Most impor-tantly, the district court held that home video recording was a fair use of the copyrighted tele-vision programs.. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the district cou
Trang 1retailers of Betamax VCRs, and one individual Betamax owner
The district court ruled against Universal and Disney, finding an implied exemption for home video recording in the 1976 Copyright Revision Act (Universal City Studios, Inc v Sony Corp of America, 480 F Supp 429 [C.D Calif
1979]) The district court also held that Sony was not a contributory infringer of the studios’
copyrights because it did not know that home video recording was an infringement when it manufactured and sold the VCRs Most impor-tantly, the district court held that home video recording was a fair use of the copyrighted tele-vision programs Universal and Disney believed that the district court was the first court to hold that copying copyrighted material for mere entertainment or convenience could be a fair use, and they immediately appealed
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the district court, holding that private home videotaping infringed on the studios’ copyrights (Universal City Studios, Inc v Sony Corp of America, 659 F 2d 963 [1981]) The appeals court also determined that Sony was liable to the studios for contributory infringement be-cause it knew that Betamax VCRs would be used to reproduce copyrighted programs The Supreme Court agreed to hear Sony’s appeal
On January 17, 1984, the Supreme Court announced its decision reversing the Ninth Circuit court, holding that Sony had not infringed on copyrights held by Universal and Disney by manufacturing and marketing Beta-max VCRs The Court was sharply divided, and both Justice JOHN PAUL STEVENS, who wrote for the majority, and JusticeHARRY A.BLACKMUN, who wrote for the dissent, issued lengthy opinions
As noted earlier, the Betamax case focused on two main issues: (1) whether home recording of copyrighted television programs constitutes a
“fair use” of the copyrighted material, and (2) whether Sony committed “contributory in-fringement” by selling VCRs, thereby enabling VCR owners to copy the copyrighted television programs
Article I of the U.S Constitution grants Congress the power to pass laws to protect the works of“Authors and Inventors” from copying
by others Pursuant to this power, Congress created copyrights and PATENTS To encourage creativity, Congress gave copyright holders the exclusive right to their creative works The
courts, however, have permitted reproduction
of copyrighted works without the copyright holder’s permission for a “fair use”; the copyright owner does not possess the exclusive right to a fair use For example, a teacher may reproduce limited portions of a copyrighted book for the purpose of teaching without the permission
of the author This concept is referred to as the“fair use doctrine,” which was codified by Congress in the Copyright Revision Act of 1976 (17 U.S.C.A § 107) The Betamax decision is one of the most important cases interpreting this doctrine
In determining that home recording of copyrighted television programs was a fair use under the copyright laws, the Supreme Court focused on the noncommercial nature of home recording The Court stated that noncommer-cial use of copyrighted material is presumptively fair The majority of the Court agreed with the district court that home recording of copy-righted television programs simply does not harm the owners of the copyrights The Court noted that television programs are broadcast free of charge and that Betamax VCRs enable viewers to watch programs they might otherwise miss The Court also pointed out that copyright owners besides Universal and Disney had testi-fied at trial that they did not object to the home recording of their television programs Based on all of these factors, the Court held that home recording of copyrighted television programs constitutes a fair use of the copyrighted material Clearly, Sony was not itself infringing on the copyrights owned by Universal and Disney, regardless of whether home recording of televi-sion programs could be considered a fair use Thus, the studios argued instead that Sony was liable for contributory infringement of their copyrights The studios’ theory was that Sony supplied the means for the copyright infringe-ment and actively encouraged infringeinfringe-ment through advertising The Supreme Court rejected the studios’ argument The Court agreed that contributory infringement of a copyright could occur in certain circumstances; however, manu-facturing and marketing the Betamax could not constitute contributory infringement be-cause the Betamax was capable of a number of uses that did not infringe on any copyrights
As examples of non-infringing uses, the Court noted that many copyright owners did not object
to having their television programs recorded Also, the Betamax could be used to play rented
268 SONY CORP OF AMERICA V UNIVERSAL CITY STUDIOS
Trang 2or purchased tapes of copyrighted programs,
thereby compensating the copyright holders for
the right to view their works
Justices Blackmun,THURGOOD MARSHALL,LEWIS
F.POWELL JR., andWILLIAM H.REHNQUISTdissented
in an opinion by Blackmun First, the dissent
found that home recording of copyrighted
televi-sion programs was not a fair use of the
copy-righted material Blackmun stated that“when a
user reproduces an entire work and uses it for its
original purpose, with no added benefit to the
public, the doctrine of fair use usually does not
apply.” Although the majority found no harm
in allowing VCR owners to record copyrighted
television programs, the dissent claimed that these
recordings could harm the owners of the
copy-rights The dissent pointed out, for example, that
persons who tape television programs for later
viewing are much more likely to skip through
the commercials that ultimately pay for the
television program, thereby potentially reducing
advertising revenue Also, the television ratings
system, on which advertising prices are based,
is unable to account for taped programs The
dissent further believed that Sony could be liable
to the studios for contributory infringement
of their copyrights, stating that“if virtually all of
the product’s use is to infringe, contributory
liability may be imposed.” The dissent would
have remanded the case to determine whether
the Betamax VCRs were used primarily for
infringing or non-infringing uses
FURTHER READINGS
Band, Jonathan, and Andrew J McLaughlin 1993 “The
Marshall Papers: A Peek behind the Scenes at the
Making of Sony v Universal.” Columbia-VLA Journal of
Law & the Arts 17 (summer).
