But because the lower courts never actually ruled on the merits of the law giving Americans born in Jerusalem the right to have Israel listed as their birthplace — only that judges should not get involved — Roberts said the high court did not have enough facts to determine the law’s constitutionality.

“Ours is a court of final review and not first view,” said Roberts, who sent the case back down to the lower courts for rehearing.

The parents of Jerusalem-born Menachem Zivotofsky sued the State Department after it wouldn’t issue the boy a passport showing he was born in Israel. The United States has refused to recognize any nation’s sovereignty over Jerusalem since Israel’s creation in 1948, so his passport only says “Jerusalem” as his birthplace.

At the time, Jerusalem was divided, with Israel controlling the western part of the city and Jordan holding sway over the eastern sector that includes key Jewish, Muslim and Christian holy sites. Israel captured east Jerusalem from Jordan in the 1967 Mideast war, annexed the area and proclaimed the once-divided city as its capital. The Palestinians claim east Jerusalem as their capital.

The international community does not recognize the Israeli annexation and says the fate of the holy city should be resolved through negotiations.

Congress passed the law seeking to give Americans born there the right to have Israel listed as their birthplace in 2002; but Republican and Democratic administrations have refused to enforce it. The government said the passport policy is in line with longstanding U.S. foreign policy that says the status of Jerusalem should be resolved in negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.

Justice Stephen Breyer was the only dissenter on the court, saying there is a “serious risk” that judicial “intervention will bring about ‘embarrassment,’ show lack of ‘respect’ for the other branches, and potentially disrupt sound foreign policy decision making.”

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit agreed, saying that the federal judiciary has no authority to consider the matter, which they have labeled a political dispute that is best resolved by the other two branches of government without court involvement.

The Obama administration, like its Republican and Democratic predecessors, says it doesn’t want to stir up anger in the Arab world by appearing to take a position on the ultimate fate of Jerusalem.

But Roberts said the question before the court is not a political one.

“The federal courts are not being asked to supplant a foreign policy decision of the political branches with the courts’ own unmoored determination of what the United States policy toward Jerusalem should be,” Roberts said. “Instead, Zivotofsky requests that the courts enforce a specific statutory right. To resolve his claim, the judiciary must decide if Zivotofsky’s interpretation of the statute is correct, and whether the statute is constitutional. This is a familiar judicial exercise.”

The passport restriction applies to people born anywhere in Jerusalem, including the hospital in the western part where Menachem was born in 2002.

In late 2002, Naomi Zivotofsky, Menachem’s mother, showed up at the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv to get her baby a U.S. passport, one that listed Israel as his birthplace. After State Department officials refused her request, the family sued.

The family argues that the State Department has made an exception for U.S citizens born in Taiwan. Their passports may list their place of birth as Taiwan, rather than China. They also note that the State Department gives people born before Israel’s creation in 1948 the option to say they were born in Palestine.

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Q: When will the court get started?

A: Justices will begin hearing arguments shortly after 10 a.m. EDT Monday, March 26. They will hear six hours of arguments on several different issues on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

Q: Which issues on which days?

A: Monday’s 90-minute argument is about whether court action is premature because no one yet has paid a fine for not having health insurance. Tuesday’s two-hour argument will cover the central issue of whether Congress overstepped its authority by requiring Americans to purchase health insurance starting in 2014 or pay a penalty. Wednesday’s arguments will be split into two parts: Justices will hear 90 minutes of debate in the morning over whether the rest of the law can take effect even if the health insurance mandate is unconstitutional and another hour Wednesday afternoon over whether the law goes too far in coercing states to expand the federal-state Medicaid program for low-income people by threatening to cut off federal aid to states that don’t comply.

Q: When will the justices rule?

A: The court could decide any time, but complex cases argued in the spring normally produce decisions near the end of the court’s session, scheduled for late June.

Q: Is it possible that the justices won’t decide whether the law is constitutional or not?

A: It is possible. The first issue the court is discussing is whether an obscure tax law makes it too early for the Supreme Court to get involved. If they decide that the issue is premature, then the case will be dismissed without a binding ruling from the justices.

Q: What did lower federal courts say?

A: The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta ruled that Congress overstepped its authority when lawmakers passed the insurance mandate, the only appeals court to come to that conclusion. The 6th U.S Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati upheld the entire law, as did the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in Washington, D.C. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., ruled that the question was premature and the law can’t be challenged in court until after 2015, when the first penalties for not having insurance would be paid.

Q: Who are the justices on the Supreme Court?

