Curbs on Use of High Court Tapes Lifted : Law: UC San Diego professor’s battle opens the door to the distribution and broadcast of recordings of U.S. justices’ sessions.

A professor with a penchant for challenging the Establishment has prodded the U.S. Supreme Court into dropping its restrictions on researchers making copies of tapes of the high court in session.

The court in August had threatened legal action against Peter Irons, a political science professor at UC San Diego, because he made copies of tapes of oral arguments in 23 landmark cases. Irons used edited versions of the tapes in a book-and-cassette package, “May It Please the Court,” now being sold for $75.

Rather than seeking to punish Irons, the high court on Monday decided to drop its ban against the distribution and broadcast of tapes given by the court to the National Archives.

“I’m delighted that the court has accepted the public’s right to free access to the tapes,” said Irons, director of the Earl Warren Bill of Rights Project at UC San Diego. “The restrictions should never have been imposed in the first place.”

Toni House, spokeswoman for the high court, said its action should not be seen as a victory for Irons.

“I don’t think we backed down or blinked,” she said. “The case of Prof. Irons, of course, did focus the court’s attention on what the court’s policies are. In examining them, the court decided it was time to ease the restrictions.”

The change means, among other things, that television and radio outlets will be able to use the tapes to broadcast the voices of attorneys arguing cases before the court and questions from the justices.

However, because the court takes several weeks to get tapes to the archives after a case is heard, there will be a delay in the tapes becoming public.

The court’s new policy was revealed in a letter Monday to Trudy Peterson, the acting archivist, from Alfred Wong, the court’s marshal. Wong’s letter said the archives may now provide copies of tapes without restrictions.

The restrictions date to 1979, when CBS News broadcast a portion of a tape from the Pentagon Papers case. For five years, the court supplied no further tapes to the archives and resumed only after the archives agreed to impose restrictions.

Like other researchers, Irons signed documents agreeing to the restrictions, but he later argued that the agreement was not binding and that the greater good lay in making the tapes available to the public via “May It Please the Court,” which has now sold 60,000 copies.

The tapes contain arguments in cases involving abortion, gay rights, school desegregation, affirmative action, flag burning, the right to counsel and the Watergate tapes, among other things.

Irons, 53, was active in the civil rights and labor union movements in the 1960s, is a former national board member of the American Civil Liberties Union and spent 2 1/2 years in federal prison for refusing the draft.

He was lead counsel in the bid to overturn the convictions of Japanese-Americans interned during World War II. He is suing the city of San Diego to have a cross removed from public property.

Reporters calling Irons’ home Tuesday were greeted with his usual phone message, a Phil Ochs folk song: “What’s that I hear now ringing in my ear? I hear it more and more. It’s the song of freedom calling.”