Burks, Margaret A 1985 “Is Copyright Law in Need of
Congressional Action?” Northern Kentucky Law Review
12 (winter).
Lawrence, John, and B Timberg 1989 Fair Use and Free
Inquiry: Copyright Law and the New Media Westport,
Conn.: Greenwood.
Lunney, Glynn S., Jr 2002 “Fair Use and Market Failure: Sony
Revisited ” Boston University Law Review 82 (October).
Samuelson, Pamela 2005-2006 “The Generativity of Sony v.
Universal: The Intellectual Property Legacy of Justice
Stevens ” Fordham Law Review 74.
CROSS REFERENCES
Broadcasting; Intellectual Property.
vSOTOMAYOR, SONIA MARIA
In 2009 Sonia Sotomayor became the nation’s
first Hispanic Supreme Court justice She was
nominated for the position by PresidentBARACK OBAMA to replace DAVID SOUTER Chief Justice
JOHN ROBERTSadministered her oath on August 8,
2009, making her the 111th justice in U.S
history
Sotomayor was born in the Bronx borough
of New York City on June 25, 1954 Her mother and father were both from Puerto Rico, and both were uneducated She grew up among other Puerto Ricans in New York, and she did not become fluent in English until about the age
of nine By that time, she had been diagnosed with diabetes, requiring her to take daily insulin injections At an early age, Sotomayor became
a “true media child,” reading Nancy Drew books and watching the television show Perry Mason The latter proved influential on Soto-mayor’s decision to pursue law “I noticed that Perry Mason was involved in a lot of the same kinds of investigative work that I had been fascinated with reading Nancy Drew, so I decided
to become a lawyer,” she said “Once I focused
on becoming a lawyer, I never deviated from that goal.”
After graduating from Cardinal Spellman High School in the Bronx in 1972, she enrolled
at Princeton University She was one of only a few Latinos who attended Princeton at that time, and she later acknowledged that her writing
Sonia Sotomayor STACEY ILYSE PHOTOGRAPHY/THE WHITE HOUSE VIA GETTY IMAGES
Trang 3and vocabulary skills were relatively weak com-pared with her classmates However, through hard work and determination, she improved her skills markedly She also became an activist on campus, fighting for hiring of more Latino faculty members and for offering more courses focusing
on Latin America
After graduating summa cum laude from Princeton in 1976, she enrolled at Yale Law School on a scholarship She earned a position
as an editor of the Yale Law Journal and served
as managing editor of the Yale Studies in World Public Order As a student, she interviewed with the law firm of Shaw, Pittman, Potts & Trow-bridge When a member of the firm suggested
to her that she was only at Yale due toAFFIRMATIVE ACTION, she responded by filing a complaint with
a tribunal at Yale The law firm later apologized, and the apology made news in the Washington Post Sotomayor graduated from Yale in 1979 and was admitted to the New York bar in 1980
Sotomayor accepted a position as an assis-tant district attorney with the New York County District Attorney’s Office From 1979 to 1984, she worked with the office’s trial bureau and litigated cases involving a range of crimes, including murders, assaults, robberies, and
CHILD PORNOGRAPHY She entered private practice
in 1984 by joining the firm of Pavia & Harcourt
in Manhattan With only 35 attorneys overall and fewer than ten litigators, the firm was rather small However, Sotomayor was able to gain trial experience She specialized in COPY-RIGHT and trademark LITIGATION, along with
INTERNATIONAL LAW and ARBITRATION In 1986 she was featured on a segment of Good Morning America During her time with the firm, she was active as a member of the New York City
Campaign Finance Board as well as the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund
A managing partner at Sotomayor’s firm encouraged her to apply for a position on the federal judiciary when the position came open
in 1990 Although she was only in her 30s, she found support from Democratic senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who reportedly became convinced that she would become the first Hispanic justice on the Supreme Court
On November 27, 1991, President GEORGE H
W.BUSHnominated Sotomayor for a position on the U.S District Court for the Southern District
of New York Despite some political wrangling within the SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE, the full Senate unanimously confirmed her nomination
on August 11, 1992
Sotomayor quickly earned a solid reputa-tion as a district court judge She kept a low profile but showed her willingness to accept anti-government positions She was tough on sentencing in criminal cases, especially inWHITE
-COLLAR CRIMEcases She issued one of her most famous decisions on Silverman v Major League Baseball Player Relations Committee, Inc (880
F Supp 246[S.D.N.Y 1995]), which involved the Major League Baseball players’ strike In the decision, she ruled that the league could not uni-laterally implement a new collective-bargaining agreement and use replacement players This ruling effectively ended the strike just before the start of the 1995 season
In June 1997 President BILL CLINTON nomi-nated Sotomayor to serve on the U.S Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit Some conser-vatives attempted to derail her confirmation, and these efforts were successful in delaying confirmation for more than a year Republican
1954 Born,
New York City
2001 September 11 terrorist attacks 1961–73
Vietnam War
◆ 2000
1975 1950
1976 Earned B.A from Princeton University
1979 Graduated from Yale Law School
1979–84 Served as assistant district attorney for New York County
◆◆
◆◆
1980 Admitted to New York bar
1984 Joined firm of Pavia
& Harcourt
◆
1992–98 Served on U.S.
