The 56-43 vote fell four shy of the 60 votes needed to cut off debate on the bill, co-sponsored by Sens. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Arlen Specter, R-Pa.

The vote was a blow for human-rights groups that say a current ban on habeas corpus petitions could lead to the indefinite detention of individuals wrongfully suspected of terrorism.

President Bush and conservative Republicans counter that the ban, enacted last year, was necessary to stem the tide of legal protests flooding civilian courts.

Most Republican senators backed the administration. Besides Specter, the other Republicans who voted with the Democrats were Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, Richard Lugar of Indiana, Gordon Smith of Oregon, Olympia Snowe of Maine and John Sununu of New Hampshire.

The change in law would have applied to the roughly 340 men held at Guantanamo. Many of them have been held for more than five years without being charged. The Bush administration has said that indefinite detention of enemy combatants who threaten the U.S. is necessary in an age of terrorism.

Congress enacted a law last year that establishes tribunals, made up of three military officials, to review such petitions. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a military lawyer who helped write the law, said the military is best able to determine who's an unlawful enemy combatant.

Graham said that under the Leahy-Specter bill, detainees could pick judges from courts around the country and demand the presence of witnesses from the battlefield.

"That's never been done in any other war, and it should not be done in this war," Graham said.

Leahy responded that people being held indefinitely without charges should be able to assert in court that they were mistakenly picked up. If a detainee is being lawfully held, the government can easily overcome the claim by presenting "the preponderance of the evidence," he said.

In the midst of that fundraising, Lerach negotiated behind the scenes for a plea deal that was consummated on Tuesday and will send him to federal prison for at least 12 months on a conspiracy charge involving his past legal work as partner in the Milberg Weiss law firm.

Through it all, Edwards stood by his fellow trial lawyer and even took an action this spring that was helpful to his longtime financial supporter in a government matter.

In May, Edwards used the bully pulpit of his presidential campaign to publicly pressure the Securities and Exchange Commission not to oppose Lerach's new law firm in a Supreme Court case over whether Lerach's lawsuits could proceed against banks on behalf of investors who lost millions in the collapse of energy giant Enron.

"The question for all Americans is whether their government will be on the side of those big banks or regular families," Edwards said in a statement released by his presidential campaign that was trumpeted on the Web site of Lerach's law firm.

All of this transpired while Edwards campaigned against what he calls a "corroded and corrupt" Washington system in which politicians raise money from special interests who then seek their help on government matters. To make his point, Edwards campaign is refusing any donations from lobbyists registered in Washington.

The latest salvo on that theme came Tuesday -- the day of Lerach's plea deal -- when top Edwards' aide Joe Trippi publicly criticized rival Hillary Clinton's campaign for hosting a fundraiser targeting companies and lobbyists seeking the government's multibillion dollar business.

"Too many in office have fallen under the spell of campaign money at any cost -- and do not see that when they defend the system, they are protecting those that have rigged the game that puts corporate profits ahead of the interests of working Americans," Trippi wrote.

Trippi's attack made no mention of Lerach, the Edwards' bundler, or the fact that Lerach had just reached a plea deal in a scheme prosecutors alleged involved kickback payments to plaintiffs in class action lawsuits he and his former law firm brought.

Lerach and his former law partner Melvyn I. Weiss were notified in the summer of 2005 that they had become targets in that lengthy criminal investigation, meaning they were likely to be indicted, according to lawyers involved in the case.

Court papers say that they employed the scheme for more than two decades in 150 cases that brought their firm more than $200 million in fees.

Milberg Weiss, the New York based law firm where Lerach served as a partner until a bitter parting in 2004, was indicted on conspiracy, mail fraud and money laundering charges in May 2006. Lerach and Weiss were not charged at that time but they were notified by federal prosecutors in Los Angeles that they continued to be the targets of their investigation. The firm is fighting the charges. Weiss himself has not been charged with a crime and maintains his innocence.

Political donations by Lerach and his partners, as well as a former expert witness named John Torkelson, came under investigators' scrutiny but the government has not filed criminal charges alleging they broke election laws.
In Lerach's Tuesday agreement to plead guilty to a conspiracy charge, Justice Department lawyers agreed not to prosecute him over "election, campaign, or other political contributions" related to the fees he and the firm collected as part of the alleged kickback scheme with plaintiffs and expert witnesses including Torkelson.

Edwards campaign said it donated Lerach's personal donations to charity yesterday after his guilty plea, but isn't returning the money he raised from others.

As for the statement Edwards issued favorable to Lerach's lawsuits earlier this year, Edwards spokesoman Colleen Murray said: "This position is consistent with John Edwards' longstanding support for protecting the retirement savings of middle class families and shared by many others, including the New York Times editorial page, Securities and Exchange Commission, Senate Banking Committee Chair Chris Dodd, and a coalition of consumer groups, to name a few."

Lerach is the latest bundler in the 2008 race whose background has raised questions about how carefully campaigns are vetting those who collect their checks.

Hillary Clinton's campaign earlier this month agreed to give back all $850,000 raised by bundler Norman Hsu after it was learned he had been a fugitive in a 15-year-old criminal case in California.

And Edwards already has faced question about another trial lawyer who raised money from him. Attorney Geoffrey Feiger was indicted on federal charges he conspired to route more than $125,000 in illegal contributions to Edwards' 2004 White House bid .Feiger, a trial lawyer who became famous for representing Dr. Jack Kevorkian during his assisted suicide controversy, has pleaded not guilty. Edwards' campaign said it knew nothing about the alleged scheme and cooperated with the Justice Department. But the campaign has declined to refund the donations in question, choosing instead to wait for the outcome of Feiger's trial to avoid influencing jurors.

