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Justice Stevens | 2,002 | 16 | majority | EEOC v. Waffle House, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118475/eeoc-v-waffle-house-inc/ | which the EEOC was intended "to bear the primary burden of litigation," Those amendments authorize the courts to enjoin employers from engaging in unlawful employment practices, and to order appropriate affirmative action, which may include reinstatement, with or without backpay.[5] Moreover, the amendments specify the judicial districts in which such actions may be brought.[6] They do not mention arbitration proceedings. *287 In 1991, Congress again amended Title VII to allow the recovery of compensatory and punitive damages by a "complaining party." 42 U.S. C. 1981a(a)(1) (1994 ed.). The term includes both private plaintiffs and the EEOC, 1981a(d)(1)(A), and the amendments apply to ADA claims as well, 1981a(a)(2), (d)(1)(B). As a complaining party, the EEOC may bring suit to enjoin an employer from engaging in unlawful employment practices, and to pursue reinstatement, backpay, and compensatory or punitive damages. Thus, these statutes unambiguously authorize the EEOC to obtain the relief that it seeks in its complaint if it can prove its case against Prior to the 1991 amendments, we recognized the difference between the EEOC's enforcement role and an individual employee's private cause of action in Life Ins. Co. of and General Co. of presented the question whether EEOC enforcement actions are subject to the same statutes of limitations that govern individuals' claims. After engaging in an unsuccessful conciliation process, the EEOC filed suit in Federal District Court, on behalf of a female employee, alleging sex discrimination. The court granted the defendant's motion for summary judgment on the ground that the EEOC's claim was time barred; the EEOC filed suit after California's 1-year statute of limitations had run. We reversed because "under the procedural structure created by the 1972 *288 amendments, the EEOC does not function simply as a vehicle for conducting litigation on behalf of private parties," To hold otherwise would have undermined the agency's independent statutory responsibility to investigate and conciliate claims by subjecting the EEOC to inconsistent limitations periods. In General the EEOC sought to bring a discrimination claim on behalf of all female employees at General 's facilities in four States, without being certified as the class representative under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure -322. Relying on the plain language of Title VII and the legislative intent behind the 1972 amendments, we held that the EEOC was not required to comply with Rule 23 because it "need look no further than 706 for its authority to bring suit in its own name for the purpose, among others, of securing relief for a group of aggrieved individuals." In light of the provisions granting the EEOC exclusive jurisdiction over the |
Justice Stevens | 2,002 | 16 | majority | EEOC v. Waffle House, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118475/eeoc-v-waffle-house-inc/ | of the provisions granting the EEOC exclusive jurisdiction over the claim for 180 days after the employee files a charge, we concluded that "the EEOC is not merely a proxy for the victims of discrimination and that [its] enforcement suits should not be considered representative actions subject to Rule " Against the backdrop of our decisions in and General Congress expanded the remedies available in EEOC enforcement actions in 1991 to include compensatory and punitive damages. There is no language in the statutes or in either of these cases suggesting that the existence of an arbitration agreement between private parties materially changes the EEOC's statutory function or the remedies that are otherwise available. III The FAA was enacted in 1925, and then reenacted and codified in 1947 as Title 9 of the United States Code. It has not been amended since the enactment of Title *289 VII in 1964. As we have explained, its "purpose was to reverse the longstanding judicial hostility to arbitration agreements that had existed at English common law and had been adopted by American courts, and to place arbitration agreements upon the same footing as other contracts." The FAA broadly provides that a written provision in "a contract evidencing a transaction involving commerce to settle by arbitration a controversy thereafter arising out of such contract shall be valid, irrevocable, and enforceable, save upon such grounds as exist at law or in equity for the revocation of any contract." 9 U.S. C. 2. Employment contracts, except for those covering workers engaged in transportation, are covered by the FAA. Circuit City Stores, The FAA provides for stays of proceedings in federal district courts when an issue in the proceeding is referable to arbitration, and for orders compelling arbitration when one party has failed or refused to comply with an arbitration agreement. See 9 U.S. C. 3 and 4. We have read these provisions to "manifest a `liberal federal policy favoring arbitration agreements.' " ). Absent some ambiguity in the agreement, however, it is the language of the contract that defines the scope of disputes subject to arbitration. See For nothing in the statute authorizes a court to compel arbitration of any issues, or by any parties, that are not already covered in the agreement. The FAA does not mention enforcement by public agencies; it ensures the enforceability of private agreements to arbitrate, but otherwise does not purport to place any restriction on a nonparty's choice of a judicial forum. *290 IV The Court of Appeals based its decision on its evaluation of the "competing policies" implemented by the |
Justice Stevens | 2,002 | 16 | majority | EEOC v. Waffle House, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118475/eeoc-v-waffle-house-inc/ | on its evaluation of the "competing policies" implemented by the ADA and the FAA, rather than on any language in the text of either the statutes or the arbitration agreement between Baker and 193 F.3d, It recognized that the EEOC never agreed to arbitrate its statutory claim, and that the EEOC has "independent statutory authority" to vindicate the public interest, but opined that permitting the EEOC to prosecute Baker's claim in court "would significantly trample" the strong federal policy favoring arbitration because Baker had agreed to submit his claim to arbitration. To effectuate this policy, the court distinguished between injunctive and victim-specific relief, and held that the EEOC is barred from obtaining the latter because any public interest served when the EEOC pursues "make whole" relief is outweighed by the policy goals favoring arbitration. Only when the EEOC seeks broad injunctive relief, in the Court of Appeals' view, does the public interest overcome the goals underpinning the FAA.[7] *291 If it were true that the EEOC could prosecute its claim only with Baker's consent, or if its prayer for relief could be dictated by Baker, the court's analysis might be persuasive. But once a charge is filed, the exact opposite is true under the statutethe EEOC is in command of the process. The EEOC has exclusive jurisdiction over the claim for 180 days. During that time, the employee must obtain a right-to-sue letter from the agency before prosecuting the claim. If, however, the EEOC files suit on its own, the employee has no independent cause of action, although the employee may intervene in the EEOC's suit. 42 U.S. C. 2000e5(f)(1) (1994 ed.). In fact, the EEOC takes the position that it may pursue a claim on the employee's behalf even after the employee has disavowed any desire to seek relief. Brief for Petitioner 20. The statute clearly makes the EEOC the master of its own case and confers on the agency the authority to evaluate the strength of the public interest at stake. Absent textual support for a contrary view, it is the public agency's provincenot that of the courtto determine *292 whether public resources should be committed to the recovery of victim-specific relief. And if the agency makes that determination, the statutory text unambiguously authorizes it to proceed in a judicial forum. Respondent and the dissent contend that Title VII supports the Court of Appeals' bar against victim-specific relief, because the statute limits the EEOC's recovery to "appropriate" relief as determined by a court. See Brief for Respondent 19, and n. 8; post, at 301-303 (Thomas, J., dissenting). They |
Justice Stevens | 2,002 | 16 | majority | EEOC v. Waffle House, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118475/eeoc-v-waffle-house-inc/ | and n. 8; post, at 301-303 (Thomas, J., dissenting). They rely on 706(g)(1), which provides that, after a finding of liability, "the court may enjoin the respondent from engaging in such unlawful employment practice, and order such affirmative action as may be appropriate, which may include, but is not limited to, reinstatement or hiring of employees, with or without back pay or any other equitable relief as the court deems appropriate. " 42 U.S. C. 2000e-5(g)(1) (1994 ed.) (emphasis added). They claim this provision limits the remedies available and directs courts, not the EEOC, to determine what relief is appropriate. The proposed reading is flawed for two reasons. First, under the plain language of the statute the term "appropriate" refers to only a subcategory of claims for equitable relief, not damages. The provision authorizing compensatory and punitive damages is in a separate section of the statute, 1981a(a)(1), and is not limited by this language. The dissent responds by pointing to the phrase "may recover" in 1981a(a)(1), and arguing that this too provides authority for prohibiting victim-specific relief. See post, at 303, n. 7. But this contention only highlights the second error in the proposed reading. If "appropriate" and "may recover" can be read to support respondent's position, then any discretionary language would constitute authorization for judge-made, per se rules. This is not the natural reading of the text. These terms obviously refer to the trial judge's discretion in a particular case to order reinstatement and award damages in an amount warranted by the facts of that *293 case. They do not permit a court to announce a categorical rule precluding an expressly authorized form of relief as inappropriate in all cases in which the employee has signed an arbitration agreement.[8] The Court of Appeals wisely did not adopt respondent's reading of 706(g). Instead, it simply sought to balance the policy goals of the FAA against the clear language of Title VII and the agreement. While this may be a more coherent approach, it is inconsistent with our recent arbitration cases. The FAA directs courts to place arbitration agreements on equal footing with other contracts, but it "does not require parties to arbitrate when they have not agreed to do so." Information Sciences,[9] See *294 also Prima Paint Because the FAA is "at bottom a policy guaranteeing the enforcement of private contractual arrangements," Mitsubishi Motors we look first to whether the parties agreed to arbitrate a dispute, not to general policy goals, to determine the scope of the agreement. While ambiguities in the language of the agreement should be resolved in |
Justice Stevens | 2,002 | 16 | majority | EEOC v. Waffle House, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118475/eeoc-v-waffle-house-inc/ | in the language of the agreement should be resolved in favor of arbitration, we do not override the clear intent of the parties, or reach a result inconsistent with the plain text of the contract, simply because the policy favoring arbitration is implicated. "Arbitration under the [FAA] is a matter of consent, not coercion." Here there is no ambiguity. No one asserts that the EEOC is a party to the contract, or that it agreed to arbitrate its claims. It goes without saying that a contract cannot bind a nonparty. Accordingly, the proarbitration policy goals of the FAA do not require the agency to relinquish its statutory authority if it has not agreed to do so. Even if the policy goals underlying the FAA did necessitate some limit on the EEOC's statutory authority, the line drawn by the Court of Appeals between injunctive and victim-specific relief creates an uncomfortable fit with its avowed purpose of preserving the EEOC's public function while favoring arbitration. For that purpose, the category of victim-specific relief is both overinclusive and underinclusive. For example, it is overinclusive because while *295 punitive damages benefit the individual employee, they also serve an obvious public function in deterring future violations. See 453 U.S. 7, ; Restatement (Second) of Torts 908 Punitive damages may often have a greater impact on the behavior of other employers than the threat of an injunction, yet the EEOC is precluded from seeking this form of relief under the Court of Appeals' compromise scheme. And, it is underinclusive because injunctive relief, although seemingly not "victim-specific," can be seen as more closely tied to the employees' injury than to any public interest. See ("While injunctive relief may appear more `broad based,' it nonetheless is redress for individuals"). The compromise solution reached by the Court of Appeals turns what is effectively a forum selection clause into a waiver of a nonparty's statutory remedies. But if the federal policy favoring arbitration trumps the plain language of Title VII and the contract, the EEOC should be barred from pursuing any claim outside the arbitral forum. If not, then the statutory language is clear; the EEOC has the authority to pursue victim-specific relief regardless of the forum that the employer and employee have chosen to resolve their disputes.[10] Rather than attempt to split the difference, we are *296 persuaded that, pursuant to Title VII and the ADA, whenever the EEOC chooses from among the many charges filed each year to bring an enforcement action in a particular case, the agency may be seeking to vindicate a public interest, not simply |
Justice Stevens | 2,002 | 16 | majority | EEOC v. Waffle House, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/118475/eeoc-v-waffle-house-inc/ | may be seeking to vindicate a public interest, not simply provide make-whole relief for the employee, even when it pursues entirely victim-specific relief. To hold otherwise would undermine the detailed enforcement scheme created by Congress simply to give greater effect to an agreement between private parties that does not even contemplate the EEOC's statutory function.[11] V It is true, as respondent and its amici have argued, that Baker's conduct may have the effect of limiting the relief that the EEOC may obtain in court. If, for example, he had failed to mitigate his damages, or had accepted a monetary settlement, any recovery by the EEOC would be limited accordingly. See, e. g., Ford Motor ; ; As we have noted, it "goes without saying that the courts can and should preclude double recovery by an individual." General But no question concerning the validity of his claim or the character of the relief that could be appropriately awarded in either a judicial or an arbitral forum is presented by this record. Baker has not sought arbitration of his claim, nor is there any indication that he has entered into settlement negotiations with It is an open question whether a settlement or arbitration judgment would affect the validity of the EEOC's claim or the character of relief the EEOC may seek. The only issue before this Court is whether the fact that Baker has signed a mandatory arbitration agreement limits the remedies available to the EEOC. The text of the relevant statutes provides a clear answer to that question. They do not authorize the courts to balance the competing policies of the ADA and the FAA or to second-guess the agency's judgment concerning which of the remedies authorized by law that it shall seek in any given case. Moreover, it simply does not follow from the cases holding that the employee's conduct may affect the EEOC's recovery that the EEOC's claim is merely derivative. We have recognized several situations in which the EEOC does not stand in the employee's shoes. See ; General 446 U. S., ; And, in this context, the statute specifically grants the EEOC exclusive authority over the choice of forum and the prayer for relief once a charge has been filed. The fact that ordinary principles of res judicata, mootness, or mitigation may apply to EEOC claims does not contradict these decisions, nor does it render the EEOC a proxy for the employee. 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. |
Justice Scalia | 2,016 | 9 | dissenting | Montgomery v. Louisiana | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/3177218/montgomery-v-louisiana/ | The Court has no jurisdiction to decide this case, and the decision it arrives at is wrong. I respectfully dissent. I. Jurisdiction Louisiana postconviction courts willingly entertain Eighth Amendment claims but, with limited exceptions, apply the law as it existed when the state prisoner was convicted and sentenced. Shortly after this Court an- nounced the Louisi- ana Supreme Court adopted Teague’s framework to govern the provision of postconviction remedies available to state prisoners in its state courts as a matter of state law. Tay- In doing so, the court stated that it was “not bound” to adopt that federal framework. One would think, then, that it is none of our business that a -year-old Louisiana prison- er’s state-law motion to be resentenced according to v. Alabama, 567 U. S. (2012), a case announced almost half a century after his sentence was final, was met with a firm rejection on state-law grounds by the Louisiana Supreme Court. But a majority of this Court, eager to reach the merits of this case, resolves the question of our jurisdiction by deciding that the Constitution requires state postconviction courts to adopt Teague’s exception for 2 MONTGOMERY v. LOUISIANA SCALIA, J., dissenting so-called “substantive” new rules and to provide state-law remedies for the violations of those rules to prisoners whose sentences long ago became This conscription into federal service of state postconviction courts is noth- ing short of astonishing. A Teague announced that federal courts could not grant habeas corpus to overturn state convictions on the basis of a “new rule” of constitutional law—meaning one an- nounced after the convictions became final—unless that new rule was a “substantive rule” or a “watershed rul[e] of criminal procedure.” The Teague pre- scription followed from Justice Harlan’s view of the “retro- activity problem” detailed in his separate opinion in v. United States, (dissenting opinion), and later in v. United States, 01 U.S. 667, 675 (opinion concurring in judgment in part and dissenting in part). Placing the rule’s first exception in context requires more analysis than the majority has applied. The Court in the mid-20th century was confounded by what Justice Harlan called the “swift pace of constitu- tional change,” (1963) as it vacated and remanded many cases in the wake of Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 (1963). Justice Harlan called upon the Court to engage in “informed and deliberate consideration” of “whether the States are constitutionally required to apply [Gideon’s] new rule retrospectively, which may well re- quire the reopening of cases long since finally adjudicated in accordance with then applicable decisions of this Court.” The Court |
Justice Scalia | 2,016 | 9 | dissenting | Montgomery v. Louisiana | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/3177218/montgomery-v-louisiana/ | accordance with then applicable decisions of this Court.” The Court answered that call in Linkletter began with the premise “that we are neither required to apply, nor prohibited from applying, a decision Cite as: 577 U. S. (2016) 3 SCALIA, J., dissenting retrospectively” and went on to adopt an equitable rule-by- rule approach to retroactivity, considering “the prior his- tory of the rule in question, its purpose and effect, and whether retrospective operation will further or retard its operation.” The Linkletter framework proved unworkable when the Court began applying the rule-by-rule approach not only to cases on collateral review but also to cases on direct review, rejecting any distinction “between convictions now final” and “convictions at various stages of trial and direct review.” It was this rejection that drew Justice Harlan’s reproach in and later in He urged that “all ‘new’ rules of constitutional law must, at a minimum, be applied to all those cases which are still subject to direct review by this Court at the time the ‘new’ decision is handed down.” “Simply fishing one case from the stream of appellate review, using it as a vehicle for pronouncing new constitutional standards, and then permitting a stream of similar cases subsequently to flow by unaffected by that new rule constitute an indefen- sible departure from th[e] model of judicial review.” The decision in 79 U.S. 31 (1987), heeded this constitutional concern. The Court jettisoned the Linkletter test for cases pending on direct review and adopted for them Justice Harlan’s rule of redressability: “[F]ailure to apply a newly declared consti- tutional rule to criminal cases pending on direct review violates basic norms of constitutional adjudication.” 79 U.S., 22 We established in that this Court must play by our own “old rules”—rules we have settled before the defendant’s conviction and sen- tence become final, even those that are a “clear break from existing precedent”—for cases pending before us on direct appeal. 23. Since the rule is constitution- MONTGOMERY v. LOUISIANA SCALIA, J., dissenting ally compelled, we instructed the lower state and federal courts to comply with it as well. When Teague followed on ’s heels two years later, the opinion contained no discussion of “basic norms of constitutional adjudication,” 22, nor any discussion of the obligations of state courts. Doing away with Linkletter for good, the Court adopted Justice Harlan’s solution to “the retroactivity problem” for cases pending on collateral review—which he described not as a constitutional problem but as “a problem as to the scope of the habeas writ.” at 68 Teague held that federal habeas courts could no |
Justice Scalia | 2,016 | 9 | dissenting | Montgomery v. Louisiana | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/3177218/montgomery-v-louisiana/ | at 68 Teague held that federal habeas courts could no longer upset state-court convictions for violations of so-called “new rules,” not yet announced when the conviction be- came 89 U.S., 10. But it allowed for the previ- ously mentioned exceptions to this rule of nonredressabil- ity: substantive rules placing “certain kinds of primary, private individual conduct beyond the power of the crimi- nal law-making authority to proscribe” and “watershed rules of criminal procedure.” 11. Then in Penry v. Lynaugh, 92 U.S. 302 the Court expanded this first exception for substantive rules to embrace new rules “prohibiting a certain category of punishment for a class of defendants because of their status or offense.” 30. Neither Teague nor its exceptions are constitutionally compelled. Unlike today’s majority, the Teague-era Court understood that cases on collateral review are fundamen- tally different from those pending on direct review because of “considerations of finality in the judicial process.” Shea v. Louisiana, 70 U.S. 51, That line of finality demarcating the constitutionally required rule in from the habeas rule in Teague supplies the an- swer to the not-so-difficult question whether a state post- conviction court must remedy the violation of a new sub- stantive rule: No. A state court need only apply the law as it existed at the time a defendant’s conviction and sen- Cite as: 577 U. S. (2016) 5 SCALIA, J., dissenting tence became See 22. And once final, “a new rule cannot reopen a door already closed.” James B. Beam Distilling 51 (1991) (opinion of Souter, J.). Any relief a prisoner might receive in a state court after finality is a matter of grace, not constitutional prescription. B The majority can marshal no case support for its con- trary position. It creates a constitutional rule where none had been before: “Teague’s conclusion establishing the retroactivity of new substantive rules is best understood as resting upon constitutional premises” binding in both federal and state courts. Ante, at 8. “Best understood.” Because of what? Surely not because of its history and derivation. Because of the Supremacy Clause, says the majority. Ante, at 12. But the Supremacy Clause cannot possibly answer the question before us here. It only elicits another question: What federal law is supreme? Old or new? The majority’s champion, Justice Harlan, said the old rules apply for federal habeas review of a state-court conviction: “[T]he habeas court need only apply the constitutional standards that prevailed at the time the original proceed- ings took place,” 39 U.S., at 263 (dissenting opin- ion), for a state court cannot “toe the constitutional mark” that does not |
Justice Scalia | 2,016 | 9 | dissenting | Montgomery v. Louisiana | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/3177218/montgomery-v-louisiana/ | state court cannot “toe the constitutional mark” that does not yet exist, 01 U.S., at 687 (opinion of Harlan, J.). Following his analysis, we have clarified time and again—recently in Greene v. Fisher, 565 U. S. – (slip op., at –5)—that federal habeas courts are to review state-court decisions against the law and factual record that existed at the time the decisions were made. “Section 225(d)(1) [of the federal habeas statute] refers, in the past tense, to a state-court adjudica- tion that ‘resulted in’ a decision that was contrary to, or ‘involved’ an unreasonable application of, established law. 6 MONTGOMERY v. LOUISIANA SCALIA, J., dissenting This backward-looking language requires an examination of the state-court decision at the time it was made.” Cul- How can it possibly be, then, that the Constitution requires a state court’s review of its own convictions to be governed by “new rules” rather than (what suffices when federal courts review state courts) “old rules”? The majority relies on the statement in United States v. United States Coin & Currency, 01 U.S. 715 that “ ‘[n]o circumstances call more for the invocation of a rule of complete retroactivity’ ” than when “ ‘the conduct being penalized is constitutionally immune from punishment.’ ” Ante, at 9–10 ( 01 U.S., at 72). The majority neglects to mention that this statement was addressing the “circumstances” of a conviction that “had not become final,” at 72, n. 13 when the “rule of complete retroactivity” was invoked. Coin & Currency, an opinion written by (guess whom?) Justice Harlan, merely foreshadowed the rule announced in that all cases pending on direct review receive the benefit of newly announced rules—better termed “old rules” for such rules were announced before finality. The majority also misappropriates v. Aiken, 8 U.S. 211 (1988), which reviewed a state habeas petition- er’s Fourteenth Amendment claim that the jury instruc- tions at his trial lessened the State’s burden to prove every element of his offense beyond a reasonable doubt. That case at least did involve a conviction that was But the majority is oblivious to the critical fact that ’s claim depended upon an old rule, settled at the time of his trial. This Court reversed the state habeas court for its refusal to consider that the jury instructions violated that old rule. The majority places great weight upon the dictum in that the South Carolina habeas court “ ‘ha[d] a duty to grant the relief that federal law requires.’ ” Ante, at 13 ( ). Cite as: 577 U. S. (2016) 7 SCALIA, J., dissenting It is simply wrong |
Justice Scalia | 2,016 | 9 | dissenting | Montgomery v. Louisiana | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/3177218/montgomery-v-louisiana/ | S. (2016) 7 SCALIA, J., dissenting It is simply wrong to divorce that dictum from the facts it addressed. In that context, merely reinforces the line drawn by : when state courts provide a forum for postconviction relief, they need to play by the “old rules” announced before the date on which a defendant’s conviction and sentence became The other sleight of hand performed by the majority is its emphasis on Ex parte Siebold, That case considered a petition for a federal writ of habeas corpus following a federal conviction, and the initial issue it confronted was its jurisdiction. A federal court has no inherent habeas corpus power, Ex parte Bollman, Cranch 75, 9 (1807), but only that which is conferred (and limited) by statute, see, e.g., Felker v. Turpin, 518 U.S. 651, 66 (1996). As Siebold stated, it was forbidden to use the federal habeas writ “as a mere writ of error.” 100 U.S., 75. “The only ground on which this court, or any court, without some special statute authorizing it, [could] give relief on habeas corpus to a prisoner under conviction and sentence of another court is the want of jurisdiction in such court over the person or the cause, or some other matter rendering its proceedings void.” Turning to the facts before it, the Court decided it was within its power to hear Siebold’s claim, which did not merely protest that the conviction and sentence were “erroneous” but contended that the statute he was con- victed of violating was unconstitutional and the conviction therefore void: “[I]f the laws are unconstitutional and void, the Circuit Court acquired no jurisdiction of the causes.” 76–377. Siebold is thus a decision that expands the limits of this Court’s power to issue a federal habeas writ for a federal prisoner. The majority, however, divines from Siebold “a general principle” that “a court has no authority to leave in place a conviction or sentence that violates a substantive rule, regardless of whether the conviction or sentence became 8 MONTGOMERY v. LOUISIANA SCALIA, J., dissenting final before the rule was announced.” Ante, at 11. That is utterly impossible. No “general principle” can rationally be derived from Siebold about constitutionally required remedies in state courts; indeed, the opinion does not even speak to constitutionally required remedies in federal courts. It is a decision about this Court’s statutory power to grant the Original Writ, not about its constitutional obligation to do so. Nowhere in Siebold did this Court intimate that relief was constitutionally required—or as the majority puts it, that a court would have had “no |
Justice Scalia | 2,016 | 9 | dissenting | Montgomery v. Louisiana | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/3177218/montgomery-v-louisiana/ | majority puts it, that a court would have had “no authority” to leave in place Siebold’s conviction, ante, at 11. The majority’s sorry acknowledgment that “Siebold and the other cases discussed in this opinion, of course, do not directly control the question the Court now answers for the first time,” ib is not nearly enough of a disclaimer. It is not just that they “do not directly control,” but that the dicta cherry picked from those cases are irrelevant; they addressed circumstances fundamentally different from those to which the majority now applies them. In- deed, we know for sure that the author of some of those dicta, Justice Harlan, held views that flatly contradict the majority. The majority’s maxim that “state collateral review courts have no greater power than federal habeas courts to mandate that a prisoner continue to suffer punishment barred by the Constitution,” ante, at 12–13, begs the ques- tion rather than contributes to its solution. Until today, no federal court was constitutionally obliged to grant relief for the past violation of a newly announced substantive rule. Until today, it was Congress’s prerogative to do away with Teague’s exceptions altogether. Indeed, we had left unresolved the question whether Congress had al- ready done that when it amended a section of the habeas corpus statute to add backward-looking language govern- ing the review of state-court decisions. See Antiterrorism Cite as: 577 U. S. (2016) 9 SCALIA, J., dissenting and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, §10, 110 Stat. 1219, codified at 28 U.S. C. §225(d)(1); Greene, 565 U. S, at n. (slip op., at 5, n.). A maxim shown to be more relevant to this case, by the analysis that the majority omitted, is this: The Supremacy Clause does not impose upon state courts a constitutional obligation it fails to impose upon federal courts. C All that remains to support the majority’s conclusion is that all-purpose Latin canon: ipse dixit. The majority opines that because a substantive rule eliminates a State’s power to proscribe certain conduct or impose a certain punishment, it has “the automatic consequence of invali- dating a defendant’s conviction or sentence.” Ante, at 9. What provision of the Constitution could conceivably produce such a result? The Due Process Clause? It surely cannot be a denial of due process for a court to pronounce a final judgment which, though fully in accord with federal constitutional law at the time, fails to anticipate a change to be made by this Court half a century into the future. The Equal Protection Clause? Both statutory and (in- creasingly) constitutional laws |
