Barely a minute into oral arguments, justices challenged Coleman's attorneys on the adequacy of evidence they presented in an election trial and the legality of their suggested remedy: that more ballots be counted even if some absentee voters didn't fully comply with the law.

"It's possible there are statutory violations which do not rise to the level of constitutional violation," Justice Alan Page said, alluding to a threshold appeals courts often turn to before reversing a lower-court decision.

The state Supreme Court justices can confirm Franken as the victor or reopen the count as Coleman wants.

Franken hopes the court orders that he immediately receive the election certificate required to take office. Franken is the potential 60th vote for Democrats in the Senate, though two of those are independents.

The court's involvement is the latest but maybe not the final stop. If Coleman loses, he could file a new case in federal court or petition for review by the U.S. Supreme Court, which isn't certain to take the case. If Franken doesn't like the result, he could ask the Senate itself to weigh in.

The Supreme Court said on Monday it would hear the Bilski patent case, which would tell high tech and software companies how far they could go in patenting software, financial strategies and other abstract processes.

An appeals court which specializes in patent cases had ruled in October that the Patent Office was correct in refusing to allow Bernard Bilski and Rand Warsaw's company Weatherwise to patent a method for hedging against energy cost changes.

That court said the hedging method could not be patented because it was not tied to a machine and did not result in a transformation.

But this seemingly narrow case has implications for any company that hopes to patent a business method. One of the best known examples of a business method patent is Amazon.com Inc's one-click process to buy goods on the Internet.

Michael Registe is accused of the July 20, 2007 execution-style killings of two college students in Columbus, Georgia's third-largest city. His St. Maarten-based attorney, Remco Stomp, claims he would not be treated fairly in Georgia's courts because he is black.

"Registe will not get a fair trial in Georgia as a black man suspected of killing two white college kids. We will do everything possible to guarantee his human rights," Stomp said in this Dutch Caribbean territory.

Allegedly killed by Registe were Randy Newton Jr., 21, and Bryan Kilgore, 20.

Registe fled the U.S. and was captured Aug. 27 in St. Maarten, where he has been jailed in Pointe Blanche Prison.

Prosecutors have not said what they believe Registe's alleged motive was for the slayings.

The Supreme Court of the Netherlands has ruled that Registe can be returned to the U.S. from St. Maarten. As a requirement for extradition, former District Attorney Gray Conger of Columbus had to agree not to pursue the death penalty.

But Stomp does not believe that pact would be honored, and wants a trial in the Dutch Caribbean.

"If he is tried in our system he would have a lot more guarantees," the defense lawyer said.

Frits Goedgedrag, governor of the Netherlands Antilles, a chain of islands that includes St. Maarten, is expected to make an announcement about the pending extradition in coming days.

The article, "Statehood and the Equal Footing Doctrine: The Case for Puerto Rican Seabed Rights," was published in the Yale Law Journal in 1979, when it appeared that Puerto Rico might pursue statehood. Sotomayor was an editor of the Ivy League publication before receiving her law degree from Yale that year.

Sotomayor notes that other states didn't maintain rights to sea floors before joining the union. But she argued for a new historical analysis of the equal footing doctrine that prevents states from receiving powers other states do not have.

"The island's dearth of land-based resources and its ongoing economic stagnation and poverty, coupled with the possibility of offshore oil and mineral wealth, will create political pressures for Puerto Rico to demand exclusive rights to exploit its surrounding seabed in an area ranging from nine to 200 miles into the sea," Sotomayor wrote.

"The American experience with colonialism in the early half of this century has left the United States with responsibility for several small, economically poor dependencies," Sotomayor wrote. "Some of these, like Puerto Rico, may seek statehood unless they are accorded a greater measure of self-government. Accommodations between the federal government and an incoming state such as Puerto Rico, involving, inter alia, rights to the seabed, could help the new state to overcome its economic problems."

Sotomayor wrote that Supreme Court decisions about the equal footing doctrine "retain their precedential value," but argued that the court never explicitly decided whether the doctrine prevents Congress from granting disproportionate seabed rights to an incoming state.

President Barack Obama noted Tuesday as he introduced Sotomayor as his nominee that her parents had moved from Puerto Rico during World War II.

Kagan gave the keynote address at the daylong event that also included a lunchtime speech by retiring Justice David Souter.

Wood, who serves on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit in Chicago said she had long planned to attend the conference, but she would not answer any questions about the court.

She declined to say whether she was visiting the White House during her stay in Washington.

Wood and Kagan are among the candidates the president is considering to replace Souter, according to officials familiar with President Barack Obama's thinking.

Also attending the day's panel discussions at Georgetown University Law Center were Justice Stephen Breyer and retired Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who has led the annual event since her retirement from the court in 2006.

She noted that Souter is "going to join me in that now very exclusive group of retired Supreme Court justices. His presence will double the membership."

The former Democratic congressman has argued that prosecutors trampled on his constitutional privileges as a lawmaker. But the high court refused to hear Jefferson's appeal to throw out the indictment against him.

Jefferson was indicted in 2007 on multiple counts, including soliciting bribes and racketeering. Investigators raided Jefferson's home and found $90,000 in cash stuffed in a freezer.

A federal judge has set a June 2 trial date in Alexandria, Va.

Jefferson represented parts of New Orleans in Congress, but lost his re-election last year to Republican Rep. Anh "Joseph" Cao.

Last year, a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., rejected Jefferson's claims that a federal grand jury received evidence that violated his constitutional right to legislative immunity.