Does defense counsel in capital case violate the requirements of Stricland v. Washington by failing to investigate available mitigation evidence that could well have convinced a jury to impose a life sentence, as this Court concluded in Williams v. Taylor and as most Courts of Appeals have concluded, or is defense counsel's decision not to investigate such evidence virtually unchallengeable so long as counsel's decision not to investigate such evidence virtually unchallengeable so long as counsel knows rudimentary facts about the defendant's background, as the Fourth Circuit held in this case.

1. Whether Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act Requires the Drawing of Safe Majority-Minority Districts with Super majority Minority Populations, Rather than Districts that Afford Minorities Equal Opportunities at Success? 2. Whether Section 5 can be Constitutionally Construed to require the Drawing of Supermajority Minority Legislative Districts in Order to Create Safe Seats, Rather than Seats that Afford Minorities Equal Opportunities at Success? 3. Whether Private Parties Should be Allowed to Intervene in a Section 5 Preclearance Action and Assume the Role and Authority of the Attorney General.

1. Whether petitioners' criminal convictions under the Texas Homosexual Conduct law- which criminalizes sexual intimacy by same-sex couples, but not identical behavior by different-sex couples- violate the Fourteenth Amendment guarantee of equal protection of the laws? 2. Whether Petitioner's criminal convictions for adult consensual sexual intimacy in the home violate their vital interest in liberty and privacy protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment? 3. Whether Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U.S. 186 (1986), should be overruled?

1. Did the California Legislature's abolition of the statute of limitations requirement, which historically comprised an element of the crimes charged, so as to charge Petitioner retroactively, violate the Ex Post Facto Clause? 2. Did the California Legislature's abolition of the Statute of limitations arbitrarily retract a liberty interest the state had conferred on Petitioner?

1. Does the University of Michigan's use of racial preferences in undergraduate admissions violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (42 U.S.C.2000d), or 42 U.S.C. 1981?

The children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA), Pub. L. No. 106-554, Div B, Tit. XVll, 114 State. 2763A-335, provides that a library that is otherwise eligible for special federal assistance for Internet access in the form of discount rates for educational purposes under the Telecommunications Act of 1996, 47 U.S.C. 254(h) (Supp, V 1999), or grants under the Library Services and Technology Act, 20 U.S.C. 9121 et seq., may not receive that assistance unless the library has in place a policy that includes the operation of technology protection measure on Internet-connected computers that protects against access by all persons to visual depictions that are obscene or child pornography, and that protects against access by minors to visual depictions that harmful to minors. 47 U.S.C. 254(h)(6)(B) and (C) (Supp.V 1999); 20 U.S.C. 9134(f)(1). The question presented is whether CIPA induces public libraries to violate the First Amendment, there by exceeding Congress's power under the Spending Clause.

1. Does the University of Michigan Law School's use of racial preferences in student admissions violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (42 U.S.C> 2000d), or 42 U.S.C. 1981? 2. Should an appellate court required to apply strict scrutiny to governmental race-based preferences review de novo the district court's findings because the fact issues are constitutional?

California's Holocaust Victim Insurance Relief Act (HVIRA) requires California insurers to provide extensive information regarding every insurance policy issued in Nazi dominated Europe between 1920 and 1945 by any insurer with which the California insurer now has a legal relationship. The district court enjoined enforcement of the Act on three constitutional grounds: interference with the federal government's power over foreign affairs, due process, and the Foreign Commerce Clause. Over the objections of the U.S. government and affected foreign governments, and in direct conflict with Gerling Global Reinsurance Corp. v. Gallagher, 267 F.3d 1228 (11th Cir. 2001), the Ninth Circuit reversed and upheld the HVIRA in all respects. 1. Whether the HVIRA, which the U.S. government has called an actual interference with U.S. foreign policy, and which affected foreign governments have protested as inconsistent with international agreements, violates the foreign affairs doctrine of Zschering v. Miller, 389 U.S. 429 (1968). 2. Whether the HVIRA, which attempts to regulate insurance transactions that occurred overseas between foreign parties more than half a century ago, exceeds California's legislative jurisdiction under the Due Process Clause. 3. Whether the McCarran-Ferguson Act, 15 U.S.C. 1011-1015, insulates the HVIRA form review under the Foreign Commerce Clause.

Whether the federal Arbitration Act, 9 U.S.C.1et seq., prohibits class-action procedures from being superimposed onto an arbitration agreement that does not provide for class action arbitration.

1. May a criminal defendant escape conviction by invoking the overbreadth doctrine even though (I) his own offense did not involve any expressive conduct, and (ii) his conduct was not proscribed by that portion of the government statute, regulation or policy of the government statute, regulation or policy he challenges as overbroad? 2. In the context of government's attempts to exclude some non-residents from a public housing complex, does the Constitution recognize a distinction between actions taken by government as landlord and actions taken by government as sovereign?