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Justice Kennedy | 1,998 | 4 | majority | Campbell v. Louisiana | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118196/campbell-v-louisiana/ | properly presented to the state court that rendered the decision we have been asked to review." Campbell has made no effort to meet his burden of showing this issue was properly presented to the Louisiana appellate courts, even after the State pointed out this omission before this Court. See Brief for Respondent 29-30. In fact, Campbell devotes no more than one page of text in his brief to his fair-cross-section See Brief for Petitioner 31-32. We decline to address the issue. The judgment of the Louisiana Supreme Court is reversed. The case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion. It is so ordered. Justice Thomas, with whom Justice Scalia joins, concurring in part and dissenting in part. I fail to understand how the rights of blacks excluded from jury service can be vindicated by letting a white murderer go free. Yet, in the Court held that a white criminal defendant had standing to challenge his criminal conviction based upon alleged violations of the equal protection rights of black prospective jurors. *404 Today's decision, rather than merely reaffirming ` misguided doctrine of third-party standing, applies that doctrine to a context in which even ' rationales are inapplicable. Because is both incorrect as an initial matter and inapposite to the case at hand, I respectfully dissent from Part III of the Court's opinion. I join Parts I, II, IV, and V and concur in the judgment reversing and remanding to the Louisiana Supreme Court. broke new ground by holding for the first time that a criminal defendant may raise an equal protection challenge to the use of peremptory strikes to exclude jurors of a different race. See (explaining that was inconsistent with "a vast body of clear statement" in our precedents). Recognizing that the defendant could not claim that his own equal protection rights had been denied, the Court held that the defendant had standing to assert the equal protection rights of veniremen excluded from the jury. The Court concluded that the defendant had such "third party standing" because three criteria had been met: he had suffered an "injury in fact"; he had a "close relation" to the excluded jurors; and there was "some hindrance" to the jurors' ability to protect their own interests. distorted standing principles and equal protection law and should be overruled.[1] As Justice Scalia explained at length in his dissent, the defendant in *405 could not satisfy even the first element of standinginjury in fact. The defendant, though certainly displeased with his conviction, failed to demonstrate that the alleged discriminatory use of peremptory challenges against |
Justice Kennedy | 1,998 | 4 | majority | Campbell v. Louisiana | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118196/campbell-v-louisiana/ | demonstrate that the alleged discriminatory use of peremptory challenges against veniremen of another race had any effect on the outcome of his trial. The Court instead found that the defendant had suffered a "cognizable" injury because racial discrimination in jury selection "`casts doubt on the integrity of the judicial process' " and "invites cynicism respecting the jury's neutrality and its obligation to adhere to the law." -412. But the severity of an alleged wrong and a perception of unfairness do not constitute injury in fact. Indeed, "`[i]njury in perception' would seem to be the very antithesis of `injury in fact.' " Furthermore, there is no reason why a violation of a third party's right to serve on a jury should be grounds for reversal when other violations of third-party rights, such as obtaining evidence against the defendant in violation of another person's Fourth or Fifth Amendment rights, are not. further rested on an alleged "close relation[ship]" that arises between a defendant and veniremen because voir dire permits them "to establish a relation, if not a bond of trust," that continues throughout the trial. 413. According to the Court, excluded veniremen share the accused's interest in eliminating racial discrimination because a peremptory strike inflicts upon a venireman a "profound personal humiliation heightened by its public character." -414. But there was simply no basis for the Court's finding of a "close relation[ship]" or "common interest," between black veniremen and white defendants. Regardless of whether black veniremen wish to serve on a particular jury, they do not share the white defendant's interest in obtaining a reversal of his conviction. Surely a black venireman would be dismayed to learn that a white *406 defendant used the venireman's constitutional rights as a means to overturn the defendant's conviction.[2] Finally, concluded that there are substantial obstacles to suit by excluded veniremen, including the costs of proceeding individually and the difficulty of establishing a likelihood of recurrence. These obstacles, though perhaps often present in the context of are alone insufficient to justify third-party standing. Even if the justifications were persuasive, they would still be wholly inapplicable to this case, which involves neither peremptory strikes nor discrimination in the selection of the petit jury. The "injury in fact" allegedly present in is wholly absent from the context at hand. reasoned that repeated peremptory strikes of members of one race constituted an "overt wrong, often apparent to the entire jury panel," that threatened to "cas[t] doubt over the obligation of the parties, the jury, and indeed the court to adhere to the law throughout the trial of the cause." |
Justice Kennedy | 1,998 | 4 | majority | Campbell v. Louisiana | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118196/campbell-v-louisiana/ | adhere to the law throughout the trial of the cause." Here, in contrast, the judge selected one member of the grand jury venire to serve as foreman, and the remaining members of the grand jury were selected at random. Even if discriminatory, the judge's selection (rather than exclusion) of a single member of the grand jury could hardly constitute an "overt" wrong that would affect the remainder of the grand jury proceedings, much less the subsequent trial. The Court therefore resorts to emphasizing the seriousness of the allegation of racial discrimination (as though repetition conveys some talismanic power), but that, of course, cannot substitute for injury in fact. In this case, unlike petitioner's allegation of injury in fact is not merely unsupported; it is directly foreclosed. There is no allegation in this case that the composition of *407 petitioner's trial jury was affected by discrimination. Instead, the allegation is merely that there was discrimination in the selection of the grand jury (and of only one member). The properly constituted petit jury's verdict of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt was in no way affected by the composition of the grand jury. Indeed, to the extent that race played any part in the composition of petitioner's petit jury, it was by petitioner's own actions, as petitioner used 5 of his 12 peremptory strikes to eliminate blacks from the petit jury venire. Petitioner's attempt to assert that he was injured by the alleged exclusion of blacks at the grand jury stage is belied by his own use of peremptory strikes against blacks at the petit jury stage. It would be to no avail to suggest that the alleged discrimination in grand jury selection could have caused an indictment improperly to be rendered, because the petit jury's verdict conclusively establishes that no reasonable grand jury could have failed to indict petitioner.[3] Nor can the Court find support in our precedents allowing a defendant to challenge his conviction based upon discrimination in grand jury selection, because all of those cases involved defendants' assertions of their own rights. See, e. g., ; Although we often do not require a criminal defendant to establish a cause-and-effect relationship between the procedural illegality and the subsequent conviction when the defendant asserts a denial of his own rights, see 499 U.S., -428 (noting that the government generally bears the burden of establishing harmlessness of such errors), even the majority acknowledged that *408 such a showing is the foremost requirement of third-party standing, as evidenced by the lengths to which it went in an attempt to justify its finding of injury |
Justice Kennedy | 1,998 | 4 | majority | Campbell v. Louisiana | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118196/campbell-v-louisiana/ | went in an attempt to justify its finding of injury in fact. The Court's finding of a close relationship (an ambient fraternity of sorts) between petitioner and the black veniremen whose rights he seeks to vindicate is likewise unsupported. The Court, of course, never identifies precisely whose rights petitioner seeks to vindicate. Is it all veniremen who were not chosen as foreman? Is it all nonwhite veniremen? All black veniremen? Or just the black veniremen who were not ultimately chosen for the grand jury? Leaving aside the fact that the Court fails to identify the rights-holders, I fail to see how a "close relationship" could have developed between petitioner and the veniremen. Even if a "bond," could develop between veniremen and defendants during voir dire, such a bond could not develop in the context of a judge's selection of a grand jury foremana context in which the defendant plays no role. Nor can any "common interest" between a defendant and excluded veniremen arise based upon a public humiliation suffered by the latter, because unlike the exercise of peremptory strikes, Evangeline Parish's process of selecting foremen does not constitute "overt" action against particular veniremen. Rather, those veniremen not chosen (all but one) are simply left to take their chances at being randomly selected for the remaining seats on the grand jury. Finally, there are ample opportunities for prospective jurors whose equal protection rights have been violated to vindicate those rights, rather than relying upon a defendant of another race to do so for them. In contrast to the Batson line of cases, where an allegation may concern discrimination in the defendant's case alone, in this case petitioner alleges systematic discrimination in the selection of grand jury foremen in Evangeline Parish. Such systematic discrimination provides a large class of potential plaintiffs and the opportunity *409 for declaratory or injunctive relief to prevent repeated violations. For these reasons, I would hold that petitionerwho does not claim that he was discriminated against or that the alleged discrimination against others had any effect on the outcome of his triallacks standing to raise the equal protection rights of excluded black veniremen. Accordingly, I join Parts I, II, IV, and V of the Court's opinion and concur in the judgment. |
Justice Burger | 1,978 | 12 | concurring | Baldwin v. Fish and Game Comm'n of Mont. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109868/baldwin-v-fish-and-game-commn-of-mont/ | In joining the Court's opinion I write separately only to emphasize the significance of Montana's special interest in its elk population and to point out the limits of the Court's holding. The doctrine that a State "owns" the wildlife within its borders as trustee for its citizens, see is admittedly a legal anachronism of sorts. See A State does not "own" wild birds and animals in the same way that it may own other natural resources such as land, oil, or timber. But, as noted in the Court's opinion, ante, at 386, and contrary to the implications of the dissent, the doctrine is not completely obsolete. It manifests the State's special interest in regulating and preserving wildlife for the benefit of its citizens. See at 287. Whether we describe this interest as proprietary or otherwise is not significant. We recognized in that the doctrine does not apply to migratory shrimp located in the three-mile belt of the marginal sea. But the elk involved in this case are found within Montana and remain primarily within the State. As such they are natural resources of the State, and Montana citizens have a legitimate interest in preserving their access to them. The Court acknowledges this interest when it points out that the Montana elk supply "has been entrusted to the care of the State by the people of Montana," ante, at 388, and asserts the continued vitality of *393 the doctrine upon which the court relied in (No. 3,230) (CC ED Pa. 1825); ; and See ante, at 386. made it clear that the Privileges and Immunities Clause does not prevent a State from preferring its own citizens in granting public access to natural resources in which they have a special interest. Thus Montana does not offend the Privileges and Immunities Clause by granting residents preferred access to natural resources that do not belong to private owners. And Montana may give its residents preferred access to Montana elk without offending the Privileges and Immunities Clause. It is not necessary to challenge the cases cited by the dissent, post, at 405, which make clear that a State does not have absolute freedom to regulate the taking of wildlife within its borders or over its airspace. A State may not regulate the killing of migratory game birds in a way that frustrates a valid treaty of the United States entered into pursuant to the Art. II, 2, treaty power, ; it may not regulate wild animals found on federal lands in a way that conflicts with federal statutes enacted under the Property Clause, Art. IV, |
Justice Burger | 1,978 | 12 | concurring | Baldwin v. Fish and Game Comm'n of Mont. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109868/baldwin-v-fish-and-game-commn-of-mont/ | with federal statutes enacted under the Property Clause, Art. IV, 3, cl. 2, ; nor may it allocate access to its wildlife in a manner that offends the Fourteenth Amendment. Once wildlife becomes involved in interstate commerce, a State may not restrict the use of or access to that wildlife in a way that burdens interstate commerce. ; Foster-Fountain Packing None of those cases hold that the Privileges and Immunities Clause prevents a State from preferring its own citizens in allocating access to wildlife within that State. It is the special interest of Montana citizens in its elk that *394 permits Montana to charge nonresident hunters higher license fees without offending the Privileges and Immunities Clause. The Court does not hold that the Clause permits a State to give its residents preferred access to recreational activities offered for sale by private parties. Indeed it acknowledges that the Clause requires equality with respect to privileges "bearing upon the vitality of the Nation as a single entity." Ante, at 383. It seems clear that those basic privileges include "all the privileges of trade and commerce" which were protected in the fourth Article of the Articles of Confederation. See The Clause assures noncitizens the opportunity to purchase goods and services on the same basis as citizens; it confers the same protection upon the buyer of luxury goods and services as upon the buyer of bread. MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN, with whom MR. JUSTICE WHITE and MR. |
Justice Marshall | 1,987 | 15 | dissenting | Solorio v. United States | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111948/solorio-v-united-states/ | Less than 20 years ago, this Court held in that, to be subject to trial by court-martial, a criminal offense charged against a member of the Armed Forces had to be "service connected," lest the phrase "cases arising in the land or naval forces" in the Fifth Amendment "be expanded to deprive every member of the armed services of the benefits of an indictment by a grand jury and a trial by a jury of his peers." Today the Court overrules O'Callahan. In doing so, it disregards constitutional language and principles of stare decisis in its singleminded determination to subject members of our Armed Forces to the unrestrained control of the military in the area of criminal justice. I dissent. I The majority begins by assuming that the limitation on court-martial jurisdiction enunciated in O'Callahan was based on the power of Congress, contained in Art. I, 8, cl. "[t]o make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces." It then rejects this asserted limitation of congressional power on the ground that the Framers intended to give Congress plenary authority over the *453 government of the military. But the Court in O'Callahan did not simply address whether Art. I, 8, cl. granted Congress the authority to create court-martial jurisdiction over all crimes committed by members of the Armed Forces. Congress' Article I power to regulate the Armed Forces is limited by the Fifth Amendment right to indictment or presentment by a grand jury and the Sixth Amendment right to trial by jury.[1] "[T]he constitutional grant of power to Congress to regulate the armed forces," this Court has previously stated, "itself does not empower Congress to deprive people of trials under Bill of Rights safeguards, and we are not willing to hold that power to circumvent those safeguards should be inferred through the Necessary and Proper Clause." United States ex rel. The majority simply disregards the limitations the Bill of Rights imposes on the reach of Art. I, 8, cl. The rights to grand jury process and to trial by jury are, of course, of restricted application in military cases. The Fifth Amendment excepts from the grand jury requirement "cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger,"[2] and the *454 Court has held this exception applicable to the Sixth Amendment right to trial by jury as well. Ex parte Milligan, But the text of the exception is inconsistent with the majority's conclusion that the only relevant factor in determining whether a court-martial has |
Justice Marshall | 1,987 | 15 | dissenting | Solorio v. United States | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111948/solorio-v-united-states/ | the only relevant factor in determining whether a court-martial has jurisdiction over a case is the status of the defendant as a member of the Armed Services.[3] The Fifth Amendment's exception covers only "cases arising in the land and naval forces" (emphasis added). It makes no reference to the status of the individual committing the crime. Had that been the Framers' intent, it would have been easy to have said so, given that the grand jury provision of the Amendment, which states that "[n]o Person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury," speaks not in terms of "crimes" or "cases," but of individual defendants. Nonetheless, the exception contained in the Fifth Amendment is expressed and applies by its terms only to cases arising in the Armed Forces. O'Callahan addressed not whether Art. I, 8, cl. empowered Congress to create court-martial jurisdiction over all crimes committed by service members, but rather whether Congress, in exercising that power, had encroached upon the rights of members of Armed Forces whose cases did not "arise in" the Armed Forces. This is clear from the Court's statement of its holding in O'Callahan: "We have concluded that the crime to be under military jurisdiction must be service connected, lest `cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger,' as used in the Fifth Amendment, be expanded to deprive every *455 member of the armed services of the benefits of an indictment by a grand jury and a trial by a jury of his peers." -273[4] *456 The protections afforded individuals by the Fifth and Sixth Amendments are central to our constitutional scheme of justice. The right to trial by jury, in particular, "ranks very high in our catalogue of constitutional safeguards." United States ex rel. These protections should not be lightly abrogated. Consequently, the exception in the Fifth Amendment for cases arising in the Armed Forces must be strictly construed. This was the basis for the Court's conclusion, in Toth, that the power to authorize trial by court-martial should be limited to " `the least possible power adequate to the end proposed.' " quoting The historical evidence considered by the Court in O'Callahan is therefore relevant, not to what the Framers intended to include in the scope of the congressional power to regulate the Armed Forces in Art. I, 8, cl. but to what the Framers, wary of military jurisdiction and familiar with strong restrictions |
Justice Marshall | 1,987 | 15 | dissenting | Solorio v. United States | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111948/solorio-v-united-states/ | Framers, wary of military jurisdiction and familiar with strong restrictions on the scope of that jurisdiction, considered "cases arising in the armed forces." Even assuming that they intended to assign control over the scope of the Article I power to the Legislature, this does not imply that the meaning of the Fifth Amendment's "arising in" exception can be interpreted without reference to the practices of that time. In that respect it is significant that the British political and legal writing of the 17th and 18th centuries demonstrates a longstanding suspicion of broad court-martial jurisdiction. This suspicion was well known in colonial America, and was based on familiar history.[5] British writers and legislators *457 took a narrow view of the appropriate scope of court-martial jurisdiction, which manifested itself in a very limited grant of authority to try offenses by court-martial during the period of which the Framers would have been most acutely aware. See, e. g., M. Hale, The History of the Common Law of England 42-43 (6th ed. 1820). Not only was that jurisdiction narrow, it was expressly limited to cases having some connection with the military. The test was not one of status, but one of military relationship. See S. Adye, A Treatise on Courts Martial 60 (1786) ("The crimes that are cognizable by a court martial, as repugnant to military discipline, are pointed out by the mutiny act and articles of war and as to other crimes which officers and soldiers being guilty of, are to be tried for by the ordinary course of law, in like manner with other subjects"); see also 1 C. Clode, Military Forces of the Crown; Their Administration and Government 158 *458 (1869) ("It has been a subject of controversy to distinguish the offences that are purely Military (and therefore properly within the cognizance of a Court-martial), from others that are Civil or Political (and therefore properly within the cognizance of the civil tribunals of the community)"); Grant v. Gould, 2 H. Bl. 69, 99-100, 126 Eng. Rep. 434, 450 (C. P. 1792) ("In this country, all the delinquencies of soldiers are not triable, as in most countries in Europe, by martial law; but where they are ordinary offences against the civil peace they are tried by the common law courts. The object of the mutiny act is to create a court invested with authority to try those who are a part of the army and the object of the trial is limited to breaches of military duty") The reach of military law in Britain at the time of the Revolution thus permitted |
Justice Marshall | 1,987 | 15 | dissenting | Solorio v. United States | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111948/solorio-v-united-states/ | in Britain at the time of the Revolution thus permitted courts-martial only for offenses committed by members of the Armed Forces that had some connection with their military service. The majority disputes the O'Callahan Court's suggestion that the British Articles of War forbade the trial of civil offenses by court-martial. The Court points to Section XIV, Article XVI, of the British Articles of War of 1774, reprinted in G. Davis, Military Law of the United States 581, 593 (3d rev. ed. 1915), which provided: "All Officers and Soldiers are to behave themselves orderly in Quarters, and on their March; and whosoever shall commit any Waste or Spoil either in Walks of Trees, Parks, Warrens, Fish Ponds, Houses or Gardens, Corn Fields, Inclosures or Meadows, or shall maliciously destroy any Property whatsoever belonging to any of Our Subjects, unless by order of the then Commander in Chief of Our Forces, to annoy Rebels or other Enemies in Arms against Us, he or they that shall be found guilty of offending herein shall (besides such Penalties as they are liable to by law) be punished according to the Nature and Degree of the Offence, by the Judgment of a Regimental or General Court Martial." *459 The majority contends that this provision counters any argument that court-martial jurisdiction in Britain at the time of the American Revolution was in any respect limited to offenses not punishable by civil law. Ante, at 443. The latter provision, however, appears in a section of the Articles of War captioned "Of Duties in Quarters, in Garrison, or in the Field," and its text suggests that the activities it forbade were considered derelictions of military duty, and were punishable by court-martial on that basis.[6] American colonists shared the British suspicion of broad military authority in courts-martial. One of the grievances stated in the Declaration of Independence was King George III's assent to "pretended Legislation: For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States." The Framers thus were concerned both with protecting the rights of those subjected to courts-martial, and with preventing courts-martial from permitting soldiers to get away with murder literally in the civilian community. This "known hostility of the American people to any interference by the military with the regular administration of justice in the civil courts," makes it unlikely that the Framers considered any crime committed by a member of the Armed Forces, regardless of *460 its lack of connection to military |
Justice Marshall | 1,987 | 15 | dissenting | Solorio v. United States | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111948/solorio-v-united-states/ | Forces, regardless of *460 its lack of connection to military service, to give rise to a "case arising in" the Armed Forces of the new Nation.[7] This is borne out by provisions in the American Articles of 1776 that are comparable to those in the British Articles of War of 1774. See Section X, Article I, reprinted in 2 W. Military Law and Precedents 94 (1896); Section XIII, Article 16, reprinted in 2 ; Section XVIII, Article 5, reprinted in 2 The provisions created military offenses where the crimes involved were service connected. This tradition continued after the adoption of the Constitution. With respect to the 1874 Articles of War, for example, Davis wrote: "As to whether an act which is a civil crime is also a military offense no rule can be laid down which will cover all cases, for the reason that what may be a military offense under certain circumstances may lose that character under others. But if the act be committed on a military reservation, or other ground occupied by the army, or in its neighborhood, so as to be in the constructive presence of the army; or if committed while on duty, particularly if the injury be to a member of the community whom it is the offender's duty to protect; or if committed *461 in the presence of other soldiers, or while in uniform; or if the offender use his military position, or that of another, for the purpose of intimidation or other unlawful influence or object such facts would be sufficient to make it prejudicial to military discipline" Davis, Viewed historically, then, O'Callahan's recognition of the service connection requirement did not signify a meaningful change in what could be tried in courts-martial. Quite the reverse: not until the enactment of the Uniform Code of Military Justice in 1950 did Congress attempt to give courts-martial the authority to try the crimes of murder and rape committed in peacetime within the United States. See Duke & Vogel, The Constitution and the Standing Army: Another Problem of Court-Martial Jurisdiction, Common-law felonies in peacetime were only brought within the court-martial jurisdiction in 1916. Wiener, Courts-Martial and the Bill of Rights: The Original Practice I, The Framers' conception of what could properly be tried in a court-martial must have informed their understanding of what cases arise in the Armed Forces, thus permitting what would otherwise be unconstitutional infringements of Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights. The relatively recent expansion of the authority of military tribunals appears to disregard the Framers' understanding. Instead of acknowledging the Fifth Amendment limits |
Justice Marshall | 1,987 | 15 | dissenting | Solorio v. United States | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111948/solorio-v-united-states/ | the Framers' understanding. Instead of acknowledging the Fifth Amendment limits on the crimes triable in a court-martial, the Court simply ignores them. But "[t]he concept that the Bill of Rights and other constitutional protections against arbitrary government are inoperative when they become inconvenient or when expediency dictates otherwise is a very dangerous doctrine and if allowed to flourish would destroy the benefit of a written Constitution and undermine the basis of our Government." *462 The limitations may not, in the view of the majority, be desirable, but that does not mean they do not exist. The requirement of service connection recognized in O'Callahan has a legitimate basis in constitutional language and a solid historical foundation. It should be applied in this case. II Application of the service connection requirement of O'Callahan, as further elaborated in demonstrates that petitioner's Alaska crimes do not have an adequate service connection to support the exercise of court-martial jurisdiction. Petitioner's offenses did not detract from the performance of his military duties. He committed these crimes while properly absent from his unit, and there was no connection between his assigned duties and his crimes. Nor did petitioner's crimes threaten people or areas under military control. The crimes were committed in petitioner's private home in the civilian community in Juneau, where there is not even a base for Coast Guard personnel. Petitioner's acts were not likely to go unpunished; the court-martial judge determined that the offenses were of a type traditionally prosecuted by civilian courts, that such courts were available, and that, while the Alaska courts had deferred prosecution in light of the court-martial proceeding, the State had not declined to prosecute the offenses. Nor did the crimes implicate any authority stemming from the war power; they were committed within the territorial United States while the Nation was at peace. Moreover, the crimes caused no measurable interference with military relationships. Though the victims were dependents of Coast Guard members, the court-martial judge found that there was only de minimis military interaction between petitioner and the fathers of the victims, and that the relationships between petitioner and the families of the victims *463 "were founded primarily upon the ages and activities of the children and additionally upon common sporting interests, common spousal interest and employment and neighborly relationships," App. to Pet. for Cert. 58a, rather than the connection of petitioner and the families through the Coast Guard.[8] Because the crimes did not take place in an area within military control or have any effect on petitioner's military duties, their commission posed no challenge to the maintenance of order |
Justice Marshall | 1,987 | 15 | dissenting | Solorio v. United States | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111948/solorio-v-united-states/ | their commission posed no challenge to the maintenance of order in the local command. The military judge found that the Government had not demonstrated any impact of the offenses on "morale, discipline, [or] the reputation or the integrity of the Coast Guard in Juneau." The only connection between the military and the offenses at issue was the fact that the victims were military dependents. But the military judge found explicitly that the military association of petitioner and the victims' fathers did not facilitate petitioner's crimes,[9] and that "[t]he impact apparent in this case, that is, on the parents and the victims themselves is no different than that which would be produced by [a] civilian perpetrator." at 57a. The military judge, after properly reviewing the Relford factors, concluded correctly that they did not render petitioner's *464 offenses service connected and dismissed the charges. Engaging in what can only be described as impermissible appellate factfinding,[10] the Coast Guard Court of Military *465 Review reversed the dismissal. It concluded that the military judge's finding that the offenses had had no impact on morale or discipline was erroneous because the judge should have considered the effect the offenses would have had on the community in Juneau had they come to light while the victims and their families were still in Alaska, and the impact of the offenses on morale and discipline at Governors Island. Without remanding for further factfinding, the court held that the Alaska offenses had a direct impact upon the good order, discipline, morale, and welfare of Coast Guard personnel at Governors Island. It further asserted, again without basis in the facts found by the military judge, that the Coast Guard's interest in deterring the offenses was greater than that of the civilian authorities, and that the concerns of the victims' parents would have been different had the offender been a civilian. -520. On the basis of these newly found facts, the Court of Military Review held petitioner's crime sufficiently service connected to justify the exercise of court-martial jurisdiction. The Court of Military Appeals affirmed. While conceding that its "precedents involving off-base sex offenses against civilian dependents of military personnel would point to a different conclusion," it concluded that a "recent development in our society" specifically, an increase in concern for the victims of crimes meant that sex offenses committed against young children of members of the military, which would have "a continuing effect on the victims and their families," sufficed to establish service connection. The military judge's straightforward application of O'Callahan and Relford was plainly correct given the facts |
