Wednesday, March 24.1976 University Dally Kansas KANSAN Comment Opinions on this page reflect only the view of the writer. Patty and the press The first phase of one of the most highly publicized trials in recent years came to an abrupt end when the jury found them guilty and a half to find Patty Hearst guilty. BUT PATTY'S day in court isn't over. She will be sentenced April 19 on one count of bank robbery and one count of using a deadly weapon in the comings and goings of a felony. The maximum sentence is 35 years, the minimum is probation. Now that the federal prosecutor has his conviction, he is ready to turn Patty over to state officials in California, where she faces an 11-count indictment, including charges of kidnapping and assault with a deadly weapon. F. LEE BAILEY is planning to appeal Patty's conviction, but he will have to wait until after her sentencing because she has been farther than the verdict that is appealed. But whether Patty Hearst goes to jail isn't of ultimate legal or social significance. Some innocent people have been guilty, and even more guilty ones have gone free. However, saying that Patty Hearst didn't get a fair trial is much different from saying that it is impossible for anyone involved in such a sensational case to get a fair trial. Her first trial was delayed because of liability during the trial has rendered the selection of an impartial jury for a second trial impossible. decide the judge made a substantial error during the trial, it might be necessary for Patty to be tried again. A new jury would have heard all of the evidence shielded from the jury but widely reported in the media during the first trial. IF AN APPELATE court should Such considerations in sensational cases have led some judges and lawyers to call for severe limitations on the use of free press-fair trial law in areas of free press-fair trial law has been in a state of heated debate and turmoil recently. JUST AS IT is impossible to see how Patty can get a fair second trial, it is difficult to imagine closing such a case to the press. The free press and the right to know have often been exalted above the individual's right to a fair trial. The recent trend has been for the press, lawyers and law enforcement officials to adopt voluntary guidelines limiting the dissemination of sensitive information in court trial. During a sensational trial those guidelines are usually forgotten. Thus, some have argued that the guidelines should be mandatory, and that those who violate them should be cited for contempt. To what extent that would be a violation of the First Amendment guarantee of a free press is something the Supreme Court will have to decide. By John Hickey Contributing Writer Malpractice suits are being filed against doctors and other professionals at an increasingly rapid rate. The skyrocketing rise in malpractice coupled with the insecurity felt under the threat of a suit has be expanded even further. Can you imagine a second grader filing suit against a school district because he still couldn't get his incompetence his incompetence he faced ridicule from his classmates Suits fit teaching abuses By John Johnston Contributing Writer caused chaos among these professionals. A new area that faces challenges of malpractice is education. The issue of whether malpractice is applied has been determined, but if affirmed the ramifications would be enormous. and developed an inferiority complex. MALPRACTICE IS one of the most obvious of legal claims that could be made by students, but if this area was opened up it might lead to a vast broadening of other student rights. Grade school students might become eligible to file suit for damages suffered through cruel and unusual punishment. This right could be used to check the inhumane sentencing of pranksters to writing five million times such statements *because* it is Golden or "I must not throw me in court" out of window. "Many a man's hands have been permanently deformed as a direct result of writing for extended lengths of time.* In appealing these cases the student may wish to claim that he has a trial to bail by a jury and should decrease the number of convictions for petty offences in the schools. Under the current situation the student is subject to both the civil prejudice prejudiced judge, his teacher At KU the expansion of student rights might be approached in different ways. Every semester hundreds of students will be lengthy lectures by totally incompetent professors. Maybe these students could claim damages under some form of mental cruelty. Some students might be bad for students' mental health. Taking them to court would upgrade the faculty. THE CRUEL and unusual punishment approach might also be used by students who have been subjected to the "food" served in some school cafeterias. Death isn't a prerequisite for this claim; torture is just as valid. DAMAGES MIGHT also be sought for physical abuses such as loss of eyesight and fatigue. which result from all-nighters. This claim could be used to weed out those professors who meet in dark, smoke-filled rooms and plan their midterms for the same day. This is only the tip of ticeberg in the area of legal rights for students. The educational system in the United States could be turned to topsy-turp if suits by students would be dismissed into the courts. Law students could pay their way through school helping other students cash in on claims. And the students would finally be on equal footing with their teachers. They could abandon the more primitive forms of regulation such as shades, headphones and an eggging a teacher's house. They could bring the faculties across the country to their knees in the courts. THE BASIC CHALLENGE is based on negligence by teachers and other responsible school officials. Students who are illiterate for all practical purposes after 12 years of education, in case if they were pushed through school year after year. Teachers who failed to provide the extra help needed for children with learning difficulties could be cited for negligence. Students could also lose through suits claiming that they lost earning opportunities because of their ignorance. If cases such as this were successful, malpractice might Wrong name ruins offer As an upcoming graduate, I'm receiving all of the exciting offers, and I need to mean mine job offers. What I'm getting, like every other whoever sold or gave away my name would have spelled it right. I know my name is a woman and I have and I happen to like it. And I have By Marne Rindom Contributing Writer graduate across the nation, is an opportunity to establish credit anywhere. I NOT EXACTLY sure how all the major companies got my name and address so they could send me all their credit card numbers, your mailing listings selling lists of names, and the idea of the University or anyone else making money with my name doesn't exactly appeal to me. After all, if anyone is to learn more about me from my name it should be me. However, we live in a huge