Liberals and conservatives on the U.S. Supreme Court disagreed dramatically during the past term on everything from the regulation of "indecent" broadcasting to employment discrimination to whether elected judges should recuse themselves from cases involving campaign benefactors.

A notable exception came in the 8-1 holding that an Arizona school had violated the 4th Amendment rights of a 13-year-old girl by subjecting her to a strip search (the dissenter was Clarence Thomas, taking his familiar role as outlier). The near-unanimity confounded publicly expressed fears by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg that the result might be affected by the fact that her eight male colleagues "have never been a 13-year-old girl."

Ginsburg's anxiety was understandable given the gender divide at oral arguments over whether removing your clothes is all that traumatic for a teenager. Ginsburg must have cringed ...

The editorial board bemoans the U.S. Supreme Court decision that inmates have no right to DNA testing that could exonerate them. Attempts by an accused person to find exculpatory evidence should be considered a basic part of due process. The board agrees with Colombian leaders that they, not the United States, should be the ones to try a man accused of holding 15 hostages including three who worked for military contractors. The board also takes a look at the Alameda Unified School District's new curriculum for teaching elementary school children about tolerance toward gays and lesbians, and concludes that the lessons take too heavy-handed an approach for such young children:

It's high time that schools took anti-bullying measures more seriously. We just never thought that would include requiring fifth-graders to recite the meaning of each letter in LGBT.

In attempting to discourage taunting of gay students, the Alameda Unified School District turned what should be a basic lesson on treating others kindly into a primer on sexual identity. Its new anti-bullying curriculum for kindergartners through fifth-graders will begin in the fall and focus solely on gay and lesbian issues -- as if harassment based on race, religion or failure to wear cool clothes were nonexistent. Parents who might object cannot opt their children out of it.

On the other side of the fold, writer Richard Farrell describes the haunting heights and low points of life with his domineering, sometimes abusive, sometimes intensely loving father. And a UCLA English professor parses the language of Middle East coverage and finds that it favors Israel over the concerns of Palestinians.

Illustration by Polly Becker for The Times

The business community has a number of good reasons to fear the Obama administration, particularly on taxes, carbon emissions, pay rules and regulations generally. Lately, the fear has focused on the Justice Department's new antitrust chief, Christine Varney, and the prospect of her imposing a European Union-style competition policy, to wit, one that's much more hostile to market-leading companies and friendlier to their rivals.

The European Commission's decision today to levy a record $1.45 billion fine on Intel Corp. provides a good illustration of the difference. It ruled that Intel violated European law in part by offering what amounted to exclusionary volume discounts. In particular, the commission said Intel gave rebates to four computer manufacturers that agreed to buy 80% to 100% of their chips from the company. Intel denies that it did so, saying instead that it simply competed on price and that it sold no chips for less than it cost to make them.

Under the Bush administration's Justice Department, antitrust experts say, big firms could compete aggressively on price as long as they didn't sell below cost. If natural efficiencies in their operators enabled them to price competitors out of the market, so be it, because consumers paid less for the products. The Intel case, however, shows that the European Commission expects firms to change their pricing behavior once they become dominant in a market. In the EC's view, preserving a meaningful degree of competition is critical to promoting innovation and deterring gouging.

The U.S. Justice Department won't play a similar role in the dispute between Intel and microchip rival AMD; the Federal Trade Commission is investigating Intel, and a federal court in Delaware is hearing AMD's antitrust lawsuit against the company. But Varney, an FTC commissioner during the Clinton administration, made it clear in a speech Monday that she'll be tougher on dominant firms than her predecessors in the Bush administration were. According to Varney, the previous administration's approach put too much weight on preserving possible efficiencies of big firms, and it allowed "all but the most bold and predatory conduct to go unpunished and undeterred." She didn't mention the EC or cite any overseas precedents, but the message was clear enough.

