Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, April 2, 1991 TAG: 9104020565
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A/2 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
The court said Monday that a doctrine that generally protects states and cities from such suits covers cities that are accused of acting in league with private businesses.
Charles Rothfeld, a lawyer for the National League of Cities and similar groups, said local officials were greatly relieved by the decision.
By a 6-3 vote, the high court threw out a $3 million antitrust award against Columbia, S.C.
A lower court had said the city violated federal antitrust law when local officials "conspired" with a billboard advertising company to enact an ordinance that effectively created a monopoly for the firm.
Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the Supreme Court, said the doctrine that shields states and cities generally from antitrust suits protects them even when there is evidence officials acted in concert with private businesses.
The only time a state or city may be sued for violating federal antitrust law is when either operates as a "market participant" rather than a market regulator, he said.
In a dissenting opinion, Justice John Paul Stevens said the ruling is "extreme" and lets state and local officials "confer exclusive privileges in a particular line of commerce."
In another ruling, the court said white defendants are entitled to new trials if convicted by juries from which blacks were excluded because of their race.
By a 7-2 vote, the court said prosecutors violate the Constitution if they bar prospective jurors for racial reasons - even when the defendant and the excluded jurors are of different races.
The justices ordered further lower court hearings to determine whether blacks were barred unlawfully from an Ohio jury that convicted Larry Joe Powers, who is white, of two murders.
In other action, the justices:
Granted a hearing to a convicted Delaware killer who says the jury that sentenced him to death wrongly took into account his membership in a white-supremacist gang. The court is expected to decide next year whether the jury violated his First Amendment right to associate with whom he pleases.
Agreed to review the federal government's power to permit dumping of treated sewage into interstate waterways.
Agreed to decide in a Louisiana case whether people acquitted of crimes because they were insane may, after regaining sanity, be denied release from mental hospitals if deemed still dangerous.
Agreed to settle a dispute between the federal government and Alaska over submerged offshore land that may have gold deposits.
by CNB