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Justice Stevens | 1,999 | 16 | majority | Nasa v. Flra | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118306/nasa-v-flra/ | the Huntsville facility. NASA, 50 F. L. R. A. 601, 602, 609, 622-623 (1995). NASA and NASAOIG petitioned for review, asking whether the NASAOIG investigator was a "representative" of NASA, and whether it was proper to grant relief against NASA as well as its OIG. The Court of Appeals upheld the Authority's rulings on both and granted the *233 Authority's application for enforcement of its order. Because of disagreement among the Circuit Courts over the applicability of 7114(a)(2)(B) in such circumstances, see ; United States Dept. of ; Defense Criminal Investigative we granted certiorari. II The FSLMRS provides, in relevant part, "(2) An exclusive representative of an appropriate unit in an agency shall be given the opportunity to be represented at. "(B) any examination of an employee in the unit by a representative of the agency in connection with an investigation if "(i) the employee reasonably believes that the examination may result in disciplinary action against the employee; and "(ii) the employee requests representation." 5 U.S. C. 7114(a). In this case it is undisputed that the employee reasonably believed the investigation could result in discipline against him, that he requested union representation, that NASA is the relevant "agency," and that, if the provision applies, a violation of 7114(a)(2)(B) occurred. The contested issue is whether a NASAOIG investigator can be considered a "representative" of NASA when conducting an employee examination covered by 7114(a)(2)(B). NASA and its OIG argue that, when 7114(a)(2)(B) is read in context and compared with the similar right to union representation protected in the private sector by the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), the term "representative" *234 refers only to a representative of agency management "i. e., the entity that has a collective bargaining relationship with the employee's union." Brief for Petitioners 13. Neither NASA nor NASAOIG has such a relationship with the employee's union at the Huntsville facility, see 5 U.S. C. 7112(b)(7) (excluding certain agency investigators and auditors from "appropriate" bargaining units), and so the investigator in this case could not have been a "representative" of the relevant "entity." By its terms, 7114(a)(2)(B) is not limited to investigations conducted by certain "entit[ies]" within the agency in question. It simply refers to representatives of "the agency," which, all agree, means NASA. Cf. 7114(a)(2) (referring to employees "in the unit" and an exclusive representative "of an appropriate unit in an agency"). Thus, relying on prior rulings, the Authority found no basis in the FSLMRS or its legislative history to support the limited reading advocated by NASA and its OIG. The Authority reasoned that adopting their proposal might erode |
Justice Stevens | 1,999 | 16 | majority | Nasa v. Flra | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118306/nasa-v-flra/ | OIG. The Authority reasoned that adopting their proposal might erode the right by encouraging the use of investigative conduits outside the employee's bargaining unit, and would otherwise frustrate Congress' apparent policy of protecting certain federal employees when they are examined and justifiably fear disciplinary action. 50 F. L. R. A., at 615, and n. 12. That is, the risk to the employee is not necessarily related to which component of an agency conducts the examination. See App. to Pet. for Cert. 65a (information obtained by NASAOIG is referred to agency officials for administrative or disciplinary action). In resolving this issue, the Authority was interpreting the statute Congress directed it to implement and administer. 5 U.S. C. 7105. The Authority's conclusion is certainly consistent with the FSLMRS and, to the extent the statute and congressional intent are unclear, we may rely on the Authority's reasonable judgment. See Federal ; Fort Stewart *235 Despite the text of the statute and the Authority's views, NASA and NASAOIG advance three reasons for their narrow reading. First, the language at issue is contained in a larger section addressing rights and duties related to collective bargaining; indeed, 5 U.S. C. 7114 is entitled "Representation rights and duties." Thus, other subsections define the union's right to exclusive representation of employees in the bargaining unit, 7114(a)(1); its right to participate in grievance proceedings, 7114(a)(2)(A); and its right and duty to engage in good-faith collective bargaining with the agency, 7114(a)(4), (b). That context helps explain why the right granted in 7114(a)(2)(B) is limited to situations in which the employee "reasonably believes that the examination may result in disciplinary action"a condition restricting the right to union presence or participation in investigatory examinations that do not threaten the witness' employment. We find nothing in this context, however, suggesting that an examination that obviously presents the risk of employee discipline is nevertheless outside the coverage of the section because it is conducted by an investigator housed in one office of NASA rather than another. On this point, NASA's internal organization is irrelevant. Second, the phrase "representative of the agency" is used in two other places in the FSLMRS where it may refer to representatives of agency management acting in their capacity as actual or prospective parties to a collectivebargaining agreement. One reference pertains to grievances, 7114(a)(2)(A), and the other to the bargaining process itself, 7103(a)(12) (defining "collective bargaining"). NASA and NASAOIG submit that the phrase at issue should ordinarily retain the same meaning wherever used in the same statute, and we agree. But even accepting NASA's and NASAOIG's characterization of 7114(a)(2)(A) and |
Justice Stevens | 1,999 | 16 | majority | Nasa v. Flra | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118306/nasa-v-flra/ | But even accepting NASA's and NASAOIG's characterization of 7114(a)(2)(A) and 7103(a)(12), the fact that some "representative[s] of the agency" may perform functions relating to grievances and bargaining does not mean that other personnel who conduct *236 examinations covered by 7114(a)(2)(B) are not also fairly characterized as agency "representative[s]." As an organization, an agency must rely on a variety of representatives to carry out its functions and, though acting in different capacities, each may be acting for, and on behalf of, the agency. Third, NASA and NASAOIG assert that their narrow construction is supported by the history and purpose of 7114(a)(2)(B). As is evident from statements by the author of the provision[1] as well as similar text in this section of the FSLMRS was patterned after that decision. In Weingarten, we upheld the National Labor Relations Board's conclusion that an employer's denial of an employee's request to have a union representative present at an investigatory interview, which the employee reasonably believed might result in disciplinary action, was an unfair labor practice. We reasoned that the Board's position was consistent with the employee's right under 7 of the NLRA to engage in concerted activities. Given that history, NASA and its OIG contend that the comparable provision in the FSLMRS should be limited to investigations by representatives of that part of agency management with responsibility for collectively bargaining with the employee's union. This argument ignores the important difference between the text of the NLRA and the text of the FSLMRS. That the general protection afforded to employees by 7 of the NLRA provided a sufficient basis for the Board's recognition of a novel right in the private sector, see -262, *237 266-267, does not justify the conclusion that the text of the FSLMRSwhich expressly grants a comparable right to employees in the public sectorshould be narrowly construed to cover some, but not all, interviews conducted by agency representatives that have a disciplinary potential. Congress' specific endorsement of a Government employee's right to union representation by incorporating it in the text of the FSLMRS gives that right a different foundation than if it were merely the product of an agency's attempt to elaborate on a more general provision in light of broad statutory purposes.[2] The basis for the right to union representation in this context cannot compel the uncodified limitation proposed by NASA and its OIG. Employing ordinary tools of statutory construction, in combination with the Authority's position on the matter, we have no difficulty concluding that 7114(a)(2)(B) is not limited to agency investigators representing an "entity" that collectively bargains with the employee's union. |
Justice Stevens | 1,999 | 16 | majority | Nasa v. Flra | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118306/nasa-v-flra/ | representing an "entity" that collectively bargains with the employee's union. III Much of the disagreement in this case involves the interplay between the FSLMRS and the IGA. On NASA's and NASAOIG's view, a proper understanding of the IGA precludes treating OIG personnel as "representative[s]" of the agencies they are duty-bound to audit and investigate. They add that the Authority has no congressional mandate or expertise with respect to the IGA, and thus we owe the Authority no deference on this score. It is unnecessary for us to defer, however, because a careful review of the relevant IGA provisions plainly favors the Authority's position. *238 Section 2 of the IGA explains the purpose of the Act and establishes "an office of Inspector General" in each of a list of identified federal agencies, thereby consolidating audit and investigation responsibilities into one agency component. It provides: "In order to create independent and objective units "(1) to conduct and supervise audits and investigations relating to the programs and operations of the establishments listed in section 11(2); "(2) to provide leadership and coordination and recommend policies for activities designed (A) to promote economy, efficiency, and effectiveness in the administration of, and (B) to prevent and detect fraud and abuse in, such programs and operations; and "(3) to provide a means for keeping the head of the establishment and the Congress fully and currently informed about problems and deficiencies relating to the administration of such programs and operations and the necessity for and progress of corrective action; "there is hereby established in each of such establishments an office of Inspector General." 5 U.S. C. App. 2, p. 1381. NASA is one of more than 20 "establishment[s]" now listed in 11(2).[3] Section 3 of the IGA provides that each of the offices created by 2 shall be headed by an Inspector General appointed by the President, and confirmed by the Senate, "without regard to political affiliation and solely on the basis of integrity and demonstrated ability in accounting, auditing, financial analysis, law, management analysis, public administration, *239 or investigations." 3(a). Each of these Inspectors General "shall report to and be under the general supervision of the head of the establishment involved or, to the extent such authority is delegated, the officer next in rank below such head," but shall not be subject to supervision by any lesser officer. Moreover, an Inspector General's seniors within the agency may not "prevent or prohibit" the Inspector General from initiating or conducting any audit or investigation. ; see also 6(a)(2). The President retains the power to remove an Inspector General from |
Justice Stevens | 1,999 | 16 | majority | Nasa v. Flra | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118306/nasa-v-flra/ | President retains the power to remove an Inspector General from office. 3(b). Section 4 contains a detailed description of the duties of each Inspector General with respect to the agency "within which his Office is established." 4(a). Those duties include conducting audits and investigations, recommending new policies, reviewing legislation, and keeping the head of the agency and the Congress "fully and currently informed" through such means as detailed, semiannual reports. 4(a)(1)(5). Pursuant to 5, those reports must be furnished to the head of the agency, who, in turn, must forward them to the appropriate committee or subcommittee of Congress with such comment as the agency head deems appropriate. 5(b)(1); see also 5(d). Section 6 grants the Inspectors General specific authority in a variety of areas to facilitate the mission of their offices. Accordingly, Inspectors General possess discretion to conduct investigations "relating to the administration of the programs and operations of the applicable" agency, 6(a)(2); the ability to request information and assistance from Government agencies, 6(a)(3); access to the head of the agency, 6(a)(6); and the power to hire employees, enter into contracts, and spend congressionally appropriated funds, 6(a)(7), (9); see also 3(d). Finally, 9(a)(1)(P) provides for the transfer of the functions previously performed by NASA's "`Management Audit Office' and the `Office of Inspections and Security' " to NASAOIG. *240 The IGA created no central office or officer to supervise, direct, or coordinate the work of all OIG's and their respective staffs. Other than congressional committees (which are the recipients of the reports prepared by each Inspector General) and the President (who has the power to remove an Inspector General), each Inspector General has no supervising authorityexcept the head of the agency of which the OIG is a part. There is no "OIGOIG." Thus, for example, NASAOIG maintains an office at NASA's Huntsville facility, which reports to NASAOIG in Washington, and then to the NASA Administrator, who is the head of the agency. 11(1); 50 F. L. R. A., at 602.[4] In conducting their work, Congress certainly intended that the various OIG's would enjoy a great deal of autonomy. But unlike the jurisdiction of many law enforcement agencies, an OIG's investigative office, as contemplated by the IGA, is performed with regard to, and on behalf of, the particular agency in which it is stationed. See 5 U.S. C. App. 2, 4(a), 6(a)(2). In common parlance, the investigators employed in NASA's OIG are unquestionably "representatives" of NASA when acting within the scope of their employment. Minimizing the significance of this statutory plan, NASA and NASAOIG emphasize the potentially divergent interests of the |
Justice Stevens | 1,999 | 16 | majority | Nasa v. Flra | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118306/nasa-v-flra/ | NASA and NASAOIG emphasize the potentially divergent interests of the OIG's and their parent agencies. To be sure, OIG's maintain authority to initiate and conduct investigations and audits without interference from the head of the agency. 3(a). And the ability to proceed without consent from agency higher-ups is vital to effectuating Congress' intent and maintaining an opportunity for objective inquiries into bureaucratic waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement.[5]*241 But those characteristics do not make NASAOIG any less a representative of NASA when it investigates a NASA employee. That certain officials within an agency, based on their views of the agency's best interests or their own, might oppose an OIG investigation does not tell us whether the investigators are "representatives" of the agency during the course of their duties. As far as the IGA is concerned, NASAOIG's investigators are employed by, act on behalf of, and operate for the benefit of NASA. Furthermore, NASA and NASAOIG overstate the inherent conflict between an OIG and its agency. The investigation in this case was initiated by NASA's OIG on the basis of information provided by the FBI, but nothing in the IGA indicates that, if the information had been supplied by the Administrator of NASA rather than the FBI, NASAOIG would have had any lesser obligation to pursue an investigation. See 4(a)(1), (d), 7; S. Rep. No. 95-1071, p. 26 (1978). The statute does not suggest that one can determine whether the OIG personnel engaged in such an investigation are "representatives" of NASA based on the source of the information prompting an investigation. Therefore, it must be NASA's and NASAOIG's position that even when an OIG conducts an investigation in response to a specific request from the head of an agency, an employee engaged in that assignment is not a "representative" of the agency within the meaning of 7114(a)(2)(B) of the FSLMRS. Such management-prompted investigations are not rare.[6] *242 Thus, not all OIG examinations subject to 7114(a)(2)(B) will implicate an actual or apparent conflict of interest with the rest of the agency; and in many cases we can expect honest cooperation between an OIG and management-level agency personnel. That conclusion becomes more obvious when the practical operation of OIG interviews and 7114(a)(2)(B) rights are considered. The IGA grants Inspectors General the authority to subpoena documents and information, but not witnesses. 5 U.S. C. App. 6(a)(4). Nor does the IGA allow an OIG to discipline an agency employee, as all parties to this case agree. There may be other incentives for employee cooperation with OIG investigations, but formal sanctions for refusing to submit to an |
Justice Stevens | 1,999 | 16 | majority | Nasa v. Flra | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118306/nasa-v-flra/ | investigations, but formal sanctions for refusing to submit to an OIG interview cannot be pursued by the OIG alone. Such limitations on OIG authority enhance the likelihood and importance of cooperation between the agency and its OIG. See generally 6(a)(3), (b)(1)(2) (addressing an Inspector General's authority to request assistance from others in the agency, and their duty to respond); 4(a)(5), (d); 50 F. L. R. A., at 616; App. to Pet. for Cert. 65a (noting information sharing between NASAOIG and other agency officials). Thus, if the NASAOIG investigator in this case told the employee that he would face dismissal if he refused to answer n. 2, the investigator invoked NASA's authority, not his own.[7] *243 Considering NASAOIG's statutorily defined role within the agency, we cannot conclude that the proper operation of the IGA requires nullification of 7114(a)(2)(B) in all OIG examinations. IV Although NASA's and NASAOIG's narrow reading of the phrase "representative of the agency" is supported by the text of neither the FSLMRS nor the IGA, they also present broaderbut ultimately unpersuasivearguments of policy to defeat the application of 7114(a)(2)(B) to OIG investigations. First, NASA and NASAOIG contend that enforcing 7114(a)(2)(B) in situations similar to this case would undermine NASAOIG's ability to maintain the confidentiality of investigations, particularly those investigations conducted jointly with law enforcement agencies. Cf. 5 U.S. C. App. 5(e)(1)(C), (e)(2) (restricting OIG disclosure of information that is part of an ongoing criminal investigation). NASA and its OIG are no doubt correct in suggesting that the presence of a union representative at an examination will increase the likelihood that its contents will be disclosed to third parties. That possibility is, however, always present: NASA and NASAOIG identify no legal authority restricting an employee's ability to discuss the matter with others. Furthermore, an employee cannot demand the attendance of a union representative when an OIG examination does not involve reasonably apparent potential discipline for that employee. Interviewing an employee who may have information relating to agency maladministration, but who is not himself under suspicion, ordinarily will not trigger the right to union representation. Thus, a variety of OIG investigations and interviewsand many in which confidentiality concerns are heightenedwill not implicate 7114(a)(2)(B) at all. Though legitimate, NASA's and NASAOIG's confidentiality concerns are not weighty enough to justify a *244 nontextual construction of 7114(a)(2)(B) rejected by the Authority. Second, NASA and its OIG submit that, in other instances, the Authority has construed 7114(a)(2)(B) so broadly that it will impair NASAOIG's ability to perform its investigatory responsibilities. The Authority responds that it has been sensitive to agencies' investigative needs in other |
Justice Stevens | 1,999 | 16 | majority | Nasa v. Flra | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118306/nasa-v-flra/ | it has been sensitive to agencies' investigative needs in other cases, and that union representation is unrelated to OIG independence from agency interference. Whatever the propriety of the Authority's rulings in other cases, NASA and NASAOIG elected not to challenge the Authority's conclusion that the NASAOIG examiner's attempt to limit union representative participation constituted an unfair labor practice. To resolve the question presented in this case, we need not agree or disagree with the Authority's various rulings regarding the scope of 7114(a)(2)(B), nor must we consider whether the outer limits of the Authority's interpretation so obstruct the performance of an OIG's statutory responsibilities that the right must be more confined in this context.[8] In any event, the right Congress created in 7114(a)(2)(B) vindicates obvious countervailing federal policies. It provides a procedural safeguard for employees who are under investigation by their agency, and the mere existence of the right can only strengthen the morale of the federal work force. The interest in fair treatment for employees under *245 investigation is equally strong whether they are being questioned by employees in NASA's OIG or by other representatives of the agency. And, as we indicated in Weingarten, representation is not the equivalent of obstruction. See -264. In many cases the participation of a union representative will facilitate the factfinding process and a fair resolution of an agency investigationor at least Congress must have thought so. Whenever a procedural protection plays a meaningful role in an investigation, it may impose some burden on the investigators or agency managers in pursuing their mission. We must presume, however, that Congress took account of the policy concerns on both sides of the balance when it decided to enact the IGA and, on the heels of that statute, 7114(a)(2)(B).[9] *246 V Finally, NASA argues that it was error for the Authority to make NASA itself, as well as NASA's OIG, a party to the enforcement order because NASA has no authority over the manner in which NASAOIG conducts its investigations. However, our conclusion that the investigator in this case was acting as a "representative" of NASA for purposes of 7114(a)(2)(B) makes it appropriate to charge NASAOIG, as well as the parent agency to which it reports and for which it acts, with responsibility for ensuring that such investigations are conducted in compliance with the FSLMRS. NASA's Administrator retains general supervisory authority over NASA's OIG, 5 U.S. C. App. 3(a), and the remedy imposed by the Authority does not require NASA to interfere unduly with OIG prerogatives. NASA and NASAOIG offer no convincing reason to believe that the Authority's |
Justice Breyer | 2,018 | 2 | majority | Marinello v. United States | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4479379/marinello-v-united-states/ | A clause in of the Internal Revenue Code makes it a felony “corruptly or by force” to “endeavo[r] to obstruct or imped[e] the due administration of this title.” 26 U.S. C. The question here concerns the breadth of that statutory phrase. Does it cover virtually all governmental efforts to collect taxes? Or does it have a narrower scope? In our view, “due administration of [the Tax Code]” does not cover routine administrative proce- dures that are near-universally applied to all taxpayers, such as the ordinary processing of income tax returns. Rather, the clause as a whole refers to specific interference with targeted governmental tax-related proceedings, such as a particular investigation or audit. I The Internal Revenue Code provision at issue, has two substantive clauses. The first clause, which we shall call the “Officer Clause,” forbids “corruptly or by force or threats of force (including any threatening letter or communication) endeavor[ing] to intimidate or impede any officer or employee of the 2 MARINELLO v. UNITED STATES Opinion of the Court United States acting in an official capacity under [the Internal Revenue Code].” The second clause, which we shall call the “Omnibus Clause,” forbids “corruptly or by force or threats of force (including any threatening letter or communication) obstruct[ing] or imped[ing], or endeavor[ing] to obstruct or impede, the due administration of [the Internal Revenue Code].” As we said at the outset, we here consider the scope of the Omnibus Clause. (We have placed the full text of in the Appendix, infra.) Between 2004 and 2009, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) opened, then closed, then reopened an investigation into the tax activities of Carlo Marinello, the petitioner here. In 2 the Government indicted Marinello, charg- ing him with violations of several criminal tax statutes including the Omnibus Clause. In respect to the Omnibus Clause the Government claimed that Marinello had en- gaged in at least one of eight different specified activities, including “failing to maintain corporate books and rec- ords,” “failing to provide” his tax accountant “with com- plete and accurate” tax “information,” “destroying business records,” “hiding income,” and “paying employees with cash.” Before the jury retired to consider the charges, the judge instructed it that, to convict Marinello of violating the Omnibus Clause, it must find unanimously that he en- gaged in at least one of the eight practices just mentioned, that the jurors need not agree on which one, and that he did so “corruptly,” meaning “with the intent to secure an unlawful advantage or benefit, either for [himself] or for another.” App. in No. 15–2224 (CA2), p. 432. The judge, |
Justice Breyer | 2,018 | 2 | majority | Marinello v. United States | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4479379/marinello-v-united-states/ | another.” App. in No. 15–2224 (CA2), p. 432. The judge, however, did not instruct the jury that it must find that Marinello knew he was under investigation and intended Cite as: 584 U. S. (8) 3 Opinion of the Court corruptly to interfere with that investigation. The jury subsequently convicted Marinello on all counts. Marinello appealed to the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He argued, among other things, that a violation of the Omnibus Clause requires the Government to show that the defendant had tried to interfere with a “pending IRS proceeding,” such as a particular investiga- tion. Brief for Appellant in No. 15–2224, pp. 23–25. The appeals court disagreed. It held that a defendant need not possess “ ‘an awareness of a particular [IRS] action or investigation.’ ” ; alteration in original). The full Court of Appeals rejected Marinello’s petition for rehearing, two judges dissenting. 855 F.3d 455 (CA2 7). Marinello then petitioned for certiorari, asking us to decide whether the Omnibus Clause requires the Govern- ment to prove the defendant was aware of “a pending IRS action or proceeding, such as an investigation or audit,” when he “engaged in the purportedly obstructive conduct.” Pet. for Cert. i. In light of a division of opinion among the Circuits on this point, we granted the petition. Compare United (re- quiring showing of a pending proceeding), with 839 F.3d, at 221 (disagreeing with Kassouf ). II In United we interpreted a similarly worded criminal statute. That statute made it a felony “corruptly or by threats or force, or by any threatening letter or communication, [to] influ- enc[e], obstruc[t], or imped[e], or endeavo[r] to influence, obstruct, or impede, the due administration of justice.” 18 U.S. C. The statute concerned not (as here) “the due administration of ” the Internal Revenue Code but rather “the due administration of justice.” (We have 4 MARINELLO v. UNITED STATES Opinion of the Court placed the full text of in the Appendix, infra.) In interpreting that statute we pointed to earlier cases in which courts had held that the Government must prove “an intent to influence judicial or grand jury proceedings.” (citing United States v. Brown, 688 F.2d 596, 598 (CA9 1982)). We noted that some courts had imposed a “ ‘nexus’ requirement”: that the defendant’s “act must have a relationship in time, causation, or logic with the judicial proceedings.” (citing United (CA10 1993), and United 679, and n. 12 (CA3 1975)). And we adopted the same requirement. We set forth two important reasons for doing so. We wrote that we “have traditionally exercised restraint |
Justice Breyer | 2,018 | 2 | majority | Marinello v. United States | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4479379/marinello-v-united-states/ | doing so. We wrote that we “have traditionally exercised restraint in assessing the reach of a federal criminal statute, both out of deference to the prerogatives of Congress and out of concern that ‘a fair warning should be given to the world in language that the common world will understand, of what the law intends to do if a certain line is passed.’ ” ; citation omitted). Both reasons apply here with similar strength. As to Congress’ intent, the literal language of the stat- ute is neutral. The statutory words “obstruct or impede” are broad. They can refer to anything that “block[s],” “make[s] difficult,” or “hinder[s].” Black’s Law Dictionary 1246 (10th ed. 4) ; Webster’s New Interna- tional Dictionary (Webster’s) 1248 (2d ed. 1954) (impede); ; 5 Oxford English Dictionary 80 (1933) (impede); 7 But the verbs “obstruct” and “impede” suggest an object—the taxpayer must hinder a particular person or thing. Here, the object is the “due administration of this title.” The word “admin- istration” can be read literally to refer to every “[a]ct or process of administering” including every act of “manag- Cite as: 584 U. S. (8) 5 Opinion of the Court ing” or “conduct[ing]” any “office,” or “performing the executive duties of ” any “institution, business, or the like.” Webster’s 34. But the whole phrase—the due administra- tion of the Tax Code—is best viewed, like the due admin- istration of justice, as referring to only some of those acts or to some separable parts of an institution or business. Cf. –601 (concluding false state- ments made to an investigating agent, rather than a grand jury, do not support a conviction for obstruction of justice). Here statutory context confirms that the text refers to specific, targeted acts of administration. The Omnibus Clause appears in the middle of a statutory sentence that refers specifically to efforts to “intimidate or impede any officer or employee of the United States acting in an official capacity.” 26 U.S. C. The first part of the sentence also refers to “force or threats of force,” which the statute elsewhere defines as “threats of bodily harm to the officer or employee of the United States or to a member of his family.” The following subsection refers to the “forcibl[e] rescu[e]” of “any property after it shall have been seized under” the Internal Revenue Code. (b) Subsections (a) and (b) thus refer to corrupt or forceful actions taken against individual identifiable persons or property. And, in that context the Omnibus Clause logi- cally serves as a “catchall” in respect to the obstructive conduct the subsection sets |
Justice Breyer | 2,018 | 2 | majority | Marinello v. United States | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4479379/marinello-v-united-states/ | “catchall” in respect to the obstructive conduct the subsection sets forth, not as a “catchall” for every violation that interferes with what the Government describes as the “continuous, ubiquitous, and universally known” administration of the Internal Revenue Code. Brief in Opposition 9. Those who find legislative history helpful can find con- firmation of the more limited scope of the Omnibus Clause in the House and Senate Reports written when Congress first enacted the Omnibus Clause. See H. R. Rep. No. 6 MARINELLO v. UNITED STATES Opinion of the Court 1337, 83d Cong., 2d Sess. (1954); S. Rep. No. 1622, 83d Cong., 2d Sess. (1954). According to the House Report, “provides for the punishment of threats or threaten- ing acts against agents of the Internal Revenue Service, or any other officer or employee of the United States, or members of the families of such persons, on account of the performance by such agents or officers or employees of their official duties” and “will also punish the corrupt solicitation of an internal revenue employee.” H. R. Rep. No. 1337, at A426 The Senate Report also refers to the section as aimed at targeting officers and employees. It says that “covers all cases where the officer is intimidated or injured; that is, where corruptly, by force or threat of force, directly or by communication, an attempt is made to impede the administration of the internal-revenue laws.” S. Rep. No. 1622, at 147 (empha- sis added). We have found nothing in the statute’s history suggesting that Congress intended the Omnibus Clause as a catchall applicable to the entire Code including the routine processing of tax returns, receipt of tax payments, and issuance of tax refunds. Viewing the Omnibus Clause in the broader statutory context of the full Internal Revenue Code also counsels against adopting the Government’s broad reading. That is because the Code creates numerous misdemeanors, rang- ing from willful failure to furnish a required statement to employees, to failure to keep required records, to misrepresenting the number of exemptions to which an employee is entitled on IRS Form W–4, to failure to pay any tax owed, however small the amount, To interpret the Omnibus Clause as applying to all Code administration would potentially transform many, if not all, of these misdemeanor provisions into felonies, making the specific provisions redundant, or perhaps the subject matter of plea bargaining. Some overlap in crimi- nal provisions is, of course, inevitable. See, e.g., Sansone Cite as: 584 U. S. (8) 7 Opinion of the Court v. United States, (affirming conviction for tax evasion despite overlap with other |
