author_name
stringclasses 26
values | year
int64 1.97k
2.02k
| label
int64 0
200
| category
stringclasses 5
values | case_name
stringlengths 9
127
| url
stringlengths 55
120
| text
stringlengths 1k
3.91k
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Justice Thomas
| 2,004 | 1 |
dissenting
|
Tennessee Student Assistance Corporation v. Hood
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/134741/tennessee-student-assistance-corporation-v-hood/
|
i this case, as opposed to all others, does ot subject a uwillig State to a coercive judicial process. Ate, at 452. The Court also views the adversary proceedig i this case differetly tha a typical adversary proceedig because, abset Federal Rule of Bakruptcy Procedure 7001(6), the Court cocludes that a debtor could obtai a udue hardship determiatio by motio cosistet with a bakruptcy court's i rem jurisdictio ad cosistet with the Costitutio. See ate, at 453. Critically, however, the Court fails to explai why, simply because it asserts that this determiatio could have bee made by motio, the adversary proceedig utilized i this case is somehow less offesive to state sovereigty. After all, "[t]he very object ad purpose of the 11th Amedmet [is] to prevet the idigity of subjectig a State to the coercive process of judicial tribuals at the istace of private parties." I re Ayers, ; Federal Maritime Comm', ; Alde v. Maie, ; Semiole Tribe of The fact that a alterative proceedig exists, *459 the use of which might ot be offesive to state sovereigty, is irrelevat to whether the particular proceedig actually used subjects a particular State to the idigities of coercive process. Ideed, the disset i Federal Maritime Comm', much like the Court today, focused o the fact that the FMC was ot required by statute to evaluate complaits through agecy adjudicatio, -776 (opiio of BREYER, J.), ad could have opted to evaluate complaits i some other maer. But this fact had o bearig o our decisio i that case, or should it cotrol here. I simply caot igore the fact that respodet filed a complait i the Bakruptcy Court "pray[ig] that proper process issue ad that upo a hearig upo the merits that [the court] issue a judgmet for [respodet] ad agaist [petitioer] allowig [respodet's] debt to be discharged." Complait for Hardship Discharge i No. 99-22606-K, Adversary No. 99-0847 (Bkrtcy. Ct. WD Te.), p. 1. More importatly, although the adversary proceedig i this case does ot require the State to "defed itself" agaist petitioer i the ordiary sese, the effect is the same, whether doe by adversary proceedig or by motio, ad whether the proceedig is i persoam or i rem. I order to preserve its rights, the State is compelled either to subject itself to the Bakruptcy Court's jurisdictio or to forfeit its rights. Ad, whatever the ature of the Bakruptcy Court's jurisdictio, it maitais at least as much cotrol over ocosetig States as the FMC, which lacks the power to eforce its ow orders. Federal Maritime Comm' rejected the view that
|
Justice Thomas
| 2,004 | 1 |
dissenting
|
Tennessee Student Assistance Corporation v. Hood
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/134741/tennessee-student-assistance-corporation-v-hood/
|
its ow orders. Federal Maritime Comm' rejected the view that the FMC's lack of eforcemet power meas that parties are ot coerced to participate i its proceedigs because the effect is the same a State must submit to the adjudicatio or compromise its ability to defed itself i later proceedigs. -. Here, if the State does ot oppose the debtor's claim of udue hardship, the Bakruptcy Court is authorized to eter a default judgmet without makig a udue hardship determiatio. *460 See Fed. Rules Bkrtcy. Proc. 7055, 9014 (adoptig Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 55 i both adversary proceedigs ad i cotested matters govered by motio). The Court apparetly cocludes otherwise, but, telligly, its oly support for that questioable propositio is a statemet made at oral argumet. See ate, at 453-454. As I explai i Part I-B, ifra, I do ot cotest the assertio that i bakruptcy, like admiralty, there might be a limited i rem exceptio to state sovereig immuity from suit. Nor do I ecessarily reject the argumet that this proceedig could have bee resolved by motio without offedig the digity of the State. However, because this case did ot proceed by motio, I caot resolve the merits based solely upo what might have, but did ot, occur. I would therefore hold that the adversary proceedig i this case costituted a suit agaist the State for sovereig immuity purposes. B The difficulty ad complexity of the questio of the scope of the Bakruptcy Court's i rem jurisdictio as it relates to a State's iterests is a further reaso that the Court should ot address the questio here without complete briefig ad full cosideratio by the Court of Appeals. Relyig o this Court's recet recogitio of a limited i rem exceptio to state sovereig immuity i certai admiralty actios, see Califoria v. Deep Sea Ic., the Court recogizes that "States may still be boud by some judicial actios without their coset," ate, at 446. The Court the ackowledges the udisputed fact that bakruptcy discharge proceedigs are i rem proceedigs. Ate, at 447. These facts, however, stadig aloe, do ot compel the coclusio that the i rem exceptio should exted to this case. Deep Sea does ot make clear the extet of the i rem exceptio i admiralty, much less its potetial applicatio i bakruptcy. The Court's recogitio of a i *461 rem exceptio to state sovereig immuity i admiralty actios was iformed, i part, by Justice Story's uderstadig of the differece betwee admiralty actios ad regular civil litigatio. Justice Story doubted whether the Eleveth Amedmet exteded to admiralty ad
|
Justice Thomas
| 2,004 | 1 |
dissenting
|
Tennessee Student Assistance Corporation v. Hood
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/134741/tennessee-student-assistance-corporation-v-hood/
|
Story doubted whether the Eleveth Amedmet exteded to admiralty ad maritime suits at all because, i admiralty, "the jurisdictio of the [federal] court is fouded upo the possessio of the thig; ad if the State should iterpose a claim for the property, it does ot act merely i the character of a defedat, but as a actor." 2 Commetaries o the Costitutio of the Uited States 1689, p. 491 (5th ed. 1891). Justice Story supported this view by cotrastig suits i law or equity with suits i admiralty, which received a separate grat of jurisdictio uder Article III. The Court, however, has sice adopted a more arrow uderstadig of the i rem maritime exceptio. See Ex parte New York, ("Nor is the admiralty ad maritime jurisdictio exempt from the operatio of the rule [that a State may ot be sued without its coset]"). Thus, our holdig i Deep Sea was limited to actios where the res is ot withi the State's possessio. -508. Whatever the scope of the i rem exceptio i admiralty, the Court's cases reveal o clear priciple to gover which, if ay, bakruptcy suits are exempt from the Eleveth Amedmet's bar. I the Court stated i o ucertai terms that "[t]he fact that a suit i a federal court is i rem, or quasi i rem, furishes o groud for the issue of process agaist a o-cosetig State." The Court coteds that supports its argumet because there the Court "oted the State might still be boud by the federal court's adjudicatio eve if a ijuctio could ot issue." Ate, at 449, 4. But the Court i also suggested that the State might ot be boud by the federal court's adjudicatio a more weighty propositio give the circumstaces of the case. i part, ivolved the validity of a federal-court decree etered i 1927, which determied *462 that Sophie Fraz had oly a life iterest i certai shares of stock previously held by her deceased husbad. Whe Fraz died i 1930, Fraz's executor did ot ivetory the shares because the federal-court decree declared Fraz to have oly a life iterest i them. The dispute arose because the State sought to ivetory those shares as assets of Fraz's estate so that it could collect iheritace taxes o those shares. Although did ot decide whether the 1927 federal decree was bidig o the State, the mere suggestio that the State might ot be boud by the decree because it was ot a party to a i rem proceedig i which it had o iterest, see ib at least leaves i
|
Justice Thomas
| 2,004 | 1 |
dissenting
|
Tennessee Student Assistance Corporation v. Hood
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/134741/tennessee-student-assistance-corporation-v-hood/
|
it had o iterest, see ib at least leaves i doubt the extet of ay i rem exceptio i bakruptcy. Our more recet decisio i Uited States v. Nordic Village, Ic., casts some doubt upo the Court's characterizatio of ay i rem exceptio i bakruptcy. Nordic Village explicitly recogized that "we have ever applied a i rem exceptio to the sovereig-immuity bar agaist moetary recovery, ad have suggested that o such exceptio exists." Although Nordic Village ivolved the sovereig immuity of the Federal Govermet, it also supports the argumet that o i rem exceptio exists for other types of relief agaist a State. Nordic Village iterpreted 11 U.S. C. 106(c) to waive claims for declaratory ad ijuctive, though ot moetary, relief agaist the Govermet. -37. We oted that this iterpretatio did ot reder 106(c) irrelevat because a waiver of immuity with respect to claims for declaratory ad ijuctive relief would "perform a sigificat fuctio" by "permit[ig] a bakruptcy court to determie the amout ad dischargeability of a estate's liability to the Govermet whether or ot the Govermet filed a proof of claim." Our iterpretatio of 106(c) to waive liability oly for declaratory ad ijuctive relief strogly suggests that such a waiver is ecessary i. e., that without the waiver, despite the bakruptcy court's i rem jurisdictio, *463 the bakruptcy court could ot order declaratory or ijuctive relief agaist a State without the State's coset. Cf. Raygor v. Regets of Uiv. of Mi., 553, 11 To be sure, the Court has previously held that a State ca be boud by a bakruptcy court adjudicatio that affects a State's iterest. See New York v. Irvig Trust Co., ; Va But, i either of those cases did the Court attempt to udertake a sovereig immuity aalysis. Irvig Trust, for istace, rested o Cogress' "power to establish uiform laws o the subject of bakruptcies," ad the eed for "orderly ad expeditious proceedigs," Ad i Va Huffel, the Court appeared to rest its decisio more o "the requiremets of bakruptcy admiistratio," tha the effect of the i rem ature of the proceedigs o state sovereig immuity.[*] Perhaps recogizig that these precedets caot support the weight of its reasoig, the Court attempts to limit its holdig by explicitly decliig to fid a i rem exceptio to every exercise of a bakruptcy court's i rem jurisdictio that might offed state sovereigty, ate, at 451, 5. But, I ca fid o priciple i the Court's opiio to distiguish this case from ay other. For this reaso, I would ot udertake this complicated iquiry. II Cogress has made
|
Justice Thomas
| 2,004 | 1 |
dissenting
|
Tennessee Student Assistance Corporation v. Hood
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/134741/tennessee-student-assistance-corporation-v-hood/
|
would ot udertake this complicated iquiry. II Cogress has made its itet to abrogate state sovereig immuity uder the Bakruptcy Clause clear. See 11 U.S. C. 106(a). The oly questio, the, is whether the Bakruptcy Clause grats Cogress the power to do so. *464 This Court has repeatedly stated that "Cogress may ot base its abrogatio of the States' Eleveth Amedmet immuity upo the powers eumerated i Article I." Board of Trustees of Uiv. of See also, e. g., Kimel v. Florida Bd. of Regets, ("Cogress' powers uder Article I of the Costitutio do ot iclude the power to subject States to suit at the hads of private idividuals"); Florida Prepaid Postsecodary Ed. Expese Bd. v. College Savigs Bak, ("Semiole Tribe makes clear that Cogress may ot abrogate state sovereig immuity pursuat to its Article I powers"). Despite the clarity of these statemets, the Court of Appeals held that the Bakruptcy Clause operates differetly from Cogress' other Article I powers because of its "uiformity requiremet," Our discussios of Cogress' iability to abrogate state sovereig immuity through the use of its Article I powers reveal o such limitatio. I would therefore reverse the judgmet of the Court of Appeals. For the foregoig reasos, I respectfully disset.
|
Justice Stevens
| 1,988 | 16 |
second_dissenting
|
Murray v. United States
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112136/murray-v-united-states/
|
While I join JUSTICE MARSHALL's opinion explaining why the majority's extension of the Court's holding in "emasculates the Warrant Clause and provides an intolerable incentive for warrantless searches," ante this page, I remain convinced that the Segura decision itself was unacceptable because, even then, it was obvious that it would "provide government agents with an affirmative incentive to engage in unconstitutional violations of the privacy of the home," I fear that the Court has taken another unfortunate step down the path to a system of "law enforcement unfettered by process concerns." Patterson v. Illinois, ante, at 305 (STEVENS, J., dissenting). In due course, I trust it will pause long enough to remember that "the efforts of the courts and their officials to bring the guilty to punishment, praiseworthy as they are, are not to be aided by the sacrifice of those great principles established by years of endeavor and suffering which have resulted in their embodiment in the fundamental law of the land."
|
Justice Scalia
| 1,991 | 9 |
majority
|
Owen v. Owen
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112598/owen-v-owen/
|
The Bankruptcy Code allows the States to define what property a debtor may exempt from the bankruptcy estate that will be distributed among his creditors. 11 U.S. C. 522(b). The Code also provides that judicial liens encumbering exempt property can be eliminated. 522(f). The question in this case is whether that elimination can operate when the State has defined the exempt property in such a way as specifically to exclude property encumbered by judicial liens. I In 1975, Helen Owen, the respondent, obtained a judgment against petitioner Dwight Owen, her former husband, for approximately $160,000. The judgment was recorded in Sarasota County, Florida, in July 1976. Petitioner did not at that time own any property in Sarasota County, but under *307 Florida law, the judgment would attach to any after-acquired property recorded in the county. B. A. Lott, In 1984, petitioner purchased a condominium in Sarasota County; upon acquisition of title, the property became subject to respondent's judgment lien. Porter-Mallard One year later, Florida amended its homestead law so that petitioner's condominium, which previously had not qualified as a homestead, thereafter did. Under the Florida Constitution, homestead property is "exempt from forced sale and no judgment, decree or execution [can] be a lien thereon," Fla. Const., Art. 10, 4(a). The Florida courts have interpreted this provision, however, as being inapplicable to pre-existing liens, i. e., liens that attached before the property acquired its homestead status. ; Aetna Ins. ; ; ; Pre-existing liens, then, are in effect an exception to the Florida homestead exemption. In January 1986, petitioner filed for bankruptcy under Chapter 7 of the Code, and claimed a homestead exemption in his Sarasota condominium. The condominium, valued at approximately $135,000, was his primary asset; his liabilities included approximately $350,000 owed to respondent. The Bankruptcy Court discharged petitioner's personal liability for these debts, and sustained, over respondent's objections, his claimed exemption. The condominium, however, remained subject to respondent's pre-existing lien, and after discharge, petitioner moved to reopen his case to avoid the lien pursuant to 522(f)(1). The Bankruptcy Court refused to decree the avoidance; the District Court affirmed, finding that the lien had attached *308 before the property qualified for the exemption, and that Florida law therefore did not exempt the lien-encumbered property. The Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit affirmed on the same ground. We granted certiorari. II An estate in bankruptcy consists of all the interests in property, legal and equitable, possessed by the debtor at the time of filing, as well as those interests recovered or recoverable through transfer and lien avoidance provisions. An exemption
|
Justice Scalia
| 1,991 | 9 |
majority
|
Owen v. Owen
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112598/owen-v-owen/
|
or recoverable through transfer and lien avoidance provisions. An exemption is an interest withdrawn from the estate (and hence from the creditors) for the benefit of the debtor. Section 522 determines what property a debtor may exempt. Under 522(b), he must select between a list of federal exemptions (set forth in 522(d)) and the exemptions provided by his State, "unless the State law that is applicable to the debtor specifically does not so authorize," 522(b)(1) that is, unless the State "opts out" of the federal list. If a State opts out, then its debtors are limited to the exemptions provided by state law. Nothing in subsection (b) (or elsewhere in the Code) limits a State's power to restrict the scope of its exemptions; indeed, it could theoretically accord no exemptions at all. Property that is properly exempted under 522 is (with some exceptions) immunized against liability for prebankruptcy debts. 522(c). No property can be exempted (and thereby immunized), however, unless it first falls within the bankruptcy estate. Section 522(b) provides that the debtor may exempt certain property "from property of the estate"; obviously, then, an interest that is not possessed by the estate cannot be exempted. Thus, if a debtor holds only bare legal title to his houseif, for example, the house is subject to a purchase-money mortgage for its full valuethen only that legal interest passes to the estate; the equitable interest remains with the mortgage holder, 541(d). And since the *309 equitable interest does not pass to the estate, neither can it pass to the debtor as an exempt interest in property. Legal title will pass, and can be the subject of an exemption; but the property will remain subject to the lien interest of the mortgage holder. This was the rule of codified in 522. Only where the Code empowers the court to avoid liens or transfers can an interest originally not within the estate be passed to the estate, and subsequently (through the claim of an exemption) to the debtor. It is such an avoidance provision that is at issue here, to which we now turn. Section 522(f) reads as follows: "(f) Notwithstanding any waiver of exemptions, the debtor may avoid the fixing of a lien on an interest of the debtor in property to the extent that such lien impairs an exemption to which the debtor would have been entitled under subsection (b) of this section, if such lien is "(1) a judicial lien; or "(2) a nonpossessory, nonpurchase-money security interest" The lien in the present case is a judicial lien, and we assume without
|
Justice Scalia
| 1,991 | 9 |
majority
|
Owen v. Owen
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112598/owen-v-owen/
|
present case is a judicial lien, and we assume without deciding that it fixed "on an interest of the debtor in property." See Farrey v. Sanderfoot, ante, p. 291. The question presented by this case is whether it "impairs an exemption to which [petitioner] would have been entitled under subsection (b)." Since Florida has chosen to opt out of the listed federal exemptions, see Fla. Stat. 222.20 the only subsection (b) exemption at issue is the Florida homestead exemption described above. Respondent suggests that, to resolve this case, we need only ask whether the judicial lien impairs that exemption. It obviously does not, since the Florida homestead exemption is not assertable against pre-existing judicial liens. To permit avoidance of the lien, respondent urges, would not preserve the exemption but would expand it. *310 At first blush, this seems entirely reasonable. Several Courts of Appeals in addition to the Eleventh Circuit here have reached this result with respect to built-in limitations on state exemptions,[1] though others have rejected it.[2] What must give us pause, however, is that this result has been widely and uniformly rejected with respect to built-in limitations on the federal exemptions. Most of the federally listed exemptions (set forth in 522(d)) are explicitly restricted to the "debtor's aggregate interest" or the "debtor's interest" up to a maximum amount. See 522(d)(1)-(6), (8). If respondent's approach to 522(f) were applied, all of these exemptions (and perhaps others as well)[3] would be limited by unavoided encumbering liens, see 522(c). The federal homestead exemption, for example, allows the debtor to exempt from the property of the estate "[t]he debtor's aggregate interest, not to exceed $7,500 in value, in a residence." 522(d)(1). If respondent's interpretation of 522(f) were applied to this exemption, a debtor who owned a house worth $10,000 that was subject to a judicial lien for $9,000 would not be entitled to the full homestead exemption of $7,500. The judicial lien would not be avoidable under 522(f), since it does not "impair" the exemption, which is limited to the debtor's "aggregate interest" of $1,000. The uniform practice of bankruptcy courts, however, is to the contrary. To determine the application of 522(f) they ask not whether the lien impairs an exemption to which the debtor is in fact entitled, but whether it impairs an exemption *311 to which he would have been entitled but for the lien itself.[4] As the preceding italicized words suggest, this reading is more consonant with the text of 522(f)which establishes as the baseline, against which impairment is to be measured, not an exemption to which the debtor
|
Justice Scalia
| 1,991 | 9 |
majority
|
Owen v. Owen
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112598/owen-v-owen/
|
to be measured, not an exemption to which the debtor "is entitled," but one to which he "would have been entitled." The latter phrase denotes a state of affairs that is conceived or hypothetical, rather than actual, and requires the reader to disregard some element of reality. "Would have been" but for what? The answer given, with respect to the federal exemptions, has been but for the lien at issue, and that seems to us correct. The only other conceivable possibility is but for a waiver harking back to the beginning phrase of 522(f), "Notwithstanding any waiver of exemptions" The use of contrary-to-fact construction after a "notwithstanding" phrase is not, however, common usage, if even permissible. Moreover, though one might employ it when the "notwithstanding" phrase is the main point of the provision in question *312 ("Notwithstanding any waiver, a debtor shall retain those exemptions to which he would have been entitled under subsection (b)"), it would be most strange to employ it where the "notwithstanding" phrase, as here, is an aside. The point of 522(f) is not to exclude waivers (though that is done in passing, waivers are addressed directly in 522(e)) but to provide that the debtor may avoid the fixing of a lien. In that context, for every instance in which "would have been entitled" may be accurate (because the incidentally mentioned waiver occurred) there will be thousands of instances in which "is entitled" should have been used. It seems to us that "would have been entitled" must refer to the generality, if not indeed the universality, of cases covered by the provision; and on that premise the only conceivable fact we are invited to disregard is the existence of the lien. This reading must also be accepted, at least with respect to the federal exemptions, if 522(f) is not to become an irrelevancy with respect to the most venerable, most common, and most important exemptions. The federal exemptions for homesteads ( 522(d)(1)), for motor vehicles ( 522(d)(2)), for household goods and wearing apparel ( 522(d)(3)), and for tools of the trade ( 522(d)(6)), are all defined by reference to the debtor's "interest" or "aggregate interest," so that if respondent's interpretation is accepted, no encumbrances of these could be avoided. Surely 522(f) promises more than thatand surely it would be bizarre for the federal scheme to prevent the avoidance of liens on those items, but to permit it for the less crucial items (for example, an "unmatured life insurance contract owned by the debtor," 522(d)(7)) that are not described in such fashion as unquestionably to exclude liens.
|
Justice Scalia
| 1,991 | 9 |
majority
|
Owen v. Owen
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112598/owen-v-owen/
|
not described in such fashion as unquestionably to exclude liens. We have no doubt, then, that the lower courts' unanimously agreed-upon manner of applying 522(f) to federal exemptionsask first whether avoiding the lien would entitle the debtor to an exemption, and if it would, then avoid *313 and recover the lienis correct.[5] The question then becomes whether a different interpretation should be adopted for state exemptions. We do not see how that could be possible. Nothing in the text of 522(f) remotely justifies treating the two categories of exemptions differently. The provision refers to the impairment of "exemption[s] to which the debtor would have been entitled under subsection (b)," and that includes federal exemptions and state exemptions alike. Nor is there any overwhelmingly clear policy impelling us, if we possessed the power, to create a distinction that the words of the statute do not contain. Respondent asserts that it is inconsistent with the Bankruptcy Code's "opt-out" policy, whereby the States may define their own exemptions, to refuse to take those exemptions with all their built-in limitations. That is plainly not true, however, since there is no doubt that a state exemption which purports to be available "unless waived" will be given full effect, even if it has been waived, for purposes of 522(f)the first phrase of which, as we have noted, recites that it applies "[n]otwithstanding any waiver of exemptions." See Dominion Bank of Cumberlands, Just as it is not inconsistent with the policy of permitting statedefined exemptions to have another policy disfavoring waiver of exemptions, whether federal- or state-created; so also it is not inconsistent to have a policy disfavoring the impingement of certain types of liens upon exemptions, whether federal- or state-created. We have no basis for pronouncing the opt-out policy absolute, but must apply it along with whatever other competing or limiting policies the statute contains. On the basis of the analysis we have set forth above with respect to federal exemptions, and in light of the equivalency of treatment accorded to federal and state exemptions by 522(f), we conclude that Florida's exclusion of certain liens from the scope of its homestead protection does not achieve a *314 similar exclusion from the Bankruptcy Code's lien avoidance provision.[6] III The foregoing conclusion does not necessarily resolve this case. Section 522(f) permits the avoidance of the "fixing of a lien on an interest of the debtor." Some courts have held it inapplicable to a lien that was already attached to property when the debtor acquired it, since in such a case there never was a "fixing of a lien"
|
Justice Powell
| 1,980 | 17 |
concurring
|
County of Imperial v. Munoz
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110357/county-of-imperial-v-munoz/
|
Although I join the opinion of the Court on the basis of its reading of I record my willingness to reconsider Hale. It has rarely been cited andas the Court reads it todayit creates an *61 exception to the coverage of the Anti-Injunction Act that I think is contrary to the policy of that Act. JUSTICE BLACKMUN, concurring in the result. For me, the Court's opinion is somewhat opaque. Perhaps it is intentionally so. I agree with JUSTICE BRENNAN that respondents were and were necessarily determined by the Court of Appeals to be"strangers to the state court proceeding," post, at 62, who were not bound by the state-court litigation. No principle of res judicata evoked by the California litigation applies to them. I join the Court in vacating the Court of Appeals' judgment and remanding the case, however, for I am troubled by that court's apparent misreading of Atlantic Coast Line R. and by its analysis of the effect of the Anti-Injunction Act, 28, U. S. C. 2283, upon the particular facts of this case. At the same time, I am disturbed by what seems to me to be the implication of this Court's opinion, namely, that the Anti-Injunction Act does not apply when the state litigation involves different parties. If I am correct that this is the premise, I believe that the Court is indulging in a new exposition of the meaning of The Anti-Injunction Act imposes a flat and positive prohibition. It then allows three exceptions. None of those exceptions is applicable to the situation before us, which involves a single-use restriction on a single parcel of land. The precedent of Atlantic Coast Line R. and Vendo v. Lektro-Vend Corp., supports a conclusion that the Anti-Injunction Act bars the federal court from issuing an injunction against enforcement of this use restriction. Yet, a holding to that effect would not oust the federal court of jurisdiction to order other forms of relief, such as a declaratory judgment. It is worth noting, or so it *62 appears to me, that the state court has made clear, by its stay of the contempt order, that it will abide by the federal resolution of the constitutional issue.[*] The situation presented by this case is an inevitable result of our having two independent judicial systems. The Anti-Injunction Act cannot eliminate all conflicts, and was not so intended. It precludes federal injunctions that interfere with state proceedings. Heretofore, this Court has applied the Act's restrictions strictly. I would expect that approach to be continued.
|
Justice Scalia
| 1,993 | 9 |
concurring
|
Dobbs v. Zant
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112806/dobbs-v-zant/
|
Today's judgment reverses the decision below on the grounds that, in deciding not to apply the "manifest injustice" exception to the law of the case, the Court of Appeals wrongfully failed to consider a newly discovered transcript from petitioner's trial. The judgment is correct, but the judgment is also not worth making, serving no purpose but to extend the scandalous delay in the execution of a death sentence lawfully pronounced more than 18 years ago. As a general matter, I agree with Justice Stevens' frequently recited view that "[i]t is not appropriate for this Court to expend its scarce resources crafting opinions that correct technical errors in cases of only local importance where the correction in no way promotes the development of the law." "`To remain effective, the Supreme Court must continue to decide only those cases which present questions whose resolution will have immediate importance far beyond the particular facts and parties involved.' " Board of Ed. of (quoting address of Chief Justice Vinson before the American Bar Association (Sept. 7, 1949)). I am willing to make an exception from that rule in capital cases but only where there is a realistic likelihood that the "technical error" affected the conviction or the sentence. Here that is fanciful. To begin with, the rediscovered transcript covers only the closing statements in the case, and petitioner's claim goes *361 only to the fact that his trial counsel made one rather than two arguments in closing. It would be a rare case in which the omission of one particular argument from an attorney's closing statement would be dispositive of an ineffectiveassistance claim. It is simply not true, moreover, that the transcript "flatly contradict[s]," ante, at 358, the testimony of petitioner's trial counsel in the initial habeas hearing or at least not true in the sense that it shows trial counsel was lying. The transcript confirms that, as trial counsel recalled, he had argued that the death penalty was inappropriate in any circumstance. In fact, he read to the jury large portions of Justice Brennan's opinion in which is certainly an eloquent argument that the death penalty is improper in any case. The transcript does reveal that counsel had not argued in mitigation that the killing was impulsive which, petitioner now claims, shows that counsel's prior testimony was "false," Pet. for Cert. 19. That is not so. Although counsel stated at one point that he was "sure" he had argued the impulsive-killing point, a few lines earlier in the transcript he had said that "I would assume that I argued [it]"
|
Justice Scalia
| 1,993 | 9 |
concurring
|
Dobbs v. Zant
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112806/dobbs-v-zant/
|
had said that "I would assume that I argued [it]" (emphasis added), and had made clear that "a lot of this is really not from actual recollection." Tr. 70-71 Petitioner's habeas counsel understood the import of this, describing (in his post-hearing brief) trial counsel's testimony to have been that "he probably argued that the killing was impulsive and not planned." Petitioner's Post-Hearing Brief in No. C80-247R p. 25, n. 6 (emphasis added); see also Objections to Magistrate's Report and Recommendation in No. C80-247R (ND Ga., Sept. 1983), p. 8, n. 1. There is absolutely zero likelihood that counsel's misrecollection (or misreconstruction) that he had made an "impulsiveness" argument to the jury made the difference in the finding that his assistance was not ineffective. Petitioner's ineffectiveness contention had not been directed to the inadequacy of counsel's closing argument, but rather to his *362 failure to introduce mitigating evidence character witnesses and the like during the sentencing phase. See Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus (Dec. 3, 1980), ¶ 49, p. Petitioner's Post-Hearing Brief pp. 17-30, Magistrate's Report and Recommendation (Aug. 26, 1983), pp. 8-18, and Objections to the Magistrate's Report and Recommendation (Sept. 1983), pp. 2-, in No. C80-247R (ND Ga.); modified in part, In addressing that contention, neither the District Court nor the Court of Appeals relied on the content of the closing argument, for the obvious reason that it does not constitute evidence. The District Court described the closing argument in setting forth the events of the sentencing phase, but did not mention it in its legal analysis, ruling instead that counsel had made a "reasonably substantial investigation" in searching for witnesses to testify on petitioner's behalf and a "reasonable tactical decision not to present evidence based on the information before him." No. C80-247R (ND Ga., Jan. 13, 1984), p. 25. In affirming the District Court, the Court of Appeals elaborated on what it thought was the crucial "tactical decision" of the trial counsel (which was not a decision to omit evidence of mitigation in favor of a stunning closing argument): "Knowing of [petitioner's] poor reputation in the community, [counsel] testified in the district court that he did not want to put on any `positive' character testimony for fear that it would not be persuasive and would prompt damaging counter evidence from the prosecution." 790 F. 2d, at -1514. The closing argument was mentioned only in a footnote, which stated: "Although [counsel] did not present any mitigating evidence, his testimony in the district court reveals that he did make a closing argument in mitigation." I think it
|
Justice Scalia
| 1,993 | 9 |
concurring
|
Dobbs v. Zant
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112806/dobbs-v-zant/
|
did make a closing argument in mitigation." I think it unimaginable that, if this transcript had been available in showing that only Justice Brennan's moving Furman argument, and not also an "impulsiveness" argument *363 had been made the Court of Appeals would have found that there was ineffective assistance of counsel. (Indeed, if it were our practice to correct technical errors I would vote to reverse a finding that assistance otherwise effective was rendered ineffective by that omission.) But I think it soars beyond the unimaginable, into the wildly delirious, to believe that the Court of Appeals will find that the newly discovered transcript demonstrates such "manifest injustice" that it warrants making an exception to the law-ofthe-case doctrine, so that the already-decided ineffectiveness question should be reopened. There was, in short, no reason to grant this petition and correct this (admittedly clear) technical error, except to place another obstacle in the way of a death penalty that has been suspended within this Court's "death is different" time warp since 1974.
|
Justice Brennan
| 1,988 | 13 |
majority
|
Christianson v. Colt Industries Operating Corp.