District Court for the Southern District of New York
1995 Presided over
Silverman v Major League Baseball Player Relations Committee, Inc.
1998 Appointed
to U.S Court
of Appeals for the Second Circuit
2009 Confirmed
as first Hispanic Supreme Court justice
◆
2008 Barack Obama elected first African American president
2009 David Souter retired from Supreme Court
UNEQUIVOCALLY AND
ETHNIC OR GENDER
GROUP HAS AN
ADVANTAGE IN
EVERY PERSON HAS
AN EQUAL
OPPORTUNITY TO BE
A GOOD AND WISE
OF THEIR
BACKGROUND OR LIFE
—S ONIA S OTOMAYOR
270 SOTOMAYOR, SONIA MARIA
Trang 4senator Al D’Amato, however, urged several
members of the Republican Party to vote in her
favor, and the Senate confirmed her
appoint-ment on October 2, 1998, by a vote of 67-29
Sotomayor later said she felt as if her critics
during the confirmation process had
stereo-typed her based on her ethnicity
In her more than ten years on the Second
Circuit, she heard appeals in more than 3,000
cases She wrote close to 380 opinions, of which
the Supreme Court reviewed five and reversed
three Although some claimed that Sotomayor’s
record tended to favor the left, theAMERICAN BAR
ASSOCIATIONABA Journal considered her to be a
political centrist Sotomayor’s opinions tended
to be lengthier than her counterparts She also
earned a reputation for sometimes being blunt
towards attorneys arguing their cases before her
In 2001 Sotomayor gave a speech at the
University of California at Berkeley in which she
paraphrased a quotation often used by Justices
SANDRA DAY O’CONNOR and RUTH BADER GINSBURG
The quotation refers to a conclusion that a“wise
old woman” or “wise old man” might make In
her speech, Sotomayor said,“I would hope that
a wise Latina woman with the richness of her
experiences would more often than not reach
a better conclusion than a white male who
hasn’t lived that life.”
In April 2009 the media revealed that Souter
planned to step down from the Court Sotomayor
received attention as a possible candidate, and
on May 25, 2009, he informed her that she
would indeed be his candidate She received
harsh criticism for the comments in her 2001
speech (she had made similar comments in other
speeches as well), and a poll later showed that the
public disagreed with her “wise Latina” quip
However, polls also showed that a majority of
Americans believed she was qualified to serve on
the Court, and the American Bar Association
rated her as“well qualified,” which is the highest
rating the ABA gives with regard to Supreme
Court nominees
Despite the controversy surrounding her
remark, the Senate Judiciary Committee
con-firmed her nomination by a vote of 13-6 along
party lines The full Senate then confirmed
her nomination on August 6, 2009 She heard
her first arguments on September 9, 2009
Sotomayor has won dozens of awards She
is a member of the Princeton University Board
of Trustees and has taught classes at both New
York University School of Law and Columbia Law School She has received honorary law degrees from six different law schools
FURTHER READINGS Liptak, Adam 2009 “The Newest Justice Takes Her Seat.”
New York Times September 9, 2009.
Sotomayor, Sonya “Statehood and the Equal Footing Doctrine: The Case for Puerto Rican Seabed Rights ” Yale Law Journal 88.
