockdown" center
as part of a 15-month sentence for the misdemeanor convictions of
driving under the influence, carrying an unloaded weapon in his car
and being under the influence, they said.

From Mercury News wire services