Justice Breyer | 2,018 | 2 | majority | Marinello v. United States | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4479379/marinello-v-united-states/ | States, (affirming conviction for tax evasion despite overlap with other pro- visions). Indeed, as the dissent notes, post, at 8 (opinion of THOMAS, J.), Marinello’s preferred reading of poten- tially overlaps with another provision of federal law that criminalizes the obstruction of the “due and proper admin- istration of the law under which any pending proceeding is being had before any department or agency of the United States,” 18 U.S. C. But we have not found any case from this Court interpreting a statutory provision that would create overlap and redundancy to the degree that would result from the Government’s broad reading of —particularly when it would “ ‘render superfluous other provisions in the same enactment.’ ” Freytag v. Commissioner, (quoting Pennsyl- vania Dept. of Public 562 (1990); see also v. United States, 574 U. S. (5) (plurality opinion) (slip op., at 13). A broad interpretation would also risk the lack of fair warning and related kinds of unfairness that led this Court in to “exercise” interpretive “restraint.” See 515 U.S., ; see also at – (slip op., at 18–19); Arthur LLP v. United States, 544 U.S. 703– Interpreted broadly, the provi- sion could apply to a person who pays a babysitter $41 per week in cash without withholding taxes, see 26 CFR IRS, Publication 926, pp. 5–6 (8), leaves a large cash tip in a restaurant, fails to keep dona- tion receipts from every charity to which he or she con- tributes, or fails to provide every record to an accountant. Such an individual may sometimes believe that, in doing so, he is running the risk of having violated an IRS rule, but we sincerely doubt he would believe he is facing a potential felony prosecution for tax obstruction. Had Congress intended that outcome, it would have spoken with more clarity than it did in 8 MARINELLO v. UNITED STATES Opinion of the Court The Government argues that the need to show the defendant’s obstructive conduct was done “corruptly” will cure any overbreadth problem. But we do not see how. The Government asserts that “corruptly” means acting with “the specific intent to obtain an unlawful advantage” for the defendant or another. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 37; Yet, practically speaking, we struggle to imagine a scenario where a taxpayer would “willfully” violate the Tax Code (the mens rea requirement of various tax crimes, including misdemeanors, see, e.g., 26 U.S. C. § 7204, 7207) without intending someone to obtain an unlawful advantage. See (“Willfulness requires the Government to prove that the law imposed a duty on the defendant, that the |
Justice Breyer | 2,018 | 2 | majority | Marinello v. United States | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4479379/marinello-v-united-states/ | the law imposed a duty on the defendant, that the defendant knew of this duty, and that he voluntarily and intentionally violated that duty”) A taxpayer may know with a fair degree of certainty that her babysitter will not declare a cash payment as in- come—and, if so, a jury could readily find that the taxpayer acted to obtain an unlawful benefit for another. For the same reason, we find unconvincing the dissent’s argument that the distinction between “willfully” and “corruptly”—at least as defined by the Government—reflects any mean- ingful difference in culpability. See post, at 6–7. Neither can we rely upon prosecutorial discretion to narrow the statute’s scope. True, the Government used the Omnibus Clause only sparingly during the first few decades after its enactment. But it used the clause more often after the early 1990’s. Brief for Petitioner 9. And, at oral argument the Government told us that, where more punitive and less punitive criminal provisions both apply to a defendant’s conduct, the Government will charge a violation of the more punitive provision as long as it can readily prove that violation at trial. Tr. of Oral Arg. 46–47, 55–57; see Office of the Attorney General, Department Charging and Sentencing Policy (May 10, Cite as: 584 U. S. (8) 9 Opinion of the Court 7), online at http://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/ file/965896/download (as last visited Mar. 16, 8). Regardless, to rely upon prosecutorial discretion to narrow the otherwise wide-ranging scope of a criminal statute’s highly abstract general statutory language places great power in the hands of the prosecutor. Doing so risks allowing “policemen, prosecutors, and juries to pursue their personal predilections,” Smith v. Goguen, 415 U.S. 566, 575 (1974), which could result in the nonuniform execution of that power across time and geographic loca- tion. And insofar as the public fears arbitrary prosecution, it risks undermining necessary confidence in the criminal justice system. That is one reason why we have said that we “cannot construe a criminal statute on the assumption that the Government will ‘use it responsibly.’ ” McDonnell v. United States, 579 U. S. (slip op., at 23) ). And it is why “[w]e have traditionally exercised restraint in assessing the reach of a federal criminal stat- ute.” III In sum, we follow the approach we have taken in similar cases in interpreting ’s Omnibus Clause. To be sure, the language and history of the provision at issue here differ somewhat from that of other obstruction provi- sions we have considered in the past. See (interpreting a statute prohibiting the obstruction of “the due administration of justice”); Arthur (interpreting |
Justice Breyer | 2,018 | 2 | majority | Marinello v. United States | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4479379/marinello-v-united-states/ | the obstruction of “the due administration of justice”); Arthur (interpreting a statute prohibiting the destruction of an object with intent to impair its integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding); (interpreting a statute prohibiting the destruction, concealment, or cover- ing up of any “record, document, or tangible object with the intent to” obstruct the “investigation or proper admin- istration of any matter within the jurisdiction of any 10 MARINELLO v. UNITED STATES Opinion of the Court department or agency of the United States”). The Gov- ernment and the dissent urge us to ignore these prece- dents because of those differences. The dissent points out, for example, that the predecessor to the obstruction stat- ute we interpreted in 18 U.S. C. prohibited influencing, intimidating, or impeding “any witness or officer in any court of the United States” or endeavoring “to obstruct or imped[e] the due administration of justice therein.” (1893) (citing Rev. Stat. emphasis added); see post, at 9. But Congress subsequently deleted the word “there- in,” leaving only a broadly worded prohibition against obstruction of “the due administration of justice.” Act of June 25, 1948, –770. Congress then used that same amended formulation when it enacted prohibiting the “obstruction of the due administra- tion” of the Tax Code. Internal Revenue Code of 1954, 68A Stat. 855. Given this similarity, it is helpful to consider how we have interpreted and other obstruction statutes in considering The language of some and the underlying principles of all these cases are similar. We consequently find these precedents—though not con- trolling—highly instructive for use as a guide toward a proper resolution of the issue now before us. See Smith v. City of Jackson, We conclude that, to secure a conviction under the Omnibus Clause, the Government must show (among other things) that there is a “nexus” between the defend- ant’s conduct and a particular administrative proceeding, such as an investigation, an audit, or other targeted ad- ministrative action. That nexus requires a “relationship in time, causation, or logic with the [administrative] pro- ceeding.” 515 U.S., (citing Wood, 6 F.3d, at ). By “particular administrative proceeding” we do not mean every act carried out by IRS employees in the course of their “continuous, ubiquitous, and universally Cite as: 584 U. S. (8) 11 Opinion of the Court known” administration of the Tax Code. Brief in Opposi- tion 9. While we need not here exhaustively itemize the types of administrative conduct that fall within the scope of the statute, that conduct does not include routine, day- to-day work carried out in the ordinary course by |
Justice Breyer | 2,018 | 2 | majority | Marinello v. United States | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4479379/marinello-v-united-states/ | day- to-day work carried out in the ordinary course by the IRS, such as the review of tax returns. The Government con- tends the processing of tax returns is part of the admin- istration of the Internal Revenue Code and any corrupt effort to interfere with that task can therefore serve as the basis of an obstruction conviction. But the same could have been said of the defendant’s effort to mislead the investigating agent in The agent’s investigation was, at least in some broad sense, a part of the admin- istration of justice. But we nevertheless held the defend- ant’s conduct did not support an obstruction charge. 515 U.S., In light of our decision in we find it appropriate to construe ’s Omnibus Clause more narrowly than the Government proposes. Just because a taxpayer knows that the IRS will review her tax return every year does not transform every violation of the Tax Code into an obstruction charge. In addition to satisfying this nexus requirement, the Government must show that the proceeding was pending at the time the defendant engaged in the obstructive conduct or, at the least, was then reasonably foreseeable by the defendant. See Arthur 707–708 (requiring the Government to prove a proceeding was foreseeable in order to convict a defendant for per- suading others to shred documents to prevent their “use in an official proceeding”). It is not enough for the Govern- ment to claim that the defendant knew the IRS may catch on to his unlawful scheme eventually. To use a maritime analogy, the proceeding must at least be in the offing. For these reasons, the Second Circuit’s judgment is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. It is so ordered. 12 MARINELLO v. UNITED STATES Opinion Appendix of the of to opinion Court the Court APPENDIX 26 U.S. C. : “Attempts to interfere with admin- istration of internal revenue laws “(a) Corrupt or forcible interference “Whoever corruptly or by force or threats of force (in- cluding any threatening letter or communication) endeav- ors to intimidate or impede any officer or employee of the United States acting in an official capacity under this title, or in any other way corruptly or by force or threats of force (including any threatening letter or communication) ob- structs or impedes, or endeavors to obstruct or impede, the due administration of this title, shall, upon conviction thereof, be fined not more than $5,000, or imprisoned not more than 3 years, or both, except that if the offense is committed only by threats of force, |
Justice Breyer | 2,018 | 2 | majority | Marinello v. United States | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4479379/marinello-v-united-states/ | if the offense is committed only by threats of force, the person convicted thereof shall be fined not more than $3,000, or imprisoned not more than 1 year, or both. The term ‘threats of force’, as used in this subsection, means threats of bodily harm to the officer or employee of the United States or to a mem- ber of his family. “(b) Forcible rescue of seized property “Any person who forcibly rescues or causes to be rescued any property after it shall have been seized under this title, or shall attempt or endeavor so to do, shall, excepting in cases otherwise provided for, for every such offense, be fined not more than $500, or not more than double the value of the property so rescued, whichever is the greater, or be imprisoned not more than 2 years.” 18 U.S. C. : “Influencing or injuring officer or juror generally “(a) Whoever corruptly, or by threats or force, or by any Cite as: 584 U. S. (8) 13 Opinion Appendix of the of to opinion Court the Court threatening letter or communication, endeavors to influ- ence, intimidate, or impede any grand or petit juror, or officer in or of any court of the United States, or officer who may be serving at any examination or other proceed- ing before any United States magistrate judge or other committing magistrate, in the discharge of his duty, or injures any such grand or petit juror in his person or property on account of any verdict or indictment assented to by him, or on account of his being or having been such juror, or injures any such officer, magistrate judge, or other committing magistrate in his person or property on account of the performance of his official duties, or cor- ruptly or by threats or force, or by any threatening letter or communication, influences, obstructs, or impedes, or endeavors to influence, obstruct, or impede, the due ad- ministration of justice, shall be punished as provided in subsection (b). If the offense under this section occurs in connection with a trial of a criminal case, and the act in violation of this section involves the threat of physical force or physical force, the maximum term of imprison- ment which may be imposed for the offense shall be the higher of that otherwise provided by law or the maximum term that could have been imposed for any offense charged in such case. “(b) The punishment for an offense under this section is— “(1) in the case of a killing, the punishment provided in sections 1111 and 1112; |
Justice Powell | 1,983 | 17 | majority | Brown v. Thomson | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110983/brown-v-thomson/ | The issue is whether the State of Wyoming violated the Equal Protection Clause by allocating one of the 64 seats in its House of Representatives to a county the population of which is considerably lower than the average population per state representative. I Since Wyoming became a State in 1890, its legislature has consisted of a Senate and a House of Representatives. The State's Constitution provides that each of the State's counties "shall constitute a senatorial and representative district" and that "[e]ach county shall have at least one senator and one representative." The senators and representatives are required to be "apportioned among the said counties as nearly as may be according to the number of their inhabitants." Wyo. Const., Art. 3, 3.[1] The State has had 23 counties since 1922. Because the apportionment of the Wyoming House has been challenged three times in the past 20 years, some background is helpful. In 1963 voters from the six most populous counties filed suit in the District Court for the District of Wyoming challenging the apportionment of the State's 2 senators and 61 representatives. The three-judge District Court held that the apportionment of the Senate one senator allocated to each of the State's 23 counties, with the two largest counties having two senators so far departed from the principle of population equality that it was unconstitutional. supplemented, *838 aff'd sub nom.[2] But the court upheld the apportionment of the State House of Representatives. The State's constitutional requirement that each county shall have at least one representative had produced deviations from population equality: the average deviation from the ideal number of residents per representative was 16%, while the maximum percentage deviation between largest and smallest number of residents per representative was 90%. See 1 App. Exhibits 16. The District Court held that these population disparities were justifiable as "the result of an honest attempt, based on legitimate considerations, to effectuate a rational and practical policy for the house of representatives under conditions as they exist in Wyoming." The 1971 reapportionment of the House was similar to that in 1963, with an average deviation of 1% and a maximum deviation of 86%. 1 App. Exhibits 18. Another constitutional challenge was brought in the District Court. The three-judge court again upheld the apportionment of the House, observing that only "five minimal adjustments" had been made since 1963, with three districts gaining a representative and two districts losing a representative because of population shifts. The present case is a challenge to Wyoming's 1981 statute reapportioning its House of Representatives in accordance with the requirements |
Justice Powell | 1,983 | 17 | majority | Brown v. Thomson | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110983/brown-v-thomson/ | reapportioning its House of Representatives in accordance with the requirements of Art. 3, 3, of the State Constitution. Wyo. Stat. 28-2-109 (Supp. 1983).[3] The 1980 census *839 placed Wyoming's population at 469,7. The statute provided for 64 representatives, meaning that the ideal apportionment would be 7,337 persons per representative. Each county was given one representative, including the six counties the population of which fell below 7,337. The deviations from population equality were similar to those in prior decades, with an average deviation of 16% and a maximum deviation of 89%. See 1 App. Exhibits 19-20. The issue in this case concerns only Niobrara County, the State's least populous county. Its population of 2,924 is less than half of the ideal district of 7,337. Accordingly, the general statutory formula would have dictated that its population for purposes of representation be rounded down to zero. See 28-2-109(a)(ii). This would have deprived Niobrara County of its own representative for the first time since it became a county in 1913. The state legislature found, however, that "the opportunity for oppression of the people of this state or any of them is greater if any county is deprived a representative in the legislature than if each is guaranteed at least one (1) representative."[4] It therefore followed the *840 State Constitution's requirement and expressly provided that a county would receive a representative even if the statutory formula rounded the county's population to zero. 28-2-109(a)(iii). Niobrara County thus was given one seat in a 64-seat House. The legislature also provided that if this representation for Niobrara County were held unconstitutional, it would be combined with a neighboring county in a single representative district. The House then would consist of 63 representatives. 28-2-109(a)(iv). Appellants, members of the state League of Women Voters and residents of seven counties in which the population per representative is greater than the state average, filed this lawsuit in the District Court for the District of Wyoming. They alleged that "[b]y granting Niobrara County a representative to which it is not statutorily entitled, the voting privileges of Plaintiffs and other citizens and electors of Wyoming similarly situated have been improperly and illegally diluted in violation of the 14th Amendment" App. 3-4. They sought declaratory and injunctive relief that would prevent the State from giving a separate representative to Niobrara *841 County, thus implementing the alternative plan calling for 63 representatives. The three-judge District Court upheld the constitutionality of the statute. The court noted that the narrow issue presented was the alleged discriminatory effect of a single county's representative, and concluded, citing expert testimony, that |
Justice Powell | 1,983 | 17 | majority | Brown v. Thomson | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110983/brown-v-thomson/ | a single county's representative, and concluded, citing expert testimony, that "the `dilution' of the plaintiffs' votes is de minimis when Niobrara County has its own representative." The court also found that Wyoming's policy of granting a representative to each county was rational and, indeed, particularly well suited to the special needs of Wyoming.[] We noted probable jurisdiction, and now affirm. *842 II A In the Court held that "the Equal Protection Clause requires that the seats in both houses of a bicameral state legislature must be apportioned on a population basis." This holding requires only "that a State make an honest and good faith effort to construct districts as nearly of equal population as is practicable," for "it is a practical impossibility to arrange legislative districts so that each one has an identical number of residents, or citizens, or voters." See We have recognized that some deviations from population equality may be necessary to permit the States to pursue other legitimate objectives such as "maintain[ing] the integrity of various political subdivisions" and "provid[ing] for compact districts of contiguous territory." As the Court stated in Gaffney, "[a]n unrealistic overemphasis on raw population figures, a mere nose count in the districts, may submerge these other considerations and itself furnish a ready tool for ignoring factors that in day-to-day operation are important to an acceptable representation and apportionment arrangement." In view of these considerations, we have held that "minor deviations from mathematical equality among state legislative districts are insufficient to make out a prima facie case of invidious discrimination under the Fourteenth Amendment so as to require justification by the State." Our decisions have established, as a general matter, that an apportionment plan with a maximum population deviation under 10% falls within this category of minor deviations. See, e. g., ; A plan with larger *843 disparities in population, however, creates a prima facie case of discrimination and therefore must be justified by the State. See ("De minimis deviations are unavoidable, but variations of 30% among senate districts and 40% among house districts can hardly be deemed de minimis and none of our cases suggests that differences of this magnitude will be approved without a satisfactory explanation grounded on acceptable state policy"). The ultimate inquiry, therefore, is whether the legislature's plan "may reasonably be said to advance [a] rational state policy" and, if so, "whether the population disparities among the districts that have resulted from the pursuit of this plan exceed constitutional limits." B In this case there is no question that Niobrara County's deviation from population equality 60% below the mean |
Justice Powell | 1,983 | 17 | majority | Brown v. Thomson | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110983/brown-v-thomson/ | County's deviation from population equality 60% below the mean is more than minor. There also can be no question that Wyoming's constitutional policy followed since statehood of using counties as representative districts and ensuring that each county has one representative is supported by substantial and legitimate state concerns. In the Court held that "a desire to preserve the integrity of political subdivisions may justify an apportionment plan which departs from numerical equality." See Indeed, the Court in singled out preservation of political subdivisions as a clearly legitimate policy. See -81. Moreover, it is undisputed that Wyoming has applied this factor in a manner "free from any taint of arbitrariness or discrimination." The State's policy of preserving county boundaries is based on the State Constitution, has been followed for decades, and has been applied consistently throughout the State. As the *844 District Court found, this policy has particular force, given the peculiar size and population of the State and the nature of its governmental structure. See n. 36 F. Supp., In addition, population equality is the sole other criterion used, and the State's apportionment formula ensures that population deviations are no greater than necessary to preserve counties as representative districts. See Finally, there is no evidence of "a built-in bias tending to favor particular political interests or geographic areas." As Judge Doyle stated below: "[T]here is not the slightest sign of any group of people being discriminated against here. There is no indication that the larger cities or towns are being discriminated against; on the contrary, Cheyenne, Laramie, Casper, Sheridan, are not shown to have suffered in the slightest. degree. There has been no preference for the cattle-raising or agricultural areas as such." 36 F. Supp., at 788 In short, this case presents an unusually strong example of an apportionment plan the population variations of which are entirely the result of the consistent and nondiscriminatory application of a legitimate state policy.[6] This does not mean *84 that population deviations of any magnitude necessarily are acceptable. Even a neutral and consistently applied criterion such as use of counties as representative districts can frustrate ' mandate of fair and effective representation if the population disparities are excessively high.[7] "[A] State's policy urged in justification of disparity in district population, however rational, cannot constitutionally be permitted to emasculate the goal of substantial equality." It remains true, however, as the Court in noted, that consideration must be given "to the character as well as the degree of deviations from a strict population basis." 377 U.S., at 81. The consistency of application |
Justice Powell | 1,983 | 17 | majority | Brown v. Thomson | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110983/brown-v-thomson/ | population basis." 377 U.S., at 81. The consistency of application and the neutrality of effect of the *846 nonpopulation criteria must be considered along with the size of the population disparities in determining whether a state legislative apportionment plan contravenes the Equal Protection Clause. C Here we are not required to decide whether Wyoming's nondiscriminatory adherence to county boundaries justifies the population deviations that exist throughout Wyoming's representative districts. Appellants deliberately have limited their challenge to the alleged dilution of their voting power resulting from the one representative given to Niobrara County.[8] The issue therefore is not whether a 16% average deviation and an 89% maximum deviation, considering the state apportionment plan as a whole, are constitutionally permissible. Rather, the issue is whether Wyoming's policy of preserving county boundaries justifies the additional deviations from population equality resulting from the provision of representation to Niobrara County.[9] *847 It scarcely can be denied that in terms of actual effect on appellants' voting power, it matters little whether the 63-member or 64-member House is used. The District Court noted, for example, that the seven counties in which appellants reside will elect 28 representatives under either plan. The only difference, therefore, is whether they elect 43.7% of the legislature (28 of 64 members) or 44.44% of the legislature (28 of 63 members). 36 F. Supp.,[10] The District Court aptly described this difference as "de minimis." We do not suggest that a State is free to create and allocate an additional representative seat in any way it chooses simply because that additional seat will have little or no effect on the remainder of the State's voters. The allocation of a representative to a particular political subdivision still may violate the Equal Protection Clause if it greatly exceeds the population variations existing in the rest of the State and if the State provides no legitimate justifications for the creation of that seat. Here, however, considerable population variations will remain even if Niobrara County's representative is eliminated. Under the 63-member plan, the average deviation per representative would be 13% and the maximum deviation would be 66%. See 1 App. Exhibits 22. These statistics make clear that the grant of a representative to Niobrara County is not a significant cause of the population deviations that exist in Wyoming. Moreover, we believe that the differences between the two plans are justified on the basis of Wyoming's longstanding and legitimate policy of preserving county boundaries. See at 841, n. and 843-844. Particularly where there is no "taint of arbitrariness or discrimination," 377 U. S., at substantial deference is to be |
Justice Stevens | 1,984 | 16 | majority | United States v. Cronic | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111169/united-states-v-cronic/ | Respondent and two associates were indicted on mail fraud charges involving the transfer of over $9,400,000 in checks between banks in Tampa, Fla., and Norman, Okla., during a 4-month period in 1975. Shortly before the scheduled trial date, respondent's retained counsel withdrew. The court appointed a young lawyer with a real estate practice to represent respondent, but allowed him only 25 days for pretrial preparation, even though it had taken the Government over four and one-half years to investigate the case and it had reviewed thousands of documents during that investigation. The two codefendants agreed to testify for the Government; *650 respondent was convicted on 11 of the 1 counts in the indictment and received a 25-year sentence. The Court of Appeals reversed the conviction because it concluded that respondent did not "have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence" that is guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution.[1] This conclusion was not supported by a determination that respondent's trial counsel had made any specified errors, that his actual performance had prejudiced the defense, or that he failed to exercise "the skill, judgment, and diligence of a reasonably competent defense attorney"; instead the conclusion rested on the premise that no such showing is necessary "when circumstances hamper a given lawyer's preparation of a defendant's case."[2] The question presented by the Government's petition for certiorari is whether the Court of Appeals has correctly interpreted the Sixth Amendment. I The indictment alleged a "check kiting" scheme.[] At the direction of respondent, his codefendant Cummings opened a bank account in the name of Skyproof Manufacturing, Inc. (Skyproof), at a bank in Tampa, Fla., and codefendant Merritt opened two accounts, one in his own name and one in the name of Skyproof, at banks in Norman, Okla.[4] Knowing that there were insufficient funds in either account, the defendants allegedly drew a series of checks and wire transfers on the Tampa account aggregating $4,841,07.95, all of which were deposited in Skyproof's Norman bank account during the period between June 2, 1975, and October 16, 1975; *651 during approximately the same period they drew checks on Skyproof's Norman account for deposits in Tampa aggregating $4,600,881.9. The process of clearing the checks involved the use of the mails. By "kiting" insufficient funds checks between the banks in those two cities, defendants allegedly created false or inflated balances in the accounts. After outlining the overall scheme, Count I of the indictment alleged the mailing of two checks each for less than $1,000 early in May. Each of the additional 12 counts realleged the allegations in Count I |
Justice Stevens | 1,984 | 16 | majority | United States v. Cronic | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111169/united-states-v-cronic/ | the additional 12 counts realleged the allegations in Count I except its reference to the two specific checks, and then added an allegation identifying other checks issued and mailed at later dates. At trial the Government proved that Skyproof's checks were issued and deposited at the times and places, and in the amounts, described in the indictment. Having made plea bargains with defendants Cummings and Merritt, who had actually handled the issuance and delivery of the relevant written instruments, the Government proved through their testimony that respondent had conceived and directed the entire scheme, and that he had deliberately concealed his connection with Skyproof because of prior financial and tax problems. After the District Court ruled that a prior conviction could be used to impeach his testimony, respondent decided not to testify. Counsel put on no defense. By cross-examination of Government witnesses, however, he established that Skyproof was not merely a sham, but actually was an operating company with a significant cash flow, though its revenues were not sufficient to justify as large a "float" as the record disclosed. Cross-examination also established the absence of written evidence that respondent had any control over Skyproof, or personally participated in the withdrawals or deposits.[5] *652 The 4-day jury trial ended on July 17, and respondent was sentenced on August 28, His counsel perfected a timely appeal, which was docketed on September 11, Two months later respondent filed a motion to substitute a new attorney in the Court of Appeals, and also filed a motion in the District Court seeking to vacate his conviction on the ground that he had newly discovered evidence of perjury by officers of the Norman bank, and that the Government knew or should have known of that perjury. In that motion he also challenged the competence of his trial counsel.[6] The District Court refused to entertain the motion while the appeal was pending. The Court of Appeals denied the motion to substitute the attorney designated by respondent, but did appoint still another attorney to handle the appeal. Later it allowed respondent's motion to supplement the record with material critical of trial counsel's performance. The Court of Appeals reversed the conviction because it inferred that respondent's constitutional right to the effective assistance of counsel had been violated. That inference was based on its use of five criteria: " `(1) [T]he time afforded for investigation and preparation; (2) the experience of counsel; () the gravity of the charge; (4) the complexity of possible defenses; and (5) the accessibility of witnesses to counsel.' " Under the test employed by the Court |
