Category Archives: Broadcast

Stuart’s Broadcast Transcripts.

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NewsHour: Stuart Taylor on Bruce Lindsey – June 19, 1996

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MARGARET WARNER: Bruce Lindsey is the deputy White House counsel and a longtime friend and adviser to President Clinton. He was the treasurer for then Governor Clinton’s 1990 reelection campaign. It is that association which interests prosecutors in the current Whitewater-related trial in Little Rock. We get more on this now from NewsHour regular Stuart Taylor, legal reporter for the American Lawyer and Legal Times. Stuart, before we get into this case, explain: what is an unindicted co-conspirator? In other words, in what cases would a prosecutor choose to name some unindicted co-conspirator rather than indict them?

STUART TAYLOR, The American Lawyer: The prosecutor is saying in essence in court–and they haven’t said it yet by the way–but they apparently will–that we believe this man was part of the criminal conspiracy, along with the people who are on trial. We haven’t indicted him but the relevance of that for the purposes of the trial is that lets them get in more evidence about the unindicted co-conspirator’s or the alleged unindicted co-conspirator’s out-of-court statements than they otherwise could. It’s a way around the hearsay rule.

MS. WARNER: Explain that just a little more. What do you mean?

MR. TAYLOR: For example, if they want to–somebody, one of their witnesses, to talk about what Bruce Lindsey said to him, ordinarily that would be barred by the so-called hearsay rule. You can’t talk –you can’t testify in a trial about what somebody else said out of court. That rule has a lot of exceptions. One of the exceptions is if the person who you’re trying to quote, here Bruce Lindsey, is named by the prosecution as an unindicted co-conspirator, then you can talk about what he said out of court.

MS. WARNER: I see. Okay. Now explain this case. What’s this case about?

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NewsHour: Stuart Taylor on Death Penalty Appeals – June 3, 1996

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CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: In April, President Clinton signed a bill into law that would limit access to federal court by prison inmates. The bill, known as the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, was in part a reaction by the President and Congress to the long delays in getting convicted felons executed. In order to speed up the process, the bill imposes strict time limits on Death Row inmates’ appeals. It also permits only one federal appeal of a state court conviction.

The case in front of the court today was brought by Ellis Wayne Felker, who was convicted and sentenced to death in 1983 for sodomizing and murdering a woman in Georgia. Felker’s lawyers based their appeals on the principle of habeas corpus, a provision that allows a person to test whether he is being held in prison legally. The Supreme Court turned down Felker’s appeal for a hearing three times, the last time just before the President signed the effective death penalty act. Felker’s lawyers filed a fourth appeal, and the Supreme Court this time agreed to hear his arguments. The court’s hearing of the Felker case is regarded as a test for whether the act President Clinton signed in April is constitutional.

JIM LEHRER: And now for more on today’s arguments, NewsHour regular Stuart Taylor, correspondent with the "American Lawyer" and "Legal Times." Stuart, welcome.

STUART TAYLOR, The American Lawyer: Nice to be here.

JIM LEHRER: What is the constitutional issue involved in this?

MR. TAYLOR: The issue as framed by the Supreme Court is whether this new law signed by the President is unconstitutional in that it restricts the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court to hear a certain class of these habeas corpus cases, and jurisdiction is power. So it goes to the relative power of Congress versus the Supreme Court.

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NewsHour: Supreme Court on Gay Rights – May 20, 1996

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MARGARET WARNER: Today’s most notable rulings came in two very different cases. The first struck down a Colorado constitutional amendment that forbid any city or the state from adopting laws or ordinances to protect homosexuals from discrimination. The second struck down a $2 million punitive damages award won by an Alabama doctor unhappy with the paint job on his new BMW. For more on today’s decisions, we’re joined by NewsHour regular Stuart Taylor, a correspondent with The American Lawyer and Legal Times. Stuart, start by telling us what exactly did this Colorado constitutional amendment say and how did it end up in the state constitution?

STUART TAYLOR, The American Lawyer: The amendment wiped out several local ordinances that towns in Colorado — Aspen, Denver, and Boulder — had adopted protecting gays against discrimination and further said that from here on no town in the state itself cannot adopt any gay rights ordinances protecting gays against discrimination or giving them preferences. That is what the Colorado voters adopted by referendum in 1992.

MARGARET WARNER: And so in striking down this amendment, what was the reasoning of the majority of the Supreme Court?

MR. TAYLOR: The court ruled 6-3 that it violates the equal protection cause of the 14th Amendment by denying equal protection of the laws to homosexuals. It stressed that this is a very broad and undifferentiated disability applied on homosexuals across the board, that they cannot seek the protection of the laws in the ordinary way for any form of discrimination against them as homosexuals.

