WASHINGTON -- Giving a broad reading to the federal anti-carjacking law, the Supreme Court ruled yesterday that a hijacker may be convicted of planning to kill the victim even if that was not specifically intended.

The court rejected the argument of a New York City man that he should not have been convicted under the law because it makes carjacking a federal crime only if harm to the victims is planned -- and he intended to hurt or kill only if his victims resisted.

By a 7-2 vote, the court ruled that a plan to harm or kill victims only if they resist is enough to prove what the law requires -- "specific intent" to do violence during a carjacking.

Intent in this sense covers both a plan to harm in all circumstances -- unconditional intent -- as well as a narrower plan to harm only if it is necessary to ensure that the crime succeeds -- conditional intent, the court said.

Carjacking is ordinarily prosecuted as a state crime but, beginning in 1992, Congress added it to the federal criminal code to aid states in dealing with a problem that was deemed to be growing.

"Congress intended to criminalize a broader scope of conduct than attempts to assault or kill in the course of automobile robberies," Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the court. The law thus does not require proof that the robber intended to kill the victim as well as to steal the car, he concluded.

The law at issue, updated in 1994, was designed to make carjacking a federal crime "as a significant deterrent to a type of criminal activity that was a matter of national concern," Stevens said.

Proof of intent to kill or harm, he added, "is satisfied when the government proves that at the moment the [carjacker] demanded or took control over the driver's automobile, the [carjacker] possessed the intent to seriously harm or kill the driver if necessary."

The decision upheld the conviction of Francois Holloway of New York, who also uses the name Abdu Ali, for his role in three carjackings in 1994 involving the use of guns. Holloway was sentenced to more than 52 years in prison.

Holloway argued that he should not have been convicted under the federal statue because he did not have unconditional intent to harm the victims.

One of the men charged with Holloway contended that their aim was to steal cars without harming the victims, but that they would have used a gun if the victims had given them "a hard time."

Each of Holloway's victims was threatened with shooting, but none was shot. Holloway punched one of the drivers when he hesitated to surrender the car. Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas dissented, saying Congress clearly intended to make a federal crime only of unconditional intent to kill or harm the victim as part of the crime.

Scalia wrote: "The carjacker who intends to kill if he is met with resistance has an intent to kill if resisted; he does not have an intent to kill" -- the words of the carjacking law.

The court, holding a hearing yesterday on a separate case, explored ways to narrow a federal law against giving gifts to federal officials so that it did not criminalize such acts as baking brownies for a senator, knitting a pair of socks for a federal official, sending a present to a senator who had provided legislative help for nursing homes, or taking an official to a football game just to be able to sit next to him.

Members of the court brought up those examples and others as they reviewed a case growing out of an independent counsel's investigation of former Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy. The former Cabinet officer has been found not guilty of taking illegal gifts, but a California cooperative that grows fruits and nuts was convicted of giving Espy $5,900 worth of gifts when it had policy issues pending before his department.

A federal appeals court threw out the conviction of Sun-Diamond Growers of California, but independent counsel Donald C. Smaltz has asked the Supreme Court to reinstate the verdict and to rule that it is a crime for a company doing business with the government to give gifts to an official who is in a position to aid that firm. It should not be necessary to show that the gift was for a specific favorable action, Smaltz's appeal argues.

"Why should we give prosecutors such broad discretion?" asked Justice Stephen G. Breyer in a fairly typical comment during the hearing. "Why does your position make sense?" he asked a Smaltz deputy, Robert W. Ray.

Ray said that it was important to use the law to stop regulated companies that are motivated to use gifts to influence government regulation.

A final ruling on the issue is expected by early this summer.

Pub Date: 3/03/99