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Show Serials Order Department University of Utah 04112 Fait LakeCity, Utah SAJ.T LAKE CITY, UTAH VOLUME 16, NUMBER 60 ABA Panel Urges Courts Be Freed Of Many Crimes By Margaret A. Kilgore WASHINGTON (UPI) Justice - would be served best by ridding crowded city courts of the thousands of cases of "victimless crimes drunkenness, drug addiction, and gambling, prostitution homosexuality to permit law enforcement officials to concentrate on crimes that have aroused citizens fears for safety, an American Bar Association has committee rrxto Q'xv Ford Foundation ReporfSnows Ethnic, Legal, Ecology Work gtAiS - The 1971 NEW YORK (ACCN) Ford Foundation annual repent, published March 27, indicates that during the fiscal year it covers Oct. 1, 1970 through Sept. 30, 1971 -grants and expenditures for the recommended. The panel also suggested that the government should give heroin to addicts as the British do to stop them from stealing to support their Mbits. Regulation of various types of conduct which harm no one other 0i sexual behavior between consenting adults should be taken out of the HHnn made grants directed toward reforming court corrections, procedures, law enforcement, and the legal status of poor people and minorities. The Foundation's support of public interest law totaled some $2 million, including grants to Public Advocates, in California, the League of Women Voters Education Foundation's charitable activities plus management expenses totaled 1225.1 million. This compares with $236J million for the preceding Fund, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Sierra Club fiscal year. of Foundation activity Legal Defense Fund. Highlights 1970-71 The Foundation continued efforts in the year were found in to help improve governmental many fields. with other three processes. The National Civil SerThus, together Ford began vice League received $307,000 for a major foundations, campaign to upgrade state and local planning a Drug Abuse Council the chief recommendation of the personnel systems. A $365,000 grant Foundation commissioned study. to Rutgers' Eagleton Institute of This independent center will sponsor Politics will support programs to basic research, evaluate modes of improve state government and also treatment and prevention, and help to establish the Center for the provide sound information to American Woman in Politics. professionals and public. Minorities Helped Major efforts to help advance opportunities for low-inco- qtfnority groups included increased support of such multi-purpose cotnmunity development corporations as the Watts Labor . Community Action Committee, in Los Angeles, and the Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration Cor- poration, in Brooklyn. With grants and investments totaling (3 million, the Foundation became the largest private contributor to Minority Enterprise Small Business In- vestment Companies (MESBIC), a mechanism initiated by the U.S. Department of Commerce to mobilize public and private funds for minority enterprises. Other grants were made to rural organizations and enterprises, and to such national organizations as the National Urban Leagueand the National Association for the. Advancement of Colored People. The Foundation supported efforts to expand the supply and quality of low- - and middle-incom- e housing, with infor minorities, especially creased emphasis on rehabilitation, ownership, cooperative tenure, and training of housing managers. Grants were also made to train minorities for professional opportunities, especially in government and community leadership. Efforts to improve intercultural relations were highlighted by grants totaling $1 million which are trying ' to . pinpoint and ameliorate the discontents of the white "ethnic lower middle class. Bill to Hobble FPC Rate Power Draws Debate WASHINGTON (UPI) A bill to prevent the Federal Power Com mission from cutting rates on natural gas contracts once they are signed would create more competitive spirit, according to the chairman of the FPC, John N. Nassikas. Nassikas and several others testified at a Senate commerce committee hearing on three bills affecting the natural gas industry, March 22. Two bills deal with holding inviolate as to rate cuts race they are made final by the FPC, and the third deals with establishing an objective periodic survey of natural gas supply and demand in the United States. The two Mils on "contract sane-tity would "recognize the im- portance of the forces of the market- place as they operate on the supply . . . and the public interest in ensuring that the regulatory authority con- ferred is broad and flexible enough to accomplish the tasks assigned to the regulatory body, Nassikas said. But Charles F. Wheatley, Jr., general manager of the American Public Gas Association, said one bill is drawn so that not only contracts between producer and pipeline firm, but also entire area rate Aided Legal Reforms adproceedings, could not be reduced To help improve the ministration of justice, the Foun-- by the FPC once rates are approved, era-trac- ts report on the control of urban crime in America, said the handling of these matters should be transferred to nonjudicial agencies Such as detoxification centers, narcotics treatment centers and social service agencies. "The handling of other nonserious offenses such as traffic violations and housing code violations should be transferred to specialized administrative bodies, the report added. WASHINGTON (UPI) The Joint Economic Committee of Congress, in its annual report on the economy, released March called for sweeping changes in President 23, Nixons economic controls. It advocated that controls be lifted from as much of the economy as possible so that the government can concentrate its efforts on those unions and corporations which have so much power they can control Banks And Suffer Suit S-- L On Mortgages - SAN FRANCISCO (UPI) Two banks and a savings and loan association have been sued for $190 million because of procedures in real estate mortgages. The class action suits, filed in Superior Court, asked for $110 million each