Justice Scalia | 2,016 | 9 | dissenting | Montgomery v. Louisiana | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/3177218/montgomery-v-louisiana/ | Equal Protection Clause? Both statutory and (in- creasingly) constitutional laws change. If it were a denial of equal protection to hold an earlier defendant to a law more stringent than what exists today, it would also be a denial of equal protection to hold a later defendant to a law more stringent than what existed 50 years ago. No principle of equal protection requires the criminal law of all ages to be the same. The majority grandly asserts that “[t]here is no grandfa- ther clause that permits States to enforce punishments the Constitution forbids.” Ante, at 12 Of course the italicized phrase begs the question. There most certainly is a grandfather clause—one we have called finality—which says that the Constitution does not re- quire States to revise punishments that were lawful when 10 MONTGOMERY v. LOUISIANA SCALIA, J., dissenting they were imposed. Once a conviction has become final, whether new rules or old ones will be applied to revisit the conviction is a matter entirely within the State’s control; the Constitution has nothing to say about that choice. The majority says that there is no “possibility of a valid result” when a new substantive rule is not applied retroactively. Ante, at 9. But the whole controversy here arises because many think there is a valid result when a defendant has been convicted under the law that existed when his convic- tion became And the States are unquestionably entitled to take that view of things. The majority’s imposition of Teague’s first exception upon the States is all the worse because it does not adhere to that exception as initially conceived by Justice Harlan— an exception for rules that “place, as a matter of constitu- tional interpretation, certain kinds of primary, private individual conduct beyond the power of the criminal law- making authority to proscribe.” 01 U.S., at 2 Rather, it endorses the exception as expanded by Penry, to include “rules prohibiting a certain category of punishment for a class of defendants because of their status or offense.” 92 U.S., 30. That expan- sion empowered and obligated federal (and after today state) habeas courts to invoke this Court’s Eighth Amendment “evolving standards of decency” jurisprudence to upset punishments that were constitutional when im- posed but are “cruel and unusual,” U. S. Const., Amdt. 8, in our newly enlightened society. See Trop v. Dulles, 356 U.S. 86, 101 (1958). The “evolving standards” test con- cedes that in 19 the State had the power to punish Henry Montgomery as it did. Indeed, Montgomery could at that time have been sentenced to death by our |
Justice Scalia | 2,016 | 9 | dissenting | Montgomery v. Louisiana | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/3177218/montgomery-v-louisiana/ | at that time have been sentenced to death by our yet unevolved society. Even 20 years later, this Court reaf- firmed that the Constitution posed no bar to death sen- tences for juveniles. 92 U.S. 361 Not until our People’s “standards of decency” Cite as: 577 U. S. (2016) 11 SCALIA, J., dissenting evolved a mere 10 years ago—nearly 0 years after Mont- gomery’s sentence was imposed—did this Court declare the death penalty unconstitutional for juveniles. Roper v. Simmons, 53 U.S. 551 Even then, the Court reassured States that “the punishment of life imprison- ment without the possibility of parole is itself a severe sanction,” implicitly still available for juveniles. at 572. And again five years ago this Court left in place this severe sanction for juvenile homicide offenders. Graham v. Florida, 560 U.S. 8, So for the five decades Montgomery has spent in prison, not one of this Court’s precedents called into question the legality of his sen- tence—until the People’s “standards of decency,” as per- ceived by five Justices, “evolved” yet again in Teague’s central purpose was to do away with the old regime’s tendency to “continually force the States to mar- shal resources in order to keep in prison defendants whose trials and appeals conformed to then-existing constitu- tional standards.” 89 U.S., 10. Today’s holding thwarts that purpose with a vengeance. Our ever-evolving Constitution changes the rules of “cruel and unusual punishments” every few years. In the passage from that the majority’s opinion quotes, ante, at 13, Justice Harlan noted the diminishing force of finality (and hence the equitable propriety—not the constitutional requirement—of disregarding it) when the law punishes nonpunishable conduct, see 01 U.S., at 3. But one cannot imagine a clearer frustration of the sensible policy of Teague when the ever-moving target of impermissible punishments is at issue. Today’s holding not only fore- closes Congress from eliminating this expansion of Teague in federal courts, but also foists this distortion upon the States. II. The Retroactivity of Having created jurisdiction by ripping Teague’s first 12 MONTGOMERY v. LOUISIANA SCALIA, J., dissenting exception from its moorings, converting an equitable rule governing federal habeas relief to a constitutional com- mand governing state courts as well, the majority proceeds to the merits. And here it confronts a second obstacle to its desired outcome. the opinion it wishes to im- pose upon state postconviction courts, simply does not decree what the first part of the majority’s opinion says Teague’s first exception requires to be given retroactive effect: a rule “set[ting] forth categorical constitutional guarantees that place certain criminal laws and punish- |
Justice Scalia | 2,016 | 9 | dissenting | Montgomery v. Louisiana | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/3177218/montgomery-v-louisiana/ | categorical constitutional guarantees that place certain criminal laws and punish- ments altogether beyond the State’s power to impose.” Ante, at 9 No problem. Having distorted Teague, the majority simply proceeds to rewrite The majority asserts that “rendered life without parole an unconstitutional penalty for ‘a class of defend- ants because of their status’—that is, juvenile offenders whose crimes reflect the transient immaturity of youth.” Ante, at 17. It insists that barred life-without- parole sentences “for all but the rarest of juvenile offend- ers, those whose crimes reflect permanent incorrigibility. For that reason, is no less substantive than are Roper and Graham.” Ante, at 17–18. The problem is that stated, quite clearly, precisely the opposite: “Our decision does not categorically bar a penalty for a class of offenders or type of crime—as, for example, we did in Roper or Graham. Instead, it mandates only that a sen- tencer follow a certain process—considering an offender’s youth and attendant characteristics—before imposing a particular penalty.” 567 U. S., at (slip op., at 20) To contradict that clear statement, the majority opinion quotes passages from that assert such things as “mandatory life-without-parole sentences for children ‘pos[e] too great a risk of disproportionate punishment’ ” and “ ‘appropriate occasions for sentencing juveniles to this harshest possible penalty will be uncommon.’ ” Ante, at 16 Cite as: 577 U. S. (2016) 13 SCALIA, J., dissenting ( at (slip op., at 17)). But to say that a punishment might be inappropriate and dispropor- tionate for certain juvenile offenders is not to say that it is unconstitutionally void. All of the statements relied on by the majority do nothing more than express the reason why the new, youth-protective procedure prescribed by is desirable: to deter life sentences for certain juvenile of- fenders. On the issue of whether rendered life- without-parole penalties unconstitutional, it is impossible to get past ’s unambiguous statement that “[o]ur decision does not categorically bar a penalty for a class of offenders” and “mandates only that a sentencer follow a certain process before imposing a particular penalty.” 567 U. S., at (slip op., at 20). It is plain as day that the majority is not applying but rewriting it.1 And the rewriting has consequences beyond merely making ’s procedural guarantee retroactive. If, indeed, a State is categorically prohibited from imposing life without parole on juvenile offenders whose crimes do not “reflect permanent incorrigibility,” then even when the procedures that demands are provided the constitu- tional requirement is not necessarily satisfied. It remains available for the defendant sentenced to life without pa- role to argue that his |
Justice Scalia | 2,016 | 9 | dissenting | Montgomery v. Louisiana | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/3177218/montgomery-v-louisiana/ | sentenced to life without pa- role to argue that his crimes did not in fact “reflect per- manent incorrigibility.” Or as the majority’s opinion puts it: “That did not impose a formal factfinding re- quirement does not leave States free to sentence a child[2] —————— 1 It is amusing that the majority’s initial description of is the same as our own: “[T]he Court held that a juvenile convicted of a homicide offense could not be sentenced to life in prison without parole absent consideration of the juvenile’s special circumstances in light of the principles and purposes of juvenile sentencing.” Ante, at 1. Only 15 pages later, after softening the reader with 3 pages of obfuscating analysis, does the majority dare to attribute to that which explicitly denies. 2 The majority presumably regards any person one day short of voting age as a “child.” 1 MONTGOMERY v. LOUISIANA SCALIA, J., dissenting whose crime reflects transient immaturity to life without parole. To the contrary, established that this pun- ishment is disproportionate under the Eighth Amend- ment.” Ante, at 20. How wonderful. Federal and (like it or not) state judges are henceforth to resolve the knotty “legal” question: whether a 17-year-old who murdered an innocent sheriff ’s deputy half a century ago was at the time of his trial “incorrigible.” Under bear in mind, the inquiry is whether the inmate was seen to be incorrigible when he was sentenced—not whether he has proven corrigible and so can safely be paroled today. What silliness. (And how impossible in practice, see Brief for National District Attorneys Assn. et al. as Amici Curiae 9–17.) When in 38 U.S. 586, the Court im- posed the thitherto unheard-of requirement that the sen- tencer in capital cases must consider and weigh all “rele- vant mitigating factors,” it at least did not impose the substantive (and hence judicially reviewable) requirement that the aggravators must outweigh the mitigators; it would suffice that the sentencer thought so. And, fairly read, did the same. Not so with the “incorrigibility” requirement that the Court imposes today to make retroactive. But have no fear. The majority does not seriously ex- pect state and federal collateral-review tribunals to en- gage in this silliness, probing the evidence of “incorrigibil- ity” that existed decades ago when defendants were sentenced. What the majority expects (and intends) to happen is set forth in the following not-so-subtle invita- tion: “A State may remedy a violation by permitting juvenile homicide offenders to be considered for parole, rather than by resentencing them.” Ante, at 21. Of course. This whole exercise, this whole distortion |
Justice Scalia | 2,016 | 9 | dissenting | Montgomery v. Louisiana | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/3177218/montgomery-v-louisiana/ | at 21. Of course. This whole exercise, this whole distortion of Mil- ler, is just a devious way of eliminating life without parole for juvenile offenders. The Court might have done that Cite as: 577 U. S. (2016) 15 SCALIA, J., dissenting expressly (as we know, the Court can decree anything), but that would have been something of an embarrassment. After all, one of the justifications the Court gave for de- creeing an end to the death penalty for murders (no mat- ter how many) committed by a juvenile was that life with- out parole was a severe enough punishment. See Roper, 53 U.S., at 572. How could the majority—in an opinion written by the very author of Roper—now say that pun- ishment is also unconstitutional? The Court expressly refused to say so in 567 U. S., at (slip op., at 17). So the Court refuses again today, but merely makes imposition of that severe sanction a practical impossibil- ity. And then, in Godfather fashion, the majority makes state legislatures an offer they can’t refuse: Avoid all the utterly impossible nonsense we have prescribed by simply “permitting juvenile homicide offenders to be considered for parole.” Ante, at 21. Mission accomplished. Cite as: 577 U. S. (2016) 1 THOMAS, J., dissenting SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES No. 1–280 HENRY MONTGOMERY, PETITIONER v. |
Justice Thomas | 2,005 | 1 | majority | Wagnon v. Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1991588/wagnon-v-prairie-band-potawatomi-nation/ | The State of Kansas imposes a tax on the receipt of motor fuel by fuel distributors within its boundaries. Kansas applies that tax to motor fuel received by non-Indian fuel distributors who subsequently deliver that fuel to a gas station owned by, and located on, the Reservation of the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation (Nation). The Nation maintains that this application of the Kansas motor fuel tax is an impermissible affront to its sovereignty. The Court of Appeals agreed, holding that the application of the Kansas tax to fuel received by a non-Indian distributor, but subsequently delivered to the Nation, was invalid under the interest-balancing test set forth in White Mountain But the interest-balancing test applies only where "a State asserts authority over the conduct of non-Indians engaging in activity on the reservation." It does not apply where, as here, a state tax is imposed on a non-Indian and arises as a result of a transaction that occurs off the reservation. Accordingly, we reverse. I The Nation is a federally recognized Indian Tribe whose reservation is on United States trust land in Jackson County, Kansas. The Nation owns and operates a casino on its reservation. In order to accommodate casino patrons and other reservation-related traffic, the Nation constructed, and now owns and operates, a gas station on its reservation next to the casino. Seventy-three percent of the station's fuel sales are made to casino patrons, while percent of the station's fuel sales are made to persons who live or work on the reservation. The Nation purchases fuel for its gas station from non-Indian distributors located off its reservation. Those distributors pay a state fuel tax on their initial receipt of *100 motor fuel, ( Cum. Supp.),[1] and pass along the cost of that tax to their customers, including the Nation.[2] The Nation sells its fuel within 2 cents per gallon of the prevailing market price. Prairie Band Potawatomi It does so notwithstanding the distributor's decision to pass along the cost of the State's fuel tax to the Nation, and the Nation's decision to impose its own tax on the station's fuel sales in the amount of 16 cents per gallon of gasoline and 18 cents per gallon of diesel The Nation's fuel tax generates approximately $300,000 annually, funds that the Nation uses for "`constructing and maintaining roads, bridges and rights-of-way located on or near the Reservation,'" including the access road between the state-funded highway and the casino. The Nation brought an action in Federal District Court for declaratory judgment and injunctive relief from the State's collection of motor fuel tax from |
Justice Thomas | 2,005 | 1 | majority | Wagnon v. Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1991588/wagnon-v-prairie-band-potawatomi-nation/ | relief from the State's collection of motor fuel tax from distributors who deliver fuel to the reservation. The District Court granted summary judgment in favor of the State. Applying the interest-balancing test, it determined that the balance of state, federal, and tribal interests tilted in favor of the State. The court reached this determination because "it is undisputed that the legal incidence of the tax is directed off-reservation at the fuel distributors," Prairie Band Potawatomi and because the ultimate purchasers of the fuel, non-Indian casino patrons, receive the bulk of their governmental services from the State, The court held that the State's tax did not interfere with the Nation's right of self-government, adding that "a tribe cannot oust a state from any power to tax on-reservation purchases by nonmembers of the tribe by simply imposing its own tax on the transactions or by otherwise earning its revenues from the tribal business." at The Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit reversed. It determined that, under the balance of state, federal, and tribal interests favored the Tribe. The Tenth Circuit reasoned that the Nation's fuel revenues were "derived from value generated primarily on its reservation," namely, the creation of a new fuel market by virtue of the presence of the casinoand that the Nation's interests in taxing this reservation-created value to raise revenue for reservation infrastructure outweighed the State's "general interest in raising revenues," We granted certiorari, and now reverse. II Although we granted certiorari to determine whether Kansas may tax a non-Indian distributor's off-reservation receipt of fuel without being subject to the interest-balancing test, Pet. for Cert. i, the Nation maintains that Kansas' "tax is imposed not on the off-reservation receipt of fuel, but on its on-reservation sale and delivery," Brief for Respondent (emphasis in original). As the Nation recognizes, under our Indian tax immunity cases, the "who" and the "where" of the challenged tax have significant consequences. We have determined that "[t]he initial and frequently dispositive question in Indian tax cases is who bears the legal incidence of [the] tax," Oklahoma Tax and that the States are categorically barred *102 from placing the legal incidence of an excise tax "on a tribe or on tribal members for sales made inside Indian country" without congressional authorization, We have further determined that, even when a State imposes the legal incidence of its tax on a non-Indian seller, the tax may nonetheless be pre-empted if the transaction giving rise to tax liability occurs on the reservation and the imposition of the tax fails to satisfy the interest-balancing test. See (holding that state |
Justice Thomas | 2,005 | 1 | majority | Wagnon v. Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1991588/wagnon-v-prairie-band-potawatomi-nation/ | fails to satisfy the interest-balancing test. See (holding that state taxes imposed on on-reservation logging and hauling operations by non-Indian contractor are invalid under the interest-balancing test); cf. Central Machinery The Nation maintains that it is entitled to prevail under the categorical bar articulated in because "[t]he fairest reading of the statute is that the legal incidence of the tax actually falls on the Tribe [on the reservation]." Brief for Respondent 17, n. 5. The Nation alternatively maintains it is entitled to prevail even if the legal incidence of the tax is on the non-Indian distributor because, according to the Nation, the tax arises out of a distributor's on-reservation transaction with the Tribe and is therefore subject to the balancing test. Brief for Respondent 15. We address the "who" and the "where" of Kansas' motor fuel tax in turn. A Kansas law specifies that "the incidence of [the motor fuel] tax is imposed on the distributor of the first receipt of the motor fuel." (c) ( Cum. Supp.). We have suggested that such "dispositive language" from the state legislature is determinative of who bears the legal incidence of a state excise tax. But even if the state legislature had not employed such "dispositive language," thereby requiring us instead to look *103 to a "fair interpretation of the taxing statute as written and applied," California Bd. of we would nonetheless conclude that the legal incidence of the tax is on the distributor. Kansas law makes clear that it is the distributor, rather than the retailer, that is liable to pay the motor fuel tax. Section 79-3410(a) (1997) provides, in relevant part, that "[e]very distributor shall compute and shall pay to the director the amount of [motor fuel] taxes due to the state." While the distributors are "entitled" to pass along the cost of the tax to downstream purchasers, see 79-3409 ( Cum. Supp.), they are not required to do so. In sum, the legal incidence of the Kansas motor fuel tax is on the distributor. The lower courts reached the same 9 F.3d, at ; 241 F. Supp. 2d, at ; see Sac and Nation of ; Winnebago Tribe of ; Sac and Nation of And the Kansas Department of Revenue, the state agency charged with administering the motor fuel tax, has concluded likewise. See Letter from David J. Heinemann, Office of Administrative Appeals, to Mark A. Burghart, Written Final Determination in Request for Informal Conference for Reconsideration of Agency Action, Davies Oil Co., Inc., Docket No. 01-970 (Jan. 3, 2002) *104 (hereinafter Kansas Dept. of Revenue Letter) ("The legal incidence |
Justice Thomas | 2,005 | 1 | majority | Wagnon v. Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1991588/wagnon-v-prairie-band-potawatomi-nation/ | *104 (hereinafter Kansas Dept. of Revenue Letter) ("The legal incidence of the Kansas fuel tax rests with Davies, the distributor, who is up-stream from Nation, the retailer"). The United States, as amicus, contends that this conclusion is foreclosed by the Kansas Supreme Court's decision in The United States reads Kaul as holding that the legal incidence of Kansas' motor fuel tax rests on the Indian retailers, rather than on the non-Indian distributors. And, under the United States' view, so long as the Kansas Supreme Court's "`definitive determination as to the operating incidence'" of its fuel tax is "`consistent with the statute's reasonable interpretation,'" it should be "`deemed conclusive.'" Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 10 ). We disagree with the United States' interpretation of Kaul. In Kaul, two members of the Citizen Band Potawatomi Tribe of Oklahoma sought to enjoin the enforcement of Kansas' fuel tax on fuel delivered to their gas station located on the Prairie Band Potawatomi Tribe of Kansas' Reservation. The Kansas Supreme Court determined that the station owners had standing to challenge the tax because the statute provided that the distributor was entitled to "`charge and collect such tax as a part of the selling price.'" Kaul, ; emphasis deleted). The court determined that the station owners were not entitled to an injunction, however, because they were not members of a Kansas tribe and thus there had "been no showing by Retailers that payment of fuel tax to Kansas interferes with the self-government of a Kansas tribe or a Kansas tribal member." 970 P. 2d, at 69. The court then noted that "the legal incidence of the tax on motor fuel rests on non-tribal members and does not affect the Potawatomi Indian reservation within the state of Kansas." *105 Kaul does not foreclose our determination that the distributor bears the legal incidence of the Kansas motor fuel tax. As an initial matter, it is unclear whether the court's reference to "nontribal members" is a reference to the non-tribalmember retailers or the non-tribal-member distributors. At the very least, Kaul's imprecise language cannot be characterized as a definitive determination. Moreover, the amendments to the Kansas fuel provisions, including the amendment to 79-3408(c) that provides that "the incidence of this tax is imposed on the distributor," were not applied in Kaul. (identifying provisions that were repealed in as being "in effect during the period relevant to this case"); Accordingly, Kaul did not speak authoritatively on the provisions before us today. B The Nation maintains that we must apply the interest-balancing test, irrespective of the identity of the taxpayer |
Justice Thomas | 2,005 | 1 | majority | Wagnon v. Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1991588/wagnon-v-prairie-band-potawatomi-nation/ | the interest-balancing test, irrespective of the identity of the taxpayer (i. e., the party bearing the legal incidence), because the Kansas fuel tax arises as a result of the on-reservation sale and delivery of the motor fuel. See Brief for Respondent 15. Notably, however, the Nation presented a starkly different interpretation of the statute in the proceedings before the Court of Appeals, arguing that "[t]he balancing test is appropriate even though the legal incidence of the tax is imposed on the Nation's non-Indian distributor and is triggered by the distributor's receipt of fuel outside the reservation." Appellant's Reply Brief in No. 03-3218 (CA10), p. 3 ; see 241 F. Supp. 2d, at A "fair interpretation of the taxing statute as written and applied," Chemehuevi Tribe, U.S., at *106 confirms that the Nation's interpretation of the statute before the Court of Appeals was correct. As written, the Kansas fuel tax provisions state that "the incidence of this tax is imposed on the distributor of the first receipt of the motor fuel and such taxes shall be paid but once. Such tax shall be computed on all motor-vehicle fuels or special fuels received by each distributor, manufacturer or importer in this state and paid in the manner provided for herein." (c) ( Cum. Supp.). Under this provision, the distributor who initially receives the motor fuel is liable for payment of the fuel tax, and the distributor's tax liability is determined by calculating the amount of fuel received by the distributor. Section 79-3410(a) (1997) confirms that it is the distributor's off-reservation receipt of the motor fuel, and not any subsequent event, that establishes tax liability. That section provides: "[E]very distributor, manufacturer, importer, exporter or retailer of motor-vehicle fuels or special fuels, on or before the 25th day of each month, shall render to the director a report certified to be true and correct showing the number of gallons of motor-vehicle fuels or special fuels received by such distributor, manufacturer, importer, exporter or retailer during the preceding calendar month Every distributor, manufacturer or importer within the time herein fixed for the rendering of such reports, shall compute and shall pay to the director at the director's office the amount of taxes due to the state on all motor-vehicle fuels or special fuels received by such distributor, manufacturer or importer during the preceding calendar month." Thus, Kansas law expressly provides that a distributor's monthly tax obligations are determined by the amount of fuel received by the distributor during the preceding month. See 297 F. Supp. 2d, at The Nation disagrees. It contends that what is |
Justice Thomas | 2,005 | 1 | majority | Wagnon v. Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1991588/wagnon-v-prairie-band-potawatomi-nation/ | 2d, at The Nation disagrees. It contends that what is taxed is not the distributors' (off-reservation) receipt of the fuel, but rather the distributors' use, sale, or delivery of the motor fuelin this case, the distributors' (on-reservation) sale or delivery to the Nation. The Nation grounds support for this proposition in 79-3408(a) ( Cum. Supp.). That section provides that "[a] tax is hereby imposed on the use, sale or delivery of all motor vehicle fuels or special fuels which are used, sold or delivered in this state for any purpose whatsoever." But this section cannot be read in isolation. If it were, it would permit Kansas to tax the same fuel multiple timesnamely, every time fuel is sold, delivered, or used. Section 79-3408(a) must be read in conjunction with subsection (c), which specifies that "the incidence of this tax is imposed on the distributor of the first receipt of the motor fuel and such taxes shall be paid but once." (Emphasis added.) The identity of the single, taxable event is revealed in the very next sentence of subsection (c), which provides that "[s]uch tax shall be computed on all fuels received by each distributor." (Emphasis added.) In short, the "use, sale or delivery" that triggers tax liability is the sale or delivery of the fuel to the distributor. The Kansas Department of Revenue has issued a final determination reaching the same See Kansas Dept. of Revenue Letter ("[P]ursuant to the Kansas Motor Fuel Tax Act the state fuel tax was imposed on Davies, a distributor, when Davies first received the fuel at its business, a site located off of Nation's reservation" ). The Nation claims further support for its interpretation of the statute in 79-3408(d) ( Cum. Supp.). Section 79-3408(d) permits distributors to obtain deductions from the Kansas motor fuel tax for certain postreceipt transactions, such as sale or delivery of fuel for export from the State and sale or delivery of fuel to the United States. *108 79-3408(d)(1)-(2). The Nation argues that these exemptions make it impossible for a distributor to calculate its "ultimate tax liability" without knowing "whether, where, and to whom the fuel is ultimately sold or delivered." Brief for Respondent 15. The Nation infers from these provisions that the taxable event is actually the distributors' postreceipt delivery of fuel to retailers such as the Nation, rather than the distributors' initial receipt of the fuel. The Nation's theory suffers from a number of conceptual defects. First, under Kansas law, a distributor must pay the tax even for fuel that sits in its inventoryfuel that is not (or |
Justice Thomas | 2,005 | 1 | majority | Wagnon v. Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1991588/wagnon-v-prairie-band-potawatomi-nation/ | fuel that sits in its inventoryfuel that is not (or at least has not yet been) used, sold, or delivered by the distributor.[3] But the Nation's interpretation presumes that the tax is owed only on a distributor's postreceipt use, sale, or delivery of fuel. As this interpretation cannot be reconciled with the manner in which the Kansas motor fuel tax is *109 actually applied, it must be rejected.[4] Second, the availability of tax deductions does not change the nature of the taxable event, here the distributor's receipt of the fuel. By analogy, an individual federal income taxpayer may reduce his tax liability by paying home mortgage interest. But that entitlement does not render the taxable event anything other than the receipt of income by the taxpayer. See 26 U.S.C. 1 ( ed. and Supp. II), 163(h) ( ed.); cf. North American Oil Finally, the Nation contends that its interpretation of the statute is supported by Kan. Stat. Ann. 79-3417 (1997), which permits a refundin certain circumstancesfor destroyed fuel. However, the Nation's interpretation is actually foreclosed by that section. Section 79-3417 entitles a distributor to a "refund from the state of the amount of motor-vehicle fuels or special fuels tax paid on any fuels of 100 gallons or more in quantity, which are lost or destroyed at any one time while such distributor is the owner thereof," provided the distributor supplies the required notification and documentation to the State. This section illustrates that a distributor pays taxes for fuel in its possession that it has not delivered or sold, and is only entitled to the refund described in this section for tax it has already paid *0 on fuel that is subsequently destroyed. While this section does not specify the event that gives rise to the distributor's tax liability, it forecloses the Nation's contention that such liability does not arise until fuel is sold or delivered to a nonexempt entity. III Although Kansas' fuel tax is imposed on non-Indian distributors based upon those distributors' off-reservation receipt of motor fuel, the Tenth Circuit concluded that the tax was nevertheless still subject to the interest-balancing test this Court set forth in As itself explained, however, we formulated the balancing test to address the "difficult questio[n]" that arises when "a State asserts authority over the conduct of non-Indians engaging in activity on the reservation." -145 The interest-balancing test has never been applied where, as here, the State asserts its taxing authority over non-Indians off the reservation. And although we have never addressed this precise issue, our Indian tax immunity cases counsel against such an |
Justice Thomas | 2,005 | 1 | majority | Wagnon v. Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1991588/wagnon-v-prairie-band-potawatomi-nation/ | issue, our Indian tax immunity cases counsel against such an application. A We have applied the balancing test articulated in only where "the legal incidence of the tax fell on a nontribal entity engaged in a transaction with tribes or tribal members," Arizona Dept. of on the reservation. See ; Department of Taxation and Finance of N. ; Cotton Petroleum ; Ramah Navajo School Bd., Inc. v. Bureau of Revenue of N. M., *1 U.S. 832 (1) ; ; Central Machinery Co., (tax imposed on on-reservation sale of farm machinery to Tribe). Similarly, the cases identified in as supportive of the balancing test were exclusively concerned with the on-reservation conduct of non-Indians. See Warren Trading Post ; ;[5] *2 Limiting the interest-balancing test exclusively to on-reservation transactions between a nontribal entity and a tribe or tribal member is consistent with our unique Indian tax immunity jurisprudence. We have explained that this jurisprudence relies "heavily on the doctrine of tribal sovereignty. which historically gave state law `no role to play' within a tribe's territorial boundaries." Oklahoma Tax 508 U.S. 4, ). We have further explained that the doctrine of tribal sovereignty, which has a "significant geographical component," requires us to "revers[e]" the "`general rule'" that "`exemptions from tax laws should be clearly expressed.'" Sac and (quoting ). And we have determined that the geographical component of tribal sovereignty "`provide[s] a backdrop against which the applicable treaties and federal statutes must be read.'" Sac and (quoting ). Indeed, the particularized inquiry we set forth in relied specifically on that backdrop. See 448 U.S., -145 (noting that where "a State asserts authority over the conduct of non-Indians engaging in activity on the reservation we have examined the language of the relevant federal treaties and statutes in terms of both the broad policies that underlie them and the notions of sovereignty that have developed from historical traditions of tribal independence" ). We have taken an altogether different course, by contrast, when a State asserts its taxing authority outside of Indian country. Without applying the interest-balancing test, we *3 have permitted the taxation of the gross receipts of an off-reservation, Indian-owned ski resort, Mescalero 4 U.S. 145 and the taxation of income earned by Indians working on reservation but living off reservation, In these cases, we have concluded that "[a]bsent express federal law to the contrary, Indians going beyond reservation boundaries have generally been held subject to nondiscriminatory state law otherwise applicable to all citizens of the State." Mescalero ; (quoting Mescalero ). If a State may apply a nondiscriminatory tax to Indians who have |
