NCJ Number
141884
Date Published
1986
Length
244 pages
Annotation
This report presents 22 selected memorandum opinions of the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel issued in 1986 regarding the official duties of Federal executive officers, including the President and the Attorney General.
Abstract
The Office of Legal Counsel holds that a State veterans agency's payment of fees exceeding $10 to attorneys for representing veterans under laws administered by the Veterans Administration does not violate Federal laws. Regarding congressional authority to adopt legislation that would establish a national lottery, the Office of Legal Counsel holds that neither the Taxing Clause, Article I, Section 8, clause 1, nor the Necessary and Proper Clause, Article I, Section 8, Clause 18, of the Constitution authorize Congress to establish a national lottery. Another opinion holds that a President may nominate and the Senate may confirm a person to the U.S. Supreme Court in anticipation that a position may be vacant during the President's term of office. Confirmation without appointment does not confer any rights on the nominee. Another opinion holds that the Mansfield Amendment does prohibit the use of U.S. military officers and employees from participating directly in joint drug raids with foreign authorities. It does not prohibit involvement of U.S. officers in activities that would not ordinarily involve arrests. An opinion holds that the warrantless monitoring by law enforcement personnel of beepers hidden in bait money robbed from a bank probably does not constitute a search that implicates the fourth amendment, even after the beeper being monitored has been taken into a home.