The Obama transition team said the two will visit the court Wednesday afternoon at the invitation of Chief Justice John Roberts.

It's something of a tradition for incoming presidents and vice presidents to pay their respects to the court, though not all have made the trip. Bill Clinton and his vice president-elect, Al Gore, called on the court in December 1992, and Ronald Reagan and his vice president-elect, George H. W. Bush, visited in November 1980.

The Obama team said Wednesday's visit was private, with no press permitted.

In a 5-4 split, the court upheld the conviction of an Alabama man on federal drug and gun charges.

Bennie Dean Herring was arrested on what the Coffee County, Ala., sheriff's department thought was a valid warrant from a neighboring county. It turned out that the warrant for Herring's arrest had been recalled five months earlier.

Herring argued that police negligence should automatically lead to the suppression of evidence found after an unjustified arrest.

But Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the court, said the evidence may be used "when police mistakes are the result of negligence such as that described here, rather than systemic error or reckless disregard of constitutional requirements."

Justices Samuel Alito, Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas sided with Roberts.

In a dissent for the other four justices, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the ruling "leaves Herring, and others like him, with no remedy for violations of their constitutional rights."

Ginsburg said accurate police record-keeping is of paramount importance, particularly with the widespread use of electronic databases. Justices Stephen Breyer, David Souter and John Paul Stevens also dissented.

A report issued Monday by the Justice Department's inspector general was highly critical of the lawyer, Joseph Band, who worked in the agency's Washington office.

Band also worked as a part-time statistician for Fox Sports, and he came under scrutiny after he received rides to two World Series games in 2007 in Boston, as well as the 2008 Super Bowl in Phoenix.

The report issued Monday by Inspector General Glenn Fine found Band sometimes got escorts not just for himself, but for broadcasters as well.

Fox Sports spokesman Dan Bell said company officials were unaware "that those arrangements were in any way inappropriate, and regret to learn now that they apparently were."

Fine said use of armed government agents as a VIP car service violates ethical standards, and U.S. Marshals in the cities Band visited should not have agreed to his requests.

Band "regularly and inappropriately solicited and received assistance of (marshal service) resources for his personal activities, in violation of government ethical rules," the report concluded.

A unanimous court on Tuesday threw out a mandatory 15-year prison term given to Deondery Chambers, who pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a gun. Chambers had three prior convictions, which prosecutors argued and lower courts agreed brought him under the federal Armed Career Criminal Act.

But one of Chambers' convictions was for his "failure to report" for weekend jail stays. The government contended that not showing up for the weekend confinement was akin to an escape and should be treated as a violent crime.

Justice Stephen Breyer rejected that argument in his opinion for the court. Breyer said a report that examined failures to report to prison found no evidence that defendants were more likely to resist arrest and potentially injure law enforcement officers or others.

In a separate opinion, Justice Samuel Alito said the court is called on too often to interpret the career criminal law and suggested that Congress come up with a list of specific crimes that should trigger application of the law.

In a second criminal case, the court unanimously ruled for a Texas prison inmate seeking federal review of his 43-year prison term. The federal appeals court in New Orleans was wrong to find that Carlos Jiminez had missed a deadline for filing his paperwork in federal court, Justice Clarence Thomas said for the court.

The cases are Chambers v. U.S., 06-11206, and Jiminez v. Quarterman, 07-6984.

The Washington state Court of Appeals ruled Monday that denying a juvenile the right to a lawyer from the outset violated constitutional requirements.

Dan Donohoe, a spokesman for the King County prosecutor's office, said the ruling was under review and no decision had been made on whether to appeal to the state Supreme Court.

If it stands, the decision could make Washington the first state in which a juvenile is entitled to counsel at the outset of court truancy proceedings that could lead to penalties, said Paul M. Holland, director of the Ronald A. Peterson Law Clinic at Seattle University, which represented the student in the case.

"I am not aware of any states that provide lawyers at the initial stage of truancy proceedings," Holland said. "That is the most noteworthy part of this ruling."

He said it also is part of a growing body of law that recognizes the right to an attorney in certain civil matters as well as the well-established requirement for representation in criminal cases.

Under the law, a juvenile with at least seven unexcused absences in a month or 10 in a school year could be ordered to appear in Juvenile Court on a petition by school officials or the youngster's parents without being represented by an attorney.

The appeals court's decision was hailed by the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed a brief supporting the juvenile, a Bellevue girl identified only as E.S. and described as an emotionally troubled member of a refugee family from Bosnia.

Taking a page from a similar program launched a year ago in New York, court administrators in this suburban St. Louis county plan to launch within weeks a new court designed to deal only with military veterans charged with nonviolent crimes.

The mission: Divert many of the veterans from the criminal courts to a program that, much like popular drug courts, will offer them treatment for underlying issues, perhaps sparing them a criminal conviction if they successfully complete the treatment.

"There are a lot of services out there; one thing the court will be able to do is get them connected" with veterans, ideally keeping them from becoming repeat offenders, Ann Callis, the county's chief judge, said Monday.

Veterans' participation in the new court will be voluntary and Callis said it will be staffed by veterans from virtually every branch of the military. The prosecutor will be former Marine Corps Cpl. Michael Stewart, the public defender former Navy Lt. Tyler Bateman — officials Callis hopes will have a better understanding of veterans' issues.

Callis said she hoped the veterans' court would be under way by the end of next month or early March, with no immediate expectations about how many veterans might take part.

No additional funding would be required for the court, and Madison County Bar Association lawyers will donate their services, Callis said. "Since we're not asking for any money and it's based on the spirit of volunteerism, we figured why don't we just give it a shot?" she said.