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Justice O'Connor
| 1,983 | 14 |
majority
|
South Dakota v. Neville
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110832/south-dakota-v-neville/
|
Public Safety, after providing the person who has refused the test an opportunity for a hearing, to revoke for one year both the person's license to drive and any nonresident operating privileges he may possess. 32-23-11. Such a penalty for refusing to take a blood-alcohol test is unquestionably legitimate, assuming appropriate procedural protections. See South Dakota further discourages the choice of refusal by allowing the refusal to be used against the defendant at trial. S. D. Comp. Laws. Ann. 32-23-10.1 and 19-13-28.1 expressly reserved the question of whether evidence of refusal violated the privilege against 384 U.S., The Court did indicate that general Fifth Amendment principles, rather than the particular holding of should control the n. 9.[10] Most courts applying general Fifth Amendment principles to the refusal to take a blood test have found no violation of the privilege against Many courts, following the lead of Justice Traynor's opinion for the California Supreme Court in 421 P.2d cert. denied, have reasoned that refusal to submit is a physical act rather than a communication and for this reason is not protected by the *561 privilege.[11] As Justice Traynor explained more fully in the companion case of evidence of refusal to take a potentially incriminating test is similar to other circumstantial evidence of consciousness of guilt, such as escape from custody and suppression of evidence. The court below, relying on and cert. denied, rejected this view. This minority view emphasizes that the refusal is "a tacit or overt expression and communication of defendant's thoughts," 312 N.W.2d, and that the Constitution "simply forbids any compulsory revealing or communication of an accused person's thoughts or mental processes, whether it is by acts, failure to act, words spoken or failure to speak." While we find considerable force in the analogies to flight and suppression of evidence suggested by Justice Traynor, we decline to rest our decision on this ground. As we recognized in the distinction between real or physical evidence, on the one hand, and communications or testimony, on the other, is not readily drawn in many cases.[12] The situations arising from a refusal present a difficult *562 gradation from a person who indicates refusal by complete inaction, to one who nods his head negatively, to one who states "I refuse to take the test," to the respondent here, who stated "I'm too drunk, I won't pass the test." Since no impermissible coercion is involved when the suspect refuses to submit to take the test, regardless of the form of refusal, we prefer to rest our decision on this ground, and draw possible distinctions when
|
Justice O'Connor
| 1,983 | 14 |
majority
|
South Dakota v. Neville
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110832/south-dakota-v-neville/
|
our decision on this ground, and draw possible distinctions when necessary for decision in other circumstances.[13] As we stated in "[t]he Court has held repeatedly that the Fifth Amendment is limited to prohibiting the use of `physical or moral compulsion' exerted on the person asserting the privilege." This coercion requirement comes directly from the constitutional language directing that no person "shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself." U. S. Const., Amdt. 5 (emphasis added). And as Professor Levy concluded in his history of the privilege, "[t]he element of compulsion or involuntariness was always an ingredient of the right and, before the right existed, of protests against incriminating interrogatories." L. Levy, Origins of the Fifth Amendment 328 (1968). Here, the State did not directly compel respondent to refuse the test, for it gave him the choice of submitting to the test or refusing. Of course, the fact the government gives a defendant or suspect a "choice" does not always resolve the *563 compulsion The classic Fifth Amendment violation telling a defendant at trial to testify does not, under an extreme view, compel the defendant to incriminate himself. He could submit to self-accusation, or testify falsely (risking perjury) or decline to testify (risking contempt). But the Court has long recognized that the Fifth Amendment prevents the State from forcing the choice of this "cruel trilemma" on the defendant. See See also New Similarly, cautioned that the Fifth Amendment may bar the use of testimony obtained when the proffered alternative was to submit to a test so painful, dangerous, or severe, or so violative of religious beliefs, that almost inevitably a person would prefer "confession." 384 U.S.,[14] Cf. In contrast to these prohibited choices, the values behind the Fifth Amendment are not hindered when the State offers a suspect the choice of submitting to the blood-alcohol test or having his refusal used against him. The simple blood-alcohol test is so safe, painless, and commonplace, see that respondent concedes, as he must, that the State could legitimately compel the suspect, against his will, to accede to the test. Given, then, that the offer of taking a blood-alcohol test is clearly legitimate, the action becomes no less legitimate when the State offers a second option of refusing the test, with the attendant penalties for making that choice. Nor is this a case where the State has subtly coerced respondent into choosing the option it had no right to compel, rather than offering a true *564 choice. To the contrary, the State wants respondent to choose to take
|
Justice O'Connor
| 1,983 | 14 |
majority
|
South Dakota v. Neville
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110832/south-dakota-v-neville/
|
the contrary, the State wants respondent to choose to take the test, for the inference of intoxication arising from a positive blood-alcohol test is far stronger than that arising from a refusal to take the test. We recognize, of course, that the choice to submit or refuse to take a blood-alcohol test will not be an easy or pleasant one for a suspect to make. But the criminal process often requires suspects and defendants to make difficult choices. See, e. g., Crampton v. Ohio, decided with We hold, therefore, that a refusal to take a blood-alcohol test, after a police officer has lawfully requested it, is not an act coerced by the officer, and thus is not protected by the privilege against [15] III Relying on respondent also suggests that admission at trial of his refusal violates the Due Process Clause because respondent was not fully warned of the consequences of refusal. Doyle held that the Due Process Clause prohibits a prosecutor from using a defendant's silence after warnings to impeach his testimony at trial. Just a Term before, in United we had determined under our supervisory power that the federal courts could not use such silence for impeachment because of its dubious probative value. Although *565 Doyle mentioned this rationale in applying the rule to the the Court relied on the fundamental unfairness of implicitly assuring a suspect that his silence will not be used against him and then using his silence to impeach an explanation subsequently offered at trial. Unlike the situation in Doyle, we do not think it fundamentally unfair for South Dakota to use the refusal to take the test as evidence of guilt, even though respondent was not specifically warned that his refusal could be used against him at trial. First, the right to silence underlying the warnings is one of constitutional dimension, and thus cannot be unduly burdened. See Cf. 4 U.S. 603 (postarrest silence without warnings may be used to impeach trial testimony). Respondent's right to refuse the blood-alcohol test, by contrast, is simply a matter of grace bestowed by the South Dakota Legislature. Moreover, the warnings emphasize the dangers of choosing to speak ("whatever you say can and will be used as evidence against you in court"), but give no warning of adverse consequences from choosing to remain silent. This imbalance in the delivery of warnings, we recognized in Doyle, implicitly assures the suspect that his silence will not be used against him. The warnings challenged here, by contrast, contained no such misleading implicit assurances as to the relative consequences of his
|
Justice O'Connor
| 1,983 | 14 |
majority
|
South Dakota v. Neville
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110832/south-dakota-v-neville/
|
misleading implicit assurances as to the relative consequences of his choice. The officers explained that, if respondent chose to submit to the test, he had the right to know the results and could choose to take an additional test by a person chosen by him. The officers did not specifically warn respondent that the test results could be used against him at trial.[16] Explaining the consequences of *566 the other option, the officers specifically warned respondent that failure to take the test could lead to loss of driving privileges for one year. It is true the officers did not inform respondent of the further consequence that evidence of refusal could be used against him in court,[17] but we think it unrealistic to say that the warnings given here implicitly assure a suspect that no consequences other than those mentioned will occur. Importantly, the warning that he could lose his driver's license made it clear that refusing the test was not a "safe harbor," free of adverse consequences. While the State did not actually warn respondent that the test results could be used against him, we hold that such a failure to warn was not the sort of implicit promise to forgo use of evidence that would unfairly "trick" respondent if the evidence were later offered against him at trial. We therefore conclude that the use of evidence of refusal after these warnings comported with the fundamental fairness required by due process. IV The judgment of the South Dakota Supreme Court is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion. It is so ordered.
|
Justice Ginsburg
| 1,999 | 5 |
majority
|
El Al Israel Airlines, Ltd. v. Tsui Yuan Tseng
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118253/el-al-israel-airlines-ltd-v-tsui-yuan-tseng/
|
Plaintiff-respondent Tsui Yuan Tseng was subjected to an intrusive security search at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York before she boarded an El Al Israel Airlines May 22, 1993 flight to Tel Aviv. Tseng seeks tort damages from El Al for this occurrence. The episode-insuit, both parties now submit, does not qualify as an "accident" within the meaning of the treaty popularly known as the Warsaw Convention, which governs air carrier liability for "all international transportation."[1] Tseng alleges psychic or psychosomatic injuries, but no "bodily injury," as that term is used in the Convention. Her case presents a question of the Convention's exclusivity: When the Convention allows no recovery for the episode-in-suit, does it correspondingly preclude the passenger from maintaining an action for damages under another source of law, in this case, New York tort law? The exclusivity question before us has been settled prospectively in a Warsaw Convention protocol (Montreal Protocol No. 4) recently ratified by the Senate.[2] In accord with the protocol, Tseng concedes, a passenger whose injury is not compensable under the Convention (because it entails no "bodily injury" or was not the result of an "accident") will *161 have no recourse to an alternate remedy. We conclude that the protocol, to which the United States has now subscribed, clarifies, but does not change, the Convention's exclusivity domain. We therefore hold that recovery for a personal injury suffered "on board [an] aircraft or in the course of any of the operations of embarking or disembarking," Art. 17, if not allowed under the Convention, is not available at all. The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled otherwise. In that court's view, a plaintiff who did not qualify for relief under the Convention could seek relief under local law for an injury sustained in the course of international air travel. We granted certiorari,[3] and now reverse the Second Circuit's judgment. Recourse to local law, we are persuaded, would undermine the uniform regulation of international air carrier liability that the Warsaw Convention was designed to foster. I We have twice reserved decision on the Convention's exclusivity. In Air we concluded that a passenger's injury was not caused by an "accident" for which the airline could be held accountable under the Convention, but expressed no view whether that passenger could maintain "a state cause of action for negligence." *162 In Eastern Airlines, we held that mental or psychic injuries unaccompanied by physical injuries are not compensable under Article 17 of the Convention, but declined to reach the question whether the Convention "provides the exclusive cause of action
|
Justice Ginsburg
| 1,999 | 5 |
majority
|
El Al Israel Airlines, Ltd. v. Tsui Yuan Tseng
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118253/el-al-israel-airlines-ltd-v-tsui-yuan-tseng/
|
question whether the Convention "provides the exclusive cause of action for injuries sustained during international air transportation." We resolve in this case the question on which we earlier reserved judgment. At the outset, we highlight key provisions of the treaty we are interpreting. Chapter I of the Warsaw Convention, entitled "SCOPEâ DEFINITIONS," declares in Article 1(1) that the "[C]onvention shall apply to all international transportation of persons, baggage, or goods performed by aircraft for hire."[4] Chapter III, entitled "Liability of the Carrier," defines in Articles 17, 18, and 19 the three kinds of liability for which the Convention provides. Article 17 establishes the conditions of liability for personal injury to passengers: "The carrier shall be liable for damage sustained in the event of the death or wounding of a passenger or any other bodily injury suffered by a passenger, if the accident which caused the damage so sustained took place on board the aircraft or in the course of any of the operations of embarking or disembarking." Article 18 establishes the conditions of liability for damage to baggage or goods.[5] Article 19 establishes *163 the conditions of liability for damage caused by delay. [6] Article 24, referring back to Articles 17, 18, and 19, instructs: "(1) In the cases covered by articles 18 and 19 any action for damages, however founded, can only be brought subject to the conditions and limits set out in this convention. "(2) In the cases covered by article 17 the provisions of the preceding paragraph shall also apply, without prejudice to the questions as to who are the persons who have the right to bring suit and what are their respective rights."[7] II With the key treaty provisions as the backdrop, we next describe the episode-in-suit. On May 22, 1993, Tsui Yuan Tseng arrived at John F. Kennedy International Airport (hereinafter JFK) to board an El Al Israel Airlines flight to Tel Aviv. In conformity with standard El Al preboarding procedures, a security guard questioned Tseng about her destination and travel plans. The guard considered Tseng's responses "illogical," and ranked her as a "high risk" passenger. Tseng was taken to a private security room where her baggage and person were searched for explosives and detonating devices. She was told to remove her shoes, jacket, and sweater, and to lower her blue jeans to midhip. *164 A female security guard then searched Tseng's body outside her clothes by hand and with an electronic security wand. After the search, which lasted 15 minutes, El Al personnel decided that Tseng did not pose a security threat and allowed
|
Justice Ginsburg
| 1,999 | 5 |
majority
|
El Al Israel Airlines, Ltd. v. Tsui Yuan Tseng
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118253/el-al-israel-airlines-ltd-v-tsui-yuan-tseng/
|
that Tseng did not pose a security threat and allowed her to board the flight. Tseng later testified that she "was really sick and very upset" during the flight, that she was "emotionally traumatized and disturbed" during her monthlong trip in Israel, and that, upon her return, she underwent medical and psychiatric treatment for the lingering effects of the body search. Tseng filed suit against El Al in 1994 in a New York state court of first instance. Her complaint alleged a state-law personal injury claim based on the May 22, 1993 episode at JFK. Tseng's pleading charged, inter alia, assault and false imprisonment, but alleged no bodily injury. El Al removed the case to federal court. The District Court, after a bench trial, dismissed Tseng's personal injury claim. See That claim, the court concluded, was governed by Article 17 of the Warsaw Convention, which creates a cause of action for personal injuries suffered as a result of an "accident in the course of any of the operations of embarking or disembarking," See -158. Tseng's claim was not compensable under Article 17, the District Court stated, because Tseng "sustained no bodily injury" as a result of the search, and the Convention does not permit "recovery for psychic or psychosomatic injury unaccompanied by bodily injury," (citing ). The District Court further concluded that Tseng could not pursue her claim, alternately, under New York tort law; as that court read the Convention, Article 24 shields the carrier from liability for personal injuries not compensable under Article 17. See 919 F. Supp., *165 The Court of Appeals reversed in relevant part. See[8] The Second Circuit concluded first that no "accident" within Article 17's compass had occurred; in the Court of Appeals' view, the Convention drafters did not "ai[m] to impose close to absolute liability" for an individual's "personal reaction" to "routine operating procedures," measures that, although "inconvenien[t] and embarass[ing]," are the "price passengers pay for airline safety."[9] In some tension with that reasoning, the Second *166 Circuit next concluded that the Convention does not shield the very same "routine operating procedures" from assessment under the diverse laws of signatory nations (and, in the case of the United States, States within one Nation) governing assault and false imprisonment. See Article 24 of the Convention, the Court of Appeals said, "clearly states that resort to local law is precluded only where the incident is `covered' by Article 17, meaning where there has been an accident, either on the plane or in the course of embarking or disembarking, which led to death, wounding or other bodily
|
Justice Ginsburg
| 1,999 | 5 |
majority
|
El Al Israel Airlines, Ltd. v. Tsui Yuan Tseng
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118253/el-al-israel-airlines-ltd-v-tsui-yuan-tseng/
|
or disembarking, which led to death, wounding or other bodily injury." -105. The court found support in the drafting history of the Convention, which it construed to "indicate that national law was intended to provide the passenger's remedy where the Convention did not expressly apply." The Second Circuit also rejected the argument that allowance of statelaw claims when the Convention does not permit recovery would contravene the treaty's goal of uniformity. The court read our decision in to "instruct specifically that the Convention expresses no compelling interest in uniformity that would warrant supplanting an otherwise applicable body of law." III We accept it as given that El Al's search of Tseng was not an "accident" within the meaning of Article 17, for the parties do not place that Court of Appeals conclusion at issue. See at 165 and this page, n. 9. We also accept, again only for purposes of this decision, that El Al's actions did not constitute "wilful misconduct"; accordingly, we confront no issue under Article 25 of the Convention, see *167 n. 7.[10] The parties do not dispute that the episode-in-suit occurred in international transportation in the course of embarking. Our inquiry begins with the text of Article 24, which prescribes the exclusivity of the Convention's provisions for air carrier liability. "[I]t is our responsibility to give the specific words of the treaty a meaning consistent with the shared expectations of the contracting parties." "Because a treaty ratified by the United States is not only the law of this land, see U. S. Const., Art. II, 2, but also an agreement among sovereign powers, we have traditionally considered as aids to its interpretation the negotiating and drafting history (travaux préparatoires) and the postratification understanding of the contracting parties." Article 24 provides that "cases covered by article 17"â or in the governing French text, "les cas prévus ā l'article 17"[11]â may "only be brought subject to the conditions and *168 limits set out in th[e] [C]onvention." That prescription is not a model of the clear drafter's art. We recognize that the words lend themselves to divergent interpretation. In Tseng's view, and in the view of the Court of Appeals, "les cas prévus ā l'article 17" means those cases in which a passenger could actually maintain a claim for relief under Article 17. So read, Article 24 would permit any passenger whose personal injury suit did not satisfy the liability conditions of Article 17 to pursue the claim under local law. In El Al's view, on the other hand, and in the view of the United States as amicus
|
Justice Ginsburg
| 1,999 | 5 |
majority
|
El Al Israel Airlines, Ltd. v. Tsui Yuan Tseng
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118253/el-al-israel-airlines-ltd-v-tsui-yuan-tseng/
|
and in the view of the United States as amicus curiae, "les cas prévus ā l'article 17" refers generically to all personal injury cases stemming from occurrences on board an aircraft or in embarking or disembarking, and simply distinguishes that class of cases (Article 17 cases) from cases involving damaged luggage or goods, or delay (which Articles 18 and 19 address). So read, Article 24 would preclude a passenger from asserting any air transit personal injury claims under local law, including claims that failed to satisfy Article 17's liability conditions, notably, because the injury did not result from an "accident," see or because the "accident" did not result in physical injury or physical manifestation of injury, see Respect is ordinarily due the reasonable views of the Executive Branch concerning the meaning of an international treaty. See Sumitomo Shoji America, We conclude that the Government's *169 construction of Article 24 is most faithful to the Convention's text, purpose, and overall structure. A The cardinal purpose of the Warsaw Convention, we have observed, is to "achiev[e] uniformity of rules governing claims arising from international air transportation." ; see The Convention signatories, in the treaty's preamble, specifically "recognized the advantage of regulating in a uniform manner the conditions of the liability of the carrier." To provide the desired uniformity, Chapter III of the Convention sets out an array of liability rules which, the treaty declares, "apply to all international transportation of persons, baggage, or goods performed by aircraft." In that Chapter, the Convention describes and defines the three areas of air carrier liability (personal injuries in Article 17, baggage or goods loss, destruction, or damage in Article 18, and damage occasioned by delay in Article 19), the conditions exempting air carriers from liability (Article 20), the monetary limits of liability (Article 22), and the circumstances in which air carriers may not limit liability (Articles 23 and 25). See and n. 7. Given the Convention's comprehensive scheme of liability rules and its textual emphasis on uniformity, we would be hard put to conclude that the delegates at Warsaw meant to subject air carriers to the distinct, nonuniform liability rules of the individual signatory nations. The Court of Appeals looked to our precedent for guidance on this point, but it misperceived our meaning. It misread our decision in to say that the Warsaw Convention expresses no compelling interest in uniformity that would warrant preempting an otherwise applicable body of law, here New York tort law. See ; acknowledges that the Convention centrally *170 endeavors "to foster uniformity in the law of international air travel." It
|
Justice Ginsburg
| 1,999 | 5 |
majority
|
El Al Israel Airlines, Ltd. v. Tsui Yuan Tseng
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118253/el-al-israel-airlines-ltd-v-tsui-yuan-tseng/
|
foster uniformity in the law of international air travel." It further recognizes that the Convention addresses the question whether there is airline liability vel non. See The case itself involved auxiliary issues: who may seek recovery in lieu of passengers, and for what harms they may be compensated. See Looking to the Convention's text, negotiating and drafting history, contracting states' postratification understanding of the Convention, and scholarly commentary, the Court in determined that Warsaw drafters intended to resolve whether there is liability, but to leave to domestic law (the local law identified by the forum under its choice-of-law rules or approaches) determination of the compensatory damages available to the suitor. See A complementary purpose of the Convention is to accommodate or balance the interests of passengers seeking recovery for personal injuries, and the interests of air carriers seeking to limit potential liability. Before the Warsaw accord, injured passengers could file suits for damages, subject only to the limitations of the forum's laws, including the forum's choice-of-law regime. This exposure inhibited the growth of the then-fledgling international airline industry. See ; Lowenfeld & Mendelsohn, The United States and the Warsaw Convention, Many international air carriers at that time endeavored to require passengers, as a condition of air travel, to relieve or reduce the carrier's liability in case of injury. See Second International Conference on Private Aeronautical Law, October 4-12, 1929, Warsaw, Minutes 47 (R. Horner & D. Legrez transls. 1975) (hereinafter Minutes). The Convention drafters designed Articles 17, 22, and 24 of the Convention as a compromise between the interests of air carriers and their customers worldwide. In Article 17 of the Convention, carriers are denied the contractual prerogative to exclude or limit their liability for personal injury. In *171 Articles 22 and 24, passengers are limited in the amount of damages they may recover, and are restricted in the claims they may pursue by the conditions and limits set out in the Convention. Construing the Convention, as did the Court of Appeals, to allow passengers to pursue claims under local law when the Convention does not permit recovery could produce several anomalies. Carriers might be exposed to unlimited liability under diverse legal regimes, but would be prevented, under the treaty, from contracting out of such liability. Passengers injured physically in an emergency landing might be subject to the liability caps of the Convention, while those merely traumatized in the same mishap would be free to sue outside of the Convention for potentially unlimited damages. The Court of Appeals' construction of the Convention would encourage artful pleading by plaintiffs seeking to
|
Justice Ginsburg
| 1,999 | 5 |
majority
|
El Al Israel Airlines, Ltd. v. Tsui Yuan Tseng
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118253/el-al-israel-airlines-ltd-v-tsui-yuan-tseng/
|
the Convention would encourage artful pleading by plaintiffs seeking to opt out of the Convention's liability scheme when local law promised recovery in excess of that prescribed by the treaty. See Such a reading would scarcely advance the predictability that adherence to the treaty has achieved worldwide.[12] The Second Circuit feared that if Article 17 were read to exclude relief outside the Convention for Tseng, then a passenger injured by a malfunctioning escalator in the airline's terminal would have no recourse against the airline, even if the airline recklessly disregarded its duty to keep the escalator in proper repair. See As the United States pointed out in its amicus curiae submission, however, the Convention addresses and concerns, only and exclusively, *172 the airline's liability for passenger injuries occurring "on board the aircraft or in the course of any of the operations of embarking or disembarking." Art. 17, ; see Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 16. "[T]he Convention's preemptive effect on local law extends no further than the Convention's own substantive scope." A carrier, therefore, "is indisputably subject to liability under local law for injuries arising outside of that scope: e. g., for passenger injuries occurring before `any of the operations of embarking' " or disembarking. Tseng raises a different concern. She argues that air carriers will escape liability for their intentional torts if passengers are not permitted to pursue personal injury claims outside of the terms of the Convention. See Brief for Respondent 15-16. But we have already cautioned that the definition of "accident" under Article 17 is an "unusual event. external to the passenger, " and that "[t]his definition should be flexibly applied." In the Court concluded that no "accident" occurred because the injury thereâ a hearing lossâ "indisputably result[ed] from the passenger's own internal reaction to the usual, normal, and expected operation of the aircraft." As we earlier noted, see Tseng and El Al chose not to pursue in this Court the question whether an "accident" occurred, for an affirmative answer would still leave Tseng unable to recover under the treaty; she sustained no "bodily injury" and could not gain compensation under Article 17 for her solely psychic or psychosomatic injuries. B The drafting history of Article 17 is consistent with our understanding of the preemptive effect of the Convention. The preliminary draft of the Convention submitted to the conference at Warsaw made air carriers liable "in the case of death, wounding, or any other bodily injury suffered by a *173 traveler." Minutes 264; see In the later draft that prescribed what is now Article 17,
|
Justice Ginsburg
| 1,999 | 5 |
majority
|
El Al Israel Airlines, Ltd. v. Tsui Yuan Tseng
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118253/el-al-israel-airlines-ltd-v-tsui-yuan-tseng/
|
the later draft that prescribed what is now Article 17, airline liability was narrowed to encompass only bodily injury caused by an "accident." See Minutes 205. It is improbable that, at the same time the drafters narrowed the conditions of air carrier liability in Article 17, they intended, in Article 24, to permit passengers to skirt those conditions by pursuing claims under local law.[13] Inspecting the drafting history, the Court of Appeals stressed a proposal made by the Czechoslovak delegation to state in the treaty that, in the absence of a stipulation in the Convention itself, "`the provisions of laws and national rules relative to carriage in each [signatory] State shall apply.' " 122 F.3d, That proposal was withdrawn upon amendment of the Convention's title to read: "Convention For The Unification Of Certain Rules Relating To International Transportation By Air." ; see 122 F.3d, The Second Circuit saw in this history an indication "that national law was intended to provide the passenger's remedy where the Convention did not expressly apply." 122 F.3d, The British House of Lords, in Sidhu v. British Airways plc, [] 1 All E. R. 193, considered the same history, but found it inconclusive. Inclusion of the word "certain" in the Convention's title, the Lords reasoned, accurately indicated that "the [C]onvention is concerned with certain rules only, not with all the rules relating to international carriage by air." For example, the Convention does not say "anything about the carrier's obligations of insurance, and in particular about compulsory insurance against third party risks." The Convention, in other words, is "a *174 partial harmonisation, directed to the particular issues with which it deals," ib among them, a carrier's liability to passengers for personal injury. As to those issues, the Lords concluded, "the aim of the [C]onvention is to unify." Pointing to the overall understanding that the Convention's objective was to "ensure uniformity," the Lords suggested that the Czechoslovak delegation may have meant only to underscore that national law controlled "chapters of law relating to international carriage by air with which the [C]onvention was not attempting to deal." In light of the Lords' exposition, we are satisfied that the withdrawn Czechoslovak proposal will not bear the weight the Court of Appeals placed on it. C Montreal Protocol No. 4, ratified by the Senate on September 28, 1998,[14] amends Article 24 to read, in relevant part: "In the carriage of passengers and baggage, any action for damages, however founded, can only be brought subject to the conditions and limits set out in this Convention"[15] Both parties agree that, under the amended
|
Justice Ginsburg
| 1,999 | 5 |
majority
|
El Al Israel Airlines, Ltd. v. Tsui Yuan Tseng
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118253/el-al-israel-airlines-ltd-v-tsui-yuan-tseng/
|
in this Convention"[15] Both parties agree that, under the amended Article 24, the *175 Convention's preemptive effect is clear: The treaty precludes passengers from bringing actions under local law when they cannot establish air carrier liability under the treaty. Revised Article 24, El Al urges and we agree, merely clarifies, it does not alter, the Convention's rule of exclusivity. Supporting the position that revised Article 24 provides for preemption not earlier established, Tseng urges that federal preemption of state law is disfavored generally, and particularly when matters of health and safety are at stake. See Brief for Respondent 31-33. See also post, at 181 (Stevens, J., dissenting) ("[A] treaty, like an Act of Congress, should not be construed to preempt state law unless its intent to do so is clear."). Tseng overlooks in this regard that the nation-state, not subdivisions within one nation, is the focus of the Convention and the perspective of our treaty partners. Our home-centered preemption analysis, therefore, should not be applied, mechanically, in construing our international obligations. Decisions of the courts of other Convention signatories corroborate our understanding of the Convention's preemptive effect. In Sidhu, the British House of Lords considered and decided the very question we now face concerning the Convention's exclusivity when a passenger alleges psychological damages, but no physical injury, resulting from an occurrence that is not an "accident" under Article 17. See 1 All E. R., at 201, 207. Reviewing the text, structure, and drafting history of the Convention, the Lords concluded that the Convention was designed to "ensure that, in all questions relating to the carrier's liability, it is the provisions of the [C]onvention which apply and that the passenger does not have access to any other remedies, whether under the common law or otherwise, which may be available within the particular country where he chooses to raise his action." Courts of other nations bound by the Convention have also recognized the treaty's encompassing preemptive effect.[16]*176 The "opinions of our sister signatories," we have observed, are "entitled to considerable weight." The text, drafting history, and underlying purpose of the Convention, in sum, counsel us to adhere to a view of the treaty's exclusivity shared by our treaty partners. * * * For the reasons stated, we hold that the Warsaw Convention precludes a passenger from maintaining an action for personal injury damages under local law when her claim does not satisfy the conditions for liability under the Convention. Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the Second Circuit. It is so ordered.
|
Justice Marshall
| 1,991 | 15 |
majority
|
Kamen v. Kemper Financial Services, Inc.
