Two Law Professors Host TV Show

In addition to lecturing this semester, two prominent Law School professors will address a national television audience in a weekly series on constitutional law.

The Public Broadcasting System (PBS) production features Professors of Law Charles R. Nesson '60 and Arthur R Miller moderating roundtable discussions with noted politicians, lawyers, judges, journalists and professors on controversial topics in constitutional law, according to a spokesman for WGBH, the Boston PBS affiliate.

The purpose of the seminars, taped last year, was to ask hard questions of policy makers and others confronting differing interpretations of the Constitution. The confrontational format of the 13-show series "makes it possible to stop people who are very important (form) baloney answers" to crucial questions. Nesson said yesterday

Miller's Roundtable

Miller, who hosts the weekly PBS series "Miller's Court" and serves as the on-air legal expert for "Good Morning America," moderated three hour long segments. His shows included debate over the right to die, school prayer, and gun control.

Nesson moderated programs on punishment of criminals, the insanity plea and a defendant's right to a fair trial.

The series, entitled "The constitution: That Delicate Balance," is produced by the Media and Society Seminars of the Columbia School of journalism and is an outgrowth of a non televised seminar program begun in 1974, in which Nesson participated.

Former President Gerald R. Ford, CBS News Anchorman Dan Rather, New York City Mayor Edward L. Koch and former Loch University Professor Archibald Cox '34 were among the show's panelists.

"I basically go into them asking questions that I'm curious about," Nesson said, adding that much of his enjoyment in moderating the shows came from the panelists' surprising or unusual statements.

He recalled an instance in which a Philadelphia trial lawyer said that if he were to move a criminal case from an urban court to a rural area, the jury would want to sentence his client to "five days in the electric chair," since rural juries are tougher on criminal defendants than those in cities.

The programs, which began airing in September, appear Saturdays at 10 p.m. on WGBH, channel 2, and Sundays at 7 p.m on WGBX. channel 44.