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104 Harv. L. Rec. 1 (1997)

handle is hein.journals/hlrec104 and id is 1 raw text is: WOW~ America's Oldest aft Law School Newspaper SHartvard Law RECOD3 ET VoIlume 10., No. 1 Camibridge 02138 Friday, January 17, 1997 Tribe Argues Life and Death Before High Court By Maria Green In a case that could have pro- found implications foir the way Americans face death and dying, Prof. Laurence Tribe '66 argued before the Supreme Court last week that terminally ill patients have a constitutional right to doc- tor-assisted suicide. I certainly found the case among the most intriguing and challenging and signili- cant that I've ever worked on, said Tribe, who argued Vacco v. Quill pro bono. The question of how the constitution defines personal liberty in the context of' tile decisions people make about their own death when death is inninent and inevitable seems important. It has a powerful human dimension. he added. To force people, when they are already dying, to submit to the total government control that is implicit in saying that the only relief available to them is illegal, is hard to square with our tradition. Tribe said that he had enjoyed the oral argument, which he called quite a workout. I felt as good about the oral argument as I've ever felt about an oral argument, he said. Tribe said he was eager take the discussion beyond some of the dry, abstract categories in which these issues are sometimes discussed, like the difference between withdrawing treatment and helping to die. The Court first recognized a constitutional right to (lie in 1990, wO'hen it Ruled that terminally ill people can refuse lifie-sustaining medical treatment. Under current law, Tribe said, when patients decide to withdraw treatment they may legally be offered terminal barbi- turates - essentially, drugs that allow them to fall into a coma from which they never awaken, and in which they remain during the week to two weeks that it takes to die fi'om starvation and dehydration. Although the situation only applies to one to two percent of such patients, for some it is the only way of avoiding excruciating pain, Tribe said. The dangers inherent in allowing assisted suicide, such as undue pressure and incorrect diagnoses, are no greater than those already existing, Tribe said. The abuses are already pre- sent in practices like terminal sedation and would be much less present if we were to bring it out into the open. Asked if the situation is an ;-sue now because so many i- nericans are dying alone in nursing homes, Tribe referred instead to advances in modern science. It modern medicine hadn't been able to prolong life Iso thatl people die prolonged deaths rather than quick deaths by infec- tion, he said, tile situ- ation would not arise so oftenl and ill so many peoples' lives. Tile profile has changed, he said. Given antibiotics and modern methods, few- er people (lie quickly. Tribe notedI ithat some in the press had reported that tile justices had appeared mystified in the face of the complicated facts at play in the discuss- sion. This was not his impres- Sion. I think that some of the press was mystified ... but I'm quite sure that none of the jus- tices were mystified in the least, Tribe said. I would say that the justices seemed very much on the ball, very focused and very inclined to ask appropriately tough ques- tions. Some of' the justices, he said, were more inclined to challenge the question of whether the Court please see TRIBE, page 3 Student Expelled for Forging Transcript By David Lenter A male student has been permanently expelled fi'om the Law School for extensive forgery on his undergraduate transcript. No one on the Administrative Board, which recommended the punishment, would rel-ase tile name or year of th student. Registrar Stephen Kane, one two voting adminis trators on the board said he came acros the prohlem l September. I discovered discrepancy in wha tWe student rffeie as undergraduate records, Kane said. He brought the issue to the atte Administrative Boa board began lookin matter in Septen October. said. In cases in which the Administrative Board decides to expel a student, a two-thirds vote of the faculty is required for imposition of the expulsion. This vote, carried overwhelm- ingly according to Kane, at the Dec. 13 faculty meeting. Kane said the expelled stu- dent chose not to appear before the board and did le not request a sup- plementary hear- ing. In every disci- of plinary proceeding s- a charged student d, h as a right to a ss hearing before the n board. and in cases ill which the board a votes to dismO)isss or it expel a student, the d Istudent has the right to a sup- Registrar Stephen Kane ihtnntar hearing fbefore ntion ofthe a hearing officer appointed trd, and the fi'om the faculty by the dean. g into the The expelled student has tuber and left the law school, according to Kane. Kane would not state .pecifically what prompted him to look at the student's