WASHINGTON -- Johnnie L. Cochran wasn't in the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday, but the flamboyant defense lawyer for O.J. Simpson was the talk of the courtroom, as Cochran's attorney asked skeptical justices to uphold a gag order imposed on a disgruntled former Cochran client.

Cochran successfully sued Ulysses Tory for defamation after Tory and others regularly picketed outside his law office with signs reading, "You've been a bad boy, Johnnie" and "Johnnie is a crook, a liar and a thief."

After finding that Cochran had been defamed, a California trial judge issued a permanent injunction banning Tory, his wife or other "employees, agents or representatives" from picketing Cochran or his law firm, displaying signs about Cochran or the firm or "orally uttering statements about Cochran and/or Cochran's law firm." The usual remedy in a defamation case is the payment of money damages.

Representing Cochran, California attorney Jonathan B. Cole said the injunction was justified because it was clear that Tory would stop bad-mouthing Cochran if the attorney gave him a refund, which meant that the underlying issue was extortion. "Tory relentlessly targeted Johnnie Cochran with defamatory speech for the purpose of obtaining money," Cole said. adding that "if the conduct is extortion, that conduct is not protected."

Representing Tory, Duke University law professor Erwin Chemerinsky said the injunction "violates the most basic precepts of the First Amendment. It's a prior restraint, a content-based restriction of speech and vastly overbroad." So broad was the gag order, the professor said, that even he might be punished under its terms. Chemerinsky warned that, if the justices upheld the gag order, it would "open the door to injunctions in defamation cases across the country."

Although several justices appeared troubled by the extortion argument, a majority seemed reluctant to uphold the injunction. Some justices seemed open to a narrower order prohibiting Tory from repeating the same statements about Cochran that were found to be defamatory.

"Never in 214 years has this court upheld an injunction" against speech, Justice John Paul Stevens said. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor tartly told Cole: "It is clearly overbroad. What should we do about it?" And Justice Antonin Scalia observed: "The only reason we're grabbing onto extortion is that we're reluctant to have an injunction in a defamation case."

It was so obvious that the court considered the injunction too broad that yesterday's argument turned into a drafting session, in which even Cole suggested how the order against Tory could be narrowed.

In other action yesterday, the court:

Found, in a 5-3 ruling, that a jury which sentenced convicted killer William Payton to death had properly taken into account his religious conversion, even though a California prosecutor incorrectly argued that it was irrelevant.

Payton's is one of the longest-running death penalty cases. He was convicted and sentenced in the 1980 rape and stabbing death of Pamela Montgomery of Garden Grove, Calif.

The justices reversed a lower court that had ordered a new trial for Payton. "Testimony about a religious conversion spanning one year and nine months may well have been considered altogether insignificant in light of the brutality of the crimes, the prior offenses and a proclivity for committing violent acts against women," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority.

In a dissent, Justice David H. Souter, joined by Justices John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, argued Payton deserved a new trial because of the prosecutor's misstatements.

Limited the liability that local governments face in fights over cell phone towers, ruling that a small California town did not have to pay millions in attorneys' fees and damages to a local businessman. The court unanimously blocked Mark Abrams from collecting money from Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., which was forced by a court to issue a permit for a 52.5-foot radio antenna that Abrams wanted on his property.

With exploding growth in the telecommunications industry, an unfavorable Supreme Court ruling for cities was seen by many as opening the door to further proliferation of towers, because local governments would be reluctant to enter into potentially expensive court fights.

Ruled that police did not violate a woman's constitutional rights by handcuffing her and inquiring about her immigration status while searching her family's home. Justices unanimously reversed a lower-court ruling ordering two Simi Valley, Calif., officers to pay $60,000 to Iris Mena for their actions in a 1998 search.

Mena awoke at dawn in her bed to find an officer in a ski mask pointing a submachine gun at her head. SWAT team members led the woman through rain to a garage, where she was kept in handcuffs and questioned for three hours while the home was searched under a valid warrant. A jury determined that her right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures was violated, but the justices disagreed.

"This was no ordinary search. The governmental interests in not only detaining but [also] using handcuffs are at their maximum when, as here, a warrant authorizes a search for weapons and a wanted gang member resides on the premises," Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist wrote for the majority.