Justice Thomas | 2,005 | 1 | majority | Wagnon v. Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1991588/wagnon-v-prairie-band-potawatomi-nation/ | State may apply a nondiscriminatory tax to Indians who have gone beyond the boundaries of the reservation, then it follows that it may apply a nondiscriminatory tax where, as here, the tax is imposed on non-Indians as a result of an off-reservation transaction. In these circumstances, the interest-balancing test set forth in is inapplicable. Cf. Blaze 526 U.S., at (declining to apply the interest-balancing test "where a State seeks to tax a transaction [on reservation] between the Federal Government and its non-Indian private contractor"). The application of the interest-balancing test to the Kansas motor fuel tax is not only inconsistent with the special geographic sovereignty concerns that gave rise to that test, but with our efforts to establish "bright-line standard[s]" in the context of tax 526 U.S., at ; cf. ; County of Indeed, we have recognized that the interest-balancing test *4 "only cloud[s]" our efforts to establish such standards. Blaze at Under the Nation's view, however, any off-reservation tax imposed on the manufacture or sale of any good imported by the Nation or one of its members would be subject to interest balancing. Such an expansion of the application of the test is not supported by our cases. Nor is the Nation entitled to interest balancing by virtue of its claim that the Kansas motor fuel tax interferes with its own motor fuel tax. As an initial matter, this is ultimately a complaint about the downstream economic consequences of the Kansas tax. As the owner of the station, the Nation will keep every dollar it collects above its operating costs. Given that the Nation sells gas at prevailing market rates, its decision to impose a tax should have no effect on its net revenues from the operation of the station; it should not matter whether those revenues are labeled "profits" or "tax proceeds." The Nation merely seeks to increase those revenues by purchasing untaxed fuel. But the Nation cannot invalidate the Kansas tax by complaining about a decrease in revenues. See merely because the result of imposing its taxes will be to deprive the Tribes of revenues which they currently are receiving"). Nor would our analysis change if we accorded legal significance to the Nation's decision to label a portion of the station's revenues as tax proceeds. See ("When two sovereigns have legitimate authority to tax the same transaction, exercise of that authority by one sovereign does not oust the jurisdiction of the other. If it were otherwise, we would not be obligated to pay federal as well as state taxes on our income or gasoline purchases. Economic burdens |
Justice Thomas | 2,005 | 1 | majority | Wagnon v. Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1991588/wagnon-v-prairie-band-potawatomi-nation/ | state taxes on our income or gasoline purchases. Economic burdens on *5 the competing sovereign do not alter the concurrent nature of the taxing authority").[6] B Finally, the Nation contends that the Kansas motor fuel tax is invalid notwithstanding the inapplicability of the interest-balancing test, because it "exempts from taxation fuel sold or delivered to all other sovereigns," and is therefore impermissibly discriminatory. Brief for Respondent 17-20 (emphasis deleted); Kan. Stat. Ann. 79-3408(d)(1)-(2) ( Cum. Supp.). But the Nation is not similarly situated to the sovereigns exempted from the Kansas fuel tax. While Kansas uses the proceeds from its fuel tax to pay for a significant portion of the costs of maintaining the roads and bridges on the Nation's reservation, including the main highway used by the Nation's casino patrons, Kansas offers no such services to the several States or the Federal Government. Moreover, to the extent Kansas fuel retailers bear the cost of the fuel tax, that burden falls equally upon all retailers within the State regardless of whether those retailers are located on an Indian reservation. Accordingly, the Kansas motor fuel tax is not impermissibly discriminatory. * * * For the foregoing reasons, we hold that the Kansas motor fuel tax is a nondiscriminatory tax imposed on an off-reservation transaction between non-Indians. Accordingly, the tax is valid and poses no affront to the Nation's sovereignty. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed. It is so ordered. |
Justice Douglas | 1,973 | 10 | second_dissenting | United States v. Kras | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/108655/united-states-v-kras/ | While we join MR. JUSTICE STEWART'S dissenting opinion we do so with this explicit statement of reasons. We said in when holding *458 that segregation of students in the District of Columbia violated the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment: "The Fifth Amendment, which is applicable in the District of Columbia, does not contain an equal protection clause as does the Fourteenth Amendment which applies only to the states. But the concepts of equal protection and due process, both stemming from our American ideal of fairness, are not mutually exclusive. The `equal protection of the laws' is a more explicit safeguard of prohibited unfairness than `due process of law,' and, therefore, we do not imply that the two are always interchangeable phrases. But, as this Court has recognized, discrimination may be so unjustifiable as to be violative of due process." The invidious discrimination in the present case is a denial of due process because it denies equal protection within our decisions which make particularly "invidious" discrimination based on wealth or race. MR. JUSTICE MARSHALL, dissenting. The dissent of MR. JUSTICE STEWART, in which I have joined, makes clear the majority's failure to distinguish this case from I add only some comments on the extraordinary route by which the majority reaches its conclusion. A. The majority notes that the minimum amount that appellee Kras must pay each week if he is permitted to pay the filing fees in installments is only $1.28. It says that "this much available revenue should be within his able-bodied reach." Ante, at 449. Appellee submitted an affidavit in which he claimed that he was "unable to pay or promise to pay the filing fees, even in small installments." App. 5. This claim was supported by detailed statements of his financial condition. *459 The affidavit was unchallenged below, but the majority does challenge it. The District Judge properly accepted the factual allegations as true. See, e. g., ; First National Bank of ; 35B C. J. S., Federal Civil Procedure 1197 n. 4 (1960). The majority seems to believe that it is not restrained by the traditional notion that judges must accept unchallenged, credible affidavits as true, for it disregards the factual allegations and the inferences that necessarily follow from them. I cannot treat that notion so cavalierly.[1] Even if Kras' statement that he was unable to pay the fees was an honest mistake, surely he cannot have been mistaken in saying that he could not promise to pay the fees. The majority does not directly impugn his good faith in making that statement. Yet if |
Justice Douglas | 1,973 | 10 | second_dissenting | United States v. Kras | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/108655/united-states-v-kras/ | impugn his good faith in making that statement. Yet if he cannot promise to pay the fees, he cannot get the interim relief from creditor harassment that, the majority says, may enable him to pay the fees. But beyond all this, I cannot agree with the majority that it is so easy for the desperately poor to save $1.92 each week over the course of six months. The 1970 Census found that over 800,000 families in the Nation had annual incomes of less than $1,000 or $19.23 a week. U. S. Bureau of Census, Current Population Reports, series P-60, No. 80; U. S. Bureau of Census, Statistical *460 Abstract of the United States 1972, p. 323. I see no reason to require that families in such straits sacrifice over 5% of their annual income as a prerequisite to getting a discharge in bankruptcy.[2] It may be easy for some people to think that weekly savings of less than $2 are no burden. But no one who has had close contact with poor people can fail to understand how close to the margin of survival many of them are. A sudden illness, for example, may destroy whatever savings they may have accumulated, and by eliminating a sense of security may destroy the incentive to save in the future. A pack or two of cigarettes may be, for them, not a routine purchase but a luxury indulged in only rarely. The desperately poor almost never go to see a movie, which the majority seems to believe is an almost weekly activity. They have more important things to do with what little money they havelike attempting to provide some comforts for a gravely ill child, as Kras must do. It is perfectly proper for judges to disagree about what the Constitution requires. But it is disgraceful for an interpretation of the Constitution to be premised upon unfounded assumptions about how people live. B. The majority derives some solace from the denial of certiorari in In re Garland, Reliance *461 on denial of certiorari for any proposition impairs the vitality of the discretion we exercise in controlling the cases we hear. See For all that the legal community knows, Mr. Justice Harlan did not join the dissent from denial of certiorari in that case for reasons different from those that the majority uses to distinguish this case from Boddie. Perhaps he believed that lower courts should have some time to consider the implications of Boddie. Most of the lower courts have refused to follow the First Circuit's decision in Garland, See ante, at 453 |
Justice Douglas | 1,973 | 10 | second_dissenting | United States v. Kras | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/108655/united-states-v-kras/ | the First Circuit's decision in Garland, See ante, at 453 n. 5 (STEWART, J., dissenting). Perhaps he thought that the record in that case made inappropriate any attempt to determine the scope of Boddie in that particular case. Or perhaps he had some other reason. The point of our use of a discretionary writ is precisely to prohibit that kind of speculation. When we deny certiorari, no one, not even ourselves, should think that the denial indicates a view on the merits of the case. It ill serves judges of the courts throughout the country to tell them, as the majority does today, that in attempting to determine what the law is, they must read, not only the opinions of this Court, but also the thousands of cases in which we annually deny certiorari.[3] C. The majority says that "[t]he denial of access to the judicial forum in Boddie touched directly on the marital relationship." It sees "no fundamental interest *462 that is gained or lost depending on the availability of a discharge in bankruptcy." Ante, at 444, 445. If the case is to turn on distinctions between the role of courts in divorce cases and their role in bankruptcy cases,[4] I agree with MR. JUSTICE STEWART that this case and Boddie cannot be distinguished; the role of the Government in standing ready to enforce an otherwise continuing obligation is the same. However, I would go further than MR. JUSTICE STEWART. I view the case as involving the right of access to the courts, the opportunity to be heard when one claims a legal right, and not just the right to a discharge in bankruptcy.[5] When a person raises a claim of right or entitlement under the laws, the only forum in our legal system empowered to determine that claim is a court. *463 Kras, for example, claims that he has a right under the Bankruptcy Act to be free of any duty to pay his creditors. There is no way to determine whether he has such a right except by adjudicating his claim.[6] Failure to do so denies him access to the courts. The legal system is, of course, not so pervasive as to preclude private resolution of disputes. But private settlements do not determine the validity of claims of right. Such questions can be authoritatively resolved only in courts. It is in that sense, I believe, that we should consider the emphasis in Boddie on the exclusiveness of the judicial forumand give Kras his day in court. |
Justice Stevens | 1,979 | 16 | second_dissenting | Baker v. McCollan | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110132/baker-v-mccollan/ | When a State deprives a person of his liberty after his arrest, the Constitution requires that it be prepared to justify not only the initial arrest, but the continued detention as well.[1] Respondent's arrest on December 26, 1972, was authorized by a valid warrant, and no claim is raised that it violated his Fourth Amendment rights. The question is whether the deprivation of his liberty during the next eight daysdespite his protests of mistaken identitywas "without due process of *150 law" within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. The record in this case makes clear that the procedures employed by the sheriff of Potter County, Tex., at the time were not reasonably calculated to establish that a person being detained for the alleged commission of a crime was in fact the person believed to be guilty of the offense. In my judgment, such procedures are required by the Due Process Clause, and the deprivation of respondent's liberty occasioned by their absence is a violation of his Fourteenth Amendment rights. I Respondent's brother Leonard was arrested by a member of the City of Amarillo Police Force on September 11, 1972; city police officers photographed and fingerprinted him. On October 6, 1972, he was transferred to the custody of the sheriff of Potter County. At that time, contrary to normal practice, the Potter County sheriff's office took possession of the driver's license the brother was carrying. They did so because it was apparent that the license had been altered. The sheriff testified that an alteration of that kind established a likelihood that the arrested was using an alias.[2] A professional surety posted bond and respondent's brother was released. On November 3, 1972, for reasons that do not appear in the record, the bondsman sought and received an order allowing him to surrender respondent's brother. A warrant for his re-arrest was therefore issued. Since the brother had been masquerading as respondent, the warrant was issued in respondent's name.[3] Although respondent has not questioned the validity of the warrantpresumably because it issued before petitioner became sheriffhe has emphasized the fact that the altered driver's license in the file gave the sheriff's deputies reason to believe that the wanted person was using an alias. *151 On December 26, 1972, respondent was stopped for a traffic violation in Dallas. The Dallas patrolman made a routine radio check and learned that the Potter County warrant was outstanding. Over respondent's repeated protests that he was not the right man, the officer placed him under arrest and took him to a Dallas police station. The desk sergeant telephoned the |
Justice Stevens | 1,979 | 16 | second_dissenting | Baker v. McCollan | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110132/baker-v-mccollan/ | to a Dallas police station. The desk sergeant telephoned the Potter County sheriff's office and apparently learned that respondent's name, sex, race, and date of birth corresponded with the information provided by the sheriff. No mention appears to have been made of the fact that the sheriff's files contained an altered driver's license issued in respondent's name, even though respondent was obviously carrying a license when he was ticketed for the traffic offense.[4] In short, the fact that the sheriff's office had reason to believe that the name in the warrant was an alias did not motivate any special effort to verify the arrestee's identification. The sheriff's deputies allowed respondent to remain in the Dallas lockup for four days before they picked him up. At the time they did so, they failed to follow an identification procedure used by comparable sheriff's offices. They did not take the pictures and fingerprints in the file with them to Dallas to be sure that they had the man they wanted. Nor, when they returned to the Potter County jail, did they refer to the pictures or the prints notwithstanding respondent's continued protests of misidentification and the ready availability of the information.[5] The ensuing four days included a holiday weekend when the sheriff was apparently away from his office. It was nevertheless a busy period for his staff since about 150 prisoners were being detained in a jail designed to house only 88.[6] In *152 all, there was no procedure in effect that led any of the sheriff's deputies to pull out the file and compare the pictures and fingerprints with respondent. Of course, as soon as the sheriff did so on January 2, he recognized the mistake that had been made and immediately released respondent. It is evident that respondent's 8-day imprisonment would have been at least cut in half if any one of several different procedures had been followed by the sheriff's office. If his brother's file had been marked to indicate that he was probably using an alias, a more thorough and prompt identification check would surely have been made; if he had been transferred from Dallas to Potter County promptly, he apparently would have arrived before the sheriff left for the holiday weekend. If a prompt pickup was not feasible, a prompt mailing of the fingerprints and photographs would have revealed the error; if the deputies who picked him up had taken the fingerprints and photographs with them, he would have been released in Dallas; if the file had been checked when he arrived at the Potter County jail, or |
Justice Stevens | 1,979 | 16 | second_dissenting | Baker v. McCollan | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110132/baker-v-mccollan/ | checked when he arrived at the Potter County jail, or if the sheriff had delegated authority to review complaints of misidentification during his absence, respondent would not have spent four days in the Potter County jail. In short, almost any regular procedures for verifying an arrestee's identification would have resulted in the prompt release of respondent. II The Due Process Clause clearly protects an individual from conviction based on identification procedures which are improperly suggestive. In a criminal trial, that Clause requires the exclusion of evidence obtained through procedures presenting "a very substantial likelihood of misidentification." Fair procedures must be used, to prevent an "irreparable misidentification" and the resulting deprivation of liberty attaching to *153 conviction. Ibid.[7] In my judgment, the Due Process Clause equally requires that fair procedures be employed to ensure that the wrong individual is not subject to the deprivations of liberty attaching to pretrial detention. Pretrial detention unquestionably involves a serious deprivation of individual liberty. "The consequences of prolonged detention may be more serious than the interference occasioned by arrest. Pretrial confinement may imperil the suspect's job, interrupt his source of income, and impair his family relationships." The burdens of pretrial detention are substantial ones to impose on a presumptively innocent man, even when there is probable cause to believe he has committed a crime.[8] To impose such burdens on the wrong manon a man who has been mistakenly identified as a suspect because of inadequate identification proceduresseems to me clearly unconstitutional. It is wholly at odds with the constitutional restraints imposed on police officers in the performance of investigative stops,[9] the establishment of probable cause to detain as well as to arrest,[10] and the questioning of suspects taken into custody.[11] In each of these activities, police officers must conform to procedures mandated by the Constitution which serve to minimize *154 the risk of wrongful and unjustified deprivations of personal liberty. It surely makes little sense to enforce limits on the police officer seeking out and detaining those whom he believes to have committed crimes without at the same time requiring adherence to procedures designed to ensure that the subject of the police action and detention is in fact the individual the officer believes he is. In rejecting respondent's claim that his mistaken detention violated his constitutional rights, the Court today relies on two alternative rationales. First, it seems to hold that the constitutional right to a speedy trial provides adequate assurance against unconstitutional detentions, so long as the initial arrest is valid. I cannot agree. A speedy trial within the meaning of the Constitution may |
Justice Stevens | 1,979 | 16 | second_dissenting | Baker v. McCollan | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110132/baker-v-mccollan/ | A speedy trial within the meaning of the Constitution may take place weeks or monthsif not yearsafter the initial arrest.[12] And many arrested personsas many as 49% of those arrested in the District of Columbiaare never tried at all, with charges being dropped at some point prior to trial.[13] Alternatively, the majority relies on the fact that the last three days of respondent's detention occurred over a holiday weekend to establish that the deprivation of his liberty was so minimal as not to require procedural protections. Whatever relevance the holiday might have to the sheriff's good-faith defense[14]an issue not presented hereit is clear to me *155 that the coincidence of a holiday weekend hardly reduces the deprivation of liberty from respondent's point of view; indeed, one might regard the deprivation of liberty as particularly serious over a holiday weekend, and require a higher standard of care at such a time. No claim is made that respondent's deprivation was due to the failure to follow otherwise applicable procedures during a holiday weekend; and no such claim could be made, since the respondent was detained for five days before the holiday weekend, and since he was brought to Potter County before the weekend without confirming his identity according to procedures which are customary in comparable police departments.[15] Certainly, occasional mistakes may be made by conscientious police officers operating under the strictest procedures. But this is hardly such a case. Here, there were no identification procedures. And the problems of mistaken identification are not, in my judgment, so insubstantial that the absence of such procedures, and the deprivation of individual liberty which results from their absence, should be lightly dismissed as of no constitutional significance. The practice of making a radio check with a centralized data bank is now a routine policy, followed not only in every traffic stop in Potter County,[16] but also in literally hundreds of thousands of cases per day nationwide.[17] The risk of misidentification based on coincidental similarity of names, birthdays, and descriptions *156 is unquestionably substantial;[18] it is reflected not only in cases processed by this Court,[19] but also in the emphasis placed on securing fingerprint identification by those responsible for the national computer system.[20] The societal interests in apprehending the guilty as well as the interests in avoiding the incarceration of the innocent equally demand that the identification of arrested persons conform to standards designed to minimize the risk of error. I am not prepared or qualified to define the standards that should govern this aspect of the law enforcement profession's work, but I have no hesitation |
Justice Marshall | 1,991 | 15 | dissenting | Peretz v. United States | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112645/peretz-v-united-states/ | In this Court held that the Federal Magistrates Act does not authorize magistrates to conduct jury selection at a felony trial. In an *941 amazing display of interpretive gymnastics, the majority twists, bends, and contorts the logic of attempting to demonstrate that the consideration critical to our holding in that case was the defendant's refusal to consent to magistrate jury selection. I find to be considerably less flexible. Our reasoning in makes clear that the absence or presence of consent is entirely irrelevant to the Federal Magistrates Act's prohibition upon magistrate jury selection in a felony trial. The majority's reconstruction of is not only unsound, but also unwise. By discarding 's categorical prohibition of magistrate felony jury selection, the majority unnecessarily raises the troubling question whether this practice is consistent with Article III of the Constitution. To compound its error, the majority resolves the constitutional question in a manner entirely inconsistent with our controlling precedents. I dissent. I A The majority purports to locate the source of a magistrate's authority to conduct consented-to felony jury selection in the Act's "additional duties" clause, which states that "[a] magistrate may be assigned such additional duties as are not inconsistent with the Constitution and laws of the United States." 28 U.S. C. 636(b)(3). Whether the additional duties clause authorizes a magistrate to conduct jury selection in a felony trial is a conventional issue of statutory interpretation. In we held that "[t]he absence of a specific reference to jury selection in the statute, or indeed, in the legislative history, persuades us that Congress did not intend the additional duties clause to embrace this function." -876 In my view, the existence of a defendant's consent has absolutely no effect on that conclusion. *942 In we rejected a literal reading of the additional duties clause that would have authorized magistrates to exercise any power not expressly prohibited by federal statute or the Constitution. See Relying on precedent and legislative history, we emphasized that the additional duties clause is to be read according to Congress' intention that magistrates "handle subsidiary matters[,] [thereby] enabl[ing] district judges to concentrate on trying cases." "If district judges are willing to experiment with the assignment to magistrates of other functions in aid of the business of the courts, there will be increased time available to judges for the careful and unhurried performance of their vital and traditional adjudicatory duties, and a consequent benefit to both efficiency and the quality of justice in the Federal courts." H. R. Rep. No. 94-1609, p. 12 (1976) (1976 amendments to Federal Magistrates Act); accord, S. Rep. |
Justice Marshall | 1,991 | 15 | dissenting | Peretz v. United States | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112645/peretz-v-united-states/ | (1976) (1976 amendments to Federal Magistrates Act); accord, S. Rep. No. 371, th Cong., 1st Sess., 26 (1967) (Federal Magistrates Act of 1968).[1] We identified two reasons in for inferring that Congress intended jury selection in felony trials to be one of the "vital and traditional adjudicatory duties" retained by district *943 judges rather than delegated to magistrates. First, we that Congress felt it necessary to define expressly a magistrate's limited authority to conduct misdemeanor and civil trials. See 28 U.S. C. 636(a)(3), 636(c). We concluded that "th[is] carefully defined grant of authority to conduct trials of civil matters and of minor criminal cases" constituted "an implicit withholding of the authority to preside at a felony trial." 4 U. S., And in light of the traditional judicial and legislative understanding that jury selection is an essential component of a felony trial,[2] we determined that Congress' intention to deny magistrates the authority to preside at felony trials also extends to jury selection. See In my view, this structural inference is not at all affected by a defendant's consent. Under the Act, consent of the parties is a necessary condition of a magistrate's statutory authority to preside at a civil or misdemeanor trial. See 18 U.S. C. 3401(b); 28 U.S. C. 636(c)(1). To hold, as the majority does, that a magistrate may likewise conduct jury selection in a felony trial so long as the defendant consents is to treat the magistrate's authority in this part of the felony trial as perfectly coextensive with his authority in civil and misdemeanor trials the reading of the Act that categorically rejected. *944 The second basis for our conclusion in that Congress intended felony jury selection to be nondelegable was Congress' failure expressly to provide for judicial review of magistrate jury selection in felony cases. The Federal Magistrates Act provides two separate standards of judicial review: "clearly erroneous or contrary to law" for magistrate resolution of nondispositive matters, see 28 U.S. C. 636(b) (1)(A), and "de novo" for magistrate resolution of dispositive matters, see 636(b)(1)(B)-(C). We deemed Congress' failure to identify any standard of judicial review for jury selection in felony trials to be persuasive evidence of Congress' intent that magistrates not perform this function. Again, I fail to see how a defendant's consent to a magistrate's exercise of such authority can alter this inference. Congress said no more about the standard of review for consented-to magistrate jury selection than it did about the standard for unconsented-to magistrate jury selection. Nor does the majority identify anything in the statute to indicate the appropriate standard for |
Justice Marshall | 1,991 | 15 | dissenting | Peretz v. United States | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112645/peretz-v-united-states/ | anything in the statute to indicate the appropriate standard for consented-to magistrate jury selection. The majority opines that "nothing in the statute precludes" judicial review, ante, at 939. However, it fails to explain how such review may be achieved. The majority's silence is regrettable. In we recognized that jury selection is most similar to the functions identified as "dispositive matters," for which the Act prescribes a de novo review standard. We expressed "serious doubts," however, as to whether any review could be meaningfully conducted.[3] We likewise concluded that re-examination *945 of individual jurors by the district judge would not be feasible because "as a practical matter a second interrogation might place jurors on the defensive, engendering prejudices irrelevant to the facts adduced at trial." These difficulties in providing effective review of magistrate jury selection were central to our construction of the Act in yet they are essentially ignored today.[4] In we found confirmation of the inferences that we drew from the statutory text in "[t]he absence of a specific reference to jury selection in the legislative history." See ante, at 930. The legislative history of the Act offers no more support for consented-to magistrate felony jury selection.[5] In response to the paucity of support for its construction, the majority notes that in we "call[ed] attention" to a House Committee Report that "referred" to a letter from a district judge mentioning jury selection as a duty assigned to *946 magistrates. Ante, at 935, n. 11. While the majority observes that the letter "`suggest[ed] that a magistrate selected juries only with consent of the parties,'" ib quoting 4 U. S., n. 30 it neglects to record other salient facts that we about this letter. In particular, the letter was the "lone reference" in the entire legislative history to such authority. Moreover, the letter suggested that magistrate jury selection took place "perhaps only in civil trials." Finally, as we pointed out in "[the letter] displays little concern about the validity of such assignments: `How can we do all of this? We just do it. It's not necessary that we find authority in black and white before we give something to the magistrate. Sure we might get shot down once in a while by an appellate court. So what?'" B It is clear that the considerations that motivated our holding in compel the conclusion that the Federal Magistrates Act does not permit magistrate felony jury selection even when the defendant consents. I find the majority's arguments to the contrary wholly unpersuasive. According to the majority, "[t]his case differs critically from " because petitioner's counsel |
Justice Marshall | 1,991 | 15 | dissenting | Peretz v. United States | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112645/peretz-v-united-states/ | majority, "[t]his case differs critically from " because petitioner's counsel consented to the delegation of jury selection to the Magistrate. Ante, at 932. Although it asserts that this factor was essential to our analysis, the majority fails to explain how consent has any bearing on the statutory power of a magistrate to conduct felony jury selection. As I have already indicated, the reasoning behind our conclusion in that Congress did not endow magistrates with jurisdiction to preside over felony jury selection had nothing to do with the defendant's refusal to consent to such jurisdiction. *947 Unable to support its revisionist construction of the Act with what we said in the majority seeks to bolster its construction by noting that, provided the parties consent, magistrates may conduct civil and misdemeanor trials and that "[t]hese duties are comparable in responsibility and importance to presiding over voir dire at a felony trial." Ante, at 933. The majority's analogy misses the point. The fact that Congress imposed the condition of consent on magistrates' exercise of expressly-provided authority does not prove that Congress also authorized magistrates to conduct trial duties not expressly enumerated in the Federal Magistrates Actsuch as supervision of felony jury selection. At most, these specifically enumerated grants of trial authority suggest that if Congress had intended to confer on magistrates authority to conduct felony jury selection, it would have predicated that authority on the parties' consent. However, as I have already discussed, see construing the Act as authorizing magistrates to conduct consented-to jury selection in felony cases merely because the Act authorizes consented-to jurisdiction in civil and misdemeanor cases is to draw an inference from Congress' silence precisely opposite to the inference we drew in[6] *948 Finally, the majority defends its construction of the additional duties clause by stating that it will permit "`continue[d] innovative experimentations' in the use of magistrates to improve the efficient administration" of the district courts. Ante, at 934. Taken literally, such a rationale admits of no limits, and for this reason it cannot function as a legitimate basis for construing the scope of a magistrate's permissible "additional duties." As in we must give content to the additional duties clause by looking to Congress' intention that magistrates be delegated administrative and other quasi-judicial tasks in order to free Article III judges to conduct trials, most particularly felony trials. See By creating authority for magistrates to preside over a "critical stage" of the felony trial, see merely because a defendant fails to request a judge, the majority completely misapprehends both Congress' conception of the appropriate role to be played |