"From Day One, the campaign has taken their lead from and cooperated fully with the Department of Justice," spokesman Eric Schultz told The Washington Post in an email earlier this month. "Once this prosecution concludes, if Geoffrey Feiger is found guilty, the campaign will donate all the money is question to charity."

Kerkorian's Tracinda investment vehicle was not immediately available for comment.

The lower court ruled in 2005 that Kerkorian had not been misled into believing the $36 billion deal was a merger of equals as the two partners had claimed.

A DaimlerChrysler spokesman said the verdict would not have any financial consequences because the company had not set aside any money in case it lost the case. It had, however, made reserves for its legal fees and court costs, he added.

DaimlerChrysler shares rose 1.4 percent to 66.79 euros by 0941 GMT, lagging a 2.1 percent gain in the DJ Stoxx European car sector index.

The transatlantic linkup between Daimler-Benz and Chrysler was one of the biggest deals in automotive history, but never lived up to its potential and was unwound this year when Chrysler was sold to buyout firm Cerberus Capital Management.

Kerkorian was Chrysler's leading shareholder when it signed the deal that former Chief Executive Juergen Schrempp boasted would form the world's first truly global carmaker.

Kerkorian, who had demanded more than $1 billion in damages, contended that Schrempp only billed the deal as a merger of equals to lower the transaction price and avoid paying shareholders a "control premium".

"Our opinion should by no means be read to imply that the General Assembly may not grant and recognize for homosexual persons civil unions or the right to marry a person of the same sex," Judge Glenn T. Harrell Jr. wrote for the majority.

Plaintiffs said that the judges missed a historic opportunity to strike down a discriminatory law. Legislators on both sides of the debate predicted action on the issue in the next session. The heavily Democratic legislature has passed several gay-rights laws in recent years but has not voted on legalizing same-sex marriage or civil unions.

"I think history will hold them in contempt," plaintiff Lisa Polyak said of the judges. "To create a legal solution in a vacuum, that doesn't recognize that the constitution is there to support the people, is to create an ignorant and irrelevant solution."

State Sen. Richard Madaleno, who is openly gay, said he plans to introduce a bill to allow same-sex marriage. He also expects a proposal to create civil unions.

"I think we'll have a lengthy discussion next session about what the options are for legal recognition for gay people," Madaleno said.

Don Dwyer, one of the General Assembly's most conservative members, said he would introduce a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage as "insurance."

The ACLU of Maryland, which provided legal representation for the plaintiffs, said the fight to legalize same-sex marriage in Maryland would continue.

Many of the plaintiffs have children, and they argue that their families are being denied the stability and legal protection that comes from having married parents.

Lisa Kebreau, 39, and partner Mikki Mozelle, 31, who live in Riverdale, have three children — ages 20 months, 2 and 17.

"We really wanted them to understand how normal and good their family is — that their family is just like any other family," Kebreau said.

Nine same-sex couples and a gay man whose partner died filed the lawsuit in 2004 against court clerks who denied their applications for marriage licenses. Baltimore Circuit Judge M. Brooke Murdock in January struck down the law defining marriage as a union between one man and one woman, but the state immediately appealed.

Murdock's ruling was put on hold during the appeal and never took effect — unlike in Iowa, where same-sex marriage was legal for less than 24 hours last month. Massachusetts is the only state where gay marriage is legal, but nine other states have approved spousal rights in some form for same-sex couples — California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oregon, Vermont and Washington.

In throwing out the lawsuit, the Maryland Court of Appeals ruled that denying same-sex couples the right to marry does not discriminate based on gender because the state law applies equally to men and women. Maryland's Equal Rights Amendment, ratified in 1972, bans discrimination based on gender, but it was not intended to apply to sexual orientation, the court found.

The court also found that the state has an interest in promoting procreation and that the General Assembly "has not acted wholly unreasonably in granting recognition to the only relationship capable of bearing children traditionally within the marital unit."

Arellano-Felix, nicknamed "El Tigrillo" (Little Tiger), was arrested by the US Coast Guard in August last year while fishing in international waters off Mexico's coast.

US authorities alleged he was the head of the Tijuana drug cartel, which has been blamed for the murder and torture of police officers, informants and rivals and is one of the main smugglers of cocaine into the United States.

According to Mexican authorities, Arellano-Felix was also involved in the 1993 assassination of Roman Catholic cardinal Juan Jesus Posadas Ocampo at Guadalajara airport.

The Tijuana cartel distributes illegal drugs, much of it cocaine from Colombia, to the US state of California. Authorities say the group has diversified to include amphetamines and marijuana.

A US indictment for 11 top members of the group unveiled in July 2003 charged them with racketeering, conspiracy to import and distribute cocaine and marijuana, and with money laundering.

The 2003 indictment said the Tijuana operation received multi-tonne shipments of cocaine by sea and air from other traffickers, including Colombia's rebel Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), and then arranged to smuggle the drugs into the United States.

It also said the group "recruited, trained and armed groups of bodyguards and assassins responsible for protecting the leaders of the organization and for conducting assassinations of rival drug traffickers."

Arellano-Felix pleaded guilty on Monday in a deal brokered with justice officials after they indicated they would not seek the death penalty.

The narcotics kingpin also agreed to forfeit 50 million dollars he made from his drugs empire as well as a 43-foot yacht called the Dock Holiday as part of the plea agreement.

A co-defendant, Manuel Arturo Villareal-Heredia, 31 -- a senior lieutenant within the cartel -- also pleaded guilty to racketeering and conspiracy to invest and reinvest illicit drug profits.

Villareal-Heredia agreed to forfeit five million. He faces up to 30 years in prison when he is sentenced on January 7.