Supreme Court gears up for high-profile First Amendment cases

Analysis

By The Associated Press

01.01.03

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WASHINGTON — An injury to the chief justice and an emotional discussion of racism provided some drama at the Supreme Court before its winter break, but the real action comes next year.

Justices return to work in January. Decisions are expected by June in several high-profile cases — including First Amendment cases — that the court has already debated over the past three months, including how states punish cross-burners.

The justices have also considered the copyright protection of Mickey Mouse and other creations, and the trademark of Victoria's Secret in a case pitting the lingerie giant against a man named Victor who runs his own lingerie shop.

It's considered a good bet Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, 78, will end his 31-year career at the Court in June, when the Court's term concludes.

Rehnquist, hobbled by a knee injury suffered in a fall at his home last month, missed all of December's arguments. Surgeons repaired a torn leg tendon, and Rehnquist is working at the court, just not sitting on the bench.

Already, the term has proved emotional. In one of the session's most intently watched arguments, the court considered a First Amendment test of Virginia's cross-burning law. The state prosecuted two white men who tried to set a cross on fire in the yard of black neighbors and a man who burned a large cross during a Ku Klux Klan rally. The men say cross burning is constitutionally protected free speech.

Justice Clarence Thomas, who rarely speaks, used the case to condemn the history of lynchings in the South. "This was a reign of terror, and the cross was a symbol of that reign of terror," said Thomas, the only black justice.

Another First Amendment case the Court will consider in the year ahead involves whether public libraries that receive federal funding can be forced to install filters on computers to block sexually explicit Web sites. That case affects more than 14 million people who use library computers. Critics say filters block Internet sites that offer helpful information about such things as health and science.

Appeals also are anticipated in the next few months in challenges of a new campaign-finance law and the government's post-Sept. 11 intelligence-gathering tactics. Justices could receive those in time for arguments this spring.

Tom Goldstein, a Washington lawyer who argues often before the Supreme Court, said the justices are getting involved in a broad range of major issues. "These cases will remind the public of the Supreme Court's immense power to shape American life," Goldstein said.

Of some 80 cases the Court hears each year, so far justices have issued rulings in just a handful of cases, and most of those were settled on unanimous votes.

Vikram David Amar, a former Supreme Court clerk and law professor at the University of California, Hastings, said the justices have jumped into some controversial cases that they could have ducked, guaranteeing an interesting spring.

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