Justices

It is often said that Supreme Court justices have "life tenure" - a term used elsewhere to describe royalty. Our justices serve as long as they like - regardless of infirmity, fatigue or diminished ability. Moreover, the court has evolved into a "super legislature" where justices interpret laws to reflect their political preferences, with little regard for the expressed intent of Congress. Our Supreme Court is in serious need of reform. First, if a designated panel of senior appellate judges discerns that a justice is disabled, he or she should be given the choice of retiring at full pay or facing a public hearing on the issue.

WASHINGTON -- Moments before a Mississippi prisoner was scheduled to die by injection yesterday evening, the Supreme Court granted him a stay of execution and thus gave a nearly indisputable indication that a majority intends to block all executions until the court decides a lethal-injection case from Kentucky next spring. There were two dissenters, Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel A. Alito Jr., but neither they nor the majority gave reasons for their positions. Because only five votes are required for a stay of execution, it is not clear whether all of the remaining seven justices supported it. The stay will remain in effect until the full court reviews an appeal filed Monday by lawyers for the inmate, Earl W. Berry, who is on death row for having killed a woman 20 years ago. While there is no schedule for that review, it almost surely will not take place until the court decides the Kentucky case, Baze v. Rees, which will be argued in January.

WASHINGTON -- In another reversal of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the U.S. Supreme Court restored a death sentence yesterday for a two-time Arizona murderer who told his trial judge, "If you want to give me the death penalty, just bring it right on." The judge accepted the invitation and in 1990 sentenced Jeff Landrigan to die for the murder and robbery of Chester Dyer. Landrigan was in Arizona after escaping from a prison in Oklahoma where he was serving time for murder. During his sentencing hearing, Landrigan said he did not want his mother or his former wife to testify in his behalf.

For those in favor of restricting handguns - as we surely are - the agreement by the U.S. Supreme Court to reconsider a long-standing handgun ban in the city of Washington would seem to justify a cautious sigh of relief. It raises the hope that the justices will reverse a disastrous federal appeals court ruling invalidating the ban. But it's hard to predict how, or even whether, the justices will ultimately rule. In March, a 2-1 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit declared that Washington's three-decades-old law banning handguns in homes - while allowing rifles or shotguns - was unconstitutional.

The New York Times said in an editorial Wednesday:A CONGRESSIONAL hearing on the Supreme Court's annual budget last week took a valuable detour as Justices Clarence Thomas and David Souter engaged in a lengthy colloquy with lawmakers about the court's dismal record in recruiting and hiring minority law clerks.Each of the nine justices personally selects up to four law clerks each term to help with screening appeals and drafting opinions.The current term's crop of 34 clerks includes only one minority member -- a Hispanic woman -- and for the second year running, the court hired no African-American clerks.

WASHINGTON -- Workers who are victims of intentional sex and race bias on the job can collect extra, or "punitive," money damages without having to prove that the bias was "outrageous," the Supreme Court ruled yesterday by a 7-2 vote.It is enough, the court said, for the worker to show that the discrimination demonstrated a serious disregard of the worker's right to be treated equally.The ruling cleared up a conflict among lower courts on when punitive damages can be awarded. The justices overturned a federal appeals court decision that said such extra damages should be awarded only in "the worst cases," with clear proof of "outrageous" or "egregious" bias.

WASHINGTON -- Going further than ever before to insulate states from federal laws, a deeply divided Supreme Court ruled yesterday that the states are immune -- unless they consent -- to being sued in state courts by individuals or companies seeking to enforce those laws.The court issued the final rulings of its annual term amid a powerful new demonstration of a five-justice majority's commitment to expanding states' rights -- an effort that has continued throughout this decade.That has been a heated effort, with the justices arguing and rearguing one of the core issues fought over at the time the Constitution was written 211 years ago: what powers the states gave up when the national government was formed, and what they kept.

WASHINGTON -- One hundred and twenty-nine years after the 15th Amendment to the Constitution gave freed slaves and other blacks the right to vote, the Supreme Court pondered yesterday what that amendment means now.An unusual dispute that arose in Hawaii is the only case in the court's current term to test the conservative majority's deepening opposition to government's use of race as a decisive factor in public policy.The case is being watched closely for new hints about the court's views on racial preferences.

WASHINGTON -- The long-standing custom of police agencies taking reporters and photographers with them on operations -- a practice popularized in "reality television" police shows -- appeared to be in constitutional trouble in the Supreme Court yesterday.Hearing two cases, one from Maryland, the other from Montana, most of the justices were sharply critical of police for allowing reporters and photographers to go with them when they enter homes or other private property to make arrests or searches.

