In January 2002, in Juneau, Alaska, Joseph Frederick had the sort of idea that makes a teenager seem like one of nature's mistakes. Last week, after five years and the attention of 13 federal judges, Frederick became a footnote in constitutional history. His case illustrated how the multiplication and extension of rights lead to the proliferation of litigation. It also illustrated something agreeable in a disagreeably angry era - how nine intelligent, conscientious justices can civilly come to strikingly different conclusions about undisputed facts. [continues 693 words]
WASHINGTON -- In January 2002, in Juneau, Alaska, Joseph Frederick had the sort of idea that makes a teenager seem like one of nature's mistakes. Last week, after five years and the attention of 13 federal judges, Frederick became a footnote in constitutional history. His case illustrated how the multiplication and extension of rights lead to the proliferation of litigation. It also illustrated something agreeable in a disagreeably angry era -- how nine intelligent, conscientious justices can civilly come to strikingly different conclusions about undisputed facts. [continues 689 words]
WASHINGTON - In January 2002, in Juneau, Alaska, Joseph Frederick had the sort of idea that makes a teenager seem like one of nature's mistakes. Last week, after five years and the attention of 13 federal judges, Frederick became a footnote in constitutional history. His case illustrated how the multiplication and extension of rights lead to the proliferation of litigation. It also illustrated something agreeable in a disagreeably angry era - how nine intelligent, conscientious justices can civilly come to strikingly different conclusions about undisputed facts. [continues 646 words]
IN January 2002, in Juneau, Alaska, Joseph Frederick had the sort of idea that makes a teenager seem like one of nature's mistakes. Last week, after five years and the attention of 13 federal judges, Frederick became a footnote in constitutional history. His case illustrated how the multiplication and extension of rights lead to the proliferation of litigation. It also illustrated something agreeable in a disagreeably angry era -- how nine intelligent, conscientious justices can civilly come to strikingly different conclusions about undisputed facts. [continues 689 words]
In January 2002, in Juneau, Alaska, Joseph Frederick had the sort of idea that makes a teenager seem like one of nature's mistakes. Last week, after five years and the attention of 13 federal judges, Frederick became a footnote in constitutional history. His case illustrated how the multiplication and extension of rights lead to the proliferation of litigation. It also illustrated something agreeable in a disagreeably angry era -- how nine intelligent, conscientious justices can civilly come to strikingly different conclusions about undisputed facts. [continues 688 words]
In January 2002, in Juneau, Alaska, Joseph Frederick had the sort of idea that makes a teenager seem like one of nature's mistakes. Last week, after five years and the attention of 13 federal judges, Frederick became a footnote in constitutional history. His case illustrated how the multiplication and extension of rights lead to the proliferation of litigation. It also illustrated something agreeable in a disagreeably angry era -- how nine intelligent, conscientious justices can civilly come to strikingly different conclusions about undisputed facts. [continues 691 words]
In January 2002, in Juneau, Alaska, Joseph Frederick had the sort of idea that makes a teenager seem like one of nature's mistakes. Last week, after five years and the attention of 13 federal judges, Frederick became a footnote in constitutional history. His case illustrated how the multiplication and extension of rights lead to the proliferation of litigation. It also illustrated something agreeable in a disagreeably angry era -- how nine intelligent, conscientious justices can civilly come to strikingly different conclusions about undisputed facts. [continues 689 words]
WASHINGTON - In January 2002, in Juneau, Alaska, Joseph Frederick had the sort of idea that makes a teenager seem like one of nature's mistakes. Last week, after five years and the attention of 13 federal judges, Frederick became a footnote in constitutional history. His case illustrated how the multiplication and extension of rights lead to the proliferation of litigation. It also illustrated something agreeable in a disagreeably angry era - how nine intelligent, conscientious justices can civilly come to strikingly different conclusions about undisputed facts. [continues 691 words]
In January 2002, in Juneau, Alaska, Joseph Frederick had the sort of idea that makes a teenager seem like one of nature's mistakes. Last week, after five years and the attention of 13 federal judges, Frederick became a footnote in constitutional history. His case illustrated how the multiplication and extension of rights lead to the proliferation of litigation. It also illustrated how nine justices can civilly come to strikingly different conclusions about undisputed facts. This story actually began in 1965, in Des Moines, Iowa, when three teenagers wore black armbands to school to protest the Vietnam War. Their school said the bands or the students must go. The students kept the bands, were suspended, sued and won a 7-2 Supreme Court victory in 1969. The court said that students do not "shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate." [continues 449 words]