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112587/kamen-v-kemper-financial-services-inc/
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This case calls upon us to determine whether we should fashion a federal common law rule obliging the representative shareholder in a derivative action founded on the Investment Company Act of 1940, 15 U.S. C. 80a-1(a) et seq., to make a demand on the board of directors even when such a demand would be excused as futile under state law. Because the scope of the demand requirement embodies the incorporating State's allocation of governing powers within the corporation, and because a futility exception to demand does not impede the purposes of the Investment Company Act, we decline to displace state law with a uniform rule abolishing the futility exception in federal derivative actions. *93 I The Investment Company Act of 1940 (ICA or Act) establishes a scheme designed to regulate one aspect of the management of investment companies that provide so-called "mutual fund" services. Mutual funds pool the investment assets of individual shareholders. Such funds typically are organized and underwritten by the same firm that serves as the company's "investment adviser." The ICA seeks to arrest the potential conflicts of interest inherent in such an arrangement. See generally Daily Income Fund, ; The Act requires, inter alia, that at least 40% of the investment company's directors be financially independent of the investment adviser, 15 U.S. C. 80a-10(a), 80a-2(a)(19)(iii); that the contract between the adviser and the company be approved by a majority of the company's shareholders, 80a-15(a); and that the dealings of the adviser with the company measure up to a fiduciary standard, the breach of which gives rise to a cause of action by either the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) or an individual shareholder on the company's behalf, 80a-35(b). Petitioner brought this suit to enforce 20(a) of the Act, 15 U.S. C. 80a-20(a), which prohibits materially misleading proxy statements.[1] The complaint was styled as a shareholder *94 derivative action brought on behalf of respondent Cash Equivalent Fund, Inc. (Fund), a registered investment company, against Kemper Financial Services, Inc. (KFS), the Fund's investment adviser. Petitioner alleged that KFS obtained shareholder approval of the investment-adviser contract by causing the Fund to issue a proxy statement that materially misrepresented the character of KFS' fees. See App. to Pet. for Cert. 90a-91a. Petitioner also averred that she made no precomplaint demand on the Fund's board of directors because doing so would have been futile. In support of this allegation, the complaint stated that all of the directors were under the control of KFS, that the board had voted unanimously to approve the offending proxy statement, and that the board had subsequently evidenced
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Justice Marshall
| 1,991 | 15 |
majority
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Kamen v. Kemper Financial Services, Inc.
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offending proxy statement, and that the board had subsequently evidenced its hostility to petitioner's claim by moving to dismiss. See at 92a-93a. The District Court granted KFS' motion to dismiss on the ground that petitioner had failed to plead the facts excusing demand with sufficient particularity for purposes of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure1. See The Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal of petitioner's 20(a) claim. See Like the District Court, the Court of Appeals concluded that petitioner's failure to make a precomplaint demand was fatal to her case. Drawing heavily on the American Law Institute's Principles of Corporate Governance the Court of Appeals concluded that the futility exception does little more than generate wasteful threshold litigation collateral to the merits of the derivative shareholder's claim. For that reason, the court adopted as a rule of federal common law the ALI's so-called "universal demand" rule, under which the futility exception is abolished. See ; see also ALI, Principles of Corporate Governance, *95 7.03(a)-(b), and comment a.[2] The court acknowledged this Court's precedents holding that courts should incorporate state law when fashioning federal common law rules to fill the interstices of private causes of action brought under federal securities laws. See Nonetheless, because petitioner had neglected until her reply brief to advert to the established status of the futility exception under the law of Marylandthe State in which the Fund is incorporatedthe court held that petitioner's challenge to the court's power to adopt the ALI's universal-demand rule "c[ame] too late" to be considered. Ibid.[3] We granted certiorari, and now reverse. II The derivative form of action permits an individual shareholder to bring "suit to enforce a corporate cause of action against officers, directors, and third parties." Devised as a suit in equity, the purpose of the derivative action was to place in the hands of the individual shareholder a means to protect the interests of the corporation from the misfeasance and malfeasance of "faithless directors and managers." To prevent abuse of *96 this remedy, however, equity courts established as a "precondition for the suit" that the shareholder demonstrate that "the corporation itself had refused to proceed after suitable demand, unless excused by extraordinary conditions." at This requirement is accommodated by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure1, which states in pertinent part: "The complaint [in a shareholder derivative action] shall. allege with particularity the efforts, if any, made by the plaintiff to obtain the action the plaintiff desires from the directors or comparable authority and, if necessary, from the shareholders or members, and the reasons for the plaintiff's failure to obtain the action
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Justice Marshall
| 1,991 | 15 |
majority
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Kamen v. Kemper Financial Services, Inc.
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the reasons for the plaintiff's failure to obtain the action or for not making the effort." But although Rule1 clearly contemplates both the demand requirement and the possibility that demand may be excused, it does not create a demand requirement of any particular dimension. On its face, Rule1 speaks only to the adequacy of the shareholder representative's pleadings. Indeed, as a rule of procedure issued pursuant to the Rules Enabling Act, Rule1 cannot be understood to "abridge, enlarge or modify any substantive right." 28 U.S. C. 2072(b). The purpose of the demand requirement is to "affor[d] the directors an opportunity to exercise their reasonable business judgment and `waive a legal right vested in the corporation in the belief that its best interests will be promoted by not insisting on such right.'" Daily Income Fund, quoting Ordinarily, it is only when demand is excused that the shareholder enjoys the right to initiate "suit on behalf of his corporation in disregard of the directors' wishes." R. Corporate Law 15.2, p. 640 (1986). In our view, the function of the demand doctrine in delimiting the respective powers of the individual shareholder and of the directors to control corporate litigation clearly is a matter of "substance," not *97 "procedure." See Daily Income Fund, and n. 2 (STEVENS, J., concurring in judgment); cf. ; (rule is "substantive" when it regulates derivative shareholder's primary conduct in exercise of corporate managerial power). Thus, in order to determine whether the demand requirement may be excused by futility in a derivative action founded on 20(a) of the ICA,[4] we must identify the source and content of the substantive law that defines the demand requirement in such a suit. III A It is clear that the contours of the demand requirement in a derivative action founded on the ICA are governed by federal law. Because the ICA is a federal statute, any common law rule necessary to effectuate a private cause of action under that statute is necessarily federal in character. See -; Sola Electric *98 It does not follow, however, that the content of such a rule must be wholly the product of a federal court's own devising. Our cases indicate that a court should endeavor to fill the interstices of federal remedial schemes with uniform federal rules only when the scheme in question evidences a distinct need for nationwide legal standards, see, e. g., Clearfield Trust or when express provisions in analogous statutory schemes embody congressional policy choices readily applicable to the matter at hand, see, e. g., Boyle v. United Technologies ; Otherwise, we have indicated that
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Justice Marshall
| 1,991 | 15 |
majority
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Kamen v. Kemper Financial Services, Inc.
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Boyle v. United Technologies ; Otherwise, we have indicated that federal courts should "incorporat[e] [state law] as the federal rule of decision," unless "application of [the particular] state law [in question] would frustrate specific objectives of the federal programs." United The presumption that state law should be incorporated into federal common law is particularly strong in areas in which private parties have entered legal relationships with the expectation that their rights and obligations would be governed by state-law standards. See at -729, 739-740 ; Reconstruction Finance v. Beaver County, ; see also De Corporation law is one such area. See The issue in Burks was whether the disinterested directors of a registered investment company possess the power to terminate a nonfrivolous derivative action founded on the ICA and the Investment Advisers Act of 1940 (IAA). We held that a federal court should look to state law to answer this question. See at -485. "`Corporations,'" we emphasized, "`are creatures of state law,' and it is *99 state law which is the font of corporate directors' powers." quoting We discerned nothing in the limited regulatory objectives of the ICA or IAA that evidenced a congressional intent that "federal courts fashion an entire body of federal corporate law out of whole cloth." Consequently, we concluded that gaps in these statutes bearing on the allocation of governing power within the corporation should be filled with state law "unless the state la[w] permit[s] action prohibited by the Acts, or unless `[its] application would be inconsistent with the federal policy underlying the cause of action.'" quoting Defending the reasoning of the Court of Appeals, KFS argues that petitioner waived her right to the application of anything other than a uniform federal rule of demand because she failed to advert to state law until her reply brief in the proceedings below. We disagree. When an issue or claim is properly before the court, the court is not limited to the particular legal theories advanced by the parties, but rather retains the independent power to identify and apply the proper construction of governing law. See, e. g., It is not disputed that petitioner effectively invoked federal common law as the basis of her right to forgo demand as futile. Having undertaken to decide this claim, the Court of Appeals was not free to promulgate a federal common law demand rule without identifying the proper source of federal common law in this area. Cf. ; Indeed, we note that the Court of Appeals *100 viewed itself as free to adopt the American Law Institute's universal-demand rule even though neither
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Justice Marshall
| 1,991 | 15 |
majority
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Kamen v. Kemper Financial Services, Inc.
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adopt the American Law Institute's universal-demand rule even though neither party addressed whether the futility exception should be abolished as a matter of federal common law.[5] The question, then, is whether the Court of Appeals drew its universal-demand rule from an improper source when it disregarded state law relating to the futility exception. To answer that question, we must first determine whether the demand requirement comes within the purview of Burks' presumption of state-law incorporation, that is, whether the scope of the demand requirement affects the allocation of governing power within the corporation. If so, we must then determine whether a futility exception to the demand requirement impedes the policies underlying the ICA.[6] *101 B Because the contours of the demand requirement when it is required, and when excuseddetermine who has the power to control corporate litigation, we have little trouble concluding that this aspect of state law relates to the allocation of governing powers within the corporation. The purpose of requiring a precomplaint demand is to protect the directors' prerogative to take over the litigation or to oppose it. See, e. g., 3 In most jurisdictions, the board's decision to do the former ends the shareholder's control of the suit, see R. Corporate Law 15.2, p. 640 (1986), while its decision to do the latter is subject only to the deferential "business judgment rule" standard of review, see, e. g., Zapata v. 430 A.2d 9, 7, Thus, the demand requirement implements "the basic principle of corporate governance that the decisions of a corporationincluding the decision to initiate litigation should be made by the board of directors or the majority of shareholders." Daily Income Fund, To the extent that a jurisdiction recognizes the futility exception to demand, the jurisdiction places a limit upon the directors' usual power to control the initiation of corporate litigation. Although "jurisdictions differ widely in defining *102 the circumstances under which demand on directors will be excused," D. DeMott, Shareholder Derivative Actions 5:03, p. 35 demand typically is deemed to be futile when a majority of the directors have participated in or approved the alleged wrongdoing, see, e. g., or are otherwise financially interested in the challenged transactions, see, e. g.,[7] By permitting the shareholder to circumvent the board's business judgment on the desirability of corporate litigation, the "futility" exception defines the circumstances in which the shareholder may exercise this particular incident of managerial authority. See, e. g., Zapata v. at 7. The futility exception to the demand requirement may also determine the scope of the directors' power to terminate derivative litigation once initiatedthe very aspect
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Justice Marshall
| 1,991 | 15 |
majority
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Kamen v. Kemper Financial Services, Inc.
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directors' power to terminate derivative litigation once initiatedthe very aspect of state corporation law that we were concerned with in Burks. In many (but not all) States, the board may delegate to a committee of disinterested directors the board's power to control corporate litigation. See generally R. 15.2.3. Some of these jurisdictions treat the decision of a special litigation committee to terminate a derivative suit as automatically entitled to deference under the "business judgment rule." See, e. g., Others, including Delaware, defer to the decision of a special litigation committee only in a "demand required" case; in a "demand excused" case, these States first require the court to confirm the "independence, good faith and reasonable *103 investigat[ory]" efforts of the committee and then authorize the court to exercise its "own independent business judgment" in assessing whether to enforce the committee's recommendation, Zapata v. ; see at 8. Thus, in these jurisdictions, "the entire question of demand futility is inextricably bound to issues of business judgment and the standards of that doctrine's applicability." Superimposing a rule of universal-demand over the corporate doctrine of these States would clearly upset the balance that they have struck between the power of the individual shareholder and the power of the directors to control corporate litigation. Under the law of Delaware and the States that follow its lead, a shareholder who makes demand may not later assert that demand was in fact excused as futile. 571 A. 2d, at 5. Once a demand has been made, the decision to block or to terminate the litigation rests solely on the business judgment of the directors. See Thus, by taking away the shareholder's right to withhold demand under the circumstances where demand is deemed to be futile under state law, a universal-demand rule, in direct contravention of the teachings of Burks, would enlarge the power of directors to control corporate litigation. See 441 U.S., -479. KFS contends that the scope of a federal common law demand requirement need not be tied to the allocation of power to control corporate litigation. This is so, KFS suggests, because a court adjudicating a derivative action based on federal law could sever the requirement of shareholder demand from the standard used to review the directors' decision to bar initiation of, or to terminate, the litigation. Drawing on the ALI's Principles of Corporate Governance, the Court of Appeals came to this same conclusion. See -1344. Freed from the question of the directors' power to control the litigation, the universal-demand requirement, *104 KFS maintains, would force would-be derivative suit plaintiffs to exhaust their intracorporate
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Justice Marshall
| 1,991 | 15 |
majority
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Kamen v. Kemper Financial Services, Inc.
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would force would-be derivative suit plaintiffs to exhaust their intracorporate remedies before filing suit and would spare both the courts and the parties the expense associated with the often protracted threshold litigation that attends the collateral issue of demand futility. We reject this analysis. Whatever its merits as a matter of legal reform, we believe that KFS' proposal to detach the demand standard from the standard for reviewing board action would require a quantum of federal common lawmaking that exceeds federal courts' interstitial mandate. Under state law, the determination whether a derivative representative can initiate a suit without making demand typically is made at the outset of the litigation and is based on the application of the State's futility doctrine to circumstances as they then exist. D. DeMott, 5:03, at 31. Under KFS' proposal, federal courts would be obliged to develop a body of principles that would replicate the substantive effect of the State's demand futility doctrine but that would be applied after demand has been made and refused. The ALI, for example, has developed an elaborate set of standards that calibrates the deference afforded the decision of the directors to the character of the claim being asserted by the derivative plaintiff. See ALI, Principles of Corporate Governance 7.08 ; 7.08, Comment c, p. 120 (noting that Principles "dra[w] a basic distinction between the standard of review applicable to actions that are founded on a breach of the duty of care and the standard of review applicable to actions that are founded on a breach of the duty of loyalty").[8] Whether a federal court adopts *105 the ALI's standards wholesale or instead attempts to devise postdemand review standards more finely tuned to the distinctive allocation of managerial decisionmaking power embodied in any given jurisdiction's demand futility doctrine, KFS' suggestion would impose upon federal courts the very duty "to fashion an entire body of federal corporate law" that Burks sought to Such a project, moreover, would necessarily infuse corporate decisionmaking with uncertainty. For example, insofar as Delaware law does not permit a shareholder to make a demand and later to assert its futility, receipt of demand makes it crystal clear to the directors of a Delaware corporation that the decision whether to commit the corporation to litigation lies solely in their discretion. See at 5. Were we to impose a universal-demand rule, however, the directors of such a corporation could draw no such inference from receipt of demand by a shareholder contemplating a federal derivative action. Because the entitlement of the directors' decision to deference in such a case would depend
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Justice Marshall
| 1,991 | 15 |
majority
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Kamen v. Kemper Financial Services, Inc.
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directors' decision to deference in such a case would depend on the court's application of independent review standards somewhere down the road, the directors could do no more than speculate as to whether they should assess the merits of the demand themselves or instead incur the time and expense associated with forming a special litigation committee; indeed, at that stage, even the deference due the decision of such a committee would be unclear. The directors' dilemma would be especially acute if the shareholder were proposing to join state-law and federal claims, see RCM Securities Fund, a common form of action in federal derivative practice, see D. DeMott, Shareholder Derivative Actions *106 4:08, 71[9] It is to avoid precisely this type of disruption to the internal affairs of the corporation that Burks counsels against establishing competing federal- and state-law principles on the allocation of managerial prerogatives within the corporation. See generally Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Laws 302, Comment e, p. 309 (1971) ("Uniform treatment of directors, officers and shareholders is an important objective which can only be attained by having the rights and liabilities of those persons with respect to the corporation governed by a single law"). Finally, in our view, KFS overstates the likely judicial economies associated with a federal universal-demand rule when coupled with independent standards of review. Requiring demand in all cases, it is true, might marginally enhance the prospect that corporate disputes would be resolved without resort to litigation; however, nothing disables the directors from seeking an accommodation with a representative shareholder even after the shareholder files his complaint in an action in which demand is excused as futile. At the same time, the rule proposed by KFS is unlikely to avoid the high collateral litigation costs associated with the demand futility doctrine. So long as a federal court endeavors to reproduce through independent review standards the allocation of managerial power embodied in the demand futility doctrine, KFS' universal-demand rule will merely shift the focus of threshold litigation from the question whether demand is excused to the question whether the directors' decision to terminate the suit is entitled to deference under federal standards. Under these circumstances, we do not view the advantages associated with KFS' proposal to be sufficiently *107 apparent to justify replacing "the entire corpus of state corporation law" relating to demand futility. See 441 U. S., C We would nonetheless be constrained to displace state law in this area were we to conclude that the futility exception to the demand requirement is inconsistent with the policies underlying the ICA. See -480. KFS contends
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Justice Marshall
| 1,991 | 15 |
majority
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Kamen v. Kemper Financial Services, Inc.
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with the policies underlying the ICA. See -480. KFS contends that the futility exception does impede the regulatory objectives of the statute. As KFS notes, the requirement that at least 40% of the board of directors be financially independent of the investment adviser constitutes "[t]he cornerstone of the ICA's effort to control conflicts of interest within mutual funds." KFS argues that the futility exception undermines the "watchdog" role assigned to the independent directors, see at 4-485, because empowering a shareholder to institute corporate litigation without the permission of the board allows the shareholder to "usurp" the independent directors' managerial oversight responsibility. See Brief for Respondent KFS 40. We disagree. KFS' argument misconceives the means by which Congress intended independent directors to exercise their oversight function under the ICA. As we emphasized in Burks, the ICA embodies a congressional expectation that the independent directors would "loo[k] after the interests of the [investment company]" by "exercising the authority granted to them by state law." Indeed, we specifically noted in Burks that "[t]he ICA does not purport to be the source of authority for managerial power; rather the Act functions primarily to `impos[e] controls and restrictions on the internal management of investment companies.'" quoting United We thus discern no policy in the Act that would require us to give the independent directors, or the boards of investment companies *108 as a whole, greater power to block shareholder derivative litigation than these actors possess under the law of the State of incorporation. KFS also ignores the role that the ICA clearly envisions for shareholders in protecting investment companies from conflicts of interest. As we have pointed out, 36(b) of the ICA expressly provides that an individual shareholder may bring an action on behalf of the investment company for breach of the investment adviser's fiduciary duty. 15 U.S. C. 80a-35(b). Congress added 36(b) to the ICA in 1970 because it concluded that the shareholders should not have to "rely solely on the fund's directors to assure reasonable adviser fees, notwithstanding the increased disinterestedness of the board." Daily Income Fund, This legislative background informed our conclusion in that a shareholder action "on behalf of" the company under 36(b) is direct rather than derivative and can therefore be maintained without any precomplaint demand on the directors. Under these circumstances, it can hardly be maintained that a shareholder's exercise of his state-created prerogative to initiate a derivative suit without the consent of the directors frustrates the broader policy objectives of the ICA. IV We reaffirm the basic teaching of where a gap in the federal securities laws must
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Justice Marshall
| 1,991 | 15 |
majority
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Kamen v. Kemper Financial Services, Inc.
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112587/kamen-v-kemper-financial-services-inc/
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of where a gap in the federal securities laws must be bridged by a rule that bears on the allocation of governing powers within the corporation, federal courts should incorporate state law into federal common law unless the particular state law in question is inconsistent with the policies underlying the federal statute. The scope of the demand requirement under state law clearly regulates the allocation of corporate governing powers between the directors and individual shareholders. Because a futility exception to demand does not impede the regulatory objectives of the ICA, a court that is entertaining a derivative action under that statute must apply the *109 demand futility exception as it is defined by the law of the State of incorporation. The Court of Appeals thus erred by fashioning a uniform federal common law rule abolishing the futility exception in derivative actions founded on the ICA.[10] Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. It is so ordered.
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per_curiam
| 1,976 | 200 |
per_curiam
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East Carroll Parish School Bd. v. Marshall
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109397/east-carroll-parish-school-bd-v-marshall/
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The sole issue raised by this case is how compliance with the one-man, one-vote principle should be achieved in a parish (county) that is admittedly malapportioned. Plaintiff Zimmer, a white resident of East Carroll Parish, La., brought suit in 1968 alleging that population disparities among the wards of the parish had unconstitutionally *637 denied him the right to cast an effective vote in elections for members of the police jury[1] and the school board. See After a hearing the District Court agreed that the wards were unevenly apportioned and adopted a reapportionment plan suggested by the East Carroll police jury calling for the at-large election of members of both the police jury and the school board.[2] The 1969 and 1970 elections were held under this plan. The proceedings were renewed in 1971 after the District Court, apparently sua sponte, instructed the East Carroll police jury and school board to file reapportionment plans revised in accordance with the 1970 census. In response, the jury and board resubmitted the at-large plan. Respondent Marshall was permitted to intervene on behalf of himself and all other black voters in East Carroll. Following a hearing the District Court again *638 approved the multimember arrangement. The intervenor appealed,[3] contending that at-large elections would tend to dilute the black vote in violation of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Over a dissent, a panel of the Court of Appeals affirmed,[4] but on rehearing en banc, the court reversed.[5] It found clearly erroneous the District Court's ruling that at-large elections would not diminish the black voting strength of East Carroll Parish. Relying upon it seemingly held that multimember districts were unconstitutional, unless their use would afford a minority greater opportunity for political participation, or unless the use of single-member districts would infringe protected rights. We granted certiorari, and now affirm the judgment below, but without approval of the constitutional views expressed by the Court of Appeals.[6]*639 See The District Court, in adopting the multimember, at-large reapportionment plan, was silent as to the relative merits of a single-member arrangement. And the Court of Appeals, inexplicably in our view, declined to consider whether the District Court erred under in endorsing a multimember plan, resting its decision instead upon constitutional grounds. We have frequently reaffirmed the rule that when United States district courts are put to the task of fashioning reapportionment plans to supplant concededly invalid state legislation, single-member districts are to be preferred absent unusual circumstances. ; ; ; As the en banc opinion of the Court of Appeals amply demonstrates, no special circumstances
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Justice Brennan
| 1,983 | 13 |
concurring
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Kolender v. Lawson
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110926/kolender-v-lawson/
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I join the Court's opinion; it demonstrates convincingly that the California statute at issue in this case, Cal. Penal Code Ann. 647(e) (West 1970), as interpreted by California courts, is unconstitutionally vague. Even if the defect identified by the Court were cured, however, I would hold that this statute violates the Fourth Amendment.[1] Merely to facilitate the general law enforcement objectives of investigating and preventing unspecified crimes, States may not authorize the arrest and criminal prosecution of an individual for failing to produce identification or further information on demand by a police officer. *363 It has long been settled that the Fourth Amendment prohibits the seizure and detention or search of an individual's person unless there is probable cause to believe that he has committed a crime, except under certain conditions strictly defined by the legitimate requirements of law enforcement and by the limited extent of the resulting intrusion on individual liberty and privacy. See The scope of that exception to the probable-cause requirement for seizures of the person has been defined by a series of cases, beginning with holding that a police officer with reasonable suspicion of criminal activity, based on articulable facts, may detain a suspect briefly for purposes of limited questioning and, in so doing, may conduct a brief "frisk" of the suspect to protect himself from concealed weapons. See, e. g., United ; Where probable cause is lacking, we have expressly declined to allow significantly more intrusive detentions or searches on the Terry rationale, despite the assertion of compelling law enforcement interests. "For all but those narrowly defined intrusions, the requisite `balancing' has been performed in centuries of precedent and is embodied in the principle that seizures are `reasonable' only if supported by probable cause."[2] *364 Terry and the cases following it give full recognition to law enforcement officers' need for an "intermediate" response, short of arrest, to suspicious circumstances; the power to effect a brief detention for the purpose of questioning is a powerful tool for the investigation and prevention of crimes. Any person may, of course, direct a question to another person in passing. The Terry doctrine permits police officers to do far more: If they have the requisite reasonable suspicion, they may use a number of devices with substantial coercive impact on the person to whom they direct their attention, including an official "show of authority," the use of physical force to restrain him, and a search of the person for weapons. ; see ; United During such an encounter, few people will ever feel free not to cooperate fully with the police
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Justice Brennan
| 1,983 | 13 |
concurring
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Kolender v. Lawson
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110926/kolender-v-lawson/
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ever feel free not to cooperate fully with the police by answering their questions. Cf. 3 W. LaFave, Search and Seizure 9.2, pp. 53-55 (1978). Our case reports are replete with examples of suspects' cooperation during Terry encounters, even when the suspects have a great deal to lose by co-operating. See, e. g., ; The price of that effectiveness, however, is intrusion on individual interests protected by the Fourth Amendment. We have held that the intrusiveness of even these brief stops for purposes of questioning is sufficient to render them "seizures" under the Fourth Amendment. See For precisely that reason, the scope of seizures of the person on less than probable cause that Terry *365 permits is strictly circumscribed to limit the degree of intrusion they cause. Terry encounters must be brief; the suspect must not be moved or asked to move more than a short distance; physical searches are permitted only to the extent necessary to protect the police officers involved during the encounter; and, most importantly, the suspect must be free to leave after a short time and to decline to answer the questions put to him. "[T]he person may be briefly detained against his will while pertinent questions are directed to him. Of course, the person stopped is not obliged to answer, answers may not be compelled, and refusal to answer furnishes no basis for an arrest, although it may alert the officer to the need for continued observation." Failure to observe these limitations converts a Terry encounter into the sort of detention that can be justified only by probable cause to believe that a crime has been committed. See ; ; The power to arrest or otherwise to prolong a seizure until a suspect had responded to the satisfaction of the police officers would undoubtedly elicit cooperation from a high percentage of even those very few individuals not sufficiently coerced by a show of authority, brief physical detention, and a frisk. We have never claimed that expansion of the power of police officers to act on reasonable suspicion alone, or even less, would further no law enforcement interests. See, e. g., But the balance struck by the Fourth Amendment between the public interest in effective law enforcement and the equally public interest in safeguarding individual freedom and privacy from arbitrary governmental interference forbids such expansion. See United Detention beyond the limits *366 of Terry without probable cause would improve the effectiveness of legitimate police investigations by only a small margin, but it would expose individual members of the public to exponential increases in both
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Justice Brennan
| 1,983 | 13 |
concurring
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Kolender v. Lawson
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110926/kolender-v-lawson/
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individual members of the public to exponential increases in both the intrusiveness of the encounter and the risk that police officers would abuse their discretion for improper ends. Furthermore, regular expansion of Terry encounters into more intrusive detentions, without a clear connection to any specific underlying crimes, is likely to exacerbate ongoing tensions, where they exist, between the police and the public. See Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders 157-168 In sum, under the Fourth Amendment, police officers with reasonable suspicion that an individual has committed or is about to commit a crime may detain that individual, using some force if necessary, for the purpose of asking investigative questions.[3] They may ask their questions in a way calculated to obtain an answer. But they may not compel an answer, and they must allow the person to leave after a reasonably brief period of time unless the information they have acquired during the encounter has given them probable cause sufficient to justify an arrest.[4] California cannot abridge this constitutional rule by making it a crime to refuse to answer police questions during a *367 Terry encounter, any more than it could abridge the protections of the Fifth and Sixth Amendments by making it a crime to refuse to answer police questions once a suspect has been taken into custody. To begin, the statute at issue in this case could not be constitutional unless the intrusions on Fourth Amendment rights it occasions were necessary to advance some specific, legitimate state interest not already taken into account by the constitutional analysis described above. Yet appellants do not claim that 647(e) advances any interest other than general facilitation of police investigation and preservation of public order factors addressed at length in Terry, Davis, and Dunaway. Nor do appellants show that the power to arrest and to impose a criminal sanction, in addition to the power to detain and to pose questions under the aegis of state authority, is so necessary in pursuit of the State's legitimate interests as to justify the substantial additional intrusion on individuals' rights. Compare Brief for Appellants 18-19 (asserting that 647(e) is justified by state interest in "detecting and preventing crime" and "protecting the citizenry from criminal acts"), and ( 647(e) justified by "the public need involved," i. e., "protection of society against crime"), with United and 6-8 (state interest in regulating automobiles justifies making it a crime to refuse to stop after an automobile accident and report it). Thus, because the State's interests extend only so far as to justify the limited searches and seizures
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Justice Brennan
| 1,983 | 13 |
concurring
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Kolender v. Lawson
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110926/kolender-v-lawson/
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so far as to justify the limited searches and seizures defined by Terry, the balance of interests described in that case and its progeny must control. Second, it goes without saying that arrest and the threat of a criminal sanction have a substantial impact on interests protected by the Fourth Amendment, far more severe than *368 we have ever permitted on less than probable cause. Furthermore, the likelihood that innocent persons accosted by law enforcement officers under authority of 647(e) will have no realistic means to protect their rights compounds the severity of the intrusions on individual liberty that this statute will occasion. The arrests it authorizes make a mockery of the right enforced in in which we held squarely that a State may not make it a crime to refuse to provide identification on demand in the absence of reasonable suspicion.[5] If 647(e) remains in force, the validity of such arrests will be open to challenge only after the fact, in individual prosecutions for failure to produce identification. Such case-by-case scrutiny cannot vindicate the Fourth Amendment rights of persons like appellee, many of whom will not even be prosecuted after they are arrested, see ante, at 354. A pedestrian approached by police officers has no way of knowing whether the officers have "reasonable suspicion" without which they may not demand identification even under 647(e), ante, at 356, and n. 5 because that condition depends solely on the objective facts known to the officers and evaluated in light of their experience, see ; United 422 U. S., -885. The pedestrian will know that to assert his rights may subject him to arrest and all that goes with it: new acquaintances among jailers, lawyers, prisoners, and bail bondsmen, firsthand knowledge of local jail conditions, a "search incident to arrest," and the expense of defending against a possible prosecution.[6] The only response to be *369 expected is compliance with the officers' requests, whether or not they are based on reasonable suspicion, and without regard to the possibility of later vindication in court. Mere reasonable suspicion does not justify subjecting the innocent to such a dilemma.[7] By defining as a crime the failure to respond to requests for personal information during a Terry encounter, and by permitting arrests upon commission of that crime, California attempts in this statute to compel what may not be compelled under the Constitution. Even if 647(e) were not unconstitutionally vague, the Fourth Amendment would prohibit its enforcement.
