Elena Kagan, a Supreme Court nominee without judicial experience, has suggested in writings and speeches over a quarter-century that when judges make decisions, they must take account of their values and experience and consider politics and policy, rather than act as robotic umpires.

Not since 1972 has a president picked someone for the high court who hasn't been a judge. So what the 50-year-old Kagan has said about judging might be the best indicator of the kind of justice she would be.

Republicans have said that because Kagan hasn't left a trail of judicial opinions, they will pore over her records as a Clinton White House aide and academic for any clues. Her speeches and papers from her time as dean of the Harvard Law School and, before that as a law professor and graduate student, are certain to get close attention at her confirmation hearing in late June.

Her words stand in contrast to the more technical view of judging voiced by Chief Justice John Roberts at his confirmation hearing five years ago. Roberts said he considered himself an umpire merely calling balls and strikes.

Kagan apparently has never directly addressed Roberts' comments. Republicans have held his description of the job as a model of judicial restraint and used it to criticize President Barack Obama for what they call his support of judicial activism — judges imposing their own views on the law.

A federal appeals court says the civilian courts do not have authority to hear the cases of three detainees imprisoned at Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan.

The detainees had petitioned the courts seeking to be freed.

The jurisdiction of the U.S. courts does not extend to foreigners held in the Bagram facility in the Afghan theater of war, three appeals court judges said in a unanimous decision. The appeals judges said a U.S. district judge should have thrown out the detainees' petitions.

The ruling noted that the U.S. is holding the detainees through a cooperative arrangement with Afghanistan on Afghan territory.

"While we cannot say that extending our constitutional protections to the detainees would be in any way disruptive of that relationship, neither can we say with certainty what the reaction of the Afghan government would be," said the opinion written by Judge David Sentelle.

Prominent Southfield attorney Geoffrey Fieger called "absurd" any suggestion the shot fired by police officer during a raid that killed a 7-year-old girl Sunday morning was the result of an altercation between the cop and the girl's grandmother.

Fieger said today at an hour-long press conference he has filed lawsuits on behalf of the family of slain Aiyana Jones in both federal and state courts. The federal lawsuit argues the police violated the girl's constitutional rights and it seeks an award of more than $75,000. The state suit contains four counts and seeks damages in excess of $25,000.

Fieger said a three-minute video taken of the raid shows the gunshot fired came from the porch of the two-story duplex on the 4000 block of Lillibridge shortly after a "flash-bang" grenade was thrown into the home, contradicting police accounts.

The Supreme Court has ruled that teenagers may not be locked up for life without chance of parole if they haven't killed anyone.

By a 5-4 vote Monday, the court says the Constitution requires that young people serving life sentences must at least be considered for release.

The court ruled in the case of Terrance Graham, who was implicated in armed robberies when he was 16 and 17. Graham, now 22, is in prison in Florida, which holds more than 70 percent of juvenile defendants locked up for life for crimes other than homicide.

"The state has denied him any chance to later demonstrate that he is fit to rejoin society based solely on a nonhomicide crime that he committed while he was a child in the eyes of the law," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in his majority opinion. "This the Eighth Amendment does not permit."

Chief Justice John Roberts agreed with Kennedy and the court's four liberal justices about Graham. But Roberts said he does not believe the ruling should extend to all young offenders who are locked up for crimes other than murder; he was a "no" vote on the ruling.

Life sentences with no chance of parole are rare and harsh for juveniles tried as adults and convicted of crimes less serious than killing, although roughly three dozen states allow for the possibility of such prison terms. Just over 100 prison inmates in the United States are serving those terms, according to data compiled by opponents of the sentences.

Those inmates are in Florida and seven other states — California, Delaware, Iowa, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska and South Carolina — according to a Florida State University study. More than 2,000 other juveniles are serving life without parole for killing someone. Their sentences are not affected by Monday's decision.

The top Republican in the Senate demanded assurances on Wednesday that President Barack Obama's solicitor general and friend, Elena Kagan, would be free of White House influence if confirmed as a Supreme Court justice.

"Americans want to know that Ms. Kagan will be independent," Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said in a Senate speech as Obama's Supreme Court pick began a series of courtesy visits with senators who will decide whether to confirm her.

McConnell noted that when Obama nominated Kagan to the Supreme Court on Monday, he said that "they're friends."

"It's my hope that the Obama administration doesn't think the ideal Supreme Court nominee is someone who would rubber stamp its policies," McConnell said. "But this nomination does raise the question. And it's a question that needs to be answered."

For the past year, Kagan, 50, has been Obama's solicitor general, a post in which she argues cases on behalf of the U.S. government before the Supreme Court. She is widely expected to be approved for a seat on the high court by the Democratic-led Senate before lawmakers' August recess.

Yet with Republicans' conservative base fired up for the November congressional election, McConnell and other Republicans are expected to subject her to tough scrutiny.

Kagan is seen as a moderate, and much of Obama's largely liberal base had been pushing for a more liberal nominee.

A federal appeals court has turned down former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich's latest request to delay his corruption trial.

The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Tuesday it has no jurisdiction to delay the trial set to get under way June 3.

Defense attorneys want the trial put on hold until the U.S. Supreme Court resolves challenges to a federal statute that forms the basis for a number of charges Blagojevich faces.

U.S. District Judge James B. Zagel had already twice refused to grant a delay.

Defense attorney Sam Adam has said he's prepared to go to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Blagojevich has pleaded not guilty to charges he schemed to use his power as governor to make appointments by selling or trading President Barack Obama's former U.S. Senate seat.