Supreme Court To Hear Spectrum Of Case Appeals

The Supreme Court accepted these appeals yesterday:

• A challenge to Washington state's nonpartisan primary system, in which candidates can state their party affiliation and the top two finishers advance to the general election even if they are from the same party.

• A dispute over what constitutes the use of a gun during a drug buy. Federal appeals courts are split over whether a gun provided in exchange for drugs amounts to the use of a gun, triggering a prison term of at least five years.

• A case from New York over whether taxpayers must reimburse parents who enrolled their learning-disabled student in private school after deciding public schools were inadequate.

The court also declined:

• An appeal from Blackwater Security Consulting LLC, a private security company, to have federal, rather than North Carolina, courts, handle a suit stemming from the slaying of four of its guards by an angry mob in Iraq.

• The bid of a former high school teacher in Phoenix to reduce his 200-year prison sentence for possessing child pornography.

• A bigamist's request to overturn his conviction as a violation of his right to practice his religion.

• An appeal from Cathy Lynn Henderson, who is scheduled to die in Texas in April for the 1994 killing of a 3-month-old child she was baby-sitting in her home.

• The case of a Georgia-based carpet and floor-covering company that was sued by its employees for hiring illegal immigrants in an effort to depress wages.