Washington -- In January 2002, in Juneau, Alaska, Joseph Frederick had the sort of idea that makes a teenager seem like one of nature's mistakes. Last week, after five years and the attention of 13 federal judges, Frederick became a footnote in constitutional history. His case illustrated how the multiplication and extension of rights lead to the proliferation of litigation. It also illustrated something agreeable in a disagreeably angry era -- how nine intelligent, conscientious justices can civilly come to strikingly different conclusions about undisputed facts. [continues 689 words]
In January 2002, in Juneau, Alaska, Joseph Frederick had the sort of idea that makes a teenager seem like one of nature's mistakes. Last week, after five years and the attention of 13 federal judges, Frederick became a footnote in constitutional history. His case illustrated how the extension of rights lead to the proliferation of litigation. It also illustrated something agreeable in a disagreeably angry era: How nine intelligent, conscientious justices can civilly come to strikingly different conclusions about undisputed facts. [continues 595 words]
IN JANUARY 2002, in Juneau, Alaska, Joseph Frederick had the sort of idea that makes a teenager seem like one of nature's mistakes. Last week, after five years and the attention of 13 federal judges, Frederick became a footnote in constitutional history. His case illustrated how the multiplication and extension of rights lead to the proliferation of litigation. It also illustrated something agreeable in a disagreeably angry era -- how nine intelligent, conscientious justices can civilly come to strikingly different conclusions about undisputed facts. [continues 689 words]
In Constitutional Litigation, Distinctions Must Be Drawn In January 2002, in Juneau, Alaska, Joseph Frederick had the sort of idea that makes a teenager seem like one of nature's mistakes. Last week, after five years and the attention of 13 federal judges, Frederick became a footnote in constitutional history. His case illustrated how the extension of rights lead to the proliferation of litigation. It also illustrated something agreeable in a disagreeably angry era -- how nine intelligent, conscientious justices can civilly come to strikingly different conclusions about undisputed facts. This story actually began in 1965, in Des Moines, Iowa, when three teenagers wore black armbands to school to protest the Vietnam War. Their school said the bands or the students must go. The students kept the bands, were suspended, sued and won a 7-2 Supreme Court victory in 1969. The court said that students do not "shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate." One of the dissenting justices was Hugo Black, a fierce proponent of First Amendment rights who nevertheless warned that the decision denied schools "the power to control pupils." Not a threat Thirty-three years later, at a school-sanctioned and faculty-supervised event during normal school hours, students were watching the Olympic torch pass through Juneau en route to the 2002 Winter Olympics in Utah. Frederick and some friends, standing on a public street across from their school, unfurled a banner reading "Bong Hits 4 Jesus." The school's principal read that as endorsement of, even advocacy of, an illegal act (marijuana use) in violation of the school's stated policy and educational mission. [continues 454 words]
When government restricts Americans' choices, ostensibly for their own good, someone is going to profit from the paternalism. Perhaps Prohibition II is being launched because Prohibition I worked so well at getting rid of gin. Or maybe the point is to reassure social conservatives that Republicans remain resolved to purify Americans' behavior. Incorrigible cynics will say Prohibition II is being undertaken because someone stands to make money from interfering with other people making money. For whatever reason, last Friday the president signed into law Prohibition II. You almost have to admire the government's plucky refusal to heed history's warnings about the probable futility of this adventure. This time the government is prohibiting Internet gambling by making it illegal for banks or credit-card companies to process payments to online gambling operations on a list the government will prepare. [continues 677 words]
"In the period October 1980-May 1981, 5 young men, all active homosexuals, were treated for biopsy-confirmed Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia at 3 different hospitals in Los Angeles, California. Two of the patients died." - -- Centers for Disease Control, June 5, 1981 WASHINGTON -- Those words 25 years ago announced the arrival of something most Americans thought anachronistic -- an infectious disease epidemic. At first it was called GRID -- gay-related immune deficiency. In September 1982, CDC renamed it acquired immune deficiency syndrome -- AIDS. [continues 715 words]
WASHINGTON -- Henry J. Friendly, who died in 1986, was perhaps the most distinguished American judge never to serve on the Supreme Court, and he almost spared the nation the poisonous consequences of that court's 1973 truncation of democratic debate about abortion policy. The story of that missed blessing was told recently by Judge A. Raymond Randolph of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, in an address to the Federalist Society. In 1970, Friendly, then on the Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, was a member of a three-judge panel that heard the first abortion-rights case ever filed in a federal court, alleging the unconstitutionality of New York's abortion laws. Friendly wrote a preliminary opinion that was never issued because, in that pre-Roe era, democracy was allowed to function: New York's Legislature legalized abortion on demand during the first 24 weeks of pregnancy, causing the three-judge panel to dismiss the case as moot. [continues 617 words]
