Opening Day For The Supremes
On the first day of the Supreme Court's new term, justices turned down appeal after appeal, disappointing more than a thousand people including Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols and exonerated Olympic Park bombing suspect Richard Jewell.
Among the castoffs was an emergency request from New Jersey Republicans, who wanted to prevent Democrats from replacing incumbent Robert Torricelli on the Nov. 5 ballot for Senate. The high court's refusal to get involved means the Democrats can put former Sen. Frank Lautenberg on the ballot.
The court also turned away assisted suicide advocate Dr. Jack Kevorkian, who is serving a jail term for his role in helping a man die, and the son of singer Frank Sinatra, who wanted to stop his one-time kidnapper from profiting through a movie about the crime.
The nine justices did not comment in refusing to consider those appeals, nor most of the approximately 2,000 others rejected Monday.
Following tradition, the court reopened for business on the first Monday in October, following a three-month summer break.
In the term that will run through next June, the court will consider legal fights over cross burning, the rights of abortion protesters, repeat criminals and sex offenders, and even copyright protection for lingerie maker Victoria's Secret.
The court already has accepted 45 cases for the term, and will continue to add cases in the coming months. Overall, the court receives about 8,000 appeals annually and hears about 80.
Some of the biggest headlines could come from cases now waiting in the wings, among them tests of government power to combat terrorism, affirmative action in college admissions and the new law rewriting campaign funding.
Monday's appeal marked Terry Nichols' fifth failed attempt to win high court review of his five-year-old federal court conviction. Nichols is serving a life sentence for conspiracy and involuntary manslaughter in the deaths of eight federal agents.
The agents were among 168 people killed in the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City, which was the nation's worst case of domestic terrorism until the Sept. 11 attacks last year.
Nichols' lawyers were again arguing that his trial was tainted by the government's failure to turn over thousands of documents. They said the government should not be rewarded for misconduct. Nichols still faces state murder charges and could be sentenced to death if he is convicted.
Former security guard Richard Jewell argued that he was libeled by a newspaper that reported he was a suspect in the 1996 bombing at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta. Georgia courts sided with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Jewell found the knapsack that held a bomb that exploded on July 27, 1996, killing one woman and injuring 111 people. He went from hero to suspect, but was later cleared by the Justice Department.
Kevorkian claimed his prosecution for the 1998 death of Thomas Youk was unconstitutional.
The doctor is serving a 10- to 25-year prison sentence for the injection death of Youk, who suffered from Lou Gehrig's disease. The death was videotaped and shown on national television. Kevorkian called it a "mercy killing," but a jury in Michigan convicted him of second-degree murder.
The Sinatra case involves profits from the story of the 1963 kidnapping of Frank Sinatra Jr. He was snatched from a hotel in Lake Tahoe, Nev., and released unharmed after his family paid a $240,000 ransom. Three men were arrested and convicted.
One of the kidnappers could collect up to $1.5 million from an upcoming movie about the case.
The younger Sinatra wanted the high court to preserve a California law intended to prevent convicts from cashing in through media depictions of their crimes.
The California Supreme Court struck down the law as unconstitutional, and the high court action means that decision stands. Some 40 states have similar laws requiring convicts to forfeit proceeds from books or other projects.
The New Jersey election case resurrected memories of the court's intervention in the Bush-Gore presidential contest. But this time the justices stayed out and let the decision of a Democratic-dominated state supreme court stand.
New Jersey Republicans had called the switch a political ploy intended to dump a candidate who seemed sure to lose in favor of a potential winner. They had asked the Supreme Court to stop the Democrats, arguing that the candidate swap came too close to Election Day.
The high court did not explain its reasons for rejecting the GOP appeal.
The Supreme Court also declined to intervene in a labor dispute between Major League Soccer and a group of players.
The players, who had accused the league of being an illegal monopoly, were handed their third straight defeat in their challenge of MLS. The players also lost in a jury trial and a federal appeals court.
The players' class-action antitrust lawsuit claimed that the league conspired with the U.S. Soccer Federation to create a monopoly by blocking other leagues and depressing salaries.
The high court last reviewed a sports-related case in 2001, when justices ruled that disabled golfer Casey Martin may use a cart to ride in PGA Tour events.