Justice Marshall | 1,987 | 15 | dissenting | Solorio v. United States | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111948/solorio-v-united-states/ | of O'Callahan and Relford was plainly correct given the facts as he found them, facts that the reviewing courts have not demonstrated to have been clearly erroneous. The Court of Military *466 Appeals' apparent conclusion that serious or disturbing crimes committed upon military dependents sufficed to create court-martial jurisdiction ignored this Court's prior decisions. The majority asserts that "the service connection approach, even as elucidated in Relford, has proved confusing and difficult for military courts to apply." Ante, at 448. It is true that the test requires a careful, case-specific factual inquiry. But this is not beyond the capacity of the military courts. Indeed, the military judge in this case engaged in a thorough and thoughtful application of the Relford factors. It should not be surprising that such determinations may at times be difficult or time consuming or require the drawing of narrow distinctions. The trial of any person before a court-martial encompasses a deliberate decision to withhold procedural protections guaranteed by the Constitution. Denial of these protections is a very serious matter. The Framers declined to draw an easy line, like that established by the Court today, which would sweep an entire class of Americans beyond the reach of the Bill of Rights. Instead, they required that the protections of the Fifth and Sixth Amendments be applied in any case not "arising in" the Armed Forces. This requirement must not be discarded simply because it may be less expeditious than the majority deems appropriate. III remains correct and workable today. The Court nonetheless insists on reopening a question which was finally and properly resolved in 1969. In doing so, it shows a blatant disregard for principles of stare decisis, and makes more dubious the presumption "that bedrock principles are founded in the law rather than in the proclivities of individuals." This in turn undermines "the integrity of our constitutional system of government, both in appearance and in fact." *467 Ibid.; see also The Court's willingness to overturn precedent may reflect in part its conviction, frequently expressed this Term, that members of the Armed Forces may be subjected virtually without limit to the vagaries of military control. See United States v. Stanley, post, p. 669; United But the Court's decision today has, potentially, the broadest reach of any of these cases. Unless Congress acts to avoid the consequences of this case, every member of our Armed Forces, whose active duty members number in the millions, can now be subjected to court-martial jurisdiction without grand jury indictment or trial by jury for any offense, from tax fraud to passing |
Justice Rehnquist | 1,997 | 19 | majority | Maryland v. Wilson | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118086/maryland-v-wilson/ | In this case we consider whether the rule of Pennsylvania v.Mimms, that a police officer may as a matter of course order the driver of a lawfully stopped car to exit his vehicle, extends to passengers as well. We hold that it does. At about 7:30 p.m. on a June evening, Maryland state trooper David Hughes observed a passenger car driving southbound on I-95 in Baltimore County at a speed of 64 miles per hour. The posted speed limit was 55 miles per hour, and the car had no regular license tag; there was a torn piece of paper reading "Enterprise Rent-A-Car" dangling from its rear. Hughes activated his lights and sirens, signaling the car to pull over, but it continued driving for another mile and a half until it finally did so. During the pursuit, Hughes noticed that there were three occupants in the car and that the two passengers turned to look at him several times, repeatedly ducking below sight level and then reappearing. As Hughes approached the car on foot, the driver alighted and met him halfway. The driver was trembling and appeared extremely nervous, but nonetheless produced a valid Connecticut driver's license. Hughes instructed him to return to the car and retrieve the rental documents, and he complied. During this encounter, Hughes noticed that the front-seat passenger, respondent Jerry Lee Wilson, was sweating and also appeared extremely *411 nervous. While the driver was sitting in the driver's seat looking for the rental papers, Hughes ordered Wilson out of the car. When Wilson exited the car, a quantity of crack cocaine fell to the ground. Wilson was then arrested and charged with possession of cocaine with intent to distribute. Before trial, Wilson moved to suppress the evidence, arguing that Hughes' ordering him out of the car constituted an unreasonable seizure under the Fourth Amendment. The Circuit Court for Baltimore County agreed, and granted respondent's motion to suppress. On appeal, the Court of Special Appeals of Maryland affirmed, ruling that Pennsylvania v. Mimms does not apply to passengers. The Court of Appeals of Maryland denied certiorari. We granted certiorari, and now reverse. In Mimms, we considered a traffic stop much like the one before us today. There, Mimms had been stopped for driving with an expired license plate, and the officer asked him to step out of his car. When Mimms did so, the officer noticed a bulge in his jacket that proved to be a38-caliber revolver, whereupon Mimms was arrested for carrying a concealed deadly weapon. Mimms, like Wilson, urged the suppression of the evidence on the |
Justice Rehnquist | 1,997 | 19 | majority | Maryland v. Wilson | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118086/maryland-v-wilson/ | like Wilson, urged the suppression of the evidence on the ground that the officer's ordering him out of the car was an unreasonable seizure, and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, like the Court of Special Appeals of Maryland, agreed. We reversed, explaining that "[t]he touchstone of our analysis under the Fourth Amendment is always `the reasonableness in all the circumstances of the particular governmental invasion of a citizen's personal security,' " 109 ), and that reasonableness "depends `on a balance between the public interest and the individual's right to personal security free from arbitrary interference by law officers,' " (quoting United (75)). On the public interest side ofthe balance, we noted that the State "freely concede[d]" that there had been nothing unusual or suspicious to justify ordering Mimms out of the car, but that it was the officer's "practice to order all drivers [stopped in traffic stops] out of their vehicles as a matter of course" as a "precautionary measure" to protect the officer's -110. We thought it "too plain for argument" that this justificationofficer safetywas "both legitimate and weighty." In addition, we observed that the danger to the officer of standing by the driver's door and in the path of oncoming traffic might also be "appreciable." On the other side of the balance, we considered the intrusion into the driver's liberty occasioned by the officer's ordering him out of the car. Noting that the driver's car was already validly stopped for a traffic infraction, we deemed the additional intrusion of asking him to step outside his car "de minimis. " Accordingly, we concluded that "once a motor vehicle has been lawfully detained for a traffic violation, the police officers may order the driver to get out of the vehicle without violating the Fourth Amendment's proscription of unreasonable seizures." at111, n. 6. Respondent urges, and the lower courts agreed, that this per se rule does not apply to Wilson because he was a passenger, not the driver. Maryland, in turn, argues that we have already implicitly decided this question by our statement in (83), that "[i]n [Mimms ], we held that police may order persons out of an automobile during astop for a traffic violation," and by Justice Powell's statement in (78), that "this Court determined in [Mimms ] that passengers in automobiles have no Fourth Amendment right not to be ordered from their vehicle, once a proper stop is made," We agree with respondent that the former statement was dictum, and the *413 latter was contained in a concurrence, so that neither constitutes binding precedent. We must therefore now |
Justice Rehnquist | 1,997 | 19 | majority | Maryland v. Wilson | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118086/maryland-v-wilson/ | so that neither constitutes binding precedent. We must therefore now decide whether the rule of Mimms applies to passengers as well as to drivers.[1] On the public interest side of the balance, the same weighty interest in officer safety is present regardless of whether the occupant of the stopped car is a driver or passenger. Regrettably, traffic stops may be dangerous encounters. In 94 alone, there were 5,762 officer assaults and 11 officers killed during traffic pursuits and stops. Federal Bureau of Investigation, Uniform Crime Reports: Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted 71, 33 (94). In the case of passengers, the danger of the officer's standing in the path of oncoming traffic would not be present except in the case of a passenger in the left rear seat, but the fact that there is more than one occupant of the vehicle increases the possible sources of harm to the officer.[2] On the personal liberty side of the balance, the case for the passengers is in one sense stronger than that for the driver. There is probable cause to believe that the driver has committed a minor vehicular offense, but there is no such reason to stop or detain the passengers. But as a practical *414 matter, the passengers are already stopped by virtue of the stop of the vehicle. The only change in their circumstances which will result from ordering them out of the car is that they will be outside of, rather than inside of, the stopped car. Outside the car, the passengers will be denied access to any possible weapon that might be concealed in the interior of the passenger compartment. It would seem that the possibility of a violent encounter stems not from the ordinary reaction ofa motorist stopped for a speeding violation, but from the fact that evidence of a more serious crime might be uncovered during the stop. And the motivation of a passenger to employ violence to prevent apprehension of such a crime is every bit as great as that of the driver. We think that our opinion in (81), offers guidance by analogy here. There the police had obtained a search warrant for contraband thought to be located in a residence, but when they arrived to execute the warrant they found Summers coming down the front steps. The question in the case depended "upon a determination whether the officers had the authority to require him to re-enter the house and toremain there while they conducted their search." at695. In holding as it did, the Court said: "Although no special danger to the police |
Justice Rehnquist | 1,997 | 19 | majority | Maryland v. Wilson | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118086/maryland-v-wilson/ | the Court said: "Although no special danger to the police is suggested by the evidence in this record, the execution of a warrant to search for narcotics is the kind of transaction that may give rise to sudden violence or frantic efforts to conceal or destroy evidence. The risk of harm to both the police and the occupants is minimized if the officers routinely exercise unquestioned command of the situation." In summary, danger to an officer from a traffic stop is likely to be greater when there are passengers in addition to the driver in the stopped car. While there is not the same basis for ordering the passengers out of the car as there is *415 for ordering the driver out, the additional intrusion on the passenger is minimal. We therefore hold that an officer making a traffic stop may order passengers to get out of the car pending completion of the stop.[3] The judgment of the Court of Special Appeals of Maryland is reversed, and the case is remanded for proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion. It is so ordered. |
Justice O'Connor | 1,988 | 14 | majority | Schweiker v. Chilicky | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112132/schweiker-v-chilicky/ | This case requires us to decide whether the improper denial of Social Security disability benefits, allegedly resulting from violations of due process by government officials who administered the federal Social Security program, may give rise to a cause of action for money damages against those officials. We conclude that such a remedy, not having been included in the elaborate remedial scheme devised by Congress, is unavailable. I A Under Title II of the Social Security Act (Act), the Federal Government provides disability benefits to individuals who have contributed to the Social Security program and who, because of a medically determinable physical or mental impairment, are unable to engage in substantial gainful work. 42 U.S. C. 423(a), (d) (1982 ed. and Supp. IV). A very similar program for disabled indigents is operated under Title XVI of the Act, 42 U.S. C. 1381 et seq. (1982 ed. and Supp. IV), but those provisions are technically not at issue in this case. Title II, which is administered in conjunction state welfare agencies, provides benefits only while an individual's statutory disability persists. See 42 U.S. C. 421(a), 423(a)(1) (1982 ed. and Supp. IV). In 1980, Congress noted that existing administrative procedures provided *415 for reexamination of eligibility "only under a limited number of circumstances." H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 96-944, p. 60 ; see also S. Rep. No. 96-408, pp. 60-61 Congress responded by enacting legislation requiring that most disability determinations be reviewed at least once every three years. Pub. L. 96-265, 311(a), as amended, 42 U.S. C. 421(i) (1982 ed. and Supp. IV). Although the statute did not require this program for "continuing disability review" (CDR) to become effective before January 1, 1982, the Secretary of Health and Human Services initiated CDR in March 1981. See Pub. L. 96-265, 311(b), note following 42 U.S. C. 421; Brief for Petitioners 10. The administration of the CDR program was at first modeled on the previous procedures for reexamination of eligibility. Under these procedures, an individual whose case is selected for review bears the burden of demonstrating the continuing existence of a statutory disability. The appropriate state agency performs the initial review, and persons who are found to have become ineligible are generally provided administrative review similar to the review provided to new claimants. See 42 U.S. C. 421(i) (1982 ed. and Supp. IV); Brief for Petitioners 10. Cf. Under the original CDR procedures, benefits were usually terminated after a state agency found a claimant ineligible, and were not available during administrative appeals. See H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 98-1039, p. 33 Finding that benefits were |
Justice O'Connor | 1,988 | 14 | majority | Schweiker v. Chilicky | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112132/schweiker-v-chilicky/ | Conf. Rep. No. 98-1039, p. 33 Finding that benefits were too often being improperly terminated by state agencies, only to be reinstated by a federal administrative law judge (ALJ), Congress enacted temporary emergency legislation in 1983. This law provided for the continuation of benefits, pending review by an ALJ, after a state agency determined that an individual was no longer disabled. Pub. L. 97-455, 2, ; see also Pub. L. 98-118, 2, In the Social Security Disability *416 Benefits Reform Act of 1984 (1984 Reform Act), Congress extended this provision until January 1, 1988, and provided for a number of other significant changes in the administration of CDR. Pub. L. 98-460, 2, 7, -1796, 1803-1804, 42 U.S. C. 423(f), (g) (1982 ed. and Supp. IV). In its final form, this legislation was enacted out a single opposing vote in either Chamber. See 130 Cong. Rec. 26000, 26145-26146 ; see also ; The problems to which Congress responded so emphatically were widespread. One of the cosponsors of the 1984 Reform Act, who had conducted hearings on the administration of CDR, summarized evidence from the General Accounting Office as follows: "[T]he message perceived by the State agencies, swamped cases, was to deny, deny, deny, and, I might add, to process cases faster and faster and faster. In the name of efficiency, we have scanned our computer terminals, rounded up the disabled workers in the country, pushed the discharge button, and let them go into a free [f]all toward economic chaos." Other legislators reached similar conclusions. See, e. g., ("[T]he Social Security Administration has tried to reduce program cost by terminating the benefits of hundreds of thousands of truly disabled Americans"); (alluding to "massive number of beneficiaries who have lost their benefits over the last 3 years even though they are truly disabled and unable to work"). Such conclusions were based, not only on anecdotal evidence, but on compellingly forceful statistics. The Social Security Administration itself apparently reported that about 200,000 persons were wrongfully terminated, and then reinstated, between March 1981 and April 1984. ; see also ; In the first year of CDR, half of those who were terminated appealed the decision, and "an *417 amazing two-thirds of those who appealed were being reinstated." ; see also ; ; S. Rep. No. 98-466, p. 18 Congress was also made aware of the terrible effects on individual lives that CDR had produced. The chairman of the Senate's Special Committee on Aging pointed out that "[t]he human dimension of this crisis the unnecessary suffering, anxiety, and turmoil has been graphically exposed by |
Justice O'Connor | 1,988 | 14 | majority | Schweiker v. Chilicky | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112132/schweiker-v-chilicky/ | suffering, anxiety, and turmoil has been graphically exposed by dozens of congressional hearings and in newspaper articles all across the country." 130 Cong. Rec. 25986 Termination could also lead to the cut-off of Medicare benefits, so that some people were left out adequate medical care. ; see also There is little doubt that CDR led to many hardships and injuries that could never be adequately compensated. See, e. g., -6589 B Respondents are three individuals whose disability benefits under Title II were terminated pursuant to the CDR program in 1981 and 1982. Respondents Spencer Harris and Dora Adelerte appealed these determinations through the administrative process, were restored to disabled status, and were awarded full retroactive benefits. Respondent James Chilicky did not pursue these administrative remedies. Instead, he filed a new application for benefits about a year and a half after his benefits were stopped. His application was granted, and he was awarded one year's retroactive benefits; his application for the restoration of the other six months' benefits is apparently still pending. See Brief for Petitioners 18, and n. 13; Brief for Respondents 3. Because the terminations in these three cases occurred before the 1983 emergency legislation was enacted, respondents experienced delays of many months in receiving disability benefits to *418 which they were entitled. All the respondents had been wholly dependent on their disability benefits, and all allege that they were unable to maintain themselves or their families in even a minimally adequate fashion after they were declared ineligible. Respondent James Chilicky was in the hospital recovering from open-heart surgery when he was informed that his heart condition was no longer disabling. In addition to pursuing administrative remedies, respondents (along several other individuals who have since drawn from the case) filed this lawsuit in the United States District Court for the District of Arizona. They alleged that petitioners one Arizona[1] and two federal officials who had policymaking roles in the administration of the CDR program had violated respondents' due process rights. The thrust of the complaint, which named petitioners in their official and individual capacities, was that petitioners had adopted illegal policies that led to the wrongful termination of benefits by state agencies. Among the allegations were claims that petitioners improperly accelerated the starting date of the CDR program; illegally refused to acquiesce in decisions of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit; failed to apply uniform written standards in implementing the CDR program; failed to give effect to dispositive evidence in particular cases; and used an impermissible quota *419 system under which state |
Justice O'Connor | 1,988 | 14 | majority | Schweiker v. Chilicky | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112132/schweiker-v-chilicky/ | and used an impermissible quota *419 system under which state agencies were required to terminate predetermined numbers of recipients. See Respondents sought injunctive and declaratory relief, and money damages for "emotional distress and for loss of food, shelter and other necessities proximately caused by [petitioners'] denial of benefits out due process." The District Court dismissed the case on the ground that petitioners were protected by a qualified immunity. Their alleged conduct, the court concluded, did not violate " `clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.' " App. to Pet. for Cert. 16a ). Although the court discussed only the claims involving acceleration of the starting date for CDR and nonacquiescence in Ninth Circuit decisions, its qualified immunity holding apparently applied to respondents' other claims as well. Respondents appealed, pressing only their claims for money damages against petitioners in their individual capacities. These claims, noted the Court of Appeals, are "predicated on the constitutional tort theory of" Petitioners argued that the District Court lacked subject matter jurisdiction because the procedures set forth in 42 U.S. C. 405(g), which do not authorize judicial review in a case like this one, provide the exclusive means of judicial redress for actions "arising under" the relevant provisions of the Act. The Court of Appeals rejected this argument, holding that subject matter jurisdiction existed because respondents' claims for emotional distress "arose under" the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment rather than under the statute. The Court of Appeals went on to affirm the District Court to the extent that it dismissed the claims involving acceleration of the CDR program and nonacquiescence in Ninth Circuit decisions. As to respondents' other claims, however, the Court of Appeals concluded *420 that "[i]t cannot be determined as a matter of law that [respondents] could prove no state of facts that resulted in violations of their due process rights and consequent damages."[2] The case was accordingly remanded for further proceedings, including a trial if necessary. The petition for certiorari presented one question: "Whether a Bivens remedy should be implied for alleged due process violations in the denial of social security disability benefits." We granted the petition, and now reverse. II A The Constitution provides that federal courts may be given original jurisdiction over "all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority." U. S. Const., Art. III, 1, 2. Since 1875, Congress has provided the federal trial courts general jurisdiction over such cases. See Judiciary |
Justice O'Connor | 1,988 | 14 | majority | Schweiker v. Chilicky | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112132/schweiker-v-chilicky/ | federal trial courts general jurisdiction over such cases. See Judiciary Act of March 3, 1875, 1, ; 13B C. Wright, A. Miller, & E. Cooper, Federal Practice and Procedure 3561 ; American Law Institute, Study of the Division of Jurisdiction between State and Federal Courts 162-163 (1969). The statute currently provides that the "district courts shall have original *421 jurisdiction of all civil actions arising under the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States." 28 U.S. C. 1331. In 1971, this Court held that the victim of a Fourth Amendment violation by federal officers acting under color of their authority may bring suit for money damages against the officers in federal court. The Court noted that Congress had not specifically provided for such a remedy and that "the Fourth Amendment does not in so many words provide for its enforcement by an award of money damages for the consequences of its violation." Nevertheless, finding "no special factors counselling hesitation in the absence of affirmative action by Congress," and "no explicit congressional declaration" that money damages may not be awarded, the majority relied on the rule that " `where legal rights have been invaded, and a federal statute provides for a general right to sue for such invasion, federal courts may use any available remedy to make good the wrong done.' " -397 ). So-called "Bivens actions" for money damages against federal officers have subsequently been permitted under 1331 for violations of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment, and the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause of the Eighth Amendment, In each of these cases, as in Bivens itself, the Court found that there were no "special factors counselling hesitation in the absence of affirmative action by Congress," no explicit statutory prohibition against the relief sought, and no exclusive statutory alternative remedy. See -247; -20. Our more recent decisions have responded cautiously to suggestions that Bivens remedies be extended into new contexts. The absence of statutory relief for a constitutional violation, for example, does not by any means necessarily imply that courts should award money damages against the *422 officers responsible for the violation. Thus, in we refused unanimously to create a Bivens action for enlisted military personnel who alleged that they had been injured by the unconstitutional actions of their superior officers and who had no remedy against the Government itself: "The special nature of military life the need for unhesitating and decisive action by military officers and equally disciplined responses by enlisted personnel would be undermined by a judicially created remedy exposing officers |
Justice O'Connor | 1,988 | 14 | majority | Schweiker v. Chilicky | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112132/schweiker-v-chilicky/ | would be undermined by a judicially created remedy exposing officers to personal liability at the hands of those they are charged to command "Also, Congress, the constitutionally authorized source of authority over the military system of justice, has not provided a damages remedy for claims by military personnel that constitutional rights have been violated by superior officers. Any action to provide a judicial response by way of such a remedy would be plainly inconsistent Congress' authority in this field. "Taken together, the unique disciplinary structure of the Military Establishment and Congress' activity in the field constitute `special factors' which dictate that it would be inappropriate to provide enlisted military personnel a Bivens-type remedy against their superior officers." See also United Similarly, we refused again unanimously to create a Bivens remedy for a First Amendment violation "aris[ing] out of an employment relationship that is governed by comprehensive procedural and substantive provisions giving meaningful remedies against the United States." In that case, a federal employee was demoted, allegedly in violation of the First Amendment, *423 for making public statements critical of the agency for which he worked. He was reinstated through the administrative process, retroactive seniority and full backpay, but he was not permitted to recover for any loss due to emotional distress or mental anguish, or for attorney's fees. See and nn. 8-9; Concluding that the administrative system created by Congress "provides meaningful remedies for employees who may have been unfairly disciplined for making critical comments about their agencies," the Court refused to create a Bivens action even though it assumed a First Amendment violation and acknowledged that "existing remedies do not provide complete relief for the plaintiff," See also The Court stressed that the case involved policy questions in an area that had received careful attention from Congress. Noting that the Legislature is far more competent than the Judiciary to carry out the necessary "balancing [of] governmental efficiency and the rights of employees," we refused to "decide whether or not it would be good policy to permit a federal employee to recover damages from a supervisor who has improperly disciplined him for exercising his First Amendment rights." In sum, the concept of "special factors counselling hesitation in the absence of affirmative action by Congress" has proved to include an appropriate judicial deference to indications that congressional inaction has not been inadvertent. When the design of a Government program suggests that Congress has provided what it considers adequate remedial mechanisms for constitutional violations that may occur in the course of its administration, we have not created additional Bivens remedies. |
Justice O'Connor | 1,988 | 14 | majority | Schweiker v. Chilicky | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112132/schweiker-v-chilicky/ | of its administration, we have not created additional Bivens remedies. *424 B The administrative structure and procedures of the Social Security system, which affects virtually every American, "are of a size and extent difficult to comprehend." Millions of claims are filed every year under the Act's disability benefits programs alone, and these claims are handled under "an unusually protective [multi]-step process for the review and adjudication of disputed claims." The steps provided for under Title II are essentially identical for new claimants and for persons subject to CDR. An initial determination of a claimant's eligibility for benefits is made by a state agency, under federal standards and criteria. See 42 U.S. C. 421(a) (1982 ed. and Supp. IV); see also 20 CFR 404.1588-404.1599 Next, a claimant is entitled to de novo reconsideration by the state agency, and additional evidence may be presented at that time. 404.907-404.922. If the claimant is dissatisfied the state agency's decision, review may then be had by the Secretary of Health and Human Services, acting through a federal ALJ; at this stage, the claimant is again free to introduce new evidence or raise new issues. 42 U.S. C. 421(d) (1982 ed., Supp. IV); 20 CFR 404.929-404.965 If the claimant is still dissatisfied, a hearing may be sought before the Appeals Council of the Social Security Administration. 404.967-404.983. Once these elaborate administrative remedies have been exhausted, a claimant is entitled to seek judicial review, including review of constitutional claims. 42 U.S. C. 405(g), 421(d) (1982 ed. and Supp. IV); ; ; The Act, however, makes no provision for remedies in money damages against officials responsible for unconstitutional conduct that leads to the wrongful denial of benefits. As respondents concede, claimants whose benefits have been fully restored through the administrative process would lack standing *425 to invoke the Constitution under the statute's administrative review provision. See Brief for Respondents 32-33. The case before us cannot reasonably be distinguished from Here, exactly as in Congress has failed to provide for "complete relief": respondents have not been given a remedy in damages for emotional distress or for other hardships suffered because of delays in their receipt of Social Security benefits. Compare n. 9, 796 F.2d, The creation of a Bivens remedy would obviously offer the prospect of relief for injuries that must now go unredressed. Congress, however, has not failed to provide meaningful safeguards or remedies for the rights of persons situated as respondents were. Indeed, the system for protecting their rights is, if anything, considerably more elaborate than the civil service system considered in The prospect of personal liability |
