WASHINGTON -- President Clinton has no constitutional right of immunity to a sexual-harassment lawsuit, but a public trial of a woman's case against him will not take place until after he has left the White House, a federal judge ruled yesterday.
"No one, be he King or President, is above the law," U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright of Little Rock said in rejecting a request by Mr. Clinton's private lawyers to throw out the lawsuit filed in May by Paula Corbin Jones, a former Arkansas state employee, who seeks $700,000 in damages.
But the judge went on to rule that Mr. Clinton "should not have to devote his time and effort to the defense of this case at trial while in office."
Pretrial preparations, though, will go ahead, Judge Wright said, so that a trial could begin soon after Mr. Clinton leaves office -- either in January 1997 or in January 2001, should he have a second full term.
As part of those preparations, the judge made clear, Mr. Clinton would have to answer questions from lawyers for Ms. Jones even though the trial is delayed. The questioning would be done in private, and probably under a secrecy order imposed by the judge. Under a 1984 Supreme Court ruling, the news media has no right of access to such pretrial questioning.
Mr. Clinton's private attorneys called the postponement of the -- trial "an important victory for the office of the president." But those lawyers, Robert S. Bennett and Carl S. Rauh, said in a statement that they would file a prompt appeal challenging the part of the decision that permits pretrial questioning of the president.
What Mr. Clinton stands to gain from Judge Wright's decision is a minimum of two years of low visibility for Ms. Jones' legal claim that he made sexual advances toward her, including exposing himself, in a Little Rock hotel room in May 1991 while he was Arkansas governor. She also claims that he coerced her into keeping the incident quiet.
What the president loses is the freedom to ignore the case altogether while he remains in office.
An appeal in the case would go to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals; it would have to be filed soon. Mr. Clinton's lawyers also might try to get all of Judge Wright's decision delayed while they appeal.
The White House said it would not issue a statement on the ruling.
One of Ms. Jones' lawyers, Gilbert K. Davis, said of the ruling: "We're perfectly comfortable with what we've got." He said Ms. Jones would not appeal unless the president did, and then would make some objections of her own to the ruling.
After Ms. Jones filed her lawsuit, the president's lawyers asked Judge Wright to dismiss it, on the basis of presidential immunity, then allow Ms. Jones to start it over again after Mr. Clinton had left the White House. Ms. Jones' legal team opposed the immunity claim.
The judge said the claim of immunity -- the strongest legal defense Mr. Clinton's lawyers could have put forth -- has no basis in the Constitution, and there is no "credible support for such a proposition."
Such immunity, she added, "is contrary to our form of government, which asserts . . . that even the sovereign is subject to God and the law."
She noted that the Supreme Court in 1982 had ruled that presidents have total immunity to civil lawsuits based on their actions while in office. The claims against Mr. Clinton, however, involved no presidential actions, and not even actions he took in his official capacity as governor, the judge added.
Thus, she rejected the claim of "absolute immunity." She went on to declare that the Supreme Court had expressed concern about using up a president's time in dealing with civil lawsuits while he was serving.
She said there was no urgency to Ms. Jones' lawsuit. Thus, Judge Wright said, she was "putting the case on hold, as far as trial is concerned."
Ms. Jones' lawsuit, besides making claims against Mr. Clinton, seeks damages from an Arkansas state trooper, Danny Ferguson. She claims that he helped arrange the encounter with Mr. Clinton in the hotel room and later made public comments that harmed her reputation. Judge Wright also put on hold a trial of the claims against Mr. Ferguson, saying that all the claims are too closely linked for them to be divided.