washingtonpost

A Private Hearing, of Sorts, for Anti-War Activists

By Charles Lane

washingtonpost.com

Monday, May 6, 2002; Page A19

The Supreme Court last dealt with Daniel and Philip Berrigan in 1973, when the court blocked a planned trip to North Vietnam by the anti-war activists, who were on parole for destroying Selective Service records.

But Justice Sandra Day O'Connor recently granted the Berrigans a rehearing -- sort of.

On April 15, O'Connor hosted singer-songwriter Dar Williams, a rising star on the feminist folk-rock scene, for a private concert at the Supreme Court. And Williams, 33, chose to entertain O'Connor with her ode to the Berrigans, "I Had No Right." Sample lyric: "We pulled the draft files out / We burned them in the parking lot / Better the files than the bodies of children."

Appropriately, perhaps, for entertaining a justice who often straddles the court's left-right divide, Williams also played "The Christians and the Pagans," about a Christmas-dinner reconciliation between a Wiccan couple and some "Christ-loving" relatives. "So the Christians and the Pagans sat together at the table / Finding faith and common ground the best that they were able," Williams sang.

The idea to invite Williams apparently originated with O'Connor's law clerks, according to one person familiar with the show. And the audience for the half-hour acoustic session was dominated by about two dozen youthful aides to the justices.

But O'Connor, 72, a Reagan appointee, applauded warmly, according to the source.

THOMAS RETORTS:

There was a tense moment when Justice Clarence Thomas traveled to his alma mater, the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass., to give a guest lecture April 8.

During the question period, Gordon Davis, a Holy Cross alumnus who had worked with Thomas in Kimball Dining Hall more than 30 years ago, when the future justice was making money waiting tables, staged a blunt confrontation with Thomas about race.

Davis asserted that Thomas himself was a product of affirmative action programs at Holy Cross and Yale Law School, prompting a clearly irritated Thomas to interject that, at Holy Cross, "I was a transfer student, buddy." Davis countered: "If it weren't for your skin color, you wouldn't be on" the court. He demanded to know how Thomas can oppose affirmative action "without being a hypocrite."

"It's not much of a question," Thomas ultimately answered. "It's more of an assertion." To applause, he said that Davis's remarks were "based on false premises and don't need a response."

Thomas struck a humorous note, though, when a student asked about social life at the court. "Do you all hang out and have 'justice on the town night' or anything?" the student asked.

"No," Thomas chuckled -- then qualified that by noting that he had recently viewed an Eddie Murphy sketch in which the African American comedian is the only black person on a bus filled with unsmiling whites. As soon as Murphy leaves the bus, Thomas said, "the white people pulled off all their outer garments and they have parties and drink champagne. So that may be happening when I'm away."

Other lines from the Thomas session, which aired on C-SPAN's "America and the Courts" series Saturday:

Oral argument "rarely" changes his mind about a case, Thomas said, explaining that "you've read the briefs, you know the cases, what else is there to talk about?" Other justices may interrupt with questions more frequently than he, but Thomas says: "You only ask questions when you want answers. You don't do it to entertain. . . . I also feel pretty strongly these people only have 30 minutes [to argue a case]. Let them talk a little bit. We're not there to debate with them."

On the sacrifices of public service: "I really don't want to be a judge. I don't like it. It's contrary to my personality. I don't want to be judged. I don't like judging other people."

JUSTICE COMPUTES:

The Supreme Court's $99.9 million fiscal 2003 budget request to Congress shows that the paperbound court is entering the 21st century with all deliberate speed.

The number of PCs at the court has grown from 175 to 300 in the past six years, and just recently the justices got better desktop monitors and new laptops for themselves.

Now the court wants $1.5 million for more new PCs, printers and servers, as well as consultants to help technologically-impaired personnel at the court handle their own minor PC problems so they aren't constantly calling the computer guys in the Office of Data Systems.

The court also wants a study of fingerprint scanning as an alternative to passwords for controlling access to court computers.

Concern among the justices about protecting their deliberations from unauthorized personnel is a major reason why, despite the increased demand for Internet service at the court, the justices have limited use of the Internet to a few workstations not linked to their own internal network.

But in an era where law clerks are more comfortable consulting online databases than aging tomes in a library, this approach is becoming unsustainable.

"[R]esources the Court requires in the course of routine business are moving to access via the Internet," the budget documents say. The attendant security overhaul will cost $300,000.