Justice O'Connor | 1,988 | 14 | majority | Schweiker v. Chilicky | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112132/schweiker-v-chilicky/ | civil service system considered in The prospect of personal liability for official acts, moreover, would undoubtedly lead to new difficulties and expense in recruiting administrators for the programs Congress has established. Congressional competence at "balancing governmental efficiency and the rights of [individuals]," is no more questionable in the social welfare context than it is in the civil service context. Cf. Congressional attention to problems that have arisen in the administration of CDR (including the very problems that gave rise to this case) has, moreover, been frequent and intense. See, e. g., H. R. Rep. No. 98-618, pp. 2, 4 ; S. Rep. No. 98-466, pp. 10, 17-18 Congress itself required that the CDR program be instituted. Within two years after the program began, Congress enacted emergency legislation providing for the continuation of benefits even after a finding of ineligibility by a state agency. Less than two years after passing that law, and fully aware of the results of extensive investigations of the practices that led to respondents' injuries, Congress again enacted legislation aimed *426 at reforming the administration of CDR; that legislation again specifically addressed the problem that had provoked the earlier emergency legislation. At each step, Congress chose specific forms and levels of protection for the rights of persons affected by incorrect eligibility determinations under CDR. At no point did Congress choose to extend to any person the kind of remedies that respondents seek in this lawsuit. Cf. 130 Cong. Rec. 6585-6586 (Rep. Perkins) (expressing regret that the bill eventually enacted as the 1984 Reform Act did not provide additional relief for persons improperly terminated during the early years of CDR). Thus, congressional unwillingness to provide consequential damages for unconstitutional deprivations of a statutory right is at least as clear in the context of this case as it was in Respondents nonetheless contend that should be confined to its facts, arguing that it applies only in the context of what they call "the special nature of federal employee relations." Brief for Respondents 40. Nothing that the parties to this case did "not share the sort of close, collaborative, continuing juridical relationship found in the federal civil service," respondents suggest that the availability of Bivens remedies would create less "inconvenience" to the Social Security system than it would in the context of the civil service. See Brief for Respondents 44, 46-48. Petitioners are less sanguine, arguing that the creation of Bivens remedy in this context would lead to "a complete disruption of [a] carefully crafted and constantly monitored congressional scheme." Reply Brief for Petitioners 15. We need not choose between |
Justice O'Connor | 1,988 | 14 | majority | Schweiker v. Chilicky | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112132/schweiker-v-chilicky/ | Reply Brief for Petitioners 15. We need not choose between these competing predictions, which have little bearing on the applicability of to this case. The decision in did not rest on this Court's belief that Bivens actions would be more disruptive of the civil service than they are in other contexts where they have been allowed, such as federal law enforcement agencies (Bivens itself) or the federal prisons ). Rather, we declined in " `to create a new substantive *427 legal liability ' because we are convinced that Congress is in a better position to decide whether or not the public interest would be served by creating it." That reasoning applies as much, or more, in this case as it did in itself. Respondents also suggest that this case is distinguishable from because the plaintiff in that case received compensation for the constitutional violation itself, while these respondents have merely received that to which they would have been entitled had there been no constitutional violation. See Brief for Respondents 20, n. 26 ("'s reinstatement was a remedy for the alleged abuse, not just a restoration of something to which he was entitled "); see also (failure to create a Bivens remedy "would give respondents precisely the same thing whether or not they were victims of constitutional deprivation and would thus leave respondents no post-deprivation remedy at all for the constitutional violations they allege"). The opinion, however, drew no distinction between compensation for a "constitutional wrong" and the restoration of statutory rights that had been unconstitutionally taken away. Nor did it suggest that such labels would matter. Indeed, the Court appeared to assume that civil service employees would get "precisely the same thing whether or not they were victims of constitutional deprivation." Ibid.; see 462 U. S., (emphasis added; footnote omitted). thus lends no support to the notion that statutory violations caused by unconstitutional conduct necessarily require remedies in addition to the remedies provided generally for such statutory violations. Here, as in it is evident that if we were "to fashion an adequate remedy for every wrong that can be proved in a case [the complaining party] would obviously prevail." In neither case, however, does the presence of alleged unconstitutional *428 conduct that is not separately remedied under the statutory scheme imply that the statute has provided "no remedy" for the constitutional wrong at issue. The remedy sought in was virtually identical to the one sought by respondents in this case: consequential damages for hardships resulting from an allegedly unconstitutional denial of a statutory right (Social Security benefits in one instance |
Justice O'Connor | 1,988 | 14 | majority | Schweiker v. Chilicky | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112132/schweiker-v-chilicky/ | of a statutory right (Social Security benefits in one instance and employment in a particular Government job in the other). In light of the comprehensive statutory schemes involved, the harm resulting from the alleged constitutional violation can in neither case be separated from the harm resulting from the denial of the statutory right. Respondents' effort to separate the two does not distinguish this case from in any analytically meaningful sense. In the end, respondents' various arguments are rooted in their insistent and vigorous contention that they simply have not been adequately recompensed for their injuries. They say, for example: "Respondents are disabled workers who were dependent upon their Social Security benefits when petitioners unconstitutionally terminated them. Respondents needed those benefits, at the time they were wrongfully held, to purchase food, shelter, medicine, and life's other necessities. The harm they suffered as a result bears no relation to the dollar amount of the benefits unjustly held from them. For the Government to offer belated restoration of back benefits in a lump sum and attempt to call it quits, after respondents have suffered deprivation for months on end, is not only to display gross insensitivity to the damage done to respondents' lives, but to trivialize the seriousness of petitioners' offense." Brief for Respondents 11. We agree that suffering months of delay in receiving the income on which one has depended for the very necessities of life cannot be fully remedied by the "belated restoration of back benefits." The trauma to respondents, and thousands of others like them, must surely have gone beyond what anyone *429 of normal sensibilities would wish to see imposed on innocent disabled citizens. Nor would we care to "trivialize" the nature of the wrongs alleged in this case. Congress, however, has addressed the problems created by state agencies' wrongful termination of disability benefits. Whether or not we believe that its response was the best response, Congress is the body charged making the inevitable compromises required in the design of a massive and complex welfare benefits program. Cf. Congress has discharged that responsibility to the extent that it affects the case before us, and we see no legal basis that would allow us to revise its decision.[3] Because the relief sought by respondents is unavailable as a matter of law, the case must be dismissed. The judgment of the Court of Appeals to the contrary is therefore Reversed. *430 JUSTICE STEVENS, concurring in part and concurring in the judgment. |
Justice Thomas | 1,994 | 1 | majority | Nebraska Dept. of Revenue v. Loewenstein | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/117885/nebraska-dept-of-revenue-v-loewenstein/ | We took this case to decide whether States may tax interest income derived from repurchase agreements involving federal securities. If the income that taxpayers earn by participating in such agreements constitutes interest on federal securities, then the taxation violates 31 U.S. C. 3124(a), which exempts interest on "obligations of the United States Government" from taxation by States. On the other hand, if that income constitutes interest on loans to a private party, the taxation is not prohibited by the statute. With respect to the repurchase agreements at issue in this case, we conclude that for purposes of 3124(a), the interest earned by taxpayers is interest on loans to a private party, not interest on federal securities. Accordingly, we hold that 3124(a) does not prohibit States from taxing such income. I Respondent is a Nebraska resident who owns shares in two mutual funds, the Trust for Short-Term U. S. Government Securities and the Trust for U. S. Treasury Obligations (Trusts). The Trusts earn a portion of their income by participating in "repurchase agreements" that involve debt securities issued by the United States Government and its agencies *126 (federal securities). A typical repurchase agreement used by the Trusts, see App. 65-81, establishes a two-part transaction, commonly called a "repo," between a party who holds federal securities and seeks cash (Seller-Borrower) and a party who has available cash and seeks to earn interest on its idle funds (in this case, the Trusts). In part one of the repo, the Seller-Borrower "transfers" specified federal securities to the Trusts on the records of the Federal Reserve System's commercial book-entry system. Simultaneously, the Trusts transfer a specified amount of cash to the SellerBorrower's bank account. In part two of the transactionwhich occurs at a later date fixed by agreement or, in the absence of any agreement, upon demand of either partythe Trusts "deliver" the federal securities back to the Seller-Borrower on the Federal Reserve's records, and the Seller-Borrower credits the Trusts' bank account in an amount equal to the sum of the original cash transfer plus "interest" at an agreed-upon rate. This interest rate bears no relation to the yield on the underlying federal securitieseither when they were issued by the United States Government or when they later came into the hands of the Seller-Borrowerbut is based instead on the current market rate paid on investments with maturities equal to the term of the repo, not to the original or current maturities of the underlying securities.[1] After deducting administrative costs, the Trusts distribute this interest income to respondent in proportion to his ownership of shares in |
Justice Thomas | 1,994 | 1 | majority | Nebraska Dept. of Revenue v. Loewenstein | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/117885/nebraska-dept-of-revenue-v-loewenstein/ | to respondent in proportion to his ownership of shares in the Trusts. The State of Nebraska generally taxes interest income, but it does not tax "interest or dividends received by the owner of obligations of the United *127 States but exempt from state income taxes under the laws of the United States." Neb. Rev. Stat. 77-2716(1)(a) For purposes of Nebraska's income tax law, if interest would be exempt from tax in the hands of the Trusts, then respondent's proportionate share of such interest will be exempt. 77-2716(1)(b). A decade ago petitioner considered whether the interest income derived from repurchase agreements involving federal securities and then distributed to respondent and similarly situated individuals was subject to Nebraska's income tax. Petitioner concluded that it was. Neb. Rev. Rul. 22 85-1, Brief for Petitioner 4-5, n. 1. In 1988, respondent brought a declaratory judgment action in the District Court of Lancaster County, Nebraska, asking that Revenue Ruling 22-85-1 be declared invalid as contrary to 31 U.S. C. 3124(a) and the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution. The District Court granted the requested relief. On appeal, the Supreme Court of Nebraska affirmed, concluding that "the income received by [respondent] from repo transactions executed by the [T]rusts involving federal securities is exempt from state taxation under 3124." As the Nebraska Supreme Court itself acknowledged, see at 88-, -, several state courts have reached directly contrary conclusions,[2] and two Federal *128 Courts of Appeals have ruled that interest income derived from repos involving municipal bonds is not exempt from federal taxation under 103(a)(1) of the Internal Revenue Code.[3] We granted certiorari to resolve this conflict, and we now reverse. II We begin with the text of 31 U.S. C. 3124(a). It provides in relevant part: "[O]bligations of the United States Government are exempt from taxation by a State or political subdivision of a State. The exemption applies to each form of taxation that would require the obligation, the interest on the obligation, or both, to be considered in computing a tax" Under this provision, a state tax may consider neither the federal "obligation" itself nor the "interest on the obligation." The obligation itself is "considered" when its value is "taken into account, or included in the accounting," Ameri- *129 can Bank & Trust in computing the taxable value of a taxpayer's assets or net worth for the purpose of a property tax or the like. See, e. g., First Nat. Bank of By contrast, the interest on the obligation is "considered" when that interest is included in computing the taxpayer's net income or earnings for |
Justice Thomas | 1,994 | 1 | majority | Nebraska Dept. of Revenue v. Loewenstein | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/117885/nebraska-dept-of-revenue-v-loewenstein/ | included in computing the taxpayer's net income or earnings for the purpose of an income tax or the like. See, e. g., Memphis Bank & Trust By participating in repos involving federal securities, the Trusts (and thus respondent) earned interest income, and Nebraska's income tax admittedly considered that interest in computing respondent's taxable income. We must decide whether for purposes of 3124(a) the interest earned by the Trusts from these repos is interest on "obligations of the United States Government" or interest on loans of cash from the Trusts to the Seller-Borrower. We conclude that it is the latter, and we accordingly hold that Nebraska's taxation of the income derived by respondent from the repos does not violate 3124(a). An investor may earn interest income from a federal security in one or both of two ways. First, the investor may receive periodic payments from the United States Government at the interest rate stated on the face of the security. Such payments are traditionally known as "coupon interest." Second, the investor may acquire the security at a discount from the amount for which it will ultimately be redeemed by the Government at maturity. This discount is also considered interest for purposes of taxation.[4] Although "discount *130 interest" accrues during the term of the security, the investor does not receive it in cash until the security is redeemed or transferred to a third party. Our examination of the typical repurchase agreement used by the Trusts convinces us that they did not earn either kind of interest on federal securities. Certainly, none of the income the Trusts earn by participating in repos can be attributed to redemptions of the securities or payments of coupon interest by the Government: The Trusts must "pay over to [the Seller-Borrower] as soon as received all principal, interest and other sums paid by or on behalf of the issuer in respect of the Securities and collected by the [Trusts]." App. 69. Nor can we conclude that the Trusts receive discount interest when the federal securities are transferred back to the Seller-Borrower in part two of the repo. Under the typical repurchase agreement, any individual repo transaction may involve a mix of federal securities with varying maturities, and therefore varying yields. During the term of the repo, these securities earn discount interest based on their respective yields (and on whether they pay coupon interest). The Trusts, however, earn interest from the Seller-Borrower at an agreed-upon rate that is not based on any of these yields, or any combination of them. Thus, the interest that the Trusts earn by participating |
Justice Thomas | 1,994 | 1 | majority | Nebraska Dept. of Revenue v. Loewenstein | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/117885/nebraska-dept-of-revenue-v-loewenstein/ | them. Thus, the interest that the Trusts earn by participating in the repo will bear no relation to the discount interest earned on federal securities during the same period. We conclude instead that for purposes of 3124(a), the interest income earned by the Trusts is interest on loans from the Trusts to the Seller-Borrower, and that the federal securities are involved in the repo transactions as collateral for *131 these loans. Several features of the repos lead to this conclusion. First, at the commencement of a repo, the Trusts pay the Seller-Borrower a fixed sum of money; at the repo's termination, the Seller-Borrower repays that sum with "interest." As explained above, this repo interest bears no relation to either the coupon interest paid or the discount interest accrued on the federal securities during the term of the repo. Second, if the Seller-Borrower defaults on its obligation to pay its debt, the Trusts may liquidate the federal securities. But like any lender who liquidates collateral, the Trusts may retain the proceeds of liquidation only up to the amount of the debt plus expenses; any excess must be paid to the Seller-Borrower. Moreover, if the proceeds are insufficient to satisfy the debt, the Trusts may recover the deficiency from the Seller-Borrower. Third, if the market value of the federal securities involved in the repo falls below 102% of the amount the Trusts originally paid to the Seller-Borrower, the latter must immediately deliver cash or additional securities to the Trusts to restore the value of the securities held by the Trusts to 102% of the original payment amount. On the other hand, if the market value of the securities rises above 102% of this amount, the Seller-Borrower may require the Trusts to return some of the securities to the Seller-Borrower. These provisions are consistent with a lender-borrower relationship in which a prudent lender desires to protect the value of its collateral, while a prudent borrower attempts to pledge as little collateral as possible. Fourth, the Seller-Borrower may, during the term of the repo, "substitute" federal securities of equal market value for the federal securities initially involved in the transaction. A lender, of course, is indifferent to the particular collateral pledged by the borrower, so long as that collateral has sufficient value and liquidity. *132 The parties have stipulated that the Trusts (or their agents) take "Delivery" of the federal securities at the commencement of a repo. App. 63. But even this fact is consistent with understanding repos as loans of cash from the Trusts to the Seller-Borrower: "Delivery" of the securities perfects the |
Justice Thomas | 1,994 | 1 | majority | Nebraska Dept. of Revenue v. Loewenstein | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/117885/nebraska-dept-of-revenue-v-loewenstein/ | Trusts to the Seller-Borrower: "Delivery" of the securities perfects the Trusts' security interests in their collateral. Under the most recent version of 8-321(1) of the Uniform Commercial Code (U. C. C.), "[a] security interest in a security is enforceable and can attach only if it is transferred to the secured party pursuant to a provision of [] 8-313(1)." 2C U. L. A. 459 (1991). Section 8-313(1)(a) provides that transfer of a security interest in a security occurs when the secured party "acquires possession of a certificated security." [5] at 402. Of course, possession of the federal securities allows the Trusts to effect an expeditious, nonjudicial liquidation of the securities if the Seller-Borrower defaults. Cf. U. C. C. 9-504(1), 3B U. L. A. 127 (1992). The ability to liquidate immediately is obviously critical in the context of repo transactions, which may have a life span of only a single day. Based on the foregoing analysis, we conclude that the interest income earned by the Trusts from repurchase agreements involving federal securities is not interest on "obligations of the United States Government." For purposes of 31 U.S. C. 3124(a), the income is instead interest on loans from the Trusts to the Seller-Borrower. Because 3124(a) exempts only the former type of interest from state taxation, *133 Nebraska did not violate that statute when it taxed respondent's interest income.[6] III Respondent offers two objections to this interpretation of 3124(a). We find neither of them persuasive. A The typical repurchase agreement at issue in this case explicitly identifies the original transfer of the federal securities to the Trusts as a "sale" and the subsequent transfer back to the Seller-Borrower as a "repurchase." Respondent maintains we should honor this characterization because the repos were structured by the Trusts and the SellerBorrower as sales and repurchases for valid business and regulatory reasons independent of tax considerations. Respondent relies on our statement in Frank Lyon : "[W]here there is a genuine multiple-party transaction with economic substance which is compelled or encouraged by business or regulatory realities, is imbued with tax-independent considerations, and is not shaped solely by tax-avoidance features that have meaningless labels attached, the Government should honor the allocation of rights and duties effectuated by the parties." We do not believe it matters for purposes of 3124(a) whether the repo is characterized as a sale and subsequent repurchase. A sale-repurchase characterization presumably would make the Trusts the "owners" of the federal securities *134 during the term of the repo. But the dispositive question is whether the Trusts earned interest on "obligations of the United States Government," not |
Justice Thomas | 1,994 | 1 | majority | Nebraska Dept. of Revenue v. Loewenstein | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/117885/nebraska-dept-of-revenue-v-loewenstein/ | earned interest on "obligations of the United States Government," not whether the Trusts "owned" such obligations. As respondent himself concedes, "[t]he concept of `ownership' is simply not an issue under 31 U.S. C. 3124." Brief for Respondent 10. Even if it did matter how repos were characterized for purposes of 3124(a), Frank Lyon Co. does not support respondent's position. Whatever the language relied on by respondent may mean, our decision in that case to honor the taxpayer's characterization of its transaction as a "sale-andleaseback" rather than a "financing transaction" was founded on an examination of "the substance and economic realities of the transaction." This examination included identification of 27 specific facts. See The substance and economic realities of the Trusts' repo transactions, as manifested in the specific facts discussed above, are that the Trusts do not receive either coupon interest or discount interest from federal securities by participating in repos. Rather, in economic reality, the Trusts receive interest on cash they have lent to the Seller-Borrower. Respondent does not specifically dispute this conclusion but argues that repos are characterized as ordinary sales and repurchases for purposes of federal securities, bankruptcy, and banking law as well as commercial and local government law. We need not examine the accuracy of these assertions, for we are not called upon in this case to interpret any of those bodies of law. Our decision today is an interpretation only of 31 U.S. C. 3124(a)not the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the Bankruptcy Code, or any other body of law. B At oral argument, respondent advanced another argument against the interpretation of 3124(a) adopted here: Although petitioner's Revenue Ruling nominally acknowledges the right of the Seller-Borrower to claim the exemption granted by 3124(a), Nebraska's income tax scheme will not *135 allow the Seller-Borrower to realize the full amount of the federal exemption. This would allegedly frustrate Congress' purpose in granting the exemption. According to respondent, after the Seller-Borrower has subtracted from its taxable income any "interest or dividends received by [it as] the owner of obligations of the United States," pursuant to subsection (a) of Neb. Rev. Stat. 77-2716(1) it will then be forced to add back "any interest on indebtedness incurred to carry the [federal] obligations," pursuant to subsection (e)(i) of 77-2716(1). Respondent conjectures that the interest paid by the Seller-Borrower to the Trusts in the course of repos may constitute just such interest. Respondent therefore hypothesizes that if the Seller-Borrower receives, for example, $100 in interest as the holder of federal securities and pays out $ to the Trusts in the course of repos |
Justice Thomas | 1,994 | 1 | majority | Nebraska Dept. of Revenue v. Loewenstein | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/117885/nebraska-dept-of-revenue-v-loewenstein/ | out $ to the Trusts in the course of repos involving those securities, Nebraska might give the Seller-Borrower an income tax exemption worth only $10 ($100 minus $), rather than the $100 exemption that Congress arguably intended. There is a short answer to respondent's multi layered hypothesis: this case does not involve the construction or validity of Nebraska's add-back rule as applied in the repo context. The Nebraska Supreme Court did not cite 77 2716(1)(e)(i) in its opinion, and we did not grant certiorari to consider that provision. IV Finally, respondent argues that Nebraska's taxation of income from repos involving federal securities violates the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution. First, respondent contends that Nebraska discriminates against federal obligations because it does not tax income from repos involving Nebraska's own state and local obligations. Although Nebraska Revenue Ruling 22-85-1 concerns repos involving "federal government obligations" and does not mention their Nebraska counterparts, respondent has pointed to no statute, revenue ruling, or other manifestation of Nebraska policy *136 treating "state" repos any different from "federal" repos for tax purposes. Second, respondent cites our decision in Rockford Life Ins. 1 in which we stated that "the inter governmental tax immunity doctrine is based on the proposition that the borrowing power is an essential aspect of the Federal Government's authority and, just as the Supremacy Clause bars the States from directly taxing federal property, it also bars the States from taxing federal obligations in a manner which has an adverse effect on the United States' borrowing ability." According to respondent, undisputed expert testimony in the record establishes that the taxation at issue in this case will make it more difficult and expensive for the Federal Government to finance the national debt. This expert testimony essentially consists of a 1986 affidavit sworn by Peter D. Sternlight, a former official of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. In our view, Sternlight's affidavit has no relevance to this case. It concluded only that "an impairment of the repo market would make it less attractive for [government securities] dealers to perform [their] very useful function [of underwriting a sizeable portion of Treasury securities], thus adding to Treasury interest costs." App. 42. But the "impairment" that worried Sternlight would result "[i]f repurchase agreements were to lose their present characteristics of flexibility and liquidity," or if repos became "unavailable" to certain kinds of public and private institutional investors. These possibilities might develop if repos were to be characterized as secured loans for purposes of federal bankruptcy and banking law or of commercial and local government law. Our decision today, |
Justice Thomas | 1,994 | 1 | majority | Nebraska Dept. of Revenue v. Loewenstein | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/117885/nebraska-dept-of-revenue-v-loewenstein/ | or of commercial and local government law. Our decision today, however, says nothing about how repos should be characterized for those purposes.[7] *137 Disregarding the inapplicable Stern light affidavit, we find no evidence in the record that the taxation at issue will impair the market in federal securities or otherwise impair the borrowing ability of the Federal Government. Rockford Life confirmed the rule that "`when effort is made to establish the unconstitutional character of a particular tax by claiming its remote effect will be to impair the borrowing power of the government, courtsought to have something more substantial to act upon than mere conjecture. The injury ought to be obvious and appreciable.' " 482 U.S., at 1, n. 10 (quoting (10)). Respondent has shown us no "obvious and appreciable" injury to the borrowing power of the United States Government as a result of Nebraska's taxation of the repo income earned by the Trusts. Rather, he has given us "mere conjecture." In these circumstances, we cannot justifiably conclude that Nebraska's taxation of income derived from repos involving federal securities violates the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution. For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the Supreme Court of Nebraska is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion. It is so ordered. |
Justice Stevens | 1,986 | 16 | dissenting | Press-Enterprise Co. v. Superior Court of Cal., County of Riverside | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111735/press-enterprise-co-v-superior-court-of-cal-county-of-riverside/ | The constitutional question presented by this case is whether members of the public have a First Amendment right to insist upon access to the transcript of a preliminary hearing during the period before the public trial, even though the accused, the prosecutor, and the trial judge have all agreed to the sealing of the transcript in order to assure a fair trial. The preliminary hearing transcript to which petitioner sought access consists of 4,239 pages of testimony by prosecution witnesses heard over eight weeks. The testimony, contained in 47 volumes, accuses Mr. Robert Diaz, a nurse, of murdering 12 patients in the hospital in which he worked by injecting them with lethal doses of a heart drug. The transcript reveals that the defense put on no witnesses of its own. Immediately after the Magistrate ordered the defendant bound over for trial, defense counsel moved that the transcript of the preliminary hearing be sealed to protect his client's *16 right to a fair trial. The transcript, in the words of the Magistrate, revealed "only one side of the story." App. 28a. The transcript also contained the Magistrate's characterization of Mr. Diaz as "the most dangerous type of individual there is." at 27a. The prosecutor did not oppose this motion, and the Magistrate, after hearing petitioner's objection, ordered the transcript sealed. The Superior trial judge denied a motion to unseal the transcript. He found and the finding is amply supported by the record that "there is a reasonable likelihood that making all or any part of the transcripts public might prejudice the defendant's right to a fair and impartial trial." at 61a. Accord, at 62a. The Magistrate had earlier rejected less restrictive alternatives to sealing the transcript, concluding that "the only way to protect" the defendant's "[fair trial] right would be to seal the transcript." at 37a.[1] The of Appeal agreed with the trial judge and denied the peremptory writ of mandate sought by petitioner. It rejected petitioner's assertion that "the superior court failed to state any reasons or make a specific finding to support the sealing order." App. to Pet. for Cert. E-11. Instead, it confirmed the trial judge's determinations that "the transcript is indicative of only the prosecutorial side of the case," at E-14; that the public's right of access was overborne by the "reasonable likelihood of substantial prejudice" to "the defendant's right to a fair trial," at E-9; and that "[a]lternatives to sealing the transcript would not suffice in this *17 case," at E-14.[2] The California Supreme similarly denied petitioner's request for a peremptory writ of mandate, |
Justice Stevens | 1,986 | 16 | dissenting | Press-Enterprise Co. v. Superior Court of Cal., County of Riverside | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111735/press-enterprise-co-v-superior-court-of-cal-county-of-riverside/ | similarly denied petitioner's request for a peremptory writ of mandate, affirming that a preliminary hearing transcript can be sealed upon a showing of a "reasonable likelihood of substantial prejudice which would impinge upon the right to a fair trial." In view of the above, the trial judge had an obvious and legitimate reason for refusing to make the transcript public any sooner than he did. His decision plainly did not violate the defendant's right to a public trial under the Sixth Amendment, for it was the defendant who objected to release of the transcript. See Gannett In my opinion, the judge's decision did not violate the First Amendment either. I Although perhaps obvious, it bears emphasis that the First Amendment right asserted by petitioner is not a right to publish or otherwise communicate information lawfully or unlawfully acquired. That right, which lies at the core of the First Amendment and which erased the legacy of restraints on publication against which the drafters of that Amendment rebelled, see may be overcome only by a governmental objective of the highest order attainable in a no less intrusive way. See, e. g., ; Landmark Communications, ; Oklahoma Publishing ; Nebraska Press ; Cox Broadcasting The First Amendment right asserted *18 by petitioner in this case, in contrast, is not the right to publicize information in its possession, but the right to acquire access thereto. I have long believed that a proper construction of the First Amendment embraces a right of access to information about the conduct of public affairs. "As Madison wrote: " `A popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or, perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.' 9 Writings of James Madison 103 (G. Hunt ed. 1910). "It is not sufficient, therefore, that the channels of communication be free of governmental restraints. Without some protection for the acquisition of information about the operation of public institutions such as prisons by the public at large, the process of self-governance contemplated by the Framers would be stripped of its substance. "For that reason information gathering is entitled to some measure of constitutional protection."[3] *19 Neither our elected nor our appointed representatives may abridge the free flow of information simply to protect their own activities from public scrutiny. An official policy of secrecy must be supported by some legitimate justification that serves the interest of the public office. Thus, in and |
