Barely a minute into oral arguments, justices challenged Coleman's attorneys on the adequacy of evidence they presented in an election trial and the legality of their suggested remedy: that more ballots be counted even if some absentee voters didn't fully comply with the law.

"It's possible there are statutory violations which do not rise to the level of constitutional violation," Justice Alan Page said, alluding to a threshold appeals courts often turn to before reversing a lower-court decision.

The state Supreme Court justices can confirm Franken as the victor or reopen the count as Coleman wants.

Franken hopes the court orders that he immediately receive the election certificate required to take office. Franken is the potential 60th vote for Democrats in the Senate, though two of those are independents.

The court's involvement is the latest but maybe not the final stop. If Coleman loses, he could file a new case in federal court or petition for review by the U.S. Supreme Court, which isn't certain to take the case. If Franken doesn't like the result, he could ask the Senate itself to weigh in.

The state Supreme Court's decision to uphold California's constitutional ban on gay marriage — and the prospect that an impassioned initiative to overturn it could share the ballot with next year's governor's race — holds consequences for candidates from both parties, but especially for the one most deeply associated with the issue.

The intensity of a statewide vote on same-sex marriage could make it difficult for Newsom to connect with centrist voters, millions of whom voted no on the issue last year.

"It certainly underlines Gavin Newsom's previous advocacy for same-sex marriage. I think that might be a two-edged sword for him," said Mark DiCamillo, director of the San Francisco-based Field Poll.

Other possible Democratic contenders including Attorney General Jerry Brown, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Lt. Gov. John Garamendi also support same-sex marriage. So does one of the three leading Republican hopefuls, former U.S. Rep. Tom Campbell, but former eBay chief executive Meg Whitman and state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner oppose it.

The Supreme Court said on Monday it would hear the Bilski patent case, which would tell high tech and software companies how far they could go in patenting software, financial strategies and other abstract processes.

An appeals court which specializes in patent cases had ruled in October that the Patent Office was correct in refusing to allow Bernard Bilski and Rand Warsaw's company Weatherwise to patent a method for hedging against energy cost changes.

That court said the hedging method could not be patented because it was not tied to a machine and did not result in a transformation.

But this seemingly narrow case has implications for any company that hopes to patent a business method. One of the best known examples of a business method patent is Amazon.com Inc's one-click process to buy goods on the Internet.

Coleman attorney Joe Friedberg argued before the high court Monday that counties were inconsistent in the way they decided whether absentee ballots were filled out correctly.

Franken's attorney gets a chance to present his side after Friedberg finishes.

Coleman wants justices to instruct a trial court to open 4,400 rejected absentee ballots.

Franken, potentially a critical 60th Senate vote for Democrats, hopes the court sweeps aside the appeal and is demanding that he get the election certificate required to take office.

There's no telling when Minnesota's highest court will act.

Among other things, Tennessee railroad worker Thurston Hensley sought monetary damages for a fear of developing cancer in the future.

CSX argued that the instructions given to the jury were too friendly to Thurston. The company wanted jurors to be instructed that Thurston needed to demonstrate that his fear of cancer was genuine and serious.

The Supreme Court, in an unsigned opinion, said it was a "clear error" for the trial judge not to give the jury instructions CSX requested.

The high court sent the case back for new court proceedings.

The Assembly's 28-14 vote — the bare two-thirds majority needed — followed the state Senate's vote a day earlier to enact the measure into state lawbooks over the conservative Republican governor's objections.

The bill provides that domestic partners have the same rights as married couples in matters such as community property and responsibility for debts. It also prohibits discrimination against domestic partners.

Critics contended that domestic partners can sign private contracts to accomplish many of the goals of the bill, and that it conflicted with the intent of Nevadans who voted in 2002 for a constitutional amendment supporting marriage between a man and a woman.

The measure states, among other things, that no "solemnization ceremony" is required and it's "left to the dictates and conscience of partners entering into a domestic partnership" whether to have such a ceremony.