Democratic U.S. Rep. William Jefferson's attorney told a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that a congressional aide's testimony about Jefferson's leadership in passing trade legislation benefiting African nations violated the Constitution's speech or debate clause.

The clause says congressmen "shall not be questioned in any other Place" for speech or debate associated with their legislative actions. A federal judge in February refused to dismiss the indictment. Jefferson, who faces up to 235 years in prison if convicted of bribery and other charges, appealed.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Lytle told the appeals court judges that U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III got it right when he ruled that Jefferson's lawyers sought to apply the clause so broadly that it would make it virtually impossible to ever charge a congressman with a crime.

Jefferson's attorney, Robert P. Trout, contended the testimony about how the congressman gained influence with African leaders was at the heart of the government's case. Trout said one of the ways Jefferson gained that influence, according to grand jury testimony, was through leadership on the trade legislation.

The appeals court judges vigorously questioned Lytle and Trout for about 50 minutes, focusing on whether the indictment was tainted if prosecutors neither sought nor relied on the testimony cited by Jefferson.

Lytle said the aide volunteered the information in question, which amounted to just four lines in a massive set of grand jury transcripts.

Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens said he understood it might look bad to jurors if he leaves court in the opening days of trial. But his attorney said his Senate duties took priority.

"There's only one thing more important in his life than this trial, and that's doing his duty as a senator, particularly in this time of national crisis," attorney Brendan Sullivan said.

Stevens is charged with lying about more than $250,000 in home repairs and other gifts he received from an oil contractor. The trial comes at a difficult time in his political career: He is fending off a strong Democratic challenge to his seat and is tethered to a courtroom during the height of campaign season.

Being absent as Congress considers a historic $700 billion bailout of the financial market could make it look like the corruption charges have made it impossible for Stevens to do his job.

It's unclear when Stevens might have to leave court. Jury selection was scheduled to conclude Wednesday morning and opening statements are scheduled for Thursday. Capitol Hill lawmakers, meanwhile, are under pressure to pass a bailout package quickly.

The Bush administration wants quick passage of legislation that would allow the government to buy bad mortgages and other troubled assets from banks shaken by the mortgage and banking crisis.

Prosecutors didn't oppose Stevens' plan to leave court but they said Stevens shouldn't be able to use the crisis to cast himself as a dedicated senator in front of jurors. The judge said Stevens could leave court but jurors would not be told why.

The court on Wednesday refused to hear Sprint's appeal of a March ruling by the Appellate Court of Illinois that would require Overland Park, Kan.-based Sprint to dismantle its Nextel network in regions of the Midwest.

Schaumburg, Ill.-based iPCS sells Sprint-branded services. It sued Sprint after Sprint acquired Nextel Communications Inc. in 2005, saying that it was violating iPCS' exclusivity agreement by selling Nextel products in its territory.

A Cook County judge sided with iPCS in 2006, ordering Sprint to divest itself of its Nextel holdings in the affiliate's territory.

The Senate's longest-serving Republican, Stevens is fighting charges that he lied about more than $250,000 in home repairs and other gifts he received from an oil contractor. U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan warned the Alaska senator that leaving court might hurt him in the eyes of jurors.

Stevens said he understood.

"There's only one thing more important in his life than this trial, and that's doing his duty as a senator, particularly in this time of national crisis," defense attorney Brendan Sullivan said.

The trial comes at a difficult time in Stevens' political career. He is fending off a strong Democratic challenge to his seat and, during the height of campaign season, Stevens is tethered to a courtroom in Washington.

Being absent as Congress considers a historic $700 billion bailout of the financial market could make it look like the corruption charges have made it impossible for Stevens to do his job.

Prosecutors didn't oppose Stevens' plan to leave court but they said Stevens shouldn't be able to use the crisis to cast himself as a dedicated senator in front of jurors. The judge said Stevens could leave court but jurors would not be told why.

Jury selection continued Tuesday and opening arguments were scheduled to begin as early as Wednesday morning.

The first trial began Sept. 8 and involves John "Jay" Brooks, a millionaire businessman accused of orchestrating the 2005 kidnapping and murder of someone whom Brooks believed had stolen from him.

In the other case, jury selection was to begin Monday in the trial of Michael "Stix" Addison, who is charged with fatally shooting a Manchester police officer in 2006.

Death penalty opponents hope the simultaneous trials will focus attention on their cause, though they aren't planning another attempt to repeal the state's capital murder law when the Legislature convenes in January.

Both the House and Senate voted to repeal the death penalty in 2000, but then-Gov. Jeanne Shaheen vetoed the bill. Last year, under the threat of a veto from Gov. John Lynch, the bill failed by 12 votes in the House.

New Hampshire's narrow capital murder law applies to a half dozen crimes, including killing a police officer, murder for hire and killing during a kidnapping. Prisoners who kill another while serving a life sentence, murder during a rape, and certain drug crimes also qualify.

The Georgia Supreme Court's unanimous ruling rejected arguments for a new trial from attorneys representing James Sullivan, who is serving life in prison for paying a hit man $25,000 to gun down Lita Sullivan.

The appeal was a last-ditch attempt to toss a 2006 murder conviction against Sullivan. A man carrying a dozen long-stemmed roses shot Lita Sullivan on the doorstep of her Atlanta town house in 1987, on the day of a hearing to discuss property distribution in the couple's divorce.

Her death — and the 19-year effort to prosecute her killer — is one of the most high-profile cases in modern Atlanta history.

James Sullivan's attorneys had argued that a search warrant used to get crucial evidence from Sullivan's $5 million Florida mansion was full of omissions and half-truths and relied on testimony from a confidential informant who had been arrested 38 times. The search yielded a diary and financial documents used in Sullivan's trial.

Prosecutors defended the affidavit as "truthful and complete with the best information at the time." They said there was ample reason to search Sullivan's home even without the informant's testimony.

In a unanimous opinion written by Justice Harold Melton, the court rejected Sullivan's claims.

"This evidence was sufficient to enable the jury to determine that (the) defendant was guilty of the crimes for which he was convicted beyond a reasonable doubt," he wrote.

The case has gone on for more than two decades. In 1992, a federal judge dismissed charges that Sullivan violated interstate commerce laws by arranging his wife's murder through long-distance phone calls. Lita Sullivan's parents later won a $4 million wrongful death lawsuit — which they say still hasn't been paid — but James Sullivan wasn't charged with his wife's murder until 1998.

That was when Belinda Trahan told authorities Sullivan paid her ex-boyfriend, a trucker named Phillip Anthony Harwood, $25,000 to kill Lita Sullivan. Harwood was sentenced to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to a lesser crime.

Sullivan, who fled to Thailand after hearing of Harwood's arrest, was arrested four years later after a local resident spotted him on "America's Most Wanted."