Justice Stevens | 1,986 | 16 | dissenting | Press-Enterprise Co. v. Superior Court of Cal., County of Riverside | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111735/press-enterprise-co-v-superior-court-of-cal-county-of-riverside/ | serves the interest of the public office. Thus, in and we confirmed that the warden's regulation of prearranged inmate press interviews had a legitimate disciplinary and penological basis and was "not part of an attempt by the State to conceal the conditions in its prisons or to frustrate the press' investigation and reporting of those conditions." Accord, Likewise, in Gannett we held that any First Amendment access right "was given all appropriate deference by the state nisi prius court," which had entered a "finding on the record that an open suppression hearing would pose a `reasonable probability of prejudice to these defendants,' " Conversely, in Richmond Newspapers, a violation of the First Amendment was established by the "total absence of any record justification for the closure order," Accord, The same constitutional infirmity afflicted the order excluding the public from attending the testimony of minor victims in a sex-offense trial in Globe Newspaper v. Superior and the order closing the voir dire proceedings and sealing the transcript in Press-Enterprise v. Superior ; ; Cf.[4] But it has always been apparent that the freedom to obtain information that the government has a legitimate interest in not disclosing, see Globe Newspaper v. Superior is far narrower than the freedom to disseminate information, which is "virtually absolute" in most contexts, Richmond Newspapers, In this case, the risk of prejudice to the defendant's right to a fair trial is perfectly obvious. For me, that risk is far more significant than the countervailing interest in publishing the transcript of the preliminary hearing sooner rather than later. Cf. Gannett The interest in prompt publication in my view is no greater than the interest in prompt publication of grand jury transcripts. As explained more fully below, we have always recognized the legitimacy of the governmental interest in the secrecy of grand jury proceedings, and I am unpersuaded that the difference between such proceedings and the rather elaborate procedure for determining probable cause that California has adopted strengthens the First Amendment claim to access asserted in this case. *21 II The nevertheless reaches the opposite conclusion by applying the "two complementary considerations," ante, at 8, of "experience and logic," ante, at 9. In my view, neither the 's reasoning nor the result it reaches is supported by our precedents. The historical evidence proffered in this case is far less probative than the evidence adduced in prior cases granting public access to criminal proceedings. In those cases, a common-law tradition of openness at the time the First Amendment was ratified suggested an intention and expectation on the part |
Justice Stevens | 1,986 | 16 | dissenting | Press-Enterprise Co. v. Superior Court of Cal., County of Riverside | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111735/press-enterprise-co-v-superior-court-of-cal-county-of-riverside/ | was ratified suggested an intention and expectation on the part of the Framers and ratifiers that those proceedings would remain presumptively open. Thus, in Richmond Newspapers, THE CHIEF JUSTICE explained that "[w]hat is significant for present purposes is that throughout its evolution, the trial has been open to all who cared to observe." "[T]he historical evidence demonstrates conclusively that at the time when our organic laws were adopted, criminal trials both here and in England had long been presumptively open." History was relevant because it demonstrated that "[t]he Bill of Rights was enacted against the backdrop of the long history of trials being presumptively open. Public access to trials was then regarded as an important aspect of the process itself." The opinion for the in Globe Newspaper v. Superior which also concerned the presumptive openness of a criminal trial, relied expressly on the opinion of THE CHIEF JUSTICE in Richmond Newspapers for the point that criminal trials were open "at the time when our organic laws were adopted." 448 U.S., Later, in Press-Enterprise v. Superior the quoted the identical passage from Richmond Newspapers, see and concluded that "[p]ublic jury selection thus was the common practice in America when the Constitution was *22 adopted," To dispel any doubt regarding the significance of this evidence, we explained that "the question we address whether the voir dire process must be open focuses on First Amendment values and the historical backdrop against which the First Amendment was enacted." Thus, in our prior cases history mattered primarily for what it revealed about the intentions of the Framers and ratifiers of the First Amendment. In this case, however, it is uncontroverted that a common-law right of access did not inhere in preliminary proceedings at the time the First Amendment was adopted, and that the Framers and ratifiers of that provision could not have intended such proceedings to remain open. As Justice Stewart wrote for the in Gannett : "[T]here exists no persuasive evidence that at common law members of the public had any right to attend pretrial proceedings; indeed, there is substantial evidence to the contrary. By the time of the adoption of the Constitution,. pretrial proceedings, precisely because of the concern for a fair trial, were never characterized by the same degree of openness as were actual trials. "Under English common law, the public had no right to attend pretrial proceedings. E. g., E. Jenks, The Book of English Law 75 (`It must, of course, be remembered, that the principle of publicity only applies to the actual trial of a case, not necessarily |
Justice Stevens | 1,986 | 16 | dissenting | Press-Enterprise Co. v. Superior Court of Cal., County of Riverside | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111735/press-enterprise-co-v-superior-court-of-cal-county-of-riverside/ | applies to the actual trial of a case, not necessarily to the preliminary or prefatory stages of the proceedings.'); F. Maitland, Justice and Police 129 (1885) (The `preliminary examination of accused persons had gradually assumed a very judicial form The place in which it is held is indeed no "open court," the public can be excluded if the magistrate thinks that the ends of justice will thus be best answered'). See also Indictable Offenses Act, 11 & 12 Vict., ch. 42, 19 (1848) (providing *23 that pretrial proceedings should not be deemed an open court and that the public could therefore be excluded); Magistrates' s Act, 15 & 16 Geo. 6 & 1 Eliz. 2, ch. 55, 4(2) (1952) (same)." -389[5] Justice Stewart included in his discussion the following quotation from Lord Ellenborough; the Law Lord explains, in reasons as relevant today as they were when the Bill of Rights was adopted, the historical basis for the closure of preliminary proceedings: "If any thing is more important than another in the administration of justice, it is that jurymen should come to the trial of those persons on whose guilt or innocence they are to decide, with minds pure and unprejudiced. Trials at law fairly reported, although they may occasionally prove injurious to individuals, have been held to be privileged. Let them continue so privileged. But these preliminary examinations have no such privilege. Their only tendency is to prejudge those whom the law still presumes to be innocent, and to poison the sources of justice." King v. Fisher, 2 Camp. 563, 570-571, 170 Eng. Rep. 1253, 1255 (N. P. 1811). In the final analysis, the 's lengthy historical disquisition demonstrates only that in many States preliminary proceedings are generally open to the public. See ante, at 10-11, n. 3. In other States, numbering California and Michigan among them, see In re Midland Publishing *24 such proceedings have been closed.[6] To paraphrase the 's analysis in "the fact that the States" have adopted different rules regarding the openness of preliminary proceedings "is merely a reflection of our federal system, which demands `[t]olerance for a spectrum of state procedures dealing with a common problem of law enforcement,' That [California's] particular approach has been adopted in few other States does not render [its] choice unconstitutional." *25 As Justice Stewart admonished: we must not "confus[e] the existence of a constitutional right with the common-law tradition of open proceedings." Gannett n. 19. The recent common-law developments reported by the are relevant, if at all, only insofar as they suggest that preliminary proceedings merit the "beneficial effects |
Justice Stevens | 1,986 | 16 | dissenting | Press-Enterprise Co. v. Superior Court of Cal., County of Riverside | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111735/press-enterprise-co-v-superior-court-of-cal-county-of-riverside/ | as they suggest that preliminary proceedings merit the "beneficial effects of public scrutiny." Cox Broadcasting The 's historical crutch cannot carry the weight of opening a preliminary proceeding that the State has ordered closed; that determination must stand or fall on whether it satisfies the second component of the 's test. If the 's historical evidence proves too little, the " `value of openness,' " ante, at 13 (quoting Press-Enterprise v. Superior 464 U. S., ), on which it relies proves too much, for this measure would open to public scrutiny far more than preliminary hearings "as they are conducted in California" (a comforting phrase invoked by the in one form or another more than eight times in its opinion).[7] In brief, the 's rationale for opening the "California preliminary hearing" is that it "is often the final and most important step in the criminal proceeding"; that it provides " `the sole occasion for public observation of the criminal justice system' "; that it lacks the protective presence *26 of a jury; and that closure denies an outlet for community catharsis. Ante, at 12, 13 (quotation omitted). The obvious defect in the 's approach is that its reasoning applies to the traditionally secret grand jury with as much force as it applies to California preliminary hearings. A grand jury indictment is just as likely to be the "final step" in a criminal proceeding and the "sole occasion" for public scrutiny as is a preliminary hearing. Moreover, many critics of the grand jury maintain that the grand jury protects the accused less well than does a legally knowledgeable judge who personally presides over a preliminary hearing. See Hawkins v. Superior 5, (holding deprivation of preliminary hearing to constitute a denial of equal protection under State Constitution in part because " `the grand jury is the total captive of the prosecutor who, if he is candid, will concede that he can indict anybody, at any time, for almost anything, before any grand jury' " (quoting Campbell, Eliminate the Grand Jury, 64 J. Crim. L. & C. 174 (1973))). Finally, closure of grand juries denies an outlet for community rage. When the 's explanatory veneer is stripped away, what emerges is the reality that the California preliminary hearing is functionally identical to the traditional grand jury. As THE CHIEF JUSTICE emphasized by his quotation of Cox v. Coleridge, 1 B. & C. 37, 49-50, 107 Eng. Rep. 15, 19-20 (1822), in his concurring opinion in Gannett n. : " `It [the proceeding] is only a preliminary inquiry, whether there be sufficient ground to |
Justice Stevens | 1,986 | 16 | dissenting | Press-Enterprise Co. v. Superior Court of Cal., County of Riverside | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111735/press-enterprise-co-v-superior-court-of-cal-county-of-riverside/ | only a preliminary inquiry, whether there be sufficient ground to commit the prisoner for trial. The proceeding before the grand jury is precisely of the same nature, and it would be difficult, if the right exists in the present case, to deny it in that. This being only a preliminary inquiry, and not a trial, makes, in my mind, all the difference.' " The 's reasoning if carried to its logical outcome thus contravenes the "long-established policy that maintains *27 the secrecy of the grand jury proceedings in the federal courts" and in the courts of 19 States. United States v. Procter & Gamble "Despite the fact that news gathering may be hampered, the press is regularly excluded from grand jury proceedings." This has previously described grand jury secrecy as "indispensable," United and has remarked that " `the proper functioning of our grand jury system depends upon the secrecy of grand jury proceedings,' " United ).[8] In fact, the logic of the 's access right extends even beyond the confines of the criminal justice system to encompass proceedings held on the civil side of the docket as well. As Justice Stewart explained: "If the existence of a common-law rule were the test for whether there is a Sixth Amendment public right to a public trial, therefore, there would be such a right in civil as well as criminal cases. In short, there is no principled basis upon which a public right of access to judicial *28 proceedings can be limited to criminal cases if the scope of the right is defined by the common law rather than the text and structure of the Constitution. "Indeed, many of the advantages of public criminal trials are equally applicable in the civil trial context. Thus, in some civil cases the public interest in access, and the salutary effect of publicity, may be as strong as, or stronger than, in most criminal cases." Gannett -387, n. 15. Cf. Seattle Times v. Rhinehart, Despite the 's valiant attempt to limit the logic of its holding, the ratio decidendi of today's decision knows no bounds. By abjuring strict reliance on history and emphasizing the broad value of openness, the tacitly recognizes the importance of public access to government proceedings generally. Regrettably, the has taken seriously the stated requirement that the sealing of a transcript be justified by a "compelling" or "overriding" governmental interest and that the closure order be " `narrowly tailored to serve that interest.' " Ante, at 9 (quoting Press-Enterprise v. Superior ); Press-Enterprise v. Superior (quoting Globe Newspaper v. Superior ). |
Justice Stevens | 1,986 | 16 | dissenting | Press-Enterprise Co. v. Superior Court of Cal., County of Riverside | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111735/press-enterprise-co-v-superior-court-of-cal-county-of-riverside/ | ); Press-Enterprise v. Superior (quoting Globe Newspaper v. Superior ). See ante, at 13-14. This standard as well as the two-part test of history and logic that formed the basis for the decision today originated as two "helpful principles" in JUSTICE BRENNAN's eloquent concurrence in Richmond Newspapers, That concurrence recognized that " `[t]here are few restrictions on action which could not be clothed by ingenious argument in the garb of decreased data flow,' " ), and in contrast with the decision today stressed that "[a]n assertion of the prerogative to gather information must accordingly be assayed by considering the information sought *29 and the opposing interests invaded," 448 U.S., a determination "as much a matter of sensitivity to practical necessities as of abstract reasoning," The cases denying access have done so on a far lesser showing than that required by a compelling governmental interest/least restrictive means analysis, see and cases granting access have recognized as legitimate grounds for closure interests that fall far short of those traditionally thought to be "compelling," see Press-Enterprise v. Superior -512 ; see also Richmond Newspapers, The presence of a legitimate reason for closure in this case requires an affirmance. The constitutionally grounded fair trial interests of the accused if he is bound over for trial, and the reputational interests of the accused if he is not, provide a substantial reason for delaying access to the transcript for at least the short time before trial. By taking its own verbal formulation seriously, the reverses without comment or explanation or any attempt at reconciliation the holding in Gannett that a "reasonable probability of prejudice" is enough to overcome the First Amendment right of access to a preliminary proceeding. It is unfortunate that the neglects this opportunity to fit the result in this case into the body of precedent dealing with access rights generally. I fear that today's decision will simply further unsettle the law in this area. I respectfully dissent. |
Justice Brennan | 1,984 | 13 | dissenting | United States v. Leon | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111262/united-states-v-leon/ | [*] Ten years ago in United I expressed the fear that the 's decision "may signal that a majority of my colleagues have positioned themselves to reopen the door [to evidence secured by official lawlessness] still further and abandon altogether the exclusionary rule in search-and-seizure cases." Since then, in case after case, I have witnessed the 's gradual but determined strangulation *9 of the rule.[1] It now appears that the 's victory over the Fourth Amendment is complete. That today's decisions represent the piece de resistance of the 's past efforts cannot be doubted, for today the sanctions the use in the prosecution's case in chief of illegally obtained evidence against the individual whose rights have been violated a result that had previously been thought to be foreclosed. The seeks to justify this result on the ground that the "costs" of adhering to the exclusionary rule in cases like those before us exceed the "benefits." But the language of deterrence and of cost/benefit analysis, if used indiscriminately, can have a narcotic effect. It creates an illusion of technical precision and ineluctability. It suggests that not only constitutional principle but also empirical data support the majority's result. When the 's analysis is examined carefully, however, it is clear that we have not been treated to an honest assessment of the merits of the exclusionary rule, but have instead been drawn into a curious world where the "costs" of excluding illegally obtained evidence loom to exaggerated heights and where the "benefits" of such exclusion are made to disappear with a mere wave of the hand. The majority ignores the fundamental constitutional importance of what is at stake here. While the machinery of law enforcement and indeed the nature of crime itself have changed dramatically since the Fourth Amendment became part of the Nation's fundamental law in 1791, what the Framers understood then remains true today that the task of combating crime and convicting the guilty will in every era seem of such critical and pressing concern that we may be lured by the temptations of expediency into forsaking our *930 commitment to protecting individual liberty and privacy. It was for that very reason that the Framers of the Bill of Rights insisted that law enforcement efforts be permanently and unambiguously restricted in order to preserve personal freedoms. In the constitutional scheme they ordained, the sometimes unpopular task of ensuring that the government's enforcement efforts remain within the strict boundaries fixed by the Fourth Amendment was entrusted to the courts. As James Madison predicted in his address to the First Congress |
Justice Brennan | 1,984 | 13 | dissenting | United States v. Leon | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111262/united-states-v-leon/ | James Madison predicted in his address to the First Congress on June 8, 1789: "If [these rights] are incorporated into the Constitution, independent tribunals of justice will consider themselves in a peculiar manner the guardians of those rights; they will be an impenetrable bulwark against every assumption of power in the Legislative or Executive; they will be naturally led to resist every encroachment upon rights expressly stipulated for in the Constitution by the declaration of rights." 1 Annals of Cong. 439. If those independent tribunals lose their resolve, however, as the has done today, and give way to the seductive call of expediency, the vital guarantees of the Fourth Amendment are reduced to nothing more than a "form of words." Silverthorne Lumber A proper understanding of the broad purposes sought to be served by the Fourth Amendment demonstrates that the principles embodied in the exclusionary rule rest upon a far firmer constitutional foundation than the shifting sands of the 's deterrence rationale. But even if I were to accept the 's chosen method of analyzing the question posed by these cases, I would still conclude that the 's decision cannot be justified. I The holds that physical evidence seized by police officers reasonably relying upon a warrant issued by a detached *931 and neutral magistrate is admissible in the prosecution's case in chief, even though a reviewing court has subsequently determined either that the warrant was defective. No. 82-963, or that those officers failed to demonstrate when applying for the warrant that there was probable cause to conduct the search, No. 82-1771. I have no doubt that these decisions will prove in time to have been a grave mistake. But, as troubling and important as today's new doctrine may be for the administration of criminal justice in this country, the mode of analysis used to generate that doctrine also requires critical examination, for it may prove in the long run to pose the greater threat to our civil liberties. A At bottom, the 's decision turns on the proposition that the exclusionary rule is merely a " `judicially created remedy designed to safeguard Fourth Amendment rights generally through its deterrent effect, rather than a personal constitutional right.' " Ante, at 906, quoting United The germ of that idea is found in and although I had thought that such a narrow conception of the rule had been forever put to rest by our decision in it has been revived by the present and reaches full flower with today's decision. The essence of this view, as expressed initially in the opinion and |
Justice Brennan | 1,984 | 13 | dissenting | United States v. Leon | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111262/united-states-v-leon/ | of this view, as expressed initially in the opinion and as reiterated today, is that the sole "purpose of the Fourth Amendment is to prevent unreasonable governmental intrusions into the privacy of one's person, house, papers, or effects. The wrong condemned is the unjustified governmental invasion of these areas of an individual's life. That wrong is fully accomplished by the original search without probable cause." ; see also ante, at 906. This reading of the Amendment implies that its proscriptions are directed solely at those government agents who may actually invade an individual's constitutionally *932 protected privacy. The courts are not subject to any direct constitutional duty to exclude illegally obtained evidence, because the question of the admissibility of such evidence is not addressed by the Amendment. This view of the scope of the Amendment relegates the judiciary to the periphery. Because the only constitutionally cognizable injury has already been "fully accomplished" by the police by the time a case comes before the courts, the Constitution is not itself violated if the judge decides to admit the tainted evidence. Indeed, the most the judge can do is wring his hands and hope that perhaps by excluding such evidence he can deter future transgressions by the police. Such a reading appears plausible, because, as critics of the exclusionary rule never tire of repeating,[2] the Fourth Amendment makes no express provision for the exclusion of evidence secured in violation of its commands. A short answer to this claim, of course, is that many of the Constitution's most vital imperatives are stated in general terms and the task of giving meaning of these precepts is therefore left to subsequent judicial decisionmaking in the context of concrete cases. The nature of our Constitution, as Chief Justice Marshall long ago explained, "requires that only its great outlines should be marked, its important objects designated, and the minor ingredients which compose those objects be deduced from the nature of the objects themselves." A more direct answer may be supplied by recognizing that the Amendment, like other provisions of the Bill of Rights, restrains the power of the government as a whole; it does not specify only a particular agency and exempt all others. The judiciary is responsible, no less than the executive, for ensuring that constitutional rights are respected. *933 When that fact is kept in mind, the role of the courts and their possible involvement in the concerns of the Fourth Amendment comes into sharper focus. Because seizures are executed principally to secure evidence, and because such evidence generally has utility in our legal system |
Justice Brennan | 1,984 | 13 | dissenting | United States v. Leon | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111262/united-states-v-leon/ | because such evidence generally has utility in our legal system only in the context of a trial supervised by a judge, it is apparent that the admission of illegally obtained evidence implicates the same constitutional concerns as the initial seizure of that evidence. Indeed, by admitting unlawfully seized evidence, the judiciary becomes a part of what is in fact a single governmental action prohibited by the terms of the Amendment.[3] Once that connection between the evidence-gathering role of the police and the evidence-admitting function of the courts is acknowledged, the plausibility of the 's interpretation becomes more suspect. Certainly nothing in the language or history of the Fourth Amendment suggests that a recognition of this evidentiary link between the police and the courts was meant to be foreclosed.[4] It is difficult to give any meaning *934 at all to the limitations imposed by the Amendment if they are read to proscribe only certain conduct by the police but to allow other agents of the same government to take advantage of evidence secured by the police in violation of its requirements.[5] The Amendment therefore must be read to condemn not only the initial unconstitutional invasion of privacy which is done, after all, for the purpose of securing evidence but also the subsequent use of any evidence so obtained. *935 The evades this principle by drawing an artificial line between the constitutional rights and responsibilities that are engaged by actions of the police and those that are engaged when a defendant appears before the courts. According to the the substantive protections of the Fourth Amendment are wholly exhausted at the moment when police unlawfully invade an individual's privacy and thus no substantive force remains to those protections at the time of trial when the government seeks to use evidence obtained by the police. I submit that such a crabbed reading of the Fourth Amendment casts aside the teaching of those Justices who first formulated the exclusionary rule, and rests ultimately on an impoverished understanding of judicial responsibility in our constitutional scheme. For my part, "[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures" comprises a personal right to exclude all evidence secured by means of unreasonable searches and seizures. The right to be free from the initial invasion of privacy and the right of exclusion are coordinate components of the central embracing right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. Such a conception of the rights secured by the Fourth Amendment was unquestionably the original basis of what |
Justice Brennan | 1,984 | 13 | dissenting | United States v. Leon | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111262/united-states-v-leon/ | the Fourth Amendment was unquestionably the original basis of what has come to be called the exclusionary rule when it was first formulated in There the considered whether evidence seized in violation of the Fourth Amendment by a United States Marshal could be admitted at trial after the defendant had moved that the evidence be returned. Significantly, although the considered the Marshal's initial invasion of the defendant's home to be unlawful, it went on to consider a question that "involves the right of the court in a criminal prosecution to retain for the purposes of evidence the letters and correspondence of the accused, seized in his house in his absence without his authority, by a United States Marshal holding no *936 warrant for the search of his premises." In answering that question, Justice Day, speaking for a unanimous expressly recognized that the commands of the Fourth Amendment were addressed to both the courts and the Executive Branch: "The effect of the Fourth Amendment is to put the courts of the United States and Federal officials, in the exercise of their power and authority, under limitations and restraints as to the exercise of such power and authority, and to forever secure the people, their persons, houses, papers and effects against all unreasonable searches and seizures under the guise of law. This protection reaches all alike, whether accused of crime or not, and the duty of giving to it force and effect is obligatory upon all entrusted under our Federal system with the enforcement of the laws. The tendency of those who execute the criminal laws of the country to obtain conviction by means of unlawful seizures should find no sanction in the judgments of the courts which are charged at all times with the support of the Constitution and to which people of all conditions have a right to appeal for the maintenance of such fundamental rights." at 391-. The heart of the Weeks opinion, and for me the beginning of wisdom about the Fourth Amendment's proper meaning, is found in the following passage: "If letters and private documents can be seized and held and used in evidence against a citizen accused of an offense, the protection of the Fourth Amendment declaring his right to be secure against such searches and seizures is of no value, and, so far as those thus placed are concerned, might as well be stricken from the Constitution. The efforts of the courts and [federal] officials to bring the guilty to punishment, praiseworthy as they are, are not to be aided by the sacrifice of those |
Justice Brennan | 1,984 | 13 | dissenting | United States v. Leon | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111262/united-states-v-leon/ | are not to be aided by the sacrifice of those great *937 principles established by years of endeavor and suffering which have resulted in their embodiment in the fundamental law of the land. The United States Marshal could only have invaded the house of the accused when armed with a warrant issued as required by the Constitution. Instead, he acted without sanction of law, doubtless prompted by the desire to bring further proof to the aid of the Government, and under color of his office undertook to make a seizure of private papers in direct violation of the constitutional prohibition against such action. To sanction such proceedings would be to affirm by judicial decision a manifest neglect if not an open defiance of the prohibitions of the Constitution, intended for the protection of the people against such unauthorized action." -394. What this passage succinctly captures is the essential recognition, ignored by the present that seizures are generally executed for the purpose of bringing "proof to the aid of the Government," that the utility of such evidence in a criminal prosecution arises ultimately in the context of the courts, and that the courts therefore cannot be absolved of responsibility for the means by which evidence is obtained. As the in Weeks clearly recognized, the obligations cast upon government by the Fourth Amendment are not confined merely to the police. In the words of Justice Holmes: "If the search and seizure are unlawful as invading personal rights secured by the Constitution those rights would be infringed yet further if the evidence were allowed to be used." As the further explained in : "The striking outcome of the Weeks case and those which followed it was the sweeping declaration that the Fourth Amendment, although not referring to or limiting the use of evidence in courts, really forbade its introduction if obtained by government officers through a *938 violation of the Amendment. Theretofore many had supposed under the ordinary common law rules, if the tendered evidence was pertinent, the method of obtaining it was unimportant. But in the Weeks case, and those which followed, this decided with great emphasis, and established as the law for the federal courts, that the protection of the Fourth Amendment would be much impaired unless it was held that not only was the official violator of the rights under the Amendment subject to an action at the suit of the injured defendant, but also that the evidence thereby obtained could not be received." That conception of the rule, in my view, is more faithful to the meaning and purpose |
