Punishment

WASHINGTON -- He's confessed. He's apologized. But President Clinton's National Contrition Tour will not end there: Now, as the nation sits in judgment, he will be punished.A few pastors want Clinton booted from his Baptist church in Arkansas. Several lawmakers think he should stand in the well of the Senate while he is publicly rebuked. Others want him to personally repay the cost of independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr's investigation or to take a pension cut. Some have suggested bringing him to criminal trial once his term ends.

WASHINGTON -- Suddenly, the improbable scenario of President Clinton standing trial in the Senate has become almost a reality. And it's no easier for senators than for the rest of America to come to terms with the bizarre spectacle that may lie ahead.Monica Lewinsky could be summoned into the Senate's formal marble chamber to recount her tale of sexual touching. Defense attorneys might grill Linda R. Tripp in the well of the Senate about secretly taped girl talk. Presiding over lurid proceedings more fitting to television's Judge Judy would be the stern and somber William H. Rehnquist, chief justice of the United States.

NO ONE GETS PLEASURE from meting out harsh punishment TTC to children, yet stiff sentences are absolutely appropriate when students threaten bomb explosions in the schools.Hundreds of hours of community service, a night or two in a lockup and a stiff fine might pound home the point: Bomb threats, even those intended as pranks, are horribly disruptive and potentially dangerous.Yesterday, Juvenile Court Master Philip T. Caroom sentenced a 15-year-old girl to 2,000 hours of community service, just as he did last week in the case of a 13-year-old boy. Unfortunately, stiff punishment has not turned out to be the immediate, effective deterrent school and law enforcement officials anticipated.

NEWS REPORTS carry enough horror stories about drunken driving to make any thinking person pause before getting behind the wheel while intoxicated. But how do you reach an incorrigible alcoholic who does not think before driving?No one reached Charles H. Sexton, of Woodbine, who was driving along a western Howard County road last March to a carryout shop with his mother and 11-year-old nephew. He was drunk to start with and was getting more intoxicated as he consumed beer along the way.Sexton, 48, rammed his car into a utility pole.

EVEN FOR those who oppose capital punishment, the case of Timothy McVeigh was a hard one. The monumental nature of his crime and his gruesome success in carrying out his diabolical plans made it difficult not to say that only the most severe and final punishment would do justice.Yet we can't agree with the 12 jurors' decision yesterday in Denver that McVeigh should be put to death. In weighing aggravating factors -- such as the intentional deaths and injuries to so many people, the careful planning and skill it took to cause so much destruction -- against mitigating factors like his honorable military service, they found little contest.

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court swept away yesterday a major constitutional obstacle to the government's power to treat an illegal act as both a crime and a civil violation and to punish the wrongdoer twice.By a vote of 5-4 in an Oklahoma case, the court cast aside one of its earlier rulings, a 1989 decision that defense lawyers have used to challenge federal and state laws that use a one-two punch to achieve multiple punishment for the same act.The theory was that this amounted to "double jeopardy," which is barred by the Sixth Amendment.

THE FIFTH AMENDMENT'S prohibition against double jeopardy -- that no "person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb" -- has been interpreted to mean protection against a second prosecution for the same offense or against multiple punishments for the same offense. But does forfeiting property to the government, a favored strategy of prosecutors involved in drug cases, constitute the kind of punishment prohibited by the Constitution?That question has elicited a string of appellate court rulings that amount to a complex and sometimes conflicting approach to this question.

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court, taking on an issue of rising importance to federal and state prosecutors, agreed yesterday to rule on the constitutionality of a commonly used one-two punch against criminals.That approach involves pursuing criminal charges against an individual, in addition to seizing that person's property in a separate proceeding, to try to make sure that criminals lose not only their personal freedom but also their crime-related assets.A ruling could have an effect far beyond drug prosecutions, a favorite field for the one-two approach.

The Howard County Board of Education has upheld its earlier punishment against four high school students caught drinking wine on a school-sponsored trip to France last spring. While we maintain that the banning of the students from extra-curricular activities seemed too harsh, we can understand why the board would have a tough time backing off its hard-line position now.As public as this case became, the board worried it would undermine its zero-tolerance policy toward alcohol if it softened the punishment, which included a five-day suspension and a ban from extra-curricular activities for two grading periods.

ANAHEIM, Calif. -- Several anonymous phone threats against designated hitter Chili Davis have prompted Anaheim Stadium officials to expedite plans to increase security measures during games.Angels vice president of operations Kevin Uhlich said the team has received two or three calls directed at Davis, who was fined $5,000 for poking a fan in the face in Milwaukee on July 30."They weren't death threats or anything," Uhlich said, "just some people voicing their displeasure with the punishment -- they thought it should have been more severe."