MARGARET WARNER: So just to be clear here, they weren’t upholding a specific gay-rights law; rather, they were simply saying gays could not be precluded from seeking such laws.

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NewsHour: Supreme Court review – May 13, 1996

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CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: It was an also all-over-the-lot day for the high court as they handed down opinions in a series of controversial cases. In a unanimous decision, the court struck down the Rhode Island ban on liquor advertising aimed at promoting sobriety. Also, in an eight to one decision, the court ruled against five black defendants on the issue of racial disparity in a California crack cocaine case, and finally the court refused to review Unabomber suspect Theodore Kaczinsky’s appeal for fast action to avoid prosecution. For more on these cases, we turn to NewsHour regular Stuart Taylor, a correspondent for the "American Lawyer" and "Legal Times." Stuart, thank you for coming tonight. Tell us first about the 44 Liquor Mart vs. Rhode Island case. What was it all about?

STUART TAYLOR, The American Lawyer: Rhode Island had a law that bans all price advertising of liquor, except in the store itself. You can’t advertise in a newspaper, on a billboard, for an example, and the issue in the Supreme Court was whether that violates the First Amendment, freedom of speech, and the court was unanimous in holding that it did, although it took them four separate opinions in order to explain all the differences in their analysis, and that confuses the process of figuring out what this means for other laws and future laws and for such matters as the Clinton administration’s proposed limits on cigarette advertising, for example.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: So what are you saying, that this is not dispositive in terms of that–in terms of the cigarette advertising?

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NewsHour: Supreme Court Review – May 13, 1996

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CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: It was an also all-over-the-lot day for the high court as they handed down opinions in a series of controversial cases. In a unanimous decision, the court struck down the Rhode Island ban on liquor advertising aimed at promoting sobriety. Also, in an eight to one decision, the court ruled against five black defendants on the issue of racial disparity in a California crack cocaine case, and finally the court refused to review Unabomber suspect Theodore Kaczinsky’s appeal for fast action to avoid prosecution. For more on these cases, we turn to NewsHour regular Stuart Taylor, a correspondent for the "American Lawyer" and "Legal Times." Stuart, thank you for coming tonight. Tell us first about the 44 Liquor Mart vs. Rhode Island case. What was it all about?

STUART TAYLOR, The American Lawyer: Rhode Island had a law that bans all price advertising of liquor, except in the store itself. You can’t advertise in a newspaper, on a billboard, for an example, and the issue in the Supreme Court was whether that violates the First Amendment, freedom of speech, and the court was unanimous in holding that it did, although it took them four separate opinions in order to explain all the differences in their analysis, and that confuses the process of figuring out what this means for other laws and future laws and for such matters as the Clinton administration’s proposed limits on cigarette advertising, for example.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: So what are you saying, that this is not dispositive in terms of that–in terms of the cigarette advertising?

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NewsHour: Double Jeopardy in the War on Drugs – April 17, 1996

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CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Now for more on today’s oral arguments, we turn to NewsHour regular Stuart Taylor of the "American Lawyer" magazine. Stuart, thank you for joining us. We’ve just seen the details of the California case, but there were two cases, the other from Michigan. Briefly explain that one.

STUART TAYLOR, The American Lawyer: Yes. The Michigan case is a little bit more sympathetic for the defendant than this case in California, because the defendant in Michigan, for one thing, is not a drug dealer. He grew some marijuana near his home, and he cured it in his home, and he, his wife, and his grown son smoked it until the son broke up with his fiancee, who turned them all in, and they were arrested, or he was arrested, and first, his property, the government tried to forfeit his home and his ten acres, and then they prosecuted, convicted him, and wanted to send him to prison for five years. And he’s in the Supreme Court saying, they can’t do both of these things to me.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Are the cases together? I mean, they’re joined?

STUART TAYLOR: The cases have been consolidated because they have a lot more in common than they have indifferent, but it would be possible for, for one of them to win and the other to lose, not likely but possible.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: And basically just to reiterate that the case is simply–can you say the case is simply–

STUART TAYLOR: Simply about–

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: About–

STUART TAYLOR: Yeah. The only issue in both cases is whether the double jeopardy clause of the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution bars the government from first prosecuting someone for the crime and then trying to forfeit their property in a separate proceeding, or doing the same thing in the reverse order.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Why is this case so important?

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NewsHour: Setting Limits – April 15, 1996

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KWAME HOLMAN: Gail Norton, Colorado’s Republican attorney general, is busy these days campaigning in Denver and elsewhere around the state in hopes of replacing retiring Senator Hank Brown. Norton’s Republican primary opponent is Eastern Colorado Congressman Wayne Allard. Whichever of them wins the August primary will look to the state Republican Party to help fund the fall campaign, and that funding could be increased substantially this election year if the two major political parties have their way.

