Category Archives: PBS News Hour

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NewsHour: Paula Jones – May 27, 1997

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JIM LEHRER: Today’s two major Supreme Court cases are first tonight. One was a decision, the other a hearing. The decision was the unanimous ruling that Paula Corbin Jones can proceed with her sexual harassment suit against President Clinton while he is in office. NewsHour regular Stuart Taylor of the American Lawyer and Legal Times is here. He wrote an extensive piece in the American Lawyer last November on the Paul Jones case.

Stuart, welcome. First, what was the legal issue before the court today?

STUART TAYLOR, The American Lawyer: The sole issue is whether the President’s status as President would warrant a constitutional decision by the court barring Paula Jones from proceeding with her lawsuit which seeks damages against him for his personal conduct before he was President, or, in fact, barring any private civil damage lawsuit from proceeding against the President until after he leaves office. President Clinton said that the Constitution so required and that the court should so require it even as matter of prudence, even if not as a matter of constitutional law. The court unanimously and emphatically said, no, and rejected the President’s position on both those questions.

JIM LEHRER: On what grounds?

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NewsHour: Insider Training – April 16, 1997

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CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: The case before the Supreme Court today deals with insider stock trading and who is an insider and who is not. To help us understand that, what difference it makes, and what happened in today’s arguments we have NewsHour regular Stuart Taylor, correspondent for the American Lawyer and Legal Times. And Stuart, as you are best equipped to do, explain in the simplest terms what is insider trading.

STUART TAYLOR, The American Lawyer: There’s a big argument about this, but in the usual lay sense, what most people mean, is insider trading would be trading a company’s securities, stocks, bonds, for profit, typically a big profit, based on inside information about that company’s value stolen from somebody. The classic case might be the president of an oil company that’s publicly traded learns that they’ve just scored a huge hit, a new discovery, and the stock’s going to go through the roof in a week when they announce it. And he goes out and buys a bunch of the stock beforehand. He’s stealing his own company’s information from his other shareholders, if you will, for his personal profit.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: It doesn’t matter how he learned it?

STUART TAYLOR: In the usual sense, in the general sense in which I’m defining it, the Supreme Court has said not everything that might be called insider trading, the way I’ve just defined it, is, in fact, barred by the federal securities laws.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Well, let’s don’t go there yet.

STUART TAYLOR: Right.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Let’s continue on where we are. So anybody–did you have another example?

STUART TAYLOR: Well, in this case it’s a little trickier because he didn’t supposedly steal the money from the company whose stock he was trading–and that’s part of what the argument is about–he stole it from another company that was planning a takeover.

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NewsHour: Proposition 209 in California – April 9, 1997

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Yesterday a federal appeals court panel in San Francisco upheld the constitutionality of a California measure outlawing state affirmative action programs. The measure known as Proposition 209, was adopted by California voters last November.

JIM LEHRER: The affirmative action story and to Margaret Warner.

MARGARET WARNER: Yesterday a federal appeals court panel in San Francisco upheld the constitutionality of a California measure outlawing state affirmative action programs. The measure known as Proposition 209, was adopted by California voters last November. The ballot measure read: "The state shall not discriminate against or grant preferential treatment to any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting." Yesterday’s decision overturns an injunction issued earlier by a lower court judge that had blocked implementation of the measure. For more on yesterday’s ruling and where the issue goes from here, we turn now to the NewsHour’s regular court watcher, Stuart Taylor, correspondent for the "American Lawyer," and "Legal Times." Welcome back, Stuart.

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

MARGARET WARNER: Before we go into yesterday’s ruling take us back to last November, Prop 209 is passed by the voters of California, and the supporters of affirmative action go immediately to a federal district court judge to get it overturned. What did the judge rule, and what was his basis?

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NewsHour: Decency Standards on the Internet – March 20, 1997

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JIM LEHRER: Now today’s developments before the Supreme Court and to Margaret Warner.

MARGARET WARNER: And joining us is the NewsHour’s regular court watcher, Stuart Taylor, correspondent for the "American Lawyer" and "Legal Times." Stuart, first of all, do you agree with what many observers at the court are saying, that this ruling, however it comes down, could be one of the landmark rulings of this term?