vSOUTER, DAVID HACKETT David Hackett Souter was appointed to the U.S
Supreme Court on July 25, 1990, by President
GEORGE H.W.BUSH Chosen by the Bush adminis-tration because of his conservative judicial style, Souter proved to be a moderate justice whose personality and temperament enabled him to build a centrist coalition that garnered support from the Court’s ideological extremes
Souter was born on September 17, 1939, in Melrose, Massachusetts, six miles north of Boston The only son of Joseph Souter, a bank manager, and Helen Souter, a gift store clerk, the future associate justice was remembered by his childhood friends as an intense, intelligent, and family-oriented person who was endowed with a sharp wit, but no athletic ability At age eleven Souter and his parents moved to a ten-acre farm in the rural community of East Weare, New Hampshire
In 1957 Souter graduated second in a class
of two hundred at Concord High School where his classmates named him the most literary, most sophisticated, and most likely to succeed
During high school Souter was named president
of the National Honor Society and coeditor of the yearbook According to legend, the only time Souter got into trouble as a teenager was when he stayed past closing time at the local historical society
After high school Souter attended Harvard University Graduating magna cum laude with a philosophy major in 1961, Souter was inducted into Harvard’s prestigious chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, considered by many to be the nation’s highest undergraduate academic award Souter wrote his senior thesis on Supreme Court Justice OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES
JR., which helped him earn a Rhodes Scholar-ship to study at Oxford University, where he received a bachelor’s degree in JURISPRUDENCE
in 1963
Trang 5Upon returning to the United States, Souter entered Harvard Law School, quickly develop-ing a reputation as a serious student and an independent thinker However, Souter was not prone to debate issues with his peers or volunteer
in class Although Souter was a solid law student,
he graduated without academic honors and was not chosen for a place on the Harvard Law Review, Harvard’s esteemed legal journal, which was a highly coveted position among the students
In 1966 Souter joined Orr and Reno, a leading New Hampshire firm that handled corporate, probate, tax, and FAMILY LAW cases
Not feeling sufficiently challenged or stimulated
by private practice, Souter went to work for the New Hampshire attorney general, ascending from assistant attorney general in 1968 to deputy attorney general in 1971 to attorney
general in 1976 Souter did very little prosecut-ing durprosecut-ing his tenure with the attorney general’s office, directly handling only nine cases in ten years
In 1978 Souter was appointed to the bench
as a superior court judge in New Hampshire Attorneys who appeared before Souter de-scribed him as an even-handed trial judge with
a penchant for detail Five years later Souter was elevated to the New Hampshire Supreme Court, where he authored more than 200 opinions and established himself as an assertive judge who often questioned lawyers during oral arguments
In February 1990 President Bush appointed Souter to the U.S Court of Appeals for the First Circuit Five months later, before Souter had written his first opinion as a federal judge, Bush appointed Souter to the U.S Supreme Court Subsequently confirmed by a Senate vote of 90–9, Souter became the 105th jurist to serve on the nation’s highest court
Souter disappointed those in the Bush administration who hoped he would provide the decisive fifth vote for the conservative wing of the Court, composed of Chief JusticeWILLIAM H
REHNQUISTand Associate JusticesANTONIN SCALIA,
CLARENCE THOMAS, and SANDRA DAY O’CONNOR Instead, Souter proved to be a temperate justice, with a mainstream judicial philosophy He took some positions that upset conservatives and other positions that upset liberals
Souter offended liberals when he voted
to uphold federal regulations that prohibited
1950–53 Korean War
1961–73 Vietnam War
◆
1939 Born,
Melrose, Mass.
1939–45
World War II
◆
◆
1962–63 Studied as Rhodes Scholar at Oxford
1968 Became assistant attorney general of New Hampshire
1976–78 Served as attorney general of New Hampshire
1978–83 Served on the Superior Court of New Hampshire
1983–90 Served on the New Hampshire Supreme Court
1990 Appointed to U.S Court of Appeals for the First Circuit
1990 Appointed associate justice of the U.S Supreme Court
1992 Drafted opinion with Kennedy and O’Connor in
Planned Parenthood
v Casey
2003 Dissented
in Woodford, Warden v Garceau
1996 Joined majority opinions in Romer v Evans and United States v Virginia
1998 Wrote majority opinion in New Jersey v New York; wrote majority opinion in Faragher v Boca Raton
2000 Dissented in
Bush v Gore
◆
2009 Delivered opinion in
Abuelhawa v United States; retired
from Supreme Court
2000 1975
1950
2000 Presidential election result uncertain due
to disputed Fla vote count; recount halted by
U.S Supreme Court with 5–4 vote in Bush v Gore
David H Souter.
