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Justice Kagan | 2,011 | 3 | majority | Ransom v. FIA Card Services, N. A. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/182567/ransom-v-fia-card-services-n-a/ | that it is advantageous to be deeply in debt on motor vehicle loans, rather than to pay them off.” Brief for Petitioner 55. But the choice here is not between thrifty savers and profligate borrowers, as Ransom would have it. Money is fungible: The $14,000 that Ransom spent to purchase his Camry outright was money he did not devote to paying down his credit card debt, and Congress did not express a preference for one use of these funds over the other. Further, Ransom’s argument mistakes what the deductions in the means test are meant to accomplish. Rather than effecting any broad federal policy as to saving or borrowing, the deductions serve merely to ensure that debtors in bankruptcy can afford essential items. The car-ownership allowance thus safeguards a debtor’s ability to retain a car throughout the plan period. If the debtor already owns a car outright, he has no need for this protection. Ransom finally argues that a debtor who owns his car free and clear may need to replace it during the life of the plan; “[g]ranting the ownership cost deduction to a vehicle 18 RANSOM v. FIA CARD SERVICES, N. A. Opinion of the Court that is owned outright,” he states, “accords best with economic reality.” In essence, Ransom seeks an emergency cushion for car owners. But nothing in the statute authorizes such a cushion, which all debtors pre sumably would like in the event some unexpected need arises. And a person who enters bankruptcy without any car at all may have to buy one during the plan period; yet Ransom concedes that a person in this position cannot claim the ownership deduction. Tr. of Oral Arg. 20. The appropriate way to account for unanticipated expenses like a new vehicle purchase is not to distort the scope of a deduction, but to use the method that the Code provides for all Chapter 13 debtors (and their creditors): modifica tion of the plan in light of changed circumstances. See see IV Based on BAPCPA’s text, context, and purpose, we hold that the Local Standard expense amount for transporta tion “Ownership Costs” is not “applicable” to a debtor who will not incur any such costs during his bankruptcy plan. Because the “Ownership Costs” category covers only loan and lease payments and because Ransom owns his car free from any debt or obligation, he may not claim the allow ance. In short, Ransom may not deduct loan or lease expenses when he does not have any. We therefore affirm the judgment of the Ninth Circuit. It is so ordered. Cite |
per_curiam | 1,973 | 200 | per_curiam | Chicago Mercantile Exchange v. Deaktor | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/108886/chicago-mercantile-exchange-v-deaktor/ | The petitioner, Chicago Mercantile Exchange, was sued in two separate actions in the District Court. In one, the Phillips suit, it was alleged that the Exchange had forced sales of futures contracts in March 1970 fresh eggs at artificially depressed market prices and had thereby monopolized and restrained commerce in violation of 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act, as amended, 15 U.S. C. 1, 2, and had violated 9 (b) of the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA), as amended, 7 U.S. C. 13 (b), by manipulating prices of a commodity for future delivery on a contract market. The Exchange was also accused of violating 5a of the CEA, 7 U.S. C. 7a (8), for failure to enforce one of its own rules. In the second suit, the Deaktor case, the Exchange was charged with violating the CEA and its own rules as a designated contract market because it had failed *114 to exercise due care to halt the manipulative conduct of certain of its members who allegedly had cornered the July 1970 market in frozen pork bellies futures contracts. The Exchange defended both actions on the ground that it was faithfully discharging its statutory duty of self-regulation. It asserted that its challenged acts in the Phillips case were measures taken to prevent speculation in futures contracts and as such were not in violation of the CEA. Rather, they were authorized and required by the statute and hence cannot be considered within the reach of the antitrust laws. Likewise, in the Deaktor suit, the Exchange claimed that it had taken all proper and reasonable steps to perform its statutory responsibility to prevent manipulation. The Exchange further urged that because the Commodity Exchange Commission had jurisdiction to determine whether the Exchange was violating the CEA or its own rules and to impose sanctions for any such offense, both suits should be stayed to permit the Commission to determine in the first instance whether or not the actions of the Exchange under scrutiny were in discharge of its proper duties under the CEA and its regulations. The District Court refused the stay, and the Court of Appeals affirmed. Both courts were in error. held that an antitrust action against the Exchange should have been stayed to afford the Commodity Exchange Commission an opportunity to determine if the challenged conduct of the Exchange was in compliance with the statute and with Exchange rules. Because administrative adjudication of alleged violations of the CEA and the rules lay at the heart of the task assigned the Commission by Congress, we recognized that *115 the court, although |
per_curiam | 1,973 | 200 | per_curiam | Chicago Mercantile Exchange v. Deaktor | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/108886/chicago-mercantile-exchange-v-deaktor/ | Commission by Congress, we recognized that *115 the court, although retaining final authority to interpret the CEA and its relationship to the antitrust laws, should avail itself of the abilities of the Commission to unravel the intricate and technical facts of the commodity industry and to arrive at some judgment as to whether the Exchange had conducted itself in compliance with the law. An adjudication by the Commission that the actions of the Exchange were authorized or required by the CEA would not necessarily dispose of the question of immunity from antitrust liability. We nevertheless thought the considered view of the Commission would be of sufficient aid to the court that the action should not go forward without making reasonable efforts to invoke the jurisdiction of the Commission. As we did in Ricci, "we simply recognize that Congress has established a specialized agency that would determine either that a rule of the Exchange has been violated or that it has been followed. Either judgment would require determination of facts and the interpretation and application of the Act and Exchange rules. And either determination will be of great help to the antitrust court in arriving at the essential accommodation between the antitrust and the regulatory regime" In our judgment, the Court of Appeals, as in Ricci, should have requested the District Court to stay the proceedings in the Phillips case to afford an opportunity to invoke the jurisdiction of the Commission. For very similar reasons, the Deaktor plaintiffs, who also alleged violations of the CEA and the rules of the Exchange, should be routed in the first instance to the agency whose administrative functions appear to encompass adjudication of the kind of substantive claims made against the Exchange in this case. *116 The petition for writ of certiorari is granted, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. So ordered. MR. JUSTICE STEWART dissents. He would affirm the judgment substantially upon the reasoning of Judge Castle's concurring opinion in the Court of Appeals. |
Justice Brennan | 1,982 | 13 | dissenting | Engle v. Isaac | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110692/engle-v-isaac/ | Today's decision is a conspicuous exercise in judicial activism particularly so since it takes the form of disregard of precedent scarcely a month old. In its eagerness to expatiate upon the "significant costs" of the Great Writ, ante, at 126-128, and to apply "the principles articulated in ]," ante, at 123, to the cases before us, the Court demonstrably misreads and reshapes the habeas claim of at least one of the state prisoners involved in this action. Respondent Isaac presented exactly one claim in his habeas petition. That claim did not even *138 exist until after Isaac was denied relief on his last direct appeal. As a result, Isaac could not have "preserved" his claim in the state courts: He simply committed no "procedural default," and the Court is thus clearly wrong to apply to his claim in order to relegate it to the dustbin. Moreover, the Court does so by ignoring the holding only last month in : namely, that a habeas petition that contains any unexhausted claims must be dismissed by the habeas court. The Court then compounds its error when it attempts to articulate the "principles" of : In purporting to give content to the "cause" standard announced in that case, the Court defines "cause" in a way supported neither by nor by common sense. I dissent from both of these errors, which are discussed in turn below. I Respondent Isaac was indicted in May 1975; he was convicted after a jury trial and sentenced during the following September.[1] While his conviction was on appeal in the Ohio Court of Appeals, the Ohio Supreme Court decided which construed (A) to require the prosecution to bear the burden of persuasion, beyond a reasonable doubt, with respect to an affirmative defense of self-defense raised by the defendant. The Ohio Court of Appeals affirmed Isaac's conviction in February 1977.[2] The Ohio Supreme Court dismissed Isaac's appeal in July 1977.[3] On the same day, the Ohio Supreme Court decided That case declared Robinson retroactive to the effective date of 2901.05(A), but only partially: It held that in order to gain the retroactive benefits of the Robinson *139 decision, a defendant tried before a jury must have preserved his claim by objection at trial to the allocation of the affirmative-defense burden of proof, while a bench-trial defendant could have made the same objection as late as in the Court of Appeals, and the objection would still have been preserved. Isaac filed his habeas petition in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio in March 1978.[4] The asserted |
Justice Brennan | 1,982 | 13 | dissenting | Engle v. Isaac | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110692/engle-v-isaac/ | the Southern District of Ohio in March 1978.[4] The asserted ground for relief was "denial of due process of law," in that "[t]he trial court charged petitioner had the burden of proving self-defense. After conviction and during the first appeal the Ohio Supreme Court declared the instructions to be prejudicial error under Robinson. This case was immediately raised to the Appellate Court. They held any error was waived. The Ohio Supreme Court then held Robinson retroactive. Petitioner had raised retroactivity in its leave to appeal and was denied leave to appeal the same day Humphries was decided declaring retroactivity. The Ohio Supreme Court refuses to give relief despite its own pronouncement. The holding of the court is contrary to the Supreme Court of the United States in regard to proving self-defense."[5] Isaac's memorandum in support of his habeas petition made it plain that his claim was that Humphries' selective retroactive application of the Robinson rule denied him due process of law.[6] It is obvious, of course, that it was simply impossible *140 to make this claim before Humphries was decided, in July 1977, on the same day that Isaac's direct appeals in the state court system were finally rejected. Ohio Rev. Code Ann. 3.21(A) (1975) provides for postconviction relief under certain circumstances: "Any person convicted of a criminal offense claiming that there was such a denial or infringement of his rights as to render the judgment void or voidable under the Ohio Constitution or the Constitution of the United States, may file a verified petition at any time in the court which imposed sentence, stating the grounds for relief relied upon, and asking the court to vacate or set aside the judgment or sentence or to grant other appropriate relief." By applying the doctrine of res judicata to postconviction petitions, the Ohio Supreme Court has allowed relief under this procedure only under limited circumstances: Constitutional issues can be raised under 3.21(A) only when they could not have been raised at trial or on appeal. ; see ; But Isaac's claim is manifestly of the sort that could not have been raised at trial or an appeal, for the claim only came into existence on the day that Isaac's last appeal was rejected. Consequently, state postconviction remedies are available to Isaac and have not been exhausted. I draw three conclusions from the foregoing account, all of which to my mind follow ineluctably from the undisputed facts of this case. First, Isaac's habeas petition should have been dismissed for his failure to exhaust available state remedies. See where we emphasized that "the |
Justice Brennan | 1,982 | 13 | dissenting | Engle v. Isaac | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110692/engle-v-isaac/ | exhaust available state remedies. See where we emphasized that "the federal claim must be fairly presented to the state courts. Only if the state courts have had the first *141 opportunity to hear the claim sought to be vindicated in a federal habeas proceeding does it make sense to speak of the exhaustion of state remedies." In the present case, petitioner Engle responded to Isaac's petition by raising the issue of Isaac's failure to exhaust.[7] Therefore the Court of Appeals clearly erred, under Picard and our whole line of exhaustion precedents, in granting habeas relief to Isaac instead of requiring exhaustion. The proper disposition of Isaac's case is thus to reverse and remand with instructions to dismiss on exhaustion grounds. The Court's failure to order such a disposition is incomprehensible: Barely a month ago this Court emphatically reaffirmed the exhaustion doctrine, and indeed extended it, announcing a requirement of "total exhaustion" for habeas petitions.[8] But today the Court finds the nostrum of "cause and prejudice" more attractive, and so is not applied. Sic transit gloria Lundy! In scarcely a month, the bloom is off the Rose.[9] My second conclusion is that Isaac simply committed no "procedural default" in failing to raise at trial or on direct appeal the claim that appears in his habeas petition. That claim did not exist at any time during Isaac's trial or direct appeal. Thus the essential factual predicate for an application of is completely *142 absent in Isaac's case. involved a habeas petitioner who had failed to object in a timely manner to the admission of his confession at trial. Given that factual predicate, addressed the question of whether federal habeas review should be barred absent a showing of "cause" for the procedural default of failing to object, and a further showing of "prejudice" resulting from the admission of the confession. But in the case before us, respondent Isaac could not have made any objection, timely or otherwise, at trial or on appeal. Thus the application of is completely and manifestly erroneous in this case.[10] My last conclusion is that the Court is so intent upon applying to Isaac's case that it plays Procrustes with his claim. In order to bring Isaac's claim within the ambit of the Court first characterizes his petition as "complex," ante, at 117, and "confused," ante, at 124, n. 25.[11] Then, *143 without ever quoting the claim as it actually appeared in Isaac's petition, the Court delineates a "colorable constitutional claim" nowhere to be found in the petition. As the Court recasts it, Isaac's claim is as follows: "[T]he |
Justice Brennan | 1,982 | 13 | dissenting | Engle v. Isaac | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110692/engle-v-isaac/ | the Court recasts it, Isaac's claim is as follows: "[T]he crim[e] charged against [Isaac] require[s] a showing of purposeful or knowing behavior. These terms, according to [Isaac], imply a degree of culpability that is absent when a person acts in self-defense. Selfdefense, [Isaac] urge[s], negates [essential] elements of criminal behavior. Therefore, once the defendant raises the possibility of self-defense, [Isaac] contend[s] that the State must disprove that defense as part of its task of establishing guilty mens rea, voluntariness, and unlawfulness. The Due Process Clause, according to [Isaac's] interpretation of Winship, Mullaney, and Patterson, forbids the States to disavow any portion of this burden." Ante, at 121-122. This new-modeled claim bears no resemblance to the claim actually made by Isaac in his habeas petition. See[12] But by virtue of this exercise in juristic revisionism, the Court puts itself in position to find that "Isaac's" claim was "forfeited before the state courts," ante, at 125 no difficult task, since the claim is wholly imagined by the Court itself thus enabling the Court to reach its clearly sought goal of deciding "whether the principles articulated in bar consideration of the claim in a federal habeas proceeding." Ante, at 123. Unsurprisingly, the Court's bottom line is that Isaac's fictive claim is indeed barred by In short, the Court reshapes respondent Isaac's actual claim into a form that enables it to foreclose all federal review, when as plainly pleaded the claim was unexhausted, thus calling for the dismissal of Isaac's petition *144 for habeas relief. The Court's analysis is completely result-oriented, and represents a noteworthy exercise in the very judicial activism that the Court so deprecates in other contexts. II For the reasons stated above, I conclude that in its unseemly rush to reach the merits of Isaac's case, the Court has ignored settled law respecting the exhaustion of state remedies. But lest it be thought that my disagreement with today's decision is confined to that point alone, I turn to the Court's treatment of the merits of the cases before us. I continue to believe that the "deliberate bypass" standard announced in is the only sensible rule to apply in habeas cases such as respondents'. I adhere to my dissent in in which I termed the "cause-and-prejudice" standard adopted in that case "a mere house of cards whose foundation has escaped any systematic inspection." -100, n. 1. The Court has now began to furnish its house of cards and the furniture is as jerry-built as the house itself. A did not give the terms "cause" and "prejudice" any "precise content," |
Justice Brennan | 1,982 | 13 | dissenting | Engle v. Isaac | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110692/engle-v-isaac/ | not give the terms "cause" and "prejudice" any "precise content," but promised that "later cases" would provide such content. Today the nature of that content becomes distressingly apparent. The Court still refuses to say what "cause" is: And I predict that on the Court's present view it will prove easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a state prisoner to show "cause." But on the other hand, the Court is more than eager to say what "cause" is not: And in doing so, the Court is supported neither by common sense nor by the very reasons offered in for adoption of the "cause-and-prejudice" standard in the first place. According to the Court, "cause" is not demonstrated when the Court "cannot say that [habeas petitioners] lacked the *145 tools to construct their constitutional claim," ante, at 133, however primitive those tools were and thus however inchoate the claim was when petitioners were in the state courts. The Court concludes, after several pages of tortuous reasoning, ante, at 130-133, and nn. 36-42, that respondents in the present cases did indeed have "the tools" to make their constitutional claims. This conclusion is reached by the sheerest inference: It is based on citations to other cases in other jurisdictions, where other defendants raised other claims assertedly similar to those that respondents "could" have raised. Ante, at 131-133, and n. 40. To hold the present respondents to such a high standard of foresight is tantamount to a complete rejection of the notion that there is a point before which a claim is so inchoate that there is adequate "cause" for the failure to raise it. In thus rejecting inchoateness as "cause," the Court overlooks the fact that none of the rationales used in to justify adoption of the cause-and-prejudice standard can justify today's definition of "cause." adopted the cause-and-prejudice standard in order to accord "greater respect" to state contemporaneous-objection rules than was assertedly given by The Court then offered a number of reasons why contemporaneous-objection rules should be given such greater respect: (1) "A contemporaneous objection enables the record to be made with respect to the constitutional claim when the recollections of witnesses are freshest, not years later in a federal habeas proceeding." (2) A contemporaneous objection "enables the judge who observed the demeanor of those witnesses to make the factual determinations necessary for properly deciding the federal constitutional question." (3) "A contemporaneous-objection rule may lead to the exclusion of evidence objected to, thereby making a major contribution to finality in criminal litigation." *146 (4) The rule "may |
Justice Brennan | 1,982 | 13 | dissenting | Engle v. Isaac | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110692/engle-v-isaac/ | to finality in criminal litigation." *146 (4) The rule "may encourage `sandbagging' on the part of defense lawyers, who may take their chances on a verdict of not guilty in a state trial court with the intent to raise their constitutional claims in a federal habeas court if their initial gamble does not pay off." (5) A contemporaneous-objection rule "encourages the result that [criminal trials] be as free of error as possible." None of these rationales has any force in the present case. The first three reasons are valid, if at all, only in the particular context of objections to the admission of evidence, such as were at issue in As for the "sandbagging" rationale, dutifully repeated by today's Court, ante, at 129, n. 34, that was fully answered in my dissent:[13] That argument still "offends common sense," and does not become less offensive by sententious repetition. And the final reason relied on again today, ante, at 127 is plainly irrelevant to a case involving inchoate constitutional claims. Such claims are exhypothesis so embryonic that only the extraordinarily foresighted criminal defendant will raise them. It is completely implausible to expect that the raising of such claims will predictably or even occasionally make trials more "free of error." B The Court justifies its result today with several additional reasons or, rather, sentiments in reasons' clothing. We are told, ante, at 126-127, that "the Great Writ entails significant *147 costs. Collateral review of a conviction extends the ordeal of trial for both society and the accused." But we are not told why the accused would consider it an "ordeal" to go to federal court in order to attempt to vindicate his constitutional rights. Nor are we told why society should be eager to ensure the finality of a conviction arguably tainted by unreviewed constitutional error directly affecting the truthfinding function of the trial. I simply fail to understand how allowance of a habeas hearing "entails significant costs" to anyone under the circumstances of the cases before us. In a similar vein, we are told, ante, at 127, that "[w]e must also acknowledge that writs of habeas corpus frequently cost society the right to punish admitted offenders." I for one will acknowledge nothing of the sort. Respondents were all convicted after trials in which they allege that the burden of proof respecting their affirmative defenses was imposed upon them in an unconstitutional manner. Thus they are not "admitted" offenders at all: If they had been tried with the assertedly proper allocation of the burden of proof, then they |
Justice Brennan | 1,982 | 13 | dissenting | Engle v. Isaac | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110692/engle-v-isaac/ | assertedly proper allocation of the burden of proof, then they might very well have been acquitted. Further, it is sheer demagoguery to blame the "offender" for the logistical and temporal difficulties arising from retrial: If the writ of habeas *148 corpus has been granted, then it is at least as reasonable to blame the State for having prosecuted the first trial "in violation of the Constitution or laws of the United States," 28 U.S. C. 2254(a). Finally, we are told that "the Great Writ imposes special costs on our federal system"; that "[f]ederal intrusions into state criminal trials frustrate both the States' sovereign power to punish offenders and their good-faith attempts to honor constitutional rights," ante, at 128; and that "[s]tate courts are understandably frustrated when they faithfully apply existing constitutional law only to have a federal court discover, during a 2254 proceeding, new constitutional commands." Ante, at 128, n. 33. Once again, the Court drags a red herring across its path. I hope that the Court forgets only momentarily that "the States' sovereign power" is limited by the Constitution of the United States: that the "intrusion" complained of is that of the supreme law of the land. But it must be reason for deep concern when this Court forgets, as it certainly does today, that "it is a constitution we are expounding, a constitution intended to endure for ages to come, and, consequently, to be adapted to the various crises of human affairs."[14] It is inimical to the principle of federal constitutional supremacy to defer to state courts' "frustration" at the requirements of federal constitutional law as it is interpreted in an evolving society. promised that its cause-and-prejudice standard would "not prevent a federal habeas court from adjudicating for the first time the federal constitutional claim of a defendant who in the absence of such an adjudication will be the victim of a miscarriage of justice." 433 U.S., Today's decision, with its unvarnished hostility to the assertion of federal constitutional claims, starkly reveals the emptiness of that promise. *149 C Finally, there is the issue of the Court's extension of the standard "to cases in which the constitutional error. affect[s] the truthfinding function of the trial." Ante, at 129. The Court concedes, ibid., that itself involved the violation of the habeas petitioner's Miranda rights, and that although "this defect was serious, it did not affect the determination of guilt at trial." But despite the fact that the present cases admittedly do involve a defect affecting the determination of guilt, the Court refuses to limit and thus bars federal review: |
Justice Brennan | 1,982 | 13 | dissenting | Engle v. Isaac | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110692/engle-v-isaac/ | the Court refuses to limit and thus bars federal review: "We do not believe that the principles of lend themselves to this limitation." Ante, at 129. In so holding, the Court ignores the manifest differences between claims that affect the truthfinding function of the trial and claims that do not. The Court proclaimed in that "the ultimate question of guilt or innocence. should be the central concern in a criminal proceeding." A defendant's Fourth Amendment rights, see Stone, or his Miranda rights, see may arguably be characterized as "crucially different from many other constitutional rights," in that evidence procured in violation of those rights has not ordinarily been rendered untrustworthy by the means of its procurement. But a defendant's right to a trial at which the burden of proof has been constitutionally allocated can never be violated without rendering the entire trial result untrustworthy. "In all kinds of litigation it is plain that where the burden of proof lies may be decisive of the outcome," and petitioners in the present cases concede as much, Brief for Petitioners 22. As Justice Harlan noted in In re Winship, : "If, for example, the standard of proof for a criminal trial were a preponderance of the evidence rather than proof beyond a reasonable doubt, there would be a smaller risk *150 of factual errors that result in freeing guilty persons, but a far greater risk of factual errors that result in convicting the innocent." Where, as here, the burden was placed on respondents, rather than on the prosecution, to prove their affirmative defenses by a preponderance of the evidence, the risk of convicting the innocent is even greater than in Justice Harlan's example. And if this allocation of the burden of proof was erroneous, then that error constitutes a denial of due process of intolerable proportions. We have recognized the truth of this proposition in numerous precedents. In Ivan V. v. City of New York, we held our earlier decision in Winship to be fully retroactive, stating: " `Where the major purpose of a new constitutional doctrine is to overcome an aspect of a criminal trial that substantially impairs its truth-finding function and so raises serious questions about the accuracy of guilty verdicts in past trials, the new rule has been given complete retroactive effect. Neither good-faith reliance by state or federal authorities on prior constitutional law or accepted practice, nor severe impact on the administration of justice has sufficed to require prospective application in these circumstances.' See ;"[15] In sum, this Court has heretofore adhered to the principle that "[i]n the administration |
Justice Stevens | 1,991 | 16 | majority | Summit Health, Ltd. v. Pinhas | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112599/summit-health-ltd-v-pinhas/ | The question presented is whether the interstate commerce requirement of antitrust jurisdiction is satisfied by allegations that petitioners conspired to exclude respondent, a duly licensed and practicing physician and surgeon, from the market for ophthalmological services in Los Angeles because he refused to follow an unnecessarily costly surgical procedure. In 1987, respondent Dr. Simon J. Pinhas filed a complaint in District Court alleging that petitioners Summit Health, Ltd. (Summit), Midway Hospital Medical Center (Midway), its medical staff, and others had entered into a conspiracy to drive him out of business "so that other ophthalmologists and eye physicians [including four of the petitioners] will have a greater share of the eye care and ophthalmic surgery in Los *325 Angeles." App. 39. Among his allegations was a claim that the conspiracy violated 1 of the Sherman Act.[1] The District Court granted defendants' (now petitioners') motion to dismiss the First Amended Complaint (complaint) without leave to amend, App. 315, but the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reinstated the antitrust claim.[2] We granted certiorari, to consider petitioners' contention that the complaint fails to satisfy the jurisdictional requirements of the Sherman Act, as interpreted in because it does not describe a factual nexus between the alleged boycott and interstate commerce. I Because this case comes before us from the granting of a motion to dismiss on the pleadings, we must assume the truth of the material facts as alleged in the complaint. Respondent, a diplomate of the American Board of Ophthalmology, has earned a national and international reputation as a specialist in corneal eye problems. App. 7. Since October 1981, he has been a member of the staff of Midway in Los Angeles, and because of his special skills, has performed more eye surgical procedures, including cornea transplants and cataract removals, than any other surgeon at the hospital. [3] *326 Prior to 1986, most eye surgeries in Los Angeles were performed by a primary surgeon with the assistance of a second surgeon. This practice significantly increased the cost of eye surgery. In February of that year, the administrators of the Medicare program announced that they would no longer reimburse physicians for the services of assistants, and most hospitals in southern California abolished the assistant surgeon requirement. Respondent, and certain other ophthalmologists, asked Midway to abandon the requirement, but the medical staff refused to do so. Respondent explained that because Medicare reimbursement was no longer available, the requirement would cost him about $60,000 per year in payments to competing surgeons for assistance that he did not need. Although respondent expressed a desire |
