The Pittsburgh Press from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania • Page 18

Death-Penalty Ruling Usurps Law The Pittsburgh Press (4 Scripps-Howard Newspaper) Established June 23, 1884 Published Daily and Sunday JOHN TROAN BARNEY G. CAMERON Editor Business Manager LEO KOEBERLEIN, Executive Editor Office', 4 Boulmrd of the Alliei, Pittsburgh, Tt. 15230 P.O. Box Hi Ttltphont 263-1 100; Vint 265-1201 By JAMES J. KILPATRICK With its explosion of opinions last week in the capital-punishment cases, the U.S.

Supreme Court laid bare the great line of cleavage that divides the old Warren court from the new Nixon Give light nJ the People Will Find Their Oun Wty PAGE 18 FRIDAY, JULY 7, 1972 court. It is the line that defines the role of judges. This is the most important aspect of the court's 5-4 decision to prohibit the imposition of death sentences under existing state and federal laws. Th immediate citizen" or "the great mass of citizens" might regard as shocking or immoral. Such a view converts the Supreme Court into a legislative body.

It permits a majority of five to impose their own naked will upon our fundament! law. It seems to me that liberals, no less than conservatives, should protest the activist concept. For the past 20 years, to be sure, activism has worked to the liberals' advantage. They have found it agreeable. But If liberals accept, in principle, the power of judges to make sweeping changes in law on their own notions of moral acceptability, liberals will be hard put to object when the composition of the court changes and the wind shifts.

Many persons who abhor the death penalty, and agree that capital punishment has been imposed irrationally and ineffectually in the past, will rejoice in what the five activists have done. But those who love the law, and believe in the separation of powers, will emphatically condemn the way in which they did it. Finally: A Hall Site who believe in judicial activism and those who believe In judicial restraint. The activists on the court, led in this case by Justice Thurgood Marshall, believe it proper to rest decisions upon their own subjective readings of what is "morally unacceptable" or "shocking to the conscience." The defenders of restraint Justices Warren Burger. Harry A.

Black-mun, Lewis F. Powell and William H. Rehnquist repudiate that viewpoint altogether. Justice Marshall's long concurring opinion is a classic statement of the activist position. It is immaterial, in this view, that the framers of the Eighth Amendment never intended that "cruel and unusual punishment" should exclude the death penalty.

It is immaterial that an unbroken line of judicial precedents one of them only a year old -supported the constitutionality of capital punishment. It is immaterial that four times within the past 11 years, Congress explicitly has sanctioned the death penalty. It is immaterial that 40 states have thought such sentences within their constitutional powers. What, then, is material? It is Justice Marshall's personal assessment that counts. He states it with breathtaking certainty.

Capital punishment, he says, is unconstitutional "because it is morally unacceptable to the people of the U. S. at this time in their history." Farther along, he says: "Assuming knowledge of all the. facts presently available regarding capital punishment, the average citizen would, in my opinion, find it shocking to his conscience and sense of justice. For this reason alone, capital punishment cannot stand." He adds: "I believe that the great mass of citizens would conclude on the basis of the material already considered that the death penalty is immoral and therefore unconstitutional." To the four dissenters, these are wholly extraneous considerations.

Both Justices Burger and Black-mun went to pains to say that if their own personal opinions were decisive, they would vote to abolish capital punishment. But constitutional questions should not be resolved upon a judge's opinion of what "the average Mr. Kilpatrick and dramatic consequence is that death sentences must be commuted for some 600 prisoners across the nation. Otherwise, the impact will be small. There is no convincing evidence that the mere existence of the death penalty has served as a deterrent to heinous crimes.

So far as law and order is concerned, the sun will come up in the morning as blood-red as it set last night. The significance of this landmark case lies in its exposition of the fundamental division between those Additionally, such a project could trigger redevelopment of the eastern end of the Golden Triangle and the adjoining Strip District. So there's much at stake for Pittsburgh a fact recognized by City Council in taking this necessary first step toward converting the convention-hall plans into reality. The next move will be up to the General State Authority (GSA) which, like Council, has been concerned about the lack of progress on the long-discussed convention hall. It appears likely that the GSA will concur with Council's choice of a site.

That would bring the ball back Into Mr. Flaherty's end of the court. The city should be able to exert some bargaining power in negotiating for the purchase of the land since it holds sizable IOUs on real-estate taxes owed by the bankrupt Penn Central. That's the kind of leverage the mayor could wield to Pittsburgh's considerable rdvantage, if he cares to. What a difference it would make If Mr.