Justice Stevens | 1,984 | 16 | majority | United States v. Cronic | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111169/united-states-v-cronic/ | to counsel.' " Under the test employed by the Court of Appeals, reversal is required even if *65 the lawyer's actual performance was flawless. By utilizing this inferential approach, the Court of Appeals erred. II An accused's right to be represented by counsel is a fundamental component of our criminal justice system. Lawyers in criminal cases "are necessities, not luxuries."[7] Their presence is essential because they are the means through which the other rights of the person on trial are secured. Without counsel, the right to a trial itself would be "of little avail,"[8] as *654 this Court has recognized repeatedly.[9] "Of all the rights that an accused person has, the right to be represented by counsel is by far the most pervasive for it affects his ability to assert any other rights he may have."[10] The special value of the right to the assistance of counsel explains why "[i]t has long been recognized that the right to counsel is the right to the effective assistance of counsel." The text of the Sixth Amendment itself suggests as much. The Amendment requires not merely the provision of counsel to the accused, but "Assistance," which is to be "for his defence." Thus, "the core purpose of the counsel guarantee was to assure `Assistance' at trial, when the accused was confronted with both the intricacies of the law and the advocacy of the public prosecutor." United If no actual "Assistance" "for" the accused's "defence" is provided, then the constitutional guarantee has been violated.[11] To hold otherwise "could convert the appointment of counsel into a sham and nothing more than a formal compliance with the Constitution's requirement that an accused be given the assistance of counsel. The Constitution's guarantee of *655 assistance of counsel cannot be satisfied by mere formal appointment." Thus, in McMann the Court indicated that the accused is entitled to "a reasonably competent attorney," whose advice is "within the range of competence demanded of attorneys in criminal cases."[12] In U.S. 5 we held that the Constitution guarantees an accused "adequate legal assistance." And in the Court referred to the criminal defendant's constitutional guarantee of "a fair trial and a competent attorney." The substance of the Constitution's guarantee of the effective assistance of counsel is illuminated by reference to its underlying purpose. "[T]ruth," Lord Eldon said, "is best discovered by powerful statements on both sides of the question."[1] This dictum describes the unique strength of our system of criminal justice. "The very premise of our adversary system of criminal justice is that partisan advocacy on both sides of a case will best |
Justice Stevens | 1,984 | 16 | majority | United States v. Cronic | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111169/united-states-v-cronic/ | partisan advocacy on both sides of a case will best promote the ultimate objective that the guilty be convicted and the innocent go free."[14] It is that "very premise" that underlies and gives meaning to the Sixth *656 Amendment.[15] It "is meant to assure fairness in the adversary criminal process." United Unless the accused receives the effective assistance of counsel, "a serious risk of injustice infects the trial itself." U. S., at 4.[16] Thus, the adversarial process protected by the Sixth Amendment requires that the accused have "counsel acting in the role of an advocate."[17] The right to the effective assistance of counsel is thus the right of the accused to require the prosecution's case to survive the crucible of meaningful adversarial testing. When a true adversarial criminal trial has been conducted even if defense counsel may have made demonstrable errors[18] the kind of testing envisioned by the Sixth Amendment has occurred.[19] But if the process loses *657 its character as a confrontation between adversaries, the constitutional guarantee is violated.[20] As Judge Wyzanski has written: "While a criminal trial is not a game in which the participants are expected to enter the ring with a near match in skills, neither is it a sacrifice of unarmed prisoners to gladiators." United States ex rel. (CA7), cert. denied sub nom.[21] III While the Court of Appeals purported to apply a standard of reasonable competence, it did not indicate that there had been an actual breakdown of the adversarial process during *658 the trial of this case. Instead it concluded that the circumstances surrounding the representation of respondent mandated an inference that counsel was unable to discharge his duties. In our evaluation of that conclusion, we begin by recognizing that the right to the effective assistance of counsel is recognized not for its own sake, but because of the effect it has on the ability of the accused to receive a fair trial. Absent some effect of challenged conduct on the reliability of the trial process, the Sixth Amendment guarantee is generally not implicated. See United ; United 449 U. S., at -65;[22] Moreover, because we presume that the lawyer is competent to provide the guiding hand that the defendant needs, see the burden rests on the accused to demonstrate a constitutional violation.[2] There are, however, circumstances that are so likely to prejudice the accused that the cost of litigating their effect in a particular case is unjustified.[24] *659 Most obvious, of course, is the complete denial of counsel. The presumption that counsel's assistance is essential requires us to conclude that |
Justice Stevens | 1,984 | 16 | majority | United States v. Cronic | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111169/united-states-v-cronic/ | that counsel's assistance is essential requires us to conclude that a trial is unfair if the accused is denied counsel at a critical stage of his trial.[25] Similarly, if counsel entirely fails to subject the prosecution's case to meaningful adversarial testing, then there has been a denial of Sixth Amendment rights that makes the adversary process itself presumptively unreliable. No specific showing of prejudice was required in because the petitioner had been "denied the right of effective cross-examination" which " `would be constitutional error of the first magnitude and no amount of showing of want of prejudice would cure it.' " at 18 and ).[26] Circumstances of that magnitude may be present on some occasions when although counsel is available to assist the accused during trial, the likelihood that any lawyer, even a *660 fully competent one, could provide effective assistance is so small that a presumption of prejudice is appropriate without inquiry into the actual conduct of the trial. (192), was such a case. The defendants had been indicted for a highly publicized capital offense. Six days before trial, the trial judge appointed "all the members of the bar" for purposes of arraignment. "Whether they would represent the defendants thereafter if no counsel appeared in their behalf, was a matter of speculation only, or, as the judge indicated, of mere anticipation on the part of the court." On the day of trial, a lawyer from Tennessee appeared on behalf of persons "interested" in the defendants, but stated that he had not had an opportunity to prepare the case or to familiarize himself with local procedure, and therefore was unwilling to represent the defendants on such short notice. The problem was resolved when the court decided that the Tennessee lawyer would represent the defendants, with whatever help the local bar could provide. "The defendants, young, ignorant, illiterate, surrounded by hostile sentiment, haled back and forth under guard of soldiers, charged with an atrocious crime regarded with especial horror in the community where they were to be tried, were thus put in peril of their lives within a few moments after counsel for the first time charged with any degree of responsibility began to represent them." This Court held that "such designation of counsel as was attempted was either so indefinite or so close upon the trial as to amount to a denial of effective and substantial aid in that regard." at 5. The Court did not examine the actual performance of counsel at trial, but instead concluded that under these circumstances the likelihood that counsel could have performed as an |
Justice Stevens | 1,984 | 16 | majority | United States v. Cronic | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111169/united-states-v-cronic/ | circumstances the likelihood that counsel could have performed as an effective adversary was so remote *661 as to have made the trial inherently unfair.[27]Powell was thus a case in which the surrounding circumstances made it so unlikely that any lawyer could provide effective assistance that ineffectiveness was properly presumed without inquiry into actual performance at trial.[28] But every refusal to postpone a criminal trial will not give rise to such a presumption. In counsel was appointed in a capital case only three days before trial, and the trial court denied counsel's request for additional time to prepare. Nevertheless, the Court held that since evidence and witnesses were easily accessible to defense counsel, the circumstances did not make it unreasonable to expect that counsel could adequately prepare for trial during that period of time, at 450-45.[29] Similarly, in 99 U.S. 42 the Court refused "to fashion a per se rule requiring reversal of every conviction following tardy appointment of counsel."[0]*662 Thus, only when surrounding circumstances justify a presumption of ineffectiveness can a Sixth Amendment claim be sufficient without inquiry into counsel's actual performance at trial.[1] The Court of Appeals did not find that respondent was denied the presence of counsel at a critical stage of the prosecution. Nor did it find, based on the actual conduct of the trial, that there was a breakdown in the adversarial process that would justify a presumption that respondent's conviction was insufficiently reliable to satisfy the Constitution. The dispositive question in this case therefore is whether the circumstances surrounding respondent's representation and in particular the five criteria identified by the Court of Appeals justified such a presumption.[2] *66 IV The five factors listed in the Court of Appeals' opinion are relevant to an evaluation of a lawyer's effectiveness in a particular case, but neither separately nor in combination do they provide a basis for concluding that competent counsel was not able to provide this respondent with the guiding hand that the Constitution guarantees. Respondent places special stress on the disparity between the duration of the Government's investigation and the period the District Court allowed to newly appointed counsel for trial preparation. The lawyer was appointed to represent respondent on June 12, and on June 19, filed a written motion for a continuance of the trial that was then scheduled to begin on June 0. Although counsel contended that he needed at least 0 days for preparation, the District Court reset the trial for July 14 thus allowing 25 additional days for preparation. Neither the period of time that the Government spent investigating |
Justice Stevens | 1,984 | 16 | majority | United States v. Cronic | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111169/united-states-v-cronic/ | Neither the period of time that the Government spent investigating the case, nor the number of documents that its agents reviewed during that investigation, is necessarily relevant to the question whether a competent lawyer could prepare to defend the case in 25 days. The Government's task of finding and assembling admissible evidence that will carry its burden of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt is entirely different from the defendant's task in preparing to deny or rebut a criminal charge. Of course, in some cases the rebuttal may be equally burdensome and time consuming, but there is no necessary correlation between the two. In this case, the time devoted by the Government to the assembly, organization, and summarization of the thousands of written records evidencing the two streams of checks flowing between the banks in Florida and Oklahoma unquestionably simplified the work of defense counsel in identifying and understanding *664 the basic character of the defendants' scheme.[] When a series of repetitious transactions fit into a single mold, the number of written exhibits that are needed to define the pattern may be unrelated to the time that is needed to understand it. The significance of counsel's preparation time is further reduced by the nature of the charges against respondent. Most of the Government's case consisted merely of establishing the transactions between the two banks. A competent attorney would have no reason to question the authenticity, accuracy, or relevance of this evidence there could be no dispute that these transactions actually occurred.[4] As respondent appears to recognize,[5] the only bona fide jury issue open to competent defense counsel on these facts was whether respondent acted with intent to defraud.[6] When *665 there is no reason to dispute the underlying historical facts, the period of 25 days to consider the question whether those facts justify an inference of criminal intent is not so short that it even arguably justifies a presumption that no lawyer could provide the respondent with the effective assistance of counsel required by the Constitution.[7] That conclusion is not undermined by the fact that respondent's lawyer was young, that his principal practice was in real estate, or that this was his first jury trial. Every experienced criminal defense attorney once tried his first criminal case. Moreover, a lawyer's experience with real estate transactions might be more useful in preparing to try a criminal case involving financial transactions than would prior experience in handling, for example, armed robbery prosecutions. The character of a particular lawyer's experience may shed light in an evaluation of his actual performance, but it does |
Justice Stevens | 1,984 | 16 | majority | United States v. Cronic | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111169/united-states-v-cronic/ | in an evaluation of his actual performance, but it does not justify a presumption of ineffectiveness in the absence of such an evaluation.[8] *666 The three other criteria the gravity of the charge, the complexity of the case, and the accessibility of witnesses[9] are all matters that may affect what a reasonably competent attorney could be expected to have done under the circumstances, but none identifies circumstances that in themselves make it unlikely that respondent received the effective assistance of counsel.[40] V This case is not one in which the surrounding circumstances make it unlikely that the defendant could have received the effective assistance of counsel. The criteria used by the Court of Appeals do not demonstrate that counsel failed to function in any meaningful sense as the Government's adversary. Respondent can therefore make out a claim of ineffective assistance only by pointing to specific errors made by trial counsel.[41] In this Court, respondent's present counsel argues that the record would support such an attack, but we leave that claim as well as the other alleged trial errors raised by respondent which were not passed upon *667 by the Court of Appeals for the consideration of the Court of Appeals on remand.[42] The judgment is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. It is so ordered. JUSTICE MARSHALL concurs in the judgment. |
Justice Thomas | 1,998 | 1 | majority | United States v. Scheffer | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118191/united-states-v-scheffer/ | This case presents the question whether Military Rule of 707, which makes polygraph evidence inadmissible in court-martial proceedings, unconstitutionally abridges the right of accused members of the military to present a defense. We hold that it does not. I In March 1992, respondent Edward Scheffer, an airman stationed at March Air Force Base in California, volunteered to work as an informant on drug investigations for the Air Force Office of Special Investigations (OSI). His OSI supervisors advised him that, from time to time during the course of his undercover work, they would ask him to submit to drug testing and polygraph examinations. In early April, *306 one of the OSI agents supervising respondent requested that he submit to a urine test. Shortly after providing the urine sample, but before the results of the test were known, respondent agreed to take a polygraph test administered by an OSI examiner. In the opinion of the examiner, the test "indicated no deception" when respondent denied using drugs since joining the Air Force.[1] On April 30, respondent unaccountably failed to appear for work and could not be found on the base. He was absent without leave until May 13, when an Iowa state patrolman arrested him following a routine traffic stop and held him for return to the base. OSI agents later learned that respondent's urinalysis revealed the presence of methamphetamine. Respondent was tried by general court-martial on charges of using methamphetamine, failing to go to his appointed place of duty, wrongfully absenting himself from the base for 13 days, and, with respect to an unrelated matter, uttering 17 insufficient funds checks. He testified at trial on his own behalf, relying upon an "innocent ingestion" theory and denying that he had knowingly used drugs while working for OSI. On cross-examination, the prosecution attempted to impeach respondent with inconsistencies between his trial testimony and earlier statements he had made to OSI. Respondent sought to introduce the polygraph evidence in support of his testimony that he did not knowingly use drugs. The military judge denied the motion, relying on Military Rule of 707, which provides, in relevant part: "(a) Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the results of a polygraph examination, the opinion of a polygraph examiner, or any reference to an offer to take, *307 failure to take, or taking of a polygraph examination, shall not be admitted into evidence." The military judge determined that Rule 707 was constitutional because "the President may, through the Rules of determine that credibility is not an area in which a fact finder needs help, and the polygraph is |
Justice Thomas | 1,998 | 1 | majority | United States v. Scheffer | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118191/united-states-v-scheffer/ | which a fact finder needs help, and the polygraph is not a process that has sufficient scientific acceptability to be relevant."[2] App. 28. He further reasoned that the fact finder might give undue weight to the polygraph examiner's testimony, and that collateral arguments about such evidence could consume "an inordinate amount of time and expense." Respondent was convicted on all counts and was sentenced to a bad-conduct discharge, confinement for 30 months, total forfeiture of all pay and allowances, and reduction to the lowest enlisted grade. The Air Force Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed in all material respects, explaining that Rule 707 "does not arbitrarily limit the accused's ability to present reliable evidence." By a 3-to-2 vote, the United s Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces reversed. Without pointing to any particular language in the Sixth Amendment, the Court of Appeals held that "[a] per se exclusion of polygraph evidence offered by an accused to rebut an attack on his credibility violates his Sixth Amendment right to present a defense."[3] Judge Crawford, dissenting, *308 stressed that a defendant's right to present relevant evidence is not absolute, that relevant evidence can be excluded for valid reasons, and that Rule 707 was supported by a number of valid justifications. We granted certiorari, and we now reverse. II A defendant's right to present relevant evidence is not unlimited, but rather is subject to reasonable restrictions.[4] See ; ; U.S. 284, A defendant's interest in presenting such evidence may thus "`bow to accommodate other legitimate interests in the criminal trial process.' " at (quoting at ); accord, As a result, state and federal rulemakers have broad latitude under the Constitution to establish rules excluding evidence from criminal trials. Such rules do not abridge an accused's right to present a defense so long as they are not "arbitrary" or "disproportionate to the purposes they are designed to serve." ; accord, Moreover, we have found the exclusion of evidence to be unconstitutionally arbitrary or disproportionate only where it has infringed upon a weighty interest of the accused. See ; ; *309 Rule 707 serves several legitimate interests in the criminal trial process. These interests include ensuring that only reliable evidence is introduced at trial, preserving the court members' role in determining credibility, and avoiding litigation that is collateral to the primary purpose of the trial.[5] The Rule is neither arbitrary nor disproportionate in promoting these ends. Nor does it implicate a sufficiently weighty interest of the defendant to raise a constitutional concern under our precedents. A and Federal Governments unquestionably have a legitimate interest in |
Justice Thomas | 1,998 | 1 | majority | United States v. Scheffer | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118191/united-states-v-scheffer/ | A and Federal Governments unquestionably have a legitimate interest in ensuring that reliable evidence is presented to the trier of fact in a criminal trial. Indeed, the exclusion of unreliable evidence is a principal objective of many evidentiary rules. See, e. g., Fed. Rules Evid. 702, 802, 901; see also The contentions of respondent and the dissent notwithstanding, there is simply no consensus that polygraph evidence is reliable. To this day, the scientific community remains extremely polarized about the reliability of polygraph techniques. 1 D. Faigman, D. Kaye, M. Saks, & J. Sanders, Modern Scientific 565, n. , 14-2.0 to 14-7.0 ; see also 1 P. Giannelli & E. Imwinkelried, Scientific *310 8-2(C), pp. 225-227 (hereinafter Giannelli & Imwinkelried); 1 J. Strong, McCormick on 206, p. 909 (4th ed. 1992) (hereinafter McCormick). Some studies have concluded that polygraph tests overall are accurate and reliable. See, e. g., S. Abrams, The Complete Polygraph Handbook 190-191 (1989) (reporting the overall accuracy rate from laboratory studies involving the common "control question technique" polygraph to be "in the range of 87 percent"). Others have found that polygraph tests assess truthfulness significantly less accuratelythat scientific field studies suggest the accuracy rate of the "control question technique" polygraph is "little better than could be obtained by the toss of a coin," that is, 50 percent. See Iacono & Lykken, The Scientific Status of Research on Polygraph Techniques: The Case Against Polygraph Tests, in 1 Modern Scientific 14-5.3, at 629 (hereinafter Iacono & Lykken).[6] This lack of scientific consensus is reflected in the disagreement among state and federal courts concerning both the *311 admissibility and the reliability of polygraph evidence.[7] Although some Federal Courts of Appeals have abandoned the per se rule excluding polygraph evidence, leaving its admission or exclusion to the discretion of district courts under Daubert, see, e. g., United ; United at least one Federal Circuit has recently reaffirmed its per se ban, see United and another recently noted that it has "not decided whether polygraphy has reached a sufficient state of reliability to be admissible." United Most s maintain per se rules excluding polygraph evidence. See, e. g., ; ; In re ; New Mexico is unique in making polygraph evidence generally admissible without the prior stipulation of the parties and without significant restriction. See N. M. *312 Rule Evid. 11-707.[8] Whatever their approach, state and federal courts continue to express doubt about whether such evidence is reliable. See, e. g., United at ; United at ; ; ; at 632 N.E.2d, at ; In re at The approach taken by the President |
Justice Thomas | 1,998 | 1 | majority | United States v. Scheffer | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118191/united-states-v-scheffer/ | ; In re at The approach taken by the President in adopting Rule 707excluding polygraph evidence in all military trialsis a rational and proportional means of advancing the legitimate interest in barring unreliable evidence. Although the degree of reliability of polygraph evidence may depend upon a variety of identifiable factors, there is simply no way to know in a particular case whether a polygraph examiner's conclusion is accurate, because certain doubts and uncertainties plague even the best polygraph exams. Individual jurisdictions therefore may reasonably reach differing conclusions as to whether polygraph evidence should be admitted. We cannot say, then, that presented with such widespread uncertainty, the President acted arbitrarily or disproportionately in promulgating a per se rule excluding all polygraph evidence. B It is equally clear that Rule 707 serves a second legitimate governmental interest: Preserving the court members' core *313 function of making credibility determinations in criminal trials. A fundamental premise of our criminal trial system is that "the jury is the lie detector." United s v. Barnard, cert. denied, (4). Determining the weight and credibility of witness testimony, therefore, has long been held to be the "part of every case [that] belongs to the jury, who are presumed to be fitted for it by their natural intelligence and their practical knowledge of men and the ways of men." Aetna Life Ins. By its very nature, polygraph evidence may diminish the jury's role in making credibility determinations. The common form of polygraph test measures a variety of physiological responses to a set of questions asked by the examiner, who then interprets these physiological correlates of anxiety and offers an opinion to the jury about whether the witnessoften, as in this case, the accusedwas deceptive in answering questions about the very matters at issue in the trial. See 1 McCormick 206.[9] Unlike other expert witnesses who testify about factual matters outside the jurors' knowledge, such as the analysis of fingerprints, ballistics, or DNA found at a crime scene, a polygraph expert can supply the jury only with another opinion, in addition to its own, about whether the witness was telling the truth. Jurisdictions, in promulgating rules of evidence, may legitimately be concerned about the risk that juries will give excessive *314 weight to the opinions of a polygrapher, clothed as they are in scientific expertise and at times offering, as in respondent's case, a conclusion about the ultimate issue in the trial. Such jurisdictions may legitimately determine that the aura of infallibility attending polygraph evidence can lead jurors to abandon their duty to assess credibility and guilt. Those jurisdictions may |
Justice Thomas | 1,998 | 1 | majority | United States v. Scheffer | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118191/united-states-v-scheffer/ | their duty to assess credibility and guilt. Those jurisdictions may also take into account the fact that a judge cannot determine, when ruling on a motion to admit polygraph evidence, whether a particular polygraph expert is likely to influence the jury unduly. For these reasons, the President is within his constitutional prerogative to promulgate a per se rule that simply excludes all such evidence. C A third legitimate interest served by Rule 707 is avoiding litigation over issues other than the guilt or innocence of the accused. Such collateral litigation prolongs criminal trials and threatens to distract the jury from its central function of determining guilt or innocence. Allowing proffers of polygraph evidence would inevitably entail assessments of such issues as whether the test and control questions were appropriate, whether a particular polygraph examiner was qualified and had properly interpreted the physiological responses, and whether other factors such as countermeasures employed by the examinee had distorted the exam results. Such assessments would be required in each and every case.[10] It thus offends no constitutional principle for the President to conclude that a per se rule excluding all polygraph evidence is appropriate. Because litigation over the admissibility of polygraph evidence is by its very nature collateral, *315 a per se rule prohibiting its admission is not an arbitrary or disproportionate means of avoiding it.[11] D The three of our precedents upon which the Court of Appeals principally relied, and do not support a right to introduce polygraph evidence, even in very narrow circumstances. The exclusions of evidence that we declared unconstitutional in those cases significantly undermined fundamental elements of the defendant's defense. Such is not the case here. In the defendant, accused of a killing to which she was the only eyewitness, was allegedly able to remember the facts of the killing only after having her memory hypnotically refreshed. See Because excluded all hypnotically refreshed testimony, the defendant was unable to testify about certain relevant facts, including whether the killing had been accidental. See In holding that the exclusion of this evidence violated the defendant's "right to present a defense," we noted that the rule deprived the jury of the testimony of the only witness who was at the scene and had firsthand knowledge of the facts. See Moreover, the rule infringed upon the defendant's interest in testifying in her own defensean interest that we deemed particularly significant, as it is the defendant who is the target of any criminal *316 prosecution. See For this reason, we stated that a defendant ought to be allowed "to present his own version of |
Justice Thomas | 1,998 | 1 | majority | United States v. Scheffer | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118191/united-states-v-scheffer/ | ought to be allowed "to present his own version of events in his own words." In Washington, the statutes involved prevented codefendants or coparticipants in a crime from testifying for one another and thus precluded the defendant from introducing his accomplice's testimony that the accomplice had in fact committed the crime. See 3 U. S., at 16-17. In reversing Washington's conviction, we held that the Sixth Amendment was violated because "the arbitrarily denied [the defendant] the right to put on the stand a witness who was physically and mentally capable of testifying to events that he had personally observed."[12] In we found a due process violation in the combined application of 's common-law "voucher rule," which prevented a party from impeaching his own witness, and its hearsay rule that excluded the testimony of three persons to whom that witness had confessed. See U. S., specifically confined its holding to the "facts and circumstances" presented in that case; we thus stressed that the ruling did not "signal any diminution in the respect traditionally accorded to the s in the establishment and implementation of their own criminal trial rules and procedures." -303. therefore does not stand for the proposition that the defendant is denied a fair opportunity to defend himself whenever a state or federal rule excludes favorable evidence. Washington, and do not require that Rule 707 be invalidated, because, unlike the evidentiary rules at issue in those cases, Rule 707 does not implicate any significant *317 interest of the accused. Here, the court members heard all the relevant details of the charged offense from the perspective of the accused, and the Rule did not preclude him from introducing any factual evidence.[13] Rather, respondent was barred merely from introducing expert opinion testimony to bolster his own credibility. Moreover, in contrast to the rule at issue in Rule 707 did not prohibit respondent from testifying on his own behalf; he freely exercised his choice to convey his version of the facts to the court-martial members. We therefore cannot conclude that respondent's defense was significantly impaired by the exclusion of polygraph evidence. Rule 707 is thus constitutional under our precedents. * * * For the foregoing reasons, Military Rule of 707 does not unconstitutionally abridge the right to present a defense. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed. It is so ordered. *318 Justice Kennedy, with whom Justice O'Connor, Justice Ginsburg, and Justice Breyer join, concurring in part and concurring in the judgment. |
Justice Blackmun | 1,985 | 11 | majority | Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111308/garcia-v-san-antonio-metropolitan-transit-authority/ | We revisit in these cases an issue raised in National League of In that litigation, this Court, by a sharply divided vote, ruled that the Commerce Clause does not empower Congress to enforce the minimum-wage and overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) against the States "in areas of traditional governmental functions." Although National League of supplied some examples of "traditional governmental functions," it did not offer a general explanation of how a "traditional" function is to be distinguished from a "nontraditional" one. Since then, federal and state courts have struggled with the task, thus imposed, of identifying a traditional function for purposes of state immunity under the Commerce Clause. In the present cases, a Federal District Court concluded that municipal ownership and operation of a mass-transit system is a traditional governmental function and thus, under National League of is exempt from the obligations imposed by the FLSA. Faced with the identical question, three Federal Courts of Appeals and one state appellate court have reached the opposite conclusion.[1] *531 Our examination of this "function" standard applied in these and other cases over the last eight years now persuades us that the attempt to draw the boundaries of state regulatory immunity in terms of "traditional governmental function" is not only unworkable but is also inconsistent with established principles of federalism and, indeed, with those very federalism principles on which National League of purported to rest. That case, accordingly, is overruled. I The history of public transportation in San Antonio, Tex., is characteristic of the history of local mass transit in the United States generally. Passenger transportation for hire within San Antonio originally was provided on a private basis by a local transportation company. In 1913, the Texas Legislature authorized the State's municipalities to regulate vehicles providing carriage for hire. 1913 Tex. Gen. Laws, ch. 147, 4, ¶ 12, now codified, as amended, as Tex. Rev. Civ. Stat. Ann., Art. 1175, 20 and 21 (Vernon 1963). Two years later, San Antonio enacted an ordinance setting forth franchising, insurance, and safety requirements for passenger vehicles operated for hire. The city continued to rely on such publicly regulated private mass transit until 1959, when it purchased the privately owned San Antonio Transit Company and replaced it with a public authority known as the San Antonio Transit System (SATS). SATS operated until when the city transferred its facilities and equipment to appellee San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority (SAMTA), a public mass-transit authority organized on a countywide basis. See generally Tex. Rev. Civ. Stat. Ann., Art. 1118x SAMTA currently is the major provider of |