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112104/christianson-v-colt-industries-operating-corp/
|
This case requires that we decide a peculiar jurisdictional battle between the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Each court has adamantly disavowed jurisdiction over this case. Each has transferred the case to the other. And each insists that the other's jurisdictional decision is "clearly wrong." *804 ; The parties therefore have been forced to shuttle their appeal back and forth between Chicago and the District of Columbia in search of a hospitable forum, ultimately to have the merits decided, after two years, by a Court of Appeals that still insists it lacks jurisdiction to do so. I Respondent Colt Industries Operating Corp. is the leading manufacturer, seller, and marketer of M rifles and their parts and accessories. Colt's dominant market position dates back to 1959, when it acquired a license for patents to manufacture the M's precursor. Colt continued to develop the rifle, which the United States Army adopted as its standard assault rifle, and patented additional improvements. Through various devices, Colt has maintained a shroud of secrecy around certain specifications essential to the mass production of interchangeable M parts. For example, Colt's patents conceal many of the manufacturing specifications that might otherwise be revealed by its engineering drawings, and when Colt licenses others to manufacture M parts or hires employees with access to proprietary information, it contractually obligates them not to disclose specifications. Petitioner Christianson is a former Colt employee who acceded to such a nondisclosure agreement. Upon leaving respondent's employ in 1975, Christianson established petitioner International Trade Services, Inc. (ITS), and began selling M parts to various customers domestically and abroad. Petitioners' business depended on information that Colt considers proprietary. Colt expressly waived its proprietary rights at least as to some of petitioners' early transactions. The precise scope of Colt's waiver is a matter of considerable dispute. In 1983, however, Colt joined petitioners as defendants in a patent-infringement lawsuit against two companies that had arranged a sale of M's to El Salvador. *805 Evidence suggested that petitioners supplied the companies with certain M specifications, and Colt sought a court order enjoining petitioners from any further disclosures. When the District Court declined the motion, Colt voluntarily dismissed its claims against petitioners. In the meantime, Colt notified several of petitioners' current and potential customers that petitioners were illegally misappropriating Colt's trade secrets, and urged them to refrain from doing business with petitioners. Three days after their dismissal from the lawsuit, petitioners brought this lawsuit in the District Court against Colt "pursuant to Section 4 (15 U.S. C. 15) and
|
Justice Brennan
| 1,988 | 13 |
majority
|
Christianson v. Colt Industries Operating Corp.
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112104/christianson-v-colt-industries-operating-corp/
|
Colt "pursuant to Section 4 (15 U.S. C. 15) and Section of the Clayton Act (15 U.S. C. 26) for damages, injunctive and equitable relief by reason of its violations of Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act (15 U.S. C. 1 & 2)" App. 7. The complaint alleged that Colt's letters, litigation tactics, and "[o]the[r] conduct" drove petitioners out of business. In that context, petitioners included the following obscure passage: "18. The validity of the Colt patents had been assumed throughout the life of the Colt patents through 1980. Unless such patents were invalid through the wrongful retention of proprietary information in contravention of United States Patent Law (35 U.S. C. ), in 1980, when such patents expired, anyone `who has ordinary skill in the rifle-making art' is able to use the technology of such expired patents for which Colt earlier had a monopoly position for 17 years. "19. ITS and anyone else has the right to manufacture, contract for the manufacture, supply, market and sell the M- and M- parts and accessories thereof at the present time." Petitioners later amended their complaint to assert a second cause of action under state law for tortious interference with their business relationships. Colt interposed a defense that *806 its conduct was justified by a need to protect its trade secrets and countersued on a variety of claims arising out of petitioners' alleged misappropriation of M specifications. Petitioners' motion for summary judgment raised only a patent-law issue obliquely hinted at in the above-quoted paragraphs that Colt's patents were invalid from their inception for failure to disclose sufficient information to "enable any person skilled in the art to make and use the same" as well as a description of "the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention." 35 U.S. C. Since Colt benefited from the protection of the invalid patents, the argument continues, the "trade secrets" that the patents should have disclosed lost any state-law protection. Petitioners therefore argued that the District Court should hold that "Colt's trade secrets are invalid and that [their] claim of invalidity shall be taken as established with respect to all claims and counterclaims to which said issue is material." App. 58. The District Court awarded petitioners summary judgment as to liability on both the antitrust and the tortious-interference claims, essentially relying on the theory articulated above. In the process, the District Court invalidated nine of Colt's patents, declared all trade secrets relating to the M unenforceable, enjoined Colt from enforcing "any from of trade secret right in any technical information relating
|
Justice Brennan
| 1,988 | 13 |
majority
|
Christianson v. Colt Industries Operating Corp.
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112104/christianson-v-colt-industries-operating-corp/
|
from of trade secret right in any technical information relating to the M," and ordered Colt to disgorge to petitioners all such information. Respondent appealed to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which, after full briefing and argument, concluded that it lacked jurisdiction and issued an unpublished order transferring the appeal to the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. See 28 U.S. C. 31. The Seventh Circuit, however, raising the jurisdictional issue sua sponte, concluded that the Federal Circuit was "clearly wrong" and transferred the case 798 F.2d, at 1062. *807 The Federal Circuit, for its part, adhered to its prior jurisdictional ruling, concluding that the Seventh Circuit exhibited "a monumental misunderstanding of the patent jurisdiction granted this court," and was "clearly wrong," at Nevertheless, the Federal Circuit proceeded to address the merits in the "interest of justice," and reversed the District Court. We granted certiorari, and now vacate the judgment of the Federal Circuit. II As relevant here, 28 U.S. C. 1295(a)(1) grants the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit exclusive jurisdiction over "an appeal from a final decision of a district court of the United States if the jurisdiction of that court was based, in whole or in part, on [28 U.S. C.] section 1338"[1] Section 1338(a), in turn, provides in relevant part that "[t]he district courts shall have original jurisdiction of any civil action arising under any Act of Congress relating to patents." Thus, the jurisdictional issue before us turns on whether this is a case "arising under" a federal patent statute, for if it is then the jurisdiction of the District Court was based at least "in part" on 1338. A In interpreting 1338's precursor, we held long ago that in order to demonstrate that a case is one "arising under" federal patent law "the plaintiff must set up some right, title or interest under the patent laws, or at least make it appear that some right or privilege will be defeated by one construction, *808 or sustained by the opposite construction of these laws." See Our cases interpreting identical language in other jurisdictional provisions, particularly the general federal-question provision, 28 U.S. C. 1331 ("The district courts shall have original jurisdiction of all civil actions arising under the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States"), have quite naturally applied the same test.[2] See (citations omitted). A district court's federal-question jurisdiction, we recently explained, extends over "only those cases in which a well-pleaded complaint establishes either that federal law creates the cause of action or that the plaintiff's right to relief necessarily
|
Justice Brennan
| 1,988 | 13 |
majority
|
Christianson v. Colt Industries Operating Corp.
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112104/christianson-v-colt-industries-operating-corp/
|
of action or that the plaintiff's right to relief necessarily depends on resolution of a substantial question of federal law," Franchise Tax of in that "federal law is a necessary element of one of the well-pleaded claims," Linguistic consistency, to which we have historically adhered, demands that 1338(a) jurisdiction likewise extend *809 only to those cases in which a well-pleaded complaint establishes either that federal patent law creates the cause of action or that the plaintiff's right to relief necessarily depends on resolution of a substantial question of federal patent law, in that patent law is a necessary element of one of the well-pleaded claims. See -1556; 798 F. 2d, 59-1061. The most superficial perusal of petitioners' complaint establishes, and no one disputes, that patent law did not in any sense create petitioners' antitrust or intentional-interference claims. Since no one asserts that federal jurisdiction rests on petitioners' state-law claims, the dispute centers around whether patent law "is a necessary element of one of the well-pleaded [antitrust] claims." See Merrell Pharmaceuticals Our cases, again mostly in the 1331 context, establish principles for both defining the "well-pleaded claims" and discerning which elements are "necessary" or "essential" to them. Under the well-pleaded complaint rule, as appropriately adapted to 1338(a), whether a claim "arises under" patent law " `must be determined from what necessarily appears in the plaintiff's statement of his own claim in the bill or declaration, unaided by anything alleged in anticipation or avoidance of defenses which it is thought the defendant may interpose.' " Franchise Tax ). See Louisville & Nashville R. Thus, a case raising a federal patent-law defense does not, for that reason alone, "arise under" patent law, "even if the defense is anticipated in the plaintiff's complaint, and even if both parties admit that the defense is the only question truly at issue in the case." Franchise Tax[3] See Merrell *810 Nor is it necessarily sufficient that a well-pleaded claim alleges a single theory under which resolution of a patent-law question is essential. If "on the face of a well-pleaded complaint there are reasons completely unrelated to the provisions and purposes of [the patent laws] why the [plaintiff] may or may not be entitled to the relief it seeks," Franchise Tax then the claim does not "arise under" those laws. See Thus, a claim supported by alternative theories in the complaint may not form the basis for 1338(a) jurisdiction unless patent law is essential to each of those theories. B Framed in these terms, our resolution of the jurisdictional issue in this case is straightforward. Petitioners' antitrust count
|
Justice Brennan
| 1,988 | 13 |
majority
|
Christianson v. Colt Industries Operating Corp.
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112104/christianson-v-colt-industries-operating-corp/
|
jurisdictional issue in this case is straightforward. Petitioners' antitrust count can readily be understood to encompass both a monopolization claim under 2 of the Sherman Act and a group-boycott claim under 1. The patent-law issue, while arguably necessary to at least one theory under each claim, is not necessary to the overall success of either claim. Section 2 of the Sherman Act condemns "[e]very person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize" 15 U.S. C. 2. The thrust of petitioners' monopolization claim is that Colt has "embarked on a course of conduct to illegally extend its monopoly position with respect to the described patents and to prevent ITS from engaging in any business with respect to parts and accessories of the M-." App. 10. The complaint specifies several acts, most of which relate either to Colt's prosecution of the lawsuit against petitioners or to letters Colt sent to petitioners' potential and existing customers. To make out a 2 claim, petitioners would *811 have to present a theory under which the identified conduct amounted to a "willful acquisition or maintenance of [monopoly] power as distinguished from growth or development as a consequence of a superior product, business acumen, or historic accident." United Both the Seventh Circuit and Colt focus entirely on what they perceive to be "the only basis Christianson asserted in the complaint for the alleged antitrust violation," 798 F.2d, 61; see Brief for Respondent 32 namely, that Colt made false assertions in its letters and pleadings that petitioners were violating its trade secrets, when those trade secrets were not protected under state law because Colt's patents were invalid under Thus, Colt concludes, the validity of the patents is an essential element of petitioners' prima facie monopolization theory and the case "arises under" patent law. We can assume without deciding that the invalidity of Colt's patents is an essential element of the foregoing monopolization theory rather than merely an argument in anticipation of a defense. But see The well-pleaded complaint rule, however, focuses on claims, not theories, see Franchise Tax and n. 29; and just because an element that is essential to a particular theory might be governed by federal patent law does not mean that the entire monopolization claim "arises under" patent law. Examination of the complaint reveals that the monopolization theory that Colt singles out (and on which petitioners ultimately prevailed in the District Court) is only one of several, and the only one for which the patent-law issue is even arguably essential. So far as appears from the complaint, for example, petitioners might have attempted to
|
Justice Brennan
| 1,988 | 13 |
majority
|
Christianson v. Colt Industries Operating Corp.
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112104/christianson-v-colt-industries-operating-corp/
|
from the complaint, for example, petitioners might have attempted to prove that Colt's accusations of trade-secret infringement were false not because Colt had no trade secrets, but because Colt authorized petitioners to use them. App. 9-10 ("Contrary to the permission extended to ITS to sell Colt parts and accessories *812 and in violation of the anti-trust laws Colt has embarked upon a course of conduct to prevent ITS from engaging in any business with respect to parts and accessories of the M-"). In fact, most of the conduct alleged in the complaint could be deemed wrongful quite apart from the truth or falsity of Colt's accusations. According to the complaint, Colt's letters (1) contained "copies of inapplicable court orders" and "suggest[ed] that these court orders prohibited [the recipients] from doing business with" petitioners; and (2) "falsely stat[ed] that `Colt's right' to proprietary data had been `consistently upheld in various courts.' " Similarly, the complaint alleges that Colt's lawsuit against petitioners (1) was designed "to contravene the permission previously given"; (2) was "[p]ursued in bad faith by subjecting [petitioners] to substantial expense in extended discovery procedures"; and (3) was brought only to enable Colt "to urge customers and potential customers of [petitioners] to refrain from doing business with them." -11. Since there are "reasons completely unrelated to the provisions and purposes" of federal patent law why petitioners "may or may not be entitled to the relief [they] see[k]" under their monopolization claim, Franchise Tax the claim does not "arise under" federal patent law. The same analysis obtains as to petitioners' group-boycott claim under 1 of the Sherman Act, which provides that "[e]very contract, combination or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce is declared to be illegal," 15 U.S. C. 1. This claim is set forth in the allegation that "virtually all suppliers of ITS and customers of ITS have agreed with Colt to refrain from supplying and purchasing M- parts and accessories to or from ITS, which has had the effect of requiring ITS to close its doors and no longer transact business." App. 11. As this case unfolded, petitioners attempted to prove that the alleged agreement was unreasonable because its purpose was to protect Colt's trade secrets from petitioners' infringement and, given the patents' *813 invalidity under Colt had no trade secrets to infringe. Whether or not the patent-law issue was an "essential" element of that group-boycott theory, however, petitioners could have supported their group-boycott claim with any of several theories having nothing to do with the validity of Colt's patents. Equally prominent in the complaint, for example, is
|
Justice Brennan
| 1,988 | 13 |
majority
|
Christianson v. Colt Industries Operating Corp.
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112104/christianson-v-colt-industries-operating-corp/
|
Colt's patents. Equally prominent in the complaint, for example, is a theory that the alleged agreement was unreasonable not because Colt had no trade secrets to protect, but because Colt authorized petitioners to use them. Once again, the appearance on the complaint's face of an alternative, nonpatent theory compels the conclusion that the group-boycott claim does not "arise under" patent law. III Colt offers three arguments for finding jurisdiction in the Federal Circuit, notwithstanding the well-pleaded complaint rule. The first derives from congressional policy; the second is based on Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15(b); and the third is grounded in principles of the law of the case. We find none of them persuasive. A Colt correctly observes that one of Congress' objectives in creating a Federal Circuit with exclusive jurisdiction over certain patent cases was "to reduce the widespread lack of uniformity and uncertainty of legal doctrine that exist[ed] in the administration of patent law." H. R. Rep. No. p. 23 Colt might be correct (although not clearly so) that Congress' goals would be better served if the Federal Circuit's jurisdiction were to be fixed "by reference to the case actually litigated," rather than by an ex ante hypothetical assessment of the elements of the complaint that might have been dispositive. Brief for Respondent 31. Congress determined the relevant focus, however, when it granted jurisdiction to the Federal Circuit over "an appeal from a *814 district court if the jurisdiction of that court was based. on section 1338." 28 U.S. C. 1295(a)(1) (emphasis added). Since the district court's jurisdiction is determined by reference to the well-pleaded complaint, not the well-tried case, the referent for the Federal Circuit's jurisdiction must be the same. The legislative history of the Federal Circuit's jurisdictional provisions confirms that focus. See, e. g., H. R. Rep. No. In view of that clear congressional intent, we have no more authority to read 1295(a)(1) as granting the Federal Circuit jurisdiction over an appeal where the well-pleaded complaint does not depend on patent law, than to read 1338(a) as granting a district court jurisdiction over such a complaint. See 8 U. S., at B Colt suggests alternatively that under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15(b)[4] we should deem the complaint amended to encompass a new and independent cause of action "an implied cause of action under section of the patent laws." Brief for Respondent 28. Such a cause of action, which Colt finds in petitioners' summary judgment papers, would plainly "arise under" the patent laws, regardless of its merit. See We need not decide under what circumstances,
|
Justice Brennan
| 1,988 | 13 |
majority
|
Christianson v. Colt Industries Operating Corp.
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112104/christianson-v-colt-industries-operating-corp/
|
its merit. See We need not decide under what circumstances, if any, a court of appeals could furnish itself a jurisdictional basis unsupported by the pleadings by deeming the complaint *815 amended in light of the parties' "express or implied consent" to litigate a claim. Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 15(b). In this case there is simply no evidence of any consent among the parties to litigate the new patent-law claim that Colt imputes to petitioners. Colt points to nothing in petitioners' summary judgment motion expressly raising such a new cause of action, much less anything in its own motion papers suggesting consent to one. See App. 57-58. True, the summary judgment papers focused almost entirely on the patent-law issues, which petitioners deemed "[b]asic and fundamental to the subject lawsuit." But those issues fell squarely within the purview of the theories of recovery, defenses, and counterclaims that the pleadings already encompassed. Petitioners recognized as much when they moved the District Court to hold that their "claim of [patent] invalidity shall be taken as established with respect to all claims and counterclaims to which said issue is material." Thus, the patent-law focus of the summary judgment papers hardly heralded the assertion of a new patent-law claim. See, e. g., ; 6 C. Wright & A. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure 1493, p. 466 (1971). Moreover, the District Court never intimated that the patent issues were relevant to any cause of action other than the antitrust and intentional-interference claims raised expressly in the complaint; the court four times linked its judgment to "liability on Counts I and II," without any reference to the hypothetical Count III that Colt imputes to petitioners. See 613 F. Supp., at C Colt's final argument is that the Federal Circuit was obliged not to revisit the Seventh Circuit's thorough analysis of the jurisdictional issue, but merely to adopt it as the law of the case. See "As most commonly defined, the doctrine *8 [of the law of the case] posits that when a court decides upon a rule of law, that decision should continue to govern the same issues in subsequent stages in the same case." This rule of practice promotes the finality and efficiency of the judicial process by "protecting against the agitation of settled issues." 1B J. Moore, J. Lucas, & T. Currier, Moore's Federal Practice ¶ 0.404[1], p. 118 (hereinafter Moore's). Colt is correct that the doctrine applies as much to the decisions of a coordinate court in the same case as to a court's own decisions. See, e. g., Kori (CA Fed.), cert. denied,
|
Justice Brennan
| 1,988 | 13 |
majority
|
Christianson v. Colt Industries Operating Corp.
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112104/christianson-v-colt-industries-operating-corp/
|
own decisions. See, e. g., Kori (CA Fed.), cert. denied, ; Perkin-Elmer (CA Fed.), cert. denied, Federal courts routinely apply law-of-the-case principles to transfer decisions of coordinate courts. See, e. g., Cash Register 669 F.2d 2, 4-170 (transfer under 28 U.S. C. 1406(a)); Skil (CA6) (alternative holding) (transfer under 28 U.S. C. 1404(a)), cert. denied, ; 1B Moore's ¶¶ 0.404[4.-5], 0.404[8]. Cf. Indeed, the policies supporting the doctrine apply with even greater force to transfer decisions than to decisions of substantive law; transferee courts that feel entirely free to revisit transfer decisions of a coordinate court threaten to send litigants into a vicious circle of litigation. See at 9; Chicago & N. W. Transp. Cf.[5] *817 Colt's conclusion that jurisdiction therefore lay in the Federal Circuit is flawed, however, for three reasons. First, the Federal Circuit, in transferring the case to the Seventh Circuit, was the first to decide the jurisdictional issue. That the Federal Circuit did not explicate its rationale is irrelevant, for the law of the case turns on whether a court previously "decide[d] upon a rule of law" which the Federal Circuit necessarily did not on whether, or how well, it explained the decision. Thus, the law of the case was that the Seventh Circuit had jurisdiction, and it was the Seventh Circuit, not the Federal Circuit, that departed from the law of the case. Second, the law-of-the-case doctrine "merely expresses the practice of courts generally to refuse to reopen what has been decided, not a limit to their power." (citations omitted). A court has the power to revisit prior decisions of its own or of a coordinate court in any circumstance, although as a rule courts should be loathe to do so in the absence of extraordinary circumstances such as where the initial decision was "clearly erroneous and would work a manifest injustice." at n. 8 Thus, even if the Seventh Circuit's decision was law of the case, the Federal Circuit did not exceed its power in revisiting the jurisdictional issue, and once it concluded that the prior decision was "clearly wrong" it was obliged to decline jurisdiction. Most importantly, law of the case cannot bind this Court in reviewing decisions below. A petition for writ of certiorari can expose the entire case to review. Panama R. 6 U.S. 280, Just as a district court's adherence to law of the case cannot insulate an issue from appellate review, a court of appeals' adherence to the law of the case cannot insulate an issue from this Court's review. See Messenger, *818 at ; Hamilton-Brown Shoe
|
Justice Brennan
| 1,988 | 13 |
majority
|
Christianson v. Colt Industries Operating Corp.
