The court is undertaking a fresh review of the Bush administration's aggressive use of preventive detention for suspected terrorists. The administration asserts that the president has the authority to order the military to detain anyone suspected of being an al-Qaida member.

The administration's policy is being challenged by Ali al-Marri, a Qatar native who was seized in the United States and is the only enemy combatant currently being held on U.S. soil. The government says al-Marri is an al-Qaida sleeper agent.

Al-Marri, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, says he cannot be imprisoned without charge or trial. He was arrested in Peoria, Ill.

Al-Marri has been held in virtual isolation in a Navy brig near Charleston, S.C., for nearly 5 1/2 years.

The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., said in a split decision that the president has such power, but that al-Marri must be given the chance to persuade a federal judge that he is not an enemy combatant.

The administration argued that al-Marri's case should first go to federal district court in South Carolina, instead of to the Supreme Court.

Al-Marri said that the case was of such constitutional importance that it should be heard by the high court now — and the justices apparently agreed.

The 5-year-old kindergarten student in Hyannis, Mass., told her parents that in 2000 a third-grade boy repeatedly made her lift her dress, pull down her underwear and spread her legs.

Local police and the school system investigated, but found insufficient evidence to bring criminal charges or definitively sort out the story, according to court records. The district refused to assign the boy to another bus or put a monitor on the bus, records show.

Upset with the school district's response, parents Lisa and Robert Fitzgerald sued the district in federal court under both Title IX, which bars sex discrimination at schools that receive federal money, and a provision of a Civil War era, anti-discrimination law that was designed to enforce the 14th Amendment's equal protection clause.

The issue for the court is whether Title IX, enacted in 1972, rules out suits under the older provision.

A federal judge ruled that the Fitzgeralds could not sue under the older law because Congress had subsequently passed Title IX. The Fitzgeralds also lost on their Title IX claims. The Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the ruling.

The justices appeared skeptical of the idea that Congress, in legislation expanding protection from discrimination, would cut back on the ability to sue for violations of constitutional rights. But they also wondered whether the Fitzgeralds ultimately would win their lawsuit.

Twice before, the Supreme Court has struck down the judgment against Altria Group Inc.'s Philip Morris USA and ordered the Oregon court to take another look at the case. Each time, the Oregon high court has upheld the award to Mayola Williams, the widow of a longtime smoker of Philip Morris' Marlboro brand.

In its latest appeal, Philip Morris contended the Oregon judges were essentially thumbing their noses at the Supreme Court. "We're here today because the Oregon court failed to follow this court's decision," Philip Morris' lawyer, Stephen Shapiro, told the justices.

Justice Stephen Breyer, who sided with Philip Morris in its last round, was more skeptical of the cigarette maker's arguments Wednesday.

At first, Breyer said, "I thought this was a runaround. I'm not sure I think that now."

At the same time, however, the justices worried that state courts could ignore Supreme Court rulings on constitutional issues.

"How do we guard against making constitutional decisions which are simply going to be nullified by some clever device?" Justice David Souter asked.

Robert Peck, Williams' lawyer, tried to allay the concern. "There was no sandbagging here," Peck said. "The Oregon Supreme Court did not act in bad faith."

The justices threw out a decision by the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in the case of Michael Robert Pulido, who was convicted for his role in robbing a gas station and killing the defendant.

A U.S. District Court judge set aside Pulido's conviction because the trial judge in the case gave the jury improper instructions.

The high court said in an unsigned opinion that the appeals court ruling affirming the federal judge's action used faulty reasoning. The justices did not reinstate Pulido's conviction.

Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter agreed that the appeals court made a mistake, but would have affirmed its ruling anyway because the underlying decision in favor of Pulido was correct.

Last month, the court overruled the 9th Circuit in an environmental case involving the Navy's use of sonar and its potential harm to whales.

The federal courts have already found that the prison system's delivery of health and mental health care is so negligent that it's a direct cause of inmate deaths.

A special three-judge panel reconvenes Tuesday and is prepared to decide whether crowding has become so bad that inmates cannot receive proper care. If they do, the panel will decide if lowering the inmate population is the only way to fix the problems.

That could result in an order to release tens of thousands of California inmates before their terms are finished, a move Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Republican lawmakers say would endanger public safety.

"The time has come: The extreme, pervasive and long-lasting overcrowding in California prisons must be addressed," attorney Michael Bien, representing inmates, told the judges during the opening of the trial.

Bien and other civil rights attorneys want the panel to order the prison population cut from 156,300 inmates to about 110,000. That still would be above the capacity of California's 33 state prisons, which were designed to hold fewer than 100,000 inmates.

Junk-bond king Michael Milken, media mogul Conrad Black and American-born Taliban soldier John Walker Lindh have applied to the Justice Department seeking official forgiveness.

But with Bush's term ending Jan. 20, some lawyers are lobbying the White House directly to pardon their clients. That raises the possibility that the president could excuse scores of people, including some who have not been charged, to protect them from future accusations, such as former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales or star baseball pitcher Roger Clemens.

Those who have worked with Bush predict that will not happen. The White House has declined to comment on upcoming pardons.

"I would expect the president's conservative approach to executive pardons to continue through the remainder of his term," said Helgi C. Walker, a former Bush associate White House counsel.