SUPREME COURT ROUNDUP

WASHINGTON, April 15 -- It was time for the Supreme Court today to begin
confronting the practical implications of the sharp new direction it took
two years ago in criminal sentencing.

In an appeal from the federal government, the justices heard an argument
about what should happen now to drug defendants whose extra-long sentences
were impermissibly based on a judge's rather than a jury's conclusion about
the amount of drugs involved in their crimes.

A federal appeals court ruled last year that such sentences were subject to
automatic reversal under the Supreme Court's decision in Apprendi v. New
Jersey. That decision, issued in June 2000, held that any factors that
increase a sentence above the ordinary maximum must be charged in the
indictment and proved to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt.

Until the Apprendi decision, federal drug indictments did not ordinarily
specify a quantity of drugs, leaving that finding to be made by the judge
at sentencing. Federal drug laws impose a series of escalating sentences,
depending on drug quantity.

The government quickly changed its practice after the Apprendi ruling and
now includes drug quantity in the indictment. But it has maintained that
enhanced drug sentences should generally be regarded as valid if they were
handed down before the ruling and the defendants did not object at the time.

At stake in the case argued today, United States v. Cotton, No. 01-687, is
a relatively small number of cases, perhaps fewer than 100, in which major
drug defendants whose cases were still open on appeal at the time of the
Apprendi ruling had received more than the ordinary 20-year maximum
sentence that applies to those found guilty of trafficking in "any
detectable quantity" of narcotics.

The Cotton case involves seven defendants, leaders and participants in a
major drug ring in Baltimore, five of whom received life sentences on the
judge's finding that each was responsible for more than 1.5 kilograms of
cocaine base. The other two received 30 years. The United States Court of
Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, in Richmond, Va., ruled that all must be
resentenced to no more than 20 years.

Although the immediate impact of the Supreme Court's ruling may not be
great, the implications of a decision that adopts the appeals court's
reasoning could be broader.

For example, it could affect sentences imposed under the Federal Death
Penalty Act, under which the "aggravating circumstances" that make a
defendant eligible for the death penalty are not charged in the indictment.
Two weeks ago, in a case called Allen v. United States, No. 01-7310, the
government asked the Supreme Court to defer action on a federal death row
inmate's appeal until a decision in the Cotton case.

The Cotton case also raises interesting questions about the role of the
grand jury. Timothy J. Sullivan, representing the defendants, maintained
that errors in an indictment could never be overlooked without jeopardizing
the grand jury's role in protecting the rule of law.

"The integrity of the courts would be impaired if the decision is that you
can be indicted for one offense and convicted of another," Mr. Sullivan
told the justices.

Michael R. Dreeben, a deputy solicitor general arguing for the government,
said that to the contrary, when evidence of guilt is so overwhelming that
"any rational grand jury" would have produced a proper indictment if asked,
an error in the indictment should be regarded as "harmless."

The Cotton case is one of three Apprendi sequels that the court is
considering this spring. Next week, in Ring v. Arizona, No. 01-488, the
court will consider whether the death penalty laws in nine states,
affecting some 800 defendants, are constitutionally flawed in providing for
the judge rather than the jury to issue a death sentence.

There were also these developments at the court today:

Busing for Integration

Without comment, the court refused to review a ruling by the Fourth Circuit
last September that the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School District in North
Carolina had effectively dismantled the vestiges of segregation and become
"unitary." Under the ruling, race-based student assignments are to end for
the next school year.

A group of black families brought the Supreme Court appeal, Belk v.
Capacchione, No. 01-1122, arguing that the school district did not yet
merit release from federal court supervision that began 32 years ago.

The long-running case produced a landmark decision of the civil rights era,
Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, a 1971 decision in which
the Supreme Court for the first time upheld busing as a remedy for school
segregation.

At the same time today, the justices turned down an appeal by white
plaintiffs who were seeking $1.5 million in lawyers' fees for having
reopened this last phase of the case and achieved the ruling that the
district was now officially desegregated. That appeal was Capacchione v.
Belk, No. 01-1094.

Journalists' Rights

Also without comment, the court turned down an appeal by Vanessa Leggett, a
freelance writer who spent 168 days in jail on a contempt of court charge
for refusing to give a federal grand jury notes and tapes of interviews she
conducted while investigating a sensational Houston murder case. Ms.
Leggett was released from a federal detention center in Houston in January,
when the grand jury's term expired.

She was appealing a ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the
Fifth Circuit, in New Orleans, that the First Amendment's protection for
newsgathering activities did not give her a privilege to refuse to
cooperate with the grand jury. Although there had been considerable dispute
about Ms. Leggett's standing as a journalist, that question was not at
issue in the case, Leggett v. United States, No. 01-983.

The government opposed the appeal on the ground that the case was now moot,
the grand jury having finished its work by indicting the murder suspect,
Robert Angleton.

"The government has no intention (or reason) to reconvene the grand jury in
connection with this case," the government told the justices.

Victoria's Trademark

In a trademark dispute between the Victoria's Secret lingerie stores and
catalog and a store called Victor's Little Secret, in a strip mall in
Elizabethtown, Ky., the court agreed to decide whether trademark
infringement requires proof of actual economic injury.

Victoria's Secret, which sends 3.5 million catalogs to Kentucky residents
every year, won a trademark infringement suit against the small shop, owned
by Victor and Cathy Moseley. The lower federal courts disagree on whether a
plaintiff in such a suit must demonstrate economic injury, which the United
States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, based in Cincinnati, held in
this case was not necessary. The Kentucky shop's appeal is Moseley v. V
Secret Catalogue Inc., No. 01-1015.