The Supreme Court hears arguments this week in a case that will test the limits of what officers can do to stop speeding drivers in high-speed chases.

At issue before the court is whether a Georgia police officer went too far when he rammed his vehicle into a car driven by a fleeing 19-year-old -- a maneuver that left the motorist paralyzed.

Law enforcement officers around the country are anxiously watching the case, concerned that a ruling for the quadriplegic driver would put them in legal jeopardy for split-second decisions at crime scenes.

Meanwhile, civil liberties advocates and critics of police chases are concerned that a ruling for the officer in the case would give law enforcement the green light to use more aggressive tactics on the roads.

Law enforcement agencies should "authorize high-speed pursuits only when necessary," said Karen Blum, a law professor at Suffolk University in Boston, who filed a brief in the case for the National Police Accountability Project. "The tactics employed by (the officer in this case) present serious issues of police accountability and raise questions about police tactics."

The chase occurred in 2001 in Coweta County, Ga., a community about 30 miles southwest of Atlanta. Victor Harris, 19 at the time, was clocked driving 73 mph in a 55-mph zone. A county sheriff flashed his lights and turned on his siren, but Harris hit the gas and sped away. Deputy Timothy Scott joined the pursuit, which lasted for six minutes and covered almost 9 miles.

A trial court found that Harris drove between 70 and 90 mph, ran through two red lights, and bumped Scott's vehicle once. Nevertheless, Harris still used his turn indicators when passing other cars on the largely vacant roads.

Scott radioed a supervisor and got permission to use a "precision intervention technique" -- a maneuver for hitting another car that causes it to spin and then stop. But the deputy ultimately abandoned the technique because he and Harris were driving too fast on a wet, two-lane highway.

Instead, Scott hit Harris' car with his push bumper -- a move that caused the vehicle to careen down an embankment. Harris, who was not wearing a seat belt, was paralyzed from the neck down.

Harris filed a lawsuit against Scott, alleging violation of his rights under the Fourth Amendment's guarantees against unreasonable seizures and excessive force.

A federal district court in Georgia ruled that the deputy could be held liable in civil court for using deadly force without having probable cause to believe the teenager had committed a serious crime or posed a threat to others. In December 2005, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that decision.

Scott appealed the ruling to the Supreme Court, which hears oral arguments in the case on Monday.

The deputy was acting "reasonably," argued his attorney, Philip Savrin, because a "fleeing car can be a deadly weapon" and Scott "believed that his actions avoided a greater risk of serious injury or death."

Savrin added: "Scott personally observed Harris driving recklessly and dangerously at extremely high speeds, through red lights and on the wrong side of the road. Scott properly recognized that Harris was a continuing danger to the public, and he acted reasonably to defuse the danger."

The Supreme Court's ruling in the case is expected to set new benchmarks for when and how law enforcement officers can chase suspects and use their vehicles to stop them.

The issue is murky because the previous two rulings on the use of deadly force were roughly two decades ago -- and those did not deal with car chases.

For instance, in 1985, the Supreme Court said deadly force can be used when a suspect threatens an officer with a weapon or there is probable cause to believe the suspect has committed a crime causing serious physical harm.

In 1989, the high court said judges deciding whether the use of deadly force is reasonable must weigh the underlying crime involved, the immediate threat a suspect poses and whether the suspect is actively evading arrest.

Harris' attorney, Craig Jones, argued that Harris' only offense at the beginning of the police chase was speeding -- a relatively minor crime that did not warrant such a risky pursuit.

Jones warned that a ruling against his client would give law enforcement officers carte blanche to recklessly and "knowingly apply deadly force in circumstances when no life is in immediate danger in order to seize a fleeing traffic offender."

The US military lawyer for Australian Guantanamo Bay detainee David Hicks said Saturday that Hicks would spend years in court and could not get a fair trial before a US military commission. In remarks at a rally in Adelaide, US Marine Corps Maj. Michael Mori noted that the revised military commissions system could not be used to try American citizens and questioned how such a system could then be fair enough for foreign citizens. Mori said that he believed the military tribunals were designed to deliver guilty verdicts and asserted that even if a decision on Hicks' guilt or innocence comes relatively quickly, it would likely take two or more years before an appeal from Hicks or another detainee made it to the US Supreme Court.

Hicks is one of three high profile Guantanamo prisoners facing new charges announced by the US earlier this month. The original charges against Hicks, Canadian Omar Khadr and Yemeni Salim Hamdan and other detainees had to be dropped after the US Supreme Court ruled the original military commissions system was unconstitutional as initially established by presidential order. Hicks was picked up in Afghanistan in 2001 while allegedly fighting for the Taliban. US prosecutors claim that he trained at up to four terrorist camps. The charges against him must still be formally approved, but US Vice President Dick Cheney has said that Hicks will be among the first to be tried  after the DOD's convening authority makes a determination whether a military commission should be convened to consider the charges.

