The California Supreme Court was scheduled to rule on a series of lawsuits seeking to overturn a voter-approved law that defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

If the court rules in favor of the plaintiffs, California could become the second state after Massachusetts where gay and lesbian residents can marry.

"What happens in California, either way, will have a huge impact around the nation. It will set the tone," said Geoffrey Kors, executive director of the gay rights group Equality California.

Supporters and opponents of gay marriage predicted a number of possible outcomes from the California court's seven justices, six of whom were appointed by Republican governors.

Like the top court in Massachusetts, they could hold that prohibiting same-sex couples from marrying constitutes unlawful discrimination and order state lawmakers to remedy the situation.

Solicitor General Paul Clement plans to leave his post June 2 — a few weeks before the nation's highest court adjourns for its summer break.

Clement has been the government's chief court advocate for Bush administration policies surrounding the war on terror, including detaining enemy combatants. The government also won several landmark cases that Clement argued, such as banning late-term abortions and letting Congress prohibit the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes.

A Justice Department official said Clement did not have any immediate plans other than spending the summer with his children.

A jury in Rio Grande City, Texas, in April 2006 awarded $32 million to the widow of 71-year-old Leonel Garza, a short-term Vioxx user who died of a heart attack in 2001. That award — $7 million for compensatory damages and $25 million for punitive damages — later was cut to about $7.75 million under Texas law limiting damages.

On Wednesday, a three-judge panel of the Texas 4th Court of Appeals overturned the verdict, ruling in favor of Merck. The opinion was signed by Justice Sandee Bryan Marion.

The judges wrote that Garza's family did not prove his brief use of Vioxx caused two blood clots that the family's attorneys argued triggered his heart attack. The judges also concluded the family did not provide sufficient evidence to rule out his long-standing heart disease as the cause of his fatal heart attack.

Garza had a prior heart attack and heart bypass surgery, smoked for nearly 30 years and died of the second heart attack after taking Vioxx for less than a month.

Merck lawyers had argued that heart attack was the end result of his 23 years of heart disease.

"There was simply no reliable evidence Vioxx caused Mr. Garza's heart attack," Travis Sales, one of the attorneys who represented Merck during the trial, said in an interview.

David Hockema, one of the Garza family attorneys, said they had just read the opinion and had not decided on their next move. Possible next steps would be a motion for a rehearing before the same court of appeals or a petition to the Texas Supreme Court, he said.

"I think the decision is clearly wrong and sets an impossible burden for the plaintiff to show the offending instrument (Vioxx) was the sole cause of their injury," Hockema said.

After the trial, a juror admitted previously borrowing more than $12,000 from Garza's widow, Felicia, an issue that Merck also raised in its appeal, Sales noted. However, that was not mentioned in the three-page appellate court decision.

Attorneys for Williams are scheduled to argue in front of a three-judge panel on Wednesday that prosecutors must divulge all details about a racial slur used by an investigator in the case.

The dispute over the slur postponed Williams' retrial for reckless manslaughter, which was to have begun in January.

The 40-year-old Williams was convicted in 2004 of trying to cover up the shooting death of hired driver Costas Christofi two years earlier. The jury acquitted him of aggravated manslaughter but deadlocked on the reckless manslaughter count. Williams has been free on bail since the shooting.

Sheriff Tim Gobble said the items he placed in the bowl included marijuana and rolling papers. When questioned, the man ran from the building, but officers captured him within minutes.

The man faces charges of having contraband in a penal institution and evading arrest.