Justice Blackmun | 1,985 | 11 | majority | Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111308/garcia-v-san-antonio-metropolitan-transit-authority/ | Ann., Art. 1118x SAMTA currently is the major provider of transportation in the San Antonio metropolitan area; between and alone, its vehicles traveled over 26 million route miles and carried over 63 million passengers. *532 As did other localities, San Antonio reached the point where it came to look to the Federal Government for financial assistance in maintaining its public mass transit. SATS managed to meet its operating expenses and bond obligations for the first decade of its existence without federal or local financial aid. By 1970, however, its financial position had deteriorated to the point where federal subsidies were vital for its continued operation. SATS' general manager that year testified before Congress that "if we do not receive substantial help from the Federal Government, San Antonio may. join the growing ranks of cities that have inferior [public] transportation or may end up with no [public] transportation at all."[2] The principal federal program to which SATS and other mass-transit systems looked for relief was the Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1964 (UMTA), Stat. 302, as amended, 49 U.S. C. App. 1601 et seq., which provides substantial federal assistance to urban mass-transit programs. See generally Jackson Transit UMTA now authorizes the Department of Transportation to fund 75 percent of the capital outlays and up to 50 percent of the operating expenses of qualifying mass-transit programs. 4(a), 5(d) and (e), 49 U.S. C. App. 1603(a), 1604(d) and (e). SATS received its first UMTA subsidy, a $4.1 million capital grant, in December 1970. From then until February SATS and SAMTA received over $51 million in UMTA grants more than $31 million in capital grants, over $20 million in operating assistance, and a minor amount in technical assistance. During SAMTA's first two fiscal years, it received $12.5 million in UMTA operating grants, $26.8 million from sales taxes, and only $10.1 million from fares. Federal subsidies *533 and local sales taxes currently account for about 75 percent of SAMTA's operating expenses. The present controversy concerns the extent to which SAMTA may be subjected to the minimum-wage and overtime requirements of the FLSA. When the FLSA was enacted in 19, its wage and overtime provisions did not apply to local mass-transit employees or, indeed, to employees of state and local governments. 3(d), 13(a)(9), 1067. In 1961, Congress extended minimum-wage coverage to employees of any private mass-transit carrier whose annual gross revenue was not less than $1 million. Fair Labor Standards Amendments of 1961, 2(c), 9, 71. Five years later, Congress extended FLSA coverage to state and local-government employees for the first time by withdrawing the |
Justice Blackmun | 1,985 | 11 | majority | Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111308/garcia-v-san-antonio-metropolitan-transit-authority/ | and local-government employees for the first time by withdrawing the minimum-wage and overtime exemptions from public hospitals, schools, and mass-transit carriers whose rates and services were subject to state regulation. Fair Labor Standards Amendments of 1966, 102(a) and (b), At the same time, Congress eliminated the overtime exemption for all mass-transit employees other than drivers, operators, and conductors. 206(c), The application of the FLSA to public schools and hospitals was ruled to be within Congress' power under the Commerce Clause. The FLSA obligations of public mass-transit systems like SATS were expanded in 1974 when Congress provided for the progressive repeal of the surviving overtime exemption for mass-transit employees. Fair Labor Standards Amendments of 1974, 21(b), Congress simultaneously brought the States and their subdivisions further within the ambit of the FLSA by extending FLSA coverage to virtually all state and local-government employees. 6(a)(1) and (6), 60, 29 U.S. C. 203(d) and (x). SATS complied with the FLSA's overtime requirements until 19, when this Court, in National League of overruled and held that the FLSA could not be *534 applied constitutionally to the "traditional governmental functions" of state and local governments. Four months after National League of was handed down, SATS informed its employees that the relieved SATS of its overtime obligations under the FLSA.[3] Matters rested there until September 17, when the Wage and Hour Administration of the Department of Labor issued an opinion that SAMTA's operations "are not constitutionally immune from the application of the Fair Labor Standards Act" under National League of Opinion WH-499, 6 LRR 91:11. On November 21 of that year, SAMTA filed this action against the Secretary of Labor in the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas. It sought a declaratory judgment that, contrary to the Wage and Hour Administration's determination, National League of precluded the application of the FLSA's overtime requirements to SAMTA's operations. The Secretary counterclaimed under 29 U.S. C. 217 for enforcement of the overtime and recordkeeping requirements of the FLSA. On the same day that SAMTA filed its action, appellant Garcia and several other SAMTA employees brought suit against SAMTA in the same District Court for overtime pay under the FLSA. Garcia v. SAMTA, Civil Action No. SA 79 CA 458. The District Court has stayed that action pending the outcome of these cases, but it allowed Garcia to intervene in the present litigation as a defendant in support of the Secretary. One month after SAMTA brought suit, the Department of Labor formally amended its FLSA interpretive regulations to provide that publicly owned local mass-transit systems are not |
Justice Blackmun | 1,985 | 11 | majority | Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111308/garcia-v-san-antonio-metropolitan-transit-authority/ | to provide that publicly owned local mass-transit systems are not entitled to immunity under *535 National League of codified as 29 CFR 775.3(b)(3) On November 17, the District Court granted SAMTA's motion for summary judgment and denied the Secretary's and Garcia's cross-motion for partial summary judgment. Without further explanation, the District Court ruled that "local public mass transit systems (including [SAMTA]) constitute integral operations in areas of traditional governmental functions" under National League of App. D to Juris. Statement in No. 82-1913, p. 24a. The Secretary and Garcia both appealed directly to this Court pursuant to 28 U.S. C. 2. During the pendency of those appeals, Transportation was decided. In that case, the Court ruled that commuter rail service provided by the state-owned Long Island Rail Road did not constitute a "traditional governmental function" and hence did not enjoy constitutional immunity, under National League of from the requirements of the Railway Labor Act. Thereafter, it vacated the District Court's judgment in the present cases and remanded them for further consideration in the light of Long Island. On remand, the District Court adhered to its original view and again entered judgment for SAMTA. The court looked first to what it regarded as the "historical reality" of state involvement in mass transit. It recognized that States not always had owned and operated mass-transit systems, but concluded that they had engaged in a longstanding pattern of public regulation, and that this regulatory tradition gave rise to an "inference of sovereignty." The court next looked to the record of federal involvement in the field and concluded that constitutional immunity would not result in an erosion of federal authority with respect to state-owned mass-transit systems, because many federal statutes themselves contain exemptions for States and thus make the withdrawal of federal *536 regulatory power over public mass-transit systems a supervening federal policy. Although the Federal Government's authority over employee wages under the FLSA obviously would be eroded, Congress had not asserted any interest in the wages of public mass-transit employees until 1966 and hence had not established a longstanding federal interest in the field, in contrast to the century-old federal regulatory presence in the railroad industry found significant for the in Long Island. Finally, the court compared mass transit to the list of functions identified as constitutionally immune in National League of and concluded that it did not differ from those functions in any material respect. The court stated: "If transit is to be distinguished from the exempt [National League of ] functions it will have to be by identifying a traditional state function in |
Justice Blackmun | 1,985 | 11 | majority | Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111308/garcia-v-san-antonio-metropolitan-transit-authority/ | have to be by identifying a traditional state function in the same way pornography is sometimes identified: someone knows it when they see it, but they can't describe it."[4] The Secretary and Garcia again took direct appeals from the District Court's judgment. We noted probable jurisdiction. After initial argument, the cases were restored to our calendar for reargument, and the parties were requested to brief and argue the following additional question: "Whether or not the principles of the Tenth Amendment as set forth in National League of should be reconsidered?" Reargument followed in due course. *537 II Appellees have not argued that SAMTA is immune from regulation under the FLSA on the ground that it is a local transit system engaged in intrastate commercial activity. In a practical sense, SAMTA's operations might well be characterized as "local." Nonetheless, it long has been settled that Congress' authority under the Commerce Clause extends to intrastate economic activities that affect interstate commerce. See, e. g., ; Heart of Atlanta Motel, ; ; United Were SAMTA a privately owned and operated enterprise, it could not credibly argue that Congress exceeded the bounds of its Commerce Clause powers in prescribing minimum wages and overtime rates for SAMTA's employees. Any constitutional exemption from the requirements of the FLSA therefore must rest on SAMTA's status as a governmental entity rather than on the "local" nature of its operations. The prerequisites for governmental immunity under National League of were summarized by this Court in Under that summary, four conditions must be satisfied before a state activity may be deemed immune from a particular federal regulation under the Commerce Clause. First, it is said that the federal statute at issue must regulate "the `States as States.' " Second, the statute must "address matters that are indisputably `attribute[s] of state sovereignty.' " Third, state compliance with the federal obligation must "directly impair [the States'] ability `to structure integral operations in areas of traditional governmental functions.' " Finally, the relation of state and federal interests must not be such that "the nature of the federal interest justifies state submission." -288, and n. 29, quoting National League of 852, 854. *5 The controversy in the present cases has focused on the third Hotel requirement that the challenged federal statute trench on "traditional governmental functions." The District Court voiced a common concern: "Despite the abundance of adjectives, identifying which particular state functions are immune remains" Just how troublesome the task has been is revealed by the results reached in other federal cases. Thus, courts have held that regulating ambulance services, Gold Cross |
Justice Blackmun | 1,985 | 11 | majority | Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111308/garcia-v-san-antonio-metropolitan-transit-authority/ | Thus, courts have held that regulating ambulance services, Gold Cross aff'd on other grounds, cert. pending, No. 83-1; licensing automobile drivers, United ; operating a municipal airport, ; performing solid waste disposal, Hybud Equipment ; and operating a highway authority, are functions protected under National League of At the same time, courts have held that issuance of industrial development bonds, ; regulation of intrastate natural gas sales, Oklahoma ex rel. aff'd, cert. denied sub nom. ; regulation of traffic on public roads, Friends of the (CA2), cert. denied, ; regulation of air transportation, Hughes Air ; operation of a telephone system, Puerto Rico Tel. ; leasing and sale of natural gas, Public Service of N. (CA5), cert. denied sub nom. ; operation of a mental health facility, (CA11), cert. denied, ; and provision of in-house domestic services for the aged and handicapped, are not entitled to immunity. We find it if not impossible, to identify an organizing principle that places each of the cases in the first group on one side of a line and each of the cases in the second group on the other side. The constitutional distinction between licensing drivers and regulating traffic, for example, or between operating a highway authority and operating a mental health facility, is elusive at best. Thus far, this Court itself has made little headway in defining the scope of the governmental functions deemed protected under National League of In that case the Court set forth examples of protected and unprotected functions, see 854, n. 18, but provided no explanation of how those examples were identified. The only other case in which the Court has had occasion to address the problem is Long Island.[5] We there observed: "The determination of whether a federal law impairs a state's authority with respect to `areas of traditional [state] functions' may at times be a one." quoting National League of 426 U. S., The accuracy of that statement is demonstrated by this Court's own ies in Long Island is developing a workable standard for "traditional governmental functions." We relied in large part there on "the historical reality that the operation of railroads is not among the functions traditionally performed by state and local governments," but we *540 simultaneously disavowed "a static historical view of state functions generally immune from federal regulation." We held that the inquiry into a particular function's "traditional" nature was merely a means of determining whether the federal statute at issue unduly handicaps "basic state prerogatives," but we did not offer an explanation of what makes one state function a "basic prerogative" and |
Justice Blackmun | 1,985 | 11 | majority | Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111308/garcia-v-san-antonio-metropolitan-transit-authority/ | of what makes one state function a "basic prerogative" and another function not basic. Finally, having disclaimed a rigid reliance on the historical pedigree of state involvement in a particular area, we nonetheless found it appropriate to emphasize the extended historical record of federal involvement in the field of rail transportation. Many constitutional standards involve "undoubte[d] gray areas," and, despite the ies that this Court and other courts have encountered so far, it normally might be fair to venture the assumption that case-by-case development would lead to a workable standard for determining whether a particular governmental function should be immune from federal regulation under the Commerce Clause. A further cautionary note is sounded, however, by the Court's experience in the related field of state immunity from federal taxation. In South the Court held for the first time that the state tax immunity recognized in extended only to the "ordinary" and "strictly governmental" instrumentalities of state governments and not to instrumentalities "used by the State in the carrying on of an ordinary private business." 461. While the Court applied the distinction outlined in South Carolina for the following 40 years, at no time during that period did the Court develop a consistent formulation of the kinds of governmental functions that were entitled to immunity. The Court identified the protected functions at various times as "essential," "usual," "traditional," or "strictly governmental."[6]*541 While "these differences in phraseology must not be too literally contradistinguished," they reflect an inability to specify precisely what aspects of a governmental function made it necessary to the "unimpaired existence" of the States. Indeed, the Court ultimately chose "not, by an attempt to formulate any general test, [to] risk embarrassing the of cases [concerning] activities of a different kind which may arise in the future." If these tax-immunity cases had any common thread, it was in the attempt to distinguish between "governmental" and "proprietary" functions.[7] To say that the distinction between *542 "governmental" and "proprietary" proved to be stable, however, would be something of an overstatement. In 1911, for example, the Court declared that the provision of a municipal water supply "is no part of the essential governmental functions of a State." Twenty-six years later, without any intervening change in the applicable legal standards, the Court simply rejected its earlier position and decided that the provision of a municipal water supply was immune from federal taxation as an essential governmental function, even though municipal waterworks long had been operated for profit by private industry. -373. At the same time that the Court was holding a municipal water supply to be |
Justice Blackmun | 1,985 | 11 | majority | Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111308/garcia-v-san-antonio-metropolitan-transit-authority/ | the Court was holding a municipal water supply to be immune from federal taxes, it had held that a state-run commuter rail system was not immune. Justice Black, in (19), was moved to observe: "An implied constitutional distinction which taxes income of an officer of a state-operated transportation system and exempts income of the manager of a municipal water works system manifests the uncertainty created by the `essential' and `non-essential' test" It was this uncertainty and instability that led the Court shortly thereafter, in New unanimously to conclude that the distinction between "governmental" and "proprietary" functions was "untenable" and must be abandoned. See ; ; See also ; *543 Even during the heyday of the governmental/proprietary distinction in intergovernmental tax-immunity doctrine the Court never explained the constitutional basis for that distinction. In South Carolina, it expressed its concern that unlimited state immunity from federal taxation would allow the States to undermine the Federal Government's tax base by expanding into previously private sectors of the economy. See -455.[8] Although the need to reconcile state and federal interests obviously demanded that state immunity have some limiting principle, the Court did not try to justify the particular result it reached; it simply concluded that a "line [must] be drawn," and proceeded to draw that line. The Court's elaborations in later cases, such as the assertion in that "[w]hen a state enters the market place seeking customers it divests itself of its quasi sovereignty pro tanto," sound more of ipse dixit than reasoned explanation. This inability to give principled content to the distinction between "governmental" and "proprietary," no less significantly than its unworkability, led the Court to abandon the distinction in New The distinction the Court discarded as unworkable in the field of tax immunity has proved no more fruitful in the field of regulatory immunity under the Commerce Clause. Neither do any of the alternative standards that might be employed to distinguish between protected and unprotected governmental functions appear manageable. We rejected the possibility of making immunity turn on a purely historical standard of "tradition" in Long Island, and properly so. The most obvious defect of a historical approach to state immunity is that it prevents a court from accommodating changes in the historical functions of States, changes that have resulted *544 in a number of once-private functions like education being assumed by the States and their subdivisions.[9] At the same time, the only apparent virtue of a rigorous historical standard, namely, its promise of a reasonably objective measure for state immunity, is illusory. Reliance on history as an organizing principle results in |
Justice Blackmun | 1,985 | 11 | majority | Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111308/garcia-v-san-antonio-metropolitan-transit-authority/ | illusory. Reliance on history as an organizing principle results in line-drawing of the most arbitrary sort; the genesis of state governmental functions stretches over a historical continuum from before the Revolution to the present, and courts would have to decide by fiat precisely how longstanding a pattern of state involvement had to be for federal regulatory authority to be defeated.[10] *545 A nonhistorical standard for selecting immune governmental functions is likely to be just as unworkable as is a historical standard. The goal of identifying "uniquely" governmental functions, for example, has been rejected by the Court in the field of government tort liability in part because the notion of a "uniquely" governmental function is unmanageable. See Indian Towing ; see also U.S. 9, Another possibility would be to confine immunity to "necessary" governmental services, that is, services that would be provided inadequately or not at all unless the government provided them. Cf. 220 U. S., at The set of services that fits into this category, however, may well be negligible. The fact that an unregulated market produces less of some service than a State deems desirable does not mean that the State itself must provide the service; in most if not all cases, the State can "contract out" by hiring private firms to provide the service or simply by providing subsidies to existing suppliers. It also is open to question how well equipped courts are to make this kind of determination about the workings of economic markets. We believe, however, that there is a more fundamental problem at work here, a problem that explains why the Court was never able to provide a basis for the governmental/proprietary distinction in the intergovernmental tax-immunity cases and why an attempt to draw similar distinctions with respect to federal regulatory authority under National League of is unlikely to succeed regardless of how the distinctions are phrased. The problem is that neither the governmental/proprietary distinction nor any *546 other that purports to separate out important governmental functions can be faithful to the role of federalism in a democratic society. The essence of our federal system is that within the realm of authority left open to them under the Constitution, the States must be equally free to engage in any activity that their citizens choose for the common weal, no matter how unorthodox or unnecessary anyone else including the judiciary deems state involvement to be. Any rule of state immunity that looks to the "traditional," "integral," or "necessary" nature of governmental functions inevitably invites an unelected federal judiciary to make s about which state |
Justice Blackmun | 1,985 | 11 | majority | Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111308/garcia-v-san-antonio-metropolitan-transit-authority/ | an unelected federal judiciary to make s about which state policies it favors and which ones it dislikes. "The science of government is the science of experiment," Anderson v. Dunn, 6 Wheat, 204, 226 (1821), and the States cannot serve as laboratories for social and economic experiment, see New State Ice v. Liebmann, if they must pay an added price when they meet the changing needs of their citizenry by taking up functions that an earlier day and a different society left in private hands. In the words of Justice Black: "There is not, and there cannot be, any unchanging line of demarcation between essential and non-essential governmental functions. Many governmental functions of today have at some time in the past been nongovernmental. The genius of our government provides that, within the sphere of constitutional action, the people acting not through the courts but through their elected legislative representatives have the power to determine as conditions demand, what services and functions the public welfare requires." 304 U. S., at We therefore now reject, as unsound in principle and unworkable in practice, a rule of state immunity from federal regulation that turns on a judicial appraisal of whether a *547 particular governmental function is "integral" or "traditional." Any such rule leads to inconsistent results at the same time that it disserves principles of democratic self-governance, and it breeds inconsistency precisely because it is divorced from those principles. If there are to be limits on the Federal Government's power to interfere with state functions as undoubtedly there are we must look elsewhere to find them. We accordingly return to the underlying issue that confronted this Court in National League of the manner in which the Constitution insulates States from the reach of Congress' power under the Commerce Clause. III The central theme of National League of was that the States occupy a special position in our constitutional system and that the scope of Congress' authority under the Commerce Clause must reflect that position. Of course, the Commerce Clause by its specific language does not provide any special limitation on Congress' actions with respect to the States. See It is equally true, however, that the text of the Constitution provides the beginning rather than the final answer to every inquiry into questions of federalism, for "[b]ehind the words of the constitutional provisions are postulates which limit and control." National League of reflected the general conviction that the Constitution precludes "the National Government [from] devour[ing] the essentials of state sovereignty." In order to be faithful to the underlying federal |
Justice Blackmun | 1,985 | 11 | majority | Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111308/garcia-v-san-antonio-metropolitan-transit-authority/ | sovereignty." In order to be faithful to the underlying federal premises of the Constitution, courts must look for the "postulates which limit and control." What has proved problematic is not the perception that the Constitution's federal structure imposes limitations on the Commerce Clause, but rather the nature and content of those limitations. One approach to defining the limits on Congress' *548 authority to regulate the States under the Commerce Clause is to identify certain underlying elements of political sovereignty that are deemed essential to the States' "separate and independent existence." Lane This approach obviously underlay the Court's use of the "traditional governmental function" concept in National League of It also has led to the separate requirement that the challenged federal statute "address matters that are indisputably `attribute[s] of state sovereignty.' " quoting National League of In National League of itself, for example, the Court concluded that s by a State concerning the wages and hours of its employees are an "undoubted attribute of state sovereignty." The opinion did not explain what aspects of such s made them such an "undoubted attribute," and the Court since then has remarked on the uncertain scope of the concept. See 460 U. S., at 2, n. 11. The point of the inquiry, however, has remained to single out particular features of a State's internal governance that are deemed to be intrinsic parts of state sovereignty. We doubt that courts ultimately can identify principled constitutional limitations on the scope of Congress' Commerce Clause powers over the States merely by relying on a priori definitions of state sovereignty. In part, this is because of the elusiveness of objective criteria for "fundamental" elements of state sovereignty, a problem we have witnessed in the search for "traditional governmental functions." There is, however, a more fundamental reason: the sovereignty of the States is limited by the Constitution itself. A variety of sovereign powers, for example, are withdrawn from the States by Article I, 10. Section 8 of the same Article works an equally sharp contraction of state sovereignty by authorizing Congress to exercise a wide range of legislative powers and (in conjunction with the Supremacy Clause of Article VI) to displace contrary state legislation. See *549 -292. By providing for final review of questions of federal law in this Court, Article III curtails the sovereign power of the States' judiciaries to make authoritative determinations of law. See Finally, the developed application, through the Fourteenth Amendment, of the greater part of the Bill of Rights to the States limits the sovereign authority that States otherwise would possess to legislate with |
Justice Blackmun | 1,985 | 11 | majority | Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111308/garcia-v-san-antonio-metropolitan-transit-authority/ | sovereign authority that States otherwise would possess to legislate with respect to their citizens and to conduct their own affairs. The States unquestionably do "retai[n] a significant measure of sovereign authority." They do so, however, only to the extent that the Constitution has not divested them of their original powers and transferred those powers to the Federal Government. In the words of James Madison to the Members of the First Congress: "Interference with the power of the States was no constitutional criterion of the power of Congress. If the power was not given, Congress could not exercise it; if given, they might exercise it, although it should interfere with the laws, or even the Constitution of the States." 2 Annals of Cong. 1897 (1791). Justice Field made the same point in the course of his defense of state autonomy in his dissenting opinion in Baltimore & Ohio R. v. Baugh, a defense quoted with approval in Erie R. v. Tompkins, (19): "[T]he Constitution of the United States recognizes and preserves the autonomy and independence of the States independence in their legislative and independence in their judicial departments. [Federal] [s]upervision over either the legislative or the judicial action of the States is in no case permissible except as to matters by the Constitution specifically authorized or delegated to the United States. Any interference with either, except as thus permitted, is an invasion of *550 the authority of the State and, to that extent, a denial of its independence." As a result, to say that the Constitution assumes the continued role of the States is to say little about the nature of that role. Only recently, this Court recognized that the purpose of the constitutional immunity recognized in National League of is not to preserve "a sacred province of state autonomy." With rare exceptions, like the guarantee, in Article IV, 3, of state territorial integrity, the Constitution does not carve out express elements of state sovereignty that Congress may not employ its delegated powers to displace. James Wilson reminded the Pennsylvania ratifying convention in 1787: "It is true, indeed, sir, although it presupposes the existence of state governments, yet this Constitution does not suppose them to be the sole power to be respected." 2 Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution 439 (J. Elliot 2d ed. 18) (Elliot). The power of the Federal Government is a "power to be respected" as well, and the fact that the States remain sovereign as to all powers not vested in Congress or denied them by the Constitution offers |
Justice Blackmun | 1,985 | 11 | majority | Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111308/garcia-v-san-antonio-metropolitan-transit-authority/ | vested in Congress or denied them by the Constitution offers no guidance about where the frontier between state and federal power lies. In short, we have no license to employ freestanding conceptions of state sovereignty when measuring congressional authority under the Commerce Clause. When we look for the States' "residuary and inviolable sovereignty," The Federalist No. 39, p. 285 (B. Wright ed. 1961) (J. Madison), in the shape of the constitutional scheme rather than in predetermined notions of sovereign power, a different measure of state sovereignty emerges. Apart from the limitation on federal authority inherent in the delegated nature of Congress' Article I powers, the principal means chosen by the Framers to ensure the role of the States in the federal system lies in the structure of the Federal Government itself. It is no novelty to observe that the composition of the Federal *551 Government was designed in large part to protect the States from overreaching by Congress.[11] The Framers thus gave the States a role in the selection both of the Executive and the Legislative Branches of the Federal Government. The States were vested with indirect influence over the House of Representatives and the Presidency by their control of electoral qualifications and their role in Presidential elections. U. S. Const., Art. I, 2, and Art. II, 1. They were given more direct influence in the Senate, where each State received equal representation and each Senator was to be selected by the legislature of his State. Art. I, 3. The significance attached to the States' equal representation in the Senate is underscored by the prohibition of any constitutional amendment divesting a State of equal representation without the State's consent. Art. V. The extent to which the structure of the Federal Government itself was relied on to insulate the interests of the States is evident in the views of the Framers. James Madison explained that the Federal Government "will partake sufficiently of the spirit [of the States], to be disinclined to invade the rights of the individual States, or the prerogatives of their governments." The Federalist No. 46, p. 332 (B. Wright ed. 1961). Similarly, James Wilson observed that "it was a favorite object in the Convention" to provide for the security of the States against federal encroachment and that the structure of the Federal Government itself served that end. 2 Elliot, at 4-439. Madison placed particular reliance on the equal representation of the States in the Senate, which he saw as "at once a constitutional recognition of the portion of sovereignty remaining in the individual *552 States, and an instrument |