STUART TAYLOR, The American Lawyer: Yes, with a little hedge, certainly because of the vast importance of this new medium. And this is potentially the most important First Amendment case to come before the Supreme Court in I’d say more than 25 years just making new rules for a brand new situation. Whether the court will bring down the kind of ringing declaration that people recognize as a landmark opinion, whether they will produce a splintered thing where you have to sort of get out a chart to figure out how many votes are for which proposition remains to be seen. They may also want to move rather cautiously because you could tell in the argument today this isn’t just a matter of where we’ll take the older precedents and apply them to a new situation. They groping with the technology and with economic situations that are hard to understand, hard for them to understand, hard for a lot of people to understand, and are moving very fast. And I don’t think they want to sort of lay down some rules. They want to look like they were based on a factually inaccurate premise two years from now.

MARGARET WARNER: So we just heard the basic argument between these two partisans, but tell us about the arguments in court today; that is, taking the government first. Which of the arguments that we just heard did the government lawyers try to emphasize in arguing to uphold this law?

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NewsHour: Supreme Court – February 19, 1997

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MARGARET WARNER: The first Supreme Court action we examine tonight is a decision in an abortion protest case from New York State. The decision changes the rules of engagement between abortion protesters on one side and abortion clinic workers and their clients on the other. Here to explain the ruling is NewsHour regular Stuart Taylor, correspondent with "The American Lawyer" and "Legal Times." Welcome back, Stuart.

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

MARGARET WARNER: Briefly, what’s the background of this case?

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NewsHour: Simpson Civil Case Goes to Jury – January 28, 1997

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MARGARET WARNER: A year and a half ago one-time football star O.J. Simpson was acquitted of murder in the 1994 killings of his former wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman. Yet, over the past four months he’s been back in court as a defendant in a civil lawsuit brought by the victims’ families. The jurors began their deliberations this afternoon, and to explain the distinctions between these two trials we’re joined by NewsHour regular Stuart Taylor, correspondent for the American Lawyer and Legal Times. Welcome back, Stuart.

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

MARGARET WARNER: What are these jurors being asked to decide?

STUART TAYLOR: They’ll have a verdict for them that asks eight questions. The first of them is fairly straightforward. Do you find that defendant Simpson wilfully or wrongfully caused the death of Ronald Goldman, and do you find it by a preponderance of the evidence? After that, the questions might seem a little strange to some people, which reflect some of the peculiarity of running a murder case through a civil damage suit. For example, the jury’s not asked whether Mr. Simpson killed his wife, Nicole Brown Simpson. It asked whether he committed battery upon her.

MARGARET WARNER: Now, why is that?

STUART TAYLOR: Her estate, her family did not bring what’s called a wrongful death action, presumably because they didn’t want her children and his children to have to testify in their part of the estate in a wrongful death action. The damage the victims or the survivors suffer is the loss of companionship and love of a dead person.

MARGARET WARNER: So–

STUART TAYLOR: They sued in what’s called a survivorship action, which is as though Nicole Brown Simpson were suing from the grave for what was done to her.

MARGARET WARNER: And now the burden of proof is also quite different in this case than it was in the criminal case, right?

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NewsHour: Supreme Court Action: Mandatory Drug Testing – January 14, 1997

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ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: The case before the Supreme Court comes from Georgia. It concerns drug testing and political candidates. We get a briefing on today’s arguments from NewsHour regular Stuart Taylor, correspondent for the American Lawyer and Legal Times. Thanks for being with us, Stuart.

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

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: What are the facts in this case?

STUART TAYLOR: The Georgia state legislature in 1990 prompted in part by the federal indictment of Washington, D.C. Mayor Marion Barry on drug charges, passed a new law that required anyone who wanted to run for election for any high office in the state of Georgia, governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, commissioner of agriculture, state legislature, including judges from the Supreme Court on down had to pass a drug test first, specifically they had to submit a certificate showing that they are going to a state-approved laboratory, a doctor’s office, given a urine specimen, passed the test within 30 days of filing for the election. Two Libertarian candidates for state office in the 1994 election sued, claiming that this drug testing law violated their rights, their Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizures, and their First Amendment rights of free speech. And the lower courts projected that claim, the Court of Appeals by a two to one vote. The candidates approved to the appeal to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court will now decide whether it’s constitutional.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: In the lower court cases the state of Georgia acknowledged that there was no evidence that people running for office had particular drug problems, right? So that’s not an issue here.

