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Page 4/The Battalion/Wednesday, June 13, 1984
Supreme Court
Seniority given priority over minorities in layoff disputes
United Press International
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WASHINGTON — Workers with
seniority have top job priority when
cities are forced to slash their pay
rolls — even if that means massive
layoffs for newly hired minorities,
the Supreme Court ruled Tuesday
in a key civil rights case.
The 6-3 ruling — a crucial deci
sion on reverse discrimination — will
affect cities across the country that
are being forced to lay off police of
ficers, firefighters and other work
ers because of dwindling revenues.
But workers who are part of a
“bona fide seniority system” — one
that does not have a discriminatory
purpose — must be insulated from
economically motivated layoffs, the
Supreme Court majority declared.
“It is inappropriate to deny an in
nocent employee the benefits of his
seniority in order to provide a rem
edy in the pattern of practice (of dis
crimination) suit such as this,” Jus
tice Byron White wrote for the
majority.
Black firefighters in Memphis,
Tenn., where the case originated, re
acted angrily. They have been fight
ing since 1977 to bring more blacks
into the fire department, which was
almost exclusively white until the
1970s.
“The ruling is not only affecting
blacks but all minorities, including
women. It virtually set everybody
back at least 50 years,” said Ulysses
Jones, president of the black fire
fighters union.
The Reagan administration had
pushed the high court for a sweep
ing ruling favoring seniority rights
and limiting layoff protection to “ac
tual victims of discrimination.”
Jones’ counterpart, Kuhron Hud
dleston, president of the Memphis
Firefighters Local, said the ruling
“preserves our seniority rights.”
The court’s decision overturns a
court order that the fire department
could make layoffs using the “last-
hired first-fired” principle. Instead,
the department had to retain a per
centage of blacks, forcing them to
lay off some veteran white workers,
ajudge ruled in 1981.
White wrote that the city did not
intend, in a 1980 settlement of a race
discrimination case brought by black
firefighters, to place black firemen
higher on the seniority ladder.
“It is clear the city had a seniority
system, that its proposed layoff plan
conformed to that system, and that
in making the settlement thecitylui
not agreed to award competitivest
niority to any minority
whom the city proposed tolayolf
he wrote.
White also ruled that there
court finding that any of the
involved in the layoff had been
actual victim of bias
“Even when an individual sta;
that the discriminatory practice la
had an impact on him, heisnou
tomatically entitled to have a
minority employee laid off to mi
room for him. He may have to
until a vacancy occurs,” Whitewn*
Leading the dissenters, Juslie
Harry Blackmun wrote that"
conscious remedies” are not b;
by federal bias law. Justices Wib
Brennan and Thurgood Manti
joined him.
Some illegally gained evidence OK’d
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WASHINGTON — The Su
preme Court, easing restrictions on
police, gave its approval Monday for
courtroom use of illegally obtained
evidence if it would eventually have
been discovered anyway.
The justices, ruling 7-2 in an Iowa
case, sanctioned the widespread
practice of allowing use of illegally
obtained evidence that inevitably
would have been uncovered by legal
means.
The decision leaves intact the
murder conviction of Robert An
thony Williams, found guilty of mur
dering a 10-year-old Des Moines girl
who disappeared from a YMCA on
Christmas Eve 1968. The high court
reversed a ruling that police illegally
coaxed Williams to reveal the loca
tion of the body of Pamela Powers by
telling him she needed a “decent
Christian burial.”
The ruling has nationwide impact
because it rolls back the reach of the
controversial “exclusionary rule,”
which forbids the use of illegally ob
tained evidence at trial.
The court is expected to further
limit the doctrine later this term
when it decides whether evidence
gained illegally by police acting in
good faith may be used in court.
In the Iowa case, Chief Justice
Warren Burger wrote that certain
evidence was properly admitted in
Williams’ second murder trial be
cause it would have been discovered
eventually.
Burger sanctioned the “inevitable
discovery” exception.
He said the practice of suppres
sing evidence — in this case the loca
tion of the child’s body — to deter
unlawful police conduct should not
be used to exclude evidence that
would inevitably be discovered by le
gal means.
“If the prosecution can establish
by a preponderance of the evidence
that the information ultimately or
inevitably would have been discov
ered by lawful means — here the
volunteers’ search — then the deter
rence rationale has so little basis that
the evidence should be received.
Anything else would reject logic,
perience and common sense."
Iowa Attorney General
Miller hailed the ruling as “a
victory for law enforcement. Tk
common sense principle thatautk
ities shold not be penalized for ted
nical errors has been reinforced b
the decision.”
In dissent, Justices William Bret
nan and Thurgood Marshall sail
that in "its zealous efforts toemascu
late the exclusionary rule
court loses sight of the crucial difie
ence between the ‘inevitable discoi
ery’ doctrine and the ‘independei
source’ exception from which
derived.”
Public safety takes precedence
Exceptions made to Miranda ruling
United Press International
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tartatKimu' —^frari'r firry
WASHINGTON — A legal battle
that began in a supermarket when
police asked a suspected rapist
“Where’s the gun?” ended Tuesday
with the Supreme Court, for the first
time, making an exception to its
landmark Miranda rule.
The court, in a 5-4 decision, said
police should not be forced to make
split-second choices between public
safety and following procedures laid
out in the 1966 Miranda decision for
advising suspects of their rights.
“We conclude that the need for
answers to questions in a situation
posing a threat to public safety outw
eighs the need for the ... rule pro
tecting the ... privilege against self
incrimination,” Justice William
Rehnquist wrote for the majority.
The decision allows New York
City prosecutors to proceed with the
trial of rape suspect Benjamin Quar
les and to use as evidence a gun
taken from the scene of his arrest
and a statement he made about the
gun before he was advised of his
rights.
Quarles was arrested shortly after
midnight on Sept. 11, 1980, in an
A&P supermarket in Queens after a
woman stopped several officers and
said she had been raped by a man
who then went into the store with a
gun.
"The gun is over there,” Quarla
replied.
Officers Frank Kraft and Sal Scar
ring went into the store and located
a man who fit the description of the
alleged rapist. The suspect ran when
he saw the officers but was appre
hended by Kraft a few aisles away.
That statement began a
tie over the Miranda rule.
Kraft frisked Quarles and located
an empty gun holster. Without first
warning him of his right to remain
silent, Officer Kraft asked Quarles:
“Where’s the gun?”
At a pretrial hearing, ajudgesii
the gun and Quarles’ statenrt
“The gun is over there,” could
be used as evidence because Quark
had not been advised ofhisrighis
remain silent and to have an add
ney present during questioning.
The nation’s highest court, withik
narrowest possible margin, held fa
the first time that some exceptim
must be allowed to the Mirandarnk
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