Justice Blackmun | 1,985 | 11 | majority | Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111308/garcia-v-san-antonio-metropolitan-transit-authority/ | sovereignty remaining in the individual *552 States, and an instrument for preserving that residuary sovereignty." The Federalist No. 62, p. 408 (B. Wright ed. 1961). He further noted that "the residuary sovereignty of the States [is] implied and secured by that principle of representation in one branch of the [federal] legislature" (emphasis added). The Federalist No. 43, p. 315 (B. Wright ed. 1961). See also In short, the Framers chose to rely on a federal system in which special restraints on federal power over the States inhered principally in the workings of the National Government itself, rather than in discrete limitations on the objects of federal authority. State sovereign interests, then, are more properly protected by procedural safeguards inherent in the structure of the federal system than by judicially created limitations on federal power. The effectiveness of the federal political process in preserving the States' interests is apparent even today in the course of federal legislation. On the one hand, the States have been able to direct a substantial proportion of federal revenues into their own treasuries in the form of general and program-specific grants in aid. The federal role in assisting state and local governments is a longstanding one; Congress provided federal land grants to finance state governments from the beginning of the Republic, and direct cash grants were awarded as early as 1887 under the Hatch Act.[12] In the past quarter century alone, federal grants to States and localities have grown from $7 billion to $96 billion.[13] As a result, federal *553 grants now account for about one-fifth of state and local government expenditures.[14] The States have obtained federal funding for such services as police and fire protection, education, public health and hospitals, parks and recreation, and sanitation.[15] Moreover, at the same time that the States have exercised their influence to obtain federal support, they have been able to exempt themselves from a wide variety of obligations imposed by Congress under the Commerce Clause. For example, the Federal Power Act, the National Labor Relations Act, the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act, the Occupational Safety and Health Act, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, and the Sherman Act all contain express or implied exemptions for States and their subdivisions.[16] The fact that some federal statutes such as the FLSA extend general obligations to the States cannot obscure the extent to which the political position of *554 the States in the federal system has served to minimize the burdens that the States bear under the Commerce Clause.[17] We realize that changes in the structure of the Federal Government have taken |
Justice Blackmun | 1,985 | 11 | majority | Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111308/garcia-v-san-antonio-metropolitan-transit-authority/ | changes in the structure of the Federal Government have taken place since 1789, not the least of which has been the substitution of popular election of Senators by the adoption of the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913, and that these changes may work to alter the influence of the States in the federal political process.[18] Nonetheless, against this background, we are convinced that the fundamental limitation that the constitutional scheme imposes on the Commerce Clause to protect the "States as States" is one of process rather than one of result. Any substantive restraint on the exercise of Commerce Clause powers must find its justification in the procedural nature of this basic limitation, and it must be tailored to compensate for possible failings in the national political process rather than to dictate a "sacred province of state autonomy." Insofar as the present cases are concerned, then, we need go no further than to state that we perceive nothing in the overtime and minimum-wage requirements of the FLSA, as applied to SAMTA, that is destructive of state sovereignty or violative of any constitutional provision. SAMTA faces nothing more than the same minimum-wage and overtime obligations that hundreds of thousands of other employers, public as well as private, have to meet. *555 In these cases, the status of public mass transit simply underscores the extent to which the structural protections of the Constitution insulate the States from federally imposed burdens. When Congress first subjected state mass-transit systems to FLSA obligations in 1966, and when it expanded those obligations in 1974, it simultaneously provided extensive funding for state and local mass transit through UMTA. In the two decades since its enactment, UMTA has provided over $22 billion in mass-transit aid to States and localities.[19] In alone, UMTA funding amounted to $3.7 billion.[20] As noted above, SAMTA and its immediate predecessor have received a substantial amount of UMTA funding, including over $12 million during SAMTA's first two fiscal years alone. In short, Congress has not simply placed a financial burden on the shoulders of States and localities that operate mass-transit systems, but has provided substantial countervailing financial assistance as well, assistance that may leave individual mass-transit systems better off than they would have been had Congress never intervened at all in the area. Congress' treatment of public mass transit reinforces our conviction that the national political process systematically protects States from the risk of having their functions in that area handicapped by Commerce Clause regulation.[21] IV This analysis makes clear that Congress' action in affording SAMTA employees the protections of the wage and hour *556 provisions |
Justice Blackmun | 1,985 | 11 | majority | Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111308/garcia-v-san-antonio-metropolitan-transit-authority/ | employees the protections of the wage and hour *556 provisions of the FLSA contravened no affirmative limit on Congress' power under the Commerce Clause. The judgment of the District Court therefore must be reversed. Of course, we continue to recognize that the States occupy a special and specific position in our constitutional system and that the scope of Congress' authority under the Commerce Clause must reflect that position. But the principal and basic limit on the federal commerce power is that inherent in all congressional action the built-in restraints that our system provides through state participation in federal governmental action. The political process ensures that laws that unduly burden the States will not be promulgated. In the factual setting of these cases the internal safeguards of the political process have performed as intended. These cases do not require us to identify or define what affirmative limits the constitutional structure might impose on federal action affecting the States under the Commerce Clause. See We note and accept Justice Frankfurter's observation in New : "The process of Constitutional adjudication does not thrive on conjuring up horrible possibilities that never happen in the real world and devising doctrines sufficiently comprehensive in detail to cover the remotest contingency. Nor need we go beyond what is required for a reasoned disposition of the kind of controversy now before the Court." Though the separate concurrence providing the fifth vote in National League of was "not untroubled by certain possible implications" of the the Court in that case attempted to articulate affirmative limits on the Commerce Clause power in terms of core governmental functions and fundamental attributes of state sovereignty. But the model of democratic making the *557A Court there identified underestimated, in our view, the solicitude of the national political process for the continued vitality of the States. Attempts by other courts since then to draw guidance from this model have proved it both impracticable and doctrinally barren. In sum, in National League of the Court tried to repair what did not need repair. We do not lightly overrule recent precedent.[22] We have not hesitated, however, when it has become apparent that a prior has departed from a proper understanding of congressional power under the Commerce Clause. See United Due respect for the reach of congressional power within the federal system mandates that we do so now. National League of is overruled. The judgment of the District Court is reversed, and these cases are remanded to that court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. It is so ordered. |
Justice Marshall | 1,984 | 15 | dissenting | United States v. Gouveia | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111193/united-states-v-gouveia/ | The majority misreads the development of Sixth Amendment doctrine when it states that "our cases have long recognized that the right to counsel attaches only at or after the initiation of adversary judicial proceedings against the defendant." Ante, at 187. As JUSTICE STEVENS demonstrates, ante, at 193-197, we have recognized that in certain situations an individual's right to counsel is triggered before the formal initiation of adversary judicial proceedings. See, e. g., This recognition has stemmed from an appreciation that the government can transform an individual into an "accused" without officially designating him as such through the ritual of arraignment. Moreover, I agree with JUSTICE STEVENS that the government treats an individual as an accused when that individual "is deprived of liberty in order to aid the prosecution in its attempt to convict him, and when the deprivation is likely to have the intended effect" Ante, at 197. Unlike JUSTICE STEVENS, however, I reject the judgment as well as the reasoning of the Court. JUSTICE STEVENS concurs in the judgment of the Court because, in his view, the transfer of respondents from the general prison population to the far harsher constraints of administrative detention[1] did not in any way serve "an accusatorial function" but served instead to further the security interests of the correctional institution and the welfare of respondents themselves. My reading of the record and of the factfinding of *200 the courts below leads me to a different conclusion. With respect to respondents Mills and Pierce, the District Court stated, in the portion of its opinion entitled "Factual Background," that by the time they were committed to administrative detention, "the finger of suspicion" had already been pointed at them. App. to Pet. for Cert. 45a-46a. This finding is corroborated by prison officials' own notation that respondents were to be detained in administrative detention "pending investigation or trial for a criminal act," App. 138-139, and by the odd course of events that transpired after respondents' detention: the Government's delay in seeking indictments alongside the unusually long period during which respondents were confined to their cells. See App. to Pet. for Cert. 42a-47a. The District Court was therefore justified in concluding that respondents' "commitment to [administrative detention] was neither a form of prison discipline nor an attempt to ensure prison security," but was instead "part and parcel of a sequence of prosecutive acts integrally related to the application of criminal sanctions." at 47a-48a. The District Court's findings and conclusion were noted and affirmed by the Court of Appeals. This Court has repeatedly stated that it " `cannot undertake to review |
Justice Marshall | 1,984 | 15 | dissenting | United States v. Gouveia | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111193/united-states-v-gouveia/ | has repeatedly stated that it " `cannot undertake to review concurrent findings of fact by two courts below in the absence of a very obvious and exceptional showing of error.' " See quoting Graver Mfg. In this case no such showing of error has been made. We do not have the benefit of a trial judge's explicit factual findings with respect to respondents Reynoso, Segura, Ramirez, and Gouveia. However, we do have the Government's admission that one reason all of the respondents were kept in administrative detention was "because of the pendency of the criminal investigation" Brief for United States 26. This admission further supports the Court of Appeals' conclusion that "each [respondent] was held in *201 [administrative detention] at least in part as a result of pending criminal charges." 704 F.2d, at Because of their disposition of the Sixth Amendment issue, neither the majority nor JUSTICE STEVENS reaches the other issue posed by this case: whether the Court of Appeals erred by dismissing the indictments against respondents. The Government claims that dismissing the indictments was inconsistent with this Court's decision in United In Morrison, we reversed the dismissal of an indictment in a case in which it was assumed, arguendo, that a Sixth Amendment violation had occurred and in which the defendant "demonstrated no prejudice of any kind to the ability of her counsel to provide adequate representation" We stated that, in right-to-counsel cases, dismissal of an indictment is inappropriate "absent demonstrable prejudice, or substantial threat thereof," because a presumption of prejudice would contravene "the general rule that remedies should be tailored to the injury suffered and should not unnecessarily infringe on competing interests." The Court of Appeals concluded that dismissal of respondents' indictments was warranted under both the Morrison standard and a presumption-of-prejudice standard that it found to be appropriate to the facts of this case. The Court of Appeals felt compelled to articulate an alternative to the Morrison standard because, in its view, this case was "fundamentally different" insofar as the right-to-counsel violation affected inmate-suspects held in administrative detention. The Court of Appeals concluded that in such a setting a presumption of prejudice would be appropriate "because ordinarily it will be impossible adequately either to prove or refute its existence." I disagree with the Court of Appeals; its own application of Morrison to the facts of this case demonstrates that even in the context of a Sixth Amendment violation affecting prisoners, the usual process of case-specific inquiry will be adequate to determine *202 whether dismissal of an indictment is warranted. The Court of Appeals concluded that even |
Justice Brennan | 1,988 | 13 | dissenting | Boyle v. United Technologies Corp. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112135/boyle-v-united-technologies-corp/ | Lieutenant David A. Boyle died when the CH-53D helicopter he was copiloting spun out of control and plunged into the ocean. We may assume, for purposes of this case, that Lt. Boyle was trapped under water and drowned because respondent United Technologies negligently designed the helicopter's escape hatch. We may further assume that any competent engineer would have discovered and cured the defects, but that they inexplicably escaped respondent's notice. Had respondent designed such a death trap for a commercial firm, Lt. Boyle's family could sue under Virginia tort law and be compensated for his tragic and unnecessary death. But respondent designed the helicopter for the Federal Government, and that, the Court tells us today, makes all the difference: Respondent is immune from liability long as it obtained approval of "reanably precise specifications" perhaps no more than a rubber stamp from a federal procurement officer who might or might not have noticed or cared about the defects, or even had the expertise to discover them. If respondent's immunity "bore the legitimacy of having been prescribed by the people's elected representatives," we would be duty bound to implement their will, whether or not we approved. United Congress, however, has remained silent and conspicuously having resisted a sustained campaign by Government contractors to legislate for them me defense.[] The Court unelected and unaccountable to the people has unabashedly stepped into *56 the breach to legislate a rule denying Lt. Boyle's family the compensation that state law assures them. This time the injustice is of this Court's own making. Worse yet, the injustice will extend far beyond the facts of this case, for the Court's newly discovered Government contractor defense is breathtakingly sweeping. It applies not only to military equipment like the CH-53D helicopter, but ( far as I can tell) to any made-to-order gadget that the Federal Government might purchase after previewing plans from NASA's Challenger space shuttle to the Postal Service's old mail cars. The contractor may invoke the defense in suits brought not only by military pernnel like Lt. Boyle, or Government employees, but by anyone injured by a Government contractor's negligent design, including, for example, the children who might have died had respondent's helicopter crashed on the beach. It applies even if the Government has not intentionally sacrificed safety for other interests like speed or efficiency, and, indeed, even if the equipment is not of a type that is typically considered dangerous; thus, the contractor who designs a Government building can invoke the defense when the elevator cable snaps or the walls collapse. And |
Justice Brennan | 1,988 | 13 | dissenting | Boyle v. United Technologies Corp. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112135/boyle-v-united-technologies-corp/ | when the elevator cable snaps or the walls collapse. And the defense is invocable regardless of how blatant or easily remedied the defect, long as the contractor missed it and the specifications approved by the Government, however unreanably dangerous, were "reanably precise." Ante, at 52. In my view, this Court lacks both authority and expertise to fashion such a rule, whether to protect the Treasury of the United States or the coffers of industry. Because I would leave that exercise of legislative power to Congress, where our Constitution places it, I would reverse the Court of Appeals and reinstate petitioner's jury award. I Before our decision in Erie R. federal courts sitting in diversity were generally free, in the absence of a controlling state statute, to fashion *57 rules of "general" federal common law. See, e. g., Erie renounced the prevailing scheme: "Except in matters governed by the Federal Constitution or by Acts of Congress, the law to be applied in any case is the law of the State." The Court explained that the expansive power that federal courts had theretofore exercised was an unconstitutional " `invasion of the authority of the State and, to that extent, a denial of its independence.' " Thus, Erie was deeply rooted in notions of federalism, and is most seriously implicated when, as here, federal judges displace the state law that would ordinarily govern with their own rules of federal common law. See, e. g., United[2] In pronouncing that "[t]here is no federal general common law," Erie put to rest the notion that the grant of diversity jurisdiction to federal courts is itself authority to fashion rules of substantive law. See United As the author of today's opinion for the Court pronounced for a unanimous Court just two months ago, " ` " `we start with the assumption that the historic police powers of the States were not to be superseded unless that was the clear and manifest purpose of Congress.' " ' " Puerto Rico Dept. of Consumer Just as "[t]here is no federal pre-emption in vacuo, without a constitutional text or a federal statute to assert it," federal common law cannot supersede state law in vacuo out of no *58 more than an idiosyncratic determination by five Justices that a particular area is "uniquely federal." Accordingly, we have emphasized that federal common law can displace state law in "few and restricted" instances. "[A]bsent me congressional authorization to formulate substantive rules of decision, federal common law exists only in such narrow areas as those concerned with the rights and obligations of the United |
Justice Brennan | 1,988 | 13 | dissenting | Boyle v. United Technologies Corp. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112135/boyle-v-united-technologies-corp/ | those concerned with the rights and obligations of the United States, interstate and international disputes implicating conflicting rights of States or our relations with foreign nations, and admiralty cases." Texas "The enactment of a federal rule in an area of national concern, and the decision whether to displace state law in doing is generally made not by the federal judiciary, purposefully insulated from democratic pressures, but by the people through their elected representatives in Congress." See al ; State laws "should be overridden by the federal courts only where clear and substantial interests of the National Government, which cannot be served consistently with respect for such state interests, will suffer major damage if the state law is applied." United II Congress has not decided to supersede state law here (if anything, it has decided not to, see n. and the Court does not pretend that its newly manufactured "Government contractor defense" fits within any of the handful of "narrow areas," Texas at of "uniquely federal interests" in which we have heretofore done 45 U.S., at 640. Rather, the Court creates a new category of "uniquely federal interests" out of a synthesis of two whose origins predate Erie itself: the interest in administering the "obligations to and rights of the United States under its contracts," ante, *59 at 504, and the interest in regulating the "civil liability of federal officials for actions taken in the course of their duty," ante, at 505. This case is, however, simply a suit between two private parties. We have steadfastly declined to impose federal contract law on relationships that are collateral to a federal contract, or to extend the federal employee's immunity beyond federal employees. And the Court's ability to list 2, or 0, inapplicable areas of "uniquely federal interest" does not support its conclusion that the liability of Government contractors is "clear and substantial" an interest that this Court must step in lest state law does "major damage." Yazell, at A The proposition that federal common law continues to govern the "obligations to and rights of the United States under its contracts" is nearly as old as Erie itself. Federal law typically controls when the Federal Government is a party to a suit involving its rights or obligations under a contract, whether the contract entails procurement, see Priebe & 3 U.S. 407 a loan, see United 440 U.S. 75, (979), a conveyance of property, see Little Lake at -594, or a commercial instrument issued by the Government, see Clearfield 38 U.S. 363, (943), or assigned to it, see D'Oench, Duhme & 35 U.S. 447, |
Justice Brennan | 1,988 | 13 | dissenting | Boyle v. United Technologies Corp. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112135/boyle-v-united-technologies-corp/ | assigned to it, see D'Oench, Duhme & 35 U.S. 447, (942). Any such transaction necessarily "radiate[s] interests in transactions between private parties." Bank of America Nat. & Sav. U.S. 29, (956). But it is by now established that our power to create federal common law controlling the Federal Government's contractual rights and obligations does not translate into a power to prescribe rules that cover all transactions or contractual relationships collateral to Government contracts. In for example, the county was contractually obligated under a grant agreement with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to " `restrict *520 the use of land adjacent to the Airport to activities and purposes compatible with normal airport operations including landing and takeoff of aircraft.' " At issue was whether the county breached its contractual obligation by operating a garbage dump adjacent to the airport, which allegedly attracted the swarm of birds that caused a plane crash. Federal common law would undoubtedly have controlled in any suit by the Federal Government to enforce the provision against the county or to collect damages for its violation. The diversity suit, however, was brought not by the Government, but by asrted private parties injured in me way by the accident. We observed that "the operations of the United States in connection with FAA grants such as these are undoubtedly of considerable magnitude," and that "the United States has a substantial interest in regulating aircraft travel and promoting air travel safety," at 3. Nevertheless, we held that state law should govern the claim because "only the rights of private litigants are at issue here," and the claim against the county "will have no direct effect upon the United States or its Treasury," relied heavily on and the former involving commercial paper issued by the United States and the latter involving property rights in federal land. In the former case, cashed certain bonds guaranteed by the Government that had been stolen from their owner, a bank. It is beyond dispute that federal law would have governed the United States' duty to pay the value bonds upon presentation; we held as much in Clearfield Cf. But the central issue in a diversity suit, was whether the victim of the theft could recover the money paid to That issue, we held, was governed by state law, because the "litigation [was] purely between private parties and [did] not touch the rights and duties of the United States." U.S., at *52 The same was true in Wallis, which al involved a Government contract a lease issued by the United States to a private party under |
Justice Brennan | 1,988 | 13 | dissenting | Boyle v. United Technologies Corp. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112135/boyle-v-united-technologies-corp/ | issued by the United States to a private party under the Mineral Leasing Act of 920, 30 U.S. C. 8 et seq. (982 ed. and Supp. IV) governed entirely by federal law. See Again, the relationship at issue in this diversity case was collateral to the Government contract: It involved the validity of contractual arrangements between the lessee and other private parties, not between the lessee and the Federal Government. Even though a federal statute authorized certain assignments of lease rights, see and n. 8, and imposed certain conditions on their validity, see we held that state law, not federal common law, governed their validity because application of state law would present "no significant threat to any identifiable federal policy or interest," at Here, as in and Wallis, a Government contract governed by federal common law looms in the background. But here, too, the United States is not a party to the suit and the suit neither "touch[es] the rights and duties of the United States," at nor has a "direct effect upon the United States or its Treasury," 4 U. S., The relationship at issue is at best collateral to the Government contract.[3] We have no greater power to displace state law governing the collateral relationship in the Government procurement realm than we had to dictate federal rules governing equally collateral relationships in the areas of aviation, Government-issued commercial paper, or federal lands. That the Government might have to pay higher prices for what it orders if delivery in accordance with the contract exposes *522 the seller to potential liability, see ante, at 507, does not distinguish this case. Each of the cases just discussed declined to extend the reach of federal common law despite the assertion of comparable interests that would have affected the terms of the Government contract whether its price or its substance just as "directly" (or indirectly). Third-party beneficiaries can sue under a county's contract with the FAA, for example, even though as the Court's focus on the absence of "direct effect on the United States or its Treasury," 4 U.S., suggests counties will likely pass on the costs to the Government in future contract negotiations. Similarly, we held that state law may govern the circumstances under which stolen federal bonds can be recovered, notwithstanding 's argument that "the value of bonds to the first purchaser and hence their salability by the Government would be materially affected." Brief for Respondent in Bank of America Nat'l & Sav. O. T. 956, No. 2, pp. 0-. As in each of the cases |
Justice Brennan | 1,988 | 13 | dissenting | Boyle v. United Technologies Corp. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112135/boyle-v-united-technologies-corp/ | No. 2, pp. 0-. As in each of the cases declining to extend the traditional reach of federal law of contracts beyond the rights and duties of the Federal Government, "any federal interest in the outcome of the question before us `is far too speculative, far too remote a possibility to justify the application of federal law to transactions essentially of local concern.' " at -, quoting U. S., at -34. B Our "uniquely federal interest" in the tort liability of affiliates of the Federal Government is equally narrow. The immunity we have recognized has extended no further than a subset of "officials of the Federal Government" and has covered only "discretionary" functions within the scope of their legal authority. See, e. g., ; (959); 57 (959) ; 2 F.2d 396 (CA2 926), aff'd, (927) ; 6 U.S. 483 (896). Never before *523 have we much as intimated that the immunity (or the "uniquely federal interest" that justifies it) might extend beyond that narrow class to cover al nongovernment employees whose authority to act is independent of any urce of federal law and that are as far removed from the "functioning of the Federal Government" as is a Government contractor, Howard, The historical narrowness of the federal interest and the immunity is hardly accidental. A federal officer exercises statutory authority, which not only provides the necessary basis for the immunity in positive law, but al permits us confidently to presume that interference with the exercise of discretion undermines congressional will. In contrast, a Government contractor acts independently of any congressional enactment. Thus, immunity for a contractor lacks both the positive law basis and the presumption that it furthers congressional will. Moreover, even within the category of congressionally authorized tasks, we have deliberately restricted the scope of immunity to circumstances in which "the contributions of immunity to effective government in particular contexts outweigh the perhaps recurring harm to individual citizens," 42 U.S. 306, 0 ; see because immunity "contravenes the basic tenet that individuals be held accountable for their wrongful conduct," 5. The extension of immunity to Government contractors skews the balance we have historically struck. On the one hand, whatever marginal effect contractor immunity might have on the "effective administration of policies of government," its "harm to individual citizens" is more severe than in the Government-employee context. Our observation that "there are other sanctions than civil tort suits available to deter the executive official who may be prone to exercise his functions in an unworthy and irresponsible manner," ; see al at 57, offers little deterrence to the Government contractor. |
Justice Brennan | 1,988 | 13 | dissenting | Boyle v. United Technologies Corp. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112135/boyle-v-united-technologies-corp/ | al at 57, offers little deterrence to the Government contractor. On the other hand, a grant of immunity to Government *524 contractors could not advance "the fearless, vigorous, and effective administration of policies of government" nearly as much as does the current immunity for Government employees. In the first place, the threat of a tort suit is less likely to influence the conduct of an industrial giant than that of a lone civil servant, particularly since the work of a civil servant is significantly less profitable, and significantly more likely to be the subject of a vindictive lawsuit. In fact, were we to take seriously the Court's assertion that contractors pass their costs including presumably litigation costs through, "substantially if not totally, to the United States," ante, at 5, the threat of a tort suit should have only marginal impact on the conduct of Government contractors. More importantly, inhibition of the Government official who actually sets Government policy presents a greater threat to the "administration of policies of government," than does inhibition of a private contractor, whose role is devoted largely to assessing the technological feasibility and cost of satisfying the Government's predetermined needs. Similarly, unlike tort suits against Government officials, tort suits against Government contractors would rarely "consume time and energies" that "would otherwise be devoted to governmental service." 360 U.S., at 57. In short, because the essential justifications for official immunity do not support an extension to the Government contractor, it is no surprise that we have never extended it that far. C 309 U.S. 8 (940), the le case cited by the Court immunizing a Government contractor, is a slender reed on which to base drastic a departure from precedent. In Yearsley we barred the suit of landowners against a private Government contractor alleging that its construction of a dam eroded their land without just compensation in violation of the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment. We relied in part on the observation that the plaintiffs failed to state a Fifth Amendment claim *525 (since just compensation had never been requested, much less denied) and at any rate the cause of action lay against the Government, not the contractor. See at 2 It is therefore unlikely that the Court intended Yearsley to extend anywhere beyond the takings context, and we have never applied it elsewhere. Even if Yearsley were applicable beyond the unique context in which it arose, it would have little relevance here. The contractor's work "was done pursuant to a contract with the United States Government, and under the direction of the Secretary |
