Category Archives: PBS News Hour

pbs

Posted on

NewsHour: Brady Bill Tested in Supreme Court. – December 3, 1996

by

BETTY ANN BOWSER: In 1981, when a lone gunman attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan, his press secretary, James Brady, was also seriously wounded. The fallout from that shooting and from several other widely publicized shooting incidents brought calls for federal legislation that would require criminal background checks on people who want to buy handguns. After much legislative controversy, a bill named after Brady was signed into law in November of 1993.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: It will be step one in taking our streets back, taking our children back, reclaiming our families, and our future.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Under the Brady Bill, states could refuse to sell handguns to anyone indicted or convicted of a felony, and to those who had ever had a restraining order placed against them. The work of checking those backgrounds was given to state and local chief law enforcement officers. They were required to review the forms within five days, destroy applications of those declared eligible, and inform in writing those who were denied. But at the Graham County Sheriff’s Department in Arizona, Sheriff Richard Mack said he was too busy to do those jobs.

SHERIFF RICHARD MACK, Graham County, Arizona: We have gun problems here, gang problems here. Am I supposed to know those problems so I can check a criminal background check on someone who’s never committed a wrong in their life? Can’t do it.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Sheriff Mack organized a gun rally to raise money to sue the federal government. He said the requirements were an infringement on states’ rights, a violation of the 10th amendment, which reserves to the states those powers not specifically given to the federal government in the Constitution.

SHERIFF RICHARD MACK: We cannot allow our constitutional rights to be trampled on like our federal government seems to be trampling on them.

Posted on

NewsHour: Supreme Court – Abortion – October 16, 1996

by

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Now more on this case and other action at the court this week from NewsHour regular Stuart Taylor, correspondent for the American Lawyer and Legal Times. Thanks for coming, Stuart. Tell us about the arguments in the court today about this case.

American Lawyer: They were very lively arguments today. The issue before the court focused on the so-called 15-foot floating buffer zone. The, the protesters did not appeal the order that said they can’t block people, grab people, shove people. They were saying, we ought to have a right to go up to people and speak to them, hand them literature and so forth, and this 15-foot zone prevents us from doing that. Uh, the all–eight of the nine justices were jumping in during the arguments on one side or the other, and there are about three on each side, you can tell, and about three in the middle arguing back and forth with each other, using the justices as props. And it was an exceptionally lively argument that way, a difficult one to call. I mean, in, in this case the court is fine-tuning a precedent it already laid down a couple of years ago in terms of it’s fairly clear that they can do–that the courts can do something to prevent protesters from unduly harassing women who want to go into the clinics. It’s also fairly clear they–they don’t–the courts don’t have carte blanche just to say you’ve got to stay 300 feet away, and the court is trying to decide in this case, you know, where to draw the line.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Does it make a difference that this is a case about an abortion clinic, if it were a heart clinic or something else, would it make a difference, do you think?

Posted on

NewsHour: New Supreme Court Session – October 7, 1996

by

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: It’s the first Monday in October, and that means the beginning of a new term for the U.S. Supreme Court. On the docket are a wide spectrum of cases ranging from physician-assisted suicide to sexual harassment. We get a preview now of the term ahead from NewsHour regular Stuart Taylor, correspondent for the American Lawyer and Legal Times. Stuart, it’s nice to see you again after a summer’s respite. How would you characterize the court docket for the coming term? STUART TAYLOR, The American Lawyer: It’s a very full docket with a great range of very important cases, but I think the ones that tower above the others, the ones that will maybe ten years from now really look like seminal cases are the two physician-assisted suicide cases from the states of Washington and New York in which lower courts struck down laws that bar doctors from helping patients hasten death when the patients are suffering.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Mm-hmm. And so what are they considering here?

MR. TAYLOR: Uh, the issue for the Supreme Court is whether there’s a constitutional right for a patient who is terminally ill, who is competent, and who wants to hasten death because the patient’s in pain or otherwise suffering, for that patient to ask his doctor to give him or her a lethal injection, for example, and for the doctor to go ahead and do it, because the problem, as perceived by those who support this, is that it’s illegal almost everywhere for doctors to do that, and has been since time immemorial. The Hippocratic Oath bars it.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: And the constitutional principle that’s being–that is at issue here–

Posted on

NewsHour: Supreme Court Rulings – June 28, 1996

by

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: It was a busy day at the court. We get more on today’s rulings from NewsHour regular Stuart Taylor, correspondent with the "American Lawyer" and "Legal Times." Welcome, Stuart.

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

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: We have four cases to deal with in three broad areas. Let’s start with cable TV and indecency. What did the court rule?

Posted on

NewsHour: Supreme Court Decision on Women at VMI – June 26, 1996

by

MARGARET WARNER: Tonight we examine two of the day’s high court rulings. The first involves the all-male Virginia Military Institute. On a seven to one decision, the court ruled that the state of Virginia may no longer exclude women from admission to VMI. We get more on that from NewsHour regular Stuart Taylor, correspondent for the "American Lawyer" and "Legal Times." Welcome, Stuart. What was the basic–what was the basis for the court’s ruling in this case?

STUART TAYLOR, The American Lawyer: The court ruled that it violates the equal protection guarantee of the 14th Amendment for VMI–for the state of Virginia, I should say, to deny to women what it called the unique and extraordinary benefits that men get from attending Virginia Military Institute, a 150-year-old institution with a unique prestigious role in Virginia life.

MS. WARNER: And what was the majority’s reasoning in coming to this, the majority opinion written by, I gather, Justice Ginsberg?

MR. TAYLOR: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, who was a crusader for equal rights for women before she came on the court, basically reasoned that women should have all the opportunities men do in Virginia and elsewhere unless there’s what she called an exceedingly persuasive justification why they should not. She reviewed all the justifications Virginia had advanced for keeping VMI all male and rejected them. In particular, she said there are some women who could benefit from a VMI type education, which is sort of a boot camp style approach to education. Even if there aren’t many, there are some, and they should have that opportunity. She also rejected the state’s argument that it would destroy the boot camp style approach VMI uses to admit women.

MS. WARNER: And so VMI, of course, had tried to start a separate program for women at a nearby women’s college. What did the court say about that?

Posted on

NewsHour: Supreme Court on Double Jeopardy – June 24, 1996

by

CHARLES ARLT, Defendant: They took everything we had. We didn’t hide a dime, every transaction was done by the law.

JAMES WREN, Defendant: The government took vehicles, automobiles, and they took aircraft, they took–

MR. KAYE: After the men were indicted on criminal charges, the government filed a civil forfeiture suit in order to confiscate their property. Wren’s lawyer, Shawn Perez, says the government punished the men twice for the same crime. That was double jeopardy, says Perez, a violation of the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed.

SHAWN PEREZ, Lawyer: I see nothing wrong with punishing a person once, and the Constitution says, yes, we can punish you once, but we cannot punish you twice for the same offense in two separate proceedings. Arlt and Wren were punished twice by the forfeiture of their property. After they had already been prosecuted and convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment, the government came back and said, we’re taking everything you own–resulted in a second punishment.

Posted on

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

by

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?

Posted on

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

by

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.

Posted on

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

by

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.

Posted on

NewsHour: Supreme Court review – May 13, 1996

by

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?