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Justice Kennedy
| 2,000 | 4 |
majority
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Ramdass v. Angelone
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118374/ramdass-v-angelone/
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Petitioner received a death sentence in the Commonwealth of Virginia for murder in the course of robbery. On review of a decision denying relief in federal habeas corpus, he seeks to set aside the death sentence in reliance on He argues the jury should have been instructed of his parole ineligibility based on prior criminal convictions. We reject his claims and conclude is inapplicable to petitioner since he was not parole ineligible when the jury considered his case, nor would he have been parole ineligible by reason of a conviction in the case then under consideration by the jury. He is not entitled to the relief he seeks. I Sometime after midnight on September 2, Mohammed Kayani was working as a convenience store clerk. Petitioner Bobby Lee Ramdass and his accomplices entered the store and forced the customers to the floor at gunpoint. While petitioner ordered Kayani to open the store's safe, accomplices took the customers' wallets, money from the cash registers, cigarettes, Kool Aid, and lottery tickets. When Kayani fumbled in an initial attempt to open the safe, petitioner squatted next to him and yelled at him to open the safe. At close range he held the gun to Kayani's head and pulled the trigger. The gun did not fire at first; but petitioner tried again and shot Kayani just above his left ear, killing him. Petitioner stood over the body and laughed. He later inquired of an accomplice why the customers were not killed as well. *160 The murder of Kayani was no isolated incident. Just four months earlier, after serving time for a 18 robbery conviction, petitioner had been released on parole and almost at once engaged in a series of violent crimes. In July, petitioner committed a murder in Alexandria, Virginia. On August 25, petitioner and three accomplices committed an armed robbery of a Pizza Hut restaurant, abducting one of the victims. Four days later, petitioner and an accomplice pistol-whipped and robbed a hotel clerk. On the afternoon of August 30, petitioner and two accomplices robbed a taxicab driver, Emanuel Selassie, shot him in the head, and left him for dead. Through major surgery and after weeks of unconsciousness, Selassie survived. The same day as the Selassie shooting, petitioner committed an armed robbery of a Domino's Pizza restaurant. The crime spree ended with petitioner's arrest on September 11, nine days after the Kayani shooting. Petitioner faced a series of criminal prosecutions. For reasons we discuss later, the sequence of events in the criminal proceedings is important to the claim petitioner makes in this Court. Under Virginia
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Justice Kennedy
| 2,000 | 4 |
majority
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Ramdass v. Angelone
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118374/ramdass-v-angelone/
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to the claim petitioner makes in this Court. Under Virginia law, a conviction does not become final in the trial court until two steps have occurred. First, the jury must return a guilty verdict; and, second, some time thereafter, the judge must enter a final judgment of conviction and pronounce sentence, unless he or she determines to set the verdict aside. On December 15, a jury returned a guilty verdict based on the Pizza Hut robbery. On January 7, a jury rendered a guilty verdict for the Domino's robbery; on January 22, the trial court entered a judgment of conviction on the Pizza Hut verdict; on January 30, the sentencing phase of the Kayani murder trial was completed, with the jury recommending that petitioner be sentenced to death for that crime; and on February 18, the trial court entered judgment on the Domino's verdict. After his capital trial for the Kayani killing, petitioner pleaded guilty to the July murder in Alexandria and to the shooting of *161 Selassie. Thus, at the time of the capital sentencing trial, a final judgment of conviction had been entered for the Pizza Hut crime; a jury had found petitioner guilty of the Domino's crime, but the trial court had not entered a final judgment of conviction; and charges in the Alexandria murder had not yet been filed, and indeed petitioner had denied any role in the crime until sometime after the sentencing phase in the instant At the sentencing phase of the capital murder trial for Kayani's murder, the Commonwealth submitted the case to the jury using the future dangerousness aggravating circumstance, arguing that the death penalty should be imposed because Ramdass "would commit criminal acts of violence that would constitute a continuing serious threat to society." (C) Petitioner countered by arguing that he would never be released from jail, even if the jury refused to sentence him to death. For this proposition, Ramdass relied on the sentences he would receive for the crimes detailed above, including those which had yet to go to trial and those (such as the Domino's crime) for which no judgment had been entered and no sentence had been pronounced. Counsel argued petitioner "is going to jail for the rest of his life. I ask you to give him life. Life, he will never see the light of day" App. 85. At another point, counsel argued: "`Ramdass will never be out of jail. Your sentence today will insure that if he lives to be a hundred and twenty two, he will spend the rest of his life in prison.'
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Justice Kennedy
| 2,000 | 4 |
majority
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Ramdass v. Angelone
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118374/ramdass-v-angelone/
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he will spend the rest of his life in prison.' " These arguments drew no objection from the Commonwealth. The prosecution's case at sentencing consisted of an account of some of Ramdass' prior crimes, including crimes for which Ramdass had not yet been charged or tried, such as the shooting of Selassie and the assault of the hotel clerk. Investigators of Ramdass' crimes, an accomplice, and two victims provided narrative descriptions of the crime spree preceding the murder, and their evidence of those crimes *162 was the basis for the prosecution's case in the sentencing hearing. Evidence of the crime spree did not depend on formal convictions for its admission. The prosecutor, moreover, did not mention the Domino's crime in his opening statement and did not introduce evidence of the crime during the Commonwealth's case in chief. App. 8-47. Ramdass himself first injected the Domino's crime into the sentencing proceeding, testifying in response to his own lawyer's questions about his involvement in the crime. In closing, the prosecutor argued that Ramdass could not live by the rules of society "either here or in prison." During the juror deliberations, the jury sent a note to the judge asking: "`[I]f the Defendant is given life, is there a possibility of parole at some time before his natural death?' " Petitioner's counsel suggested the following response: "` "You must not concern yourself with matters that will occur after you impose your sentence, but you may impose [sic] that your sentence will be the legal sentence imposed in the "` " The trial judge refused the instruction, relying on the then-settled Virginia law that parole is not an appropriate factor for the jury to consider, and informed the jury that they "`are not to concern [them]selves with what may happen afterwards.' " The next day the jury returned its verdict recommending the death sentence. Virginia law permitted the judge to give a life sentence despite the jury's recommendation; and two months later the trial court conducted a hearing to decide whether the jury's recommended sentence would be imposed. During the interval between the jury trial and the court's sentencing hearing, final judgment had been entered on the Domino's conviction. At the court's sentencing hearing, Ramdass' counsel argued for the first time that his prior convictions rendered him ineligible for parole under Virginia's threestrikes law, which denies parole to a person convicted of three separate felony offenses of murder, rape, or armed *163 robbery, which were not part of a common act, transaction, or scheme. (B1) Petitioner's counsel also stated that three jurors contacted by
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Justice Kennedy
| 2,000 | 4 |
majority
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Ramdass v. Angelone
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118374/ramdass-v-angelone/
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(B1) Petitioner's counsel also stated that three jurors contacted by petitioner's counsel after the verdict expressed the opinion that a life sentence would have been imposed had they known Ramdass would not be eligible for parole. These jurors were not identified by name, were not produced for testimony, and provided no formal or sworn statements supporting defense counsel's representations. App. 95. Rejecting petitioner's arguments for a life sentence, the trial court sentenced petitioner to death. Ramdass appealed, arguing that his parole ineligibility, as he characterized it, should have been disclosed to the jury. The Virginia Supreme Court rejected the claim, applying its settled law "that a jury should not hear evidence of parole eligibility or ineligibility because it is not a relevant consideration in fixing the appropriate sentence." The court did not address whether Ramdass had waived the claim by failing to mention the three-strikes law at trial or by not objecting to the instructions that were given. Other Virginia capital defendants in Ramdass' position had been raising the issue at trial, despite existing Virginia law to the contrary. E. g., ; ; ; From the State Supreme Court's denial of his claims on direct review, Ramdass filed a petition for a writ of certiorari in this Court. One of his arguments was that the judge should have instructed the jury that he was ineligible for parole. While the petition was pending, we decided which held that where a defendant was parole ineligible under state law at *164 the time of the jury's death penalty deliberations, the jury should have been informed of that fact. We granted Ramdass' petition for certiorari and remanded the case for reconsideration in light of On remand, the Virginia Supreme Court affirmed Ramdass' death sentence, concluding that applied only if Ramdass was ineligible for parole when the jury was considering his sentence. The court held that Ramdass was not parole ineligible when the jury considered his sentence because the Kayani murder conviction was not his third conviction for purposes of the three-strikes In a conclusion not challenged here, the court did not count the 18 robbery conviction as one which qualified under the three-strikes provision. (It appears the crime did not involve use of a weapon.) The court also held the Domino's robbery did not count as a conviction because no final judgment had been entered on the verdict. Thus, the only conviction prior to the Kayani murder verdict counting as a strike at the time of the sentencing trial was for the Pizza Hut robbery. Unless the three-strikes law was operative, Ramdass was eligible
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Justice Kennedy
| 2,000 | 4 |
majority
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Ramdass v. Angelone
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118374/ramdass-v-angelone/
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robbery. Unless the three-strikes law was operative, Ramdass was eligible for parole because, at the time of his trial, murder convicts became eligible for parole in 25 years. (C) Under state law, then, Ramdass was not parole ineligible at the time of sentencing; and the Virginia Supreme Court declined to apply to reverse Ramdass' sentence. Ramdass filed a petition for a writ of certiorari contending that the Virginia Supreme Court misapplied and we denied certiorari. 514 U.S. 85 After an unsuccessful round of postconviction proceedings in Virginia courts, Ramdass sought habeas corpus relief in federal court. He argued once more that the Virginia Supreme Court erred in not applying The District Court granted relief. The Court of Appeals When Ramdass filed a third petition for a writ of certiorari, we stayed his execution, 528 U.S. 15 and granted certiorari, 528 U.S. 68 Ramdass contends he was entitled to a jury instruction of parole ineligibility under the Virginia three-strikes Rejecting the contention, we now affirm. II Petitioner bases his request for habeas corpus relief on The premise of the case was that, under South Carolina law, the capital defendant would be ineligible for parole if the jury were to vote for a life sentence. Future dangerousness being at issue, the plurality opinion concluded that due process entitled the defendant to inform the jury of parole ineligibility, either by a jury instruction or in arguments by counsel. In our later decision in we held that created a new rule for purposes of O'Dell reaffirmed that the States have some discretion in determining the extent to which a sentencing jury should be advised of probable future custody and parole status in a future dangerousness case, subject to the rule of We have not extended to cases where parole ineligibility has not been established as a matter of state law at the time of the jury's future dangerousness deliberations in a capital Whether Ramdass may obtain relief under is governed by the habeas corpus statute, 28 U.S. C. 2254(d)(1) ( ed., Supp. III), which forbids relief unless the statecourt adjudication of a federal claim "resulted in a decision that was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States." As explained in Justice O'Connor's opinion for the Court in a state court acts contrary to clearly established federal law if it applies a legal rule * that contradicts our prior holdings or if it reaches a different result from one of our cases despite confronting indistinguishable facts. The statute also authorizes
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Justice Kennedy
| 2,000 | 4 |
majority
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Ramdass v. Angelone
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118374/ramdass-v-angelone/
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our cases despite confronting indistinguishable facts. The statute also authorizes federal habeas corpus relief if, under clearly established federal law, a state court has been unreasonable in applying the governing legal principle to the facts of the A state determination may be set aside under this standard if, under clearly established federal law, the state court was unreasonable in refusing to extend the governing legal principle to a context in which the principle should have controlled. The Virginia Supreme Court's ruling in the case before us was neither contrary to nor an unreasonable application of its rationale. Petitioner contends his case is indistinguishable from making the Virginia Supreme Court's refusal to grant relief contrary to that In his view the Pizza Hut conviction and the Domino's guilty verdict classified him, like the petitioner, as ineligible for parole when the jury deliberated his sentence. He makes this argument even though the Virginia Supreme Court declared that he was not parole ineligible at the time of the sentencing trial because no judgment of conviction had been entered for the Domino's crime. created a workable rule. The parole-ineligibility instruction is required only when, assuming the jury fixes the sentence at life, the defendant is ineligible for parole under state (limiting holding to situations where "state law prohibits the defendant's release on parole"); (relying on fact that was "ineligible for parole under state law"); (citing state statutes to demonstrate that for "the only available alternative sentence to death was life imprisonment without [the] possibility of parole"). The instruction was required in because it was agreed that "an instruction informing the jury *167 that petitioner is ineligible for parole is legally accurate." at In this case, a instruction would not have been accurate under the law; for the authoritative determination of the Virginia Supreme Court is that petitioner was not ineligible for parole when the jury considered his sentence. In the defendant had "conclusively established" his parole ineligibility at the time of sentencing. Ramdass had not. In a sentence had been imposed for the defendant's prior conviction and he pleaded guilty. Ramdass' Domino's case was tried to a jury and no sentence had been imposed. While a South Carolina defendant might challenge a guilty plea, the grounds for doing so are limited, see ; see also (11), and, in all events, such a motion cannot seek to set aside a jury verdict or be considered a post-trial motion, for there was no trial or jury verdict in the further does not indicate that South Carolina law considered a guilty plea and sentence insufficient to render
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Justice Kennedy
| 2,000 | 4 |
majority
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Ramdass v. Angelone
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118374/ramdass-v-angelone/
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law considered a guilty plea and sentence insufficient to render the defendant parole ineligible upon conviction of another crime. Material differences exist between this case and and the Virginia Supreme Court's decision is not contrary to the rule announced. Ramdass makes two arguments to equate his own case with Neither contention refutes the critical point that he was not ineligible for parole as a matter of state law at the time of his sentencing trial. First he contends that the petitioner was not parole ineligible at the time of his sentencing trial. According to Ramdass, a South Carolina prisoner is not parole ineligible until the State *168 Board of Probation makes a formal determination of parole ineligibility and the state board had not done so when the capital sentencing jury fixed ' penalty. This argument is without merit. Virginia does not argue that Ramdass was parole eligible because a parole board had not acted. It argues Ramdass was still parole eligible at the time of the sentencing trial by reason of his then criminal record as it stood under state We further note that Ramdass bases his argument on briefs and the record filed in A failure by a state court to glean information from the record of a controlling decision here and to refine further holdings accordingly does not necessarily render the state-court ruling "contrary to, or an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States." 2254(d)(1). On review of state decisions in habeas corpus, state courts are responsible for a faithful application of the principles set out in the controlling opinion of the Court. Second, Ramdass argues allowed a prisoner to obtain a parole-ineligibility instruction even though "hypothetical future events" (such as escape, pardon, or a change in the law) might mean the prisoner would, at some point, be released from prison. This argument is likewise of no assistance to Ramdass. The petitioner was, as a matter of state law, ineligible for parole at the time of the sentencing trial. The State was left to argue that future events might change this status or otherwise permit to reenter society. at Ramdass' situation is just the opposite. He was eligible for parole at the time of his sentencing trial and is forced to argue that a hypothetical future event (the entry of judgment on the Domino's convictions) would render him parole ineligible under state law, despite his current parole-eligible status. This case is not parallel to on the critical point. The differences between the cases foreclose the conclusion that the
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Justice Kennedy
| 2,000 | 4 |
majority
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Ramdass v. Angelone
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118374/ramdass-v-angelone/
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The differences between the cases foreclose the conclusion that the Virginia *169 Supreme Court's decision denying Ramdass relief was contrary to Ramdass contends the Virginia Supreme Court nevertheless was bound to extend to cover his circumstances. He urges us to ignore the legal rules dictating his parole eligibility under state law in favor of what he calls a functional approach, under which, it seems, a court evaluates whether it looks like the defendant will turn out to be parole ineligible. We do not agree that the extension of is either necessary or workable; and we are confident in saying that the Virginia Supreme Court was not unreasonable in refusing the requested extension. applies only to instances where, as a legal matter, there is no possibility of parole if the jury decides the appropriate sentence is life in prison. Petitioner's proposed rule would require courts to evaluate the probability of future events in cases where a three-strikes law is the issue. Among other matters, a court will have to consider whether a trial court in an unrelated proceeding will grant postverdict relief, whether a conviction will be reversed on appeal, or whether the defendant will be prosecuted for fully investigated yet uncharged crimes. If the inquiry is to include whether a defendant will, at some point, be released from prison, even the age or health of a prisoner facing a long period of incarceration would seem relevant. The possibilities are many, the certainties few. If the rule is extended beyond when a defendant is, as a matter of state law, parole ineligible at the time of his trial, the State might well conclude that the jury would be distracted from the other vital issues in the The States are entitled to some latitude in this field, for the admissibility of evidence at capital sentencing was, and remains, an issue left to the States, subject of course to federal requirements, especially, as relevant here, those related to the admission of mitigating evidence. ; (13). *170 By eliminating ` well-understood rule, petitioner's approach would give rise to litigation on a peripheral point. Parole eligibility may be unrelated to the circumstances of the crime the jury is considering or the character of the defendant, except in an indirect way. Evidence of potential parole ineligibility is of uncertain materiality, as it can be overcome if a jury concludes that even if the defendant might not be paroled, he may escape to murder again, see 529 U.S. ; he may be pardoned; he may benefit from a change in parole laws; some other change in the
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Justice Kennedy
| 2,000 | 4 |
majority
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Ramdass v. Angelone
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118374/ramdass-v-angelone/
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a change in parole laws; some other change in the law might operate to invalidate a conviction once thought beyond review, see ; or he may be no less a risk to society in prison, see United cert. denied, 529 U.S. 22 The Virginia Supreme Court had good reason not to extend beyond the circumstances of that case, which included conclusive proof of parole ineligibility under state law at the time of sentencing. A jury evaluating future dangerousness under Virginia law considers all of the defendant's recent criminal history, without being confined to convictions. As we have pointed out, the Domino's Pizza conviction was not even a part of the prosecution's main case in the sentencing proceedings. Parole ineligibility, on the other hand, does relate to formal criminal proceedings. The Commonwealth is entitled to some deference, in the context of its own parole laws, in determining the best reference point for making the ineligibility determination. Given the damaging testimony of the criminal acts in the spree Ramdass embarked upon in the weeks before the Kayani murder, it is difficult to say just what weight a jury would or should have given to the possibility of parole; and it was not error for the Commonwealth to insist upon an accurate assessment of the parole rules by using a trial court judgment as the measuring point. *171 As we have explained, the dispositive fact in was that the defendant conclusively established his parole ineligibility under state law at the time of his trial. Ramdass did not because of the judicial determination Virginia uses to establish a conviction's finality under its parole We note that Virginia's rule using judgment in the Domino's case to determine parole ineligibility is not arbitrary by virtue of Virginia's also allowing evidence of the defendant's prior criminal history. To demonstrate Ramdass' evil character and his propensity to commit violent acts in the future, the prosecutor used Ramdass' prior criminal conduct, supported in some cases (although not in the Domino's case) by evidence in the form of the resulting jury verdicts. Virginia law did not require a guilty verdict, a criminal judgment, or the exhaustion of an appeal before prior criminal conduct could be introduced at trial. Virginia law instead permitted unadjudicated prior bad acts to be introduced as evidence at trial. See (15). For example, the prosecutor was permitted to use the shooting of Selassie in aggravation, even though no verdict had been rendered in that The prosecutor likewise asked Ramdass about the July murder in Alexandria. App. 64. (Despite Ramdass' sworn denial, he pleaded guilty to the
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Justice Kennedy
| 2,000 | 4 |
majority
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Ramdass v. Angelone
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118374/ramdass-v-angelone/
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64. (Despite Ramdass' sworn denial, he pleaded guilty to the crime after being sentenced to death in this ) The guilty verdict of the jury in the Domino's case, therefore, was not a necessary prerequisite to the admissibility of the conduct underlying the Domino's crime. Ramdass, furthermore, could not object to the Commonwealth's use of the Domino's crime at sentencing, for it was he who introduced the evidence. The Commonwealth did not mention the crime in its opening statement and did not present evidence of the crime in its case in chief. Ramdass used the Domino's crime to argue he would never be out of jail; and he overused the crime even for that purpose. Counsel advised the jury the Domino's crime would result in * "[a]t least another life sentence," when in fact the sentence imposed was for 18 years. The various public opinion polls to which we are pointed cast no doubt upon the rule adopted by the Commonwealth. We are referred, for example, to a poll whose result is reported in Paduano & Smith, Deathly Errors: Juror Misperceptions Concerning Parole in the Imposition of the Death Penalty, 18 Colum. Human Rights L. Rev. 211 (17). The poll is said to permit the conclusion that 67% of potential jurors would be more likely to give a life sentence instead of death if they knew the defendant had to serve at least 25 years in prison before being parole eligible. The poll is not a proper consideration in this Court. Mere citation of a law review to a court does not suffice to introduce into evidence the truth of the hearsay or the so-called scientific conclusions contained within it. Had the creators of the poll taken the stand in support of the poll's application to Ramdass' case, the poll likely would have been demonstrated to be inadmissible. The poll's reporters concede the poll was limited in scope, surveying 40 individuals eligible for jury service. The poll was limited to jurors in one Georgia county, jurors who would never serve on a Fairfax County, Virginia, jury. The poll was supervised by the Southern Prisoners' Defense Committee, a group having an interest in obtaining life sentences for the inmates it represents. The poll was conducted in the context of ongoing litigation of a particular defendant's death sentence. The article makes no reference to any independent source confirming the propriety of the sampling methodology. The poll asked but four questions. It failed to ask those who were surveyed why they held the views that they did or to ascertain their reaction to
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Justice Kennedy
| 2,000 | 4 |
majority
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Ramdass v. Angelone
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118374/ramdass-v-angelone/
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views that they did or to ascertain their reaction to evidence supplied by the prosecution designed to counter the parole information. No data indicate the questions were framed using methodology employed by reliable pollsters. No indication exists regarding the amount of time participants were given to answer. *173 The reporters of the poll contend other similar, limited studies support the results, yet those studies were conducted over the telephone "by defense attorneys in connection with motions for new trials." These, and other, deficiencies have been relied upon by courts with factfinding powers to exclude or minimize survey evidence. E. g., Amstar (CA5 10) ; Dreyfus Fund, 525 F. Supp. 18, (SDNY 11) ; General Motors ; Kingsford Products 715 F. Supp. 13, 16 ; Conagra, ; Sterling Drug, ; American Home Products ; (SDNY 18) ; Schering (NJ 17) ; see generally Toys "R" Us, 559 F. Supp. 1 (EDNY 13) The poll reported in the Columbia Human Rights Law Review should not be considered by this Court. See It is the Virginia Supreme Court's decision rejecting Ramdass' claims that is under review in this habeas proceeding. It was not required to consult public opinion polls. Ramdass' claim is based on the contention that it is inevitable that a judgment of conviction would be entered for *174 his Domino's crime. He calls the entry of judgment following a jury verdict a "ministerial act whose performance was foreseeable, imminent, and inexorable." Brief for Petitioner 21, 36. Petitioner cites no authority for the proposition that a judicial officer's determination that final judgment should be entered (as opposed to the clerk's noting of the final judgment in the record) is a ministerial act. We are not surprised. We doubt most lawyers would consider a criminal case concluded in the trial court before judgment is entered, for it is judgment which signals that the case has become final and is about to end or reach another stage of proceedings. See Va. Sup. Ct. Rule 1:1, 5A:6 (requiring notice of appeal to be filed "within 30 days after entry of final judgment"). Post-trial motions are an essential part of Virginia criminal law practice, as discussed in leading treatises such as J. Costello, Virginia Criminal Law and Procedure 829 and R. Bacigal, Virginia Criminal Procedure 337 Under Virginia Supreme Court Rule 3A:15(b) a verdict of guilty may be set aside "for error committed during the trial or if the evidence is insufficient as a matter of law to sustain a conviction." A few examples from the reports of Virginia decisions demonstrate it to be well-established procedure
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Justice Kennedy
| 2,000 | 4 |
majority
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Ramdass v. Angelone
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118374/ramdass-v-angelone/
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reports of Virginia decisions demonstrate it to be well-established procedure in Virginia for trial courts to consider and grant motions to set aside jury verdicts. E. g., ; ; ; (17); S.E.2d 493, ; Va. App. 507, ; 409 S.E.2d *175 The motion to set aside may be filed and resolved before judgment is entered, e. g., at 356 S.E.2d, at and trial courts may conduct hearings or allow evidence to be introduced on these motions. Postverdict motions may be granted despite the denial of a motion to strike the evidence made during trial, e. g., at S.E.2d, at or after denial of a pretrial motion to dismiss, at 409 S.E.2d, at Federal judges familiar with Virginia practice have held that postverdict motions give a defendant a full and fair opportunity to raise claims of trial error, In contexts beyond the threestrikes statute, Virginia courts have held that the possibility of postverdict relief renders a jury verdict uncertain and unreliable until judgment is entered. E. g., ; see also ; In one recent case, the Virginia Court of Appeals relied on Rule 3A:15 to hold, contrary to petitioner's contention here, that it is an "incorrect statement of the law" to say that the trial court has no concern with the proceedings after the jury's verdict. Davis v. Commonwealth, No. 2960--2, The time for Ramdass to file a motion to set aside the Domino's verdict had not expired when the jury was deliberating on the sentence for Kayani's murder; and he concedes he could have filed postverdict motions. The Domino's case was pending in a different county from the Kayani murder trial and the record contains no indication that Ramdass' counsel advised the judge in the Kayani case that he would not pursue postverdict relief in the Domino's The Virginia Supreme Court was reasonable to reject a paroleineligibility *176 instruction for a defendant who would become ineligible only in the event a trial judge in a different county entered final judgment in an unrelated criminal Ramdass complains that the Virginia Supreme Court's selection of the entry of judgment rather than the jury verdict is arbitrary. He points out that a trial court may set the judgment aside within 21 days after its entry. Va. Sup. Ct. Rule 1:1 Appeal is also permitted. We agree with Ramdass that the availability of postjudgment relief in the trial court or on appeal renders uncertain the finality and reliability of even a judgment in the trial court. Our own jurisprudence under for example, does not consider a Virginia-state-court conviction final until the direct review process
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Justice Kennedy
| 2,000 | 4 |
majority
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Ramdass v. Angelone
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118374/ramdass-v-angelone/
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consider a Virginia-state-court conviction final until the direct review process is completed. States may take different approaches and we see no support for a rule that would require a State to declare a conviction final for purposes of a three-strikes statute once a verdict has been rendered. Verdicts may be overturned by the state trial court, by a state appellate court, by the state supreme court, by a state court on collateral attack, by a federal court in habeas corpus, or by this Court on review of any of these proceedings. Virginia's approach, which would permit a instruction despite the availability of postjudgment relief that might, the day after the jury is instructed that the defendant is parole ineligible, undo one of the strikes supporting the instruction, provided Ramdass sufficient protection. A judgment, not a verdict, is the usual measure for finality in the trial court. Our conclusion is confirmed by a review of petitioner's conduct in this litigation. The current claim that it was certain at the time of trial that Ramdass would never be released on parole in the event the jury sentenced him to life is belied by the testimony his counsel elicited from him at sentencing. Ramdass' counsel asked him, "Are you going to spend the rest of your life in prison?" Despite the claim advanced *177 now that parole would be impossible, the answer counsel elicited from Ramdass at trial was, "I don't know." We think Ramdass' answer at trial is an accurate assessment of the uncertainties that surrounded his parole and custody status at the time of trial. In like manner, before the Virginia Supreme Court's decision now challenged as unreasonable, petitioner had not argued that his parole eligibility should have been determined based on the date of the Domino's verdict rather than the date the judgment was entered He did not mention the three-strikes law at trial, although the Domino's verdict had already been returned. Petitioner's brief to the Virginia Supreme Court on remand from this Court conceded that the appropriate date to consider for the Domino's crime was the date of judgment. His brief states Ramdass "was convicted on 18 February of armed robbery" and that "[o]f course, the 18 February convictio[n] occurred after the jury findings in this " App. 123-124. Thus the Virginia Supreme Court treated the Domino's conviction in the manner urged by petitioner. Petitioner's change of heart on the controlling date appears based on a belated realization that the 18 robbery conviction did not qualify as a strike, meaning that he needed the Domino's conviction to count. To
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Justice Kennedy
| 2,000 | 4 |
majority
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Ramdass v. Angelone
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118374/ramdass-v-angelone/
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meaning that he needed the Domino's conviction to count. To accomplish the task, petitioner began arguing that the date of the jury verdict controlled. His original position, however, is the one in accord with Virginia State trial judges and appellate courts remain free, of course, to experiment by adopting rules that go beyond the minimum requirements of the Constitution. In this regard, we note that the jury was not informed that Ramdass, at the time of trial, was eligible for parole in 25 years, that the trial judge had the power to override a recommended death sentence, or that Ramdass' prior convictions were subject to being set aside by the trial court or on appeal. Each statement would have been accurate as a matter of law, but each statement might also have made it more probable that the *178 jury would have recommended a death sentence. We further note Virginia has expanded by allowing a defendant to obtain a instruction even where the defendant's future dangerousness is not at issue. Likewise, Virginia has, after Ramdass' conviction, eliminated parole for capital defendants sentenced to life in prison. The combination of Yarbrough and the elimination of parole means that all capital defendants in Virginia now receive a instruction if they so desire. In circumstances like those presented here, even if some instruction had been given on the subject addressed by the extent to which the trial court should have addressed the contingencies that could affect finality of the other convictions is not altogether clear. A full elaboration of the various ways to set a conviction aside or grant a new trial might not have been favorable to the petitioner. In all events the Constitution does not require the instruction that Ramdass now requests. The sentencing proceeding was not invalid by reason of its omission. III The Virginia Supreme Court's decision to deny petitioner relief was neither contrary to, nor an unreasonable application of, The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit was required to deny him relief under 28 U.S. C. 2254 ( ed. and Supp. III), and we affirm the judgment. It is so ordered. Justice O'Connor, concurring in the judgment.
