Decisions, Decisions

In cases ranging from oranges to shotguns, the Supreme Court last week laid down the law in answer to two topical questions:

What Is "Harmless?" Where the gap between day and night temperatures is wide enough, oranges turn orange as they ripen on the trees. But Florida nights average so warm that oranges often remain green even when fully ripe. Since U.S. housewives want orange oranges, the Florida orange industry turns green oranges yellow by exposing them to ethylene gas, then colors them orange with a coal-tar dye called Red 32.

In 1955, after testing Red 32 on animals and finding it highly poisonous, the federal Health, Education and Welfare Department took it off the list of "certified" colors. Under orders to stop using Red 32 by next March 1, Florida orangemen pleaded that the stuff had not been proved to be harmful in the minute quantities that might enter an orange eater's system. Overruling the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, the Supreme Court held that in the coal-tar provisions of the Food. Drug and Cosmetic Act of 1938, "harmless" plainly means absolutely harmless, and that therefore Red 32 "is not to be used at all." Unless Congress amends the law, Florida orangemen are going to have to convince housewives that yellow oranges can be just as good as orange oranges.

What Is "Assault?" In 1944 a Mississippi moonshiner named Lovander Ladner ambushed two federal revenuers, wounding both with one shotgun blast--or maybe more than one. Convicted of two violations of a federal law prohibiting "assault" on a federal officer, Ladner was sentenced to two ten-year prison terms. After serving one term, he appealed on the ground that he had fired only one shot and was therefore guilty of only one "assault." Overruling lower courts, the Supreme Court found the plea valid. Noting that the same law makes it an offense to "impede" a federal officer, the court asked: If a man locked a door to keep out several federal officers, would he "commit as many crimes as there are officers?" Obviously not, as the majority saw it. Dissenting, Justice Tom Clark argued that the majority decision made assaults on federal officers "just as cheap by the dozen." Still to be decided by lower courts: Did Ladner fire only one shot?

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