American Notes TRIALS

The on-again, off-again saga of the Noriega tapes turned on again last week. Federal District Judge William Hoeveler lifted the ban he had imposed a month ago on CNN's airing of General Manuel Noriega's government-monitored phone conversations from prison. Reason: counsel for the ex-Panamanian dictator no longer objected to having them broadcast. After reviewing transcripts of the five tapes obtained by CNN, lawyer Frank Rubino concluded that the most damaging conversation had already been played on the air and that it "does no good to close the barn door after the horse is out." Yet Rubino continued to insist that the drug-trafficking case against Noriega be dismissed altogether. Much of the government's phone tapping, he said, violates the confidentiality guaranteed to lawyer-client conversations.

^ CNN hailed the latest ruling as a vindication of its First Amendment rights and began to air more Noriega phone calls. These conversations suggested that the prisoner was making surreptitious banking transactions, a charge filed by the Panamanian government in another court proceeding last week. Meanwhile, four competing news organizations rushed before Judge Hoeveler to request the transcripts of the phone calls.