JUSTICES LAID DOWN THE LAW FOR EDUCATION, EXECUTION

WASHINGTON - " The Supreme Court's current session will be remembered for
its ruling that could change the face of American education and for the
justices' growing unease with the way states impose the death penalty.

On Thursday, the final day of its term, the court ruled 5-4 that a
Cleveland voucher program doesn't violate the separation of church and
state because it allows parents freedom to choose among religious and
secular private schools as well as better public schools in the city and
suburbs.

The vouchers decision opens the door for a vast expansion of similar
programs around the country, said Jeanne Allen, president of the Center for
Education Reform, a voucher advocacy group.

"The court gave cities and states the chance to allow parents a choice in
where they educate their children," she says. "This is a monumental change
in the American education system."

Allen said voucher advocates will move immediately to try to pass such
programs in states where the idea is popular, including Texas, Arizona,
Colorado, Minnesota and Utah.

In another education case the court ruled 5-4 that children attending
public schools may be required to submit to random drug tests even when
officials have no reason to suspect widespread use of illicit narcotics.

In a major exception to Fourth Amendment prohibitions against unreasonable
searches, the justices said the deterrent effect of such testing was enough
to overcome Fourth Amendment privacy protections.

On capital punishment, the court, in a pair of rulings, showed the
justices, like the public, worry about the application of the death penalty
in the United States.

In a 7-2 decision, the court threw hundreds of death-row prisoners'
sentences into question, ruling that juries, not judges, must decide
whether factors exist to warrant the death penalty in a case.

The court also ruled 6-3 that executing mentally retarded criminals
violates the Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment. It said
the nation has reached a consensus that it is wrong to put to death a
person with the mental age of a child.

A Gallup Poll last month showed that 82 percent of Americans oppose the use
of the death penalty against the mentally retarded.

In the past decade, only five states have executed killers whose IQs
measured 70 or less, the standard threshold for defining retardation.

"The practice, therefore, has become truly unusual," Justice John Paul
Stevens said.

Yet the court didn't indicate it was willing to throw out capital
punishment per se.

On the scope of federal laws, the court followed its practice in recent
years of limiting its reach.

For instances, the justices said in three decisions the 1990 Americans with
Disabilities Act does not:

Protect a factory worker suffering from carpal tunnel syndrome because she
wasn't sufficiently handicapped.

Generally require employers to bypass their seniority rules in order to
promote disabled employees.

Prevent an employer from rejecting disabled applicants if the job would
threaten their health or safety.

According to Evan Trager, who has argued before the high court on behalf of
business groups, the ADA cases marked a major victory for employers who
have struggled for years to comply with the anti-discrimination law.

The business community, however, lost a major case when the Supreme Court
ruled that patients whose health maintenance organizations deny them a
medical treatment or drug benefit have a right to a second opinion from
outside doctors.

In other major decisions, the court ruled:

The town of Stratton, Ohio, couldn't require members of the Jehovah's
Witnesses to obtain permits before going door-to-door to advocate their cause.

In conducting random searches for drugs or weapons on buses, the police
need not advise passengers that they may refuse permission to be searched.

A federal ban on computer-generated "virtual" child pornography and other
fake images of sex violates the free-speech rights of artists.

Candidates who are seeking election as judges have a free-speech right to
take stands on issues they may someday have to rule on.