Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, January 11, 1992 TAG: 9201110003
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
IS AN AIRPORT A PUBLIC FORUM?
The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to decide whether airports may ban all soliciting - and the distribution of political and religious literature as well - from their terminals.The court said it will use a case involving the New York City area's three major airports to decide whether an airport terminal, like a city park or sidewalk, is a public forum where free-speech rights are given enhanced protection.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had let the government-operated Kennedy, La Guardia and Newark airports bar members of the Hare Krishna religion from soliciting donations in terminal concourses.
Every other federal appeals court to study the issue had ruled that a government-run airport terminal is a public forum where some soliciting must be allowed.
In other action, the court agreed to decide:
Whether the government may kidnap people from a foreign country and prosecute them in the United States over the foreign nation's objection. The Justice Department is challenging a lower court ruling that ordered the return to Mexico of a suspect in the 1985 killing of Enrique Camarena, an agent of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
The suspect, Humberto Alvarez-Machain, was abducted from his office in Guadalajara, Mexico, in 1990 and brought to the United States to stand trial.
How far Congress may go in forcing states to find safe ways to dispose of low-level radioactive waste.
New York authorities challenged the constitutionality of a 1996 deadline set by Congress for each state to provide a disposal site for all such waste generated within its borders.
Whether local governments may impose a permit fee of up to $1,000 per day for parades and rallies.
The court said it will review a ruling that such a permit-fee law in Forsyth County, Ga., violates free-speech rights.
The county adopted the fee ordinance in 1987 to help defray its administrative expenses and the cost of providing police protection at public gatherings.
The court also set aside a ruling that blocked a state court's plan for legislative redistricting in Minnesota. The high court's action appeared to leave state officials free to employ the state court's plan.