AP IMAGES
272 SOUTER, DAVID HACKETT
Trang 6doctors from providing ABORTION counseling at
federally funded clinics, despite objections that
such regulations violated the FIRST AMENDMENT
(Rust v Sullivan, 500 U.S 173, 111 S Ct 1759,
114 L Ed 2d 233 [1991]) Some liberals were
again dismayed when Souter voted to affirm a
state ban on nude dancing in Barnes v Glen
Theatre, 501 U.S 560, 111 S Ct 2456, 115 L
Ed 2d 504 (1991), even though four
dissent-ing justices said the ban violated freedom of
expression Souter also regularly voted in favor
ofCAPITAL PUNISHMENT
On the other hand, many conservatives were
distraught by Souter’s concurring opinion in
LEE V WEISMAN, 505 U.S 577, 112 S Ct 2649,
120 L Ed 2d 467 (1992), which relied on the
Establishment Clause of the First Amendment
to declare unconstitutional a nonsectarian prayer
delivered by a clergyman at a public high school
graduation ceremony In ROMER V EVANS, 517
U.S 620, 116 S Ct 1620, 134 L Ed 2d 855
(1996), Souter joined the Court’s majority
opinion that relied on the EQUAL PROTECTION
CLAUSE of the FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT to strike
down a Colorado constitutional provision
pro-hibiting all legislative, executive, and JUDICIAL
ACTION designed to protect homosexuals from
DISCRIMINATION Many conservatives were also
upset when Souter voted to invalidate the
male-only admissions policy at the University of
Virginia Military Institute because it
discrimi-nated against women who sought entrance to
the school’s citizen-soldier program (UNITED
STATES V VIRGINIA, 518 U.S 515, 116 S Ct
2264, 135 L Ed 2d 735[1996])
Observers increasingly recognized Souter as
the intellectual leader of the emerging moderate
core of the Supreme Court In a number of
important decisions, Souter allied himself with
Justices ANTHONY M KENNEDYand O’Connor to
forge an influential coalition that has been
joined by members of the Court’s ideological
extremes In this regard, Souter played a critical
role in building a consensus of judicial
philoso-phy among the Supreme Court justices
In Planned Parenthood v Casey, 505 U.S 833,
112 S Ct 2791, 120 L Ed 2d 674 (1992), for
example, the state of Pennsylvania asked the
Supreme Court to overturnROE V.WADE, 410 U.S
113, 93 S Ct 705, 35 L Ed 2d 147 (1973), the
decision guaranteeing women the right to
termi-nate their pregnancies under certain circumstances
After oral arguments, five justices—Rehnquist,
Scalia, O’Connor, Kennedy, and BYRON R
WHITE—expressed serious reservations about the holding in Roe Based on these reservations, Rehnquist was prepared to draft a majority opinion that would have gutted virtually every tenet in the 1973 precedent
Before Rehnquist finished writing the opin-ion, however, Souter, O’Connor, and Kennedy met outside the presence of the other justices
to discuss the case Following this meeting, the three justices presented a joint opinion that affirmed the central holding of Roe Neither the state nor federal governments, the joint opinion in Casey stressed, may pass laws that place an “undue burden” on a woman’s right
to have an abortion Souter, O’Connor, and Kennedy drew support from the traditionally liberalJOHN PAUL STEVENSandHARRY A.BLACKMUN, who concurred in principle with the joint opinion, and from the traditionally conservative Rehnquist, who concurred in judgment
Opinions in the Early 2000s
Through the first decade of the 2000s, Souter continued to occupy a pivotal seat on the Supreme Court, using his polite and friendly personality, his patient and contemplative temperament, and his diligent work ethic to earn respect and win support across the ideological spectrum However, many of his more noteworthy decisions between 1995 and
2003 came in a dissenting role
For example, Souter dissented from a Supreme Court decision holding that a sentence
of two consecutive terms of 25 years to life in prison under California’s Career Criminal Pun-ishment Act, also known as the Three Strikes Law, on a conviction of two counts of petty theft with a prior conviction, was neither contrary
to, nor an unreasonable application of, clearly established federal law Lockyer v Andrade,
123 S.Ct 1166, 155 L.Ed.2d 144 (U.S 2003)
The defendant had been convicted of stealing videotapes worth $154 The defendant“did not somehow become twice as dangerous to society when he stole the second handful of video-tapes,” Souter said “His dangerousness may justify treating one minor felony as serious and warranting long incapacitation, but a second such felony does not disclose greater danger warranting substantially longer incapacitation,”
Justice Souter argued If the defendant’s sen-tence is not grossly disproportionate to his crime under the Eighth Amendment’s propor-tionality analysis for determining whether a
CONSTITUTIONAL
TOO MUCH RELIANCE
ON FEDERAL PRECEDENT WE WILL
RULES A MERE ROW
WE WILL RENDER
—D AVID H S OUTER
Trang 7punishment is cruel and unusual, Souter con-cluded, the principle would have“no meaning”
in any other case to which it might apply
Souter also dissented from a majority ruling that officers may conduct a routine, suspicion-less drug interdiction without informing bus passengers that they have the right not to cooperate and to refuse consent to searches
United States v Drayton, 536 U.S 194, 122 S.Ct
2105, 153 L.Ed.2d 242 (U.S 2002) The Court’s decision expanded upon an earlier case hold-ing that the FOURTH AMENDMENT permits police officers to approach bus passengers at random
to ask questions and to request their consent to searches, provided a reasonable person would understand that he or she is free to leave Souter conceded that “[a]nyone who travels by air today submits to searches of the person and luggage as a condition of boarding the aircraft,”
