The Supreme Court is refusing to disturb a ruling from New Jersey's top court that sided with Gov. Chris Christie in a legal fight with public worker unions over pension funds.

The justices did not comment Monday in rejecting the unions' appeal. The high court order came less than three weeks after Christie ended his run for the Republican presidential nomination.

New Jersey's Supreme Court ruled last year that the state is obligated to pay individual retirees their pensions. But it overturned a lower court ruling that would have forced the state to come up with billions to pay promised pension benefits.

The Supreme Court signaled support Monday for a black death row inmate in Georgia who claims prosecutors improperly kept African-Americans off the jury that convicted him of killing a white woman.
 
Justice Stephen Breyer likened the chief prosecutor to his excuse-filled grandson. Justice Elena Kagan said the case seemed as clear a violation "as a court is ever going to see" of rules the Supreme Court laid out in 1986 to prevent racial discrimination in the selection of juries.

At least six of the nine justices indicated during arguments that black people were improperly singled out and kept off the jury that eventually sentenced defendant Timothy Tyrone Foster to death in 1987.

Foster could win a new trial if the Supreme Court rules his way. The discussion Monday also suggested that a technical issue might prevent the justices from deciding the substance of Foster's case.

Georgia Deputy Attorney General Beth Burton had little support on the court for the proposition that prosecutor Stephen Lanier advanced plausible "race-neutral" reasons that resulted in an all-white jury for Foster's trial. Foster was convicted of killing 79-year-old Queen Madge White in her home in Rome, Georgia.

Several justices noted that Lanier's reasons for excusing people from the jury changed over time, including the arrest of the cousin of one black juror. The record in the case indicates that Lanier learned of the arrest only after the jury had been seated. "That seems an out and out false statement," Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said.

Breyer drew an analogy with a grandson who was looking for any reason not to do his homework, none of them especially convincing.

A German court says a 93-year-old former SS sergeant charged with 170,000 counts of accessory to murder on allegations he served as an Auschwitz death camp guard has been declared fit for trial.
 
The Detmold state court said Monday a doctor determined that Reinhold H., whose last name wasn't given for privacy reasons, is fit to stand trial so long as sessions are limited to two hours per day.

Defense attorneys and prosecutors now have two weeks to submit responses to the expert opinion. The court will then decide whether to open a trial.

H. is accused of being an accessory to murders at Auschwitz from January 1943 to June 1944. The suspect says he was assigned to a part of the camp not involved in the mass murders.

Thousands waving Catalan independence flags rallied Thursday in support of regional acting President Artur Mas who was being questioned at a Barcelona court for holding a symbolic referendum on secession from Spain.
   
Some 400 pro-independence mayors and independence party leaders joined Mas and his government councilors as he walked parade-style to the court building, cheered on by some 5,000 supporters. Chants of "Independence! Independence!" and "This court does not represent us!" rang out as Mas stopped to salute the crowd at the building's steps.

Speaking later, Mas said he accepted full responsibility for last year's referendum and accused the central Spanish government in Madrid of turning what he considered a democratic process into a criminal one.

Mas is under investigation for grave disobedience, abuse of public funds, prevarication, usurping powers and obstructing justice. If tried and found guilty, he could face disqualification from office or up to one year in jail. Two associates are also under investigation.

The probe was opened after Catalonia went ahead with the Nov. 9, 2014 referendum, defying a ruling by Spain's Constitutional Court. In the mock poll, less than half of those eligible took part, with some 80 percent voting in favor of breaking away from Spain.

A man accused in some of the freeway shootings that put Phoenix drivers on edge for weeks pleaded not guilty Thursday as his defense lawyers questioned the strength of the evidence against him.

Attorneys for Leslie Allen Merritt Jr., 21, who was arraigned on 15 felony counts, including aggravated assault and carrying out a drive-by shooting, said outside court that the investigation by state police does not place him at the shooting scenes.

"We're going to work diligently to make sure that we investigate this fully, and we believe in his innocence," said Ulises Ferragut, one of Merritt's two attorneys.

Ferragut and attorney Jason Lamm also cited investigators' evolving timeline of the shootings. They plan to do their own investigation, looking into another person possibly admitting responsibility for any of the 11 shootings, Lamm said. They didn't identify that person or provide details.

"It's very, very early in the game to get hard confirmation on that," Lamm said.

Department of Public Safety investigators used ballistics tests to tie Merritt to four of the 11 shootings that occurred on Phoenix-area freeways between Aug. 22 and Sept. 10.

A federal appeals court on Friday considered whether a judge could reject as too lenient a deal to settle criminal charges against a Dutch company accused of illegally selling aircraft parts to Iran, Sudan and Myanmar.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia heard arguments in a case involving the Justice Department's decision not to prosecute Fokker Services BV under an agreement that called for $21 million in penalties.

A federal judge earlier this year refused to accept the deal, which he called "grossly disproportionate to the gravity of Fokker Services' conduct in a post-9/11 world."

The dispute comes as the Justice Department this week trumpeted its commitment to hold company executives more accountable for corporate fraud. The new guidance follows persistent criticism that the department has not been aggressive enough in prosecuting individuals for financial misconduct, including after the mortgage crisis that led to an economic meltdown.

The Justice Department says the judge is interfering with the discretion of prosecutors, but that argument faced resistance from the three-judge panel hearing the case. All three appellate judges agreed that courts have some authority to decide whether to accept settlements, though they disagreed over the extent of that authority.

"You have a very steep hill to climb," Judge David Sentelle told Justice Department lawyer Aditya Bamzai during arguments that took place on the 14th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.