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Justice Douglas
| 1,971 | 10 |
dissenting
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Britt v. North Carolina
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/108412/britt-v-north-carolina/
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After the State's first murder prosecution of the petitioner ended in a hung jury in November Britt was retried, convicted, and sentenced to 30 years' imprisonment. During the interim between the two trials, the petitioner made a showing of indigency and asked that the State provide him with a free transcript of the mistrial. The trial court denied his motion despite Britt's contention that because a more affluent defendant could purchase such a transcript as a matter of right a denial of his request would offend the principle of On appeal, the North Carolina Court of Appeals was likewise unconvinced by Britt's equal protection claim and affirmed the trial court's refusal to order a free transcript, stating that *231 (a) the petitioner had not made a particularized showing of need, (b) he had been represented by the same lawyer at both trials, and therefore (c) any suspected inconsistencies in prosecution evidence could have been developed by counsel's putting on the court reporter to read earlier testimony of the first trial. Because I am persuaded by Britt's argument I would reverse the decision of the North Carolina Court of Appeals. I established the now familiar principle that "[t]here can be no equal justice where the kind of trial a man gets depends on the amount of money he has." While Griffin involved only the provision of a free transcript to an indigent on direct appeal, its underlying principle has achieved broader usage. We have witnessed a steady growth of its applications to other transcript cases,[1] to docketing fees,[2] and to right to counsel.[3] *2 Of these applications, is most analogous to the instant circumstances. In Roberts, an indigent defendant before trial asked a state court to provide him with a free transcript of a preliminary hearing at which a key state witness had testified. In Roberts, as here, no special showing of need was made, the defendant was represented by the same counsel at all times, and the court reporter could have been called to read back previous testimony. Nonetheless, over the dissent of Mr. Justice Harlan that no prejudice had been shown, we held that withholding the requested transcript was an invalid interposition of a financial consideration between an indigent prisoner and his right to sue for his liberty. Here the request was for a mistrial transcript, whereas in Roberts a motion had been made for a preliminary hearing transcript. In the ways in which either might be used I can perceive no differences. In both sets of circumstances it would seem that defendants would be interested in better trial
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Justice Douglas
| 1,971 | 10 |
dissenting
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Britt v. North Carolina
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/108412/britt-v-north-carolina/
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would seem that defendants would be interested in better trial preparation and in better positions from which to challenge discrepancies in government witnesses' stories.[4] For both of these purposes a mistrial transcript would be more valuable than a preliminary hearing recording because the former is a virtual dry run of the entire prosecution's case, information which normally is clothed in top secrecy under the prevailing and restrictive rules against a criminal defendant's discovery. *233 Perhaps for these considerations the Second Circuit has squarely held that indigent state defendants have an absolute right to free transcripts of previous prosecutions ending in hung juries. United ex rel. As both here and in Roberts, had made no showing of particular need, had been represented by the same lawyer at all times, and could have called the court reporter to read back previous testimony. And, as here, the defendant had requested a mistrial transcript during the interim between the two prosecutions. The Second Circuit considered Griffin and Roberts controlling. The North Carolina Court of Appeals, however, has rejected the Griffin-Roberts- cases and sought refuge in the pre-Roberts authority of which had emphasized, as did the court below, the defendant's failure to articulate a particular need for a transcript, the continuity of defense counsel, and the availability of the court reporter.[5] I thought that these arguments had been found irrelevant for constitutional purposes under Griffin-Roberts-. II The primary rationale offered to support the holding below is that the petitioner failed to make a showing of a particularized need for a mistrial transcript. Presumably *234 this rationale flows from the legitimate state interest in avoiding needless fiscal outlays. In related contexts we have rejected the notion that an impoverished accused in the federal courts may be refused a transcript simply because his lawyer is unable to articulate the very subtleties which might be buried in the document he seeks. For example, in we required courts of appeals to order for indigent criminal appellants complete trial transcripts even for the preliminary purpose of determining whether their appeals might present nonfrivolous questions for review and therefore entitle them to in forma pauperis relief pursuant to 28 U.S. C. 1915. We rejected the then-prevailing view that a full transcript for such purposes could only be provided for those appellants able to demonstrate a particular need for all parts thereof. The concurring opinion of four Justices concerning the value of a transcript in appellate advocacy is applicable to the analogous use of a mistrial transcript in formulating retrial strategy: "As any effective appellate advocate will attest, the most basic and
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Justice Douglas
| 1,971 | 10 |
dissenting
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Britt v. North Carolina
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/108412/britt-v-north-carolina/
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any effective appellate advocate will attest, the most basic and fundamental tool of his profession is the complete trial transcript, through which his trained fingers may leaf and his trained eyes may roam in search of an error, a lead to an error, or even a basis upon which to urge a change in an established and hitherto accepted principle of law. ". No responsible retained lawyer who represents a defendant at trial will rely exclusively on his memory (even as supplemented by trial notes) in composing a list of possible trial errors which delimit his appeal." Similarly, while counsel is studying mistrial minutes, the precise words used by a witness might trigger mental *235 processes resulting in legitimate defense strategies which otherwise might be overlooked. Such spontaneity can hardly be forecast and articulated in advance in terms of special or particularized need. It is unnecessary, however, to speculate as to how often helpful subtleties in mistrial transcripts might actually be found because, as a more general matter, at least two compelling interests would be routinely served by providing paupers with free transcripts, even in cases where counsel were unable to specify the precise nature of the benefits of such discovery. As mentioned earlier, one such interest is that of effective trial preparation by counsel (who may realize that his counterpart, the prosecutor, will employ a similar document supplied at the State's expense during his own trial preparation). The other interest is that of anticipating possible discrepancies in prosecution witnesses' statements and in being prepared immediately to challenge such contradictions. See Because wealthier defendants tend to purchase transcripts as a matter of course simply on the strength of these recurring interests, it would appear that these benefits are ordinarily worth the fiscal burden of providing the documents regardless of how the cost of reproducing minutes may be distributed.[6] When viewed in the broader context of a defendant's complete lack of criminal discovery procedures, the importance of a mistrial transcript becomes even clearer. Many commentators have criticized the persistent common-law prohibition against discovery by criminal defendants, *236 characterizing present systems as "sporting theories of justice" and complaining of the vast advantage enjoyed by the prosecution in the marshaling of evidence.[7] While some and the federal system have moved to liberalize defendants' discovery privileges,[8]*237 the common-law prohibition with limited exceptions still applies in North Carolina.[9] No criminal analogue has been enacted to complement the State's more modern and comprehensive rules of civil discovery.[10] Instead, its judiciary has continued to apply the common law's flat ban and as recently as has reaffirmed that
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Justice Douglas
| 1,971 | 10 |
dissenting
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Britt v. North Carolina
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/108412/britt-v-north-carolina/
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law's flat ban and as recently as has reaffirmed that policy. In the North Carolina Supreme Court affirmed a trial court's refusal to order the State Bureau of Investigation to permit a defendant to inspect certain documents in its files. In explaining the ancient rule the court approved the language of Chief Justice Vanderbilt's well-known view of criminal discovery in the leading case of : " `In criminal proceedings long experience has taught the courts that often discovery will lead not to honest fact-finding, but on the contrary to perjury and the suppression of evidence. Thus the criminal who is aware of the whole case against him will often procure perjured testimony in order to set up a false defense. Another result of full discovery would be that the criminal defendant who is informed of the names of all the State's witnesses may take steps to bribe or frighten them into giving perjured testimony or into absenting themselves so that they are unavailable to testify. Moreover, many witnesses, if they know that the defendant will have knowledge of their names prior to trial, will be reluctant to come forward with information during the investigation of the crime. All these dangers are more inherent in criminal proceedings where the defendant has much more at stake, often his own life, than in civil proceedings. The presence of perjury in criminal proceedings today is extensive despite the efforts of the courts to eradicate it and constitutes a very serious threat to the administration of criminal justice and thus to the welfare of the country as a whole. To permit unqualified disclosure of all statements and information in the hands of the State would go far beyond what is required in civil cases; it would defeat the very ends of justice.' " *239 2,[11] North Carolina's presentation of an anti-discovery policy is evidenced not only in its reluctance to enact a modern code to permit such procedures but also in its occasional one-sided legislation concerning related matters. For example, while a local prosecutor has an absolute right to inspect the files of the State Bureau of Investigation which pertain to one of his local inquiries, an accused may inspect such evidence only upon court order procured for good cause. See N. C. Gen. Stat. 114-15 Even a common-law request for a bill of particulars to clarify an indictment normally does not require a prosecutor to divulge names of his witnesses or the nature of his physical or documentary evidence.[12] N. C. Gen. Stat. 15-143 (1965);[13] *240 Thus, it is not surprising that Britt's investigative
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Justice Douglas
| 1,971 | 10 |
dissenting
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Britt v. North Carolina
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/108412/britt-v-north-carolina/
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(1965);[13] *240 Thus, it is not surprising that Britt's investigative and preparatory resources were puny in contrast to those employed by his accusers. The local police were able to enlist the talent of the State Bureau of Investigation to trace and analyze fingerprint evidence. Investigators were able to study the situs of the murder. At their convenience officers were able to interrogate the incarcerated defendant, eventually eliciting from him an incriminating statement. After the mistrial the prosecutor, unlike Britt's lawyer, had access to a transcript to readjust his trial strategy. This Court has been sensitive to the persuasive arguments for more liberal rules of criminal discovery.[14] To *241 the extent that a State permits criminal discovery by its accused, it is our duty to forbid distribution of its fruits according to formulas based on wealth, which, like race, is a suspect classification. ; The provision in North Carolina permitting defendants to purchase mistrial minutes is obviously an important exception to the common-law prohibition. A mistrial transcript contains not only prosecution witnesses' names and addresses but their stories under oath and it contains the entire theory of the government's case. Such a document is a complete dossier of the opposing case for which even the most liberalized rules of civil discovery have no equivalent. While this exception endures, the State may not condition its availability upon financial considerations which effectively deprive the poor of this valuable tool. III The lower court's opinion suggests that whatever legitimate uses generally might be made of mistrial minutes could alternatively be accomplished by counsel's calling as a witness the court reporter of the previous prosecution. See also Nickens v. United 116 U. S. App. D. C., at 3 F.2d, at 811. However satisfactorily that suggestion might facilitate impeachment of government witnesses, it should be clear that the procedure would provide no assistance in preparing counsel for trial. Moreover, the procedure of calling a court reporter to verify hostile witnesses' contradictions has been discredited by trial commentators, including Professor Robert Keeton: "If you have caught the witness in a contradiction, *242 it is the more clearly shown if the exact words previously used by the witness are brought to the jury's attention. The effect may extend beyond the bearing of the contradiction on its own subject matter, for the witness may be `broken down' so that he makes other admissions or the jury disbelieves other parts of his testimony. Calling upon the reporter to read such prior testimony during the examination, however, is rarely a practicable method of confronting the witness with such contradiction. Many trial
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Justice Douglas
| 1,971 | 10 |
dissenting
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Britt v. North Carolina
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/108412/britt-v-north-carolina/
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method of confronting the witness with such contradiction. Many trial judges will decline to permit the practice because of the great delay usually involved, while the reporter is searching through his notes in an effort to find the part of the testimony to which you refer. Even if the judge will permit the practice, the wisdom of its use is questionable. The jury and court may grow impatient, and the witness will have been afforded a considerable period of time to think about the matter and be prepared with an explanation or excuse." R. Keeton, Trial Tactics and Methods 103 (1954). (Emphasis added.) Indeed these hazards were painfully present in United ex rel. in which 's attorney erroneously believed he remembered an inconsistent statement of a prosecution witness who had testified at the prior mistrial. At the second trial the lawyer quizzed the witness concerning this prior remark but the witness denied having ever made it. The judge decided to delay the trial until the reporter of the mistrial could read back the precise words used by the witness. After "considerable delay and perhaps some inconvenience to the jurors" counsel learned that he had been mistaken and that no contradiction, at least on the suspected issue, had existed. *243 I am not satisfied that the procedure afforded paupers by the Nickens majority is a reasonable substitute for full access to a mistrial transcript. Accordingly, I would hold under the Griffin-Roberts- line of authority that Britt has been denied equal protection of the laws.[15] I would reverse the judgment below.
