The group is targeting former Attorney General Phill Kline, now the Johnson County District Attorney. Its clinic in Overland Park falls within Kline's jurisdiction, and he investigated it while attorney general.

The court's order was filed under seal, like all other documents in the case. There has been no public explanation of why Planned Parenthood is suing Kline or why Morrison wants to intervene.

Restoring the department's reputation also could give the administration more elbowroom to pursue its own agenda.

"The Justice Department needs to be depoliticized," said Guy Lewis, who oversaw the U.S. attorneys' offices under former Attorney General John Ashcroft. "Loyalty to the president is a wonderful thing, but it can't be the be-all and end-all."

For the most part, Justice Department lawyers said, the scandal did little to disrupt the day-to-day prosecution of cases. But Gonzales' handling of the firings of nine U.S. attorneys and his subsequent shifting testimony damaged morale and the public's perception of a politically impartial Justice Department.

The department's standing was especially hurt by revelations that Gonzales' aides had screened job applicants based on their political credentials and by allegations that they had pressured Justice Department lawyers who were overseeing politically sensitive cases, current and former officials said.

Adding to the concern about the department's ability to remain impartial, Gonzales changed policy in a way that allows White House officials unprecedented access to information about pending criminal and civil cases. When Congress confronted him about the change, he testified that he, too, was concerned when he realized the possible effect.

Gonzales appears to have had little sense of the inner workings of his own department, some lawyers said.

When he was told that budget cuts meant that U.S. attorneys would be filing fewer cases, Gonzales turned to aides and asked, "When were you going to tell me this?" people familiar with the meeting said.

Paul Charlton, one of the Republican-appointed U.S. attorneys whom Gonzales fired, recalled that the attorney general raised eyebrows when he spoke at an annual meeting with U.S. attorneys about what he saw as the department's mission.

"He told us to remember that we work for the president," Charlton said. "Many of us, particularly the career people, were taken aback by that. Yes, we serve at the pleasure of the president. But we work for the people, not just the president."

Gonzales attempted to exert tight control over the U.S. attorneys' offices, unlike prior Republican administrations, which had worked to ensure that their top prosecutors had greater independence.

The attorney general and his aides pushed department lawyers in the field to carry out the president's priorities, sometimes to the detriment of local needs.

"It's OK to tell a U.S. attorney that they're not cutting the mustard because they're not prosecuting immigration cases," said Bill Mateja, a former federal prosecutor in Texas and a former senior counsel under Ashcroft. "But it's not OK to bring politics to bear, and in some cases it appears there was more of a focus on the politics and less of a focus on actually fulfilling the president's initiatives."

Integrated Electrical Services on Friday said it reached a settlement with the U.S. regulators related to an investigation alleging violation of certain accounting laws by the company and six former officers.

The settlement does not require Integrated Electrical to make any monetary payments, the company said in a statement.

A civil complaint was filed by the SEC against the company and its employees alleging improper accounting of certain receivables and inadequate disclosure of its contingent liabilities in certain prior periods.

The complaint also alleged that the company failed to properly disclose a change in its policy for bad debt reserves and the resulting write-down of such reserves in 2003 and 2004.

The ferry is in only its second day of commercial voyages between Honolulu, Maui and Kauai. The Superferry was originally scheduled to start sailings on Tuesday, but the company moved the start date to Sunday and issued $5 one-way tickets to launch the service in advance of a legal challenge by environmentalists.

More than 90 percent of the available space was filled as passengers rushed to experience Hawaii's first modern interisland ferry service at bargain basement prices.

A Superferry spokeswoman said today's Maui and Kauai trips were sold out. The 350-foot vessel can carry more than 850 people and 250 vehicles, but the company projects an average load of 400 passengers and 110 vehicles.

The first day of Hawaii Superferry service to the island of Kauai on Sunday was disrupted by hundreds of protesters on surfboards, swimming in the path of the vessel and lining the docks at Nawiliwilil Harbor, in advance of the courtroom battle over environmental issues today. The U.S. Coast Guard intervened after two hours to clear a path for the Superferry to enter the harbor.

On Thursday, the Hawaii Supreme Court decided that the state was wrong to have exempted ferry-related improvements at Maui's Kahului Harbor from the state's environmental review law.

The Supreme Court ruled on an appeal of an earlier decision by Cardoza dismissing a complaint filed against the Hawaii Department of Transportation by three citizens' groups - the Maui Tomorrow Foundation, the Sierra Club and the Kahului Harbor Coalition. Cardoza had ruled the groups did not have standing to bring the complaint.

The Supreme court ruled that they do have standing and in addition ordered an environmental assessment of the harbor improvements.

Isaac Hall, the attorney for the groups, hopes to expand the case to involve the Kauai sailings as well.

In September 2005, Judge Helen Gillmor dismissed the suit brought by the three groups seeking to require the Superferry to prepare a full Environmental Impact Study, EIS.

The groups filed suit after several months of meetings with Superferry head John Garibaldi produced no agreement for an EIS. Other groups, Kauai County and Maui's Mayor and County Council have called for an EIS review as well, but are not parties to the lawsuit.

What the Supreme Court ordered Thursday is not an EIS, but a less extensive environmental assessment. Even that could take six months to a year to complete.

Concerns range from increased traffic on Maui and Kauai, collisions with whales, impact on campsites and the creation of a new, rapid dispersal method for alien species, the Sierra Club says.

Because the court case involves concerns about impacts only at Kahului Harbor, Judge Cardonza's temporary restraining order does not prevent the Superferry from sailing between Honolulu and Kauai.

Plaintiffs in the case had sued the company on behalf of Illinois residents who bought light cigarettes since the introduction of Marlboro Lights in 1971.

The lower court had found in favor of the plaintiffs and awarded them $10.1 billion in damages, but the decision was overturned by the state Supreme Court, which also directed the lower court to dismiss the action last year.

In May this year, however, after the U.S. Supreme Court took up another case against Philip Morris, the circuit court of Madison County asked whether it had jurisdiction to consider the plaintiff's request to set aside the Illinois Supreme Court's judgment in light of new developments.

But on Wednesday, the state Supreme Court denied the request and directed the lower court to enter an order dismissing the plaintiffs' motion.

Two Illinois Supreme Court justices, however, dissented.

"The court's action today is entirely predictable because it quickly and quietly closes the book on a case that a majority of this court, I am sure, would rather forget," Justice Charles Freeman wrote in his dissent.