Justice Brennan | 1,988 | 13 | dissenting | Boyle v. United Technologies Corp. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112135/boyle-v-united-technologies-corp/ | United States Government, and under the direction of the Secretary of War and the supervision of the Chief of Engineers of the United States, as authorized by an Act of Congress." at 9. See al W. A. Ross Construction 03 F.2d 589, (CA8 939) In other words, unlike respondent here, the contractor in Yearsley was following, not formulating, the Government's specifications, and ( far as is relevant here) followed them correctly. Had respondent merely manufactured the CH-53D helicopter, following minutely the Government's own in-house specifications, it would be analogous to the contractor in Yearsley, although still not analytically identical since Yearsley depended upon an actual agency relationship with the Government, see which plainly was never established here. See, e. g., Bynum v. FMC (CA5 985). Cf. United (982). But respondent's participation in the helicopter's design distinguishes this case from Yearsley, which has never been read to immunize the discretionary acts of those who perform service contracts for the Government. *526 III In a valiant attempt to bridge the analytical canyon between what Yearsley said and what the Court wishes it had said, the Court invokes the discretionary function exception of the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), 28 U.S. C. 20(a). The Court does not suggest that the exception has any direct bearing here, for petitioner has sued a private manufacturer (not the Federal Government) under Virginia law (not the FTCA). Perhaps that is why respondent has three times disavowed any reliance on the discretionary function exception, even after coaching by the Court,[4] as has the Government.[5] *527 Notwithstanding these disclaimers, the Court invokes the exception, reaning that federal common law must immunize Government contractors from state tort law to prevent erosion of the discretionary function exception's policy of foreclosing judicial " `second-guessing' " of discretionary governmental decisions. Ante, at 5, quoting United 84 (984). The erosion the Court fears apparently is rooted not in a concern that suits against Government contractors will prevent them from designing, or the Government from commissioning the design of, precisely the product the Government wants, but in the concern that such suits might preclude the Government from purchasing the desired product at the price it wants: "The financial burden of judgments against the contractors," the Court fears, "would ultimately be passed through, substantially if not totally, to the United States itself." Ante, at 5. Even granting the Court's factual premise, which is by no means self-evident, the Court cites no authority for the proposition that burdens imposed on Government contractors, but passed on to the Government, burden the Government in a way that justifies extension |
Justice Brennan | 1,988 | 13 | dissenting | Boyle v. United Technologies Corp. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112135/boyle-v-united-technologies-corp/ | Government, burden the Government in a way that justifies extension of its immunity. However substantial such indirect burdens may be, we have held in other contexts that they are legally irrelevant. See, e. g., South 52 Moreover, the statutory basis on which the Court's rule of federal common law totters is more unstable than any we have ever adopted. In the first place, we rejected an analytically similar attempt to construct federal common law out of the FTCA when we held that the Government's waiver *528 of vereign immunity for the torts of its employees does not give the Government an implied right of indemnity from them, even though the "[t]he financial burden placed on the United States by the Tort Claims Act [could conceivably be] great that government employees should be required to carry part of the burden." United 50 (954). So too here, the FTCA's retention of vereign immunity for the Government's discretionary acts does not imply a defense for the benefit of contractors who participate in those acts, even though they might pass on the financial burden to the United States. In either case, the most that can be said is that the position "asserted, though the product of a law Congress passed, is a matter on which Congress has not taken a position." at 5 Here, even that much is an overstatement, for the Government's immunity for discretionary functions is not even "a product of" the FTCA. Before Congress enacted the FTCA (when vereign immunity barred any tort suit against the Federal Government) we perceived no need for a rule of federal common law to reinforce the Government's immunity by shielding al parties who might contractually pass costs on to it. Nor did we (or any other court of which I am aware) identify a special category of "discretionary" functions for which vereign immunity was crucial that a Government contractor who exercised discretion should share the Government's immunity from state tort law.[6] Now, as before the FTCA's enactment, the Federal Government is immune from "[a]ny claim based upon the exercise or performance [of] a discretionary function," including presumably any claim that petitioner might have brought against the Federal Government based upon respondent's negligent design of the helicopter in which Lt. Boyle died. *529 There is no more rean for federal common law to shield contractors now that the Government is liable for me torts than there was when the Government was liable for none. The discretionary function exception does not support an immunity for the discretionary acts of Government contractors any more than the exception for |
Justice Brennan | 1,988 | 13 | dissenting | Boyle v. United Technologies Corp. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112135/boyle-v-united-technologies-corp/ | acts of Government contractors any more than the exception for "[a]ny claim [against the Government] arising out of assault," 20(h), supports a pernal immunity for Government employees who commit assaults. Cf. Sheridan v. United States, ante, at 400. In short, while the Court purports to divine whether Congress would object to this suit, it inexplicably begins and ends its rtilege with an exception to a statute that is itself inapplicable and whose repeal would leave unchanged every relationship remotely relevant to the accident underlying this suit. Far more indicative of Congress' views on the subject is the wrongful-death cause of action that Congress itself has provided under the Death on the High Seas Act (DOHSA), Act of Mar. 30, 920, ch. et seq., 4 Stat. 537, codified at 46 U.S. C. App. 76 et seq. (982 ed., Supp. IV) a cause of action that could have been asserted against United Technologies had Lt. Boyle's helicopter crashed a mere three miles further off the coast of Virginia Beach. It is beyond me how a state-law tort suit against the designer of a military helicopter could be said to present any conflict, much less a " `significant conflict,' " with "federal interests in the context of Government procurement," ante, at 5, when federal law itself would provide a tort suit, but no (at least no explicit) Government-contractor defense,[7] against the same *530 designer for an accident involving the same equipment. See Pet. for Cert. in Sikorsky Aircraft Division, United Technologies v. Kloss, O. T. 987, No. 87-6, pp. 3-6 (trial court holds that family of marine can bring a wrongful-death cause of action under the DOHSA against United Technologies for the negligent design of a United States Marine Corps CH-53D helicopter in which he was killed when it crashed 2 miles offshore), cert. denied, 486 U.S. 008 IV At bottom, the Court's analysis is premised on the proposition that any tort liability indirectly abrbed by the Government burdens governmental functions as to compel us to act when Congress has not. That proposition is by no means uncontroversial. The tort system is premised on the assumption that the imposition of liability encourages actors to prevent any injury whose expected cost exceeds the cost of prevention. If the system is working as it should, Government contractors will design equipment to avoid certain injuries (like the deaths of ldiers or Government employees), which would be certain to burden the Government. The Court therefore has no basis for its assumption that tort liability will result in a net burden on the Government (let alone a |
Justice Brennan | 1,988 | 13 | dissenting | Boyle v. United Technologies Corp. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112135/boyle-v-united-technologies-corp/ | in a net burden on the Government (let alone a clearly excessive net burden) rather than a net gain. Perhaps tort liability is an inefficient means of ensuring the quality of design efforts, but "[w]hatever the merits of the policy" the Court wishes to implement, "its conversion into law is a proper subject for congressional action, not for any creative power of ours." Standard 3 U. S., -35. It is, after all, "Congress, not this Court or the other federal courts, [that] is the custodian of the national purse. By the same token [Congress] is the primary and most often the exclusive arbiter of federal fiscal affairs. And these comprehend, as we have said, securing the treasury or the Government against financial losses however inflicted." See al *53 at 50-52. If Congress shared the Court's assumptions and conclusion it could readily enact "A BILL [t]o place limitations on the civil liability of government contractors to ensure that such liability does not impede the ability of the United States to procure necessary goods and services," H. R. 4765, 99th Cong., 2d Sess. (986); see al S. 244, 99th Cong., 2d Sess. (986). It has not. Were I a legislator, I would probably vote against any law ablving multibillion dollar private enterprises from answering for their tragic mistakes, at least if that law were justified by no more than the unsupported speculation that their liability might ultimately burden the United States Treasury. Some of my colleagues here would evidently vote otherwise (as they have here), but that should not matter here. We are judges not legislators, and the vote is not ours to cast. I respectfully dissent. |
Justice Stewart | 1,972 | 18 | majority | Love v. Pullman Co. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/108433/love-v-pullman-co/ | A person claiming to be aggrieved by a violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,[1] may not maintain a suit for redress in federal district court until he has first unsuccessfully pursued certain avenues of potential administrative relief. In this litigation the petitioner employee filed a complaint in the United States District Court for the District of Colorado, alleging that his employer, the respondent Pullman Company, had engaged in employment practices violative of Title VII. The court dismissed the complaint, holding that the statutory prerequisites to the maintenance of the suit had not been met. The Court of Appeals affirmed, and we granted certiorari to consider the question of federal law presented. The petitioner was employed by the Pullman Company as a "porter-in-charge." In 1963 and again in 1965, he complained to the Colorado Civil Rights Commission, alleging that the porters-in-charge, most of whom, like the petitioner, were Negroes, performed the same functions as conductors, most of whom were white, yet at lower pay. The proceedings of the Colorado Commission terminated in 1965 without reaching a resolution of the controversy satisfactory to the petitioner. On May 23, 1966, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission received from the petitioner a "letter of inquiry" which complained of this same alleged discrimination. *524 In accord with its usual practice,[2] the Commission treated this letter as a complaint but did not formally file it. Instead, to insure compliance with Title VII's procedural requirements, EEOC orally advised the Colorado Commission that it had received a complaint from the petitioner. By letter of June 1, 1966, the Colorado Commission informed EEOC that it waived the opportunity to take further action on the petitioner's grievance, and the EEOC then proceeded with its own investigation. The investigation resulted in a finding of probable cause to believe that the charge of discrimination was true, but the EEOC was unsuccessful in its attempts to obtain Pullman's voluntary compliance. This lawsuit followed. The basis for the holding of the Court of Appeals was its finding that the charge of discrimination had not been "filed" with EEOC by the petitioner in conformity with the requirements of the Act.[3] Two such requirements are critical here. Section 706 (b) of the Act, 42 U.S. C. 2000e-5 (b), provides that where there exists a state or local agency authorized to grant or seek relief against *525 employment discrimination, "no charge may be filed [with the EEOC] by the person aggrieved before the expiration of sixty days after proceedings have been commenced under the State or local law, unless such proceedings have been |
Justice Stewart | 1,972 | 18 | majority | Love v. Pullman Co. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/108433/love-v-pullman-co/ | the State or local law, unless such proceedings have been earlier terminated" Section 706 (d), 42 U.S. C. 2000e-5 (d), requires that the complaint to the EEOC "shall be filed by the person aggrieved within two hundred and ten days after the alleged unlawful employment practice occurred, or within thirty days after receiving notice that the State or local agency has terminated the proceedings under the State or local law, whichever is earlier" The EEOC takes the position that these requirements were fulfilled by the procedure followed here, whereby a charge filed with the EEOC prior to exhaustion of the state remedy was referred by it to the state agency, and then formally filed once the state agency indicated that it would decline to take action. The Court of Appeals, on the other hand, regarded this procedure as a "manipulation of the filing date," not contemplated or permitted by the statute or by the EEOC regulations then in force. We hold that the filing procedure followed here fully complied with the intent of the Act, and we thus reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals. Nothing in the Act suggests that the state proceedings may not be initiated by the EEOC acting on behalf of the complainant rather than by the complainant himself, nor is there any requirement that the complaint to the state agency be made in writing rather than by oral referral.[4]*526 Further, we cannot agree with the respondent's claim that the EEOC may not properly hold a complaint in "suspended animation," automatically filing it upon termination of the state proceedings.[5] We see no reason why further action by the aggrieved party should be required. The procedure complies with the purpose both of 706 (b), to give state agencies a prior opportunity to consider discrimination complaints, and of 706 (d), to ensure expedition in the filing and handling of those complaints. The respondent makes no showing of prejudice to its interests. To require a second "filing" by the aggrieved party after termination of state proceedings would serve no purpose other than the creation of an additional procedural technicality.[6]*527 Such technicalities are particularly inappropriate in a statutory scheme in which laymen, unassisted by trained lawyers, initiate the process. The judgment is Reversed. MR. JUSTICE POWELL and MR. JUSTICE REHNQUIST took no part in the consideration or decision of these cases. |
Justice O'Connor | 2,000 | 14 | majority | Miller v. French | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118378/miller-v-french/ | The Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (PLRA) establishes standards for the entry and termination of prospective relief in civil actions challenging prison conditions. 801-810, -66 to 1321-77. If prospective relief under an existing injunction does not satisfy these standards, a defendant or intervenor is entitled to "immediate termination" of that relief. 18 U.S. C. 3626(b)(2) (1994 ed., Supp. IV). And under the PLRA's "automatic stay" provision, a motion to terminate prospective relief "shall operate as a stay" of that relief during the period beginning 30 days after the filing of the motion (extendable to up to 90 days for "good cause") and ending when the court rules on the motion. 3626(e)(2), (3). The superintendent of Indiana's Pendleton Correctional Facility, which is currently operating under an ongoing injunction to remedy violations of the Eighth Amendment regarding conditions of confinement, filed a motion to terminate prospective relief under the PLRA. Respondent prisoners moved to enjoin the operation of the automatic stay provision of 3626(e)(2), arguing that it is unconstitutional. The District Court enjoined the stay, and the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed. We must decide whether a district court may enjoin the operation of the PLRA's automatic stay provision and, if not, whether that provision violates separation of principles. I A This litigation began in 1975, when four inmates at what is now the Pendleton Correctional Facility brought a class *332 action under Rev. Stat. 1979, 42 U.S. C. 1983, on behalf of all persons who were, or would be, confined at the facility against the predecessors in office of petitioners (hereinafter State). 1 Record, Doc. No. 1, p. 2. After a trial, the District Court found that living conditions at the prison violated both state and federal law, including the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment, and the court issued an injunction to correct those violations. aff'd in part, vacated and remanded in part, While the State's appeal was pending, this Court decided Pennhurst State School and which held that the Eleventh Amendment deprives federal courts of jurisdiction over claims for injunctive relief against state officials based on state law. Accordingly, the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit remanded the action to the District Court for On remand, the District Court concluded that most of the state law violations also ran afoul of the Eighth Amendment, and it issued an amended remedial order to address those constitutional violations. The order also accounted for improvements in living conditions at the Pendleton facility that had occurred in the interim. The Court of Appeals affirmed the amended |
Justice O'Connor | 2,000 | 14 | majority | Miller v. French | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118378/miller-v-french/ | in the interim. The Court of Appeals affirmed the amended remedial order as to those aspects governing overcrowding and double celling, the use of mechanical restraints, staffing, and the quality of food and medical services, but it vacated those portions pertaining to exercise and recreation, protective custody, and fire and occupational safety standards. This ongoing injunctive relief has remained in effect ever since, with the last modification occurring in October 1988, when the parties resolved by joint stipulation the remaining issues related to fire and occupational safety standards. 1 Record, Doc. No. 14. *333 B In 19, Congress enacted the PLRA. As relevant here, the PLRA establishes standards for the entry and termination of prospective relief in civil actions challenging conditions at prison facilities. Specifically, a court "shall not grant or approve any prospective relief unless the court finds that such relief is narrowly drawn, extends no further than necessary to correct the violation of the Federal right, and is the least intrusive means necessary to correct the violation of the Federal right." 18 U.S. C. 3626(a)(1)(A) (1994 ed., Supp. IV). The same criteria apply to existing injunctions, and a defendant or intervenor may move to terminate prospective relief that does not meet this standard. See 3626(b)(2). In particular, 3626(b)(2) provides: "In any civil action with respect to prison conditions, a defendant or intervener shall be entitled to the immediate termination of any prospective relief if the relief was approved or granted in the absence of a finding by the court that the relief is narrowly drawn, extends no further than necessary to correct the violation of the Federal right, and is the least intrusive means necessary to correct the violation of the Federal right." A court may not terminate prospective relief, however, if it "makes written findings based on the record that prospective relief remains necessary to correct a current and ongoing violation of the Federal right, extends no further than necessary to correct the violation of the Federal right, and that the prospective relief is narrowly drawn and the least intrusive means necessary to correct the violation." 3626(b)(3). The PLRA also requires courts to rule "promptly" on motions to terminate prospective relief, with mandamus available to remedy a court's failure to do so. 3626(e)(1). Finally, the provision at issue here, 3626(e)(2), dictates that, in certain circumstances, prospective relief shall be *334 stayed pending resolution of a motion to terminate. Specifically, subsection (e)(2), entitled "Automatic Stay," states: "Any motion to modify or terminate prospective relief made under subsection (b) shall operate as a stay during the period "(A)(i) beginning |
Justice O'Connor | 2,000 | 14 | majority | Miller v. French | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118378/miller-v-french/ | shall operate as a stay during the period "(A)(i) beginning on the 30th day after such motion is filed, in the case of a motion made under paragraph (1) or (2) of subsection (b); "(ii)and "(B) ending on the date the court enters a final order ruling on the motion." As one of several amendments to the PLRA, Congress permitted courts to postpone the entry of the automatic stay for not more than 60 days for "good cause," which cannot include general congestion of the court's docket. 123, codified at 18 U.S. C. 3626(e)(3).[*] C On June 5, the State filed a motion under 3626(b) to terminate the prospective relief governing the conditions of confinement at the Pendleton Correctional Facility. 1 Record, Doc. No. 16. In response, the prisoner class moved for a temporary restraining order or preliminary injunction to enjoin the operation of the automatic stay, arguing that 3626(e)(2) is unconstitutional as both a violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment and separation of principles. The District Court granted *3 the prisoners' motion, enjoining the automatic stay. See Doc. No. 23; see also The State appealed, and the United States intervened pursuant to 28 U.S. C. 2403(a) to defend the constitutionality of 3626(e)(2). The Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed the District Court's order, concluding that although 3626(e)(2) precluded courts from exercising their equitable to enjoin operation of the automatic stay, the statute, so construed, was unconstitutional on separation of grounds. See -448. The court reasoned that Congress drafted 3626(e)(2) in unequivocal terms, clearly providing that a motion to terminate under 3626(b)(2) "shall operate" as a stay during a specified time period. While acknowledging that courts should not lightly assume that Congress meant to restrict the equitable of the federal courts, the Court of Appeals found "it impossible to read this language as doing anything less than that." Turning to the constitutional question, the court characterized 3626(e)(2) as "a self-executing legislative determination that a specific decree of a federal court must be set aside at least for a period of time." As such, it concluded that 3626(e)(2) directly suspends a court order in violation of the separation of doctrine under and mandates a particular rule of decision, at least during the pendency of the 3626(b)(2) termination motion, contrary to United See 178 F.3d, Having concluded that 3626(e)(2) is unconstitutional on separation of grounds, the Court of Appeals did not reach the prisoners' due process claims. Over the dissent of three judges, the court denied rehearing en banc. See We granted certiorari, to resolve a |
Justice O'Connor | 2,000 | 14 | majority | Miller v. French | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118378/miller-v-french/ | rehearing en banc. See We granted certiorari, to resolve a conflict among the Courts of Appeals as to whether *336 3626(e)(2) permits federal courts, in the exercise of their traditional equitable authority, to enjoin operation of the PLRA's automatic stay provision and, if not, to review the Court of Appeals' judgment that 3626(e)(2), so construed, is unconstitutional. Compare (holding that district courts retain the equitable discretion to suspend the automatic stay and that 3626(e)(2) is therefore constitutional); with II We address the statutory question first. Both the State and the prisoner class agree, as did the majority and dissenting judges below, that 3626(e)(2) precludes a district court from exercising its equitable to enjoin the automatic stay. The Government argues, however, that 3626(e)(2) should be construed to leave intact the federal courts' traditional equitable discretion to "stay the stay," invoking two canons of statutory construction. First, the Government contends that we should not interpret a statute as displacing courts' traditional equitable authority to preserve the status quo pending resolution on the merits "[a]bsent the clearest command to the contrary." Second, the Government asserts that reading 3626(e)(2) to remove that equitable power would raise serious separation of questions, and therefore should be avoided under the canon of constitutional doubt. Like the Court of Appeals, we do not lightly assume that Congress meant to restrict the equitable of the federal courts, and we agree that constitutionally doubtful constructions should be avoided where "fairly possible." Communications But where Congress has made its intent clear, "we must give effect to that intent." Sinclair Refining *337 The text of 3626(e)(2) provides that "[a]ny motion to terminate prospective relief made under subsection (b) shall operate as a stay " during a fixed period of time, i. e., from 30 (or 90) days after the motion is filed until the court enters a final order ruling on the motion. 18 U.S. C. 3626(e)(2) (1994 ed., Supp. IV) (emphasis added). The stay is "automatic" once a state defendant has filed a 3626(b) motion, and the statutory command that such a motion "shall operate as a stay during the [specified time] period" indicates that the stay is mandatory throughout that period of time. See Lexecon Nonetheless, the Government contends that reading the statute to preserve courts' traditional equitable to enter appropriate injunctive relief is consistent with this text because, in its view, 3626(e)(2) is simply a burdenshifting mechanism. That is, the purpose of the automatic stay provision is merely to relieve defendants of the burden of establishing the prerequisites for a stay and to eliminate courts' discretion to deny a |
Justice O'Connor | 2,000 | 14 | majority | Miller v. French | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118378/miller-v-french/ | a stay and to eliminate courts' discretion to deny a stay, even if those prerequisites are established, based on the public interest or hardship to the plaintiffs. Thus, under this reading, nothing in 3626(e)(2) prevents courts from subsequently suspending the automatic stay by applying the traditional standards for injunctive relief. Such an interpretation, however, would subvert the plain meaning of the statute, making its mandatory language merely permissive. Section 3626(e)(2) states that a motion to terminate prospective relief "shall operate as a stay during " the specified time period from 30 (or 90) days after the filing of the 3626(b) motion until the court rules on that motion. (Emphasis added.) Thus, not only does the statute employ the mandatory term "shall," but it also specifies the points at which the operation of the stay is to begin and end. In other words, contrary to Justice Breyer's suggestion *338 that the language of 3626(e)(2) "says nothing about the district court's power to modify or suspend the operation of the `stay,' " post, at 8 (dissenting opinion), 3626(e)(2) unequivocally mandates that the stay "shall operate during " this specific interval. To allow courts to exercise their equitable discretion to prevent the stay from "operating" during this statutorily prescribed period would be to contradict 3626(e)(2)'s plain terms. It would mean that the motion to terminate merely may operate as a stay, despite the statute's command that it "shall" have such effect. If Congress had intended to accomplish nothing more than to relieve state defendants of the burden of establishing the prerequisites for a stay, the language of 3626(e)(2) is, at best, an awkward and indirect means to achieve that result. Viewing the automatic stay provision in the context of 3626 as a whole further confirms that Congress intended to prohibit federal courts from exercising their equitable authority to suspend operation of the automatic stay. The specific appeal provision contained in 3626(e) states that "[a]ny order staying, suspending, delaying, or barring the operation of the automatic stay" of 3626(e)(2) "shall be appealable" pursuant to 28 U.S. C. 1292(a)(1). 3626(e)(4). At first blush, this provision might be read as supporting the view that Congress expressly recognized the possibility that a district court could exercise its equitable discretion to enjoin the stay. The two Courts of Appeals that have construed 3626(e)(2) as preserving the federal courts' equitable have reached that conclusion based on this reading of 3626(e)(4). See ; They reasoned that Congress would not have provided for expedited review of such orders had it not intended that district courts would retain the power to enter |
Justice O'Connor | 2,000 | 14 | majority | Miller v. French | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118378/miller-v-french/ | intended that district courts would retain the power to enter the orders in the first place. See In other words, "Congress understood that there would be some cases in which a conscientious district court acting in good faith would perceive that equity required that it suspend" *339 the 3626(e)(2) stay, and "Congress therefore permitted the district court to do so, subject to appellate review." The critical flaw in this construction, however, is that 3626(e)(4) only provides for an appeal from an order preventing the operation of the automatic stay. 3626(e)(4) ("Any order staying, suspending, delaying, or barring the operation of the automatic stay" under 3626(e)(2) "shall be appealable"). If the rationale for the provision were that in some situations equity demands that the automatic stay be suspended, then presumably the denial of a motion to enjoin the stay should also be appealable. The one-way nature of the appeal provision only makes sense if the automatic stay is required to operate during a specific time period, such that any attempt by a district court to circumvent the mandatory stay is immediately reviewable. The Government contends that if Congress' goal were to prevent courts from circumventing the PLRA's plain commands, mandamus would have been a more appropriate remedy than appellate review. But that proposition is doubtful, as mandamus is an extraordinary remedy that is "granted only in the exercise of sound discretion." Given that curbing the equitable discretion of district courts was one of the PLRA's principal objectives, it would have been odd for Congress to have left enforcement of 3626(e)(2) to that very same discretion. Instead, Congress sensibly chose to make available an immediate appeal to resolve situations in which courts mistakenly believeunder the novel scheme created by the PLRAthat they have the authority to enjoin the automatic stay, rather than the extraordinary remedy of mandamus, which requires a showing of a "clear and indisputable" right to the issuance of the writ. See In any event, 3626(e) as originally enacted did not provide for interlocutory review. It was *340 only after some courts refused to enter the automatic stay, and after the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit would not review such a refusal, that Congress amended 3626(e) to provide for interlocutory review. See In re Scott, ; ; see also 18 U.S. C. 3626(e)(4) (1994 ed., Supp. IV). Finally, the Government finds support for its view in 3626(e)(3). That provision authorizes an extension, for "good cause," of the starting point for the automatic stay, from 30 days after the 3626(b) motion is filed until 90 days after that motion |
Justice O'Connor | 2,000 | 14 | majority | Miller v. French | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118378/miller-v-french/ | 3626(b) motion is filed until 90 days after that motion is filed. The Government explains that, by allowing the court to prevent the entry of the stay for up to 60 days under the relatively generous "good cause" standard, Congress by negative implication has preserved courts' discretion to suspend the stay after that time under the more stringent standard for injunctive relief. To be sure, allowing a delay in entry of the stay for 60 days based on a good cause standard does not by itself necessarily imply that any other reason for preventing the operation of the stayfor example, on the basis of traditional equitable principlesis precluded. But 3626(e)(3) cannot be read in isolation. When 3626(e)(2) and (3) are read together, it is clear that the district court cannot enjoin the operation of the automatic stay. The 3626(b) motion "shall operate as a stay during" a specific time period. Section 3626(e)(3) only adjusts the starting point for the stay, and it merely permits that starting point to be delayed. Once the 90-day period has passed, the 3626(b) motion "shall operate as a stay" until the court rules on the 3626(b) motion. During that time, any attempt to enjoin the stay is irreconcilable with the plain language of the statute. Thus, although we should not construe a statute to displace courts' traditional equitable authority absent the "clearest command," 442 U. S., at or an "inescapable inference" to the contrary, we are convinced *341 that Congress' intent to remove such discretion is unmistakable in 3626(e)(2). And while this construction raises constitutional questions, the canon of constitutional doubt permits us to avoid such questions only where the saving construction is not "plainly contrary to the intent of Congress." Edward J. DeBartolo "We cannot press statutory construction `to the point of disingenuous evasion' even to avoid a constitutional question." United ); see also Pennsylvania Dept. of ; Commodity Futures Trading Like the Court of Appeals, we find that 3626(e)(2) is unambiguous, and accordingly, we cannot adopt Justice Breyer's "more flexible interpretation" of the statute. Post, at 5. Any construction that preserved courts' equitable discretion to enjoin the automatic stay would effectively convert the PLRA's mandatory stay into a discretionary one. Because this would be plainly contrary to Congress' intent in enacting the stay provision, we must confront the constitutional issue. III The Constitution enumerates and separates the of the three branches of Government in Articles I, II, and III, and it is this "very structure" of the Constitution that exemplifies the concept of separation of While the boundaries between the three branches are |