Justice Stevens | 1,991 | 16 | majority | Summit Health, Ltd. v. Pinhas | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112599/summit-health-ltd-v-pinhas/ | that he did not need. Although respondent expressed a desire to maintain the preponderance of his practice at Midway, he nevertheless advised the hospital that he would leave if the assistant surgeon requirement were not eliminated. Petitioners responded to respondent's request to forgo an assistant in two ways. First, Midway and its corporate parent offered respondent a "sham" contract that provided for payments of $36,000 per year (later increased by oral offer to $60,000) for services that he would not be asked to perform. Second, when respondent refused to sign or return the "sham" contract, petitioners initiated peer review proceedings against him and summarily suspended, and subsequently terminated, his medical staff privileges.[4] at 10. The *327 proceedings were conducted in an unfair manner by biased decisionmakers, and ultimately resulted in an order upholding one of seven charges against respondent, and imposing severe restrictions on his practice.[5] When this action was commenced, petitioners were preparing to distribute an adverse report[6] about respondent that would "preclude him from continued competition in the market place, not only at defendant Midway Hospital [but also] in California, if not the United States." The defendants allegedly planned to disseminate the report "to all hospitals which Dr. Pinhas is a member [sic], and to all hospitals to which he may apply so as to secure similar actions by those hospitals, thus effectuating a boycott of Dr. Pinhas." The complaint alleges that petitioner Summit owns and operates 19 hospitals, including Midway, and 49 other health care facilities in California, six other States, and Saudia Arabia. Summit, Midway, and each of the four ophthalmic surgeons named as individual defendants, as well as respondent, are all allegedly engaged in interstate commerce. The provision of ophthalmological services affects interstate commerce because both physicians and hospitals serve nonresident patients and receive reimbursement through Medicare payments. Reports concerning peer review proceedings are routinely distributed across *328 state lines and affect doctors' employment opportunities throughout the Nation. In the Court of Appeals, petitioners defended the District Court's dismissal of the complaint on the ground that there was no allegation that interstate commerce would be affected by respondent's removal from the Midway medical staff. The Court of Appeals rejected this argument because "`as a matter of practical economics'" the hospital's "peer review process in general" obviously affected interstate commerce. The court added: "Pinhas need not, as appellees apparently believe, make the more particularized showing of the effect on interstate commerce caused by the alleged conspiracy to keep him from working. [, -243]. He need only prove that peer-review proceedings have an effect on interstate commerce, |
Justice Stevens | 1,991 | 16 | majority | Summit Health, Ltd. v. Pinhas | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112599/summit-health-ltd-v-pinhas/ | prove that peer-review proceedings have an effect on interstate commerce, a fact that can hardly be disputed. The proceedings affect the entire staff at Midway and thus affect the hospital's interstate commerce. Appellees' contention that Pinhas failed to allege a nexus with interstate commerce because the absence of Pinhas's services will not drastically affect the interstate commerce of Midway therefore misses the mark and must be rejected." II Congress enacted the Sherman Act in 1890.[7] During the past century, as the dimensions and complexity of our economy have grown, the federal power over commerce, and the concomitant coverage of the Sherman Act, have experienced *329 similar expansion.[8] This history has been recounted before,[9] and we need not reiterate it today.[10] We therefore begin by noting certain propositions that are undisputed in this case. Petitioner Summit, the parent of Midway as well as of several other general hospitals, is unquestionably engaged in interstate commerce. Moreover, although Midway's primary activity is the provision of health care services in a local market, it also engages in interstate commerce. A conspiracy to prevent Midway from expanding would be covered by the Sherman Act, even though any actual impact on interstate commerce would be "`indirect'" and "`fortuitous.'" Hospital Building No specific purpose to restrain interstate commerce is required. As a "matter of practical economics," ib the effect of such a conspiracy on the hospital's "purchases of out-of-state medicines and supplies as well as its revenues from out-of-state insurance companies," at would establish the necessary interstate nexus. This case does not involve the full range of activities conducted at a general hospital. Rather, this case involves the provision of ophthalmological services. It seems clear, however, that these services are regularly performed for out-of-state *330 patients and generate revenues from out-of-state sources; their importance as part of the entire operation of the hospital is evident from the allegations of the complaint. A conspiracy to eliminate the entire ophthalmological department of the hospital, like a conspiracy to destroy the hospital itself, would unquestionably affect interstate commerce. Petitioners contend, however, that a boycott of a single surgeon has no such obvious effect because the complaint does not deny the existence of an adequate supply of other surgeons to perform all of the services that respondent's current and future patients may ever require. Petitioners argue that respondent's complaint is insufficient because there is no factual nexus between the restraint on this one surgeon's practice and interstate commerce. There are two flaws in petitioners' argument. First, because the essence of any violation of 1 is the illegal agreement itselfrather than the |
Justice Stevens | 1,991 | 16 | majority | Summit Health, Ltd. v. Pinhas | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112599/summit-health-ltd-v-pinhas/ | violation of 1 is the illegal agreement itselfrather than the overt acts performed in furtherance of it, see United proper analysis focuses, not upon actual consequences, but rather upon the potential harm that would ensue if the conspiracy were successful. As we explained in : "If establishing jurisdiction required a showing that the unlawful conduct itself had an effect on interstate commerce, jurisdiction would be defeated by a demonstration that the alleged restraint failed to have its intended anticompetitive effect. This is not the rule of our cases. See American Tobacco ; United A violation may still be found in such circumstances because in a civil action under the Sherman Act, liability may be established by proof of either an unlawful purpose or an anticompetitive effect. United ; see United *331 ; United ; United at 224-." Thus, respondent need not allege, or prove, an actual effect on interstate commerce to support federal jurisdiction.[11] Second, if the conspiracy alleged in the complaint is successful, "`as a matter of practical economics'" there will be a reduction in the provision of ophthalmological services in the Los Angeles market. (quoting Hospital Building 425 U. S., ). In cases involving horizontal agreements to fix prices or allocate territories within a single State, we have based jurisdiction on a general conclusion that the defendants' agreement "almost surely" had a marketwide impact and therefore an effect on interstate commerce, or that the agreement "necessarily affect[ed]" the volume of residential sales and therefore the demand for financing and title insurance provided by out-of-state concerns. In the latter case, we explained: "To establish the jurisdictional element of a Sherman Act violation it would be sufficient for petitioners to demonstrate a substantial effect on interstate commerce generated by respondents' brokerage activity. Petitioners need not make the more particularized showing of an effect on interstate commerce caused by the alleged conspiracy to fix commission rates, or by those other aspects of respondents' activity that are alleged to be unlawful." *332 Although plaintiffs in were consumers of the conspirators' real estate brokerage services, and plaintiff in this case is a competing surgeon whose complaint identifies only himself as the victim of the alleged boycott, the same analysis applies. For if a violation of the Sherman Act occurred, the case is necessarily more significant than the fate of "just one merchant whose business is so small that his destruction makes little difference to the economy." Klor's, v. Broadway-Hale Stores, The case involves an alleged restraint on the practice of ophthalmological services. The restraint was accomplished by an alleged misuse of a congressionally |
Justice Stevens | 1,991 | 16 | majority | Summit Health, Ltd. v. Pinhas | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112599/summit-health-ltd-v-pinhas/ | restraint was accomplished by an alleged misuse of a congressionally regulated peer review process,[12] which respondent characterizes as the gateway that controls access to the market for his services. The gateway was closed to respondent, both at Midway and at other hospitals, because petitioners insisted upon adhering to an unnecessarily costly procedure. The competitive significance of respondent's exclusion from the market must be measured, not just by a particularized evaluation of his own practice, but rather, by a general evaluation of the impact of the restraint on other participants and potential participants in the market from which he has been excluded. We have no doubt concerning the power of Congress to regulate a peer review process controlling access to the *333 market for ophthalmological surgery in Los Angeles. Thus, respondent's claim that members of the peer review committee conspired with others to abuse that process and thereby deny respondent access to the market for ophthalmological services provided by general hospitals in Los Angeles has a sufficient nexus with interstate commerce to support federal jurisdiction. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed. It is so ordered. |
Justice Brennan | 1,986 | 13 | concurring | Bethel School Dist. No. 403 v. Fraser | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111754/bethel-school-dist-no-403-v-fraser/ | Respondent gave the following speech at a high school assembly in support of a candidate for student government office: " `I know a man who is firm he's firm in his pants, he's firm in his shirt, his character is firm but most of all, his belief in you, the students of Bethel, is firm. " `Jeff Kuhlman is a man who takes his point and pounds it in. If necessary, he'll take an issue and nail it to the wall. He doesn't attack things in spurts he drives hard, pushing and pushing until finally he succeeds. " `Jeff is a man who will go to the very end even the climax, for each and every one of you. " `So vote for Jeff for A. S. B. vice-president he'll never come between you and the best our high school can be.' " App. 47. The Court, referring to these remarks as "obscene," "vulgar," "lewd," and "offensively lewd," concludes that school officials properly punished respondent for uttering the speech. Having read the full text of respondent's remarks, I find it difficult to believe that it is the same speech the Court describes. To my mind, the most that can be said about respondent's speech and all that need be said is that in light of the discretion school officials have to teach high school students how to conduct civil and effective public discourse, and to prevent disruption of school educational activities, it was *688 not unconstitutional for school officials to conclude, under the circumstances of this case, that respondent's remarks exceeded permissible limits. Thus, while I concur in the Court's judgment, I write separately to express my understanding of the breadth of the Court's holding. The Court today reaffirms the unimpeachable proposition that students do not " `shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.' " Ante, at 680 ). If respondent had given the same speech outside of the school environment, he could not have been penalized simply because government officials considered his language to be inappropriate, see ; the Court's opinion does not suggest otherwise.[1] Moreover, despite the Court's characterizations, the language respondent used is far removed from the very narrow class of "obscene" speech which the Court has held is not protected by the First Amendment. ; It is true, however, that the State has interests in teaching high school students how to conduct civil and effective public discourse and in avoiding disruption of educational school activities. Thus, the Court holds that under |
Justice Brennan | 1,986 | 13 | concurring | Bethel School Dist. No. 403 v. Fraser | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111754/bethel-school-dist-no-403-v-fraser/ | of educational school activities. Thus, the Court holds that under certain circumstances, high school students may properly be reprimanded for giving a speech at a high school assembly which school officials conclude disrupted the school's educational *689 mission.[2] Respondent's speech may well have been protected had he given it in school but under different circumstances, where the school's legitimate interests in teaching and maintaining civil public discourse were less weighty. In the present case, school officials sought only to ensure that a high school assembly proceed in an orderly manner. There is no suggestion that school officials attempted to regulate respondent's speech because they disagreed with the views he sought to express. Cf. Nor does this case involve an attempt by school officials to ban written materials they consider "inappropriate" for high school students, cf. Board of or to limit what students should hear, read, or learn about. Thus, the Court's holding concerns only the authority that school officials have to restrict a high school student's use of disruptive language in a speech given to a high school assembly. The authority school officials have to regulate such speech by high school students is not limitless. See ("[S]chool officials do [not] have limitless discretion to apply their own notions of indecency. Courts have a First *690 Amendment responsibility to insure that robust rhetoric is not suppressed by prudish failures to distinguish the vigorous from the vulgar"). Under the circumstances of this case, however, I believe that school officials did not violate the First Amendment in determining that respondent should be disciplined for the disruptive language he used while addressing a high school assembly.[3] Thus, I concur in the judgment reversing the decision of the Court of Appeals. |
Justice Powell | 1,986 | 17 | majority | Batson v. Kentucky | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111662/batson-v-kentucky/ | This case requires us to reexamine that portion of concerning the evidentiary burden placed on a criminal defendant who claims that he has been denied equal protection through the State's use of peremptory challenges to exclude members of his race from the petit [1] I Petitioner, a black man, was indicted in Kentucky on charges of second-degree burglary and receipt of stolen goods. On the first day of trial in Jefferson Circuit Court, the judge conducted voir dire examination of the venire, excused certain for cause, and permitted the parties to *83 exercise peremptory challenges.[2] The prosecutor used his peremptory challenges to strike all four black persons on the venire, and a composed only of white persons was selected. Defense counsel moved to discharge the before it was sworn on the ground that the prosecutor's removal of the black veniremen violated petitioner's rights under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to a drawn from a cross section of the community, and under the Fourteenth Amendment to equal protection of the laws. Counsel requested a hearing on his motion. Without expressly ruling on the request for a hearing, the trial judge observed that the parties were entitled to use their peremptory challenges to "strike anybody they want to." The judge then denied petitioner's motion, reasoning that the cross-section requirement applies only to selection of the venire and not to selection of the petit itself. The convicted petitioner on both counts. On appeal to the Supreme Court of Kentucky, petitioner pressed, among other claims, the argument concerning the prosecutor's use of peremptory challenges. Conceding that apparently foreclosed an equal protection claim based solely on the prosecutor's conduct in this case, petitioner urged the court to follow decisions of other States, ; and to hold that such conduct violated his rights under the Sixth Amendment and 11 of the Kentucky Constitution to a drawn from a cross section of the community. Petitioner also contended *84 that the facts showed that the prosecutor had engaged in a "pattern" of discriminatory challenges in this case and established an equal protection violation under Swain. The Supreme Court of Kentucky affirmed. In a single paragraph, the court declined petitioner's invitation to adopt the reasoning of and The court observed that it recently had reaffirmed its reliance on Swain, and had held that a defendant alleging lack of a fair cross section must demonstrate systematic exclusion of a group of from the venire. See We granted certiorari, and now reverse. II In this Court recognized that a "State's purposeful or deliberate denial to Negroes on account of race of |
Justice Powell | 1,986 | 17 | majority | Batson v. Kentucky | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111662/batson-v-kentucky/ | or deliberate denial to Negroes on account of race of participation as in the administration of justice violates the Equal Protection Clause." -204. This principle has been "consistently and repeatedly" reaffirmed, in numerous decisions of this Court both preceding and following Swain.[3] We reaffirm the principle today.[4] *85 A More than a century ago, the Court decided that the State denies a black defendant equal protection of the laws when it puts him on trial before a from which members of his race have been purposefully excluded. That decision laid the foundation for the Court's unceasing efforts to eradicate racial discrimination in the procedures used to select the venire from which individual are drawn. In the Court explained that the central concern of the recently ratified Fourteenth Amendment was to put an end to governmental discrimination on account of race. Exclusion of black citizens from service as constitutes a primary example of the evil the Fourteenth Amendment was designed to cure. In holding that racial discrimination in selection offends the Equal Protection Clause, the Court in recognized, however, that a defendant has no right to a "petit composed in whole or in part of persons of his own race."[5] "The number of our races and nationalities stands in the way of evolution of such a conception" of the demand of equal protection.[6] But the defendant does have the right to be *86 tried by a whose members are selected pursuant to nondiscriminatory criteria. ; Ex parte The Equal Protection Clause guarantees the defendant that the State will not exclude members of his race from the venire on account of race,[7] or on the false assumption that members of his race as a group are not qualified to serve as see Norris v. ; Purposeful racial discrimination in selection of the venire violates a defendant's right to equal protection because it denies him the protection that a trial by is intended to secure. "The very idea of a is a body composed of the peers or equals of the person whose rights it is selected or summoned to determine; that is, of his neighbors, fellows, associates, persons having the same legal status in society as that which he holds." ; see The petit has occupied a central position in our system of justice by safeguarding a person accused of crime against the arbitrary exercise of power by prosecutor or judge.[8] Those on the venire *87 must be "indifferently chosen,"[9] to secure the defendant's right under the Fourteenth Amendment to "protection of life and liberty against race or color prejudice." Racial discrimination |
Justice Powell | 1,986 | 17 | majority | Batson v. Kentucky | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111662/batson-v-kentucky/ | life and liberty against race or color prejudice." Racial discrimination in selection of harms not only the accused whose life or liberty they are summoned to try. Competence to serve as a juror ultimately depends on an assessment of individual qualifications and ability impartially to consider evidence presented at a trial. See A person's race simply "is unrelated to his fitness as a " As long ago as therefore, the Court recognized that by denying a person participation in service on account of his race, the State unconstitutionally discriminated against the excluded 100 U.S., ; see at 329-; The harm from discriminatory selection extends beyond that inflicted on the defendant and the excluded juror to touch the entire community. Selection procedures that purposefully exclude black persons from juries undermine public confidence in the fairness of our system of justice. See ; Discrimination within the *88 judicial system is most pernicious because it is "a stimulant to that race prejudice which is an impediment to securing to [black citizens] that equal justice which the law aims to secure to all others." 100 U. S., B In the Court invalidated a state statute that provided that only white men could serve as We can be confident that no State now has such a law. The Constitution requires, however, that we look beyond the face of the statute defining juror qualifications and also consider challenged selection practices to afford "protection against action of the State through its administrative officers in effecting the prohibited discrimination." Norris v. ; see (4); Ex parte Thus, the Court has found a denial of equal protection where the procedures implementing a neutral statute operated to exclude persons from the venire on racial grounds,[10] and has made clear that the Constitution prohibits all forms of purposeful racial discrimination in selection of[11] While decisions of this Court have been concerned largely with discrimination during selection of the venire, the principles announced there also forbid discrimination on account of race in selection of the petit Since the Fourteenth Amendment protects an accused throughout the proceedings bringing him to justice, the State may not draw up its lists pursuant to neutral procedures but then resort to discrimination at "other stages in the selection process," U.S. 559, (3); see *89 ; see also Accordingly, the component of the selection process at issue here, the State's privilege to strike individual through peremptory challenges, is subject to the commands of the Equal Protection Clause.[12] Although a prosecutor ordinarily is entitled to exercise permitted peremptory challenges "for any reason at all, as long as that reason |
Justice Powell | 1,986 | 17 | majority | Batson v. Kentucky | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111662/batson-v-kentucky/ | "for any reason at all, as long as that reason is related to his view concerning the outcome" of the case to be tried, United mandamus granted sub nom. United the Equal Protection Clause forbids the prosecutor to challenge potential solely on account of their race or on the assumption that black as a group will be unable impartially to consider the State's case against a black defendant. III The principles announced in never have been questioned in any subsequent decision of this Court. *90 Rather, the Court has been called upon repeatedly to review the application of those principles to particular facts.[13] A recurring question in these cases, as in any case alleging a violation of the Equal Protection Clause, was whether the defendant had met his burden of proving purposeful discrimination on the part of the State. ; ; 3 U. S., at -404; That question also was at the heart of the portion of we reexamine today.[14] A Swain required the Court to decide, among other issues, whether a black defendant was denied equal protection by the State's exercise of peremptory challenges to exclude members of his race from the petit -210. The record in Swain showed that the prosecutor *91 had used the State's peremptory challenges to strike the six black persons included on the petit venire. While rejecting the defendant's claim for failure to prove purposeful discrimination, the Court nonetheless indicated that the Equal Protection Clause placed some limits on the State's exercise of peremptory challenges. The Court sought to accommodate the prosecutor's historical privilege of peremptory challenge free of judicial control, and the constitutional prohibition on exclusion of persons from service on account of race, While the Constitution does not confer a right to peremptory challenges, at 219 ), those challenges traditionally have been viewed as one means of assuring the selection of a qualified and unbiased[15] To preserve the peremptory nature of the prosecutor's challenge, the Court in Swain declined to scrutinize his actions in a particular case by relying on a presumption that he properly exercised the State's challenges. The Court went on to observe, however, that a State may not exercise its challenges in contravention of the Equal Protection Clause. It was impermissible for a prosecutor to use his challenges to exclude blacks from the "for reasons wholly unrelated to the outcome of the particular case on trial" or to deny to blacks "the same right and opportunity to participate in the administration of justice enjoyed by the white population." Accordingly, a black defendant could make out a prima facie case |
Justice Powell | 1,986 | 17 | majority | Batson v. Kentucky | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111662/batson-v-kentucky/ | a black defendant could make out a prima facie case of purposeful discrimination on proof that the peremptory challenge system was "being perverted" in that manner. For example, an inference of purposeful discrimination would be raised on evidence that a prosecutor, "in case after case, whatever the *92 circumstances, whatever the crime and whoever the defendant or the victim may be, is responsible for the removal of Negroes who have been selected as qualified by the commissioners and who have survived challenges for cause, with the result that no Negroes ever serve on petit juries." Evidence offered by the defendant in Swain did not meet that standard. While the defendant showed that prosecutors in the jurisdiction had exercised their strikes to exclude blacks from the he offered no proof of the circumstances under which prosecutors were responsible for striking black beyond the facts of his own case. -228. A number of lower courts following the teaching of Swain reasoned that proof of repeated striking of blacks over a number of cases was necessary to establish a violation of the Equal Protection Clause.[16] Since this interpretation of Swain has placed on defendants a crippling burden of proof,[17] prosecutors' peremptory challenges are now largely immune *93 from constitutional scrutiny. For reasons that follow, we reject this evidentiary formulation as inconsistent with standards that have been developed since Swain for assessing a prima facie case under the Equal Protection Clause. B Since the decision in Swain, we have explained that our cases concerning selection of the venire reflect the general equal protection principle that the "invidious quality" of governmental action claimed to be racially discriminatory "must ultimately be traced to a racially discriminatory purpose." As in any equal protection case, the "burden is, of course," on the defendant who alleges discriminatory selection of the venire "to prove the existence of purposeful discrimination." 385 U. S., at ). In deciding if the defendant has carried his burden of persuasion, a court must undertake "a sensitive inquiry into such circumstantial and direct evidence of intent as may be available." Arlington Circumstantial evidence of invidious intent may include proof of disproportionate impact. We have observed that under some circumstances proof of discriminatory impact "may for all practical purposes demonstrate unconstitutionality because in various circumstances the discrimination is very difficult to explain on non-racial grounds." For example, "total or seriously disproportionate exclusion of Negroes from venires," ib "is itself such an `unequal application of the law as to show intentional discrimination,' " (quoting ). Moreover, since Swain, we have recognized that a black defendant alleging that members |
Justice Powell | 1,986 | 17 | majority | Batson v. Kentucky | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111662/batson-v-kentucky/ | we have recognized that a black defendant alleging that members of his race have been impermissibly excluded from the venire may make out a prima *94 facie case of purposeful discrimination by showing that the totality of the relevant facts gives rise to an inference of discriminatory purpose. Once the defendant makes the requisite showing, the burden shifts to the State to explain adequately the racial exclusion. 405 U. S., at The State cannot meet this burden on mere general assertions that its officials did not discriminate or that they properly performed their official duties. See at ; Jones v. Rather, the State must demonstrate that "permissible racially neutral selection criteria and procedures have produced the monochromatic result." at ; see[18] The showing necessary to establish a prima facie case of purposeful discrimination in selection of the venire may be discerned in this Court's decisions. E. g., ; at 631-. The defendant initially must show that he is a member of a racial group capable of being singled out for differential treatment. In combination with that evidence, a defendant may then make a prima facie case by proving that in the particular jurisdiction members of his race have not been summoned for service over an extended period of time. Proof of systematic exclusion from the venire raises an inference of purposeful discrimination because the "result bespeaks discrimination." 347 *; see Arlington at Since the ultimate issue is whether the State has discriminated in selecting the defendant's venire, however, the defendant may establish a prima facie case "in other ways than by evidence of long-continued unexplained absence" of members of his race "from many panels." Cassell v. (0) In cases involving the venire, this Court has found a prima facie case on proof that members of the defendant's race were substantially underrepresented on the venire from which his was drawn, and that the venire was selected under a practice providing "the opportunity for discrimination." ; see ; ; This combination of factors raises the necessary inference of purposeful discrimination because the Court has declined to attribute to chance the absence of black citizens on a particular array where the selection mechanism is subject to abuse. When circumstances suggest the need, the trial court must undertake a "factual inquiry" that "takes into account all possible explanatory factors" in the particular case. Thus, since the decision in Swain, this Court has recognized that a defendant may make a prima facie showing of purposeful racial discrimination in selection of the venire by relying solely on the facts concerning its selection in his case. These |
Justice Powell | 1,986 | 17 | majority | Batson v. Kentucky | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111662/batson-v-kentucky/ | on the facts concerning its selection in his case. These decisions are in accordance with the proposition, articulated in Arlington that "a consistent pattern of official racial discrimination" is not "a necessary predicate to a violation of the Equal Protection Clause. A single invidiously discriminatory governmental act" is not "immunized by the absence of such discrimination in the making of other comparable decisions." 429 U.S., at n. 14. For evidentiary requirements *96 to dictate that "several must suffer discrimination" before one could object, 461 U. S., would be inconsistent with the promise of equal protection to all.[19] C The standards for assessing a prima facie case in the context of discriminatory selection of the venire have been fully articulated since Swain. See at ; 426 U. S., -242; These principles support our conclusion that a defendant may establish a prima facie case of purposeful discrimination in selection of the petit solely on evidence concerning the prosecutor's exercise of peremptory challenges at the defendant's trial. To establish such a case, the defendant first must show that he is a member of a cognizable racial group, and that the prosecutor has exercised peremptory challenges to remove from the venire members of the defendant's race. Second, the defendant is entitled to rely on the fact, as to which there can be no dispute, that peremptory challenges constitute a selection practice that permits "those to discriminate who are of a mind to discriminate." U. S., at Finally, the defendant must show that these facts and any other relevant circumstances raise an inference that the prosecutor used that practice to exclude the veniremen from the petit on account of their race. This combination of factors in the empaneling of the petit as in the selection of the venire, raises the necessary inference of purposeful discrimination. In deciding whether the defendant has made the requisite showing, the trial court should consider all relevant circumstances. *97 For example, a "pattern" of strikes against black included in the particular venire might give rise to an inference of discrimination. Similarly, the prosecutor's questions and statements during voir dire examination and in exercising his challenges may support or refute an inference of discriminatory purpose. These examples are merely illustrative. We have confidence that trial judges, experienced in supervising voir dire, will be able to decide if the circumstances concerning the prosecutor's use of peremptory challenges creates a prima facie case of discrimination against black Once the defendant makes a prima facie showing, the burden shifts to the State to come forward with a neutral explanation for challenging black Though this |