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112104/christianson-v-colt-industries-operating-corp/
|
this Court's review. See Messenger, *818 at ; Hamilton-Brown Shoe 257- (19). IV Our agreement with the Federal Circuit's conclusion that it lacked jurisdiction, compels us to disapprove of its decision to reach the merits anyway "in the interest of justice." "Courts created by statute can have no jurisdiction but such as the statute confers." See Firestone Tire & Rubber U.S. 368, The statute confers on the Federal Circuit authority to make a single decision upon concluding that it lacks jurisdiction whether to dismiss the case or, "in the interest of justice," to transfer it to a court of appeals that has jurisdiction. 28 U.S. C. 31. The age-old rule that a court may not in any case, even in the interest of justice, extend its jurisdiction where none exists has always worked injustice in particular cases. Parties often spend years litigating claims only to learn that their efforts and expense were wasted in a court that lacked jurisdiction. Even more exasperating for the litigants (and wasteful for all concerned) is a situation where, as here, the litigants are bandied back and forth helplessly between two courts, each of which insists the other has jurisdiction. Such situations inhere in the very nature of jurisdictional lines, for as our cases aptly illustrate, few jurisdictional lines can be so finely drawn as to leave no room for disagreement on close cases. See, e. g., K mart ; United That does not mean, however, that every borderline case must inevitably culminate in a perpetual game of jurisdictional ping-pong until this Court intervenes to resolve the underlying jurisdictional dispute, or (more likely) until one of the parties surrenders to futility. Such a state of affairs would undermine public confidence in our judiciary, squander *819 private and public resources, and commit far too much of this Court's calendar to the resolution of fact-specific jurisdictional disputes that lack national importance. "Surely a seemly system of judicial remedies regarding controverted transfer provisions of the United States Code should encourage, not discourage, quick settlement of questions of transfer" The courts of appeals should achieve this end by adhering strictly to principles of law of the case. See at 8. Situations might arise, of course, in which the transferee court considers the transfer "clearly erroneous." 460 U. S., at n. 8. But as "[t]he doctrine of the law of the case is a heavy deterrent to vacillation on arguable issues," 1B Moore's ¶ 0.404[1], at 124, such reversals should necessarily be exceptional; courts will rarely transfer cases over which they have clear jurisdiction, and close questions, by definition,
|
Justice Gorsuch
| 2,018 | 7 |
dissenting
|
Sveen v. Melin
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4505999/sveen-v-melin/
|
The Court’s argument proceeds this way. Because people are inattentive to their life insurance beneficiary designations when they divorce, the legislature needs to change those designations retroactively to ensure they aren’t misdirected. But because those same people are simultaneously attentive to beneficiary designations (not to mention the legislature’s activity), they will surely undo the change if they don’t like it. And even if that weren’t true, it would hardly matter. People know existing divorce laws sometimes allow courts to reform insurance con tracts. So people should know a legislature might enact new laws upending insurance contracts at divorce. For these reasons, a statute rewriting the most important term of a life insurance policy—who gets paid—somehow doesn’t “substantially impair” the contract. It just “makes a significant change.” Ante, at 7. Respectfully, I cannot agree. Minnesota’s statute auto matically alters life insurance policies upon divorce to remove a former spouse as beneficiary. Everyone agrees that the law is valid when applied prospectively to policies purchased after the statute’s enactment. But Minnesota wants to apply its law retroactively to policies purchased before the statute’s adoption. The Court of Appeals held that this violated the Contracts Clause, which guarantees people the “right to ‘rely on the law as it existed when 2 SVEEN v. MELIN GORSUCH, J., dissenting the[ir] contracts were made.’ ” Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. v. Melin, ). That judgment seems to me exactly right. I Because legislation often disrupts existing social ar rangements, it usually applies only prospectively. This longstanding and “sacred” principle ensures that people have fair warning of the law’s demands. Reynolds v. McArthur, ; 3 H. Bracton, De Legi bus et Consuetudinibus Angliae 530–531 (1257) (T. Twiss ed. 1880). It also prevents majoritarian legislatures from condemning disfavored minorities for past conduct they are powerless to change. See, e.g., ; Vermeule, Veil of Ignorance Rules in Constitutional Law, 111 Yale L. J. 399, 408 (2001). When it comes to legislation affecting contracts, the Constitution hardens the presumption of prospectivity into a mandate. The Contracts Clause categorically prohibits states from passing “any Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts.” Art. I, cl. 1 (emphasis added). Of course, the framers knew how to impose more nuanced limits on state power. The very section of the Constitution where the Contracts Clause is found permits states to take otherwise unconstitutional action when “absolutely necessary,” if “actually invaded,” or “wit[h] the Consent of Congress.” Cls. 2 and 3. But in the Contracts Clause the framers were absolute. They took the view that treating existing contracts as “inviolable” would benefit society by ensuring that all persons
|
Justice Gorsuch
| 2,018 | 7 |
dissenting
|
Sveen v. Melin
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4505999/sveen-v-melin/
|
as “inviolable” would benefit society by ensuring that all persons could count on the ability to enforce promises lawfully made to them— even if they or their agreements later prove unpopular with some passing majority. v. Crowninshield, 4 Wheat. 122, 206 (1819). Cite as: 5 U. S. (2018) 3 GORSUCH, J., dissenting The categorical nature of the Contracts Clause was not lost on anyone, either. When some delegates at the Con stitutional Convention sought softer language, James Madison acknowledged the “ ‘inconvenience’ ” a categorical rule could sometimes entail “ ‘but thought on the whole it would be overbalanced by the utility of it.’ ” Kmiec & The Contract Clause: A Return to the Original Understanding, 14 Hastings Const. L. Q. 525, 529–530 (1987). During the ratification debates, these competing positions were again amply aired. Antifederalists argued that the proposed Clause would prevent states from pass ing valuable legislation. –533. Federalists like Madison countered that the rule of law permitted “property rights and liberty interests [to] be dissolved only by pro spective laws of general applicability.” And, of course, the people chose to ratify the Constitution— categorical Clause and all. For much of its history, this Court construed the Con tracts Clause in this light. The Court explained that any legislative deviation from a contract’s obligations, “however minute, or apparently immaterial,” violates the Constitu tion. “All the commentators, and all the adjudicated cases upon Consti tutional Law agree[d] in th[is] fundamental propositio[n].” But while abso lute in its field, the Clause also left significant room for legislatures to address changing social conditions. States could regulate contractual rights prospectively. Ogden v. Saunders, They could retroac tively alter contractual remedies, so long as they did so reasonably. And perhaps they could even alter contracts without “impairing” their obli gations if they made the parties whole by paying just compensation. See West River Bridge Co. v. Dix, 6 How. 507, 532–533 (18); El 525 (1965) (Black, J., dissenting). But what they could not 4 SVEEN v. MELIN GORSUCH, J., dissenting do is destroy substantive contract rights—the “Obligation of Contracts” that the Clause protects. More recently, though, the Court has charted a different course. Our modern cases permit a state to “substan tial[ly] impai[r]” a contractual obligation in pursuit of “a significant and legitimate public purpose” so long as the impairment is “ ‘reasonable.’ ” Energy Reserves Group, Inc. v. Kansas Power & Light Co., 411–412 (1983). That test seems hard to square with the Constitu tion’s original public meaning. After all, the Constitution does not speak of “substantial” impairments—it bars “any” impairment. Under
|
Justice Gorsuch
| 2,018 | 7 |
dissenting
|
Sveen v. Melin
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4505999/sveen-v-melin/
|
does not speak of “substantial” impairments—it bars “any” impairment. Under a balancing approach, too, how are the people to know today whether their lawful contracts will be enforced tomorrow, or instead undone by a legisla tive majority with different sympathies? Should we worry that a balancing test risks investing judges with discretion to choose which contracts to enforce—a discretion that might be exercised with an eye to the identity (and popu larity) of the parties or contracts at hand? How are judges supposed to balance the often radically incommensurate goods found in contracts and legislation? And does this test risk reducing the “Contract Clause’s protection” to the “Court’s judgment” about the “ ‘reasonableness’ ” of the legislation at hand? (Black, J., dissenting). Many critics have raised serious objections along these and other lines. See, e.g., ibid.; Kmiec & ; Rappaport, Note, A Procedural Approach to the Contract Clause, 93 Yale L. J. 918, 918 (19); Epstein, Toward a Revitalization of the Contract Clause, 51 U. Chi. L. Rev 703, 705–717 (19); J. Ely, The Contract Clause: A Constitutional History 7–29 (2016). They deserve a thoughtful reply, if not in this case then in another. II Even under our modern precedents, though, I still do Cite as: 5 U. S. (2018) 5 GORSUCH, J., dissenting not see how the statute before us might survive un scathed. Recall that our recent precedents indicate a state law “substantially impairing” contracts violates the Con tracts Clause unless it is “reasonable” in light of a “signifi cant and legitimate public purpose.” Start with the substantial impairment question. No one pays life insurance premiums for the joy of it. Or even for the pleasure of knowing that the insurance company will eventually have to cough up money to someone. As the Court concedes, the choice of beneficiary is the “ ‘whole point.’ ” Ante, at 7. So when a state alters life insurance contracts by undoing their beneficiary designations it surely “substantially impairs” them. This Court has already recognized as much, holding that a law “dis plac[ing] the beneficiary selected by the insured and plac[ing] someone else in her stead frustrates ” a scheme designed to deliver proceeds to the named benefi ciary. (quot ing (0) (internal quotation marks omitted)). As Justice Washington ex plained long ago, legislation “changing the objects of [the donor’s] bounty changes so materially the terms of a contract” that the law can only be said to “impair its obli gation.” Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward, 4 Wheat. 518, 662 (1819) (concurring opinion). Just so. Cases like ours illustrate the point.
|
Justice Gorsuch
| 2,018 | 7 |
dissenting
|
Sveen v. Melin
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4505999/sveen-v-melin/
|
(concurring opinion). Just so. Cases like ours illustrate the point. Kaye Melin testi fied that, despite their divorce, she and the decedent, Mark Sveen, agreed (repeatedly) to keep each other as the primary beneficiaries in their respective life insurance policies. Affidavit of Kaye Melin in No. 14–cv–05015, Dkt. No. 46, ¶¶3, 4, 10–14. Ms. Melin noted that they adopted this arrangement not only because they remained friends but because they paid the policy premiums from their joint checking account. Deposition of Kaye Melin in No. 14–cv– 0515, Dkt. No. 45–4, pp. 26–27, 64–65. Of course, we don’t know for sure whether removing Ms. Melin as beneficiary 6 SVEEN v. MELIN GORSUCH, J., dissenting undid Mr. Sveen’s true wishes. The case comes to us after no one was able to meet Minnesota’s clear and convincing evidence standard to prove Mr. Sveen’s intent. But what we do know is the retroactive removal of Ms. Melin undid the central term of the contract Mr. Sveen signed and left in place for years, even after his divorce, until the day he died. Nor are arrangements like the ones Ms. Melin described so unusual. As the federal government has recognized, revocation on divorce statutes cannot be assumed to “effec tuat[e] the insured’s ‘true’ intent” because a policyholder “might want his ex-spouse to receive insurance proceeds for a number of reasons—out of a sense of obligation, remorse, or continuing affection, or to help care for chil dren of the marriage that remain in the ex-spouse’s cus- tody.” Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae in v. Maretta, O. T. 2012, No. 11–1221, p. 28. After all, leav ing your ex-spouse life insurance proceeds can be a cheaper, quicker, and more private way to provide for minor or disabled children than leaving the matter to a trustee or other fiduciary. See, e.g., Feder & Sitkoff, Revocable Trusts and Incapacity Planning: More Than Just a Will Substitute, 24 Elder L. J. 1, 15–18 (2016). For these rea sons, the federal government and nearly half the states today do not treat divorce as automatically revoking in surance beneficiary designations. Brief for Petitioners 8– 9, and nn. 1–2; at –495. Consider next the question of the impairment’s reason ableness. Our cases suggest that a substantial impairment is unreasonable when “an evident and more moderate course would serve [the state’s] purposes equally well.” United States Trust Co. of N. 31 (1977); see also Allied Structural Steel (analyzing whether an impair ment of private contracts “was necessary to meet an im portant general social problem”). Here, Minnesota’s stated Cite as: 5 U.
|
Justice Gorsuch
| 2,018 | 7 |
dissenting
|
Sveen v. Melin
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4505999/sveen-v-melin/
|
general social problem”). Here, Minnesota’s stated Cite as: 5 U. S. (2018) 7 GORSUCH, J., dissenting purpose is to ensure proceeds aren’t misdirected to a former spouse because a policyholder forgets to update his beneficiary designation after divorce. But the state could have easily achieved that goal without impairing contracts at all. It could have required courts to confirm that di vorcing couples have reviewed their life insurance desig nations. See –111.1(E) ; Utah Code (2018). It could have instructed insurance companies to notify policyholders of their right to change beneficiary designations. It could have dissemi nated information on its own. Or it could have required attorneys in divorce proceedings to address the question with affected parties. A host of women’s rights organiza tions have advocated for these and other alternatives in various states. See, e.g., Brief for Women’s Law Project et al. as Amici Curiae 34–35. Yet there’s no evidence Minnesota investigated any of them, let alone found them wanting. III What’s the Court’s reply? It says that we don’t have to decide whether the statute reasonably impairs contracts because it doesn’t substantially impair them in the first place. It’s easy enough to see why the Court might take this tack given the many obvious and less burdensome alternatives Minnesota never considered. To save the law, the Court must place all its chips on a “no substantial impairment” argument. The gamble, though, proves a tricky one. The Court first stresses that individuals sometimes neglect their beneficiary designations after divorce. Be cause of this, it says, Minnesota’s law affords “many” persons what they would want if only they had thought about it. Ante, at 8. But as we’ve seen the law depends on a stereotype about divorcing couples that not everyone fits. A sizeable (and maybe growing) number of people do want 8 SVEEN v. MELIN GORSUCH, J., dissenting to keep their former spouses as beneficiaries. Brief for Women’s Law Project 25–26. Even the Court admits the law’s presumption will sometimes prove “wrong.” Ante, at 10. And that tells us all we need to know. That the law is only sometimes wrong in predicting what divorcing policy holders want may go some way to establishing its reason- ableness at the second step of our inquiry. But at the first step, where we ask only whether the law substantially impairs contracts, the answer is unavoidable. The statute substantially impairs contracts by displacing the term that is the “ ‘whole point’ ” of the contract. Ante, at 7. This Court would never say a law doesn’t substantially burden a minority’s religious practice
|
Justice Gorsuch
| 2,018 | 7 |
dissenting
|
Sveen v. Melin
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4505999/sveen-v-melin/
|
say a law doesn’t substantially burden a minority’s religious practice because it reflects most people’s preferences. See Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye, Equally, I do not see how a statute doesn’t substantially impair contracts just because it reflects “many” people’s preferences. Ante, at 8. The Contracts Clause does not seek to maximize the bot tom line but to protect minority rights “from improvident majoritarian impairment.” L. Tribe, American Constitu tional Law p. 613 (2d ed. 1988). The Court’s answer to this problem introduces an ap parent paradox. If the statute substantially impairs con tracts, it says, the impairment can be easily undone. Anyone unhappy with the statute’s beneficiary re- designation can just re-re-designate the beneficiary later. Ante, at 10. Yet the Court just finished telling us the statute is justified because most policyholders neglect their beneficiary designations after divorce. Both claims cannot be true. The statute cannot simultaneously be necessary because people are inattentive to the details of their in surance policies and constitutional because they are hy peraware of those same details. Perhaps seeking a way out of this problem, the Court offers an entirely different line of argument. Here the Court suggests the statute doesn’t substantially impair Cite as: 5 U. S. (2018) 9 GORSUCH, J., dissenting contracts because it does no more than a divorce court might. Ante, at 9–10. But this argument doesn’t work either. Courts may apply pre-existing law to alter a bene ficiary designation to ensure an equitable distribution of marital property in specific cases. That hardly means legislatures may retroactively change the law to rearrange beneficiary designations for everyone. A court can fine you for violating an existing law against jaywalking. That doesn’t mean a legislature could hold you retroactively liable for violating a new law against jaywalking that didn’t exist when you crossed the street. No one would take that idea seriously when it comes to crime, and the Contracts Clause ensures we don’t when it comes to con tracts, either. After all, the Clause applies only to the “law[s]” legislatures “pass,” not to the rulings of courts. Tidal Oil (em phasis deleted). That’s because legislatures exist to pass new laws of general applicability responsive to majoritar- ian will, often upsetting settled expectations along the way. The same does not hold true for courts that are supposed to apply existing laws to discrete cases and controversies independently and without consulting shifting political winds. The Court finally claims that its course finds support in cases where we’ve approved retroactive legislation. Ante, at 10–12. Those cases, though, involved statutes altering contractual remedies. Home Building
|
Justice Gorsuch
| 2,018 | 7 |
dissenting
|
Sveen v. Melin
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4505999/sveen-v-melin/
|
Those cases, though, involved statutes altering contractual remedies. Home Building & Loan Assn. v. (noting that each of the 19th century cases relied on by the Court today affected only “remedial processes”). And Minnesota’s law changes the key contractual obligation—who gets the insurance proceeds—not the method by which the con tract’s existing obligation is satisfied. Although the Con stitution allows legislatures some flexibility to address changing social conditions through retroactive remedial legislation, it does not permit upsetting settled expecta 10 SVEEN v. MELIN GORSUCH, J., dissenting tions in contractual obligations. See, e.g., ; (Black, J., dissenting). We must respect that line found in the text of the Constitution, not elide it. Indeed, our prec edent teaches that if remedial changes are just disguised efforts at impairing obligations they will violate the Con stitution too. 290 U.S., at n. 13 (collecting cases). Consider just how different our case is from the classic remedial change the Contracts Clause permits. In Jack- a shady landowner sold the same tract to two people. at 287–288. The Court held that the second buyer was entitled to keep the land because he recorded the deed as a retroactive law re quired. at 289–290. At the same time, nothing in Jackson or the new statute stopped the first buyer (who failed to record his deed) from obtaining damages from the seller for breach of contract. See at 287–291. The statute altered the first buyer’s remedy, but he remained free to enforce the obligation found in his contract. By contrast, the statute here changes the “ ‘whole point’ ” of the contract’s obligation, substituting a new beneficiary in place of the one found in the contract’s terms. Ante, at 7. Even the remedial case on which the Court leans most heavily does little to help its cause. In the Court upheld a statute requiring bondholders to enforce their contract rights within a shortened timeframe (that is, altering the remedy) or else accept a reorganization plan that threat ened a poorer rate of interest. at 402–403, 406. The Court gave three primary reasons for upholding this change. It emphasized that the bonds at issue were “of a peculiar character” because “each bondholder under them enter[ed] by fair implication into certain contract relations with” the other bondholders who approved the reorganiza tion. It observed that “ ‘a calamity common to Cite as: 5 U. S. (2018) 11 GORSUCH, J., dissenting all’ ” had occurred, as the company that issued the bonds “was bankrupt” and payment of “its debts in the ordinary way was impossible.” Finally, it added that the plaintiff
|
Justice Gorsuch
| 2,018 | 7 |
dissenting
|
Sveen v. Melin
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4505999/sveen-v-melin/
|
ordinary way was impossible.” Finally, it added that the plaintiff challenging the statute had “actual notice” of the law and so faced no difficulty in asserting his contract rights in a timely manner. These considera tions, the Court concluded, justified shortening the limita tions period for obtaining full relief even though it might reduce a late-moving party’s interest rate a few points. No comparable considerations are present here. And this statute doesn’t just reduce Ms. Melin’s remedy; it denies her one altogether. * The judicial power to declare a law unconstitutional should never be lightly invoked. But the law before us cannot survive an encounter with even the breeziest of Contracts Clause tests. It substantially impairs life in surance contracts by retroactively revising their key term. No one can offer any reasonable justification for this im pairment in light of readily available alternatives. Ac knowledging this much doesn’t even require us to hold the statute invalid in all applications, only that it cannot be applied to contracts formed before its enactment. I re spectfully dissent
|
Justice Ginsburg
| 2,012 | 5 |
majority
|
Perry v. New Hampshire
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/620671/perry-v-new-hampshire/
|
In our system of justice, fair trial for persons charged with criminal offenses is secured by the Sixth Amend- ment, which guarantees to defendants the right to counsel, compulsory process to obtain defense witnesses, and the opportunity to cross-examine witnesses for the prosecu- tio Those safeguards apart, admission of evidence in state trials is ordinarily governed by state law, and the reliability of relevant testimony typically falls within the province of the jury to determine. This Court has recog- nized, in addition, a due process check on the admission of eyewitness identification, applicable when the police have arranged suggestive circumstances leading the witness to identify a particular person as the perpetrator of a crime. An identification infected by improper police influence, our case law holds, is not automatically excluded. Instead, the trial judge must screen the evidence for reliability pretrial. If there is “a very substantial likelihood of irrep- arable misidentification,” 390 U.S. 377, 384 (1968), the judge must disallow presenta- tion of the evidence at trial. But if the indicia of reliability are strong enough to outweigh the corrupting effect of the 2 PERRY v. NEW HAMPSHIRE Opinion of the Court police-arranged suggestive circumstances, the identifica- tion evidence ordinarily will be admitted, and the jury will ultimately determine its worth. We have not extended pretrial screening for reliability to cases in which the suggestive circumstances were not arranged by law enforcement officers. Petitioner requests that we do so because of the grave risk that mistaken identification will yield a miscarriage of justice.1 Our decisions, however, turn on the presence of state action and aim to deter police from rigging identification proce- dures, for example, at a lineup, showup, or photograph array. When no improper law enforcement activity is involved, we hold, it suffices to test reliability through the rights and opportunities generally designed for that pur- pose, notably, the presence of counsel at postindictment lineups, vigorous cross-examination, protective rules of evi- dence, and jury instructions on both the fallibility of eyewitness identification and the requirement that guilt be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. I A Around 3 a.m. on August 15, 2008, Joffre Ullon called the Nashua, New Hampshire, Police Department and —————— 1 The dissent, too, appears to urge that all suggestive circumstances raise due process concerns warranting a pretrial ruling. See post, 9, 14–17. Neither Perry nor the dissent, however, points to a single case in which we have required pretrial screening absent a police- arranged identification procedure. Understandably so, for there are no such cases. Instead, the dissent surveys our decisions, heedless of the police arrangement
|
Justice Ginsburg
| 2,012 | 5 |
majority
|
Perry v. New Hampshire
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/620671/perry-v-new-hampshire/
|
the dissent surveys our decisions, heedless of the police arrangement that underlies every one of them, and inventing a “longstanding rule,” post, that never existed. Nor are we, as the dissent suggests, imposing a mens rea requirement, post, at 1, 7, or otherwise altering our precedent in any way. As our case law makes clear, what triggers due process concerns is police use of an unneces- sarily suggestive identification procedure, whether or not they intended the arranged procedure to be suggestive. Cite as: 565 U. S. (2012) 3 Opinion of the Court reported that an African-American male was trying to break into cars parked in the lot of Ullon’s apartment building. Officer Nicole Clay responded to the call. Upon arriving at the parking lot, Clay heard what “sounded like a metal bat hitting the ground.” App. 37a–38a. She then saw petitioner Barion Perry standing between two cars. Perry walked toward Clay, holding two car-stereo amplifi- ers in his hands. A metal bat lay on the ground behind him. Clay asked Perry where the amplifiers came from. “[I] found them on the ground,” Perry responded. at 39a. Meanwhile, Ullon’s wife, Nubia Blandon, woke her neighbor, Alex Clavijo, and told him she had just seen someone break into his car. Clavijo immediately went downstairs to the parking lot to inspect the car. He first observed that one of the rear windows had been shattered. On further inspection, he discovered that the speakers and amplifiers from his car stereo were missing, as were his bat and wrench. Clavijo then approached Clay and told her about Blandon’s alert and his own subsequent observations. By this time, another officer had arrived at the scene. Clay asked Perry to stay in the parking lot with that officer, while she and Clavijo went to talk to Blando Clay and Clavijo then entered the apartment building and took the stairs to the fourth floor, where Blandon’s and Clavijo’s apartments were located. They met Blandon in the hallway just outside the open door to her apartment. Asked to describe what she had seen, Blandon stated that, around 2:30 a.m., she saw from her kitchen window a tall, African-American man roaming the parking lot and looking into cars. Eventually, the man circled Clavijo’s car, opened the trunk, and removed a large box.2 —————— 2 The box, which Clay found on the ground near where she first en- countered Perry, contained car-stereo speakers. App. 177a–178a. 4 PERRY v. NEW HAMPSHIRE Opinion of the Court Clay asked Blandon for a more specific description of the ma Blandon pointed to her kitchen window
|
Justice Ginsburg
| 2,012 | 5 |
majority
|
Perry v. New Hampshire
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/620671/perry-v-new-hampshire/
|