Justice O'Connor | 2,000 | 14 | majority | Miller v. French | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118378/miller-v-french/ | separation of While the boundaries between the three branches are not "`hermetically' sealed," see the Constitution prohibits one branch from encroaching on the central prerogatives of another, see (19); The of the Judicial Branch are set forth in Article III, 1, which states that the "judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish," and provides that these federal courts shall be staffed by judges who hold office during good behavior, and whose compensation shall not be diminished during tenure in office. As we explained in -219, Article III "gives the Federal Judiciary the power, not merely to rule on cases, but to decide them, subject to review only by superior courts in the Article III hierarchy." Respondent prisoners contend that 3626(e)(2) encroaches on the central prerogatives of the Judiciary and thereby violates the separation of doctrine. It does this, the prisoners assert, by legislatively suspending a final judgment of an Article III court in violation of and Hayburn's According to the prisoners, the remedial order governing living conditions at the Pendleton Correctional Facility is a final judgment of an Article III court, and 3626(e)(2) constitutes an impermissible usurpation of judicial power because it commands the district court to suspend prospective relief under that order, albeit temporarily. An analysis of the principles underlying Hayburn's and as well as an examination of 3626(e)(2)'s interaction with the other provisions of 3626, makes clear that 3626(e)(2) does not offend these separation of principles. Hayburn's arose out of a 1792 statute that authorized pensions for veterans of the Revolutionary War. See Act of Mar. 23, 1792, ch. 11, The statute provided that the circuit courts were to review the applications and determine the appropriate amount of the pension, but that the Secretary of War had the discretion either to adopt or reject the courts' findings. Hayburn's *343 Although this Court did not reach the constitutional issue in Hayburn's the statements of five Justices, acting as circuit judges, were reported, and we have since recognized that the case "stands for the principle that Congress cannot vest review of the decisions of Article III courts in officials of the Executive Branch." ; see also As we recognized in such an effort by a coequal branch to "annul a final judgment" is "`an assumption of Judicial power' and therefore forbidden." (quoting Bates v. Kimball, 2 Chipman 77 (Vt. 1824)). Unlike the situation in Hayburn's 3626(e)(2) does not involve the direct review of a judicial decision by officials |
Justice O'Connor | 2,000 | 14 | majority | Miller v. French | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118378/miller-v-french/ | involve the direct review of a judicial decision by officials of the Legislative or Executive Branches. Nonetheless, the prisoners suggest that 3626(e)(2) falls within Hayburn's prohibition against an indirect legislative "suspension" or reopening of a final judgment, such as that addressed in See (quoting Hayburn's ("`[N]o decision of any court of the United States can, under any circumstances, be liable to a revision, or even suspension, by the [l]egislature itself, in whom no judicial power of any kind appears to be vested' ")). In we held that a federal statute that required federal courts to reopen final judgments that had been entered before the statute's enactment was unconstitutional on separation of grounds. The plaintiffs had brought a civil securities fraud action seeking money damages. While that action was pending, we ruled in Lampf, Pleva, Lipkind, Prupis & 501 U.S. 0 that such suits must be commenced within one year after the discovery of the facts constituting the violation and within three years after such violation. In light of this intervening decision, the plaintiffs' suit was untimely, and the District Court accordingly dismissed the action as time barred. After the judgment dismissing the *344 case had become final, Congress enacted a statute providing for the reinstatement of those actions, including the plaintiffs', that had been dismissed under Lampf but that would have been timely under the previously applicable statute of 514 U.S., at We concluded that this retroactive command that federal courts reopen final judgments exceeded Congress' authority. -219. The decision of an inferior court within the Article III hierarchy is not the final word of the department (unless the time for appeal has expired), and "[i]t is the obligation of the last court in the hierarchy that rules on the case to give effect to Congress's latest enactment, even when that has the effect of overturning the judgment of an inferior court, since each court, at every level, must `decide according to existing laws.' " ). But once a judicial decision achieves finality, it "becomes the last word of the judicial department." 514 U.S., And because Article III "gives the Federal Judiciary the power, not merely to rule on cases, but to decide them, subject to review only by superior courts in the Article III hierarchy," -219, the "judicial Power is one to render dispositive judgments," and Congress cannot retroactively command Article III courts to reopen final judgments, ). however, was careful to distinguish the situation before the Court in that caselegislation that attempted to reopen the dismissal of a suit seeking money damagesfrom legislation that "altered the prospective effect |
Justice O'Connor | 2,000 | 14 | majority | Miller v. French | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118378/miller-v-french/ | suit seeking money damagesfrom legislation that "altered the prospective effect of injunctions entered by Article III courts." We emphasized that "nothing in our holding today calls into question" Congress' authority to alter the prospective effect of previously entered injunctions. Prospective relief under a continuing, executory decree remains subject to alteration due to changes in the underlying law. Cf. Land- *345 This conclusion follows from our decisions in and In Wheeling Bridge I, we held that a bridge across the Ohio River, because it was too low, unlawfully "obstruct[ed] the navigation of the Ohio," and ordered that the bridge be raised or permanently Shortly thereafter, Congress enacted legislation declaring the bridge to be a "lawful structur[e]," establishing the bridge as a "`post-roa[d] for the passage of the mails of the United States,' " and declaring that the Wheeling and Belmont Bridge Company was authorized to maintain the bridge at its then-current site and elevation. Wheeling Bridge II, After the bridge was destroyed in a storm, Pennsylvania sued to enjoin the bridge's reconstruction, arguing that the statute legalizing the bridge was unconstitutional because it effectively annulled the Court's decision in Wheeling Bridge I. We rejected that argument, concluding that the decree in Wheeling Bridge I provided for ongoing relief by "directing the abatement of the obstruction" which enjoined the defendants' from any continuance or reconstruction of the obstruction. Because the intervening statute altered the underlying law such that the bridge was no longer an unlawful obstruction, we held that it was "quite plain the decree of the court cannot be enforced." Wheeling Bridge II, The Court explained that had Wheeling Bridge I awarded money damages in an action at law, then that judgment would be final, and Congress' later action could not have affected plaintiff's right to those damages. See But because the decree entered in Wheeling Bridge I provided for prospective *346 reliefa continuing injunction against the continuation or reconstruction of the bridgethe ongoing validity of the injunctive relief depended on "whether or not [the bridge] interferes with the right of navigation." When Congress altered the underlying law such that the bridge was no longer an unlawful obstruction, the injunction against the maintenance of the bridge was not enforceable. See Applied here, the principles of Wheeling Bridge II demonstrate that the automatic stay of 3626(e)(2) does not unconstitutionally "suspend" or reopen a judgment of an Article III court. Section 3626(e)(2) does not by itself "tell judges when, how, or what to do." Instead, 3626(e)(2) merely reflects the change implemented by 3626(b), which does the "heavy lifting" in the statutory scheme by |
Justice O'Connor | 2,000 | 14 | majority | Miller v. French | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118378/miller-v-french/ | which does the "heavy lifting" in the statutory scheme by establishing new standards for prospective relief. See Section 3626 prohibits the continuation of prospective relief that was "approved or granted in the absence of a finding by the court that the relief is narrowly drawn, extends no further than necessary to correct the violation of the Federal right, and is the least intrusive means to correct the violation," 3626(b)(2), or in the absence of "findings based on the record that prospective relief remains necessary to correct a current and ongoing violation of a Federal right, extends no further than necessary to correct the violation of the Federal right, and that the prospective relief is narrowly drawn and the least intrusive means to correct the violation," 3626(b)(3). Accordingly, if prospective relief under an existing decree had been granted or approved absent such findings, then that prospective relief must cease, see 3626(b)(2), unless and until the court makes findings on the record that such relief remains necessary to correct an ongoing violation and is narrowly tailored, see 3626(b)(3). The PLRA's automatic stay provision assists in the enforcement *347 of 3626(b)(2) and (3) by requiring the court to stay any prospective relief that, due to the change in the underlying standard, is no longer enforceable, i. e., prospective relief that is not supported by the findings specified in 3626(b)(2) and (3). By establishing new standards for the enforcement of prospective relief in 3626(b), Congress has altered the relevant underlying law. The PLRA has restricted courts' authority to issue and enforce prospective relief concerning prison conditions, requiring that such relief be supported by findings and precisely tailored to what is needed to remedy the violation of a federal right. See ; Imprisoned Citizens ; 1 F.3d 594, ; Inmates of Suffolk County We note that the constitutionality of 3626(b) is not challenged here; we assume, without deciding, that the new standards it pronounces are effective. As and Wheeling Bridge II instruct, when Congress changes the law underlying a judgment awarding prospective relief, that relief is no longer enforceable to the extent it is inconsistent with the new law. Although the remedial injunction here is a "final judgment" for purposes of appeal, it is not the "last word of the judicial department." 514 U. S., The provision of prospective relief is subject to the continuing supervisory jurisdiction of the court, and therefore may be altered according to subsequent changes in the law. See Prospective relief must be "modified if, as it later turns out, one or more of the obligations placed upon the parties has |
Justice O'Connor | 2,000 | 14 | majority | Miller v. French | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118378/miller-v-french/ | or more of the obligations placed upon the parties has become impermissible under federal law." ; see also Railway (11) ; The entry of the automatic stay under 3626(e)(2) helps to implement the change in the law caused by 3626(b)(2) and (3). If the prospective relief under the existing decree is not supported by the findings required under 3626(b)(2), and the court has not made the findings required by 3626(b)(3), then prospective relief is no longer enforceable and must be stayed. The entry of the stay does not reopen or "suspend" the previous judgment, nor does it divest the court of authority to decide the merits of the termination motion. Rather, the stay merely reflects the changed legal circumstancesthat prospective relief under the existing decree is no longer enforceable, and remains unenforceable unless and until the court makes the findings required by 3626(b)(3). For the same reasons, 3626(e)(2) does not violate the separation of principle articulated in United In that case, the executor of the estate of a Confederate sympathizer, sought to recover the value of property seized by the United States during the Civil War, which by statute was recoverable if could demonstrate that the decedent had not given aid or comfort to the rebellion. See In United we held that a Presidential pardon satisfied the burden of proving that no such aid or comfort had been given. While 's case was pending, Congress enacted a statute providing that a pardon would instead be taken as proof that the pardoned individual had in fact aided the enemy, and if the claimant offered proof of a pardon the court must dismiss the case for lack of jurisdiction. -134. We concluded that the statute was unconstitutional because it purported to "prescribe *349 rules of decision to the Judicial Department of the government in cases pending before it." Here, the prisoners argue that Congress has similarly prescribed a rule of decision because, for the period of time until the district court makes a final decision on the merits of the motion to terminate prospective relief, 3626(e)(2) mandates a particular outcome: the termination of prospective relief. As we noted in however, "[w]hatever the precise scope of later decisions have made clear that its prohibition does not take hold when Congress `amend[s] applicable law.' " 514 U.S., ). The prisoners concede this point but contend that, because 3626(e)(2) does not itself amend the legal standard, is still applicable. As we have explained, however, 3626(e)(2) must be read not in isolation, but in the context of 3626 as a whole. Section 3626(e)(2) operates in conjunction |
Justice O'Connor | 2,000 | 14 | majority | Miller v. French | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118378/miller-v-french/ | of 3626 as a whole. Section 3626(e)(2) operates in conjunction with the new standards for the continuation of prospective relief; if the new standards of 3626(b)(2) are not met, then the stay "shall operate" unless and until the court makes the findings required by 3626(b)(3). Rather than prescribing a rule of decision, 3626(e)(2) simply imposes the consequences of the court's application of the new legal standard. Finally, the prisoners assert that, even if 3626(e)(2) does not fall within the recognized prohibitions of Hayburn's or it still offends the principles of separation of because it places a deadline on judicial decisionmaking, thereby interfering with core judicial functions. Congress' imposition of a time limit in 3626(e)(2), however, does not in itself offend the structural concerns underlying the Constitution's separation of For example, if the PLRA granted courts 10 years to determine whether they could make the required findings, then certainly the PLRA would raise no apprehensions that Congress had encroached on the core function of the Judiciary to decide "cases and controversies properly before them." United *0 (10). Respondents' concern with the time limit, then, must be its relative brevity. But whether the time is so short that it deprives litigants of a meaningful opportunity to be heard is a due process question, an issue that is not before us. We leave open, therefore, the question whether this time limit, particularly in a complex case, may implicate due process concerns. In contrast to due process, which principally serves to protect the personal rights of litigants to a full and fair hearing, separation of principles are primarily addressed to the structural concerns of protecting the role of the independent Judiciary within the constitutional design. In this action, we have no occasion to decide whether there could be a time constraint on judicial action that was so severe that it implicated these structural separation of concerns. The PLRA does not deprive courts of their adjudicatory role, but merely provides a new legal standard for relief and encourages courts to apply that standard promptly. Through the PLRA, Congress clearly intended to make operation of the automatic stay mandatory, precluding courts from exercising their equitable to enjoin the stay. And we conclude that this provision does not violate separation of principles. Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit is reversed, and the action is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. It is so ordered. Justice Souter, with whom Justice Ginsburg joins, concurring in part and dissenting in part. I agree that 18 U.S. C. 3626(e)(2) (1994 ed., Supp. IV) |
Justice O'Connor | 2,000 | 14 | majority | Miller v. French | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118378/miller-v-french/ | agree that 18 U.S. C. 3626(e)(2) (1994 ed., Supp. IV) is unambiguous and join Parts I and II of the majority opinion. I also agree that applying the automatic stay may raise the due process issue, of whether a plaintiff has a fair chance to preserve an existing judgment that was valid when entered. Ante this page. But I believe that applying the statute may *1 also raise a serious separation-of- issue if the time it allows turns out to be inadequate for a court to determine whether the new prerequisite to relief is satisfied in a particular case.[1] I thus do not join Part III of the Court's opinion and on remand would require proceedings consistent with this one. I respectfully dissent from the terms of the Court's disposition. A prospective remedial order may rest on at least three different legal premises: the underlying right meant to be secured; the rules of procedure for obtaining relief, defining requisites of pleading, notice, and so on; and, in some cases, rules lying between the other two, such as those defining a required level of certainty before some remedy may be ordered, or the permissible scope of relief. At issue here are rules of the last variety.[2] Congress has the authority to change rules of this sort by imposing new conditions precedent for the continuing enforcement of existing, prospective remedial orders and requiring courts to apply the new rules to those orders. Cf. If its legislation gives courts adequate time to determine the applicability of a new rule to an old order and to take the action necessary to apply it or to vacate the order, there seems little basis for claiming that Congress has crossed *2 the constitutional line to interfere with the performance of any judicial function. But if determining whether a new rule applies requires time (say, for new factfinding) and if the statute provides insufficient time for a court to make that determination before the statute invalidates an extant remedial order, the application of the statute raises a serious question whether Congress has in practical terms assumed the judicial function. In such a case, the prospective order suddenly turns unenforceable not because a court has made a judgment to terminate it due to changed law or fact, but because no one can tell in the time allowed whether the new rule requires modification of the old order. One way to view this result is to see the Congress as mandating modification of an order that may turn out to be perfectly enforceable under the new rule, depending on |
Justice Stevens | 1,987 | 16 | dissenting | Richardson v. Marsh | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111865/richardson-v-marsh/ | The rationale of our decision in applies without exception to all *212 inadmissible confessions that are "powerfully incriminating." Today, however, the Court draws a distinction of constitutional magnitude between those confessions that directly identify the defendant and those that rely for their inculpatory effect on the factual and legal relationships of their contents to other evidence before the jury. Even if the jury's indirect inference of the defendant's guilt based on an inadmissible confession is much more devastating to the defendant's case than its inference from a direct reference in the codefendant's confession, the Court requires the exclusion of only the latter statement. This illogical result demeans the values protected by the Confrontation Clause. Moreover, neither reason nor experience supports the Court's argument that a consistent application of the rationale of the case would impose unacceptable burdens on the administration of justice. I It is a "basic premise" of the Confrontation Clause that certain kinds of hearsay "are at once so damaging, so suspect, and yet so difficult to discount, that jurors cannot be trusted to give such evidence the minimal weight it logically deserves, whatever instructions the trial judge might give."[1]*213 This constitutionally mandated skepticism undergirds the holding and is equally applicable to this case. The Court framed the issue in as "whether the conviction of a defendant at a joint trial should be set aside although the jury was instructed that a codefendant's confession inculpating the defendant had to be disregarded in determining his guilt or innocence." -124. We answered that question in the affirmative, noting that the Sixth Amendment is violated "where the powerfully incriminating extrajudicial statements of a codefendant, who stands accused side-by-side with the defendant, are deliberately spread before the jury in a joint trial." at Today the Court nevertheless draws a line between codefendant confessions that expressly name the defendant and those that do not. The Court relies on the presumption that in the latter category "it is a less valid generalization that the jury will not likely obey the instruction to disregard the evidence." Ante, at 208. I agree; but I do not read to require the exclusion of all codefendant confessions that do not mention the defendant.[2] Some such confessions may not have any significant impact on the defendant's case. But others will. If we presume, as we must, that jurors give their full and vigorous attention to every witness and each item of evidence, the very acts of listening and seeing will sometimes lead them down "the path of inference." Indeed, the Court tacitly acknowledges this point; while the Court speculates |
Justice Stevens | 1,987 | 16 | dissenting | Richardson v. Marsh | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111865/richardson-v-marsh/ | the Court tacitly acknowledges this point; while the Court speculates that the judge's instruction may dissuade the jury *214 from making inferences at all, it also concedes the probability of their occurrence, arguing that there is no overwhelming probability that jurors will be unable to "disregard an incriminating inference." has always required trial judges to answer the question whether a particular confession is or is not "powerfully incriminating" on a case-by-case basis; they should follow the same analysis whether or not the defendant is actually named by his or her codefendant. Instructing the jury that it was to consider Benjamin Williams' confession only against him, and not against Clarissa Marsh, failed to guarantee the level of certainty required by the Confrontation Clause. The uncertainty arose because the prosecution's case made it clear at the time Williams' statement was introduced that the statement would prove "powerfully incriminating" of the respondent as well as of Williams himself. There can be absolutely no doubt that spreading Williams' carefully edited confession before the jury intolerably interfered with the jury's solemn duty to treat the statement as nothing more than meaningless sounds in its consideration of Marsh's guilt or innocence. At the time that Williams' confession was introduced, the evidence already had established that respondent and two men committed an armed robbery in the course of which the two men killed two persons and shot a third. Ante, at 202. There was a sharp dispute, however, on the question whether respondent herself intended to commit a robbery in which murder was a foreseeable result, or knew that the two men planned to do so. The quantum of evidence admissible against respondent was just sufficient to establish this intent and hence to support her conviction. As the Court of Appeals explained: "[T]he issue is whether the evidence was sufficient to show that Marsh aided and abetted the assault with the specific intent to murder Knighton or with the knowledge that Martin had this specific intent Marsh's case presents a much closer question on this issue than *215 does Williams'. There was no testimony indicating she harbored an intent to murder Knighton, nor was there any showing that she heard Martin's statements regarding the need to `hurt' or `take out' the victims. There was, in addition, no testimony placing her in the basement, the scene of the shootings. The evidence does indicate, viewed in the light most favorable to the prosecution, that she was aware that Williams and Martin were armed, that she served as a guard or `lookout' at the door, that she prevented an attempted |
Justice Stevens | 1,987 | 16 | dissenting | Richardson v. Marsh | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111865/richardson-v-marsh/ | or `lookout' at the door, that she prevented an attempted escape by Knighton, and that she was given the paper bag thought to contain the proceeds of a robbery. The evidence also indicates that Marsh knew Scott, supporting the inference that it was Marsh who allowed Martin to gain entrance. While it is a close question, we believe the evidence presented at the time of the motion was sufficient to survive a motion for directed verdict." In the edited statement that the jury was instructed not to consider against Marsh, Williams described the conversation he had with Kareem Martin while they were in a car driving to their victims' residence. In that conversation, Martin stated that "he would have to take them out after the robbery." See ante, at 203, n. 1. The State's principal witness had testified that Martin and Marsh arrived at the victims' house together. The jury was therefore certain to infer from the confession that respondent had been in the car and had overheard the statement by Martin. Viewed in the total context of the trial evidence, this confession was of critical importance because it was the only evidence directly linking respondent with the specific intent, expressed before the robbery, to kill the victims afterwards.[3] If Williams had taken *216 the witness stand and testified, respondent's lawyer could have cross-examined him to challenge his credibility and to establish or suggest that the car radio was playing so loudly that Marsh could not have overheard the conversation between the two men from the backseat. An acknowledgment of the possibility of such facts by Williams would have done much more to eliminate the certainty beyond a reasonable doubt that Marsh knew about the murder plan than could possibly have been achieved by the later testimony of respondent herself. Moreover, the price respondent had to pay in order to attempt to rebut the obvious inference that she had overheard Martin was to remind the jury once again of what he had said and to give the prosecutor a further opportunity to point to this most damaging evidence on the close question of her specific intent. See ante, at 205, n. 2. The facts in this case are, admittedly, different from those in because Williams' statement did not directly mention respondent. Thus, instead of being "incriminating on its face," ante, at 208, it became so only when considered in connection with the other evidence presented to the jury. The difference between the facts of and the facts of this case does not eliminate their common, substantial, and constitutionally unacceptable risk |
Justice Stevens | 1,987 | 16 | dissenting | Richardson v. Marsh | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111865/richardson-v-marsh/ | does not eliminate their common, substantial, and constitutionally unacceptable risk that the jury, when resolving *217 a critical issue against respondent, may have relied on impermissible evidence.[4] II The facts that joint trials conserve prosecutorial resources, diminish inconvenience to witnesses, and avoid delays in the administration of criminal justice have been well known for a long time. See United It is equally well known that joint trials create special risks of prejudice to one of the defendants, and that such risks often make it necessary to grant severances. See ; Fed. Rule Crim. Proc. 14 (Relief from Prejudicial Joinder). The Government argues that the costs of requiring the prosecution to choose between severance and not offering the codefendant's confession at a joint trial outweigh the benefits to the defendant. Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 22. On the scales of justice, however, considerations of fairness normally outweigh administrative concerns. In the case the United States argued that the normal "benefits of joint proceedings should not have to be sacrificed *218 by requiring separate trials in order to use the confession against the declarant." See The Court endorsed the answer to this argument that Judge Lehman of the New York Court of Appeals had previously made in his dissenting opinion in : "We still adhere to the rule that an accused is entitled to confrontation of the witnesses against him and the right to cross-examine them We destroy the age-old rule which in the past has been regarded as a fundamental principle of our jurisprudence by a legalistic formula, required of the judge, that the jury may not consider any admissions against any party who did not join in them. We secure greater speed, economy and convenience in the administration of the law at the price of fundamental principles of constitutional liberty. That price is too high." The concern about the cost of joint trials, even if valid, does not prevail over the interests of justice. Moreover, the Court's effort to revive this concern in a state criminal case rests on the use of irrelevant statistics. The Court makes the startling discovery that joint trials account for "almost one-third of federal criminal trials in the past five years." Ante, at 209. In the interest of greater precision, the Court might have stated that there were 10,904 federal criminal trials involving more than one defendant during that 5-year period.[5] The Court might have added that the data base from which that figure was obtained does not contain any information at all to show the number of times that confessions were offered |
Justice Stevens | 1,987 | 16 | dissenting | Richardson v. Marsh | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111865/richardson-v-marsh/ | to show the number of times that confessions were offered in evidence in those 10,904 federal cases.[6] The *219 relevance of this data is also difficult to discern because all of the cases in this Court that involved joint trials conducted after was decided, in which compliance with the rule of that case was at issue, appear to have originated in a state court. Federal prosecutors seem to have had little difficulty, in conducting the literally thousands of joint trials to which the Court points, in maintaining "both the efficiency and the fairness of the criminal justice system" that the Court speculates will occur if 's reasoning is applied to this case. See ante, at 210. Presumably the options of granting immunity, making plea bargains, or simply waiting until after a confessing defendant has been tried separately before trying to use his admissions against an accomplice have enabled the Federal Government to enforce the criminal law without sacrificing the basic premise of the Confrontation Clause.[7] *220 The Court also expresses concern that trial judges will be unable to determine whether a codefendant's confession that does not directly mention the defendant and is inadmissible against him will create a substantial risk of unfair prejudice. In most such cases the trial judge can comply with the dictates of by postponing his or her decision on the admissibility of the confession until the prosecution rests, at which time its potentially inculpatory effect can be evaluated in the light of the government's entire case. The Court expresses concern that such a rule would enable "manipulation by the defense," see ante, at 209, by which the Court presumably means the defense might tailor its evidence to make sure that a confession which does not directly mention the defendant is deemed powerfully incriminating when viewed in light of the prosecution's entire case. As a practical matter, I cannot believe that there are many defense lawyers who would deliberately pursue this high-risk strategy of "manipulating" their evidence in order to enhance the prejudicial impact of a codefendant's confession. Moreover, a great many experienced and competent trial judges throughout the Nation are fully capable of managing cases and supervising counsel in order to avoid the problems that seem insurmountable to appellate judges who are sometimes distracted by illogical distinctions and irrelevant statistics. I respectfully dissent.[8] |
Justice Blackmun | 1,979 | 11 | majority | Fare v. Michael C. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110117/fare-v-michael-c/ | In this Court. established certain procedural safeguards designed to protect the rights of an accused, under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, to be free from compelled self-incrimination during custodial interrogation. The Court specified, among other things, that if the accused indicates in any manner that he wishes to remain silent or to consult an attorney, interrogation must cease, and any statement obtained from him during interrogation thereafter may not be admitted against him at his trial. In this case, the State of California, in the person of its acting chief probation officer, attacks the conclusion of the Supreme Court of California that a juvenile's request, made while undergoing custodial interrogation, to see his probation officer is per se an invocation of the juvenile's Fifth Amendment rights as pronounced in Miranda. I Respondent Michael C. was implicated in the murder of Robert Yeager. The murder occurred during a robbery of the victim's home on January 19, 1976. A small truck registered in the name of respondent's mother was identified as having been near the Yeager home at the time of the killing, and a young man answering respondent's description was seen by witnesses near the truck and near the home shortly before Yeager was murdered. *710 On the basis of this information, Van Nuys, Cal., police took respondent into custody at approximately 6:30 p. m. on February Respondent then was 16 1/2 years old and on probation to the Juvenile Court. He had been on probation since the age of 12. Approximately one year earlier he had served a term in a youth corrections camp under the supervision of the Juvenile Court. He had a record of several previous offenses, including burglary of guns and purse snatching, stretching back over several years. Upon respondent's arrival at the Van Nuys station house two police officers began to interrogate him. The officers and respondent were the only persons in the room during the interrogation. The conversation was tape-recorded. One of the officers initiated the interview by informing respondent that he had been brought in for questioning in relation to a murder. The officer fully advised respondent of his Miranda rights. The following exchange then occurred, as set out in the opinion of the California Supreme Court, In re Michael C., : "Q. Do you understand all of these rights as I have explained them to you? "A. Yeah. "Q. Okay, do you wish to give up your right to remain silent and talk to us about this murder? "A. What murder? I don't know about no murder. "Q. I'll explain to you which |
