Judge Orders Packwood to Give Up Diaries : Ethics: Oregon senator’s claims of right to privacy and to avoid self-incrimination are rejected. Ruling is victory for investigating panel.

In another rebuff to embattled Sen. Bob Packwood (R-Ore.), a federal judge Monday ordered him to turn over personal diaries to the Senate Ethics Committee for its investigation of charges that he sexually harassed more than 20 women.

U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson ruled against Packwood’s claims that a Senate subpoena for the last five years of his memoirs would violate his constitutional right to privacy and to avoid self-incrimination.

Jackson decided that the diaries were “unquestionably relevant” to the Ethics Committee’s inquiry into possible misconduct by the 61-year-old senator and said that special procedures can be imposed for reviewing them that would give reasonable protection to Packwood’s privacy rights.

Packwood and his lawyer, Jacob A. Stein, withheld immediate comment on the decision--a victory for the Ethics Committee in its three-month battle over access to Packwood’s diaries. In the past, the Oregon Republican has indicated that he would appeal court rulings against him to the Supreme Court, if necessary.

Judge Jackson scheduled a hearing Thursday to discuss procedures for inspection of the diary entries by investigators for the Senate panel. The diaries, consisting of tape recordings made by Packwood and transcripts of them, have been in the court’s possession for weeks. Jackson ordered them turned over to the court to prevent tampering after the senator’s part-time transcribing secretary said that she had discovered alterations in some of the tapes.

Under the ruling, Packwood would be required to turn over diaries from Jan. 1, 1989, to the present under safeguards against leaks suggested by the Ethics Committee.

“While the material sought to be examined is acknowledged to be extremely personal and private in nature and merits an appropriately exalted degree of constitutional protection, the manner in which the Ethics Committee will review these diaries respects Sen. Packwood’s legitimate expectations of privacy and is, therefore, ‘reasonable. . . . ‘ “ Jackson held.

“Finally, Sen. Packwood enjoys no Fifth Amendment privilege to avoid surrendering his personal diaries to the Ethics Committee, the act itself presenting no risk of incrimination beyond that he has already reduced to written or recorded form,” the judge added.

The committee began a preliminary inquiry last Feb. 4 into allegations that Packwood made unwanted sexual advances to female staff aides, lobbyists and others over two decades. While declaring that some of his conduct was “plain wrong,” Packwood declined to discuss specific charges.

During the inquiry, Packwood allowed the ethics panel to examine earlier diary entries but he balked when Senate investigators expressed interest in writings that indicated he had asked lobbyists to provide a job for his estranged wife.

At that point he halted cooperation with the committee and defied a subpoena for the diaries, setting off a two-day debate on the Senate floor.

The Senate, by a vote of 94 to 5, upheld the ethics panel’s request and authorized it to seek court enforcement of the subpoena.

The Justice Department also issued a subpoena for the diaries shortly after friends of Packwood said that he was considering resigning from the Senate seat he has held since 1969, an act that would have freed him to destroy the diaries if he wished. Since then, however, Packwood has declared that he intends to remain in office to fight the charges against him, despite demands by several senators that he step down.