Justice Brennan | 1,984 | 13 | dissenting | United States v. Leon | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111262/united-states-v-leon/ | my view, is more faithful to the meaning and purpose of the Fourth Amendment and to the judiciary's role as the guardian of the people's constitutional liberties. In contrast to the present 's restrictive reading, the in Weeks recognized that, if the Amendment is to have any meaning, police and the courts cannot be regarded as constitutional strangers to each other; because the evidence-gathering role of the police is directly linked to the evidence-admitting function of the courts, an individual's Fourth Amendment rights may be undermined as completely by one as by the other. B From the foregoing, it is clear why the question whether the exclusion of evidence would deter future police misconduct was never considered a relevant concern in the early cases from Weeks to Olmstead.[6] In those formative decisions, the plainly understood that the exclusion of illegally obtained evidence was compelled not by judicially fashioned *939 remedial purposes, but rather by a direct constitutional command. A new phase in the history of the rule, however, opened with the 's decision in Although that decision held that the security of one's person and privacy protected by the Fourth Amendment was "implicit in `the concept of ordered liberty' and as such enforceable against the States through the Due Process Clause" of the Fourteenth Amendment, quoting the went on, in what can only be regarded as a tour de force of constitutional obfuscation, to say that the "ways of enforcing such a basic right raise questions of a different order," Notwithstanding the force of the Weeks doctrine that the Fourth Amendment required exclusion, a state court was free to admit illegally seized evidence, according to the in Wolf, so long as the State had devised some other "effective" means of vindicating a defendant's Fourth Amendment rights. Twelve years later, in however, the restored the original understanding of the Weeks case by overruling the holding of Wolf and repudiating its rationale. Although in the course of reaching this conclusion the in Mapp responded at certain points to the question, first raised in Wolf, of whether the exclusionary rule was an "effective" remedy compared to alternative means of enforcing the right, see -653, it nevertheless expressly held that "all evidence obtained by searches and seizures in violation of the Constitution is, by that same authority, inadmissible in a state court." In the 's view, the exclusionary rule was not one among a range of options to be selected at the discretion of judges; it was "an essential part of both the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments." Rejection of the Wolf approach was constitutionally |
Justice Brennan | 1,984 | 13 | dissenting | United States v. Leon | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111262/united-states-v-leon/ | and Fourteenth Amendments." Rejection of the Wolf approach was constitutionally required, the explained, because "the admission of the new constitutional right by Wolf could not consistently tolerate denial of *940 its most important constitutional privilege, namely, the exclusion of the evidence which an accused had been forced to give by reason of the unlawful seizure. To hold otherwise is to grant the right but in reality to withhold its privilege and enjoyment." Indeed, no other explanation suffices to account for the 's holding in Mapp, since the only possible predicate for the 's conclusion that the States were bound by the Fourteenth Amendment to honor the Weeks doctrine is that the exclusionary rule was "part and parcel of the Fourth Amendment's limitation upon [governmental] encroachment of individual privacy."[7] Despite this clear pronouncement, however, the since has gradually pressed the deterrence rationale for the rule back to center stage. See, e. g., United ; United ; The various arguments advanced by the in this campaign have only strengthened my conviction that the deterrence theory is both misguided and unworkable. First, *941 the has frequently bewailed the "cost" of excluding reliable evidence. In large part, this criticism rests upon a refusal to acknowledge the function of the Fourth Amendment itself. If nothing else, the Amendment plainly operates to disable the government from gathering information and securing evidence in certain ways. In practical terms, of course, this restriction of official power means that some incriminating evidence inevitably will go undetected if the government obeys these constitutional restraints. It is the loss of that evidence that is the "price" our society pays for enjoying the freedom and privacy safeguarded by the Fourth Amendment. Thus, some criminals will go free not, in Justice (then Judge) Cardozo's misleading epigram, "because the constable has blundered," but rather because official compliance with Fourth Amendment requirements makes it more difficult to catch criminals. Understood in this way, the Amendment directly contemplates that some reliable and incriminating evidence will be lost to the government; therefore, it is not the exclusionary rule, but the Amendment itself that has imposed this cost.[8] *942 In addition, the 's decisions over the past decade have made plain that the entire enterprise of attempting to assess the benefits and costs of the exclusionary rule in various contexts is a virtually impossible task for the judiciary to perform honestly or accurately. Although the 's language in those cases suggests that some specific empirical basis may support its analyses, the reality is that the 's opinions represent inherently unstable compounds of intuition, hunches, and occasional pieces of |
Justice Brennan | 1,984 | 13 | dissenting | United States v. Leon | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111262/united-states-v-leon/ | inherently unstable compounds of intuition, hunches, and occasional pieces of partial and often inconclusive data. In for example, the in considering whether the exclusionary rule should apply in grand jury proceedings, had before it no concrete evidence whatever concerning the impact that application of the rule in such proceedings would have either in terms of the long-term costs or the expected benefits. To the extent empirical data are available regarding the general costs and benefits of the exclusionary rule, such data have shown, on the one hand, as the acknowledges today, that the costs are not as substantial as critics have asserted in the past, see ante, at 907-908, n. 6, and, on the other hand, that while the exclusionary rule may well have certain deterrent effects, it is extremely difficult to determine with any degree of precision whether the incidence of unlawful conduct by police is now lower than it was prior to Mapp. See United -453, and n. 22; n. 32.[9] The *943 has sought to turn this uncertainty to its advantage by casting the burden of proof upon proponents of the rule, see, e. g., United "Obviously," however, "the assignment of the burden of proof on an issue where evidence does not exist and cannot be obtained is outcome determinative. [The] assignment of the burden is merely a way of announcing a predetermined conclusion."[10] By remaining within its redoubt of empiricism and by basing the rule solely on the deterrence rationale, the has robbed the rule of legitimacy. A doctrine that is explained as if it were an empirical proposition but for which there is only limited empirical support is both inherently unstable and an easy mark for critics. The extent of this 's fidelity to Fourth Amendment requirements, however, should not turn on such statistical uncertainties. I share the view, expressed by Justice Stewart for the in that "[p]ersonal liberties are not rooted in the law of averages." Rather than seeking to give effect to the liberties secured by the Fourth Amendment through guesswork about deterrence, the should restore to its proper place the principle framed 70 years ago in Weeks that an individual whose privacy has been invaded in violation of the Fourth Amendment has a right grounded in that Amendment to prevent the government from subsequently making use of any evidence so obtained. *944 II Application of that principle clearly requires affirmance in the two cases decided today. In the first, United States v. Leon, No. 82-1771, it is conceded by the Government and accepted by the that the affidavit filed by the police |
Justice Brennan | 1,984 | 13 | dissenting | United States v. Leon | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111262/united-states-v-leon/ | accepted by the that the affidavit filed by the police officers in support of their application for a search warrant failed to provide a sufficient basis on which a neutral and detached magistrate could conclude that there was probable cause to issue the warrant. Specifically, it is conceded that the officers' application for a warrant was based in part on information supplied by a confidential informant of unproven reliability that was over five months old by the time it was relayed to the police. Although the police conducted an independent investigation on the basis of this tip, both the District and the of Appeals concluded that the additional information gathered by the officers failed to corroborate the details of the informant's tip and was "as consistent with innocence as with guilt." App. to Pet. for Cert. 10a. The warrant, therefore, should never have issued. Stripped of the authority of the warrant, the conduct of these officers was plainly unconstitutional it amounted to nothing less than a naked invasion of the privacy of respondents' homes without the requisite justification demanded by the Fourth Amendment. In order to restore the Government to the position it would have occupied had this unconstitutional search not occurred, therefore, it was necessary that the evidence be suppressed. As we said in the Warrant Clause is not "an inconvenience to be somehow `weighed' against the claims of police efficiency. It is, or should be, an important working part of our machinery of government, operating as a matter of course to check the `well-intentioned but mistakenly over-zealous executive officers' who are part of any system of law enforcement." A close examination of the facts of this case reveals that this is neither an extraordinary nor indeed a very costly step. *945 The warrant had authorized a search for cocaine, methaqualone tablets, and miscellaneous narcotics paraphernalia at several locations: a condominium at 7902 Via Magdalena in Los Angeles; a residence at 620 Price Drive in Burbank; a residence at 716 South Sunset Canyon in Burbank; and four automobiles owned respectively by respondents Leon, Sanchez, Stewart, and Del Castillo. App. 31-33. Pursuant to this warrant, the officers seized approximately four pounds of cocaine and over 1,000 methaqualone tablets from the Via Magdalena condominium, nearly one pound of cocaine from the Sunset Canyon residence, about an ounce of cocaine from the Price Drive residence, and certain paraphernalia from Del Castillo's and Stewart's automobiles. On the basis of this and other evidence, the four respondents were charged with violating U.S. C. 846 for conspiring to possess and distribute cocaine, and 841(a)(1) |
Justice Brennan | 1,984 | 13 | dissenting | United States v. Leon | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111262/united-states-v-leon/ | 846 for conspiring to possess and distribute cocaine, and 841(a)(1) for possessing methaqualone and cocaine with intent to distribute. The indictment specifically alleged that respondents had maintained the Via Magdalena condominum as a storage area for controlled substances which they distributed to prospective purchasers. App. 27-28. At the suppression hearing, the District determined that none of the respondents had a sufficient expectation of privacy to contest the search of the Via Magdalena condominium, that respondents Stewart and Sanchez could challenge the search of their home at Price Drive, that respondent Leon was entitled to challenge the search of his home at Sunset Canyon, and that respondents Del Castillo and Stewart could contest the search of their cars. Given its finding that probable cause to issue the warrant was lacking, the District ruled that the evidence from the Price Drive residence could not be used against respondents Stewart and Sanchez, that evidence from the Sunset Canyon residence could not be used against Leon, and that evidence obtained from both Del Castillo's and Stewart's automobiles could not be used against them. App. to Pet. for Cert. 10a-a. *946 The tenor of the 's opinion suggests that this order somehow imposed a grave and presumably unjustifiable cost on society. Such a suggestion, however, is a gross exaggeration. Since the indictment focused upon a conspiracy among all respondents to use the Via Magdalena condominium as a storage area for controlled substances, and since the bulk of the evidence seized was from that condominium and was plainly admissible under the District 's order, the Government would clearly still be able to present a strong case to the jury following the court's suppression order. I emphasize these details not to suggest how the Government's case would fare before the jury but rather to clarify a point that is lost in the 's rhetorical excesses over the costs of the exclusionary rule namely, that the suppression of evidence will certainly tend to weaken the Government's position but it will rarely force the Government to abandon a prosecution. Cf. infra, at 950-951, and n. 11. In my view, a doctrine that preserves intact the constitutional rights of the accused, and, at the same time, is sufficiently limited to permit society's legitimate and pressing interest in criminal law enforcement to be served should not be so recklessly discarded. It is a doctrine that gives life to the "very heart of the Fourth Amendment directive: that a governmental search and seizure should represent both the efforts of the officer to gather evidence of wrongful acts and the judgment of |
Justice Brennan | 1,984 | 13 | dissenting | United States v. Leon | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111262/united-states-v-leon/ | to gather evidence of wrongful acts and the judgment of the magistrate that the collected evidence is sufficient to justify invasion of a citizen's private premises." United U.S. 297, In the second case before the Massachusetts v. Sheppard, No. 82-963, the State concedes and the accepts that the warrant issued to search respondent's home completely failed to state with particularity the things to be seized. Indeed, the warrant expressly and particularly described things such as "controlled substance[s]" and "other paraphernalia used in, for, or in connection with the unlawful possession or use of any controlled substance" that the police had no reason whatsoever to believe were to be found in *947 respondent's home. App. 17a. Given the Fourth Amendment's requirement that "no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause and particularly describing the things to be seized," this warrant should never have been issued. The police who entered respondent's home, therefore, were without constitutional authority to do so. Although the 's opinion tends to overlook this fact, the requirement of particularity is not a mere "technicality," it is an express constitutional command. ; Lo-Ji Sales, ; ; 275 U.S. 1, (17). The purpose of that requirement is to prevent precisely the kind of governmental conduct that the faulty warrant at issue here created a grave risk of permitting namely, a search that was not narrowly and particularly limited to the things that a neutral and detached magistrate had reason to believe might be found at respondent's home. Although it is true, as JUSTICE STEVENS observes, see post, at 964, that the affidavit submitted by the police set forth with particularity those items that they sought authority to search for, it is nevertheless clear that the warrant itself the document which actually gave the officers legal authority to invade respondent's privacy made no mention of these items. And, although it is true that the particular officers who applied for the warrant also happened to execute it and did so in accordance with the limits proposed in their affidavit, this happenstance should have no bearing on the central question whether these officers secured that prior judicial authority to conduct their search required by the Fourth Amendment. As we made clear in United "[t]he Fourth Amendment contemplates a prior judicial judgment, not the risk that executive discretion may be reasonably exercised." See also (7) ("this has never sustained a search upon the sole ground that officers reasonably expected to find evidence of a particular crime *948 and voluntarily confined their activities to the least intrusive means consistent with that end"). |
Justice Brennan | 1,984 | 13 | dissenting | United States v. Leon | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111262/united-states-v-leon/ | activities to the least intrusive means consistent with that end"). Had the warrant actually been enforced by officers other than those who prepared the affidavit, the same result might not have occured; indeed, the wholly erroneous nature of the warrant might have led such officers to feel at liberty to roam throughout respondent's home in search of drugs. Cf. I therefore fail to see how a search pursuant to such a fundamentally defective warrant can be characterized as "reasonable." What the Framers of the Bill of Rights sought to accomplish through the express requirements of the Fourth Amendment was to define precisely the conditions under which government agents could search private property so that citizens would not have to depend solely upon the discretion and restraint of those agents for the protection of their privacy. Although the self-restraint and care exhibited by the officers in this case is commendable, that alone can never be a sufficient protection for constitutional liberties. I am convinced that it is not too much to ask that an attentive magistrate take those minimum steps necessary to ensure that every warrant he issues describes with particularity the things that his independent review of the warrant application convinces him are likely to be found in the premises. And I am equally convinced that it is not too much to ask that well-trained and experienced police officers take a moment to check that the warrant they have been issued at least describes those things for which they have sought leave to search. These convictions spring not from my own view of sound criminal law enforcement policy, but are instead compelled by the language of the Fourth Amendment and the history that led to its adoption. III Even if I were to accept the 's general approach to the exclusionary rule, I could not agree with today's result. *949 There is no question that in the hands of the present the deterrence rationale has proved to be a powerful tool for confining the scope of the rule. In for example, the concluded that the "speculative and undoubtedly minimal advance in the deterrence of police misconduct," was insufficient to outweigh the "expense of substantially impeding the role of the grand jury." -352. In the found that "the additional contribution, if any, of the consideration of search-and-seizure claims of state prisoners on collateral review is small in relation to the costs." In United the concluded that "exclusion from federal civil proceedings of evidence unlawfully seized by a state criminal enforcement officer has not been shown to have a sufficient likelihood of |
Justice Brennan | 1,984 | 13 | dissenting | United States v. Leon | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111262/united-states-v-leon/ | has not been shown to have a sufficient likelihood of deterring the conduct of the state police so that it outweighs the societal costs imposed by the exclusion." And in an opinion handed down today, the finds that the "balance between costs and benefits comes out against applying the exclusionary rule in civil deportation hearings held by the [Immigration and Naturalization Service]." INS v. Lopez-Mendoza, post, at 1050. Thus, in this bit of judicial stagecraft, while the sets sometimes change, the actors always have the same lines. Given this well-rehearsed pattern, one might have predicted with some assurance how the present case would unfold. First there is the ritual incantation of the "substantial social costs" exacted by the exclusionary rule, followed by the virtually foreordained conclusion that, given the marginal benefits, application of the rule in the circumstances of these cases is not warranted. Upon analysis, however, such a result cannot be justified even on the 's own terms. At the outset, the suggests that society has been asked to pay a high price in terms either of setting guilty persons free or of impeding the proper functioning of trials as a result of excluding relevant physical evidence in cases *950 where the police, in conducting searches and seizing evidence, have made only an "objectively reasonable" mistake concerning the constitutionality of their actions. See ante, at 907-908. But what evidence is there to support such a claim? Significantly, the points to none, and, indeed, as the acknowledges, see ante, at 907-908, n. 6, recent studies have demonstrated that the "costs" of the exclusionary rule calculated in terms of dropped prosecutions and lost convictions are quite low. Contrary to the claims of the rule's critics that exclusion leads to "the release of countless guilty criminals," these studies have demonstrated that federal and state prosecutors very rarely drop cases because of potential search and seizure problems. For example, a 1979 study prepared at the request of Congress by the General Accounting Office reported that only 0.4% of all cases actually declined for prosecution by federal prosecutors were declined primarily because of illegal search problems. Report of the Comptroller General of the United States, Impact of the Exclusionary Rule on Federal Criminal Prosecutions If the GAO data are restated as a percentage of all arrests, the study shows that only 0.2% of all felony arrests are declined for prosecution because of potential exclusionary rule problems. See Davies, A Hard Look at What We Know (and Still Need to Learn) About the "Costs" of the Exclusionary Rule: The NIJ Study |
Justice Brennan | 1,984 | 13 | dissenting | United States v. Leon | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111262/united-states-v-leon/ | About the "Costs" of the Exclusionary Rule: The NIJ Study and Other Studies of "Lost" Arrests, 3 A. B. F. Res. J. 611, 635.[11] Of course, these data describe *951 only the costs attributable to the exclusion of evidence in all cases; the costs due to the exclusion of evidence in the narrower category of cases where police have made objectively reasonable mistakes must necessarily be even smaller. The however, ignores this distinction and mistakenly weighs the aggregated costs of exclusion in all cases, irrespective of the circumstances that led to exclusion, see ante, at 907, against the potential benefits associated with only those cases in which evidence is excluded because police reasonably but mistakenly believe that their conduct does not violate the Fourth Amendment, see ante, at 915-9. When such faulty scales are used, it is little wonder that the balance tips in favor of restricting the application of the rule. *952 What then supports the 's insistence that this evidence be admitted? Apparently, the 's only answer is that even though the costs of exclusion are not very substantial, the potential deterrent effect in these circumstances is so marginal that exclusion cannot be justified. The key to the 's conclusion in this respect is its belief that the prospective deterrent effect of the exclusionary rule operates only in those situations in which police officers, when deciding whether to go forward with some particular search, have reason to know that their planned conduct will violate the requirements of the Fourth Amendment. See ante, at 919-9. If these officers in fact understand (or reasonably should understand because the law is well settled) that their proposed conduct will offend the Fourth Amendment and that, consequently, any evidence they seize will be suppressed in court, they will refrain from conducting the planned search. In those circumstances, the incentive system created by the exclusionary rule will have the hoped-for deterrent effect. But in situations where police officers reasonably (but mistakenly) believe that their planned conduct satisfies Fourth Amendment requirements presumably either (a) because they are acting on the basis of an apparently valid warrant, or (b) because their conduct is only later determined to be invalid as a result of a subsequent change in the law or the resolution of an unsettled question of law then such officers will have no reason to refrain from conducting the search and the exclusionary rule will have no effect. At first blush, there is some logic to this position. Undoubtedly, in the situation hypothesized by the the existence of the exclusionary rule cannot be |
Justice Brennan | 1,984 | 13 | dissenting | United States v. Leon | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111262/united-states-v-leon/ | by the the existence of the exclusionary rule cannot be expected to have any deterrent effect on the particular officers at the moment they are deciding whether to go forward with the search. Indeed, the subsequent exclusion of any evidence seized under such circumstances appears somehow "unfair" to the particular officers involved. As the suggests, these officers have acted in what they thought was an appropriate *953 and constitutionally authorized manner, but then the fruit of their efforts is nullified by the application of the exclusionary rule. Ante, at 0-9. The flaw in the 's argument, however, is that its logic captures only one comparatively minor element of the generally acknowledged deterrent purposes of the exclusionary rule. To be sure, the rule operates to some extent to deter future misconduct by individual officers who have had evidence suppressed in their own cases. But what the overlooks is that the deterrence rationale for the rule is not designed to be, nor should it be thought of as, a form of "punishment" of individual police officers for their failures to obey the restraints imposed by the Fourth Amendment. See United -557 Instead, the chief deterrent function of the rule is its tendency to promote institutional compliance with Fourth Amendment requirements on the part of law enforcement agencies generally.[12] Thus, as the has previously *954 recognized, "over the long term, [the] demonstration [provided by the exclusionary rule] that our society attaches serious consequences to violation of constitutional rights is thought to encourage those who formulate law enforcement policies, and the officers who implement them, to incorporate Fourth Amendment ideals into their value system." It is only through such an institutionwide mechanism that information concerning Fourth Amendment standards can be effectively communicated to rank-and-file officers.[] *955 If the overall educational effect of the exclusionary rule is considered, application of the rule to even those situations in which individual police officers have acted on the basis of a reasonable but mistaken belief that their conduct was authorized can still be expected to have a considerable long-term deterrent effect. If evidence is consistently excluded in these circumstances, police departments will surely be prompted to instruct their officers to devote greater care and attention to providing sufficient information to establish probable cause when applying for a warrant, and to review with some attention the form of the warrant that they have been issued, rather than automatically assuming that whatever document the magistrate has signed will necessarily comport with Fourth Amendment requirements. After today's decisions, however, that institutional incentive will be lost. Indeed, the 's "reasonable mistake" exception |
Justice Brennan | 1,984 | 13 | dissenting | United States v. Leon | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111262/united-states-v-leon/ | incentive will be lost. Indeed, the 's "reasonable mistake" exception to the exclusionary rule will tend to put a premium on police ignorance of the law. Armed with the assurance provided by today's decisions that evidence will always be admissible whenever an officer has "reasonably" relied upon a warrant, police departments will be encouraged to train officers that if a warrant has simply been signed, it is reasonable, without more, to rely on it. Since in close cases there will no longer be any incentive to err on the side of constitutional behavior, police would have every reason to adopt a "let's-wait-until-it's-decided" approach in situations in which there is a question about a warrant's validity or the basis for its issuance. Cf. United[] *956 Although the brushes these concerns aside, a host of grave consequences can be expected to result from its decision to carve this new exception out of the exclusionary rule. A chief consequence of today's decisions will be to convey a clear and unambiguous message to magistrates that their decisions to issue warrants are now insulated from subsequent judicial review. Creation of this new exception for good-faith reliance upon a warrant implicitly tells magistrates that they need not take much care in reviewing warrant applications, since their mistakes will from now on have virtually no consequence: If their decision to issue a warrant was correct, the evidence will be admitted; if their decision was incorrect but the police relied in good faith on the warrant, the evidence will also be admitted. Inevitably, the care and attention devoted to such an inconsequential chore will dwindle. Although the is correct to note that magistrates do not share the same stake in the outcome of a criminal case as the police, they nevertheless need to appreciate that their role is of some moment in order to continue performing the important task of carefully reviewing warrant applications. Today's decisions effectively remove that incentive.[15] *957 Moreover, the good-faith exception will encourage police to provide only the bare minimum of information in future warrant applications. The police will now know that if they can secure a warrant, so long as the circumstances of its issuance are not "entirely unreasonable," ante, at 3, all police conduct pursuant to that warrant will be protected from further judicial review.[16] The clear incentive that operated in the past to establish probable cause adequately because reviewing courts would examine the magistrate's judgment carefully, see, e. g., ; (0); has now been so completely vitiated that the police need only show that it was not "entirely unreasonable" under the |
Justice Brennan | 1,984 | 13 | dissenting | United States v. Leon | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111262/united-states-v-leon/ | only show that it was not "entirely unreasonable" under the circumstances *958 of a particular case for them to believe that the warrant they were issued was valid. See ante, at 3. The long-run effect unquestionably will be to undermine the integrity of the warrant process. Finally, even if one were to believe, as the apparently does, that police are hobbled by inflexible and hypertechnical warrant procedures, today's decisions cannot be justified. This is because, given the relaxed standard for assessing probable cause established just last Term in 462 U.S. 3 the 's newly fashioned good-faith exception, when applied in the warrant context, will rarely, if ever, offer any greater flexibility for police than the standard already supplies. In the held that "[t]he task of the issuing magistrate is simply to make a practical, common-sense decision whether, given all the circumstances set forth in the affidavit before him, there is a fair probability that contraband or evidence of a crime will be found in a particular place." The task of a reviewing court is confined to determining whether "the magistrate had a `substantial basis for conclud[ing]' that probable cause existed." Given such a relaxed standard, it is virtually inconceivable that a reviewing court, when faced with a defendant's motion to suppress, could first find that a warrant was invalid under the new standard, but then, at the same time, find that a police officer's reliance on such an invalid warrant was nevertheless "objectively reasonable" under the test announced today.[17] Because the two standards overlap so completely, it is unlikely that a warrant could be found invalid under and yet the police reliance upon it could be seen as objectively reasonable; otherwise, we would have to entertain the mind-boggling *959 concept of objectively reasonable reliance upon an objectively unreasonable warrant. This paradox, as JUSTICE STEVENS suggests, see post, at 961-962, perhaps explains the 's unwillingness to remand No. 82-1771 for reconsideration in light of for it is quite likely that on remand the of Appeals would find no violation of the Fourth Amendment, thereby demonstrating that the supposed need for the good-faith exception in this context is more apparent than real. Therefore, although the 's decisions are clearly limited to the situation in which police officers reasonably rely upon an apparently valid warrant in conducting a search, I am not at all confident that the exception unleashed today will remain so confined. Indeed, the full impact of the 's regrettable decisions will not be felt until the attempts to extend this rule to situations in which the police have conducted a |
