Richard Bonnie was quoted in several stories on the planned Virginia trial of John Allen Muhammed and John Lee Malvo. In a Nov. 8 Newsday story he explained what would be needed for a prosecutor to win conviction on a capital charge in Virginia. The next day in the Washington Post he discussed the application of Virginia's new anti-terrorism law to the case, saying "It's not clear, upon a reading of the statute, that the legislation dispenses with the requirement in death cases that the prosecution prove the defendant is the triggerman," and pointing out that the triggerman provision has allowed Virginia's capital punishment laws to stand up on appeal. "Technically speaking, proof that the defendant was actually the killer is an element of a capital crime," he said. "That is Virginia law." A Dec. 11 Richmond Times-Dispatch story on a proposed bill banning the execution of retarded people in Virginia noted that the bill was drafted with the help of Bonnie and a clinical advisory group of mental-health experts.

An Oct. 13 New York Times Magazine story about hostile-environment sexual harassment quoted extensively from Rosa Ehrenreich Brooks's argument in the Georgetown Law Journal that sexual harassment be viewed as a harm to dignity rather than as a form of discrimination. The harm she wrote, is harassment's violation of "each individual's right to be treated with the respect and concern that is due to her as a full and equally valuable human being. . . . Actions that would humiliate, torment, threaten, intimidate, pressure, demean, frighten, outrage or injure a reasonable person are actions that can be said to injure an individual's dignitary interests and, if sufficiently severe, can give rise to causes of action in tort."

Anne Coughlin commented in the press on several aspects of the Muhammed/Malvo case. In a Nov. 8 Richmond Times-Dispatch story, she said that a change of venue due to pre-trial publicity would be unlikely. Noting that the important factor was whether the media coverage has been prejudicial, she said "I don't think it has been. We've not been told they've confessed. The fact that everybody's been talking about it isn't enough." On NPR's All Things Considered Nov. 11 she added, "It doesn't surprise us or alarm us that jurors have been exposed to some publicity, but the cases in which the courts have held that the pre-trial publicity has reached a prejudicial level tend to involve numerous stories about the defendant's own confession." The same day in the Washington Post she discussed the legality of the police's questioning of suspect John Lee Malvo over the objections of his lawyers. "All police are obliged to do is avoid coercing a statement," she said. "They have no obligation to the lawyer. The fact that they failed to tell Mr. Malvo his guardian had come, as long as they had given him the Miranda warnings, is not going to be a constitutional problem."

A.E. Dick Howard discussed Virginia voters' approval of a state constitutional amendment letting cities and counties grant property tax exemptions in the Nov. 6 Virginian-Pilot. The next day in a Bloomberg News story he discussed the effect that the Republican takeover of the Senate may have in shaping the Supreme Court, saying "It will persuade the White House to put up even more conservative nominees. . . . Bush might feel more confident, and you'll have a brisker pace of nominees." In the Boston Globe Nov. 29 he discussed the use of Virginia's anti-terrorism law in the Muhammed/Malvo case, noting that laws written as broadly as the terrorism statute can be constitutionally problematic. In a Dec. 2 Bloomberg News story, he discussed the college admissions cases before the Supreme Court. "This is the last great unexplored area of affirmative action," he said. "The majority on the court is by and large not sympathetic to race-based preferences, but they are less sure of that in the area of higher education." A Dec. 21 Knight Ridder Washington Bureau story on the Supreme Court's current term included Howard's comments that race issues have surfaced on the calendar in a way not seen since the busing integration cases in the 1970s.

A Dec. 4 New York Times story on Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr. included comments from his former law clerk and biographer, John Jeffries, who noted that while Justice Powell was far from a liberal on racial issues, he understood the need for the country to address its damaging legacy of racism. In his approach to affirmative action in college admissions, Jeffries said, "the justification was necessity."

Michael Klarman was quoted in a Dec. 8 New York Times story about clubs such as Augusta National Golf Club and the courts' struggles to decide what is private. "The private and public sphere can't be neatly defined," he said. "We just have kind of intuitions about where we draw the line."

John Norton Moore was quoted in a Dec. 11 CNN.com article on authority to search vessels and seize cargo on the high seas. He explained that a nation is justified in boarding and searching a ship if the vessel appears to have no nationality, but that international laws do not authorize seizing legal cargo under such conditions. "If there's no flag, there's essentially no nationality—it's fair game," he said.

Jeffrey O'Connell was quoted in two stories on medical malpractice issues. A Dec. 18 Florida Times-Union story on a Jacksonville town hall meeting summarized his comments criticizing the malpractice litigation system and suggesting that reforms similar to workers compensation may be a method to consider. He was then quoted extensively in a Dec. 26 Newark Star-Ledger column advocating elimination of "pain and suffering" judgments. "You can have no-fault insurance, but you can't have no-fault insurance plus tort liability insurance," he said. "The basic thing to do is get rid of fault-based litigation and especially suits for pain and suffering."

Robert O'Neil was quoted in a Nov. 1 story about a federal judge's decision that Acting Massachusetts Governor Jane Swift had violated an official's constitutional rights by firing him, saying "The ruling reinforces the sense that one who is asked to serve the public may be removed for a good cause, but the reason needs to be substantial, and not just political." A Nov. 6 Daily Progress story quoted O'Neil's remarks at a Charlottesville Regional Chamber of Commerce luncheon about how Internet issues are changing ideas about free speech. He discussed the cross-burning case before the Supreme Court in a Dec. 10 Hartford Courant story and on the Dec. 11 NPR show Talk of the Nation. On NPR, he said "If government can in that way target cross burning, what seems to us so clearly abhorrent today, another day may be some other kind of expressive activity. It's a road down which a free society starts at great risk. . . . [A] problem with the law is that it does single out, identifies and targets a particular viewpoint—admittedly an abhorrent viewpoint, one that all thoughtful people would find reprehensible and unacceptable—but does it in a way that selects a particular message, a particular side of the debate and targets that for criminal sanctions." A Dec. 15 syndicated James J. Kilpatrick column on taping jury deliberations noted O'Neil's support for the idea, based on his feeling that it would help to "demystify" the judicial system in action.