Justice Powell | 1,986 | 17 | majority | Batson v. Kentucky | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111662/batson-v-kentucky/ | forward with a neutral explanation for challenging black Though this requirement imposes a limitation in some cases on the full peremptory character of the historic challenge, we emphasize that the prosecutor's explanation need not rise to the level justifying exercise of a challenge for cause. See McCray v. Abrams, 750 F. 2d, at 1132; cert. pending, No. 85-1028. But the prosecutor may not rebut the defendant's prima facie case of discrimination by stating merely that he challenged of the defendant's race on the assumption or his intuitive judgment that they would be partial to the defendant because of their shared race. Cf. Norris v. -; see Just as the Equal Protection Clause forbids the States to exclude black persons from the venire on the assumption that blacks as a group are unqualified to serve as so it forbids the States to strike black veniremen on the assumption that they will be biased in a particular case simply because the defendant is black. The core guarantee of equal protection, ensuring citizens that their State will not discriminate on account of race, would be meaningless were we to approve the exclusion of on the basis of *98 such assumptions, which arise solely from the ' race. Nor may the prosecutor rebut the defendant's case merely by denying that he had a discriminatory motive or "affirm[ing] [his] good faith in making individual selections." 405 U. S., at If these general assertions were accepted as rebutting a defendant's prima facie case, the Equal Protection Clause "would be but a vain and illusory requirement." Norris v. The prosecutor therefore must articulate a neutral explanation related to the particular case to be tried.[20] The trial court then will have the duty to determine if the defendant has established purposeful discrimination.[21] IV The State contends that our holding will eviscerate the fair trial values served by the peremptory challenge. Conceding that the Constitution does not guarantee a right to peremptory challenges and that Swain did state that their use ultimately is subject to the strictures of equal protection, the State argues that the privilege of unfettered exercise of the challenge is of vital importance to the criminal justice system. While we recognize, of course, that the peremptory challenge occupies an important position in our trial procedures, we do not agree that our decision today will undermine the *99 contribution the challenge generally makes to the administration of justice. The reality of practice, amply reflected in many state- and federal-court opinions, shows that the challenge may be, and unfortunately at times has been, used to discriminate |
Justice Powell | 1,986 | 17 | majority | Batson v. Kentucky | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111662/batson-v-kentucky/ | be, and unfortunately at times has been, used to discriminate against black By requiring trial courts to be sensitive to the racially discriminatory use of peremptory challenges, our decision enforces the mandate of equal protection and furthers the ends of justice.[22] In view of the heterogeneous population of our Nation, public respect for our criminal justice system and the rule of law will be strengthened if we ensure that no citizen is disqualified from service because of his race. Nor are we persuaded by the State's suggestion that our holding will create serious administrative difficulties. In those States applying a version of the evidentiary standard we recognize today, courts have not experienced serious administrative burdens,[23] and the peremptory challenge system has survived. We decline, however, to formulate particular procedures to be followed upon a defendant's timely objection to a prosecutor's challenges.[24] *100 V In this case, petitioner made a timely objection to the prosecutor's removal of all black persons on the venire. Because the trial court flatly rejected the objection without requiring the prosecutor to give an explanation for his action, we remand this case for further proceedings. If the trial court decides that the facts establish, prima facie, purposeful discrimination and the prosecutor does not come forward with a neutral explanation for his action, our precedents require that petitioner's conviction be reversed. E. g., -; ; Patton v.[] It is so ordered. |
Justice Blackmun | 1,984 | 11 | concurring | South Carolina v. Regan | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111104/south-carolina-v-regan/ | I, too, agree with all those who have written opinions in this case that the Anti-Injunction Act, 26 U.S. C. 421(a), is no bar to the ability of the State of South Carolina to invoke the original jurisdiction of this Court in order to challenge the validity of a federal tax statute. Like JUSTICE O'CONNOR, I have reservations about the breadth of the approach taken by JUSTICE BRENNAN in determining that Congress did not intend the Act to apply in any case in which the aggrieved party has no alternative avenue by which to contest the legality of a particular tax. In Bob Jones the Court stressed the broad sweep of the Anti-Injunction Act. The Court noted that the language added in 66, prohibiting any suit for the purpose of restraining the assessment or collection of any tax "by any person, whether or not such person is the person against whom such tax was assessed," see 110(c) of the Federal Tax Lien Act of 66, *383 Stat. 1144, was intended as a "reaffirmation of the plain meaning" of the Act as it had stood since 186. See -32, n. 6. See also The Court in Bob Jones rejected the petitioner's efforts to rely on exceptions to the reach of the Act suggested in the 10's for situations in which there is no adequate remedy short of a suit to enjoin the challenged tax. See Because it concluded that the plaintiffs in Bob Jones and "Americans United" had access to judicial forums in which to challenge the alleged deprivations of their property, the Court did not need to decide whether and under what circumstances its broad reading of the Anti-Injunction Act might deny an aggrieved party due of law. Unlike JUSTICE O'CONNOR, I see no need to decide whether Congress intended the Anti-Injunction Act to apply to suits invoking this Court's original jurisdiction. I would decide this case on the narrower ground set forth in my dissenting opinion in "Americans United," I there expressed concern that the Court was overlooking a necessary first step in applying the Anti-Injunction Act, that is, the determination whether the litigation is a " `suit for the purpose of restraining' " any tax. quoting 26 U.S. C. 421(a). Here, as in "Americans United," there can be no serious argument that the disposition of South Carolina's claim will have much effect, if any at all, upon federal tax revenues. If South Carolina loses, it will register its securities.[*] If it wins, it will continue to issue unregistered *384 securities. In either event, the Federal Government will receive |
Justice Blackmun | 1,984 | 11 | concurring | South Carolina v. Regan | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111104/south-carolina-v-regan/ | *384 securities. In either event, the Federal Government will receive no more tax revenues from purchasers of such securities than it has enjoyed since was decided in 15. The acknowledged purpose of Congress in enacting 310 (b)(1) of TEFRA in 82 so as to add a new 103(j) to the Internal Revenue Code of 54 was to encourage the States to issue securities in registered form. See Staff of Joint Committee on Taxation, General Explanation of the Revenue Provisions of the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 82, 9th Cong., 2d Sess., 1 In a case such as this, where it is evident that the challenged governmental action is one to "accomplish a broad-based policy objective" rather than to produce revenue, see "Americans United," and the disposition of the challenge will have no effect on federal revenues, I conclude that the suit is not one "for the purpose of restraining the assessment or collection of any tax," within the words of 421(a). Although I would not hold the Anti-Injunction Act to be a bar to South Carolina's ability to bring this suit in another court, I agree that we should hear this case. Exercise of our original jurisdiction is discretionary and, though the Court has exercised it sparingly, we are not prohibited from doing so by the fact that the original party may have an alternative forum. See The issue presented is a substantial one, and is of concern to a number of States. I am satisfied that prompt resolution of the issue here will benefit all concerned and that the decision to grant leave to file is a proper exercise of our discretion. JUSTICE O'CONNOR, with whom JUSTICE POWELL, and JUSTICE REHNQUIST join, concurring in the judgment. The motion of South Carolina for leave to file a complaint in our original jurisdiction raises three questions. First, the Court must decide whether Congress intended by the *385 Tax Anti-Injunction Act, 26 U.S. C. 421(a), to bar nontaxpayers like the State of South Carolina from challenging the validity of federal tax statutes in the courts. Second, if the Act generally does bar such nontaxpayer suits, the Court must decide whether Congress intended, and if so whether the Constitution permits it, to bar us from considering South Carolina's complaint in our original jurisdiction. Third, if Congress either did not intend or constitutionally is not permitted to withdraw this case from our original jurisdiction, the Court must decide whether South Carolina's challenge to the constitutionality of 103(j)(1) of the Internal Revenue Code of 54, 26 U.S. C. 103(j)(1) (82 ed.), as added |
Justice Blackmun | 1,984 | 11 | concurring | South Carolina v. Regan | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111104/south-carolina-v-regan/ | of 54, 26 U.S. C. 103(j)(1) (82 ed.), as added by 310(b)(1) of the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 82, Stat. 596, raises issues appropriate for original adjudication. In answering the first question, the Court reaches the unwarranted conclusion that the Tax Anti-Injunction Act proscribes only those suits in which the complaining party, usually a taxpayer, can challenge the validity of a taxing measure in an alternative forum. The Court holds that suits by nontaxpayers generally are not barred. In my opinion, the Court's interpretation fundamentally misconstrues the congressional anti-injunction policy. Accordingly, I cannot join its opinion. I A The Tax Anti-Injunction Act provides, in pertinent part, that "no suit for the purpose of restraining the assessment or collection of any tax shall be maintained in any court by any person, whether or not such person is the person against whom such tax was assessed." 26 U.S. C. 421(a). The Act's language "could scarcely be more explicit" in prohibiting nontaxpayer suits like this one, Bob Jones since the suit indisputably would have the purpose and effect of restraining taxes. See The Act plainly bars not only "a taxpayer's *386 attempt to enjoin the collection of his own taxes," but also "a suit to enjoin the assessment or collection of anyon[e] [else's] taxes" Though the Internal Revenue Code (Code) contains a few exceptions to this nearly complete ban,[1] for the most part Congress has restricted the judicial role to resolution of concrete disputes over specific sums of money, either by way of a deficiency proceeding in the Tax Court, see 26 U.S. C. 12, 13, or by way of a taxpayer's suit for refund, see 26 U.S. C. 6532, 422. In depriving courts of jurisdiction to resolve abstract tax controversies, Congress has determined that the United States must be able "to assess and collect taxes alleged to be due without judicial intervention" "[T]axes are the life-blood of government," 295 U.S. 24, and the anti-injunction prohibition is Congress' recognition that "the tenacity of the American taxpayer" constantly threatens to drain the Nation of a life-sustaining infusion of revenues. See Gorovitz, Federal Tax Injunctions and the Standard Nut The Act's proscription literally extends to nontaxpayer as well as taxpayer suits, if only to prevent taxpayers from sidestepping the anti-injunction policy by bringing suit through nontaxpaying associations of taxpayers.[2]*38 Moreover, by broadly precluding both taxpayer and nontaxpayer suits, the Act serves a collateral objective of protecting "the collector from litigation pending a suit for refund." at -8. The tax collector is an attractive target for all kinds of litigation, see, e. g., |
Justice Blackmun | 1,984 | 11 | concurring | South Carolina v. Regan | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111104/south-carolina-v-regan/ | attractive target for all kinds of litigation, see, e. g., (6), and the Act ensures that only Congress and the Treasury, not a host of private plaintiffs, will determine the focus of the collector's energies. B The Act's history expressly reflects the congressional desire that all injunctive suits against the tax collector be prohibited. First enacted in 186,[3] it apparently was designed to protect the federal tax system from being inundated with the same type of injunctive suits that were then sweeping over the state tax systems. See State Railroad Tax 92 U.S. 55, (186); There is little contemporaneous documentation,[4] but this Court's decisions indicate that the 39th Congress acted with a ". sense of the evils to be feared if courts of justice could, in any case, interfere with the of collecting *388 the taxes on which the government depends for its continued existence." State Railroad Tax at The experience in the States demonstrated the grave dangers which accompany intrusion of the injunctive power of the courts into the administration of the revenue: "If there existed in the courts any general power of impeding or controlling the collection of taxes, or relieving the hardship incident to taxation, the very existence of the government might be placed in the power of a hostile judiciary." (186). To avoid these evils and to safeguard the federal tax system, the 39th Congress committed administration of the Code to the discretion of the Secretary of the Treasury.[5] This broad anti-injunction ban remained essentially untouched for almost a century.[6] In 66, however, Congress *3 took steps to "reaffir[m] the plain meaning of the original language of the Act." 416 U. S., at and n. 11. In 110(c) of the Federal Tax Lien Act, Stat. 1144, Congress amended the Act to emphasize that no injunctive action "by any person, whether or not such person is the person against whom such tax was assessed" could be maintained in the courts. The Treasury Department proposed the 66 amendment, and its principal spokesperson, Assistant Secretary Surrey, testified: "Subsection (c) of section 110 of the bill amends section 421(a) of the code. That section presently prohibits injunctions against the assessment or collection of tax. The cases decided under this provision raise a question as to whether this prohibition applies against actions by persons other than the taxpayer. New section 426 will specifically allow actions by third parties to enjoin the enforcement of a levy or sale of property. The amendment to section 421 makes clear that third parties may bring injunction suits only under the circumstances provided in new section |
Justice Blackmun | 1,984 | 11 | concurring | South Carolina v. Regan | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111104/south-carolina-v-regan/ | injunction suits only under the circumstances provided in new section 426(b)(1) of the code." Statement by the Hon. Stanley S. Surrey, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, reprinted in Hearings on H. R. 11256 and H. R. 112, before the House Committee on Ways and Means, th Cong., 2d Sess., 58 The House Committee on Ways and Means and the Senate Committee on Finance apparently shared Mr. Surrey's understanding of the rights of nontaxpayers under prior law, for their Reports both state: "Under present law, the United States cannot be sued by third persons where its collection activities interfere with their property rights. This includes cases where the Government wrongfully levies on one person's property in attempting to collect from a taxpayer. However, some courts allow suits to be brought against *3 district directors of Internal Revenue where this occurs." H. R. Rep. No. 1884, th Cong., 2d Sess., 2 ; S. Rep. No. 108, th Cong., 2d Sess., 29 To accommodate these conflicting rights, both Committees recommended that Congress enact 426, allowing "persons other than taxpayers" to bring suits against the United States to protect pre-existing liens on property levied upon by the Treasury, and amend 421(a) to forbid suits by all third persons, excepting those within the ambit of new 426. Congress followed the Committees' recommendations, on the understanding that the new language in 421(a) was "declaratory, not innovative." Bob Jones 416 U. S., at 31-32, n. 6.[] Congress has since relaxed the statutory proscription against third-party suits on several occasions. For example, in 4, it provided that certain designated persons could obtain declaratory judgments in the Tax Court with respect to the tax status of pension plans. See 26 U.S. C. 46. Similarly, in 6, because "[u]nder [prevailing] law no court review of [Internal Revenue Service] ruling[s] [was] available," H. R. Conf. Rep. No. p. 463 (6), Congress provided declaratory judgment procedures for determining the tax status of charitable organizations and of certain property transfers. See 26 U.S. C. 428, 4; see also H. R. Conf. Rep. No. Finally, in 8, in 26 U.S. C. 48 (82 ed.), Congress provided a mechanism whereby state or local governments could seek declaratory judgments as to the tax status of proposed municipal bond issuances.[8] The relevant Senate Report noted: "As a practical matter, there is no effective appeal from a Service private letter ruling (or failure to issue a private letter ruling) that a proposed issue of municipal bonds is taxable. In those cases, although there may be a real controversy between a State or local government and the Service, present |
Justice Blackmun | 1,984 | 11 | concurring | South Carolina v. Regan | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111104/south-carolina-v-regan/ | between a State or local government and the Service, present law does not allow the State or local government to go to court. The controversy can be resolved only if the bonds are issued, a bondholder excludes interest on the bonds from income, the exclusion is disallowed, and the Service asserts a deficiency in its statutory notice of deficiency. This uncertainty coupled with the threat of the ultimate loss of the exclusion, invariably makes it impossible to market the bonds. In addition, it is impossible for a State or local government to question the Service rulings and regulations directly. "[S]tate and local government[s] should have a right to court adjudication in the situation described above. The bill deals with the problem by providing for a declaratory judgment as to the tax status of a proposed *392 issue of municipal bonds." S. Rep. No. 95-1263, pp. 150-151 (8). The Conference Report reflects a similar view of prevailing law. See H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 95-1800, p. 240 (8). Thus, in 4, 6, and again in 8, Congress expressed its belief that the Tax Anti-Injunction Act generally bars nontaxpayers from bringing the kind of injunctive action the State of South Carolina asks leave to file today.[9] These subsequently enacted provisions and the legislative understanding of them are entitled to "great weight" in construing earlier, related legislation. See, e. g., Red Lion Broadcasting v. FCC, 395 U.S. 36, ; FHA v. The Darlington, Combined with the legislative purposes obviously motivating the 39th and th Congresses, these provisions conclusively demonstrate that, absent express exemption, the Act generally precludes judicial resolution of all abstract tax controversies, even if the complaining parties would have no other forum in which to bring their challenges. C The Court drew these same conclusions in Bob Jones See 416 U.S., at -46. In that case, the Court rejected a private institution's request that an additional exception beyond the one created in be carved out of the Act.[10] The Court responded that Williams Packing "was meant to be the capstone to judicial construction of the Act. It spells an end to a cyclical pattern of allegiance to the plain meaning of the Act, followed by periods of uncertainty caused by a judicial departure from that meaning, and followed in turn by the Court's rediscovery of the Act's purpose." 416 U.S., at 42. Bob Jones University then reaffirmed that, except where a litigant can show both that the Government would "under no circumstances prevail" and that equity jurisdiction is otherwise present, the Act would be given its "literal effect." at 3, 42-45. |
Justice Blackmun | 1,984 | 11 | concurring | South Carolina v. Regan | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111104/south-carolina-v-regan/ | Act would be given its "literal effect." at 3, 42-45. Because the plaintiffs in Bob Jones University were assured ultimately of having access to a judicial forum, the Court did not definitively resolve whether Congress could bar a tax suit in which the complaining party would be denied all access to judicial review. See at 46. But the Court's reference to "a case in which an aggrieved party has no access at all to judicial review" came in the context of its discussion of the taxpayer's claim that postponement of its challenge to the revocation of its tax-exempt status would violate due Bob Jones University's dictum, therefore, should be interpreted only as reflecting the established rule that Congress cannot, consistently with due deny a taxpayer with property rights at stake all opportunity for an ultimate judicial determination of the legality of a tax assessment against him. See 283 U.S. 5, 596-59 *394 On this reading, Bob Jones University's recognition that the complete inaccessability of judicial review might implicate due concerns provides absolutely no basis for crafting an exception in this case. The State of South Carolina is not a "person" within the meaning of the Due Process Clause. See South Nor does the State assert a right cognizable as a "property" interest protected by that Clause. See generally Logan v. Zimmerman Brush Therefore, it has no due right to review of its claim in a judicial forum.[11] In holding that the Act does not bar suits by nontaxpayers with no other remedies, the Court today has created a "breach in the general scheme of taxation [that] gives an opening for the disorganization of the whole plan" Nontaxpaying associations of taxpayers, and most other nontaxpayers, will now be allowed to sidestep Congress' policy against judicial resolution of abstract tax controversies. They can now challenge both Congress' tax statutes and the Internal Revenue Service's regulations, Revenue Rulings, and private letter decisions. In doing so, they can impede *395 the of collecting federal revenues and require Treasury to focus its energies on questions deemed important not by it or Congress but by a host of private plaintiffs. The Court's holding travels "a long way down the road to the emasculation of the Anti-Injunction Act, and down the companion pathway that leads to the blunting of the strict requirements of Williams Packing" (6) I simply cannot join such a fundamental undermining of the congressional purpose. II The Act's language, purpose, and history should leave no doubt that Congress intended to preclude both taxpayer and nontaxpayer suits, regardless of the availability of an alternative forum. |
Justice Blackmun | 1,984 | 11 | concurring | South Carolina v. Regan | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111104/south-carolina-v-regan/ | nontaxpayer suits, regardless of the availability of an alternative forum. The Solicitor General agrees and contends that, since the anti-injunction prohibition extends to "any court," it should be read to bar this Court from acting in its original jurisdiction as well. The Solicitor General's contention raises a grave constitutional question: namely, whether Congress constitutionally can impose remedial limitations so jurisdictional in nature that they effectively withdraw the original jurisdiction of this Court. A Under the language used in Art. III of the Constitution, Congress relates to the courts of the United States in three textually different ways.[12] In its broadest textual delegation, *396 that Article authorizes Congress to establish the "inferior Courts" and places no express limits on the congressional power to regulate the courts so created. See U. S. Const., Art. III, 1, cl. 1. By contrast, that Article itself creates the Supreme Court and textually differentiates between Congress' relationship with the appellate and original jurisdictions of that Court. Article III expressly empowers Congress to make "Exceptions" and "Regulations" to the appellate jurisdiction. U. S. Const., Art. III, 2, cl. 2; Ex parte McCardle, Wall. 506 But, in what is effectively its narrowest delegation, Art. III is silent regarding Congress' authority to make exceptions to or regulations regarding cases in the original jurisdiction those that affect "Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party." Though the original history of Art. III is sparse,[13] what is available indicates that these textual differences were purposeful on the Framers' part. The Framers obviously thought that the National Government should have a judicial system of its own and that that system should have a Supreme Court. However, because the Framers believed the state courts would be adequate for resolving most disputes, they generally left Congress the power of determining what cases, if any, should be channelled to the federal courts. The one textual exception to that rule concerned the original jurisdiction, where the Framers apparently mandated that Supreme Court review be available. "The evident purpose *39 was to open and keep open the highest court of the nation for the determination, in the first instance, of suits involving a State or a diplomatic or commercial representative of a foreign government." The Framers apparently thought that "[s]o much was due the rank and dignity of those for whom the provision was made" ; see also The Federalist No. 81, pp. 50-509 (A. Hamilton). Perhaps more importantly, the Framers also thought that the original jurisdiction was a necessary substitute for the powers of war and diplomacy that |
Justice Blackmun | 1,984 | 11 | concurring | South Carolina v. Regan | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111104/south-carolina-v-regan/ | necessary substitute for the powers of war and diplomacy that these sovereigns previously had relied upon. See ; United (12). "The Supreme Court [was] given higher standing than any known tribunal, both by the nature of its rights and the categories subject to its jurisdiction," A. de Tocqueville, Democracy in America 149 (emphasis in original), precisely to keep sovereign nations and States from using force "to rebuff the exaggerated pretensions of the Union" Our cases have long paid tribute to the foreign sovereignty and federalism concerns forming the basis of the original jurisdiction. See at -; 451 U.S. 25, 43 Out of respect for these concerns, the Court has held that Congress is without power to add parties not within the initial grant of original jurisdiction, see 1 Cranch 13, 14 and has indicated, in dicta, that Congress may not withdraw that jurisdiction either. See, e. g., (9); California v. Southern Pacific 15 U.S. 229, (15); Wisconsin v. Pelican Insurance 12 U.S. 265, ; at ; ; at 14. Enlarging the original jurisdiction would require the sovereigns for whom the provision was made to compete with other, less dignified, *398 parties for the Court's limited time and resources; diminishing the original jurisdiction possibly would leave those sovereigns without an acceptable alternative to diplomacy and war for settling disputes. To be sure, the Tax Anti-Injunction Act does not expressly withdraw the original jurisdiction of this Court. Rather, it merely prohibits "any court" from "maintain[ing]" a suit that has "the purpose of restraining the assessment or collection" of federal taxes. See 26 U.S. C. 421(a). The effect of this prohibition, however, is to preclude this Court ever from assuming original jurisdiction to adjudicate a State qua State's Tenth and Sixteenth Amendment tax claims, in apparent derogation of the grant's constitutional purpose.[14] While "Congress has broad powers over the jurisdiction of the federal courts and over the sovereign immunity of the United States[,] it is extremely doubtful that they include the power to limit in this manner the original jurisdiction conferred upon this Court by the Constitution." B Nevertheless, it is this Court's longstanding practice to avoid resolution of constitutional questions except when absolutely necessary. "When the validity of an act of the Congress is drawn in question, and even if a serious doubt of constitutionality is raised, it is a cardinal principle that this Court will first ascertain whether a construction of the statute is fairly possible by which the question may be *399 avoided." Such a construction is possible in this case. The manifest purpose of the Tax Anti-Injunction Act is |
Justice Blackmun | 1,984 | 11 | concurring | South Carolina v. Regan | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111104/south-carolina-v-regan/ | case. The manifest purpose of the Tax Anti-Injunction Act is simply to permit the United States to assess and collect taxes without undue judicial interference and to require that legal challenges be raised in certain designated forums. The language and history of the Act evidence a congressional desire generally to bar both taxpayer and nontaxpayer suits, since both can substantially interrupt "the of collecting the taxes on which the government depends for its continued existence" if left uncontrolled. State Railroad Tax 92 U. S., at Similarly, the language and history evidence a congressional desire to prohibit courts from restraining any aspect of the tax laws' administration, since the prohibition against injunctions should not depend upon the alleged legality or character of a particular assessment. See -4. Yet the statute was enacted against a settled history in which foreign and state sovereigns had a unique right to seek refuge in the original jurisdiction of this Court. Nothing in the legislative history of the Act of 186, of the later amendments, or of the related declaratory judgment provisions enacted in 4, 6, or 8, mentions any intent to alter these sovereign parties' unique right occasionally to seek injunctive relief by original action in this Court, even with regard to tax matters. Admittedly, the Act precludes "any court" from maintaining a suit initiated for the purpose of restraining the assessment or collection of federal taxes. See 26 U.S. C. 421(a). That language clearly instructs all courts that Congress constitutionally controls not to prematurely interfere with the assessment and collection of federal taxes. That language does not, however, necessarily encompass this Court, which Congress did not create and which Congress is not expressly empowered to make "Exceptions" or "Regulations" as to its original jurisdiction. Moreover, since only a small number of pre-enforcement suits could conceivably involve a party for whom the original jurisdiction was created, *400 there is no reason to believe that Congress would want to have the constitutionality of its anti-injunction policy placed into question.[15] Given this de minimis effect and the absence of express congressional intent to the contrary, I would conclude that the Act's reference to "any court" means to assure that all state, as well as federal, courts are subject to the anti-injunction prohibition. Such an interpretation gives meaning to the Act and avoids a grave constitutional question.[16] III Interpreting the Tax Anti-Injunction Act to bar both taxpayer and nontaxpayer claims in "any court" but this Court requires a determination whether this case is "appropriate" for the Court's obligatory original jurisdiction. (2). "[A]lthough it may initially have been contemplated |
Justice Blackmun | 1,984 | 11 | concurring | South Carolina v. Regan | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111104/south-carolina-v-regan/ | original jurisdiction. (2). "[A]lthough it may initially have been contemplated that this Court would always exercise its original jurisdiction when properly called upon to do so," 401 U.S. 4, 49 (1), our cases recognize "the need [for] exercise of a sound discretion in order to protect this Court from an abuse of the opportunity to resort to its original jurisdiction." (). An original party establishes that a case is "appropriate" for obligatory jurisdiction by demonstrating, through "clear and convincing evidence," that it has suffered an injury *401 of "serious magnitude," see New (21); see also Alabama v. (14), and that it otherwise will be without an alternative forum. 451 U. S., at 40; at The State of South Carolina's motion for leave to file satisfies, albeit by the barest of margins, both of these tests.[1] The State has demonstrated injury of "serious magnitude." It contends, and provides uncontroverted affidavits to support, that application of 103(j)(1) will "materially interfere with and infringe upon the authority of South Carolina to borrow funds." Complaint 16. The authority the State claims has significant historical basis, see (15), and the injury the State alleges could deprive it of a meaningful political choice. See Colorado v. 3, (43). Twenty-four States have filed a joint brief amici curiae in support of South Carolina's motion, which further attests to the "serious magnitude" of the federalism concerns at issue. Similarly, the State qua State has demonstrated that it has no adequate alternative forum in which to raise its unique Tenth and Sixteenth Amendment claims. See Maryland v. at 43, and n. If the State issues bearer bonds and urges its purchasers to contest the legality of 103(j)(1), it will suffer irremedial injury. The purchasers will inevitably demand higher interest rates as compensation for bearing the risk of future potential federal taxes. Conversely, if the State forsakes bearer bonds in favor of registered ones, it will bear the increased expense that issuers of registered bonds incur, and it will be unable ever to contest the constitutionality of 103(j)(1). In short, the State will *402 suffer irremedial injury if the Court does not assume original jurisdiction. Therefore, although great deference is due the longstanding congressional policy against premature judicial interference with federal taxes, I believe it is proper to exercise the Court's original jurisdiction under these unique circumstances. I emphasize both the unique circumstances of this case and the congressional policy against premature judicial interference because original litigants should not be misled into believing that this Court will become a haven for suits that cannot be entertained in lower courts with |