Flaherty would get behind, rather than stand in the way of, such a project. A push in the right direction from him could speed the convention hall-and who knows how much else? 'Here, This Time Try To Keep From Losing At long last, Pittsburgh's City Council has ettled on a site for a convention hall and exposition center. The project has been in the talk stage for nine years off and on with much of the delay resulting from disagreement over where it should be built. City Council earlier this year decided to end the debate, once and for all. That decision prompted still more debate before Council finally put its stamp of approval this week on the so-called Penn Central site between 10th and 11th Streets.

The land is owned by the Penn Central Transportation Co. Council's action, of course, doesn't provide any assurance that a convention hall will materialize in the near future, even with $26 million in construction funds pledged by the state. Much depends on the role, or non-role, that Mayor Peter F. Flaherty chooses to play. Mr.

Flaherty has shown no enthusiasm for building a convention hall, even with the state picking up the tab. The mayor has complained that the city can't afford to meet the operating costs, ignoring the fact that such a hall would attract an additional $10 million to $15 million in yearly convention and tourist flow to Pittsburgh. N. Viet Failure Indicated Gains Meager In Bloody Drive By ROBERT D. HEINL JR.

When President Nixon told reporters recently that the situation in Vietnam has been Airport Taxes com pieteiy turned around, he could readily have adduced a multitude of couraging, sometimes intriguing, and mostly overlooked battlefield facts and statistics. Col. Heinl Letters To The Editor Delay Of 1-279 Held Harmful To City have takeoff or landing options may well choose to bypass Philadelphia as military personnel have just been ordered to do with an unhealthy effect on the city's business and tourist activity. The larger question of how such arbitrary taxation might affect the flow of interstate and international travel and how fairly may have to be settled by Congress. If Philadelphia can slap such a pay-tip-or-don't-pass tax on air travelers, what's to prevent it from levying a similar head tax on bus or train passengers coming into or leaving that city? Or raising its airline-passenger tax from $2 to $5 or $10, as the city's financial needs demand? Motorists at least have a choice of taking alternate routes when faced with toll roads.

But travelers who use air or rail or bus transportation are trapped, with nowhere to turn from the high-flying inventiveness of the tax imposers. At Philadelphia's International Airport, the tax collector gets you coming and going. The yowls from disgruntled travelers have attracted national attention to this new type of tribute. The city of Philadelphia has imposed a $3 tax on every airline passenger arriving at or departing from its airport terminal. Philadelphia isn't the only place where such a tax has been recently enacted following a favorable U.

S. Supreme Court ruling. But that City of Brotherly Love has made its tax doubly distasteful. The going rate at four other airports in such scattered locations as Richmond, and Saginaw, is $1. And the levy at those airports is imposed only on departing airline passengers.

Moreover, the airport taxes in the other cities have been specifically earmarked for airport construction and improvements. Not so in Philadelphia, where the arrival-and-departure tax being collected from air travelers is to go into the city's general treasury for unrestricted use. The immediate results have been long lines and long delays in passenger processing at the Philadelphia airport while travelers protest the tax. The longer-term results are difficult to judge. It seems likely that air travelers who A letter intended for publication must be signed and must include the writer's full address.

The Press reserves the right to condense or reject any letter; none can be returned. If one were to look at a highway map of the eastern U. he would see that Indianapolis, Columbus and Pittsburgh are all roughly situated along the same axis. One would also see that Indianapolis and Columbus have interstate highways running into and around them. However, Pittsburgh has but one designated interstate road (1-76) linking it with other cities.

The construction of 1-279 and 1-479 are vitally needed for Pittsburgh's economic life. Undoubtedly, the antiquated Mon-Plaza (South Side) and Melody Tent (Hill District). Both of these areas have been shamefully neglected over the years. We must do something, and soon, to see that both the Hill District and the South Side are gainfully developed. This action must come about as soon as possible-espe-cially the housing in the Hill District.

These people have been promised low and moderate income housing for almost 25 years, and yet very little action has taken place. EUGENE P. DePASQUALE Pittsburgh The writer Is a city Nixon's Folly President Nixon's selection of all-star baseball teams has dismayed sports writers. He should stick to being President and leave the important issues to them. Your Move, Boris cause perhaps "it means preventing riots." Of what value was this program when South Hills, Car-rick and Perry were all affected by racial disturbances in the fall, and Allderdice as late as June? As a student and member of athletic teams at Allderdice, I speak first-hand when I say the only way to bring the races together is to have them working toward a common goal.

