ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, April 16, 1997 TAG: 9704160069
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-9 EDITION: METRO
Supreme Court strikes down candidate drug test
WASHINGTON - The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down as an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy a Georgia law requiring candidates for state office to take a drug test.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who wrote the court's majority opinion, said the Fourth Amendment's ban on ``suspicionless'' searches forbids such tests.
``However well-meant, the candidate drug test Georgia has devised diminishes personal privacy for a symbol's sake,'' Ginsburg concluded. ``The Fourth Amendment shields society against that state action.''
Georgia is the first and apparently the only state to condition candidacy for public office on a drug test.
-CHICAGO TRIBUNE
Judge orders burglar to wear `I'm a thief' sign
GULFPORT, Miss. - As punishment for burglary, John Smith must stand on a street corner for three hours at a time carrying a sign that reads: ``I'm a convicted thief.''
Circuit Judge John Whitfield's three-day sentence to Smith last week was just his latest use of shame as punishment.
In October, he gave a man 20 years in prison and ordered him to send a $1 check every week for the next 10 years to the parents of a 4-year-old girl he struck and killed while driving drunk. On the check, the man must write that the payment is for ``the death of your daughter.''
Last month, Whitfield ordered a woman to wear a sign reading: ``Selling prescription drugs is a crime; I'm a felon because I sold prescription drugs.''
-ASSOCIATED PRESS
Clyde Barrow shirt sells for $85,000
SAN FRANCISCO - Whiskey Pete's Casino in Primm, Nev., paid $85,000 Monday for the bullet-riddled, bloodstained shirt worn by outlaw Clyde Barrow when authorities ambushed him and his infamous girlfriend.
Barrow's belongings from his bank robbing days with partner-in-crime Bonnie Parker netted $187,809. More than half of the money will go to Marie Barrow, the outlaw's only surviving sibling.
The casino already owns the Ford in which Bonnie and Clyde were ambushed and killed by the Texas Rangers in 1934 in Gibsland, La.
-ASSOCIATED PRESS
LENGTH: Medium: 51 linesby CNB