The appeals ran out today for Thomas C. Butler, the former Texas Tech University professor who was jailed for mishandling plague samples, after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review his conviction. Mr. Butler was convicted in 2003 on charges stemming from an incident in his lab that year that sparked a bioterrorism scare when it appeared that 30 vials of bubonic-plague bacteria had vanished (The Chronicle, January 16, 2003). But a jury subsequently convicted him on charges mostly stemming from a dispute over grant money with the university (The Chronicle, December 2, 2003). Mr. Butler later resigned his Texas Tech post and agreed to pay the university $250,000 (The Chronicle, January 29, 2004). He was sentenced to two years in prison and a small fine (The Chronicle, March 11, 2004), and completed his sentence last November. A federal appeals court upheld the convictions, and as is customary the Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal without comment.