Students Derek Barr and Craig and Chris White argued their free speech rights were violated by the ban on clothes with the flag, which is considered a symbol of racism and intolerance by some and an emblem of Southern heritage by others.

School officials said their ban came after racial tension at William Blount High.

There have been a string of similar claims from Texas to South Carolina since the 1990s.

In ruling unanimously for five officers attached to the Central Utah Narcotics Task Force, the court also abandoned a rigid, two-step test that it adopted in 2001 to guide judges in assessing alleged violations of constitutional rights.

Trial and appellate judges "should be permitted to exercise their sound discretion" in evaluating such claims, Justice Samuel Alito said in his opinion for the court.

Under the 2001 ruling, courts first had to determine whether an action amounts to a violation of a constitutional right and then decide whether the public official, often a police officer, should be immune from the civil lawsuit.

Officials can't be held liable in situations where it is not clearly established that their actions violated someone's constitutional rights.

The case grew out of a search of the home of Afton Callahan of Millard County, Utah, in 2002.

An informant contacted police to tell them he had arranged to purchase drugs from Callahan at Callahan's trailer home.

By a 6-3 vote, the court on Wednesday reversed a federal appeals court that had thrown out the second-degree murder conviction of Cesar Sarausad II.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco overturned the conviction because of unclear jury instructions. But the high court, in a majority opinion written by Justice Clarence Thomas, said there was "no evidence of ultimate juror confusion."

"Rather, the jury simply reached a unanimous decision that the state had proved Sarausad's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt," Thomas wrote.

In a dissenting opinion, Justice David Souter said an uncertain instruction from the trial judge merged with a "confounding prosecutorial argument" that included a "clearly erroneous statement of law."

"In these circumstances, jury confusion is all but inevitable and jury error the reasonable likelihood," wrote Souter, who was joined in his opinion by Justices John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Sarausad was convicted for his role as the driver in the shooting that killed a teenage girl outside a Seattle high school.

Sarausad was a 19-year-old freshman at the University of Washington at the time of the shooting. He drove the car from which Brian Ronquillo shot and killed 16-year-old Melissa Fernandes. She had nothing to do with the gang rivalry that led to the shooting.

Ronquillo was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to 52 years in prison. Sarausad got a 27-year sentence.

Sarausad admitted being the driver but denied knowing that Ronquillo had a gun, much less that he was planning to kill anyone.

The jury instructions at issue concerned whether, to be convicted of second-degree murder, Sarausad had to know that Ronquillo intended to use a gun and that someone could die as a result.

A state agent had posed as the girl, and the 51-year-old mayor was arrested Tuesday at the mall in suburban Milwaukee. District Attorney Michael Nieskes said during a news conference after a court hearing Thursday that investigators also found records of 1,800 sexually explicit chats on Becker's computer.

The charges include attempted second-degree sexual assault of a child under 16, possession of child pornography, child enticement, use of a computer to facilitate a child sex crime, attempt to expose a child to harmful material and misconduct in office. At least one city official has called on Becker to resign.

Becker, who is married and has two children, waived his preliminary hearing in Racine County Circuit Court on Thursday afternoon. Racine County Circuit Court Commissioner Alice Rudebusch set his arraignment for Feb. 10.

The investigation by the state Department of Justice's Division of Criminal Investigation started after city workers who helped Becker fix a problem with his personal computer found pornography files on it and alerted Racine police, the complaint said. Police had passed the case on to state investigators to avoid a conflict of interest.

After chatting online with the agent posing as a girl, Becker went to the mall to buy lingerie for the girl, according to a criminal complaint. During the chat, he offered to meet her and take her to a hotel to "have lots of fun," the complaint said.

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judges cast doubt at a hearing on claims by Noriega's lawyers that the Geneva Conventions treaties regarding prisoners of war require Noriega be returned to Panama because his sentence for drug racketeering ended in September 2007.

U.S. Circuit Judge Ed Carnes repeatedly asked Noriega attorney Jonathan May whether Congress eliminated the legal underpinnings of Noriega's argument when it passed the 2006 Military Commissions Act. The law created judicial procedures for enemy combatants held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, but also could be applied to POWs and anyone else, the judges said.

"Do you disagree with the plain meaning of that language, or what?" Carnes said. "You're using the Geneva Conventions as a source of your client's right ... (the law) says you can't."

May said that was an incorrect interpretation of what Congress sought to do. He insisted the law was meant to apply solely to court proceedings, not an executive branch matter such as extradition.

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.