JoAnn C. Woodson-Branche said she came to the Baltimore Police Department to work on internal disciplinary cases and hold officers accountable. But the former official and career prosecutor said it quickly became apparent that the system was broken. Backroom deals were struck, recommendations for punishment were not followed and some who were set for termination escaped punishment, Woodson-Branche said. She said she had little autonomy, with many decisions dictated by one of the department's deputy commissioners.

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court weighed yesterday a $79.5 million verdict to punish cigarette-maker Philip Morris in a closely watched test of whether the justices will put strict limits on big jury awards. This is the most important case of the term for major corporations, which seek to limit such awards, and the outcome probably depends on President Bush's two appointees to the high court. Bush promised to pick justices in the "mold" of conservative Justice Antonin Scalia. But on this front, business lawyers are hoping that's not true.

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- The chief prosecutor asked an Iraqi judge yesterday to put deposed dictator Saddam Hussein to death for crimes against humanity, capping off months of grim testimony about the alleged 1982 massacre of Shiite Muslim villagers. Lead prosecutor Jaafar al-Moussawi also urged death for two of Hussein's fellow defendants: Barzan Ibrahim, a half-brother to the ex-leader and Iraq's former intelligence chief, and former Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan. "The prosecutor general requests from the court to issue the most severe punishment against them," al-Moussawi told the judge in his closing arguments.

LOS ANGELES -- There is a song in Gilbert and Sullivan's light opera The Mikado in which the title character reveals that one of his goals is "to let the punishment fit the crime." It appears that a number of judges around the country share that objective. In various jurisdictions and for various crimes, judges have ordered individuals to spend a night in the woods, act as a school crossing guard, stand on busy streets with signs around their necks proclaiming their misdeed and watch a film about violent neo-Nazis, American History X. Some of the judges involved said they offered these alternative sentences as a way of making the criminals better understand the harm they caused or could have caused.

Bush now slouches toward dictatorship It's time to impeach President Bush. The president has, in effect, declared that he is above the law and Congress is morally, historically and constitutionally bound to challenge this assertion ("Bush admits he OK'd spying in U.S.," Dec. 18). s Legislation Committee. Superior schooling makes China a rival Any thinking American should be terrified by the editorial "High-tech China"(Dec. 18), which chillingly points out the threat to us both economically and militarily from China's superior teaching of science and math in its schools.

FORT CARSON, Colo. - High-ranking officers accused of conspiring with 3rd Brigade Combat Team soldiers to cover up the death of an Iraqi civilian thrown from a bridge into the Tigris River have not been criminally charged and received only administrative punishment, the Army confirmed yesterday. Documents summarizing the allegations against the soldiers say three officers encouraged lower-level soldiers involved in the drowning incident to deny what happened. They were identified as Lt. Col. Nate Sassaman, the battalion commander; Maj. Robert Gwinner, Sassaman's executive officer; and Capt.

Mary Ann Gray, the prominent Baltimore County businesswoman and society page regular who admitted last summer to stealing money from her venture capital group, was supposed to learn her punishment last night. But her attorney and federal prosecutors spent hours arguing over how much money Gray stole -- crucial to determining the severity of her punishment -- prompting U.S. District Judge Benson E. Legg to decide to continue the hearing later. Prosecutors say Gray, who was executive director of the Mid-Atlantic Venture Association, spent hundreds of thousands of company dollars on personal expenses such as nannies, interior decorating and a Martha's Vineyard vacation home.

The second of three teen-agers officially cleared this week of raping a 15-year-old classmate at Mount Hebron High School in Howard County has been put on notice that he will - at a minimum - serve a 10-day suspension. The mother of Roderick D. Rudolph, 15, was notified yesterday of Principal Veronica Bohn's decision to impose the longest punishment she could under the school system's discipline policy for violating rules barring sexual acts on school grounds. Bohn told the mother that she will have to meet with Superintendent Sydney L. Cousin, who could increase the punishment, said Rudolph's lawyer, Lawrence B. Rosenberg.

The second of three teen-agers officially cleared this week of raping a 15-year-old classmate at Mount Hebron High School in Howard County has been put on notice that he will - at a minimum - serve a 10-day suspension. The mother of Roderick D. Rudolph, 15, was notified yesterday of Principal Veronica Bohn's decision to impose the longest punishment she could under the school system's discipline policy for violating rules barring sexual acts on school grounds. Bohn told the mother that she will have to meet with Superintendent Sydney L. Cousin, who could increase the punishment, said Rudolph's lawyer, Lawrence B. Rosenberg.

IN AMERICA, youngsters under the age of 18 can't buy cigarettes. They can't be served a cocktail in a bar or pick up a six-pack of beer. They can't vote. They can't own property outright. And yet, executing someone who committed a heinous crime at age 16 or 17 is permissible in this society. Condoned in 22 states. Practiced vigorously in at least one, Texas. Only in America. The U.S. Supreme Court has the opportunity to put a stop to that barbarous practice, and should. America's interest in executing its most vulnerable has waned considerably since the court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.