CBS Corp.'s CBS Broadcasting subsidiary, News Corp.'s Fox network and other major network affiliate groups sued EchoStar 10 years ago in South Florida to prevent the Englewood, Co.-based company, which operates the DISH satellite network, from providing distant network signals to customers who can receive local affiliates' broadcasts through regular antennas.

The Satellite Home Viewer Act of 1988 allowed carriers such as EchoStar to provide secondary transmissions of copyrighted distant network programming to "unserved households," those that could not otherwise receive the signals.

The lawsuit claimed that EchoStar was infringing on network copyrights by providing the signals to "served" households as well.

After a two-week bench trial in 2003, the district court found that EchoStar retransmitted network programs to hundreds of thousands of served homes, which it called "willful or repeated" copyright infringement. That ruling was upheld by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to consider an appeal in January 2007.

According to court documents, EchoStar complied with an injunction that went into effect Dec. 1, 2006, by disconnecting distant network channels to about 900,000 customers — at a loss of $25 million a year.

Tuesday's hearing is the first hearing since the Supreme Court ruled last month that detainees can challenge their imprisonment in civilian courts. Officials are expecting hundreds of lawyers and spectators to attend.

Judges will eventually review the government's evidence and decide whether detainees are being lawfully imprisoned. The key issue Tuesday is when that review will begin.

The Justice Department proposes eight weeks to begin filing the evidence. Lawyers for the detainees say it should be faster.

"I'd like to sell anything I have," said Metta. But he won't just yet — not until the city draws up new regulations.

The Supreme Court's decision June 26 rebuffed the strictest gun law in the nation.

The National Rifle Association called it "a great moment in American history." But prospective gun buyers and sellers said they remain on hold, awaiting the response of D.C. officials who are scrambling to draft new handgun regulations that comply with the court ruling.

"There's nothing we can do until we know what they will do," Metta said.

Metta, manager of Atlantic Guns in Silver Spring, Md., said his store fielded about 75 calls from D.C. residents after the ruling. Other gun shops outside the city — which has no shops of its own — also received calls. They, too, were turning prospective buyers away.

Writing for a 5-4 majority, Justice Antonin Scalia said: "We hold that the District's ban on handgun possession in the home violates the Second Amendment, as does its prohibition against rendering any lawful firearm in the home operable for the purpose of immediate self-defense."

Washington's gun ban took effect in 1976 and essentially outlawed private ownership of handguns in a city struggling with violence.

Now, after the state Supreme Court threw out the first-ever jury verdict finding former lead paint companies liable for creating a public nuisance, at least one city says it's rethinking a similar lawsuit against the industry, and one of the lawyers in the Rhode Island case predicted the decision would have a "devastating" effect on national efforts to hold the manufacturers accountable for their products. Still, other lawyers with pending cases say they're not deterred.

"There's no question about it, that the Supreme Court of Rhode Island has stopped any progress nationally to get justice for lead-poisoned kids," said Jack McConnell, a lawyer who represented the state and is involved in other lawsuits over lead paint. "It has a devastating effect on progress nationwide."

The 2006 verdict against Sherwin-Williams Co., NL Industries Inc. and Millennium Holdings LLC had been the only victory against the industry. It gave advocates hope for future success even though courts around the country have more recently rejected similar suits against the companies.

But the Supreme Court's opinion last week seemed to underscore the difficulty in successfully suing the industry, and other states and communities tracking Rhode Island's case could be less inclined to take up a costly court fight with uncertain prospects of victory.

Judge Robert Russell steps down from his bench and from the aloofness of his black robe. He walks into the gallery where men and women accused of stealing, drug offenses and other non-violent felonies and misdemeanors fidget in plastic chairs.

"Good afternoon," he says, smiling, and talks for a minute about the session ahead.

With the welcoming tone set, Russell heads back behind the bench, where he will mete out justice with a disarming mix of small talk and life-altering advice.

While the defendants in this court have been arrested on charges that could mean potential prison time and damaging criminal records, they have another important trait in common: All have served their country in the military.

That combination has landed them here, in veterans treatment court, the first of its kind in the country.

Russell is the evenhanded quarterback of a courtroom team of veterans advocates and volunteers determined to make this brush with the criminal justice system these veterans' last.