The Law: Decisions

U.S. justice may be governed by laws rather than men, but statutes and precedents cannot cover every novel situation. It is often a judge ruling on an appeal who decides how the law meshes with the facts. Recent examples:

> Bill Raymond, 12, of Sacramento, Calif., snooped around his father's bedroom and found a leafy substance in a dresser drawer. The boy shared his discovery with a deputy sheriff who told the youth that it was marijuana. Later, while another sheriff's man waited in a nearby car, the youth again searched the bedroom and came up with more pot. The state charged Bill's father, Charles Raymond, with possession of marijuana. Despite defense protests that the evidence was inadmissible because it had been illegally obtained, a superior court judge ruled for the prosecution. Wrong, said a California appellate court. Noting that there was a Fifth Commandment about honoring one's parents, Judge Leonard Friedman nonetheless restricted his decision to a more conventional safeguard: the Fourth Amendment's prohibition against unreasonable searches.

> Calvin Cook of Petersburg, Va., was accidentally killed while on active military duty in Viet Nam. His grandmother, Christine Jackson, who had bought an accident policy on Cook's life, tried to collect the $1,000, but the North America Assurance Society of Virginia refused to pay. The company cited a clause in the policy barring payment if death occurred "while in military service in time of war." Though a lower court agreed with the insurance company, the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals found that the policy's war clause did not preclude payment. Reason: the Viet Nam conflict is not a war in the legal sense, because Congress never declared it one.

> When New Jersey officials discovered that Wes Outdoor Advertising Co. had erected billboards without getting the required permits, the state ordered the billboards removed. The company did not do so, and the state sued. The court set penalties of $59,230—$100 a day for each of 572 days of violation plus twice the cost of removal. Owner Wesley K. Bell argued that under the statute he was entitled to go to jail for 30 days rather than pay. The state met that proposal with its own: Bell should serve 30 days for each day of the offense, amounting to 47 years. The lower court denied both motions, leaving the $59,230 penalty in effect. Writing for the New Jersey Supreme Court, Justice Worrall Mountain rejected that solution, but concluded that courts, rather than defendants, should decide the punishment when the law provides a choice of penalties. Mountain then settled on a nice round sum: Bell was fined $10,000 and court costs.