Tampa Bay Times from St. Petersburg, Florida • 15

i 1 1 1 I 1 I I i i i i i i i i i 3i TIMES WEDNESDAY. APRIL 27, 1994 THE NATION gjr rr Supreme Court: Civil Rights Act not retroactive Thousands of discrimination cases were in the legal pipeline when the law was enacted. The law will not apply to those cases. Tornado kills 3 in Texas "A house is now 2 feet tall," one resident of Lancaster says. LA.

officer denounces I colleagues Theodore Briseno tried to stop the beating by police of Rodney King. "I did i what I thought was right," he testified Tuesday. Awociated Press New York Times Associated Press LANCASTER. Texas A LOS ANGELES A police officer tearfully testified Tuesday that he tried to stop Rodney King's beating and implored fellow officers across the courtroom: "Is it only me that's admitted something wrong happened out there?" Theodore Briseno, who broke rank with his colleagues early on and called the beating unjustified, was choked with emotion as he blurted out his feelings on being a pariah in the Los Angeles Police Department. "For three years I've put up with this and it WASHINGTON In decisions marking an en to a bitterly divisive chapter in federal civil righl law, the Supreme Court voted 8 to 1 Tuesda against applying the Civil Rights Act of 1991 retn actively to thousands of cases pending when the la' was passed.

The 1991 law, which restored and expande remedies for job discrimination, was enacted after series of Supreme Court decisions in the spring 1989 that narrowed the reach of two of the mai federal civil rights laws. Although then-President George Bush eventua ly signed the bill after a two-year stalemate betwee his administration and the Democratic-controlle Congress, the two sides never were able to agree the question that the court resolved Tuesday: wh effect the provisions would have on discriminatio cases that were in the courts when the bill becam law on Nov. 21, 1991. As a practical matter, the decisions Tuesday, i two related cases, mean that the law will not apply the thousands of discrimination cases that were the in the legal pipeline. The Civil Rights Act of 199 added such new features to existing civil rights la' as the right to a jury trial and the right to sue fc compensatory and, in some cases, punitive damage for job discrimination.

The majority opinions, both written by Justic John Paul Stevens, clarified the court's confusin precedents on how to decide whether new law should apply retroactively. Stevens said new sta utes should be presumed to apply only prospective! unless there is clear evidence of congressional inter to the contrary. In neither of the 1991 law's tw main provisions did Congress demonstrate such a intent, Stevens said. Justice Harry A. Blackmun was the lone dissen er.

Justice Antonin Scalia wrote a separate concui ring opinion that Justices Clarence Thomas an Anthony M. Kennedy joined. Bush vetoed a 1990 version of the law th; included a broad retroactivity provision; the fin; 1991 version included no language on retroactivit; Weeks after the law took effect, the Equ; Employment Opportunity Commission, announcin the Bush administration's official position, declare that the law would not apply to pending cases. Mo: U.S. appeals courts agreed, including the two cour whose decisions the justices affirmed Tuesday.

business district dating back to just after the Civil War was left in ruins after a tornado smashed through Lancaster, killing three people. As many as 525 homes also were destroyed. "I think there's a lot of hard days ahead, a lot of them," said police Chief Mac McGuire. A building that once housed a bank robbed by Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker lost all of its second floor except for a corner facade. A mattress dangled from a tree in front of the 119-year-old Odd Fellows Hall.

The twister struck this former cotton farming region Monday evening. The area has become one of Dallas' fastest-developing suburbs. Residents throughout the devastated area spent Tuesday morning carrying furnishings, books, mementos and other items from their shattered homes. Rebekka Henderson, 19, was at home with her mother and younger brother when the tornado tore through her neighborhood on the edge of the town square. "We saw what was coming, so we closed ourselves off in an inside hall with the dog," she said.

"Sirens went off. The house fell all around the hall. We could feel the wind through the floor." Ronnie Mitschke and his family took refuge in a master bedroom closet. "A house is now 2 feet tall," he said. "The more I think about it the more I figure I should be dead." Early estimates of insured losses in Texas may reach $250-million, mostly in Lancaster, said Jerry Johns, president of the Southwestern Insurance Informa- AP This aerial view shows the widespread destruction a tornado caused in the Dallas suburb of Lancaster.

hurts," said Briseno, a defendant in the punitive damages phase of King's civil lawsuit over the March 3, 1991, beating. "Look around this courtroom at these officers," Briseno said. "Not one of them likes me. No one across the street (at police headquarters) likes me. What I'm telling these jurors is I did what I thought was right." At another point, he said: "I don't know if it was right or wrong.

I don't have the answers. I'm sorry." Briseno was one of four officers tried on state and federal charges in the beating. Larry Powell and Stacey Koon were convicted of violating King's civil I rights and are serving 30-month prison sentences. At a break in the trial, Briseno sat with his head in his hand, apparently distraught, Briseno's testimony was most damaging to Powell, who testified Monday that the beating was justified and that he came close to shooting King. Briseno said he tried to stop Powell's baton because he felt the officer was unjustified in continu-; ing to pummel King when he was down.

"When I looked at Officer Powell, I saw a frightened man," Briseno recalled. "His eyes were he was scared. I don't know if you'd call it a trance. I saw his eyes as wide as they could possibly be. I'd never seen that look before." Koon also testified Tuesday, echoing his insistence in earlier trials that he was responsible for most of the blows and that all were justified.

"This was a managed and controlled use of force that followed the policy and did so to the book," he said. Last week, the jury awarded King in compensatory damages from the city. The jury is now hearing testimony for consideration of punitive damages against 15 people, including Briseno, Koon, Powell and Timothy Wind, the fourth officer directly i involved in King's arrest. do ripped through Talihina, damaging houses and injuring at least six people. About 25 homes were destroyed in the town near the Arkansas state line.

In Nebraska, a tornado hit the outskirts of Central City, ripping roofs off several buildings, and several tornadoes were seen in South Dakota. In Minnesota, homes and buildings sustained heavy damage Tuesday when a tornado touched down west of Stillwater. No serious injuries were reported. By Tuesday, the weather on the northern Plains had reverted to winterlike conditions. tion Service.

The tornado's path of destruction in Lancaster measured six miles long and a half-mile wide, said trooper Robert White of the Texas Department of Public Safety Three fatalities occurred in a residential section of the town of 24,000. One person apparently suffered a heart attack and two others were killed in their homes by the storm, White said. The storm stretched from Texas to the northern Plains. It moved north Tuesday to Gainesville, where a tornado damaged a trailer park. Another torna Its rt fm 1 Sal 1 estncia nfln mum iwm mn it iiii 6.99 each or 2 for 13.00.

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