A: The chief justice is John Roberts, who joined the court in 2005 after being nominated by President George W. Bush. In order of seniority, the other justices are Antonin Scalia (confirmed in 1986 after being nominated by President Ronald Reagan), Anthony Kennedy (1988 by Reagan), Clarence Thomas (1991 by President George H.W. Bush), Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1993 by President Bill Clinton), Stephen Breyer (1994 by Clinton), Samuel Alito (2006 by President George W. Bush), Sonia Sotomayor (2009 by Obama) and Elena Kagan (2010 by Obama.)

Q: Who will be arguing for the law?

A: Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli, Jr. will argue for the government on Monday and Tuesday. Deputy Solicitor General Edwin S. Kneedler will present part of the government’s case on Wednesday, and Verrilli will do the rest. Information about Verrilli and the solicitior general’s office can be found here: http://www.justice.gov/osg/index.html . A court-appointed lawyer, H. Bartow Farr III, will also argue that if government cannot require people to buy health insurance, all other provisions of the law can go into effect. Another court-appointed lawyer, Robert Long, will also argue that the lawsuits challenging the insurance purchase requirement are premature because the penalty has yet to be imposed.

Q: Who will be arguing against the law?

A: Representing Florida on Monday will be Washington appellate lawyer Gregory G. Katsas. Former Solicitor General Paul Clement, now in private practice, will represent Florida on Tuesday and Wednesday. Former Justice Department attorney Michael A. Carvin will represent the National Federation of Independent Businesses.

Q: Can I go watch the arguments, and if I can’t make it to Washington, can I watch on television or online?

A: The Supreme Court does not allow live television or radio broadcasts from inside its building, so the only way Americans can actually see or hear the arguments live is to be inside the courtroom while lawyers and justices debate. There are seats reserved inside the courtroom for members of the public on a first-come, first-served basis, with some people allowed to stay for the entire argument while others have to leave the courtroom and give their seats to the next people in line after 3-5 minutes. The Supreme Court will also make the audio recording of the arguments available later the same day on its website: http://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_audio.aspx.

Q: What type of health care do the justices get, and will they be affected by their ruling?

A: The justices participate in the same health care plan as members of Congress and other federal workers. As participants in an employee-sponsored health care plan, it is unlikely that whatever decision the Supreme Court makes will substantially affect their personal health care insurance.

Q: I’ve heard people say that Justices Elena Kagan and Clarence Thomas should take no part in this case? What’s that about?

A: Opponents of the law wanted Kagan to disqualify herself because she served as solicitor general under Obama when the health care overhaul law was conceived and passed. She has said she did not participate in crafting a legal defense for the law, but her detractors doubt her statement. Thomas’ detractors insist that he should have disqualified himself because his wife, Ginni, worked with groups that opposed the new law.

Decisions to stay out of a case are the responsibility of each individual justice, and neither Kagan nor Thomas justice stepped aside.

Roberts said in his 2011 year-end report that he has “complete confidence in the capability of my colleagues to determine when recusal is warranted. They are jurists of exceptional integrity and experience whose character and fitness have been examined through a rigorous appointment and confirmation process. I know that they each give careful consideration to any recusal questions that arise in the course of their judicial duties.”

“The court today embraces the sporting chance theory of criminal law, in which the state functions like a conscientious casino operator, giving each player a fair chance to beat the house, that is, serve less time than the law says he deserves. And when a player is excluded from the tables, his constitutional rights have been violated,” Scalia said. “I do not subscribe to that theory. No one should, least of all justices of the Supreme Court.”

The two opinions, both written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, have the potential to affect thousands of criminal cases with the Justice Department reporting that 97 percent of federal convictions and 94 percent of state convictions in 2009 were the result of a guilty plea.

The decisions laid out by Kennedy means that criminal defense lawyers are now required to inform their clients of plea bargain offers, regardless of whether they think the client should accept them, and must give their clients good advice on whether to accept a plea bargain at all stages of prosecution. If they don’t, Kennedy said, they will run afoul of the Sixth Amendment right to assistance of counsel during criminal proceedings.

“The right to counsel is the right to effective assistance of counsel,” Kennedy said.

In the cases before the court, Galin Edward Frye was never told by his lawyer about plea bargain offers from Missouri before he pleaded guilty to driving with a revoked license before his trial. In the second case, Blaine Lafler rejected a plea offer on the advice of his lawyer, and then was convicted of assault with intent to murder and other charges and sentenced after a jury trial in Michigan.

