The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to block a lawsuit against a former prime minister of Somalia over claims that he oversaw killings and torture in his home country.

The high court said it will allow lawsuits against Mohamed Ali Samantar to go forward despite his claims of immunity under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act. However, the court warned that the U.S. District Court will have to decide whether Samantar can access other claims of immunity that could stop the trial.

The court's decision could have broad foreign policy implications. Allowing lawsuits against former foreign officials living in the United States could increase the likelihood that U.S. officials would be sued in overseas courts. An increase in the number of U.S. lawsuits dealing with past actions in foreign countries could also affect the United States' current ties with those countries.

Samantar was defense minister and prime minister of Somalia in the 1980s and early 1990s under dictator Siad Barre.

He now lives in Virginia. He is being sued under the Torture Victim Protection Act by Somalis living in the United States who were subjected to persecution in the 1980s. They say Samantar was in charge of military forces who tortured, killed or detained them or members of their families.

A 10-page order signed on Wednesday by Los Angeles County Superior Judge Carl West also recommends that the state-based litigation, consisting of consumer-fraud class actions and personal injury claims, be assigned to a single judge in neighboring Orange County.

The order lists 40 separate cases filed so far in California courts against the Japanese automaker seeking damages for sudden, unintended acceleration of Toyota vehicles, said Aldwin Lim, a court clerk.

A final decision on assigning the cases rests with the chief justice of the state Supreme Court, Ronald George, and he is expected to render his decision in two to three weeks.

Complaints of runaway vehicles and other safety issues have led to the recall of more than 8.5 million Toyota vehicles worldwide, most for repairs of ill-fitting floor mats and sticking gas pedals the automaker blames for surging engines.

At a hearing before West on Tuesday, a lawyer for Toyota Motor Corp urged the judge to order all the California court cases to be sent to Orange County, the same jurisdiction where over 100 separate Toyota cases brought in U.S. district courts around the country have been assigned to a single federal judge.

Judges at the court said in a report that Sudan has refused to hand over Humanitarian Affairs Minister Ahmed Harun and Janjaweed militia leader Ali Kushayb.

"After taking all possible measures to ensure the cooperation of the Republic of the Sudan, the Chamber concludes that the Republic of the Sudan is failing to comply with its cooperation obligations," the report said.

The court ordered the men arrested in 2007 on a total of 51 charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes.

In a motion filed hours before the court deadline on Monday, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius argued that Congress acted well within its authority. It also claims Virginia lacks jurisdiction to sue.

State Attorney General Ken sued hours after Congress passed the sweeping health reform bill in March.

He alleged that by requiring Virginians to buy health coverage or pay a fee, Congress exceeded its authority under the 10th Amendment.

Sebelius argues that the new law is well within the scope of the Commerce Clause of the Constitution.

The Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether a Texas death row inmate should have access to evidence for DNA testing that he says could clear him of three murders.

The justices said Monday they will use the case of Hank Skinner to decide whether prison inmates may use a federal civil rights law to do DNA testing that was not performed prior to their conviction.

Federal appeals courts around the country have decided the issue differently. The high court previously blocked Skinner's execution while it considered his appeal.

Skinner, 47, faced lethal injection for the bludgeoning and strangling of his girlfriend, Twila Jean Busby, 40, and the stabbing of her two adult sons. The slayings occurred at their home in the Texas Panhandle town of Pampa on New Year's Eve in 1993.

He was arrested about three hours after the bodies were found. Police found him in a closet at the trailer home of a woman he knew. He was splattered with the blood of at least two of the victims.

Elena Kagan, a Supreme Court nominee without judicial experience, has suggested in writings and speeches over a quarter-century that when judges make decisions, they must take account of their values and experience and consider politics and policy, rather than act as robotic umpires.

Not since 1972 has a president picked someone for the high court who hasn't been a judge. So what the 50-year-old Kagan has said about judging might be the best indicator of the kind of justice she would be.

Republicans have said that because Kagan hasn't left a trail of judicial opinions, they will pore over her records as a Clinton White House aide and academic for any clues. Her speeches and papers from her time as dean of the Harvard Law School and, before that as a law professor and graduate student, are certain to get close attention at her confirmation hearing in late June.

Her words stand in contrast to the more technical view of judging voiced by Chief Justice John Roberts at his confirmation hearing five years ago. Roberts said he considered himself an umpire merely calling balls and strikes.

Kagan apparently has never directly addressed Roberts' comments. Republicans have held his description of the job as a model of judicial restraint and used it to criticize President Barack Obama for what they call his support of judicial activism — judges imposing their own views on the law.

A federal appeals court says the civilian courts do not have authority to hear the cases of three detainees imprisoned at Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan.

The detainees had petitioned the courts seeking to be freed.

The jurisdiction of the U.S. courts does not extend to foreigners held in the Bagram facility in the Afghan theater of war, three appeals court judges said in a unanimous decision. The appeals judges said a U.S. district judge should have thrown out the detainees' petitions.

The ruling noted that the U.S. is holding the detainees through a cooperative arrangement with Afghanistan on Afghan territory.

"While we cannot say that extending our constitutional protections to the detainees would be in any way disruptive of that relationship, neither can we say with certainty what the reaction of the Afghan government would be," said the opinion written by Judge David Sentelle.