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NewsHour: Stuart Taylor on a Supreme Court Case – January 8, 1997

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ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Let’s get one thing clear. This is about–the Supreme Court heard these cases that are about a doctor giving a patient, who is an adult, competent person, medication to take their own lives, right? This is not about a doctor administering an injection to somebody who’s wasting away?

STUART TAYLOR: That’s exactly what it’s about. And a patient–the lower courts held it would–this right would only apply if the patient was terminally ill and mentally competent, and that the patient would administer the medication him or herself. This case, it relates to large issues of other kinds, but strictly speaking, that’s what it’s about.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Okay. We just heard about the case in Washington State. Tell us about the New York case.

STUART TAYLOR: In the New York case it was rather similar–three doctors who want to be able to help their patients end their lives with dignity and with less pain. And three patients who were terminally ill and wanted that kind of help and who have all died since the litigation began sued to strike down a New York law that bars anyone from assisting in a suicide, anyone including a physician. All 50 states have laws like this, unless one accepts Oregon, which recently repealed it by referendum, but that’s tied up in litigation. In any event, that case went up to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, and they struck down the law in a three-nothing vote, but by a different rationale, a substantially different rationale than the 9th Circuit and the case we just heard about.

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NewsHour: Supreme Court On Predators – December 10, 1996

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JIM LEHRER: We go first tonight to the Supreme Court argument on sexual predators. The case comes from Kansas, where five-time convicted child molester LeRoy Hendricks remains behind bars even though he has completed his criminal sentences. He was found to be mentally abnormal and dangerous. Under the Kansas Sexually Violent Predators Act, that’s enough to prevent his release. He’s challenging the constitutionality of the legislation. NewsHour regular Stuart Taylor, legal correspondent for The American Lawyer and Legal Times, covered the hearing today. Stuart, welcome. First, how does this Kansas law actually work?

STUART TAYLOR, The American Lawyer: It states that after a convicted sex offender, sexual predator, finishes his term, or as he’s about to finish his term, the prosecutor can go to the court and say this man is still dangerous, he’s got a mental abnormality that makes him a continuing threat to commit sexually violent acts, in particular to children in this case, and we want him locked up indefinitely, as long as he’s dangerous. And he has a right to a jury trial, and if a jury finds beyond a reasonable doubt that he’s got a mental abnormality, not to be confused, by the way, with a mental illness in the traditional sense, and that he’s likely to continue molesting children or committing sexually violent acts because of it, he can be confined in a "mental institution" for so long as that remains the case, or until he can come in and prove that he’s no longer ill or dangerous.

JIM LEHRER: Do there have to be repeat offenses, or can this happen after just one?

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NewsHour: A Look At Several High Court Cases – December 4, 1996

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SPENCER MICHELS: Nine years ago, former immigration officer Robert Park lobbied the Arizona legislature to pass a bill mandating that official government business be done in English only. The bill failed, but Park and his group, Arizonans for Official English, qualified an initiative for the 1988 ballot, an amendment to the state constitution. It passed by less than 1 percent of the vote.

SPOKESMAN: (talking to gentleman) You have to be able to lift up to 50 pounds.

SPENCER MICHELS: According to Park, the measure was designed not to stop the speaking of Spanish in government offices like this job center, but rather to make sure government actions, laws, decrees, and documents be written only in English. It also declared English the official language of Arizona, a policy now embraced by 22 other states.

ROBERT PARK, Arizonans for Official English: All it requires is that anything that’s binding on the state, any law, regulation, ordinance, whatever the case may be, must be in the English language to be enforceable.

SPENCER MICHELS: Park says he worked to pass the measure because he was disturbed that high levels of immigration put pressure on the government for bilingual ballots, education, and routine business.

ROBERT PARK: Official bilingualism. It’s dangerous. It’s not what we need in this country. We’ve got enough problems with ethnic groups and other people. All we have to do is look to our neighbors to the North in Canada and see what divisions are created by official bilingualism, where you have two official languages. It’s tearing the country apart.