Currently, all candidates in this country for Congress or the Presidency must adhere to contribution and spending limits set by the Federal Election Commission. For instance, contributors may give a maximum of $1,000 per election to a candidate, $5,000 to a state political party, and $20,000 to a national political party. But the constitutionality of the FEC limits now is being called into question, thanks to a spending dispute that erupted between two other Colorado Senate candidates a decade ago. Ten years ago, Republican Ken Kramer was campaigning with the help of President Ronald Reagan, hoping to defeat Democrat Tim Wirth. Wirth, then a popular Congressman, became the target of a $15,000 radio ad campaign paid for not by Kramer but by the Colorado Republican Party. The Colorado Democratic Party filed a complaint with the FEC that the Republicans radio buy put them over their $103,000 spending limit set by an FEC formula, but Washington lawyer Jan Baran, who represents the Colorado Republican Party, says the party’s ad fell outside FEC limits.

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NewsHour: Affirmative Action – March 20, 1996

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ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Yesterday, a U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down an admissions policy at the University of Texas Law School which gave preference to Blacks and Hispanics. The Court ruled that the law school’s affirmative action program violates the U.S. Constitution’s equal protection guarantee. For more on the decision, we’re joined by Stuart Taylor, correspondent for the "American Lawyer," and for "Legal Times," and a NewsHour regular. Welcome, Stuart.

STUART TAYLOR, The American Lawyer: Nice to be here.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH:We’re talking about this case because it has very wide implications, doesn’t it?

MR. TAYLOR: It certainly has very wide potential implications because the holding of this three-judge court is, in essence, that racial preferences in universities, admissions at the University of Texas Law school in particular, but also nationwide, are unconstitutional and must be abolished. Now if this case goes to the Supreme Court of the United States, which it almost certainly will, and if the Supreme Court adopts a similar rationale, it would have a dramatic impact. It would bar consideration of race in university law school, graduate school admissions for state institutions, not private institutions. And it would result in a dramatic reduction in a number of racial minority group members, at least Black and Hispanic Americans in those institutions.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: What are the facts of the case?

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Online NewsHour: Racial Justice – February 26, 1996

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CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: For more on today’s Supreme Court hearing, we’re joined by Stuart Taylor, correspondent for "The American Lawyer" and "Legal Times" and a NewsHour regular. Stuart, thank you for joining us. There’s probably not much to add to that, but is there anything else that we need to know that clarifies exactly what it is that the court heard today?

STUART TAYLOR, The American Lawyer: Well, they–what they have is a relatively narrow piece of a big social issue. The big social issue is whether we have racial bias in our criminal justice system, and there are lots of statistics showing huge, hugely disproportionate numbers of blacks being locked up for certain crimes, particularly drug crimes, and especially crack cocaine, which has huge penalties. The narrower issue the court is deciding is whether the defendants in this case have made enough of a preliminary showing to get to first base, as it is, as it were in trying the very difficult task of proving race-based selective prosecution which, if proven, is a violation of the Constitution and would justify throwing out the cases against them.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: And where would that take us? I mean, where would that leave us in the whole issue of selective prosecution?

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NewsHour: Mandatory Sentencing – February 20, 1996

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ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: For more on today’s Supreme Court hearing, we’re joined by Stuart Taylor, correspondent for the "American Lawyer" and "Legal Times," and a regular on the NewsHour. Welcome, Stuart. What was happening in 1984 that caused Congress to want these guidelines, to begin the process of drawing up the guidelines?

STUART TAYLOR, The American Lawyer: There was a lot of criticism at that time that the traditional method of criminal sentencing, which is letting the judge decide what he thinks is the appropriate sentence out of a huge range of possibilities was leading to wild disparities over the country, depending not so much on the nature of the crime and the criminal as on the judge. Soft judges were giving light sentences to people who did terrible things. Hard, tough judges were giving heavy sentences to people who did less serious things, and there was a convergence of liberal reformers who didn’t like these disparities and conservatives who were worried about some judges mollycoddling criminals, came together and said let’s have some uniformity, let’s tie these judges down to some guidelines so that the sentence doesn’t depend on who the judge is.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And how do the guidelines work? They’re very complicated.

MR. TAYLOR: Right. That principle was carried to very detailed specification initially by Congress but in more detail by the sentencing commission that Congress created of how much the sentence ought to be for every one of the zillion crimes in the federal criminal code, and then with adjustments upwards for the criminal record, and the, the embodiment of it is all this grid which is actually what a federal judge is supposed to use when he passes sentence. You look at the offense level and in this case, for example, these two police officers, they said, we start with six, because they violated the civil rights of Rodney King, and then–