Justice Blackmun | 1,984 | 11 | concurring | South Carolina v. Regan | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111104/south-carolina-v-regan/ | for suits that cannot be entertained in lower courts with concurrent jurisdiction. The original jurisdiction is not a forum for litigating everyday tax concerns. Rather, it must be "sparingly" invoked. United (1). Moreover, the legislative policy against premature judicial interference embodied in the Act must be paid the highest deference by this Court. Thus, where the original party does not present a clear and convincing case that the tax at issue will impair its ability to structure integral operations of its government and that irremedial injury is likely to occur absent review in the original jurisdiction, I would defer to the legislative directive against premature judicial interference.[18] But since South Carolina's claims meet these stringent requirements, its motion for leave to file should be granted. IV I agree with the Court that the record is not sufficiently developed to permit us to address the merits and that a Special Master should be appointed. But I do not share its view *403A that the Tax Anti-Injunction Act applies only when Congress has provided an alternative avenue for a complaining party one with original status or not to litigate claims on its own behalf. That view is not, in my opinion, based on any fair or even tenable canon of statutory construction, and cannot be reconciled with express statements of congressional intent and purpose. Accordingly, I can concur only in the Court's judgment. *403B JUSTICE STEVENS, concurring in part and dissenting in part. While I join Parts I and II of the Court's opinion, I disagree with Part III. The Solicitor General has persuaded me that the Court should exercise its discretion to deny leave to file this complaint. We should do so not only because the proceeding can be conducted more expeditiously in another forum,[1] but also because it is so plain that even if we read the complaint liberally in favor of the State of South Carolina, there is simply no merit to the claim the State has advanced. I do not believe the Court does a sovereign State a favor by giving it an opportunity to expend resources in litigation that has no chance of success. I would therefore deny leave to file. South Carolina claims that 103(j)(1) of the Internal Revenue Code of 54, 26 U.S. C. 103(j)(1) (82 ed.), as added *404 by 310(b)(1) of the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 82, is unconstitutional because it abridges the State's power to borrow money. Under the federal statute, the income that private citizens receive from state bonds is taxed unless the bonds are issued |
Justice Blackmun | 1,984 | 11 | concurring | South Carolina v. Regan | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111104/south-carolina-v-regan/ | from state bonds is taxed unless the bonds are issued in registered form. As a practical matter, this requirement will force South Carolina to issue its bonds in registered form. Its complaint alleges that registered bonds are more costly to issue than bearer bonds and therefore that its future bond issues will generate smaller net revenues for the State. Although the State's constitutional arguments are not stated in precisely this form, in essence it claims that the statute is invalid because it violates: (1) the doctrine of intergovernmental tax immunity; (2) the Tenth Amendment; and (3) the doctrine of National League of (6). A long line of cases plainly forecloses the first claim; the other two are frivolous. I The origins of intergovernmental taxation immunity are found in (18). Of course, McCulloch dealt not with the immunity of the States, but rather with that of the United States. The Court held that the State of Maryland could not constitutionally tax the Bank of the United States because the power to tax the bank could be used to destroy it, thereby undermining the constitutionally guaranteed supremacy of the Federal Government. See at 425-43. The Court's argument was premised explicitly upon the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution, and thus its holding did not require that any immunity from taxation be accorded the States.[2] Therefore, the case upon which South Carolina relies is not McCulloch but (15). There the Court specifically held that a *405 provision of the federal income tax statute taxing income derived from municipal bonds was unconstitutional. It noted that the Court had previously held that the United States lacks the authority to tax the property or revenues of States or municipalities, since their independence from federal control is secured by the Tenth Amendment. Of the cases cited by the Court, most dealt with whether the Federal Government could lay a tax directly upon the property of States or localities, paid by them. In only one, (181), did the Court address whether the United States could tax the income of an individual derived from his dealings with a State. There, the Court had held that the United States could not tax the salaries of judicial officers of a State. After reciting this case law, the Court continued: "It is contended that although the property or revenues of the States or their instrumentalities cannot be taxed, nevertheless the income derived from state, county, and municipal securities can be taxed. But we think the same want of power to tax the property or revenues of the States or their instrumentalities exists in |
Justice Blackmun | 1,984 | 11 | concurring | South Carolina v. Regan | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111104/south-carolina-v-regan/ | or revenues of the States or their instrumentalities exists in relation to a tax on the income from their securities, and for the same reason, and that reason is given by Chief Justice Marshall in where he said: `The right to tax the contract to any extent, when made, must operate upon the power to borrow before it is exercised, and have a sensible influence on the contract. The extent of this influence, depends on the will of a distinct government. To any extent, however inconsiderable, it is a burthen on the operations of government. It may be carried to an extent which shall arrest them entirely. The tax on government stock is thought by this court to be a tax on the contract, a tax on the power to borrow money on the credit of the United States, and consequently to be repugnant to the Constitution.' Applying this language to these municipal securities, it is obvious that taxation on the interest therefrom would operate on the power to borrow before *406 it is exercised, and would have a sensible influence on the contract, and that the tax in question is a tax on the power of the States and their instrumentalities to borrow money, and consequently repugnant to the Constitution." 15 U.S., at 585-586 The theory employed in Pollock is what I shall refer to as the "intergovernmental burden" theory: even though a tax is not laid directly upon another government, if it has a "sensible influence" on the costs incurred by that government, it must fall. This theory is the only rationale offered by the Pollock Court for its decision, and it is on this theory that Pollock must stand or fall. The precedential weight of Pollock was doubtful almost from the start. Within a generation Pollock was seemingly overruled by constitutional amendment. The Sixteenth Amendment, ratified in 13, states: "The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration." (Emphasis supplied.) This clear language makes the fact that income is derived from interest on state or local obligations constitutionally irrelevant. Any doubt about the vitality of Pollock is dispelled by our subsequent cases. At every opportunity, this Court has rejected the intergovernmental burden theory. In Metcalf & (26), the Court first rejected the theory. It held that the United States could tax the income derived by an independent contractor from its contracts with a State. The Court recognized that the federal tax increased costs incurred by the |
Justice Blackmun | 1,984 | 11 | concurring | South Carolina v. Regan | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111104/south-carolina-v-regan/ | recognized that the federal tax increased costs incurred by the State,[3] but nevertheless upheld the tax: *40 "[H]ere the tax is imposed on the income of one who is neither an officer nor an employee of government and whose only relation to it is that of contract, under which there is an obligation to furnish service, for practical purposes not unlike a contract to sell and deliver a commodity. The tax is imposed without discrimination upon income whether derived from services rendered to the state or services rendered to private individuals. In such a situation it cannot be said that the tax is imposed upon an agency of government in any technical sense, and the tax cannot be deemed to be an interference with government, or an impairment of the efficiency of its agencies in any substantial way."[4] Thus, the conceptual basis for Pollock had been undermined. A burden on the State imposed by taxing those who contract with it was no longer sufficient to invalidate a tax; the theory that a State's contracts could not be taxed which the Court had relied upon in Pollock was no longer good law.[5] *408 In the repudiation of Pollock was unmistakable. The Court there held that the United States could tax the salaries of state employees. The Court began its analysis by pointing out that the scope of McCulloch was limited to state taxation of federal instrumentalities.[6] The Court read on which the Pollock Court had relied, as also limited in its application to state taxes, involving as it did an attempt whereby through state taxation "an impediment was laid upon the exercise of a power with respect to which the national government was supreme." n. 3. It concluded that state immunity against federal taxation must be narrowly construed since "the people of all the states have created the national government and are represented in Congress. Through that representation they exercise *409 the national taxing power. The very fact that when they are exercising it they are taxing themselves, serves to guard against its abuse" Moreover, "any allowance of a tax immunity for the protection of state sovereignty is at the expense of the sovereign power of the nation to tax. Enlargement of the one involves diminution of the other. When enlargement proceeds beyond the necessity of protecting the state, the burden of the immunity is thrown upon the national government with benefit only to a privileged class of taxpayers. [I]f every federal tax which is laid on some new form of state activity, or whose economic burden reaches in some measure |
Justice Blackmun | 1,984 | 11 | concurring | South Carolina v. Regan | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111104/south-carolina-v-regan/ | state activity, or whose economic burden reaches in some measure the state or those who serve it, were to be set aside as an infringement of state sovereignty, it is evident that a restriction on the national power, devised only as a shield to protect the states from curtailment of the essential operations of government which they have exercised from the beginning, would become a ready means for striking down the taxing power of the nation." -41. The Court concluded by explicitly rejecting the intergovernmental burden theory: "The state and national governments must co-exist. Each must be supported by taxation of those who are citizens of both. The mere fact that the economic burden of such taxes may be passed on to a state government and thus increase to some extent, here wholly conjectural, the expense of its operation, infringes no constitutional immunity. Such burdens are but normal incidents of the organization within the same territory of two governments, each possessed of the taxing power." In (), the Court held that a State could tax the salary of a *410 federal employee.[] After again observing that state taxation immunity is narrower than that of the United States, see at 4-48, and should be narrowly construed, see the Court followed Gerhardt in upholding the state tax, overruled which had been relied upon in Pollock, and noted, in a passage pertinent to the claim made here by South Carolina, that "we perceive no *411 basis for a difference in result whether the taxed income be salary or some other form of compensation" The Court concluded by again repudiating the intergovernmental burden theory. "So much of the burden of a non-discriminatory general tax upon the incomes of employees of a government, state or national, as may be passed on economically to that government, through the effect of the tax on the price level of labor or materials, is but the normal incident of the organization within the same territory of two governments, each possessing the taxing power. The burden, so far as it can be said to exist or to affect the government in any indirect or incidental way, is one which the Constitution presupposes, and hence it cannot rightly be deemed to be within an implied restriction upon the taxing power of the national and state governments which the Constitution has expressly granted to one and has confirmed to the other." at 48.[8] The intergovernmental burden theory was rejected about as clearly as possible in (41), in which the Court upheld a state sales tax levied on the cost of material used |
Justice Blackmun | 1,984 | 11 | concurring | South Carolina v. Regan | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111104/south-carolina-v-regan/ | state sales tax levied on the cost of material used by a federal contractor in performing a cost-plus contract, despite the fact that under the contract the economic burden of the tax fell exclusively on the United States.[9] Subsequently, the Court has consistently adhered to its repudiation of the intergovernmental *412 burden theory. See (83); Memphis Bank & Trust v. Garner, 39 (83); United 455 U.S. 20, 34 ; United 460-4 (); (5). As the Court recently wrote, "an economic burden on traditional state functions without more is not a sufficient basis for sustaining a claim of immunity." (8).[10] Perhaps the plainest explication of this Court's position on state tax immunity is found in New 326 U.S. 52 (46), a case holding that the United States could tax New York's income from its sale of state-owned mineral waters. Justice Frankfurter, joined by Justice Rutledge, wrote that in his view any nondiscriminatory tax on *413 state activities was constitutional. See ; see also Four additional Justices agreed that the tax was valid, stating: "Only when and because the subject of taxation is State property or a State activity must we consider whether such a non-discriminatory tax unduly interferes with the performance of the State's functions of government."[11] S. R. A., v. Minnesota, 32 U.S. 558 (46), was decided during the same Term. There, land owned by the United States was occupied by S. R. A., which had bought the land under a conditional sales contract that left title in the United States pending full payment of the purchase price. Nevertheless, the Court held that state property taxes could be assessed against the land, since in reality the private *414 party and not the United States was being taxed.[12] Thus the Court recognized that where the property inures to the benefit of a private party, it has no immunity from taxation despite the fact that the taxation may increase the costs imposed on the governmental entity.[13] The same approach was taken in United when the Court upheld a municipal tax on property owned by the United States but leased to a private party, observing that "it is well settled that the Government's constitutional immunity does not shield private parties with whom it does business from state taxes imposed on them merely because part or all of the financial burden of the tax eventually falls on the Government."[14] See also United ; City of 355 U.S. 4 ; Wilmette Park 4-420 (49). Our cases thus demonstrate the insubstantiality of South Carolina's claim. Under 103(j)(1), South Carolina is not required to pay any federal |
Justice Blackmun | 1,984 | 11 | concurring | South Carolina v. Regan | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111104/south-carolina-v-regan/ | 103(j)(1), South Carolina is not required to pay any federal tax at all. The tax is imposed not upon state property or revenues, but only upon persons with whom it contracts. Under the test adopted by a majority of the Court in New and followed since, *415 this alone defeats its claim. South Carolina is trying to shield private parties with whom it does business from taxation because part of the financial burden of the tax falls upon it. This Court has repeatedly rejected exactly that sort of claim.[15] Moreover, the rationale on which Pollock is based the intergovernmental burden theory has been repudiated over and over again by this Court. There is simply nothing left of Pollock on which South Carolina can base a claim. Even if there were enough left of Pollock to invalidate a federal tax that might cripple traditional state functions, the burden imposed on the State here is far from crushing. South Carolina estimates that if it must issue its bonds in registered form it will have to pay an additional one quarter of one percent interest on its bonds.[16] It identifies in its offer of *416 proof no disruption in its operation except for this slight increase in interest costs.[1] Surely this cost is infinitesimal compared to the costs imposed on States and localities because their employees' salaries are federally taxed a burden that the Federal Government unquestionably has the constitutional power to impose. Moreover, the challenged statute still provides States and localities with the ability to offer debt instruments at substantially less than the market rates which must be paid by private enterprise three to five points lower according to South Carolina's estimate. It is hard to see how marginal increases in the interest they must pay can destroy the integrity of governmental entities when private entities are able not only to survive but generally to make a profit while obtaining financing at significantly higher rates of interest. As Professor Thomas Reed Powell observed: "Public bonds will not be put in an unfavorable position relatively by being subjected to taxes on the income. They will merely be deprived of an artificial advantage heretofore enjoyed, which however is not strictly necessary in all probability in order to give them a practical success on the financial markets of the country when offered at the same rates of interest that have usually been offered in the past." Powell, Intergovernmental Tax Immunities, (40). In contrast to the slight burden alleged by South Carolina, the Federal Government's interest in encouraging bearer bonds to be |
Justice Blackmun | 1,984 | 11 | concurring | South Carolina v. Regan | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111104/south-carolina-v-regan/ | the Federal Government's interest in encouraging bearer bonds to be issued in registered form is substantial, as the Senate Report on this provision makes clear. *41 "The Committee believes that a fair and efficient system of information reporting and withholding cannot be achieved with respect to interest-bearing obligations as long as a significant volume of long-term bearer instruments is issued. A system of book-entry registration will preserve the liquidity of obligations while requiring the creation of ownership records that can produce useful information reports with respect to both the payment of interest and the sale of obligations prior to maturity through brokers. Furthermore, registration will reduce the ability of noncompliant taxpayers to conceal income and property from the reach of the income, estate, and gift taxes. Finally, the registration requirement may reduce the volume of readily negotiable substitutes for cash available to persons engaged in illegal activities." S. Rep. No. 9-494, pt. 1, p. 242 As this Court has previously held, the Constitution does not invalidate every burden on a State or locality created by federal taxation because such burdens are the "normal incident" of a system of dual sovereigns with dual taxing powers, which the Constitution envisions will coexist. Surely it follows that the Constitution intended that the taxing power it gave the Federal Government not be undermined through the abuse engendered by bearer instruments. The burden imposed upon States and localities by efforts to eliminate such abuse is one necessary in a system committed to the efficacy of dual taxing authorities. The fairness of this requirement is highlighted by the fact that 103(j)(1) requires that federally issued bonds also be in registered form to be tax exempt. Even in the heyday of Pollock, the Court never held that the Federal Government impermissibly infringed state sovereignty by imposing a burden on the States that it also imposed on itself. If Congress has destroyed some protected concept of state sovereignty through 103(j)(1), then it has destroyed the sovereignty of the United States as well. *418 II South Carolina's complaint alleges that 103(j)(1) violates the Tenth Amendment. That Amendment provides: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." In order to bring its challenge within the terms of that Amendment, South Carolina alleges: "The Congress of the United States has no power whatsoever to impose an income tax upon the interest paid by South Carolina to its lenders." Complaint ¶ 9. This allegation is inconsistent with the plain language of the |
Justice Blackmun | 1,984 | 11 | concurring | South Carolina v. Regan | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111104/south-carolina-v-regan/ | This allegation is inconsistent with the plain language of the Constitution itself. Article I, 8, specifically delegates to Congress the "Power To lay and collect Taxes," and the Sixteenth Amendment removes any possible ambiguity concerning the scope of the power exercised by Congress in this case. The cases I have discussed above confirm this point. Because the power to tax private income has been expressly delegated to Congress, the Tenth Amendment has no application to this case. III Finally, South Carolina relies on National League of (6). In that case the Court held that a federal statute extending the provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act to certain public employees was "not within the authority granted Congress by Art. I, 8, cl. 3." The conclusion that the case merely involved an interpretation of the outer limits of the congressional power to regulate interstate commerce was then confirmed by the following footnote: "We express no view as to whether different results might obtain if Congress seeks to affect integral operations of state governments by exercising authority granted it under other sections of the Constitution such *4 as the spending power, Art. I, 8, cl. 1, or 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment." n. 1. By its express terms, therefore, the National League of Cities case has no application to South Carolina's challenge to an exercise of the federal taxing power.[18] In sum, I can see no basis on which South Carolina could prevail in this case, even accepting its allegations and offers of proof for all they are worth. We do South Carolina no favor by permitting it to file and litigate a claim on which it has no chance of prevailing. At the same time, the Court's decision to permit South Carolina to file this claim is an unwise use of its scarce resources. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent from the Court's decision to grant South Carolina's motion for leave to file its complaint. |
Justice Thomas | 1,997 | 1 | majority | O'Dell v. Netherland | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118131/odell-v-netherland/ | This case presents the question whether the rule set out in which requires that a capital defendant be permitted to inform his sentencing jury that he is parole ineligible if the prosecution argues that he presents a future dangerwas "new" within the meaning of and thereby inapplicable to an already final death sentence. We conclude that it was new, and that it cannot, therefore, be used to disturb petitioner's death sentence, which had been final for six years when Simmons was decided. I Helen Schartner was last seen alive late in the evening of February 5, 1985, leaving the County Line Lounge in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Her lifeless body was discovered the next day, in a muddy field across a highway from the lounge. Schartner's head had been laid open by several blows with the barrel of a handgun, and she had been strangled with such violence that bones in her neck were broken and finger imprints were left on her skin. An abundance of physical evidence linked petitioner to the crime scene and crime among other things, tire tracks near Schartner's body were consistent with petitioner's car, and bodily fluids recovered *154 from Schartner's body matched petitioner. He was indicted on counts of capital murder, rape, sodomy, and abduction (which count was later dismissed). After a jury trial, petitioner was found guilty on the murder, rape, and sodomy counts. During the subsequent sentencing hearing, the prosecution sought to establish two aggravating factors: that petitioner presented a future danger, and that the murder had been "wanton, vile or inhuman." Evidence was presented that, prior to Schartner's murder, petitioner had been convicted of a host of other offenses, including the kidnaping and assault of another woman while he was on parole, and the murder of a fellow inmate during an earlier prison stint. Petitioner sought a jury instruction explaining that he was not eligible for parole if sentenced to life in prison. The trial judge denied petitioner's request. After the sentencing hearing, the jury found beyond a reasonable doubt that petitioner "would constitute a continuous serious threat to society" and that "his conduct in committing the offense was outrageously wanton, vile or inhuman." 46 Record 208. The jury recommended that petitioner be sentenced to death.[1] The trial judge adopted the jury's recommendation and sentenced petitioner to 40 years' imprisonment each for the rape and sodomy convictions, and to death by electrocution for Schartner's murder. Petitioner appealed to the Supreme Court of Virginia, which affirmed both the conviction and the sentence. We denied certiorari. Petitioner's efforts at state habeas relief were unsuccessful, |
Justice Thomas | 1,997 | 1 | majority | O'Dell v. Netherland | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118131/odell-v-netherland/ | denied certiorari. Petitioner's efforts at state habeas relief were unsuccessful, and we again denied certiorari. *155 Petitioner then filed a federal habeas claim. He contended, inter alia, that newly obtained DNA evidence established that he was actually innocent, and that his death sentence was faulty because he had been prevented from informing the jury of his ineligibility for parole. The District Court rejected petitioner's claim of innocence. Thompson, Civ. Action No. 3:92CV480 App. 171-172. But it agreed with petitioner that he was entitled to resentencing under the intervening decision in The District Court described Simmons as holding that "where the defendant's future dangerousness is at issue, and state law prohibits the defendant's release on parole, the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment requires that the sentencing jury be informed that the defendant is not eligible for parole." App. 198. The court concluded that the Simmons rule was not new and thus was available to petitioner. Because the prosecutor "obviously used O'Dell's prior releases on crossexamination, and in his closing argument, to argue that the defendant presented a future danger to society," App. 201 (citations omitted), the District Court held that petitioner was entitled to be resentenced if it could be demonstrated that he was in fact ineligible for parole. A divided en banc Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit reversed. After an exhaustive review of our precedents, the Court of Appeals majority determined that "Simmons was the paradigmatic `new rule,' " and, as such, could not aid petitioner. The Fourth Circuit was closely divided as to whether Simmons set forth a new rule, but every member of the court agreed that petitioner's "claim of actual innocence [was] not even colorable." 95 F.3d, ; see also We declined review on petitioner's claim of actual innocence, but granted certiorari to determine whether the rule of Simmons was new. 519 * ; see also II Before a state prisoner may upset his state conviction or sentence on federal collateral review, he must demonstrate as a threshold matter that the court-made rule of which he seeks the benefit is not "new." We have stated variously the formula for determining when a rule is new. See, e. g., (quoting ) (emphasis in original). At bottom, however, the doctrine "validates reasonable, good-faith interpretations of existing precedents made by state courts even though they are shown to be contrary to later decisions." "Reasonableness, in this as in many other contexts, is an objective standard." Accordingly, we will not disturb a final state conviction or sentence unless it can be said that a state court, at |
Justice Thomas | 1,997 | 1 | majority | O'Dell v. Netherland | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118131/odell-v-netherland/ | unless it can be said that a state court, at the time the conviction or sentence became final, would have acted objectively unreasonably by not extending the relief later sought in federal court. The inquiry is conducted in three steps. First, the date on which the defendant's conviction became final is determined. Next, the habeas court considers whether "`a state court considering [the defendant's] claim at the time his conviction became final would have felt compelled by existing precedent to conclude that the rule [he] seeks was required by the Constitution.' " ) (alterations in Lambrix ). If not, then the rule is new. If the rule is determined to be new, the final step in the analysis requires the court to determine whether *157 the rule nonetheless falls within one of the two narrow exceptions to the 520 U.S., at The first, limited exception is for new rules "forbidding criminal punishment of certain primary conduct [and] rules prohibiting a certain category of punishment for a class of defendants because of their status or offense." The second, even more circumscribed, exception permits retroactive application of "watershed rules of criminal procedure implicating the fundamental fairness and accuracy of the criminal proceeding." (quoting ) "Whatever the precise scope of this [second] exception, it is clearly meant to apply only to a small core of rules requiring observance of those procedures that. are implicit in the concept of ordered liberty." III Petitioner's conviction became final on October 3, when we declined to review the Virginia Supreme Court's decision affirming his sentence on direct review. Simmons, the rule of which petitioner now seeks to avail himself, was decided in 1994. In Simmons, the defendant had been found guilty of capital murder for the brutal killing of an elderly woman. The defendant had also assaulted other elderly women, resulting in convictions that rendered himat least as of the time he was sentencedineligible for parole. Prosecutors in South are permitted to argue to sentencing juries that defendants' future dangerousness is an appropriate consideration in determining whether to affix a sentence of death. -163 Simmons sought to rebut the prosecution's "generalized argument of future dangerousness" by presenting the jury with evidence that "his dangerousness was limited to elderly women," none of whom he was likely to encounter in prison. *158 Simmons' efforts to shore up this argument by demonstrating to the jury that, under South law, he was ineligible for parole were rebuffed by the trial court. This Court reversed the judgment of the South Supreme Court upholding Simmons' death sentence. A plurality of the Court noted |
