>Date: Mon, 4 Oct 1999 18:23:06 -0500 (CDT)
>From: Bryan George Pfeifer <bgp@csd.uwm.edu>
>
>Ginsburg Present as Court Opens
>
>By Joan Biskupic
>Washington Post Staff Writer
>Monday, October 4, 1999; 11:14 a.m. EDT
>
>The Supreme Court opened its 1999-2000 term today with oral arguments in
>an appeal by a Virginia death row prisoner that could significantly affect
>inmates nationwide trying to challenge their cases in federal court.
>
>Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who had recent colon cancer surgery, was on
>the bench with her eight other colleagues. She smiled broadly as she
>entered through the red velvet curtains and ascended the bench, her
>husband and two grown children watching her take her place. Ginsburg's
>dark brown hair was pulled back in a pony tail as usual and her face
>showed no obvious signs of the stress of major surgery just three weeks
>ago. The 66-year-old justice quickly jumped into the morning's oral
>arguments with her customary pointed questioning.
>
>In separate court business, the justices issued a 76-page list of orders,
>denying appeals in about 1,700 cases that had been filed at the court
>during its summer recess. Among the more important actions, the court:
>
>* Allowed the Knox County (Tenn.) Board of Education to
>continue requiring drug testing of all new teachers and employees
>deemed in "safety sensitive" positions. The justices rejected an appeal
>brought by an education association that argued that such testing,
>where officials have no reason to suspect an individual is using illegal
>drugs, violates the right to be free of unreasonable searches.
>
>* Spurned a challenge to an Arizona state policy of
>giving $500 tax credits to people who pay for scholarships and tuition
>grants at private schools. The justices let stand a ruling by the Arizona
>Supreme Court that the practice did not violate the Constitution's
>requirement for separation of church and state.
>
>* Denied an appeal in the high-profile case of Mumia
>Abu-Jamal, a former radio reporter and commentator convicted of
>killing a Philadelphia policeman in 1981.
>
>In these cases and the others denied review, the
>justices set no national precedent; rather, they left the lower court
>rulings at issue in tact and declined for now to step into whatever
>controversy remains.
>
>The death penalty case subject to the first oral arguments of the term
>centers on Terry Williams, who was convicted in the 1985
>killing of an elderly Danville man and who has been on Virginia's
>death row the longest of any of the inmates awaiting execution, 13 years.
>
>William's argues that his trial lawyer was incompetent
>and wrongly failed to bring up Williams's troubled background, low
>intelligence and other factors that may have mitigated his getting the
>death penalty. After years of appeals, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the
>4th Circuit denied his request for constitutional relief, saying a 1996
>federal law required it to defer to the Virginia Supreme Court's decision
>that Williams case was not hurt by his arguably ineffective trial lawyer.
>
>The case is significant nationally because it tests a
>major provision of the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act
>passed by Congress to reduce federal court involvement in death row inmate
>appeals. The question boils down to how much independence federal
>judges have to assess an inmate's case when he claims his
>constitutional rights have been violated.
>
>Today, during oral arguments, several justices expressed concerns that the
>4th Circuit standard was too tough and would remove the federal bench
>from providing important constitutional checks on state
>death cases.
> ###
>
>