Justice Marshall | 1,991 | 15 | dissenting | Peretz v. United States | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112645/peretz-v-united-states/ | both Congress' conception of the appropriate role to be played by magistrates and our analysis in II I have outlined why I believe the only defensible construction of the Federal Magistrates Act is that jury selection in a felony trial can never be one of a magistrate's "additional duties"regardless of whether a defendant consents. But even if I believed that mine was only one of two "reasonable" interpretations, I would still reject the majority's construction of the Act, because it needlessly raises a serious constitutional question: whether jury selection by a magistrate *949 even when a defendant consents is consistent with Article III. It is well established that we should "avoid an interpretation of a federal statute that engenders constitutional issues if a reasonable alternative interpretation poses no constitutional question." ; accord, e. g., Edward J. DeBartolo ; Commodity Futures Trading ; Given the inherent complexity of Article III questions, the canon of constitutional avoidance should apply with particular force when an Article III issue is at stake. Cf. Northern Construction ("Particularly in an area of constitutional law such as that of `Art. III Courts,' with its frequently arcane distinctions and confusing precedents, rigorous adherence to the principle that this Court should decide no more of a constitutional question than is absolutely necessary accords with both our decided cases and with sound judicial policy"). Although this principle guided our analysis in see 4 U.S., at 864, it is all but forgotten today. The majority simply dismisses altogether the seriousness of the underlying constitutional question: "[W]e have no trouble concluding that there is no Article III problem when a district court judge permits a magistrate to conduct voir dire in accordance with the defendant's consent." Ante, at 932. The majority's self-confidence is unfounded. It is only by unacceptably manipulating our Article III teachings that the majority succeeds in avoiding the difficulty that attends its construction of the Act. As the Court explained in Article III's protections have two distinct dimensions. First, Article III "safe-guard[s] litigants' `right to have claims decided before judges who are free from potential domination by other branches of *950 government.'" quoting United Second, Article III "serves as `an inseparable element of the constitutional system of checks and balances'" by preserving "the role of the Judicial Branch in our tripartite system" of government. quoting Northern Although parties may waive their personal guarantee of an independent Article III adjudicator, parties may not waive Article III's structural guarantee. "Article III, 1, safeguards the role of the Judicial Branch in our tripartite system by barring congressional attempts `to transfer |
Justice Marshall | 1,991 | 15 | dissenting | Peretz v. United States | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112645/peretz-v-united-states/ | in our tripartite system by barring congressional attempts `to transfer jurisdiction [to non-Article III tribunals] for the purpose of emasculating' constitutional courts To the extent that this structural principle is implicated in a given case, the parties cannot by consent cure the constitutional difficulty for the same reason that the parties by consent cannot confer on federal courts subject-matter jurisdiction beyond the limitations imposed by Article III, 2. When these Article III limitations are at issue, notions of consent and waiver cannot be dispositive because the limitations serve institutional interests that the parties cannot be expected to protect." 478 U.S., -851 In we recognized and attempted to accommodate "abiding concerns regarding the constitutionality of delegating felony trial duties to magistrates." See 4 U.S., at 863. Because jury selection is "a critical stage" of the felony trial, see there is a serious question, as several Courts of Appeals have whether allowing a magistrate to conduct felony jury selection "impermissibly intrude[s] on the province of the judiciary," See United cert. dism'd, ; United cert. denied, *951 Indeed, this problem admits of no easy solution. This Court's decision in United suggests that delegation of Article III powers to a magistrate is permissible only if the ultimate determinations on the merits of delegated matters are made by the district judge. See ("[A]lthough the [Federal Magistrates Act] permits the district court to give to the magistrate's proposed findings of fact and recommendations `such weight as [their] merit commands and the sound discretion of the judge warrants,' that delegation does not violate Art. III so long as the ultimate decision is made by the district court" (emphasis added; citation omitted)).[7] In we likewise emphasized the availability of de novo judicial review in upholding the performance of core Article III powers by an Article I tribunal. See But this means of satisfying the Constitution is not available here. For, as I have the Federal Magistrates Act does not expressly provide for judicial review of felony jury selection, and in we expressed "serious doubts" whether such review was even possible. See 4 U.S., The majority contends that magistrate jury selection raises no Article III structural difficulties, because "`the entire process takes place under the district court's total control and jurisdiction.'" Ante, at 937, quoting However, as and underscore, the requirement of "the district court's total control and jurisdiction" must include the availability of meaningful judicial review of the magistrate's actual rulings at jury selection. The majority's observation that "nothing in the statute precludes a district *952 court from providing the review that the Constitution requires," ante, at 939, |
per_curiam | 2,006 | 200 | per_curiam | Youngblood v. West Virginia | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/145639/youngblood-v-west-virginia/ | In April 2001, the State of West Virginia indicted petitioner Denver A. Youngblood, Jr., on charges including abduction of three young women, Katara, Kimberly, and Wendy, and two instances of sexual assault upon Katara. The cases went to trial in 2003 in the Circuit Court of Morgan County, where a jury convicted Youngblood of two counts of sexual assault, two counts of brandishing a firearm, and one count of indecent exposure. The conviction rested principally on the testimony of the three women that they were held captive by Youngblood and a friend of his, statements by Katara that she was forced at gunpoint to perform oral sex on Youngblood, and evidence consistent with a claim by Katara about disposal of certain physical evidence of their sexual encounter. Youngblood was sentenced to a combined term of 2 to 0 years' imprisonment, with 25 to 0 of those years directly attributable to the sexual-assault convictions. Several months after being sentenced, Youngblood moved to set aside the verdict. He claimed that an investigator working on his case had uncovered new and exculpatory evidence, in the form of a graphically explicit note that both squarely contradicted the State's account of the incidents and directly supported Youngblood's -sex defense. The note, apparently written by Kimberly and Wendy, taunted Youngblood and his friend for having been "played" for fools, warned them that the girls had vandalized the house where Youngblood brought them, and mockingly thanked Youngblood for performing oral sex on Katara. The note was said to have been shown to a state trooper investigating the sexual-assault allegations against Youngblood; the trooper allegedly read the note but declined to take possession of it, and told the person who produced it to destroy it. Youngblood argued that the suppression of this evidence violated the State's federal constitutional obligation to disclose evidence favorable to the defense, and in support *89 of his argument he referred to cases citing and applying The trial court denied Youngblood a new trial, saying that the note provided only impeachment, but not exculpatory, evidence. The trial court did not discuss Brady or its scope, but expressed the view that the investigating trooper had attached no importance to the note, and because he had failed to give it to the prosecutor the State could not now be faulted for failing to share it with Youngblood's counsel. See App. C to Pet. for Cert. (Tr. 22-23 (Sept. 25, 2003)). A bare majority of the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia affirmed, finding no abuse of discretion on the part of the trial court, but |
per_curiam | 2,006 | 200 | per_curiam | Youngblood v. West Virginia | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/145639/youngblood-v-west-virginia/ | of discretion on the part of the trial court, but without examining the specific constitutional claims associated with the alleged suppression of favorable evidence. Justice Davis, dissenting in an opinion that Justice Starcher joined, unambiguously characterized the trooper's instruction to discard the new evidence as a Brady -552, 18 S. E. 2d, at 559-51. The dissenters concluded that the note indicating that Youngblood engaged in sex with Katara had been suppressed and was material, n. ), both because it was at odds with the testimony provided by the State's three chief witnesses (Katara, Kimberly, and Wendy) and also because it was entirely consistent with Youngblood's defense at trial that his sexual encounters with Katara were -552, 18 S. E. 2d, at 50-51. Youngblood then filed this petition for a writ of certiorari. A Brady violation occurs when the government fails to disclose evidence materially favorable to the accused. See This Court has held that the Brady duty extends to impeachment evidence as well as exculpatory evidence, United 473 U.S. 7, 7 and Brady suppression occurs when the government fails to turn *870 over even evidence that is "known only to police investigators and not to the prosecutor," See "Such evidence is material `if there is a reasonable probability that, had the evidence been disclosed to the defense, the result of the proceeding would have been different,'" 527 U.S. 23, (quoting at 82 ), although a "showing of materiality does not require demonstration by a preponderance that disclosure of the suppressed evidence would have resulted ultimately in the defendant's acquittal," The reversal of a conviction is required upon a "showing that the favorable evidence could reasonably be taken to put the whole case in such a different light as to undermine confidence in the verdict." Youngblood clearly presented a federal constitutional Brady claim to the State Supreme Court, see Brief for Appellant in No. 3175 (Sup. Ct. App. W. Va.), pp. 42-47, as he had to the trial court, see App. C to Pet. for Cert. (Tr. 44-45, 50, 51 (Sept. 25, 2003)); And, as noted, the dissenting justices discerned the significance of the issue raised. If this Court is to reach the merits of this case, it would be better to have the benefit of the views of the full Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia on the Brady issue. We, therefore, grant the petition for certiorari, vacate the judgment of the State Supreme Court, and remand the case for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion. It is so ordered. |
per_curiam | 1,976 | 200 | per_curiam | Belcher v. Stengel | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109562/belcher-v-stengel/ | This case grew out of a barroom affray in Columbus, Ohio, in the course of which the petitioner, an off-duty Columbus police officer, shot and killed two people and permanently disabled a third. The injured victim and the representatives of the deceased victims, who are the respondents here, brought an action against the petitioner in a Federal District Court under 42 U.S. C. 1983.[1] A jury awarded them monetary *119 damages, and the judgment based upon that verdict was affirmed by the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. The petition for certiorari, which we granted on April 5, 1976, presented a single question: "Does the fact that an off-duty police officer, out of uniform, is required by police department regulation to carry a weapon at all times, establish that any use of that weapon against the person of another, even though the officer is engaged in private conduct at the time, [is] an act `under color of law' within the meaning of 42 U.S. C. 1983?"[2] The case having now been fully briefed and orally argued, it appears that the question framed in the petition for certiorari is not in fact presented by the record now before us. For in addition to the said police department regulation, there was evidence before the jury that showed: (1) The petitioner had been awarded workmen's compensation benefits for the injuries he had received in the affray, on the ground that the injuries had been incurred in the course of his employment; (2) the petitioner, after the affray, had been granted official leave on account of injuries received "in line of duty under circumstances relating to Police duties"; (3) a Board of Inquiry convened to investigate the barroom episode had determined that the petitioner's "actions were in the line of duty." Now that plenary consideration has shed more light on this case than in the nature of things was afforded at the time the petition for certiorari was considered, we have concluded that the writ should be dismissed as improvidently *120 granted. See The It is so ordered. MR. |
Justice Breyer | 2,014 | 2 | dissenting | Petrella v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2675754/petrella-v-metro-goldwyn-mayer-inc/ | Legal systems contain doctrines that help courts avoid the unfairness that might arise were legal rules to apply strictly to every case no matter how unusual the circum- stances. “[T]he nature of the equitable,” Aristotle long ago observed, is “a correction of law where it is defective owing to its universality.” Nicomachean Ethics 99 (D. Ross transl. L. Brown ed. 2009). Laches is one such equitable doctrine. It applies in those extraordinary cases where the plaintiff “unreasonably delays in filing a suit,” National Railroad Passenger 121 (2002), and, as a result, causes “unjust hardship” to the defendant, Its purpose is to avoid “inequity.” Galliher v. Cadwell, 145 U.S. 368, 373 (1892). And, as Learned Hand pointed out, it may well be “inequitable for the owner of a copyright, with full no- tice of an intended infringement, to stand inactive while the proposed infringer spends large sums of money in its exploitation, and to intervene only when his speculation has proved a success.” 2 PETRELLA v. METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER, INC. BREYER, J., dissenting Today’s decision disables federal courts from addressing that inequity. I respectfully dissent. I Circumstances warranting the application of laches in the context of copyright claims are not difficult to imagine. The 3-year limitations period under the Copyright Act may seem brief, but it is not. 17 U.S. C. That is because it is a rolling limitations period, which restarts upon each “separate accrual” of a claim. See ante, at 5; 6 W. Patry, Copyright pp. 20–44 to 20–46 (2013). If a defendant reproduces or sells an infringing work on a continuing basis, a plaintiff can sue every 3 years until the copyright term expires—which may be up to 70 years after the author’s death. (works created after January 1, 1978, are protected until 70 years after the author’s death); (works created before January 1, 1978, are protected for 28 years plus a 67-year renewal period). If, for example, a work earns no money for 20 years, but then, after development expenses have been incurred, it earns profits for the next 30, a plaintiff can sue in year 21 and at regular 3-year intervals thereafter. Each time the plain- tiff will collect the defendant’s profits earned during the prior three years, unless he settles for a lump sum along the way. The defendant will recoup no more than his outlays and any “elements of profit attributable to factors other than the copyrighted work.” (b). A 20-year delay in bringing suit could easily prove inequitable. Suppose, for example, the plaintiff has delib- erately waited for the death of witnesses who might prove |
Justice Breyer | 2,014 | 2 | dissenting | Petrella v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2675754/petrella-v-metro-goldwyn-mayer-inc/ | erately waited for the death of witnesses who might prove the existence of understandings about a license to repro- duce the copyrighted work, or who might show that the plaintiff ’s work was in fact derived from older copyrighted materials that the defendant has licensed. Or, suppose the plaintiff has delayed in bringing suit because he wants to avoid bargaining with the defendant up front over a Cite as: 572 U. S. (2014) 3 BREYER, J., dissenting license. He knows that if he delays legal action, and the defendant invests time, effort, and resources into making the derivative product, the plaintiff will be in a much stronger position to obtain favorable licensing terms through settlement. Or, suppose the plaintiff has waited until he becomes certain that the defendant’s production bet paid off, that the derivative work did and would con- tinue to earn money, and that the plaintiff has a chance of obtaining, say, an 80% share of what is now a 90% pure profit stream. aff ’g (claim that a 1960’s song infringed the “hook or riff ” from the 1926 song “Muskrat Ramble,” brought more than 30 years after the song was released); Danjaq (claim that seven James Bond films infringed a copyright to a screen- play, brought 19 to 36 years after the films were released, and where “many of the key figures in the creation of the James Bond movies ha[d] died” and “many of the relevant records [went] missing”); 889 (CA9 1994), overruled on other grounds, (claim of coauthorship of the song “Joy to the World,” brought 17 years after the plaintiff learned of his claim such that memories faded, the original paper containing the lyrics was lost, the recording studio (with its records) closed, and the defendant had “arranged his business 4 PETRELLA v. METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER, INC. BREYER, J., dissenting affairs around the Song” for years); (claim regarding the song “It’s a Man’s World,” brought 40 years after first accrual, where the plaintiff ’s memory had faded and a key piece of evidence was destroyed by fire). See also –231, 234– (claim that condominium design infringed plaintiff ’s design, brought only 2.5 years (or so) after claim accrued but after condo- minium was built, apartments were sold, and 109 families had moved in). Consider, too, the present case. The petitioner claims the MGM film Raging Bull violated a copyright originally owned by her father, which she inherited and then re- newed in 1991. She waited 18 years after renewing the copyright, until 2009, to bring suit. During those 18 years, MGM spent millions of dollars |
Justice Breyer | 2,014 | 2 | dissenting | Petrella v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2675754/petrella-v-metro-goldwyn-mayer-inc/ | suit. During those 18 years, MGM spent millions of dollars developing different edi- tions of, and marketing, the film. See App. to Pet. for Cert. 13a. MGM also entered into numerous licensing agreements, some of which allowed television networks to broadcast the film through 2015. at 14a. Meanwhile, three key witness died or became unavailable, making it more difficult for MGM to prove that it did not infringe the petitioner’s copyright (either because the 1963 screenplay was in fact derived from a different book, the rights to which MGM owned under a nonchallenged license, or because MGM held a license to the screenplay under a 1976 agreement that it signed with Jake LaMotta, who coauthored the screenplay with the petitioner’s father, see at 3a, 5a; App. 128–129, 257–258, 266–267). Conse- quently, I believe the Court of Appeals acted lawfully in dismissing the suit due to laches. Long delays do not automatically prove inequity, but, depending upon the circumstances, they raise that possi- bility. Indeed, suppose that that the copyright-holders in the song cases cited above, or their heirs, facing sudden revivals in demand or eventual deaths of witnesses, had Cite as: 572 U. S. (2014) 5 BREYER, J., dissenting brought their claims 50, or even 60 years after those claims first accrued. Or suppose that the loss of evidence was clearly critical to the defendants’ abilities to prove their cases. The Court holds that insofar as a copyright claim seeks damages, a court cannot ever apply laches, irrespective of the length of the plaintiff ’s delay, the amount of the harm that it caused, or the inequity of permitting the action to go forward. II Why should laches not be available in an appropriate case? Consider the reasons the majority offers. First, the majority says that the 3-year “copyright statute of limita- tions itself takes account of delay,” and so additional safeguards like laches are not needed. Ante, at 11. I agree that sometimes that is so. But I also fear that sometimes it is not. The majority correctly points out that the limita- tions period limits the retrospective relief a plaintiff can recover. It imposes a cap equal to the profits earned dur- ing the prior three years, in addition to any actual damages sustained during this time. Ib; Thus, if the plaintiff waits from, say, 1980 until to bring suit, she cannot recover profits for the 1980 to 1998 period. But she can recover the defendant’s profits from 1998 through which might be precisely when net revenues turned positive. And she can sue every three years thereafter until |
Justice Breyer | 2,014 | 2 | dissenting | Petrella v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2675754/petrella-v-metro-goldwyn-mayer-inc/ | positive. And she can sue every three years thereafter until the copyright expires, perhaps in the year 2060. If the plaintiff ’s suit involves the type of inequitable circum- stances I have described, her ability to recover profits from 1998 to and until the copyright expires could be just the kind of unfairness that laches is designed to prevent. Second, the majority points out that the plaintiff can recover only the defendant’s profits less “ ‘deductible ex- penses’ incurred in generating those profits.” Ante, at 12 (quoting In other words, the majority takes assurance from the fact that the Act enables the defendant 6 PETRELLA v. METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER, INC. BREYER, J., dissenting to recoup his outlays in developing or selling the allegedly infringing work. Again, sometimes that fact will prevent inequitable results. But sometimes it will not. A plain- tiff ’s delay may mean that the defendant has already recovered the majority of his expenses, and what is left is primarily profit. It may mean that the defendant has dedicated decades of his life to producing the work, such that the loss of a future profit stream (even if he can re- cover past expenses) is tantamount to the loss of any income in later years. And in circumstances such as those described, it could prove inequitable to give the profit to a plaintiff who has unnecessarily delayed in filing an action. Simply put, the “deductible expenses” provision does not protect the defendant from the potential inequity high- lighted by Judge Hand nearly 100 years ago in his influ- ential copyright opinion. That is, it does not stop a copyright-holder (or his heirs) from “stand[ing] inactive while the proposed infringer spends large sums of money” in a risky venture; appearing on the scene only when the venture has proved a success; and thereby collecting sub- stantially more money than he could have obtained at the outset, had he bargained with the investor over a license and royalty fee. 234 F., at But cf. at – 109 (plaintiff to receive injunctive relief since one of the defendants was a “deliberate pirate,” but profit award to be potentially reduced in light of laches). Third, the majority says that “[i]nviting individual judges to set a time limit other than the one Congress prescribed” in the Copyright Act would “tug against the uniformity Congress sought to achieve when it enacted ” Ante, at 15. But why does the majority believe that part of what Congress intended to “achieve” was the elimination of the equitable defense of laches? As the majority recognizes, Congress enacted a uniform |
Justice Breyer | 2,014 | 2 | dissenting | Petrella v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2675754/petrella-v-metro-goldwyn-mayer-inc/ | of laches? As the majority recognizes, Congress enacted a uniform statute of limitations for copyright claims in 1957 so that federal courts, in determining timeliness, no longer had to borrow Cite as: 572 U. S. (2014) 7 BREYER, J., dissenting from state law which varied from place to place. See ante, at 3–4. Nothing in the 1957 Act—or anywhere else in the text of the copyright statute—indicates that Congress also sought to bar the operation of laches. The Copyright Act is silent on the subject. And silence is consistent, not inconsistent, with the application of equitable doctrines. For one thing, the legislative history for shows that Congress chose not to “specifically enumerat[e] certain equitable considerations which might be advanced in connection with civil copyright actions” because it under- stood that “ ‘[f]ederal district courts, generally, recognize these equitable defenses anyway.’ ” S. Rep. No. 1014, 85th Cong., 1st Sess., 2–3 (1957) (quoting the House Judiciary Committee). Courts prior to 1957 had often applied laches in federal copyright cases. See, e.g., (assuming laches was an available defense in a copyright suit); Edwin L. Wied (applying laches to bar a copyright suit); D. O. Haynes & 216–218 (CA2 1929) (same). Congress expected they would continue to do so. Furthermore, this Court has held that federal courts may “appl[y] equitable doctrines that may toll or limit the time period” for suit when applying a statute of limita- tions, because a statutory “filing period” is a “requirement” subject to adjustment “ ‘when equity so requires.’ ” Mor- –122 ; emphasis added). This Court has read laches into statutes of limitations otherwise silent on the topic of equitable doctrines in a multitude of contexts, as have lower courts. See, e.g., Mor, (“an employer may raise a laches defense” under Title VII); Bay Area and Dry Cleaning Pension Trust Fund v. Ferbar Corp. of Cal., 522 U.S. 192, 205 (1997) (similar, in respect to suits under the 8 PETRELLA v. METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER, INC. BREYER, J., dissenting Multiemployer Pension Plan Amendments Act of 1980 (MPPAA)); Abbott 155 (1967) (similar, in respect to an action for declaratory and injunctive relief under the Administrative Procedure Act); (similar, in the case of a property action brought within New Mexico’s statute of limitations); Alsop v. Riker, 155 U.S. 448, 460 (1894) (holding that “independently of the statute of limitations,” the contract action was barred “because of laches”); & Employers Welfare Trust of (CA7 2002) (laches available “in a suit against an [Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974] (ERISA)] plan for benefits”); Hot 822–823 (CA7 1999) (laches available in a Lanham Act |
Justice Breyer | 2,014 | 2 | dissenting | Petrella v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2675754/petrella-v-metro-goldwyn-mayer-inc/ | Hot 822–823 (CA7 1999) (laches available in a Lanham Act suit filed within the limitations period). Unless Congress indicates otherwise, courts normally assume that equita- ble rules continue to operate alongside limitations periods, and that equity applies both to plaintiffs and to defend- ants. See Astoria Fed. Sav. & Loan Assn. v. Solimino, 501 U.S. 104, (1991) (“Congress is understood to legislate against a background of common-law adjudicatory princi- ples” and to incorporate them “except when a statutory purpose to the contrary is evident” (internal quotation marks and citation omitted)); (“Unless otherwise provided by statute, all the inherent equitable powers of the Dis- trict Court are available for the proper and complete exercise of that jurisdiction”). The Court today comes to a different conclusion. It reads (b)’s silence as preserving doctrines that lengthen the period for suit when equitable considerations favor the plaintiff (e.g., equitable tolling), but as foreclos- ing a doctrine that would shorten the period when equity favors the defendant (i.e., laches). See ante, at 15–16, 19– 20. I do not understand the logic of reading a silent stat- Cite as: 572 U. S. (2014) 9 BREYER, J., dissenting ute in this manner. Fourth, the majority defends its rule by observing that laches was “developed by courts of equity,” and that this Court has “cautioned against invoking laches to bar legal relief ” even following the merger of law and equity in 1938. Ante, at 12–13. The majority refers to three cases that offer support for this proposition, but none is deter- minative. In the first, Holmberg v. Armbrecht, 327 U.S. 392 the Court said: “If Congress explicitly puts a limit upon the time for enforcing a right which it created, there is an end of the matter. “Traditionally and for good reasons, statutes of limita- tion are not controlling measures of equitable relief.” –396. This statement, however, constituted part of the Court’s explanation as to why a federal statute, silent about limi- tations, should be applied consistently with “historic prin- ciples of equity in the enforcement of federally-created equitable rights” rather than with New York’s statute of limitations. The case had nothing to do with whether laches governs in actions at law. The lawsuit in Holmberg had been brought “in equity,” and the Court remanded for a determination of whether the petitioners were “chargeable with laches.” The second case the majority cites, & provides some additional sup- port, but not much. There, the Court cited a 1935 case for the proposition that “ ‘[l]aches within the term of the stat- ute of limitations is no defense at |
Justice Breyer | 2,014 | 2 | dissenting | Petrella v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2675754/petrella-v-metro-goldwyn-mayer-inc/ | of the stat- ute of limitations is no defense at law.’ ” ). But concerned a federal securities statute that con- tained both a 2-year statute of limitations, running from the time of “discovery,” and a 5-year statute of repose, 10 PETRELLA v. METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER, INC. BREYER, J., dissenting running from the time of a “violation.” at 638 (citing 28 U.S. C. Given that repose statutes set “an outside limit” on suit and are generally “inconsistent with tolling” and similar equitable doctrines, the Court held that the 2-year limitations period at issue was not subject to an “inquiry notice” rule or, by analogy, to laches. Lampf, Pleva, Lipkind, Prupis & Petigrow v. Gilbertson, 501 U.S. 350, 363 (1991) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted); at 650–652. did not suggest that statutes of limitations are always or normally incon- sistent with equitable doctrines when plaintiffs seek dam- ages. It simply found additional support for its conclusion in a case that this Court decided before the merger of law and equity. And here, unlike in the statute of limitations is not accompanied by a corollary statute of repose. Third, in County of the Court said in a footnote that “application of the equitable defense of laches in an action at law would be novel indeed.” This statement was made in light of special policies re- lated to Indian tribes, which the Court went on to discuss in the following sentences. Ib In any event, Oneida did not resolve whether laches was available to the defend- ants, for the lower court had not ruled on the issue. at 244–245. In sum, there is no reason to believe that the Court meant any of its statements in Holmberg, or Oneida to announce a general rule about the availability of laches in actions for legal relief, whenever Congress pro- vides a statute of limitations. To the contrary, the Court has said more than once that a defendant could invoke laches in an action for damages (even though no assertion of the defense had actually been made in the case), despite a fixed statute of limitations. See Mor, 536 U.S., at 116–119, 121–122 (laches available in hostile work envi- Cite as: 572 U. S. (2014) 11 BREYER, J., dissenting ronment claims seeking damages under Title VII); Bay Area (laches available in ac- tions for “withdrawal liability assessment[s]” under the MPPAA). Lower courts have come to similar holdings in a wide array of circumstances—often approving not only of the availability of the laches defense, but of its application to the case at hand. E.g., Cayuga Indian Nation of |