description of the ma Blandon pointed to her kitchen window and said the person she saw breaking into Clavijo’s car was standing in the parking lot, next to the police officer. Perry’s arrest followed this identificatio About a month later, the police showed Blandon a pho- tographic array that included a picture of Perry and asked her to point out the man who had broken into Clavijo’s car. Blandon was unable to identify Perry. B Perry was charged in New Hampshire state court with one count of theft by unauthorized taking and one count of criminal mischief.3 Before trial, he moved to suppress Blandon’s identification on the ground that admitting it at trial would violate due process. Blandon witnessed what amounted to a one-person showup in the parking lot, Perry asserted, which all but guaranteed that she would identify him as the culprit. at 15a–16a. The New Hampshire Superior Court denied the motio at 82a–88a. To determine whether due process pro- hibits the introduction of an out-of-court identification at trial, the Superior Court said, this Court’s decisions in- struct a two-step inquiry. First, the trial court must de- cide whether the police used an unnecessarily suggestive identification procedure. at 85a. If they did, the court must next consider whether the improper identification procedure so tainted the resulting identification as to render it unreliable and therefore inadmissible. and Manson v. Brathwaite, ). Perry’s challenge, the Superior Court concluded, failed at step one: Blandon’s identification of Perry on the night —————— 3 The theft charge was based on the taking of items from Clavijo’s car, while the criminal mischief count was founded on the shattering of Clavijo’s car window. Cite as: 565 U. S. (2012) 5 Opinion of the Court of the crime did not result from an unnecessarily sugges- tive procedure “manufacture[d] by the police.” App. 86a–87a. Blandon pointed to Perry “spontaneously,” the court noted, “without any inducement from the police.” at 85a–86a. Clay did not ask Blandon whether the man standing in the parking lot was the man Blandon had seen breaking into Clavijo’s car. Nor did Clay ask Blandon to move to the window from which she had ob- served the break-i at 86a. The Superior Court recognized that there were reasons to question the accuracy of Blandon’s identification: the parking lot was dark in some locations; Perry was stand- ing next to a police officer; Perry was the only African- American man in the vicinity; and Blandon was unable, later, to pick Perry out of a photographic array. at 86a–87a. But “[b]ecause the police procedures were not unnecessarily
|
Justice Ginsburg
| 2,012 | 5 |
majority
|
Perry v. New Hampshire
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/620671/perry-v-new-hampshire/
|
at 86a–87a. But “[b]ecause the police procedures were not unnecessarily suggestive,” the court ruled that the relia- bility of Blandon’s testimony was for the jury to consider. at 87a. At the ensuing trial, Blandon and Clay testified to Blandon’s out-of-court identificatio The jury found Perry guilty of theft and not guilty of criminal mischief. On appeal, Perry repeated his challenge to the admissi- bility of Blandon’s out-of-court identificatio The trial court erred, Perry contended, in requiring an initial show- ing that the police arranged the suggestive identification procedure. Suggestive circumstances alone, Perry argued, suffice to trigger the court’s duty to evaluate the reliability of the resulting identification before allowing presentation of the evidence to the jury. The New Hampshire Supreme Court rejected Perry’s argument and affirmed his convictio at 9a–11a. Only where the police employ suggestive identification techniques, that court held, does the Due Process Clause require a trial court to assess the reliability of identifica- tion evidence before permitting a jury to consider it. 6 PERRY v. NEW HAMPSHIRE Opinion of the Court at 10a–11a. We granted certiorari to resolve a division of opinion on the question whether the Due Process Clause requires a trial judge to conduct a preliminary assessment of the reliability of an eyewitness identification made under suggestive circum- stances not arranged by the police. 563 U. S. (2011).4 II A The Constitution, our decisions indicate, protects a de- fendant against a conviction based on evidence of ques- tionable reliability, not by prohibiting introduction of the evidence, but by affording the defendant means to per- suade the jury that the evidence should be discounted as unworthy of credit. Constitutional safeguards available to defendants to counter the State’s evidence include the Sixth Amendment rights to counsel, ; compulsory process, ; and confrontation plus cross-examination of witnesses, Dela- —————— 4 Compare United (Due process requires federal courts to “scrutinize all suggestive identi- fication procedures, not just those orchestrated by the police.”); Dunni- ; with United (Due process check is required only in cases involving improper state actio); United States v. Zeiler, 470 F.2d 717, 720 ; ; (Ten 2002) ; 25 P.3d 717, 729 (2001) ; 417–418, 519 S.E. 2d 912, 914–915 (1999) ; (Ind. 1993) ; ; 541–542, 562 N.E.2d 797, 805 ; 310–311, ; Cite as: 565 U. S. (2012) 7 Opinion of the Court Apart from these guarantees, we have recognized, state and federal statutes and rules ordinarily govern the ad- missibility of evidence, and juries are assigned the task of determining the reliability of the evidence presented at trial. See (“Our legal system is
|
Justice Ginsburg
| 2,012 | 5 |
majority
|
Perry v. New Hampshire
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/620671/perry-v-new-hampshire/
|
the evidence presented at trial. See (“Our legal system is built on the premise that it is the province of the jury to weigh the credibility of competing witnesses.”). Only when evidence “is so extremely unfair that its admission violates fundamental conceptions of justice,” have we im- posed a constraint tied to the Due Process Clause. See, e.g., (Due process prohibits the State’s “knowin[g] use [of] false evidence,” because such use violates “any concept of or- dered liberty.”). Contending that the Due Process Clause is implicated here, Perry relies on a series of decisions involving police- arranged identification In first of those decisions, a witness identified the defendant as her assailant after police offic- ers brought the defendant to the witness’ hospital room. At the time the witness made the identifica- tion, the defendant—the only African-American in the room—was handcuffed and surrounded by police officers. Although the police-arranged showup was undenia- bly suggestive, the Court held that no due process viola- tion occurred. Crucial to the Court’s decision was the procedure’s necessity: The witness was the only person who could identify or exonerate the defendant; the witness could not leave her hospital room; and it was uncertain whether she would live to identify the defendant in more neutral circumstances. A year later, in (1968), the Court addressed a due process challenge to police use of a photographic array. When a witness identi- 8 PERRY v. NEW HAMPSHIRE Opinion of the Court fies the defendant in a police-organized photo lineup, the Court ruled, the identification should be suppressed only where “the photographic identification procedure was so [unnecessarily] suggestive as to give rise to a very sub- stantial likelihood of irreparable misidentificatio” at 384–385. Satisfied that the photo array used by Federal Bureau of Investigation agents in Simmons was both necessary and unlikely to have led to a mistaken identifi- cation, the Court rejected the defendant’s due process challenge to admission of the identificatio at 385– 386. In contrast, the Court held in that due process required the exclu- sion of an eyewitness identification obtained through police-arranged procedures that “made it all but inevitable that [the witness] would identify [the defendant].” at 443. Synthesizing previous decisions, we set forth in Neil v. and reiterated in Manson v. Brathwaite, the approach appropri- ately used to determine whether the Due Process Clause requires suppression of an eyewitness identification taint- ed by police arrangement. The Court emphasized, first, that due process concerns arise only when law enforce- ment officers use an identification procedure that is both suggestive and unnecessary. ; 409 U.S., at 198. Even
|
Justice Ginsburg
| 2,012 | 5 |
majority
|
Perry v. New Hampshire
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/620671/perry-v-new-hampshire/
|
both suggestive and unnecessary. ; 409 U.S., at 198. Even when the police use such a procedure, the Court next said, suppression of the resulting identifi- cation is not the inevitable consequence. Brathwaite, 432 U.S., at 112–113; –199. A rule requiring automatic exclusion, the Court rea- soned, would “g[o] too far,” for it would “kee[p] evidence from the jury that is reliable and relevant,” and “may result, on occasion, in the guilty going free.” Brathwaite, ; see (when an “identification is reliable despite an unnecessarily suggestive [police] identi- fication procedure,” automatic exclusion “is a Draconian Cite as: 565 U. S. (2012) 9 Opinion of the Court sanction,” one “that may frustrate rather than promote justice”). Instead of mandating a per se exclusionary rule, the Court held that the Due Process Clause requires courts to assess, on a case-by-case basis, whether improper police conduct created a “substantial likelihood of misidentifi- catio” ; see Brathwaite, 432 U.S., “[R]eliability [of the eyewitness identifica- tion] is the linchpin” of that evaluation, the Court stated in Brathwaite. Where the “indicators of [a witness’] ability to make an accurate identification” are “outweighed by the corrupting effect” of law enforcement suggestion, the identification should be suppressed. at 114, 116. Otherwise, the evidence (if admissible in all other respects) should be submitted to the jury.5 Applying this “totality of the circumstances” approach, the Court held in that law enforce- ment’s use of an unnecessarily suggestive showup did not require suppression of the victim’s identification of her –200. Notwithstanding the improper procedure, the victim’s identification was relia- ble: She saw her assailant for a considerable period of time under adequate light, provided police with a detailed de- scription of her attacker long before the showup, and had “no doubt” that the defendant was the person she had see Similarly, the Court concluded in Brathwaite that police use of an unnecessarily suggestive photo array did not —————— 5 Among “factors to be considered” in evaluating a witness’ “ability to make an accurate identification,” the Court listed: “the opportunity of the witness to view the criminal at the time of the crime, the witness’ degree of attention, the accuracy of his prior description of the criminal, the level of certainty demonstrated at the confrontation, and the time between the crime and the confrontatio” Manson v. Brathwaite, 432 U.S. 98, 114 ). 10 PERRY v. NEW HAMPSHIRE Opinion of the Court require exclusion of the resulting identificatio 432 U.S., –117. The witness, an undercover police officer, viewed the defendant in good light for several minutes, provided a thorough description of the suspect,
|
Justice Ginsburg
| 2,012 | 5 |
majority
|
Perry v. New Hampshire
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/620671/perry-v-new-hampshire/
|
for several minutes, provided a thorough description of the suspect, and was certain of his identificatio Hence, the “indi- cators of [the witness’] ability to make an accurate identi- fication [were] hardly outweighed by the corrupting effect of the challenged identificatio” B Perry concedes that, in contrast to every case in the Stovall line, law enforcement officials did not arrange the suggestive circumstances surrounding Blandon’s identifi- catio See Brief for Petitioner 34; Tr. of Oral Arg. 5 (counsel for Perry) (“[W]e do not allege any manipulation or intentional orchestration by the police.”). He contends, however, that it was mere happenstance that each of the Stovall cases involved improper police actio The rationale underlying our decisions, Perry asserts, supports a rule requiring trial judges to prescreen eyewitness evi- dence for reliability any time an identification is made under suggestive circumstances. We disagree. Perry’s argument depends, in large part, on the Court’s statement in Brathwaite that “reliability is the linchpin in determining the admissibility of identification testimony.” 432 U.S., If reliability is the linchpin of admissi- bility under the Due Process Clause, Perry maintains, it should make no difference whether law enforcement was responsible for creating the suggestive circumstances that marred the identificatio Perry has removed our statement in Brathwaite from its mooring, and thereby attributes to the statement a mean- ing a fair reading of our opinion does not bear. As just at 8–9, the Brathwaite Court’s reference to reliability appears in a portion of the opinion concerning the appropriate remedy when the police use an unneces- Cite as: 565 U. S. (2012) 11 Opinion of the Court sarily suggestive identification procedure. The Court adopted a judicial screen for reliability as a course prefer- able to a per se rule requiring exclusion of identification evidence whenever law enforcement officers employ an improper procedure. The due process check for reliability, Brathwaite made plain, comes into play only after the defendant establishes improper police conduct. The very purpose of the check, the Court noted, was to avoid depriv- ing the jury of identification evidence that is reliable, notwithstanding improper police conduct. 432 U.S., at 112–113.6 Perry’s contention that improper police action was not essential to the reliability check Brathwaite required is echoed by the dissent. Post, at 3–4. Both ignore a key premise of the Brathwaite decision: A primary aim of ex- cluding identification evidence obtained under unneces- sarily suggestive circumstances, the Court said, is to deter law enforcement use of improper lineups, showups, and photo arrays in the first place. See Alerted to the prospect that identification evidence im- properly obtained may
|
Justice Ginsburg
| 2,012 | 5 |
majority
|
Perry v. New Hampshire
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/620671/perry-v-new-hampshire/
|
to the prospect that identification evidence im- properly obtained may be excluded, the Court reasoned, police officers will “guard against unnecessarily suggestive ” This deterrence rationale is inapposite in cases, like Perry’s, in which the police engaged in no improper conduct. another deci- sion in the Stovall line, similarly shows that the Court has linked the due process check, not to suspicion of eyewit- ness testimony generally, but only to improper police arrangement of the circumstances surrounding an identi- —————— 6 The Court’s description of the question presented in Brathwaite assumes that improper state action occurred: “[Does] the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment compe[l] the exclusion, in a state criminal trial, apart from any consideration of reliability, of pretrial identification evidence obtained by a police procedure that was both suggestive and unnecessary.” 12 PERRY v. NEW HAMPSHIRE Opinion of the Court ficatio The defendants in Coleman contended that a witness’ in-court identifications violated due process, because a pretrial stationhouse lineup was “so unduly prejudicial and conducive to irreparable misidentification as fatally to taint [the later identifications].” 399 U.S., at 3 (plurality opinion). The Court rejected this argument. at 5–6 (plurality opinion), 13–14 (Black, J., concur- ring), 22, 2 (Burger, C. J., dissenting), 28, 2 (Stewart, J., dissenting). No due process violation occurred, the plurality because nothing “the police said or did prompted [the witness’] virtually spontaneous identifica- tion of [the defendants].” True, Coleman was the only person in the lineup wearing a hat, the plurality noted, but “nothing in the record show[ed] that he was required to do so.” See also (Where the “crucial element of police overreaching” is missing, the admissibility of an allegedly unreliable confession is “a matter to be governed by the evidentiary laws of the forum, and not by the Due Process Clause.”). Perry and the dissent place significant weight on United describing it as a decision not anchored to improper police conduct. See Brief for Petitioner 12, 15, 21–22, 28; post, at 2–4, 8–10. In fact, the risk of police rigging was the very danger to which the Court responded in when it recognized a defendant’s right to counsel at postindictment, police- organized identification 388 U.S., at 235–236. “[T]he confrontation compelled by the State between the accused and the victim or witnesses,” the Court began, “is peculiarly riddled with innumerable dangers and variable factors which might seriously, even crucially, derogate from a fair trial.” (emphasis added). “A major factor contributing to the high incidence of miscarriage of justice from mistaken identification,” the Court continued, “has been the degree of suggestion inher- Cite as:
|
Justice Ginsburg
| 2,012 | 5 |
majority
|
Perry v. New Hampshire
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/620671/perry-v-new-hampshire/
|
continued, “has been the degree of suggestion inher- Cite as: 565 U. S. (2012) 13 Opinion of the Court ent in the manner in which the prosecution presents the suspect to witnesses for pretrial identificatio” (emphasis added). To illustrate the improper suggestion it was concerned about, the Court pointed to police-designed lineups where “all in the lineup but the suspect were known to the identifying witness, the other partici- pants in [the] lineup were grossly dissimilar in appearance to the suspect, only the suspect was required to wear distinctive clothing which the culprit allegedly wore, the witness is told by the police that they have caught the culprit after which the defendant is brought before the witness alone or is viewed in jail, the suspect is point- ed out before or during a lineup, the participants in the lineup are asked to try on an article of clothing which fits only the suspect.” at Beyond genuine debate, then, prevention of unfair police practices prompted the Court to extend a defendant’s right to coun- sel to cover postindictment lineups and showups. at 235. Perry’s argument, reiterated by the dissent, thus lacks support in the case law he cites. Moreover, his position would open the door to judicial preview, under the banner of due process, of most, if not all, eyewitness identifica- tions. External suggestion is hardly the only factor that casts doubt on the trustworthiness of an eyewitness’ tes- timony. As one of Perry’s amici points out, many other factors bear on “the likelihood of misidentification,” post, at 9—for example, the passage of time between exposure to and identification of the defendant, whether the witness was under stress when he first encountered the suspect, how much time the witness had to observe the suspect, how far the witness was from the suspect, whether the suspect carried a weapon, and the race of the suspect and the witness. Brief for American Psychological Association as Amicus Curiae 9–12. There is no reason why an iden- tification made by an eyewitness with poor vision, for ex- 14 PERRY v. NEW HAMPSHIRE Opinion of the Court ample, or one who harbors a grudge against the defend- ant, should be regarded as inherently more reliable, less of a “threat to the fairness of trial,” post, at 14, than the identification Blandon made in this case. To embrace Perry’s view would thus entail a vast enlargement of the reach of due process as a constraint on the admission of evidence. Perry maintains that the Court can limit the due pro- cess check he proposes to identifications made
|
Justice Ginsburg
| 2,012 | 5 |
majority
|
Perry v. New Hampshire
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/620671/perry-v-new-hampshire/
|
the due pro- cess check he proposes to identifications made under “suggestive circumstances.” Tr. of Oral Arg. 11–14. Even if we could rationally distinguish suggestiveness from other factors bearing on the reliability of eyewitness evi- dence, Perry’s limitation would still involve trial courts, routinely, in preliminary examinations. Most eyewitness identifications involve some element of suggestio In- deed, all in-court identifications do. Out-of-court identifi- cations volunteered by witnesses are also likely to involve suggestive circumstances. For example, suppose a witness identifies the defendant to police officers after seeing a photograph of the defendant in the press captioned “theft suspect,” or hearing a radio report implicating the defend- ant in the crime. Or suppose the witness knew that the defendant ran with the wrong crowd and saw him on the day and in the vicinity of the crime. Any of these circum- stances might have “suggested” to the witness that the defendant was the person the witness observed commit- ting the crime. C In urging a broadly applicable due process check on eyewitness identifications, Perry maintains that eyewit- ness identifications are a uniquely unreliable form of evidence. See Brief for Petitioner 17–22 (citing studies showing that eyewitness misidentifications are the leading cause of wrongful convictions); Brief for American Psycho- logical Association as Amicus Curiae 14–17 (describing Cite as: 565 U. S. (2012) 15 Opinion of the Court research indicating that as many as one in three eyewit- ness identifications is inaccurate). See also post, at 14–17. We do not doubt either the importance or the fallibility of eyewitness identifications. Indeed, in recognizing that defendants have a constitutional right to counsel at postindictment police lineups, we observed that “the an- nals of criminal law are rife with instances of mistaken identificatio” 388 U.S., We have concluded in other contexts, however, that the potential unreliability of a type of evidence does not alone render its introduction at the defendant’s trial fundamen- tally unfair. See, e.g., 556 U.S., at (declin- ing to “craft a broa[d] exclusionary rule for uncorroborated statements obtained [from jailhouse snitches],” even though “rewarded informant testimony” may be inherently untrustworthy); (rejecting ar- gument that the introduction of evidence concerning acquitted conduct is fundamentally unfair because such evidence is “inherently unreliable”). We reach a similar conclusion here: The fallibility of eyewitness evidence does not, without the taint of improper state conduct, warrant a due process rule requiring a trial court to screen such evidence for reliability before allowing the jury to assess its creditworthiness. Our unwillingness to enlarge the domain of due process as Perry and the dissent urge rests, in large part,
|
Justice Ginsburg
| 2,012 | 5 |
majority
|
Perry v. New Hampshire
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/620671/perry-v-new-hampshire/
|
as Perry and the dissent urge rests, in large part, on our recognition that the jury, not the judge, traditionally de- termines the reliability of evidence. See We also take account of other safeguards built into our adver- sary system that caution juries against placing undue weight on eyewitness testimony of questionable reliability. These protections include the defendant’s Sixth Amend- ment right to confront the eyewitness. See Maryland v. Craig, (“The central concern of the Confrontation Clause is to ensure the reliability of the evidence against a criminal defendant.”). Another is the 16 PERRY v. NEW HAMPSHIRE Opinion of the Court defendant’s right to the effective assistance of an attorney, who can expose the flaws in the eyewitness’ testimony during cross-examination and focus the jury’s attention on the fallibility of such testimony during opening and closing arguments. Eyewitness-specific jury instructions, which many federal and state courts have adopted,7 likewise warn the jury to take care in appraising identification evidence. See, e.g., United States v. Telfaire, 469 F.2d 552, 558–559 (D. C. Circuit Model Jury Instructions) (“If the identification by the witness may have been influenced by the circumstances under which the defendant was presented to him for iden- tification, you should scrutinize the identification with great care.”). See also 556 U.S., at (citing jury instructions that informed jurors about the unrelia- bility of uncorroborated jailhouse-informant testimony as a reason to resist a ban on such testimony); 493 —————— 7 See Model Crim. Jury Instr. No. 4.15 ; United States v. Holley, ; Pattern Crim. Jury Instr. No. 1.29 (CA5 2001); Pattern Crim. Jury Instr. No. 7.11 (CA6 2011); Fed. Crim. Jury Instr. No. 3.08 (CA7 1999); Model Crim. Jury Instr. for the District Courts No. 4.08 (CA8 2011); Model Crim. Jury Instr. No. 4.11 ; Crim. Pattern Jury Instr. No. 1.29 (CA10 2011); Pattern Jury Instr. (Crim. Cases) Spec. Instr. No. 3 ; Rev. Ariz. Jury Instr., Crim., No. 39 (3d ed. 2008); 1 Judicial Council of Cal. Crim. Jury Instr. No. 315 (Summer 2011); Con Crim. Jury Instr. 2.6– 4 (2007); 2 Ga. Suggested Pattern Jury Instr. (Crim. Cases) No. 1.35.10 (4th ed. 2011); Ill. Pattern Jury Instr., Crim., No. 3.15 (Supp. 2011); Pattern Instr., Ka 3d, Crim., No. 52.20 (2011); 1 Md. Crim. Jury Instr. & Commentary 2.57(A), 2.57(B) ; Mass. Crim. Model Jury Instr. No. 9.160 ; 10 Min Jury Instr. Guides, Crim., No. 3.19 (Supp. 2006); N. H. Crim. Jury Instr. No. 3.06 ; N. Y. Crim. Jury Instr. “Identification—One Witness” and “Identification—Witness Plus” (2d ed. 2011); Okla. Uniform Jury Instr., Crim., No. 9–19 (Supp. 2000);
|
Justice Ginsburg
| 2,012 | 5 |
majority
|
Perry v. New Hampshire
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/620671/perry-v-new-hampshire/
|
2011); Okla. Uniform Jury Instr., Crim., No. 9–19 (Supp. 2000); 1 Pa. Suggested Standard Crim. Jury Instr. No. 4.07B ; Ten Pattern Jury Instr., Crim., No. 42.05 (15th ed. 2011); Utah Model Jury Instr. CR404 ; Model Instructions from the Vt. Crim. Jury Instr. Comm. Nos. CR5– 601, CR5–605 (2003); W. Va. Crim. Jury Instr. No. 5.05 (6th ed. 2003). Cite as: 565 U. S. (2012) 17 Opinion of the Court U. S., at –353. The constitutional requirement that the government prove the defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt also impedes convictions based on dubi- ous identification evidence. State and federal rules of evidence, moreover, permit trial judges to exclude relevant evidence if its probative value is substantially outweighed by its prejudicial impact or potential for misleading the jury. See, e.g., Fed. Rule Evid. 403; N. H. Rule Evid. 403 (2011). See also Tr. of Oral Arg. 19–22 (inquiring whether the standard Perry seeks differs materially from the one set out in Rule 403). In appropriate cases, some States also permit defendants to present expert testimony on the hazards of eyewitness identification evidence. See, e.g., (“We expect that in cases involving eyewitness identification of strangers or near-strangers, trial courts will routinely admit expert testimony [on the dangers of such evidence].”). Many of the safeguards just noted were at work at Perry’s trial. During her opening statement, Perry’s court- appointed attorney cautioned the jury about the vulnera- bility of Blandon’s identificatio App. 115a (Blandon, “the eyewitness that the State needs you to believe[,] can’t pick [Perry] out of a photo array. How carefully did she really see what was going on? How well could she really see him?”). While cross-examining Blandon and Officer Clay, Perry’s attorney constantly brought up the weaknesses of Blandon’s identificatio She highlighted: (1) the significant distance between Blandon’s window and the parking lot, at 226a; (2) the lateness of the hour, at 225a; (3) the van that partly obstructed Blandon’s view, at 226a; (4) Blandon’s concession that she was “so scared [she] really didn’t pay attention” to what Perry was wearing, at a; (5) Blandon’s inability to de- scribe Perry’s facial features or other identifying marks, at 205a, a–235a; (6) Blandon’s failure to pick Perry 18 PERRY v. NEW HAMPSHIRE Opinion of the Court out of a photo array, at 235a; and (7) Perry’s position next to a uniformed, gun-bearing police officer at the moment Blandon made her identification, at 202a– 205a. Perry’s counsel reminded the jury of these frailties during her summatio at 374a–375a (Blandon “wasn’t able to tell you much about who she saw She
|
Justice Ginsburg
| 2,012 | 5 |
majority
|
Perry v. New Hampshire
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/620671/perry-v-new-hampshire/
|
able to tell you much about who she saw She couldn’t pick [Perry] out of a lineup, out of a photo array [Blandon said] [t]hat guy that was with the police officer, that’s who was circling. Again, think about the context with the guns, the uniforms. Powerful, powerful context clues.”). After closing arguments, the trial court read the jury a lengthy instruction on identification testimony and the factors the jury should consider when evaluating it. at 399a–401a. The court also instructed the jury that the defendant’s guilt must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt, at 390a, 392a, 395a–396a, and specifically cautioned that “one of the things the State must prove [beyond a reasonable doubt] is the identification of the defendant as the person who committed the offense,” at 398a–399a. Given the safeguards generally applicable in criminal trials, protections availed of by the defense in Perry’s case, we hold that the introduction of Blandon’s eyewitness testimony, without a preliminary judicial assessment of its reliability, did not render Perry’s trial fundamentally unfair. * * * For the foregoing reasons, we agree with the New Hampshire courts’ appraisal of our decisions. See at 4–5. Finding no convincing reason to alter our prece- dent, we hold that the Due Process Clause does not re- quire a preliminary judicial inquiry into the reliability of an eyewitness identification when the identification was not procured under unnecessarily suggestive circum- Cite as: 565 U. S. (2012) 19 Opinion of the Court stances arranged by law enforcement. Accordingly, the judgment of the New Hampshire Supreme Court is Affirmed. Cite as: 565 U. S. (2012) 1 THOMAS, J., concurring SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES No. 10–8974 BARION PERRY, PETITIONER v.