and that “is universally accepted that such intrusions are necessary to hedge against risks that even small children understand.” How-ever, “the commonplace precautions of air travel have not, thus far, been justified for ground transportation and no such condi-tions have been placed on passengers getting
on trains or buses There is therefore an air of unreality about the Court’s explanation that bus passengers consent to searches of their luggage
to“enhanc[e] their own safety and the safety of those around them,” Souter wrote
Many of Souter’s later dissenting opinions earned him a reputation as a liberal-leaning justice who broadly interpreted the constitu-tional rights of criminal defendants However, Souter sided against the defendant in Atwater v
City of Lago Vista, 532 U.S 318, 121 S.Ct 1536,
149 L.Ed.2d 549 (U.S 2001), where he wrote the majority opinion in a 5–4 decision holding that the Fourth Amendment does not forbid a warrantless arrest for a minor criminal offense, such as a misdemeanor seatbelt violation puni-shable only by a fine
The case arose when a Texas police officer observed that a motorist driving a pickup truck,
as well as her two children, were not wearing seatbelts Souter rejected the motorist’s con-tention that“founding-era common-law rules”
forbadePEACE OFFICERSfrom making warrantless misdemeanor arrests except in cases of“breach
of the peace,” a category the motorist claimed was then understood narrowly as covering only those non-felony-level offenses “involving
or tending toward violence.” In the years leading up to American independence, Souter observed, Parliament repeatedly extended ex-press warrantless search authority to cover misdemeanor-level offenses not amounting to
or involving any violent BREACH OF THE PEACE Souter refused to mint a new rule of CONSTITU-TIONAL LAW forbidding custodial arrest, even uponPROBABLE CAUSE, when conviction could not ultimately carry any jail time and the govern-ment could show no compelling need for immediate detention
In May of 2009, Justice Souter delivered the court’s opinion on Abuelhawa v United States The Controlled Substances Act (CSA) makes it
a felony“to use any communication facility in committing or in causing or facilitating” certain felonies prohibited by the statute 84 Stat 1263,
21 U S C §843(b) The question was whether someone violates §843(b) in making a misde-meanor drug purchase, because his phone call
to the dealer can be said to facilitate the felony
of drug distribution The answer was no The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit was reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with the court’s opinion
Souter retired in 2009, after serving 18 years
on the court His last official day on the court was June 29 Notorious for being low-tech, Souter planned to enjoy his new home in New Hampshire, surrounded by books
FURTHER READINGS Gearan, Anne 2003 “Long Sentences OK for Repeat Criminals ”Tallahassee Democrat (March 6).
Henderson, Stephen 2003 “Justices Uphold Megan’s Laws, 3-Strikes Laws ” Philadelphia Inquirer (March 6) Kan, Liang 1996 “A Theory of Justice Souter.” Emory Law Journal 45 (fall).
Murray, Frank J 2002 “Minor Crimes Split Courts on Rights ” Washington Times (March 17).
Puffer, Mark H 1999 “A Survey of Justice Souter’s Decisions in the October 1998 Term.” New Hampshire Bar Journal 40 (September).
Simon, James 1995 The Center Holds: The Power Struggle inside the Rehnquist Court New York: Simon & Schuster.
Yarbrough, Tinsley E 2005 David Hackett Souter: Tradi-tional Republican On The Rehnquist Court New York: Oxford Univ Press.
SOUTHEAST ASIA TREATY ORGANIZATION
The Southeast Asia Treaty Organization was an alliance organized pursuant to the Southeast
274 SOUTHEAST ASIA TREATY ORGANIZATION
Trang 8Asia Defense Treaty to oppose the growing
communist influence in Southeast Asia The
United States, the United Kingdom, France,
Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, the Philippines,
and Pakistan signed the treaty and
accompa-nying Pacific Charter in Manila on September 8,
1954 The treaty became operative in February
1955 and bound the signatories to mutual aid
to resist armed attack or subversion; an armed
attack on one signatory was interpreted as a
danger to all
Headquartered in Bangkok, SEATO relied
on the military forces of member nations rather
than commanding its own standing forces, as
does the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(NATO) In its first few years of operation,
SEATO’s effectiveness was not tested, but at
the beginning of the 1960s, conflicts in South
Vietnam and Laos challenged the strength of the
alliance and ultimately found it lacking France
withdrew from military cooperation in SEATO in
1967, and Great Britain refused active military
cooperation in the Vietnam conflict Moreover,
a 1960s dispute between Pakistan and India
further undermined the efficacy of the alliance:
Pakistan drew closer to communist China, while
the United States provided aid to India
In 1972 Pakistan completely withdrew from
the alliance; in 1974 France suspended its
membership payments In September 1975 the
signatories decided to phase out the operations,
and SEATO was formally dissolved on June 30,
1977 The collective defense treaty remains in
effect, however
FURTHER READINGS
Buszynski, Leszek 1983 SEATO, the Failure of an Alliance
Strategy Singapore: Singapore University Press.
Grenville, J.A.S., and Bernard Wasserstein 2000 The Major
International Treaties of the Twentieth Century New
York: Routledge.
Schoenl, William, ed 2002 New Perspectives on the Vietnam
War: Our Allies’ Views Lanham, Md.: Univ Press of
America.
U.S Department of State 1995 Treaties in Force
Publica-tion 9433.