DAVE ROTSTEIN Oakland Convention Centc Vote Explained I voted for the Mon-Plaza site and still favor this location for a convention center. But time is paramount Council had to move now if we are to have a convention center anywhere. We couldn't vote on the Mon-Plaza as a convention center site for at least two more years. Therefore, rather than help kill the remaining site for a center I voted "aye." It would serve neither myself nor the city any benefit to have registered a negative vote. I have always said that my primary concern is that Pittsburgh have a convention center.

However, feeling now that my primary choice of the Mon-Plaza is dead, I was willing to vote in the affirmative for the Penn-Central site. Now that Council has approved a site, let us pray that quick and decisive action will be taken to build this much-needed facility for our great city. However, let us not forget the other two sites that had beer, considered namely, small band of citizens mortgage the economic future of our city. I do not feel Mayor Peter Flaherty should use the influence of his office to contribute to the economic isolation of the city and region. DAN FAGAN Pittsburgh City School Sports Help Knit Races A grave mistake is being considered by City School Supt.

Louis Kishkunas. The mistake is that Dr. Kishkunas believes the city's interscholastic athletic program is expendable when faced with the task of reducing a possible $8 million deficit by December, 1973. Dr. Kishkunas said, "What does the money buy?" in reference to the athletic program's budget.

It buys the opportunity to see youths of all races demonstrate teamwork and cooperation while working towards a common goal. It buys the chance for many students to feel the responsibility and camaraderie that comes with belonging to a team. It buys the opportunity for some athletically gifted but financially under privileged students to attend college. It also buys the opportunity to bring a school together. He went on to cite the value in his spending money for a "race-relations program" be highways here figure into higher manufacturing costs.

As we witness industry leaving the region we also witness footdragging in Harrisburg when it comes to highway construction in Southwestern Pennsylvania. We witness a small group of citizens holding up the construction of 1-279 (East Street Expressway) into the city. And we witness, at a recent meeting, the mayor's public opposition to 1-279. I do not feel we should let a $250,000. It's hard to see why it is perfectly acceptable for Vida Blue to hold out but terrible when Mr.

Fischer does. Fundamentally, a young man who may be the finest chess player in history is asking to be paid as much as a hulking linebacker or a hip-writhing rock singer. Why all the shouting? Russia's propagandists are charging that Mr. Fischer's desire for money is a black mark on American society. That's too funny! Like every other Soviet grandmaster, Spassky is a chess professional subsidized, supported and coddled by the state.

He never has and never will have to work at anything but chess, so he can afford to feign disinterest in prize money. The Russians have accepted Mr. Fischer's apology and will permit the 24-game series to begin Tuesday, instead of trying to keep the title by default. Soon the chess world will know who really is The Greatest. Bobby Fischer, the chess wizard from Brooklyn, is catching a lot of flak these days.

He's being called a "money-grubber" for demanding a bigger cash prize for his world championship match with the title-holder, Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union. Also, he is being put down for "bad sportsmanship" and "sullying the lofty game of chess" by arriving two days late for the contest in Reykjavik. Iceland, which upset Spas-sky no end. The outraged tone being used on poor Bobby seems humorless and a bit hypocritical. First, he is notoriously temperamental and eccentric.

He is a genius at chess and absolutely nothing else. It's simply not realistic to expect him to be able to find Iceland, out there alone in the Atlantic, on the appointed day. Second, Bobby has been playing tournament chess for most of his 29 years and never had a big payday. Now his antics have got a British millionaire to double the purse to House Praised For Abortion Bill I would like to express my appreciatkn to the State House of Representatives for passing an outstanding abortion bill, granting a guarantee to a mother's right to life and securing the protection of new life. It is about we realized that our problems are not resolved by the i i i means of simply taking another life.

Let us now urge our senators and governor to make this bill a law of our commonwealth. Let us refute the principle of taking life for whatever good cause may be currently popular and bring an end to the mentality that breeds murder, assassination and oppression. REV. ALBERT KOVACS Bangor, Pa. The writer is pastor of St.

