FACTBOX: Campaign finance, criminal cases await Sotomayor

(Reuters) - The federal campaign finance law, juvenile justice and several important business disputes are among the pending cases Judge Sonia Sotomayor will confront if approved by the Senate for the U.S. Supreme Court.

President Barack Obama has nominated Sotomayor, a federal appeals court judge from New York, as his first appointment to the nation's highest court. If confirmed, she would be the first Hispanic and the third woman on the court.

Sotomayor would replace liberal Justice David Souter, who retired at the end of June. She would not change the balance of power on the court, which has been divided with five conservatives and four liberals.

The Supreme Court has pending a number of major cases that will be argued and decided, including:

CAMPAIGN FINANCE LAW

* Arguments scheduled for a special session on September 9 on whether to uphold a ban on corporate spending in federal political elections. The case could affect the congressional elections in 2010 and the presidential race in 2012.

The case stemmed from a conservative advocacy group's challenge to the campaign finance law as part of its effort to broadcast and promote a movie critical of Hillary Clinton during her presidential campaign.

The group, Citizens United, released a 90-minute documentary film "Hillary: The Movie" in January 2008 when Clinton, then a U.S. senator from New York, was running for president. She later became Obama's secretary of state.

The justices heard arguments in the case in March but decided at the end of June to hear arguments again in September and to consider broader constitutional issues of whether to strike down a central provision of the law.

JUVENILE JUSTICE

* Whether a sentence of life in prison for juveniles who commit crimes other than murder violated the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

The ruling could affect more than 2,500 individuals in the United States serving sentences of life imprisonment for crimes committed before they turned 18, human rights groups said.

The two Florida cases the Supreme Court will hear and decide involve a 13-year-old convicted of raping an elderly woman and a 17-year-old who took part in an armed home-invasion robbery while on probation for an earlier violent crime.

ANIMAL TORTURE VIDEOS

* Whether a federal law that makes it a crime to sell videos of animals being tortured or killed violated constitutional free-speech rights.

The U.S. Justice Department defended the 1999 law that Congress adopted in an effort to crack down on videos like those depicting dog fights. It compared animal cruelty to child pornography, which the Supreme Court has said does not qualify for free-speech protection.

SEX OFFENDERS

* Whether Congress may adopt a federal law that keeps sex offenders in custody indefinitely after they complete their prison sentences. Similar state laws have been upheld.

PATENT CASE

* A closely watched patent case, important to the business community, that could tell high-tech and software companies how far they can go in patenting software, financial strategies and other abstract processes. The case has implications for any company that hopes to patent a business method.

ACCOUNTING BOARD

* A constitutional challenge to the 2002 law that created a national board to oversee U.S. public company auditors. The justices will decide a key provision of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which set up the private sector Public Company Accounting Oversight Board.

Those challenging the law argued it violated constitutional requirements on separation of powers because it failed to allow adequate control of the board by the U.S. president.

(Reporting by James Vicini, Editing by Bill Trott)