YEAR IN REVIEW 1996: LAW-CRIME-AND-LAW-ENFORCEMENT: LAW

LAW: Other Court Decisions. People around the world in 1995 watched the televised trial of former football star O.J. Simpson, who was found not guilty of charges that he had murdered his former wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her acquaintance Ronald Goldman. The verdict was celebrated by many black Americans and condemned by a majority of whites, but there was general agreement that the state of race relations in the U.S. had been highlighted by the case. The racial composition of the jury convinced many in the legal community from the start that conviction would not be possible, no matter how strong the evidence of guilt, especially after testimony indicated deep-seated racism in the Los Angeles Police Department. Whatever the correctness of this view, it convinced some that justice might be better served by adoption of the approach taken in most European countries of letting a panel of judges decide at least major criminal cases. In the Simpson case the jury was sequestered from family members and the public so as to shield it from media coverage. The confinement lasted 266 days, believed to be a record in the U.S. Some legal scholars blamed the long confinement for the quick verdict, with deliberations lasting only four hours. In this view the jury was tired of the case and wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible. Others, however, were of the opinion that the jury had decided the case long before it ended and had no need to sort through the mountain of evidence entrusted to it. In any case, many scholars believed that sequestration was a bad idea that rarely, if ever, should be used. They pointed out that it did not necessarily provide airtight isolation because conjugal visits, for example, broke the seal. Moreover, if trials were not televised, many argued, there would be less need to shield a jury from the media, since television tended to generate an excessive amount of other media interest. In addition, some experts claimed that televised trials encouraged posturing by lawyers and judges and thus inevitably lengthened proceedings. More important decisions from a legal point of view were handed down by tribunals in various countries. As usual, these cases centred on questions of sex and age discrimination, civil rights, the regulation of business, and politics. Only one prominent case involving abortion was handed down in 1995. The Supreme Court of Ireland rendered an advisory opinion to the country's president that the Regulation of Information Act, dealing with providing information for abortion services abroad, was constitutional. The court also ruled that abortion was permissible in Ireland when it had been established as a matter of probability that the life of the pregnant woman could be saved only by a termination of the pregnancy. In U.S. v. X-Citement Video, Inc., the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Protection of Children Against Sexual Exploitation Act, which banned the interstate shipment of child pornography. A majority on the court found that the act required proof of "scienter"--that is, knowledge by the defendant that the person performing the pornographic act was a minor--and that it was reasonable to read the statute as containing such a requirement. In R. v. Ministry of Defence, ex parte Smith, an English divisional court held that the policy of dismissing homosexuals from the armed forces, while not related to national security, was, nevertheless, not unreasonable and did not violate English constitutional principles or Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The U.S. Supreme Court, in Hurley v. Irish-American Gay Group, also dealt a blow to claimants of homosexual rights by declaring unconstitutional a Massachusetts law that required a private parade sponsor to include, as marching units, organizations of gays, lesbians, and bisexuals. The court said that the law violated the free-speech rights of the sponsor, in this case an association of people who traditionally organized Boston's Saint Patrick's Day parade. In another significant case, the Japanese Court of Grand Bench, with 5 dissents out of the 15 judges, held constitutional a civil code provision that limited inheritance for illegitimate children to one-half of that available to legitimate children. The UN Human Rights Committee handed down three important civil rights decisions in 1995. In Kome v. Senegal it held that the pretrial detention of a person for more than four years by the Senegalese government violated Article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which guaranteed freedom of expression. In Coeriel and Aurik v. Netherlands, the committee ruled that The Netherlands' refusal to allow a Dutch national to change his name violated the right to privacy guaranteed by Article 17 of the ICCPR. Finally, it decided in Lansman v. Finland that Finland had not violated Article 27 of the ICCPR, which guaranteed the right of minorities to enjoy their own culture, when it granted a license to a company to do quarrying on a mountain that had religious and other cultural significance for a minority group. Meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court resolved several notable civil rights cases during the year. The most