Word: benching
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Entering the homestretch of its current term, the U.S. Supreme Court quickened its pace last week by issuing 23 decisions. In addition to its landmark judgment protecting flag burning as a form of free expression, the high bench announced a series of other important rulings in the areas of free speech and criminal law. Following past patterns, the Justices remained vigilant on First Amendment rights but continued to chip away at the constitutional safeguards of criminal defendants...
...court's attitude, however, was strikingly different in last week's criminal-law rulings. In two cases decided by 5-to-4 votes, the court handed a major defeat to defendants charged under federal drug and racketeering laws -- and to their attorneys. The high bench ruled that prosecutors may confiscate the assets that such a person intends to use for his legal defense if the property was gained through criminal activity. Under the rulings, the assets may even be temporarily frozen before the defendant is tried or convicted. Such seizures do not violate the Sixth Amendment right to counsel, wrote...
...opinion in favor of Johnson was written, not surprisingly, by one of the court's last liberal lions, Brennan. Equally unsurprising, the most consistent conservative on the bench, Chief Justice William Rehnquist, crafted the main dissent. What was noteworthy, however, was the unusual lineup behind them. John Paul Stevens, who by virtue of the court's rightward swing is now considered a liberal, joined with Sandra Day O'Connor and Byron White in dissent. On the other side, Ronald Reagan's two conservative appointees, Antonin Scalia and Anthony Kennedy, showed that when basic First Amendment rights were involved, they could...
Nakashima's bench mark is the wood itself: form follows grain. He has gathered an extensive collection of lumber that includes slabs of Carpathian elm, Oregon myrtle and French olive ash. Nakashima says, "I'm something of a Druid," and he sallies into the woods to check promising trees himself. "I use logs that would be almost useless to commercial furniture makers, with their concern for regular grain and thin veneers," he adds. "If a tree has had a joyful life it produces a beautiful grain. Other trees have lived unhappily -- bad weather or a terrible location. We use both...
...number of influences glow in Nakashima's work. His admiration for New England rustic is evident in slab coffee tables that are halved cherry and walnut logs. He interprets Shaker design in a 10-ft.-long bench made from a single plank of black walnut set with a spidery backrest of hickory spindles. But his genius is essentially Oriental, akin to that of Zen rock gardening and Oriental flower arranging. Nakashima selects the exact natural object needed to serve a particular purpose. For a recent table, he used an 8-ft. cross section of redwood root. The wild energy...