Justices turned down an appeal from a Roman Catholic organization which wanted the court to weigh in on a growing trend of states requiring employers that offer prescription benefits to employees to also cover birth-control pills.

The court's announcement keeps the justices out of a divisive church-state dispute; about 20 states require employers that have prescription drug benefit plans to also cover birth-control pills.

Justices had been asked to review California's law, which exempts churches but not church-backed institutions such as hospitals and charity organizations.

Catholic Charities had challenged the law, on grounds that it could not be required to pay for something it viewed as sinful. The state Supreme Court ruled against the group last spring.

"If the state of California can coerce Catholic agencies to pay for contraceptives, it can force them to pay for abortions," attorney Kevin Baine told justices in an appeal for Catholic Charities.

The case turned on the group's First Amendment right to exercise its religious beliefs without government interference.

Timothy Muscat, California's deputy attorney general, said that Catholic Charities could get around the requirement by not offering insurance to employees.

The law was passed in 1999 to stop discrimination against women who had to pay more for drugs than men.

The court, without comment, let stand the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' decision that upheld the registry of more than 57 million phone numbers as a reasonable government attempt to safeguard privacy and reduce telemarketing abuse.

Under the 2003 federal law, businesses face fines of up to $11,000 if they call people who sign up for the registry, unless they have recently done business with them. Charities, pollsters and callers on behalf of politicians, however, are exempt.

The court, without comment, let stand a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision that the caps on contributions by individuals and political action committees were justified to prevent even the appearance of corruption in the state political process.

Montana Right to Life Association had filed the appeal, saying the contribution limits prevented candidates from waging effective campaigns. The limits restricted the First Amendment rights of those wanting to donate money, it said.

The circuit court disagreed, basing its 2003 decision on two U.S. Supreme Court rulings that said campaign contribution limits are permissible if they satisfy an important enough state interest and are narrowly written to do that.

The high court, without comment, let stand an Arizona Supreme Court ruling that the drug tests violated Mesa, Ariz., firefighter Craig Petersen's privacy rights under the Fourth Amendment. The Arizona court said the city did not provide enough evidence that substance abuse was a widespread problem among the firefighters to warrant testing.

In its legal filing, the city argued in part that it had a special need to conduct testing without any suspicion aimed at individual firefighters because their jobs now demand a high level of performance and speedy response, particularly after the Sept. 11 attacks. Mesa's random testing was begun before the 2001 attacks.

The Supreme Court last spring considered the cases of the other two - Jose Padilla and Yaser Hamdi - as well as an appeal involving similar detentions of people held at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The Bush administration maintains that al-Marri is an al-Qaida sleeper agent.

At issue in Monday's case was whether al-Marri's lawyers should have challenged his detention in a court in South Carolina, where he is being held. The attorneys filed the case in Illinois, where al-Marri lived before his arrest. With the high court's announcement, they can refile his challenge.

Attorney Curtis F.J. Doebbler of Washington had asked the court to review the case as an indigent appeal without the usual $300 filing fee. The request required special court approval since the legal papers did not have Saddam's signature vouching that he had no assets.

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