Justice Breyer | 2,014 | 2 | dissenting | Petrella v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2675754/petrella-v-metro-goldwyn-mayer-inc/ | to the case at hand. E.g., Cayuga Indian Nation of N. Y. v. Pataki, (laches avail- able in a “possessory land claim” in which the District Court awarded damages, whether “characterized as an action at law or in equity,” and dismissing the action due to laches); – (laches avail- able in suits under ERISA for benefits, but not warranted in that case); Hot –827 (“[T]he ap- plication of the doctrine of laches to Hot ’s Lanham Act claims [requesting damages] by the district court was proper”); A. C. Aukerman (en banc) (laches available in patent suit claiming damages, and remanding for whether the defense was successful); 1376–1383 (CAFed 1988) (en banc) (same, in suit seeking backpay). Even if we focus only upon federal copyright litigation, four of the six Circuits to have considered the matter have held that laches can bar claims for legal relief. See 695 F.3d 946, 956 (CA9 2012) (case below, barring all copy- right claims due to laches); Peter Letterese & Assocs., Inc. v. World Inst. of Scientology Enterprises, Int’l, 533 F.3d 1287, 1319–1322 (CA11 2008) (laches can bar copyright claims for retrospective damages); 474 F.3d, at 234– (“laches can be argued ‘regardless of whether the suit is at law or in equity,’ ” and holding that while the plaintiffs could obtain damages and an injunction, their request for additional equitable relief “smack[ed] of the inequity against which Judge Hand cautioned in and which the judicial system should abhor” (quoting Team- 12 PETRELLA v. METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER, INC. BREYER, J., dissenting )); Jacobsen v. Deseret Book Co., 287 F. 3d 936, 950–951 (CA10 2002) (laches available in “ ‘rare cases,’ ” and failing to draw a distinction in the type of remedy sought (citation omitted). But see New Era Publi- cations 584–585 (CA2 1989) (laches can bar claims for injunctive relief, but not damages, under the Copyright Act); Lyons Partner- ship, L. 798– 799 (laches unavailable in copyright cases altogether). Perhaps more importantly, in permitting laches to apply to copyright claims seeking equitable relief but not to those seeking legal relief, the majority places insufficient weight upon the rules and practice of modern litigation. Since 1938, Congress and the Federal Rules have replaced what would once have been actions “at law” and actions “in equity” with the “civil action.” Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 2 (“There is one form of action—the civil action”). A federal civil action is subject to both equitable and legal defenses. Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 8(c)(1) (“In responding to a pleading, a party must affirmatively state any avoidance or affirma- tive defense, including: estoppel laches |
Justice Breyer | 2,014 | 2 | dissenting | Petrella v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2675754/petrella-v-metro-goldwyn-mayer-inc/ | state any avoidance or affirma- tive defense, including: estoppel laches [and] statute of limitations”). Accordingly, since 1938, federal courts have frequently allowed defendants to assert what were formerly equitable defenses—including laches—in what were formerly legal actions. See at 10–11 (citing cases). Why should copyright be treated differ- ently? Indeed, the majority concedes that “restitutional remedies” like “profits” (which are often claimed in copy- right cases) defy clear classification as “equitable” or “legal.” Ante, at 2, n. 1 (internal quotation marks omit- ted). Why should lower courts have to make these uneasy and unnatural distinctions? Fifth, the majority believes it can prevent the inequities that laches seeks to avoid through the use of a different doctrine, namely equitable estoppel. Ante, at 19. I doubt Cite as: 572 U. S. (2014) 13 BREYER, J., dissenting that is so. As the majority recognizes, “the two defenses are differently oriented.” Ib The “gravamen” of estop- pel is a misleading representation by the plaintiff that the defendant relies on to his detriment. 6 Patry, Copyright at 20–110 to 20–112. The gravamen of laches is the plaintiff ’s unreasonable delay, and the consequent prejudice to the defendant. at 20–96. Where due to the passage of time, evidence favorable to the de- fense has disappeared or the defendant has continued to invest in a derivative work, what misleading representa- tion by the plaintiff is there to estop? In sum, as the majority says, the doctrine of laches may occupy only a “ ‘little place’ ” in a regime based upon stat- utes of limitations. Ante, at 20 (quoting 1 D. Dobbs, Law of Remedies p. 152 (2d ed. 1993)). But that place is an important one. In those few and unusual cases where a plaintiff unreasonably delays in bringing suit and consequently causes inequitable harm to the defendant, the doctrine permits a court to bring about a fair result. I see no reason to erase the doctrine from copyright’s lexi- con, not even in respect to limitations periods applicable to damages actions. Consequently, with respect, I dissent |
Justice Scalia | 1,995 | 9 | dissenting | McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Comm'n | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/117921/mcintyre-v-ohio-elections-commn/ | At a time when both political branches of Government and both political parties reflect a popular desire to leave more decision making authority to the States, today's decision moves in the opposite direction, adding to the legacy of inflexible central mandates (irrevocable even by Congress) imposed by this Court's constitutional jurisprudence. In an opinion which reads as though it is addressing some peculiar law like the Los Angeles municipal ordinance at issue in the Court invalidates a species of protection for the election process that exists, in a variety of forms, in every State except California, and that has a pedigree dating back to the end of the 19th century. Preferring the views of the English utilitarian philosopher John Stuart Mill, ante, at 357, to the considered judgment of the American people's elected representatives from coast to coast, the Court discovers a hitherto unknown right-to-beunknown while engaging in electoral politics. I dissent from this imposition of free-speech imperatives that are demonstrably not those of the American people today, and that there is inadequate reason to believe were those of the society that begat the First Amendment or the Fourteenth. I The question posed by the present case is not the easiest sort to answer for those who adhere to the Court's (and the *372 society's) traditional view that the Constitution bears its original meaning and is unchanging. Under that view, "[o]n every question of construction, [we should] carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted; recollect the spirit manifested in the debates; and instead of trying [to find] what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed." T. Jefferson, Letter to William Johnson (June 12, 1823), in 15 Writings of Thomas Jefferson 39, 9 (A. Lipscomb ed. 190). That technique is simple of application when government conduct that is claimed to violate the Bill of Rights or the Fourteenth Amendment is shown, upon investigation, to have been engaged in without objection at the very time the Bill of Rights or the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted. There is no doubt, for example, that laws against libel and obscenity do not violate "the freedom of speech" to which the First Amendment refers; they existed and were universally approved in 91. Application of the principle of an unchanging Constitution is also simple enough at the other extreme, where the government conduct at issue was not engaged in at the time of adoption, and there is ample evidence that the reason it was not engaged in is |
Justice Scalia | 1,995 | 9 | dissenting | McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Comm'n | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/117921/mcintyre-v-ohio-elections-commn/ | evidence that the reason it was not engaged in is that it was thought to violate the right embodied in the constitutional guarantee. Racks and thumbscrews, well-known instruments for inflicting pain, were not in use because they were regarded as cruel punishments. The present case lies between those two extremes. Anonymous electioneering was not prohibited by law in 91 or in 1868. In fact, it was widely practiced at the earlier date, an understandable legacy of the revolutionary era in which political dissent could produce governmental reprisal. I need not dwell upon the evidence of that, since it is described at length in today's concurrence. See ante, at 360โ 369 (Thomas, J., concurring in judgment). The practice of anonymous electioneering may have been less general in 1868, *373 when the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted, but at least as late as 1837 it was respectable enough to be engaged in by Abraham Lincoln. See 1 A. Beveridge, Abraham Lincoln 1809-1858, pp. 215-216 (1928); 1 Uncollected Works of Abraham Lincoln 155-161 (R. Wilson ed. 197). But to prove that anonymous electioneering was used frequently is not to establish that it is a constitutional right. Quite obviously, not every restriction upon expression that did not exist in 91 or in 1868 is ipso facto unconstitutional, or else modern election laws such as those involved in and would be prohibited, as would (to mention only a few other categories) modern anti noise regulation of the sort involved in and and modern parade-permitting regulation of the sort involved in Evidence that anonymous electioneering was regarded as a constitutional right is sparse, and as far as I am aware evidence that it was generally regarded as such is nonexistent. The concurrence points to "freedom of the press" objections that were made against the refusal of some Federalist newspapers to publish unsigned essays opposing the proposed Constitution (on the ground that they might be the work of foreign agents). See ante, at 36-366 (Thomas, J., concurring in judgment). But, of course, if every partisan cry of "freedom of the press" were accepted as valid, our Constitution would be unrecognizable; and if one were to generalize from these particular cries, the First Amendment would be not only a protection for newspapers, but a restriction upon them. Leaving aside, however, the fact that no governmental action was involved, the Anti-Federalists had a point, inasmuch as the editorial proscription of anonymity applied only to them, and thus had the vice of viewpoint discrimination. (Hence the comment by Philadelphiensis, *37 quoted in the concurrence: "`Here we see pretty plainly through [the |
Justice Scalia | 1,995 | 9 | dissenting | McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Comm'n | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/117921/mcintyre-v-ohio-elections-commn/ | in the concurrence: "`Here we see pretty plainly through [the Federalists'] excellent regulation of the press, how things are to be carried on after the adoption of the new constitution.' " Ante, at 365 (quoting Philadelphiensis, Essay I, Independent Gazetteer, Nov. 7, 87, in 3 Complete Anti-Federalist 103 (H. Storing ed. 1981)).) The concurrence recounts other pre- and post-Revolution examples of defense of anonymity in the name of "freedom of the press," but not a single one involves the context of restrictions imposed in connection with a free, democratic election, which is all that is at issue here. For many of them, moreover, such as the 35 Zenger trial, ante, at 361, the 79 "Leonidas" controversy in the Continental Congress, ib and the 79 action by the New Jersey Legislative Council against Isaac Collins, ante, at 362, the issue of anonymity was incidental to the (unquestionably free-speech) issue of whether criticism of the government could be punished by the state. Thus, the sum total of the historical evidence marshaled by the concurrence for the principle of constitutional entitlement to anonymous electioneering is partisan claims in the debate on ratification (which was almost like an election) that a viewpoint-based restriction on anonymity by newspaper editors violates freedom of speech. This absence of historical testimony concerning the point before us is hardly remarkable. The issue of a governmental prohibition upon anonymous electioneering in particular (as opposed to a government prohibition upon anonymous publication in general) simply never arose. Indeed, there probably never arose even the abstract question whether electoral openness and regularity was worth such a governmental restriction upon the normal right to anonymous speech. The idea of close government regulation of the electoral process is a more modern phenomenon, arriving in this country in the late 1800's. See *375 What we have, then, is the most difficult case for determining the meaning of the Constitution. No accepted existence of governmental restrictions of the sort at issue here demonstrates their constitutionality, but neither can their nonexistence clearly be attributed to constitutional objections. In such a case, constitutional adjudication necessarily involves not just history but judgment: judgment as to whether the government action under challenge is consonant with the concept of the protected freedom (in this case, the freedom of speech and of the press) that existed when the constitutional protection was accorded. In the present case, absent other indication, I would be inclined to agree with the concurrence that a society which used anonymous political debate so regularly would not regard as constitutional even moderate restrictions made to improve the election process. |
Justice Scalia | 1,995 | 9 | dissenting | McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Comm'n | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/117921/mcintyre-v-ohio-elections-commn/ | constitutional even moderate restrictions made to improve the election process. (I would, however, want further evidence of common practice in 1868, since I doubt that the Fourteenth Amendment time-warped the post-Civil War States back to the Revolution.) But there is other indication, of the most weighty sort: the widespread and long-standing traditions of our people. Principles of liberty fundamental enough to have been embodied within constitutional guarantees are not readily erased from the Nation's consciousness. A governmental practice that has become general throughout the United States, and particularly one that has the validation of long, accepted usage, bears a strong presumption of constitutionality. And that is what we have before us here. Ohio Rev. Code Ann. ง 3599.09(A) (1988) was enacted by the General Assembly of the State of Ohio almost 80 years ago. See Act of May 27, 1915, 1915 Ohio Leg. Acts 350. Even at the time of its adoption, there was nothing unique or extraordinary about it. The earliest statute of this sort was adopted by Massachusetts in 1890, little more than 20 years after the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified. No *376 less than 2 States had similar laws by the end of World War I,[1] and today every State of the Union except California has one,[2] as does the District of Columbia, see D. C. Code *377 Ann. ง 1-120 and as does the Federal Government where advertising relating to candidates for federal office is concerned, see 2 U.S. C. ง 1d(a). Such a universal[3] and long-established American legislative practice must be given precedence, I think, over historical and academic speculation regarding a restriction that assuredly does not go to the heart of free speech. It can be said that we ignored a tradition as old, and almost as widespread, in where we held unconstitutional a state law prohibiting desecration of the United States flag. See also United But those cases merely *378 stand for the proposition that post adoption tradition cannot alter the core meaning of a constitutional guarantee. As we said in Johnson, "[i]f there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable." Prohibition of expression of contempt for the flag, whether by contemptuous words, see or by burning the flag, came, we said, within that "bedrock principle." The law at issue here, by contrast, forbids the expression of no idea, but merely requires identification of the speaker when the idea is uttered in the electoral context. It is at the |
Justice Scalia | 1,995 | 9 | dissenting | McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Comm'n | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/117921/mcintyre-v-ohio-elections-commn/ | is uttered in the electoral context. It is at the periphery of the First Amendment, like the law at issue in where we took guidance from tradition in upholding against constitutional attack restrictions upon electioneering in the vicinity of polling places, see -206 ; II The foregoing analysis suffices to decide this case for me. Where the meaning of a constitutional text (such as "the freedom of speech") is unclear, the widespread and longaccepted practices of the American people are the best indication of what fundamental beliefs it was intended to enshrine. Even if I were to close my eyes to practice, however, and were to be guided exclusively by deductive analysis from our case law, I would reach the same result. Three basic questions must be answered to decide this case. Two of them are readily answered by our precedents; the third is readily answered by common sense and by a decent regard for the practical judgment of those more familiar with elections than we are. The first question is whether protection of the election process justifies limitations upon speech that cannot constitutionally be imposed generally. (If not, which invalidated a flat ban on *379 all anonymous leaf letting, controls the decision here.) Our cases plainly answer that question in the affirmativeโindeed, they suggest that no justification for regulation is more compelling than protection of the electoral process. "Other rights, even the most basic, are illusory if the right to vote is undermined." The State has a "compelling interest in preserving the integrity of its election process." So significant have we found the interest in protecting the electoral process to be that we have approved the prohibition of political speech entirely in areas that would impede that process. The second question relevant to our decision is whether a "right to anonymity" is such a prominent value in our constitutional system that even protection of the electoral process cannot be purchased at its expense. The answer, again, is clear: no. Several of our cases have held that in peculiar circumstances the compelled disclosure of a person's identity would unconstitutionally deter the exercise of First Amendment associational rights. See, e. g., ; ; But those cases did not acknowledge any general right to anonymity, or even any right on the part of all citizens to ignore the particular laws under challenge. Rather, they recognized a right to an exemption from otherwise valid disclosure requirements on the part of someone who could show a "reasonable probability" that the compelled disclosure would result in "threats, harassment, or reprisals from either Government officials or |
Justice Scalia | 1,995 | 9 | dissenting | McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Comm'n | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/117921/mcintyre-v-ohio-elections-commn/ | in "threats, harassment, or reprisals from either Government officials or private parties." This last quotation is from which prescribed the safety valve of a similar exemption in upholding the disclosure requirements of the Federal Election Campaign Act. That is the answer our case law provides *380 to the Court's fear about the "tyranny of the majority," ante, at 357, and to its concern that "`[p]ersecuted groups and sects from time to time throughout history have been able to criticize oppressive practices and laws either anonymously or not at all,' " ante, at 32 (quoting Talley, ). Anonymity can still be enjoyed by those who require it, without utterly destroying useful disclosure laws. The record in this case contains not even a hint that Mrs. McIntyre feared "threats, harassment, or reprisals"; indeed, she placed her name on some of her fliers and meant to place it on all of them. See App. 12, 36-0. The existence of a generalized right of anonymity in speech was rejected by this Court in Lewis Publishing which held that newspapers desiring the privilege of second-class postage could be required to provide to the Postmaster General, and to publish, a statement of the names and addresses of their editors, publishers, business managers, and owners. We rejected the argument that the First Amendment forbade the requirement of such disclosure. The provision that gave rise to that case still exists, see 39 U.S. C. ง 3685, and is still enforced by the Postal Service. It is one of several federal laws seemingly invalidated by today's opinion. The Court's unprecedented protection for anonymous speech does not even have the virtue of establishing a clear (albeit erroneous) rule of law. For after having announced that this statute, because it "burdens core political speech," requires "`exacting scrutiny' " and must be "narrowly tailored to serve an overriding state interest," ante, at 37 (ordinarily the kiss of death), the opinion goes on to proclaim soothingly (and unhelpfully) that "a State's enforcement interest might justify a more limited identification requirement," ante, at 353. See also ante, at 358 (Ginsburg, J., concurring) ("We do not hold that the State may not in other, larger circumstances require the speaker to disclose its interest by disclosing its identity"). Perhaps, then, not *381 all the state statutes I have alluded to are invalid, but just some of them; or indeed maybe all of them remain valid in "larger circumstances"! It may take decades to work out the shape of this newly expanded right-to-speak-incognito, even in the elections field. And in other areas, of course, a whole new |
Justice Scalia | 1,995 | 9 | dissenting | McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Comm'n | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/117921/mcintyre-v-ohio-elections-commn/ | field. And in other areas, of course, a whole new boutique of wonderful First Amendment litigation opens its doors. Must a parade permit, for example, be issued to a group that refuses to provide its identity, or that agrees to do so only under assurance that the identity will not be made public? Must a municipally owned theater that is leased for private productions book anonymously sponsored presentations? Must a government periodical that has a "letters to the editor" column disavow the policy that most newspapers have against the publication of anonymous letters? Must a public university that makes its facilities available for a speech by Louis Farrakhan or David Duke refuse to disclose the on-campus or off-campus group that has sponsored or paid for the speech? Must a municipal "public-access" cable channel permit anonymous (and masked) performers? The silliness that follows upon a generalized right to anonymous speech has no end. The third and last question relevant to our decision is whether the prohibition of anonymous campaigning is effective in protecting and enhancing democratic elections. In answering this question no, the Justices of the majority set their own viewsโon a practical matter that bears closely upon the real-life experience of elected politicians and not upon that of unelected judgesโup against the views of 9 (and perhaps all 50, see n. ) state legislatures and the Federal Congress. We might also add to the list on the other side the legislatures of foreign democracies: Australia, Canada, and England, for example, all have prohibitions upon anonymous campaigning. See, e. g., Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918, ง 328 (Australia); Canada Elections Act, R. S. C., ch. E-2, ง 261 (1985); Representation of the People Act, 1983, ง 110 (England). How is it, one must wonder, that *382 all of these elected legislators, from around the country and around the world, could not see what six Justices of this Court see so clearly that they are willing to require the entire Nation to act upon it: that requiring identification of the source of campaign literature does not improve the quality of the campaign? The Court says that the State has not explained "why it can more easily enforce the direct bans on disseminating false documents against anonymous authors and distributors than against wrongdoers who might use false names and addresses in an attempt to avoid detection." Ante, at 352-353. I am not sure what this complicated comparison means. I am sure, however, that (1) a person who is required to put his name to a document is much less likely to lie than one |
Justice Scalia | 1,995 | 9 | dissenting | McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Comm'n | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/117921/mcintyre-v-ohio-elections-commn/ | a document is much less likely to lie than one who can lie anonymously, and (2) the distributor of a leaflet which is unlawful because it is anonymous runs much more risk of immediate detection and punishment than the distributor of a leaflet which is unlawful because it is false. Thus, people will be more likely to observe a signing requirement than a naked "no falsity" requirement; and, having observed that requirement, will then be significantly less likely to lie in what they have signed. But the usefulness of a signing requirement lies not only in promoting observance of the law against campaign falsehoods (though that alone is enough to sustain it). It lies also in promoting a civil and dignified level of campaign debateโ which the State has no power to command, but ample power to encourage by such undemanding measures as a signature requirement. Observers of the past few national elections have expressed concern about the increase of character assassinationโ"mudslinging" is the colloquial termโengaged in by political candidates and their supporters to the detriment of the democratic process. Not all of this, in fact not much of it, consists of actionable untruth; most is innuendo, or demeaning characterization, or mere disclosure of items of personal life that have no bearing upon suitability for office. *383 Imagine how much all of this would increase if it could be done anonymously. The principal impediment against it is the reluctance of most individuals and organizations to be publicly associated with uncharitable and uncivil expression. Consider, moreover, the increased potential for "dirty tricks." It is not unheard-of for campaign operatives to circulate material over the name of their opponents or their opponents' supporters (a violation of election laws) in order to attract or alienate certain interest groups. See, e. g., B. Felknor, Political Mischief: Smear, Sabotage, and Reform in U. S. Elections 111-112 (fake United Mine Workers' newspaper assembled by the National Republican Congressional Committee); New 76 Misc. 2d 98, (Sup. 197) How much easierโand sanction free!โit would be to circulate anonymous material (for example, a really tasteless, though not actionably false, attack upon one's own candidate) with the hope and expectation that it will be attributed to, and held against, the other side. The Court contends that demanding the disclosure of the pamphleteer's identity is no different from requiring the disclosure of any other information that may reduce the persuasiveness of the pamphlet's message. See ante, at 38-39. It cites Miami Herald Publishing 18 U.S. 21 (197), which held it unconstitutional to require a newspaper that had published an editorial critical |
Justice Scalia | 1,995 | 9 | dissenting | McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Comm'n | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/117921/mcintyre-v-ohio-elections-commn/ | to require a newspaper that had published an editorial critical of a particular candidate to furnish space for that candidate to reply. But it is not usual for a speaker to put forward the best arguments against himself, and it is a great imposition upon free speech to make him do so. Whereas it is quite usualโit is expectedโfor a speaker to identify himself, and requiring that is (at least when there are no special circumstances present) virtually no imposition at all. We have approved much more onerous disclosure requirements in the name of fair elections. In 2 *38 U. S. 1 we upheld provisions of the Federal Election Campaign Act that required private individuals to report to the Federal Election Commission independent expenditures made for communications advocating the election or defeat of a candidate for federal office. Our primary rationale for upholding this provision was that it served an "informational interest" by "increas[ing] the fund of information concerning those who support the candidates." The provision before us here serves the same informational interest, as well as more important interests, which I have discussed above. The Court's attempt to distinguish see ante, at 356, would be unconvincing, even if it were accurate in its statement that the disclosure requirement there at issue "reveals far less information" than requiring disclosure of the identity of the author of a specific campaign statement. That happens not to be accurate, since the provision there at issue required not merely "[d]isclosure of an expenditure and its use, without more." Ante, at 355. It required, among other things: "the identification of each person to whom expenditures have been made within the calendar year in an aggregate amount or value in excess of $100, the amount, date, and purpose of each such expenditure and the name and address of, and office sought by, each candi- date on whose behalf such expenditure was made." 2 U.S. C. ง 3(b)(9) (1970 ed., Supp. IV) (emphasis added). See also 2 U.S. C. ง 3(e) (1970 ed., Supp. IV). (Both reproduced in Appendix to) Surely in many if not most cases, this information will readily permit identification of the particular message that the would-be-anonymous campaigner sponsored. Besides which the burden of complying with this provision, which includes the filing of quarterly reports, is infinitely more onerous than Ohio's simple requirement for signature of *385 campaign literature. If remains the law, this is an easy case. * * * I do not know where the Court derives its perception that "anonymous pamphleteering is not a pernicious, fraudulent practice, but an honorable tradition |
Justice Thomas | 2,007 | 1 | second_dissenting | Philip Morris USA v. Williams | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/145758/philip-morris-usa-v-williams/ | I join Justice GINSBURG's dissent in full. I write separately to reiterate my view that "`the Constitution does not constrain the size of punitive damages awards.'" State Farm Mut. Automobile Ins. ). It matters not that the Court styles today's holding as "procedural" because the "procedural" rule is simply a confusing implementation of the substantive due process regime this Court has created for punitive damages. See Pacific Mut. Life Ins. ("In 1868 punitive damages were undoubtedly an established part of the American common law of torts. It is clear that *1068 no particular procedures were deemed necessary to circumscribe a jury's discretion regarding the award of such damages, or their amount"). Today's opinion proves once again that this Court's punitive damages jurisprudence is "insusceptible of principled application." BMW of North America, Justice GINSBURG, with whom Justice SCALIA and Justice THOMAS join, dissenting. The purpose of punitive damages, it can hardly be denied, is not to compensate, but to punish. Punish for what? Not for harm actually caused "strangers to the litigation," ante, at 1063, the Court states, but for the reprehensibility of defendant's conduct, ante, at 1063-1064. "[C]onduct that risks harm to many," the Court observes, "is likely more reprehensible than conduct that risks harm to only a few." Ante, at 1065. The Court thus conveys that, when punitive damages are at issue, a jury is properly instructed to consider the extent of harm suffered by others as a measure of reprehensibility, but not to mete out punishment for injuries in fact sustained by nonparties. Ante, at 1063-1065. The Oregon courts did not rule otherwise. They have endeavored to follow our decisions, most recently in BMW of North America, and State Farm Mut. Automobile Ins. and have "deprive[d] [no jury] of proper legal guidance," ante, at 1064. Vacation of the Oregon Supreme Court's judgment, I am convinced, is unwarranted. The right question regarding reprehensibility, the Court acknowledges, ante, at 8, would train on "the harm that Philip Morris was prepared to inflict on the smoking public at large." ). See The Court identifies no evidence introduced and no charge delivered inconsistent with that inquiry. The Court's order vacating the Oregon Supreme Court's judgment is all the more inexplicable considering that Philip Morris did not preserve any objection to the charges in fact delivered to the jury, to the evidence introduced at trial, or to opposing counsel's argument. The sole objection Philip Morris preserved was to the trial court's refusal to give defendant's requested charge number 34. See The proposed instruction read in pertinent part: "If you determine that some amount |
Justice Thomas | 2,007 | 1 | second_dissenting | Philip Morris USA v. Williams | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/145758/philip-morris-usa-v-williams/ | read in pertinent part: "If you determine that some amount of punitive damages should be imposed on the defendant, it will then be your task to set an amount that is appropriate. This should be such amount as you believe is necessary to achieve the objectives of deterrence and punishment. While there is no set formula to be applied in reaching an appropriate amount, I will now advise you of some of the factors that you may wish to consider in this connection. "(1) The size of any punishment should bear a reasonable relationship to the harm caused to Jesse Williams by the defendant's punishable misconduct. Although you may consider the extent of harm suffered by others in determining what that reasonable relationship is, you are not to punish the defendant for the impact of its alleged misconduct on other *1069 persons, who may bring lawsuits of their own in which other juries can resolve their claims and award punitive damages for those harms, as such other juries see fit. "(2) The size of the punishment may appropriately reflect the degree of reprehensibility of the defendant's conductthat is, how far the defendant has departed from accepted societal norms of conduct." App. 280a. Under that charge, just what use could the jury properly make of "the extent of harm suffered by others"? The answer slips from my grasp. A judge seeking to enlighten rather than confuse surely would resist delivering the requested charge. The Court ventures no opinion on the propriety of the charge proposed by Philip Morris, though Philip Morris preserved no other objection to the trial proceedings. Rather than addressing the one objection Philip Morris properly preserved, the Court reaches outside the bounds of the case as postured when the trial court entered its judgment. I would accord more respectful treatment to the proceedings and dispositions of state courts that sought diligently to adhere to our changing, less than crystalline precedent. * * * For the reasons stated, and in light of the abundant evidence of "the potential harm [Philip Morris'] conduct could have caused," ante, at 1063 (emphasis deleted), I would affirm the decision of the Oregon Supreme Court. |