Justice Thomas | 1,997 | 1 | majority | O'Dell v. Netherland | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118131/odell-v-netherland/ | upholding Simmons' death sentence. A plurality of the Court noted that a prosecutor's future dangerousness argument will "necessarily [be] undercut" by "the fact that the alternative sentence to death is life without parole." The plurality, relying on and Skipper v. South concluded that "[b]ecause truthful information of parole ineligibility allows the defendant to `deny or explain' the showing of future dangerousness, due plainly requires that he be allowed to bring it to the jury's attention." 512 U.S., Justice O'Connor, joined by The Chief Justice and Justice Kennedy, concurred in the judgment, providing the dispositive votes necessary to sustain it. The concurrence recognized: "[The Court has] previously noted with approval that `[m]any state courts have held it improper for the jury to consider or to be informedthrough argument or instructionof the possibility of commutation, pardon, or parole.' 463 U. S. [992, 1013, n. 30 ]. The decision whether or not to inform the jury of the possibility of early release is generally left to the States." The concurrence also distinguished Skipper, noting that Skipper involved an attempt to introduce "factual evidence" regarding the defendant himself, while Simmons "sought to rely on the operation of South 's sentencing law" to demonstrate that he did not present a future 512 U.S., But the concurrence nonetheless concluded that, "[w]hen the State seeks to show the defendant's future *159 dangerousness," the defendant "should be allowed to bring his parole ineligibility to the jury's attention." Petitioner asserts that the Simmons rule covers his case, and that because he was parole ineligiblebut not allowed to relay that information to the jury in order to rebut the prosecutor's argument as to his future dangerousnessSimmons requires vacatur of his sentence. Before we can decide whether petitioner's claim falls within the scope of Simmons, we must determine whether the rule of Simmons was new for purposes, and, if so, whether that rule falls within one of the two exceptions to `s bar. A We observe, at the outset, that Simmons is an unlikely candidate for "old-rule" status. As noted above, there was no opinion for the Court. Rather, Justice mun's plurality opinion, for four Members, concluded that the Due Process Clause required allowing the defendant to inform the jurythrough argument or instructionof his parole ineligibility in the face of a prosecution's future dangerousness argument. -169. Two Members of the plurality, Justice Souter and Justice Stevens, would have further held that the Eighth Amendment mandated that the trial court instruct the jury on a capital defendant's parole ineligibility even if future dangerousness was not at issue. Justice Ginsburg, also a Member |
Justice Thomas | 1,997 | 1 | majority | O'Dell v. Netherland | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118131/odell-v-netherland/ | dangerousness was not at issue. Justice Ginsburg, also a Member of the plurality, wrote a concurrence grounded in the Due Process Clause. The Chief Justice and Justice Kennedy joined Justice O'Connor's decisive opinion concurring in the judgment, as described above. And, two Justices dissented, arguing that the result did not "fit" the Court's precedents and that it was not, in any case, required by the Constitution. The array of views expressed in Simmons itself suggests that the rule announced there was, in light of *160 this Court's precedent, "susceptible to debate among reasonable minds." ; cf. 236- An assessment of the legal landscape existing at the time petitioner's conviction and sentence became final bolsters this conclusion. 1 Petitioner's review of the relevant precedent discloses the decisions relied upon in Simmons, namely, and Skipper v. South Petitioner asserts that a reasonable jurist considering his claim in light of those two decisions "would have felt `compelled. to conclude that the rule [petitioner] seeks was required by the Constitution.' " Brief for Petitioner 14 (quoting 494 U. S., at ) (emphasis deleted). In the defendant received a death sentence from a judge who had reviewed a presentence report that was not made available to the defendant. produced no opinion for the Court. A plurality of the Court concluded that the defendant "was denied due of law when the death sentence was imposed, at least in part, on the basis of information which he had no opportunity to deny or explain." Justice White concurred in the judgment, providing the narrowest grounds of decision among the Justices whose votes were necessary to the judgment. Cf. He concluded that the Eighth Amendment was violated by a "procedure for selecting people for the death penalty which permits consideration of such secret information relevant to the character and record of the individual offender. " In Skipper, the prosecutor argued during the penalty phase that a death sentence was appropriate because the defendant "would pose disciplinary problems if sentenced to *161 prison and would likely rape other prisoners." Skipper's efforts to introduce evidence that he had behaved himself in, and made a "good adjustment" to, jail in the time between his arrest and his trial were rejected by the trial court. The Court concluded: "[E]vidence that the defendant would not pose a danger if spared (but incarcerated) must be considered potentially mitigating. Under Eddings [v. Oklahoma, ], such evidence may not be excluded from the sentencer's consideration." This holding was grounded, as was Eddings, in the Eighth Amendment. The Court also cited the Due Process Clause, stating that "[w]here |
Justice Thomas | 1,997 | 1 | majority | O'Dell v. Netherland | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118131/odell-v-netherland/ | Court also cited the Due Process Clause, stating that "[w]here the prosecution specifically relies on a prediction of future dangerousness in asking for the death penalty," due required that "a defendant not be sentenced to death `on the basis of information which he had no opportunity to deny or explain.' " n. 1 (quoting ). Simmons, argues petitioner, presented merely a variation on the facts of Skipper. In each, the prosecution raised the issue of future dangerousness. Skipper was unconstitutionally prevented from demonstrating that he had behaved in prison and thus would not be a danger to his fellow prisoners. Simmons, likewise, says petitioner, was not allowed to inform the jury that he would be in, rather than out of, prison and so could not present a danger to elderly women. Because the rule of Simmons was allegedly set forth in the 1986 decision in Skipper, which in turn relied upon the 1977 decision in petitioner argues that his death sentence was flawed when affirmed in and we may set it aside without running afoul of[2] *162 Even were these two cases the sum total of relevant precedent bearing on the rule of Simmons, petitioner's argument that the result in Simmons followed ineluctably would not be compelling. produced seven opinions, none for a majority of the Court. Taking the view expressed in Justice White's opinion concurring in the judgment as the rule of see Marks at the holding is a narrow onethat "[a] procedure for selecting people for the death penalty which permits consideration of secret information relevant to the character and record of the individual offender " violates the Eighth Amendment's requirement of "reliability in the determination that death is the appropriate punishment." Petitioner points to no secret evidence given to the sentencer but not to him. And, the evidence that he sought to present to the jury was not historical evidence about his "character and record," but evidence concerning the operation of the extant legal regime. In Skipper, too, the evidence that the defendant was unconstitutionally prevented from adducing was evidence of his past behavior. It is a step from a ruling that a defendant must be permitted to present evidence of that sort to a requirement that he be afforded an opportunity to describe the extant legal regime. Cf. Simmons, 512 U. S., 2 Whatever support and Skipper, standing alone, might lend to petitioner's claim that Simmons was a foregone conclusion, the legal landscape in was far more complex. Respondents point to, and the Fourth Circuit majority *163 relied on, two other cases that had been decided |
Justice Thomas | 1,997 | 1 | majority | O'Dell v. Netherland | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118131/odell-v-netherland/ | *163 relied on, two other cases that had been decided by the time petitioner's conviction became final and that bear on its constitutionality: and In Ramos, the Court upheld an instruction that informed the jury that a defendant sentenced to life in prison without parole could nonetheless be rendered parole eligible if the Governor elected to commute his sentence. The Court concluded that the instruction neither introduced a constitutionally irrelevant factor into the sentencing -1004, nor diverted the jury's attention from the task of rendering an "individualized sentencing determination," Within the bounds of the Constitution, the Court stated that it would defer to California's "identification of the Governor's power to commute a life sentence as a substantive factor to be presented for the sentencing jury's consideration." We emphasized, however, that this conclusion was not to be taken to "override the contrary judgment of state legislatures" that capital juries not learn of a Governor's commutation power. "Many state courts," we pointed out, "have held it improper for the jury to consider or to be informedthrough argument or instructionof the possibility of commutation, pardon, or parole. " n. 30 ; see also and describing that statute as "prohibiting argument as to possibility of pardon, parole, or clemency" ). "We sit as judges, not as legislators, and the wisdom of the decision to permit juror consideration of possible commutation is best left to the States." The dissenters in Ramos disputed the constitutionality of ever informing juries of the Governor's power to commute a death sentence. See ; see also The general proposition that the States retained the prerogative to determine how much (if at all) juries would be informed about the postsentencing legal regime was given further credence in In that case, the prosecution and the judge had, the Court concluded, improperly left the jury with the impression that a death sentence was not final because it would be extensively reviewed. Justice Marshall authored the opinion for the Court except for one portion. In that portion, Justice Marshallwriting for a pluralityconcluded that, Ramos notwithstanding, sentencing juries were not to be given information about postsentencing appellate proceedings. Justice O'Connor, who provided the fifth vote necessary to the judgment, did not join this portion of Justice Marshall's opinion. She wrote separately, stating that, under Ramos, a State could choose whether or not to "instruc[t] the jurors on the sentencing procedure, including the existence and limited nature of appellate review," so long as any information it chose to provide was accurate. 3 In light of Ramos and Caldwell, we think it plain that a reasonable jurist |
Justice Thomas | 1,997 | 1 | majority | O'Dell v. Netherland | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118131/odell-v-netherland/ | and Caldwell, we think it plain that a reasonable jurist in would not have felt compelled to adopt the rule later set out in Simmons. As noted above, neither nor Skipper involved a prohibition on imparting information concerning what might happen, under then-extant law, after a sentence was imposed. Rather, the information at issue in each case was information pertaining to the defendant's "character and record." Although the principal opinions in Simmons found Skipper (which, in turn, relied on ) persuasive, Justice O'Connor distinguished Skipper from the facts presented in Simmons on this very ground, see 512 U.S., suggesting that the rule announced in Simmons was not inevitable. See also That distinctionbetween information concerning state postsentencing law on the one hand and evidence specifically related to the defendant on the otherwas also at the heart of Ramos and Caldwell. In Ramos, the majority concluded that California had reasonably chosen to provide some, limited, postsentence information to the capital sentencing jurythough it noted that many other States had elected just the opposite. The principal dissent in Ramos would have forbidden the provision of any information about postsentence occurrences for the very reason that it did not constitute evidence concerning the defendant's "character or the nature of his crime." In Caldwell, the plurality and Justice O'Connor contested whether the fact that "appellate review is available to a capital defendant sentenced to death" was "simply a factor that in itself is wholly irrelevant to the determination of the appropriate sentence" (as the plurality concluded, ), or whether provision of that information was a constitutional "policy choice in favor of jury education" (as Justice O'Connor concluded, ). A reasonable jurist in then, could have drawn a distinction between information about a defendant and information concerning the extant legal regime. It would hardly have been unreasonable in light of Ramos and Caldwell for the jurist to conclude that his State had acted constitutionally by choosing not to advise its jurors as to events that would (or would not) follow their recommendation of a death sentence, as provided by the legal regime of the moment. Indeed, given the sentiments, expressed in Justice Marshall's Ramos dissent and Caldwell plurality, that information about postsentence procedures was never to go to the jury and given that the decision whether to provide such information *166 had been described by the Ramos majority opinion and Justice O'Connor's concurrence in Caldwell as a "policy choice" left to the States, the reasonable jurist may well have concluded that the most surely constitutional course, when confronted with a request to inform a jury about |
Justice Thomas | 1,997 | 1 | majority | O'Dell v. Netherland | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118131/odell-v-netherland/ | when confronted with a request to inform a jury about a defendant's parole eligibility, was silence. asks state-court judges to judge reasonably, not presciently. See In Simmons, the Court carved out an exception to the general rule described in Ramos by, for the first time ever, requiring that a defendant be allowed to inform the jury of postsentencing legal eventualities. A jurist's failure to predict this cannot, we think, be deemed unreasonable. Accordingly, the rule announced in Simmons was new, and petitioner may not avail himself of it unless the rule of Simmons falls within one of the exceptions to `s bar.[3] *167 B Petitioner contends that, even if it is new, the rule of Simmons falls within the second exception to which permits retroactive application of "`watershed rules of criminal procedure' implicating the fundamental fairness and accuracy of the criminal proceeding." 506 U. S., (quoting 489 U. S., ). Petitioner describes the "practice condemned in Simmons " as a "shocking one." Brief for Petitioner 33. The rule forbidding it, we are told, is "on par" with which we have cited as an example of the sort of rule falling within `s second exception, see because "both cases rest upon this Court's belief that certain procedural protections are essential to prevent a miscarriage of justice," Brief for Petitioner 35 (citations omitted). We disagree.[4] Unlike the sweeping rule of Gideon, which established an affirmative right to counsel in all felony cases, the narrow right of rebuttal that Simmons affords to defendants in a limited class of capital cases has hardly "` "alter[ed] our understanding of the bedrock procedural elements "` essential to the fairness of a proceeding." Sawyer, (emphasis in )). Simmons possesses little of the "watershed" character envisioned by `s second exception. *168 IV For the reasons stated herein, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed. It is so ordered. |
Justice White | 1,975 | 6 | majority | United States v. Watson | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109352/united-states-v-watson/ | This case presents questions under the Fourth Amendment as to the legality of a warrantless arrest and of an ensuing search of the arrestee's automobile carried out with his purported consent. I The relevant events began on August 17, 1972, when an informant, one Khoury, telephoned a postal inspector informing him that respondent Watson was in possession of a stolen credit card and had asked Khoury to cooperate in using the card to their mutual advantage. On five to 10 previous occasions Khoury had provided the inspector with reliable information on postal inspection matters, some involving Watson. Later that day *413 Khoury delivered the card to the inspector. On learning that Watson had agreed to furnish additional cards, the inspector asked Khoury to arrange to meet with Watson. Khoury did so, a meeting being scheduled for August 22.[1] Watson canceled that engagement, but at noon on August 23, Khoury met with Watson at a restaurant designated by the latter. Khoury had been instructed that if Watson had additional stolen credit cards, Khoury was to give a designated signal. The signal was given, the officers closed in, and Watson was forthwith arrested. He was removed from the restaurant to the street where he was given the warnings required by A search having revealed that Watson had no credit cards on his person, the inspector asked if he could look inside Watson's car, which was standing within view. Watson said, "Go ahead," and repeated these words when the inspector cautioned that "[i]f I find anything, it is going to go against you." Using keys furnished by Watson, the inspector entered the car and found under the floor mat an envelope containing two credit cards in the names of other persons. These cards were the basis for two counts of a four-count indictment charging Watson with possessing stolen mail in violation of 18 U.S. C. 1708.[2] Prior to trial, Watson moved to suppress the cards, claiming that his arrest was illegal for want of probable cause and an arrest warrant and that his consent to search the car was involuntary and ineffective because he had not been told that he could withhold consent. *414 The motion was denied, and Watson was convicted of illegally possessing the two cards seized from his car.[3] A divided panel of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed, ruling that the admission in evidence of the two credit cards found in the car was prohibited by the Fourth Amendment. In reaching this judgment, the court decided two issues in Watson's favor. First, notwithstanding its agreement with |
Justice White | 1,975 | 6 | majority | United States v. Watson | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109352/united-states-v-watson/ | two issues in Watson's favor. First, notwithstanding its agreement with the District Court that Khoury was reliable and that there was probable cause for arresting Watson, the court held the arrest unconstitutional because the postal inspector had failed to secure an arrest warrant although he concededly had time to do so. Second, based on the totality of the circumstances, one of which was the illegality of the arrest, the court held Watson's consent to search had been coerced and hence was not a valid ground for the warrantless search of the automobile. We granted certiorari. II A major part of the Court of Appeals' opinion was its holding that Watson's warrantless arrest violated the Fourth Amendment. Although it did not expressly do so, it may have intended to overturn the conviction on the independent ground that the two credit cards were the inadmissible fruits of an unconstitutional arrest. Cf. However that may be, the Court of Appeals treated the illegality of Watson's arrest as an important factor in determining the voluntariness of his consent to search his car. We therefore deal first with the arrest issue. Contrary to the Court of Appeals' view, Watson's arrest was not invalid because executed without a warrant. *415 Title 18 U.S. C. 3061 (3) expressly empowers the Board of Governors of the Postal Service to authorize Postal Service officers and employees "performing duties related to the inspection of postal matters" to "make arrests without warrant for felonies cognizable under the laws of the United States if they have reasonable grounds to believe that the person to be arrested has committed or is committing such a felony." By regulation, 39 CFR5 (3) and in identical language, the Board of Governors has exercised that power and authorized warrantless arrests. Because there was probable cause in this case to believe that Watson had violated 1708, the inspector and his subordinates, in arresting Watson, were acting strictly in accordance with the governing statute and regulations. The effect of the judgment of the Court of Appeals was to invalidate the statute as applied in this case and as applied to all the situations where a court fails to find exigent circumstances justifying a warrantless arrest. We reverse that judgment. Under the Fourth Amendment, the people are to be "secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause" Section 3061 represents a judgment by Congress that it is not unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment for postal inspectors to arrest without a warrant provided they have probable cause |
Justice White | 1,975 | 6 | majority | United States v. Watson | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109352/united-states-v-watson/ | to arrest without a warrant provided they have probable cause to do so.[4] This was not an *416 isolated or quixotic judgment of the legislative branch. Other federal law enforcement officers have been expressly authorized by statute for many years to make felony arrests on probable cause but without a warrant. This is true of United States marshals, 18 U.S. C. 3053, and of agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, 18 U.S. C. 3052; the Drug Enforcement Administration, 21 U.S. C. 878; the Secret Service, 18 U.S. C. 3056 ; and the Customs Service, 26 U.S. C. 7607.[5] Because there is a "strong presumption of constitutionality due to an Act of Congress, especially when it turns on what is `reasonable,' " "[o]bviously the Court should be reluctant to decide that a search thus authorized by Congress was unreasonable and that the Act was therefore unconstitutional." United States v. Di Re, Moreover, there is nothing in the Court's prior cases indicating that under the *417 Fourth Amendment a warrant is required to make a valid arrest for a felony. Indeed, the relevant prior decisions are uniformly to the contrary. "The usual rule is that a police officer may arrest without warrant one believed by the officer upon reasonable cause to have been guilty of a felony" In the Court dealt with an FBI agent's warrantless arrest under 18 U.S. C. 3052, which authorizes a warrantless arrest where there are reasonable grounds to believe that the person to be arrested has committed a felony. The Court declared that "[t]he statute states the constitutional standard." The necessary inquiry, therefore, was not whether there was a warrant or whether there was time to get one, but whether there was probable cause for the arrest. In the Court sustained an administrative arrest made without "a judicial warrant within the scope of the Fourth Amendment." The crucial question in was whether there was probable cause for the warrantless arrest. If there was, the Court said, "the arrest, though without a warrant, was lawful" reiterated the rule that "[t]he lawfulness of the arrest without warrant, in turn, must be based upon probable cause" and went on to sustain the warrantless arrest over other claims going to the mode of entry. Just last Term, while recognizing that maximum protection of individual rights could be assured by requiring a magistrate's review of the factual justification prior to any arrest, we stated that "such a requirement would constitute an intolerable handicap for legitimate law enforcement" and noted that the Court "has never invalidated an arrest supported by probable cause |
Justice White | 1,975 | 6 | majority | United States v. Watson | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109352/united-states-v-watson/ | Court "has never invalidated an arrest supported by probable cause solely *418 because the officers failed to secure a warrant."[6] The cases construing the Fourth Amendment thus reflect the ancient common-law rule that a peace officer was permitted to arrest without a warrant for a misdemeanor or felony committed in his presence as well as for a felony not committed in his presence if there was reasonable ground for making the arrest. 10 Halsbury's Laws of England 344-345 (3d ed. 1955); 4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries *292; 1 J. Stephen, A History of the Criminal Law of England 193 (1883); 2 M. Hale, Pleas of the Crown *72-74; Wilgus, Arrest Without a Warrant ; *419 ; Beckwith v. Philby, 6 Barn. & Cress. 635, 108 Eng. Rep. (K. B. 1827). This has also been the prevailing rule under state constitutions and statutes. "The rule of the common law, that a peace officer or a private citizen may arrest a felon without a warrant, has been generally held by the courts of the several States to be in force in cases of felony punishable by the civil tribunals." In a false-arrest case, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts held that the common-law rule obtained in that State. Given probable cause to arrest, "[t]he authority of a constable, to arrest without warrant, in cases of felony, is most fully established by the elementary books, and adjudicated cases." In reaching this judgment the court observed: "It has been sometimes contended, that an arrest of this character, without a warrant, was a violation of the great fundamental principles of our national and state constitutions, forbidding unreasonable searches and arrests, except by warrant founded upon a complaint made under oath. Those provisions doubtless had another and different purpose, being in restraint of general warrants to make searches, and requiring warrants to issue only upon a complaint made under oath. They do not conflict with the authority of constables or other peace-officers, or private persons under proper limitations, to arrest without warrant those who have committed felonies. The public safety, and the due apprehension of criminals, charged with heinous offences, imperiously require that such arrests should be made without warrant by officers of the law." -285. *420 Also rejected, was the trial court's view that to justify a warrantless arrest, the State must show "an immediate necessity therefor, arising from the danger, that the plaintiff would otherwise escape, or secrete the stolen property, before a warrant could be procured against him." The Supreme Judicial Court ruled that there was no "authority for thus restricting a constable in |
Justice White | 1,975 | 6 | majority | United States v. Watson | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109352/united-states-v-watson/ | there was no "authority for thus restricting a constable in the exercise of his authority to arrest for a felony without a warrant." Other early cases to similar effect were ; ; ; ; Wade v. Chaffee, 8 Rawle I. 224 (1865). See Reuck v. McGregor, 32 N. J. L. 70, 74 (Sup. Ct. 1866); Baltimore & O. R.[7] Because the common-law rule authorizing arrests without a warrant generally prevailed in the States, it is important for present purposes to note that in 1792 Congress invested United States marshals and their deputies with "the same powers in executing the laws of the United States, as sheriffs and their deputies in the several states have by law, in executing the laws of their respective states." Act of May 2, 1792, c. 28, 9, The Second Congress thus saw no inconsistency between the Fourth Amendment and legislation giving United States marshals the same power as local peace officers to arrest for a felony without a warrant.[8] This provision equating the power of federal marshals *421 with those of local sheriffs was several times reenacted[9] and is today 570 of Title 28 of the United States Code. That provision, however, was supplemented in 1935 by a of the Judicial Code,[10] which in its essential elements is now 18 U.S. C. 3053 and which expressly empowered marshals to make felony arrests without warrant and on probable cause. It was enacted to furnish a federal standard independent of the vagaries of state laws, the Committee Report remarking that under existing law a "marshal or deputy marshal may make an arrest without a warrant within his district in all cases where the sheriff might do so under the State statutes." H. R. Rep. No. 283, 74th Cong., 1st Sess., 1 (1935). See United (CA2), cert. denied, The balance struck by the common law in generally authorizing felony arrests on probable cause, but without a warrant, has survived substantially intact. It appears *422 in almost all of the States in the form of express statutory authorization. In 1963, the American Law Institute undertook the task of formulating a model statute governing police powers and practice in criminal law enforcement and related aspects of pretrial procedure. In 1975, after years of discussion, A Model Code of Pre-arraignment Procedure was proposed. Among its provisions was 120.1 which authorizes an officer to take a person into custody if the officer has reasonable cause to believe that the person to be arrested has committed a felony, or has committed a misdemeanor or petty misdemeanor in his presence.[11] The commentary to this |
Justice White | 1,975 | 6 | majority | United States v. Watson | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109352/united-states-v-watson/ | or petty misdemeanor in his presence.[11] The commentary to this section said: "The Code thus adopts the traditional and almost universal standard for arrest without a warrant."[12] *423 This is the rule Congress has long directed its principal law enforcement officers to follow. Congress has plainly decided against conditioning warrantless arrest power on proof of exigent circumstances.[13] Law enforcement officers may find it wise to seek arrest warrants where practicable to do so, and their judgments about probable cause may be more readily accepted where backed by a warrant issued by a magistrate. See United ; ; Wong But we decline to transform this judicial preference into a constitutional rule when the judgment of the Nation and Congress has for so long been to authorize warrantless public arrests on probable cause rather than to encumber criminal prosecutions with endless litigation with respect to the existence of exigent circumstances, whether it was practicable *424 to get a warrant, whether the suspect was about to flee, and the like. Watson's arrest did not violate the Fourth Amendment, and the Court of Appeals erred in holding to the contrary. III Because our judgment is that Watson's arrest comported with the Fourth Amendment, Watson's consent to the search of his car was not the product of an illegal arrest. To the extent that the issue of the voluntariness of Watson's consent was resolved on the premise that his arrest was illegal, the Court of Appeals was also in error. We are satisfied in addition that the remaining factors relied upon by the Court of Appeals to invalidate Watson's consent are inadequate to demonstrate that, in the totality of the circumstances, Watson's consent was not his own "essentially free and unconstrained choice" because his "will ha[d] been overborne and his capacity for self-determination critically impaired." There was no overt act or threat of force against Watson proved or claimed. There were no promises made to him and no indication of more subtle forms of coercion that might flaw his judgment. He had been arrested and was in custody, but his consent was given while on a public street, not in the confines of the police station. Moreover, the fact of custody alone has never been enough in itself to demonstrate a coerced confession or consent to search. Similarly, under Schneckloth, the absence of proof that Watson knew he could withhold his consent, though it may be a factor in the overall judgment, is not to be given controlling significance. There is no indication in this record that Watson was a newcomer *425 to the law,[14] |
Justice Rehnquist | 2,000 | 19 | majority | Green Tree Financial Corp.-Ala. v. Randolph | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118394/green-tree-financial-corp-ala-v-randolph/ | In this case we first address whether an order compelling arbitration and dismissing a party's underlying claims is a "final decision with respect to an arbitration" within the meaning of 16(a)(3) of the Federal Arbitration Act, 9 U.S. C. 16(a)(3), and thus is immediately appealable pursuant to that Act. Because we decide that question in the affirmative, we also address the question whether an arbitration agreement that does not mention arbitration costs and fees is unenforceable because it fails to affirmatively protect a party from potentially steep arbitration costs. We conclude that an arbitration agreement's silence with respect to such matters does not render the agreement unenforceable. I Respondent Larketta Randolph purchased a mobile home from Better Cents Home Builders, Inc., in Opelika, Alabama. She financed this purchase through petitioners Green Tree Financial Corporation and its wholly owned subsidiary, Green Tree Financial Corp.-Alabama. Petitioners' Manufactured Home Retail Installment Contract and Security Agreement required that Randolph buy Vendor's Single Interest insurance, which protects the vendor or lienholder against the costs of repossession in the event of default. The agreement also provided that all disputes arising from, *83 or relating to, the contract, whether arising under case law or statutory law, would be resolved by binding arbitration.[1] Randolph later sued petitioners, alleging that they violated the Truth in Lending Act (TILA), 15 U.S. C. 1601 et seq., by failing to disclose as a finance charge the Vendor's Single Interest insurance requirement. She later amended her complaint to add a claim that petitioners violated the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, 15 U.S. C. 1691-1691f, by requiring her to arbitrate her statutory causes of action. She brought this action on behalf of a similarly situated class. In lieu of an answer, petitioners filed a motion to compel arbitration, to stay the action, or, in the alternative, to dismiss. The District Court granted petitioners' motion to compel arbitration, denied the motion to stay, and dismissed Randolph's claims with prejudice. The District Court also denied her request to certify a class. She requested reconsideration, asserting that *84 she lacked the resources to arbitrate and, as a result, would have to forgo her claims against petitioners. See Plaintiff's Motion for Reconsideration, Record Doc. No. 53, p. 9. The District Court denied -1426. Randolph appealed. The Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit first held that it had jurisdiction to review the District Court's order because that order was a final decision. The Court of Appeals looked to 16 of the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA), 9 U.S. C. 16, which governs appeal from a district court's arbitration order, and |