Photo: Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

The Times published an editorial April 30 criticizing life sentences without parole for California juveniles as young as 14 and supporting a bill by state Sen. Leland Yee that would permit such inmates to eventually seek parole – after they've spent at least a quarter century in prison. The editorial cited the case of South Los Angeles resident Antonio DeJesus Nuñez, who may be the only person in the world sentenced to life without parole for a crime he committed as a minor in which no one died or was injured.

That's not an overstatement. The New York-based Human Rights Watch asserts that the United States is the only nation in which minors are sentenced to life in prison without parole; we have 2,571.

A 2007 report from the University of San Francisco did find some youth outside the U.S. sentenced to life without parole: a grand total of seven of them, all in Israel. [*UPDATED: See below.]

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child bans life without parole for youth, but the United States is one of only two U.N. member nations that have not signed it -- the other being Somalia.

Nuñez was 14 at the time of his arrest. He was convicted of a frightening and brutal crime – kidnapping a man for ransom. And, by the way, he shot at police officers when they gave chase. Prosecuting him made sense. Imprisoning him made sense. But life? With no chance of parole? For a crime he committed when he lacked the judgment and maturity, in society's view, to drive a car, vote, honor a contract, marry without parental consent, join the military or go to an R-rated movie? Should he never get a second look, once he grows up and we can see whether he studied in prison, behaved, repented? Do we believe that some youths are simply irredeemable, and that in our wisdom we can look them over at age 14 and know which ones can be salvaged as adults and which can't?

The same day the editorial ran, California's Fourth District Court of Appeal granted Nuñez's habeas corpus petition and threw out his life without parole (the legal jargon is LWOP) sentence, ruling that it violated constitutional strictures against cruel and unusual punishment and ordering the trial court to resentence the inmate, who is now 22. Read the court's opinion here.

For those who believe it's too costly, too cruel and just plain too bizarre to sentence a teenager to LWOP (more jargon – JLWOP, with the J standing for juvenile), the ruling was good news. But only sort of.

The editorial board today called for a narrower approach to strip searches of students at schools, saying that school officials should have a reasonable suspicion that a student is carrying contraband.

Having a reason is always better than not having a reason, I suppose, but I cannot imagine circumstances under which it would be acceptable for school officials to strip-search a student. Our society has of late been all too willing to turn educators into cops--and the educators have been all too willing to go along. Thus we had the recent case of school administrators at Porter Middle School in Granada Hills who are accused of setting up their own little campus drug sting, talking a young boy into buying marijuana from another student. What on earth would give educators reason to think they could do such a thing? The belief that law enforcement is written into the job description.

I'm no apologist for kids who bring drugs on campus, but if there's a situation at school serious enough to call for a strip search, it's serious enough to call the police--and the child's parents. Do parents now have to advise their children not to speak to school authorities when they are hauled into the office, to warn them not to submit to strip searches and to make sure they know to have their parents called before they say a word?

Educators aren't lawyers, they aren't police and they don't know how to do these things properly--nor should they. I would think school officials themselves would never want to be seen as menacing law-enforcement types. Students are supposed to trust them, to talk to them. In the case now before the U.S. Supreme Court, a middle-school girl, Savana Redding, was ordered in 2003 under the supervision of a nurse to strip to her underwear, then stretch the underwear so anything loose would fall out, because another student had accused her of carrying prescription-strength ibuprofen. (The search found none.) School nurses--when they exist at all--are the figures students turn to when they are ill or hurting. We would want children in our society to feel comfortable going to these people when they have been abused or molested or face other serious troubles.

Happily, California bans strip searches by schools. I know of no examples in this state where terrible things happened because of the law, no cases in which a principal or school nurse has said, "If only I'd been able to strip-search the kid, it would have saved everyone." But if anyone has heard of such cases, it would be interesting to know about them.

Photo of Savana Redding by Mark Wilson/Getty Images

Today's Editorial Page weighs in on a Los Angeles billboard ordinance being considered today by a City Council committee, offering The Times' prescription for how the city could best fashion enforceable and effective sign restrictions. But we'd have more faith that the council could pull off such a feat if it hadn't failed so dismally in the past:

Before the city permits any new billboards or draws any new districts, it must demonstrate its ability and its will to enforce current law, cite and dismantle illegal signs and complete and publicly post its sign inventory. Absent that showing of good faith, over the course of a year or two, no Angeleno can be expected to see any new law as anything other than further concessions to the billboard industry.