Justice Stevens | 1,990 | 16 | concurring | Maryland v. Buie | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112384/maryland-v-buie/ | Today the Court holds that reasonable suspicion, rather than probable cause, is necessary to support a protective sweep while an arrest is in progress. I agree with that holding and with the Court's opinion, but I believe it is important to emphasize that the standard applies only to protective sweeps. Officers conducting such a sweep must have a reasonable basis for believing that their search will reduce the danger of harm to themselves or of violent interference with their mission; in short, the search must be protective. In this case, to justify Officer Frolich's entry into the basement, it is the State's burden to demonstrate that the officers had a reasonable basis for believing not only that someone in the basement might attack them or otherwise try to interfere with the arrest, but also that it would be safer to go down the stairs instead of simply guarding them from above until respondent had been removed from the house. The fact that respondent offered no resistance when he emerged from the basement is somewhat inconsistent with the hypothesis that the danger of an attack by a hidden confederate persisted after the arrest. Moreover, Officer Rozar testified that he was not worried about any possible danger when he arrested Buie. App. 9.[1] Officer Frolich, who conducted the search, *338 supplied no explanation for why he might have thought another person was in the basement. He said only that he "had no idea who lived there." This admission is made telling by Officer Frolich's participation in the 3-day prearrest surveillance of Buie's home. The Maryland Court of Appeals was under the impression that the search took place after "Buie was safely outside the house, handcuffed and unarmed." All of this suggests that no reasonable suspicion of danger justified the entry into the basement. Indeed, were the officers concerned about safety, one would expect them to do what Officer Rozar did before the arrest: guard the basement door to prevent surprise attacks. App. 5. As the Court indicates, Officer Frolich might, at the time of the arrest, reasonably have "look[ed] in" the already open basement door, ante, at 334, to ensure that no accomplice had followed Buie to the stairwell. But Officer Frolich did not merely "look in" the basement; he entered it.[] That strategy is sensible if one wishes to search the basement. It is a surprising choice for an officer, worried about safety, who need not risk entering the stairwell at all. The State may thus face a formidable task on remand. However, the Maryland courts are better equipped than are |
Justice Stevens | 1,977 | 16 | majority | Knebel v. Hein | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109575/knebel-v-hein/ | Under the program administered by the Secretary of Agriculture and cooperating state agencies pursuant to the Food Stamp Act of 1964, 7 U.S. C. 2011 et seq. (1970 ed. and Supp. V), certain low-income households are entitled to purchase food coupons at a discount. The price an eligible household must pay for food stamps is determined, in part, by its "income" as defined in the applicable federal and state regulations. Under those regulations a transportation allowance, which appellee receives from the State of Iowa and uses to defray the cost of commuting to a nurses' training program, is treated as "income." The questions presented on this appeal are whether those regulations are authorized by the statute and, if so, whether they are constitutional. Appellee Hein, a divorced woman with custody of two children, is the head of a household receiving assistance.[1] Prior to September 1972, she paid only $46 for food stamps with a retail value of $92. Thereafter she received a grant from the State which paid her tuition at a nurses' training *290 school, plus a transportation allowance of $44 per month.[2] The actual monthly expense of commuting between her residence in Muscatine, Iowa, and the school in Davenport amounted to at least $44.[3] The allowance nevertheless increased the "income" which determined the price of her food stamps,[4] resulting in a $12 price increase. After exhausting state administrative remedies, appellee filed a class action in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Iowa seeking to enjoin the enforcement of the Iowa regulations requiring that transportation allowances be included in income. Because the constitutionality of the regulations was challenged, a three-judge court was convened pursuant to 28 U.S. C. 2281.[5] The District *291 Court originally held the Iowa regulation invalid as inconsistent with the regulations of the Secretary of Agriculture.[6] While the State's appeal was pending in this Court, the Secretary promulgated a clarifying amendment eliminating the basis for the District Court's holding.[7] We therefore vacated the original judgment, On remand, the Secretary of Agriculture was joined as an additional defendant. The District Court then held both the state and the federal regulations invalid. The court could identify no rational basis for treating as income a training allowance which is fully expended for its intended purpose. Consequently, the court reasoned, the regulation did not implement the statutory objective of providing adequate nutrition for low-income families. Since the allowance did not increase appellee's "food purchasing power," the District Court felt that it was totally irrational for the allowance to increase the cost of appellee's food stamps. This |
Justice Stevens | 1,977 | 16 | majority | Knebel v. Hein | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109575/knebel-v-hein/ | allowance to increase the cost of appellee's food stamps. This analysis led to the conclusion that the regulation conflicted with the Food Stamp Act and discriminated against recipients of transportation allowances in violation of the equal protection guarantee explicit in the Fourteenth Amendment and implicit in the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.[8] *292 We are persuaded that the statute authorized the Secretary and the State of Iowa to issue the challenged regulations and that the regulations are constitutional. The salutary purpose and the broad outlines of the federal food stamp program are well known.[9] The Food Stamp Act authorizes the Secretary to "formulate and administer a food stamp program" which will provide an eligible household "an opportunity to obtain a nutritionally adequate diet," 7 U.S. C. 2013 (a). He is to "prescribe the amounts of household income and other financial resources, including both liquid and nonliquid assets, to be used as criteria of eligibility," 7 U.S. C. 2014 (b) (1970 ed., Supp. V). The charge for the coupons is to "represent a reasonable investment on the part of the household, but in no event more than 30 per centum of the household's income" 2016 (b). Finally, the Secretary "shall issue such regulations, not inconsistent with this chapter, as he deems necessary or appropriate for the effective and efficient administration of the food stamp program." 2013 (c). *293 Under the statute's broad delegation of authority, the Secretary might have defined income in a variety of ways. He might, for example, have treated wages differently from training allowances. He decided, however, to adopt a definition of income which includes wages, welfare payments, training allowances, and most other monetary receipts.[10] Only a few specific deductions are allowed.[11] These deductions *294 do not include any itemized deduction for commuting expenses of either students or workers. Instead, there is a standardized deduction of 10% of the wages or training allowance (including tuition grants and travel allowances), which is intended to cover incidental expenses.[12] The District Court was correct that the regulations operate somewhat unfairly in appellee's case. Nevertheless, we are satisfied that they are the product of a valid exercise of the Secretary's statutory authority. Perhaps it might have been more equitable to allow a deduction for all commuting expenses,[13] or for the expenses of commuting to a training program, oras the order of the District Court providesjust for such expenses covered by state transportation allowances. But the availability of alternatives does not render the Secretary's choice invalid.[14] Moreover, a *295 plainly acceptable reason exists for rejecting each of these possible alternatives. Allowing |
Justice Stevens | 1,977 | 16 | majority | Knebel v. Hein | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109575/knebel-v-hein/ | reason exists for rejecting each of these possible alternatives. Allowing a deduction for all transportation expenses would create significant administrative costs as well as risks of disparate treatment.[15] Disparate treatment of trainees and wage earners could be criticized as unfairly discriminating against the worker. Similar criticism can be leveled against the order entered by the District Court in this case, under which members of the class would fare better than workers with equally low receipts and equally high expenses. The District Court's primary reason for invalidating the regulations was its view that transportation grants do not increase food purchasing power.[16] But the grant does give a household more food purchasing power than another household which receives no grant but incurs similar nondeductible *296 expenses related to training or employment. Moreover, nothing in the statute requires that deductions include all necessary nonfood expenditures. On the contrary, the requirement in 2016 (b) that the price of the food stamps shall not exceed 30% of the household's income, assumes that 70% of that income may be expended on nonfood necessities.[17] Thus, there is a built-in allowance for necessary expenses beyond the specific deductions.[18] We conclude that the federal regulations defining income were reasonably adopted by the Secretary in the performance of his statutory duty to "formulate and administer a food stamp program" and are therefore within the Secretary's statutory authority. Since there is no question about the constitutionality of the statute itself, the implementation of the *297 statutory purpose provides a sufficient justification for both the federal regulations and the parallel state regulations to avoid any violation of equal protection guarantees. See, e. g., ; Mathews v. De Castro, ante, at 185. Nor do the regulations embody any conclusive presumption. They merely represent two reasonable judgments: first, that recipients of state travel allowances should be treated like other trainees and like wage earners; and second, that the standard 10% deduction, coupled with the 30% ceiling on coupon purchase prices, provides an acceptable mechanism for dealing with ordinary expenses such as commuting. The Constitution requires no more. See Reversed. |
Justice Blackmun | 1,977 | 11 | majority | Nyquist v. Mauclet | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109687/nyquist-v-mauclet/ | New York, by statute, bars certain resident aliens from state financial assistance for higher education. N. Y. Educ. Law 661 (3) This litigation presents a constitutional challenge to that statute. I New York provides assistance, primarily in three forms, to students pursuing higher education. The first type is the Regents college scholarship. These are awarded to high school graduates on the basis of performance in a competitive examination. 605 (1) and 670. Currently, in the usual case, a recipient is entitled to $250 annually for four years of study without regard to need. 670 (2) and (3) (b).[1] The *3 second and chief form of aid is the tuition assistance award. These are noncompetitive; they are available to both graduate and undergraduate students "enrolled in approved programs and who demonstrate the ability to complete such courses." 604 (1) and 667 (1). The amount of the award depends on both tuition and income. The ceiling on assistance was $600, although it has been increased for undergraduates to $1,500. 667 (3) and (4). The third form of assistance is the student loan. 680-684. The loan is guaranteed by the State; a borrower meeting certain income restrictions is entitled to favorable interest rates and generally to an interestfree grace period of at least nine months after he completes or terminates his course of study. 680, 682 (2) and (3).[2] There are several general restrictions on eligibility for participation in any of these programs. 661. For example, there is a modest durational residency requirement. 661 (5).[3] The instant dispute, however, concerns only 661 (3). That subsection provides: "Citizenship. An applicant (a) must be a citizen of the United States, or (b) must have made application *4 to become a citizen, or (c) if not qualified for citizenship, must submit a statement affirming intent to apply for United States citizenship as soon as he has the qualifications, and must apply as soon as eligible for citizenship, or (d) must be an individual of a class of refugees paroled by the attorney general of the United States under his parole authority pertaining to the admission of aliens to the United States."[4] The statute obviously serves to bar from the assistance programs the participation of all aliens who do not satisfy its terms. Since many aliens, such as those here on student visas, may be precluded by federal law from establishing a permanent residence in this country, see, e. g., 8 U.S. C. 1101 (a) (15) (F) (i); 22 CFR 41.45 the bar of 661 (3) is of practical significance only to resident aliens. The Court has |
Justice Blackmun | 1,977 | 11 | majority | Nyquist v. Mauclet | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109687/nyquist-v-mauclet/ | of practical significance only to resident aliens. The Court has observed of this affected group: "Resident aliens, like citizens, pay taxes, support the economy, serve in the Armed Forces, and contribute in myriad other ways to our society." In re II Appellee Jean-Marie Mauclet is a citizen of France and has lived in New York since April 1969. He has been a permanent resident of the United States since November of that year. He is married to a United States citizen and has a child by that marriage. The child is also a United States citizen. App. 49. Mauclet by affidavit stated: "Although I am presently qualified to apply for citizenship and intend to reside *5 permanently in the United States, I do not wish to relinquish my French citizenship at this time."[5] at 50. He applied for a tuition assistance award to aid in meeting the expenses of his graduate studies at the State University of New York at Buffalo. Because of his refusal to apply for United States citizenship, his application was not processed. Appellee Alan Rabinovitch is a citizen of Canada. He was admitted to this country in 1964 at the age of nine as a permanent resident alien. He is unmarried and, since his admission, has lived in New York with his parents and a younger sister, all of whom are Canadian He registered with Selective Service on his 18th birthday. He graduated in 1973 from the New York public school system. As a result of a commendable performance on the competitive Regents Qualifying Examinations, Rabinovitch was informed that he was qualified for, and entitled to, a Regents college scholarship and tuition assistance. He later was advised, however, that the offer of the scholarship was withdrawn since he intended to retain his Canadian citizenship. Rabinovitch entered Brooklyn College without financial aid from the State. He states that he "does not intend to become a naturalized American, but does intend to continue to reside in New York." Mauclet and Rabinovitch each brought suit in United States District Court (Mauclet in the Western District of New York and Rabinovitch in the Eastern District), alleging that the citizenship bar of 661 (3) was unconstitutional. The same three-judge court was convened for each of the cases. Subsequently, it was ordered that the cases be heard together. App. 45. After cross motions for summary judgment, the District Court in a unanimous opinion ruled in appellees' favor. It held that 661 (3) violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment in that the citizenship *6 requirement served to discriminate unconstitutionally against |
Justice Blackmun | 1,977 | 11 | majority | Nyquist v. Mauclet | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109687/nyquist-v-mauclet/ | that the citizenship *6 requirement served to discriminate unconstitutionally against resident aliens.[6] Its enforcement was enjoined in separate judgments. App. 103, 106. Appellantsthe various individuals and corporate entities responsible for administering the State's educational assistance programschallenge this determination.[7] We noted probable jurisdiction. *7 III The Court has ruled that classifications by a State that are based on alienage are "inherently suspect and subject to close judicial scrutiny." See Examining ; In re ; In undertaking this scrutiny, "the governmental interest claimed to justify the discrimination is to be carefully examined in order to determine whether that interest is legitimate and substantial, and inquiry must be made whether the means adopted to achieve the goal are necessary and precisely drawn." Examining See In re -. Alienage classifications by a State that do not withstand this stringent examination cannot stand.[8] Appellants claim that 661 (3) should not be subjected to such strict scrutiny because it does not impose a classification *8 based on alienage.[9] Aliens who have applied for citizenship, or, if not qualified for it, who have filed a statement of intent to apply as soon as they are eligible, are allowed to participate in the assistance programs. Hence, it is said, the statute distinguishes "only within the `heterogeneous' class of aliens" and "does not distinguish between citizens and aliens vel non." Brief for Appellants 20.[10] Only statutory classifications of the latter type, appellants assert, warrant strict scrutiny. undermines appellants' position. In that case, the Court considered an Arizona statute that imposed a durational residency requirement for welfare benefits on aliens but not on Like the New York statute challenged here, the Arizona statute served to discriminate only within the class of aliens: Aliens who met the durational residency requirement were entitled to welfare *9 benefits. The Court nonetheless subjected the statute to strict scrutiny and held it unconstitutional. The important points are that 661 (3) is directed at aliens and that only aliens are harmed by it. The fact that the statute is not an absolute bar does not mean that it does not discriminate against the class.[11] Cf. ;[12]Weber v. Aetna Casualty & Surety Co., Appellants also assert that there are adequate justifications for 661 (3). First, the section is said to offer an incentive for aliens to become naturalized. Second, the restriction on *10 assistance to only those who are or will become eligible to vote is tailored to the purpose of the assistance program, namely, the enhancement of the educational level of the electorate. Brief for Appellants 22-25. Both justifications are claimed to be related to New |
Justice Blackmun | 1,977 | 11 | majority | Nyquist v. Mauclet | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109687/nyquist-v-mauclet/ | 22-25. Both justifications are claimed to be related to New York's interest in the preservation of its "political community." See 413 U. S., at -643, 647-649; The first purpose offered by the appellants, directed to what they describe as some "degree of national affinity," Brief for Appellants 18, however, is not a permissible one for a State. Control over immigration and naturalization is entrusted exclusively to the Federal Government, and a State has no power to interfere. U. S. Const., Art I, 8, cl. 4. See ; -380; But even if we accept, arguendo, the validity of the proffered justifications, we find them inadequate to support the ban.[13] *11 In 413 U. S., at the Court recognized that the State's interest "in establishing its own form of government, and in limiting participation in that government to those who are within `the basic conception of a political community'" might justify some consideration of alienage. But as Sugarman makes quite clear, the Court had in mind a State's historical and constitutional powers to define the qualifications of voters,[14] or of "elective or important nonelective" officials "who participate directly in the formulation, execution, or review of broad public policy." See In re decided the same day, reflects the narrowness of the exception. In that case, despite a recognition of the vital public and political role of attorneys, the Court found invalid a state-court rule limiting the practice of law to Certainly, the justifications for 661 (3) offered by appellants sweep far beyond the confines of the exception defined in Sugarman. If the encouragement of naturalization through these programs were seen as adequate, then every discrimination against aliens could be similarly justified. The exception would swallow the rule. Sugarman clearly does not tolerate that result. Nor does the claimed interest in educating the electorate provide a justification; although such education is a laudable objective, it hardly would be frustrated by including resident aliens, as well as citizens, in the State's assistance programs.[15] *12 Resident aliens are obligated to pay their full share of the taxes that support the assistance programs. There thus is no real unfairness in allowing resident aliens an equal right to participate in programs to which they contribute on an equal basis. And although an alien may be barred from full involvement in the political arena, he may play a roleperhaps even a leadership rolein other areas of import to the community. The State surely is not harmed by providing resident aliens the same educational opportunity it offers to others. Since we hold that the challenged statute violates the Fourteenth Amendment's |
Justice Powell | 1,973 | 17 | concurring | Almeida-Sanchez v. United States | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/108845/almeida-sanchez-v-united-states/ | While I join the opinion of the which sufficiently establishes that none of our Fourth Amendment decisions supports the search conducted in this case, I add this concurring opinion to elaborate on my views as to the meaning of the Fourth Amendment in this context. We are confronted here with the all-too-familiar necessity of reconciling a legitimate need of government with constitutionally protected rights. There can be no question as to the seriousness and legitimacy of the law enforcement problem with respect to enforcing along thousands of miles of open border valid immigration and related laws. Nor can there be any question as to the necessity, in our free society, of safeguarding persons against searches and seizures proscribed by the Fourth Amendment. I believe that a resolution of the issue raised by this case is possible with due recognition of both of these interests, and in a manner compatible with the prior decisions of this[1] I The search here involved was carried out as part of a roving search of automobiles in an area generally proximate to the Mexican border. It was not a border search, *276 nor can it fairly be said to have been a search conducted at the "functional equivalent" of the border. Nor does this case involve the constitutional propriety of searches at permanent or temporary checkpoints removed from the border or its functional equivalent. Nor, finally, was the search based on cause in the ordinary sense of specific knowledge concerning an automobile or its passengers.[2] The question posed, rather, is whether and under what circumstances the Border Patrol may lawfully conduct roving searches of automobiles in areas not far removed from the border for the purpose of apprehending aliens illegally entering or in the country. The Government has made a convincing showing that large numbers of aliens cross our borders illegally at places other than established crossing points, that they are often assisted by smugglers, that even those who cross on foot are met and transported to their destinations by automobiles, and that roving checks of automobiles are the only feasible means of apprehending them. It would, of course, be wholly impracticable to maintain a constant patrol along thousands of miles of border. Moreover, because many of these aliens cross the border on foot, or at places other than established checkpoints, it is simply not possible in most cases for the Government to obtain specific knowledge that a person riding or stowed in an automobile is an alien illegally in the country. *277 Thus the magnitude of the problem is clear. An answer, reconciling the |
Justice Powell | 1,973 | 17 | concurring | Almeida-Sanchez v. United States | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/108845/almeida-sanchez-v-united-states/ | magnitude of the problem is clear. An answer, reconciling the obvious needs of law enforcement with relevant constitutional rights, is far less clear. II The Government's argument to sustain the search here is simply that it was reasonable under the circumstances. But it is by now axiomatic that the Fourth Amendment's proscription of "unreasonable searches and seizures" is to be read in conjunction with its command that "no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause." Under our cases, both the concept of probable cause and the requirement of a warrant bear on the reasonableness of a search, though in certain limited circumstances neither is required. Before deciding whether a warrant is required, I will first address the threshold question of whether some functional equivalent of probable cause may exist for the type of search conducted in this case. The problem of ascertaining the meaning of the probable-cause requirement in the context of roving searches of the sort conducted here is measurably assisted by the 's opinion in on which the Government relies heavily. The was there concerned with the nature of the probable-cause requirement in the context of searches to identify housing code violations and was persuaded that the only workable method of enforcement was periodic inspection of all structures: "It is here that the probable cause debate is focused, for the agency's decision to conduct an area inspection is unavoidably based on its appraisal of conditions in the area as a whole, not on its knowledge of conditions in each particular building." *278 In concluding that such general knowledge met the probable-cause requirement under those circumstances, the took note of a "long history of judicial and public acceptance," of the absence of other methods for vindicating the public interest in preventing or abating dangerous conditions, and of the limited invasion of privacy occasioned by administrative inspections which are "neither personal in nature nor aimed at the discovery of evidence of crime." Roving automobile searches in border regions for aliens, likewise, have been consistently approved by the judiciary. While the question is one of first impression in this such searches uniformly have been sustained by the courts of appeals whose jurisdictions include those areas of the border between Mexico and the United where the problem has been most severe. See, e. g., United ; Moreover, as noted above, no alternative solution is reasonably possible. The Government further argues that such searches resemble those conducted in Camara in that they are undertaken primarily for administrative rather than prosecutorial purposes, that their function is simply to locate those who are illegally here |
Justice Powell | 1,973 | 17 | concurring | Almeida-Sanchez v. United States | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/108845/almeida-sanchez-v-united-states/ | function is simply to locate those who are illegally here and to deport them. Brief for the United 28 n. 25. This argument is supported by the assertion that only 3% of aliens apprehended in this country are prosecuted. While the low rate of prosecution offers no great solace to the innocent whose automobiles are searched or to the few who are prosecuted, it does serve to differentiate this class of searches from random area searches which are no more than "fishing expeditions" for evidence to support prosecutions. The possibility of prosecution does not distinguish such searches from those involved in Camara. Despite the 's assertion in that case that the searches *279 were not "aimed at the discovery of evidence of crime," 387 U.S., violators of the housing code there were subject to criminal penalties. at 527 n. 2. Of perhaps greater weight is the fact that these searches, according to the Government, are conducted in areas where the concentration of illegally present aliens is high, both in absolute terms and in proportion to the number of persons legally present. While these searches are not border searches in the conventional sense, they are incidental to the protection of the border and draw a large measure of justification from the Government's extraordinary responsibilities and powers with respect to the border. Finally, and significantly, these are searches of automobiles rather than searches of persons or buildings. The search of an automobile is far less intrusive on the rights protected by the Fourth Amendment than the search of one's person or of a building. This "has long distinguished between an automobile and a home or office." As the Government has demonstrated, and as those in the affected areas surely know, it is the automobile which in most cases makes effective the attempts to smuggle aliens into this country. The conjunction of these factorsconsistent judicial approval, absence of a reasonable alternative for the solution of a serious problem, and only a modest intrusion on those whose automobiles are searchedpersuades me that under appropriate limiting circumstances there may exist a constitutionally adequate equivalent of probable cause to conduct roving vehicular searches in border areas. III The conclusion that there may be probable cause to conduct roving searches does not end the inquiry, for "except in certain carefully defined classes of cases, a search of private property without proper consent is *280 `unreasonable' unless it has been authorized by a valid search warrant." I expressed the view last Term that the warrant clause reflects an important policy determination: "The Fourth Amendment does not contemplate the |
Justice Powell | 1,973 | 17 | concurring | Almeida-Sanchez v. United States | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/108845/almeida-sanchez-v-united-states/ | important policy determination: "The Fourth Amendment does not contemplate the executive officers of Government as neutral and disinterested magistrates. Their duty and responsibility is to enforce the laws, to investigate, and to prosecute. But those charged with this investigative and prosecutorial duty should not be the sole judges of when to utilize constitutionally sensitive means in pursuing their tasks." United v. United District See also 1 ; To justify warrantless searches in circumstances like those presented in this case, the Government relies upon several of this 's decisions recognizing exceptions to the warrant requirement. A brief review of the nature of each of these major exceptions illuminates the relevant considerations in the present case. In the held that a policeman may conduct a limited "pat down" search for weapons when he has reasonable grounds for believing that criminal conduct has taken or is taking place and that the person he searches is armed and dangerous. "The sole justification [for such a] search is the protection of the police officer and others nearby" Nothing in Terry supports an exception to the warrant requirement here. Colonnade Catering and United on which the Government also relies, both concerned the standards which govern inspections of the business premises of those with federal licenses to engage in the sale of liquor, Colonnade, or the sale of guns, *281 Biswell. In those cases, Congress was held to have power to authorize warrantless searches. As the stated in Biswell: "When a dealer chooses to engage in this pervasively regulated business and to accept a federal license, he does so with the knowledge that his business records, firearms, and ammunition will be subject to effective inspection." Colonnade and Biswell cannot fairly be read to cover cases of the present type. One who merely travels in regions near the borders of the country can hardly be thought to have submitted to inspections in exchange for a special perquisite. More closely in point on their facts are the cases involving automobile searches. E. g., ; But while those cases allow automobiles to be searched without a warrant in certain circumstances, the principal rationale for this exception to the warrant clause is that under those circumstances "it is not practicable to secure a warrant because the vehicle can be quickly moved out of the locality or jurisdiction in which the warrant must be sought." The today correctly points out that a warrantless search under the Carroll line of cases must be supported by probable cause in the sense of specific knowledge about a particular automobile. While, as indicated above, my view |
