A three-judge panel of the Michigan Court of Appeals expressed skepticism about the legal standing of Michigan's imperiled Jan. 15 presidential primary at a hearing Thursday afternoon. But the judges also indicated they need more time to decide whether to overturn a lower court decision to block it.

The judges closely questioned lawyers representing Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land, the state's chief elections officer, about the justification for restricting access to voter lists generated by the election to the Democratic and Republican parties, a practice the Ingham County Circuit Court found to be unconstitutional.

Lawyers defending the primary law said the Legislature could restrict access if that was deemed necessary to make the election possible and secure the participation of several million voters who would not participate if the two parties used a caucus or convention nominating process.

The appellate trio -- Chief Judge William Whitbeck and Judges Patrick Meter and Donald Owens -- also pressed state lawyers, who had requested a decision by today, for a few more days to consider the case.

Elections officials said they need a decision as soon as possible so that absentee ballots can be ready for distribution 45 days before the election as required by law.

The lawsuit was filed by East Lansing political consultant Mark Grebner and a group of citizens and activists that included former Free Press political columnist Hugh McDiarmid.

After Thursday's hearing, Grebner said the plaintiffs have no objection to the primary, only to the method for handling the voter lists that was devised by party leadership and muscled through the Legislature.

"If some method can be devised which allows the primary to proceed, while rejecting the idea of election records as property of the two major parties, the plaintiffs would be very happy," he said.

The federal ruling keeping Dr. Alan Doerhoff from working on Missouri executions was eventually overturned, but state officials have said they would not use Doerhoff again.

Doerhoff was the target of more than 20 malpractice lawsuits and was reprimanded by the state for not disclosing them.

The federal government has hired Doerhoff as part of a team that executes condemned prisoners by injection at the federal prison at Terre Haute, Ind., according to a court pleading filed by six inmates sentenced to die there. The inmates challenged the government for relying on Doerhoff's help in performing execution duties.

Calls to Doerhoff and the U.S. Department of Justice were not immediately returned. His hiring was first reported Thursday in the Los Angeles Times.

A spokeswoman for the federal Bureau of Prisons said the agency could not comment and would not identify anyone on its execution team.

Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, called Doerhoff's federal role "surprising and disturbing" and proof that "people are in the dark about much of this."

Last year, U.S. District Judge Fernando Gaitan Jr. called for reforms to Missouri executions and ruled that Doerhoff, 63, of Jefferson City, could not participate "in any manner, at any level" in the state's lethal injection process.

The doctor said in a deposition hearing that he is dyslexic, transposes numbers, and mixed and administered lethal drugs without a written lethal injection protocol, despite his lack of training in anesthesiology. A federal appeals court overturned Gaitan's ruling.

According to the newly revealed court records, Doerhoff was brought on at Terre Haute to develop execution procedures, place and monitor intravenous lines, assess a condemned inmate's level of consciousness after anesthesia is administered, and make a determination of death.

It's the only federal prison where executions occur, though executions there are on hold because the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to review the constitutionality of lethal injection in a Kentucky case.

It's not clear how long Doerhoff has been helping the federal government and whether he assisted in executions in the past, or in the planning for future ones. Some of the material in the court record was redacted, and attorney Paul Enzinna, who filed the inmates' pleading, declined to comment.

The justices discussed the case at their private conference on Friday, but reached no resolution.

Four justices must vote to grant an appeal. The court does not always reach a decision the first time it discusses a case.

At issue is the capital's 31-year ban on handguns, among the strictest gun-control laws in the nation. In March, a federal appeals court struck down the ban as incompatible with the Second Amendment.

The justices next meet on Nov. 20 to consider accepting appeals. Their decision could be announced then or when the court convenes for oral arguments on Nov. 26.

The Supreme Court has never answered the Second Amendment question directly, and it has been nearly 70 years since the court even approached it obliquely. A decision in 1939, United States v. Miller, held that a sawed-off shotgun was not one of the "arms" to which the Second Amendment referred in its single, densely written, and oddly punctuated sentence: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

Asked during his confirmation hearing what he thought that sentence meant, Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. responded that the Miller decision had "side-stepped the issue" and had left "very open" the question of whether the Second Amendment protects an individual right as opposed to a collective right.

A three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, on which the chief justice formerly sat, ruled in March by a vote of 2 to 1 that "the right in question is individual," not tied to membership in a state militia. On that basis, the court declared that the 31-year-old statute, one of the country's strictest, was unconstitutional.

Google Inc faces a federal patent infringement lawsuit by Northeastern University over technology used in its core Web search system, according to legal papers filed last week. The complaint was filed on Nov. 6 in Marshall, in the Eastern District of Texas -- the U.S. court with a history of decisions that are highly favorable to plaintiffs in patent cases -- but the case only came to light over the weekend.

The plaintiffs are Boston-based Northeastern University and Jarg Corp, a start-up founded by a Northeastern University professor that is the exclusive licensee of search technology patented in 1997, a year before Google was incorporated.

A spokesman for Mountain View, California-based Google said it believed the suit was without merit.

"While we have not been served, we are aware of the complaint and believe it to be without merit based upon our initial investigation," Google spokesman Jon Murchison said.

The leading Internet company derives 99 percent of its revenue from online advertising, which is delivered in response to keyword searches Google users perform to find Web links.

Michael Belanger, president and co-founder of Jarg, said in a phone interview that his company had become aware of the infringement several years ago, but lacked the resources to press its case until it found a law firm willing to fund the case on a contingency-fee basis. Northeastern then signed on.

The plaintiffs' attorneys are from the Texas-based global law firm of Vinson & Elkins, which is paying the costs of the case, assisted by local counsel in Marshall and nearby Tyler.