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 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.

The Roman Catholic diocese of Bridgeport, Conn., is expected to release thousands of documents connected to sexual abuse lawsuits.

The diocese was ordered by a Waterbury Superior Court judge to release the papers Tuesday.

The files include more than 12,000 pages from 23 lawsuits against six priests settled by the diocese in 2001. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the diocese's appeal of a Connecticut Supreme Court decision ordering release of the documents.

Depositions, affidavits and motions are included in the records, which have been under seal. They could shed light on how newly retired New York Cardinal Edward Egan handled the abuse allegations when he was Bridgeport bishop.

The latest property rights battle before the U.S. Supreme Court started where the Gulf of Mexico laps at the crystalline white beaches of this seaside resort.

The justices will hear oral arguments Wednesday over whether a nearly seven-mile stretch of beach is public or private after the state of Florida poured more sand on the rapidly eroding shores. The new sand dumped in a project that ended in 2007 was designated public property by the state, angering residents who believe their property extends to the water, no matter how much sand is in between.

Six residents claim in a lawsuit they are due undetermined compensation, contending the state's action was a "taking" of their property.

"They have been trying to take our private beaches and make them public for years now," said Linda Cherry, head of the local Save Our Beaches group that supports the landowners. "In this case, they are taking our property without permission and without compensation. If the government can take our property like this, they can take anyone's property."

It's the first major property rights case to come before the high court since Justice Sonia Sotomayor took the bench. Perhaps the most famous and controversial "takings" case came in 2005, when the justices ruled 5-4 that cities had the right to use eminent domain powers to take property for private development.

The Iowa Court of Appeals has ruled a Washington County man convicted of shaking his 6-month-old daughter to death must be resentenced.

Jared York was found guilty of child endangerment with bodily injury and involuntary manslaughter. He was sentenced in 2005 to the maximum on both counts for a total of 10 years in prison.

Under Iowa law, a defendant can be convicted of either a public offense or a lesser offense, but not both. The public offense in York's case was child endangerment. The court ruled it was impossible to commit the greater offense without also committing the lesser offense.

The court said the two offenses would merge and there's no clear indication the Legislature intended cumulative punishments, as were given to York.

Roman Polanski remained in jail Monday, despite visits from his lawyer and a French diplomat, and it was unclear if the director had met Switzerland's demand of a full bail payment of $4.5 million to be released.

The Swiss Justice Ministry declined to say what guarantees Polanski needed to give to be transferred from the jail near Zurich to house arrest at his chalet in the luxury resort of Gstaad.

In addition to bail, the 76-year-old filmmaker must surrender his identity papers and be fitted with an electronic monitoring bracelet. He would not be allowed to leave his property as he awaits a decision on whether he will be extradited to the U.S. for having sex in 1977 with a 13-year-old girl.

"The bail must be wired to a bank account, and the bank must then notify us that it has received the bail," ministry spokesman Folco Galli said. "Nothing happens before that."

The full bail payment is standard practice in Switzerland, Galli said.

That is different from other countries such as the United States, where bail bondsmen often post a percentage of the total payment required by a court.

Polanski has been in Swiss custody since being arrested Sept. 26 on a U.S. warrant as he arrived in Zurich to receive a lifetime achievement award at a film festival. Authorities in Los Angeles want him returned to be sentenced after 31 years as a fugitive.

A federal court has ruled that an execution set for Dec. 8 can go forward due to a change in Ohio's lethal injection policies.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati said Wednesday that the change renders moot Kenneth Biros' argument that the state's former policy using a three-drug vein injection is unconstitutional.

A U.S. District Court judge had temporarily delayed Biros' execution after the governor halted the lethal injection of another inmate in September because prison staff could not find suitable veins.

The state last week announced that it was changing its protocol, effective Nov. 30, to use a one-drug vein injection with a backup two-drug muscle injection.

A message seeking comment was left for Biros' attorney Wednesday morning.