The International Criminal Court in The Hague is scheduled to rule Monday on the genocide suit filed in 1993 by Bosnia-Herzegovina against Yugoslavia.

Basing its charges on the 1948 United Nations Convention on Genocide, Bosnia brought the case before the United Nations high court demanding damages.

In the 1990s, Serb-dominated Yugoslavia moved militarily against its regions that were seeking independence. Serbia stands as the accused since the disintegration of Yugoslavia.

The case is the first in which the UN court will apply the 1948 convention.

The Bosnian genocide case is not connected with trials by the International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague, before which individual war crimes suspects must personally answer. The tribunal, which has already ruled that the 1995 massacre of Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica was genocide.

Earlier Friday, 46 of 49 countries participating in the two-day Oslo Conference on Cluster Munitions agreed to an action plan to develop a new international treaty to ban the use of cluster munitions by 2008. Romania, Poland and Japan refused to sign the Oslo Declaration. The United States, Russia, Israel, and China chose not to attend the conference. Cluster munitions are considered by many to be inaccurate weapons designed to spread damage indiscriminately and could therefore be considered illegal [CMC backgrounder] under multiple provisions of Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions (1977).

The Democratic-controlled Montana Senate voted 27-21 Friday to give second-reading approval to a bill that would eliminate the death penalty in Montana. Third reading is slated for February 24 before the measure goes to the Republican-controlled state House of Representatives.

Eleven US states have recently suspended the death penalty pending review of the manner in which the death penalty is administered. In early-February, Tennessee governor suspended executions pending procedural review. In January a North Carolina state judge issued an injunction blocking executions there until Governor Mike Easley issues new procedures to execute capital defendants without the presence of doctors. Capital punishment has also been suspended in Florida, California, and New Jersey, Arkansas, Delaware, Maryland, Missouri, Ohio, and South Dakota.

Shares of Alcatel-Lucent rose 2.6 percent after a U.S. federal jury ruled that Microsoft Corp. must pay the French company $1.52 billion for using digital music technology without permission.

The shares rose 26 cents to close at 10.09 euros in Paris, giving Alcatel-Lucent, the world's largest maker of telecommunications equipment, a market value of 23.3 billion euros ($30.7 billion).

Microsoft, the world's largest software maker, infringed two patents of Paris-based Alcatel-Lucent with its Windows Media Player, including the version in the new Vista operating system, a San Diego jury said Thursday. Microsoft said it will appeal the verdict.

"The jury's decision, if confirmed, would open the way for Alcatel-Lucent to file a large number of lawsuits against other companies using these patents illegally," analysts Frank Maccary and Eric Beaudet at Ixis Securities wrote in a note.

One of the disputed patents relates to compression of digital audio signals, while the other describes how to encode and play digital music. The jury upheld the validity of the patents and found that Alcatel-Lucent is entitled to more than $759 million for each of the two infringed patents.

Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft said it licenses technology from a German researcher, Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS. Fraunhofer helped develop MP3 audio-compression technology with Bell Labs, once part of Lucent Technologies Inc., which Alcatel SA acquired last year.

The decision allows Alcatel-Lucent to seek an order barring Microsoft from using the patented technology. The victory may clear the way for legal actions against hundreds of companies that rely on MP3, the standard for playing music and sound files on mobile phones and digital-music players.

A federal jury in California awarded Alcatel-Lucent $1.52 billion dollars in damages Thursday for violations of two of Alcatel-Lucent's digital music patents committed by Microsoft. The patents govern technology that converts audio input into MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3, more commonly known as MP3, which Microsoft has incorporated into several variants of its Windows Media Player. Microsoft has said that it properly licenses the MP3 technology from Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, a German company which Microsoft describes as the "industry recognized licensor."

Microsoft plans to appeal the jury's decision, which could have far-reaching implications in the digital media industry, as large numbers of companies in the industry, including Apple, Nokia, and Sony, license its MP3 technology from Fraunhofer.

Related claims against Gateway and Dell are still pending. Lucent Technologies filed 15 patent claims in 2003 alleging that the PC makers violated patents governing technology developed by its research and development organization, Bell Laboratories. Microsoft joined in the litigation as an intervenor and counter-claimant, due to its wide circulation of Windows Media Player through its Windows operating system. Lucent Technologies was acquired by Alcatel in December of 2006.