The court ruling on Monday reverses a Vermont Supreme Court decision that threw out the assault conviction of Michael Brillon. The state court said Brillon's Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial had been violated after he was jailed for three years and went through six defense attorneys before his trial for hitting his girlfriend in the face.

In an opinion by Justice Ruth Ginsburg, the court said taxpayers may pay the bills for a public defender, but the lawyer represents his client, not the state.

"Most of the delay that the Vermont Supreme Court attributed to the state must therefore be attributed to Brillon as delays caused by his counsel," Ginsburg said.

But the court also said the state high court should take another look at whether a breakdown in Vermont's public defender system played a role in Brillon's case and, if so, whether his rights were violated.

The 5-4 decision, with the court's conservatives in the majority, could make it harder for southern Democrats to draw friendly boundaries after the 2010 Census.

The court declined to expand protections of the landmark civil rights law to take in electoral districts where the minority population is less than 50 percent of the total, but strong enough to effectively determine the outcome of elections.

In 2007, the North Carolina Supreme Court struck down a state legislative district in which blacks made up only about 39 percent of the voting age population. The court said the Voting Rights Act applies only to districts with a numerical majority of minority voters.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, announcing the court's judgment, said that requiring minorities to represent more than half the population "draws clear lines for courts and legislatures alike. The same cannot be said of a less exacting standard."

The high court on Monday refused to hear an appeal from R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., who is being sued by Star Scientific, Inc.

Star Scientific, Inc. says R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. infringed on its patents on a way to cure tobacco minimizing the formation of tobacco-specific nitrosamines or TSNA, which may be carcinogenic.

But a trial court says the patents are unenforceable, because the inventor kept from the Patent and Trademark Office key documents and information — including that low-TSNA tobacco already had been grown in the U.S.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit overturned that decision, saying a judge cannot throw a patent out without clear and convincing evidence that a deception was intentional.

R.J. Reynolds lawyers wanted the high court to look at the case again, saying the appeals court ignored previous rulings on how to judge when a patent applicant doesn't turn over all required information.

The justices' decision Monday ends lawsuits first filed in 2000. Federal appeals courts in New York and Washington threw out the complaints after Congress passed a law in 2005 giving the gun industry broad immunity against such lawsuits.

The city's lawsuit asked for no monetary damages. It had sought a court order for gun makers to more closely monitor those dealers who frequently sell guns later used to commit crimes.

But the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that federal law provides the gun industry with broad immunity from lawsuits brought by crime victims and violence-plagued cities. The Supreme Court refused to reconsider that decision.

The lawsuit was first brought in June 2000 while Rudy Giuliani was New York mayor. It was delayed due to the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and because of similar litigation in the state courts.

The city refiled the lawsuit in January 2004, saying manufacturers let handguns reach illegal markets at gun shows in which non-licensed people can sell to other private citizens; through private sales in which background checks are not required; by oversupplying markets where gun regulations are lax, and by having poor overall security.

More than four months after Election Day, Minnesota voters are only marginally closer to knowing whether Democrat Al Franken or Republican Norm Coleman will represent them in Washington.

The stakes go beyond Minnesota: Franken would put Democrats in position to muscle their agenda through with barely any Republican help, and he could be a difference-maker on the federal budget and a proposal giving labor unions a leg up on management when organizing.

Some Minnesotans, like actor Jared Reise, are past caring who wins and just want the state to regain its second senator.

"This is a very important time to have everybody there, with the way the economy is," said Reise, of suburban Eagan, who didn't vote for either man on Nov. 4. "It's a little long-winded, this whole recount."

The statewide recount ended two months ago, with Franken ahead by 225 votes out of 2.9 million cast. Coleman had held a similar sized lead heading into the recount. The campaigns are now arguing in a special court whether the latest tally is accurate.

U.S. District Judge Marcia S. Krieger on Wednesday told Nacchio to report to the minimum-security Federal Correctional Institution Schuylkill satellite camp in Minersville, Pa., by noon March 23.

A jury convicted Nacchio in 2007 of 19 counts of insider trading while acquitting him on 23 counts of the same charge.

Federal prosecutors alleged Nacchio sold $52 million worth of stock at a time when he knew Denver-based Qwest Communications International Inc. was at risk while other investors did not.

A three-judge panel of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the conviction in a 2-1 ruling, saying the trial judge improperly barred a defense expert from testifying. The full appeals court last week disagreed and upheld Nacchio's conviction. The full court ruled 5-4 that the judge was within his discretion.

Nacchio's attorney, Maureen Mahoney, has indicated an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court is likely. Nacchio also has challenged his sentence.

Mahoney was in a meeting Wednesday afternoon and did not immediately return messages seeking comment.