|
Justice Marshall
| 1,984 | 15 |
majority
|
Dixson v. United States
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111107/dixson-v-united-states/
|
These consolidated cases present the question whether officers of a private, nonprofit corporation administering and expending federal community development block grants are "public officials" for purposes of the federal bribery statute. 18 U.S. C. 201(a). I In 1979, the city of Peoria received two federal block grants from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The first was a $400,000 Community Development Block Grant; the second a $638,000 Metro Reallocation Grant. Both grants were funded through the Housing and Community Development Act of 1974 (HCDA), as amended, 42 U.S. C. 5301-5320 ( ed. and Supp. V). Under that Act, the Secretary of HUD is authorized to dispense federal block grants to state and local governments and nonprofit community organizations for urban renewal programs such as the rehabilitation of residential structures, code enforcement in deteriorating areas, and the construction of public works projects. The city of Peoria subsequently designated United Neighborhoods, Inc. (UNI), a community-based, social-service organization, to be the city's subgrantee in charge of the administration of the federal block grant funds.[1] UNI in turn hired petitioner Dixson to serve as the corporation's Executive Director and petitioner Hinton as its Housing Rehabilitation Coordinator. Petitioner Dixson was responsible for the general supervision of UNI's programs, including fiscal control and execution of contracts. Petitioner Hinton's duties included contracting with persons applying for housing rehabilitation assistance, and contracting with demolition firms. *485 A federal grand jury named petitioners in an 11-count indictment filed on March 12, The indictment charged that petitioners, as "public officials" under 18 U.S. C. 201(a), had sought a series of bribes in return for "being influenced in their performance of an official act in respect to the awarding of housing rehabilitation contracts" in violation of 18 U.S. C. 201(c)(1),(2). According to the Government's evidence at trial, petitioners used their positions to extract $42,694 in kickbacks from contractors seeking to work on UNI's housing rehabilitation projects. One contractor testified how he was approached by petitioner Hinton and persuaded to pay petitioners percent of each housing rehabilitation contract that petitioners awarded him. The contractor explained that on occasions, he received first draw checks from UNI for 20 percent of the contract price, deposited the check at his bank, and paid half the amount of the check in cash to petitioners. A second contractor testified as to substantially the same arrangement. Before trial, petitioners moved to dismiss the indictment on the grounds that they were not "public officials" within the meaning of the federal statute. Their motions were denied, and following a jury trial in the United States District Court for
|
Justice Marshall
| 1,984 | 15 |
majority
|
Dixson v. United States
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111107/dixson-v-united-states/
|
a jury trial in the United States District Court for the Central District of Illinois, petitioners were convicted as charged. The District Court sentenced each to 7 1/2 years' imprisonment, to be followed by 3 years' probation. Petitioners appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, which affirmed. Both petitioners filed petitions for writs of certiorari, and we granted the writs. We now affirm. II Petitioners' sole claim is that they were not "public officials" within the meaning of 18 U.S. C. 201(a) and therefore not subject to prosecution under the federal bribery *486 statute.[2] Since our disposition of this claim turns on the relationship between petitioners and the Federal Government, we begin our discussion with an analysis of the HCDA block grant program and petitioners' role in administering that program. Congress passed the HCDA to meet the social, economic, and environmental problems facing cities. 42 U.S. C. 5301(a) ( ed. and Supp. V). The primary objective of the Act is "the development of viable urban communities." 5301(c). While the HCDA addressed a national problem, Congress enacted the legislation as a federal block grant statute, under which the day-to-day administration of the federal program, including the actual expenditure of federal funds, is delegated to state and local authorities. The HCDA creates a "consistent system of Federal aid," 5301(d), by distributing funds committed by Congress through organizations outside the Federal Government, while *487 retaining federal control to assure compliance with statutory federal objectives and implementing regulations. Congress itself specified the 17 categories of community projects upon which HCDA grants can be spent. 5305. Within the federal constraints, grant recipients design programs addressing local needs. To obtain federal funds, local communities must submit to the Secretary a plan made in accordance with national urban growth policies, and supplement the plan with annual performance reports. 5304(a), (d). The Federal Government retains the right to audit the records of HCDA programs, 5304(e), and to recover improperly expended funds. 5311(b)(2). HCDA grantees give assurances to HUD that they, and their subgrantees, will abide by specific financial accountability, equal opportunity, fair labor, environmental, and other requirements. 5304, 5309, 53; 24 CFR 570.307 (1983). By administering HCDA funds, private nonprofit organizations subject themselves to numerous federal restrictions beyond those imposed directly by HUD. Like other recipients of federal grant funds, HUD grantees and subgrantees are subject to a uniform audit procedure, adopted by the Federal Government as "an integral element" of "full accountability by those entrusted with the responsibility for administering the programs."[3] UNI voluntarily assumed the status of an HCDA subgrantee when
|
Justice Marshall
| 1,984 | 15 |
majority
|
Dixson v. United States
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111107/dixson-v-united-states/
|
UNI voluntarily assumed the status of an HCDA subgrantee when UNI and the city of Peoria signed five separate grant agreements in March and October 1979, pursuant to *488 which UNI hired petitioners. Under the first four of these agreements, the city promised to provide UNI with $492,500, and UNI committed itself to spend these funds on urban renewal projects and related administrative costs, such as salaries and fringe benefits for UNI employees. The agreements specifically allocated funds to petitioners' salaries: $16,000 of the city grants was for UNI's Executive Director and $15,500 was for a Rehabilitation Coordinator. In a fifth agreement, Peoria promised UNI another $669,200 to be used "solely for a program operated by UNI which provides loans and grants to the rehabilitation of residential housing units in the designated Metropolitan Reallocation Grant Area." One anomaly in the five Peoria-UNI contracts is that, beyond this reference to the "Metropolitan Reallocation Grant Area" and to "312 loans,"[4] none of these first contracts explicitly refers to the federal Act or to UNI's new status of subgrantee.[5] UNI's application to participate in the federally funded program, however, unequivocally shows UNI's awareness of the Federal Government's relationship to, and interest in, the grant agreements. UNI's proposal to Peoria stated: "[W]e wish to undertake a joint effort with the City of Peoria to achieve the common goals as set forth in the Housing and Community Development *489 Act to insure safe, sanitary and decent housing for all people." Record, Govt. Exh. 19. (Emphasis added.) Moreover, there is no suggestion in the record that petitioners and other UNI executives failed to understand that they were involved in a federal program. As described above, the task of distributing HCDA funds is governed in numerous respects by federal statutes and regulations. Knowledge of the existence and applicability of these federal requirements and guidelines is presumed as a matter of law.[6] As a matter of fact, the federal interest in protecting the integrity of its block grant funds undoubtedly was driven home to petitioners when, in early 1980, in the midst of the period covered by the Government's indictment, Arthur Andersen & Co. conducted an audit of UNI's records in accordance with HUD's Audit Guide and Standards for Community Development Block Grant Recipients. Petitioners' responsibilities included receiving applications for housing assistance and soliciting contractor bids for qualified rehabilitation proposals. According to UNI's organizational structure, petitioners were supposed to submit the bids on qualified proposals to UNI's Housing Committee for final approval, but, in fact, the Committee's review was a "mere formality."[7] As a practical matter, petitioners alone
|
Justice Marshall
| 1,984 | 15 |
majority
|
Dixson v. United States
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111107/dixson-v-united-states/
|
was a "mere formality."[7] As a practical matter, petitioners alone decided which property owners and contractors in the city of Peoria would be the beneficiaries of the federal funds made available to the city through the HCDA block grant program. III Petitioners contend now, as they have throughout this litigation, that, as executives of a private nonprofit corporation unaffiliated with the Federal Government, they were never *490 "public officials" as Congress defined that term. 18 U.S. C. 201(a). Under 201(a), the term "public official" includes "an officer or employee or person acting for or on behalf of the United States, or any department, agency or branch of Government thereof, in any official function, under or by authority of any such department, agency, or branch of Government." There being no basis for claiming that petitioners were officers or employees of the United States, the Government's sole contention is that petitioners acted "for or on behalf of" the United States "in an official function" under the authority of HUD. Petitioners argue that they cannot be considered to have acted "for or on behalf of the United States" because neither they nor their employer UNI ever entered into any agreement with the United States or any subdivision of the Federal Government. In advancing this position, petitioners rely primarily on two Second Circuit decisions holding that a New York City employee involved in the administration of the federal Model Cities Program was not a public official under 201. United ; United Petitioners and these Second Circuit decisions rest on the premise that an individual does not work "for or on behalf of the United States in any official function" without some formal bond with the United States, such as an agency relationship, an employment contract, or a direct contractual obligation. The Government, in response, argues that the term "public official" has a broader sweep, covering not only parties in privity with the United States, but also any private individuals responsible for administering federally funded and federally supervised programs. The Government defends the decision of the Seventh Circuit in the instant cases which held that the "substantial federal supervision over the cities and all sub-grantees responsible for local distribution of grant funds" made petitioners' public officials for purposes of 201. *491 683 F. 2d, at 197-198. The court reasoned that petitioners "were acting as federal agents in the sense of having discretion in administering the expenditure of federal funds." As is often the case in matters of statutory interpretation, the language of 201(a) does not decide the dispute. The words can be interpreted to support
|
Justice Marshall
| 1,984 | 15 |
majority
|
Dixson v. United States
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111107/dixson-v-united-states/
|
decide the dispute. The words can be interpreted to support either petitioners' or the Government's reading. We must turn, therefore, to the legislative history of the federal bribery statute to determine whether these materials clarify which of the proposed readings is consistent with Congress' intent. If the legislative history fails to clarify the statutory language, our rule of lenity would compel us to construe the statute in favor of petitioners, as criminal defendants in these cases. See A Congress passed the current federal bribery provisions, including 201(a), in 1962, as part of an effort to reformulate and rationalize all federal criminal statutes dealing with the integrity of government. At the time of the 1962 revisions, general federal bribery statutes had been in existence for more than a century. From the start, Congress drafted its bribery statutes with broad jurisdictional language,[8] and *492 periodically amended the provisions to ensure that the scope of federal criminal liability kept pace with the growth and diversification of the Federal Government.[9] Prior to 1962, in recognition of Congress' apparent desire for the federal bribery statutes to have wide application, the federal judiciary interpreted the statutes and, indeed, the phrase "person acting for or on behalf of the United States" to have a broad jurisdictional reach.[] When drafting 201(a), Congress was aware of previous federal bribery statutes, as well as the judicial interpretation given those statutes. The phrase at issue here "person *493 acting for or on behalf of the United States" was taken directly from predecessor bribery statutes.[11] Moreover, the reenactment of this language was no happenstance. Earlier versions of the 1962 statute omitted the phrase, but Department of Justice testimony that "its removal would be undesirable" convinced Congress to retain the language.[12] Standing alone, Congress' purposeful retention of the "acting for or on behalf of the Government" phrase does not advance our inquiry into the scope and meaning of those words. When, however, we compare the phrase as enacted with the proposed definition of "public official" in earlier draft bills that were not enacted, we conclude that Congress could not have meant to restrict the definition, as petitioners argue, to those persons in an employment or agency relationship *494 with the Federal Government. Such persons were clearly covered by successive, rejected versions of the reform bill, which defined "public official" in pertinent part as "an officer, agent, or employee of the United States in the executive, legislative, or judicial branch of the Government, or of any agency."[13] If Congress intended courts to restrict their reading of the jurisdictional definition to persons in
|
Justice Marshall
| 1,984 | 15 |
majority
|
Dixson v. United States
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111107/dixson-v-united-states/
|
restrict their reading of the jurisdictional definition to persons in a formal employment or agency relationship with the Government, it would have had no reason to accede to the Department of Justice's urging to retain the "acting for or on behalf of" language. Moreover, we find the legislative history of 201(a) inconsistent with the view that the words "person acting for or on behalf of the United States" were added simply to bring within the jurisdiction of the federal bribery laws those individuals tied to the Federal Government by direct contractual obligations. Committee Reports from both Houses of Congress emphasized that the new bribery laws made "no significant changes of substance" and "would not restrict the broad scope of the present bribery statutes as construed by the courts." S. Rep. No. 2213, 87th Cong., 2d Sess., 4 ; H. R. Rep. No. 87th Cong., 1st Sess., 17 (1961). Federal courts interpreting the federal bribery laws prior to 1962 had generally avoided formal distinctions, such as the requirement of a direct contractual bond, that would artificially narrow the scope of federal criminal jurisdiction. See n. Of particular relevance to the instant case is the House Judiciary Committee's citation of the Second Circuit's decision in United as an example *495 of how the judiciary had in the past properly construed the federal bribery See H. R. Rep. No. The Levine decision involved the application of the 1909 bribery statute to a low-level official in a decentralized federal assistance program.[14] The defendant in Levine worked for a locally administered price stabilization program, the New York Metropolitan Milk Marketing Area,[15] and was responsible for receiving milk handlers' market surplus claims, and checking them for accuracy. Levine solicited a bribe from one of the handlers within his jurisdiction in return for his promise to prevent investigations of the claims. Although hired by a Market Administrator who, in turn, had been appointed by the Secretary of Agriculture, Levine himself was neither employed by the United States nor paid with federal funds. Nevertheless, Levine's duties were critical to the proper administration of the federally assisted New York Milk Marketing Area. Because claims for payment were not rechecked by anyone else, his duties resulted in expenditures from the Federal Treasury. After reviewing *496 these facts, the Second Circuit concluded that, notwithstanding the absence of a direct contractual bond between the defendant and the United States, Levine's responsible position made him a "public official" for purposes of the federal bribery By explicitly endorsing the Second Circuit's analysis in Levine, the House Judiciary Committee strongly intimated that the phrase "acting
|
Justice Marshall
| 1,984 | 15 |
majority
|
Dixson v. United States
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111107/dixson-v-united-states/
|
the House Judiciary Committee strongly intimated that the phrase "acting for or on behalf of the United States" covers something more than a direct contractual bond. Congress' longstanding commitment to a broadly drafted federal bribery statute, its expressed desire to continue that tradition with the 1962 revisions, its affirmative adoption of the language at issue in this case, and the House Report's endorsement of the Second Circuit's reasoning in Levine, combine to persuade us that Congress never intended 201 (a)'s open-ended definition of "public official" to be given the cramped reading proposed by petitioners. We agree with the Government that 201(a) has been accurately characterized as a "comprehensive statute applicable to all persons performing activities for or on behalf of the United States," whatever the form of delegation of authority.[16] To determine whether any particular individual falls within this category, the proper inquiry is not simply whether the person had signed a contract with the United States or agreed to serve as the Government's agent, but rather whether the person occupies a position of public trust with official federal responsibilities. Persons who hold such positions are public officials within the meaning of 201 and liable for prosecution under the federal bribery statute. B Given the structure of the HCDA program and petitioners' responsible positions as administrators of the subgrant, we *497 have little difficulty concluding that these persons served as public officials for purposes of 201(a). As executives of UNI, petitioners had operational responsibility for the administration of the HCDA grant program within the city of Peoria. In allocating the federal resources made available to the city through the HCDA grant program, petitioners were charged with abiding by federal guidelines, which dictated both where and how the federal funds could be distributed. By accepting the responsibility for distributing these federal fiscal resources, petitioners assumed the quintessentially official role of administering a social service program established by the United States Congress. Lest there be any doubt that Congress intended 201(a) to cover local officials like petitioners, one need only compare petitioners to the defendant in Levine, whose conviction the House Judiciary Committee explicitly endorsed. See Both Levine and petitioners worked in decentralized federal assistance programs. Both Levine and petitioners effectively determined who would be the beneficiary of federal dollars, and both solicited bribes to influence their official decisions. Levine held a position of public trust with official federal responsibilities: to collect and investigate the accuracy of data submitted by milk producers in support of their claims for federal subsidies. Petitioners held a position of public trust with official federal responsibilities: allocating
|
Justice Marshall
| 1,984 | 15 |
majority
|
Dixson v. United States
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111107/dixson-v-united-states/
|
a position of public trust with official federal responsibilities: allocating federal resources, pursuant to complex statutory and regulatory guidelines, in the form of residential rehabilitation contracts. Indeed, in certain respects, petitioners performed duties that were more clearly "official" and more obviously undertaken "for or on behalf of the United States" than the responsibilities of the defendant in Levine. Where Levine was paid through a levy imposed on local businesses participating in the marketing order, petitioners' salaries were completely funded by the HCDA grant. Where Levine simply compiled data that were submitted to the Department of Agriculture for eventual disbursement, petitioners personally *498 bestowed the benefits of the HCDA program to residents of Peoria. IV A In concluding that employment by the United States or some other similarly formal contractual or agency bond is not a prerequisite to prosecution under the federal bribery statute, we are supported by the majority of recent decisions in the Federal District Courts and Courts of Appeals. In United the Ninth Circuit determined that an employee of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, which is a private banking institution, was a public official for purposes of 201(a) because the employee was responsible for carrying out tasks delegated by a federal agency and was subject to substantial federal supervision. The defendant received bribes and kickbacks from independent contractors to influence him in making capital purchase requisitions. In short, like petitioners, he was in a position of responsibility, acting for or on behalf of the Federal Government in administering expenditure of federal funds. Similarly, in United the Seventh Circuit ruled that two privately employed grain inspectors, licensed by the Department of Agriculture, were public officials because they had responsibility for implementing a warehouse licensing program established by Congress.[17] For analogous reasons, the *499 Federal District Court for the District of New Mexico found a state employee responsible for administering the Farmers Home Administration rural housing improvement grant program to be included within 201(a). United 5 F. Supp. 1112, Again, the defendant's official duties in processing grant applications directly influenced the expenditure of federal funds. See also United 659 F.2d ; (CA5), cert. denied, ; United affirmance order sub nom. United But see United ; United (CA2), ; United 520 F. Supp. 4 B By finding petitioners to be public officials within the meaning of 201(a), we do not mean to suggest that the mere presence of some federal assistance brings a local organization and its employees within the jurisdiction of the federal bribery statute or even that all employees of local organizations responsible for administering federal grant
|
Justice Marshall
| 1,984 | 15 |
majority
|
Dixson v. United States
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111107/dixson-v-united-states/
|
all employees of local organizations responsible for administering federal grant programs are public officials within the meaning of 201(a). To be a public official under 201(a), an individual must possess some degree of official responsibility for carrying out a federal program or policy. Our opinion today is, therefore, fully consistent with in which this Court ruled that a baggage porter, although employed by a federally controlled railroad, could not be said to have "acted for or on behalf of the United States" because the porter lacked any duties of an official character. Similarly, individuals who work for block grant recipients and business people who provide recipients with goods and services cannot be said to be public officials under 201(a) unless they assume some duties of an official nature. We recognize that the manner in which the HCDA block grant program combines local administration with federal funding initially creates some confusion as to whether local authorities administering HCDA grants should be considered public officials under the federal bribery statute.[18] However, when one examines the structure of the program and sees that the HCDA vests in local administrators like petitioners Hinton and Dixson the power to allocate federal fiscal resources for the purpose of achieving congressionally established goals, the confusion evaporates and it becomes clear that these local officials hold precisely the sort of positions of national public trust that Congress intended to cover with the "acting for or on behalf of" language in the bribery statute.[19] The Federal Government has a strong and legitimate *501 interest in prosecuting petitioners for their misuse of Government funds. As this Court has said in another, closely related context, grant funds to state and local governments "are as much in need of protection from [fraud] as any other federal money, and the statute does not make the extent of [grant moneys'] safeguard dependent upon the bookkeeping devices used for their distribution." United States ex rel. (holding that one who contracts with a local governmental unit to work on federally funded projects can "cheat the United States" through the state intermediary). Because we agree with the Seventh Circuit that petitioners were public officials under 201(a), the judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed. It is so ordered.
|
Justice Burger
| 1,970 | 12 |
concurring
|
California v. Green
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/108189/california-v-green/
|
I join fully in MR. JUSTICE WHITE'S opinion for the Court. I add this comment only to emphasize the importance of allowing the States to experiment and innovate, especially in the area of criminal justice. If new standards and procedures are tried in one State their success or failure will be a guide to others and to the Congress. Here, California, by statute, recently adopted a rule of evidence[1] that, as MR. JUSTICE WHITE observes, has long been advocated by leading commentators. Two other States, Kentucky[2] and Wisconsin,[3] have within the past year embraced similar doctrines by judicial decisions. None of these States has yet had sufficient experience with their innovations to determine whether or not the modification is sound, wise, and workable. The California Supreme Court, in striking down the California statute, seems to have done so in the mistaken belief that this Court, through the Confrontation Clause, has imposed rigid limits on the States in this area. As the Court's opinion indicates, that conclusion is erroneous. The California statute meets the tests of the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments, and accordingly, the wisdom of the statute is properly left to the State of California; other jurisdictions will undoubtedly watch the experiment with interest. The circumstances of this case demonstrate again that neither the Constitution as originally drafted, nor any amendment, nor indeed any need, dictates that we must have absolute uniformity in the *172 criminal law in all the States. Federal authority was never intended to be a "ramrod" to compel conformity to nonconstitutional standards. MR.
|
Justice Powell
| 1,980 | 17 |
concurring
|
Reid v. Georgia
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110336/reid-v-georgia/
|
[1] This case is similar in many respects to United in which a defendant observed walking through an airport was stopped by DEA agents and asked for identification. The threshold question in Mendenhall, as here, was whether the agent's initial stop of the suspect constituted a seizure within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. MR. JUSTICE STEWART, joined by MR. JUSTICE REHNQUIST, was of the opinion that the mere stopping of a person for identification purposes is not a seizure: "We conclude that a person has been `seized' within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment only if, in view of all of the circumstances surrounding the incident, a reasonable person would have believed that he was not free to leave."[2] *443 Thus, on the basis of facts remarkably similar to those in the present case, MR. JUSTICE STEWART and MR. JUSTICE REHNQUIST decided that no seizure had occurred. My concurring opinion in Mendenhall, in which THE CHIEF JUSTICE and MR. JUSTICE BLACKMUN joined, did not consider the seizure issue because it had not been raised in the courts below. Even if the stop constituted a seizure, it was my view that the DEA agents had articulable and reasonable grounds for believing that the individual was engaged in criminal activity. Therefore, they did not violate the Fourth Amendment by stopping that person for routine questioning. I expressly stated, however, that my decision not to reach the seizure issue did not necessarily indicate disagreement with the views of MR. JUSTICE STEWART and MR. JUSTICE REHNQUIST.[3] The state courts, which decided this case before our decision in Mendenhall, did not consider whether the petitioner had been seized. Rather, those courts apparently assumed that the stop for routine identification questioning constituted a seizure, and addressed only the question whether the agent's actions were justified by articulable and reasonable grounds of suspicion. Because we similarly do not consider the initial seizure question in our decision today, that issue remains open for consideration by the state courts in light of the opinions in Mendenhall.
|
Justice Kennedy
| 2,007 | 4 |
majority
|
Smith v. Texas
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/145740/smith-v-texas/
|
The jury in a Texas state court convicted petitioner LaRoyce Lathair of first-degree murder and determined he should receive a death sentence. This Court now reviews a challenge to the sentencing proceeding for a second time. The sentencing took place in the interim between our decisions in and n Penry the Court addressed the special-issue questions then submitted to Texas juries to guide their sentencing determinations in capital cases. The decision held that the Texas special issues were insufficient to allow proper consideration of some forms of mitigating Following a pretrial challenge to the special issues by the trial court issued a charge instructing the jury to nullify the special issues if the mitigating evidence, taken as *1690 a whole, convinced the jury did not deserve the death penalty. After 's trial, Penry held a similar nullification charge insufficient to cure the flawed special issues. on state collateral review, continued to seek relief based on the inadequacy of the special issues, arguing that the nullification charge had not remedied the problem identified in his pretrial objection. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the denial of relief, distinguishing 's case from the Penry precedents. Ex parte This Court, by summary disposition, reversed. ( ). On remand the Court of Criminal Appeals again denied relief. t held, for the first time, that 's pretrial objections did not preserve the claim of constitutional error he asserts. Under the Texas framework for determining whether an instructional error merits reversal, the state court explained, this procedural default required to show egregious harm a burden the court held he did not meet. Ex parte The requirement that show egregious harm was predicated, we hold, on a misunderstanding of the federal right asserts; and we therefore reverse. A The Special ssues Under Texas law the jury verdict form provides special-issue questions to guide the jury in determining whether the death penalty should be imposed. At the time of 's trial, Texas law set forth three special issues. The first addressed deliberateness; the second concerned future dangerousness; and the third asked whether the killing was an unreasonable response to provocation by the victim. Provocation was not applicable to 's case so the third question was not included in the instructions. f the jury answered the two applicable special-issue questions in the affirmative, the death penalty would be imposed. n Penry the Court held that neither of these special-issue instructions was "broad enough to provide a vehicle for the jury to give mitigating effect" to the evidence at issue in that case. Penry (citing, and characterizing, Penry
|
Justice Kennedy
| 2,007 | 4 |
majority
|
Smith v. Texas
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/145740/smith-v-texas/
|
at issue in that case. Penry (citing, and characterizing, Penry ). We refer to the inadequacy of the special issue instructions as "Penry error." For the brief period between Penry and the Texas Legislature's addition of a catchall special issue, Texas courts attempted to cure Penry error with a nullification charge. n 's case the trial court instructed that if a juror was convinced the correct answer to each special-issue question was "yes," but nevertheless concluded the defendant did not deserve death in light of all the mitigating evidence, the juror must answer one special-issue question "no." The charge was not incorporated into the verdict form. See, e.g., -124. n essence the jury was instructed to misrepresent its answer to one of the two special issues when necessary to take account of the mitigating n Penry the Court concluded that a nullification charge created an ethical and logical dilemma that prevented jurors from giving effect to the mitigating evidence when the evidence was outside the scope of the special issues. As the Court explained, "because the supplemental [nullification] instruction had no practical effect, the jury instructions were not meaningfully different from the ones we found *1691 constitutionally inadequate in Penry" 532 U.S., n other words, Penry held that the nullification charge did not cure the Penry error. Penry and recognized the ethical dilemma, the confusion, and the capriciousness introduced into jury deliberations by directing the jury to distort the meaning of an instruction and a verdict form. Penry ; These are problems distinct from Penry error and may be grounds for reversal as an independent matter; but we need not reach that issue here, just as the Court did not need to reach it in Penry or When this Court reversed the Court of Criminal Appeals in it did so because the nullification charge had not cured the underlying Penry error. See (holding that "the burden of proof was tied by law to findings of deliberateness and future dangerousness that had little, if anything, to do with" the mitigating evidence). While the ethical and logical quandary caused by the jury nullification charge may give rise to distinct error, this was not the basis for reversal in On remand the Court of Criminal Appeals misunderstood this point. ts interpretation of federal law was incorrect. n light of our decision in our review of the facts need not restate the brutality of the murder committed or the evidence he offered in mitigation. See We need only address the conclusion of the Court of Criminal Appeals that the constitutional error asserted by was
|
Justice Kennedy
| 2,007 | 4 |
majority
|
Smith v. Texas
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/145740/smith-v-texas/
|