|
Justice Sotomayor
| 2,019 | 24 |
majority
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North Carolina Dept. of Revenue v. Kimberley Rice Kaestner 1992 Family Trust
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4631842/north-carolina-dept-of-revenue-v-kimberley-rice-kaestner-1992-family/
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This case is about the limits of a State’s power to tax a trust. North Carolina imposes a tax on any trust income that “is for the benefit of ” a North Carolina resident. N. C. Gen. Stat. Ann. (2017). The North Caro- lina courts interpret this law to mean that a trust owes income tax to North Carolina whenever the trust’s benefi- ciaries live in the State, even if—as is the case here—those beneficiaries received no income from the trust in the relevant tax year, had no right to demand income from the trust in that year, and could not count on ever receiving income from the trust. The North Carolina courts held the tax to be unconstitutional when assessed in such a case because the State lacks the minimum connection with the object of its tax that the Constitution requires. We agree and affirm. As applied in these circumstances, the State’s tax violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. 2 NORTH CAROLINA DEPT. OF REVENUE v. KIMBERLEY RICE KAESTNER 1992 FAMILY TRUST Opinion of the Court I A In its simplest form, a trust is created when one person (a “settlor” or “grantor”) transfers property to a third party (a “trustee”) to administer for the benefit of another (a “beneficiary”). A. Hess, G. Bogert, & G. Bogert, Law of Trusts and Trustees pp. 8– (3d ed. 2007). As tradi- tionally understood, the arrangement that results is not a “distinct legal entity, but a ‘fiduciary relationship’ between multiple people.” Americold Realty Trust v. ConAgra Foods, Inc., 577 U. S. (2016) (slip op., at 5). The trust comprises the separate interests of the beneficiary, who has an “equitable interest” in the trust property, and the trustee, who has a “legal interest” in that property. (1947). In some contexts, however, trusts can be treated as if the trust itself has “a separate existence” from its constituent parts.1 The trust that challenges North Carolina’s tax had its first incarnation nearly 30 years ago, when New Yorker Joseph Lee Rice III formed a trust for the benefit of his children. Rice decided that the trust would be governed by the law of his home State, New York, and he appointed a fellow New York resident as the trustee.2 The trust agreement provided that the trustee would have “absolute discretion” to distribute the trust’s assets to the beneficiar- ies “in such amounts and proportions” as the trustee might “from time to time” decide. Art. I, App. 46– 47. When Rice created the trust, no trust beneficiary lived —————— 1 Most notably, trusts
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Justice Sotomayor
| 2,019 | 24 |
majority
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North Carolina Dept. of Revenue v. Kimberley Rice Kaestner 1992 Family Trust
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4631842/north-carolina-dept-of-revenue-v-kimberley-rice-kaestner-1992-family/
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trust, no trust beneficiary lived —————— 1 Most notably, trusts are treated as distinct entities for federal taxa- tion purposes. 331 U.S., ; see 2 This trustee later was succeeded by a new trustee who was a Con- necticut resident during the relevant time period. Cite as: 588 U. S. (2019) 3 Opinion of the Court in North Carolina. That changed in 1997, when Rice’s daughter, Kimberley Rice Kaestner, moved to the State. She and her minor children were residents of North Caro- lina from 2005 through 2008, the time period relevant for this case. A few years after Kaestner moved to North Carolina, the trustee divided Rice’s initial trust into three subtrusts. One of these subtrusts—the Kimberley Rice Kaestner 1992 Family Trust (Kaestner Trust or Trust)—was formed for the benefit of Kaestner and her three children. The same agreement that controlled the original trust also governed the Kaestner Trust. Critically, this meant that the trustee had exclusive control over the allocation and timing of trust distributions. North Carolina explained in the state-court proceedings that the State’s only connection to the Trust in the rele- vant tax years was the in-state residence of the Trust’s beneficiaries. App. to Pet. for Cert. 54a. From 2005 through 2008, the trustee chose not to distribute any of the income that the Trust accumulated to Kaestner or her children, and the trustee’s contacts with Kaestner were “infrequent.”3 The Trust was subject to New York law, Art. X, App. 69, the grantor was a New York resident, App. 44, and no trustee lived in North Carolina, 371 N. C., at The trustee kept the Trust documents and records in New York, and the Trust asset custodians were located in Massachusetts. The Trust also maintained no physical presence in North Carolina, made no direct investments in the State, and held no real prop- erty there. App. to Pet. for Cert. 52a–53a. —————— 3 The state court identified only two meetings between Kaestner and the trustee in those years, both of which took place in New York. 371 N. C. 133, The trustee also gave Kaestner accountings of trust assets and legal advice concerning the Trust. 814 S. E. 2d, at 45. 4 NORTH CAROLINA DEPT. OF REVENUE v. KIMBERLEY RICE KAESTNER 1992 FAMILY TRUST Opinion of the Court The Trust agreement provided that the Kaestner Trust would terminate when Kaestner turned 40, after the time period relevant here. After consulting with Kaestner and in accordance with her wishes, however, the trustee rolled over the assets into a new trust instead of distributing them to her. This
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Justice Sotomayor
| 2,019 | 24 |
majority
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North Carolina Dept. of Revenue v. Kimberley Rice Kaestner 1992 Family Trust
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4631842/north-carolina-dept-of-revenue-v-kimberley-rice-kaestner-1992-family/
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a new trust instead of distributing them to her. This transfer took place after the relevant tax years. See N. Y. Est., Powers & Trusts Law Ann. 6.6(b) (West 2002) (authorizing this action). B North Carolina taxes any trust income that “is for the benefit of ” a North Carolina resident. N. C. Gen. Stat. Ann. The North Carolina Supreme Court interprets the statute to authorize North Carolina to tax a trust on the sole basis that the trust beneficiaries reside in the State. 371 N. C., at –, Applying this statute, the North Carolina Department of Revenue assessed a tax on the full proceeds that the Kaestner Trust accumulated for tax years 2005 through 2008 and required the trustee to pay it. See N. C. Gen. Stat. Ann. The resulting tax bill amounted to more than $1.3 million. The trustee paid the tax under protest and then sued in state court, arguing that the tax as applied to the Kaestner Trust violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The trial court decided that the Kaestners’ residence in North Carolina was too tenuous a link between the State and the Trust to support the tax and held that the State’s taxation of the Trust violated the Due Process Clause. App. to Pet. for Cert. 62a.4 The North Carolina Court of Appeals affirmed, as did the North Carolina Supreme Court. A majority of the State Supreme Court reasoned that the Kaestner Trust and its beneficiaries “have legally —————— 4 The trial court also held that North Carolina’s tax violates the dormant Commerce Clause. The state appellate courts did not affirm on this basis, and we likewise do not address this challenge. Cite as: 588 U. S. (2019) 5 Opinion of the Court separate, taxable existences” and thus that the contacts between the Kaestner family and their home State cannot establish a connection between the Trust “itself ” and the State. 371 N. C., at 140–, We granted certiorari to decide whether the Due Process Clause prohibits States from taxing trusts based only on the in-state residency of trust beneficiaries. 586 U. S. (2019). II The Due Process Clause provides that “[n]o State shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” Amdt. 14, The Clause “centrally concerns the fundamental fairness of governmental activ- ity.” 4 U.S. 298, (1992), overruled on other grounds, South Dakota v. Way- fair, Inc., 585 U. S. (slip op., at ). In the context of state taxation, the Due Process Clause limits States to imposing only taxes that “bea[r] fiscal
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Justice Sotomayor
| 2,019 | 24 |
majority
|
North Carolina Dept. of Revenue v. Kimberley Rice Kaestner 1992 Family Trust
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4631842/north-carolina-dept-of-revenue-v-kimberley-rice-kaestner-1992-family/
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Clause limits States to imposing only taxes that “bea[r] fiscal relation to protection, opportunities and benefits given by the state.” 444 (1940). The power to tax is, of course, “essential to the very existence of government,” McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 428 (1819), but the legitimacy of that power requires drawing a line between taxation and mere unjus- tified “confiscation.” Miller Brothers v. Maryland, 347 U.S. 340, 342 (1954). That boundary turns on the “[t]he simple but controlling question whether the state has given anything for which it can ask return.” Wisconsin, The Court applies a two-step analysis to decide if a state tax abides by the Due Process Clause. First, and most relevant here, there must be “ ‘some definite link, some minimum connection, between a state and the person, property or transaction it seeks to tax.’ ” 4 U.S., at 306. Second, “the ‘income attributed to the State for tax 6 NORTH CAROLINA DEPT. OF REVENUE v. KIMBERLEY RICE KAESTNER 1992 FAMILY TRUST Opinion of the Court purposes must be rationally related to “values connected with the taxing State.” ’ ” 5 To determine whether a State has the requisite “mini- mum connection” with the object of its tax, this Court borrows from the familiar test of International Shoe v. Washington, 4 U.S., at 307. A State has the power to impose a tax only when the taxed entity has “certain minimum contacts” with the State such that the tax “does not offend ‘traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice.’ ” International Shoe 326 U.S., at 316; see 4 U.S., at 308. The “minimum contacts” inquiry is “flexible” and focuses on the reason- ableness of the government’s action. 4 U.S., at 307. Ultimately, only those who derive “benefits and protection” from associating with a State should have obligations to the State in question. International Shoe, III One can imagine many contacts with a trust or its con- stituents that a State might treat, alone or in combination, as providing a “minimum connection” that justifies a tax on trust assets. The Court has already held that a tax on trust income distributed to an in-state resident passes muster under the Due Process Clause. So does a tax based on a trus- tee’s in-state residence. The Court’s cases also suggest that a tax based on the site of trust administration is constitutional. See Hanson v. Denckla, ; A different permutation is before the Court today. The Kaestner Trust made no distributions to any North Caro- —————— 5 Because North Carolina’s tax on the Kaestner Trust does not meet
|
Justice Sotomayor
| 2,019 | 24 |
majority
|
North Carolina Dept. of Revenue v. Kimberley Rice Kaestner 1992 Family Trust
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4631842/north-carolina-dept-of-revenue-v-kimberley-rice-kaestner-1992-family/
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North Carolina’s tax on the Kaestner Trust does not meet ’s first requirement, we do not address the second. Cite as: 588 U. S. (2019) 7 Opinion of the Court lina resident in the years in question. 371 N. C., at – The trustee resided out of State, and Trust administration was split between New York (where the Trust’s records were kept) and Massachusetts (where the custodians of its assets were located). at The trustee made no direct in- vestments in North Carolina in the relevant tax years, App. to Pet. for Cert. 52a, and the settlor did not reside in North Carolina. 371 N. C., at Of all the potential kinds of connections between a trust and a State, the State seeks to rest its tax on just one: the in- state residence of the beneficiaries. Brief for Petitioner 34–36; see App. to Pet. for Cert. 54a. We hold that the presence of in-state beneficiaries alone does not empower a State to tax trust income that has not been distributed to the beneficiaries where the beneficiar- ies have no right to demand that income and are uncertain ever to receive it. In limiting our holding to the specific facts presented, we do not imply approval or disapproval of trust taxes that are premised on the residence of benefi- ciaries whose relationship to trust assets differs from that of the beneficiaries here. A In the past, the Court has analyzed state trust taxes for consistency with the Due Process Clause by looking to the relationship between the relevant trust constituent (set- tlor, trustee, or beneficiary) and the trust assets that the State seeks to tax. In the context of beneficiary contacts specifically, the Court has focused on the extent of the in- state beneficiary’s right to control, possess, enjoy, or re- ceive trust assets. The Court’s emphasis on these factors emerged in two early cases, Safe & Trust of and v. Norfolk, 277 U.S. 27 both of which invalidated state taxes premised 8 NORTH CAROLINA DEPT. OF REVENUE v. KIMBERLEY RICE KAESTNER 1992 FAMILY TRUST Opinion of the Court on the in-state residency of beneficiaries. In each case the challenged tax fell on the entirety of a trust’s property, rather than on only the share of trust assets to which the beneficiaries were entitled. Safe 92; In Safe the Court rejected Virginia’s attempt to tax a trustee on the “whole corpus of the trust estate,” ; see explaining that “nobody within Virginia ha[d] present right to [the trust property’s] control or possession, or to receive income therefrom,” In the Court
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North Carolina Dept. of Revenue v. Kimberley Rice Kaestner 1992 Family Trust
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4631842/north-carolina-dept-of-revenue-v-kimberley-rice-kaestner-1992-family/
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or possession, or to receive income therefrom,” In the Court rejected a tax on the entirety of a trust fund assessed against a resident beneficiary because the trust property “[wa]s not within the State, d[id] not belong to the [benefi- ciary] and [wa]s not within her possession or control.” 277 U.S., at 29.6 On the other hand, the same elements of possession, control, and enjoyment of trust property led the Court to uphold state taxes based on the in-state residency of bene- ficiaries who did have close ties to the taxed trust assets. The Court has decided that States may tax trust income that is actually distributed to an in-state beneficiary. In those circumstances, the beneficiary “own[s] and enjoy[s]” an interest in the trust property, and the State can exact a tax in exchange for offering the beneficiary protection. ; see also Guaranty Trust v. Virginia, —————— 6 TheState contends that Safe is no longer good law under the more flexible approach in International Shoe and also because it was premised on the view, later disregarded in that the Due Process Clause forbids “double taxation.” Brief for Petitioner 27–28, and n. 12. We disagree. The aspects of the case noted here are consistent with the pragmatic approach reflected in International Shoe, and Curry distinguished Safe not because the earlier case incorrectly relied on concerns of double taxation but because the benefi- ciaries there had “[n]o comparable right or power” to that of the settlor in n. 6. Cite as: 588 U. S. (2019) 9 Opinion of the Court All of the foregoing cases reflect a common governing principle: When a State seeks to base its tax on the in- state residence of a trust beneficiary, the Due Process Clause demands a pragmatic inquiry into what exactly the beneficiary controls or possesses and how that interest relates to the object of the State’s tax. See Safe 280 U.S., Although the Court’s resident-beneficiary cases are most relevant here, similar analysis also appears in the context of taxes premised on the in-state residency of settlors and trustees. In Curry, for instance, the Court upheld a Ten- nessee trust tax because the settlor was a Tennessee resident who retained “power to dispose of ” the property, which amounted to “a potential source of wealth which was property in her hands.” 307 U.S., at That prac- tical control over the trust assets obliged the settlor “to contribute to the support of the government whose protec- tion she enjoyed.” ; see also (a settlor’s “right to revoke [a] trust and to demand the transmission to her
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| 2,019 | 24 |
majority
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North Carolina Dept. of Revenue v. Kimberley Rice Kaestner 1992 Family Trust
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4631842/north-carolina-dept-of-revenue-v-kimberley-rice-kaestner-1992-family/
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revoke [a] trust and to demand the transmission to her of the intan- gibles was a potential source of wealth” subject to tax by her State of residence).7 A focus on ownership and rights to trust assets also featured in the Court’s ruling that a trustee’s in-state residence can provide the basis for a State to tax trust assets. In the Court explained that the rela- tionship between trust assets and a trustee is akin to the “close relationship between” other types of intangible property and the owners of such property. 331 U. S., at —————— 7 Though the Court did not have occasion in Curry or Graves to ex- plore whether a lesser degree of control by a settlor also could sustain a tax by the settlor’s domicile (and we do not today address that possibil- ity), these cases nevertheless reinforce the logic employed by Safe v. Norfolk, v. Trefry, 253 U.S. 12 and Guaranty Trust in the beneficiary context. NORTH CAROLINA DEPT. OF REVENUE v. KIMBERLEY RICE KAESTNER 1992 FAMILY TRUST Opinion of the Court 493. The trustee is “the owner of [a] legal interest in” the trust property, and in that capacity he can incur obliga- tions, become personally liable for contracts for the trust, or have specific performance ordered against him. at At the same time, the trustee can turn to his home State for “benefit and protection through its law,” at 496, for instance, by resorting to the State’s courts to resolve issues related to trust administration or to enforce trust claims, A State therefore may tax a resident trustee on his interest in a share of trust assets. In sum, when assessing a state tax premised on the in- state residency of a constituent of a trust—whether bene- ficiary, settlor, or trustee—the Due Process Clause de- mands attention to the particular relationship between the resident and the trust assets that the State seeks to tax. Because each individual fulfills different functions in the creation and continuation of the trust, the specific features of that relationship sufficient to sustain a tax may vary depending on whether the resident is a settlor, beneficiary, or trustee. When a tax is premised on the in- state residence of a beneficiary, the Constitution requires that the resident have some degree of possession, control, or enjoyment of the trust property or a right to receive that property before the State can tax the asset. Cf. Safe 280 U.S., –92.8 Otherwise, the State’s rela- tionship to the object of its tax is too attenuated to create the “minimum connection” that the
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| 2,019 | 24 |
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North Carolina Dept. of Revenue v. Kimberley Rice Kaestner 1992 Family Trust
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4631842/north-carolina-dept-of-revenue-v-kimberley-rice-kaestner-1992-family/
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is too attenuated to create the “minimum connection” that the Constitution requires. See 4 U.S., at 306. B Applying these principles here, we conclude that the —————— 8 As explained below, we hold that the Kaestner Trust beneficiaries do not have the requisite relationship with the Trust property to justify the State’s tax. We do not decide what degree of possession, control, or enjoyment would be sufficient to support taxation. Cite as: 588 U. S. (2019) 11 Opinion of the Court residence of the Kaestner Trust beneficiaries in North Carolina alone does not supply the minimum connection necessary to sustain the State’s tax. First, the beneficiaries did not receive any income from the trust during the years in question. If they had, such income would have been taxable. See 253 U.S., at 17; Guaranty Trust Second, the beneficiaries had no right to demand trust income or otherwise control, possess, or enjoy the trust assets in the tax years at issue. The decision of when, whether, and to whom the trustee would distribute the trust’s assets was left to the trustee’s “absolute discretion.” Art. I, App. 46–47. In fact, the Trust agreement explicitly authorized the trustee to distribute funds to one beneficiary to “the exclusion of other[s],” with the effect of cutting one or more beneficiaries out of the Trust. Art. I, 4, at The agreement also authorized the trus- tee, not the beneficiaries, to make investment decisions regarding Trust property. Art. V, at 55–60. The Trust agreement prohibited the beneficiaries from assign- ing to another person any right they might have to the Trust property, Art. XII, at 70–71, thus making the beneficiaries’ interest less like “a potential source of wealth [that] was property in [their] hands.” Curry, 307 U.S., at –371.9 To be sure, the Kaestner Trust agreement also instructed the trustee to view the trust “as a family asset and to be liberal in the exercise of the discretion conferred,” suggest- ing that the trustee was to make distributions generously with the goal of “meet[ing] the needs of the Beneficiaries” in various respects. Art. I, 4(c), App. 51. And the trus- —————— 9 We do not address whether a beneficiary’s ability to assign a poten- tial interest in income from a trust would afford that beneficiary sufficient control or possession over, or enjoyment of, the property to justify taxation based solely on his or her in-state residence. 12 NORTH CAROLINA DEPT. OF REVENUE v. KIMBERLEY RICE KAESTNER 1992 FAMILY TRUST Opinion of the Court tee of a discretionary trust has a fiduciary duty not to “act in bad
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| 2,019 | 24 |
majority
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North Carolina Dept. of Revenue v. Kimberley Rice Kaestner 1992 Family Trust
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4631842/north-carolina-dept-of-revenue-v-kimberley-rice-kaestner-1992-family/
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trust has a fiduciary duty not to “act in bad faith or for some purpose or motive other than to accomplish the purposes of the discretionary power.” 2 Restatement (Third) of Trusts §, Comment c, p. 262 (2003). But by reserving sole discretion to the trustee, the Trust agreement still deprived Kaestner and her children of any entitlement to demand distributions or to direct the use of the Trust assets in their favor in the years in question. Third, not only were Kaestner and her children unable to demand distributions in the tax years at issue, but they also could not count on necessarily receiving any specific amount of income from the Trust in the future. Although the Trust agreement provided for the Trust to terminate in 2009 (on Kaestner’s 40th birthday) and to distribute assets to Kaestner, Art. I, 2(c)(1), App. 47, New York law allowed the trustee to roll over the trust assets into a new trust rather than terminating it. N. Y. Est., Powers & Trusts 6.6(b). Here, the trustee did just that. 371 N. C., —————— In light of these features, one might characterize the interests of the beneficiaries as “contingent” on the exercise of the trustee’s discre- tion. See (describing “the exercise of the trustee’s discretion” as an example of a contin- gency); see also United (de- scribing a grantor’s power to add income to the trust principal instead of distributing it and “thereby den[y] to the beneficiaries the privilege of immediate enjoyment and conditio[n] their eventual enjoyment upon surviving the termination of the trust”); (the termination of a contingency changes “the mere prospect or possibility, even the probability, that one may have [enjoyment of property] at some uncertain future time or perhaps not at all” into a “present substantial benefit”). We have no occasion to address, and thus reserve for another day, whether a different result would follow if the beneficiaries were certain to receive funds in the future. See, e.g., Cal. Rev. & Tax. Code Ann. (West 2019); 16–19, 448–449 (1940) (upholding a tax on the equitable interest of a benefi- Cite as: 588 U. S. (2019) 13 Opinion of the Court Like the beneficiaries in Safe then, Kaestner and her children had no right to “control or posses[s]” the trust assets “or to receive income therefrom.” 280 U.S., at 91. The beneficiaries received no income from the Trust, had no right to demand income from the Trust, and had no assurance that they would eventually receive a specific share of Trust income. Given these features of the Trust, the beneficiaries’ residence cannot,
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Justice Sotomayor
| 2,019 | 24 |
majority
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North Carolina Dept. of Revenue v. Kimberley Rice Kaestner 1992 Family Trust
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4631842/north-carolina-dept-of-revenue-v-kimberley-rice-kaestner-1992-family/
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Given these features of the Trust, the beneficiaries’ residence cannot, consistent with due process, serve as the sole basis for North Carolina’s tax on trust income.11 IV The State’s counterarguments do not save its tax. First, the State interprets as standing for the —————— ciary who had “a right to the income from [a] trust for life”), aff’d, U.S. 649 (1941). 11 Because the reasoning above resolves this case in the Trust’s favor, it is unnecessary to reach the Trust’s broader argument that the trustee’s contacts alone determine the State’s power over the Trust. Brief for Respondent 23–30. The Trust relies for this proposition on which held that a Florida court lacked jurisdiction to adjudicate the validity of a trust agreement even though the trust settlor and most of the trust beneficiaries were domiciled in Florida. The problem was that Florida law made the trustee “an indispensable party over whom the court [had to] acquire jurisdiction” before resolving a trust’s validity, and the trustee was a nonresident. In deciding that the Florida courts lacked jurisdiction over the proceeding, the Court rejected the relevance of the trust beneficiaries’ residence and focused instead on the “acts of the trustee” himself, which the Court found insufficient to support jurisdic- tion. The State counters that Hanson is inapposite because the State’s tax applies to the trust rather than to the trustee and because Hanson arose in the context of adjudicative jurisdiction rather than tax jurisdic- tion. Brief for Petitioner n. 9; Reply Brief There is no need to resolve the parties’ dueling interpretations of Hanson. Even if beneficiary contacts—such as residence—could be sufficient in some circumstances to support North Carolina’s power to impose this tax, the residence alone of the Kaestner Trust beneficiaries cannot do so for the reasons given above. 14 NORTH CAROLINA DEPT. OF REVENUE v. KIMBERLEY RICE KAESTNER 1992 FAMILY TRUST Opinion of the Court broad proposition that “a trust and its constituents” are always “inextricably intertwined.” Brief for Petitioner 26. Because trustee residence supports state taxation, the State contends, so too must beneficiary residence. The State emphasizes that beneficiaries are essential to a trust and have an “equitable interest” in its assets. 331 U.S., at In the State notes, the Court refused to “shut its eyes to the fact” that a suit to recover taxes from a trust was in reality a suit regarding “the beneficiary’s money.” The State also argues that its tax is at least as fair as the tax in because the Trust benefits from North Carolina law by way of the beneficiaries, who enjoy secure banks
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Justice Sotomayor
| 2,019 | 24 |
majority
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North Carolina Dept. of Revenue v. Kimberley Rice Kaestner 1992 Family Trust
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4631842/north-carolina-dept-of-revenue-v-kimberley-rice-kaestner-1992-family/
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law by way of the beneficiaries, who enjoy secure banks to facilitate asset transfers and also partake of services (such as subsidized public education) that obviate the need to make distributions (for example, to fund bene- ficiaries’ educations). Brief for Petitioner 30–33. The State’s argument fails to grapple with the wide variation in beneficiaries’ interests. There is no doubt that a beneficiary is central to the trust relationship, and beneficiaries are commonly understood to hold “beneficial interests (or ‘equitable title’) in the trust property,” 2 Restatement (Third) of Trusts Comment a, at 186. In some cases the relationship between beneficiaries and trust assets is so close as to be beyond separation. In Stone, for instance, the beneficiary had already received the trust income on which the government sought to re- cover tax. See But, depending on the trust agreement, a beneficiary may have only a “future interest,” an interest that is “subject to conditions,” or an interest that is controlled by a trustee’s discretionary decisions. 2 Restatement (Third) of Trusts Comment b, at 243. By contrast, in the requisite connec- tion with the State arose from a legal interest that neces- sarily carried with it predictable responsibilities and liabilities. See 331 U.S., at The different forms of Cite as: 588 U. S. (2019) 15 Opinion of the Court beneficiary interests counsels against adopting the cate- gorical rule that the State urges. Second, the State argues that ruling in favor of the Trust will undermine numerous state taxation regimes. Tr. of Oral Arg. 8, 68; Brief for Petitioner 6, and n. 1. Today’s ruling will have no such sweeping effect. North Carolina is one of a small handful of States that rely on beneficiary residency as a sole basis for trust taxation, and one of an even smaller number that will rely on the resi- dency of beneficiaries regardless of whether the benefi- ciary is certain to receive trust assets.12 Today’s decision does not address state laws that consider the in-state residency of a beneficiary as one of a combination of fac- tors, that turn on the residency of a settlor, or that rely only on the residency of noncontingent beneficiaries, see, e.g., Cal. Rev. & Tax. Code Ann.13 We express —————— 12 The State directs the Court’s attention to other state trust taxa- tion statutes that also look to trust beneficiaries’ in-state residency, see Brief for Petitioner 6, and n. 1, but 5 are unlike North Carolina’s because they consider beneficiary residence only in combination with other factors, see –18–1(33) (2011); – 701(a)(4) (2019 Cum. Supp.); Mo. Rev. Stat. §§.331(2),
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| 2,019 | 24 |
majority
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North Carolina Dept. of Revenue v. Kimberley Rice Kaestner 1992 Family Trust
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4631842/north-carolina-dept-of-revenue-v-kimberley-rice-kaestner-1992-family/
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(2011); – 701(a)(4) (2019 Cum. Supp.); Mo. Rev. Stat. §§.331(2), (3) (2016); (I)(3) (Lexis Supp. 2019); R. I. Gen. Laws (20). Of the remaining five statutes, it is not clear that the flexible tests employed in Montana and North Dakota permit reliance on beneficiary residence alone. See Mont. Admin. Rule 42.30.1(16) (2016); N. D. Admin. Code Similarly, Georgia’s imposition of a tax on the sole basis of beneficiary residency is disputed. See –7–22(a)(1)(C) (2017); Brief for Respondent 52, n. 20. Tennessee will be phasing out its income tax entirely by 20. H. B. 534, 1th Gen. Assem., Reg. Sess. (2017) (enacted); see –2–1(a) (2013). That leaves California, which (unlike North Carolina) applies its tax on the basis of beneficiary residency only where the beneficiary is not contingent. Cal. Rev. & Tax. Code Ann. ; see also n. 13 The Trust also raises no challenge to the practice known as throw- back taxation, by which a State taxes accumulated income at the time it is actually distributed. See, e.g., Cal. Rev. & Tax. Code Ann. 16 NORTH CAROLINA DEPT. OF REVENUE v. KIMBERLEY RICE KAESTNER 1992 FAMILY TRUST Opinion of the Court no opinion on the validity of such taxes. Finally, North Carolina urges that adopting the Trust’s position will lead to opportunistic gaming of state tax systems, noting that trust income nationally exceeded $120 billion in 2014. See Brief for Petitioner 39, and n. 13. The State is concerned that a beneficiary in Kaestner’s position will delay taking distributions until she moves to a State with a lower level of taxation, thereby paying less tax on the funds she ultimately receives. See Though this possibility is understandably troubling to the State, it is by no means certain that it will regularly come to pass. First, the power to make distributions to Kaestner or her children resides with the trustee. When and whether to make distributions is not for Kaestner to decide, and in fact the trustee may distribute funds to Kaestner while she resides in North Carolina (or deny her distributions entirely). Second, we address only the cir- cumstances in which a beneficiary receives no trust in- come, has no right to demand that income, and is uncer- tain necessarily to receive a specific share of that income. Settlors who create trusts in the future will have to weigh the potential tax benefits of such an arrangement against the costs to the trust beneficiaries of lesser control over trust assets. In any event, mere speculation about nega- tive consequences cannot conjure the “minimum connec- tion” missing between North Carolina and
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Justice Kennedy
| 2,003 | 4 |
second_dissenting
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Nevada Department of Human Resources v. Hibbs
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/127926/nevada-department-of-human-resources-v-hibbs/
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The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 makes explicit the congressional intent to invoke 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment to abrogate state sovereign immunity and allow suits for money damages in federal courts. Ante, at 726-727, and n. 1. The specific question is whether Congress may impose on the States this entitlement program of its own design, with mandated minimums for leave time, and then enforce it by permitting private suits for money damages against the States. This in turn must be answered by asking whether subjecting States and their treasuries to monetary liability at the insistence of private litigants is a congruent and proportional response to a demonstrated pattern of unconstitutional conduct by the States. See ante, at 728; Board of Trustees of Univ. of ; City of If we apply the teaching of these and related cases, the family leave provision of the Act, 29 U.S.C. 2612(a)(1)(C), in my respectful view, is invalid to the extent it allows for private suits against the unconsenting States. Congress does not have authority to define the substantive content of the Equal Protection Clause; it may only shape the remedies warranted by the violations of that guarantee. City of -. This requirement has special force in the context of the Eleventh Amendment, which protects a State's fiscal integrity from federal intrusion by vesting the States with immunity from private actions for damages pursuant to federal laws. The Commerce Clause likely would permit the National Government to enact an entitlement program such as this one; but when Congress couples the entitlement with the authorization to sue the States for monetary damages, it blurs the line of accountability the State has to its own citizens. These basic concerns underlie cases such as and and should counsel far more caution than the Court shows in holding 2612(a)(1)(C) is somehow a congruent and proportional remedy to an identified pattern of discrimination. The Court is unable to show that States have engaged in a pattern of unlawful conduct which warrants the remedy of opening state treasuries to private suits. The inability to adduce evidence of alleged discrimination, coupled with the inescapable fact that the federal scheme is not a remedy but a benefit program, demonstrates the lack of the requisite link between any problem Congress has identified and the program it mandated. In examining whether Congress was addressing a demonstrated "pattern of unconstitutional employment discrimination by the States," the Court gives superficial treatment to the requirement that we "identify with some precision the scope of the constitutional right at issue." at 368. The Court suggests the
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Justice Kennedy
| 2,003 | 4 |
second_dissenting
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Nevada Department of Human Resources v. Hibbs
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/127926/nevada-department-of-human-resources-v-hibbs/