Justice Rehnquist | 2,000 | 19 | majority | Green Tree Financial Corp.-Ala. v. Randolph | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118394/green-tree-financial-corp-ala-v-randolph/ | which governs appeal from a district court's arbitration order, and specifically 16(a)(3), which allows appeal from "a final decision with respect to an arbitration that is subject to this title." The court determined that a final, appealable order within the meaning of the FAA is one that disposes of all the issues framed by the litigation, leaving nothing to be done but execute the order. The Court of Appeals found the District Court's order within that definition. The court then determined that the arbitration agreement failed to provide the minimum guarantees that respondent could vindicate her statutory rights under the TILA. Critical to this determination was the court's observation that the arbitration agreement was silent with respect to payment of filing fees, arbitrators' costs, and other arbitration expenses. On that basis, the court held that the agreement to arbitrate posed a risk that respondent's ability to vindicate her statutory rights would be undone by "steep" arbitration costs, and therefore was unenforceable. We granted certiorari, and we now affirm the Court of Appeals with respect to the first conclusion, and reverse it with respect to the second. II Section 16 of the Federal Arbitration Act, enacted in 1988, governs appellate review of arbitration orders. 9 U.S. C. 16. It provides: *85 "(a) An appeal may be taken from "(1) an order "(A) refusing a stay of any action under section 3 of this title, "(B) denying a petition under section 4 of this title to order arbitration to proceed, "(C) denying an application under section 206 of this title to compel arbitration, "(D) confirming or denying confirmation of an award or partial award, or "(E) modifying, correcting, or vacating an award; "(2) an interlocutory order granting, continuing, or modifying an injunction against an arbitration that is subject to this title; or "(3) a final decision with respect to an arbitration that is subject to this title. "(b) Except as otherwise provided in section 1292(b) of title 28, an appeal may not be taken from an interlocutory order "(1) granting a stay of any action under section 3 of this title; "(2) directing arbitration to proceed under section 4 of this title; "(3) compelling arbitration under section 206 of this title; or "(4) refusing to enjoin an arbitration that is subject to this title." The District Court's order directed that arbitration proceed and dismissed respondent's claims for relief. The question before us, then, is whether that order can be appealed as "a final decision with respect to an arbitration" within the meaning of 16(a)(3). Petitioners urge us to hold that it cannot. |
Justice Rehnquist | 2,000 | 19 | majority | Green Tree Financial Corp.-Ala. v. Randolph | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118394/green-tree-financial-corp-ala-v-randolph/ | of 16(a)(3). Petitioners urge us to hold that it cannot. They rely, in part, on the FAA's policy favoring arbitration agreements and its goal of "mov[ing] the parties to an arbitrable dispute out of court and into arbitration as quickly and easily as possible." Moses H. Cone Memorial *86 ; In accordance with that purpose, petitioners point out, 16 generally permits immediate appeal of orders hostile to arbitration, whether the orders are final or interlocutory, but bars appeal of interlocutory orders favorable to arbitration. Section 16(a)(3), however, preserves immediate appeal of any "final decision with respect to an arbitration," regardless of whether the decision is favorable or hostile to arbitration. And as petitioners and respondent agree, the term "final decision" has a well-developed and longstanding meaning. It is a decision that "`ends the litigation on the merits and leaves nothing more for the court to do but execute the judgment.'" Digital Equipment and Coopers & ). See also St. Louis, I. M. & S. R. Because the FAA does not define "a final decision with respect to an arbitration" or otherwise suggest that the ordinary meaning of "final decision" should not apply, we accord the term its well-established meaning. See The District Court's order directed that the dispute be resolved by arbitration and dismissed respondent's claims with prejudice, leaving the court nothing to do but execute the judgment. That order plainly disposed of the entire case on the merits and left no part of it pending before the court. The FAA does permit parties to arbitration agreements to bring a separate proceeding in a district court to enter judgment on an arbitration award once it is made (or to vacate or modify it), but the existence of that remedy does not vitiate the finality of the District Court's resolution of the claims in the instant proceeding. 9 U.S. C. 9, 10, 11. The District Court's order was therefore "a final decision with respect to an arbitration" within the meaning of 16(a)(3), and *87 an appeal may be taken.[2] See Sears, Roebuck & ; (noting that had petitioners' motion to dismiss been granted and a judgment of dismissal entered, "clearly there would have been an end of the litigation and appeal would lie"). Petitioners contend that the phrase "final decision" does not include an order compelling arbitration and dismissing the other claims in the action, when that order occurs in an "embedded" proceeding, such as this one. Brief for Petitioners 26. "Embedded" proceedings are simply those actions involving both a request for arbitration and other claims for relief. "Independent" proceedings, by |
Justice Rehnquist | 2,000 | 19 | majority | Green Tree Financial Corp.-Ala. v. Randolph | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118394/green-tree-financial-corp-ala-v-randolph/ | for arbitration and other claims for relief. "Independent" proceedings, by contrast, are actions in which a request to order arbitration is the sole issue before the court. Those Courts of Appeals attaching significance to this distinction hold that an order compelling arbitration in an "independent" proceeding is final within the meaning of 16(a)(3), but that such an order in an "embedded" proceeding is not, even if the district court dismisses the remaining claims.[3] Petitioners contend that the distinction *88 between independent and embedded proceedings and its consequences for finality were so firmly established at the time of 16's enactment that we should assume Congress meant to incorporate them into 16(a)(3). See Brief for Petitioners 23-26. We disagree. It does not appear that, at the time of 16(a)(3)'s enactment, the rules of finality were firmly established in cases like this one, where the District Court both ordered arbitration and dismissed the remaining claims.[4] We also note that at that time, Courts of Appeals did not have a uniform approach to finality with respect to orders directing arbitration in "embedded" proceedings.[5] The term "final decision," by contrast, enjoys a consistent and longstanding interpretation. Certainly the plain language of the statutory text does not suggest that Congress intended to incorporate the rather complex independent/ *89 embedded distinction, and its consequences for finality, into 16(a)(3). We therefore conclude that where, as here, the District Court has ordered the parties to proceed to arbitration, and dismissed all the claims before it, that decision is "final" within the meaning of 16(a)(3), and therefore appealable. III We now turn to the question whether Randolph's agreement to arbitrate is unenforceable because it says nothing about the costs of arbitration, and thus fails to provide her protection from potentially substantial costs of pursuing her federal statutory claims in the arbitral forum. Section 2 of the FAA provides that "[a] written provision in any maritime transaction or a contract evidencing a transaction involving commerce to settle by arbitration a controversy thereafter arising out of such contract shall be valid, irrevocable, and enforceable, save upon such grounds as exist at law or in equity for the revocation of any contract." 9 U.S. C. 2. In considering whether respondent's agreement to arbitrate is unenforceable, we are mindful of the FAA's purpose "to reverse the longstanding judicial hostility to arbitration agreements and to place arbitration agreements upon the same footing as other contracts." In light of that purpose, we have recognized that federal statutory claims can be appropriately resolved through arbitration, and we have enforced agreements to arbitrate that involve such claims. See, |
Justice Rehnquist | 2,000 | 19 | majority | Green Tree Financial Corp.-Ala. v. Randolph | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118394/green-tree-financial-corp-ala-v-randolph/ | have enforced agreements to arbitrate that involve such claims. See, e. g., Rodriguez de ; Shearson/American Express 482 U.S. 0 ; Motors We have likewise rejected generalized attacks on arbitration that rest on "suspicion of arbitration as a method of weakening the protections *90 afforded in the substantive law to would-be complainants." Rodriguez de These cases demonstrate that even claims arising under a statute designed to further important social policies may be arbitrated because "`so long as the prospective litigant effectively may vindicate [his or her] statutory cause of action in the arbitral forum,' " the statute serves its functions. See (quoting ). In determining whether statutory claims may be arbitrated, we first ask whether the parties agreed to submit their claims to arbitration, and then ask whether Congress has evinced an intention to preclude a waiver of judicial remedies for the statutory rights at issue. See ; In this case, it is undisputed that the parties agreed to arbitrate all claims relating to their contract, including claims involving statutory rights. Nor does Randolph contend that the TILA evinces an intention to preclude a waiver of judicial remedies. She contends instead that the arbitration agreement's silence with respect to costs and fees creates a "risk" that she will be required to bear prohibitive arbitration costs if she pursues her claims in an arbitral forum, and thereby forces her to forgo any claims she may have against petitioners. Therefore, she argues, she is unable to vindicate her statutory rights in arbitration. See Brief for Respondent 29-30. It may well be that the existence of large arbitration costs could preclude a litigant such as Randolph from effectively vindicating her federal statutory rights in the arbitral forum. But the record does not show that Randolph will bear such costs if she goes to arbitration. Indeed, it contains hardly any information on the matter.[6] As the Court of Appeals *91 recognized, "we lack information about how claimants fare under Green Tree's arbitration clause." The record reveals only the arbitration agreement's silence on the subject, and that fact alone is plainly insufficient to render it unenforceable. The "risk" that Randolph will be saddled with prohibitive costs is too speculative to justify the invalidation of an arbitration agreement. To invalidate the agreement on that basis would undermine the "liberal federal policy favoring arbitration agreements." Moses H. Cone Memorial 460 U. S., It would also conflict with our prior holdings that the party resisting arbitration bears the burden of proving that the claims at issue are unsuitable for arbitration. See ; at 7. We have *92 held |
Justice Rehnquist | 2,000 | 19 | majority | Green Tree Financial Corp.-Ala. v. Randolph | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118394/green-tree-financial-corp-ala-v-randolph/ | for arbitration. See ; at 7. We have *92 held that the party seeking to avoid arbitration bears the burden of establishing that Congress intended to preclude arbitration of the statutory claims at issue. See Similarly, we believe that where, as here, a party seeks to invalidate an arbitration agreement on the ground that arbitration would be prohibitively expensive, that party bears the burden of showing the likelihood of incurring such costs. Randolph did not meet that burden. How detailed the showing of prohibitive expense must be before the party seeking arbitration must come forward with contrary evidence is a matter we need not discuss; for in this case neither during discovery nor when the case was presented on the merits was there any timely showing at all on the point. The Court of Appeals therefore erred in deciding that the arbitration agreement's silence with respect to costs and fees rendered it unenforceable.[7] The judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed in part and reversed in part. It is so ordered. Justice Ginsburg, with whom Justice Stevens and Justice Souter join, and with whom Justice Breyer joins as to Parts I and III, concurring in part and dissenting in part. I I join Part II of the Court's opinion, which holds that the District Court's order, dismissing all the claims before it, was a "final," and therefore immediately appealable, decision. Ante, at 84-89. On the matter the Court airs in Part III, *93 ante, at 89-92allocation of the costs of arbitrationI would not rule definitively. Instead, I would vacate the Eleventh Circuit's decision, which dispositively declared the arbitration clause unenforceable, and remand the case for closer consideration of the arbitral forum's accessibility. II The Court today deals with a "who pays" question, specifically, who pays for the arbitral forum. The Court holds that Larketta Randolph bears the burden of demonstrating that the arbitral forum is financially inaccessible to her. Essentially, the Court requires a party, situated as Randolph is, either to submit to arbitration without knowing who will pay for the forum or to demonstrate up front that the costs, if imposed on her, will be prohibitive. Ante, at 91-92. As I see it, the case in its current posture is not ripe for such a disposition. The Court recognizes that "the existence of large arbitration costs could preclude a litigant such as Randolph from effectively vindicating her federal statutory rights in the arbitral forum." Ante, at 90. But, the Court next determines, "the party resisting arbitration bears the burden of proving that the claims at issue are unsuitable |
Justice Rehnquist | 2,000 | 19 | majority | Green Tree Financial Corp.-Ala. v. Randolph | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118394/green-tree-financial-corp-ala-v-randolph/ | burden of proving that the claims at issue are unsuitable for arbitration" and "Randolph did not meet that burden." Ante, at 91, 92. In so ruling, the Court blends two discrete inquiries: First, is the arbitral forum adequate to adjudicate the claims at issue; second, is that forum accessible to the party resisting arbitration. Our past decisions deal with the first question, the adequacy of the arbitral forum to adjudicate various statutory claims. See, e. g., v. Interstate/Johnson Lane Corp., ; Shearson/American Express 482 U.S. 0 *94 These decisions hold that the party resisting arbitration bears the burden of establishing the inadequacy of the arbitral forum for adjudication of claims of a particular genre. See 500 U. S., ; 482 U. S., at 7. It does not follow like the night the day, however, that the party resisting arbitration should also bear the burden of showing that the arbitral forum would be financially inaccessible to her. The arbitration agreement at issue is contained in a form contract drawn by a commercial party and presented to an individual consumer on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. The case on which the Court dominantly relies, also involved a nonnegotiated arbitration clause. But the "who pays" question presented in this case did not arise in Under the rules that governed in those of the New York Stock Exchangeit was the standard practice for securities industry parties, arbitrating employment disputes, to pay all of the arbitrators' fees. See Regarding that practice, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit recently commented: "[I]n the Supreme Court endorsed a system of arbitration in which employees are not required to pay for the arbitrator assigned to hear their statutory claims. There is no reason to think that the Court would have approved arbitration in the absence of this arrangement. Indeed, we are unaware of any situation in American jurisprudence in which a beneficiary of a federal statute has been required to pay for the services of the judge assigned to hear her or his case." III The form contract in this case provides no indication of the rules under which arbitration will proceed or the costs a *95 consumer is likely to incur in arbitration.[1] Green Tree, drafter of the contract, could have filled the void by specifying, for instance, that arbitration would be governed by the rules of the American Arbitration Association (AAA). Under the AAA's Consumer Arbitration Rules, consumers in small-claims arbitration incur no filing fee and pay only $125 of the total fees charged by the arbitrator. All other fees and costs are to be |
Justice Rehnquist | 2,000 | 19 | majority | Green Tree Financial Corp.-Ala. v. Randolph | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118394/green-tree-financial-corp-ala-v-randolph/ | the arbitrator. All other fees and costs are to be paid by the business party. Brief for American Arbitration Association as Amicus Curiae 15-16. Other national arbitration organizations have developed similar models for fair cost and fee allocation.[2] It may be that in this case, as in there is a standard practice on arbitrators' fees and expenses, one that fills the blank space in the arbitration agreement. Counsel for Green Tree offered a hint in that direction. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 26 ("Green Tree does pay [arbitration] costs in a lot of instances"). But there is no reliable indication in this record that Randolph's claim will be arbitrated under any consumer-protective fee arrangement. *96 As a repeat player in the arbitration required by its form contract, Green Tree has superior information about the cost to consumers of pursuing arbitration. Cf. ; 9 J. Wigmore, Evidence 86 (J. Chadbourn rev. ed. 1981) (where fairness so requires, burden of proof of a particular fact may be assigned to "party who presumably has peculiar means of knowledge" of the fact); Restatement (Second) of Contracts 206 (1979) ("In choosing among the reasonable meanings of [an] agreement or a term thereof, that meaning is generally preferred which operates against the [drafting] party"). In these circumstances, it is hardly clear that Randolph should bear the burden of demonstrating up front the arbitral forum's inaccessibility, or that she should be required to submit to arbitration without knowing how much it will cost her. As I see it, the Court has reached out prematurely to resolve the matter in the lender's favor. If Green Tree's practice under the form contract with retail installment sales purchasers resembles that of the employer in Randolph would be insulated from prohibitive costs. And if the arbitral forum were in this case financially accessible to Randolph, there would be no occasion to reach the decision today rendered by the Court. Before writing a term into the form contract, as the District of Columbia Circuit did, see[3] or leaving cost allocation initially to each arbitrator, as the Court does, I would remand for clarification of Green Tree's practice. *97 The Court's opinion, if I comprehend it correctly, does not prevent Randolph from returning to court, postarbitration, if she then has a complaint about cost allocation. If that is so, the issue reduces to when, not whether, she can be spared from payment of excessive costs. Neither certainty nor judicial economy is served by leaving that issue unsettled until the end of the line. For the reasons stated, I dissent from the Court's reversal |
Justice Sotomayor | 2,013 | 24 | majority | Moncrieffe v. Holder | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/858802/moncrieffe-v-holder/ | The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), 66 Stat. 163, 8 U.S. C. et seq., provides that a noncitizen who has been convicted of an “aggravated felony” may be deported from this country. The INA also prohibits the Attorney General from granting discretionary relief from removal to an aggravated felon, no matter how compelling his case. Among the crimes that are classified as aggra- vated felonies, and thus lead to these harsh consequences, are illicit drug trafficking offenses. We must decide whether this category includes a state criminal statute that extends to the social sharing of a small amount of marijuana. We hold it does not. I A The INA allows the Government to deport various classes of noncitizens, such as those who overstay their visas, and those who are convicted of certain crimes while in the United States, including drug offenses. Ordinarily, when a noncitizen is found to be deportable on one of these grounds, he may ask the Attorney General for cer- 2 MONCRIEFFE v. HOLDER Opinion of the Court tain forms of discretionary relief from removal, like asy- lum (if he has a well-founded fear of persecution in his home country) and cancellation of removal (if, among other things, he has been lawfully present in the United States for a number of years). 1229b. But if a noncitizen has been convicted of one of a narrower set of crimes classified as “aggravated felonies,” then he is not only deportable, but also ineligible for these discretionary forms of relief. See (B)(i); (b)(1)(C).1 The INA defines “aggravated felony” to include a host of offenses. (a)(43). Among them is “illicit trafficking in a controlled substance.” (a)(43)(B). This general term is not defined, but the INA states that it “includ[es] a drug trafficking crime (as defined in section 9(c) of title 18).” In turn, 18 U.S. C. defines “drug trafficking crime” to mean “any felony punishable under the Controlled Substances Act,” or two other statues not relevant here. The chain of definitions ends with which provides that a “felony” is an offense for which the “maximum term of imprisonment authorized” is “more than one year.” The upshot is that a noncitizen’s conviction of an offense that the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) makes punishable by more than one year’s impris- —————— 1 In addition to asylum, a noncitizen who fears persecution may seek withholding of removal, 8 U.S. C. and deferral of removal under the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT), Art. 3, Dec. 10, 1984, S. Treaty Doc. No. 100–20, p. 20, 1465 U. N. |
Justice Sotomayor | 2,013 | 24 | majority | Moncrieffe v. Holder | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/858802/moncrieffe-v-holder/ | S. Treaty Doc. No. 100–20, p. 20, 1465 U. N. T. S. 85; 8 CFR These forms of relief require the noncitizen to show a greater likelihood of persecution or torture at home than is necessary for asylum, but the Attorney General has no discretion to deny relief to a noncitizen who establishes his eligibility. A conviction of an aggra- vated felony has no effect on CAT eligibility, but will render a nonciti- zen ineligible for withholding of removal if he “has been sentenced to an aggregate term of imprisonment of at least 5 years” for any aggravated felonies. 8 U.S. C. Cite as: 569 U. S. (2013) 3 Opinion of the Court onment will be counted as an “aggravated felony” for immigration purposes. A conviction under either state or federal law may qualify, but a “state offense constitutes a ‘felony punishable under the Controlled Substances Act’ only if it proscribes conduct punishable as a felony under that federal law.” (2006). B Petitioner Adrian Moncrieffe is a Jamaican citizen who came to the United States legally in 1984, when he was three. During a 2007 traffic stop, police found 1.3 grams of marijuana in his car. This is the equivalent of about two or three marijuana cigarettes. Moncrieffe pleaded guilty to possession of marijuana with intent to distribute, a violation of –13–30(j)(1) (2007). Un- der a Georgia statute providing more lenient treatment to first-time offenders, §42–8–(a) (1997), the trial court withheld entering a judgment of conviction or imposing any term of imprisonment, and instead required that Moncrieffe complete five years of probation, after which his charge will be expunged altogether.2 App. to Brief for Petitioner 11–15. Alleging that this Georgia conviction constituted an aggravated felony, the Federal Government sought to deport Moncrieffe. The Government reasoned that posses- sion of marijuana with intent to distribute is an offense under the CSA, 21 U.S. C. punishable by up to five years’ imprisonment, and thus an ag- gravated felony. An Immigration Judge agreed and or- dered Moncrieffe removed. App. to Pet. for Cert. 14a–18a. The Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) affirmed that —————— 2 Theparties agree that this resolution of Moncrieffe’s Georgia case is nevertheless a “conviction” as the INA defines that term, 8 U.S. C. (a)(48)(A). See Brief for Petitioner 6, n. 2; Brief for Respondent 5, n. 2. 4 MONCRIEFFE v. HOLDER Opinion of the Court conclusion on appeal. at 10a–13a. The Court of Appeals denied Moncrieffe’s petition for review. The court rejected Moncrieffe’s reliance upon a provision that, in effect, makes marijuana distribution punishable only as a misdemeanor if the |
Justice Sotomayor | 2,013 | 24 | majority | Moncrieffe v. Holder | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/858802/moncrieffe-v-holder/ | makes marijuana distribution punishable only as a misdemeanor if the offense involves a small amount of marijuana for no re- muneration. It held that in a federal criminal prosecution, “the default sentencing range for a marijuana distribution offense is the CSA’s felony provision, rather than the misdemeanor provision.” Because Moncrieffe’s Georgia offense penal- ized possession of marijuana with intent to distribute, the court concluded that it was “equivalent to a federal felony.” We granted certiorari, 566 U. S. to resolve a conflict among the Courts of Appeals with respect to whether a conviction under a statute that criminalizes conduct described by both felony provision and its misdemeanor provision, such as a statute that punishes all marijuana distribution without regard to the amount or remuneration, is a conviction for an offense that “pro- scribes conduct punishable as a felony under” the CSA.3 549 U. S., at We now reverse. II A When the Government alleges that a state conviction qualifies as an “aggravated felony” under the INA, we generally employ a “categorical approach” to determine whether the state offense is comparable to an offense listed in the INA. See, e.g., and Julce v. Mukasey, with and Wilson v. Ashcroft, Cite as: 569 U. S. (2013) 5 Opinion of the Court 29, 33–38 ; Gonzales v. Duenas-Alvarez, 549 U.S. 183, 185–187 (2007). Under this approach we look “not to the facts of the particular prior case,” but instead to whether “the state statute defining the crime of convic- tion” categorically fits within the “generic” federal defini- tion of a corresponding aggravated felony. ). By “generic,” we mean the offenses must be viewed in the abstract, to see whether the state statute shares the nature of the federal offense that serves as a point of comparison. Accordingly, a state offense is a categorical match with a generic federal offense only if a conviction of the state offense “ ‘necessarily’ involved facts equating to [the] generic [federal offense].” v. United States, (plurality opin- ion). Whether the noncitizen’s actual conduct involved such facts “is quite irrelevant.” United States ex rel. Gua- Because we examine what the state conviction neces- sarily involved, not the facts underlying the case, we must presume that the conviction “rested upon [nothing] more than the least of th[e] acts” criminalized, and then deter- mine whether even those acts are encompassed by the generic federal offense. Johnson v. United States, 559 U.S. 133, 137 (2010); see Guarino, 107 F. 2d, at But this rule is not without qualification. First, our cases have addressed state statutes that contain several different crimes, each described |
Justice Sotomayor | 2,013 | 24 | majority | Moncrieffe v. Holder | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/858802/moncrieffe-v-holder/ | addressed state statutes that contain several different crimes, each described separately, and we have held that a court may determine which particular offense the nonciti- zen was convicted of by examining the charging document and jury instructions, or in the case of a guilty plea, the plea agreement, plea colloquy, or “ ‘some comparable judi- cial record’ of the factual basis for the plea.” (quoting ). Sec- ond, our focus on the minimum conduct criminalized by the state statute is not an invitation to apply “legal imagi- 6 MONCRIEFFE v. HOLDER Opinion of the Court nation” to the state offense; there must be “a realistic probability, not a theoretical possibility, that the State would apply its statute to conduct that falls outside the generic definition of a crime.” Duenas-Alvarez, 549 U. S., at 193. This categorical approach has a long pedigree in our Nation’s immigration law. See Das, The Immigration Penalties of Criminal Convictions: Resurrecting Categori- cal Analysis in Immigration Law, 86 N. Y. U. L. Rev. 1669, 1688–1, 1749–1752 (tracing judicial decisions back to 1913). The reason is that the INA asks what offense the noncitizen was “convicted” of, 8 U.S. C. not what acts he committed. “[C]on- viction” is “the relevant statutory hook.”4 Carachuri- Rosendo v. Holder, 5 U.S. (2010) (slip op., at 16); see United States ex rel. 210 F. 8, (CA2 1914). B The aggravated felony at issue here, “illicit trafficking in a controlled substance,” is a “generic crim[e].” So the categorical approach applies. As we have at 2–3, this aggravated felony encompasses all state offenses that “proscrib[e] conduct punishable as a felony under [the CSA].” 549 U. S., at In other words, to satisfy the categorical approach, a state drug offense must meet two conditions: It must “necessarily” proscribe conduct that is an offense under the CSA, and the CSA must “necessarily” prescribe felony punishment for that conduct. Moncrieffe was convicted under a Georgia statute that —————— 4 Carachuri-Rosendo construed a different provision of the INA that concerns cancellation of removal, which also requires determining whether the noncitizen has been “convicted of any aggravated felony.” 8 U.S. C. (emphasis added). Our analysis is the same in both contexts. Cite as: 569 U. S. (2013) 7 Opinion of the Court makes it a crime to “possess, have under [one’s] control, manufacture, deliver, distribute, dispense, administer, purchase, sell, or possess with intent to distribute mari- juana.” –13–30(j)(1). We know from his plea agreement that Moncrieffe was convicted of the last of these offenses. App. to Brief for Petitioner 11; We therefore must determine whether possession of marijuana |
Justice Sotomayor | 2,013 | 24 | majority | Moncrieffe v. Holder | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/858802/moncrieffe-v-holder/ | Petitioner 11; We therefore must determine whether possession of marijuana with intent to distribute is “nec- essarily” conduct punishable as a felony under the CSA. We begin with the relevant conduct criminalized by the CSA. There is no question that it is a federal crime to “possess with intent to distribute a controlled substance,” 21 U.S. C. one of which is mari- juana, So far, the state and federal provisions correspond. But this is not enough, because the generically defined federal crime is “any felony punishable under the Controlled Substances Act,” 18 U.S. C. not just any “offense under the CSA.” Thus we must look to what punishment the CSA imposes for this offense. Section 841 is divided into two subsections that are relevant here: (a), titled “Unlawful acts,” which includes the offense just described, and (b), titled “Penalties.” Subsection (b) tells us how “any person who violates sub- section (a)” shall be punished, depending on the circum- stances of his crime (e.g., the type and quantity of con- trolled substance involved, whether it is a repeat offense).6 —————— 5 In full, 21 U.S. C. provides, “Except as authorized by this subchapter, it shall be unlawful for any person knowingly or intentionally— “(1) to manufacture, distribute, or dispense, or possess with intent to manufacture, distribute, or dispense, a controlled substance” 6 In pertinent part, and (b)(4) (2006 ed. and Supp. V) provide, “Except as otherwise provided in section 849, 859, 8, or 861 of this title, any person who violates subsection (a) of this section shall be sentenced as follows: 8 MONCRIEFFE v. HOLDER Opinion of the Court Subsection (b)(1)(D) provides that if a person commits a violation of subsection (a) involving “less than 50 kilo- grams of marihuana,” then “such person shall, except as provided in paragraphs (4) and (5) of this subsection, be sentenced to a term of imprisonment of not more than 5 years,” i.e., as a felon. But one of the exceptions is im- portant here. Paragraph (4) provides, “Notwithstanding paragraph (1)(D) of this subsection, any person who vio- lates subsection (a) of this section by distributing a small amount of marihuana for no remuneration shall be treated as” a simple drug possessor, 21 U.S. C. which for our purposes means as a misdemeanant.7 These dovetail- ing provisions create two mutually exclusive categories of punishment for CSA marijuana distribution offenses: one —————— “[(1)](D) In the case of less than 50 kilograms of marihuana, except in the case of 50 or more marihuana plants regardless of weight, 10 kilograms of hashish, or one kilogram of hashish oil, |