of Criminal Appeals that the constitutional error asserted by was caused by the nullification charge and that, having failed to alert the trial court to that error, was required to demonstrate egregious harm to obtain relief. B The Trial Before voir dire, filed three written motions addressing the jury instructions. n the first, he argued that and Penry established the constitutional inadequacy of the special issues. The motion maintained that Texas law denied the trial court power to cure the problem because "[t]he exclusive methodology for submission to the jury of special issues with regard to infliction of the death penalty [is] contained in" Article 37.071 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure Annotated (Vernon Supp. Pamphlet), which did not authorize the trial court to add an additional special issue on mitigation. The trial court, the objection stated, would not be able to provide "any instruction with regard to mitigating evidence which would permit the jury to make a moral reasoned response to" mitigating evidence not covered by the special issues. bid. would offer such The second pretrial motion raised a related but distinct began by noting that in Jurek the Supreme Court had found Article 37.071 constitutional on its face. He argued, however, it did so with the understanding that the Texas courts would give broad construction to terms in the special issues such as "`deliberately.'" They had not done so and therefore "[t]here [was] no provision in Texas for the jury to decide the appropriateness of the death penalty taking into consideration the personal moral culpability of the [d]efendant balanced by mitigating evidence which is not directly or circumstantially probative in answering the special issues." d., therefore reasoned that Article 37.071 was unconstitutional. *1692 The third pretrial motion asked the court to state the contents of the mitigation charge prior to voir dire so could exercise his jury challenges intelligently. d., The trial court denied the first two motions. d., n response to the third it provided a copy of its proposed mitigation charge. That charge, which we will refer to as "the nullification charge," defined mitigating evidence broadly before explaining to the jury, in relevant part: "[]f you believe that the State has proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the answers to the Special ssues are `Yes,' and you also believe from the mitigating evidence, if any, that the Defendant should not be sentenced to death, then you shall answer at least one of the Special ssues `No' in order to give effect to your belief that the death penalty should not be imposed due to the
|
Justice Kennedy
| 2,007 | 4 |
majority
|
Smith v. Texas
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/145740/smith-v-texas/
|
the death penalty should not be imposed due to the mitigating evidence presented to you. n this regard, you are further instructed that the State of Texas must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the death sentence should be imposed despite the mitigating evidence, if any, admitted before you." (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). The nullification charge did not define or describe the special issues. -110. The judge told counsel: "f you see something in that charge that you'd like worded differently or you think could be made clearer or better, 'm always willing to entertain different wording or different ways of putting the idea. So if you come up with something you like better, just let me know and 'll look at it." d., raised no additional objection and did not suggest alternative wording for the nullification charge. The jury received the nullification charge from the judge, but the verdict form did not incorporate it. The form was confined to the special issues of deliberateness and future dangerousness. d., The jury unanimously answered "yes" to both special-issue questions, and was sentenced to death. C Post-Trial Proceedings The State does not contest the validity of 's challenge to the special issues in his pretrial motion. t does contend that since did not object to the nullification charge, his state habeas petition rests on an unpreserved claim, namely that the nullification charge excluded his mitigating The State's formulation of the federal right claimed by a formulation accepted by the Court of Criminal Appeals, is based on an incorrect reading of federal law and this Court's precedents. Considering 's first two pretrial motions together, as the trial court did, it is evident 's objection was that the special-issue framework violated the Eighth Amendment because it prevented the court from formulating jury instructions that would ensure adequate consideration of his mitigating This framework failed because the special issues were too narrow, the trial court was unable to promulgate a new catchall special issue, and the Texas courts did not define "deliberately" in broad terms. The State is correct that this was an objection based on Penry error, not one based on the confusion caused by the nullification instruction. A review of 's post-trial proceedings shows that the central argument of his habeas petition, and the basis for this Court's decision in is the same constitutional error asserted at trial. 1 Direct Appeal On direct appeal from the trial court, renewed his argument that the special issues were unconstitutional: *1693 "[]n [Penry ], the Supreme Court held that there was an Eighth Ame[n]dment
|
Justice Kennedy
| 2,007 | 4 |
majority
|
Smith v. Texas
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/145740/smith-v-texas/
|
the Supreme Court held that there was an Eighth Ame[n]dment violation where there was mitigating evidence not relevant to the special verdict questions, or that had relevance to the defendant's moral culpability beyond the scope of the special verdict questions, and the jury instructions would have provided the jury with no vehicle for expressing its reasoned moral response to that "By its extremely narrow interpretation of the requirements of Penry, this Court has unconstitutionally narrowed the sentencer's discretion to consider relevant mitigating evidence The special issues do not in reality provide a vehicle for individualized consideration of the appropriateness of assessment of the death penalty and [the article establishing them] is unconstitutional as applied." -134. Both the Court of Criminal Appeals, in its most recent opinion, and the State, in its brief on direct appeal, recognized 's pretrial motions preserved this and n. 9 (holding 's direct-appeal argument that "the jury was unable to give effect to his mitigating evidence in answering the special issues" was "based upon his pretrial motion"); Brief for Texas in No. 71,333 (Tex. Crim.App.), p. 62, Record 674 ("[] reiterates his [pretrial] claim that the statute is unconstitutional as applied since it fails to provide an effective vehicle for the jury to apply mitigating evidence"). n its opinion affirming the sentence on direct review the Court of Criminal Appeals held that the "instruction complied with Penry and provided a sufficient vehicle for the jury to consider any mitigating evidence [] offered." v. State, No. 71,333 p. 11, 2 First and Second State Habeas n 1998, sought state habeas relief. Under state law the petition was untimely. The Court of Criminal Appeals, over a dissent, rejected an argument that neglect by 's counsel merited equitable tolling. Ex parte (Tex.Crim.App.1998) (en banc); see Texas then amended its filing rules to allow the exception the Court of Criminal Appeals had declined to create. The statutory change permitted to file for habeas relief. filed his second habeas petition before this Court's decision in Penry He argued once more that the special issues were inadequate: "n Penry [], the Supreme Court held that the former Texas capital sentencing statute did not provide an adequate vehicle for expressing its reasoned moral response to [mitigating] evidence in rendering its sentencing decision." Application for Writ of Habeas Corpus Pursuant to Section 4A of Article 11.071 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure in No. W91-22803-R(A) (Tex.Crim. App.), p. 191, Record 193 acknowledged the trial court tried to solve the problem with the nullification charge, but he explained that "[i]t confounds common sense to
|
Justice Kennedy
| 2,007 | 4 |
majority
|
Smith v. Texas
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/145740/smith-v-texas/
|
charge, but he explained that "[i]t confounds common sense to suggest jurors who are sworn to tell the truth would ever understand that they were authorized to answer [special-issue] questions falsely." d., Record 195. continued: "Nothing in the special issues themselves linked the `nullification' instruction to the specific questions asked; nothing in the special issues themselves authorized the jury to consider mitigating evidence when answering the questions; *1694 nothing in the special issues themselves authorized the jury to answer the questions `no' when the truthful answer was `yes'; in short, nothing in the special issues permitted the jury to apply the `nullification' instruction." d., Record 196. conceded he had not objected to the nullification charge but confirmed that he had challenged the special-issues statute and that the Court of Criminal Appeals had reached the merits of this claim on direct review. The State, relying upon a procedural bar different from and indeed contradictory to the one it now raises, responded that "[t]his claim [was] procedurally barred as it was both raised and decided on the merits on direct appeal." ; see also (describing 's position as an "identical complaint" and an "identical argument" to his claim on direct appeal). The State contended, in the alternative, that 's position was meritless because the nullification charge cured any problem with the special issues. Respondent's Original Answer and Response to Applicant's Application for Writ of Habeas Corpus in No. W91-22803-R(A) (Tex. Crim.App.), pp. 136-139, Record 467-470. The state trial court denied habeas relief on the ground was procedurally barred from raising the same claim denied on direct review absent "a subsequent change in the law so as to render the judgment void" Ex parte No. W91-22803-R, 86-87 3 Appeal from the Denial of State Habeas Relief While 's appeal from the state trial court's denial of his second habeas petition was pending, this Court decided Penry filed a brief in the Court of Criminal Appeals explaining the relevance of Penry to his habeas claim. He noted that the special-issue questions in his case were for all relevant purposes the same as those in Penry Applicant's Brief for Submission in View of the United States Supreme Court's Opinion in in No. W91-22803-R (Tex.Crim.App.), pp. 4-5. He maintained the nullification charges were also indistinguishable, and had in Penry been held insufficient "to cure the error created by the Special ssues." Applicant's Brief for Submission, at 6-7. concluded by explaining that the procedural bar for raising an issue already resolved on direct review did not apply "where an intervening legal decision renders a previously
|
Justice Kennedy
| 2,007 | 4 |
majority
|
Smith v. Texas
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/145740/smith-v-texas/
|
not apply "where an intervening legal decision renders a previously rejected claim meritorious." d., at 12 (en banc)). (We note the Court of Criminal Appeals recently adopted this position. See Ex parte Hood, (Tex.Crim.App.2007).) The Court of Criminal Appeals ordered supplemental briefing on the relevance of Penry Given that Penry addressed the sufficiency of a nullification charge as a cure for inadequate special issues, 's supplemental brief concentrated on the same issue. Nevertheless, his central argument remained that he "presented significant mitigating evidence that was virtually indistinguishable from Penry's and thus undeniably beyond the scope of the special issues." Applicant's Supplemental Briefing on Submission in No. 74,228 (Tex. Crim.App.), p. 12 (hereinafter Applicant's Supp. Briefing). The nullification charge was inadequate as well, in his view, because, based on the ethical dilemma, "there is a reasonable probability that the nullification instruction precluded [a juror who found that 's personal culpability did not warrant a death sentence] *1695 from expressing that conclusion." d., Alternatively, argued he was "also entitled to relief under Penry " because "[e]ven if the jury might have been able to give effect to some of [his] mitigating evidence within the scope of [the] special issues, the confusing nullification instruction itself" may have prevented the jury from doing so. d., As such, the nullification charge was "worse than no instruction at all." d., The State responded that the special issues were adequate and, furthermore, that the nullification charge, unlike the charge in Penry cured any problem. State's Brief in No. 74,228 (Tex.Crim. App.), pp. 2-11. n response to 's second argument the State contended "it tests the bounds of reason to grant [] relief based on a good-faith attempt to give him a supplemental instruction to which he was not constitutionally entitled." d., n reply reiterated his two distinct arguments, devoting most of the brief to his original trial objection. Applicant's Reply to Respondent's Response to Applicant's Brief for Submission in No. 74,228 (Tex.Crim.App.). The Court of Criminal Appeals denied the habeas petition. t found no Penry error, reasoning that the special issues were adequate to consider the mitigating Ex parte -415. Any evidence excluded from the purview of the jury, the court indicated, was not "constitutionally significant." d., n the alternative the court held the nullification charge and the argument at trial were distinguishable from those at issue in Penry n 's case, the court reasoned, the nullification charge would have been an adequate cure even if the special issues were too -417. The majority did not adopt or address the reasoning of the two concurring opinions, which
|
Justice Kennedy
| 2,007 | 4 |
majority
|
Smith v. Texas
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/145740/smith-v-texas/
|
or address the reasoning of the two concurring opinions, which argued that had procedurally defaulted his "Penry claim" because while he had objected to the special issues at trial, he had not objected separately to the nullification charge. d., ; 4 The ruling of the Court of Criminal Appeals in 's second state habeas proceeding was reversed by this Court in The Court's summary disposition first rejected as unconstitutional the Texas court's screening test for "constitutionally significant" -48, The Court next observed that although had presented relevant mitigating evidence, the jury's consideration was "tied by law to findings of deliberateness and future dangerousness that had little, if anything, to do with" that 48, There was, in other words, a Penry error. As a final matter, despite differences between the nullification charges in and Penry the variances were "constitutionally insignificant" because "Penry [] identified a broad and intractable problem." 47, (citing Penry -800, ). The nullification charge was therefore inadequate under Penry The judgment was reversed and the case remanded. -49, 5 Remand Following On remand 's brief urged that harmless-error review was inappropriate *1696 because under the nullification charge the jury proceedings became capricious. See Applicant's Brief on Remand in No. 74,228 (Tex.Crim.App.), pp. 8-18. The State responded that was procedurally barred because he waited to raise his allegation of "jury charge error" under Penry until the second state habeas petition nine years after his conviction. State's Brief on Remand in No. 74,228 (Tex.Crim. App.), pp. 1, 2 (hereinafter State's Brief on Remand). The State maintained this was an adequate and independent state ground for denying relief. bid. 's motion and direct appeal, the State said, had been based on a challenge to the statute setting forth the special issues, not to the jury charge. d., The State also maintained that this Court had not addressed whether the special issues were "a sufficient vehicle for the jury to give effect to ['s] mitigation " d., replied to the procedural-bar argument by noting he had "consistently raised his claim regarding the inadequacy of the special issues to permit constitutionally adequate consideration of his mitigating evidence and this Court has consistently addressed the merits of [that] claim." Applicant's Reply Brief on Remand in No. 74,228 (Tex.Crim.App.), p. 1. The Court of Criminal Appeals denied relief. The court's confusion with the interplay between Penry and Penry is evident from the beginning. Reasoning that "[t]he Supreme Court did not address our conclusion that the two special issues provided ['s] jury with a constitutionally sufficient vehicle to give effect to his mitigating evidence," the court
|
Justice Kennedy
| 2,007 | 4 |
majority
|
Smith v. Texas
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/145740/smith-v-texas/
|
vehicle to give effect to his mitigating evidence," the court again concluded that the special issues were adequate, Nevertheless, because of its "uncertainty" regarding this Court's Penry jurisprudence, the Court of Criminal Appeals went on to "assume, for the sake of argument, that at least some of ['s] evidence was not fully encompassed by the two special issues" and that "the jury charge in this case was constitutionally deficient under Penry" The Court then applied the framework of (en banc), to 's claim of error. Under Almanza, needed first to show instructional error. Having assumed had done so, the court next asked whether the error was preserved for review. f so, would need to establish some "actual," not merely theoretical, harm resulting from the error. f had not preserved the error, by contrast, he would need to establish not merely some harm but also that the harm was The court found had not preserved his claim of instructional error. 's only objection at trial, reasoned the state court, was that the statute authorizing the special issues was unconstitutional in light of Penry -462, and n. 8. This objection did not preserve a challenge to the nullification charge based on Penry so was required to show egregious harm. That showing had not been addressed by this Court's holding in the Court of Criminal Appeals indicated, because this Court only required that demonstrate a reasonable probability of harm. n the view of the Court of Criminal Appeals there was little likelihood that 's jury had failed to consider the mitigating -473. On this basis the court concluded had failed to show egregious harm and, as such, habeas relief was foreclosed. We granted certiorari. 549 U.S. *1697 A The special issues through which 's jury sentenced him to death did not meet constitutional standards, as held in Penry ; and the nullification charge did not cure that error, as held in Penry This was confirmed in The Court of Criminal Appeals on remand denied relief, nonetheless, based on two determinations: first, that 's federal claim was not preserved; second, as a result, that was required by Almanza to show egregious harm. As a general matter, and absent some important exceptions, when a state court denies relief because a party failed to comply with a regularly applied and well-established state procedural rule, a federal court will not consider that issue. disputes that the application of Almanza on state habeas review is a "firmly established and regularly followed state practice." The State argues it is. We may assume the State is correct on this point,
|
Justice Kennedy
| 2,007 | 4 |
majority
|
Smith v. Texas
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/145740/smith-v-texas/
|
We may assume the State is correct on this point, for in our view the predicate finding of procedural failure that led the Court of Criminal Appeals to apply the heightened Almanza standard is based on a misinterpretation of federal law. The State and the Court of Criminal Appeals read as having reversed because the nullification charge "prevented giving effect to ['s] mitigating evidence because it placed the jurors in an unconstitutional ethical quandary." Brief for Respondent 28. t is true 's second state habeas petition included an argument that the nullification charge itself prevented the jury from considering his mitigating This, however, was not the only, or even the primary, argument he presented to the Court of Criminal Appeals and this Court. As detailed above, 's central objection at each stage has been to the special issues. n this Court agreed the special issues were inadequate and so reversed the Court of Criminal Appeals. n challenging the special issues did contend that the nullification charge was flawed. This Court engaged in much the same analysis. That analysis was only necessary, however, because the Court of Criminal Appeals had twice rejected 's claim of Penry error based on the mistaken idea that "regardless of whether ['s] mitigating evidence was beyond the scope of the two statutory special issues, the judge's extensive supplemental [nullification] instruction provided a sufficient vehicle for the jury to consider all of ['s] mitigating " Ex parte n other words argued, and this Court agreed, that the special issues prevented the jury from considering his mitigating evidence; and the nullification charge failed to cure that error. n its opposition to certiorari in the State understood that under Penry it was the special issues, not the nullification charge, that created the error. See Brief in Opposition in O.T., No. 04-5323, p. 17 ("n essence, the [nullification] instruction did not create new error; rather, the instruction simply failed to correct the error identified in Penry "). The Court of Criminal Appeals' mistaken belief that Penry and by extension rested on a separate error arising from the nullification charge may have stemmed from 's use of the term "Penry error" in his supplemental brief and from this Court's citation to Penry rather than Penry in Applicant's *1698 Supp. Briefing 11. 's labeling of the claim in his supplemental brief, however, did not change its substance. See Ex parte Caldwell, (Tex.Crim.App.2000); And this Court's reference to Penry rather than Penry has been explained above. As the parties' post-trial filings, the state courts' judgments, and this Court's decision in make clear, challenged
|
Justice Kennedy
| 2,007 | 4 |
majority
|
Smith v. Texas
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/145740/smith-v-texas/
|
courts' judgments, and this Court's decision in make clear, challenged the special issues under Penry at trial and did not abandon or transform that claim during his lengthy post-trial proceedings. After the State argued for the first time that 's pretrial motions, and his argument on direct appeal, raised a "statutory" complaint about the entire Texas death penalty scheme different from his current theory. State's Brief on Remand 6. The State expanded on that claim in its arguments to this Court, in which it suggested made a strategic decision to launch a broad attack on the state system rather than attempt to obtain adequate instructions in his own case. Brief for Respondent 28, 32-33; Tr. of Oral Arg. 40. Regardless of how the State now characterizes it, 's claim was treated by the Court of Criminal Appeals as a Penry challenge to the adequacy of the special issues in his case, and that is how it was treated by this Court in The Court of Criminal Appeals on remand misunderstood the interplay of Penry and Penry and it mistook which of 's claims furnished the basis for this Court's opinion in These errors of federal law led the state court to conclude had not preserved at trial the claim this Court vindicated in even when the Court of Criminal Appeals previously had held 's claim of Penry error was preserved. The state court's error of federal law cannot be the predicate for requiring to show egregious harm. B Under Almanza, once established the existence of instructional error that was preserved by a proper objection, he needed only to show he suffered "some harm" from that error. n other words relief should be granted so long as the error was not t would appear this lower standard applies to 's preserved challenge to the special issues. The Court of Criminal Appeals explained in its recent decision in that once a state habeas petitioner establishes "a reasonable likelihood that the jury believed that it was not permitted to consider" some mitigating evidence, he has shown that the error was not harmless and therefore is grounds for reversal. d., at 786-788 ). We note that the Court of Criminal Appeals stated in dicta in this case that even assuming had established that there was a reasonable probability of error, he had not shown "`actual' harm," and therefore would not even satisfy the lower Almanza standard. We must assume that this departure from the clear rule of resulted from the state court's confusion over our decision in The Court of Criminal Appeals is, of
|
Justice Marshall
| 1,986 | 15 |
majority
|
Ford v. Wainwright
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111725/ford-v-wainwright/
|
For centuries no jurisdiction has countenanced the execution of the insane, yet this Court has never decided whether the Constitution forbids the practice. Today we keep faith with our common-law heritage in holding that it does. I Alvin Bernard Ford was convicted of murder in 1974 and sentenced to death. There is no suggestion that he was incompetent at the time of his offense, at trial, or at sentencing. *402 In early 1982, however, Ford began to manifest gradual changes in behavior. They began as an occasional peculiar idea or confused perception, but became more serious over time. After reading in the newspaper that the Ku Klux Klan had held a rally in nearby Jacksonville, Florida, Ford developed an obsession focused upon the Klan. His letters to various people reveal endless brooding about his "Klan work," and an increasingly pervasive delusion that he had become the target of a complex conspiracy, involving the Klan and assorted others, designed to force him to commit suicide. He believed that the prison guards, part of the conspiracy, had been killing people and putting the bodies in the concrete enclosures used for beds. Later, he began to believe that his women relatives were being tortured and sexually abused somewhere in the prison. This notion developed into a delusion that the people who were tormenting him at the prison had taken members of Ford's family hostage. The hostage delusion took firm hold and expanded, until Ford was reporting that 135 of his friends and family were being held hostage in the prison, and that only he could help them. By "day 287" of the "hostage crisis," the list of hostages had expanded to include "senators, Senator Kennedy, and many other leaders." App. 53. In a letter to the Attorney General of Florida, written in 1983, Ford appeared to assume authority for ending the "crisis," claiming to have fired a number of prison officials. He began to refer to himself as "Pope John Paul, III," and reported having appointed nine new justices to the Florida Supreme Court. Counsel for Ford asked a psychiatrist who had examined Ford earlier, Dr. Jamal Amin, to continue seeing him and to recommend appropriate treatment. On the basis of roughly 14 months of evaluation, taped conversations between Ford and his attorneys, letters written by Ford, interviews with Ford's acquaintances, and various medical records, Dr. Amin concluded in 1983 that Ford suffered from "a severe, uncontrollable, mental disease which closely resembles `Paranoid *403 Schizophrenia With Suicide Potential' " a "major mental disorder. severe enough to substantially affect Mr. Ford's present ability
|
Justice Marshall
| 1,986 | 15 |
majority
|
Ford v. Wainwright
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111725/ford-v-wainwright/
|
disorder. severe enough to substantially affect Mr. Ford's present ability to assist in the defense of his life." Ford subsequently refused to see Dr. Amin again, believing him to have joined the conspiracy against him, and Ford's counsel sought assistance from Dr. Harold Kaufman, who interviewed Ford in November 1983. Ford told Dr. Kaufman that "I know there is some sort of death penalty, but I'm free to go whenever I want because it would be illegal and the executioner would be executed." When asked if he would be executed, Ford replied: "I can't be executed because of the landmark case. I won. Ford v. State will prevent executions all over." These statements appeared amidst long streams of seemingly unrelated thoughts in rapid succession. Dr. Kaufman concluded that Ford had no understanding of why he was being executed, made no connection between the homicide of which he had been convicted and the death penalty, and indeed sincerely believed that he would not be executed because he owned the prisons and could control the Governor through mind waves. Dr. Kaufman found that there was "no reasonable possibility that Mr. Ford was dissembling, malingering or otherwise putting on a performance" The following month, in an interview with his attorneys, Ford regressed further into nearly complete incomprehensibility, speaking only in a code characterized by intermittent use of the word "one," making statements such as "Hands one, face one. Mafia one. God one, father one, Pope one. Pope one. Leader one." Counsel for Ford invoked the procedures of Florida law governing the determination of competency of a condemned inmate, Following the procedures set forth in the statute, the Governor of Florida appointed a panel of three psychiatrists to evaluate whether, under 922.07(2), Ford had "the mental capacity to understand the nature of the death penalty and the reasons why it was imposed *404 upon him." At a single meeting, the three psychiatrists together interviewed Ford for approximately 30 minutes. Each doctor then filed a separate two- or three-page report with the Governor, to whom the statute delegates the final decision. One doctor concluded that Ford suffered from "psychosis with paranoia" but had "enough cognitive functioning to understand the nature and the effects of the death penalty, and why it is to be imposed on him." App. 103. Another found that, although Ford was "psychotic," he did "know fully what can happen to him." The third concluded that Ford had a "severe adaptational disorder," but did "comprehend his total situation including being sentenced to death, and all of the implications of that penalty." He believed
|
Justice Marshall
| 1,986 | 15 |
majority
|
Ford v. Wainwright
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111725/ford-v-wainwright/
|
and all of the implications of that penalty." He believed that Ford's disorder, "although severe, seem[ed] contrived and recently learned." Thus, the interview produced three different diagnoses, but accord on the question of sanity as defined by state law. The Governor's decision was announced on April 30, when, without explanation or statement, he signed a death warrant for Ford's execution. Ford's attorneys unsuccessfully sought a hearing in state court to determine anew Ford's competency to suffer execution. Counsel then filed a petition for habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida, seeking an evidentiary hearing on the question of Ford's sanity, proffering the conflicting findings of the Governor-appointed commission and subsequent challenges to their methods by other psychiatrists. The District Court denied the petition without a hearing. The Court of Appeals granted a certificate of probable cause and stayed Ford's execution, and we rejected the State's effort to vacate the stay of execution. The Court of Appeals then addressed the merits of Ford's claim and a divided panel affirmed the District *405 Court's denial of the writ. This Court granted Ford's petition for certiorari in order to resolve the important issue whether the Eighth Amendment prohibits the execution of the insane and, if so, whether the District Court should have held a hearing on petitioner's claim. II Since this Court last had occasion to consider the infliction of the death penalty upon the insane, our interpretations of the Due Process Clause and the Eighth Amendment have evolved substantially. In a condemned prisoner claimed a due process right to a judicial determination of his sanity, yet the Court did not consider the possible existence of a right under the Eighth Amendment, which had not yet been applied to the States. The sole question the Court addressed was whether Georgia's procedure for ascertaining sanity adequately effectuated that State's own policy of sparing the insane from execution. See also Caritativo v. California, 357 U. S> 549 ; United States ex rel. ; ; Now that the Eighth Amendment has been recognized to affect significantly both the procedural and the substantive aspects of the death penalty, the question of executing the insane takes on a wholly different complexion. The adequacy of the procedures chosen by a State to determine sanity, therefore, will depend upon an issue that this Court has never addressed: whether the Constitution places a substantive restriction on the State's power to take the life of an insane prisoner. There is now little room for doubt that the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment
|
Justice Marshall
| 1,986 | 15 |
majority
|
Ford v. Wainwright
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111725/ford-v-wainwright/
|
that the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment embraces, at a minimum, those modes or acts of punishment that had been considered cruel and unusual at the time that the Bill of Rights was adopted. See ; ; ; "Although the Framers may have intended the Eighth Amendment to go beyond the scope of its English counterpart, their use of the language of the English Bill of Rights is convincing proof that they intended to provide at least the same protection." Moreover, the Eighth Amendment's proscriptions are not limited to those practices condemned by the common law in 1789. See Not bound by the sparing humanitarian concessions of our forebears, the Amendment also recognizes the "evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society." In addition to considering the barbarous methods generally outlawed in the 18th century, therefore, this Court takes into account objective evidence of contemporary values before determining whether a particular punishment comports with the fundamental human dignity that the Amendment protects. See A We begin, then, with the common law. The bar against executing a prisoner who has lost his sanity bears impressive historical credentials; the practice consistently has been branded "savage and inhuman." 4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries *24-*25 (hereinafter Blackstone). Blackstone explained: "[I]diots and lunatics are not chargeable for their own acts, if committed when under these incapacities: no, not even for treason itself. Also, if a man in his sound memory commits a capital offence, and before arraignment for it, he becomes mad, he ought not to be arraigned for *407 it: because he is not able to plead to it with that advice and caution that he ought. And if, after he has pleaded, the prisoner becomes mad, he shall not be tried: for how can he make his defence? If, after he be tried and found guilty, he loses his senses before judgment, judgment shall not be pronounced; and if, after judgment, he becomes of nonsane memory, execution shall be stayed: for peradventure, says the humanity of the English law, had the prisoner been of sound memory, he might have alleged something in stay of judgment or execution." Sir Edward Coke had earlier expressed the same view of the common law of England: "[B]y intendment of Law the execution of the offender is for example, but so it is not when a mad man is executed, but should be a miserable spectacle, both against Law, and of extream inhumanity and cruelty, and can be no example to others." 3 E. Coke, Institutes 6 (6th ed. 1680) (hereinafter Coke).
