THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, October 4, 1994 TAG: 9410040417
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A8 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: KNIGHT-RIDDER NEWS SERVICE
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium: 72 lines
More Americans than ever are taking their cases to the Supreme Court - but their chances of being heard are far slimmer.
That reality became starkly evident Monday as the justices opened their new term by announcing that they had rejected 1,626 cases that accumulated during their three-month summer recess.
And how many did they agree to hear? None at all. Veteran court observers said they could not remember any previous opening day without a single case being accepted for review.
Last week, though, the justices did pluck eight cases from the summer list for consideration. Still, that means they will hear less than half of 1 percent of the summer total, a steep decline from years past.
The number of cases arriving at the high court from all parts of the United States climbed 85 percent in the last 25 years. Term after term in the 1970s and 1980s, the justices routinely heard 2.2 to 3.3 percent of them.
But in 1991, the proportion of accepted cases slumped below 2 percent - and reached a new low of 1 percent for the term that ended last June.
The reasons for the downward trend remain unclear. Court observers suggest a number of factors.
Mark Tushnet, associate dean of Georgetown University Law School and an authority on the Supreme Court, believes the justices want to be less controversial and more reflective.
``What seems to me to be most plausible,'' Tushnet said, ``is that there is a desire to lower the profile of the Supreme Court after the Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings and the abortion cases. People were beginning to think the Supreme Court is more important than the justices think it should be.''
Similarly, Kenneth Starr, a former federal appeals judge who was the Bush administration's chief advocate in the Supreme Court, said recently that ``the court is deliberately taking itself off the stage.''
Another explanation, Tushnet said, is that rapid turnover in recent years - five new justices since 1988 - has put younger, less experienced jurists on the court who want to hear fewer cases so they can devote more time to each one.
In addition, the conservative justices who dominate the Supreme Court may find fewer reasons to review decisions of the lower federal courts, which are heavily populated by Reagan-Bush appointees. MEMO: RULINGS INTACT
In refusing to hear 1,626 appeals, the court left intact:
A victory for the news media. Investigative journalist Dan Moldea
lost his lawsuit asserting that a negative New York Times review
crippled sales of his book about organized crime and the National
Football League.
A ruling that makes it tougher for the Justice Department to deport
John Demjanjuk, accused of being the notorious Nazi killer, ``Ivan the
Terrible,'' at the Treblinka death camp in Poland during World War II. A
lower court said government lawyers committed fraud in winning
Demjanjuk's 1986 extradition to Israel.
A decision that requires a hospital to provide emergency respiratory
aid to a 2-year-old girl who is permanently unconscious in a Northern
Virginia nursing home. Federal law requires the hospital to continue to
relieve the child's breathing difficulties, a lower court said.
A 1984 Pennsylvania law prohibiting ``wrongful birth'' suits against
doctors accused of withholding evidence that a pregnant woman's fetus
may be abnormal. Julie Sejpal, a teacher of disabled children who gave
birth to a retarded daughter, said the law unconstitutionally restricts
a woman's right to choose abortion.
by CNB