Justice Sotomayor | 2,013 | 24 | majority | Moncrieffe v. Holder | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/858802/moncrieffe-v-holder/ | 10 kilograms of hashish, or one kilogram of hashish oil, such person shall, except as provided in paragraphs (4) and (5) of this subsection, be sentenced to a term of imprisonment of not more than 5 years, a fine not to exceed the greater of that authorized in accordance with the provisions of title 18 or $250,000 if the defendant is an individual or $1,000,000 if the defendant is other than an individual, or both. “(4) Notwithstanding paragraph (1)(D) of this subsection, any person who violates subsection (a) of this section by distributing a small amount of marihuana for no remuneration shall be treated as provided in section 844 of this title and section 37 of title 18.” 7 Although paragraph (4) speaks only of “distributing” marijuana, the parties agree that it also applies to “the more inchoate offense of possession with intent to distribute that drug.” Matter of Castro Rodriguez, ; see Brief for Petitioner 6, n. 2; Brief for Respondent 8, n. 5. The CSA does not define “small amount.” The BIA has suggested that 30 grams “serve[s] as a useful guidepost,” Castro Rodriguez, 25 I. & N. Dec., at 703, noting that the INA exempts from deportable controlled substances offenses “a single offense involving possession for one’s own use of 30 grams or less of marijuana,” 8 U.S. C. The meaning of “small amount” is not at issue in this case, so we need not, and do not, define the term. Cite as: 569 U. S. (2013) 9 Opinion of the Court a felony, and one not. The only way to know whether a marijuana distribution offense is “punishable as a felony” under the CSA, 549 U. S., at is to know whether the conditions described in paragraph (4) are present or absent. A conviction under the same Georgia statute for “sell[ing]” marijuana, for example, would seem to establish remuneration. The presence of remuneration would mean that paragraph (4) is not implicated, and thus that the conviction is necessarily for conduct punishable as a felony under the CSA (under paragraph (1)(D)). In contrast, the fact of a conviction for possession with intent to distribute marijuana, standing alone, does not reveal whether either remuneration or more than a small amount of marijuana was involved. It is possible neither was; we know that Georgia prosecutes this offense when a defendant possesses only a small amount of marijuana, see, e.g., Taylor v. State, 2 Ga. App. 890, (6.6 grams), and that “distribution” does not require remuner- ation, see, e.g., 628– 629, So Moncrieffe’s conviction could correspond to either the CSA |
Justice Sotomayor | 2,013 | 24 | majority | Moncrieffe v. Holder | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/858802/moncrieffe-v-holder/ | 629, So Moncrieffe’s conviction could correspond to either the CSA felony or the CSA misdemeanor. Ambiguity on this point means that the conviction did not “necessarily” involve facts that correspond to an offense punishable as a felony under the CSA. Under the categorical approach, then, Moncrieffe was not convicted of an aggravated felony. III A The Government advances a different approach that leads to a different result. In its view, misde- meanor provision is irrelevant to the categorical analysis because paragraph (4) is merely a “mitigating exception,” to the CSA offense, not one of the “elements” of the of- fense. Brief for Respondent 12. And because possession 10 MONCRIEFFE v. HOLDER Opinion of the Court with intent to distribute marijuana is “presumptive[ly]” a felony under the CSA, the Government asserts, any state offense with the same elements is presumptively an ag- gravated felony. These two contentions are related, and we reject both of them. First, the Government reads our cases to hold that the categorical approach is concerned only with the “elements” of an offense, so “is not relevant” to the categor- ical analysis. It is enough to satisfy the cate- gorical inquiry, the Government suggests, that the “ele- ments” of Moncrieffe’s Georgia offense are the same as those of the CSA offense: (1) possession (2) of marijuana (a controlled substance), (3) with intent to distribute it. But that understanding is inconsistent with Carachuri- Rosendo, our only decision to address both “elements” and “sentencing factors.” There we recognized that when Congress has chosen to define the generic federal offense by reference to punishment, it may be necessary to take account of federal sentencing factors too. See 5 U. S., at (slip op., at 3). In that case the relevant CSA offense was simple possession, which “becomes a ‘felony punisha- ble under the [CSA]’ only because the sentencing factor of recidivism authorizes additional punishment beyond one year, the criterion for a felony.” at (SCALIA, J., concurring in judgment) (slip op., at 2). We therefore called the generic federal offense “recidivist simple posses- sion,” even though such a crime is not actually “a separate offense” under the CSA, but rather an “ ‘amalgam’ ” of offense elements and sentencing factors. at and n. 3, (majority opinion) (slip op., at 3, and n. 3, 7). In other words, not only must the state offense of convic- tion meet the “elements” of the generic federal offense defined by the INA, but the CSA must punish that offense as a felony. Here, the facts giving rise to the CSA offense establish a crime that may |
Justice Sotomayor | 2,013 | 24 | majority | Moncrieffe v. Holder | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/858802/moncrieffe-v-holder/ | rise to the CSA offense establish a crime that may be either a felony or a misde- meanor, depending upon the presence or absence of cer- Cite as: 569 U. S. (2013) 11 Opinion of the Court tain factors that are not themselves elements of the crime. And so to qualify as an aggravated felony, a conviction for the predicate offense must necessarily establish those factors as well. The Government attempts to distinguish Carachuri- Rosendo on the ground that the sentencing factor there was a “narrow” aggravating exception that turned a mis- demeanor into a felony, whereas here is a nar- row mitigation exception that turns a felony into a misde- meanor. Brief for Respondent 40–43. This argument hinges upon the Government’s second assertion: that any marijuana distribution conviction is “presumptively” a felony. But that is simply incorrect, and the Government’s argument collapses as a result. Marijuana distribution is neither a felony nor a misdemeanor until we know whether the conditions in paragraph (4) attach: Section 841(b)(1)(D) makes the crime punishable by five years’ imprisonment “except as provided” in paragraph (4), and makes it punishable as a misdemeanor “[n]otwithstanding paragraph (1)(D)” when only “a small amount of marihuana for no remuneration” is involved. (Emphasis added.) The CSA’s text makes neither provi- sion the default. Rather, each is drafted to be exclusive of the other. Like the BIA and the Fifth Circuit, the Government believes the felony provision to be the default because, in practice, that is how federal criminal prosecutions for marijuana distribution operate. See – ; Matter of Aruna, I. & N. Dec. 452, ; Brief for Respondent 18–23. It is true that every Court of Appeals to have considered the question has held that a defendant is eligible for a 5-year sentence under if the Government proves he possessed marijuana with the intent to distribute it, and that the Government need not negate the factors in each case. See, e.g., United 636– 12 MONCRIEFFE v. HOLDER Opinion of the Court 639 (CA2 2002) (describing as a “mitigating exception”); United 670– 671 (collecting cases). Instead, the burden is on the defendant to show that he qualifies for the lesser sentence under Cf. We cannot discount text, however, which creates no default punishment, in favor of the procedural overlay or burdens of proof that would apply in a hypothetical federal criminal prosecution. In Carachuri-Rosendo, we rejected the Fifth Circuit’s “ ‘hypothetical approach,’ ” which examined whether conduct “ ‘could have been pun- ished as a felony’ ‘had [it] been prosecuted in federal court.’ ” 5 U. S., at (slip op., |
Justice Sotomayor | 2,013 | 24 | majority | Moncrieffe v. Holder | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/858802/moncrieffe-v-holder/ | in federal court.’ ” 5 U. S., at (slip op., at 8, 11).8 The outcome in a hypothetical prosecution is not the relevant inquiry. Rather, our “more focused, categorical inquiry” is whether the record of conviction of the predicate offense necessarily establishes conduct that the CSA, on its own terms, makes punishable as a felony. at (slip op., at 16). The analogy to a federal prosecution is misplaced for another reason. The Court of Appeals cases the Govern- ment cites distinguished between elements and sentencing factors to determine which facts must be proved to a jury, —————— 8 JUSTICE ALITO states that the statute “obviously” requires examina- tion of whether “conduct associated with the state offense would have supported a qualifying conviction under the federal CSA.” Post, at 3 (dissenting opinion) (emphasis added); see also post, at 8. But this echoes the Fifth Circuit’s approach in Carachuri-Rosendo. As noted in the text, our opinion explicitly rejected such reasoning based on condi- tional perfect formulations. See also, e.g., Carachuri-Rosendo, 5 U. S., at (slip op., at 16) (criticizing approach that “focuses on facts known to the immigration court that could have but did not serve as the basis for the state conviction and punishment” (emphasis altered)). Instead, as we have at 10–11, our holding depended upon the fact that Carachuri-Rosendo’s conviction did not establish the fact necessary to distinguish between misdemeanor and felony punish- ment under the CSA. The same is true here. Cite as: 569 U. S. (2013) 13 Opinion of the Court in light of the Sixth Amendment concerns addressed in The courts considered which “provision states a complete crime upon the fewest facts,” which was significant after Apprendi to identify what a jury had to find before a defendant could receive ’s max- imum 5-year sentence. But those concerns do not apply in this context. Here we consider a “generic” federal offense in the abstract, not an actual federal offense being prose- cuted before a jury. Our concern is only which facts the CSA relies upon to distinguish between felonies and mis- demeanors, not which facts must be found by a jury as opposed to a judge, nor who has the burden of proving which facts in a federal prosecution.9 Because of these differences, we made clear in Carachuri- Rosendo that, for purposes of the INA, a generic fed- eral offense may be defined by reference to both “ ‘ele- ments’ in the traditional sense” and sentencing factors. 5 U. S., at n. 3, (slip op., at 3, n. 3, 7); see also at (SCALIA, J., concurring in |
Justice Sotomayor | 2,013 | 24 | majority | Moncrieffe v. Holder | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/858802/moncrieffe-v-holder/ | n. 3, 7); see also at (SCALIA, J., concurring in judgment) (slip op., at 3) (describing the generic federal offense there as “the Controlled Substances Act felony of possession-plus- recidivism”). Indeed, the distinction between “elements” and “sentencing factors” did not exist when Congress added illicit drug trafficking to the list of aggravated felonies, Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988, – 4470, and most courts at the time understood both and to contain sentencing factors —————— 9 The Government also cites 21 U.S. C. which provides that the Government need not “negative any exemption or exception set forth” in the CSA, and instead “the burden of going forward with the evidence with respect to any such exemption or exception shall be upon the person claiming its benefit.” Brief for Respondent 21. Even assum- ing is such an “exception,” applies, by its own terms, only to “any trial, hearing, or other proceeding under” the CSA itself, not to the rather different proceedings under the INA. 14 MONCRIEFFE v. HOLDER Opinion of the Court that draw the line between a felony and a misdemeanor. See, e.g., United Carachuri-Rosendo controls here. Finally, there is a more fundamental flaw in the Gov- ernment’s approach: It would render even an undisputed misdemeanor an aggravated felony. This is “just what the English language tells us not to expect,” and that leaves us “very wary of the Government’s position.” 549 U. S., at 54. Consider a conviction under a New York statute that provides, “A person is guilty of criminal sale of marihuana in the fifth degree when he knowingly and unlawfully sells, without consideration, [marihuana] of an aggregate weight of two grams or less; or one cigarette containing marihuana.” N. Y. Penal Law Ann. (emphasis added). This statute criminalizes only the distribution of a small amount of marijuana for no remuneration, and so all convictions under the statute would fit within the CSA misdemeanor provision, But the Government would categorically deem a conviction under this statute to be an aggravated felony, because the statute contains the corresponding “elements” of (1) distributing (2) marijuana, and the Government believes all marijuana distribution offenses are punishable as felonies. The same anomaly would result in the case of a nonciti- zen convicted of a misdemeanor in federal court under and (b)(4) directly. Even in that case, under the Government’s logic, we would need to treat the federal misdemeanor conviction as an aggravated felony, because the conviction establishes elements of an offense that is presumptively a felony. This cannot be. “We cannot imagine that Congress took the trouble to incorporate its own statutory |
Justice Sotomayor | 2,013 | 24 | majority | Moncrieffe v. Holder | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/858802/moncrieffe-v-holder/ | that Congress took the trouble to incorporate its own statutory scheme of felonies and misdemeanors,” only to have courts presume felony treatment and ignore the very factors that distinguish felonies from misdemeanors. Cite as: 569 U. S. (2013) 15 Opinion of the Court B Recognizing that its approach leads to consequences Congress could not have intended, the Government hedges its argument by proposing a remedy: Noncitizens should be given an opportunity during immigration proceedings to demonstrate that their predicate marijuana distribution convictions involved only a small amount of marijuana and no remuneration, just as a federal criminal defendant could do at sentencing. Brief for Respondent 35–39. This is the procedure adopted by the BIA in Matter of Castro Rodriguez, and endorsed by JUSTICE ALITO’s dissent, post, at 11–12. This solution is entirely inconsistent with both the INA’s text and the categorical approach. As noted, the relevant INA provisions ask what the noncitizen was “convicted of,” not what he did, and the inquiry in immi- gration proceedings is limited accordingly. 8 U.S. C. § 1229b(a)(3); see Carachuri-Rosendo, 5 U. S., at (slip op., at 11). The Government cites no statutory authority for such case-specific factfinding in immigration court, and none is apparent in the INA. Indeed, the Government’s main categorical argument would seem to preclude this inquiry: If the Government were correct that “the fact of a marijuana-distribution conviction alone constitutes a CSA felony,” Brief for Re- spondent 37, then all marijuana distribution convictions would categorically be convictions of the drug trafficking aggravated felony, mandatory deportation would follow under the statute, and there would be no room for the Government’s follow-on factfinding procedure. The Gov- ernment cannot have it both ways. Moreover, the procedure the Government envisions would require precisely the sort of post hoc investigation into the facts of predicate offenses that we have long deemed undesirable. The categorical approach serves “practical” purposes: It promotes judicial and administra- 16 MONCRIEFFE v. HOLDER Opinion of the Court tive efficiency by precluding the relitigation of past convic- tions in minitrials conducted long after the fact. Cham- ; see also 210 F., at –863. Yet the Government’s ap- proach would have our Nation’s overburdened immigra- tion courts entertain and weigh testimony from, for exam- ple, the friend of a noncitizen who may have shared a marijuana cigarette with him at a party, or the local police officer who recalls to the contrary that cash traded hands. And, as a result, two noncitizens, each “convicted of ” the same offense, might obtain different aggravated felony determinations depending on what evidence remains available or how |
Justice Sotomayor | 2,013 | 24 | majority | Moncrieffe v. Holder | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/858802/moncrieffe-v-holder/ | felony determinations depending on what evidence remains available or how it is perceived by an individual immigra- tion judge. The categorical approach was designed to avoid this “potential unfairness.” Taylor, 495 U. S., at 1; see also Furthermore, the minitrials the Government proposes would be possible only if the noncitizen could locate wit- nesses years after the fact, notwithstanding that during removal proceedings noncitizens are not guaranteed legal representation and are often subject to mandatory deten- tion, where they have little ability to collect evidence. See Katzmann, The Legal Profession and the Unmet Needs of the Immigrant Poor, 21 Geo. J. Legal Ethics 3, 5–10 ; Brief for National Immigrant Jus- tice Center et al. as Amici Curiae 5–18; Brief for Immigra- tion Law Professors as Amici Curiae 27–32. A noncitizen in removal proceedings is not at all similarly situated to a defendant in a federal criminal prosecution. The Govern- ment’s suggestion that the CSA’s procedures could readily be replicated in immigration proceedings is therefore misplaced. Cf. Carachuri-Rosendo, 5 U. S., at (slip op., at 14–15) (rejecting the Government’s argument that procedures governing determination of the recidivism sentencing factor could “be satisfied during the immigra- tion proceeding”). Cite as: 569 U. S. (2013) 17 Opinion of the Court The Government defends its proposed immigration court proceedings as “a subsequent step outside the categorical approach in light of Section 841(b)(4)’s ‘circumstance- specific’ nature.” Brief for Respondent 37. This argument rests upon in which we considered another aggravated felony, “an offense that involves fraud or deceit in which the loss to the victim or victims exceeds $10,000.” 8 U.S. C. (a)(43)(M)(i). We held that the $10,000 threshold was not to be applied categorically as a required component of a generic offense, but instead called for a “circumstance-specific approach” that allows for an examination, in immigration court, of the “particular circumstances in which an offender committed the crime on a particular occasion.” –40. The Government suggests the factors are like the monetary threshold, and thus similarly amenable to a circumstance-specific inquiry. We in however, that unlike the provision there, “illicit trafficking in a controlled sub- stance” is a “generic crim[e]” to which the categorical approach applies, not a circumstance-specific provision. ; see also Carachuri-Rosendo, 5 U. S., at n. 11 (slip op., at 12–13, n. 11). That distinction is evident in the structure of the INA. The monetary threshold is a limitation, written into the INA itself, on the scope of the aggravated felony for fraud. And the monetary threshold is set off by the words “in which,” which calls for a circum- |
Justice Sotomayor | 2,013 | 24 | majority | Moncrieffe v. Holder | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/858802/moncrieffe-v-holder/ | by the words “in which,” which calls for a circum- stance-specific examination of “the conduct involved ‘in’ the commission of the offense of conviction.” Locating this exception in the INA proper suggests an intent to have the relevant facts found in immigration proceedings. But where, as here, the INA incorporates other criminal statutes wholesale, we have held it “must refer to generic crimes,” to which the cate- gorical approach applies. Finally, the Government suggests that the immigration 18 MONCRIEFFE v. HOLDER Opinion of the Court court’s task would not be so daunting in some cases, such as those in which a noncitizen was convicted under the New York statute previously discussed or convicted directly under True, in those cases, the record of conviction might reveal on its face that the predicate offense was punishable only as a misdemeanor. But most States do not have stand-alone offenses for the social sharing of marijuana, so minitrials concerning convictions from the other States, such as Georgia, would be inevita- ble.10 The Government suggests that even in these other States, the record of conviction may often address the factors, because noncitizens “will be advised of the immigration consequences of a conviction,” as defense counsel is required to do under Padilla v. Kentucky, 559 U.S. 359 (2010), and as a result counsel can build an appropriate record when the facts are fresh. Brief for Respondent 38. Even assuming defense counsel “will” do something simply because it is required of effective coun- sel (an assumption experience does not always bear out), this argument is unavailing because there is no reason to believe that state courts will regularly or uniformly admit evidence going to facts, such as remuneration, that are irrelevant to the offense charged. In short, to avoid the absurd consequences that would flow from the Government’s narrow understanding of the categorical approach, the Government proposes a solution —————— 10 Inaddition to New York, it appears that 13 other States have sepa- rate offenses for conduct. See Cal. Health & Safety Code Ann. §113(b) (West Supp. 2013); –18–406(5) ; (2)(b)(3) (2010); Ill. Comp. Stat., ch. 20, 550/4, 550/6 (West 2010); Iowa Code §1.410 ; Minn. Stat. (2010); N. M. Stat. Ann. ; (C)(3)(h) (Lexis Cum. Supp.); Ore. Rev. Stat. §475.8(3) ; Pa. Stat. Ann., Tit. 35, ; S. D. Codified Laws ; Tex. Health & Safety Code Ann. (West 2010); W. Va. Code Ann. §A–4–402(c) (Lexis 2010). Cite as: 569 U. S. (2013) 19 Opinion of the Court that largely undermines the categorical approach. That the only cure is worse than the disease suggests the Gov- |
Justice Sotomayor | 2,013 | 24 | majority | Moncrieffe v. Holder | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/858802/moncrieffe-v-holder/ | only cure is worse than the disease suggests the Gov- ernment is simply wrong. C The Government fears the consequences of our decision, but its concerns are exaggerated. The Government ob- serves that, like Georgia, about half the States criminalize marijuana distribution through statutes that do not re- quire remuneration or any minimum quantity of mari- juana. at 26–28. As a result, the Government contends, noncitizens convicted of marijuana distribution offenses in those States will avoid “aggravated felony” determina- tions, purely because their convictions do not resolve whether their offenses involved federal felony conduct or misdemeanor conduct, even though many (if not most) prosecutions involve either remuneration or larger amounts of marijuana (or both). Escaping aggravated felony treatment does not mean escaping deportation, though. It means only avoiding mandatory removal. See Carachuri-Rosendo, 5 U. S., at (slip op., at 17). Any marijuana distribution offense, even a misdemeanor, will still render a noncitizen deport- able as a controlled substances offender. 8 U.S. C. At that point, having been found not to be an aggravated felon, the noncitizen may seek relief from removal such as asylum or cancellation of removal, assuming he satisfies the other eligibility criteria. 1229b(a)(1)–(2). But those forms of relief are discretionary. The Attorney General may, in his discre- tion, deny relief if he finds that the noncitizen is actually a member of one “of the world’s most dangerous drug car- tels,” post, at 2 (opinion of ALITO, J.), just as he may deny relief if he concludes the negative equities outweigh the positive equities of the noncitizen’s case for other reasons. As a result, “to the extent that our rejection of the Gov- 20 MONCRIEFFE v. HOLDER Opinion of the Court ernment’s broad understanding of the scope of ‘aggravated felony’ may have any practical effect on policing our Na- tion’s borders, it is a limited one.” Carachuri-Rosendo, 5 U. S., at (slip op., at 17). In any event, serious drug traffickers may be adjudi- cated aggravated felons regardless, because they will likely be convicted under greater “trafficking” offenses that necessarily establish that more than a small amount of marijuana was involved. See, e.g., –13– 31(c)(1) (separate provision for trafficking in more than 10 pounds of marijuana). Of course, some offenders’ conduct will fall between conduct and the more serious conduct required to trigger a “trafficking” statute. Brief for Respondent 30. Those offenders may avoid aggravated felony status by operation of the categor- ical approach. But the Government’s objection to that underinclusive result is little more than an attack on the categorical approach itself.11 We prefer this degree of |
Justice Sotomayor | 2,013 | 24 | majority | Moncrieffe v. Holder | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/858802/moncrieffe-v-holder/ | on the categorical approach itself.11 We prefer this degree of imperfection to the heavy burden of relitigating old prose- cutions. See at 15–16. And we err on the side of underinclusiveness because ambiguity in criminal statutes —————— 11 Similarly, JUSTICE ALITO’s dissent suggests that he disagrees with the first premises of the categorical approach. He says it is a “strange and disruptive resul[t]” that “defendants convicted in different States for committing the same criminal conduct” might suffer different collateral consequences depending upon how those States define their statutes of conviction. Post, at 9. Yet that is the longstanding, natural result of the categorical approach, which focuses not on the criminal conduct a defendant “commit[s],” but rather what facts are necessarily established by a conviction for the state offense. Different state offenses will necessarily establish different facts. Some will track the “uni- form” federal definition of the generic offense, and some will not. Whatever disparity this may create as between defendants whose real-world conduct was the same, it ensures that all defendants whose convictions establish the same facts will be treated consistently, and thus predictably, under federal law. This was Taylor’s chief concern in adopting the categorical approach. See at 599–2. Cite as: 569 U. S. (2013) 21 Opinion of the Court referenced by the INA must be construed in the nonciti- zen’s favor. See Carachuri-Rosendo, 5 U. S., at (slip op., at 17); Finally, the Government suggests that our holding will frustrate the enforcement of other aggravated felony provisions, like (a)(43)(C), which refers to a federal firearms statute that contains an exception for “antique firearm[s],” 18 U.S. C. The Government fears that a conviction under any state firearms law that lacks such an exception will be deemed to fail the categorical inquiry. But Duenas-Alvarez requires that there be “a realistic probability, not a theoretical possibility, that the State would apply its statute to conduct that falls outside the generic definition of a crime.” To defeat the categorical comparison in this manner, a non- citizen would have to demonstrate that the State actu- ally prosecutes the relevant offense in cases involving an- tique firearms. Further, the Government points to (a)(43)(P), which makes passport fraud an aggravat- ed felony, except when the noncitizen shows he committed the offense to assist an immediate family member. But that exception is provided in the INA itself. As we held in a circumstance-specific inquiry would apply to that provision, so it is not comparable. 557 U. S., at 37–38. * * * This is the third time in seven years that we have con- sidered whether |
Justice Sotomayor | 2,013 | 24 | majority | Moncrieffe v. Holder | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/858802/moncrieffe-v-holder/ | time in seven years that we have con- sidered whether the Government has properly character- ized a low-level drug offense as “illicit trafficking in a controlled substance,” and thus an “aggravated felony.” Once again we hold that the Government’s approach defies “the ‘commonsense conception’” of these terms. Carachuri- Rosendo, 5 U. S., at (slip op., at 9) (quoting ). Sharing a small amount of mari- juana for no remuneration, let alone possession with 22 MONCRIEFFE v. HOLDER Opinion of the Court intent to do so, “does not fit easily into the ‘everyday un- derstanding’ ” of “trafficking,” which “ ‘ordinarily means some sort of commercial dealing.’ ” Carachuri-Rosendo, 5 U. S., at (slip op., at 9) (quoting 549 U. S., at 53–54). Nor is it sensible that a state statute that criminalizes conduct that the CSA treats as a misde- meanor should be designated an “aggravated felony.” We hold that it may not be. If a noncitizen’s conviction for a mari- juana distribution offense fails to establish that the of- fense involved either remuneration or more than a small amount of marijuana, the conviction is not for an aggra- vated felony under the INA. The contrary judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. It is so ordered. Cite as: 569 U. S. (2013) 1 THOMAS, J., dissenting SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES No. 11– ADRIAN MONCRIEFFE, PETITIONER v. ERIC H. HOLDER, JR., |
Justice Brennan | 1,985 | 13 | concurring | United States v. Hensley | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111294/united-states-v-hensley/ | I join the opinion of the Court. With respect to its effect on respondent's "right to be secure in [his] perso[n]" guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment, the stop in this case although it no doubt seriously infringed upon respondent's privacy lasted a mere matter of moments, see ante, at 224-225, before the discovery of the gun ripened what had been merely reasonable suspicion into the full-scale probable cause necessary for an arrest. For circumstances like these, "defined a special category of Fourth Amendment `seizures' so substantially less intrusive than arrests that the general rule requiring probable cause to make Fourth Amendment `seizures' reasonable could be replaced by a balancing test." See ante, at 228. Such a balancing test is appropriate as long as it is conducted with full *237 regard for the serious privacy interests implicated even by such a relatively nonintrusive stop. See Of course, in the case of intrusions properly classifiable as full-scale arrests for Fourth Amendment purposes, no such balancing test is needed. Such arrests are governed by the probable-cause standard provided by the text of the Fourth Amendment itself |
Justice White | 1,976 | 6 | majority | Hancock v. Train | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109467/hancock-v-train/ | The question for decision in this case is whether a State whose federally approved implementation plan forbids an air contaminant source to operate without a state permit may require existing federally owned or operated installations to secure such a permit. The case presents an issue of statutory construction requiring examination of the Clean Air Act, as amended, 42 U.S. C. 18 et seq., and its legislative history in light of established constitutional principles governing the determination of whether and the extent to which federal installations have been subjected to state regulation.[1] The specific question is whether obtaining a permit to operate *16 is among those " respecting control and abatement of air pollution" with which existing federal facilities must comply under 118 of the Clean Air Act.[2] I Last Term in we reviewed the development of federal air pollution legislation through the Clean Air Amendments of 170 (Amendments)[3] and observed that although the Amendments "sharply increased federal authority and responsibility in the continuing effort to combat air pollution," they "explicitly preserved the principle" that " `[e]ach State shall have the primary responsibility for assuring air quality within the entire geographic area comprising such State' " quoting from 107 (a) of the Clean Air Act, as added, 42 U.S. C. 18c-2 (a). Consistently with this principle, the Amendments required that within nine months after the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) promulgated the primary and secondary ambient air quality standards required by 10 (a) of the Clean Air Act, as added, 42 U.S. C. 18c-4 (a),[4] for certain air pollutants,[5] each State submit to the EPA a plan by which it would implement and maintain those standards within its territory. 110 (a) (1) of the Clean Air Act, as added, 42 U.S. C. 18c-5 (a) (1). See 40 CFR pt. 51 The EPA was required to approve each State's *170 implementation plan as long as it was adopted after public hearings and satisfied the conditions specified in 110 (a) (2). For existing sources[6] the State must propose "emission limitations, schedules, and timetables for compliance with such limitations" necessary to meet the air quality standards. 110 (a) (2) (B). As we observed in given the EPA's nationwide air quality standards, the State is to adopt a plan setting "the specific rules to which operators of pollution sources are subject, and which if enforced should result in ambient air which meets the national standards. "[The EPA] is relegated by the Act to a secondary role in the process of determining and enforcing the specific, source-by-source emission limitations which are necessary if the national standards it |