A Nov. 19 Wall Street Journal story on the FBI's post-September 11 'Watch List' included the views of Daniel Ortiz that the government wouldn't face high legal hurdles if it chose to disseminate watch lists in the future. He said that someone who appears wrongly on a watch list couldn't prevent the list's circulation or sue the government for damages under current privacy laws, and that the government just has to be careful not to single people out solely on race or ethnicity.

In a Dec. 3 story in National Journal's Technology Daily on a forum on spectrum use hosted by the Center for the Digital Economy at the Manhattan Institute, Glen Robinson commented that "What ought to concern and enrage us is the warehousing of frequencies to the broadcasting system. We have given away some of the most valuable portion of spectrum to an obsolete technology—television broadcasting."

A Dec. 9 Connecticut Law Tribune story on the new Republican Senate providing George W. Bush an opportunity to imbed his conservative imprint onto American life through judicial appointments included George Rutherglen's comments that ideology matters not only on hot-button issues but also in routine cases. Judges can read the same details and disagree sharply on "what constitutes harmless error in a criminal case, and what activity amounts to sexual harassment in an employment discrimination case," he said.

"Sniper Case No Slam Dunk/Intent of Untested Terror Law Raises Uncertainty," Dec. 13, 2002, The Richmond Times-Dispatch.
"Case Could Break Legal Ground/Sniper Suspects Charged Under New Va. Terrorism Law," Nov. 9, 2002, The Washington Post.

ANNE M. COUGHLIN
"Report: Sniper Suspect Admits Role in Shootings," Nov. 11, 2002, NPR/All Things Considered.
"3 Lawyers Tried To Stop Questioning of Malvo," Nov. 11, 2002, The Washington Post.
"Sniper Case's Notoriety Raises 'Fair Trial' Issue," Nov. 8. 2002, The Richmond Times-Dispatch.

JOHN C. JEFFRIES, JR.
"Black Robes Don't Make the Justice, But the Rest of the Closet Just Might Help," Dec. 4, 2002, The New York Times.

A.E. DICK HOWARD
"Supreme Court Puts Rights in Spotlight/High-Profile Cases to Define Nation's Course," Dec. 22, 2002, Newark (N.J.) Star-Ledger/Knight Ridder News Service.
"Experts: Though Written in Wake of Sept. 11, Virginia's New Terrorism Law Fits Sniper Case, Too," Nov. 29, 2002, AP/The Washington Post.
"Voters Give Local Governments Say on Tax Exemptions," Nov. 6, 2002, The Virginian-Pilot.

MICHAEL KLARMAN
"Debating Which Private Clubs Are Acceptable. And Private," Dec. 8, 2002, The New York Times.

PAUL LOMBARDO
"Benefactor With a Racist Bent/Wealthy Recluse Apparently Liked the Looks and Potential of Bowman Gray's New Medical-Genetics Department," Dec. 9, 2002, Winston-Salem Journal.
"Lifting the Curtain on a Shameful Era/Thousands Were Sentenced to Sterilization During Rubber-Stamp Hearings in Raleigh" and "Read This: Records Unexpectedly Available," Dec. 8, 2002, Winston-Salem Journal.
"Open House Presents Rights Issues," Dec. 7, 2002, The Daily Progress.

JOHN NORTON MOORE
"On the High Seas, A Flag Determines Search Authority," Dec. 11, 2002, CNN.com.

JEFFREY O'CONNELL
"Insuring Pain and Suffering," Dec. 26, 2002, The Newark Star-Ledger.

ROBERT O'NEIL
"Cross Burning as 'Free Speech' Going Before High Court," Dec. 10, 2002, The Hartford Courant.
"Expert: Internet Issues Changing Ideas About Free Speech," Nov. 7, 2002, The Daily Progress.

DANIEL R. ORTIZ
"Far Afield: FBI's Post-Sept. 11 'Watch List' Mutates, Acquires Life of Its Own/Bureau Gave it to Companies; Now, Out-of-Date Versions Dog Some People Named," Nov. 19, 2002, The Wall Street Journal.

GEORGE RUTHERGLEN
"Elections Will Let Bush's Conservatism Outlive Him," Dec. 9, 2002, Connecticut Law Tribune.
"Justice Stevens Still a 'Wild Card,'" Oct. 27, 2002, AP/The Washington Post.

ROBERT F. TURNER
"Special Appeals Panel Restores Patriot Act/Expands Government Eavesdropping Powers," Nov. 19, 2002, Knight Ridder Newspapers.
"Court Widens Wiretapping in Terror Cases/Panel Lowers the Wall Between Intelligence Agencies and the FBI/Ashcroft Lauds the Ruling, But Some Fear a Loss of Civil Liberties," Nov. 19, 2002, The Los Angeles Times.
"Court OKs Government Suveillance," Nov. 19, 2002, AP/The Washington Post.
"Judge Finds Swift in Pike Case/Rules Mihos's Rights Violated," Nov. 1, 2002, The Boston Globe.