A condemned Texas inmate is hoping the U.S. Supreme Court keeps him from the death chamber for the fatal slashing of an 11-year-old girl.

Bobby Wayne Woods is set for lethal injection Thursday evening in Huntsville for the April 1997 abduction, rape and slaying of Sarah Patterson, his ex-girlfriend's daughter.

But his attorneys contend his life should be spared because of a Supreme Court ban on executing mentally impaired people. Attorney Maurie Levin says his IQ hovers around 70 "the magical cutoff point for determining whether someone is mentally retarded."

State and federal courts repeatedly rejected Woods' mental impairment claims, though Texas' highest criminal court last year halted his execution hours before it was to occur.

West Virginia's Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled against him, but the head of a bankrupt coal company is asking it to reconsider its recent decision in favor of Massey Energy Co.

For the third time, the court last month overturned the $50 million verdict that Hugh Caperton and his Harman Mining won against Massey.

A Boone County jury had found that Massey bankrupted them both by hijacking a coal supply contract. But the Supreme Court concluded 4-1 that a clause in the contract required that the case be heard in Virginia.

Caperton's Wednesday filing argues that the decision wrongly bars him from pursing his claims in that state. His filing also echoes criticisms made Tuesday by dissenting Justice Margaret Workman of the ruling's legal reasoning.

FairPoint Communications has filed a court motion asking that it not be forced to give Maine customers rebates because of its poor service as the company works through bankruptcy.

The company is objecting to the Maine Public Utilities Commission's regulatory order Monday that it pay rebates in the form of $1.72 a line per month for 12 months — a total of more than $8 million.

In an emergency motion filed Thursday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York, FairPoint says the penalties should be stayed while it's going through Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings.

The North Carolina-based FairPoint has been beset by problems since it bought Verizon's land line and Internet operations in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont in 2008.

The Arizona Supreme Court late Wednesday dismissed the League of Arizona Cities and Towns' constitutional challenge to budget law provisions on immigration enforcement and other topics.

The immigration enforcement provisions toughen and expand existing prohibitions on providing services to illegal immigrants. Other challenged provisions deal with development impact fees and building codes.

All were included in a bill approved during a summer special session largely devoted to the state's ongoing budget crisis.

The legislation took effect Nov. 24.

The league argued that enactment of the provisions was unconstitutional because they fell outside budget-related topics listed for special session action and because unrelated legislation was packaged in one bill.

The Supreme Court's brief order said the case, which had been filed directly with the high court, can be started over in a lower court.

The league "did not establish circumstances sufficient to render it proper for the original special action petition to be brought to this court," the order said.

A new case filed in trial court would have to pass through several layers of the state court system before any constitutional questions are resolved. That process would take at least several months and possibly a year or two.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to accept a special-action lawsuit filed directly with the state high court by the Central Arizona Water Conservation District.

The district is the state entity that runs the Central Arizona Project aqueduct system and related water projects.

Those projects include one to store water underground. According to the district's lawsuit, at least some of the money swept from the fund was paid to Arizona by Nevada for water storage.

General Growth Properties Inc. said Wednesday that it has filed its reorganization plan, and its lenders have agreed to restructure about $9.7 billion in shopping mall mortgage loans, more than previously planned.

Last month the mall operator, which earlier this year filed the largest U.S. real estate bankruptcy case in history, said its lenders had agreed to restructure some $8.9 billion in loans.

The real estate investment trust and about 166 regional shopping centers and subsidiaries filed for Chapter 11 protection in April. The company had about $27 billion in debt piled up at the time.

General Growth fell victim to an aggressive expansion during the height of the real estate boom and was unable to service it when credit markets dried up during last year's financial crisis.

General Growth, based in Chicago, is the second-largest U.S. mall operator. The shopping mall loans that are being restructured cover 92 regional shopping centers, office properties, community centers and related subsidiaries.

The company's reorganization plan includes full payment of all undisputed claims against emerging debtors for pre-petition goods and services.

General Growth said the Bankruptcy Court of the Southern District of New York is set to confirm its reorganization plan on Dec. 15. If the company obtains all of the necessary approvals for its plan and meets the necessary conditions, General Growth anticipates the regional shopping centers, office properties community centers and other subsidiaries associated with the loans will be out of bankruptcy before year's end.

The Supreme Court is weighing whether Florida homeowners must be compensated because a beach-widening project cost them their exclusive access to the Gulf of Mexico.

The justices heard argument Wednesday in a case with potentially widespread implications for coastal communities nationwide that confront beach erosion.

The court is being asked to rule for the first time that a court decision can amount to a taking of property. The Constitution requires governments to pay "just compensation" when they take private property for public use.

Six homeowners in Florida's panhandle are challenging a Florida Supreme Court decision that changed their "beachfront property to beach view property," their lawyer, D. Kent Safriet, told the court.