from the Bank of America and Wells Fargo Bank and $80 million from the San Francisco Federal Savings and Loan Association. The suits sought recoveries for mortgage customers of the two banks and for 50,000 mortgage customers of the savings and loan 100,000 deposit with them, on a monthly basis, enough money to pay insurance and property taxes owed on By Sam Fogg WASHINGTON (UPI) The and of marbled chamber velvet the U.S. Supreme Court has become a legal sports arena for arguments on whether baseballs player contracts amount to peonage and whether the owners should be stripped of their antitrust exemption. At issue before the nine justices is the damage suit filed by Curt Flood, the former St. Louis Cardinal star who claims that the ironclad reserve - clause in baseballs standard contract subjects a player to unconstitutional involuntary servitude by binding him to the club that owns him or obtains him by trade. Floods lawyer, Arthur J. Goldberg also has challenged on Flood's behalf the sports long-hel- d exemption from both federal and state antitrust laws. Should organized baseball lose the Supreme Court decision which is expected sometime before mid- June, the repercussions would be far reaching in the future, But one immediate impact would involve the contract deadlock bet- ween Vida Blue and Oakland owner Charles O. Finley, Blue, the American League's most valuable player and the Cy Young Pitching Award winner last season, refused to sign for $50,000 this year and Finley invoked a little-use- d "letter of renewal clause which allowed him to unilaterally set , The young southpaw, who was paid $14,750 in 1970 and was demanding $90,000 has announced Hist week that rather than accept Finleys terms, he is quitting baseball for a job with a private mortgaged real estate. Because the three institutions do not pay interest on these deposits although they lend the money to other customers. Lewton said, the practice is unfair. California Bill Permits Dealing In POW Property -LSACRAMENTO (ACCN) egislation has been introduced in the California Assembly which is designed to help families of servicemen who are prisoners of war or missing in action to deal with the servicemens property rights for the benefit of the families. The bill is sponsored by Assemblyman Walter Karabian with the support of the state bars conference of barristers, an important component of the bar, "Families of POWs and MIAs (men missing in action) find it difficult and sometimes impossible to deal with the property which their husbands and fathers have left," Karabian said, citing instances of wives unable to sell the family car or home and insurance companies refusing to pay accident claims because legal documents could not be signed by the serviceman. The legal power of the California probate courts over the estates of missing or incompetent persons does not reach the properties of POWs and MIAs, Karabian added. The proposed legislation would amend the conservatorship sections of the state probate code to provide that a conservator may be appointed by the court for a serviceman certified by the defense department as a prisoner of war or as missing in action. wages and (vices regardless of marketplace pressures. The committees eight Republicans, however, prainsd Nixon in their minority report. They said his policies have won substantial success "in setting the stage for healthy growth with price stability. The committees 12 Democrats, in the majority report, said the Presidents Phase II controls were "so late in being adopted, so complicated in their design, so weak in their administration and so modest and vague in their goals that we are compelled to be severely critical and to recommend an immediate sweeping revision. stitutions require borrowers to Challenged firm. Congress Body Splits On Nixon Economy Policy association. Michael Lew ton, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said financial in- Baseballs ' Legal Status Blues salary. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 29, 1972 It added that "given the very long time during which this administration has been purporting to Tight inflation, first by creating unemployment and finally in recent months by imposing controls, given the high costs we are paying, the amount of progress which has been achieved is pitiful. report, Throughout the the Democrats and Republicans agreed on only three paragraphs calling for a quick start on 139-pa- ge negotiations for international monetary reform and opposing a quota on imports approach as a solution to the nations trade deficit. In a related development, the price commission said it would suspend any price increase it had granted to firms who have made profits beyond its guidelines. Commission Chairman C. Jackson Grayson said a sampling of quarterly reports indicated a number of ' firms may have violated the panels profit ceiling rules. m Newsman Loses Contempt Appeal To Coast Court SAN FRANCISCO (UPI) - The California Supreme Court has declined to review a ruling that a newspaper reporter may be held in contempt for refusing to name a lawyer who violates a trial courts ban on publicity. The court refused to hear an appeal from William T. Farr, a former Los Angeles Herald-Examinreporter who covered the Charles Manson trial. On Oct. 9, 1971, the Herald-Examiner er published extensive excerpts from a copy of a potential witness statement which Farr had obtained. The trial judge excluded from evidence many of the statemnets contained in the news story. After the trial ended, Farr was summoned to a contempt hearing on May 19, 1971. He told Superior Court Judge Charles H. Older he had obtained the statement from two attorneys involved in the Manson case. But Farr refused to identify either one of them. Despite objections that California law prohibits punishing reporters who refuse to identify their sources Older held Farr in contempt. The Court of Appeal for the Southern California District upheld the decision, saying in effect the state law against disclosure does not apply when the courts are attempting to investigate lawyers, sworn officers of the court, whu have violated court orders. |