ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, May 14, 1996 TAG: 9605140054
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press WASHINGTON
The Supreme Court, in a decision that might hamper President Clinton's effort to limit cigarette advertising, Monday struck down Rhode Island's ban on ads that list or refer to liquor prices.
A unanimous court said the ban, aimed at promoting sobriety, violates free-speech rights. The ruling also gave other commercial speech greater protection against government regulation.
The full impact of the ruling, spelled out in four separate opinions, likely will not be known until lower courts begin to interpret it.
But the ruling marked the high court's strongest statement against regulating commercial speech since a landmark 1975 decision that extended to advertising the First Amendment's free-speech guarantee.
Monday's decision appeared to move commercial speech a step closer to being as protected against government regulation as political or artistic expression. But while all nine justices voted to enhance the freedom to advertise, only four favored doing so in sweeping fashion.
The court, however, appeared ready to discredit its own 1986 decision that said government may prohibit advertising for an activity if that activity - such as gambling - could be prohibited altogether.
Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in Monday's main opinion that blanket bans such as Rhode Island's prohibition against liquor ads ``rarely survive constitutional review.'' He rejected the state's argument that ads for ``vice'' products such as liquor should be subjected to increased regulation.
Just labeling some activity as a vice isn't enough to justify clamping down on accurate advertising if that activity itself remains legal, Stevens said.
Clinton and the federal Food and Drug Administration have proposed rules, opposed by the tobacco industry and others, that would forbid cigarette brand advertising at sports events and on T-shirts and other goods.
The proposed rules would ban tobacco billboards within 1,000 feet of schools and playgrounds and limit the use of pictures and colors in cigarette ads.
In other matters, the court:
* Refused to speed up its consideration of Unabomber suspect Theodore Kaczynski's attempt to avoid prosecution because of news leaks.
* Agreed to decide in an Arizona case whether parents may sue their state governments for not doing enough to help them collect child-support payments.
* Agreed to use a Florida case to decide whether states can cancel early-release credits given to inmates under laws intended to reduce prison overcrowding.
* Reined in lower courts' authority to downgrade government claims in bankruptcy cases.
* Turned down reputed mobster Thomas Gambino's argument that federal prosecutors violated his right to a speedy trial, thus refusing to overturn his convictions for racketeering, illegal gambling and loan-sharking.
* Refused to let police at prisons detain prospective visitors for a ``canine sniff'' of their cars if they object and seek to leave without entering the prison.
* Ruled that labor unions can file lawsuits on their members' behalf against companies that do not give the legally required notice of plant closings or mass layoffs.
* Turned down an appeal that sought disability and death benefits for Vietnam veterans who suffer from prostate, liver and nose cancer blamed on exposure to the defoliant Agent Orange.
* Made it harder for criminal defendants to make federal prosecutors respond to accusations that they are prosecuting someone because of their race. Ruling 8-1 in a California crack-cocaine case involving five black men, the court said defendants who want to pursue selective-prosecution claims must show that people of other races were not prosecuted for the same crime.
LENGTH: Medium: 72 linesby CNB