*EPF213 10/01/2002
Supreme Court to Focus on Criminal Law, Terrorism, Other Issues
(Backgrounder: Court����s fall term agenda) (1300)

By Stuart Gorin
Washington File Staff Writer

Washington -- "Oyez! Oyez! Oyez! All persons having business before the Honorable, the Supreme Court of the United States, are admonished to draw near and give their attention, for the Court is now sitting."

When this traditional chant opens the Supreme Court����s Fall 2002 term on the "First Monday" in October, the justices will be faced with a full range of cases covering such issues as criminal law, the war on terrorism, free speech, civil rights and business law.

This term begins October 7 and continues until late June or early July 2003. The nine justices will hear cases and deliver opinions during periods of "sittings" and write those opinions and evaluate new petitions during "recesses." Sittings and recesses alternate at two-week intervals.

The justices���� law clerks assess hundreds of cases each term and write memos on their merits for review, but it is then up to the justices themselves to accept or not. And they are very selective -- granting review to less than one percent of those many appeals.

While there are some cases decided unanimously on the Supreme Court, a 5-4 or 6-3 split are more often the result, reflecting views dividing the nation as a whole. Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Associate Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia generally take a conservative position on issues, while Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruther Bader Ginsburg, David Souter and Stephen Breyer are on the liberal side. That often leaves the more moderate Justices Sandra Day O����Connor and Anthony Kennedy as the deciding "swing votes."

Court observers who attended a recent Supreme Court preview conference at the College of William and Mary Law School in Williamsburg, Virginia, believe one of the biggest cases on the docket will be Lockyer v. Andrade, involving a prison sentence subsequently determined by an appeals court to be "cruel and unusual punishment."

The petitioner, Leandro Andrade, was convicted of stealing videotapes from a California department store, which generally is a misdemeanor. However, because he had several prior convictions, the case was treated as a felony, and under California����s "Three Strikes and You Are Out" law, he was sentenced to life in prison. Calling this sentence disproportionate to his crimes, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the "Three Strikes" law to be unconstitutional.

California Attorney General Bill Lockyer then asked the Supreme Court to clarify how the Constitution����s Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment applies to the state����s Three Strikes law, which voters approved in 1994. While the High Court ruling will not affect cases involving violent crimes, it will be a factor in future minor theft cases.

Other criminal cases the Supreme Court will hear during the new term include:

-- Abdur����Rahman v. Bell. At issue is whether Abu-Ali Abdur����Rahman, a convicted killer sentenced to death whose trial lawyer failed to provide the court with mitigating background and mental health evidence, is entitled to further appeal. Ricky Bell is the warden at the Tennessee prison where Abdur����Rahman is being held. The High Court will be concerned with major constitutional questions about how the death penalty is applied in the United States.

-- Chavez V. Martinez. Ben Chavez is an Oxnard, California police sergeant, and Oliverio Martinez is a farm worker who was left blind and paralyzed following a run-in with police but was not charged with any crime. At issue is whether police officers are immune from being sued for efforts to extract statements from a wounded man, and whether they can use coercive methods to obtain statements.

-- Connecticut Department of Public Safety v. John Doe, a released sex offender. At issue is whether the U.S. Constitution forbids states from listing convicted sex offenders in a publicly disseminated registry without first affording them individualized hearings on their current danger to the community.

Concerning the war on terrorism, observers are carefully watching instances of how the government is holding two Americans classified as enemy combatants in military jails without formal charges and without giving them access to attorneys. One of the Americans is Yaser Hamdi, who was born in Louisiana, raised in Saudi Arabia, and captured last November on the battlefield in Afghanistan. The other is Jose Padilla, who was born in Brooklyn, New York, raised in Chicago, and arrested in May in connection with what officials said was a plot to build and detonate bombs.

While the Bush administration takes the position it is acting properly and legally, some observers believe the dispute is likely to end up before the Supreme Court in a contest between the rights of detainees and the power of the president to detain combatants during a time of hostilities.

A First Amendment case the Supreme Court will hear in the upcoming term is Virginia v. Black, concerning a Ku Klux Klan leader, Barry Black, who was found guilty in 1999 of violating a Virginia law by burning a cross with the racially motivated intent of intimidating an individual or a group.

The Virginia State Supreme Court subsequently reversed the decision, concluding that the law violated the Constitution����s First Amendment because it prohibited otherwise permitted speech solely on the basis of its content. In appealing that reversal to the U.S. Supreme Court, the state of Virginia will ask that its law be upheld by arguing that the cross is not a symbol and its burning was conduct that intentionally placed another person in fear of bodily harm and should not be protected by the First Amendment.

Additional First Amendment cases that may come before the Supreme Court but have not yet been accepted include:

-- American Library Association v. United States, in which a U.S. District Court ruled the government����s efforts to restrict access to pornography on the Internet -- the Children����s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) -- is overbroad because the filtering programs required by the law block access to constitutionally protected speech.

-- Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, passed by Congress and signed by President Bush in an effort to stop the increasing flow of huge donations into U.S. politics, which is being challenged in a number of federal court cases as unconstitutional First Amendment violations. The measure prohibits unregulated donations and corporations and unions from engaging in issue-advertising on behalf of specific political candidates.

In the area of civil rights, the Supreme Court will hear the case of Scheidler v. National Organization for Women (NOW) to decide whether medical clinics can use the federal racketeering law, known as RICO, against protesters who conspire to shut down businesses that perform abortions. A federal appeals court ruled against antiabortion activist Joseph Scheidler and others for engaging in "violent conduct," including physically assaulting clinic staff and patients. Attorneys for the activists argue that a statute designed for drug dealers and organized crime has been misapplied to silence the "pro-life message."

The Court also will hear other civil rights cases, including:

-- Beatrice Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People v. John Smith representing the Mississippi Republican Party. At issue is whether the state legislature can grant courts the power to redistrict the state for congressional elections.

-- Navajo Nation v. United States. At issue is whether the United States breached a fiduciary duty to the Navajos by urging them to renegotiate the lease of tribal lands to a coal mining company at a low royalty rate.

-- Thomas Miller-El v. Texas Department of Criminal Justice. At issue is a charge by Miller-El, a convicted murderer on death row, that racial discrimination was practiced when African Americans were stricken from his jury.

In the area of business law, the Supreme Court will hear cases including Eric Eldred, a publisher v. Attorney General John Ashcroft, concerning extension of copyright laws; Federal Communications Commission v. NextWave Personal Communications, concerning revoked licenses in bankruptcy; and Norfolk & Western Railway Company v. Freeman Ayers, a former worker, concerning emotional distress over fear of cancer due to exposure to asbestos.

(The Washington File is a product of the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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