BAR RAISED FOR DRUG CONVICTIONS

Court Says Jury Must Agree on Acts in Kingpin Cases

The Supreme Court yesterday raised the threshold for federal prosecution of
drug kingpins accused of running ongoing narcotics enterprises.

By a 6 to 3 vote, the court ruled that a jury must unanimously agree not
only that such defendants committed a series of drug violations but also on
which specific violations they committed.

Unless jurors are forced to focus on specific acts, Justice Stephen G.
Breyer wrote for the majority, jurors may "simply conclud[e] from testimony,
say, of bad reputation, that where there is smoke there must be fire."

Dissenting justices--Anthony M. Kennedy, Sandra Day O'Connor and Ruth Bader
Ginsburg--contended that the ruling misreads federal law and will
drastically affect how prosecutors draft their indictments and plot trial
strategy. The Justice Department had no immediate response yesterday, but
its lawyers had warned in a brief that requiring juror unanimity on details
of wide-ranging criminal activities could allow some drug ringleaders to
escape conviction.

With its ruling, the court threw out the conviction of Eddie Richardson, the
leader of a Chicago street gang called the Undertaker Vice Lords, who
oversaw a heroin and cocaine ring in the 1980s and early 1990s. During his
1997 trial, prosecutors presented an array of possible drug violations that
could fall under the continuing-criminal-enterprise law, and the judge
instructed the jurors that they must be in agreement that Richardson
committed at least three of them. The judge refused Richardson's request,
however, that he tell jurors they must agree on which three particular
offenses Richardson committed. The jury convicted Richardson and sentenced
him to life in prison.

A federal appeals court had upheld the jury instruction, but other courts
have made contradictory rulings in similar cases. The Supreme Court's ruling
in Richardson v. United States yesterday set a national standard, declaring
that the law's language, as well as legal tradition and potential
unfairness, requires that each "violation" be a separate element of the
crime that jurors agree upon.

Also yesterday, the court rejected an appeal by the Cable News Network of a
lower court decision that said the media could be sued for violating privacy
rights during a police raid. The case arose from a Montana dispute, decided
last week, in which the justices said that when police allow the media to
enter a private home, the police can be held liable for damages for
violating privacy rights.

In that ruling, the high court did not address the question of whether media
organizations could also be held liable in such situations. Yesterday the
justices sidestepped the issue again in their one-sentence order letting
stand a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that could require CNN to
defend itself against a claim that it breached a Montana couple's privacy
rights when its camera crew accompanied federal agents on a search of their
ranch.

The practical effects of Cable News Network v. Berger could be limited: Last
week, the court said that because privacy law was not yet clearly
established in 1993 when the raids in question occurred, police had
retroactive immunity from suits that preceded the court's ruling. By
extension, the media may be protected from liability for earlier ride-alongs.