|
Justice Marshall
| 1,986 | 15 |
majority
|
Ford v. Wainwright
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111725/ford-v-wainwright/
|
3 E. Coke, Institutes 6 (6th ed. 1680) (hereinafter Coke). Other recorders of the common law concurred. See 1 M. Hale, Pleas of the Crown 35 (1736) (hereinafter Hale); 1 W. Hawkins, Pleas of the Crown 2 (7th ed. 1795) (hereinafter Hawkins); Hawles, Remarks on the Trial of Mr. Charles Bateman, 11 How. St. Tr. 474, 477 (1685) (hereinafter Hawles). As is often true of common-law principles, see O. Holmes, The Common Law 5 (1881), the reasons for the rule are less sure and less uniform than the rule itself. One explanation is that the execution of an insane person simply offends humanity, Coke 6; another, that it provides no example to others and thus contributes nothing to whatever deterrence value is intended to be served by capital punishment. Other commentators postulate religious underpinnings: that it is uncharitable to dispatch an offender "into another world, when he is not of a capacity to fit himself for it," Hawles 477. It is also said that execution serves no purpose in these cases because madness is its own punishment: furiosus *408 solo furore punitur. Blackstone *395. More recent commentators opine that the community's quest for "retribution" the need to offset a criminal act by a punishment of equivalent "moral quality" is not served by execution of an insane person, which has a "lesser value" than that of the crime for which he is to be punished. Hazard & Louisell, Death, the State, and the Insane: Stay of Execution, Unanimity of rationale, therefore, we do not find. "But whatever the reason of the law is, it is plain the law is so." Hawles 477. We know of virtually no authority condoning the execution of the insane at English common law.[1] Further indications suggest that this solid proscription was carried to America, where it was early observed that "the judge is bound" to stay the execution upon insanity of the prisoner. 1 J. Chitty, A Practical Treatise on the Criminal Law *761; see 1 F. Wharton, A Treatise on Criminal Law 59 (8th ed. 1880). B This ancestral legacy has not outlived its time. Today, no State in the Union permits the execution of the insane.[2] It *409 is clear that the ancient and humane limitation upon the State's ability to execute its sentences has as firm a hold upon the jurisprudence of today as it had centuries ago in England. The various reasons put forth in support of the common-law restriction have no less logical, moral, and practical force than they did when first voiced. For today, no less than before,
|
Justice Marshall
| 1,986 | 15 |
majority
|
Ford v. Wainwright
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111725/ford-v-wainwright/
|
did when first voiced. For today, no less than before, we may seriously question the retributive value of executing a person who has no comprehension of why he has been singled out and stripped of his fundamental right to life. See Note, The Eighth Amendment and the Execution of the Presently Incompetent, Similarly, the natural abhorrence civilized societies feel at killing one who has no capacity to come to grips with his own conscience or deity is still vivid today. And the intuition that such an execution simply offends humanity is evidently shared across this Nation. Faced with such wide spread evidence of a restriction upon sovereign power, this Court is compelled to conclude that the Eighth Amendment *410 prohibits a State from carrying out a sentence of death upon a prisoner who is insane. Whether its aim be to protect the condemned from fear and pain without comfort of understanding, or to protect the dignity of society itself from the barbarity of exacting mindless vengeance, the restriction finds enforcement in the Eighth Amendment. III The Eighth Amendment prohibits the State from inflicting the penalty of death upon a prisoner who is insane. Petitioner's allegation of insanity in his habeas corpus petition, if proved, therefore, would bar his execution. The question before us is whether the District Court was under an obligation to hold an evidentiary hearing on the question of Ford's sanity. In answering that question, we bear in mind that, while the underlying social values encompassed by the Eighth Amendment are rooted in historical traditions, the manner in which our judicial system protects those values is purely a matter of contemporary law. Once a substantive right or restriction is recognized in the Constitution, therefore, its enforcement is in no way confined to the rudimentary process deemed adequate in ages past. A In a habeas corpus proceeding, "a federal evidentiary hearing is required unless the state-court trier of fact has after a full hearing reliably found the relevant facts." The habeas corpus statute, following this Court's decision in Townsend, provides that, in general, "a determination after a hearing on the merits of a factual issue, made by a State court of competent jurisdiction shall be presumed to be correct," and an evidentiary hearing not required. 28 U.S. C. 2254(d). In this case, it is clear that no state court has issued any determination to which that presumption of correctness could be said to attach; indeed, no court played any role in the rejection of petitioner's claim of insanity. Thus, quite simply, *411 Townsend and 2254 require the District Court
|
Justice Marshall
| 1,986 | 15 |
majority
|
Ford v. Wainwright
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111725/ford-v-wainwright/
|
quite simply, *411 Townsend and 2254 require the District Court to grant a hearing de novo on that question. But our examination does not stop there. For even when a state court has rendered judgment, a federal court is obliged to hold an evidentiary hearing on habeas corpus if, among other factors, "the factfinding procedure employed by the State court was not adequate to afford a full and fair hearing," 2254(d)(2); or "the material facts were not adequately developed at the State court hearing," 2254(d)(3); or "the applicant did not receive a full, fair, and adequate hearing in the State court proceeding." 2254(d)(6). If federal factfinding is to be avoided, then, in addition to providing a court judgment on the constitutional question, the State must also ensure that its procedures are adequate for the purpose of finding the facts. B The adequacy of a state-court procedure under Townsend is largely a function of the circumstances and the interests at stake. In capital proceedings generally, this Court has demanded that factfinding procedures aspire to a heightened standard of reliability. See, e. g., This especial concern is a natural consequence of the knowledge that execution is the most irremediable and unfathomable of penalties; that death is different. See Although the condemned prisoner does not enjoy the same presumptions accorded a defendant who has yet to be convicted or sentenced, he has not lost the protection of the Constitution altogether; if the Constitution renders the fact or timing of his execution contingent upon establishment of a further fact, then that fact must be determined with the high regard for truth that befits a decision affecting the life or death of a human being. Thus, the ascertainment of a prisoner's sanity as a predicate to lawful execution calls for no less stringent standards than those demanded in any *412 other aspect of a capital proceeding. Indeed, a particularly acute need for guarding against error inheres in a determination that "in the present state of the mental sciences is at best a hazardous guess however conscientious." That need is greater still because the ultimate decision will turn on the finding of a single fact, not on a range of equitable considerations. Cf. In light of these concerns, the procedures employed in petitioner's case do not fare well. C Florida law directs the Governor, when informed that a person under sentence of death may be insane, to stay the execution and appoint a commission of three psychiatrists to examine the prisoner. "The examination of the convicted person shall take place with all three psychiatrists present at
|
Justice Marshall
| 1,986 | 15 |
majority
|
Ford v. Wainwright
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111725/ford-v-wainwright/
|
person shall take place with all three psychiatrists present at the same time." After receiving the report of the commission, the Governor must determine whether "the convicted person has the mental capacity to understand the nature of the death penalty and the reasons why it was imposed on him." If the Governor finds that the prisoner has that capacity, then a death warrant is issued; if not, then the prisoner is committed to a mental health facility. The procedure is conducted wholly within the executive branch, ex parte, and provides the exclusive means for determining sanity. 451 So. 2d, at Petitioner received the statutory process. The Governor selected three psychiatrists, who together interviewed Ford for a total of 30 minutes, in the presence of eight other people, including Ford's counsel, the State's attorneys, and correctional officials. The Governor's order specifically directed that the attorneys should not participate in the examination in any adversarial manner. This order was consistent with the present Governor's "publicly announced policy *413 of excluding all advocacy on the part of the condemned from the process of determining whether a person under a sentence of death is insane." Goode v. After submission of the reports of the three examining psychiatrists, reaching conflicting diagnoses but agreeing on the ultimate issue of competency, Ford's counsel attempted to submit to the Governor some other written materials, including the reports of the two other psychiatrists who had examined Ford at greater length, one of whom had concluded that the prisoner was not competent to suffer execution. The Governor's office refused to inform counsel whether the submission would be considered. The Governor subsequently issued his decision in the form of a death warrant. That this most cursory form of procedural review fails to achieve even the minimal degree of reliability required for the protection of any constitutional interest, and thus falls short of adequacy under Townsend, is self-evident. IV A The first deficiency in Florida's procedure lies in its failure to include the prisoner in the truth-seeking process. Notwithstanding this Court's longstanding pronouncement that "[t]he fundamental requisite of due process of law is the opportunity to be heard," state practice does not permit any material relevant to the ultimate decision to be submitted on behalf of the prisoner facing execution. In all other proceedings leading to the execution of an accused, we have said that the factfinder must "have before it all possible relevant information about the individual defendant whose fate it must determine." And we have forbidden States to limit the capital defendant's submission of relevant evidence in mitigation of the
|
Justice Marshall
| 1,986 | 15 |
majority
|
Ford v. Wainwright
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111725/ford-v-wainwright/
|
capital defendant's submission of relevant evidence in mitigation of the sentence. Skipper v. South ; It would be odd were we now to abandon our insistence upon unfettered presentation of relevant information, before the final fact antecedent to execution has been found. Rather, consistent with the heightened concern for fairness and accuracy that has characterized our review of the process requisite to the taking of a human life, we believe that any procedure that precludes the prisoner or his counsel from presenting material relevant to his sanity or bars consideration of that material by the factfinder is necessarily inadequate. "[T]he minimum assurance that the life-and-death guess will be a truly informed guess requires respect for the basic ingredient of due process, namely, an opportunity to be allowed to substantiate a claim before it is rejected." We recently had occasion to underscore the value to be derived from a factfinder's consideration of differing psychiatric opinions when resolving contested issues of mental state. In we recognized that, because "psychiatrists disagree widely and frequently on what constitutes mental illness [and] on the appropriate diagnosis to be attached to given behavior and symptoms," the factfinder must resolve differences in opinion within the psychiatric profession "on the basis of the evidence offered by each party" when a defendant's sanity is at issue in a criminal trial. The same holds true after conviction; without any adversarial assistance from the prisoner's representative especially when the psychiatric opinion he proffers is based on much more extensive evaluation than that of the state-appointed commission the factfinder loses the substantial benefit of potentially probative information. The result is a much greater likelihood of an erroneous decision. *415 B A related flaw in the Florida procedure is the denial of any opportunity to challenge or impeach the state-appointed psychiatrists' opinions. "[C]ross-examination is beyond any doubt the greatest legal engine ever invented for the discovery of truth." 5 J. Wigmore, Evidence 1367 (J. Chadbourn rev. 1974). Cross-examination of the psychiatrists, or perhaps a less formal equivalent, would contribute markedly to the process of seeking truth in sanity disputes by bringing to light the bases for each expert's beliefs, the precise factors underlying those beliefs, any history of error or caprice of the examiner, any personal bias with respect to the issue of capital punishment, the expert's degree of certainty about his or her own conclusions, and the precise meaning of ambiguous words used in the report. Without some questioning of the experts concerning their technical conclusions, a factfinder simply cannot be expected to evaluate the various opinions, particularly when they
|
Justice Marshall
| 1,986 | 15 |
majority
|
Ford v. Wainwright
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111725/ford-v-wainwright/
|
be expected to evaluate the various opinions, particularly when they are themselves inconsistent. See The failure of the Florida procedure to afford the prisoner's representative any opportunity to clarify or challenge the state experts' opinions or methods creates a significant possibility that the ultimate decision made in reliance on those experts will be distorted.[3] *416 C Perhaps the most striking defect in the procedures of as noted earlier, is the State's placement of the decision wholly within the executive branch. Under this procedure, the person who appoints the experts and ultimately decides whether the State will be able to carry out the sentence that it has long sought is the Governor, whose subordinates have been responsible for initiating every stage of the prosecution of the condemned from arrest through sentencing. The commander of the State's corps of prosecutors cannot be said to have the neutrality that is necessary for reliability in the factfinding proceeding. Historically, delay of execution on account of insanity was not a matter of executive clemency (ex mandato regis) or judicial discretion (ex arbitrio judicis); rather, it was required by law (ex necessitate legis). 1 N. Walker, Crime and Insanity in England 196 (1968). Thus, history affords no better basis than does logic for placing the final determination of a fact, critical to the trigger of a constitutional limitation upon the State's power, in the hands of the State's own chief executive. In no other circumstance of which we are aware is the vindication of a constitutional right entrusted to the unreviewable discretion of an administrative tribunal. V A Having identified various failings of the Florida scheme, we must conclude that the State's procedures for determining sanity are inadequate to preclude federal redetermination of the constitutional issue. We do not here suggest that only a full trial on the issue of sanity will suffice to protect the federal interests; we leave to the State the task of developing appropriate ways to enforce the constitutional restriction *417 upon its execution of sentences.[4] It may be that some high threshold showing on behalf of the prisoner will be found a necessary means to control the number of nonmeritorious or repetitive claims of insanity. Cf. Other legitimate pragmatic considerations may also supply the boundaries of the procedural safeguards that feasibly can be provided. Yet the lodestar of any effort to devise a procedure must be the overriding dual imperative of providing redress for those with substantial claims and of encouraging accuracy in the factfinding determination. The stakes are high, and the "evidence" will always be imprecise. It is all the
|
Justice Marshall
| 1,986 | 15 |
majority
|
Ford v. Wainwright
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/111725/ford-v-wainwright/
|
the "evidence" will always be imprecise. It is all the more important that the adversary presentation of relevant information be as unrestricted as possible. Also essential is that the manner of selecting and using the experts responsible for producing that "evidence" be conducive to the formation of neutral, sound, and professional judgments as to the prisoner's ability to comprehend the nature of the penalty. Fidelity to these principles is the solemn obligation of a civilized society. B Today we have explicitly recognized in our law a principle that has long resided there. It is no less abhorrent today than it has been for centuries to exact in penance the life of one whose mental illness prevents him from comprehending the reasons for the penalty or its implications. In light of the *418 clear need for trustworthiness in any factual finding that will prevent or permit the carrying out of an execution, we hold that provides inadequate assurances of accuracy to satisfy the requirements of Having been denied a factfinding procedure "adequate to afford a full and fair hearing" on the critical issue, 28 U.S. C. 2254(d)(2), petitioner is entitled to an evidentiary hearing in the District Court, de novo, on the question of his competence to be executed. 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 POWELL, concurring in part and concurring in the judgment.
|
Justice Breyer
| 2,012 | 2 |
concurring
|
Miller v. Alabama
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/803271/miller-v-alabama/
|
I join the Court’s opinion in full. I add that, if the State continues to seek a sentence of life without the possibil- ity of parole for Kuntrell Jackson, there will have to be a determination whether Jackson “kill[ed] or intend[ed] to kill” the robbery victim. v. Florida, 560 U.S. (2010) (slip op., at 18). In my view, without such a finding, the Eighth Amendment as interpreted in forbids sentencing Jackson to such a sentence, regardless of whether its application is mandatory or discretionary under state law. In we said that “when compared to an adult murderer, a juvenile offender who did not kill or intend to kill has a twice diminished moral culpability.” (em- phasis added). For one thing, “compared to adults, juve- niles have a lack of maturity and an underdeveloped sense 2 MILLER v. ALABAMA BREYER, J., concurring of responsibility; they are more vulnerable or susceptible to negative influences and outside pressures, including peer pressure; and their characters are not as well formed.” at (slip op., at 17) (internal quotation marks omitted). See also (“[P]sychology and brain science continue to show fundamental differences between juvenile and adult minds” making their actions “less likely to be evidence of ‘irretrievably depraved character’ than are the actions of adults” (quoting Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551, 570 (2005))); ante, at 8–9. For another thing, recognized that lack of intent normally dimin- ishes the “moral culpability” that attaches to the crime in question, making those that do not intend to kill “categori- cally less deserving of the most serious forms of punish- ment than are murderers.” 560 U. S., at (slip op., at 18) (citing 434–435 (2008); ; v. Arizona, ). And we concluded that, because of this “twice diminished moral culpability,” the Eighth Amendment forbids the imposition upon juveniles of a sentence of life without parole for nonhomicide cases. at (slip op., at 18, 32). Given ’s reasoning, the kinds of homicide that can subject a juvenile offender to life without parole must exclude instances where the juvenile himself neither kills nor intends to kill the victim. Quite simply, if the juvenile either kills or intends to kill the victim, he lacks “twice diminished” responsibility. But where the juvenile neither kills nor intends to kill, both features emphasized in Gra- ham as extenuating apply. The dissent itself here would permit life without parole for “juveniles who commit the worst types of murder,” post, at 7 (opinion of ROBERTS, C. J.), but that phrase does not readily fit the culpability of one who did not himself kill or intend to kill.
|
Justice Breyer
| 2,012 | 2 |
concurring
|
Miller v. Alabama
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/803271/miller-v-alabama/
|
one who did not himself kill or intend to kill. I recognize that in the context of felony-murder cases, the question of intent is a complicated one. The felony- Cite as: 567 U. S. (2012) 3 BREYER, J., concurring murder doctrine traditionally attributes death caused in the course of a felony to all participants who intended to commit the felony, regardless of whether they killed or intended to kill. See 2 W. Substantive Criminal Law and (c) (2d ed. 2003). This rule has been based on the idea of “transferred intent”; the defendant’s intent to commit the felony satisfies the intent to kill required for murder. See S. Kadish, S. Schulhofer, & C. Streiker, Criminal Law and Its Processes 439 (8th ed. 2007); 2 C. Torcia, Wharton’s Criminal Law (15th ed. 1994). But in my opinion, this type of “transferred intent” is not sufficient to satisfy the intent to murder that could subject a juvenile to a sentence of life without parole. As an initial matter, this Court has made clear that this artificially constructed kind of intent does not count as intent for purposes of the Eighth Amendment. We do not rely on transferred intent in determining if an adult may receive the death penalty. Thus, the Constitution forbids imposing capital punishment upon an aider and abettor in a robbery, where that individual did not intend to kill and simply was “in the car by the side of the road waiting to help the robbers escape.” Cf. at 157–158 (capital punishment permissi- ble for aider and abettor where kidnaping led to death because he was “actively involved” in every aspect of the kidnaping and his behavior showed “a reckless disregard for human life”). Given this holding applies to juvenile sentences of life without parole a fortiori. See ante, at 12–13. Indeed, even juveniles who meet the standard of “reckless disregard” may not be eligible for life without parole. Rather, dictates a clear rule: The only juveniles who may constitutionally be sentenced to life without parole are those convicted of homicide offenses who “kill or intend to kill.” 560 U. S., at (slip op., at 18). 4 MILLER v. ALABAMA BREYER, J., concurring Moreover, regardless of our law with respect to adults, there is no basis for imposing a sentence of life without parole upon a juvenile who did not himself kill or intend to kill. At base, the theory of transferring a defendant’s intent is premised on the idea that one engaged in a dan- gerous felony should understand the risk that the victim of the felony could be
|
Justice Breyer
| 2,012 | 2 |
concurring
|
Miller v. Alabama
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/803271/miller-v-alabama/
|
the risk that the victim of the felony could be killed, even by a confederate. See 2 Yet the ability to consider the full consequences of a course of action and to adjust one’s conduct accordingly is precisely what we know juveniles lack capacity to do effectively. Ante, at 8–9. Justice Frank- furter cautioned, “Legal theories and their phrasing in other cases readily lead to fallacious reasoning if uncrit- ically transferred to a determination of a State’s duty to- ward children.” (1953) (concurring opinion). To apply the doctrine of transferred intent here, where the juvenile did not kill, to sentence a juvenile to life without parole would involve such “fallacious reasoning.” This is, as far as I can tell, precisely the situation pres- ent in Kuntrell Jackson’s case. Jackson simply went along with older boys to rob a video store. On the way, he became aware that a confederate had a gun. He initially stayed outside the store, and went in briefly, saying some- thing like “We ain’t playin’ ” or “ ‘I thought you all was playin,’ ” before an older confederate shot and killed the store clerk. 194 S.W.3d 757, 760 (2004). Crucially, the jury found him guilty of first-degree murder under a statute that permitted them to convict if, Jackson “attempted to commit or committed an aggravated robbery, and, in the course of that of- fense, he, or an accomplice, caused [the clerk’s] death under circumstance manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life.” See –10– 101(a)(1) (1997); ante, at 15. Thus, to be found guilty, Jackson did not need to kill the clerk (it is conceded he did Cite as: 567 U. S. (2012) 5 BREYER, J., concurring not), nor did he need to have intent to kill or even “ex- treme indifference.” As long as one of the teenage accom- plices in the robbery acted with extreme indifference to the value of human life, Jackson could be convicted of capital murder. The upshot is that Jackson, who did not kill the clerk, might not have intended to do so either. See Jackson v. Norris, S. W. 3d (Danielson, J., dissenting) (“[A]ny evidence of [Jackson’s] intent to kill was severely lacking”). In that case, the Eighth Amend- ment simply forbids imposition of a life term without the possibility of parole. If, on remand, however, there is a finding that Jackson did intend to cause the clerk’s death, the question remains open whether the Eighth Amend- ment prohibits the imposition of life without parole upon a juvenile in those circumstances as well. Ante, at 17. Cite
|
Justice O'Connor
| 2,005 | 14 |
dissenting
|
Medellin v. Dretke
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/142898/medellin-v-dretke/
|
José Ernesto Medellín offered proof to the Court of Appeals that reasonable jurists would find debatable or wrong the District Court's disposition of his claim that Texas violated his rights under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations and that he is thereby entitled to review and reconsideration of his conviction and sentence. Three specific issues deserve further consideration: (1) whether the International Court of Justice's judgment in Medellín's favor, Case *673 Concerning and Other Mexican Nationals (Mex. v. U. S.), 2004 I. C. J. No. 128 (Judgment of Mar. 31), is binding on American courts; (2) whether Article 36(1)(b) of the Convention creates a judicially enforceable individual right; and (3) whether Article 36(2) of the Convention sometimes requires state procedural default rules to be set aside so that the treaty can be given "full effect." Accordingly, I would vacate the denial of a certificate of appealability and remand for resolution of these issues. The Court dismisses the writ (and terminates federal proceedings) on the basis of speculation: Medellín might obtain relief in new state court proceedings because of the President's recent memorandum about whose constitutionality the Court remains rightfully agnostic, or he might be unable to secure ultimate relief in federal court because of questions about whose resolution the Court is likewise, rightfully, undecided. These tentative predictions are not, in my view, reason enough to avoid questions that are as compelling now as they were when we granted a writ of certiorari, and that remain properly before this Court. It seems to me unsound to avoid questions of national importance when they are bound to recur. I respectfully dissent. I Article 36 of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations guarantees open channels of communication between detained foreign nationals and their consulates in signatory countries: "[I]f he so requests, the competent authorities of the receiving State shall, without delay, inform the consular post of the sending State if, within its consular district, a national of that State is arrested or committed to prison or to custody pending trial or is detained in any other manner. Any communication addressed to the consular post by the person arrested, in prison, custody or detention shall also be forwarded by the said authorities *674 without delay. The said authorities shall inform the person concerned without delay of his rights under this sub-paragraph." Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, Art. 36(1)(b), Apr. 24, 1963, [1970] 21 U. S. T. 77, 101, T. I. A. S. No. 6820. Presently 167 nations are party to the Vienna Convention, including our immediate neighbors to the north and south.
|
Justice O'Connor
| 2,005 | 14 |
dissenting
|
Medellin v. Dretke
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/142898/medellin-v-dretke/
|
Convention, including our immediate neighbors to the north and south. Multilateral Treaties Deposited with the Secretary-General United Nations, N. Y., http://untreaty.un.org/English/bible/englishinternetbible/partI/chapterIII/treaty31.asp (all Internet materials as visited May 19, 2005, and available in Clerk of Court's case file). In this country, the individual States' (often confessed) noncompliance with the treaty has been a vexing problem. See, e. g., United It has three times been the subject of proceedings in the International Court of Justice (ICJ). See Case Concerning Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (Para. v. U. S.), 1998 I. C. J. 426 (Order of Nov. 10); LaGrand Case (F. R. G. v. U. S.), I. C. J. 466 (Judgment of June 27); The problem may have considerable ramifications, because foreign nationals are regularly subject to state criminal justice systems. For example, in 2003, over 56,000 noncitizens were held in state prisons. Noncitizens accounted for over 10% of the prison populations in California, New York, and Arizona. U. S. Dept. of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics Bull., p. 5 Prison and Jail Inmates at Midyear 2003, http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/pjim03.pdf. Noncompliance with our treaty obligations is especially worrisome in capital cases. As of February 2005, 119 non-citizens from 31 nations were on state death row. Foreign Nationals and the Death Penalty in the United States, Reported Foreign Nationals Under Sentence of Death in the U. S., http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?did=198& *675 scid=31. In the ICJ determined that the United States had breached its obligation to inform 51 Mexican nationals, all sentenced to death in this country, of their right to consular notification. Medellín is just one of them. 2004 I. C. J. No. 128, ¶ 106. His case thus presents, and the Court in turn avoids, questions that will inevitably recur. José Ernesto Medellín told the officers who arrested him in Texas that he was born in Laredo, Mexico. App. JA15. He also told the Harris County Pretrial Services that he is not an American citizen. App. to Pet. for Cert. 165a. Nonetheless, Medellín was arrested, detained, tried, convicted, and sentenced to death without ever being informed that he could contact the Mexican consul. Mexican consular authorities only became aware of Medellín's predicament some six weeks after his conviction was affirmed, when he wrote them a letter from Texas' death row. Since coming into contact with his consul, Medellín has maintained that Texas authorities violated his rights under the Convention and has sought (among other relief) an evidentiary hearing to determine whether he was prejudiced by the violation. First, Medellín filed a state application for a writ of habeas corpus. The Texas trial court denied relief, reasoning in
|
Justice O'Connor
| 2,005 | 14 |
dissenting
|
Medellin v. Dretke
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/142898/medellin-v-dretke/
|
habeas corpus. The Texas trial court denied relief, reasoning in relevant part: "13. Based on the applicant's lack of objection at trial to the alleged failure to inform him of his rights under the Vienna Convention, the applicant is procedurally barred from presenting his habeas claim that the alleged violation of the Vienna Convention violated his constitutional rights. ; "15. In the alternative, the applicant, as a private individual, lacks standing to enforce the provisions of the Vienna Convention. Hinojosa v. State, No. 72,932 (holding that treaties operate *676 as contracts among nations; thus, offended nation, not individual, must seek redress for violation of sovereign interests)." at 55a-56a. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed. Medellín next petitioned for habeas relief in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas. While that petition was pending, the ICJ announced its interpretation of Article 36 in a case that Germany had brought against the United States after Arizona failed to advise two German capital defendants about consular notification. LaGrand, Consistent with Medellín's own arguments about the Convention's meaning, the ICJ decided in LaGrand that the treaty confers individual rights and requires that state procedural default rules sometimes give way when foreign national defendants raise Vienna Convention claims. See Medellín argued to the District Court that the ICJ's interpretation of Article 36 was definitive, persuasive, and should control the resolution of his claim. Rejecting these and other arguments, the District Court denied relief. Medellín then sought to obtain a certificate of appealability (COA) from the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. See 28 U.S. C. 2253(c). A COA may issue only if the applicant has demonstrated that "reasonable jurists could debate whether (or, for that matter, agree that) the petition should have been resolved in a different manner [in the district court] or that the issues presented were `"adequate to deserve encouragement to proceed further."'" Meanwhile, Mexico had initiated proceedings in the ICJ against the United States on grounds that 54 Mexican capital defendants, including Medellín, had been denied their Vienna Convention rights. See The ICJ's decision in issued while Medellín's application for a COA was pending. Repeating the construction it had given to Article *677 36 in LaGrand, the ICJ decided that Medellín and 50 others were entitled to review and reconsideration of their convictions and sentences because the United States, through various individual States, had violated their Vienna Convention rights. The Court of Appeals noted the ICJ's pronouncements in LaGrand and and nonetheless concluded that Medellín's treaty claim lacked the requisite merit for a COA.
