[xsl] Using xsl:sort causes transformer to fail

["Sola Awe" <sodana@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,
 I have an xsl:sort expression that doesn't always work all the time.  Not 
sure why.  Here is a segment of my code:

------------------------
xsl:for-each select="$group/ITEM">
 <xsl:sort select="*[name()=$group/ITEM/*[name()=$rowKey]]/@*[name() = 
$sortBy]" order="{$sortOrder}" data-type="number"/>

 <xsl:if test="*[name()=$group/ITEM/*[name()=$rowKey]]">
   <xsl:call-template name="processItem">
	<xsl:with-param name="columnNode"	select="$columnNode"/>
	<xsl:with-param name="dataGroup"	select="$group"/>
	<xsl:with-param name="rowKey"		select="*[name()=$rowKey]"/>
	<xsl:with-param name="repeatName" 	select="attribute::SORTNAME"/>	        
</xsl:call-template>
 </xsl:if>
</xsl:for-each>

----------------------------------
This is the code that is failing:
 <xsl:sort select="*[name()=$group/ITEM/*[name()=$rowKey]]/@*[name() = 
$sortBy]" order="{$sortOrder}" data-type="number"/>

if, I remove the following from the xsl:sort,

*[name()=$group/ITEM/*[name()=$rowKey]]/

The xsl transformation works fine.  However, I need the code above for the 
sort to work.

Any suggestions?
Thanks.