Exasperated by pessimism about the "war on drugs," John Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, says: Washington is awash with lobbyists hired by businesses worried that government may, intentionally or inadvertently, make them unprofitable. So why assume that the illicit drug trade is the one business that government, try as it might, cannot seriously injure? Here is why: When Pat Moynihan was an adviser to President Nixon, he persuaded the French government to break the "French connection" by which heroin came to America. Moynihan explained his achievement to Labor Secretary George Shultz, who said laconically: "Good." [continues 576 words]
Exasperated by pessimism about the "war on drugs," John Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, says Washington is awash with lobbyists hired by businesses worried that government may, intentionally or inadvertently, make them unprofitable. So why assume that the illicit drug trade is the one business that government, try as it might, cannot seriously injure? Here is why: When Pat Moynihan was an adviser to President Nixon, he persuaded the French government to break the "French connection" by which heroin came to America. Moynihan explained his achievement to Labor Secretary George Shultz, who said laconically: "Good." [continues 577 words]
WASHINGTON - Exasperated by pessimism about the "war on drugs," John Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, says: Washington is awash with lobbyists hired by businesses worried that government may, intentionally or inadvertently, make them unprofitable. So why assume that the illicit drug trade is the one business that government, try as it might, cannot seriously injure? Here is why: When Pat Moynihan was an adviser to President Nixon, he persuaded the French government to break the "French connection" by which heroin came to America. Moynihan explained his achievement to Labor Secretary George Shultz, who said laconically: "Good." [continues 649 words]
WASHINGTON - Exasperated by pessimism about the "war on drugs," John Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, says: Washington is awash with lobbyists hired by businesses worried that government may, intentionally or inadvertently, make them unprofitable. So why assume that the illicit drug trade is the one business that government, try as it might, cannot seriously injure? Here is why: When Pat Moynihan was an adviser to President Nixon, he persuaded the French government to break the "French connection" by which heroin came to America. [continues 682 words]
WASHINGTON -- Exasperated by pessimism about the "war on drugs," John Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, says: Washington is awash with lobbyists hired by businesses worried that government may, intentionally or inadvertently, make them unprofitable. So why assume that the illicit drug trade is the one business that government, try as it might, cannot seriously injure? Here is why: When Pat Moynihan was an adviser to President Nixon, he persuaded the French government to break the "French connection" by which heroin came to America. Moynihan explained his achievement to Labor Secretary George Shultz, who said laconically: "Good." [continues 590 words]
WASHINGTON -- Exasperated by pessimism about the "war on drugs," John Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, says: Washington is awash with lobbyists hired by businesses worried that government may, intentionally or inadvertently, make them unprofitable. So why assume that the illicit drug trade is the one business that government, try as it might, cannot seriously injure? Here is why: When Pat Moynihan was an adviser to President Nixon, he persuaded the French government to break the "French connection" by which heroin came to America. Moynihan explained his achievement to Labor Secretary George Shultz, who said laconically: "Good." [continues 669 words]
WASHINGTON - Exasperated by pessimism about the "war on drugs," John Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, says: Washington is awash with lobbyists hired by businesses worried that government may, intentionally or inadvertently, make them unprofitable. So why assume that the illicit drug trade is the one business that government, try as it might, cannot seriously injure? Walters understands that when there is a $65-billion-a-year American demand for an easily smuggled commodity produced in poor countries, and when the price of cocaine and heroin on American streets is 100 times the production costs, much will evade even sophisticated interdiction methods. And, he says, huge quantities of marijuana are grown domestically, for example, in California, Kentucky and West Virginia - often on public lands because the government can seize private land used for marijuana cultivation. [continues 357 words]
Exasperated by pessimism about the "war on drugs," John Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, says: Washington is awash with lobbyists hired by businesses worried that government may, intentionally or inadvertently, make them unprofitable. So why assume that the illicit drug trade is the one business that government, try as it might, cannot seriously injure? Here is why: When Pat Moynihan was an adviser to President Nixon, he persuaded the French government to break the "French connection" by which heroin came to America. Moynihan explained his achievement to Labor Secretary George Shultz, who said laconically: "Good." [continues 669 words]
Exasperated by pessimism about the "war on drugs," John Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, says: Washington is awash with lobbyists hired by businesses worried that government may, intentionally or inadvertently, make them unprofitable. So why assume that the illicit drug trade is the one business that government, try as it might, cannot seriously injure? Here is why: When Pat Moynihan was an adviser to President Nixon, he persuaded the French government to break the "French connection" by which heroin came to America. Moynihan explained his achievement to Labor Secretary George Shultz, who said laconically: "Good." [continues 665 words]
