Supreme Court U S

Employees who cooperate with an internal investigation and report inappropriate behavior in the workplace are protected from retaliation under civil rights laws, the Supreme Court said Monday, strengthening the laws against sexual harassment on the job.

Justice John Paul Stevens quietly marked his 89th birthday last week by showing once again his powerful influence on the law. Over the last decade, he has led a series of liberal victories on issues such as the death penalty, gay rights and Guantanamo Bay -- and he has done it on a court that often leans to the right. Many times his views have prevailed, even decades after he staked out his position.

By mid-morning on the first day of the Supreme Court's term, it was clear new Justice Sonia Sotomayor would fit right in -- and in particular with her talkative fellow New Yorkers. Sotomayor peppered the lawyers with questions in a pair of cases, joining with Justices Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg during the oral arguments. Together, they left the other justices sitting in silence for much of the time. In the first hour alone, Sotomayor asked 36 questions, and Scalia followed with 30. Ginsburg is particularly interested in legal procedures, and she and Sotomayor dominated the questioning for much of the second hour.

The Supreme Court announced Thursday a potentially significant change in how crime lab reports are used in trials, ruling that a defendant has the right to cross-examine in front of the jury the experts who prepared these reports. Crime labs have been subjected to criticism in the last decade, much of it because of DNA evidence that has shown at least 240 prisoners were in fact not guilty.

A debate among Democrats over who should replace Justice David H. Souter on the Supreme Court began emerging Friday between those eager to return the court to its liberal era of 40 years ago and those who are wary of tacking too far to the left. But President Obama, who will choose the nominee, focused not on volatile ideological questions but on personal character, saying he wanted someone with "empathy" for "people's hopes and struggles."

The video images were disturbing -- a tiny white kitten singed with the flame from a lighter; a gray cat struggling beneath a woman's spiked heel; pit bulls tearing into a trapped animal. The Supreme Court has often said that freedom of speech includes ugly and foul language. But this fall the justices will be looking at video clips like these to decide whether selling films of dogfights or animal torture is protected from prosecution under the 1st Amendment. The dispute, expected to be heard in early October, has driven a wedge between traditional free-speech advocates and defenders of the humane treatment of animals.

In late 1979, Cesar Perales, the head of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, fielded an unusual request from Jose Cabranes, a federal judge and a leading figure in Latino legal circles: Would he place Sonia Sotomayor, a recent Yale Law School graduate, on his board? Perales normally tried to stock his board with people who had money or connections that could benefit the fund, the nation's most important Puerto Rican legal advocacy group. Sotomayor had neither.

If there is a Supreme Court candidate with inside connections, it is Elena Kagan, the Harvard Law School dean who was recently named U.S. solicitor general. Kagan, 49, is not widely known for legal writings or for taking a stand on a controversial issue. And she has never argued a case in the federal courts.

The Supreme Court on Monday dealt a setback to women who took pregnancy leaves from work before 1979. The year before, Congress changed the law and said pregnancy must be treated like other temporary disabilities. In a 7-2 decision, the court agreed with AT&T Corp. and refused to award pension credits to those who took a pregnancy leave before the change. The ruling in AT&T vs. Hulteen reversed a decision of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that states could enforce some of their consumer protection laws against national banks, a move that could lead to tougher oversight than federal regulators have provided in recent years. The 5-4 decision in a case involving attempts by New York's attorney general to enforce fair-lending laws was praised by consumer and civil rights groups, which have accused federal regulators of being lax in policing banks chartered by the federal government.