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

DATE: WEDNESDAY, November 1, 1995                   TAG: 9511010078
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Short

HIGH COURT RULES ON 1ST CASES OF TERM

Issuing its first decisions of the 1995-96 term, the court also ruled for Mississippi in a boundary dispute with Louisiana over an area of land known as Stack Island.

In the banking case, the court said a Maryland bank had the right to freeze David Strumpf's checking account because he owed money on a separate loan and had filed for bankruptcy protection.

Forcing a bank to release such money ``would divest the creditor [the bank] of the very thing that supports the right'' to collect repayment of the loan, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the court.

The Mississippi case involved a dispute over a 2,000-acre area that stretches seven miles along the Louisiana bank of the Mississippi River.

The justices adopted a special master's finding that the land once was an island in Mississippi known as Stack Island, and that it therefore still is part of Mississippi.

Writing for the court, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said that once an island has been deemed to be in one state, it remains in that state even if a river's main channel switches to the island's other side.