Exasperated by pessimism about the "war on drugs," John Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, says: Washington is awash with lobbyists hired by businesses worried that government might, intentionally or inadvertently, make them unprofitable. So why assume that the illicit drug trade is the one business that government, try as it might, cannot seriously injure? Here is why: When Pat Moynihan was an adviser to President Richard Nixon, he persuaded the French government to break the "French connection" by which heroin came to America. Moynihan explained his achievement to Department of Labor Secretary George Shultz, who said laconically: "Good." [continues 671 words]
White House Official Fears Young Marijuana Users Will Face Problems Later On Exasperated by pessimism about the "war on drugs," John Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, says: Washington is awash with lobbyists hired by businesses worried that government may, intentionally or inadvertently, make them unprofitable. So why assume that the illicit drug trade is the one business that government, try as it might, cannot seriously injure? Here is why: When Pat Moynihan was an adviser to President Nixon, he persuaded the French government to break the "French connection" by which heroin came to America. Moynihan explained his achievement to Labor Secretary George Shultz, who said laconically: "Good." [continues 669 words]
Exasperated by pessimism about the "war on drugs," John Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, says: Washington is awash with lobbyists hired by businesses worried that government may, intentionally or inadvertently, make them unprofitable. So why assume that trade in illicit drugs is the one business that government, try as it might, cannot seriously injure? Here is why: When Pat Moynihan was an adviser to President Richard Nixon, he persuaded the French government to break the "French connection" by which heroin came to America. Moynihan explained his achievement to Labor Secretary George Shultz, who said laconically: "Good." [continues 676 words]
Demand Brings Supply, but Cutting It Can Change Behavior WASHINGTON - Exasperated by pessimism about the "war on drugs," John Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, says: Washington is awash with lobbyists hired by businesses worried that government may, intentionally or inadvertently, make them unprofitable. So why assume that the illicit drug trade is the one business that government, try as it might, cannot seriously injure? Here is why: When Pat Moynihan was an adviser to President Nixon, he persuaded the French government to break the "French connection" by which heroin came to America. Moynihan explained his achievement to Labor Secretary George Shultz, who said laconically: "Good." [continues 669 words]
WASHINGTON - Exasperated by pessimism about the "war on drugs," John Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, says: Washington is awash with lobbyists hired by businesses worried that government may, intentionally or inadvertently, make them unprofitable. So why assume that the illicit drug trade is the one business that government, try as it might, cannot seriously injure? Here is why: When Pat Moynihan was an adviser to President Nixon, he persuaded the French government to break the "French connection" by which heroin came to America. Moynihan explained his achievement to Labor Secretary George Shultz, who said laconically: "Good." [continues 675 words]
Conservative Justices Split Over Issue; That Highlights Ambiguities WASHINGTON - With the parties warring over the composition of the federal judiciary, and with a Supreme Court vacancy perhaps impending, Americans should use the court's end-of-term decisions as whetstones on which to sharpen their sense of the ambiguities in the categories - -- "liberal," "conservative," "activist," "practitioner of judicial restraint" -- used when judges are discussed. Consider the case of Diane Monson's home-grown marijuana plants, a case about which the court's two most conservative justices, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, disagreed. [continues 661 words]
WASHINGTON -- With the parties warring over the composition of the federal judiciary, and with a Supreme Court vacancy perhaps impending, Americans should use the court's end-of-term decisions as whetstones on which to sharpen their sense of the ambiguities in the categories used when judges are discussed: liberal, conservative, activist, practitioner of judicial restraint. Consider the case arising from the destruction, by agents of the Drug Enforcement Agency, of Diane Monson's home-grown marijuana plants, a case about which the court's two most conservative justices, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, disagreed. [continues 537 words]
With the parties warring over the composition of the federal judiciary, and with a Supreme Court vacancy perhaps impending, Americans should use the court's end-of-term decisions as whetstones on which to sharpen their sense of the ambiguities in the categories - - "liberal," "conservative," "activist," "practitioner of judicial restraint" - used when judges are discussed. Consider the case arising from the destruction, by agents of the Drug Enforcement Administration, of Diane Monson's home-grown marijuana plants, a case about which the court's two most conservative justices, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, disagreed. [continues 687 words]
