Category Archives: PBS News Hour

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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–

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NewsHour: Presidential Subpoena – February 6, 1996

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ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Thank you both for being with us. Rex Nelson, this trial is set to begin March 4th. Refresh our memory about the trial. What’s–who’s being charged with what?

REX NELSON, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette: (Little Rock) Well, of course, we have a Whitewater grand jury which has been meeting for quite some time here in Little Rock. An indictment came down from that grand jury on August 17th of last year charging Jill McDougal, Susan McDougal, and Bill Clinton’s successor as governor of Arkansas, Jim "Guy" Tucker. They are being tried together on charges that are not directly related to the Whitewater Development Corporation, which, of course, was the President’s partnership with Jim McDougal.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Now, they have, what, 17 charges in total? They’ve been indicted on 17 charges, or at least Susan McDougal has, right?

MR. NELSON: There are actually nineteen charges against Jim McDougal, eleven charges against Gov. Tucker, and eight charges against Susan McDougal.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And what–how was President Clinton related to this? Why would the McDougals want him to testify on their behalf?

MR. NELSON: Really, if the linchpin of the prosecution case is a former municipal judge here in Little Rock named David Hale. David Hale claims that a lot of Arkansas political figures back in the ’80’s put pressure on him to make unwise loans. One of those political figures was then Gov. Bill Clinton, and he says that Clinton put pressure on him to make a $300,000 loan to Susan McDougal, and so Susan McDougal says I need the President’s testimony in order to clear me.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And we should make it clear that the President is not being accused of any wrongdoing here.

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NewsHour: Stuart Taylor on the Whitewater Grand Jury – January 23, 1996

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MARGARET WARNER: First Lady Hillary Clinton has been subpoenaed by Whitewater Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr to appear before a federal grand jury here in Washington this Friday. For more on this unprecedented event we hear from Stuart Taylor, correspondent for the American Lawyer and Legal Times and a regular on the NewsHour. All first, first give us the context for this. Which grand jury exactly is it that the First Lady’s been asked to appear before?

STUART TAYLOR, The American Lawyer: The grand jury in Washington. There’s also a grand jury in Little Rock being run by the same Independent Counsel, Kenneth Starr, investigating Whitewater and related matters. And the two grand juries are dividing their work up roughly with the Washington grand jury investigating the things that happened in Washington since President Clinton took office, the Arkansas grand jury investigating things that happened in Arkansas earlier, but there’s great overlap between the investigations. And they share information with each other.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. And what do we know from the subpoena or from what’s come out about what she’s going to be asked to testify about?

MR. TAYLOR: Well, the subpoena and the fact that about six or seven other people were subpoenaed seems to indicate that the Independent Counsel is particularly interested in how these Rose Law Firm billing records for Hillary Clinton appeared mysteriously in the White House living quarters some two years after they had been subpoenaed and whether someone was hiding them or obstructing justice. However, the White House statement that was put out yesterday also indicated that the First Lady was prepared to discuss the content of the billing records which suggest that some of the questions may get into looking at particular entries and how do you explain this and how do you reconcile it with your testimony on that and so forth.

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NewsHour: Virginia Military Institute’s Men Only Policy – January 17, 1996

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ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: You were at the Supreme Court today. Can you summarize the arguments for us?

STUART TAYLOR: Yes. Deputy Solicitor General Paul Bender led off for the Justice Department, and he stressed that VMI’s unique adversative-style education, that’s the buzz word which is kind of the boot camp approach of being abused and harassed by upperclassmen, is a valuable asset and that the VMI degree is a valuable asset to those men who go there, particularly because it’s a very prestigious institution with a loyal alumni body that channels people into successful careers.

He said that there’s no reason women should be denied the benefit of that sort of education; that there are some women who can hack it at a place like VMI, in the records yes, there are some, and that they ought to have that opportunity. He also claims that the arguments VMI has made and the Mary Baldwin people have made for the solution of keeping them in separate places depended on outmoded stereotypes, basically depended on the idea that there are some things women can’t handle, and this is one of them, and that the only remedy, in his view, is to integrate VMI. He says that the Mary Baldwin institution 35 miles down the road is not equal, is not the same, is not as good in, in various ways.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: How about the opposing side?

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NewsHour: Virginia Military Institute’s Men Only Policy – January 17, 1996

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ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: You were at the Supreme Court today. Can you summarize the arguments for us?

STUART TAYLOR: Yes. Deputy Solicitor General Paul Bender led off for the Justice Department, and he stressed that VMI’s unique adversative-style education, that’s the buzz word which is kind of the boot camp approach of being abused and harassed by upperclassmen, is a valuable asset and that the VMI degree is a valuable asset to those men who go there, particularly because it’s a very prestigious institution with a loyal alumni body that channels people into successful careers.

He said that there’s no reason women should be denied the benefit of that sort of education; that there are some women who can hack it at a place like VMI, in the records yes, there are some, and that they ought to have that opportunity. He also claims that the arguments VMI has made and the Mary Baldwin people have made for the solution of keeping them in separate places depended on outmoded stereotypes, basically depended on the idea that there are some things women can’t handle, and this is one of them, and that the only remedy, in his view, is to integrate VMI. He says that the Mary Baldwin institution 35 miles down the road is not equal, is not the same, is not as good in, in various ways.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: How about the opposing side?