
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, February 19, 1994                   TAG: 9402190067
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The Washington Post
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

PACKWOOD LOSES APPEAL; PANEL CAN STUDY DIARIES

Sen. Bob Packwood, R-Ore., lost another round to the Senate Ethics Committee Friday as a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals refused to bar the committee from gaining access to Packwood's diaries while he appeals a ruling upholding a subpoena for the journals.

This means that, barring further appeals, the committee could begin receiving copies of the diaries as soon as it complies with a court-imposed process for copying, safeguarding and screening the materials.

After ruling earlier this month that Packwood must turn over the diaries to the committee, U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson gave Packwood 15 days to seek a stay of his decision upholding the committee's subpoena for the diaries as part of its probe of his sexual and official conduct. The 15 days run out Tuesday.

Packwood could appeal the panel's ruling to the full appeals court or to the Supreme Court, but there was no immediate comment on the senator's intentions from his attorney, Jacob Stein. "We don't have any comment at this time," said Packwood's press secretary, Bobbi Munson.

While agreeing to Packwood's request to expedite consideration of his appeal and setting arguments for May 12, judges Harry Edwards, David Sentell and Raymond Randolph found in their three-paragraph ruling that Packwood had "not satisfied the stringent standards required for a stay pending appeal."

As cited by Senate legal counsel Michael Davidson in papers filed with the court, these standards involve probable outcome of the appeal, a "balance of equities" between the two sides and "the public interest in expeditious resolution of serious allegations against a United States senator."

In arguments presented to the judges, Packwood had contended that surrender of the diaries to the ethics panel while the case is on appeal would render any future rulings in his favor meaningless.

"Not only would that delivery moot any appeal," Stein argued on Packwood's behalf last week, "but it also gives the committee access to Sen. Packwood's personal private papers for whatever use the staff wishes to make of them."

Trampled in the process, he argued, would be Packwood's constitutional rights to privacy and protection against self-incrimination. It would cause the senator "irreparable injury," Stein concluded.

With the appeal not scheduled for argument for three months, it is possible that the committee could obtain and examine all the materials, numbering about 5,000 pages, before a decision is reached on the appeal.

If Packwood were to win on appeal, it would be up to the appellate court to determine use of the materials that had been obtained by the committee in the meantime, legal sources said.

by CNB