The Idaho Supreme Court has denied requests from six death row inmates who said they were entitled to new trials because a U.S. Supreme Court ruling made after their convictions called on juries, not judges, to impose the death penalty.

All the men argued that the state violated their Sixth Amendment due process rights because they were sentenced to death by a judge instead of a jury, as required under the 2002 federal decision.

But in a unanimous ruling handed down Friday, the Idaho Supreme Court noted that their cases were all appealed and the judgments made final before the U.S. Supreme Court ruling was issued — and that 2002 decision can't be retroactively applied to the Idaho inmates' cases.

All six inmates have appeals in various stages of state and federal court that will now move forward.

An appellate court has upheld references to God on U.S. currency and in the Pledge of Allegiance, rejecting arguments they violate the constitutional separation of church and state.

"The Pledge of Allegiance serves to unite our vast nation through the proud recitation of some of the ideals upon which our Republic was founded," Judge Carlos Bea wrote for the majority in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals 2-1 ruling Thursday.

Bea noted that schools do not require students to recite the pledge, which was amended to include the words "under God" by a 1954 federal law. Members of Congress at the time said they wanted to set the United States apart from "godless communists."

In a separate 3-0 ruling, the appeals court upheld the inscription of the national motto "In God We Trust" on U.S. coins and currency, citing an earlier 9th Circuit panel that ruled the phrase is ceremonial and patriotic and "has nothing whatsover to do with the establishment of religion."

The same appeals court caused a national uproar and prompted accusations of judicial activism when it decided in Sacramento athiest Michael Newdow's favor in 2002, ruling that the Pledge of Allegiance violated the First Amendment prohibition against government endorsement of religion.

President George W. Bush called the 2002 decision "ridiculous," senators passed a resolution condemning the ruling and Newdow received death threats.

That lawsuit reached the U.S. Supreme Court in 2004, but the high court said Newdow lacked the legal standing to file the suit because he didn't have custody of his daughter, on whose behalf he brought the case.

So Newdow filed an identical challenge on behalf of other parents who objected to the recitation of the pledge at school. In 2005, a federal judge in Sacramento decided in Newdow's favor, prompting the appeals court to take up the case again.

Judge Stephen Reinhardt, who was part of the three-judge panel that ruled in Newdow's favor eight years ago, wrote a 123-page dissent to the 60-page majority opinion.

The highest court in Massachusetts on Wednesday upheld the constitutionality of a state law that requires gun owners to lock weapons in their homes in a ruling applauded by gun-control advocates.

The case had been closely watched by both gun-control and gun-rights proponents.

Massachusetts prosecutors argued that the law saves lives because it requires guns to be kept in a locked container or equipped with a trigger lock when not under the owner's control. The Second Amendment Foundation Inc., however, cited a 2008 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that said people have a constitutional right to keep weapons for self-defense.

The state Supreme Judicial Court, ruling in the case of a man charged with improperly storing a hunting rifle in his Billerica home, unanimously agreed that the Second Amendment does not overrule the state's right to require owners to store guns safely.

"We conclude that the legal obligation safely to secure firearms (in the Massachusetts law) is not unconstitutional ... and that the defendant may face prosecution on this count," Justice Ralph Gants wrote.

The case involved Richard Runyan, whose mentally disabled son allegedly shot at a neighbor with a BB gun. The 18-year-old showed police where his father kept other guns, and the father was charged with improperly storing a hunting rifle under his bed.

Middlesex District Attorney Gerry Leone, whose office prosecuted Runyan, praised the court's ruling.

The Supreme Court will decide whether drug makers can be sued by parents who claim their children suffered serious health problems from vaccines.

The justices on Monday agreed to hear an appeal from parents in Pittsburgh who want to sue Wyeth over the serious side effects their daughter, six months old at the time, allegedly suffered as a result of the company's diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis vaccine.

The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia ruled against Robalee and Russell Bruesewitz, saying a 1986 federal law bars their claims.

That law set up a special vaccine court to handle disputes as part of its aim of insuring a stable vaccine supply by shielding companies from most lawsuits.

Wyeth, now owned by Pfizer, Inc., prevailed at the appeals court but also joined in asking the court to hear the case, saying it presents an important and recurring legal issue that should be resolved.

The Obama administration joined the parties in calling for high court review, although the government takes the side of the manufacturers.

A Michigan judge has ordered a stay-at-home mom to attend a murder trial and serve 24 hours in jail because she arrived late for jury selection.