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constitutional right at issue." at 368. The Court suggests the issue is "the right to be free from gender-based discrimination in the workplace," ante, at 728, and then it embarks on a survey of our precedents speaking to "[t]he history of the many state laws limiting women's employment opportunities," ante, at 729. All would agree that women historically have been subjected to conditions in which their employment opportunities are more limited than those available to men. As the Court acknowledges, however, Congress responded to this problem by abrogating States' sovereign immunity in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. e-2(a). Ante, at 729; see also The provision now before us, 29 U.S.C. 2612(a)(1)(C), has a different aim than Title VII. It seeks to ensure that eligible employees, irrespective of gender, can take a minimum amount of leave time to care for an ill relative. The relevant question, as the Court seems to acknowledge, is whether, notwithstanding the passage of Title VII and similar state legislation, the States continued to engage in widespread discrimination on the basis of gender in the provision of family leave benefits. Ante, at 730. If such a pattern were shown, the Eleventh Amendment would not bar Congress from devising a congruent and proportional remedy. The evidence to substantiate this charge must be far more specific, however, than a simple recitation of a general history of employment discrimination against women. When the federal statute seeks to abrogate state sovereign immunity, the Court should be more careful to insist on adherence to the analytic requirements set forth in its own precedents. Persisting overall effects of gender-based discrimination at the workplace must not be ignored; but simply noting the problem is not a substitute for evidence which identifies some real discrimination the family leave rules are designed to prevent. Respondents fail to make the requisite showing. The Act's findings of purpose are devoid of any discussion of the relevant evidence. See ; see also As the Court seems to recognize, the evidence considered by Congress concerned discriminatory practices of the private sector, not those of state employers. Ante, at 730-731, n.3. The statistical information compiled by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), which are the only factual findings the Court cites, surveyed only private employers. Ante, at 730. While the evidence of discrimination by private entities may be relevant, it does not, by itself, justify the abrogation of States' sovereign immunity. ("Congress' 5 authority is appropriately exercised only in response to state transgressions"). The Court seeks to connect the evidence of private discrimination to an
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Justice Kennedy
| 2,003 | 4 |
second_dissenting
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Nevada Department of Human Resources v. Hibbs
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/127926/nevada-department-of-human-resources-v-hibbs/
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seeks to connect the evidence of private discrimination to an alleged pattern of unconstitutional behavior by States through inferences drawn from two sources. The first is testimony by Meryl Frank, Director of the Infant Care Leave Project, Yale Bush Center in Child Development and Social Policy, who surveyed both private and public employers in all 50 States and found little variation between the leave policies in the two sectors. Ante, at 730-731, n. 3 (citing The Parental and Medical Leave Act of 1986: Joint Hearing before the Subcommittee on Labor-Management Relations and the Subcommittee on Labor Standards of the House Committee on Education and Labor, 99th Cong., 2d Sess., 33 (1986) (hereinafter Joint Hearing)). The second is a view expressed by the Washington Council of Lawyers that even "`[w]here child-care leave policies do exist, men, both in the public and private sectors, receive notoriously discriminatory treatment in their requests for such leave.'" Ante, at 731 (quoting Joint Hearing 147) (emphasis added by the Court). Both statements were made during the hearings on the proposed 1986 national leave legislation, and so preceded the Act by seven years. The 1986 bill, which was not enacted, differed in an important respect from the legislation Congress eventually passed. That proposal sought to provide parenting leave, not leave to care for another ill family member. Compare H.R. 4300, 99th Cong., 2d Sess., 102(3), 103(a) (1986), with 29 U.S.C. 2612(a)(1)(C). See also L. Gladstone, Congressional Research Service Issue Brief, Family and Medical Leave Legislation, pp. 4-5, 10 (Oct. 26, 1995); Tr. of Oral Arg. 43 (statement of counsel for the United States that "the first time that the family leave was introduced and the first time the section (5) authority was invoked was in H.R. 925," which was proposed in 1987). The testimony on which the Court relies concerned the discrimination with respect to the parenting leave. See Joint Hearing 31 (statement of Meryl Frank) (the Yale Bush study "evaluate[d] the impact of the changing composition of the workplace on families with infants"); ("[F]or the first time, childcare responsibilities of both natural and adoptive mothers and fathers will be legislatively protected"). Even if this isolated testimony could support an inference that private sector's gender-based discrimination in the provision of parenting leave was parallel to the behavior by state actors in 1986, the evidence would not be probative of the States' conduct some seven years later with respect to a statutory provision conferring a different benefit. The Court of Appeals admitted as much: "We recognize that a weakness in this evidence as applied to Hibbs' case is
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Justice Kennedy
| 2,003 | 4 |
second_dissenting
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Nevada Department of Human Resources v. Hibbs
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/127926/nevada-department-of-human-resources-v-hibbs/
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weakness in this evidence as applied to Hibbs' case is that the BLS and Yale Bush Center studies deal only with parental leave, not with leave to care for a sick family member. They thus do not document a widespread pattern of precisely the kind of discrimination that 2612(a)(1)(C) is intended to prevent." The Court's reliance on evidence suggesting States provided men and women with the parenting leave of different length, ante, at 731, and n. 5, suffers from the same flaw. This evidence concerns the Act's grant of parenting leave, 2612(a)(1)(A), (B), and is too attenuated to justify the family leave provision. The Court of Appeals' conclusion to the contrary was based on an assertion that "if states discriminate along gender lines regarding the one kind of leave, then they are likely to do so regarding the other." 273 F.3d, at The charge that a State has engaged in a pattern of unconstitutional discrimination against its citizens is a most serious one. It must be supported by more than conjecture. The Court maintains the evidence pertaining to the parenting leave is relevant because both parenting and family leave provisions respond to "the same gender stereotype: that women's family duties trump those of the workplace." Ante, at 732, n. 5. This sets the contours of the inquiry at too high a level of abstraction. The question is not whether the family leave provision is a congruent and proportional response to general gender-based stereotypes in employment which "ha[ve] historically produced discrimination in the hiring and promotion of women," ibid.; the question is whether it is a proper remedy to an alleged pattern of unconstitutional discrimination by States in the grant of family leave. The evidence of gender-based stereotypes is too remote to support the required showing. The Court next argues that "even where state laws and policies were not facially discriminatory, they were applied in discriminatory ways." Ante, at 732. This charge is based on an allegation that many States did not guarantee the right to family leave by statute, instead leaving the decision up to individual employers, who could subject employees to "`discretionary and possibly unequal treatment.'" The study from which the Court derives this conclusion examined "the parental leave policies of Federal executive branch agencies," H.R. Rep. No. 103-8, at 10, not those of the States. The study explicitly stated that its conclusions concerned federal employees: "`[I]n the absence of a national minimum standard for granting leave for parental purposes, the authority to grant leave and to arrange the length of that leave rests with individual supervisors, leaving Federal
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Justice Kennedy
| 2,003 | 4 |
second_dissenting
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Nevada Department of Human Resources v. Hibbs
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/127926/nevada-department-of-human-resources-v-hibbs/
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length of that leave rests with individual supervisors, leaving Federal employees open to discretionary and possibly unequal treatment.'" A history of discrimination on the part of the Federal Government may, in some situations, support an inference of similar conduct by the States, but the Court does not explain why the inference is justified here. Even if there were evidence that individual state employers, in the absence of clear statutory guidelines, discriminated in the administration of leave benefits, this circumstance alone would not support a finding of a state-sponsored pattern of discrimination. The evidence could perhaps support the charge of disparate impact, but not a charge that States have engaged in a pattern of intentional discrimination prohibited by the Fourteenth Amendment. -373 ). The federal-state equivalence upon which the Court places such emphasis is a deficient rationale at an even more fundamental level, however; for the States appear to have been ahead of Congress in providing gender-neutral family leave benefits. Thirty States, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico had adopted some form of family-care leave in the years preceding the Act's adoption. The reports in both Houses of Congress noted this fact. H.R. Rep. No. 103-8, at 32-33; S. Rep. No. 103-3, pp. 20-21 (1993); see also Brief for State of Alabama et al. as Amici Curiae 18-22. Congressional hearings noted that the provision of family leave was "an issue which has picked up tremendous momentum in the States, with some 21 of them having some form of family or medical leave on the books." The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1991: Hearing on H.R. 2 before the Subcommittee on Labor-Management Relations of the House Committee on Education and Labor, 102d Cong., 1st Sess., p. 4 (1991) (statement of Rep. Marge Roukema). Congress relied on the experience of the States in designing the national leave policy to be cost effective and gender neutral. S. Rep. No. 103-3, at 12-14; The Parental and Medical Leave Act of 1987: Hearings on S. 249 before the Subcommittee on Children, Family, Drugs and Alcoholism of the Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources, 100th Cong., 1st Sess., pt. 2, pp. 194-195, 533-534 (1987). Congress also acknowledged that many States had implemented leave policies more generous than those envisioned by the Act. H.R. Rep. No. 103-8, pt. 1, at 50; S. Rep. No. 103-3, at 38. At the very least, the history of the Act suggests States were in the process of solving any existing gender-based discrimination in the provision of family leave. The Court acknowledges that States have adopted family leave programs prior
|
Justice Kennedy
| 2,003 | 4 |
second_dissenting
|
Nevada Department of Human Resources v. Hibbs
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/127926/nevada-department-of-human-resources-v-hibbs/
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Court acknowledges that States have adopted family leave programs prior to federal intervention, but argues these policies suffered from serious imperfections. Ante, at 733-734. Even if correct, this observation proves, at most, that programs more generous and more effective than those operated by the States were feasible. That the States did not devise the optimal programs is not, however, evidence that the States were perpetuating unconstitutional discrimination. Given that the States assumed a pioneering role in the creation of family leave schemes, it is not surprising these early efforts may have been imperfect. This is altogether different, however, from purposeful discrimination. The Court's lengthy discussion of the allegedly deficient state policies falls short of meeting this standard. A great majority of these programs exhibit no constitutional defect and, in fact, are authorized by this Court's precedent. The Court points out that seven States adopted leave provisions applicable only to women. Ante, at 733. Yet it must acknowledge that three of these schemes concerned solely pregnancy disability leave. Ante, at 733, n. 6 (citing 3 Colo. Code Regs. 708-1, Rule 80.8 (2002); Iowa Code 216.6(2) ; N. H. Stat. Ann. 354-A:7(VI)(b) ). Our cases make clear that a State does not violate the Equal Protection Clause by granting pregnancy disability leave to women without providing for a grant of parenting leave to men. ; see also Tr. of Oral Arg. 49 (counsel for the United States conceding that Geduldig would permit this practice). The Court treats the pregnancy disability scheme of the fourth State, Louisiana, as a disguised gender-discriminatory provision of parenting leave because the scheme would permit leave in excess of the period Congress believed to be medically necessary for pregnancy disability. Ante, at 733, n. 6. The Louisiana statute, however, granted leave only for "that period during which the female employee is disabled on account of pregnancy, child-birth, or related medical conditions." La. Stat. Ann. 23:1008(A)(2)(b) (West Supp. 1993) Properly administered, the scheme, despite its generous maximum, would not transform into a discriminatory "4-month maternity leave for female employees only." Ante, at 733, n. 6. The Court next observes that 12 States "provided their employees no family leave, beyond an initial childbirth or adoption." Ante, at 733. Four of these States are those which, as discussed above, offered pregnancy disability leave only. See ante, at 733, n. 7 (citing 3 Colo. Code Regs. 708-1, Rule 80.8 (2002); Iowa Code 216.6(2) ; La. Stat. Ann. 23:1008(A)(2) (West Supp. 1993) ; N. H. Stat. Ann. 354-A:7(VI)(b) ). Of the remaining eight States, five offered parenting leave to both men and women
|
Justice Kennedy
| 2,003 | 4 |
second_dissenting
|
Nevada Department of Human Resources v. Hibbs
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/127926/nevada-department-of-human-resources-v-hibbs/
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States, five offered parenting leave to both men and women on an equal basis; a practice which no one contends suffers from a constitutional infirmity. See ante, at 733-734, n. 7 ; Ky. Rev. Stat. Ann. 337.015 ; Mo. Rev. Stat. 105.271 ; N.Y. Lab. Law 201-c (West 2002); U. S. Dept. of Labor, Women's Bureau, State Maternity/Family Leave Law, p. 12 (June 1993) (discussing the policy adopted by the Virginia Department of Personnel and Training)). The Court does not explain how the provision of social benefits either on a gender-neutral level (as with the parenting leave) or in a way permitted by this Court's case law (as with the pregnancy disability leave) offends the Constitution. Instead, the Court seems to suggest that a pattern of unconstitutional conduct may be inferred solely because a State, in providing its citizens with social benefits, does not make these benefits as generous or extensive as Congress would later deem appropriate. The Court further chastises the States for having "provided no statutorily guaranteed right to family leave, offering instead only voluntary or discretionary leave programs." Ante, at 733-734; see also ante, at 734 ("[F]our States provided leave only through administrative regulations or personnel policies"). The Court does not argue the States intended to enable employers to discriminate in the provision of family leave; nor, as already noted, is there evidence state employers discriminated in the administration of leave benefits. See Under the Court's reasoning, Congress seems justified in abrogating state immunity from private suits whenever the State's social benefits program is not enshrined in the statutory code and provides employers with discretion. Stripped of the conduct which exhibits no constitutional infirmity, the Court's "exten[sive] and specifi[c] record of unconstitutional state conduct," ante, at 735, n. 11, boils down to the fact that three States, Massachusetts, Kansas, and Tennessee, provided parenting leave only to their female employees, and had no program for granting their employees (male or female) family leave. See ante, at 733-734, nn. 6 and 7 ; Kan. Admin. Regs. 21-32-6(d) (2003); Tenn. Code Ann. 4-21-408(a) (1998)). As already the evidence related to the parenting leave is simply too attenuated to support a charge of unconstitutional discrimination in the provision of family leave. Nor, as the Court seems to acknowledge, does the Constitution require States to provide their employees with any family leave at all. Ante, at 738. A State's failure to devise a family leave program is not, then, evidence of unconstitutional behavior. Considered in its entirety, the evidence fails to document a pattern of unconstitutional conduct sufficient to justify the abrogation
|
Justice Kennedy
| 2,003 | 4 |
second_dissenting
|
Nevada Department of Human Resources v. Hibbs
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/127926/nevada-department-of-human-resources-v-hibbs/
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a pattern of unconstitutional conduct sufficient to justify the abrogation of States' sovereign immunity. The few incidents identified by the Court "fall far short of even suggesting the pattern of unconstitutional discrimination on which 5 legislation must be based." ; see also -91; City of -531. Juxtaposed to this evidence is the States' record of addressing gender-based discrimination in the provision of leave benefits on their own volition. See generally Brief for State of Alabama et al. as Amici Curiae 5-14. Our concern with gender discrimination, which is subjected to heightened scrutiny, as opposed to age-or disability-based distinctions, which are reviewed under rational standard, see ; does not alter this conclusion. The application of heightened scrutiny is designed to ensure gender-based classifications are not based on the entrenched and pervasive stereotypes which inhibit women's progress in the workplace. Ante, at 736. This consideration does not divest respondents of their burden to show that "Congress identified a history and pattern of unconstitutional employment discrimination by the States." The Court seems to reaffirm this requirement. Ante, at 729 ("We now inquire whether Congress had evidence of a pattern of constitutional violations on the part of the States"); see also ante, at 735 ("[T]he States' record of unconstitutional participation in, and fostering of, gender-based discrimination in the administration of leave benefits is weighty enough to justify the enactment of prophylactic 5 legislation"). In my submission, however, the Court does not follow it. Given the insufficiency of the evidence that States discriminated in the provision of family leave, the unfortunate fact that stereotypes about women continue to be a serious and pervasive social problem would not alone support the charge that a State has engaged in a practice designed to deny its citizens the equal protection of the laws. The paucity of evidence to support the case the Court tries to make demonstrates that Congress was not responding with a congruent and proportional remedy to a perceived course of unconstitutional conduct. Instead, it enacted a substantive entitlement program of its own. If Congress had been concerned about different treatment of men and women with respect to family leave, a congruent remedy would have sought to ensure the benefits of any leave program enacted by a State are available to men and women on an equal basis. Instead, the Act imposes, across the board, a requirement that States grant a minimum of 12 weeks of leave per year. 29 U.S. C. 2612(a)(1)(C). This requirement may represent Congress' considered judgment as to the optimal balance between the family obligations of workers and the interests of employers,
|
Justice Kennedy
| 2,003 | 4 |
second_dissenting
|
Nevada Department of Human Resources v. Hibbs
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/127926/nevada-department-of-human-resources-v-hibbs/
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the family obligations of workers and the interests of employers, and the States may decide to follow these guidelines in designing their own family leave benefits. It does not follow, however, that if the States choose to enact a different benefit scheme, they should be deemed to engage in unconstitutional conduct and forced to open their treasuries to private suits for damages. Well before the federal enactment, Nevada not only provided its employees, on a gender-neutral basis, with an option of requesting up to one year of unpaid leave, Nev. Admin. Code 284.578(1) (1984), but also permitted, subject to approval and other conditions, leaves of absence in excess of one year, 284.578(2). Nevada state employees were also entitled to use up to 10 days of their accumulated paid sick leave to care for an ill relative. 284.558(1). Nevada, in addition, had a program of special "catastrophic leave." State employees could donate their accrued sick leave to a general fund to aid employees who needed additional leave to care for a relative with a serious illness. Nev. Rev. Stat. 284.362(1) (1995). To be sure, the Nevada scheme did not track that devised by the Act in all respects. The provision of unpaid leave was discretionary and subject to a possible reporting requirement. Nev. Admin. Code 284.578(2)(3) (1984). A congruent remedy to any discriminatory exercise of discretion, however, is the requirement that the grant of leave be administered on a gender-equal basis, not the displacement of the State's scheme by a federal one. The scheme enacted by the Act does not respect the States' autonomous power to design their own social benefits regime. Were more proof needed to show that this is an entitlement program, not a remedial statute, it should suffice to note that the Act does not even purport to bar discrimination in some leave programs the States do enact and administer. Under the Act, a State is allowed to provide women with, say, 24 weeks of family leave per year but provide only 12 weeks of leave to men. As the counsel for the United States conceded during the argument, a law of this kind might run afoul of the Equal Protection Clause or Title VII, but it would not constitute a violation of the Act. Tr. of Oral Arg. 49. The Act on its face is not drawn as a remedy to gender-based discrimination in family leave. It has been long acknowledged that federal legislation which "deters or remedies constitutional violations can fall within the sweep of Congress' enforcement power even if in the process it prohibits conduct
|
Justice Kennedy
| 2,003 | 4 |
second_dissenting
|
Nevada Department of Human Resources v. Hibbs
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/127926/nevada-department-of-human-resources-v-hibbs/
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enforcement power even if in the process it prohibits conduct which is not itself unconstitutional." City of ; see also ante, at 737 (in exercising its power under 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment, Congress "may prohibit `a somewhat broader swath of conduct, including that which is not itself forbidden by the Amendment's text'" (quoting )). The Court has however, that Congress may not "enforce a constitutional right by changing what the right is." City of The dual requirement that Congress identify a pervasive pattern of unconstitutional state conduct and that its remedy be proportional and congruent to the violation is designed to separate permissible exercises of congressional power from instances where Congress seeks to enact a substantive entitlement under the guise of its 5 authority. The Court's precedents upholding the Voting Rights Act of 1965 as a proper exercise of Congress' remedial power are instructive. In South the Court concluded that the Voting Rights Act's prohibition on state literacy tests was an appropriate method of enforcing the constitutional protection against racial discrimination in voting. This measure was justified because "Congress documented a marked pattern of unconstitutional action by the States." (citing ); see also City of ("We noted evidence in the record reflecting the subsisting and pervasive discriminatory — and therefore unconstitutional — use of literacy tests" (citing )). Congress' response was a "limited remedial scheme designed to guarantee meaningful enforcement of the Fifteenth Amendment." This scheme was both congruent, because it "aimed at areas where voting discrimination has been most flagrant," and proportional, because it was necessary to "banish the blight of racial discrimination in voting, which has infected the electoral process in parts of our country for nearly a century," The Court acknowledged Congress' power to devise "strong remedial and preventive measures" to safeguard voting rights on subsequent occasions, but always that these measures were legitimate because they were responding to a pattern of "the widespread and persisting deprivation of constitutional rights resulting from this country's history of racial discrimination." City of at 526-527 ; City of ; v. ). This principle of our 5 jurisprudence is well illustrated not only by the Court's opinions in these cases but also by the late Justice Harlan's dissent in v. There, Justice Harlan contrasted his vote to invalidate a federal ban on New York state literacy tests from his earlier decision, in South to uphold stronger remedial measures against the State of South Carolina, such as suspension of literacy tests, imposition of preclearance requirements for any changes in state voting laws, and appointment of federal voting examiners. v. ; see
|
Justice Kennedy
| 2,003 | 4 |
second_dissenting
|
Nevada Department of Human Resources v. Hibbs
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/127926/nevada-department-of-human-resources-v-hibbs/
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laws, and appointment of federal voting examiners. v. ; see also South Justice Harlan that in the case of South Carolina there was "`voluminous legislative history' as well as judicial precedents supporting the basic congressional findings that the clear commands of the Fifteenth Amendment had been infringed by various state subterfuges. Given the existence of the evil, we held the remedial steps taken by the legislature under the Enforcement Clause of the Fifteenth Amendment to be a justifiable exercise of congressional initiative." (quoting South ). By contrast, the New York case, in his view, lacked a showing that "there has in fact been an infringement of that constitutional command, that is, whether a particular state practice offend[ed] the command of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment." In the absence of evidence that a State has engaged in unconstitutional conduct, Justice Harlan would have concluded that the literacy test ban Congress sought to impose was not an "appropriate remedial measur[e] to redress and prevent the wrongs," but an impermissible attempt "to define the substantive scope of the Amendment." For the same reasons, the abrogation of state sovereign immunity pursuant to Title VII was a legitimate congressional response to a pattern of gender-based discrimination in employment. The family leave benefit conferred by the Act is, by contrast, a substantive benefit Congress chose to confer upon state employees. See City of at The plain truth is Congress did not "ac[t] to accomplish the legitimate end of enforcing judicially-recognized Fourteenth Amendment rights, [but] instead pursued an object outside the scope of Section Five by imposing new, non-remedial legal obligations on the states." Beck, The Heart of Federalism: Pretext Review of Means-End Relationships, 36 U. C. D. L. Rev. 407, 440 (2003). It bears emphasis that, even were the Court to bar unconsented federal suits by private individuals for money damages from a State, individuals whose rights under the Act were violated would not be without recourse. The Act is likely a valid exercise of Congress' power under the Commerce Clause, Art. I, 8, cl. 3, and so the standards it prescribes will be binding upon the States. The United States may enforce these standards in actions for money damages; and private individuals may bring actions against state officials for injunctive relief under Ex parte Young, What is at issue is only whether the States can be subjected, without consent, to suits brought by private persons seeking to collect moneys from the state treasury. Their immunity cannot be abrogated without documentation of a pattern of unconstitutional acts by the States, and only then
|
Justice Scalia
| 1,988 | 9 |
concurring
|
Mississippi Power & Light Co. v. Mississippi Ex Rel. Moore
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112130/mississippi-power-light-co-v-mississippi-ex-rel-moore/
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I concur in the judgment of the Court, but write separately to discuss more fully what is to me the critical issue in this case: whether FERC had jurisdiction to determine whether MP&L's agreement to participate in the construction of Grand Gulf 1 and to purchase power from that facility was prudent. It is common ground that if FERC has jurisdiction over a subject, the States cannot have jurisdiction over the same subject. See Nantahala Power & Light FERC has determined that when two or more utilities form a joint venture or pool to share electrical generating capacity, including construction of *378 a new facility, the resulting transfers of power are wholesales of electricity subject to FERC's jurisdiction under the Federal Power Act, 16 U.S. C. 791a et seq. It is not disputed that in reviewing the wholesale rates charged to the participants in such a venture, FERC has jurisdiction to determine whether the venture was prudent as a whole. Nor is it seriously contested that in general FERC has jurisdiction to determine a fair allocation of the cost of the facility among the utilities in the pool. Cf. Nantahala, The central controverted issue in the present case is whether FERC has jurisdiction to determine the prudence of a particular utility's participation in the pool. FERC has asserted that it has such jurisdiction in the context of a pool of affiliated companies. In AEP Generating Co., FERC was asked to consider the prudence, "in light of the availability of alternative power supplies," of Kentucky Power Company's agreement to purchase 15% of the capacity of a generating facility as part of a pooling agreement with other, affiliated, utilities. FERC agreed to do so, concluding that fair allocation of costs among the utilities was inseparable from some inquiry into the prudence of Kentucky Power's entering into the pooling arrangement in light of available alternative power supplies. FERC explained that "the transaction involves affiliated, jurisdictional utilities, which are members of an integrated, interstate holding company arrangement" and that "[u]nder these circumstances, more complex, interrelated questions arise and, whether one characterizes the questions as related to prudence, interpretation [of the basic system agreements], or cost allocation, they are clearly matters most appropriately resolved by the Commission as part of its overriding authority to evaluate and implement all applicable wholesale rate schedules." AEP Generating Co. makes plain that for the type of arrangement at issue in this case, see ante, at 357, and n. 1 a *379 joint venture or pooling agreement among affiliated companies FERC asserts jurisdiction to inquire into the prudence
|
Justice Scalia
| 1,988 | 9 |
concurring
|
Mississippi Power & Light Co. v. Mississippi Ex Rel. Moore
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112130/mississippi-power-light-co-v-mississippi-ex-rel-moore/
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companies FERC asserts jurisdiction to inquire into the prudence of a particular utility's entering the arrangement. Nothing the Commission said or did in the present case is inconsistent with that assertion of jurisdiction. Its statement that allocation of the costs of Grand Gulf was not to be based on the "needs" of particular utilities, Middle South Energy, merely rejects allocating costs according to the current needs of the utilities, which would be incompatible with the utilities' agreement to approach power planning on a systemwide basis. That has nothing to do with whether the prudence of a utility's joining the system in the first place can be examined. It is true, of course, that FERC did not conduct such an examination in the present case; but, as the Court discusses, see ante, at 375, neither did any party ask it to do so. That failure to ask does not take the issue out of FERC's jurisdiction and recommit it to the States.[*] *380 What the case comes down to, then, is whether FERC's asserted jurisdiction to examine the prudence of a particular utility's joining a pooling arrangement with affiliated companies is supported by the provisions of the Federal Power Act. If so, there is no regulatory gap for the States to fill, and they are pre-empted from examining that question of prudence in calculating the rates chargeable to retail customers. In considering the Federal Power Act question we will defer, of course, to FERC's construction if it does not violate plain meaning and is a reasonable interpretation of silence or ambiguity. See, e. g., K mart ; Chevron U. S. A. Contrary to the dissent, post, at 386-387, we have held that this rule of deference applies to an agency's interpretation of a statute designed to confine its authority. See, e. g., Japan Whaling ; Chemical Manufacturers In particular, it is settled law that the rule of deference applies even to an agency's interpretation of its own statutory authority or jurisdiction. See Commodity Futures Trading ; ; see also, e. g., City of New ; Capital Cities Cable, ; CBS, ; Red Lion Broadcasting ; In fact, the arguments relied on by the dissent, post, at 386-387, have been expressly rejected by this Court namely, that agencies can claim no special expertise in interpreting their authorizing statutes if an issue can be characterized as jurisdictional, see and that the usual reliance on the agency to resolve conflicting policies is inappropriate if the resolution involves defining the limits of the agency's authority, see, e. g., City of New at rather
|
Justice Scalia
| 1,988 | 9 |
concurring
|
Mississippi Power & Light Co. v. Mississippi Ex Rel. Moore
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112130/mississippi-power-light-co-v-mississippi-ex-rel-moore/
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agency's authority, see, e. g., City of New at rather than (what is really no different) defining the limits of application of authority it plainly has. Rather, it is plain that giving deference to an administrative interpretation of its statutory jurisdiction or authority is both necessary and appropriate. It is necessary because there is no discernible line between an agency's exceeding its authority and an agency's exceeding authorized application of its authority. To exceed authorized application is to exceed authority. Virtually any administrative action can be characterized as either the one or the other, depending upon how generally one wishes to describe the "authority." Cf. at And deference is appropriate because it is consistent with the general rationale for deference: Congress would naturally expect * that the agency would be responsible, within broad limits, for resolving ambiguities in its statutory authority or jurisdiction. Cf. Chevron U. S. A. Congress would neither anticipate nor desire that every ambiguity in statutory authority would be addressed, de novo, by the courts. To be sure, in defining agency jurisdiction Congress sometimes speaks in plain terms, in which case the agency has no discretion. But the dissent concedes that in this case, "[i]f agency deference applied, these prudency issues are sufficiently intertwined that we should defer to FERC's conclusion." Post, at 386. FERC's interpretation in the present case satisfies the conditions for deference. Under 16 U.S. C. 824e(a), FERC is responsible for assuring that the rates charged to purchasers of electric energy at wholesale, and the contracts affecting such rates, are not "unjust, unreasonable, unduly discriminatory or preferential." Perhaps (we need not decide the point today) it cannot be considered "unjust, unreasonable, unduly discriminatory or preferential" to hold the participant in a joint venture to that fair proportion of the costs which it contracted in arm's-length negotiations to bear, even though its entry into the contract may have been imprudent. But I think it assuredly can be considered "unjust, unreasonable, unduly discriminatory or preferential" (for purposes of the ends served by the Federal Power Act) to make a participant bear such costs under an imprudent contract it was essentially assigned, through a process in which the overall interests of the affiliated group rather than the particular interest of the individual affiliate was paramount. It is entirely reasonable to think that the fairness of rates and contracts relating to joint ventures among affiliated companies cannot be separated from an inquiry into the prudence of each affiliate's participation. Appellees rely upon the language in 824(b)(1) which states that FERC "shall not have jurisdiction, except as specifically *383
|
Justice Scalia
| 1,988 | 9 |
concurring
|
Mississippi Power & Light Co. v. Mississippi Ex Rel. Moore
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112130/mississippi-power-light-co-v-mississippi-ex-rel-moore/
|
that FERC "shall not have jurisdiction, except as specifically *383 provided in this subchapter [the Federal Power Act]. over facilities used for the generation of electric energy." But this does not plainly contradict FERC's assertion of jurisdiction. First, it is reasonable to regard FERC's 824e(a) authority to set wholesale rates as precisely an example of jurisdiction "specifically provided." And second, it is reasonable to say that FERC is not exercising jurisdiction over the electrical generating facility but merely over the sale of the power created by that facility. After today, the battle will no longer be over who has jurisdiction, FERC or the States, to evaluate the prudence of a particular utility's entering pooling arrangements with affiliated companies for the sharing of electrical generating capacity or the creation and wholesaling of electrical energy. FERC has asserted that jurisdiction and has been vindicated. What goes along with the jurisdiction is the responsibility, where the issue is appropriately raised, to protect against allocations that have the effect of making the ratepayers of one State subsidize those of another.
|
Justice Roberts
| 2,009 | 0 |
majority
|
Pacific Bell Telephone v. LINKLINE COMM.
