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

DATE: TUESDAY, April 26, 1994                   TAG: 9404260118
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

HIGH COURT SIDES WITH FREE SPEECH

The justices let stand a ruling that bars radio listeners who are upset over allegedly indecent broadcasts from asking federal courts to revive complaints dismissed by the Federal Communications Commission.

The justices, without comment, refused to review a ruling that said radio listeners generally don't have the proper legal standing to pursue such complaints beyond the FCC.

The case began when Peter Branton filed a complaint with the commission. He had listened to a National Public Radio news program on radio station WSMC-FM in Chattanooga, Tenn., the evening of Feb. 28, 1989.

The program contained a report on reputed New York mobster John Gotti, and included a tape-recorded telephone conversation between Gotti and an associate that was used as trial evidence.

In the 110-word portion of the tape aired, Gotti used what a federal appeals court called ``variations of the f-word 10 times ... to modify virtually every noun and in one instance even a verb.''

Branton, a Chattanooga area resident, was offended by the language. He filed a complaint with the commission's Mass Media Bureau, requesting commission sanctions against NPR.

The commission refused, ruling that the report Branton found objectionable was part of a ``bona fide'' news story.

Branton then sought help from the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

A three-judge panel of that court dismissed Branton's appeal, ruling last June that he lacked the legal standing to file it.

``If [he] suffers any continuing injury, we suppose it is in the nature of the increased probability that, should the NPR broadcast go unsanctioned, he will be exposed in the future to similar indecencies over the airwaves,'' the appeals court said. ``This marginal increase in the possibility of future harm does not meet the `immediacy' requirement for ... standing.''

Branton's appeal said other appeals courts have allowed such appeals.

In other matters, the court:

Agreed to use a Louisiana death row inmate's appeal to clarify when prosecutors' failure to disclose evidence favorable to a defendant requires throwing out a conviction or sentence.

Turned down, over two dissenting votes, the appeal of a Kentucky man who says welfare workers and his wife denied him visitation rights to his young daughter by falsely accusing him of child sex abuse.