Is it a step down for Jimmy Smits that he'll only be a Supreme Court Justice in a new NBC pilot? Some might think so since his last stint on NBC was as Congressman Matt Santos who became the President of the United States on the last season of 'The West Wing.' However, in the pilot that John Eisendrath is putting together, Jimmy Smits has agreed to play a judge for NBC.

Not any judge. The character is a strict interpreter of the constitution, a 'by the book' Supreme Court Justice (there are only nine at any one time), who steps down from the bench so he can return to the law as an attorney who specializes in fighting constitutional injustices.

This is a very odd story, and not because it involves one-half of TV's most enjoyable sitcoms ever, The Odd Couple, but it's not about that show. It's about his other successful series. Jack Klugman has filed suit against NBC Universal over profits from Quincy, M.E. The oddity is that the show hasn't been in production for 25 years and this hasn't come up till now!

By a vote of 8-1, the highest court in the land has ruled against Alex Ferrer, Judge Alex. Now, we're not talking the Emmy judges, ruling against the TV show. This is the real legal business, not the Let's Make A Deal-justice of the sort Judge Alex is all about. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled against him. Ferrer, star of the syndicated court show Judge Alex, a former police officer and Florida judge, had brought a case before the high court involving a dispute over commissions he supposedly owed to a former associate, Arnold Preston.

If you're in the camp that believes that Tony was whacked by the Members-Only jacketed man in the final blackout of The Sopranos, then you'll probably be pleased to know that Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito Jr. has taken a shot at the HBO drama, too.

During a recent speech at New Jersey's Rutgers University, Justice Alito opined that the Emmy-winning series besmirched not only Italians, but citizens of the Garden State, too. "You have a trifecta - gangsters, Italian-Americans, New Jersey - wedded in the popular American imagination," he said to a crowd of about 100. He was speaking about the stereotypes Italian-Americans have had to live with in the United States. Clearly, The Sopranos would be just the kind of depiction to draw his ire. After all, Uncle Junior and Paulie Walnuts are not characters to be emulated and admired, and creator David Chase never said they were.

Fox has given the green light to three pilots that could appear on the network's fall schedule. The pilots are hour-long dramas about lawyers, nurses, and law clerks.

Canterbury's Law is about a "headstrong female defense attorney" who practically bends the law to get justice for her innocent clients. Supreme Courtships (arrrgh, what a dumb name) is an ensemble dramedy about the personal lives of six U.S. Supreme Court clerks. The untitled nurse project is another ensemble dramedy about nurses in a big-city hospital.

I think this is indicative of one of the main problems in television these days. Everything is either crime or medical. How many freakin' lawyer shows do we need? They're not that interesting! And I am sick to death of anything set in a hospital. At least with Heroes and Lost we have original settings and situations.

E. Pierce Marshall, the man who battled Anna Nicole Smith for his father's fortune all the way to the Supreme Court, died this week. According to a family spokesperson, the cause of his death was "a brief and extremely aggressive infection." He died Tuesday in Dallas.

Marshall is the son of the late oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall II, who, at the age of 89, married 29-year-old Anna Nicole. He died one year later. The junior Marshall sued Anna Nicole Smith, saying he was his father's sole heir and Smith was only entitled to the $6 million in gifts she received from his father for the year they were married. The case made it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which sent it back to the same California Appeals Court that overturned the $88.5 million she was awarded in 2002 by a federal district judge.

Where's the one place on earth that you can totally talk trashy while at work? Yes, probably the set of a porn movie. And at a strip club. But, another place is in the writer's room of a sitcom. This week, the California Supreme Court rejected a sexual harassment claim by a former assistant against the writing staff of Friends. In a unanimous ruling, the court decided the assistant was not harassed, supporting the rights of the writers to have raunchy, profanity-laced conversations all in the name of the creative process.

Now, this is why Samuel Alito and John Roberts joined the Supreme Court (or SCOTUS, for those of you who are acronym-oriented); the court heard the inheritance case of former Playmate and bad reality-show star Anna Nicole Smith today.

We all know the story: Anna Nicole married a geezer tycoon, J. Howard Marshall, who died (most likely with a big smile on his face) a year later. Smith put in a claim that she is entitled to half of Marshall's $1.6 billion estate, while his son feels he is the only heir.

According to this AP article, it seemed like some of the justices were on Smith's side during arguments, citing the fact that Pierce Marshall is purposely sabotoging any hope Smith had of claiming the money. However, the question being decided by SCOTUS is whether a federal appeals court has the right to decide on a state probate issue.

Either way, I'm sure it was an interesting day in Washington. I wonder if Anna Nicole offered Antonin Scalia a free supply of Trim Spa? Lord knows he needs it.

[Photo: Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP]

Proving once again that the gal with the best implants always stays afloat, Anna Nicole Smith has found herself an unlikely ally in her Supreme Court battle for the kabillion dollar inheritance she believes her ex-husband wanted her to have.  U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement, the Bush administration's top Supreme Court attorney, has filed arguments on behalf of Smith, and is lobbying for permission to argue alongside Smith's attorney when the case goes before the judges on February 28. Though Bush has more than a couple of things in common with Smith's long-dead benefactor – both were Yalies -turned- Texas oilmen – this is apparently an issue not of fraternity, but of politics: the Supremes are only hearing Smith's case because it maintains that federal court rulings should maintain superiority over local judgements, and that's apparently an issue close to the Neo-con administration's heart.