In both cases, Kennedy sent the convictions back down to the lower courts because the actions of the lawyers.

“This court now holds that, as a general rule, defense counsel has the duty to communicate formal offers from the prosecution to accept a plea on terms and conditions that may be favorable to the accused,” Kennedy said. “… When the defense counsel allowed the offer to expire without advising the defendant or allowing him to consider it, defense counsel did not render the effective assistance the Constitution requires.”

In the second case, “if a plea bargain has been offered, a defendant has the right to effective assistance of counsel in considering whether to accept it,” Kennedy said. “If that right is denied, prejudice can be shown if loss of the plea opportunity led to a trial resulting in a conviction on more serious charges or the imposition of a more severe sentence.”

Kennedy was joined in both opinions by the court’s liberals, Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

In Frye’s case, a lower court will have to decide whether prosecutors would have been required to stick to their offer to Frye, because he was rearrested on the same charge of driving with a revoked license less than a week before his preliminary hearing.

Frye’s August 2007 arrest was his fourth on the same charge, so he was charged with a felony that had a maximum sentence of four years. Missouri prosecutors originally offered Frye two deals, including pleading to a misdemeanor with a sentence recommendation of three months. With no knowledge of that offer, Frye ended up entering a guilty plea and was given three years in prison.

Cooper was arrested after shooting a woman in the buttocks, hip and abdomen in 2003. He was charged with assault with intent to murder and three other charges, but was offered a deal where prosecutors would drop two of the charges and recommend a maximum of 85 months in prison. But Cooper’s lawyer told him to reject the deal, saying incorrectly that the prosecutors couldn’t prove murder because he had shot the woman below the waist. He did, and was sentenced to a maximum of 30 years in prison.

Kennedy said Michigan prosecutors should offer Cooper his plea bargain for a prison term of around seven years again, with a lower court judge ruling on whether to vacate some or all of his convictions, or do nothing about his 15-to-30 year sentence.

That concerned Justice Samuel Alito, a former U.S. attorney in New Jersey.

“In my view, requiring the prosecution to renew an old plea offer would represent an abuse of discretion in at least two circumstances: first, when important new information about a defendant’s culpability comes to light after the offer was rejected, and second, when the rejection of the plea offer results in a substantial expenditure of scarce prosecutorial or judicial resources,” said Alito, who wrote a separate dissent in that case.

Scalia was joined in full or in part in both dissents by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Clarence Thomas. Alito joined Scalia’s dissent in the Frye case. Scalia noted that prosecutors were being punished by having their cases go back to court, when it was the defense lawyers who made the errors.

“In today’s cases, the court’s zeal to bring perfection to everything requires the reversal of perfectly valid, eminently just convictions,” Scalia said. “It is not wise; it is not right.”

The cases are Missouri v. Frye, 10-444 and Lafler v. Cooper, 10-209.

“The question before us is whether the claims do significantly more than simply describe these natural relations,” said Justice Stephen Breyer, who wrote the opinion. “To put the matter more precisely, do the patent claims add enough to their statements of the correlations to allow the processes they describe to qualify as patent-eligible processes that apply natural law? We believe the answer to this question is no.”

The Mayo Clinic formerly used the Prometheus test, but its doctors announced in 2004 that they had come up with their own test and would put that one on the market. Prometheus sued to stop Mayo, but a federal judge invalidated their original patent.

Natural phenomenon cannot be patented, a lower court judge said. That decision was overturned by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, leading Mayo to appeal to the Supreme Court.

Personalized medicine is becoming big business in the United States, with companies trying to find the best way to use a person’s genetic makeup to help tailor care and find the most effective individualized treatments for cancer and other illnesses.

The court’s decision could affect other companies fighting for their personal medicine patents in court, said attorney Gerald Flattmann of the law firm Paul Hastings.

“One danger … will be that courts misapply the decision as broadly requiring the invalidation of any claim that recites a law of nature as one of its steps,” Flattman said. “Such misapplication would have a profound negative impact on innovation in the field of personalized medicine and beyond since, of course, all invention is on some level based on the practical application of natural discoveries.”

Breyer noted that Albert Einstein would not have been able to patent his discovery of mass-energy equivalence or “by claiming a process consisting of simply telling linear accelerator operators to refer to the law to determine how much energy an amount of mass has produced (or vice versa.)”

“If a law of nature is not patentable, than neither is a process reciting a law of nature, unless that process has additional features that provide practical assurance that the process is more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the law of nature itself,” Breyer said.