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/145906/pacific-bell-telephone-v-linkline-comm/
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The plaintiffs in this case, respondents here, allege that a competitor subjected them to a "price squeeze" in violation of 2 of the Sherman Act. They assert that such a claim can arise when a vertically integrated firm sells inputs at wholesale and also sells finished goods or services at retail. If that firm has power in the wholesale market, it can simultaneously raise the wholesale price of inputs and cut the retail price of the finished good. This will have the effect of "squeezing" the profit margins of any competitors in the retail market. Those firms will have to pay more for the inputs they need; at the same time, they will have to cut their retail prices to match the other firm's The question before us is whether such a *1115 price-squeeze claim may be brought under 2 of the Sherman Act when the defendant is under no antitrust obligation to sell the inputs to the plaintiff in the first place. We hold that no such claim may be brought. I This case involves the market for digital subscriber line (DSL) service, which is a method of connecting to the Internet at high speeds over telephone lines. AT & T[1] owns much of the infrastructure and facilities needed to provide DSL service in California. In particular, AT & T controls most of what is known as the "last mile" the lines that connect homes and businesses to the telephone network. Competing DSL providers must generally obtain access to AT & T's facilities in order to serve their customers. Until recently, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) required incumbent phone companies such as AT & T to sell transmission service to independent DSL providers, under the theory that this would spur competition. See In re Appropriate Framework for Broadband Access to Internet over Wireline Facilities, 20 FCC Rcd. 14853, 14868 In the Commission largely abandoned this forced-sharing requirement in light of the emergence of a competitive market beyond DSL for high-speed Internet service; DSL now faces robust competition from cable companies and wireless and satellite services. As a condition for a recent merger, however, AT & T remains bound by the mandatory interconnection requirements, and is obligated to provide wholesale "DSL transport" service to independent firms at a price no greater than the retail price of AT & T's DSL service. In re AT & T Inc. and BellSouth Corp., 22 FCC Rcd. 5662, 5814 The plaintiffs are four independent Internet service providers (ISPs) that compete with AT & T in the retail DSL market. Plaintiffs do not own all
|
Justice Roberts
| 2,009 | 0 |
majority
|
Pacific Bell Telephone v. LINKLINE COMM.
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/145906/pacific-bell-telephone-v-linkline-comm/
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in the retail DSL market. Plaintiffs do not own all the facilities needed to supply their customers with this service. They instead lease DSL transport service from AT & T pursuant to the merger conditions described above. AT & T thus participates in the DSL market at both the wholesale and retail levels; it provides plaintiffs and other independent ISPs with wholesale DSL transport service, and it also sells DSL service directly to consumers at retail. In July 2003, the plaintiffs brought suit in District Court, alleging that AT & T violated 2 of the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. 2, by monopolizing the DSL market in California. The complaint alleges that AT & T refused to deal with the plaintiffs, denied the plaintiffs access to essential facilities, and engaged in a "price squeeze." App. 18-19. Specifically, plaintiffs contend that AT & T squeezed their profit margins by setting a high wholesale price for DSL transport and a low retail price for DSL Internet service. This maneuver allegedly "exclude[d] and unreasonably impede[d] competition," thus allowing AT & T to "preserve and maintain its monopoly control of DSL access to the Internet." In Verizon Communications Inc. v. Law Offices of Curtis V. LLP, we held that a firm with no antitrust duty to deal with its rivals at all is under no obligation to provide those rivals with a "sufficient" level of service. Shortly after we issued that decision, AT & T moved for judgment on the pleadings, arguing *1116 that the plaintiffs' claims in this case were foreclosed by The District Court held that AT & T had no antitrust duty to deal with the plaintiffs, App. to Pet. for Cert. 77a-85a, but it denied the motion to dismiss with respect to the price-squeeze claims, at 86a-90a. The court acknowledged that AT & T's argument "has a certain logic to it," but held that "simply does not involve price-squeeze " at 86a. The District Court also noted that price-squeeze claims have been recognized by several Circuits and "are cognizable under existing antitrust standards." at 89a, and n. 27. At the District Court's request, plaintiffs then filed an amended complaint providing greater detail about their price-squeeze AT & T again moved to dismiss, arguing that price-squeeze claims could only proceed if they met the two established requirements for predatory pricing: below-cost retail pricing and a "`dangerous probability'" that the defendant will recoup any lost profits. See The District Court did not reach the issue whether all price-squeeze claims must meet the requirements, because it concluded that the amended complaint, "generously construed," satisfied
|
Justice Roberts
| 2,009 | 0 |
majority
|
Pacific Bell Telephone v. LINKLINE COMM.
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/145906/pacific-bell-telephone-v-linkline-comm/
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because it concluded that the amended complaint, "generously construed," satisfied those criteria. App. to Pet. for Cert. 46a-49a, 56a. The court also certified its earlier order for interlocutory appeal on the question whether " bars price squeeze claims where the parties are compelled to deal under the federal communications laws." at 56a-57a. On interlocutory appeal, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the District Court's denial of AT & T's motion for judgment on the pleadings on the price-squeeze The court emphasized that " did not involve a price squeezing theory." Because "a price squeeze theory formed part of the fabric of traditional antitrust law prior to" the Court of Appeals concluded that "those claims should remain viable notwithstanding either the telecommunications statutes or" Based on the record before it, the court held that plaintiffs' original complaint stated a potentially valid claim under 2 of the Sherman Act. Judge Gould dissented, noting that "the notion of a `price squeeze' is itself in a squeeze between two recent Supreme Court precedents." A price-squeeze claim involves allegations of both a high wholesale price and a low retail price, so Judge Gould analyzed each component separately. He concluded that " insulates from antitrust review the setting of the upstream price." -887. With respect to the downstream price, he argued that "the retail side of a price squeeze cannot be considered to create an antitrust violation if the retail pricing does not satisfy the requirements of which set unmistakable limits on what can be considered to be predatory within the meaning of the antitrust laws." at 887 (citing at ). Judge Gould concluded that the plaintiffs' complaint did not satisfy these requirements because it contained no allegations that the retail price was set below cost and that those losses could later be Judge Gould would have allowed the plaintiffs to amend their complaint if they could, in good faith, raise predatory pricing claims meeting the requirements. We granted certiorari, 554 U.S. to resolve a conflict over whether a plaintiff can bring price-squeeze claims under 2 of the Sherman Act when the defendant *1117 has no antitrust duty to deal with the plaintiff. See Covad Communications (holding that bars such claims). We reverse. II This case has assumed an unusual posture. The plaintiffs now assert that they agree with Judge Gould's dissenting position that price-squeeze claims must meet the requirements for predatory pricing. They ask us to vacate the decision below in their favor and remand with instructions that they be given leave to amend their complaint to allege a claim. In other
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Justice Roberts
| 2,009 | 0 |
majority
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Pacific Bell Telephone v. LINKLINE COMM.
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/145906/pacific-bell-telephone-v-linkline-comm/
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to amend their complaint to allege a claim. In other words, plaintiffs are no longer pleased with their initial theory of the case, and ask for a mulligan to try again under a different theory. Some amici argue that the case is moot in light of this confession of error. They contend that "[w]ith both petitioners and respondents now aligned on [the same] side of the question presented, no party with a concrete stake in this case's outcome is advocating for the contrary position." Brief for COMPTEL 6. We do not think this case is moot. First, the parties continue to seek different relief. AT & T asks us to reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand with instructions to dismiss the complaint at issue. The plaintiffs ask that we vacate the judgment and remand with instructions that they be given leave to amend their complaint. The parties thus continue to be adverse not only in the litigation as a whole, but in the specific proceedings before this Court. Second, it is not clear that the plaintiffs have unequivocally abandoned their price-squeeze In their brief and at oral argument, the plaintiffs continue to refer to their "pricing squeeze claim." See Brief for Respondents 13. They appear to acknowledge that those claims must meet the requirements, but it is not clear whether they believe the necessary showing can be made in at least partial reliance on the sort of price squeeze theory accepted by the Court of Appeals. At one point, for example, the plaintiffs suggest that "the DSL transport price" may be pertinent to their claims going forward under the theory of Judge Gould's dissent; that opinion, however, concluded that "in essence takes the issu[e] of wholesale pricing out of the case." 503 F.3d, Given this ambiguity, the case before us remains a live dispute appropriate for decision. Cf. Friends of Earth, Amici also argue that we should dismiss the writ of certiorari because of the "lack of adversarial presentation" by an interested party. Brief for COMPTEL 7. To the contrary, prudential concerns favor our answering the question presented. Plaintiffs defended the Court of Appeals' decision at the certiorari stage, and the parties have invested a substantial amount of time, effort, and resources in briefing and arguing the merits of this case. In the absence of a decision from this Court on the merits, the Court of Appeals' decision would presumably remain binding precedent in the Ninth Circuit, and the Circuit conflict we granted certiorari to resolve would persist. Two amici have submitted briefs defending the Court
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Justice Roberts
| 2,009 | 0 |
majority
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Pacific Bell Telephone v. LINKLINE COMM.
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/145906/pacific-bell-telephone-v-linkline-comm/
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would persist. Two amici have submitted briefs defending the Court of Appeals' decision on the merits, and we granted the motion of one of those amici to participate in oral argument. 555 U.S. We think it appropriate to proceed to address the question presented. *1118 III A Section 2 of the Sherman Act makes it unlawful to "monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations." 15 U.S.C. 2. Simply possessing monopoly power and charging monopoly prices does not violate 2; rather, the statute targets "the willful acquisition or maintenance of that power as distinguished from growth or development as a consequence of a superior product, business acumen, or historic accident." United As a general rule, businesses are free to choose the parties with whom they will deal, as well as the prices, terms, and conditions of that dealing. See United But there are rare instances in which a dominant firm may incur antitrust liability for purely unilateral conduct. For example, we have ruled that firms may not charge "predatory" pricesbelow-cost prices that drive rivals out of the market and allow the monopolist to raise its prices later and recoup its losses. 509 U.S., at Here, however, the complaint at issue does not contain allegations meeting those requirements. App. 10-24. There are also limited circumstances in which a firm's unilateral refusal to deal with its rivals can give rise to antitrust liability. See Aspen Skiing Here, however, the District Court held that AT & T had no such antitrust duty to deal with its competitors, App. to Pet. for Cert. 84a-85a, and this holding was not challenged on appeal.[2] The challenge here focuses on retail priceswhere there is no predatory pricingand the terms of dealingwhere there is no duty to deal. Plaintiffs' price-squeeze claims challenge a different type of unilateral conduct in which a firm "squeezes" the profit margins of its competitors. This requires the defendant to be operating in two markets, a wholesale ("upstream") market and a retail ("downstream") market. A firm with market power in the upstream market can squeeze its downstream competitors by raising the wholesale price of inputs while cutting its own retail This will raise competitors' costs (because they will have to pay more for their inputs) and lower their revenues (because they will have to match the dominant firm's low retail price). Price-squeeze plaintiffs assert that defendants must leave them a "fair" or "adequate" margin between the wholesale price and the
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Justice Roberts
| 2,009 | 0 |
majority
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Pacific Bell Telephone v. LINKLINE COMM.
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/145906/pacific-bell-telephone-v-linkline-comm/
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"fair" or "adequate" margin between the wholesale price and the retail price. In this case, we consider whether a plaintiff can state a price-squeeze claim when the defendant has no obligation under the antitrust laws to deal with the plaintiff at wholesale. *1119 B 1. A straightforward application of our recent decision in forecloses any challenge to AT & T's wholesale In Verizon was required by statute to lease its network elements to competing firms at wholesale -403, The plaintiffa customer of one of Verizon's rivalsasserted that Verizon denied its competitors access to interconnection support services, making it difficult for those competitors to fill their customers' orders. The complaint alleged that this conduct in the upstream market violated 2 of the Sherman Act by impeding the ability of independent carriers to compete in the downstream market for local telephone service. We held that the plaintiff's claims were not actionable under 2. Given that Verizon had no antitrust duty to deal with its rivals at all, we concluded that "Verizon's alleged insufficient assistance in the provision of service to rivals" did not violate the Sherman Act. at thus makes clear that if a firm has no antitrust duty to deal with its competitors at wholesale, it certainly has no duty to deal under terms and conditions that the rivals find commercially advantageous. In this case, as in the defendant has no antitrust duty to deal with its rivals at wholesale; any such duty arises only from FCC regulations, not from the Sherman Act. See There is no meaningful distinction between the "insufficient assistance" claims we rejected in and the plaintiffs' price-squeeze claims in the instant case. The plaintiffs challenged the quality of Verizon's interconnection service, while this case involves a challenge to AT & T's pricing structure. But for antitrust purposes, there is no reason to distinguish between price and nonprice components of a transaction. See, e.g., American Telephone & Telegraph The nub of the complaint in both and this case is identicalthe plaintiffs alleged that the defendants (upstream monopolists) abused their power in the wholesale market to prevent rival firms from competing effectively in the retail market. holds that such claims are not cognizable under the Sherman Act in the absence of an antitrust duty to deal. The District Court and the Court of Appeals did not regard as controlling because that case did not directly address price-squeeze 503 F.3d, ; App. to Pet. for Cert. 86a; see also Brief for COMPTEL 27-30. This is technically true, but the reasoning of applies with equal force to price-squeeze AT & T
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Justice Roberts
| 2,009 | 0 |
majority
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Pacific Bell Telephone v. LINKLINE COMM.
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/145906/pacific-bell-telephone-v-linkline-comm/
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of applies with equal force to price-squeeze AT & T could have squeezed its competitors' profits just as effectively by providing poor-quality interconnection service to the plaintiffs, as Verizon allegedly did in But a firm with no duty to deal in the wholesale market has no obligation to deal under terms and conditions favorable to its competitors. If AT & T had simply stopped providing DSL transport service to the plaintiffs, it would not have run afoul of the Sherman Act. Under these circumstances, AT & T was not required to offer this service at the wholesale prices the plaintiffs would have preferred. 2. The other component of a price-squeeze claim is the assertion that the defendant's retail prices are "too low." *1120 Here too plaintiffs' claims find no support in our existing antitrust doctrine. "[C]utting prices in order to increase business often is the very essence of competition." Matsushita Elec. Industrial In cases seeking to impose antitrust liability for prices that are too low, mistaken inferences are "especially costly, because they chill the very conduct the antitrust laws are designed to protect." ; see also To avoid chilling aggressive price competition, we have carefully limited the circumstances under which plaintiffs can state a Sherman Act claim by alleging that prices are too low. Specifically, to prevail on a predatory pricing claim, a plaintiff must demonstrate that: (1) "the prices complained of are below an appropriate measure of its rival's costs"; and (2) there is a "dangerous probability" that the defendant will be able to recoup its "investment" in below-cost at In the complaint at issue in this interlocutory appeal, App. 10-24, there is no allegation that AT & T's conduct met either of the requirements. Recognizing a price-squeeze claim where the defendant's retail price remains above cost would invite the precise harm we sought to avoid in : Firms might raise their retail prices or refrain from aggressive price competition to avoid potential antitrust liability. See 509 U.S., at ("As a general rule, the exclusionary effect of prices above a relevant measure of cost either reflects the lower cost structure of the alleged predator, and so represents competition on the merits, or is beyond the practical ability of a judicial tribunal to control without courting intolerable risks of chilling legitimate price cutting"). 3. Plaintiffs' price-squeeze claim, looking to the relation between retail and wholesale prices, is thus nothing more than an amalgamation of a meritless claim at the retail level and a meritless claim at the wholesale level. If there is no duty to deal at the wholesale level
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Justice Roberts
| 2,009 | 0 |
majority
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Pacific Bell Telephone v. LINKLINE COMM.
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/145906/pacific-bell-telephone-v-linkline-comm/
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there is no duty to deal at the wholesale level and no predatory pricing at the retail level, then a firm is certainly not required to price both of these services in a manner that preserves its rivals' profit margins.[3] C 1. Institutional concerns also counsel against recognition of such We have repeatedly emphasized the importance *1121 of clear rules in antitrust law. Courts are ill suited "to act as central planners, identifying the proper price, quantity, and other terms of dealing." "`No court should impose a duty to deal that it cannot explain or adequately and reasonably supervise. The problem should be deemed irremedia[ble] by antitrust law when compulsory access requires the court to assume the day-to-day controls characteristic of a regulatory agency.'" (quoting Areeda, Essential Facilities: An Epithet in Need of Limiting Principles, 58 Antitrust L.J. 841, 853 (1989)); see also Town of ("[A]ntitrust courts normally avoid direct price administration, relying on rules and remedies that are easier to administer"). It is difficult enough for courts to identify and remedy an alleged anticompetitive practice at one level, such as predatory pricing in retail markets or a violation of the duty-to-deal doctrine at the wholesale level. See at 2, (predation claims "requir[e] an understanding of the extent and duration of the alleged predation, the relative financial strength of the predator and its intended victim, and their respective incentives and will"); Recognizing price-squeeze claims would require courts simultaneously to police both the wholesale and retail prices to ensure that rival firms are not being squeezed. And courts would be aiming at a moving target, since it is the interaction between these two prices that may result in a squeeze. Perhaps most troubling, firms that seek to avoid price-squeeze liability will have no safe harbor for their pricing practices. See Town of At least in the predatory pricing context, firms know they will not incur liability as long as their retail prices are above cost. at No such guidance is available for price-squeeze See, e.g., 3B P. Areeda & H. Hovenkamp, Antitrust Law ¶ 767c, p. 138 ("[A]ntitrust faces a severe problem not only in recognizing any 2 [price-squeeze] offense, but also in formulating a suitable remedy"). The most commonly articulated standard for price squeezes is that the defendant must leave its rivals a "fair" or "adequate" margin between the wholesale price and the retail price. See Town of at 23-; Alcoa, One of our colleagues has highlighted the flaws of this test in Socratic fashion: "[H]ow is a judge or jury to determine a `fair price?' Is it the price
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Justice Roberts
| 2,009 | 0 |
majority
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Pacific Bell Telephone v. LINKLINE COMM.
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/145906/pacific-bell-telephone-v-linkline-comm/
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jury to determine a `fair price?' Is it the price charged by other suppliers of the primary product? None exist. Is it the price that competition `would have set' were the primary level not monopolized? How can the court determine this price without examining costs and demands, indeed without acting like a rate-setting regulatory agency, the rate-setting proceedings of which often last for several years? Further, how is the court to decide the proper size of the price `gap?' Must it be large enough for all independent competing firms to make a `living profit,' no matter how inefficient they may be?. And how should the court respond when costs or demands change over time, as they inevitably will?" Town of at Some amici respond to these concerns by proposing a "transfer price test" for identifying an unlawful price squeeze: A price squeeze should be presumed if the upstream monopolist could *1122 not have made a profit by selling at its retail rates if it purchased inputs at its own wholesale Brief for American Antitrust Institute (AAI) 30; Brief for COMPTEL 16-19; see (N.D.Ind.1984). Whether or not that test is administrable, it lacks any grounding in our antitrust jurisprudence. An upstream monopolist with no duty to deal is free to charge whatever wholesale price it would like; antitrust law does not forbid lawfully obtained monopolies from charging monopoly ("The mere possession of monopoly power, and the concomitant charging of monopoly prices, is not only not unlawful; it is an important element of the free-market system"). Similarly, the Sherman Act does not forbidindeed, it encouragesaggressive price competition at the retail level, as long as the prices being charged are not predatory. 509 U.S., at -224, If both the wholesale price and the retail price are independently lawful, there is no basis for imposing antitrust liability simply because a vertically integrated firm's wholesale price happens to be greater than or equal to its retail price. 2. Amici assert that there are circumstances in which price squeezes may harm competition. For example, they assert that price squeezes may raise entry barriers that fortify the upstream monopolist's position; they also contend that price squeezes may impair nonprice competition and innovation in the downstream market by driving independent firms out of business. See Brief for AAI 11-15; Town of The problem, however, is that amici have not identified any independent competitive harm caused by price squeezes above and beyond the harm that would result from a duty-to-deal violation at the wholesale level or predatory pricing at the retail level. See 3A P. Areeda & H. Hovenkamp,
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Justice Roberts
| 2,009 | 0 |
majority
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Pacific Bell Telephone v. LINKLINE COMM.
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/145906/pacific-bell-telephone-v-linkline-comm/
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the retail level. See 3A P. Areeda & H. Hovenkamp, Antitrust Law¶ 767c, p. 126 (2d ed. 2002) ("[I]t is difficult to see any competitive significance [of a price squeeze] apart from the consequences of vertical integration itself"). To the extent a monopolist violates one of these doctrines, the plaintiffs have a remedy under existing law. We do not need to endorse a new theory of liability to prevent such harm. IV Lastly, as mentioned above, plaintiffs have asked us for leave to amend their complaint to bring a predatory pricing claim. We need not decide whether leave to amend should be granted. Our grant of certiorari was limited to the question whether price-squeeze claims are cognizable in the absence of an antitrust duty to deal. The Court of Appeals addressed only AT & T's motion for judgment on the pleadings on the plaintiffs' original complaint.[4] For the reasons stated, *1123 we hold that the price-squeeze claims set forth in that complaint are not cognizable under the Sherman Act. Plaintiffs have also filed an amended complaint, and the District Court concluded that this complaint, generously construed, could be read as alleging conduct that met the requirements for predatory pricing. App. to Pet. for Cert. 47a-52a, 56a. That order, however, applied the "no set of facts" pleading standard that we have since rejected as too lenient. See Bell Atlantic It is for the District Court on remand to consider whether the amended complaint states a claim upon which relief may be granted in light of the new pleading standard we articulated in Twombly, whether plaintiffs should be given leave to amend their complaint to bring a claim under and such other matters properly before it. Even if the amended complaint is further amended to add a claim, it may not survive a motion to dismiss. For if AT & T can bankrupt the plaintiffs by refusing to deal altogether, the plaintiffs must demonstrate why the law prevents AT & T from putting them out of business by pricing them out of the market. Nevertheless, such questions are for the District Court to decide in the first instance. We do not address these issues here, as they are outside the scope of the question presented and were not addressed by the Court of Appeals in the decision below. See 1 S. Ct. 2113, * * * holds that a defendant with no antitrust duty to deal with its rivals has no duty to deal under the terms and conditions preferred by those -, holds that low prices are only actionable under the
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Justice Blackmun
| 1,983 | 11 |
dissenting
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Rice v. Rehner
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111011/rice-v-rehner/
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The Court today holds that a State may prevet a federally licesed Idia trader from sellig liquor o a Idia reservatio, or may coditio the trader's right to sell liquor upo paymet of a substatial licese fee. Because I believe the State lacks authority to require a licese, I disset. Sice 1790, see Act of July 22, 1790, ch. 33, the Federal Govermet has regulated trade with the Idias ad has required persos egagig i such trade to obtai a federal licese. Existig law provides: "The Commissioer of Idia Affairs shall have the sole power ad authority to appoit traders to the Idia tribes ad to make such rules ad regulatios as he may deem just ad proper specifyig the kid ad quatity of goods ad the prices at which such goods shall be sold to the Idias." Act of Aug. 15, 1876, ch. 289, 5, 25 U.S. C. 261 A perso wishig to trade with the Idias is "permitted to do so uder such rules ad regulatios as the Commissioer *736 of Idia Affairs may prescribe," oce he has established "to the satisfactio of the Commissioer that he is a proper perso to egage i such trade." Act of Mar. 3, 1901, ch. 832, 1, as ameded by the Act of Mar. 3, 1903, ch. 994, 10, 25 U.S. C. 262. Pursuat to this statutory authority, the Commissioer of Idia Affairs has promulgated detailed regulatios goverig the licesig ad coduct of Idia traders. 25 CFR 140.1-140.26 (1983). A applicat for a Idia trader's licese must submit iformatio regardig his fiacig, his backgroud ad busiess experiece, ad the persos he iteds to employ. Both the applicat ad his employees must provide detailed refereces. See 140.9(a). Gamblig ad drug sales o licesed premises are prohibited. 140.19, 140.21. The trader's prices are reviewable by federal officials, his books are subject to ispectio, his merchadise must be of good quality, ad his credit practices are restricted. 140.22, 140.24. These statutes ad regulatios goverig trade with the Idias have bee described aptly as "comprehesive" ad "all-iclusive." Warre Tradig I Warre Tradig the Court stated that these statutes ad regulatios "would seem i themselves sufficiet to show that Cogress has take the busiess of Idia tradig o reservatios so fully i had that o room remais for state laws imposig additioal burdes upo traders." The Court held that a State could ot levy a gross proceeds tax upo the icome of a licesed Idia trader, reasoig that impositio of the tax "would to a substatial extet frustrate the evidet cogressioal purpose of esurig that o
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Justice Blackmun
| 1,983 | 11 |
dissenting
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Rice v. Rehner
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111011/rice-v-rehner/
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extet frustrate the evidet cogressioal purpose of esurig that o burde shall be imposed upo Idia traders except as authorized by Acts of Cogress or by valid regulatios promulgated uder those Acts. This state tax o gross icome would put fiacial burdes o [the trader] or the Idias with whom it deals i additio to those Cogress or the tribes *737 have prescribed, ad could thereby disturb ad disarrage the statutory pla Cogress set up" The Court recetly reaffirmed Warre Tradig i Cetral Machiery I that case, the Court held that federal regulatio of Idia traders was so comprehesive that States lacked authority to tax eve a sale by a ulicesed trader who maitaied o place of busiess o the reservatio. "It is the existece of the Idia trader statutes," the Court said, "ad ot their admiistratio, that pre-empts the field of trasactios with Idias occurrig o reservatios." The Court oted that Cogress had " `udertake to regulate reservatio tradig i such a comprehesive way that there is o room for the States to legislate o the subject.' " quotig Warre Tradig 380 U. S., 18. The Court's reasoig i Warre Tradig ad Cetral Machiery, both of which ivolved state taxes, ecessarily exteds to other types of state regulatio as well. A State, through its ow licesig requiremet, caot choose who may trade with the Idias ad what goods they may sell. The "sole power ad authority" to make decisios of this type is vested i the Commissioer of Idia Affairs, 25 U.S. C. 261, ad applicats who wi the Commissioer's approval are to be permitted to trade, 262. A idepedet requiremet of approval by state authorities has o place i this scheme. Yet Califoria imposes just such a requiremet o Idia traders who choose to sell a particular product liquor. Califoria reserves to itself the power to dey ay trader the right to sell, ad from those to whom it grats permissio, it requires a substatial fee.[1] As i Warre Tradig *738 this licesig requiremet clearly "frustrate[s] the evidet cogressioal purpose of esurig that o burde shall be imposed upo Idia traders except as authorized by Acts of Cogress or by valid regulatios." 380 U.S., The Court does ot explai how it recociles Califoria's liquor licesig requiremet with federal law goverig Idia traders. Istead, the Court appears to rest its coclusio o three propositios. First, the Court asserts that "traditio simply has ot recogized a sovereig immuity or iheret authority i favor of liquor regulatio by Idias." Ate, at 722; see ate, at 725, 731. Secod, the Court
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Justice Blackmun
| 1,983 | 11 |
dissenting
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Rice v. Rehner
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111011/rice-v-rehner/
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at 722; see ate, at 725, 731. Secod, the Court fids a "historical traditio of cocurret state ad federal jurisdictio over the use ad distributio of alcoholic beverages i Idia coutry." Ate, at 724; see ate, at 726, 728, 731, 14. Third, the Court cocludes that Cogress "authorized state regulatio over Idia liquor trasactios" by eactig 18 U.S. C. 1161. Ate, at 726. Noe of these propositios supports the Court's coclusio. The Court gives far too much weight to the fact that Idia tribes historically have ot exercised regulatory authority over sales of liquor. I prior pre-emptio cases, the Court's focus properly ad cosistetly has bee o the reach ad comprehesiveess of applicable federal law, colored by the recogitio that "traditioal otios of Idia self-govermet are so deeply egraied i our jurisprudece that they have provided a importat `backdrop' agaist which vague or ambiguous federal eactmets must always be measured." White Moutai Apache quotig The Court's aalysis has ever tured o whether the particular area beig regulated is oe traditioally withi the tribe's cotrol. I Ramah Navajo School Board, for example, the Court held that comprehesive ad pervasive federal regulatio of Idia schools precluded the impositio of a state tax o costructio of such a school. The Court did ot fid it relevat that federal policy had ot "ecourag[ed] the developmet of Idia-cotrolled istitutios" util the early 1970's, or that the school i questio was "the first idepedet Idia school i moder times," I the Court held that a State could ot require the operator of a o-reservatio "smoke shop" to obtai a state cigarette retailer's licese; the Court did ot iquire whether tribal Idias traditioally had exercised regulatory authority over cigarette sales. Ad i Mescalero Apache the Court cocluded that a State could ot impose a use tax o persoalty istalled i ski lifts at a tribal resort, yet it could scarcely be argued that the costructio of ski resorts is a matter with which Idia tribes historically have bee cocered. It is hardly surprisig, give the oce-prevalet view of Idias as a depedet people i eed of costat federal protectio ad supervisio, that tribal authority util recet times has ot exteded to areas such as educatio, cigarette retailig, ad developmet of resorts. State authority has bee pre-empted i these areas ot because they fall withi the tribes' historic powers, but rather because federal policy favors leavig Idias free from state cotrol, ad because federal law is sufficietly comprehesive to bar the States' exercise of authority. Ad "[c]otrol of liquor has historically bee oe of the most comprehesive federal
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Justice Blackmun
| 1,983 | 11 |
dissenting
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Rice v. Rehner
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111011/rice-v-rehner/
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liquor has historically bee oe of the most comprehesive federal activities i Idia affairs." F. Cohe, Hadbook of Federal Idia Law 307 (1982 ed.). Federal regulatio bega i 1802, Act of *, 1802, 21, ad sales of liquor to Idias or i Idia coutry were absolutely prohibited by federal law util 1953. See 18 U.S. C. 1154, 1156. I light of this absolute prohibitio, the Court's reliace i this case upo what it perceives as a "historical traditio of cocurret state ad federal jurisdictio over the use ad distributio of alcoholic beverages i Idia coutry," ate, at 724, is disigeuous at best. The Court correctly otes that States were permitted, ad i some istaces required, to eforce these federal prohibitios through their ow crimial laws. Ate, at 723-724, ad 9, 10. But the sources cited by the Court do ot eve suggest that the States had idepedet authority to decide who might sell liquor i Idia coutry, or to impose regulatios i additio to those foud i federal law.[2] The oly possible source of state authority to regulate liquor sales, ad the source upo which the Court ultimately relies, is 18 U.S. C. 1161. This statute provides that various federal crimial prohibitios agaist the sale of liquor i Idia coutry shall ot apply to sales "i coformity both with the laws of the State ad with a ordiace duly adopted by the tribe havig jurisdictio over [the] area"[3] Sectio *741 1161 operates as "local-optio legislatio allowig Idia tribes, with the approval of the Secretary of the Iterior, to regulate the itroductio of liquor ito Idia coutry, so log as state law [is] ot violated." Uited As is demostrated by the Court's review of the legislative history, ate, at 726-728, ad ideed by the laguage of the statute itself, 1161 esures that sales of liquor that would be cotrary to state law remai prohibited by federal statute. If a State is altogether "dry," Idia coutry withi that State must be "dry" as well. If a State bas liquor sales to miors or liquor sales o Sudays, sales to miors ad Suday sales also are forbidde i the Idia coutry. Sectio 1161, i other words, as the Court has said i the past, "permit[s] applicatio of state liquor law stadards withi a Idia reservatio." Warre Tradig 3[4] I this case, of course, o questio is raised respectig compliace with state liquor law stadards. Respodet Reher has ot challeged the substative coditios imposed by the State upo the sale of liquor. The sole questio before the Court is whether 1161 grats the State
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Justice Blackmun
| 1,983 | 11 |
dissenting
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Rice v. Rehner
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111011/rice-v-rehner/
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questio before the Court is whether 1161 grats the State regulatory jurisdictio over liquor trasactios o Idia *742 reservatios, or, i other words, whether it authorizes the State to require a licese as a coditio of doig busiess.[5] O this questio, the statute ad its legislative history are silet. This silece is sigificat, i light of the Court's frequet recogitio that " `State laws geerally are ot applicable to tribal Idias o a Idia reservatio except where Cogress has expressly provided that State laws shall apply.' " McClaaha v. Arizoa State Tax Comm', -171, quotig U. S. Dept. of the Iterior, Federal Idia Law 845 (1958); Brya v. Itasca Couty, 376, 2 I cases where a State seeks to assert regulatory authority, the Court has required far more tha a mere referece to state law i a federal statute. I Brya v. Itasca Couty, for example, the Court refused to fid a grat of regulatory authority i 4(a) of Pub. L. 280, as ameded, 28 U.S. C. 1360(a), which provides that a State's "civil laws that are of geeral applicatio to private persos or private property shall have the same force ad effect withi Idia coutry as they have elsewhere." Despite this seemigly absolute laguage, the Court foud othig i the statute or its history "remotely resemblig a itetio to cofer geeral state civil regulatory cotrol over Idia reservatios." The Court oted that several other statutes passed by the same Cogress the so-called Termiatio Acts[6] expressly coferred upo the States geeral regulatory authority over certai Idia tribes. Costruig Pub. L. 280 ad the Termiatio Acts i *743 pari materia, the Court cocluded that "if Cogress i eactig Pub. L. 280 had iteded to cofer upo the States geeral civil regulatory powers over reservatio Idias, it would have expressly said so." I reach the same coclusio here. This Court has held i other cotexts that federal statutes requirig "compl[iace] with State requiremets" do ot require that the party obtai a state permit or licese. E. g., Hacock v. Trai, (iterpretig 118 of the Clea Air Act, 42 U.S. C. 1857f); EPA v. Califoria State Water Resources Cotrol Board, (iterpretig 313 of the Federal Water Pollutio Cotrol Act Amedmets of 1972; 33 U.S. C. 1323). The federal agecy charged with admiisterig Idia affairs takes the positio that 1161 does ot authorize States to eforce their liquor licesig requiremets o Idia reservatios, Applicability of the Liquor Laws of the State of Motaa o the Rocky Boy's Reservatio, 78 I. D. 39 (1971), ad this agecy iterpretatio is etitled to deferece.[7] The
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Justice Scalia
| 1,988 | 9 |
concurring
|
Torres v. Oakland Scavenger Co.