SOUTHERN CHRISTIAN LEADERSHIP
CONFERENCE
As a principal organization of the CIVIL RIGHTS
MOVEMENT, the Southern Christian Leadership
Conference (SCLC) championed the use of
nonviolent direct action to end legal and social
discrimination against African Americans
Identified strongly with its original leader, the
Reverend MARTIN LUTHER KING JR., the SCLC organized and sponsored many protest marches and demonstrations during the late 1950s and the 1960s Although the group’s influence declined after King’s assassination in 1968, the SCLC continues to work for the betterment of the lives of African Americans
The SCLC emerged in the wake of a suc-cessful boycott of buses in Montgomery, Alabama, by the city’s black citizens in 1955, which had led to a December 1956 SUPREME COURT ruling upholding the desegregation of those buses (Gayle v Browder, 352 U.S 903, 77
S Ct 145, 1 L Ed 2d 114) Prodded by African American social activist Bayard Rustin, who hoped to carry the Montgomery victory to the rest of the South, King and other clerics formed the Southern Negro Leaders Conference, fore-runner of the SCLC, during a meeting in Atlanta in January 1957 King, who had gained national renown through his role as head of the Montgomery Improvement Association, the organizer of the bus boycott, was a natural choice to lead the group Other early SCLC leaders included the Reverends RALPH D
ABERNATHY and Fred Shuttlesworth Later in
1957, the group changed its name to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
The SCLC hoped to initiate nonviolent direct action throughout the South, modeling their activities on Gandhi’s methods of passive resistance It hoped that such action would secure racial desegregation, voting rights, and
Early leaders of the Souther Christian Leadership Conference, Revs Martin Luther King Jr., Fred
Shuttlesworth, and Ralph D Abernathy speak at a press conference in Birmingham, Alabama, in May 1963.
AP IMAGES SOUTHERN CHRISTIAN LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE 275
Trang 9other gains for African Americans Through this approach, the SCLC sought to take the CIVIL RIGHTScause out of the courtroom and into the community, hoping to negotiate directly with whites for social change As one of its first actions, the group led the 1957 Prayer Pilgrimage
to Washington, D.C., which drew an estimated 25,000 people In 1959, it organized a youth march on Washington, D.C., that attracted 40,000 people
Despite these successful marches, the SCLC was hampered by disorganization during its early years It experienced difficulty in meeting many of its major goals during the late 1950s, particularly in voter registration It charted a new course in the early 1960s, when it recruited leaders such as the Reverends Wyatt T Walker and Andrew J Young Between 1960 and 1964, the number of full-time SCLC staff members grew from 5 to 60, and the organization’s effect
on theCIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENTreached its zenith
Growth in its membership allowed SCLC to coordinate historic demonstrations that played
a vital role in the civil rights movement In April
1963, the SCLC led protests and boycotts in Birmingham, Alabama, that prompted violent police repression Television viewers around the United States were shocked at the violence they saw directed at the clearly peaceful demonstra-tors The SCLC won the sympathy of the nation again in a difficult 1965 civil rights campaign
in Selma, Alabama, which also drew a violent response from whites These protests are widely credited with hastening the passage of theCIVIL RIGHTS ACT OF1964 (42 U.S.C.A § 2000a et seq.) and theVOTING RIGHTS ACT OF1965 (42 U.S.C.A
§ 1973 et seq.), laws that granted African Amer-icans many of the rights they had been seeking
By the mid-1960s, other African Americans began to question whether nonviolent direct action could achieve significant changes for their communities More radical civil rights groups, notably the STUDENT NONVIOLENT COORDINATING COMMITTEEand the CONGRESS OF RACIAL EQUALITY, publicly renounced the nonviolent approach of the SCLC They pointed to the poverty andDE FACTO(actual)SEGREGATIONexperienced by Afri-can AmeriAfri-cans in the northern cities and argued that the SCLC tactics were ineffective in the urban ghetto
King and the SCLC were sensitive to such criticism and increasingly began to focus their attention on the North By 1967, the SCLC
launched several new operations there: the Chicago Freedom Movement, Operation Bread-basket, and the Poor People’s Campaign It brought in new, young leaders, including the divinity student JESSE JACKSON, to lead these efforts
The SCLC suffered a staggering setback when King was assassinated in April 1968 The group had always been closely identified with the charismatic preacher, and his death cost it the vital leadership, publicity, and fund-raising
he had provided Abernathy became president
of the organization By 1972, the staff had declined to 20 and leaders such as Young and Jackson had moved on to other pursuits Joseph E Lowery succeeded Abernathy as president of the SCLC in 1977 The Atlanta-based group has continued to work for the improvement of the lives of African Americans through leadership training and citizen educa-tion It has also created campaigns to battle drug abuse and crime
In the 1990s and early 2000s, the SCLC had
a number of leadership changes Martin Luther King III replaced Lowery as president in 1997 and served until 2004 King was replaced briefly
by famed civil rights activist Fred Shuttlesworth
in 2004 Charles Kenzie Steele Jr., whose father was one of the original members of SCLC, replaced Shuttlesworth in 2004 Steele served until 2009, when he was replaced on an interim basis by Byron Clay
FURTHER READINGS Blumberg, Rhoda Lois 1991 Civil Rights: The 1960s Freedom Struggle Rev ed Boston: Twayne.
