LEGAL BRIEFING

WHOM CAN YOU TRUST?--Under former President Ronald Reagan, picking ideologically reliable federal judges was raised almost to the level of science. And most Reagan appointees to the federal bench have faithfully hewed to his basic beliefs in their subsequent rulings. The same is true of President Bush’s appointees.

Recently, however, decisions by three U.S. District judges who were products of that selection process set conservatives’ teeth a-gnashing. The shock is all the greater because the three held important positions in the Reagan Administration.

Judge Stanley Sporkin, ex-general counsel to the Central Intelligence Agency under Reagan, ordered police to stop the random questioning of passengers aboard buses traveling from New York to Washington--a favored route and mode of transportation for drug couriers. Then Judge D. Lowell Jensen, a top official at the Reagan Justice Department and now on the federal bench in San Francisco, struck down most of the Navy’s program of random drug tests.

Finally, Judge Royce C. Lamberth, former head of the civil division in the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, threw the Bush Administration’s S&L; cleanup effort into confusion when he ruled key cleanup officials had been chosen unconstitutionally.

Human nature, it seems, is still stronger than ideology: Once judges mount the bench, no one can predict for sure what they will do--especially judges with lifetime appointments.

CASHING IN CLIENTS--Can the Internal Revenue Service force criminal lawyers to reveal the names of clients who deal in cash?

Yes, says the IRS, citing a 1985 law that requires all business persons to disclose the names of those who paid them $10,000 or more in cash.

No, say the nation’s criminal defense lawyers, citing the confidentiality of the attorney-client relationship. “They can prosecute anyone for a crime and find any witness at all but they can’t make a lawyer a witness against his client,” said Richard Lubin, a West Palm Beach, Fla., attorney who is working with the National Assn. of Criminal Defense Lawyers in challenging the IRS.

In October, the IRS sent letters to nearly 1,000 lawyers who filed the IRS Form 8300 disclosing big cash payments but failed to name names. In response to the queries, most lawyers refused again to supply names. Now, both sides say they will take the issue to court.

To test its authority, the IRS has sent summonses to 90 lawyers who pointedly refused to name clients. “These are clear-cut cases,” says IRS spokesman Wilson Fadely. “We want to go into court and develop some favorable case law.”

Retort the criminal defense lawyers, in the words of Lubin: “This is not a pocketbook issue for us. It is a constitutional issue for our clients, and we’re going to fight it all the way.”

INVESTIGATING THE INVESTIGATORS--Nearly 80 investigations of conduct by Justice Department officials are being conducted by the General Accounting Office, the auditing and investigating arm of Congress. The GAO inquiries range from a review of the much-criticized Immigration and Naturalization Service to Atty. Gen. Dick Thornburgh’s frequent use of a plane seized from dope traffickers.