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112128/torres-v-oakland-scavenger-co/
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I agree with the judgment of the Court, but I do not believe that the principles set forth in its opinion produce it. If it is the fact that the requirements of the rules of procedure should be "liberally construed," that " `mere technicalities' should not stand in the way of consideration of a case on its merits," and that a rule is complied with if "the litigant's action is the functional equivalent of what the rule requires," ante, at 316, it would seem to me that a caption listing the first party to the case and then adding "et al." is enough to suggest that all parties are taking the appeal; and that the later omission of one of the parties in listing the appellants can, "liberally viewed," be deemed to create no more than an *319 ambiguity which does not destroy the effect of putting the appellee on notice. The principle that "mere technicalities" should not stand in the way of deciding a case on the merits is more a prescription for ignoring the Federal Rules than a useful guide to their construction and application. By definition all rules of procedure are technicalities; sanction for failure to comply with them always prevents the court from deciding where justice lies in the particular case, on the theory that securing a fair and orderly process enables more justice to be done in the totality of cases. It seems to me, moreover, that we should seek to interpret the rules neither liberally nor stingily, but only, as best we can, according to their apparent intent. Where that intent is to provide leeway, a permissive construction is the right one; where it is to be strict, a permissive construction is wrong. Thus, the very first of the Rules of Civil Procedure does not prescribe that they are to be "liberally construed," but rather that they are to be "construed to secure the just, speedy, and inexpensive determination of every action." Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 1. The Appellate Rule at issue here requires the appellant to "specify the party or parties taking the appeal," Fed. Rule App. Proc. 3(c), which suggests to me more than just a residual "et al." Moreover, that it was thought necessary to specify that "informality of form or title" would not entail dismissal, ibid., suggests that a strict application was generally contemplated. I concur in today's judgment, therefore, for essentially the same reasons that I dissented from the judgment in Houston v. Lack, ante, p. 266, which the Court appropriately cites to support its reasoning in the present
|
Justice Ginsburg
| 1,994 | 5 |
concurring
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Staples v. United States
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1087954/staples-v-united-states/
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The statute petitioner Harold E. Staples is charged with violating, 26 U.S. C. 5861(d), makes it a crime for any person to "receive or possess a firearm which is not registered to him." Although the word "knowingly" does not appear in the statute's text, courts generally assume that Congress, absent a contrary indication, means to retain a mens rea requirement. Ante, at 606; see ; United[1] Thus, our holding in United that 5861(d) does not require proof of knowledge that the firearm is unregistered, rested on the premise that the defendant indeed *621 knew the items he possessed were hand grenades. at 607; at 612 (Brennan, J., concurring in judgment) ("The Government and the Court agree that the prosecutor must prove knowing possession of the items and also knowledge that the items possessed were hand grenades."). Conviction under 5861(d), the Government accordingly concedes, requires proof that Staples "knowingly" possessed the machinegun. Brief for United States 23. The question before us is not whether knowledge of possession is required, but what level of knowledge suffices: (1) knowledge simply of possession of the object; (2) knowledge, in addition, that the object is a dangerous weapon; (3) knowledge, beyond dangerousness, of the characteristics that render the object subject to regulation, for example, awareness that the weapon is a machinegun.[2] Recognizing that the first reading effectively dispenses with mens rea, the Government adopts the second, contending that it avoids criminalizing "apparently innocent conduct," at because under the second reading, "a defendant who possessed what he thought was a toy or a violin case, but which in fact was a machinegun, could not be convicted." Brief for United States 23. The Government, however, does not take adequate account of the "widespread lawful gun ownership" Congress and the States have allowed to persist in this country. See United (CADC) (per curiam), cert. denied, Given the notable lack of comprehensive regulation, "mere unregistered possession of certain types of [regulated weapons]often [difficult to distinguish] *622 from other, [nonregulated] types," has been held inadequate to establish the requisite knowledge. See 959 F. 2d, at The Nation's legislators chose to place under a registration requirement only a very limited class of firearms, those they considered especially dangerous. The generally "dangerous" character of all guns, the Court therefore observes, ante, at 611-612, did not suffice to give individuals in Staples' situation cause to inquire about the need for registration. Cf. United Only the third reading, then, suits the purpose of the mens rea requirementto shield people against punishment for apparently innocent activity.[3] The indictment in Staples' case charges that he "knowingly
|
Justice Ginsburg
| 1,994 | 5 |
concurring
|
Staples v. United States
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1087954/staples-v-united-states/
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activity.[3] The indictment in Staples' case charges that he "knowingly received and possessed firearms." 1 App. to Brief for Appellant in No. 91-5033 (CA10), p. 1.[4] "Firearms" has a *623 circumscribed statutory definition. See 26 U.S. C. 5845(a). The "firear[m]" the Government contends Staples possessed in violation of 5861(d) is a machinegun. See 5845(a)(6). The indictment thus effectively charged that Staples knowingly possessed a machinegun. "Knowingly possessed" logically means "possessed and knew that he possessed." The Government can reconcile the jury instruction[5] with the indictment only on the implausible assumption that the term "firear[m]" has two different meanings when used once in the same chargesimply "gun" when referring to what petitioner knew, and "machinegun" when referring to what he possessed. See Cunningham, Levi, Green, & Kaplan, Plain Meaning and Hard Cases, 103 Yale L. J. 1561, 1576-1577 ; cf. For these reasons, I conclude that conviction under 5861(d) requires proof that the defendant knew he possessed not simply a gun, but a machinegun. The indictment in this case, but not the jury instruction, properly described this knowledge requirement. I therefore concur in the Court's judgment.
|
Justice Brennan
| 1,979 | 13 |
dissenting
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Michigan v. DeFillippo
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110127/michigan-v-defillippo/
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I disagree with the Court's conclusion that the Detroit police had constitutional authority to arrest and search respondent because respondent refused to identify himself in violation of the Detroit ordinance. In my view, the police conduct, whether or not authorized by state law, exceeded the bounds set by the Constitution and violated respondent's Fourth Amendment rights. At the time of respondent's arrest, Detroit City Code 39-1-52.3 (1976) read as follows: "When a police officer has reasonable cause to believe that the behavior of an individual warrants further investigation for criminal activity, the officer may stop and question such person. It shall be unlawful for any person stopped pursuant to this section to refuse to identify himself, and to produce verifiable documents or other evidence of such identification. In the event that such person is unable to provide reasonable evidence of his true identity, the police officer may transport him to the nearest precinct in order to ascertain his identity." *42 Detroit police, acting purely on suspicion, stopped respondent Gary DeFillippo on the authority of this ordinance and demanded that he identify himself and furnish proof of his identity. When respondent rebuffed their inquiries the police arrested him for violation of the ordinance. Thereafter, police searched respondent and discovered drugs. Respondent challenges the constitutionality of the ordinance and his arrest and search pursuant to it. The Court assumes the unconstitutionality of the ordinance but upholds respondent's arrest nonetheless. The Court reasons that the police had probable cause to believe that respondent's actions violated the ordinance, that the police could not have been expected to know that the ordinance was unconstitutional, and that the police actions were therefore reasonable. The Court errs, in my view, in focusing on the good faith of the arresting officers and on whether they were entitled to rely upon the validity of the Detroit ordinance. For the dispute in this case is not between the arresting officers and respondent. Cf.[1] The dispute is between respondent and the State of Michigan. *43 The ultimate issue is whether the State gathered evidence against respondent through unconstitutional means. Since the State is responsible for the actions of its legislative bodies as well as for the actions of its police, the State can hardly defend against this charge of unconstitutional conduct by arguing that the constitutional defect was the product of legislative action and that the police were merely executing the laws in good faith. See ; ; States "may not authorize police conduct which trenches upon Fourth Amendment rights, regardless of the labels which it attaches to such conduct. The
|
Justice Brennan
| 1,979 | 13 |
dissenting
|
Michigan v. DeFillippo
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110127/michigan-v-defillippo/
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of the labels which it attaches to such conduct. The question in this Court upon review of a state-approved search or seizure `is not whether the search [or seizure] was authorized by state law. The question is rather whether the search [or seizure] was reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.'" quoting in part from If the Court's inquiry were so directed and had not asked whether the arresting officers faithfully applied state law, invalidation of respondent's arrest and search would have been inescapable. For the Court's assumption that the Detroit ordinance is unconstitutional is well founded; the ordinance is indeed unconstitutional and patently so. And if the reasons for that constitutional infirmity had only been explored, rather than simply assumed, it would have been obvious that the application of the ordinance to respondent by Detroit police in this case trenched upon respondent's Fourth Amendment rights and resulted in an unreasonable search and seizure. The touchstone of the Fourth Amendment's protection of privacy interests and prohibition against unreasonable police searches and seizures is the requirement that such police intrusions be based upon probable cause"`the best compromise that has been found for accommodating [the] often *44 opposing interests' in `safeguard[ing] citizens from rash and unreasonable interferences with privacy' and in `seek[ing] to give fair leeway for enforcing the law in the community's protection.'" quoting from Because of this requirement and the constitutional policies underlying it, the authority of police to accost citizens on the basis of suspicion is "narrowly drawn," and carefully circumscribed. See Police may not conduct searches when acting on less than probable cause. Even weapons frisks in these circumstances are permissible only if the police have reason to believe that they are dealing with an armed and dangerous individual. See Furthermore, while a person may be briefly detained against his will on the basis of reasonable suspicion "while pertinent questions are directed to him the person stopped is not obliged to answer, answers may not be compelled, and refusal to answer furnishes no basis for an arrest" In the context of criminal investigation, the privacy interest in remaining silent simply cannot be overcome at the whim of any suspicious police officer.[2] "[W]hile the police have the right to request citizens to answer voluntarily questions concerning unsolved crimes they have no right to compel them to answer." *45 7 n. 6 In sum then, individuals accosted by police on the basis merely of reasonable suspicion have a right not to be searched, a right to remain silent, and, as a corollary, a right not to be searched if they choose to
|
Justice Brennan
| 1,979 | 13 |
dissenting
|
Michigan v. DeFillippo
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110127/michigan-v-defillippo/
|
a right not to be searched if they choose to remain silent. It is plain that the Detroit ordinance and the police conduct that it purports to authorize abridge these rights and their concomitant limitations upon police authority. The ordinance authorizes police, acting on the basis of suspicion, to demand answers from suspects and authorizes arrest, search, and conviction for those who refuse to comply. The ordinance therefore commands that which the Constitution denies the State power to command and makes "a crime out of what under the Constitution cannot be a crime." 402 U.S. 1, 6 Furthermore, the ordinance, by means of a transparent expedientmaking the constitutionally protected refusal to answer itself a substantive offensesanctions circumvention by the police of the Court's holding that refusal to answer police inquiries during a Terry stop furnishes no basis for a full-scale search and seizure. Clearly, this is a sheer piece of legislative legerdemain not to be countenanced. See at 726-7; The Court does not dispute this analysis. Rather, it assumes that respondent had a constitutional right to refuse to cooperate with the police inquiries, that the ordinance is unconstitutional, and that henceforward the ordinance shall be regarded as null and void. Yet, the Court holds that arrests and searches pursuant to the ordinance prior to its invalidation by the Michigan Court of Appeals are constitutionally valid. Given the Court's assumptions concerning the invalidity of the ordinance, its conclusion must rest on the tacit assumption that the defects requiring invalidation of the ordinance and of convictions entered pursuant to it do not also require the invalidation of arrests pursuant to the ordinance. But only a brief reflection upon the pervasiveness of the ordinance's *46 constitutional infirmities demonstrates the fallacy of that assumption. A major constitutional defect of the ordinance is that it forces individuals accosted by police solely on the basis of suspicion to choose between forgoing their right to remain silent and forgoing their right not to be searched if they choose to remain silent. Clearly, a constitutional prohibition merely against prosecutions under the ordinance and not against arrests under the ordinance as well would not solve this dilemma. For the fact would remain that individuals who chose to remain silent would be forced to relinquish their right not to be searched (and indeed would risk conviction on the basis of any evidence seized from them), while those who chose not to be searched would be forced to forgo their constitutional right to remain silent. This Hobson's choice can be avoided only by invalidating such police intrusions whether or not authorized
|
Justice Scalia
| 1,992 | 9 |
dissenting
|
Lee v. Weisman
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https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112779/lee-v-weisman/
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Three Terms ago, I joined an opinion recognizing that the Establishment Clause must be construed in light of the "[g]overnment policies of accommodation, acknowledgment, and support for religion [that] are an accepted part of our political and cultural heritage." That opinion affirmed that "the meaning of the Clause is to be determined by reference to historical practices and understandings." It said that "[a] test for implementing the protections of the Establishment Clause that, if applied with consistency, would invalidate longstanding traditions cannot be a proper reading of the Clause." County of These views of course prevent me from joining today's opinion, which is conspicuously bereft of any reference to history. In holding that the Establishment Clause prohibits invocations and benedictions at public school graduation ceremonies, the Courtwith nary a mention that it is doing *632 solays waste a tradition that is as old as public school graduation ceremonies themselves, and that is a component of an even more longstanding American tradition of nonsectarian prayer to God at public celebrations generally. As its instrument of destruction, the bulldozer of its social engineering, the Court invents a boundless, and boundlessly manipulable, test of psychological coercion, which promises to do for the Establishment Clause what the Durham rule did for the insanity defense. See Today's opinion shows more forcefully than volumes of argumentation why our Nation's protection, that fortress which is our Constitution, cannot possibly rest upon the changeable philosophical predilections of the Justices of this Court, but must have deep foundations in the historic practices of our people. I Justice Holmes' aphorism that "a page of history is worth a volume of logic," New York Trust applies with particular force to our Establishment Clause jurisprudence. As we have recognized, our interpretation of the Establishment Clause should "compor[t] with what history reveals was the contemporaneous understanding of its guarantees." "[T]he line we must draw between the permissible and the impermissible is one which accords with history and faithfully reflects the understanding of the Founding Fathers." School Dist. of "[H]istorical evidence sheds light not only on what the draftsmen intended the Establishment Clause to mean, but also on how they thought that Clause applied" to contemporaneous practices. Thus, "[t]he existence from the beginning of the Nation's life of a practice, [while] not conclusive of its constitutionality[,] is a fact of considerable import in the interpretation" of the *633 Establishment Clause. The history and tradition of our Nation are replete with public ceremonies featuring prayers of thanksgiving and petition. Illustrations of this point have been amply provided in our prior opinions, see, e. g., ;
|
Justice Scalia
| 1,992 | 9 |
dissenting
|
Lee v. Weisman
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112779/lee-v-weisman/
|
amply provided in our prior opinions, see, e. g., ; ; see also ; but since the Court is so oblivious to our history as to suggest that the Constitution restricts "preservation and transmission of religious beliefs to the private sphere," ante, 89, it appears necessary to provide another brief account. From our Nation's origin, prayer has been a prominent part of governmental ceremonies and proclamations. The Declaration of Independence, the document marking our birth as a separate people, "appeal[ed] to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions" and avowed "a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence." In his first inaugural address, after swearing his oath of office on a Bible, George Washington deliberately made a prayer a part of his first official act as President: "[I]t would be peculiarly improper to omit in this first official act my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over the universe, who presides in the councils of nations, and whose providential aids can supply every human defect, that His benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the people of the United States a Government instituted by themselves for these essential purposes." Inaugural Addresses of the Presidents of the United States, S. Doc. 101-10, p. 2 Such supplications have been a characteristic feature of inaugural addresses ever since. Thomas Jefferson, for example, *634 prayed in his first inaugural address: "[M]ay that Infinite Power which rules the destinies of the universe lead our councils to what is best, and give them a favorable issue for your peace and prosperity." In his second inaugural address, Jefferson acknowledged his need for divine guidance and invited his audience to join his prayer: "I shall need, too, the favor of that Being in whose hands we are, who led our fathers, as Israel of old, from their native land and planted them in a country flowing with all the necessaries and comforts of life; who has covered our infancy with His providence and our riper years with His wisdom and power, and to whose goodness I ask you to join in supplications with me that He will so enlighten the minds of your servants, guide their councils, and prosper their measures that whatsoever they do shall result in your good, and shall secure to you the peace, friendship, and approbation of all nations." Similarly, James Madison, in his first inaugural address, placed his confidence "in the guardianship and guidance of that Almighty Being whose power regulates the destiny of nations, whose blessings have been so conspicuously dispensed to
|
Justice Scalia
| 1,992 | 9 |
dissenting
|
Lee v. Weisman
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112779/lee-v-weisman/
|
of nations, whose blessings have been so conspicuously dispensed to this rising Republic, and to whom we are bound to address our devout gratitude for the past, as well as our fervent supplications and best hopes for the future." Most recently, President Bush, continuing the tradition established by President Washington, asked those attending his inauguration to bow their heads, and made a prayer his first official act as President. Our national celebration of Thanksgiving likewise dates back to President Washington. As we recounted in : *635 "The day after the First Amendment was proposed, Congress urged President Washington to proclaim `a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favours of Almighty God.' President Washington proclaimed November 26, 1789, a day of thanksgiving to `offe[r] our prayers and supplications to the Great Lord and Ruler of Nations, and beseech Him to pardon our national and other'" n. 2 This tradition of Thanksgiving Proclamationswith their religious theme of prayerful gratitude to Godhas been adhered to by almost every President. and nn. 2 and 3; at The other two branches of the Federal Government also have a long-established practice of prayer at public events. As we detailed in congressional sessions have opened with a chaplain's prayer ever since the First -788. And this Court's own sessions have opened with the invocation "God save the United States and this Honorable Court" since the days of Chief Justice all. 1 C. Warren, The Supreme Court in United States History 469 (1922). In addition to this general tradition of prayer at public ceremonies, there exists a more specific tradition of invocations and benedictions at public school graduation exercises. By one account, the first public high school graduation ceremony took place in Connecticut in July 1868the very month, as it happens, that the Fourteenth Amendment (the vehicle by which the Establishment Clause has been applied against the States) was ratifiedwhen "15 seniors from the Norwich Free Academy marched in their best Sunday suits and dresses into a church hall and waited through majestic music and long prayers." Commencement Rites Obsolete? Not At All, A 10-Week Study Shows, 10 Updating *636 School Board Policies, No. 4, p. 3 (Apr. 1979). As the Court obliquely acknowledges in describing the "customary features" of high school graduations, ante, 83, and as respondents do not contest, the invocation and benediction have long been recognized to be "as traditional as any other parts of the [school] graduation program and are widely established." H. McKown, Commencement Activities 56 (1931); see also II The
|
Justice Scalia
| 1,992 | 9 |
dissenting
|
Lee v. Weisman
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112779/lee-v-weisman/
|
H. McKown, Commencement Activities 56 (1931); see also II The Court presumably would separate graduation invocations and benedictions from other instances of public "preservation and transmission of religious beliefs" on the ground that they involve "psychological coercion." I find it a sufficient embarrassment that our Establishment Clause jurisprudence regarding holiday displays, see County of has come to "requir[e] scrutiny more commonly associated with interior decorators than with the judiciary." American Jewish But interior decorating is a rock-hard science compared to psychology practiced by amateurs. A few citations of "[r]esearch in psychology" that have no particular bearing upon the precise issue here, ante, 93, cannot disguise the fact that the Court has gone beyond the realm where judges know what they are doing. The Court's argument that state officials have "coerced" students to take part in the invocation and benediction at graduation ceremonies is, not to put too fine a point on it, incoherent. The Court identifies two "dominant facts" that it says dictate its ruling that invocations and benedictions at public school graduation ceremonies violate the Establishment Clause. Ante, 86. Neither of them is in any relevant sense true. *637 A The Court declares that students' "attendance and participation in the [invocation and benediction] are in a fair and real sense obligatory." But what exactly is this "fair and real sense"? According to the Court, students at graduation who want "to avoid the fact or appearance of participation," ante, 88, in the invocation and benediction are psychologically obligated by "public pressure, as well as peer pressure, to stand as a group or, at least, maintain respectful silence" during those prayers. Ante, 93. This assertionthe very linchpin of the Court's opinion is almost as intriguing for what it does not say as for what it says. It does not say, for example, that students are psychologically coerced to bow their heads, place their hands in a Dürer-like prayer position, pay attention to the prayers, utter "Amen," or in fact pray. (Perhaps further intensive psychological research remains to be done on these matters.) It claims only that students are psychologically coerced "to stand or, at least, maintain respectful silence." Both halves of this disjunctive (both of which must amount to the fact or appearance of participation in prayer if the Court's analysis is to survive on its own terms) merit particular attention. To begin with the latter: The Court's notion that a student who simply sits in "respectful silence" during the invocation and benediction (when all others are standing) has somehow joinedor would somehow be perceived as having joined in the prayers
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