Justice White | 1,976 | 6 | majority | Hancock v. Train | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109467/hancock-v-train/ | emission limitations which are necessary if the national standards it has set are to be met. The Act gives [the EPA] no authority to question the wisdom of a State's choices of emission limitations if they are part of a plan which satisfies the standards of 110 (a) (2). Thus, so long as the ultimate effect of a State's choice of emission limitations is compliance with the national standards for ambient air, the State is at liberty to adopt whatever mix of emission limitations it deems best suited to its particular situation." (Footnote omitted.) Along with increasing federal authority and "taking a stick to the States"[7] by requiring them to implement the *171 federal standards promulgated pursuant to that authority, Congress also intended the Amendments "to strengthen the strictures against air pollution by federal facilities."[8] Before 170, 111 (a) of the Clean Air Act simply declared "the intent of Congress" to be that federal installations "shall, to the extent practicable and consistent with the interests of the United States and within any available appropriations, cooperate with" federal and state air pollution control authorities "in preventing and controlling the pollution of the air in any area insofar as the discharge of any matter from or by such" federal installation "may cause or contribute to pollution of the air in such area."[] Experience with performance by federal sources of air pollution under this voluntary scheme[10] led the Congress to conclude that admonishing federal agencies to prevent and control air pollution was inadequate, because "[i]nstead of exercising leadership in controlling or eliminating air pollution"[11] "Federal agencies have been notoriously laggard in abating pollution."[12] Both to provide the leadership to private industry and to abate violations of air pollution standards by federal facilities, in 170 Congress added 118 to the Clean Air Act. The first sentence of the section provides: "Each department, agency, and instrumentality of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of *172 the Federal Government (1) having jurisdiction over any property or facility, or (2) engaged in any activity resulting, or which may result, in the discharge of air pollutants, shall comply with Federal, State, interstate, and local respecting control and abatement of air pollution to the same extent that any person is subject to such" 42 U.S. C. 18f. The remainder of 118 authorizes the President, upon a determination that it is "in the paramount interest of the United States to do so" and subject to several limitations, to exempt certain federal emission sources from "compliance with such a requirement."[13] After enactment of 118 there is no longer any question whether |
Justice White | 1,976 | 6 | majority | Hancock v. Train | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109467/hancock-v-train/ | enactment of 118 there is no longer any question whether federal installations must comply with established air pollution control and abatement measures. The question has become how their compliance is to be enforced. II In February 172, Kentucky submitted its implementation plan to the EPA. On May 31, 172, the plan was approved by the Administrator in relevant part.[14] Chapter 7 of the plan included Kentucky Air Pollution Control Commission (Commission) Regulation No. AP-1, 5 (1), which provides: "No person shall construct, modify, use, operate, or maintain an air contaminant source or maintain *173 or allow physical conditions to exist on property owned by or subject to the control of such person, resulting in the presence of air contaminants in the atmosphere, unless a permit therefor has been issued by the Commission and is currently in effect."[15] An applicant for a permit must complete a form supplied by the Commission and, "when specifically requested by the Commission, include an analysis of the characteristics, properties, and volume of the air contaminants based upon source or stack samples of the air contaminants taken under normal operating conditions."[16] The process of review of the application may include hearings.[17] Permits are denied if the applicant does not supply the "information required or deemed necessary by the Commission to enable it to act upon the permit application,"[18] or when "the air contaminant source will prevent or interfere with the attainment or maintenance of state or federal air quality standards."[1] When granted, a permit may be "subject to such terms and conditions set forth and embodied in the permit as the Commission shall deem necessary to insure compliance with its standards."[20] Once issued, a permit may be revoked or modified for failure to comply with the terms and conditions of the permit, with emission standards applicable to the air contaminant source, or with the *174 ambient air standards for the area in which the air contaminant source is located. Reg. AP-1, 5 (5), CA App. 122. Soon after the implementation plan was approved, a Commission official wrote to numerous officials responsible for various Kentucky facilities of the United States Army,[21] of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA),[22] and of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC)[23] requesting that they apply for and obtain permits as requested by the EPA-approved plan. The responses to these requests were to the effect that federally owned or operated facilities located in Kentucky were not required to secure an operating permit. Each response, however, either offered to or did supply the information and data requested on the standard permit application form.[24] The Commission continued |
Justice White | 1,976 | 6 | majority | Hancock v. Train | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109467/hancock-v-train/ | requested on the standard permit application form.[24] The Commission continued to press the federal officials *175 to apply for operating permits. In October 172, the Regional Administrator of the EPA sent a letter to the operators of all federal facilities in the region, including those to which the Kentucky officials had addressed their requests, and to the Commission. Setting forth EPA policy and the agency's interpretation of 118 of the Clean Air Act,[25] the Regional Administrator stated: "It is clear that Section 118 requires Federal facilities to meet state air quality standards and emission limitations and to comply with deadlines established in the approved state air implementation plans." App. To aid the States in accomplishing these objections, wrote the Administrator, each federal facility should develop a compliance schedule and should provide "reasonable and specific" data requested by the State. On the question whether federal facilities must apply for state permits, the letter reiterated the EPA position that although "Federal agencies are [not] required to apply for state operating permits [o]ur aim is to encourage Federal agencies to provide the states with all the information required to assess compliance of pollution sources with standards, emission and discharge limitations and the needs for additional abatement measures."[26]Ibid. *176 Kentucky then brought this suit in the United States District for the Western District of Kentucky.[27] The complaint sought declaratory and injunctive relief requiring the Army, TVA, and AEC facilities to secure operating permits. Kentucky also named several EPA officials as defendants and asked the District to order them to commence appropriate actions under 113 of the Clean Air Act, directing the Army, the TVA, and the AEC facilities to comply with the provisions of Regulation AP-1, 5 (1).[28] On cross-motions for summary *177 judgment, the District ordered the complaint dismissed. Kentucky ex rel. The of Appeals affirmed, Like the District n. 3, the of Appeals found it unnecessary to determine whether the federal installations were in compliance with Kentucky's emission limitations or had adopted adequate compliance schedules, for it was Kentucky's position that notwithstanding possible compliance "the Kentucky Plan is so formulated that the State cannot meet its primary responsibility under the Clean Air Act without the use of permits." -1175. After examining 118 and its purposes in relation to other provisions of the Clean Air Act, the court concluded: "We do not believe the congressional scheme for accomplishment of these purposes included subjection of federal agencies to state or local permit Congress did commit the United States to compliance with air quality and emission standards, and it is undisputed in this record that |
Justice White | 1,976 | 6 | majority | Hancock v. Train | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109467/hancock-v-train/ | emission standards, and it is undisputed in this record that the federal facilities in Kentucky have cooperated with the Commission toward this end." We granted Kentucky's petition for certiorari, to resolve a conflict in the s of Appeals,[2] and now affirm. *178 III It is a seminal principle of our law "that the constitution and the laws made in pursuance thereof are supreme; that they control the constitution and laws of the respective States, and cannot be controlled by them." From this principle is deduced the corollary that "[i]t is of the very essence of supremacy to remove all obstacles to its action within its own sphere, and so to modify every power vested in subordinate governments, as to exempt its own operations from their own influence." The effect of this corollary, which derives from the Supremacy Clause[30] and is exemplified in the Plenary Powers Clause[31] giving Congress exclusive legislative authority over federal enclaves purchased with the consent of a State, is "that the activities of the Federal Government are free from regulation by any state."[32] As Mr. Justice Holmes put it in : "[T]he immunity of the instruments of the United States from state control in the performance of their duties extends to a requirement that they *17 desist from performance until they satisfy a state officer upon examination that they are competent for a necessary part of them" Taken with the "old and well-known rule that statutes which in general terms divest pre-existing rights or privileges will not be applied to the sovereign"[33] "without a clear expression or implication to that effect,"[34] this immunity means that where "Congress does not affirmatively declare its instrumentalities or property subject to regulation," "the federal function must be left free" of regulation.[35] Particular deference should be accorded that "old and well-known rule" where, as here, the rights and privileges of the Federal Government at stake not only find their origin in the Constitution, but are to be divested in favor of and subjected to regulation by a subordinate sovereign. Because of the fundamental importance of the principles shielding federal installations and activities from regulation by the States, an authorization of state regulation is found only when and to the extent there is "a clear congressional mandate,"[36] "specific congressional action"[37] that makes this authorization of state regulation "clear and unambiguous."[38] Neither the Supremacy Clause nor the Plenary Powers Clause bars all state regulation which may touch the activities of the Federal Government. See Penn Dairies ; and cases cited. "Here, however, the State places a prohibition on the Federal Government."[3] The permit requirement |
Justice White | 1,976 | 6 | majority | Hancock v. Train | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109467/hancock-v-train/ | places a prohibition on the Federal Government."[3] The permit requirement is not intended simply to regulate the amount of pollutants which the federal installations may discharge. Without a permit, an air contaminant source is forbidden to operate even if it is in compliance with every other state measure respecting air pollution control and abatement. It is clear from the record that prohibiting operation of the air contaminant sources for which the State seeks to require permits, App. 14-17, is tantamount to prohibiting operation of the federal installations on which they are located. at 8-3. Kentucky, like the of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in finds in 118 a sufficient congressional authorization to the States, not only to establish the amount of pollutants a federal installation may discharge, but also to condition operation of federal installations on securing a state permit. We disagree because we are not convinced that Congress intended to subject federal agencies to state permits. We are unable to find in 118, on its face or in relation to the Clean Air Act as a whole, or to derive from the legislative history of the Amendments any clear and unambiguous declaration by the Congress that federal installations may not perform their activities unless a state official issues a permit. Nor can congressional intention to submit federal activity to state control be implied from the claim that under Kentucky's EPA-approved implementation plan it is only through the permit system that compliance schedules and other *181 may be administratively enforced against federal installations. IV The parties rightly agree that 118 obligates federal installations to conform to state air pollution standards or limitations and compliance schedules.[40] With the enactment of the Amendments in 170 came the end of the era in which it was enough for federal facilities to volunteer their cooperation with federal and state officials. In Kentucky's view that era has been replaced by one in which federal installations are not only required to limit their air pollutant emissions to the same extent as their nonfederal neighbors, but also, subject only to case-by-case Presidential exemption, to submit themselves completely to the state regime by which the necessary information to promulgate emission limitations and compliance schedules is gathered and by which collection of that information and enforcement of the emission limitations and compliance schedules are accomplished. Respondents (hereafter sometimes EPA) take the position that the Congress has not gone so far. While federal and nonfederal installations are governed by the same emission standards, standards which the States have the primary responsibility to develop, the EPA maintains that the authority to |
Justice White | 1,976 | 6 | majority | Hancock v. Train | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109467/hancock-v-train/ | responsibility to develop, the EPA maintains that the authority to compel federal installations to provide necessary information to the States and to conform to state standards necessary to carry out the federal policy to control and regulate air pollution has not been extended to the States. *182 Analysis must begin with 118.[41] Although the language of this provision is notable for what it states in comparison with its predecessor,[42] it is also notable for what it does not state. It does not provide that federal installations "shall comply with all federal, state, interstate, and local to the same extent as any other person." Nor does it state that federal installations "shall comply with all of the applicable state implementation plan." Section 118 states only to what extentthe same as any person federal installations must comply with applicable state ; it does not identify the applicable There is agreement that 118 obligates existing federal installations to join nonfederal sources in abating *183 air pollution, that comparable federal and nonfederal sources are expected to achieve the same levels of performance in abating air pollution, and that those levels of performance are set by the States. Given agreement that 118 makes it the duty of federal facilities to comply with state-established air quality and emission standards, the question is, as the Fifth Circuit put it in another case, "whether Congress intended that the enforcement mechanisms of federally approved state implementation plans, in this case permit systems, would be" available to the States to enforce that duty. 502 F. 2d, at 1247. In the case before us the of Appeals concluded that federal installations were obligated to comply with state substantive as opposed to state procedural but Kentucky rejects the distinction between procedural and substantive saying that whatever is required by a state implementation plan is a "requirement" under 118. The heart of the argument that the requirement that all air contaminant sources secure an operating permit is a "requirement respecting control and abatement of air pollution" is that Congress necessarily implied the power to enforce from the conceded authority to develop and set emission standards. Under Kentucky's EPA-approved implementation plan, the permit requirement "is the mechanism through which [it] is able to compel the production of data concerning air contaminant sources, including the ability to prescribe the monitoring techniques to be employed, and it is the only mechanism which allows [it] to develop and review a source's compliance schedule and insure that schedule is followed."[43] When a State is without administrative means of implementing and enforcing its standards *184 against federal sources, a |
Justice White | 1,976 | 6 | majority | Hancock v. Train | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109467/hancock-v-train/ | implementing and enforcing its standards *184 against federal sources, a duty to comply with those standards is said to be utterly meaningless.[44] The difficulty with this position is threefold. First, it assumes that only the States are empowered to enforce federal installations' compliance with the standards. Second, it assumes the Congress intended to grant the States such authority over the operation of federal installations. Third, it unduly disregards the substantial change in the responsibilities of federal air contaminant sources under 118 in comparison with 42 U.S. C. 18f (a) (164 ed., Supp. V), Contrary to Kentucky's contention that Congress necessarily intended to subject federal facilities to the enforcement mechanisms of state implementation plans, our study of the Clean Air Act not only discloses no clear declaration or implication of congressional intention to submit federal installations to that degree of state regulation and control but also reveals significant indications that in preserving a State's "primary responsibility for assuring air quality within [its] entire geographic area" the Congress did not intend to extend that responsibility by subjecting federal installations to such authority. The Clean Air Act, as amended, does not expressly provide for a permit system as part of a State's implementation plan.[45] It is true that virtually every State *185 has adopted a form of permit system much like that adopted by Kentucky, see 40 CFR pt. as a means of gathering information to determine what emission standards to set and compliance schedules to approve and of assuring compliance with them. Also, only an implementation plan enabling a State to meet these and otherobjectives can be approved by the EPA.[46] Nonetheless we find in the 170 Amendments several firm indications that the Congress intended to treat emission standards and compliance schedulesthose which when met work the actual reduction of air pollutant dischargedifferently from administrative and enforcement *186 methods and devicesthose provisions by which the States were to establish and enforce emission standards, compliance schedules, and the like. This is so in spite of the absence of any definition of the word "" or of the phrase " respecting control and abatement of air pollution."[47] *187 In 110 (e) (1) (A), for example, the EPA is authorized to extend for two years a State's three-year deadline for attaining a national primary air quality standard if, upon timely application, it is determined that an emission source is unable to meet "the of such plan which implement such primary standard because the necessary technology" is unavailable. 42 U.S. C. 18c-5 (e) (1) (A). Although compiling the information necessary for a permit may require familiarity |
Justice White | 1,976 | 6 | majority | Hancock v. Train | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109467/hancock-v-train/ | compiling the information necessary for a permit may require familiarity with technology, it is plain that the "" to which this section refers are those for which technologically adequate industrial processes might not be available. Section 110 (e) (2) (A) necessarily contemplates the same meaning of "," that is, emission standards and compliance schedules, as does 110 (f) which provides for one-year postponement of the application of "" to sources the continued operation of which is "essential to national security or to the public health." 42 U.S. C. 18c-5 (f) (1) (D). See -84.[48] Stronger indications that the term "" as used in 118 does not embrace every measure incorporated in a State's implementation limitations and compliance *188 schedules appear in the emergence of 118 from the House bill and Senate amendment from which it was derived. The House bill provided that federal installations "shall comply with applicable Federal, State, interstate, and local emission standards."[4] The House Report stated that this "legislation directs Federal agencies in the executive, legislative, and judicial branches to comply with applicable Federal, State, interstate, and local emission standards."[50] The Senate amendment provided that federal agencies "shall provide leadership in carrying out the policy and purposes of this Act and shall comply with the of this Act in the same manner as any person"[51] The Senate Report stated that this provision "requires that Federal facilities meet the emission standards necessary to achieve ambient air quality standards as well as those established in other sections of Title I."[] Thus while the House bill spoke of "emission standards," the Senate amendment, like 118 as enacted, spoke of "." In accommodating the different language in the two bills and formulating what is now 118, the Conference Committee simply combined the House and Senate provisions. If, as Kentucky argues, *18 the Conference Committee in taking the Senate language of "" meant thereby to subject federal facilities to enforcement measures obviously not embraced in the language of the House bill, it is remarkable that it made no reference to its having reconciled this difference in favor of extending state regulation over federal installations. Given the interchangeable use of "emission standards" and "emission " in the Senate amendment, see n. the predominance of the language of the Senate version in 118 as enacted,[53] and the absence of any mention of disagreement between the two bills, it is more probable that the Conference Committee intended only that federal installations comply with emission standards and compliance schedules than that its intention was to empower a State to require federal installations to comply with every |
Justice White | 1,976 | 6 | majority | Hancock v. Train | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109467/hancock-v-train/ | a State to require federal installations to comply with every measure in its implementation plan. See 502 F. 2d, at 1247. The impression that Congress intended only that federal agencies comply with emission limitations and standards is strengthened by the Conference Report, which stated in full: "The House bill and the Senate amendment declared that Federal departments and agencies should comply with applicable standards of air quality and emissions. "The conference substitute modifies the House *10 provision to require that the President rather than the Administrator be responsible for assuring compliance by Federal agencies."[54] This examination of 118 and the central phrase " respecting control or abatement of air pollution," discloses a regime of divided responsibility for the mobilization of federal installations in the effort to abate air pollution. Kentucky agrees but persists in its contention that existing federal sources have been subjected to state regulation by differing on where that division places authority to enforce compliance by existing federal facilities " `sources with respect to which state implementation plans establish the criteria for enforcement.' "[55] For suchexistingsources, Kentucky maintains, the States are granted primary enforcement authority while " `the responsibility and authority for *11 enforcement is granted to EPA in those instances (i. e., new sources and hazardous pollutants) where EPA establishes the criteria.' "[56] Perhaps we could agree if the issue were not whether there is a clear and unambiguous congressional authorization for the regulatory authority petitioner seeks, for as the Fifth Circuit has said, such a "scheme is a reasonable one." But that is the issue, and the implications Kentucky draws from its evaluation of the manner in which the Congress divided responsibility for regulation of new sources and of hazardous air pollutants do not persuade us. In drawing on the manner in which the Clean Air Act has divided the authority to regulate new sources of air pollutants[] and the emission of hazardous air pollutants[58] in comparison with existing air pollutant sources, Kentucky makes two separate though related arguments. The first is that when Congress wanted to exempt federal facilities from compliance with a state requirement, it did so by express exclusionary language. Thus 111 (c) (1) authorizes the Administrator to delegate to a State "any authority he has under this Act to implement and enforce" new-source standards of performancewith which new sources owned or operated by the United States must comply ( 111 (b) (4))"except with respect to new sources owned or operated by the United States." 42 U.S. C. 18c-6 (c) (1). Section 114 (b) (1) of the Clean Air Act, as added, is |
Justice White | 1,976 | 6 | majority | Hancock v. Train | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109467/hancock-v-train/ | (b) (1) of the Clean Air Act, as added, is to the same *12 effect respecting inspections, monitoring, and entry of an emission source. 42 U.S. C. 18c- (b) (1). Similarly, 112 (d) (1) authorizes the Administrator, upon finding that a State's plan to enforce emission standards for hazardous pollutants is adequate to the task, to delegate to that State "any authority he has under this Act to implement and enforce such standards (except with respect to stationary sources owned or operated by the United States)." 42 U.S. C. 18c-7 (d) (1). The argument that these specific exemptions of federal facilities from state enforcement and implementation methods are necessary only because 118 has, as a general matter, subjected federal installations to all state fails on several counts. First, as we have demonstrated, by itself 118 does not have the effect petitioner claims. Second, the relevant portions of 111, 112, and 114 assume that the Administrator possesses the authority to enforce and implement the respective against sources owned or operated by the United States. See 111 (c) (2), 112 (d) (2), and 114 (b) (2). Third, just as in providing for Presidential exemptions in 118 Congress separated the of 111 and 112 from other Congress naturally treated the submission of federal installations to state regulation under 111, 112, and 114 separately from general provisions for meeting ambient air quality standards under 110 implementation plans devised by the States and approved by the EPA. A State must promulgate an implementation plan. 110 (a). The delegation provisions of 111, 112, and 114, on the other hand, are permissive, providing that "[e]ach State may develop and submit to the Administrator a procedure" to carry out the section. (Emphasis added.) Kentucky's second argument is that the manner in which Congress differentiated treatment of new sources *13 and existing sources in 111 and 114 clearly implies that existing federal sources were to be subject to the enforcement provisions of a State's implementation plan. The implication is said to arise from the different nature of the control required for the two types of installations. The difference is explained as follows: For existing sources the first step for a State is to determine the general quality of air in the relevant air quality region and then to compute the amounts of pollution attributable to each source. Next, appropriate emission standards necessary to meet the national ambient air quality standards must be assigned to the various sources, followed by determining the compliance schedule by which each installation will achieve the assigned standards by the attainment date prescribed in the |
Justice White | 1,976 | 6 | majority | Hancock v. Train | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109467/hancock-v-train/ | the assigned standards by the attainment date prescribed in the Act. To carry out this process of gathering information and coordinating control throughout the State, it is said to be necessary for the States to have ready administrative authority over all sources, federal and nonfederal. This administrative authority, concededly a major part of an implementation plan as to nonfederal sources, must therefore have been intended to extend to federal sources as well. In contrast, controlling "new sources" is described as a straightforward task. This is because "standards of performance" for such sources, which are established in light of technologically feasible emission controls and not in relation to ambient air quality standards[5] are set by the EPA for various categories of sources and are uniform throughout the Nation. A comprehensive enforcement *14 mechanism to develop and coordinate application of these standards is unnecessary, especially because all new sources must be in compliance before operation begins, 111 (e). The Congress is said, therefore, to have exempted new federal installations from state enforcement of federally promulgated standards of performance because it was unnecessary to submit those installations to the same kind of coordinated control to which existing sources had been submitted. The Act itself belies this contention. It recognizes that a "new source," even one in full compliance with applicable standards of performance, may hinder or prevent attainment or maintenance of air quality standards within the air quality region in which it is located, and requires a state implementation plan to include procedures for averting such problems. See 110 (a) (2) (D), (a) (4). The arguments respecting the federal new-source exception in 114 also fail to bear the weight they must carry if Kentucky is to prevail. Section 114 provides for the establishment of various means by which to collect information "[f]or the purpose (i) of developing or assisting in the development of any implementation plan under section 110 or 111 (d), any standard of performance under section 111, or any emission standard under section 112, [or] (ii) of determining whether any person is in violation of any such standard or any requirement of such a plan" as added, 42 U.S. C. 18c- (a). Unlike 111 and 112, 114 is doubly permissive. First, although the Administrator "shall" publish 111 new-source standards of performance and 112 hazardous air-pollutant-emission standards, under 114 (a) the Administrator "may," but need not, require operators *15 of emission sources to keep records, to make reports, to install, use, and maintain monitoring equipment, and to sample its emissions. Second, as with 111 and 112, the States "may" develop procedures to |
Justice White | 1,976 | 6 | majority | Hancock v. Train | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109467/hancock-v-train/ | with 111 and 112, the States "may" develop procedures to carry out the section. That Congress provided for this slight possibility that existing federal sources would be obliged to conform to state procedures for carrying out 114 in addition to emission standards and compliance schedules scarcely implies, as petitioner suggests, that Congress intended existing federal sources to comply with all state regulatory measures, not only emission standards and compliance schedules. Rather than exempting new federal sources from an obligation to which they would otherwise have been subject, Congress may as well have been extending the obligation to conform to state 114 regulatory procedures to existingbut not to newfederal sources which would not otherwise have been thought subject to such regulation. Finally, we reject the argument that 304 of the Clean Air Act, reveals congressional intention to grant the States authority to subject existing federal sources to the enforcement mechanisms of their enforcement plan. The section provides in part: "(a) Except as provided in subsection (b), any person may commence a civil action on his own behalf "(1) against any person (including (i) the United States, and (ii) any other governmental instrumentality or agency to the extent permitted by the Eleventh Amendment to the Constitution) who is alleged to be in violation of (A) an emission standard or limitation under this Act or (B) an order issued by the Administrator or a State with respect to such a standard or limitation" 42 U.S. C. 18h-2. *16 Section 302 (e) includes a "State" in the definition of a "person," 42 U.S. C. 18h (e), and 304 (f) provides: "For purposes of this section, the term `emission standard or limitation under this Act' means(1) a schedule or timetable of compliance, emission limitation, standard of performance or emission standard. which is in effect under this Act (including a requirement applicable by reason of section 118) or under an applicable implementation plan." 42 U.S. C. 18h-2 (f). Although it is argued that 304 was not intended to permit a State to sue violators under the Act, we agree with the EPA that 304 is the only means provided by the Act for the States to remedy noncompliance by federal facilities with 118. That 304 was so intended is plain from both the language of 304 (f) and the legislative origins of 304. The Senate version of 118 provided that a State "in which any Federal property, facility, or activity is located may seek to enforce the provisions of this section pursuant to section 304 of this Act."[60] When the Conference Committee eliminated this subsection from |
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