Carmela Khury was released Monday after a day and a half as a spectator in Oakland County Circuit court.

The State Court Administrative Office told Judge Leo Bowman he had no authority to punish Khury and to drop the order or face sanctions.

Khury appeared in court an hour late with her 8-month-old and 3-year-old children last Thursday, saying she could not find a baby sitter.

Bowman dismissed her from the jury pool and ordered her to return Friday to watch the trial. He said she would have to spend 24 hours in jail after the case.

Bowman declined to comment through his staff in suburban Detroit.

A Michigan judge has ordered a stay-at-home mom to attend a murder trial and serve 24 hours in jail because she arrived late for jury selection.

Carmela Khury was released Monday after a day and a half as a spectator in Oakland County Circuit court.

The State Court Administrative Office told Judge Leo Bowman he had no authority to punish Khury and to drop the order or face sanctions.

Khury appeared in court an hour late with her 8-month-old and 3-year-old children last Thursday, saying she could not find a baby sitter.

Bowman dismissed her from the jury pool and ordered her to return Friday to watch the trial. He said she would have to spend 24 hours in jail after the case.

Bowman declined to comment through his staff in suburban Detroit.

The Supreme Court appeared willing Tuesday to say that the Constitution's right to possess guns limits state and local regulation of firearms. But the justices also suggested that some gun control measures might not be affected.

The court heard arguments in a case that challenges handgun bans in the Chicago area by asking the high court to extend to state and local jurisdictions the sweep of its 2008 decision striking down a gun ban in the federal enclave of Washington, D.C.

The biggest questions before the court seemed to be how, rather than whether, to issue such a ruling and whether some regulation of firearms could survive. On the latter point, Justice Antonin Scalia said the majority opinion he wrote in the 2008 case "said as much."

The extent of gun rights are "still going to be subject to the political process," said Chief Justice John Roberts, who was in the majority in 2008.

At the very least, Tuesday's argument suggested that courts could be very busy in the years ahead determining precisely which gun laws are allowed under the Second Amendment's "right to keep and bear arms," and which must be stricken.

James Feldman, a Washington-based lawyer representing Chicago, urged the court to reject the challenges to the gun laws in Chicago and its suburb of Oak Park, Ill. Handguns have been banned in those two places for nearly 30 years.

The court has held that most of the rest of the Bill of Rights applies to state and local laws. But Feldman said the Second Amendment should be treated differently because guns are different. "Firearms are designed to injure and kill," he said.

Former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling is asking the Supreme Court to throw out his convictions in connection with the collapse of the energy giant that cost thousands of jobs and billions of dollars.

Lawyers for Skilling and the government are appearing before the high court Monday as he appeals his 2006 convictions on 19 counts of conspiracy, securities fraud, insider trading and lying to auditors.

Skilling argues he did not have a fair trial in Houston, Enron's hometown, amid anger over Enron's implosion in 2001. He also is contesting his conviction under the federal fraud law making it a crime to deprive shareholders or the public of "the intangible right to honest services."

Critics say the law is vague and unfair.

Former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling is asking the Supreme Court to throw out his convictions in connection with the collapse of the energy giant that cost thousands of jobs and billions of dollars.

Lawyers for Skilling and the government are appearing before the high court Monday as he appeals his 2006 convictions on 19 counts of conspiracy, securities fraud, insider trading and lying to auditors.

Skilling argues he did not have a fair trial in Houston, Enron's hometown, amid anger over Enron's implosion in 2001. He also is contesting his conviction under the federal fraud law making it a crime to deprive shareholders or the public of "the intangible right to honest services."

Critics say the law is vague and unfair.

Arthur Nadel, a former Florida fund manager dubbed a "mini-Madoff" for running a decade-long investment fraud of nearly $400 million, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to criminal charges.

Nadel, 77, disappeared for two weeks before his arrest in January 2009. He had left a letter for his wife imploring her to use a trust fund for her benefit and "sell the Subaru if you need money," a reference to their motor vehicle.

The FBI arrested Sarasota, Florida-based Nadel in his home state, but the case was moved to New York because he traded through a brokerage in the city, Shoreline Trading, an affiliate of Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

Nadel, who looked frail in court and remained seated throughout the proceeding, pleaded guilty to an indictment of 15 charges, including securities fraud, mail fraud and wire fraud before Manhattan federal court Judge John Koeltl.