2 Harvard, Yale Professors Attack Senate Crime Bill

A Harvard professor of Law last month denounced as repressive a bill that former Atty. Gen. John N. Mitchell drafted to revise the present Federal Criminal Code.

Vern Countryman, vice chairman of the National Committee Against Repressive Legislation (NCARL), and Thomas I. Emerson, a Yale law professor and a member of the NCARL, issued a joint statement in June opposing the bill.

The bill "would constitute an unparalleled disaster for the system of individual rights in the United States, and would be inherently unamendable," the statement said.

Countryman said yesterday the bill contains too many chapters, sections and clauses that would have to be revised and should be voted down. "This bill is worse than the Federal Criminal Code now on the books," he said.

"The bill is a product of the Nixon Administration, prepared under the aegis of Attorneys General Mitchell and [Richard] Kleindienst. The objective of the draftsmen," Countryman said, "was to restrict individual liberties in order to preserve the secrecy of the Nixon Administration's corrupt policies."

At present, the bill is pending before the Senate Judiciary Committee. It was reintroduced into the 94th Congress by Senators John McLelland (D-Ark.) and Roman Hruska (R-Neb.).