We also discuss the Screen Actors Guild's tentative deal with the Hollywood studios, pointing out that SAG's efforts to negotiate a better deal in new media was undermined by the willingness of other unions to accept less. Next time around, the union might want to increase its leverage by negotiating jointly with the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and the Writers Guild of America, whose contracts will expire at about the same time as SAG's.

Over on the Op-Ed page, columnist Jonah Goldberg says the Environmental Protection Agency's decision last week to regulate greenhouse gases should be disturbing to "people who believe in democratic, constitutional government." That's because the agency is taking on sweeping powers to regulate nearly every sphere of economic activity, powers that were never put before the voters.

Neal Bascomb, author of a recent book on the hunt for Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, points out that the fledgling nation of Israel's pursuit and prosecution of the notorious operational manager of the "Final Solution" exposed his crimes to the world and served justice against a man who might otherwise have gone free. That's worth noting as the world works on systems, like the International Criminal Court, for trying others who have committed crimes against humanity.

And Dean Florez, chairman of the state Senate Committee on Food and Agriculture, points out the folly of some California pistachio growers, who thought the nuts' thick shells and the methods used to process them would protect them from bacteria. That mistake was exposed when about 3 million pounds of pistachios from a Terra Bella plant had to be recalled because of salmonella contamination. Florez has introduced a bill that he says will reduce the risks.

All that, and Letters, too.

*Photo of Adolf Eichman by Associated Press

In Thursday's letters, readers speak out about the Los Angeles Police Department's new headquarters in the wake of a statement by former police chief and current city councilman Bernard C. Parks that the new facility should retain the name Parker Center in memory of legendary (but racially divisive) chief William H. Parker. 

Stanford Nelson, of Irvine, agrees that the name should stay but questions Parks' reasons why:

I worked under Chief Parker; he swore me in at my academy graduation. It was a proud moment. A few years later, he passed away. His funeral service was attended by thousands from around the world. Every ethnicity and religion was represented.

Parker was anything but a racist. What he was a chief of police who brought ethics to the Los Angeles Police Department. He established parameters, discipline and professionalism at the department that were mirrored and revered across the nation.

Parker Center should not keep its name for continuity's sake, as Parks suggests. Parker's name should continue for the ethical impact he created in establishing the finest police department in the United States.

But Ben Miles, of Huntington Beach, agrees with Tim Rutten's assessment that naming HQ after Parker doesn't work in 2009:

Bernard C. Parks' assertion that naming the still-under-construction police building after long-gone LAPD Chief William H. Parker would "assure continuity" betrays the City Council member's mind-set.

Parks is clearly more concerned about the superficial aspects of order and continuity than the actual message that would be sent by lending Parker's moniker to the new headquarters. The issue calls to mind the debates over flying the Confederate states' flag in South Carolina. 

Steve Freedman, of Venice, agrees:

Giving the new LAPD headquarters a name more suggestive of the reforms undertaken in recent years would offer the people of Los Angeles greater assurance of a police force we can depend on for fairness and justice than would retaining a name associated with a long-past era in order to "assure continuity."

Letters about possible fraud in California's home-care program, banks in Sioux Falls and animal rights activists, too.

Photo: LAPD's old Parker Center, in a photograph from 1955, when it was still known as the Los Angeles Police Department Police Faciliites Building.  Credit: Herbert Bruce Cross Photography.

Today's editorial page leads off with a plea to the Los Angeles City Council to stop dawdling on a water conservation plan that would raise rates for water guzzlers. The need for conservation is dire, with a dwindling Sierra snowpack and supply reductions intended to reverse environmental damage, but a sensible rate plan will be jeopardized if the council doesn't act soon.