records. He said when he read the records, he noticed that what the student claimed to have done as an undergraduate and what it seemed he could have done didn't correspond. There were time periods that didn't make sense, Kane said. Kane would not say which school the expelled student attended as an undergraduate, in part because they may be pursuing litigation them- selves, he said. The board voted to expel the student in December, Kane As to the precise nature of the f'orgery, Kane would not provide details. It was pretty extensive forgery, he said. The board was scrupulous in examining the evidence against the expelled student, -Kane said. We really were very detail-oriented in gathering all the information, and the evidence was over- whelming, he said. Once the board studied all the evidence, it did not consid- er any other form of punish- ment, Kane said. If you sub- mit false credentials, that's pretty serious. ... There is some please see EXPULSION, p. 2 D.C. Stalking Statute Survives Constitutional Challenge By Hal Poret In a recent ruling that will provide strong support for the continued effort to create effec- tive anti-stalking legislation, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals held that a D.C. stalk- ing statute was not unconstitu- tionally vague or overbroad. Statutes attempting to crim- inalize stalking have met with various constitutional chal- lenges in recent years. Most prominently, defendants prose- cuted under new stalking laws have invoked the void-foir-vague- ness and overbreadth doctrines, as well as the First Amendment's protection of fl'ee speech in attempts to strike doiwn these laws. The void-for-vagueness doc- trine requires that all criminal statutes are clear and specific enough in the definition of pro- hibitrd conduct to provide actu- al notice to ordinary people as to what actions will constitute vio- lations of the law. The goal of this doctrine is to avoid vague statutes that create the opportu- nity for arbitrary and discrimi- natory enforcement of the law. The landmark void-for- vagueness situation occurred in the case of Papachristou v. Jacksonville, in which the city of Jacksonville, Florida had an anti-loitering ordinance written in such vague language that vir- tually anyone seen in Harvard Square today could be arrested under it. The Supreme Court invalidated the ordinance, hold- ing that it did not sufficiently define the offense so that people could know whethir or not their conduct was punishable by law. In the stalking context, the void-foi-vagueness doctrine pioses a difficult challenge to legislators, who must write a statute that adequately and specifically defines what will please see STALKING, p. 2 By Jacob Appel Students and faculty return- ing from the winter holidays were saddened to learn of the deaths of three long-time members of the Harvaid Law School community. Louis L. Jaffe, Byrne Profbssor of Administrative Law, Emeritus, former Assistant Dean of Admissions Molly Geraghty and Kay Lee, the right arm of the Office of' Career Services were all affiliated with HLS for many years. Prof'essor' Jaffe, a leading authority on administrative law, died on December 11 at a nursing home in Norwood, Massachusetts at the age of ninety. Since his retirement in 1976, lie had resided in Cambridge and sum- niered in Martha's Vineyard. Colleague Clark Byse, anoth- er former occupant of'the Byrne Chair in Administrative Law, noted that Louis Jafle was one of the giants of' the Harvard Law School, not only in his field, administrative law, where he was one of the three outstanding recognition for scholars of his time, but in other the relationshi fields like torts and legislation. and administi Dean Clark '72 praised Jaffe's contribu- tions to legal education. I Professor Jaffe was a significant 5 Force in the post- war development of Harvard Law School, Clark said. I le[ played a major role in tihe creationl of the field of' administrative law. As a fio'mer Prof. Louis Jaffe (1905-1996) student of' Professor J1affe, I personally can nendition ofth attest to the skills and unique FrankfMurer, se style that he brought to the class- with Supireml( roonn, ho said. . Lu u is Brandei ,affe originally joined tie Depression era HI ari'vaird Law School filI ty in cult, af'f'e 'etL 1950 and rapidly rose to preemi- and earned a S. nence in both administrative and tort law. He earned national please Sv, his research into p between courts rative agencies. This ground- breaking work focused on the role of tile Federal Communications Commission and the development of the then nascent television industry. While a stu- dent at ILS, ,Jaffe served on the Harvard Law Review, was ranked third in his class, and with the recom- en Professor Felix Vcujeol a clerkship e Court Justice 6s. Finding the ajo) maiket diffi- ii'neld to Harvard ..D. in 19:32. T JAFFE, p :g1 2 HLS Mourns Three of Its Own Louis Jaffe, Ad Law Expert, Dead at 90 I

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