  Working in the framework of a nonrelativistic quark model we evaluate the
spectra and semileptonic decay widths for the ground state of doubly heavy
$\Xi$ and $\Omega$ baryons. We solve the three-body problem using a variational
ansatz made possible by the constraints imposed by heavy quark spin symmetry.
In order to check the dependence of our resultson the inter-quark interaction
we have used five different quarkquark potentials which include Coulomb and
hyperfine terms coming fromone-gluon exchange, plus a confining term. Our
results for the spectra are in good agreement with a previous calculation done
using a Faddeev approach. For the semileptonic decay our results for the total
decay widths are in a good agreement with the ones obtained within a
relativistic quark model in the quark-diquark approximation.
