THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, October 3, 1995 TAG: 9510030291
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium: 83 lines
The Supreme Court cast aside a broad challenge to federal limits on abortion-clinic protests as its 1995-96 term began Monday with a blizzard of paperwork but without the chief justice.
Giving a big victory to abortion-rights advocates, the court let stand rulings that said the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act does not infringe on anyone's freedom of expression or religion.
With Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist home recuperating from back surgery, the court turned away more than 1,500 appeals.
The challenged abortion-clinic law makes it a crime for anyone to block, hinder or intimidate someone who seeks to enter.
Although Monday's action was not a ruling - and therefore not necessarily the definitive word on the law's validity - it was a key setback for anti-abortion activists.
Jay Sekulow of the American Center for Law and Justice, founded by Virginia Beach broadcaster Pat Robertson, called the court's action ``very disappointing,'' but said his organization would continue challenging the federal law.
``The Supreme Court missed an important opportunity to strike down a law that has turned the First Amendment on its head and crippled legitimate, peaceful protest,'' Sekulow said.
Deborah Ellis of the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund welcomed the action benefiting the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act. ``FACE has been effective in reducing the onslaught of violence to which women, doctors and their families have been subjected,'' she said.
Lower courts had ruled in a case from Virginia that Congress, in passing the clinic-access law, had acted within its authority to regulate interstate commerce.
The anti-abortion American Life League sued Attorney General Janet Reno last year in an effort to block enforcement of FACE.
The Supreme Court last June rejected a challenge to FACE by the Concerned Women for America, but it had not raised the interstate commerce issue.
The appeal rejected Monday relied heavily on a decision last April in which the justices struck down a federal law that made it a crime to have a gun within 1,000 feet of a school. The court said the mere possession of a gun has virtually nothing to do with interstate commerce and should be left to state and local law enforcement.
Clinton administration lawyers had urged the justices to reject the appeal.
The court's senior associate justice, John Paul Stevens, presided over the new term's first day. Rehnquist is expected, however, to participate in deciding the cases argued before the court in his absence. ILLUSTRATION: IN OTHER ACTION:
The court on Monday:
Ruled that the way Tennessee elects its Senate does not illegally
dilute black voters' political strength. Black voters had argued
that a 1992 redistricting plan violated the federal Voting Rights
Act.
Steered clear of a Pennsylvania dispute over states' duty to
release from nursing homes those people willing and able to live in
private homes if they get state-paid ``attendant care.'' The
justices never have studied closely the scope of the Americans with
Disabilities Act of 1990.
Rejected the appeal of a professor ousted as chairman of a New
York college's black-studies department after he was accused of
making a bigoted and anti-Semitic speech.
Refused to hear an appeal by Charles Keating, convicted of fraud
and racketeering in the most expensive savings and loan failure in
U.S. history. Keating had sought review of rulings that require him
to repay $36.4 million to the collapsed Lincoln Savings & Loan.
Let stand a ruling that American Cyanamid Co., one of the
nation's largest corporations, must be considered a private, not
public, figure for its multimillion-dollar libel lawsuit against
Mylan Pharmaceuticals Inc.
Turned down the appeal of two California men who say they were
victims of unconstitutional, excessive force when police dogs
pursued and bit them.
by CNB