Justice Brennan | 1,984 | 13 | dissenting | United States v. Leon | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111262/united-states-v-leon/ | rule to situations in which the police have conducted a warrantless search solely on the basis of their own judgment about the existence of probable cause and exigent circumstances. When that question is finally posed, I for one will not be surprised if my colleagues decide once again that we simply cannot afford to protect Fourth Amendment rights. IV When the public, as it quite properly has done in the past as well as in the present, demands that those in government increase their efforts to combat crime, it is all too easy for those government officials to seek expedient solutions. In contrast to such costly and difficult measures as building more prisons, improving law enforcement methods, or hiring more prosecutors and judges to relieve the overburdened court systems in the country's metropolitan areas, the relaxation of Fourth Amendment standards seems a tempting, costless means of meeting the public's demand for better law enforcement. In the long run, however, we as a society pay a heavy price for such expediency, because as Justice Jackson observed, the rights guaranteed in the Fourth Amendment *960A "are not mere second-class rights but belong in the catalog of indispensable freedoms." Once lost, such rights are difficult to recover. There is hope, however, that in time this or some later will restore these precious freedoms to their rightful place as a primary protection for our citizens against overreaching officialdom. I dissent. *960B JUSTICE STEVENS, concurring in the judgment in No. 82-963, post, p. 981, and dissenting in No. 82-1771. It is appropriate to begin with the plain language of the Fourth Amendment: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated; and no Warrants shall issue but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." The assumes that the searches in these cases violated the Fourth Amendment, yet refuses to apply the exclusionary rule because the concludes that it was "reasonable" for the police to conduct them. In my opinion an official search and seizure cannot be both "unreasonable" and "reasonable" at the same time. The doctrinal vice in the 's holding is its failure to consider the separate purposes of the two prohibitory Clauses in the Fourth Amendment. The first Clause prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures and the second prohibits the issuance of warrants that are not supported by probable cause or that do not particularly describe the place to be searched and |
Justice Brennan | 1,984 | 13 | dissenting | United States v. Leon | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111262/united-states-v-leon/ | do not particularly describe the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized. We have, of course, repeatedly held that warrantless searches are presumptively unreasonable,[1]*961 and that there are only a few carefully delineated exceptions to that basic presumption.[2] But when such an exception has been recognized, analytically we have necessarily concluded that the warrantless activity was not "unreasonable" within the meaning of the first Clause. Thus, any Fourth Amendment case may present two separate questions: whether the search was conducted pursuant to a warrant issued in accordance with the second Clause, and, if not, whether it was nevertheless "reasonable" within the meaning of the first. On these questions, the constitutional text requires that we speak with one voice. We cannot intelligibly assume, arguendo, that a search was constitutionally unreasonable but that the seized evidence is admissible because the same search was reasonable. I In No. 82-963, the Supreme Judicial of Massachusetts determined that a warrant which purported to authorize a search of respondent's home had been issued in violation of the Warrant Clause. In its haste to make new law, this does not tarry to consider this holding. Yet, as I will demonstrate, this holding is clearly wrong; I would reverse the judgment on that ground alone. In No. 82-1771, there is also a substantial question whether the warrant complied with the Fourth Amendment. There was a strong dissent on the probable-cause issue when Leon was before the of Appeals, and that dissent has been given added force by this 's intervening decision in 462 U.S. 3 which constituted a significant development in the law. It is probable, though admittedly not certain, that the of Appeals would now conclude that the warrant in Leon satisfied the Fourth Amendment if it were given the opportunity to reconsider the issue in the light of Adherence to our normal *962 practice following the announcement of a new rule would therefore postpone, and probably obviate, the need for the promulgation of the broad new rule the announces today.[3] It is, of course, disturbing that the chooses one case in which there was no violation of the Fourth Amendment, and another in which there is grave doubt on the question, in order to promulgate a "good faith" exception to the Fourth Amendment's exclusionary rule. The 's explanation for its failure to decide the merits of the Fourth Amendment question in No. 82-963 is that it "is a factbound issue of little importance," Massachusetts v. Sheppard, post, at 988, n. 5. In No. 82-1771, the acknowledges that the case could be |
Justice Brennan | 1,984 | 13 | dissenting | United States v. Leon | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111262/united-states-v-leon/ | In No. 82-1771, the acknowledges that the case could be remanded to the of Appeals for reconsideration in light of yet does not bother to explain why it fails to do so except to note that it is "within our power" to decide the broader question in the case. United States v. Leon, ante, at 905. The seems determined to decide these cases on the broadest possible grounds; such determination is utterly at odds with the 's traditional practice as well as any principled notion of judicial restraint. Decisions made in this manner are unlikely to withstand the test of time. Judges, more than most, should understand the value of adherence to settled procedures. By adopting a set of fair procedures, and then adhering to them, courts of law ensure that justice is administered with an even hand. "These are subtle matters, for they concern the ingredients of what constitutes justice. Therefore, justice must satisfy the appearance of justice." Of course, this has a duty to face questions of constitutional law when necessary to the disposition of an actual case or controversy. Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch *963 7, 177 (3). But when the goes beyond what is necessary to decide the case before it, it can only encourage the perception that it is pursuing its own notions of wise social policy, rather than adhering to its judicial role. I do not believe the should reach out to decide what is undoubtedly a profound question concerning the administration of criminal justice before assuring itself that this question is actually and of necessity presented by the concrete facts before the Although it may appear that the 's broad holding will serve the public interest in enforcing obedience to the rule of law, for my part, I remain firmly convinced that "the preservation of order in our communities will be best ensured by adherence to established and respected procedures." (Stevens, J., dissenting), rev'd, II In No. 82-963, there is no contention that the police officers did not receive appropriate judicial authorization for their search of respondent's residence. A neutral and detached judicial officer had correctly determined that there was probable cause to conduct a search. Nevertheless, the Supreme Judicial suppressed the fruits of the search because the warrant did not particularly describe the place to be searched and the things to be seized. The particularity requirement of the Fourth Amendment has a manifest purpose to prevent general searches. By limiting the authorization to search to the specific areas and things for which there is probable cause to search, the requirement ensures |
Justice Brennan | 1,984 | 13 | dissenting | United States v. Leon | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111262/united-states-v-leon/ | which there is probable cause to search, the requirement ensures that the search is carefully tailored to its justification, and does not resemble the wide-ranging general searches that the Framers intended to prohibit.[4] In this *964 case the warrant did not come close to authorizing a general search.[5] The affidavit supporting the application for the warrant correctly identified the things to be seized, and on its face the affidavit indicated that it had been presented to the judge who had issued the warrant.[6] Both the police officers and the judge were fully aware of the contents of the affidavit, and therefore knew precisely what the officers were authorized to search for. Since the affidavit was available for after-the-fact review, the Massachusetts courts could readily ascertain the limits of the officers' authority under the warrant. In short, the judge who issued the warrant, the police officers who executed it, and the reviewing courts all were able easily to ascertain the precise scope of the authorization provided by the warrant. All that our cases require is that a warrant contain a description sufficient to enable the officers who execute it to ascertain with reasonable effort where they are to search and what they are to seize.[7] The test is whether the executing officers' discretion has been limited in a way that forbids a general search.[8] Here there was no question that the *965 executing officers' discretion had been limited they, as well as the reviewing courts, knew the precise limits of their authorization. There was simply no "occasion or opportunity for officers to rummage at large,"[9] The only Fourth Amendment interest that is arguably implicated by the "defect" in the warrant is the citizen's interest in being able to ascertain the limits of the officers' authorization by examining the warrant.[10] Respondent, however, was not home at the time the warrant was executed, and therefore had no occasion to see the warrant. The two persons who were present when the warrant was executed, respondent's mother and sister, did not read the warrant or ask to have it read. "[T]he general rule [is] that Fourth Amendment rights are personal rights which, like some other constitutional rights, may not be vicariously asserted." (9). Thus, respondent, who has standing to assert only his own Fourth Amendment interests,[11] cannot complain that his interest in ascertaining the limits of the officers' authority under the search warrant was infringed.[12] In short, our *966 precedents construing the particularity requirement of the Warrant Clause unambiguously demonstrate that this warrant did not violate the Fourth Amendment. III Even if it be |
Justice Brennan | 1,984 | 13 | dissenting | United States v. Leon | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111262/united-states-v-leon/ | not violate the Fourth Amendment. III Even if it be assumed that there was a technical violation of the particularity requirement in No. 82-963, it by no means follows that the "warrantless" search in that case was "unreasonable" within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. For this search posed none of the dangers to which the Fourth Amendment is addressed. It was justified by a neutral magistrate's determination of probable cause and created no risk of a general search. It was eminently "reasonable." In No. 82-1771, however, the Government now admits at least for the tactical purpose of achieving what it regards as a greater benefit that the substance, as well as the letter, of the Fourth Amendment was violated. The therefore assumes that the warrant in that case was not supported by probable cause, but refuses to suppress the evidence obtained thereby because it considers the police conduct to satisfy a "newfangled" nonconstitutional standard of reasonableness.[] Yet if the 's assumption is correct if there was no probable cause it must follow that it was "unreasonable" *967 for the authorities to make unheralded entries into and searches of private dwellings and automobiles. The 's conclusion that such searches undertaken without probable cause can nevertheless be "reasonable" is totally without support in our Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. Just last Term, the explained what probable cause to issue a warrant means: "The task of the issuing magistrate is simply to make a practical, common-sense decision whether, given all the circumstances set forth in the affidavit before him, including the `veracity' and the `basis of knowledge' of persons supplying hearsay information, there is a fair probability that contraband or evidence of a crime will be found in a particular place." 462 U. S., Moreover, in evaluating the existence of probable cause, reviewing courts must give substantial deference to the magistrate's determination.[] In doubtful cases the warrant *968 should be sustained.[15] The judgment as to whether there is probable cause must be made in a practical and nontechnical manner.[16] The probable-cause standard therefore gives law enforcement officers ample room to engage in any reasonable law enforcement activity. What is more, the standard has been familiar to the law enforcement profession for centuries.[17] In an opinion written in 1949, and endorsed by the last Term in we explained: "These long-prevailing standards seek to safeguard citizens from rash and unreasonable interferences with privacy and from unfounded charges of crime. They also seek to give fair leeway for enforcing the law in the community's protection. Because many situations which confront officers in the |
Justice Brennan | 1,984 | 13 | dissenting | United States v. Leon | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111262/united-states-v-leon/ | community's protection. Because many situations which confront officers in the course of executing their duties are more or less ambiguous, room must be allowed for some mistakes on their part. But the mistakes must be those of reasonable men, acting on facts leading sensibly to their conclusions of probability. The rule of probable cause is a practical, nontechnical conception affording the best compromise that has been found for accommodating these often opposing interests. Requiring more would unduly hamper law enforcement. To allow less would be to leave law-abiding citizens at the mercy of the officers' whim or caprice." Thus, if the majority's assumption is correct, that even after paying heavy deference to the magistrate's finding and resolving all doubt in its favor, there is no probable cause here, then by definition as a matter of constitutional law *969 the officers' conduct was unreasonable.[18] The 's own hypothesis is that there was no fair likelihood that the officers would find evidence of a crime, and hence there was no reasonable law enforcement justification for their conduct.[19] The majority's contrary conclusion rests on the notion that it must be reasonable for a police officer to rely on a magistrate's finding. Until today that has plainly not been the law; it has been well settled that even when a magistrate issues a warrant there is no guarantee that the ensuing search and seizure is constitutionally reasonable. Law enforcement officers have long been on notice that despite the magistrate's decision a warrant will be invalidated if the officers did not provide sufficient facts to enable the magistrate to evaluate the existence of probable cause responsibly and independently.[20] Reviewing courts have always inquired into whether the magistrate acted properly in issuing the warrant not merely whether the officers acted properly in executing it. See (0).[] Indeed, just last Term, in after noting *970 that " `the duty of a reviewing court is simply to ensure that the magistrate had a `substantial basis for conclud[ing]' that probable cause existed,' " 462 U.S., -239 (quoting ), the added: "Sufficient information must be presented to the magistrate to allow that official to determine probable cause; his action cannot be a mere ratification of the bare conclusions of others. In order to ensure that such an abdication of the magistrate's duty does not occur, courts must continue to conscientiously review the sufficiency of affidavits on which warrants are issued."[22] Thus, under our cases it has never been "reasonable" for the police to rely on the mere fact that a warrant has issued; the police have always |
Justice Brennan | 1,984 | 13 | dissenting | United States v. Leon | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111262/united-states-v-leon/ | fact that a warrant has issued; the police have always known that if they fail to supply the magistrate with sufficient information, the warrant will be held invalid and its fruits excluded.[23] The notion that a police officer's reliance on a magistrate's warrant is automatically appropriate is one the Framers of *971 the Fourth Amendment would have vehemently rejected. The precise problem that the Amendment was intended to address was the unreasonable issuance of warrants. As we have often observed, the Amendment was actually motivated by the practice of issuing general warrants warrants which did not satisfy the particularity and probable-cause requirements.[24] The resentments which led to the Amendment were directed at the issuance of warrants unjustified by particularized evidence of wrongdoing.[25] Those who sought to amend the Constitution to include a Bill of Rights repeatedly voiced the view that the evil which had to be addressed was the issuance of warrants on insufficient evidence.[26] As Professor Taylor has written: *972 "[O]ur constitutional fathers were not concerned about warrantless searches, but about overreaching warrants. It is perhaps too much to say that they feared the warrant more than the search, but it is plain enough that the warrant was the prime object of their concern. Far from looking at the warrant as a protection against unreasonable searches, they saw it as an authority for unreasonable and oppressive searches" T. Taylor, Two Studies in Constitutional Interpretation 41 (9). In short, the Framers of the Fourth Amendment were deeply suspicious of warrants; in their minds the paradigm of an abusive search was the execution of a warrant not based on probable cause. The fact that colonial officers had magisterial authorization for their conduct when they engaged in general searches surely did not make their conduct "reasonable." The 's view that it is consistent with our Constitution to adopt a rule that it is presumptively reasonable to rely on a defective warrant is the product of constitutional amnesia.[27] IV In Brinegar, Justice Jackson, after observing that "[i]ndications are not wanting that Fourth Amendment freedoms are tacitly marked as secondary rights, to be relegated to a deferred position," 338 U.S., at continued: "These, I protest, are not mere second-class rights but belong in the catalog of indispensable freedoms. Among deprivations of rights, none is so effective in cowing a population, crushing the spirit of the individual and putting terror in every heart. Uncontrolled search and *973 seizure is one of the first and most effective weapons in the arsenal of every arbitrary government. And one need only briefly to have dwelt and worked |
Justice Brennan | 1,984 | 13 | dissenting | United States v. Leon | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111262/united-states-v-leon/ | And one need only briefly to have dwelt and worked among a people possessed of many admirable qualities but deprived of these rights to know that the human personality deteriorates and dignity and self-reliance disappear where homes, persons and possessions are subject at any hour to unheralded search and seizure by the police. "Only occasional and more flagrant abuses come to the attention of the courts, and then only those where the search and seizure yields incriminating evidence and the defendant is at least sufficiently compromised to be indicted. If the officers raid a home, an office, or stop and search an automobile but find nothing incriminating, this invasion of the personal liberty of the innocent too often finds no practical redress. There may be, and I am convinced that there are, many unlawful searches of homes and automobiles of innocent people which turn up nothing incriminating, in which no arrest is made, about which courts do nothing, and about which we never hear. "s can protect the innocent against such invasions only indirectly and through the medium of excluding evidence obtained against those who frequently are guilty. So a search against Brinegar's car must be regarded as a search of the car of Everyman." at -181. Justice Jackson's reference to his experience at Nuremberg should remind us of the importance of considering the consequences of today's decision for "Everyman." The exclusionary rule is designed to prevent violations of the Fourth Amendment.[28] "Its purpose is to deter to compel *974 respect for the constitutional guaranty in the only effectively available way, by removing the incentive to disregard it." 7 (0).[29] If the police cannot use evidence obtained through warrants issued on less than probable cause, they have less incentive to seek those warrants, and magistrates have less incentive to issue them. Today's decisions do grave damage to that deterrent function. Under the majority's new rule, even when the police know their warrant application is probably insufficient, they retain an incentive to submit it to a magistrate, on the chance that he may take the bait. No longer must they hesitate and seek additional evidence in doubtful cases. Thus, what we *975 said two Terms ago about a rule that would prevent exclusion except in cases in which the authorities violate well-settled law applies fully to the rule the adopts today: "If, as the Government argues, all rulings resolving unsettled Fourth Amendment questions should be nonretroactive, then, in close cases law enforcement officials would have little incentive to err on the side of constitutional behavior. Official awareness of the dubious |
Justice Brennan | 1,984 | 13 | dissenting | United States v. Leon | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111262/united-states-v-leon/ | the side of constitutional behavior. Official awareness of the dubious constitutionality of a practice would be counterbalanced by official certainty that, so long as the Fourth Amendment law in the area remained unsettled, evidence obtained through the questionable practice would be excluded only in the one case definitively resolving the unsettled question. Failure to accord any retroactive effect to Fourth Amendment rulings would `encourage police or other courts to disregard the plain purport of our decisions and to adopt a let's-wait-until-it's-decided approach.' " United (quoting (9) ).[30] The is of course correct that the exclusionary rule cannot deter when the authorities have no reason to know that their conduct is unconstitutional. But when probable cause is lacking, then by definition a reasonable person under the circumstances would not believe there is a fair likelihood that a search will produce evidence of a crime. Under such circumstances well-trained professionals must know that they are violating the Constitution. The 's approach *976 which, in effect, encourages the police to seek a warrant even if they know the existence of probable cause is doubtful can only lead to an increased number of constitutional violations. Thus, the 's creation of a double standard of reasonableness inevitably must erode the deterrence rationale that still supports the exclusionary rule. But we should not ignore the way it tarnishes the role of the judiciary in enforcing the Constitution. For the original rationale for the exclusionary rule retains its force as well as its relevance: "The tendency of those who execute the criminal laws of the country to obtain conviction by means of unlawful seizures should find no sanction in the judgments of the courts which are charged at all times with the support of the Constitution and to which people of all conditions have a right to appeal for the maintenance of such fundamental rights."[31] Thus, "s which sit under our Constitution cannot and will not be made party to lawless invasions of the constitutional *977 rights of citizens by permitting unhindered governmental use of the fruits of such invasions." U.S. 1, (8).[32] As the correctly notes,[33] we have refused to apply the exclusionary rule to collateral contexts in which its marginal efficacy is questionable; until today, however, every time the police have violated the applicable commands of the Fourth Amendment a court has been prepared to vindicate that Amendment by preventing the use of evidence so obtained in the prosecution's case in chief against those whose rights have been violated.[34] Today, for the first time, this holds that although the Constitution has been violated, |
Justice Brennan | 1,984 | 13 | dissenting | United States v. Leon | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111262/united-states-v-leon/ | time, this holds that although the Constitution has been violated, no court should do anything about it at any time and in any proceeding.[35] In my judgment, *978 the Constitution requires more. s simply cannot escape their responsibility for redressing constitutional violations if they admit evidence obtained through unreasonable searches and seizures, since the entire point of police conduct that violates the Fourth Amendment is to obtain evidence for use at trial. If such evidence is admitted, then the courts become not merely the final and necessary link in an unconstitutional chain of events, but its actual motivating force. "If the existing code does not permit district attorneys to have a hand in such dirty business it does not permit the judge to allow such iniquities to succeed." Nor should we so easily concede the existence of a constitutional violation for which there is no remedy.[36] To do so is to convert a Bill of Rights into an unenforced honor code that the police may follow in their discretion. The Constitution requires more; it requires a remedy.[37] If the 's new rule is to be followed, the Bill of Rights should be renamed. *979 It is of course true that the exclusionary rule exerts a high price the loss of probative evidence of guilt. But that price is one courts have often been required to pay to serve important social goals.[38] That price is also one the Fourth Amendment requires us to pay, assuming as we must that the Framers intended that its strictures "shall not be violated." For in all such cases, as Justice Stewart has observed, "the same extremely relevant evidence would not have been obtained had the police officer complied with the commands of the fourth amendment in the first place."[39] "[T]he forefathers thought this was not too great a price to pay for that decent privacy of home, papers and effects which is indispensable to individual dignity and self-respect. They may have overvalued privacy, but I am not disposed to set their command at naught." 331 U.S. 5,[40] We could, of course, facilitate the process of administering justice to those who violate the criminal laws by ignoring the commands of the Fourth Amendment indeed, by ignoring *980 the entire Bill of Rights but it is the very purpose of a Bill of Rights to identify values that may not be sacrificed to expediency. In a just society those who govern, as well as those who are governed, must obey the law. While I concur in the 's judgment in No. 82-963, I would |
Justice Marshall | 1,980 | 15 | dissenting | Roberts v. United States | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110234/roberts-v-united-states/ | The Court today permits a term of imprisonment to be increased because of a defendant's refusal to identify others *564 involved in criminal activitiesa refusal that was not unlawful and that may have been motivated by a desire to avoid self-incrimination or by a reasonable fear of reprisal. I do not believe that a defendant's failure to inform on others may properly be used to aggravate a sentence of imprisonment, and accordingly, I dissent. The majority does not dispute that a failure to disclose the identity of others involved in criminal activity may often stem from a desire to avoid self-incrimination. This case is an excellent illustration of that possibility. The prosecutor asked petitioner "to identify the person or persons from whom he was getting the drugs, and the location, and to lay out the conspiracy and identify other co-conspirators who were involved with them." App. 36. Disclosure of this information might well have exposed petitioner to prosecution on additional charges.[1] He was never offered immunity from such prosecution. Petitioner's right to refuse to incriminate himself on additional charges was not, of course, extinguished by his guilty plea. There can be no doubt that a judge would be barred from increasing the length of a jail sentence because of a defendant's refusal to cooperate based on the constitutional privilege against self-incrimination. In such a case, the threat of a longer sentence of imprisonment would plainly be compulsion within the meaning of the Fifth Amendment. Cf. Such an aggravation of sentence would amount to an impermissible penalty imposed solely because of the defendant's assertion of the Fifth Amendment privilege. *565 I also believe that it would be an abuse of discretion for a judge to use a defendant's refusal to become an informer to increase the length of a sentence when the refusal was motivated by a fear of retaliation.[2] In such a case, the failure to identify other participants in the crime is irrevelant to the defendant's prospects for rehabilitation, see ante, 8, and bears no relation to any of the legitimate purposes of sentencing. See United ; United In this case, then, petitioner's refusal to provide the requested information was lawful[3] and may have been motivated by the possibility of self-incrimination or a reasonable fear of reprisal. The majority acknowledges that these claims "would have merited serious consideration if they had been presented properly to the sentencing judge." Ante, 9. Because petitioner did not expressly state these grounds to *566 the sentencing judge, however, the Court indulges the assumption that petitioner's refusal was motivated by a desire to "preserv[e] |
Justice Marshall | 1,980 | 15 | dissenting | Roberts v. United States | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110234/roberts-v-united-states/ | that petitioner's refusal was motivated by a desire to "preserv[e] his ability to resume criminal activities upon release." Ante, 8. I am at a loss to discern any evidentiary basis for this assumption.[4] And I reject the Court's harsh and rigid approach to the issue of waiver, especially in a context in which it was hardly clear that reasons for petitioner's failure to cooperate had to be identified before the sentencing judge.[5] *567 Furthermore, the bare failure to cooperate in an investigation of others cannot, without further inquiry, justify a conclusive negative inference about "the meaning of that conduct with respect to [the defendant's] prospects for rehabilitation and restoration to a useful place in society." United A fear of reprisal against one's self or one's family or a desire to avoid further self-incrimination are equally plausible explanations for such conduct. Even the desire to "do his own time" without becoming a police informer might explain petitioner's behavior without necessarily indicating that he intended to "resume criminal activities upon [his] release." Ante, 8. The inference that petitioner was a poor candidate for rehabilitation could not be justified without additional information.[6] The enhancement of petitioner's sentence, then, was impermissible because it may have burdened petitioner's exercise of his constitutional rights or been based on a factor unrelated to the permissible goals of sentencing. In addition, it represented an improper involvement of the judicial office in the prosecutorial function that should be corrected through our supervisory power over the federal courts.[7] *568 The usual method for obtaining testimony which may be self-incriminatory is through a grant of immunity from prosecution. See 18 U.S. C. 6001 et seq. (1976 ed. and Supp. II). Prosecutors would have little incentive to offer defendants immunity for their testimony if they could achieve the same result without giving up the option to prosecute. There is no suggestion here that an offer of immunity was ever extended to petitioner. If a defendant knows his silence may be used against him to enhance his sentence, he may be put to an unfair choice. He must either give incriminating information with no assurance that he will not be prosecuted on the basis of that information, or face the possibility of an increased sentence because of his noncooperation. Since a prosecutor may overcome a Fifth Amendment claim through an offer of immunity, I see no reason to put defendants to such a choice. A second method available to the prosecutor for obtaining a defendant's testimony against others is the plea-bargaining process. The Court has upheld that process on the theory that the |
