From: [voltai 29] at [chelsea.ios.com] (Voltaire)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,alt.politics.libertarian,alt.politics.democrats.d,alt.politics.usa.republican,alt.politics.usa.congress,alt.fan.rush-limbaugh
Subject: #High Court Hears Arguments on Selective Drug Prosecution
Date: Tue, 27 Feb 1996 23:43:15 GMT

High Court Hears Arguments on Selective Drug Prosecution.

Tony Mauro of USA TODAY, February 26, 1996

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court heard debate Monday over the divisive 
issue of whether blacks receive tougher prosecutions than whites 
in the nation's war on drugs.

The issue arose in the case of five black defendants from Los Angeles 
who claimed racial bias was behind the decision to prosecute them 
in 1992 on federal crack cocaine charges rather than under state 
law. The federal charges carried penalties of 10 years in prison,
twice as long as state law provided.

The defendants' lawyers asked for information that might have proved 
the charge of "selective prosecution." Prosecutors refused, and 
a lower court dismissed charges against the five.

The Clinton administration is asking the justices to reverse the 
lower court ruling.

In briefs filed in the case, the court was told of wide racial 
disparities in crack cocaine prosecutions.

The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers says that 
in one district in Washington state, 90 percent of those prosecuted 
on crack cocaine charges were black, though blacks make up 1 percent 
of the local population. Nationwide, 92 percent of federal crack 
prosecutions have been against blacks.

Prosecutors traditionally enjoy almost unquestioned discretion 
in their decisions.

U.S. Solicitor General Drew Days III, representing the Justice 
Department, argued for maintaining that power. "The courts should 
be properly hesitant to scrutinize the decision to prosecute," 
said Days.

While the defense in the Los Angeles case showed that all 24 people 
prosecuted federally in 1991 in that district were black, no proof 
was offered that similarly situated whites were treated differently.

Federal public defender Barbara O'Connor said the government ought 
to be forced to provide at least limited information when a charge 
of selective prosecution is made.

Most justices appeared noncommittal. But conservative Justice Antonin 
Scalia called the defendants' allegation an "extraneous issue" 
that distracts from the question of guilt or innocence. The court 
could rule anytime before the term ends in late June.

Also Monday, the court:

- Declined to review a lower court decision that allowed lawsuits 
against the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant to proceed, even 
though plant owners argued that no one was exposed to excessive 
radiation in the 1979 accident.

Area residents say they suffered from cancer in high numbers after 
the accident.

- Let stand without comment a Florida law that makes it a crime 
to burn a cross on someone else's property.

- Rejected a challenge - filed on behalf of a frozen human embryo 
- to the selection process for members of a federal panel that 
has recommended federal financing of medical research on embryos.

- Agreed to decide a major issue in patent law involving how to 
decide when a new product is so similar to an existing product 
that it violates the older product's patent.