Justice Powell | 1,973 | 17 | concurring | Almeida-Sanchez v. United States | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/108845/almeida-sanchez-v-united-states/ | about a particular automobile. While, as indicated above, my view is that on appropriate facts the Government can satisfy the probable cause requirement for a roving search in a border area without possessing information about particular automobiles, it does not follow that the warrant requirement is inapposite. The very fact that the Government's supporting information relates to criminal activity in certain areas rather than *282 to evidence about a particular automobile renders irrelevant the justification for warrantless searches relied upon in Carroll and its progeny. Quite simply, the roving searches are justified by experience with obviously nonmobile sections of a particular road or area embracing several roads. None of the foregoing exceptions to the warrant requirement, then, applies to roving automobile searches in border areas. Moreover, the propriety of the warrant procedure here is affirmatively established by Camara. See also See v. City of Seattle, For the reasons outlined above, the there ruled that probable cause could be shown for an area search, but nonetheless required that a warrant be obtained for unconsented searches. The indicated its general approach to exceptions to the warrant requirement: "In assessing whether the public interest demands creation of a general exception to the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement, the question is not whether the public interest justifies the type of search in question, but whether the authority to search should be evidenced by a warrant, which in turn depends in part upon whether the burden of obtaining a warrant is likely to frustrate the governmental purpose behind the search." See also United v. United District The Government argues that Camara and See are distinguishable from the present case for the purposes of the warrant requirement. It is true that while a building inspector who is refused admission to a building may easily obtain a warrant to search that building, a member of the Border Patrol has no such opportunity when *283 he is refused permission to inspect an automobile. It is also true that the judicial function envisioned in Camara did not extend to reconsideration of "the basic agency decision to canvass an area," while the judicial function here would necessarily include passing on just such a basic decision. But it does not follow from these distinctions that "no warrant system can be constructed that would be feasible and meaningful." Brief for the United 36. Nothing in the papers before us demonstrates that it would not be feasible for the Border Patrol to obtain advance judicial approval of the decision to conduct roving searches on a particular road or roads for a reasonable period of |
Justice Powell | 1,973 | 17 | concurring | Almeida-Sanchez v. United States | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/108845/almeida-sanchez-v-united-states/ | a particular road or roads for a reasonable period of time.[3] According to the Government, the incidence of illegal transportation of aliens on certain roads is predictable, and the roving searches are apparently planned in advance or carried out according to a predetermined schedule. The use of an area warrant procedure would surely not "frustrate the governmental purpose behind the search." It would of course entail some inconvenience, but inconvenience alone has never been thought to be an adequate reason for abrogating the warrant requirement. E. g., United v. United District Although standards for probable cause in the context of this case are relatively unstructured (cf. ), there are a number of relevant factors which would merit consideration: they include (i) the frequency with which aliens illegally in the country are known or reasonably believed to be transported within a particular area; *284 (ii) the proximity of the area in question to the border; (iii) the extensiveness and geographic characteristics of the area, including the roads therein and the extent of their use,[4] and (iv) the probable degree of interference with the rights of innocent persons, taking into account the scope of the proposed search, its duration, and the concentration of illegal alien traffic in relation to the general traffic of the road or area. In short, the determination of whether a warrant should be issued for an area search involves a balancing of the legitimate interests of law enforcement with protected Fourth Amendment rights. This presents the type of delicate question of constitutional judgment which ought to be resolved by the Judiciary rather than the Executive. In the words of Camara, "This is precisely the discretion to invade private property which we have consistently circumscribed by a requirement that a disinterested party warrant the need to search." 387 U.S., -533. Nor does the novelty of the problem posed by roving searches in border areas undermine the importance of a prior judicial determination. When faced with a similarly unconventional problem last Term in United District we recognized that the focus of the search there involved was "less precise than that directed against more conventional types of crime," and that "[d]ifferent standards may be compatible with the Fourth Amendment if they are reasonable both in relation *285 to the legitimate need of Government and the protected rights of our citizens." 407 U.S., -323. Yet we refused to abandon the Fourth Amendment commitment to the use of search warrants whenever this is feasible with due regard to the interests affected. For the reasons stated above, I think a rational search warrant procedure |
per_curiam | 1,999 | 200 | per_curiam | Hanlon v. Berger | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1087699/hanlon-v-berger/ | Respondents Paul and Erma Berger sued petitioners special agents of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service and an assistant United States attorneyfor damages under They alleged that the conduct of petitioners had violated their rights under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. We granted certiorari, Respondents live on a 75,000-acre ranch near Jordan, Montana. In 1993, a Magistrate Judge issued a warrant authorizing the search of "The Paul W. Berger ranch with appurtenant structures, excluding the residence" for evidence of "the taking of wildlife in violation of Federal laws." App. 17. About a week later, a multiple-vehicle caravan consisting of Government agents and a crew of photographers and reporters from Cable News Network, Inc. (CNN), proceeded to a point near the ranch. The agents executed the warrant and explained: "Over the course of the day, the officers searched the ranch and its outbuildings pursuant to the authority conferred by the search warrant. The CNN media crew accompanied and observed the officers, and the media crew recorded the officers' conduct in executing the warrant." Brief for Petitioners 5. Review of the complaint's much more detailed allegations to the same effect satisfies us that respondents alleged a Fourth Amendment violation under our decision today in *810 Wilson v. Layne, ante, p. 603. There we hold that police violate the Fourth Amendment rights of homeowners when they allow members of the media to accompany them during the execution of a warrant in their home. We also hold there that because the law on this question before today's decision was not clearly established, the police in that case were entitled to the defense of qualified immunity. Ante, at 605-606. Petitioners maintain that even though they may have violated the Fourth Amendment rights of respondents, they are entitled to the defense of qualified immunity. We agree. Our holding in Wilson makes clear that this right was not clearly established in 1992. The parties have not called our attention to any decisions which would have made the state of the law any clearer a year laterat the time of the search in this case. We therefore vacate the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. It is so ordered. Justice Stevens, concurring in part and dissenting in part. As I explain in my dissent in Wilson v. Layne, ante, p. 618, I am convinced that the constitutional rule recognized in that case had been clearly established long before 1992. I therefore respectfully dissent from the Court's disposition of this |
Justice Sotomayor | 2,019 | 24 | majority | Peter v. NantKwest, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4685881/peter-v-nantkwest-inc/ | Section 145 of the Patent Act affords applicants “dissat- isfied with the decision of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board” an opportunity to file a civil action in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. 35 U.S. C. The statute specifies that “[a]ll the ex- penses of the proceedings shall be paid by the applicant.” The question presented in this case is whether such “expenses” include the salaries of attorney and paralegal employees of the United States Patent and Trademark Of- fice (PTO). We hold that they do not. I A The Patent Act creates two mutually exclusive pathways to challenge an adverse decision by the PTO. The first per- mits judicial review by direct appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. There is “no opportunity for the applicant to offer new evidence” in a proceeding, and the Federal Circuit “must review the PTO’s decision on the same administrative record that was 2 PETER v. NANTKWEST, INC. Opinion of the Court before the [agency].” ; 35 U.S. C. The second pathway allows applicants to file a new civil action against the Director of the PTO in federal district court. Unlike “permits the applicant to present new evidence not presented to the PTO.” Kap- The district court “acts as a factfinder when new evidence is introduced in a proceeding” and must make de novo determinations that take into account “both the new evidence and the administrative record be- fore the PTO.” The parties may appeal the district court’s final decision to the Federal Circuit. 28 U.S. C. Because does not limit an applicant’s ability to in- troduce new evidence to challenge the denial of a patent, Kap, it can result in protracted litiga- tion. As a condition for permitting such extensive review, the Patent Act requires applicants who avail themselves of to pay “[a]ll the expenses of the proceedings.” 35 U.S. C. B After the PTO denied respondent NantKwest, Inc.’s pa- tent application directed to a method for treating cancer, NantKwest filed a complaint against the PTO Director in the Eastern District of Virginia under The District Court granted summary judgment to the PTO, and the Fed- eral Circuit affirmed. NantKwest, Inc. v. Lee, 686 Fed. Appx. 864 The PTO moved for reimbursement of expenses that included—for the first time in the 170-year history of —the pro rata salaries of PTO attorneys and a paralegal who worked on the case. The District Court denied the PTO’s motion to recover its pro rata legal fees as “expenses” of the proceeding. The court concluded |
Justice Sotomayor | 2,019 | 24 | majority | Peter v. NantKwest, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4685881/peter-v-nantkwest-inc/ | legal fees as “expenses” of the proceeding. The court concluded that the statutory language referenc- ing expenses was not clear enough to rebut the “American Cite as: 589 U. S. (2019) 3 Opinion of the Court Rule”—the background principle that parties are responsi- ble for their own attorney’s fees. NantKwest, A divided Federal Circuit panel reversed, with Judge Stoll dissenting. NantKwest, The ma- jority expressed “substantial doub[t ]” that even impli- cated the American Rule’s presumption against fee shifting in a case in which the payment was not made to a prevailing party. The majority concluded that, even as- suming the American Rule presumption applied, the term “expenses” in “specific[ally]” and “explicit[ly]” author- ized an award of fees. The en banc Federal Circuit voted sua sponte to rehear the case and reversed the panel over a dissent. NantKwest, The majority opinion—now authored by Judge Stoll—held that the American Rule presumption applied to because it is “the starting point whenever a party seeks to shift fees from one side to the other in adversarial litigation.” at (citing Baker Botts L. L. (2015)). After examining the plain text and statutory history of the judicial and congressional understand- ing of similar language, and overarching policy considera- tions, the majority concluded that “[a]warding ‘[a]ll the ex- penses’ simply cannot supply the ‘specific and explicit’ directive from Congress to shift attorneys’ fees, and nothing else in the statute evinces congressional intent to make them available.” (quoting Alyeska Pipe- Service (1975)). We granted certiorari, 586 U. S. (2019), and now affirm. II This Court’s “ ‘basic point of reference’ when considering the award of attorney’s fees is the bedrock principle known 4 PETER v. NANTKWEST, INC. Opinion of the Court as the ‘ “American Rule” ’: Each litigant pays his own attor- ney’s fees, win or lose, unless a statute or contract provides otherwise.” v. Reliance Standard Life Ins. Co., 560 U.S. 242, 252–253 (2010) ). The American Rule has “roots in our common law reaching back to at least the 18th century.” Baker Botts, 576 U. S., at (slip op., at 3) ); see also Summit Valley Industries, (1982) (observing that the American Rule “has been consist- ently followed for almost 200 years”); Alyeska Pipe, 421 U.S., at 257 (referring to the presumption against shifting attorney’s fees as a “general” rule). The Government does not dispute this principle or its pedigree, but argues instead that it does not apply at all. Because the American Rule presumption is most often over- come when a statute awards fees to a “prevailing party,” the Government maintains, the presumption |
Justice Sotomayor | 2,019 | 24 | majority | Peter v. NantKwest, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4685881/peter-v-nantkwest-inc/ | fees to a “prevailing party,” the Government maintains, the presumption applies only to prevailing-party statutes. And because requires one party to pay all expenses regardless of outcome, the argu- ment goes, it is not a statute subject to the presumption. That view is incorrect. This Court has never suggested that any statute is exempt from the presumption against fee shifting. Nor has it limited its American Rule inquiries to prevailing-party statutes. Indeed, the Court has devel- oped a “ of precedents” “addressing statutory deviations from the American Rule that do not limit attorney’s fees awards to the ‘prevailing party.’ ” ; see also Baker Botts, 576 U. S., at – (slip op., at 5–7) (analyzing a bankruptcy provision that did not mention pre- vailing parties under the American Rule’s presumption against fee shifting). confirms that the presumption against fee shifting applies to all statutes— even those like that do not explicitly award attorney’s fees to “prevailing parties.” In the Court interpreted Cite as: 589 U. S. (2019) 5 Opinion of the Court a provision of the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act that permitted courts to “award attorney’s fees ‘incur- red [by a claimant] in any proceeding on’ an unsuccessful vaccine-injury ‘petition brought in good faith [with] a rea- sonable basis for the claim.’ ” (quoting 42 U.S. C. The Court held that the provi- sion’s clear language authorized attorney’s fees, even though the statute exclusively applied to unsuccessful establishes two points: First, contrary to the Gov- ernment’s suggestion, Congress has indeed enacted fee- shifting statutes that apply to nonprevailing parties. Sec- ond, and again contrary to the Government’s view, the American Rule applies to such statutes. The Government itself argued in that the presumption against fee shifting applied by default, but maintained that the statute “depart[ed] so far from background principles about who pays a litigant’s attorney’s fees that it [could not] be justi- fied without a clearer statement than the Act can supply.’ ” Brief for Petitioner in O. T. 2012, No. 12– 236, p. 32. The Court acknowledged the Government’s po- sition but concluded that the “rul[e ] of thumb” against fee shifting gave way because the “words of [the] statute [were] unambiguous.” –381 (citing the Gov- ernment’s brief ). The dissenting en banc Federal Circuit Judges also doubted that the American Rule could apply to a ac- tion. They characterized the proceeding as an intermediate step in obtaining a patent and the payment of legal fees as a portion of the application (opin- ion of Prost, J.). Yet has all the marks of the kind of adversarial |
Justice Sotomayor | 2,019 | 24 | majority | Peter v. NantKwest, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4685881/peter-v-nantkwest-inc/ | Yet has all the marks of the kind of adversarial litigation in which fee shifting, and the pre- sumption against it, is common; the statute authorizes fil- ing a separate civil action where new evidence can be intro- duced for de novo review by a district judge. Thus, the presumption against fee shifting not only applies, but is 6 PETER v. NANTKWEST, INC. Opinion of the Court particularly important because permits an unsuccess- ful government agency to recover its expenses from a pre- vailing party. Reading to award attorney’s fees in that circumstance “would be a radical departure from longstand- ing fee-shifting principles adhered to in a wide range of con- texts.” 463 U.S., at The American Rule thus provides the starting point for assessing whether authorizes payment of the PTO’s legal fees. III To determine whether Congress intended to depart from the American Rule presumption, the Court first “look[s] to the language of the section” at issue. 560 U.S., at 254 (internal quotation marks omitted). While “[t]he ab- sence of [a] specific reference to attorney’s fees is not dis- itive,” Key Tronic 815 (1994), Congress must provide a sufficiently “specific and explicit” indication of its intent to overcome the Amer- ican Rule’s presumption against fee shifting. Alyeska Pipe- 421 U.S., at A The reference to “expenses” in does not invoke attor- ney’s fees with the kind of “clarity we have required to de- viate from the American Rule.” Baker Botts, 576 U. S., at (slip op., at 4). Definitions of “expenses” provide scant guidance. The term, standing alone, encompasses wide-ranging “expendi- ture[s] of money, time, labor, or resources to accomplish a result,” Black’s Law Dictionary 698 (10th ed. 2014), “charges or costs met with in doing one’s work,” Web- ster’s New World College Dictionary 511 (5th ed. 2014), and “outlay[s]” for labor, Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of Law 180 (1996); see also N. Webster, An American Dictionary of the English Language 319 (3d ed. 1830) (defining the term Cite as: 589 U. S. (2019) 7 Opinion of the Court broadly to include “the employment and consumption, as of time or labor,” or the “disbursing of money”). Though these definitions are capacious enough to include attorney’s fees, the mere failure to foreclose a fee award “neither specifi- cally nor explicitly authorizes courts to shift [fees].” Baker Botts, 576 U. S., at (slip op., at 6). Reading the term “expenses” alongside neighboring words in the statute, however, supports a conclusion ex- cluding legal fees from the scope of The complete phrase “expenses of the proceeding” is similar to the Latin expensæ litis, or |
Justice Sotomayor | 2,019 | 24 | majority | Peter v. NantKwest, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4685881/peter-v-nantkwest-inc/ | the proceeding” is similar to the Latin expensæ litis, or “expenses of the litigation.” This term has long referred to a class of expenses commonly recovered in litigation to which attorney’s fees did not traditionally be- long. See Black’s Law Dictionary 461 (1891) (defining “ex- pensæ litis” to mean “generally allowed” costs); 1 J. Bouvier, Law Dictionary 392 (1839) (defining the term to mean the “costs which are generally allowed to the successful party”); (excluding from the definition of “costs” the “ex- traordinary fees [a party] may have paid counsel”). These definitions suggest that the use of “expenses” in would not have been commonly understood to include attorney’s fees at its enactment. Finally, the modifier “all” does not expand ’s reach to include attorney’s fees. Although the word conveys breadth, it cannot transform “expenses” to reach an outlay it would not otherwise include. Cf. Rimini Street, Inc. v. Oracle USA, Inc., 586 U. S. – (2019) (slip op., at 6–7) (“The adjective ‘full’ in therefore does not alter the meaning of the word ‘’ Rather, ‘full costs’ are all the ‘costs’ otherwise available under law”). Section 145’s plain text thus does not overcome the Amer- ican Rule’s presumption against fee shifting to permit the PTO to recoup its legal personnel salaries as “expenses of the proceedings.” 8 PETER v. NANTKWEST, INC. Opinion of the Court B “The record of statutory usage” also illustrates how the term “expenses” alone does not authorize recovery of attor- ney’s fees. See West Virginia Univ. Hospitals, (looking to statutory usage to deter- mine whether attorney’s fees and expert fees were distinct expenses in the fee-shifting context). That “expenses” and “attorney’s fees” appear in tandem across various statutes shifting litigation costs indicates that Congress understands the two terms to be distinct and not inclusive of each other. See, 898 F.3d, at 11 (quoting 11 U.S. C. (allowing trustee to recover “any costs, attorneys’ fees, or expenses incurred”); 12 U.S. C. (permitting courts to “allow to any such party such reasonable expenses and attorneys’ fees as it deems just and proper”); 25 U.S. C. (allowing dis- tribution of funds after payment of “attorney fees and liti- gation expenses”); 26 U.S. C. (authorizing recovery of “costs, expenses, and attorneys’ fees” against an attorney who “unreasonably and vexatiously” multiplies proceedings); 31 U.S. C. (permitting recovery of “reasonable expenses plus reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs”); 38 U.S. C. (allowing courts to award “reasonable attorney fees, expert witness fees, and other litigation expenses”) (all internal quotation marks omitted)). While some other statutes refer to attorney’s fees as a subset of expenses, |
Justice Sotomayor | 2,019 | 24 | majority | Peter v. NantKwest, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4685881/peter-v-nantkwest-inc/ | statutes refer to attorney’s fees as a subset of expenses, they show only that “expenses” can in- clude attorney’s fees when so defined. See, 28 U.S. C. (authorizing “reasonable expenses, including attor- neys’ fees”); (“An order remanding the case may require payment of just costs and any actual expenses, in- cluding attorney fees, incurred as a result of the removal”); 29 U.S. C. (“[T]he court in its discretion may award all or a portion of the costs and expenses incurred in connection with such action including reasonable attorney’s Cite as: 589 U. S. (2019) 9 Opinion of the Court fees”); 42 U.S. C. (allowing a party to re- cover “reasonable expenses incurred including a rea- sonable attorney’s fee”). The Government cites several decisions to argue how, on occasion, this Court has used the term “expenses” to mean “attorney’s fees.” None of the cases furthers its ition. See, Rimini Street, 586 U. S., at (slip op., at 4, 11) (reasoning that the term “costs” in the general federal costs statutes does not include attorney’s fees); Taniguchi v. Kan Pacific Saipan, Ltd., (men- tioning that a party may bear “expenses” related to attor- neys, without specifying whether these “expenses” include attorney’s fees); Arlington Central School Dist. Bd. of Ed. v. Murphy, (distinguishing “at- torney’s fees” from “costs” and “costs” from “expenses,” without indicating whether “expenses” encompasses attor- ney’s fees); (suggesting that an ex- plicit reference to “expert witness fees” or “litigation ex- penses” could shift expert fees in addition to attorney’s fees—not that the term “litigation expenses” alone could shift attorney’s fees). Simply put, in common statutory usage, the term “ex- penses” alone has never been considered to authorize an award of attorney’s fees with sufficient clarity to overcome the American Rule presumption. C In fact, the Patent Act’s history reinforces that Congress did not intend to shift fees in actions. There is no evidence that the Patent Office, the PTO’s predecessor, originally paid its personnel from sums col- lected from adverse parties in litigation, or that the Office initially even employed attorneys. See Act of July 4, 1836, (“[T]he moneys received into the Treasury under this act shall constitute a fund for the payment of the salaries of the officers and clerks herein provided for, and 10 PETER v. NANTKWEST, INC. Opinion of the Court all other expenses of the Patent Office, and to be called the patent fund”). That salaries of PTO employees might have qualified as an “expense” of the agency, however, does not mean that they are an “expense” of a proceeding. Nei- ther has the PTO, until |
Justice Sotomayor | 2,019 | 24 | majority | Peter v. NantKwest, Inc. | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4685881/peter-v-nantkwest-inc/ | “expense” of a proceeding. Nei- ther has the PTO, until this litigation, sought its attorney’s fees under That the agency has managed to pay its attorneys consistently suggests that financial necessity does not require reading to shift fees, either. In later years, when Congress intended to provide for at- torney’s fees in the Patent Act, it stated so explicitly. See, 35 U.S. C. (“The court in exceptional cases may award reasonable attorney fees to the prevailing party”); (“[A] court may award attorney fees under sec- tion 285”); ) (same); (same); (“Any customer who is found by a court to have been injured by any material false or fraudulent statement may re- cover reasonable costs and attorneys’ fees”). Because Congress failed to make its intention similarly clear in the Court will not read the statute to “contravene fun- damental precepts of the common law.” United States v. Rodgers, The history of the Patent Act thus reaffirms the Court’s view that the statute does not specifically or explicitly au- thorize the PTO to recoup its lawyers’ or paralegals’ pro rata salaries in civil actions. * * * For the foregoing reasons, we conclude that the PTO can- not recover the pro rata salaries of its legal personnel under and therefore affirm the judgment of the Court of Ap- peals for the Federal Circuit. It is so ordered |
Justice Ginsburg | 2,012 | 5 | majority | Mims v. Arrow Financial Services, LLC | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/621043/mims-v-arrow-financial-services-llc/ | This case concerns enforcement, through private suits, of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 (TCPA or Act), 47 U.S. C. Voluminous consumer com- plaints about abuses of telephone technology—for exam- ple, computerized calls dispatched to private homes— prompted Congress to pass the TCPA. Congress de- termined that federal legislation was needed because telemarketers, by operating interstate, were escaping state-law prohibitions on intrusive nuisance calls. The Act bans certain practices invasive of privacy and directs the Federal Communications Commission (FCC or Commission) to prescribe implementing regulations. It authorizes States to bring civil actions to enjoin prohibited practices and to recover damages on their residents’ behalf. The Commission must be notified of such suits and may inter- vene in them. Jurisdiction over state-initiated TCPA suits, Congress provided, lies exclusively in the U. S. district courts. Congress also provided for civil actions by private parties seeking redress for violations of the TCPA or of the Commission’s implementing regulations. 2 MIMS v. ARROW FINANCIAL SERVICES, LLC Opinion of the Court Petitioner Marcus D. Mims, complaining of multiple violations of the Act by respondent Arrow Financial Ser- vices, LLC (Arrow), a debt-collection agency, commenced an action for damages against Arrow in the U. S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida. Mims invoked the court’s “federal question” jurisdiction, i.e., its authority to adjudicate claims “arising under the laws of the United States,” 28 U.S. C. The District Court, affirmed by the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, dismissed Mims’s complaint for want of subject- matter jurisdiction. Both courts relied on Congress’ speci- fication, in the TCPA, that a private per may seek redress for violations of the Act (or of the Commission’s regulations thereunder) “in an appropriate court of [a] State,” “if [such an action is] otherwise permitted by the laws or rules of court of [that] State.” 47 U.S. C. (c)(5). The question presented is whether Congress’ provision for private actions to enforce the TCPA renders state courts the exclusive arbiters of such actions. We have long recognized that “[a] suit arises under the law that creates the cause of action.” American Well Beyond doubt, the TCPA is a federal law that both creates the claim Mims has brought and supplies the substantive rules that will govern the case. We find no convincing rea to read into the TCPA’s permissive grant of jurisdiction to state courts any barrier to the U. S. district courts’ exercise of the general federal-question jurisdiction they have possessed since 1875. See Act of Mar. 3, 1875, ; 13D C. Wright, A. Miller, E. Cooper, |
Justice Ginsburg | 2,012 | 5 | majority | Mims v. Arrow Financial Services, LLC | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/621043/mims-v-arrow-financial-services-llc/ | 3, 1875, ; 13D C. Wright, A. Miller, E. Cooper, & R. Freer, Federal Prac- tice and Procedure p. 163 (3d ed. 2008) (hereinafter Wright & Miller). We hold, therefore, that federal and state courts have concurrent jurisdiction over private suits arising under the TCPA. Cite as: 565 U. S. (2012) 3 Opinion of the Court I A In enacting the TCPA, Congress made several findings relevant here. “Unrestricted telemarketing,” Congress determined, “can be an intrusive invasion of privacy.” TCPA, note following 47 U.S. C. (Congressional Findings) (internal quotation marks omit- ted). In particular, Congress reported, “[m]any consumers are outraged over the proliferation of intrusive, nuisance [telemarketing] calls to their homes.” (internal quotation marks omitted). “[A]utomated or prerecorded telephone calls” made to private residences, Congress found, were rightly regarded by recipients as “an invasion of privacy.” Although over half the States had enacted statutes re- stricting telemarketing, Congress believed that federal law was needed because “telemarketers [could] evade [state-law] prohibitions through interstate operations.” See also S. Rep. No. 102–178, p. 3 (1991) (“[B]ecause States do not have jurisdiction over interstate calls[,] [m]any States have expressed a desire for Federal legislation”).1 Subject to exceptions not pertinent here, the TCPA prin- cipally outlaws four practices. First, the Act makes it unlawful to use an automatic telephone dialing system or an artificial or prerecorded voice message, without the prior express consent of the called party, to call any emer- gency telephone line, hospital patient, pager, cellular telephone, or other service for which the receiver is charged for the call. See 47 U.S. C. (b)(1)(A). Sec- —————— 1 In general, the Communications Act of 1934 grants to the Fed- eral Communications Commission (FCC or Commission) authority to regulate interstate telephone communications and reserves to the States authority to regulate intrastate telephone communications. See Louisiana Pub. Serv. 369–370 (1986). 4 MIMS v. ARROW FINANCIAL SERVICES, LLC Opinion of the Court ond, the TCPA forbids using artificial or prerecorded voice messages to call residential telephone lines with- out prior express consent. (b)(1)(B). Third, the Act proscribes sending unsolicited advertisements to fax ma- chines. (b)(1)(C). Fourth, it bans using automatic telephone dialing systems to engage two or more of a business’ telephone lines simultaneously. (b)(1)(D).2 The TCPA delegates authority to the FCC to ban ar- tificial and prerecorded voice calls to businesses, (b)(2)(A), and to exempt particular types of calls from the law’s requirements, §(b)(2)(B), (C). The Act also directs the FCC to prescribe regulations to protect the privacy of residential telephone subscribers, possibly through the creation of a national “do not call” system. (c).3 Congress provided |
Justice Ginsburg | 2,012 | 5 | majority | Mims v. Arrow Financial Services, LLC | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/621043/mims-v-arrow-financial-services-llc/ | of a national “do not call” system. (c).3 Congress provided complementary means of enforcing the Act. State Attorneys General may “bring a civil action on behalf of [State] residents,” if the Attorney General “has rea to believe that any per has engaged in a pattern or practice” of violating the TCPA or FCC regu- lations thereunder. 47 U.S. C. A. (g)(1) “The district courts of the United States have exclusive jurisdiction” over all TCPA actions brought by State At- torneys General. (g)(2). The Commission may inter- vene in such suits. (g)(3).4 —————— 2 In Congress amended the statute to prohibit an additional practice: the manipulation of caller-identification information. See Truth in Caller ID Act of 2009, Pub. L. 111–331, This legislation inserted a new subsection (e) into 47 U.S. C. and redesignated the former subsections (e), (f), and (g) as subsections (f), (g), and (h), respectively. While the new subsection (e) does not bear on this case and is not here discussed, our citations of subsection (g) refer to the current, redesignated statutory text. 3 The National Do Not Call Registry is currently managed by the Federal Trade Commission. See 15 U.S. C. ( ed., Supp. IV); (b)(1)(iii) 4 The TCPA envisions civil actions instituted by the Commission for Cite as: 565 U. S. (2012) 5 Opinion of the Court Title 47 U.S. C. (b)(3), captioned “Private right of action,” provides: “A per or entity may, if otherwise permitted by the laws or rules of court of a State, bring in an ap- propriate court of that State— “(A) an action based on a violation of this subsection or the regulations prescribed under this subsection to enjoin such violation, “(B) an action to recover for actual monetary loss from such a violation, or to receive $500 in damages for each such violation, whichever is greater, or “(C) both such actions. “If the court finds that the defendant willfully or knowingly violated this subsection or the regulations prescribed under this subsection, the court may, in its discretion, increase the amount of the award to an amount equal to not more than 3 times the amount available under subparagraph (B) of this paragraph.” A similar provision authorizes a private right of action for a violation of the FCC’s implementing regulations.5 —————— violations of the implementing regulations. See 47 U.S. C. A. (g)(7) The Commission may also seek forfeiture penalties for willful or repeated failure to comply with the Act or regulations. 47 U.S. C. ( ed. and Supp. IV), ( ed.). 5 Title 47 U.S. C. (c)(5), also captioned “Private right of |
