During a question-and-answer session Wednesday after an address at the University of Arizona's law school, Roberts was asked whether growing partisanship in the confirmation process poses a significant threat to the independence of the judiciary.

"The courts as a whole are very concerned about partisanship, politicization, seeping into the judicial branch," he said.

Roberts said he thought he was treated fairly during his confirmation hearings, receiving "significant support from both sides of the aisle. But that's not always the case, and what do we do about it?

"I think we need to have a broader recognition that we are not part of the political process, that we are not representatives of either an administration or a confirming Senate on the court," Roberts added. "Your perspective on everything changes the moment you take the judicial oath."

Roberts' lecture focused on his predecessor, the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist.

Roberts called Rehnquist one of the two or three most significant Supreme Court chief justices in history — responsible for a "seismic shift" away from political science and public policy "to the more solid grounds of legal arguments" in case presentations before the court.

"Today, for the first time in its history, every member of the court was a federal court of appeals judge before joining the court — a more legal perspective and less of a policy perspective," Roberts said.

Roberts was named to the high court in September 2005 to succeed Rehnquist. He gave the college's third annual Rehnquist Center Lecture.

Roberts said that during Rehnquist's 33-year tenure on the Supreme Court, he argued 39 cases before him. "Each of those arguments was a lesson, sometimes a hard one in lawyering," he said.

Rep. Jeffrey Wood, an independent from Bloomer, is scheduled to make his initial appearance on charges of third-offense operating while intoxicated, possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia.

Wood was arrested in December while making a 200-mile drive home after a night of drinking in Madison.

Drivers called 911 to report Wood's erratic driving, which included smashing into a highway sign. A state trooper found Wood urinating on the shoulder of Interstate 39-90 and arrested him. A search of his vehicle turned up two bags of marijuana.

Wood has apologized for poor judgment but resisted calls to resign.

Namir Daman of Southfield was sentenced Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Detroit. He pleaded guilty last year to marriage fraud.

He faced up to five years in prison but the government requested leniency because of his cooperation with investigators.

Daman's attorney says he helped prosecutors investigating Roy M. Bailey, a former federal immigration official in Detroit. Bailey pleaded guilty to corruption charges last September and will be sentenced March 9.

Daman, who emigrated from Iraq in 1980, says he naively trusted the wrong people.

The high court on Monday said it will consider allowing prosecutors in Maryland to use a confession from convicted child molester Michael Shatzer that he sexually abused his son.

Shatzer was imprisoned at the Maryland Correctional Institution in Hagerstown for child sexual abuse in 2003 when police started investigating allegations concerning his son. Shatzer requested an attorney and the investigation was soon dropped.

Three years later, the boy was old enough to offer details. According to court documents, when police questioned Shatzer again about the case, he was advised of his rights and signed a form waiving them before confessing.

After Shatzer was charged, he filed a motion to suppress his statements, arguing that he had asked for an attorney in the case before. A lower court said the confession could be used, but the Maryland Court of Appeals agreed with Shatzer and threw out the confession.

The Supreme Court said it won't consider reviving the Child Online Protection Act, which lower federal courts struck down as unconstitutional. The law has been embroiled in court challenges since it passed in 1998 and never took effect.

It would have barred Web sites from making harmful content available to minors over the Internet.

A federal appeals court in Philadelphia ruled that would violate the First Amendment, because filtering technologies and other parental control tools are a less restrictive way to protect children from inappropriate content online.

The act was passed the year after the Supreme Court ruled that another law intended to protect children from explicit material online — the Communications Decency Act — was unconstitutional.

The Bush administration had pressed the justices to take the case. They offered no comment on their decision to reject the government's appeal.

Five justices who ruled against the Internet blocking law in 2004 remain on the court.

The case is Mukasey v. ACLU. 08-565.

Marc Dreier said all his relatives live in the U.S. and only a few of his business associates or friends live abroad.

Dreier, 58, has been jailed without bail since he was arrested in early December as he returned from Canada. He could face up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

Dreier's lawyers have proposed that he be released on $10 million bond, secured by the signatures of his son and mother, and kept under house arrest with electronic monitoring and armed security guards approved by the government. He would be denied computer access and have only preapproved visitors.

The conditions would be similar to those of Bernard Madoff, who has confessed to losing up to $50 billion in a giant Ponzi scheme and is holed up at his multimillion-dollar penthouse.

Dreier, who led a law firm with more than 200 lawyers before his arrest, told a magistrate judge who will consider the bail issue that he no longer controls any money or assets in the United States or abroad.