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court turned aside yesterday a constitutional challenge to a 3-year-old law designed to keep sexually explicit magazines out of federal prisons.Acting on a variety of issues as the court finished its annual term, the justices offered no comment as they denied review of an appeal by three inmates, Playboy Enterprises Inc., the publisher of Penthouse and a publishing trade organization in a free-speech challenge to the ban.In 1996, Congress, at the urging of a first-year congressman, Nevada Republican John Ensign, barred federal prisons from using any of their budgeted funds to distribute sex-oriented publications to prisoners.

It is often said that Supreme Court justices have "life tenure" - a term used elsewhere to describe royalty. Our justices serve as long as they like - regardless of infirmity, fatigue or diminished ability. Moreover, the court has evolved into a "super legislature" where justices interpret laws to reflect their political preferences, with little regard for the expressed intent of Congress. Our Supreme Court is in serious need of reform. First, if a designated panel of senior appellate judges discerns that a justice is disabled, he or she should be given the choice of retiring at full pay or facing a public hearing on the issue.

The Supreme Court has upheld an individual right to bear arms under the Second Amendment ("Justices back gun owners," June 27). And I am thankful that five justices are capable of reading the plain meaning of the Constitution and enforcing its freedoms. Guns are merely tools. By themselves, they do nothing. The person using the gun dictates whether it is used for good or bad purposes. Gun restrictions such as the Washington law that the court struck down have the primary effect of removing guns from the hands of law-abiding citizens.

One of the ancient axioms of chemistry is, "The dose makes the poison." What may be beneficial in small doses can be harmful in large ones. That insight applies in other areas too. In wartime, you don't want the sort of president we had in, say, James Buchanan-who thought that while the South had no right to secede, he had no right to stop it, either. You want a president willing to act, quickly and forcefully. But those qualities can be taken too far. If a powerful, assertive executive were an unmixed blessing, the United States would never have revolted against King George III. From the beginning of the war on terror, the Bush administration has had two central objectives.

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court sent a message to the White House yesterday, saying clearly that the Bush administration no longer controls the fate of the nearly 300 detainees held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. In a 5-4 decision, the court essentially gave the nation's federal courts authority over the detainees, holding that the inmates can have judges review the government's rationale for keeping them locked up without charges. "The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times," Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion.

In a decision expected to clear the way for states to resume executions by lethal injection, the Supreme Court upheld yesterday Kentucky's execution procedures, which are used by nearly every state with a death penalty law, including Maryland. Executions across the country have been on hold since the high court agreed in September to hear the case of two Kentucky death row inmates who challenged the three-drug procedure, which is used to anesthetize, paralyze and stop the heart. Within hours of yesterday's ruling, the governor of Virginia announced that he was lifting his state's moratorium on executions, while several prosecutors and governors around the country said they would seek execution dates as quickly as the courts can set them.

Feb. 5 1937 President Franklin Roosevelt proposed increasing the number of justices on the U.S. Supreme Court; critics accused Roosevelt of attempting to "pack" the high court.

For those in favor of restricting handguns - as we surely are - the agreement by the U.S. Supreme Court to reconsider a long-standing handgun ban in the city of Washington would seem to justify a cautious sigh of relief. It raises the hope that the justices will reverse a disastrous federal appeals court ruling invalidating the ban. But it's hard to predict how, or even whether, the justices will ultimately rule. In March, a 2-1 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit declared that Washington's three-decades-old law banning handguns in homes - while allowing rifles or shotguns - was unconstitutional.

WASHINGTON -- Moments before a Mississippi prisoner was scheduled to die by injection yesterday evening, the Supreme Court granted him a stay of execution and thus gave a nearly indisputable indication that a majority intends to block all executions until the court decides a lethal-injection case from Kentucky next spring. There were two dissenters, Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel A. Alito Jr., but neither they nor the majority gave reasons for their positions. Because only five votes are required for a stay of execution, it is not clear whether all of the remaining seven justices supported it. The stay will remain in effect until the full court reviews an appeal filed Monday by lawyers for the inmate, Earl W. Berry, who is on death row for having killed a woman 20 years ago. While there is no schedule for that review, it almost surely will not take place until the court decides the Kentucky case, Baze v. Rees, which will be argued in January.

WASHINGTON -- Supreme Court justices signaled yesterday that they might not allow investors to sue bankers and other outside businesses who might have played key roles in a company's scheme to inflate its value. The justices heard arguments in a closely watched case involving Charter Communications Inc. that asks who can be sued for a stock fraud - just the company that perpetrated the fraud or all those who participated in its fraudulent scheme? It's a hundred-million-dollar question because lawyers for investors have sued investment bankers and others for the collapse of Enron Corp.

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court set the stage yesterday for an election-year ruling on whether states can require voters to show a government-issued photo identification before they cast a ballot. The court's decision, due by June, could affect the outcome of close races in several states. New photo ID laws in Indiana, Georgia and Arizona have been upheld in the past year, while a Missouri law was blocked from taking effect. By agreeing to hear an appeal from Indiana Democrats, the justices apparently decided they wanted to resolve this legal dispute well before voters go to the polls next fall.