Turner's lawyers had linked his case with an appeal from two Kentucky inmates who argued that lethal injection is unconstitutionally cruel. Both states use similar injection procedures employing three drugs.

The justices on Tuesday agreed to consider the Kentucky appeal, and Turner's case was viewed as a barometer of whether capital punishment in Texas could be placed on hold while the Supreme Court considers that case.

Walters spoke just before Bell, 17, was freed on $45,000 bail after spending 10 months in jail for beating a white classmate.

"He goes home because a lot of people left their home and stood up for him," said the Rev. Al Sharpton, referring to the Sept.20 march. "We do not condone violence of any kind. ... Upon this young man's shoulders is a movement for fairness."

His parents at his side, Bell, who did not speak, walked out of the LaSalle Parish courthouse, flanked also by Martin Luther King 3rd and Sharpton, who recently supplanted less media-savvy local activists to become Bell's spokesman.

An all-white jury convicted Bell after his court-appointed lawyer failed to question any witnesses. The conviction was thrown out this month when an appeals court said he should not have been tried as an adult.

Walters, who is being accused of treating black offenders more harshly than white ones, said he decided not to appeal the ruling.

He said he would retry the case in juvenile court as soon as possible.

"I believe that it is in the best interest of the victim and his family not to delay this matter any further," he said.

Walters charged Bell and five black friends - known as the Jena 6 - with attempted murder last year for punching and stomping white classmate Justin Barker after a series of ugly racial incidents in town.

Walters later reduced the charge to aggravated battery, which could still put the teens in prison for 20 years.

Disney announced in September 2006 that it was closing Mobile ESPN, eight months after its debut. The company initially remained optimistic about its Disney-branded service, which sold phones featuring Disney content and services aimed at children and their parents. However, Disney failed to make headway with the big-box retailers and find outlets to sell its phones and related services.

Disney will instead license its content to bigger carriers to sell. Earlier this year, it forged a partnership with Verizon Wireless, which is owned by Verizon Communications Inc. and Vodafone Group PLC, to sell ESPN sports news and video. Disney said yesterday it is considering offering some of its Disney-branded services through a partnership with a major carrier. Disney Mobile included services that let parents locate their kids as well as content such as ring tones and games with Mickey Mouse and other Disney stars.

Disney isn't the only company to stumble in the MVNO arena. Amp'd Mobile Inc. sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy-court protection this year, after its youth-focused service burned through $350 million in start-up funding.

Disney declined to comment on how much it had invested in its MVNOs or the cost of closing them. During a conference call in August 2006, Disney Chief Executive Bob Iger said the company was investing $150 million in Mobile ESPN in 2006. After announcing its closure last September, Disney Chief Financial Officer Tom Staggs told an analysts conference that the cost of closing it would be about $30 million.

Fabian was indicted by a federal grand jury last month on charges of a $32 million computer equipment leasing scheme. The grand jury alleges Fabian used the money to buy beach property, travel on jets and set up the nonprofit Centre for Management.

The center bills itself as a resource that helps other nonprofits operate more efficiently and use technology better. The center is not a defendant in Fabian's criminal case, but it is required to provide monthly financial reports to the federal court and not to make any financial transactions outside the ordinary course of business.

The private security company, one of the largest working in Iraq and under scrutiny for how it operates, also is faulted for initially insisting its guards were properly prepared and equipped. It is also accused of impeding the inquiry by the Democratic staff of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

The results of the staff inquiry come less than a week before Erik Prince, a former Navy SEAL and Blackwater's founder, is scheduled to testify before the committee, which is chaired by Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., a longtime critic of Blackwater.

The March 2004 incident involving Blackwater was widely viewed as a turning point in the Iraq war after images of the mutilated bodies of the four guards were seen around the world. Four days after the Blackwater guards were killed, a major military offensive, known as the Battle of Fallujah, began.

The combat lasted almost a month in Fallujah, which is 40 miles west of Baghdad. At least 36 U.S. military personnel were killed along with 200 insurgents and an estimated 600 civilians, the congressional investigation found.

Proponents of the laws that have been passed since the contested 2000 presidential election say the measures combat fraud. But opponents said poor people and minorities who often don't have driver's licenses, passports or other government-issued identification would be excluded from the polls.

Seven states require a photo identification to vote and 17 states require identification without photos. The battle has broken down over partisan lines with Republicans favoring laws they said would combat voter fraud while Democrats have pushed proposals they said would encourage more voter participation.