Justice Blackmun | 1,979 | 11 | majority | Fare v. Michael C. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110117/fare-v-michael-c/ | know about no murder. "Q. I'll explain to you which one it is if you want to talk to us about it. "A. Yeah, I might talk to you. "Q. Do you want to give up your right to have an attorney present here while we talk about it? "A. Can I have my probation officer here? "Q. Well I can't get a hold of your probation officer right now. You have the right to an attorney. "A. How I know you guys won't pull no police officer in and tell me he's an attorney? *711 "Q. Huh? "A. [How I know you guys won't pull no police officer in and tell me he's an attorney?] "Q. Your probation officer is Mr. Christiansen. "A. Yeah. "Q. Well I'm not going to call Mr. Christiansen tonight. There's a good chance we can talk to him later, but I'm not going to call him right now. If you want to talk to us without an attorney present, you can. If you don't want to, you don't have to. But if you want to say something, you can, and if you don't want to say something you don't have to. That's your right. You understand that right? "A. Yeah. "Q. Okay, will you talk to us without an attorney present? "A. Yeah I want to talk to you." Respondent thereupon proceeded to answer questions put to him by the officers. He made statements and drew sketches that incriminated him in the Yeager murder. Largely on the basis of respondent's incriminating statements, probation authorities filed a petition in Juvenile Court alleging that respondent had murdered Robert Yeager, in violation of Cal. Penal Code Ann. 17 and that respondent therefore should be adjudged a ward of the Juvenile Court, pursuant to Cal. Welf. & Inst. Code Ann. 602[1] App. -5. Respondent thereupon moved to suppress the statements and sketches he gave the police during the interrogation. He alleged that the statements had been obtained in violation of Miranda in that *712 his request to see his probation officer at the outset of the questioning constituted an invocation of his Fifth Amendment right to remain silent, just as if he had requested the assistance of an attorney. Accordingly, respondent argued that since the interrogation did not cease until he had a chance to confer with his probation officer, the statements and sketches could not be admitted against him in the Juvenile Court proceedings. In so arguing, respondent relied by analogy on the decision in where the Supreme Court of California had held that a minor's request, |
Justice Blackmun | 1,979 | 11 | majority | Fare v. Michael C. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110117/fare-v-michael-c/ | Supreme Court of California had held that a minor's request, made during custodial interrogation, to see his parents constituted an invocation of the minor's Fifth Amendment rights. In support of his suppression motion, respondent called his probation officer, Charles P. Christiansen, as a witness. Christiansen testified that he had instructed respondent that if at any time he had "a concern with his family," or ever had "a police contact," App. 27, he should get in touch with his probation officer immediately. The witness stated that, on a previous occasion, when respondent had had a police contact and had failed to communicate with Christiansen, the probation officer had reprimanded him. at 2. This testimony, respondent argued, indicated that when he asked for his probation officer, he was in fact asserting his right to remain silent in the face of further questioning. In a ruling from the bench, the court denied the motion to suppress. It held that the question whether respondent had waived his right to remain silent was one of fact to be determined on a case-by-case basis, and that the facts of this case showed a "clear waiver" by respondent of that right. The court observed that the transcript of the interrogation revealed that respondent specifically had told the officers that he would talk with them, and that this waiver had come at the outset of the interrogation and not after prolonged questioning. The court noted that *713 respondent was a "16 and a half year old minor who has been through the court system before, has been to [probation] camp, has a probation officer, [and is not] a young, naive minor with no experience with the courts." Accordingly, it found that on the facts of the case respondent had waived his Fifth Amendment rights, notwithstanding the request to see his probation officer.[2] On appeal, the Supreme Court of California took the case by transfer from the California Court of Appeal and, by a divided vote, reversed. In re Michael C., The court held that respondent's "request to see his probation officer at the commencement of interrogation negated any possible willingness on his part to discuss his case with the police [and] thereby invoked his Fifth Amendment privilege." 579 P.2d, at The court based this conclusion on its view that, because of the juvenile court system's emphasis on the relationship between a probation officer and the probationer, the officer was "a trusted guardian figure who exercises the authority of the state as parens patriae and whose duty it is to implement *71 the protective and rehabilitative powers of the |
Justice Blackmun | 1,979 | 11 | majority | Fare v. Michael C. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110117/fare-v-michael-c/ | to implement *71 the protective and rehabilitative powers of the juvenile court." As a consequence, the court found that a minor's request for his probation officer was the same as a request to see his parents during interrogation, and thus under the rule of constituted an invocation of the minor's Fifth Amendment rights. The fact that the probation officer also served as a peace officer, and, whenever a proceeding against a juvenile was contemplated, was charged with a duty to file a petition alleging that the minor had committed an offense, did not alter, in the court's view, the fact that the officer in the eyes of the juvenile was a trusted guardian figure to whom the minor normally would turn for help when in trouble with the police. 21 Cal. 3d, Relying on the court ruled that it would unduly restrict Miranda to limit its reach in a case involving a minor to a request by the minor for an attorney, since it would be "`fatuous to assume that a minor in custody will be in a position to call an attorney for assistance and it is unrealistic to attribute no significance to his call for help from the only person to whom he normally looksa parent or guardian.'" -, 579 P. 2d, at 9, quoting 6 Cal. 3d, at 32, -79. The court dismissed the concern expressed by the State that a request for a probation officer could not be distinguished from a request for one's football coach, music teacher, or clergyman on the ground that the probation officer, unlike those other figures in the juvenile's life, was charged by statute to represent the interests of the juvenile. 579 P. 2d, at 10. The court accordingly held that the probation officer would act to protect the minor's Fifth Amendment rights in precisely the way an attorney would act if called for by the accused. In so holding, the court found the request for a probation officer to be a per se invocation of Fifth Amendment rights in the same way the request for an attorney was found *715 in Miranda to be, regardless of what the interrogation otherwise might reveal. In rejecting a totality-of-the-circumstances inquiry, the court stated: "Here, however, we face conduct which, regardless of considerations of capacity, coercion or voluntariness, per se invokes the privilege against self-incrimination. Thus our question turns not on whether the [respondent] had the ability, capacity or willingness to give a knowledgeable waiver, and hence whether he acted voluntarily, but whether, when he called for his probation officer, he exercised his Fifth |
Justice Blackmun | 1,979 | 11 | majority | Fare v. Michael C. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110117/fare-v-michael-c/ | he called for his probation officer, he exercised his Fifth Amendment privilege. We hold that in doing so he no less invoked the protection against self-incrimination than if he asked for the presence of an attorney." 579 P. 2d, at 10-11. See also at 7 n. n. The court went on to conclude that since the State had not met its "burden of proving that a minor who requests to see his probation officer does not intend to assert his Fifth Amendment privilege," at 7, the trial court should not have admitted the confessions obtained after respondent had requested his probation officer.[3] *716 The State of California petitioned this Court for a writ of certiorari. MR. JUSTICE REHNQUIST, as Circuit Justice, stayed the execution of the mandate of the Supreme Court of California. 39 U.S. 1310 Because the California judgment extending the per se aspects of Miranda presents an important question about the reach of that case, we thereafter issued the writ. 39 U.S. 925 II We note at the outset that it is clear that the judgment of *717 the California Supreme Court rests firmly on that court's interpretation of federal law. This Court, however, has not heretofore extended the per se aspects of the Miranda safeguards beyond the scope of the holding in the Miranda case itself.[] We therefore must examine the California court's decision to determine whether that court's conclusion so to extend Miranda is in harmony with Miranda's underlying principles. For it is clear that "a State may not impose greater restrictions as a matter of federal constitutional law when this Court specifically refrains from imposing them." 20 U.S. 71, See North 1 U.S. 369 The rule the Court established in Miranda is clear. In order to be able to use statements obtained during custodial interrogation of the accused, the State must warn the accused prior to such questioning of his right to remain silent and of his right to have counsel, retained or appointed, present during interrogation. 3 U.S., at 73. "Once [such] warnings have been given, the subsequent procedure is clear." "If the individual indicates in any manner, at any time prior to or during questioning, that he wishes to remain silent, the interrogation must cease. At this point he has shown that he intends to exercise his Fifth Amendment privilege; any statement taken after the person invokes his privilege cannot be other than the product of compulsion, subtle or otherwise. If the individual states that he wants an attorney, the interrogation must cease until an attorney is present. At that time, the *71 |
Justice Blackmun | 1,979 | 11 | majority | Fare v. Michael C. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110117/fare-v-michael-c/ | until an attorney is present. At that time, the *71 individual must have an opportunity to confer with the attorney and to have him present during any subsequent questioning. If the individual cannot obtain an attorney and he indicates that he wants one before speaking to police, they must respect his decision to remain silent." at Any statements obtained during custodial interrogation conducted in violation of these rules may not be admitted against the accused, at least during the State's case in chief. at 79. Cf. 01 U.S. 222, 22 Whatever the defects, if any, of this relatively rigid requirement that interrogation must cease upon the accused's request for an attorney, Miranda's holding has the virtue of informing police and prosecutors with specificity as to what they may do in conducting custodial interrogation, and of informing courts under what circumstances statements obtained during such interrogation are not admissible. This gain in specificity, which benefits the accused and the State alike, has been thought to outweigh the burdens that the decision in Miranda imposes on law enforcement agencies and the courts by requiring the suppression of trustworthy and highly probative evidence even though the confession might be voluntary under traditional Fifth Amendment analysis. See 17 U.S. 33, 3-6 (197). The California court in this case, however, significantly has extended this rule by providing that a request by a juvenile for his probation officer has the same effect as a request for an attorney. Based on the court's belief that the probation officer occupies a position as a trusted guardian figure in the minor's life that would make it normal for the minor to turn to the officer when apprehended by the police, and based as well on the state-law requirement that the officer represent the interest of the juvenile, the California decision found that consultation with a probation officer fulfilled the role for the juvenile that consultation with an attorney does in general, * acting as a "`protective [device] to dispel the compulsion inherent in custodial surroundings.'" quoting 3 U. S., at 5. The rule in Miranda, however, was based on this Court's perception that the lawyer occupies a critical position in our legal system because of his unique ability to protect the Fifth Amendment rights of a client undergoing custodial interrogation. Because of this special ability of the lawyer to help the client preserve his Fifth Amendment rights once the client becomes enmeshed in the adversary process, the Court found that "the right to have counsel present at the interrogation is indispensable to the protection of the Fifth Amendment privilege |
Justice Blackmun | 1,979 | 11 | majority | Fare v. Michael C. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110117/fare-v-michael-c/ | is indispensable to the protection of the Fifth Amendment privilege under the system" established by the Court. at 69. Moreover, the lawyer's presence helps guard against overreaching by the police and ensures that any statements actually obtained are accurately transcribed for presentation into evidence. at 70. The per se aspect of Miranda was thus based on the unique role the lawyer plays in the adversary system of criminal justice in this country. Whether it is a minor or an adult who stands accused, the lawyer is the one person to whom society as a whole looks as the protector of the legal rights of that person in his dealings with the police and the courts. For this reason, the Court fashioned in Miranda the rigid rule that an accused's request for an attorney is per se an invocation of his Fifth Amendment rights, requiring that all interrogation cease. A probation officer is not in the same posture with regard to either the accused or the system of justice as a whole. Often he is not trained in the law, and so is not in a position to advise the accused as to his legal rights. Neither is he a trained advocate, skilled in the representation of the interests of his client before both police and courts. He does not assume the power to act on behalf of his client by virtue of his status as adviser, nor are the communications of the accused to the probation officer shielded by the lawyer-client privilege. *720 Moreover, the probation officer is the employee of the State which seeks to prosecute the alleged offender. He is a peace officer, and as such is allied, to a greater or lesser extent, with his fellow peace officers. He owes an obligation to the State, notwithstanding the obligation he may also owe the juvenile under his supervision. In most cases, the probation officer is duty bound to report wrongdoing by the juvenile when it comes to his attention, even if by communication from the juvenile himself. Indeed, when this case arose, the probation officer had the responsibility for filing the petition alleging wrongdoing by the juvenile and seeking to have him taken into the custody of the Juvenile Court. It was respondent's probation officer who filed the petition against him, and it is the acting chief of probation for the State of California, a probation officer, who is petitioner in this Court today.[5] *721 In these circumstances, it cannot be said that the probation officer is able to offer the type of independent advice that an accused |
Justice Blackmun | 1,979 | 11 | majority | Fare v. Michael C. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110117/fare-v-michael-c/ | to offer the type of independent advice that an accused would expect from a lawyer retained or assigned to assist him during questioning. Indeed, the probation officer's duty to his employer in many, if not most, cases would conflict sharply with the interests of the juvenile. For where an attorney might well advise his client to remain silent in the face of interrogation by the police, and in doing so would be "exercising [his] good professional judgment to protect to the extent of his ability the rights of his client," 3 U. S., at 0-1, a probation officer would be bound to advise his charge to cooperate with the police. The justices who concurred in the opinion of the California Supreme Court in this case aptly noted: "Where a conflict between the minor and the law arises, the probation officer can be neither neutral nor in the minor's corner." 21 Cal. 3d, at 79, 579 P. 2d, at 12. It thus is doubtful that a general rule can be established that a juvenile, in every case, looks to his probation officer as a "trusted guardian figure" rather than as an officer of the court system that imposes punishment. By the same token, a lawyer is able to protect his client's rights by learning the extent, if any, of the client's involvement in the crime under investigation, and advising his client accordingly. *722 To facilitate this, the law rightly protects the communications between client and attorney from discovery. We doubt, however, that similar protection will be afforded the communications between the probation officer and the minor. Indeed, we doubt that a probation officer, consistent with his responsibilities to the public and his profession, could withhold from the police or the courts facts made known to him by the juvenile implicating the juvenile in the crime under investigation. We thus believe it clear that the probation officer is not in a position to offer the type of legal assistance necessary to protect the Fifth Amendment rights of an accused undergoing custodial interrogation that a lawyer can offer. The Court in Miranda recognized that "the attorney plays a vital role in the administration of criminal justice under our Constitution." 3 U.S., at 1. It is this pivotal role of legal counsel that justifies the per se rule established in Miranda, and that distinguishes the request for counsel from the request for a probation officer, a clergyman, or a close friend. A probation officer simply is not necessary, in the way an attorney is, for the protection of the legal rights of the accused, |
Justice Blackmun | 1,979 | 11 | majority | Fare v. Michael C. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110117/fare-v-michael-c/ | for the protection of the legal rights of the accused, juvenile or adult. He is significantly handicapped by the position he occupies in the juvenile system from serving as an effective protector of the rights of a juvenile suspected of a crime. The California Supreme Court, however, found that the close relationship between juveniles and their probation officers compelled the conclusion that a probation officer, for purposes of Miranda, was sufficiently like a lawyer to justify extension of the per se 21 Cal. 3d, The fact that a relationship of trust and cooperation between a probation officer and a juvenile might exist, however, does not indicate that the probation officer is capable of rendering effective legal advice sufficient to protect the juvenile's rights during interrogation by the police, or of providing the other services rendered by a lawyer. To find otherwise *723 would be "an extension of the Miranda requirements [that] would cut this Court's holding in that case completely loose from its own explicitly stated rationale." 25 U.S. 31, 35 Such an extension would impose the burdens associated with the rule of Miranda on the juvenile justice system and the police without serving the interests that rule was designed simultaneously to protect. If it were otherwise, a juvenile's request for almost anyone he considered trustworthy enough to give him reliable advice would trigger the rigid rule of Miranda. Similarly, the fact that the State has created a statutory duty on the part of the probation officer to protect the interests of the juvenile does not render the probation officer any more capable of rendering legal assistance to the juvenile or of protecting his legal rights, especially in light of the fact that the State has also legislated a duty on the part of the officer to report wrongdoing by the juvenile and serve the ends of the juvenile court system. The State cannot transmute the relationship between probation officer and juvenile offender into the type of relationship between attorney and client that was essential to the holding of Miranda simply by legislating an amorphous "duty to advise and care for the juvenile defendant." Though such a statutory duty might serve to distinguish to some degree the probation officer from the coach and the clergyman, it does not justify the extension of Miranda to requests to see probation officers. If it did, the State could expand the class of persons covered by the Miranda per se rule simply by creating a duty to care for the juvenile on the part of other persons, regardless of whether the logic of Miranda |
Justice Blackmun | 1,979 | 11 | majority | Fare v. Michael C. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110117/fare-v-michael-c/ | of other persons, regardless of whether the logic of Miranda would justify that extension. Nor do we believe that a request by a juvenile to speak with his probation officer constitutes a per se request to remain silent. As indicated, since a probation officer does not fulfill the important role in protecting the rights of the accused *72 juvenile that an attorney plays, we decline to find that the request for the probation officer is tantamount to the request for an attorney. And there is nothing inherent in the request for a probation officer that requires us to find that a juvenile's request to see one necessarily constitutes an expression of the juvenile's right to remain silent. As discussed below, courts may take into account such a request in evaluating whether a juvenile in fact had waived his Fifth Amendment rights before confessing. But in other circumstances such a request might well be consistent with a desire to speak with the police. In the absence of further evidence that the minor intended in the circumstances to invoke his Fifth Amendment rights by such a request, we decline to attach such overwhelming significance to this request. We hold, therefore, that it was error to find that the request by respondent to speak with his probation officer per se constituted an invocation of respondent's Fifth Amendment right to be free from compelled self-incrimination. It therefore was also error to hold that because the police did not then cease interrogating respondent the statements he made during interrogation should have been suppressed. III Miranda further recognized that after the required warnings are given the accused, "[i]f the interrogation continues without the presence of an attorney and a statement is taken, a heavy burden rests on the government to demonstrate that the defendant knowingly and intelligently waived his privilege against self-incrimination and his right to retained or appointed counsel." 3 U.S., at 75. We noted in North 1 U. S., at 373, that the question whether the accused waived his rights "is not one of form, but rather whether the defendant in fact knowingly and voluntarily waived the rights delineated in the Miranda case." Thus, the determination whether statements obtained during custodial *725 interrogation are admissible against the accused is to be made upon an inquiry into the totality of the circumstances surrounding the interrogation, to ascertain whether the accused in fact knowingly and voluntarily decided to forgo his rights to remain silent and to have the assistance of counsel. 3 U. S., at 75-77. This totality-of-the-circumstances approach is adequate to determine whether there has |
Justice Blackmun | 1,979 | 11 | majority | Fare v. Michael C. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110117/fare-v-michael-c/ | This totality-of-the-circumstances approach is adequate to determine whether there has been a waiver even where interrogation of juveniles is involved. We discern no persuasive reasons why any other approach is required where the question is whether a juvenile has waived his rights, as opposed to whether an adult has done so. The totality approach permits indeed, it mandatesinquiry into all the circumstances surrounding the interrogation. This includes evaluation of the juvenile's age, experience, education, background, and intelligence, and into whether he has the capacity to understand the warnings given him, the nature of his Fifth Amendment rights, and the consequences of waiving those rights. See North Courts repeatedly must deal with these issues of waiver with regard to a broad variety of constitutional rights. There is no reason to assume that such courtsespecially juvenile courts, with their special expertise in this areawill be unable to apply the totality-of-the-circumstances analysis so as to take into account those special concerns that are present when young persons, often with limited experience and education and with immature judgment, are involved. Where the age and experience of a juvenile indicate that his request for his probation officer or his parents is, in fact, an invocation of his right to remain silent, the totality approach will allow the court the necessary flexibility to take this into account in making a waiver determination. At the same time, that approach refrains from imposing rigid restraints on police and courts in dealing with an experienced older juvenile with an extensive prior record who knowingly and intelligently waives *726 his Fifth Amendment rights and voluntarily consents to interrogation. In this case, we conclude that the California Supreme Court should have determined the issue of waiver on the basis of all the circumstances surrounding the interrogation of respondent. The Juvenile Court found that under this approach, respondent in fact had waived his Fifth Amendment rights and consented to interrogation by the police after his request to see his probation officer was denied. Given its view of the case, of course, the California Supreme Court did not consider this issue, though it did hold that the State had failed to prove that, notwithstanding respondent's request to see his probation officer, respondent had not intended to invoke his Fifth Amendment rights. We feel that the conclusion of the Juvenile Court was correct. The transcript of the interrogation reveals that the police officers conducting the interrogation took care to ensure that respondent understood his rights. They fully explained to respondent that he was being questioned in connection with a murder. They then informed him |
Justice Blackmun | 1,979 | 11 | majority | Fare v. Michael C. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110117/fare-v-michael-c/ | questioned in connection with a murder. They then informed him of all the rights delineated in Miranda, and ascertained that respondent understood those rights. There is no indication in the record that respondent failed to understand what the officers told him. Moreover, after his request to see his probation officer had been denied, and after the police officer once more had explained his rights to him, respondent clearly expressed his willingness to waive his rights and continue the interrogation. Further, no special factors indicate that respondent was unable to understand the nature of his actions. He was a 16 1/2-year-old juvenile with considerable experience with the police. He had a record of several arrests. He had served time in a youth camp, and he had been on probation for several years. He was under the full-time supervision of probation authorities. There is no indication that he was of insufficient intelligence to understand the rights he was waiving, or what the consequences of that waiver would be. He was not *727 worn down by improper interrogation tactics or lengthy questioning or by trickery or deceit. On these facts, we think it clear that respondent voluntarily and knowingly waived his Fifth Amendment rights. Respondent argues, however, that any statements he made during interrogation were coerced. Specifically, respondent alleges that the police made threats and promises during the interrogation to pressure him into cooperating in the hope of obtaining leniency for his cooperative attitude. He notes also that he repeatedly told the officers during his interrogation that he wished to stop answering their questions, but that the officers ignored his pleas. He argues further that the record reveals that he was afraid that the police would coerce him, and that this fear caused him to cooperate. He points out that at one point the transcript revealed that he wept during the interrogation. Review of the entire transcript reveals that respondent's claims of coercion are without merit. As noted, the police took care to inform respondent of his rights and to ensure that he understood them. The officers did not intimidate or threaten respondent in any way. Their questioning was restrained and free from the abuses that so concerned the Court in Miranda. See 3 U.S., at 5-55. The police did indeed indicate that a cooperative attitude would be to respondent's benefit, but their remarks in this regard were far from threatening or coercive. And respondent's allegation that he repeatedly asked that the interrogation cease goes too far: at some points he did state that he did not know the answer to a question |
Justice Blackmun | 1,979 | 11 | majority | Fare v. Michael C. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110117/fare-v-michael-c/ | that he did not know the answer to a question put to him or that he could not, or would not, answer the question, but these statements were not assertions of his right to remain silent. IV We hold, in short, that the California Supreme Court erred in finding that a juvenile's request for his probation officer was a per se invocation of that juvenile's Fifth Amendment *72 rights under Miranda. We conclude, rather, that whether the statements obtained during subsequent interrogation of a juvenile who has asked to see his probation officer, but who has not asked to consult an attorney or expressly asserted his right to remain silent, are admissible on the basis of waiver remain a question to be resolved on the totality of the circumstances surrounding the interrogation. On the basis of the record in this case, we hold that the Juvenile Court's findings that respondent voluntarily and knowingly waived his rights and consented to continued interrogation, and that the statements obtained from him were voluntary, were proper, and that the admission of those statements in the proceeding against respondent in Juvenile Court was correct. The judgment of the Supreme Court of California is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion. It is so ordered. MR. JUSTICE MARSHALL, with whom MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN and MR. |
Justice Powell | 1,975 | 17 | majority | Iannelli v. United States | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109225/iannelli-v-united-states/ | This case requires the Court to consider Wharton's Rule, a doctrine of criminal law enunciating an exception to the general principle that a conspiracy and the substantive offense that is its immediate end are discrete crimes for which separate sanctions may be imposed. I Petitioners were tried under a six-count indictment alleging a variety of federal gambling offenses. Each of the eight petitioners, along with seven unindicted coconspirators and six codefendants, was charged, inter alia, *772 with conspiring[1] to violate and violating 18 U.S. C. 19, a federal gambling statute making it a crime for five or more persons to conduct, finance, manage, supervise, direct, or own a gambling business prohibited by state law.[2] Each petitioner was convicted of both offenses,[3] and each was sentenced under both the substantive and conspiracy counts.[4] The Court of Appeals *773 for the Third Circuit affirmed, finding that a recognized exception to Wharton's Rule permitted prosecution and punishment for both offenses, We granted certiorari to resolve the conflicts caused by the federal courts' disparate approaches to the application of Wharton's Rule to conspiracies to violate 19. For the reasons now to be stated, we affirm. II Wharton's Rule owes its name to Francis Wharton, whose treatise on criminal law identified the doctrine and its fundamental rationale: "When to the idea of an offense plurality of agents is logically necessary, conspiracy, which assumes the voluntary accession of a person to a crime of such a character that it is aggravated by a plurality of agents, cannot be maintained. In other words, when the law says, `a combination between two persons to effect a particular end shall be called, if the end be effected, by a certain name,' it is not lawful for the prosecution to call it by some other name; and when the law says, such an offensee. g., adultery shall have a certain punishment, it is not lawful for the prosecution to evade this limitation by indicting the offense as conspiracy." 2 F. Wharton, Criminal Law 1604, p. 1862[] *774 The Rule has been applied by numerous courts, state[6] and federal[7] alike. It also has been recognized by this Court,[8] although we have had no previous occasion carefully to analyze its justification and proper role in federal law. The classic formulation of Wharton's Rule requires that the conspiracy indictment be dismissed before trial. Wharton's description of the Rule indicates that, where it is applicable, an indictment for conspiracy "cannot be maintained," ibid., a conclusion echoed by Anderson's more recent formulation, see n. and by statements *77 of this Court as well, see ; |
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