They take that position in a case now going on in Alaska.

"The default position in a case like that is you support the reporter," Mr. Keller said.

Michael Ray, an immigration lawyer in Miami, said the 11th Circuit was much more likely than other courts to uphold the government's position in a case like Elian's.

Child pornography has been a politically perilous area of the law for the Clinton Administration, which ran into criticism in Congress last fall for changing its position in a case before the Court that involved another section of the same law.

In the practice of law, judicial estoppel (also known as estoppel by inconsistent positions) is an estoppel which precludes a party from taking a position in a case which is contrary to a position they have taken in earlier legal proceedings.

It has also taken a socially conservative position in a case challenging Canada's restrictions on prostitution, and advocated for policies protecting discrimination and hate speech against LGBT people, and displays of graphic anti-abortion posters where not permitted, as an expression of religious belief.

His criticism of the powerful Wyoming Stock Growers Association and his position in a case threatening cattlemen-politicians Francis E. Warren and Joseph M. Carey (United States v. Douglas-Willan Sartoris Company, 3 Wyo. 287; 22 P. 92) made him a somewhat controversial figure.