The voter identification case is from Indiana, where Secretary of State Todd Rokita, a Republican, said "voter fraud exists and Hoosiers shouldn't have to become further victims of it."

But state Democratic Party chairman Dan Parker, whose party urged the court to take the case, said Republicans have "relied on fear and flimsy legal logic to push through a policy that deters voting instead of promoting it."

A spokesman for the Republican National Committee responded cautiously to the announcement. "We are pleased that the Supreme Court is bringing attention to this important issue," Danny Diaz said.

"This is another step to ensure that every citizen who is eligible to vote will have that right."

Donna Brazile, a Democratic strategist who heads the DNC Voting Rights Institute, likened voter requirements to a "modern-day poll tax" designed to disenfranchise black and poor voters.

"Some of us in the voting rights community are very nervous because we fear the court will make matters worse," she said.

At that point, Porter will have saved Craig from yet another of the senator's bizarre errors in judgment.

Compounding his previous errors, the Idaho Republican this week sent lawyers to persuade Porter to undo his guilty plea and let him go to trial. As Craig says, he wants ``to clear my name.''

He probably doesn't mean he wants to clear his name of the taint of a disorderly conduct conviction.

He means, of course, he wants to clear it of any link to homosexuality. He will have a hard time doing that because technically, officially, he isn't charged with homosexuality. Technically, officially, it is no longer a crime in America to be gay. The U.S. Supreme Court said so ages ago, in 2003.

No, Craig was instead charged with being disorderly because the officer in the next stall took his peculiar hand and foot movements as a sexual come-on.

A bogus charge? You betcha, as they say here in Minnesota. There is simply nothing criminal about toe-tapping, shoe-to-shoe contact or someone putting his hand beneath a bathroom stall divider, as one of his lawyers, Billy Martin, told the judge at this week's hearing.

``None of those facts, in and of themselves, constitute a crime,'' Martin told Porter. It would be a ``manifest injustice'' to let the conviction stand, he argued.

Guilty Plea

He's right. But the law makes it almost impossible to set aside a guilty plea. And Craig had weeks to decide whether to admit guilt before he mailed in his plea, as the prosecution noted.

Since then, he has had weeks to think what might happen in the improbable event that he gets a trial.

Police would testify that closeted gay men (like Craig?) pose a menace when they troll public bathrooms for sex.

They might say that this particular bathroom at this particular airport had become famous on the Internet as a rendezvous point for men seeking men.

As for Craig's actual conduct, remember that he exposed no part of his body that is normally covered, nor did he fondle or grope or grab anyone.

But the prosecutor in the case, Christopher Renz, can make even the running of a hand beneath a stall divider sound like soft-core porn.

Stroking the Divider

``Repeated stroking of the stall divider,'' Renz called it at this week's hearing, ``each stroke showing more of his left hand.''

Then there would be the chance that the judge might let the prosecution put on the stand the man who told the Idaho Statesman he had sex with Craig in the men's room of Union Station in Washington.

Does Craig really want that?

In his defense, Craig might raise his ``wide stance'' to explain away the apparent attempt at footsie. And it would be ridiculed, as it has been already, mercilessly.

The best Craig could get is a jury focused only on the facts of what he did, a jury that labors to see whether that conduct met the legal elements of disorderly conduct.

Throw in a little reasonable doubt, and Craig just might get acquitted.

So what? He would stand acquitted of disorderly conduct, which no one cares about anyway, aside from legal wonks like me. There would be no verdict on whether he committed homosexual conduct, which is all his Grand Old Party and his ``family values'' constituents care about.

Muddying His Name

But there would have been lots of testimony that would do more to muddy his name than clear it.

Fortunately for Craig, Porter seemed to be buying none of Martin's argument, except for when he said the law makes it ``next to impossible'' to set aside a guilty plea.

Fortunately for Craig, the judge argued with Martin on matters large and small.

When Martin said his client wanted to plead innocent, Porter interrupted to chide him on a point that was clearly meant to be more rhetorical than legal. There is no such plea in Minnesota, the judge told Porter.

Here, as elsewhere, you are either guilty or not guilty, he said.

It's an obvious point, and yet it is one that Craig seems to have missed. There is no way he will be declared innocent, even if he wins a trial and is found not guilty.