The Times also celebrates the remarkable rescue by Navy personnel of container-ship Capt. Richard Phillips after a five-day standoff with pirates off the coast of Somalia, but warns that the aggressive U.S. response could endanger the lives of more ships' crews. And we give thumbs-up to last week's U.S. Supreme Court decision restricting law-enforcement agents from giving the "third degree" to criminal suspects -- the court has clearly signaled that confessions will only be considered voluntary if they are made within six hours of arrest.

Today's Op-Edsters include columnist Jonah Goldberg, whose take on the pirate hostage drama is that it should mark the beginning of a tougher stance against pirates, one that has been delayed for too long by a "pro-pirate" culture, misplaced sympathy for criminals and, above all, lawyers.

Also opining today is Juan Carlos Zarate, former deputy national security advisor for combating terrorism, who says the best way to coerce North Korea's rogue regime to stop pursuing nuclear arms is to apply smart financial pressure. Even without support from the United Nations, the tools are in place for the U.S. to cut banks that do business with the regime off from the U.S. financial system, a strategy that the Obama administration should pursue.

Finally, writer and parent Lorenza Munoz recounts the tale of a PTA effort to put on a show by controversial comedian Carlos Mencia as a benefit for a low-income school, and the firestorm that erupted.

* Editorial cartoon by Joel Pett / USA Today

In Tuesday's letters, The Times features more on the rescue of Capt. Richard Phillips from pirates off the coast of Africa and thoughts on immigration, taxes and police pursuits, too. 

Readers also react to this story about older job-seekers, wondering if The Times isn't itself perhaps a little ageist in its approach to the topic.  Writes Ventura's Anthony Lewis:

I enjoyed reading the article regarding the difficulties in obtaining meaningful work for those of us over 50. However, the piece reinforced many of the stereotypes that the younger generation holds regarding baby boomers.

We older workers too could write an article stereotyping the younger generation workforce, with generalizations regarding their lack of social and interviewing skills (unless they are on a cellphone), their inability to write a coherent memo using fully constructed sentences (not texting), and their loyalty to a workplace seldom lasting longer than two years. However, I would refrain from such over-generalizations....

I started using a computer 25 years ago. I don't consider myself "technologically challenged."

Mark O'Connell, of Irvine, makes a similar point:

Your "helpful hints" counsel older job seekers to be coy about their age. Where is there any mention of our wonderful age-discrimination laws that protect older workers so they don't have to obfuscate to apply for a job?

How about The Times showing a little leadership in pushing for enforcement of discrimination laws or beefing up existing laws so they actually are enforceable?

Photo: A boomer job hunt at Kinko's.  Credit: Los Angeles Times.

One of my favorite lines about the law comes from a professor I had years ago: Referring to famous Supreme Court decisions, he said: "We don't read the great cases; the great cases read us."

So do the not-so-great cases. The Justice Department's agreement to void former Sen. Ted Stevens' corruption conviction has generated an array of interpretations, some more convincing than others, that have seized on the breaking news to make larger points.

I agree with my colleague Jon Healey that Stevens' good luck is not an exoneration of the politics of pork he personified. I disagree with the suggestion by Gov. Sarah Palin that the Democrat who beat Stevens after his conviction should resign to prepare the way for a rematch in which, presumably, Stevens could argue that he should be returned to the Senate because of errors by the prosecution. (Usually Republicans don't like to see defendants set free on legal "technicalities," let alone get another shot at a Senate seat.)

I also think it's a stretch for the New York Times editorial writers to try to connect the ineptitude of prosecutors in the Stevens trial with the Bush Justice Department's supposed conspiracy against Democratic politicians. More plausible (though still a bit contrived) is the argument by former New Jersey Attorney General John Farmer that the bungling of the Stevens prosecution is part of a larger phenomenon of overzealous prosecutors -- including Patrick Fitzgerald -- and loosely written anti-corruption statutes.

My own take is more modest: Stevens' conviction is being set aside because the government goofed.  Any regular viewer of "Law and Order" knows that the prosecution is obliged to give the defense evidence -- like prosecutors' notes of an interview with a witness against Stevens -- that might help the defense. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and sometimes a screwup is just a screwup.