Judge Puts Halt to Suit Against Clinton : Courts: Ruling bans Paula Corbin Jones’ attorneys from questioning the President in sexual harassment case. But an appeal is expected.

In a decision that halts legal proceedings in a potentially explosive sexual harassment case against President Clinton, a federal judge ruled Friday that attorneys for Paula Corbin Jones may not question the President, former Arkansas state troopers or anyone else who might have information about her claims.

The ruling by a judge in Little Rock, Ark., who previously had delayed any trial while Clinton served as President, represents a major victory for Clinton’s attorneys in their attempts to prevent further disclosures in the politically charged matter for the next several months or longer.

Legal experts said that the ruling would stop all discovery--the taking of sworn statements from anyone--unless a federal appeals court reverses the ruling. One attorney said that the appellate court may take 18 months to hand down a ruling, although Jones’ lawyer, Joseph Cammarata, said that he hopes for a decision by late this year.

Cammarata, expressing disappointment with Friday’s opinion by U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright, said: “Our interest has been to move this case along. Unfortunately, the President is going to continue to hide behind the claim of immunity.”

Robert S. Bennett, Clinton’s attorney, expressed delight with the ruling, calling it “very significant for the institution of the presidency.”

Wright’s opinion represented a partial reversal of an earlier ruling that she had handed down Dec. 28. At that time, the judge agreed that Clinton enjoyed sufficient immunity to have any trial delayed until he had left the presidency but she gave Jones’ lawyers the right to question under oath Clinton and other witnesses, principally former Arkansas state trooper Danny Ferguson.

Jones, a former Arkansas state employee, has claimed that in 1991 then-Gov. Clinton made crude sexual advances to her in a Little Rock hotel room. She alleged that Ferguson, at Clinton’s request, had escorted her to the room, but that she subsequently resisted Clinton’s request for oral sex.

Wright’s split decision in December had steered a middle course in addressing the unresolved question of whether a sitting President could be dragged into court to fight a damage suit involving a private matter that had arisen before his election to the highest office.

While forbidding any trial while Clinton is President, the judge had said in that opinion that preparation for a trial nonetheless could move forward. “There would seem to be no reason why the discovery and deposition process could not proceed as to all persons, including the President himself,” she wrote.

But in Friday’s opinion, Wright said that in view of Clinton’s appeal of her December ruling, “there is no question that the court is required to stay discovery against the President pending appeal.” She thus abandoned the second part of her original opinion, in which she had given Jones’ lawyers the right to question Clinton, Ferguson and others.

Clinton’s attorneys had objected to the second half of that ruling out of concern that such sworn statements, if made public or leaked to the press, could embarrass and damage the already embattled President before the 1996 election.

Wright said Friday that a parallel case Jones filed against Ferguson also would be halted pending appeal because the two lawsuits are “inextricably intertwined.”