computerized society and I don't intend to start a time when we're not where and how these companies got my name. Besides, the result hasn't really hurt me. I'm now getting more mail than I have, even if it is mostly junk. MY ONLY WISH is that MOBIL ISN'T the only one who has tried to force a sex change upon me. A land development company, in New York, is said to be a male. No matter what I think about women's liberation, I as long as Sears, Concoce and TWA insist on spelling it "Mane," I'll continue to refuse to apply for their credit cards. But that isn't the only abuse my name has received. On the Mobil Oil envelope in bold red and blue letters was the note referring to the mailin man. "This removable, peel-off label represents your greatest possession—your good name." Then a bright red arrow pointed upwards, revealing there for every mailman in the world to read was printed "Mr. Marne" A. Rindom. don't like being addressed as Mr. Part of the problem is that companies are always striving to create a personal atmosphere. Instead of beginning the form letter with "Dear graduate" or some other blank salutation, the companies insert each person's name in this way, the graduate company will be able to think the company is making a personal appeal to him, even though thousands of graduates across the country received the same form letter. BUT A COMPANY, while striving for this personal touch, must use caution. For a person's name is special; it's part of his individuality. Most people don't look favorably upon someone who misuses it. This is especially true when the name is unusual. My own name has been passed down through several generations of my Danish ancestors and there are very few people with the name in the country. I have a unique name and I would rather not have an oil company try to rename me. BUT IN THIS land of computerized mailing lists, I guess I'm damned to have my name just don't compute. Marie just doesn't compute. All I can do is laugh at the personalized letters to Mr. Rindom, refuse to accept the sales pitch and remember that to a computer, Marne and Mame are really the same. And yet, I can't help hoping that you'll learn from up, just one of the letters will arrive with my entire name spelled correctly. 'SCHED RIGHT UP UND SEE THE OLDEST LIVING SIAMESE TWINS; JOINED AT THE BREAD-BASKET!' ( C ) 1976 NYT SPECIAL FEATURES Big government scars freedom WASHINGTON — Henry Fairlie, the distinguished British journalist, delivered himself the other day of a vigorous essay, "In Defense of Big Government." His piece was distilled liberalism, the heart of modern thought, doubt, intolerant of dissent. A few words of response may be in order. WRITING IN THE New Republic magazine, Fairlie rejects those who fear "big government." They are unthinking; they are misrepresenting the States to a reactionary and selfish conservatism. To oppose "big government," in his view, is to launch a counterattack on democracy. For his own part, Fairlie explicitly stated that strong and efficient central government is the foundation of 20th century democracy." The gentleman describes himself as a Tory Democrat; he believes passionately in strong central government, he detests mold. The purpose is to regulate, to coerce, to make uniform. In such a government there is small room for the maverick, the dissenter, the non-conformist. If the maker of By James J. Kilpatrick (C) Washington Star Syndicate capitalism and he puts his trust in the ultimate good sense of the people. Conservatives who disagree are nasty, narrow-minded, selfish and mean. It is not enough to understand that the American people need "big government." Indeed, that necessity isn't even arguable: the question isn't whether there should be a state, or whether whose interests that government should serve. And so on. IN THE COURSE of his essay, Fairie scores some palpable hits. it is true, for instance, that industry we euphmathematically describe as "free enterprise" is a kind of corporate socialism. And it is fronic, as he says, that persons who once excalled an alligator bring it low, now are exalting the Congress they once degraded. These points are peripheral to his main argument, which is that "big government" is all in a good way. To be sure, this is no new argument. It is essentially the same one that divided the Founding Fathers. But the United States and it ought to be discarded now. A strong central government is indispensable in certain limited areas—waging war, establishing foreign nations, establishing uniform rules of naturalization and the like. But beyond such indisputably national interests, the arguments in defense of the government" begin to collapse. In Fairie's despotic view, my ideas are "unthinkable." But wiser men than he or I have thought them before; and before we succumb to those who believe passionately in a strong central government, we had better think them anew. No, sir. Fairie foolishly supposes that big government must extend equality in order to benefit the less-competent are incompatible. The more equality is mandated by federal fiat, through taxes, or quotas, or busing, or "affirmative action," as opposed to "cursed" or cusscbed. The more uniformity, the less freedom. As government becomes our benevolent shepherd, so we become its obedient sheep. JEFFERSON GAVE ONE reason. "I am not a friend to very energetic government," be once wrote Madison. "It is always oppressive." And so it is, and so it must ever be. One function of big government is to press its subjects into the same cherry pies, or automobiles, or swimming pool slides does not conform, he must be made to conform. "the big government?" that Fairlie so adores is the enemy of diversity. It cannot well be unreasonable. The flawed theory is that we are one people, dwelling in one country, and therefore we have one set of problems capable of threatening us. This is nonsense; it is breathtaking nonsense, and it manifests a monarchical arrogance that is light years away from a democratic society. defend their mistakes rather than to correct them, we are stuck with error. ONE WOULD like to ask Fairlie: Suppose his “big government” is wrong? The Congress is about to impose an untested, highly controversial policy on a surrevenue upon all states and all motorists. This is the kind of thing big government does. But what if “no fault” is wrong? What if it simply doesn't work! Instead of having error control we have to have we have error compounded and entrenched, and because it is a natural tendency of men to Letters Policy The Kansas welcomes letters to the editor, but asks that letters be typewritten, double-spaced and no longer than 400 words. All letters are subject to editing and condensation, according to space limitations and the editor's judgment, and must be signed. KU students must provide their name, year in school and hometown; faculty must provide their name and position; others must provide their name and address. 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