Justice Marshall | 1,980 | 15 | dissenting | Roberts v. United States | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110234/roberts-v-united-states/ | Court has upheld that process on the theory that the relative equality of bargaining power between the prosecutor and the defendant prevents the process from being fundamentally unfair. But if the judge can be counted on to increase the defendant's sentence if he fails to cooperate, the balance of bargaining power is tipped in favor of the prosecution. Not only is the prosecutor able to offer less in exchange for cooperation, but a defendant may agree for fear of incurring the displeasure of the sentencing judge. To insure that defendants will not be so intimidated into accepting plea bargains, *569 federal judges are forbidden from participating in the bargaining process. See Fed. Rule Crim. Proc. 11 (e) (1); ABA Project on Standards for Criminal Justice, Pleas of Guilty 3.3 (a) (App. Draft 1968). As Judge Bazelon observed below: "The trial judge, whose impartiality is a cornerstone of our criminal justice system, may be tempted, under the guise of exercising discretion in sentencing[,] to join forces with the prosecutor in securing the defendant's cooperation." 195 U. S. App. D. C. 1, 3, I do not believe that we should allow that possibility. I find disturbing the majority's willingness to brush aside these serious objections to the propriety of petitioner's sentence on the strength of "the duty to report known criminal behavior," ante, 8. According to the Court, petitioner's refusal to become an informer was a rejection of a "deeply rooted social obligation," All citizens apparently are "obliged to assist the authorities" in this way, and petitioner's failure to do so was not only "a badge of irresponsible citizenship," but constituted "antisocial conduct" as well. Ante, 8, 559. The Court supports its stern conclusions about petitioner's civic duty only by reference to the concepts of "hue and cry" and "misprision of felony." Those concepts were developed in an era in which enforcement of the criminal law was entrusted to the general citizenry rather than to an organized police force.[8] But it is unnecessary to discuss in detail the historical context of such concepts, so different from our present-day society, in order to reject the Court's analysis. American society has always approved those who own up to their wrongdoing and vow to do better, just as it has admired those who come to the aid of the victims of criminal conduct. But our admiration of those who inform on others *570 has never been as unambiguous as the majority suggests. The countervailing social values of loyalty and personal privacy have prevented us from imposing on the citizenry at large a duty to join |
Justice Marshall | 1,980 | 15 | dissenting | Roberts v. United States | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110234/roberts-v-united-states/ | imposing on the citizenry at large a duty to join in the business of crime detection. If the Court's view of social mores were accurate, it would be hard to understand how terms such as "stool pigeon," "snitch," "squealer," and "tattletale" have come to be the common description of those who engage in such behavior. I do not, of course, suggest that those who have engaged in criminal activity should refuse to cooperate with the authorities. The informer plays a vital role in the struggle to check crime, especially the narcotics trade. We could not do without him. In recognition of this role, it is fully appropriate to encourage such behavior by offering leniency in exchange for "cooperation."[9] Cooperation of that sort may *571 be a sign of repentance and the beginning of rehabilitation.[10] But our Government has allowed its citizens to decide for themselves whether to enlist in the enterprise of enforcing the criminal laws; it has never imposed a duty to do so, as the Court's opinion suggests. I find no justification for creating such a duty in this case and applying it only to persons about to be sentenced for a crime. In fact, the notion that citizens may be compelled to become informers is contrary to my understanding of the fundamental nature of our criminal law. Some legal systems have been premised on the obligation of an accused to answer all questions put to him. In other societies law-abiding behavior is encouraged by penalizing citizens who fail to spy on their neighbors or report infractions. Our country, thankfully, has never chosen that path. As highly as we value the directives *572 of our criminal laws, we place their enforcement in the hands of public officers, and we do not give those officers the authority to impress the citizenry into the prosecutorial enterprise. By today's decision, the Court ignores this precept, and it does so in a setting that both threatens Fifth Amendment rights and encourages arbitrary and irrational sentencing. |
Justice Burger | 1,985 | 12 | dissenting | Wallace v. Jaffree | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111464/wallace-v-jaffree/ | Some who trouble to read the opinions in these cases will find it ironic perhaps even bizarre that on the very day we heard arguments in the cases, the Court's session opened with an invocation for Divine protection. Across the park a few hundred yards away, the House of Representatives and *85 the Senate regularly open each session with a prayer. These legislative prayers are not just one minute in duration, but are extended, thoughtful invocations and prayers for Divine guidance. They are given, as they have been since 1789, by clergy appointed as official chaplains and paid from the Treasury of the United States. Congress has also provided chapels in the Capitol, at public expense, where Members and others may pause for prayer, meditation or a moment of silence. Inevitably some wag is bound to say that the Court's holding today reflects a belief that the historic practice of the Congress and this Court is justified because members of the Judiciary and Congress are more in need of Divine guidance than are schoolchildren. Still others will say that all this controversy is "much ado about nothing," since no power on earth including this Court and Congress can stop any teacher from opening the schoolday with a moment of silence for pupils to meditate, to plan their day or to pray if they voluntarily elect to do so. I make several points about today's curious holding. (a) It makes no sense to say that Alabama has "endorsed prayer" by merely enacting a new statute "to specify expressly that voluntary prayer is one of the authorized activities during a moment of silence," ante, at 77 (O'CONNOR, J., concurring in judgment) (emphasis added). To suggest that a moment-of-silence statute that includes the word "prayer" unconstitutionally endorses religion, while one that simply provides for a moment of silence does not, manifests not neutrality but hostility toward religion. For decades our opinions have stated that hostility toward any religion or toward all religions is as much forbidden by the Constitution as is an official establishment of religion. The Alabama Legislature has no more "endorsed" religion than a state or the Congress does when it provides for legislative chaplains, or than this Court does when it opens each session with an invocation to *86 God. Today's decision recalls the observations of Justice Goldberg: "[U]ntutored devotion to the concept of neutrality can lead to invocation or approval of results which partake not simply of that noninterference and noninvolvement with the religious which the Constitution commands, but of a brooding and |
Justice Burger | 1,985 | 12 | dissenting | Wallace v. Jaffree | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111464/wallace-v-jaffree/ | religious which the Constitution commands, but of a brooding and pervasive dedication to the secular and a passive, or even active, hostility to the religious. Such results are not only not compelled by the Constitution, but, it seems to me, are prohibited by it." Abington School (b) The inexplicable aspect of the foregoing opinions, however, is what they advance as support for the holding concerning the purpose of the Alabama Legislature. Rather than determining legislative purpose from the face of the statute as a whole,[1] the opinions rely on three factors in concluding that the Alabama Legislature had a "wholly religious" purpose for enacting the statute under review, : (i) statements of the statute's sponsor, (ii) admissions in Governor James' answer to the second amended complaint, and (iii) the difference between 16-1-20.1 and its predecessor statute. Curiously, the opinions do not mention that all of the sponsor's statements relied upon including the statement "inserted" into the Senate Journal were made after the legislature had passed the statute; indeed, the testimony that the Court finds critical was given well over a year after the statute was enacted. As even the appellees concede, see Brief for Appellees 18, there is not a shred of evidence that *87 the legislature as a whole shared the sponsor's motive or that a majority in either house was even aware of the sponsor's view of the bill when it was passed. The sole relevance of the sponsor's statements, therefore, is that they reflect the personal, subjective motives of a single legislator. No case in the 195-year history of this Court supports the disconcerting idea that postenactment statements by individual legislators are relevant in determining the constitutionality of legislation. Even if an individual legislator's after-the-fact statements could rationally be considered relevant, all of the opinions fail to mention that the sponsor also testified that one of his purposes in drafting and sponsoring the moment-of-silence bill was to clear up a widespread misunderstanding that a schoolchild is legally prohibited from engaging in silent, individual prayer once he steps inside a public school building. See App. 53-54. That testimony is at least as important as the statements the Court relies upon, and surely that testimony manifests a permissible purpose. The Court also relies on the admissions of Governor James' answer to the second amended complaint. Strangely, however, the Court neglects to mention that there was no trial bearing on the constitutionality of the Alabama statutes; trial became unnecessary when the District Court held that the Establishment Clause does not apply to the states.[2] The absence of a |
Justice Burger | 1,985 | 12 | dissenting | Wallace v. Jaffree | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111464/wallace-v-jaffree/ | does not apply to the states.[2] The absence of a trial on the issue of the constitutionality of 16-1-20.1 is significant because the answer filed by the State Board and Superintendent of Education did not make the same admissions that the Governor's answer made. See 1 Record 187. The Court cannot know whether, if these cases had been tried, those state officials would have offered evidence to contravene appellees' allegations concerning legislative purpose. Thus, it is completely inappropriate to accord any relevance to the admissions in the Governor's answer. *88 The several preceding opinions conclude that the principal difference between 16-1-20.1 and its predecessor statute proves that the sole purpose behind the inclusion of the phrase "or voluntary prayer" in 16-1-20.1 was to endorse and promote prayer. This reasoning is simply a subtle way of focusing exclusively on the religious component of the statute rather than examining the statute as a whole. Such logic if it can be called that would lead the Court to hold, for example, that a state may enact a statute that provides reimbursement for bus transportation to the parents of all schoolchildren, but may not add parents of parochial school students to an existing program providing reimbursement for parents of public school students. Congress amended the statutory Pledge of Allegiance 31 years ago to add the words "under God." Act of June 14, 1954, Pub. L. 396, Do the several opinions in support of the judgment today render the Pledge unconstitutional? That would be the consequence of their method of focusing on the difference between 16-1-20.1 and its predecessor statute rather than examining 16-1-20.1 as a whole.[3] Any such holding would of course make a mockery of our decisionmaking in Establishment Clause cases. And even were the Court's method correct, the inclusion of the words "or voluntary prayer" in 16-1-20.1 is wholly consistent with the clearly permissible purpose of clarifying that silent, voluntary prayer is not forbidden in the public school building.[4] *89 (c) The Court's extended treatment of the "test" of suggests a naive preoccupation with an easy, bright-line approach for addressing constitutional issues. We have repeatedly cautioned that Lemon did not establish a rigid caliper capable of resolving every Establishment Clause issue, but that it sought only to provide "signposts." "In each [Establishment Clause] case, the inquiry calls for line-drawing; no fixed, per se rule can be framed." In any event, our responsibility is not to apply tidy formulas by rote; our duty is to determine whether the statute or practice at issue is a step toward establishing a state religion. |
Justice Burger | 1,985 | 12 | dissenting | Wallace v. Jaffree | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111464/wallace-v-jaffree/ | at issue is a step toward establishing a state religion. Given today's decision, however, perhaps it is understandable that the opinions in support of the judgment all but ignore the Establishment Clause itself and the concerns that underlie it. (d) The notion that the Alabama statute is a step toward creating an established church borders on, if it does not trespass into, the ridiculous. The statute does not remotely threaten religious liberty; it affirmatively furthers the values of religious freedom and tolerance that the Establishment Clause was designed to protect. Without pressuring those who do not wish to pray, the statute simply creates an opportunity to think, to plan, or to pray if one wishes as Congress does by providing chaplains and chapels. It accommodates the purely private, voluntary religious choices of the individual pupils who wish to pray while at the same time creating a time for nonreligious reflection for those who do not choose to pray. The statute also provides a meaningful opportunity for schoolchildren to appreciate the absolute constitutional right of each individual to worship and believe as the individual wishes. The statute "endorses" only the view that the religious observances of other should be tolerated and, *90A where possible, accommodated. If the government may not accommodate religious needs when it does so in a wholly neutral and noncoercive manner, the "benevolent neutrality" that we have long considered the correct constitutional standard will quickly translate into the "callous indifference" that the Court has consistently held the Establishment Clause does not require. The Court today has ignored the wise admonition of Justice Goldberg that "the measure of constitutional adjudication is the ability and willingness to distinguish between real threat and mere shadow." Abington School The innocuous statute that the Court strikes down does not even rise to the level of "mere shadow." JUSTICE O'CONNOR paradoxically acknowledges: "It is difficult to discern a serious threat to religious liberty from a room of silent, thoughtful schoolchildren." Ante, at 73.[5] I would add to that, "even if they choose to pray." The mountains have labored and brought forth a mouse.[ |
Justice Powell | 1,983 | 17 | dissenting | Watt v. Western Nuclear, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110951/watt-v-western-nuclear-inc/ | The Court's opinion may have a far-reaching effect on patentees of, and particularly successors in title to, the 33 million acres of land patented under the Stock-Raising Homestead Act of 96 (SRHA). The Act provides, with respect to land patented, that the United States reserves title to "all the coal and other minerals." 43 U.S. C. 99. At issue here is whether gravel is a mineral within the meaning of the Act. To decide this question, the Court adopts a new definition of the statutory term: "[T]he Act [includes] substances that are mineral in character (i. e., that are inorganic), that can be removed from the soil, that can be used for commercial purposes, and that there is no reason to suppose were intended to be included in the surface estate." Ante, at 53. *6 This definition compounds, rather than clarifies, the ambiguity inherent in the term "minerals."[] It raises more questions than it answers. Under the Court's definition, it is arguable that all gravel falls within the mineral reservation. Ante, at 53-55, and n. 4, 59. This goes beyond the Government's position that gravel deposits become reserved only when susceptible to commercial exploitation. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 8-0.[] And what about sand, clay, and peat?[3]*6 As I read the Court's opinion it could leave Western homesteaders with the dubious assurance that only the dirt itself could not be claimed by the Government. It is not easy to believe that Congress intended this result. I In construing a congressional Act, the relevant intent of Congress is that existing at the time the statute was enacted. See ; Winona & St. Peter R. The Court avoids this rule of construction by largely ignoring the stated position of the Department of the Interior before 96 that gravel like sand and clay was not a mineral. In 96, when the SRHA was enacted, the Department of the Interior's rule for what it considered to be a "valuable mineral deposit" as those terms are used under the general mining laws[4] was clear: "[W]hatever is recognized as a mineral by the standard authorities on the subject, whether of metallic or other substances, when the same is found in the public lands in quantity and quality sufficient to render the *63 land more valuable on account thereof than for agricultural purposes, should be treated as coming within the purview of the mining laws." Pacific Coast Marble Co. v. Northern Pacific R. Co., 5 Lans. Ch. D. 33, 44-45 (897). See Letter from Commissioner Drummond to Surveyors-General, Registers, and Receivers (July 5, 873) (reprinted |
Justice Powell | 1,983 | 17 | dissenting | Watt v. Western Nuclear, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110951/watt-v-western-nuclear-inc/ | Drummond to Surveyors-General, Registers, and Receivers (July 5, 873) (reprinted in H. Copp, Mineral Lands 6, 6 (88)). It is important to note that the Department's test had two parts. First, before a substance would cause the Department to characterize land as mineral, it had to be recognized as a mineral by the standard authorities on the subject. See n. Second, the mineral had to appear in sufficient quantity and quality to be commercially exploitable.[5] Under the Department of the Interior's earliest decisions, certain commonplace substances were classified as minerals. See W. H. Hooper, Lans. Ch. D. 560, 56 (88) (gypsum); H. P. Bennet, Jr., 3 Lans. Ch. D. 6, 7 (884) (permitting placer claims for building stone). But the Department soon began to recognize a small group of substances, that were valuable for certain purposes, as not being "minerals" "under all authorities." In Dunluce Placer Mine, 6 Lans. Ch. D. 76, 76 (888), the Secretary held that a deposit of "brick clay" would not warrant classification as a valuable mineral deposit. The Secretary so held despite a finding that the land on which the deposit was found was "undoubtedly more valuable as a `clay placer' than for any other purpose." at 76. The Department followed Dunluce in a number of subsequent cases.[6] An important case under the general mining *64 laws for our purposes in Zimmerman v. Brunson, 39 Lans. Ch. D. 30 (90). It involved sand and gravel, and was decided four years before Congress began consideration of the SRHA. After quoting the rule in Pacific Coast Marble, the Secretary stated: "A search of the standard American authorities has failed to disclose a single one which classifies a deposit such as claimed in this case as mineral, nor is the Department aware of any application to purchase such a deposit under the mining laws. This, taken into consideration with the further fact that deposits of sand and gravel occur with considerable frequency in the public domain, points rather to a general understanding that such deposits, unless they possess a peculiar property or characteristic giving them a special value, were not to be regarded as mineral." 39 Lans. Ch. D., at 3. The Secretary then reviewed the Department's cases on clay and stone,[7] concluding: *65 "From the above resume it follows that the Department, in the absence of specific legislation by Congress, will refuse to classify as mineral land containing a deposit of material not recognized by standard authorities as such, whose sole use is for general building purposes, and whose chief value is its proximity to a town |
Justice Powell | 1,983 | 17 | dissenting | Watt v. Western Nuclear, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110951/watt-v-western-nuclear-inc/ | and whose chief value is its proximity to a town or city, in contradistinction to numerous other like deposits of the same character in the public domain. at 33. The Secretary concluded that gravel was such a material, and this clearly remained the Department's position until 99. The Zimmerman decision was recognized by Department officials in Litch v. Scott, 40 Lans. Ch. D. 467, 469 (9), as foreclosing "the question as to the mineral character of the land," even though "it [did] not appear that the [claimant's] removal of the sand or gravel had any connection with the cultivation of the land and it was removed solely for the purpose of sale." And in Hughes v. Florida, 4 Lans. Ch. D. 40 (93), First Assistant Secretary Andreius A. Jones wrote: "The Department does not concur with the contention that this deposit [of shell rock] is a mineral within the meaning of the general mining laws. It presents features greatly similar to the deposits of sand and gravel considered in the case of Zimmerman v. Brunson." Thus, it was beyond question, when the SRHA was adopted in 96, that the Department had ruled consistently that gravel was not a mineral under the general mining laws.[8] The legislative history is silent on exactly how Congress *66 defined "mineral," but it is equally clear that the Department participated actively in drafting the SRHA and in advising Congress.[9] In light of this record, one must conclude that Congress intended the term "minerals" in the new statute to have the meaning so recently and consistently given it by the Department in construing and applying the general mining laws.[0] As it was the agency authorized to *67 implement the SRHA, its contemporaneous construction should be persuasive as to congressional intention. This Court previously had accorded this respect to the Department of the Interior. See, e. g., (94); Northern Pacific R. 88 U.S. 56, (903). II Despite the absence of "specific legislation by Congress," the Department in Layman v. Ellis, 5 Lans. Ch. D. 74 (99), which did not involve SRHA lands, overruled Zimmerman 3 years after the enactment of the SRHA.[] See 5 Lans. Ch. D., at *68 7. As a result, individuals began staking mining claims on public land containing gravel deposits to obtain land patents, not for "mineral" value, but for such purposes as fishing camps and cabin sites. See H. R. Rep. No. 730, 84th Cong., st Sess., 5-6 (955). Legislation in 955 clarified the confusion that the Department's decisions had created.[] Ultimately, *69 sand and gravel were once again removed from the |
Justice Powell | 1,983 | 17 | dissenting | Watt v. Western Nuclear, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110951/watt-v-western-nuclear-inc/ | *69 sand and gravel were once again removed from the coverage of the general mining laws;[3] Congress reaffirmed the Zimmerman rule that common gravel is not a mineral under the general mining laws;[4] and Layman was legislatively overruled.[5] *70 It is clear then that Congress never has, as the Court holds, considered all gravel to be a valuable mineral.[6] And I see no basis for inferring congressional intent to classify gravel, contrary to all lay understanding, as mineral.[7] *7 III Congressional interest in stockraising and mineral development was subordinate to the ultimate congressional purpose of settling the West. See H. R. Rep. No. 35, 64th Cong., st Sess., 4 (96); H. R. Rep. No. 66, 63d Cong., d Sess., 0- (94); n. More than cattle and more than minerals, it was the belief of Congress that "the Nation as a unit needs more States like, for instance, Kansas and Iowa, where each citizen is the sovereign of a portion of the soil, the owner of his home and not tenant of some (perhaps) distant landlord, a builder of schools and churches, a voluntary payer of taxes for the support of his local government." H. R. Rep. No. 66, at In recommending "citizen sovereignty" of the soil,[8] Congress surely did not intend to destroy that sovereignty by reserving *7 the commonplace substances that actually constitute much of that soil.[9] The first attempt by the Department of the Interior to acquire ownership of gravel on SRHA lands did not occur until this case began in 975. One would think it is now too late, after a half-century of inaction, for the Department to take action that raises serious questions as to the nature and extent of titles to lands granted under the SRHA.[0] Owners of patented land are entitled to expect fairer treatment from their Government. In my view, the Department should be required to adhere to the clear intent of Congress at the time this legislation was adopted. I would affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals. |
Justice Marshall | 1,974 | 15 | dissenting | Fuller v. Oregon | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109043/fuller-v-oregon/ | In my view, the Oregon recoupment statute at issue in this case discriminates against indigent defendants in violation of the Equal Protection Clause and the principles established by this Court in In that case we held unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause a Kansas recoupment statute because it failed to provide equal treatment between indigent defendants and other civil judgment debtors. We relied on the fact that indigent defendants were not entitled to the protective exemptions Kansas had erected for other civil judgment debtors. The Oregon recoupment statute at issue here similarly provides unequal treatment between indigent defendants *60 and other civil judgment debtors. The majority obfuscates the issue in this case by focusing solely on the question whether the Oregon statute affords an indigent defendant the same protective exemptions provided other civil debtors. True, as construed by the Oregon Court of Appeals, the statute does not discriminate in this regard. But the treatment it affords indigent defendants remains unequal in another, even more fundamental, respect. The important fact which the majority ignores is that under Oregon law, the repayment of the indigent defendant's debt to the State can be made a condition of his probation, as it was in this case. Petitioner's failure to pay his debt can result in his being sent to prison. In this respect the indigent defendant in Oregon, like the indigent defendant in is treated quite differently from other civil judgment debtors. Petitioner's "predicament under this statute comes into sharper focus when compared with that of one who has hired counsel in his defense." Article 1, 19, of the Oregon Constitution provides that "[t]here shall be no imprisonment for debt, except in case of fraud or absconding debtors." Hence, the nonindigent defendant in a criminal case in Oregon who does not pay his privately retained counsel, even after he obtains the means to do so, cannot be imprisoned for such failure. The lawyer in that instance must enforce his judgment through the normal routes available to a creditorby attachment, lien, garnishment, or the like. Petitioner, on the other hand, faces five years behind bars if he fails to pay his "debt" arising out of the appointment of counsel. Article 1, 19, of the Oregon Constitution is representative of a fundamental state policy consistent with the modern rejection of the practice of imprisonment for debt as unnecessarily cruel and essentially counterproductive. *61 Since Oregon chooses not to provide imprisonment for debt for well-heeled defendants who do not pay their retained counsel, I do not believe it can, consistent with the Equal Protection Clause, imprison an |
Justice Rehnquist | 1,973 | 19 | majority | Salyer Land Co. v. Tulare Lake Basin Water Storage Dist. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/108745/salyer-land-co-v-tulare-lake-basin-water-storage-dist/ | This is another in the line of cases in which the Court has had occasion to consider the limits imposed by the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment on legislation apportioning representation in state and local governing bodies and establishing qualifications for voters in the election of such representatives. enunciated the constitutional standard for apportionment of state legislatures. Later cases such as and extended the rule to the governing bodies of a county and of a junior college district, respectively. We are here presented with the issue expressly reserved in "Were the [county's governing body] a special-purpose unit of government assigned the performance of functions affecting definable groups of constituents *721 more than other constituents, we would have to confront the question whether such a body may be apportioned in ways which give greater influence to the citizens most affected by the organization's functions." -484. The particular type of local government unit whose organization is challenged on constitutional grounds in this case is a water storage district, organized pursuant to the California Water Storage District Act, Calif. Water Code 39000 et seq. The peculiar problems of adequate water supplies faced by most of the western third of the Nation have been described by Mr. Justice Sutherland, who was himself intimately familiar with them, in California Oregon Power : "These states and territories comprised the western third of the United Statesa vast empire in extent, but still sparsely settled. From a line east of the Rocky Mountains almost to the Pacific Ocean, and from the Canadian border to the boundary of Mexico an area greater than that of the original thirteen statesthe lands capable of redemption, in the main, constituted a desert, impossible of agricultural use without artificial irrigation. "In the beginning, the task of reclaiming this area was left to the unaided efforts of the people who found their way by painful effort to its inhospitable solitudes. These western pioneers, emulating the spirit of so many others who had gone before them in similar ventures, faced the difficult problem of wresting a living and creating homes from the raw elements about them, and threw down the gage of battle to the forces of nature. With imperfect tools, they built dams, excavated canals, constructed ditches, plowed and cultivated the soil, and transformed *722 dry and desolate lands into green fields and leafy orchards." Californians, in common with other residents of the West, found the State's rivers and streams in their natural state to present the familiar paradox of feast or famine. With melting snow in the high mountains in the |
Justice Rehnquist | 1,973 | 19 | majority | Salyer Land Co. v. Tulare Lake Basin Water Storage Dist. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/108745/salyer-land-co-v-tulare-lake-basin-water-storage-dist/ | famine. With melting snow in the high mountains in the spring, small streams became roaring freshets, and the rivers they fed carried the potential for destructive floods. But with the end of the rainy season in the early spring, farmers depended entirely upon water from such streams and rivers until the rainy season again began in the fall. Long before that time, however, rivers which ran bank full in the spring had been reduced to a bare trickle of water. It was not enough therefore, for individual farmers or groups of farmers to build irrigation canals and ditches which depended for their operation on the natural flow of these streams. Storage dams had to be constructed to impound in their reservoirs the flow of the rivers at flood stage for later release during the dry season regimen of these streams. For the construction of major dams to facilitate the storage of water for irrigation of large areas, the full resources of the State and frequently of the Federal Government were necessary.[1] But for less costly projects which would benefit a more restricted geographic area, the State was frequently either unable or unwilling to pledge its credit or its resources. The California Legislature, therefore, has authorized a number of instrumentalities, including water storage districts such as the appellee here, to provide a local response to water problems. Some history of the experience of California and the other Western States with the problems of water distribution *723 is contained in Fallbrook Irrigation in which the constitutionality of California's Wright Act was sustained against claims of denial of due process under the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. While the irrigation district was apparently the first local governmental unit authorized to deal with water distribution, it is by no means the only one. General legislation in California authorizes the creation, not only of irrigation districts, but of water conservation districts, water storage and conservation districts, flood control districts, and water storage districts such as appellee.[2] Appellee district consists of 193,000 acres of intensively cultivated, highly fertile farm land located in the Tulare Lake Basin. Its population consists of 77 persons, including 18 children, most of whom are employees of one or another of the four corporations that farm 85% of the land in the district. Such districts are authorized to plan projects and execute approved projects "for the acquisition, appropriation, diversion, storage, conservation, and distribution of water" Calif. Water Code 42200 et seq.[3] Incidental to this general power, districts may "acquire, improve, and operate" any necessary works for the storage *724 and |
