The Mississippi Supreme Court upheld its ruling Friday that another candidate must be added to the March 8 Democratic presidential primary ballot.

The court, in a 6-3 ruling, said Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann doesn’t have to reissue already-sent absentee ballots to include Chicago businessman Willie Wilson’s name.

The ruling rejected Hosemann’s request that the court overturn its Thursday ruling, or at least allow him to resend absentee ballots including Wilson to roughly 200 military and other voters outside the country, so they would get the same ballot as voters at the polls. Absentee voting started Jan. 23 for those voters.

Hosemann said about 7,000 absentee ballots have also been sent to people in Mississippi.

“I am diametrically opposed to having different ballots,” Hosemann said.

Most counties vote electronically, but some use paper ballots that must be reprinted, and Hosemann’s office told the court changes would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

More than 7,000 voting machines have already been tested with a previously set ballot that lists five candidates in the Democratic presidential primary: Hillary Clinton, Roque “Rocky” De La Fuente, Martin O’Malley and Bernie Sanders. The ballot was prepared before O’Malley dropped out.

Mississippi law says the secretary of state puts nationally recognized presidential candidates on the Democratic and Republican primary ballots. Other presidential candidates can get on the ballot by submitting a petition with at least 500 signatures.

California's Supreme Court is allowing Gov. Jerry Brown's bid to put his plan to reduce the state's prison population before voters in November.

The high court acted Friday after Brown warned that further delay could push voters' consideration to 2018.

The justices put on hold a lower court ruling that barred the state attorney general from issuing the documents that would let Brown's supporters gather the signatures needed to put his initiative on this year's ballot.

The Sacramento-based judge ruled that Brown improperly amended a juvenile justice initiative. The Democratic governor added his proposal to increase sentencing credits for adult inmates and allow earlier parole for non-violent felons.

Brown says it is too late to start over and still collect the nearly 586,000 signatures needed for a ballot measure this year.

A federal magistrate in Chicago last November ordered Apple to help federal prosecutors access data on an iPhone in a personal bankruptcy and passport fraud case, one of more than a dozen cases around the country similar to the legal battle over the telephone of one of the San Bernardino shooting suspects.

Court records show U.S. Attorney Zachary Fardon filed a November 2015 motion saying law enforcement needed Apple's help to bypass the passcode to search, extract and copy data from an iPhone 5S owned by Pethinaidu and Parameswari Veluchamy, the Chicago Tribune reported.

An affidavit filed Nov. 13 said text messages, phone contacts and digital photos might help confirm wrongdoing. It also said data on the phone "may also provide relevant insight into the cellphone owner's state of mind as it relates to the offense under investigation."

The Chicago Sun-Times reported that U.S. Magistrate Judge Mary Rowland's order said Apple should provide authorities "reasonable technical assistance to enable law enforcement agents to obtain access to unencrypted data" She added Apple "may provide a copy of the encrypted data to law enforcement, but Apple is not required to attempt to decrypt, or otherwise enable law enforcement's attempts to access any encrypted data."

The felony prosecution of former Texas Gov. Rick Perry ended Wednesday when the state's highest criminal court dismissed an abuse-of-power indictment that the Republican says hampered his short-lived 2016 presidential bid.

The 6-2 decision by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which is dominated by elected Republican judges, frees Perry from a long-running criminal case that blemished the exit of one of the most powerful Texas governors in history and hung over his second failed run for the White House.

A grand jury in liberal Austin had indicted Perry in 2014 for vetoing funding for a public corruption unit that Republicans have long accused of wielding a partisan ax. The unit worked under Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg, an elected Democrat. Perry wanted her to resign after she was convicted of drunken driving.

Perry was accused of using his veto power to threaten a public official and overstepping his authority, but the judges ruled that courts can't undermine the veto power of a governor.

"Come at the king, you best not miss," Republican Judge David Newell wrote in his concurring opinion, quoting a popular line from the HBO series "The Wire."

Perry has been campaigning for Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz since becoming the first major GOP candidate to drop out of the race last year. He conceded to reporters in Austin on Wednesday that the indictments hurt his candidacy but didn't dwell on the impact, and said he would veto the same funding again if given the chance.

"I've always known the actions I took were not only lawful and legal, they were right," said Perry, who spoke at the headquarters of an influential Texas conservative think tank, which has previously christened its balcony overlooking downtown as the "Gov. Rick Perry Liberty Balcony."

The court said veto power can't be restricted by the courts and the prosecution of a veto "violates separations of powers." A lower appeals court had dismissed the other charge, coercion by a public servant, in July.

Perry had rebuked the charges as a partisan attack from the start, calling it a "political witch hunt," but the dismissal brought accusations of Republican judges doing a favor for a party stalwart. Texans for Public Justice, a left-leaning watchdog group that filed the original criminal complaint that led to the indictment, said Perry was handed a "gift" based on his stature.

Connecticut's highest court was hearing arguments Wednesday on whether Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel should get a new trial or be sent back to prison for a 1975 murder.

State prosecutors asked the state Supreme Court to reinstate the 2002 murder conviction against Skakel in the bludgeoning death of Martha Moxley when they were teenage neighbors in wealthy Greenwich.

Skakel, a nephew of Robert F. Kennedy's widow, Ethel, was freed on $1.2 million bail in 2013 when a lower court judge ordered a new trial after finding that Skakel's trial attorney failed to adequately represent him. He had been sentenced to 20 years to life in prison.

Skakel, 55, was seated in the gallery of the courtroom for the hearing, as was his cousin Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Judge Thomas Bishop ruled that Skakel likely would have been acquitted if his trial lawyer, Michael Sherman, had focused more on his brother Thomas Skakel. Sherman has defended his work on the case.

Prosecutors are appealing Bishop's decision to the Supreme Court.

Thomas Skakel was an early suspect in the case, because he was the last person seen with Moxley and admitted he had a sexual encounter with her.

But prosecutors have said that highlighting Thomas Skakel's relationship with Moxley would have bolstered their argument that Michael Skakel killed her in a jealous rage.

Prosecutors across Ohio are concerned that a ruling under review by Ohio's top court could delay and shorten sentences for suspects caught with cocaine and force costly changes upon law enforcement.

The state Supreme Court will hear arguments Tuesday on whether to uphold an appeals court decision calling into question how prosecutors have handled cocaine cases for years. It all comes eastdown to weight.

A state appeals court in Toledo ruled last year prosecutors should have determined how much pure cocaine a suspect arrested in a drug sting had with him or her instead of sentencing him based on the weight of the entire amount.

The appeals court ruled that Ohio's drug laws say that what matters is the weight of the cocaine only ? not filler material such as baking soda that's often added by drug dealers to stretch out their supply and increase profits.

Prosecutors along with the state Attorney General's office argue that such a narrow interpretation creates a new distinction for cocaine that isn't applied to any other illegal drugs.