Justice Ginsburg | 2,012 | 5 | majority | Mims v. Arrow Financial Services, LLC | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/621043/mims-v-arrow-financial-services-llc/ | Title 47 U.S. C. (c)(5), also captioned “Private right of action,” provides: “A per who has received more than one telephone call within any 12-month period by or on behalf of the same entity in violation of the regulations prescribed under this subsection may, if otherwise permit- ted by the laws or rules of court of a State bring in an appropriate court of that State— “(A) an action based on a violation of the regulations prescribed under this subsection to enjoin such violation, “(B) an action to recover for actual monetary loss from such a viola- tion, or to receive up to $500 in damages for each such violation, which- ever is greater, or “(C) both such actions.” 6 MIMS v. ARROW FINANCIAL SERVICES, LLC Opinion of the Court B Mims, a Florida resident, alleged that Arrow, seeking to collect a debt, repeatedly used an automatic telephone dialing system or prerecorded or artificial voice to call Mims’s cellular phone without his consent. Commencing suit in the U. S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, Mims charged that Arrow “willfully or knowingly violated the TCPA.” App. 14. He sought declaratory relief, a permanent injunction, and damages. at 18– 19. The District Court held that it lacked subject-matter jurisdiction over Mims’s TCPA claim. Under Eleventh Circuit precedent, the District Court explained, federal- question jurisdiction under 28 U.S. C. was unavail- able “because Congress vested jurisdiction over [private actions under] the TCPA exclusively in state courts.” Civ. No. 09–22347 App. to Pet. for Cert. 4a–5a ). Adhering to Circuit precedent, the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit af- firmed. (quoting Nichol- –1288 (“Congress granted state courts exclusive jurisdiction over private actions under the [TCPA].”)). We granted certiorari, 564 U. S. to resolve a split among the Circuits as to whether Congress granted state courts exclusive jurisdiction over private actions brought under the TCPA. Compare (U. S. district courts lack federal-question jurisdiction over private TCPA actions), Foxhall Realty Law Offices, Nichol, –1288, Chair King, 514 (CA5 1997) and International Science & Tech- Cite as: 565 U. S. (2012) 7 Opinion of the Court nology Inst. v. Inacom Communications, Inc., 106 F.3d 1146, 1158 (CA4 1997) with (U. S. district courts have federal-question jurisdiction over private TCPA actions), and We now hold that Congress did not deprive federal courts of federal-question jurisdiction over private TCPA suits. II Federal courts, though “courts of limited jurisdiction,” Kokkonen v. Guardian Life Ins. Co. of America, 511 U.S. 375, 377 (1994), in the main “have no more right to decline the exercise of |
Justice Ginsburg | 2,012 | 5 | majority | Mims v. Arrow Financial Services, LLC | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/621043/mims-v-arrow-financial-services-llc/ | main “have no more right to decline the exercise of jurisdiction which is given, then to usurp that which is not given.” (1821). Congress granted federal courts general federal- question jurisdiction in 1875. See Act of Mar. 3, 1875,6 As now codified, the law provides: “The district courts shall have original jurisdiction of all civil actions arising under the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States.” 28 U.S. C. The statute origi- nally included an amount-in-controversy requirement, set at $500. See Act of Mar. 3, 1875, Recog- nizing the responsibility of federal courts to decide claims, large or small, arising under federal law, Congress in 1980 eliminated the amount-in-controversy requirement in federal-question (but not diversity) cases. See Federal Question Jurisdictional Amendments Act of 1980, 94 Stat. 2369 (amending 28 U.S. C. ). See also H. R. Rep. —————— 6 Congress had previously granted general federal-question jurisdic- tion to federal courts, but the grant was short lived. See Steffel v. Thomp, 415 (describing Midnight Judges Act of 1801, repealed by Act of Mar. 8, 1802, 2 Stat. 132). 8 MIMS v. ARROW FINANCIAL SERVICES, LLC Opinion of the Court No. 96–1461, p. 17 Apart from deletion of the amount-in-controversy requirement, the general federal- question provision has remained essentially unchanged since 1875. See 13D Wright & Miller 163. Because federal law creates the right of action and provides the rules of decision, Mims’s TCPA claim, in 28 U.S. C. ’s words, plainly “aris[es] under” the “laws of the United States.” As already “[a] suit arises under the law that creates the cause of action.” American Well 241 U.S., at Al- though courts have described this formulation as “more useful for inclusion than for exclusion,” Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Thomp, 478 U.S. 804, 809, n. 5 (1986) (quoting T. B. Harms 827 (CA2 1964)), there is no serious debate that a federal- ly created claim for relief is generally a “sufficient con- dition for federal-question jurisdiction.” Grable & Sons Metal Products, Darue Engineering & Mfg., 545 U.S. 308, 3178 Arrow agrees that this action arises under federal law, see Tr. of Oral Arg. 27, but urges that Congress vested exclusive adjudicatory authority over private TCPA ac- —————— 7 At the time it was repealed, the amount-in-controversy requirement in federal-question cases had reached $10,000. See Act of July 25, 1958, Currently, the amount in controversy in diversity cases must exceed $75,000. See 28 U.S. C. 8 For a rare exception to the rule that a federal cause of action suffices to ground federal-question jurisdiction, see Shoshone Mining Co. v. Rutter, discussed in R. Fallon, |
Justice Ginsburg | 2,012 | 5 | majority | Mims v. Arrow Financial Services, LLC | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/621043/mims-v-arrow-financial-services-llc/ | see Shoshone Mining Co. v. Rutter, discussed in R. Fallon, J. Manning, D. Meltzer, & D. Shapiro, Hart and Wechsler’s The Federal Courts and the Federal System, 784–785 (6th ed. 2009). In Shoshone Mining, we held that a suit for a federal mining patent did not arise under federal law for jurisdictional purposes because “the right of possession” in contro- versy could be determined by “local rules or customs, or state statutes,” or “may present simply a question of fact,” Here, by contrast, the TCPA not only creates the claim for relief and designates the remedy; critically, the Act and regulations thereunder supply the governing substantive law. Cite as: 565 U. S. (2012) 9 Opinion of the Court tions in state courts. In cases “arising under” federal law, we note, there is a “deeply rooted presumption in favor of concurrent state court jurisdiction,” rebuttable if “Con- gress affirmatively ousts the state courts of jurisdiction over a particular federal claim.” Tafflin v. Levitt, 493 U.S. 455, 458–459 E.g., 28 U.S. C. (“The district courts shall have original jurisdiction, exclusive of the courts of the States, of: (1) Any civil case of admiralty or maritime jurisdiction”). The presumption of con- current state-court jurisdiction, we have recognized, can be overcome “by an explicit statutory directive, by unmis- takable implication from legislative history, or by a clear incompatibility between state-court jurisdiction and feder- al interests.” Gulf Offshore Co. v. Mobil Oil Corp., 453 U.S. 473, 478 (1981). Arrow readily acknowledges the presumption of con- current state-court jurisdiction, but maintains th8 U.S. C. creates no converse presumption in favor of federal-court jurisdiction. Instead, Arrow urges, the TCPA, a later, more specific statute, displaces an earlier, more general prescription. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 28–29; Brief for Respondent 31. Section 1331, our decisions indicate, is not swept away so easily. As stated earlier, see when federal law creates a private right of action and furnishes the substantive rules of decision, the claim arises under feder- al law, and district courts possess federal-question juris- diction under 9 That principle endures unless Congress divests federal courts of their adjudica- tory authority. See, e.g., Verizon Public Serv. Comm’n of 10 MIMS v. ARROW FINANCIAL SERVICES, LLC Opinion of the Court U. S. C. “divest[s] the district courts of their authority under 28 U.S. C. to review the [state agency’s] order for compliance with federal law.”); K mart Accordingly, the District Court retains jurisdiction over Mims’s complaint unless the TCPA, expressly or by fair implication, excludes federal-court adjudication. See Verizon ; (Jurisdiction over private TCPA actions “is proper under unless |
Justice Ginsburg | 2,012 | 5 | majority | Mims v. Arrow Financial Services, LLC | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/621043/mims-v-arrow-financial-services-llc/ | ; (Jurisdiction over private TCPA actions “is proper under unless Congress enacted a partial repeal of in the TCPA.”). III Arrow’s arguments do not persuade us that Congress has eliminated jurisdiction over private actions under the TCPA. The language of the TCPA—“A per or entity may, if otherwise permitted by the laws or rules of court of a State, bring [an action] in an appropriate court of that State,” 47 U.S. C. (b)(3)—Arrow asserts, is uniquely state-court oriented. See Brief for Respondent 13. That may be, but “[i]t is a general rule that the grant of juris- diction to one court does not, of itself, imply that the juris- diction is to be exclusive.” United States v. Bank of New Cite as: 565 U. S. (2012) 11 Opinion of the Court York & Trust Co., Nothing in the permissive language of (b)(3) makes state-court jurisdiction exclusive, or otherwise purports to oust federal courts of their 28 U.S. C. jurisdiction over federal claims. See, e.g., Verizon 535 U.S., at 643 (“[N]othing in 47 U.S. C. purports to strip [] jurisdiction.”). Cf. Yellow System, Inc. v. Donnelly, (Title VII’s language— “[e]ach United States district court shall have jurisdic- tion of actions brought under this subchapter,” 42 U.S. C. §e–5(f)(3)—does not “ous[t] state courts of their pre- sumptive jurisdiction.” (internal quotation marks omit- ted)). Congress may indeed provide a track for a federal claim exclusive of See, e.g., 42 U.S. C. (“No action shall be brought under [] to recover on any claim arising under [Title II of the Social Security Act].”); Congress has done nothing of that sort here, however. Title 47 U.S. C. (b)(3) does not state that a private plaintiff may bring an action under the TCPA “only” in state court, or “exclusively” in state court. The absence of such a statement contrasts with the Act’s instruction on suits instituted by State Attorneys General. As earlier see 47 U.S. C. A. (g)(2) vests “exclusive jurisdiction over [such] actions” in “[t]he district courts of the United States.”10 Section 227(g)(2)’s exclusivity prescription “reinforce[s] the conclu- sion that [47 U.S. C. (b)(3)’s] silence leaves the jurisdictional grant of untouched. For where oth- erwise applicable jurisdiction was meant to be excluded, it was excluded expressly.” Verizon ; —————— 10 “How strange it would be,” the Seventh Circuit observed, “to make federal courts the exclusive forum for suits by the states, while making state courts the exclusive forum for suits by private plaintiffs.” v. Countrywide Home Loans, Inc., 12 MIMS v. ARROW FINANCIAL SERVICES, LLC Opinion of the Court see (“[47 U.S. C. A. (g)(2) |
Justice Ginsburg | 2,012 | 5 | majority | Mims v. Arrow Financial Services, LLC | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/621043/mims-v-arrow-financial-services-llc/ | Opinion of the Court see (“[47 U.S. C. A. (g)(2) ] reveals that, while drafting the TCPA, Congress knew full well how to grant exclusive jurisdiction with mandatory language. The most natural interpretation of Congress’ failure to use similar language in [47 U.S. C. is that Congress did not intend to grant exclusive jurisdiction in that section.”); 427 F.3d, 51 (“[47 U.S. C. A. (g)(2) ] is explicit about exclusivity, while [47 U.S. C.] (b)(3) is not; the natural inference is that the state forum mentioned in (b)(3) is optional rather than mandatory.”).11 Arrow urges that Congress would have had no rea to provide for a private action “in an appropriate [state] court,” (b)(3), if it did not mean to make the state forum exclusive. Had Congress said nothing at all about bringing private TCPA claims in state courts, Arrow ob- serves, those courts would nevertheless have concurrent —————— 11 For TCPA actions brought by State Attorneys General, or “an[other] official or agency designated by a State,” 47 U.S. C. A. (g)(1) Arrow points out, Congress specifically ad- dressed venue, service of process, (g)(4), and potential conflicts between federal and state enforcement efforts, (g)(7). No similar prescriptions appear in the section on private actions, 47 U.S. C. (b)(3), for this obvious rea: “[As] the general rules governing venue and service of process in the district courts are well established, see 28 U.S. C. Fed. Rules Civ. Proc. 4, 4.1, there was no need for Congress to reiterate them in section 227(b)(3). The fact that venue and service of process are dis- cussed in [47 U.S. C. A. (g)(4) ] and not [47 U.S. C. simply indicates that Congress wished to make adjustments to the general rules in the former section and not the latter. As for the conflict provision that appears in section [47 U.S. C. A. (g) ] but not [47 U.S. C. it is hardly surprising that Congress would be concerned about agency conflicts in the section of the TCPA dealing with official state enforcement efforts but not in the section governing private lawsuits.” Cite as: 565 U. S. (2012) 13 Opinion of the Court jurisdiction. See True enough, but Con- gress had simultaneously provided for TCPA enforcement actions by state authorities, 47 U.S. C. A. (g) and had made federal district courts exclusively competent in such cases, (g)(2). Congress may simply have wanted to avoid any argument that in private ac- tions, as in actions brought by State Attorneys General, “federal jurisdiction is exclusive.” 427 F.3d, 51 (emphasis deleted) (citing Yellow (holding, after 26 years of litigation, |
Justice Ginsburg | 2,012 | 5 | majority | Mims v. Arrow Financial Services, LLC | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/621043/mims-v-arrow-financial-services-llc/ | (emphasis deleted) (citing Yellow (holding, after 26 years of litigation, that claims under the Civil Rights Act of 1964 may be resolved in state as well as federal courts) and Tafflin, (holding, after 20 years of litigation, that claims under RICO may be resolved in state as well as federal courts)). Moreover, by providing that private actions may be brought in state court “if otherwise permitted by the laws or rules of court of [the] State,” 47 U.S. C. (b)(3), Congress arguably gave States leeway they would otherwise lack to “decide for [themselves] whether to entertain claims under the [TCPA],” 427 F.3d, 51. See Brief for Respondent 16 (Congress “le[ft] States free to decide what TCPA claims to allow.”).12 Making state-court jurisdiction over (b)(3) claims exclusive, Arrow further asserts, “fits hand in glove with [Congress’] objective”: enabling States to control telemar- keters whose interstate operations evaded state law. at 15. Even so, we have observed, jurisdiction conferred —————— 12 The Supremacy Clause declares federal law the “supreme law of the land,” and state courts must enforce it “in the absence of a valid excuse.” “An excuse that is inconsistent with or violates federal law is not a valid excuse: The Supremacy Clause forbids state courts to dissociate themselves from federal law because of disagreement with its content or a refusal to recognize the superior authority of its source.” Without the “if otherwise permitted” language, 47 U.S. C. (b)(3), there is little doubt that state courts would be obliged to hear TCPA claims. See 14 MIMS v. ARROW FINANCIAL SERVICES, LLC Opinion of the Court by 28 U.S. C. should hold firm against “mere impli- cation flowing from subsequent legislation.” Colorado River Water Conservation Dist. v. United States, 424 U.S. 800, 808, 809, n. 15 (1976) ). We are not persuaded, moreover, that Congress sought only to fill a gap in the States’ enforcement capabilities. Had Congress so limited its sights, it could have passed a statute providing that out-of-state telemarketing calls directed into a State would be subject to the laws of the receiving State. Congress did not enact such a law. In- stead, it enacted detailed, uniform, federal substantive prescriptions and provided for a regulatory regime admin- istered by a federal agency. See 47 U.S. C. TCPA liability thus depends on violation of a federal statutory requirement or an FCC regulation, §(b)(3)(A), (c)(5), not on a violation of any state substantive law. The federal interest in regulating telemarketing to “protec[t] the privacy of individuals” while “permit[ting] legitimate [commercial] practices,” note following 47 U.S. C. (Congressional Findings) (inter- nal quotation |
Justice Ginsburg | 2,012 | 5 | majority | Mims v. Arrow Financial Services, LLC | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/621043/mims-v-arrow-financial-services-llc/ | note following 47 U.S. C. (Congressional Findings) (inter- nal quotation marks omitted), is evident from the regu- latory role Congress assigned to the FCC. See, e.g., (b)(2) (delegating to the FCC authority to exempt calls from the Act’s reach and prohibit calls to businesses). Congress’ design would be less well served if consumers had to rely on “the laws or rules of court of a State,” (b)(3), or the accident of diversity jurisdiction,13 to —————— 13 Although all courts of appeals to have considered the question have held that the TCPA does not bar district courts from exercising diver- sity jurisdiction under 28 U.S. C. see, e.g., at oral argument, Arrow’s counsel maintained that diversity jurisdiction “should go, too,” Tr. of Oral Arg. 39. Were we to accept Arrow’s positions that diversity and federal- question jurisdiction are unavailable, and that state courts may refuse to hear TCPA claims, residents of States that choose not to hear TCPA Cite as: 565 U. S. (2012) 15 Opinion of the Court gain redress for TCPA violations. Arrow emphasizes a statement made on the Senate floor by Senator Hollings, the TCPA’s sponsor: “Computerized calls are the scourge of modern civi- lization. They wake us up in the morning; they in- terrupt our dinner at night; they force the sick and elderly out of bed; they hound us until we want to rip the telephone right out of the wall. “The substitute bill contains a private right-of- action provision that will make it easier for consumers to recover damages from receiving these computerized calls. The provision would allow consumers to bring an action in State court against any entity that vio- lates the bill. The bill does not, because of constitu- tional constraints, dictate to the States which court in each State shall be the proper venue for such an ac- tion, as this is a matter for State legislators to deter- mine. Nevertheless, it is my hope that States will make it as easy as possible for consumers to bring such actions, preferably in small claims court. “Small claims court or a similar court would allow the consumer to appear before the court without an attorney. The amount of damages in this legislation is set to be fair to both the consumer and the telemar- keter. However, it would defeat the purposes of the bill if the attorneys’ costs to consumers of bringing an action were greater than the potential damages. I thus expect that the States will act reaably in permitting their citizens to go to court to enforce this bill.” 137 Cong. |
Justice Ginsburg | 2,012 | 5 | majority | Mims v. Arrow Financial Services, LLC | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/621043/mims-v-arrow-financial-services-llc/ | to go to court to enforce this bill.” 137 Cong. Rec. 30821–30822 (1991). This statement does not bear the weight Arrow would place on it. —————— claims would have no forum in which to sue. 16 MIMS v. ARROW FINANCIAL SERVICES, LLC Opinion of the Court First, the views of a single legislator, even a bill’s spon- sor, are not controlling. Consumer Product Safety Comm’n v. GTE Sylvania, Inc., U.S. 102, Second, Senator Hollings did not mention federal-court jurisdiction or otherwise suggest th7 U.S. C. (b)(3) is intend- ed to divest federal courts of authority to hear TCPA claims. Hollings no doubt believed that mine-run TCPA claims would be pursued most expeditiously in state small-claims court.14 But one cannot glean from his statement any expectation that those courts, or state courts generally, would have exclusive jurisdiction over private actions alleging violations of the Act or of the FCC’s implementing regulations. Third, even if we agreed with Arrow that Senator Hollings expected private TCPA actions to proceed solely in state courts, and even if other supporters shared his view, that expectation would not control our judgment on 28 U.S. C. ’s compass. Cf. Yellow 494 U.S., 26 (“persuasive showing that most legislators, judges, and administrators involved in the enactment, amendment, enforcement, and interpretation of Title VII expected that such litiga- tion would be processed exclusively in federal courts” did not overcome presumption of concurrent state-court jurisdiction). Among its arguments for state-court exclusivity, Arrow raises a concern about the impact on federal courts were we to uphold jurisdiction over private actions under the TCPA. “[G]iven the enormous volume of telecommuni- cations presenting potential claims,” Arrow projects, fed- eral courts could be inundated by $500-per-violation TCPA —————— 14 The complaint in this very case, we note, could not have been brought in small-claims court. Mims alleged some 12 calls, and sought treble damages ($1,500) for each. See App. 9–14; Tr. of Oral Arg. 12. The amount he sought to recover far exceeded the $5,000 ceiling on claims a Florida small-claims court can adjudicate. See Fla. Small Claims Rule 7.010(b) Cite as: 565 U. S. (2012) 17 Opinion of the Court claims. Brief for Respondent 33. “Moreover, if plaintiffs are free to bring TCPA claims in federal court under then defendants sued in state court would be equal- ly free to remove those cases to federal court under 28 U.S. C. 2–23. Indeed, Arrow suggests, defendants could use removal as a mechanism to force small-claims-court plaintiffs to abandon suit rather than “figh[t] it out” in the “more expensive federal forum.” 3. Arrow’s floodgates argument |
Justice Ginsburg | 2,012 | 5 | majority | Mims v. Arrow Financial Services, LLC | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/621043/mims-v-arrow-financial-services-llc/ | in the “more expensive federal forum.” 3. Arrow’s floodgates argument assumes “a shocking de- gree of noncompliance” with the Act, Reply Brief 11, and seems to us more imaginary than real. The current fed- eral district court civil filing fee is $350. 28 U.S. C. How likely is it that a party would bring a $500 claim in, or remove a $500 claim to, federal court? Lexis and Westlaw searches turned up 65 TCPA claims removed to federal district courts in Illinois, Indiana, and Wiscon- sin since the Seventh Circuit held, in October that the Act does not confer exclusive jurisdiction on state courts. All 65 cases were class actions, not individual cases removed from small-claims court.15 There were also 26 private TCPA claims brought initially in federal district courts; of those, 24 were class actions. IV Nothing in the text, structure, purpose, or legislative history of the TCPA calls for displacement of the federal- question jurisdiction U. S. district courts ordinarily have —————— 15 When Congress wants to make federal claims instituted in state court nonremovable, it says just that. See (quoting, e.g., 28 U.S. C. (“A civil action in any State court against a railroad or its receivers or trustees, [arising under of Title 45,] may not be removed to any district court of the United States.”) and 15 U.S. C. (“[N]o case arising under this subchapter and brought in any State court of competent jurisdiction shall be removed to any court of the United States.”)). 18 MIMS v. ARROW FINANCIAL SERVICES, LLC Opinion of the Court under 28 U.S. C. In the absence of direction from Congress stronger than any Arrow has advanced, we apply the familiar default rule: Federal courts have juris- diction over claims that arise under federal law. Because federal law gives rise to the claim for relief Mims has stated and specifies the substantive rules of decision, the Eleventh Circuit erred in dismissing Mims’s case for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. * * * For the reas stated, the judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit is re- versed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. It is so ordered |
Justice Powell | 1,986 | 17 | majority | United States v. Loud Hawk | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111554/united-states-v-loud-hawk/ | In this case we must decide, first, whether the Speedy Trial Clause of the Sixth Amendment[1] applies to time during which respondents were neither under indictment nor subjected to any official restraint, and, second, whether certain delays occasioned by interlocutory appeals were properly weighed in assessing respondents' right to a speedy A divided panel of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit weighed most of the 90 months from the time of respondents' arrests and initial indictment in November 1975 until the District Court's dismissal of the indictment in May 1983 towards respondents' claims under the Speedy Trial Clause. We conclude that the time that no indictment was outstanding against respondents should not weigh towards respondents' speedy trial claims. We also find that in this case the delay attributable to interlocutory appeals by the Government and respondents does not establish a violation of the Speedy Trial *305 Clause. Accordingly, we reverse the holding of the Court of Appeals that respondents were denied their right to a speedy I In view of the nature of respondents' claim, we state the factual and procedural history of this case in some detail. On November 14, 1975, pursuant to a tip from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Oregon state troopers stopped two vehicles in search of several federal fugitives.[2] After an exchange of gunfire and a motor chase, state troopers captured all but one of the respondents, Dennis Banks.[3] Both vehicles were locked and impounded while federal and state authorities obtained search warrants. Searches of the vehicles over the next two days disclosed 350 pounds of dynamite,[4] 6 partially assembled time bombs, *306 2,600 rounds of ammunition, 150 blasting caps, 9 empty hand grenades, and miscellaneous firearms.[5] Oregon law enforcement officers, apparently unaware of the evidentiary consequences, adhered to their usual policy and destroyed the dynamite. A federal agent present at the destruction photographed the explosions. United State officials also preserved wrappers from the dynamite casings. A federal grand jury indicted respondents on November 25, 1975, on charges of possessing firearms and explosives. Trial in the United States District Court for the District of Oregon was set for the week of February 9, 1976. On December 22, 1975, a grand jury returned a five-count superseding indictment. This indictment charged all respondents with three counts relating to possession and transportation in commerce of an unregistered destructive device (the dynamite counts) and two counts relating to unlawful possession of firearms (the firearms counts). Two days later, respondents filed a motion to suppress all evidence concerning the dynamite, arguing that federal and state officials had intentionally |
Justice Powell | 1,986 | 17 | majority | United States v. Loud Hawk | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111554/united-states-v-loud-hawk/ | the dynamite, arguing that federal and state officials had intentionally and negligently destroyed the dynamite before the defense had the opportunity to examine it. After initially denying respondents' motion,[6] and after *307 two continuances at respondents' behest,[7] the District Court granted respondents' motion to suppress on March 31, 1976. App. to Pet. for Cert. 157a. Three weeks later, the Government appealed the suppression order,[8] and moved that trial on all counts be continued pending the outcome of the appeal. The District Court denied the Government's request for a continuance, and when the case was called for trial, the Government answered "not ready." Pursuant to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 48(b), the District Judge dismissed the indictment with prejudice. Six months had passed since the original indictment. The Government immediately appealed the dismissal, and the two appeals were consolidated. The Court of Appeals *308 heard argument on October 15, 1976, and a divided panel affirmed in an unreported opinion on July 26, 1977. App. to Pet. for Cert. 88a-118a. On the Government's motion, the court voted on October 17, 1977, to hear the case en banc. On March 6, the Court of Appeals en banc remanded for findings of fact on whether federal officials participated in the destruction of the dynamite and whether respondents were prejudiced by its destruction. The court retained jurisdiction over the appeal pending the District Court's findings. The District Court issued its findings on August 23, and the case returned to the Court of Appeals. On August 7, the Court of Appeals reversed the suppression order and directed that the dynamite counts be reinstated. United 628 F. 2d, at 1150. The court also held that although the Government could have gone to trial on the firearms counts pending the appeal, the District Court erred in dismissing those counts with prejudice. The Court of Appeals denied respondents' petition for rehearing on October 1, Respondents petitioned for certiorari; we denied the petition on March 3, 1980. The mandate of the Court of Appeals issued on March 12, 1980, 46 months after the Government filed its notice of appeal from the dismissal of the indictment. Respondents were unconditionally released during that time. Following remand, the District Court ordered the Government to reindict on the firearms charges.[9] Respondents filed a number of motions during June and July of 1980 in response *309 to the superseding indictment,[] including a motion to dismiss for vindictive prosecution. On August 8, 1980, the District Court granted the vindictive prosecution motion as to KaMook Banks and denied it as to respondents Dennis Banks, Render, and Loud |
Justice Powell | 1,986 | 17 | majority | United States v. Loud Hawk | https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111554/united-states-v-loud-hawk/ | denied it as to respondents Dennis Banks, Render, and Loud Hawk. Both sides appealed. Respondents remained free on their own recognizance during this appeal. The appeals were consolidated, and the Court of Appeals ordered expedited consideration. The court heard argument on January 7, 1981, but did not issue its decision until July 29, 1982. The court sustained the Government's position on all issues. United Respondents' petitions for rehearing were denied on October 5, 1982. Respondents again petitioned for certiorari, and we denied the petition on January 1983. The Court of Appeals' mandate issued on January 31, 1983, almost 29 months after the appeals were filed. The District Court scheduled trial to begin on April 11, 1983. The Government sought and received a continuance until May 3, 1983, because of alleged difficulties in locating witnesses more than seven years after the arrests. Subsequently, the court on its own motion continued the trial date until May 23, 1983, and then again rescheduled the trial for June 13. The record in this Court does not reveal the reasons *3 for these latter two continuances. Defendants objected to each continuance. On May 20, 1983, the District Court again dismissed the indictment, this time on the ground that respondents' Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial had been violated. The Government appealed, and unsuccessfully urged the District Court to request that the Court of Appeals expedite the appeal. On its own motion the court treated the appeal as expedited, and heard argument on January 4, 1984. A divided panel affirmed on August 30, 1984. and now reverse. II The Government argues that under United the time during which defendants are neither under indictment nor subject to any restraint on their liberty should be excluded weighed not at all when considering a speedy trial claim.[12] Respondents contend that even during the time the charges against them were dismissed, the Government was actively pursuing its case and they continued to be subjected to the possibility that bail might be imposed. This possibility, according to respondents, is sufficient to warrant counting the time towards a speedy trial claim. The Court has found that when no indictment is outstanding, only the "actual restraints imposed by arrest and holding to answer a criminal charge engage the particular protections of the speedy trial provision of the Sixth Amendment." United *311 (emphasis added); see As we stated in : "The speedy trial guarantee is designed to minimize the possibility of lengthy incarceration prior to trial, to reduce the lesser, but nevertheless substantial, impairment of liberty imposed on an accused while |
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