important of the decisions may have been in Adarand Constructors v. Pena. The case concerned the constitutional validity of federal contracts that were required to contain provisions giving financial incentives for hiring subcontractors certified as small businesses controlled by socially and economically disadvantaged individuals, presuming that such individuals included minorities found by the Small Business Administration to be disadvantaged. The court held that "strict scrutiny" must be exercised when any classification imposed by the federal, state, or local government was based on race. That is to say, such a classification was constitutional only if it was narrowly tailored to further a compelling government interest. Under this test the court held that the contracts in question were unconstitutional. In Harris v. Alabama the court ruled that an Alabama law allowing judges to impose the death sentence in spite of a jury's recommendation of life imprisonment was constitutional. In McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission, it ruled that a statute barring anonymous campaign literature was unconstitutional. In Veronia School District v. Acton, the court held that a school's policy requiring drug testing of students who participated in athletic programs did not violate the U.S. Constitution. In Capitol Square Review Board v. Pinette, it held that Ohio had violated the Constitution when it denied an application by the Ku Klux Klan to display an unattended cross on the statehouse square. Although it was less active in 1995 than in previous years, the European Court on Human Rights (ECHR) handed down a decision that, in the view of many legal experts, could have far-reaching importance for Europe's judicial tribunals. In Hiro Balani v. Spain, the ECHR held that Spain had violated Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which guaranteed the right to a fair trial, by the failure of its Supreme Court to give a reasoned decision when it handed down its ruling on the merits of the case. Legal experts noted that while in the U.S. appellate courts were required to deliver long, written opinions justifying their decisions, the practice in Europe was different. The ECHR stated that the obligation of appellate courts to give reasoned decisions varied according to the kind of case involved and other circumstances, but it apparently would require such decisions when the applicant's submission was relevant, stated in a precise manner, and supported by evidence. The Supreme Court of Israel clarified its views on the protection of intellectual property by holding in the case of David Geva v. The Walt Disney Corporation that there was copyright infringement by an Israeli cartoonist who used the character Donald Duck in a comic book. The cartoonist had contended that his use of the Disney character was satirical criticism and thus within fair use. The court emphatically recognized the fair use exemption, but it found that the requirements had not been met in this case since the use was commercial and did not constitute criticism. In Publishers Association v. Commission, the European Court of Justice struck down the Net Book Agreement promulgated by the U.K. under which standard conditions were set for the sale of books at fixed prices. It held that the arrangement violated competition rules of the European Union. The U.S. Supreme Court resolved an issue that had pitted the insurance industry against commercial banks. Under banking legislation, largely enacted through the lobbying efforts of insurance companies, national banks were prohibited from selling insurance. In NationsBank v. Variable Annuity Life Insurance Co., the hotly debated question arose whether annuities were insurance for purposes of the exclusion. In a victory for commercial banks, the court ruled that annuities were not insurance and that they could be sold by national banks. The frequent-flyer programs of U.S. airlines, under which passengers could receive free tickets and other benefits, came under attack. In the past few years, some carriers had canceled or curtailed the programs retroactively, with the result that a number of lawsuits were filed against them. The airlines, in turn, contended that their actions were legal under the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978. The U.S. Supreme Court held in American Airlines v. Wolens that the federal statute did not shield the airlines from actions for breach of contract but did protect them from claims of fraud. The U.S. Supreme Court in 1995 also dealt with two sensitive political issues, term limits and congressional redistricting. In U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton, it declared unconstitutional an Arkansas law that denied ballot access to congressional candidates who had been elected to two terms in the Senate or three terms in the House of Representatives. The decision, however, did not prohibit the states from imposing term limits on those running for state office. In Miller v. Johnson the court held that a Georgia redistricting plan based predominantly on race violated the equal protection clause of the Constitution. (WILLIAM D. HAWKLAND) See also World Affairs: Multinational and Regional Organizations; United Nations. This updates the articles constitutional law; international law.