6B
Nation
Tuesday November 3,1998
Law of the Land
Supreme court to decide cases
President's command of military questioned
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court, tackling the case of an HIV-positive Air Force major imprisoned for having unprotected sex, agreed yesterday to resolve a dispute about the president's power as the nation's military commander-in-chief.
The court will decide whether the president may drop from the armed forces rolls any commissioned officer jailed for more than six months under a court-martial conviction that has become final.
The justices voted to review a ruling that struck down a 1996 law in which Congress gave the president such authority. The military's highest court ruled in April that the law wrongly punished someone twice for the same crime.
James Goldsmith, an Air Force major, is infected with the virus that causes AIDS. After he was diagnosed as HIV-positive, Goldsmith was ordered by a superior officer to inform sexual partners of his health status and to use methods, including condoms, to prevent infecting others.
Goldsmith was convicted in 1994 of having unprotected sex with two women, willfully disobeying the "safe-sex" order while stationed at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas.
Sentenced to six years in prison, he retained his rank and military status even after being imprisoned at Fort Leavenworth. His ensuing appeal was rejected by an Air Force appellate court, and his conviction became final.
Goldsmith was notified in late 1996 that the Air Force was seeking, under the federal law enacted earlier that year, to have the president drop him from its rolls. Such action, among other things, would strip him of health-care coverage.
Goldsmith's shortened prison term expired in October 1997, and he returned to duty status. He appealed the Air Force's attempt to drop him, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces blocked such a move.
Discriminators also may pay punitive damages
The Associated Press
The Supreme Court will help decide how much employers can be forced to pay when they discriminate against workers based on race, religion, national origin or sex.
The justices said yesterday they would decide, by July, whether the American Dental Association can avoid paying more money to a woman it illegally failed to promote.
Carole Kolstad lost out on getting a high-ranking job in the Chicago-based association's Washington office. She sued and won, but a federal appeals court barred her from collecting "punitive damages" designed to punish and deter wrongdoers.
The appeals court, voting 6-5, ruled that such damages were available in employment-bias cases only when "egregious conduct" was proved. Other appeals courts, however, have allowed punitive damages whenever intentional discrimination has been proved.
Kolstad was working as the dental association's director of federal agency relations when in 1982 the group's director of legislation announced his retirement. Kolstad and another Washington office employee, Tom Spangler, expressed interest in the vacancy.
Spangler got the job, and Kolstad sued. Her lawsuit contended that the American Dental Association had selected Spangler even before the formal selection process began, and that it was motivated by sexual bias against her.
A federal jury found that the American Dental Association had illegally discriminated against Kolstad, and awarded her $52,718 in back pay. Specifically, the jury said the association had violated a federal anti-bias law known as Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
The trial judge presiding over Kolstad's case refused to let the jury consider awarding punitive damages, but a three-judge federal appeals court panel reversed the judge's decision and ordered reconsideration of that issue.
Kolstad's victory was overturned, however, when the entire U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, voting 6-5 in May, said she was not entitled to punitive damages.
White House favors U.N. response to Iraq
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The Clinton administration appears ready to let the U.N. Security Council take the lead in confronting Iraq
about the country's refusal to permit inspections for weapons of mass destruction.
Top national security officials met at the White House for a second day Sunday to work on a response to Iraq's defiance, and there seemed little chance of an immediate military response.
Hussein: Country refusing weapon inspections.
Iraq banned U.N. inspection teams from working in the country Saturday after the Security Council renewed its refusal to lift economic sanctions against Iraq. The council then demanded unanimously that Iraq reverse its ban.
France and Russia, council members that have taken more lenient positions on relaxing
the sanctions in the past, firmly rebuked Iraq and called for compliance with the U.N. Special Commission, known as UNSCOM.
"I personally am very pleased that the U.N. Security Council, including some people I thought had been a little tolerant with him in the past, strongly condemned what he did," President Clinton said in an interview Sunday with American Urban Radio Network.
Clinton was briefed but did not attend the meeting of his advisers. No additional U.S. forces were being moved to the Persian Gulf region, and U.S. forces had not been placed on alert, said Pentagon representative, Navy Lt. Cmdr. Anthony Cooper.
Defense Secretary William Cohen said unilateral U.S. military action against Iraq always had been an option but that he preferred to act with U.S. allies.
"The preference is to keep it exactly where it is today, a contest between Iraq and the United Nations," Cohen told reporters at Andrews Air Force Base just outside Washington after he returned from an aborted trip to Asia. "The best thing is for Saddam to comply with these agreements."
Gates' video testimony viewed at antitrust trial
Saddam Hussein is the president of Iraq.
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Microsoft chairman Bill Gates took center stage at his company's antitrust trial yesterday, appearing on TV and computer screens throughout a federal courtroom as the government tried to show he masterminded plans to crush his competition.
Federal attorneys played portions of a videotaped deposition of Gates as they tried to prove his company illegally wielded its industry influence to stifle competition.
The government focused on the role Gates played in securing a surprise August 1997 deal with archival Apple Computer and on a disputed meeting two years earlier between Microsoft and Netscape.
While Gates is a key figure in the case, he will not appear in person. During the government's opening statement last month, Justice Department attorney David Boies showed brief excerpts of Gates' testimony to contradict internal e-mail Gates had sent.
The same strategy played out yesterday as the government showed clips of a defiant Gates.
Often he would delay before responding to questions. Sometimes he would give short answers and sometimes drawn-out statements. On the videotape, government attorneys frequently accused him of failing to respond directly.
Microsoft called playing the tapes a personal attack on Gates and an attempt to shift the focus from hits inflicted on the government's case over the last few weeks.
"It's clearly an attempt to sensationalize the case and distract people's attention from the weakness of the government's case," said Microsoft representative Mark Murray.
Gates, whose wildly successful Windows operating system has made him the richest man in the world, is renowned for his aggressive business techniques. The government wants to prove that Gates applied a take-noprisoners strategy to dominate competitors.
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Brian Kubota and Emily Taylor
Brian Kubota has the solid business experience and hands-on working knowledge that we need in Douglas County government.
For those important reasons and because of his long involvement as a community volunteer, I heartily endorse him for County Commissioner.
Pol. Adv. Pd. by Kubota for Co. Comm. • Jim Eagan, Treas. • Edie Dreiling, Mary Olson, Co-Chairs