Supreme Court passes up opportunity to review Richard Jewel case

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Posted 6:59PM on Monday, October 7, 2002

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court dealt losses Monday to convicted Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols, imprisoned Dr. Jack Kevorkian, former Olympic security guard Richard Jewell, and Frank Sinatra Jr. Their cases were among more than a thousand that justices refused to consider as they returned to work after a three-month break. The court only hears arguments in 80 or so cases each year - about 1 percent of the cases that make it to the high court. It was the fifth time the Supreme Court had turned back a challenge from Nichols, who was convicted five years ago of federal conspiracy and involuntary manslaughter in the deaths of eight federal agents. The 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City killed 168. Nichols, serving a life sentence, was acquitted of the most serious charges. Timothy McVeigh was executed last June on his conviction in connection with the bombing. Nichols' lawyers were again arguing that his trial was tainted by the government's failure to turn over thousands of documents. They said the government should not be rewarded for misconduct. Nichols still faces state murder charges and could be sentenced to death if he is convicted. Kevorkian has also unsuccessfully tried before to get the court involved in the issue of assisted suicide. He is serving a 10- to 25-year prison sentence for the injection death of a man with Lou Gehrig's disease. The 1998 death of Thomas Youk was videotaped and shown on national television. Kevorkian has called it a "mercy killing," but a jury in Michigan convicted him of second-degree murder. The Sinatra case involves profits from the story of the kidnapping of Frank Sinatra's teenage son nearly 40 years ago. Frank Sinatra Jr. was snatched from a Lake Tahoe, Nev. hotel in 1963, and released unharmed after his family paid a $240,000 ransom. Three men were arrested and convicted. The younger Sinatra lost a court battle in California over profits from a planned movie about the crime, and asked the high court to step in. The Supreme Court refused to review the constitutionality of a California law intended to prevent convicts from profiting from books, movies or other representations of their crimes. The 1983 law was similar to victims' rights laws passed by 40 states and the federal government. The Supreme Court on Monday also: _ Declined to review the case of Richard Jewell, who argued that he was libeled by a newspaper which reported that he was a suspect in the 1996 bombing at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta. Georgia courts sided with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Jewell found the knapsack that held a bomb that exploded on July 27, 1996, killing one woman and injuring 111 people. He went from hero to suspect, but was later cleared by the Justice Department. _ Refused to consider a Kentucky school district's case over its firing of a fifth-grade teacher who invited actor Woody Harrelson to tell her students about the merits of industrial hemp. The court's refusal means there will be a trial for Donna Cockrel to prove she was wrongly fired. _ Turned back Ralph Nader's claim that Ohio violated his constitutional rights by not listing him as the Green Party's presidential candidate in 2000. Ohio requires candidates in smaller parties to collect signatures of thousands of residents. The state claimed that Nader and running mate Winona LaDuke collected only enough signatures to put them on the ballot as independents. Nader, running as the candidate for the pro-environment, anti-corporate Green Party, got 3 percent of the national vote in 2000. The cases are Shelby County School District v. Cockrel, 01-1548; Jewell v. Cox Enterprises, 01-1627; Sinatra v. Keenan, 01-1730; Kevorkian v. People of the state of Michigan, 02-48; and Nader v. Blackwell, 02-81.