Justice Rehnquist | 1,973 | 19 | majority | Salyer Land Co. v. Tulare Lake Basin Water Storage Dist. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/108745/salyer-land-co-v-tulare-lake-basin-water-storage-dist/ | and operate" any necessary works for the storage *724 and distribution of water as well as any drainage or reclamation works connected therewith, and the generation and distribution of hydroelectric power may be provided for.[4] 43000, 43025. They may fix tolls and charges for the use of water and collect them from all persons receiving the benefit of the water or other services in proportion to the services rendered. 43006. The costs of the projects are assessed against district land in accordance with the benefits accruing to each tract held in separate ownership. 46175, 46176. And land that is not benefited may be withdrawn from the district on petition. 48029. Governance of the districts is undertaken by a board of directors. 40658. Each director is elected from one of the divisions within the district, 39929, and each must take an official oath and execute a bond. 40301. General elections for the directors are to be held in odd-numbered years. 39027, 41300 et seq. It is the voter qualification for such elections that appellants claim invidiously discriminates against them and persons similarly situated. Appellants are landowners, a landowner-lessee, and residents within the area included in the appellee's water storage district. They brought this action under 42 U.S. C. 1983, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief in an effort to prevent appellee from giving effect to certain provisions of the California Water Code. They allege that 41000[5] and 41001[6] unconstitutionally deny to them the equal protection *725 of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment, in that only landowners are permitted to vote in water storage district general elections, and votes in those elections are apportioned according to the assessed valuation of the land. A three-judge court was convened pursuant to 28 U.S. C. 2284, and the case was submitted on factual statements of the parties and briefs, without testimony or oral argument. A majority of the District Court held that both statutes comported with the dictates of the Equal Protection Clause, and appellants have appealed that judgment directly to this Court under 28 U.S. C. 1253. In a case in which the Ohio legislative scheme for regulating the electoral franchise was challenged, the Court said: "[T]his Court has firmly established the principle that the Equal Protection Clause does not make every minor difference in the application of laws to different groups a violation of our Constitution. But we have also held many times that `invidious' distinctions cannot be enacted without a violation of the Equal Protection Clause. In determining whether or not a state law violates the Equal Protection Clause, we must |
Justice Rehnquist | 1,973 | 19 | majority | Salyer Land Co. v. Tulare Lake Basin Water Storage Dist. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/108745/salyer-land-co-v-tulare-lake-basin-water-storage-dist/ | a state law violates the Equal Protection Clause, we must consider the facts and circumstances behind the law, the interests which the State claims to be protecting, and the interests of those who are disadvantaged by the classification." We therefore turn now to the determination of whether the California statutory scheme establishing water storage districts violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. *726 I It is first argued that 41000, limiting the vote to district landowners, is unconstitutional since nonlandowning residents have as much interest in the operations of a district as landowners who may or may not be residents. Particularly, it is pointed out that the homes of residents may be damaged by floods within the district's boundaries, and that floods may, as with appellant Ellison, cause them to lose their jobs. Support for this position is said to come from the recent decisions of this Court striking down various state laws that limited voting to landowners, and In the Court was confronted with a voter qualification statute for school district elections that limited the vote to otherwise qualified district residents who were either (1) the owners or lessees of taxable real property located within the district, (2) spouses of persons owning qualifying property, or (3) parents or guardians of children enrolled for a specified time during the preceding year in a local district school. Without reaching the issue of whether or not a State may in some circumstances limit the exercise of the franchise to those primarily interested or primarily affected by a given governmental unit, it was held that the above classifications did not meet that state-articulated goal since they excluded many persons who had distinct and direct interests in school meeting decisions and included many persons who had, at best, remote and indirect interests. Similarly, in decided the same day, provisions of Louisiana law which gave only property taxpayers the right to vote in elections *727 called to approve the issuance of revenue bonds by a municipal utility were declared violative of the Equal Protection Clause since the operation of the utility systems affected virtually every resident of the city, not just the 40% of the registered voters who were also property taxpayers, and since the bonds were not in any And the rationale of Cipriano was expanded to include general obligation bonds of municipalities in It was there noted that not only did those persons excluded from voting have a great interest in approving or disapproving municipal improvements, but they also contributed both directly through local taxes and indirectly through increased rents and |
Justice Rehnquist | 1,973 | 19 | majority | Salyer Land Co. v. Tulare Lake Basin Water Storage Dist. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/108745/salyer-land-co-v-tulare-lake-basin-water-storage-dist/ | directly through local taxes and indirectly through increased rents and costs to the servicing of the -211. Cipriano and Phoenix involved application of the "one person, one vote" principle to residents of units of local governments exercising general governmental power, as that term was defined in and extended the "one person, one vote" principle to school districts exercising powers which. "while not fully as broad as those of the Midland County Commissioners, certainly show that the trustees perform important governmental functions within the districts, and we think these powers are general enough and have sufficient impact throughout the district to justify the conclusion that the principle which we applied in should also be applied here." -54. But the Court was also careful to state that: "It is of course possible that there might be some case in which a State elects certain functionaries whose duties are so far removed from normal governmental *728 activities and so disproportionately affect different groups that a popular election in compliance with might not be required, but certainly we see nothing in the present case that indicates that the activities of these trustees fit in that category. Education has traditionally been a vital governmental function, and these trustees, whose election the State has opened to all qualified voters, are governmental officials in every relevant sense of that term." We conclude that the appellee water storage district, by reason of its special limited purpose and of the disproportionate effect of its activities on landowners as a group, is the sort of exception to the rule laid down in which the quoted language from and the decision in contemplated. The appellee district in this case, although vested with some typical governmental powers,[7] has relatively limited authority. Its primary purpose, indeed the reason for its existence, is to provide for the acquisition, storage, and distribution of water for farming in the Tulare Lake Basin.[8] It provides no other general public *729 services such as schools, housing, transportation, utilities, roads, or anything else of the type ordinarily financed by a municipal body. App. 86. There are no towns, shops, hospitals or other facilities designed to improve the quality of life within the district boundaries, and it does not have a fire department, police, buses, or trains. Not only does the district not exercise what might be thought of as "normal governmental" authority, but its actions disproportionately affect landowners. All of the costs of district projects are assessed against land by assessors in proportion to the benefits received. Likewise, charges for services rendered are collectible from persons receiving their benefit |
Justice Rehnquist | 1,973 | 19 | majority | Salyer Land Co. v. Tulare Lake Basin Water Storage Dist. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/108745/salyer-land-co-v-tulare-lake-basin-water-storage-dist/ | for services rendered are collectible from persons receiving their benefit in proportion to the services. When such persons are delinquent in payment, just as in the case of delinquency in payments of assessments, such charges become a lien on the land. Calif. Water Code 47183, 46280. In short, there is no way that the economic burdens of district operations can fall on residents qua residents, and the operations of the districts primarily affect the land within their boundaries.[9] Under these circumstances, it is quite understandable that the statutory framework for election of directors *730 of the appellee focuses on the land benefited, rather than on people as such. California has not opened the franchise to all residents, as Missouri had in nor to all residents with some exceptions, as New York had in The franchise is extended to landowners, whether they reside in the district or out of it, and indeed whether or not they are natural persons who would be entitled to vote in a more traditional political election. Appellants do not challenge the enfranchisement of nonresident landowners or of corporate landowners for purposes of election of the directors of appellee. Thus, to sustain their contention that all residents of the district must be accorded a vote would not result merely in the striking down of an exclusion from what was otherwise a delineated class, but would instead engraft onto the statutory scheme a wholly new class of voters in addition to those enfranchised by the statute. We hold, therefore, that the popular election requirements enunciated by and succeeding cases are inapplicable to elections such as the general election of appellee Water Storage District. II Even though appellants derive no benefit from the and lines of cases, they are, of course, entitled to have their equal protection claim assessed to determine whether the State's decision to deny the franchise to residents of the district while granting it to landowners was "wholly irrelevant to achievement of the regulation's objectives," No doubt residents within the district may be affected by its activities. But this argument proves too much. Since assessments imposed by the district become a cost of doing business for those who farm within it, and that *731 cost must ultimately be passed along to the consumers of the produce, food shoppers in far away metropolitan areas are to some extent likewise "affected" by the activities of the district. Constitutional adjudication cannot rest on any such "house that Jack built" foundation, however. The California Legislature could quite reasonably have concluded that the number of landowners and owners of sufficient amounts |
Justice Rehnquist | 1,973 | 19 | majority | Salyer Land Co. v. Tulare Lake Basin Water Storage Dist. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/108745/salyer-land-co-v-tulare-lake-basin-water-storage-dist/ | that the number of landowners and owners of sufficient amounts of acreage whose consent was necessary to organize the district would not have subjected their land to the lien of its possibly very substantial assessments unless they had a dominant voice in its control. Since the subjection of the owners' lands to such liens was the basis by which the district was to obtain financing, the proposed district had as a practical matter to attract landowner support. Nor, since assessments against landowners were to be the sole means by which the expenses of the district were to be paid, could it be said to be unfair or inequitable to repose the franchise in landowners but not residents. Landowners as a class were to bear the entire burden of the district's costs, and the State could rationally conclude that they, to the exclusion of residents, should be charged with responsibility for its operation. We conclude, therefore, that nothing in the Equal Protection Clause precluded California from limiting the voting for directors of appellee district by totally excluding those who merely reside within the district. III Appellants assert that even if residents may be excluded from the vote, lessees who farm the land have interests that are indistinguishable from those of the landowners. Like landowners, they take an interest in increasing the available water for farming and, because the costs of district projects may be passed on to them *732 either by express agreement or by increased rentals, they have an equal interest in the costs. Lessees undoubtedly do have an interest in the activities of appellee district analogous to that of landowners in many respects. But in the type of special district we now have before us, the question for our determination is not whether or not we would have lumped them together had we been enacting the statute in question, but instead whether "if any state of facts reasonably may be conceived to justify" California's decision to deny the franchise to lessees while granting it to landowners. The term "lessees" may embrace the holders of a wide spectrum of leasehold interests in land, from the month-to-month tenant holding under an oral lease, on the one hand, to the long-term lessee holding under a carefully negotiated written lease, on the other. The system which permitted a lessee for a very short term to vote might easily lend itself to manipulation on the part of large landowners because of the ease with which such landowners could create short-term interests on the part of loyal employees. And, even apart from the fear of |
Justice Rehnquist | 1,973 | 19 | majority | Salyer Land Co. v. Tulare Lake Basin Water Storage Dist. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/108745/salyer-land-co-v-tulare-lake-basin-water-storage-dist/ | of loyal employees. And, even apart from the fear of such manipulation, California may well have felt that landowners would be unwilling to join in the forming of a water storage district if short-term lessees whose fortunes were not in the long run tied to the land were to have a major vote in the affairs of the district. The administration of a voting system which allowed short-term lessees to vote could also pose significant difficulties. Apparently, assessment rolls as well as state and federal land lists are used by election boards in determining the qualifications of the voters. Calif. Water Code 41016. Such lists, obviously, would not ordinarily disclose either long- or short-term leaseholds. *733 While reference could be made to appropriate conveyancing records to determine the existence of leases which had been recorded, leases for terms less than one year need not be recorded under California law in order to preserve the right of the lessee. Calif. Civil Code 1214. Finally, we note that California has not left the lessee without remedy for his disenfranchised state. Sections 41002 and 41005 of the California Water Code provide for voting in the general election by proxy. To the extent that a lessee entering into a lease of substantial duration, thereby likening his status more to that of a landowner, feels that the right to vote in the election of directors of the district is of sufficient import to him, he may bargain for that right at the time he negotiates his lease. And the longer the term of the lease, and the more the interest of the lessee becomes akin to that of the landowner, presumably the more willing the lessor will be to assign his right. Just as the lessee may by contract be required to reimburse the lessor for the district assessments so he may be contract acquire the right to vote for district directors. Under these circumstances, the exclusion of lessees from voting in general elections for the directors of the district does not violate the Equal Protection Clause. IV The last claim by appellants is that 41001, which weights the vote according to assessed valuation of the land, is unconstitutional. They point to the fact that several of the smaller landowners have only one vote per person whereas the J. G. Boswell Company has 37,825 votes, and they place reliance on the various decisions of this Court holding that wealth has no relation to resident-voter qualifications and that equality of voting power may not be evaded. See, e. g., ; Appellants' argument ignores the realities of |
Justice Rehnquist | 1,973 | 19 | majority | Salyer Land Co. v. Tulare Lake Basin Water Storage Dist. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/108745/salyer-land-co-v-tulare-lake-basin-water-storage-dist/ | See, e. g., ; Appellants' argument ignores the realities of water storage district operation. Since its formation in 1926, appellee district has put into operation four multi-million-dollar projects. The last project involved the construction of two laterals from the Basin to the California State Aqueduct at a capital cost of about $2,500,000. Three small landowners having land aggregating somewhat under four acres with an assessed valuation of under $100 were given one vote each in the special election held for the approval of the project. The J. G. Boswell Company, which owns 61,665.54 acres with an assessed valuation of $3,782,220 was entitled to cast 37.825 votes in the election. By the same token, however, the assessment commissioners determined that the benefits of the project would be uniform as to all of the acres affected, and assessed the project equally as to all acreage. Each acre has to bear $13.26 of cost and the three small landowners, therefore, must pay a total of $46, whereas the company must pay $817,685 for its part.[10] Thus, as the District Court found, "the benefits and burdens to each landowner are in proportion to the assessed value of the land." We cannot say that the California legislative decision to permit voting in the same proportion is not rationally based. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the three-judge District Court and hold that the voter qualification statutes for California water storage district elections *735 are rationally based, and therefore do not violate the Equal Protection Clause. Affirmed. MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS, with whom MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN and MR. |
Justice Marshall | 1,986 | 15 | dissenting | Whitley v. Albers | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111610/whitley-v-albers/ | I share the majority's concern that prison officials be permitted to respond reasonably to inmate disturbances without unwarranted fear of liability. I agree that the threshold for establishing a constitutional violation under these circumstances is high. I do not agree, however, that the contested existence of a "riot" in the prison lessens the constraints imposed on prison authorities by the Eighth Amendment. The majority has erred, I believe, both in developing its legal analysis and in employing it. First, the especially onerous standard the Court has devised for determining whether a prisoner injured during a prison disturbance has been subjected to cruel and unusual punishment is incorrect and not justified by precedent. That standard is particularly inappropriate because courts deciding whether to apply it must resolve a preliminary issue of fact that will often be disputed and properly left to the jury. Finally, the Court has applied its test improperly to the facts of this case. For these reasons, I must respectfully dissent. I The Court properly begins by acknowledging that, for a prisoner attempting to prove a violation of the Eighth Amendment, "[a]n express intent to inflict unnecessary pain is not required," Ante, at 319. Rather, our cases have established that the "unnecessary and wanton" infliction of pain on prisoners constitutes cruel and unusual punishment prohibited by the Eighth Amendment, even in the absence of intent to harm. ; see also ; Having correctly articulated the teaching of our cases on this issue, however, the majority inexplicably arrives at the conclusion that a constitutional violation in the context of a prison uprising can be established only if force was used "maliciously and sadistically for the very purpose of causing harm," ante, at 320-321 thus requiring the very "express intent to inflict unnecessary pain" that it had properly disavowed.[1] The Court imposes its heightened version of the "unnecessary and wanton" standard only when the injury occurred in the course of a "disturbance" that "poses significant risks," ante, at 320. But those very questions whether a disturbance existed and whether it posed a risk are likely to be hotly contested. It is inappropriate, to say the least, to condition the choice of a legal standard, the purpose of which is to determine whether to send a constitutional claim to the jury, upon the court's resolution of factual disputes that in many cases should themselves be resolved by the jury. The correct standard for identifying a violation of the Eighth Amendment under our cases is clearly the "unnecessary and wanton" standard, which establishes a high hurdle to be overcome |
Justice Marshall | 1,986 | 15 | dissenting | Whitley v. Albers | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111610/whitley-v-albers/ | wanton" standard, which establishes a high hurdle to be overcome by a prisoner seeking relief for a constitutional violation. The full circumstances of the plaintiff's injury, including whether it was inflicted during an attempt to quell a riot and whether there was a reasonable apprehension of danger, should be considered by the factfinder in determining whether that standard is satisfied in a particular case. There is simply no justification for creating a distinct and more onerous burden for the plaintiff to meet merely because *330 the judge believes that the injury at issue was caused during a disturbance that "pose[d] significant risks to the safety of inmates and prison staff," ante, at 320. Determination of whether there was such a disturbance or risk, when disputed, should be made by the jury when it resolves disputed facts, not by the court in its role as arbiter of law. See II The Court properly begins its application of the law by reciting the principle that the facts must be viewed in the light most favorable to respondent, who won a reversal of a directed verdict below. See If, under any reasonable interpretation of the facts, a jury could have found the "unnecessary and wanton" standard to be met, then the directed verdict was improper. The majority opinion, however, resolves factual disputes in the record in petitioners' favor and discounts much of respondent's theory of the case. This it is not entitled to do. The majority pays short shrift to respondent's significant contention that the disturbance had quieted down by the time the lethal force was employed. Ante, at 322-323. Respondent presented substantial testimony to show that the disturbance had subsided, Tr. 112, 165, 188, 193; that only one prisoner, Klenk, remained in any way disruptive, ; and that even Klenk had calmed down enough at that point to admit that he had " `gone too far.' " The majority asserts that "a guard was still held hostage, Klenk was armed and threatening, several other inmates were armed with homemade clubs, numerous inmates remained outside their cells, and [t]he situation remained dangerous and volatile." Ante, at 322-323. Respondent's evidence, however, indicated that the guard was not, in fact, in danger. He had been put into a cell by several inmates to prevent Klenk from harming him. Tr. 161. Captain Whitley had *331 been to see the guard, and had observed that the inmates protecting him from Klenk were not armed and had promised to keep Klenk out. 163. According to respondent's evidence, moreover, no other inmates were assisting Klenk in any way when |
Justice Marshall | 1,986 | 15 | dissenting | Whitley v. Albers | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111610/whitley-v-albers/ | no other inmates were assisting Klenk in any way when the riot squad was called in; they were simply "milling around," waiting for Klenk to be taken into custody, or for orders to return to their cells. Respondent's evidence tended to show not that the "situation remained dangerous and volatile," ante, at 323, but, on the contrary, that it was calm. Although the Court sees fit to emphasize repeatedly "the risks to the life of the hostage and the safety of inmates that demonstrably persisted notwithstanding repeated attempts to defuse the situation," ib I can only point out that respondent bitterly disputed that any such risk to guards or inmates had persisted. The Court just does not believe his story. The Court's treatment of the expert testimony is equally insensitive to its obligation to resolve all disputes in favor of respondent. Respondent's experts testified that the use of deadly force under these circumstances was not justified by any necessity to prevent imminent danger to the officers or the inmates, Tr. 266; that the force used was excessive, ibid.; and that even if deadly force had been justified, it would have been unreasonable to unleash such force without a clear warning to allow nonparticipating inmates to return to their cells. Insofar as expert testimony can ever be useful to show that prison authorities engaged in the "unnecessary and wanton" infliction of pain, even though it will always amount to "after-the-fact opinion" regarding the circumstances of the injury, see ante, at 323, respondent's expert evidence contributed to the creation of a factual issue. The majority characterizes the petitioners' error in using deadly force where it was not justified as an "oversight." Ante, at 325. This is an endorsement of petitioners' rendition of the facts. As portrayed by respondent's evidence, the "error" was made in cold blood. Respondent's involvement *332 started when, at the request of one of the inmates, he approached petitioner Whitley, who was talking to Klenk, to ask if Whitley would supply a key to a gate so that the elderly and sick patients in so-called "medical cells" near the area of disturbance could be removed before any tear gas was used. Tr. 115-116. Captain Whitley said that he would go and get the key, and left the cellblock. In two or three minutes, Whitley returned. Respondent went to the door of the cellblock, and asked Whitley if he had brought the key. Whitley responded " `No,' " turned his head back and yelled: " `Let's go, let's go. Shoot the bastards!' " Respondent, afraid, ran from his position by |
Justice Marshall | 1,986 | 15 | dissenting | Whitley v. Albers | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111610/whitley-v-albers/ | the bastards!' " Respondent, afraid, ran from his position by the door and headed for the stairs, the only route back to his cell. -119. He caught some movement out of the corner of his eye, looked in its direction, and saw petitioner Kennicott. According to respondent: " `I froze. I looked at him; we locked eyes, then I looked down and seen the shotgun in his hand, then I seen the flash, and the next thing I know I was sitting down, grabbing my leg.' " Losing a great deal of blood, respondent crawled up the stairs and fell on his face, trying to get out of range of the shotguns. After about 10 minutes, an officer grabbed respondent by the hair and dragged him downstairs. As he lay there, another officer came and stood over respondent and shoved the barrel of a gun or gas pistol into respondent's face. Respondent was left lying and bleeding profusely for approximately 10 or 15 more minutes, and was then taken to the prison hospital. He suffered very severe injury. Meanwhile, Klenk had been subdued with no resistance by Whitley, who was unarmed, Other testimony showed that, although most of the inmates assembled in the area were clearly not participating in the misconduct, they received no warning, instructions, or opportunity to leave the area and return to their cells before the officers started shooting. Neither respondent *333 nor any other inmate attempted to impede the officers as they entered the cellblock. The officers were described as "wild," "agitated, excited," not in full control of their emotions. One officer, prior to entering cellblock "A," told the others to " `shoot their asses off, and if Klenk gets in the way, kill him.' " At the time of this assault, the cellblock was described as "quiet." If a jury credited respondent's testimony and that of his witnesses, it would have believed that there was only one inmate who was temporarily out of control, Klenk "scared," and "high," and ready to give up. The disturbance in the block had lasted only 15 or 20 minutes when it subsided, and there appeared to be no lasting danger to anyone. Respondent was shot while he stood motionless on the stairs, and was left to bleed for a perilously long time before receiving any assistance. III Part III of the Court's opinion falls far short of a rendition of the events in the light most favorable to respondent. In that light, the facts present a very close question as to whether the prison officials' infliction of |
Justice Marshall | 1,986 | 15 | dissenting | Whitley v. Albers | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111610/whitley-v-albers/ | close question as to whether the prison officials' infliction of pain on respondent could be said to display the level of wantonness necessary to make out a constitutional violation. At the very least, it is clear that fair-minded people could differ on the response to that question, and that is all it takes to preclude a directed verdict. The majority suggests that the existence of more appropriate alternative measures for controlling prison disturbances is irrelevant to the constitutional inquiry, but surely it cannot mean what it appears to say. For if prison officials were to drop a bomb on a cellblock in order to halt a fistfight between two inmates, for example, I feel confident that the Court would have difficulty concluding, as a matter of law, that such an action was not sufficiently wanton to present a jury question, even though concededly taken in an effort to restore *334 order in the prison. Thus, the question of wantonness in the context of prison disorder, as with other claims of mistreatment under the Eighth Amendment, is a matter of degree. And it is precisely in cases like this one, when shading the facts one way or the other can result in different legal conclusions, that a jury should be permitted to do its job. Properly instructed, a jury would take into account the petitioners' legitimate need to protect security, the extent of the danger presented, and the reasonableness of force used, in assessing liability. Moreover, the jury would know that a prisoner's burden is a heavy one, if he is to establish an Eighth Amendment violation under these circumstances.[2] Whether respondent was able to meet that burden here is a question for the jury. From the Court's usurpation of the jury's function, I dissent. I would affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals. |
Justice Breyer | 2,004 | 2 | majority | United States v. Lara | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/134732/united-states-v-lara/ | This case concerns a congressional statute "recogniz[ing] and affirm[ing]" the "inherent" authority of a tribe to bring a criminal misdemeanor prosecution against an Indian who is not a member of that tribe authority that this Court previously held a tribe did not possess. Compare 25 U.S. C. 1301(2) with We must decide whether Congress has the constitutional power to relax restrictions that the political branches have, over time, placed on the exercise of a tribe's inherent legal authority. We conclude that Congress does possess this power. I Respondent Billy Jo Lara is an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians in north-central North Dakota. He married a member of a different tribe, the Spirit Lake Tribe, and lived with his wife and children on the Spirit Lake Reservation, also located in North Dakota. See Brief for Spirit Lake Sioux Tribe of North Dakota et al. as Amici Curiae 4-5. After several incidents of serious misconduct, the Spirit Lake Tribe issued an order excluding him from the reservation. Lara ignored the order; federal officers stopped him; and he struck one of the arresting officers. The Spirit Lake Tribe subsequently prosecuted Lara in the Spirit Lake Tribal Court for "violence to a policeman." Lara pleaded guilty and, in respect to that crime, served 90 days in jail. See ibid.; Tr. of Oral Arg. 28. *197 After Lara's tribal conviction, the Federal Government charged Lara in the Federal District Court for the District of North Dakota with the federal crime of assaulting a federal 324 F.3d, at ; 18 U.S. C. 111(a)(1). Key elements of this federal crime mirror elements of the tribal crime of "violence to a policeman." See Brief for United States 7. And this similarity between the two crimes would ordinarily have brought Lara within the protective reach of the Double Jeopardy Clause. U. S. Const., Amdt. 5 (the Government may not "subject" any person "for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb"); 324 F.3d, at But the Government, responding to Lara's claim of double jeopardy, pointed out that the Double Jeopardy Clause does not bar successive prosecutions brought by separate sovereigns, and it argued that this "dual sovereignty" doctrine determined the outcome here. See The Government noted that this Court has held that an Indian tribe acts as a separate sovereign when it prosecutes its own members. United The Government recognized, of course, that Lara is not one of the Spirit Lake Tribe's own members; it also recognized that, in this Court had held that a tribe no longer |
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