Page 4-Sunday, Januy 20, 1980-The Michiga Daily S The 80s as viewed from, the Ivory T The Miigan Daily-Sunday, Jai ower Vincent Blasi/Constitutional Law ------------ University Law Professor Vincent Blasi is an expert in Constitutional Law and the First Amendment. He graduated from the University of Chicago and has taught law at several schools across the country. N SPECULATING about the likely drift of the Supreme Court in the next ten years, three important facts about the Court must be kept in mind. First, the Court is a political in- stitution. Its decisions are influenced, though by no means completely determined, by larger political currents and by the political points of view of the individual justices. In this regard, the 1980 election looms as quite significant for the future of the Supreme Court, for the next President figures to have a number of opportunities to appoint new justices (five of the current members of the Court are over 70). Reagan appointees would almost certainly read the Constitution- quite differently than, say, Carter appointees.} Second, the .Court does not initiate cases or otherwise set its own agenda. To forecast constitutional developments, one must con- centrate as much on assessing what cases are likely to be brought, what disputes are likely to arise, as on what turns are likely to occur with the thinking of the justices. Third, con- stitutional change has traditionally been more gradual and less thematic than other political developments. As a result, this sort of thange is probably more difficult to under- stand or assess without the perspective of hindsight, and thus prediction is especially hazardous. The most likely trend of the 1980's seems to me to be a continued and perhaps accelerated reduction in the rights of persons accused of crime. In the last decade, the Burger Court has gone surprisingly slowly in dismantling the liberal doctrines of the Warren Court in this area. In the next ten years, I wouldn't be astonished to see the Court finally overrule such landmark casea as Mapp v. Ohio (which provides that evidence acquired by unlawful search and seizure cannot be used in court) or Miranda v. Arizona (which grants criminal suspects the right -to consult a lawyer before and during interrogation by the police). It is possible that the Court's finest hour of the next decade will come in response to government efforts, arising out of a new Cold War neutrality, to prosecute, depart, or otherwise harass persons who hold unpopular political beliefs. Whether or not we have a reversion in the political forum to anything like the McCarthy era, I am confident (unless a President Reagan or Connally gets to make at least four Supreme Court appointments) that the First Amendment will weather the storm. The legal doctrines and philosophy safeguarding the basic right to dissent,-and to subscribe to even the most hated political ideology, seems to me very securely rooted. In the area of women's rights, I foresee more of the same. Even if the Equal Rights Amendment it not ratified, the Equal Protec- tion clause of the Fourteenth Amendment will probably be interpreted, as it has been over the last several years, to disallow almost all gender-based government classifications. I think abortion law will stay much as it is: no constitutional right to have abortions funded but a constitutional right of privacy to have See LAW, Page 8 .-~- -F-. -~~' "' "--. ~ ~<~? ~ flp ~ A A~~' ~ ~ ~ .7.. ~ .~' -. s l