John's Evangelical and Reformed United Church of Christ in Bangor. With the entire Communist regular army now committed to the conquest of South Vietnam, enemy front lines in Quang Tri Province remain only 24 miles south of where they were when Hanoi's go-for-broke invasion jumped off 13 weeks ago. The costly, tactically senseless, broken-backed North Vietnamese siege of An Loc is flickering out. Remote Kontum Is firm In friendly hands. The North Vietnamese army has not been able to reinvade the delta.

There is yet to be heard a whisper of Leninist "general uprising" among the population in South Vietnam. Victory Signs These are some of the big and evident reasons for Mr. Nixon's confidence. There are numerous lesser indicators as well. For example: One of the first captures of the current South Vietnamese counteroffensive in Quang Tri was a new Russian T-54 tank with engine running, weapons loaded, hatches open, abandoned by a crew who preferred to trust their legs.

On the approaches to An Loc, patrols have found Cora-munist tanks and vehicles abandoned intact. In a dramatic reversal of ordinary battlefield statistics, the number of enemy weapons recovered around Kontum is now regularly exceeding the enemy body-count incontestable evidence low morale, poor training, and green North Vietnamese replacements more willing to throw away weapons than to use them. Militia Active Despite repeated attacks in May and June by the once-dreaded North Vietnamese a rs" (Communist assault-shock units), the precipitous Hai Van pass, logistic jugular vein of Route 1, between Hue and Danang, has been kept open not by the South Vietnamese army but solely by the once-despised local militia. In the air war, Communist anti-aircraft gunners have had to fire 84 SAM missiles for each single hit or damaging near-miss. Not a single ship has entered or left Haiphong or any other North Vietnamese port since we mined them In May.

Looming behind the foregoing patchwork montage of military facts stand two statistics bigger and (for the enemy) grimmer than all. As this is written, the Communists have sacrificed more than 61,000 battle casualties-more than the combined Japanese and American casualties on bloody Iwo.Jima, and most of them dead to gain a narrow strip of Quang Tri Prov-ince and bits of blasted jungle around Kontum and An Loc. Matching this appalling human butcher's bill are more than 500 counted, verified enemy tanks destroyed. Worth Repeating To help the young soul, to inspire hope, and blow the coals into useful jlame; to redeem defeat by new thought and firm action-this, though not easy, is the u'orfc of divine men. Ralph IV.

Emerson Rivals Income Tax Clear It Up New Hangup Berry's World Social Security Limit? By DON OAKLEY When it was first established back in New Deal days, Social Security had the goal of insuring that an American worker or his family received at least a minimum pension and that no one would be forced in his after-years to live in abject poverty. It was designed to be self Civilian control of the nation's military apparatus is far too important to permit any doubts to shadow it. For that reason, the decision by Mississippi's Sen. John C. Stennis to investigate the circumstances surrounding the retirement of Air Force Gen.

John D. Lavelle is a proper one. Gen. Lavelle has admitted going beyond his authority in ordering certain bombing missions against North Vietnam. Sen.

Stennis wants the Senate Armed Services Committee, which he heads, to clear up the question of how if any prior knowledge Gen. Creighton W. Abrams, as U. S. commander in Vietnam at the time, had regarding Gen.

Lavelle's action. Gen. Abrams been nominated to become Army Chief of Staff, and Sen. Stennis makes it clear his committee will not act on the appointment until the questions raised by the Lavelle episode are answered. There is no evidence that Gen.

Abrams condoned Gen. Lavelle's decision to second-guess the President. But Gen. Lavelle did testify earlier that he "thought" Gen. Abrams knew what he was doing, and this alone raises sufficient doubt to require clarification.

Specifically, the Social Security tax rate is due to go from its present 5.2 per cent of the first $9,000 of income to 5.5 per cent of the first $10,800 next year and 5.5 per cent of the first $12,000 in 1974. Yet while everyone complains about inequities in the income tax laws, Social Security has replaced motherhood as something few people, certainly few politicians, seem to question. It is not too early to begin asking ourselves just how high the Social Security tax can or should go, and just what Social Security can or should be expected to accomplish. sustaining through employe and employer contributions. It still is.

But from a payroll deduction of a fraction of a per cent, the Social Security tax now represents a substantial chunk of money a worker never sees, and may never live to collect. When scheduled future increases already written into law are taken into account and when matching employer contributions are added (and most people tend to forget that this doubles the amount), the Social Security tax begins to rival the income tax paid by many workers. vm "Doesn't It seem rather strange that yuu're for McGovern and for Nixon? -n nnfir-nr- irini.