Fairclough, Adam 2001 To Redeem the Soul of America: The Southern Christian Leadership Conference and Martin Luther King Jr Athens: Univ of Georgia Press Fairclough, Adam 1989 “The Southern Christian Leader-ship Conference and the Second Reconstruction, 1957– 1973.” In We Shall Overcome Edited by David J Garrow Brooklyn, NY: Carlson.
Ford, Linda G 1992 “Southern Christian Leadership Conference ” In Encyclopedia of African-American Civil Rights Edited by Charles D Lowery San Diego, CA: Greenwood Press.
Garrow, David J 1986 Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King
Jr and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference New York: Morrow.
Southern Christian Leadership Conference Available online
at http://sclcnational.org (accessed June 3, 2009) CROSS REFERENCES
Integration; Jim Crow Laws; NAACP; Parks, Rosa Louise McCauley.
276 SOUTHERN CHRISTIAN LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE
Trang 10SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is an
internationally known nonprofit organization
that filesCLASS ACTIONlawsuits to fight
discrimi-nation and unequal treatment It also tracks
hate groups and runs a program to educate
Americans about racism, anti-Semitism, and
other forms of intolerance The organization
has received numerous awards and accolades
for its work SPLC has been the subject of
vociferous attacks by racist and anti-Semitic
groups as well as“white power” advocates
Based in Montgomery, Alabama, the SPLC
was founded in 1971 by attorneys Morris Dees
and Joseph J Levin Jr along with CIVIL RIGHTS
leader JULIAN BOND Dees graduated from the
University of Alabama Law School in 1960 and
started aPRIVATE LAWpractice in the state’s capitol
city, Montgomery In 1967 Dees began to gain
notoriety for his willingness to handle unpopular
CIVIL RIGHTS CASES Levin, who had returned
home from army service to join his father’s law
practice, indicated his interest in the type of
cases Dees was handling The two attorneys
started a law practice that specialized in civil
rights cases Their practice eventually developed
into the Southern Poverty Law Center
Levin functioned as legal director of the
Center from 1971 to 1976 During that period
Levin worked on more than 50 significant civil
rights cases Levin left the center in 1976 but
continued his involvement with SPLC by
serving as president and board chair In 1996,
Levin returned to Montgomery to become the
center’s chief executive officer Julian Bond, a
civil rights activist who co-founded theSTUDENT
NONVIOLENT COORDINATING COMMITTEE(SNCC) in
1960 and later served four terms on the board of
the National Association for the Advancement
of Colored People (NAACP), became the first
president of SPLC As of 2009, Bond still served
on SPLC’s board of directors
SPLC has specialized inCLASS ACTIONlawsuits
that challengeSEGREGATIONin numerous spheres
One case from the 1970s resulted in the election
of 17 African American legislators to the
Alabama General Assembly Until 1972 there
were no African Americans among the Alabama
State Troopers A lawsuit filed by SPLC that
year resulted in a decision requiring the state
to hire one qualified African American trooper
for each Caucasian trooper hired until the
former comprised 25 percent of the force State
officials fought the order and the case was litigated all the way to the U.S Supreme Court
In 1987 the court decided in favor of the plaintiffs
By 1995 opposition had ended and in 2003, Alabama State Troopers had the highest percent-age of minority officers of any state in the nation
In 1976 SPLC challenged the inhumane conditions of Alabama prisons Since prevailing
in that case, it has worked with state officials
to reform the prison system In 1995 the state reestablished a practice whereby prison inmates were shackled together as they worked along the state highways The center sued the state and eventually obtained an agreement prohibiting the use of“chain gangs” in Alabama
The SPLC has challenged Georgia state officials and their eligibility guidelines for providing services to children with learning disabilities in addition to advocating for the provision of adequate care and health services for persons with mental retardation Besides
LOBBYING for better care for emotionally dis-turbed children in foster care, the SPLC has sought more assistance for adults with mental illness Alabama’s failure to provide MEDICAID
recipients with medically necessary transporta-tion has also been challenged A federal court upheld SPLC’s action, and in 1996 the state began operating a program that helped provide affordable transportation to more than 40,000 Medicaid recipients Although this ruling was overturned on appeal, the state continued to provide non-emergency Medicaid transportation
The SPLC has successfully fought for safer working conditions for employees of Alabama’s cotton mills, fair housing treatment for African Americans in Alabama who faced RACIAL DIS-CRIMINATION when trying to lease apartments, tax EQUITY in Kentucky, and the removal of the Confederate battle flag from the dome of Alabama’s state capitol building Additionally, SPLC has waged and won major battles over the convictions of a number of cases where inmates
in southern states have facedCAPITAL PUNISHMENT
In response to the resurgence of theKU KLUX KLAN (KKK) in 1981, SPLC began to monitor hate activity In the 2000s SPLC’s Intelligence Project tracked the activities of more than 600 active hate groups including the KKK, Neo-Nazis, Black separatists, and other racist and extremist organizations The SPLC’s quarterly periodical, Intelligence Report, provides compre-hensive information on these groups to law
SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER 277