|
Justice O'Connor
| 2,005 | 14 |
dissenting
|
Medellin v. Dretke
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/142898/medellin-v-dretke/
|
Medellín's treaty claim lacked the requisite merit for a COA. We granted certiorari on two questions. First, does have preclusive effect in our courts? Second, if our courts are not bound to apply as a rule of decision, must they give the ICJ's decision effect for sake of uniform treaty interpretation or comity? These questions refer to substantial, debatable issues in Medellín's Vienna Convention claim. I would therefore vacate the denial of a COA and remand for further proceedings. II A At every step, the federal courts must evaluate Medellín's Vienna Convention claim through the framework of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), which controls the process by which a state prisoner may obtain federal habeas relief. And wherever the Convention, which has been in continuous force since 1969, conflicts with this subsequently enacted statute, the statute must govern. ; see also (88). At the outset, Texas and the United States argue that AEDPA's 2253(c) precludes ruling for Medellín no matter how meritorious his Vienna Convention claim may be. According to 2253(c)(2), a COA may issue "only if the applicant has made a substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional right." Texas maintains that prisoners may only appeal district courts' adverse decisions involving constitutional rights that Congress did not use the word "constitutional" *678 in the statute as shorthand for all of the federal claims traditionally heard in habeas. But see 1 R. Hertz & J. ebman, Federal Habeas Corpus Practice and Procedure 448-449 See also Texas concedes that it raised this objection for the first time in its merits brief to this Court. Tr. of Oral Arg. 29. Normally this Court will not decide a question raised at this stage. See But Texas contends that this is a nonwaivable jurisdictional objection. So we must start with the question of whether it actually is an objection that cannot be waived. It is true that the COA is jurisdictional in the sense that it is a "gateway" device. By obliging applicants to make a threshold showing before their cases are aired out on appeal, the COA serves an important screening function and conserves the resources of appellate courts. To that end, the existence of a COA is jurisdictional insofar as a prisoner cannot appeal in habeas without one. See Accordingly, a federal court must verify that a COA has issued before hearing the merits of a habeas appeal. It does not follow, however, that courts must raise and decide predicate arguments about the validity of a COA independently, without prompting from the parties, even when
|
Justice O'Connor
| 2,005 | 14 |
dissenting
|
Medellin v. Dretke
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/142898/medellin-v-dretke/
|
a COA independently, without prompting from the parties, even when ordinary waiver rules would apply, as they must with true jurisdictional arguments. If that were so, an appellate court, presiding over an appeal after the district court had issued a COA, would always be required to check that a "substantial showing" had been made and a cognizable right asserted even in the absence of controversy between the parties. We have never imposed such a rule, and it would undermine the efficiency of the COA process. Cf. Predicate considerations for a COA whether a "substantial showing" has been made or a "constitutional right" asserted are not the sorts of considerations that remain open for review throughout the entire case. Compare with Brief for United States in O. T. 1998, No. 97-9217, p. 6, n. 5 (arguing that 2253(c) deprived the Court of jurisdiction because a constitutional right was not at stake). Thus, because Texas did not argue below that a treaty-based claim cannot support an application for a COA, it cannot raise the argument now. Texas also adverts to another AEDPA provision, 28 U.S. C. 2(d), which it says is fatal to Medellín's treaty claim. The statute provides that a writ of habeas corpus shall not issue on behalf of a person in state custody with respect to any claim "adjudicated on the merits in State court proceedings unless the adjudication of the claim(1) resulted in a decision that was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States." Whether Medellín's claim clears these hurdles is an appropriate consideration for an appellate court contemplating whether to grant a COA, and for this Court reviewing the denial of a COA. See -350 ("A circuit justice or judge must deny a COA if all reasonable jurists would conclude that a substantive provision of the federal habeas statute bars relief"); see also The Texas court's disposition of Medellín's Vienna Convention claim is not entitled to deference under 2(d), and thus should not constrain a final decision in federal court about whether he deserves habeas relief. The Texas court gave two reasons for dismissing the claim. First, it applied its procedural default rule to Medellín's assertion of right *680 under the Vienna Convention. See In so doing, it did not adjudicate the merits of the relevant federal question whether, under Article 36(2), the treaty overrides state procedural default rules. Second, the Texas court appears to have reasoned that private individuals (as opposed to offended nations) can never enforce
|
Justice O'Connor
| 2,005 | 14 |
dissenting
|
Medellin v. Dretke
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/142898/medellin-v-dretke/
|
private individuals (as opposed to offended nations) can never enforce any treaty in See -676. This reasoning is "contrary to" our precedents and, therefore, is not entitled to deference in subsequent federal proceedings. "A state-court decision will certainly be contrary to our clearly established precedent if the state court applies a rule that contradicts the governing law set forth in our cases." ; see also Brown v. Payton, ante, at 141. The Texas court's blanket rule plainly contradicts our governing law, for it is axiomatic that, while treaties are compacts between nations, "a treaty may also contain provisions which confer certain rights upon the citizens or subjects of one of the nations residing in the territorial limits of the other, which partake of the nature of municipal law, and which are capable of enforcement as between private parties in the courts of the country." Head Money (84). The Texas court neither asked nor answered the right question: whether an individual can bring a claim under this particular treaty. Accordingly, any consideration of Medellín's Vienna Convention claim for habeas relief in federal court including his assertion that provides a binding rule of decision must proceed de novo. See B The Court catalogs a number of other, nonjurisdictional questions that, in its view, justify dismissing the case because they could preclude ultimate habeas relief for Medellín. Ante, at 664-666. Apparently the Court agrees that it would be impossible or imprudent to decide these questions today. It seems odd to me to leave them undecided and yet to rely on them as reason to avoid the weighty questions that *681 are undeniably properly before us. Given the posture of this case, our modest task is to decide only whether Medellín has presented claims worthy of a COA, and the majority points to issues outside the scope of that inquiry. Anyway, it is not our practice generally, when remanding a case to the lower courts after resolving discrete questions, to canvass all of the possible permutations of what could happen before a final resolution. Thus, while the Court points to questions that are, of course, important, none ought to detain us here. First, Texas and the United States have made no mention of and depriving Medellín of an opportunity to discuss their applicability to his case a complicated question. Second, while Texas did argue in its certiorari papers that Medellín had already received a prejudice analysis in state habeas, see Brief in Opposition 14-16, it abandoned this argument in its brief on the merits. See United Here, Texas argues that Medellín
|
Justice O'Connor
| 2,005 | 14 |
dissenting
|
Medellin v. Dretke
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/142898/medellin-v-dretke/
|
on the merits. See United Here, Texas argues that Medellín cannot show prejudice in a future proceeding, not that he has already failed to show prejudice or that the state court thought (not unreasonably) that the Vienna Convention had been satisfied by its prejudice analysis. See Brief for Respondent 16-17. Moreover, Medellín has maintained an unfulfilled request for an evidentiary hearing about prejudice. The ICJ, for its part, appears to believe that Medellín has yet to receive the prejudice analysis that the Vienna Convention requires; otherwise, it would not have ruled after the state habeas proceedings had concluded that the United States must still provide "review and reconsideration" of his sentence to determine if he suffered "actual prejudice." 2004 I. C. J. No. 128, ¶¶ 121-122, 153. Third, the Court is correct to observe that, before obtaining relief, Medellín would have to contend with The Court of Appeals never discussed Teague's applicability to *682 Medellín's case. Whether Teague bars relief for Medellín is itself a highly debatable question that should be part of a proper COA analysis upon remand. III "While a COA ruling is not the occasion for a ruling on the merit of petitioner's claim," some assessment of Medellín's arguments is necessary to explain why the COA's denial should be vacated. A The Optional Protocol to the Vienna Convention provides that "[d]isputes arising out of the interpretation or application of the Convention shall lie within the compulsory jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice." Optional Protocol Concerning the Compulsory Settlement of Disputes, Apr. 24, 1963, Art. I [1970] 21 U. S. T. 326, T. I. A. S. No. 6820 (hereinafter Optional Protocol). The United States was party to the Optional Protocol until recently. See Letter from Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State, to Kofi A. Annan, Secretary-General of the United Nations (Mar. 7, 2005) (notifying the Secretary-General that the United States hereby withdraws from the Optional Protocol). And the ICJ decided LaGrand and pursuant to the Optional Protocol's grant of authority. The first question on which we granted certiorari asks whether American courts are now bound to follow the ICJ's decision in when deciding Vienna Convention claims.[1] *683 If Medellín is right to say that they must, then the District Court's resolution of his Vienna Convention claim is not merely debatable, but wrong in result and in reasoning. In terms of result, the ICJ made clear that it would be improper to dismiss Medellín's claim, for once the United States had committed "internationally wrongful acts," the necessary "remedy to make good these violations should consist in an
|
Justice O'Connor
| 2,005 | 14 |
dissenting
|
Medellin v. Dretke
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/142898/medellin-v-dretke/
|
"remedy to make good these violations should consist in an obligation on the United States to permit review and reconsideration of [the 51 Mexican] nationals' cases by the United States courts." 2004 I. C. J. No. 128, ¶ 121. The ICJ's reasoning is also irreconcilable with the District Court's. The ICJ specified that the Convention confers rights on individual defendants, and that applying state procedural default rules to prevent them from vindicating their rights violates the treaty, for the treaty requires that its purposes be given "`full effect.'" Medellín argues that once the United States undertakes a substantive obligation (as it did in the Vienna Convention), and at the same time undertakes to abide by the result of a specified dispute resolution process (as it did by submitting to the ICJ's jurisdiction through the Optional Protocol), it is bound by the rules generated by that process no less than it is by the treaty that is the source of the substantive obligation. In other words, because was decided on the back of a self-executing treaty, see infra, at 686, it must be given effect in our domestic legal system just as the treaty itself must be. Medellín asserts, at bottom, that like a treaty, has the status of supreme law of the land. On the other hand, Texas and the United States argue that the issue turns in large part on how to interpret Article 94(1) of the United Nations Charter, which provides that "[e]ach Member of the United Nations undertakes to comply with *684 the decision of the International Court of Justice in any case to which it is a party." They maintain that the charter imposes an international duty only on our political branches. A contrary result could deprive the Executive of necessary discretion in foreign relations, and may improperly displace this Court's responsibilities to an international body. For his part, Medellín says that Article 94(1) cannot answer the question of whether, under domestic law and the Supremacy Clause, our courts are bound to comply with the international obligation reflected in The Court of Appeals passed on whether it was bound by and decided that the issue was not worthy of a COA. In so doing, it noted some conflict between and our decision in How to resolve that conflict is a difficult question. Reasonable jurists can vigorously disagree about whether and what legal effect ICJ decisions have in our domestic courts, and about whether Medellín can benefit from such effect in this posture. The Court of Appeals should have granted a COA and given the issue further
|
Justice O'Connor
| 2,005 | 14 |
dissenting
|
Medellin v. Dretke
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/142898/medellin-v-dretke/
|
should have granted a COA and given the issue further consideration. B We also granted certiorari on a second, alternative question that asks whether and what weight American courts should give to perhaps for sake of uniform treaty interpretation, even if they are not bound to follow the ICJ's decision. That question can only be answered by holding up the interpretation of the treaty against the domestic court's own conclusions, and then deciding how and to what extent the two should be reconciled. See Olympic ; Air Accordingly, the second question presented encompassed two other issues, both pressed and passed upon below, that are themselves debatable and thus grounds for a COA: whether the *685 Vienna Convention creates judicially enforceable rights and whether it sometimes trumps state procedural default rules.[2] This Court has remarked that Article 36 of the Vienna Convention "arguably confers on an individual the right to consular assistance following arrest." at The United States maintains, on the contrary, that Article 36 does not give foreign nationals a judicially enforceable right to consular access. On that theory, a detained foreign national may never complain in courteven in the course of a trial or on direct reviewabout a State's failure to "inform the person concerned without delay of his rights under" Article 36. 21 U. S. T., at 101. The complainant must be the sending state, and any remedy is political, diplomatic, or between the states in international law. When called upon to interpret a treaty in a given case or controversy, we give considerable weight to the Executive Branch's understanding of our treaty obligations. See 366 U.S. ; But a treaty's meaning is not beyond *686 debate once the Executive has interpreted it. Cf., e. g., (observing that the Court was rejecting a view of the Warsaw Convention that had consistently been adopted by the Executive Branch and had been pressed by the United States in that case); 328, -342 ; ; De 2 U.S. 1, 1, -199 Article 36 of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations is, as the United States recognizes, a self-executing treaty. Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 26. Chief Justice Marshall explained that a self-executing treaty is domestic law. It "operates of itself," as "a rule for the Court," "equivalent to an act of the legislature." (29). Because the Convention is self-executing, then, its guarantees are susceptible to judicial enforcement just as the provisions of a statute would be. See Head Money 112 U. S., at -599 ("A treaty, then, is a law of the land as an act of Congress is,
|
Justice O'Connor
| 2,005 | 14 |
dissenting
|
Medellin v. Dretke
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/142898/medellin-v-dretke/
|
law of the land as an act of Congress is, whenever its provisions prescribe a rule by which the rights of the private citizen or subject may be determined. And when such rights are of a nature to be enforced in a court of justice, that court resorts to the treaty for a rule of decision for the case before it as it would to a statute"); see generally L. Henkin, Foreign Affairs and the United States Constitution 206-209 To ascertain whether Article 36 confers a right on individuals, we first look to the treaty's text as we would with a statute's. United ; Air Article 36(1)(b) entails three different obligations for signatory host countries. Their competent authorities shall (1) inform the consul of its nationals' detentions, (2) forward communication from a detained national to his consulate, and (3) "inform the person *687 concerned without delay of his rights under this subparagraph." 21 U. S. T., at 101 (emphasis added). Of these, the third exclusively concerns the detained individual, and it is the only obligation expressed in the language of rights. If Article 36(1) conferred no rights on the detained individual, its command to "inform" the detainee of "his rights" might be meaningless. Other provisions in the treaty appear to refer back to individual rights. See Art. 36(1)(a), ; Art. 36(2), To be sure, the questions of whether a treaty is self-executing and whether it creates private rights and remedies are analytically distinct. If Article 36(1)(b) imposed only two obligations on signatory countries to notify the consul and forward correspondence then Medellín could not invoke the treaty as a source of personal rights by virtue of its self-executing character. But the treaty goes further imposing an obligation to inform the individual of his rights in the treaty. And if a statute were to provide, for example, that arresting authorities "shall inform a detained person without delay of his right to counsel," I question whether more would be required before a defendant could invoke that statute to complain in court if he had not been so informed. This Court has repeatedly enforced treaty-based rights of individual foreigners, allowing them to assert claims arising from various treaties. These treaties, often regarding reciprocity in commerce and navigation, do not share any special magic words. Their rights-conferring language is arguably no clearer than the Vienna Convention's is, and they do not specify judicial enforcement. See, e. g., (allowing Japanese national to bring a claim under a United States-Japan treaty requiring that "`citizens or subjects of each of the [two countries] shall have
|
Justice O'Connor
| 2,005 | 14 |
dissenting
|
Medellin v. Dretke
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/142898/medellin-v-dretke/
|
or subjects of each of the [two countries] shall have liberty to carry on trade'" in the other's territory, and holding that a local licensing ordinance for pawnbrokers could not be applied to the Japanese petitioner without violating the treaty's guarantee); *688 and n. 6 (sustaining Yugoslavians' claim against enforcement of Oregon inheritance law limiting their right to inherit, when United States-Serbia Treaty promised that "`[i]n all that concerns the right of acquiring, possessing or disposing of every kind of property citizens of [each country in the other] shall enjoy the rights which the respective laws grant in each of these states to the subjects of the most favored nation'"). kewise, the United States acknowledges with approval that other provisions of the Vienna Convention, which relate to consular privileges and immunities, have been the source of judicially enforced individual rights. See Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 26, n. 7 (deciding whether Article 43 of the Vienna Convention defeated jurisdiction under 28 U.S. C. 1351 over defendant consular officials), and ). Although Article 43 is phrased in terms of courts' jurisdiction, its violations could theoretically also be vindicated exclusively in political and diplomatic processes, but have not been. See Art. 43(1), 21 U. S. T., at 104 ("Consular officers and consular employees shall not be amenable to the jurisdiction of the judicial or administrative authorities of the receiving State in respect of acts performed in the exercise of consular functions"); see also ; (80). There are plausible arguments for the Government's construction of Article 36. See generally Choctaw 3 U.S. 423, (3) The preamble to the Vienna Convention, for example, states that "the purpose of such privileges and immunities [contained in the treaty] is not to benefit individuals but to ensure the efficient performance of functions by consular posts on behalf of their respective States." 21 U. S. T., at 79. Moreover, State Department *6 and congressional statements contemporaneous with the treaty's ratification say or indicate that the Convention would not require significant departures from existing practice. See United ; but see The United States interprets such statements to mean that the political branches did not contemplate a role for the treaty in ordinary criminal proceedings. See Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 21-22. The Government also asserts that the State Department's previous litigation behavior in Article 36 cases is consistent with the Executive's treaty interpretation presented here. ; see also I would allow fuller consideration of this issue upon the granting of a COA. Of course, even if the Convention does confer individual rights, there remains the
|
Justice O'Connor
| 2,005 | 14 |
dissenting
|
Medellin v. Dretke
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/142898/medellin-v-dretke/
|
if the Convention does confer individual rights, there remains the question of whether such rights can be forfeited according to state procedural default rules. Article 36(2) of the treaty provides: "The rights referred to in paragraph 1 of this Article shall be exercised in conformity with the laws and regulations of the receiving State, subject to the proviso, however, that the said laws and regulations must enable full effect to be given to the purposes for which the rights accorded under this Article are intended." 21 U. S. T., at 101. Medellín contends that this provision requires that state procedural default rules sometimes be set aside so that the treaty can be given "full effect." In in the course of denying a stay of imminent execution and accompanying petitions, we concluded that the petitioner had defaulted his Article 36 claim by failing to raise it in state court prior to seeking collateral relief in federal -. Subsequently in as explained above, the ICJ interpreted Article 36(2) differently. 2004 I. C. J. No. 128, ¶¶ 112-113. In the past the Court has revisited its interpretation of a treaty when new international law has come to light. See United (33). Even if is not *690 itself a binding rule of decision in this case, it may at least be occasion to return to the question of Article 36(2)'s implications for procedural default. Again, I would not decide that question today. All that is required of Medellín now is to show that his case is debatable. He has done at least that much. Because of the COA posture, we cannot, and I would not, construe Article 36 definitively here. I would conclude only that Medellín's arguments about the treaty themselves warrant a COA. IV For the reasons explained, I would vacate the Court of Appeals' decision to deny Medellín a COA with which to proceed, and remand for further proceedings. After we granted certiorari in this case, the President informed his Attorney General that the United States would discharge its obligations under the judgment "by having State courts give effect to the decision." George W. Bush, Memorandum for the Attorney General (Feb. 28, 2005), App. 2 to Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 9a. Medellín has since filed a successive petition in state It is possible that the Texas court will grant him relief on the basis of the President's memorandum. On remand, the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit may have wished to consider that possibility when scheduling further federal proceedings, and to hold the case on its docket until
|
Justice Kennedy
| 1,988 | 4 |
majority
|
Bethesda Hospital Assn. v. Bowen
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112034/bethesda-hospital-assn-v-bowen/
|
Under the Medicare program, Title XVIII of the Social Security Act, 42 U.S. C. 1395 et seq. (1982 ed. and Supp. III), certain qualified providers of health care services are reimbursed by the Secretary of Health and Human for the reasonable cost of providing covered services to Medicare beneficiaries. Each such provider submits a cost report at the end of the year to a fiscal intermediary, usually a private insurance company acting as an agent *401 for the Secretary. The fiscal intermediary audits the cost report and issues a Notice of Program Reimbursement specifying the amount of reimbursement due to the provider and explaining any adjustments. A provider may appeal the intermediary's final determination to the Provider Reimbursement Review Board and, under certain circumstances, may obtain a hearing from the Board. The Board is authorized to affirm, modify, or reverse intermediary decisions. The Secretary, either on his own motion or on request of the provider, may review the matter further, and any provider that remains dissatisfied with a final decision of the Board or Secretary may seek review in a United States district court. 1395oo(a), (d), (f). This case requires us to decide whether the Board may decline to consider a provider's challenge to one of the Secretary's regulations on the ground that the provider failed to contest the regulation's validity in the cost report submitted to its fiscal intermediary. I Petitioners Bethesda Hospital Association and Deaconess Hospital of Cincinnati are Ohio entities that operate hospitals in that State. Bethesda and Deaconess joined with some 27 other hospitals to challenge a 1979 regulation promulgated by the Secretary, which disallowed certain claims for malpractice insurance premium costs. We are not concerned here with the merits of the challenge to the 1979 regulation; rather, we must decide whether the Board had jurisdiction to consider the issue. In their cost reports for 1980, petitioners followed the 1979 regulation in their apportionment of malpractice insurance costs and thereby effected, in the lexicon of the Medicare program, a "self-disallowance" of malpractice insurance costs in excess of those allowed by the 1979 regulation. Petitioners later filed a timely request for a hearing before the Board, challenging the validity of the malpractice regulation and *402 seeking reimbursement for malpractice costs in accordance with the pre-1979 methodology. Because the amounts had been self-disallowed in the reports filed with the fiscal intermediary, however, the Board determined that it was without jurisdiction to hear petitioners' claims. The Board held, in essence, that a statutory condition to its jurisdiction had not been met, stating that its authority to grant hearings is
|
Justice Kennedy
| 1,988 | 4 |
majority
|
Bethesda Hospital Assn. v. Bowen
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112034/bethesda-hospital-assn-v-bowen/
|
been met, stating that its authority to grant hearings is limited to cases in which the provider is "dissatisfied with a final determination of the fiscal intermediary," and reasoning that petitioners could not be dissatisfied when they had effected a self-disallowance of the claims. The District Court, in disagreement with the Board's reasoning, held that the Board should have exercised jurisdiction over the matter. Bethesda The Secretary appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, which reversed the District Court. The Court of Appeals stated that "[w]ere we considering this issue as a matter of first impression, we may well have reached a different conclusion as to the advisability of requiring submission of statutory and/or constitutional challenges to a private insurance company as a condition precedent to further administrative as well as judicial review of the Secretary's regulations." Bethesda The court found itself bound, however, by the decision of a prior panel in Baptist Hospital where it was held that the Board had properly "refused to exercise jurisdiction over those claims by providers who had self-disallowed reimbursement and had failed to challenge the Secretary's regulations before the fiscal intermediary." Bethesda We granted certiorari, *403 to resolve a conflict among the Courts of Appeals.[1] We now reverse. II The plain meaning of the statute decides the issue presented. See ; Chevron U. S. A. The parties agree that 1395oo(a) addresses the circumstances in which a provider may invoke the Board's jurisdiction. To the extent pertinent here, 1395oo(a) states that a provider may obtain a hearing before the Board with respect to its cost report if "(1) such provider "(A)(i) is dissatisfied with a final determination of its fiscal intermediary as to the amount of total program reimbursement due the provider for the period covered by such report "(2) the amount in controversy is $10,000 or more, and *404 "(3) such provider files a request for a hearing within 180 days" 42 U.S. C. 1395oo(a) (1982 ed. and Supp. III). The Secretary contends that the requirement that a provider be "dissatisfied with a final determination of its fiscal intermediary" necessarily incorporates an exhaustion requirement. In the Secretary's view, a provider's right to a hearing before the Board extends only to claims presented to a fiscal intermediary because the provider cannot be "dissatisfied" with the intermediary's decision to award the amounts requested in the provider's cost report. Petitioners counter that it would have been improper, or at least irregular, to submit a claim for cost reimbursement in a manner prohibited by the regulations, and that it was correct
|
Justice Kennedy
| 1,988 | 4 |
majority
|
Bethesda Hospital Assn. v. Bowen
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112034/bethesda-hospital-assn-v-bowen/
|
manner prohibited by the regulations, and that it was correct to raise their challenge in the first instance by presenting the matter to the Board. The strained interpretation offered by the Secretary is inconsistent with the express language of the statute. We agree that, under subsection (a)(1)(A)(i), a provider's dissatisfaction with the amount of its total reimbursement is a condition to the Board's jurisdiction. It is clear, however, that the submission of a cost report in full compliance with the unambiguous dictates of the Secretary's rules and regulations does not, by itself, bar the provider from claiming dissatisfaction with the amount of reimbursement allowed by those regulations. No statute or regulation expressly mandates that a challenge to the validity of a regulation be submitted first to the fiscal intermediary. Providers know that, under the statutory scheme, the fiscal intermediary is confined to the mere application of the Secretary's regulations, that the intermediary is without power to award reimbursement except as the regulations provide, and that any attempt to persuade the intermediary to do otherwise would be futile.[2] Thus, petitioners stand on different ground *405 than do providers who bypass a clearly prescribed exhaustion requirement or who fail to request from the intermediary reimbursement for all costs to which they are entitled under applicable rules. While such defaults might well establish that a provider was satisfied with the amounts requested in its cost report and awarded by the fiscal intermediary, those circumstances are not presented here. We conclude that petitioners could claim dissatisfaction, within the meaning of the statute, without incorporating their challenge in the cost reports filed with their fiscal intermediaries. While the express language of subsection (a) requires the result we reach in the present case, our conclusion is also supported by the language and design of the statute as a whole. Cf. Offshore Logistics, Section 1395oo(d), which sets forth the powers and duties of the Board once its jurisdiction has been invoked,[3] explicitly provides that in making its decision whether to affirm, modify, or reverse the intermediary's decision, the Board can "make any other revisions on matters covered by such cost report even though such matters were not considered by the intermediary in making such final *406 determination." This language allows the Board, once it obtains jurisdiction pursuant to subsection (a), to review and revise a cost report with respect to matters not contested before the fiscal intermediary. The only limitation prescribed by Congress is that the matter must have been "covered by such cost report," that is, a cost or expense that was incurred within the period
|
Justice Kennedy
| 1,988 | 4 |
majority
|
Bethesda Hospital Assn. v. Bowen
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/112034/bethesda-hospital-assn-v-bowen/
|
a cost or expense that was incurred within the period for which the cost report was filed, even if such cost or expense was not expressly claimed. Neither the fiscal intermediary nor the Board has the authority to declare regulations invalid.[4] It does not follow, however, that the statute treats the two entities alike or that it requires the provider to announce its regulatory challenge at each level; for the Board has a statutory function that the fiscal intermediary does not have. Subsection (f)(1) grants providers the right to obtain judicial review of an action of the fiscal intermediary, but the predicate is that the Board must first make a determination that it is without authority to decide the matter because the provider's claim involves a question of law or regulations.[5] It is this determination of *407 the Board, or alternatively the Board's failure to act, that triggers the right of judicial review. The Secretary notes that subsection (f)(1) posits review of an "action of the fiscal intermediary," and argues that without presenting the intermediary with the challenge to the regulation there can be no action to review. The statute provides, however, that the intermediary has no authority to deviate from the rules and regulations and that the Board, not the fiscal intermediary, is to make the determination that it lacks the requisite authority to consider the validity of the regulation. Under this statutory scheme, requiring submission of the regulatory challenge to the fiscal intermediary is quite unnecessary. The Board has a role in shaping the controversy that is subject to judicial review; the fiscal intermediary does not. *408 Finally, the Secretary's proffered requirement of notice to the fiscal intermediary is internally inconsistent. The Secretary cannot maintain, on the one hand, that it is of vital importance to present challenges to the Secretary's regulations in the first instance to the fiscal intermediary and, on the other, acknowledge that a mere cover letter would suffice because the fiscal intermediary lacks authority to rule on the challenge. By objecting to the regulation in the first instance in proceedings before the Board, the petitioners protected their right to judicial review. We hold that the plain language of the statute demonstrates that the Provider Reimbursement Review Board had jurisdiction to entertain this action. 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 Sotomayor
| 2,017 | 24 |
majority
|
Lightfoot v. Cendant Mortgage Corp
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4374578/lightfoot-v-cendant-mortgage-corp/
|
The corporate charter of the Federal National Mortgage Association, known as Fannie Mae, authorizes Fannie Mae “to sue and to be sued, and to complain and to defend, in any court of competent jurisdiction, State or Federal.” 12 U.S. C. This case presents the question whether this sue-and-be-sued clause grants federal dis- trict courts jurisdiction over cases involving Fannie Mae. We hold that it does not. I A During the Great Depression, the Federal Government worked to stabilize and strengthen the residential mort- gage market. Among other things, it took steps to in- crease liquidity (reasonably available funding) in the mortgage market. These efforts included the creation of the Federal Home Loan Banks, which provide credit to member institutions to finance affordable housing and economic development projects, and the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), which insures residential mort- 2 LIGHTFOOT v. CENDANT MORTGAGE CORP. Opinion of the Court gages. See Dept. of Housing and Urban Development, Back- ground and History of the Federal National Mortgage Association 1–7, A4 (1966). Also as part of these efforts, Title III of the National Housing Act (1934 Act) authorized the Administrator of the newly created FHA to establish “national mortgage associations” that could “purchase and sell [certain] first mortgages and such other first liens” and “borrow money for such purposes.” –1253. The associations were endowed with certain powers, including the power to “sue and be sued, complain and defend, in any court of law or equity, State or Federal.” at 1253. In 1938, the FHA Administrator exercised that author- ity and chartered the Federal National Mortgage Associa- tion. Avoiding a mouthful of an acronym (FNMA), it went by Fannie Mae. See, e.g., Washington Post, July 14, 1940, p. P2 (“ ‘Fanny May’ ”); N. Y. Times, Mar. 23, 1950, p. 48 (“ ‘Fannie Mae’ ”). As originally chartered, Fannie Mae was wholly owned by the Federal Government and had three objectives: to “establish a market for [FHA-insured] first mortgages” covering new housing construction, to “facilitate the construction and financing of economically sound rental housing projects,” and to “make [the bonds it issued] available to investors.” Fed. Nat. Mortgage Assn. Information Regarding the Activities of the Assn. 1 (Circular No. 1, 1938). Fannie Mae was rechartered in 1954. Housing Act of 1954 (1954 Act), No longer wholly Government owned, Fannie Mae had mixed ownership: Private shareholders held its common stock and the De- partment of the Treasury held its preferred stock. The 1954 Act required the Secretary of the Treasury to allow Fannie Mae to repurchase that stock. See at 613–615. It expected that Fannie Mae
|
Justice Sotomayor
| 2,017 | 24 |
majority
|
Lightfoot v. Cendant Mortgage Corp
|
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4374578/lightfoot-v-cendant-mortgage-corp/
|
that stock. See at 613–615. It expected that Fannie Mae would repurchase all of its preferred stock and that legislation would then be enacted Cite as: 580 U. S. (2017) 3 Opinion of the Court to turn Fannie Mae over to the private stockholders. From then on, Fannie Mae’s duties would “be carried out by a privately owned and privately financed corporation.” Along with these structural changes, the 1954 Act replaced Fannie Mae’s initial set of powers with a more detailed list. In doing so, it revised the sue-and-be- sued clause to give Fannie Mae the power “to sue and to be sued, and to complain and to defend, in any court of competent jurisdiction, State or Federal.” In 1968, Fannie Mae became fully privately owned and relinquished part of its portfolio to its new spinoff, the Government National Mortgage Association (known as Ginnie Mae). See Housing and Urban Development Act of 1968 (1968 Act), Fannie Mae “continue[d] to operate the secondary market operations” but became “a Government-sponsored private corporation.” 12 U.S. C. Ginnie Mae “remain[ed] in the Government” and took over “the special assistance functions and manage- ment and liquidating functions.” Ginnie Mae re- ceived the same set of powers as Fannie Mae. See see also 1968 Act, (minor revisions to This general structure remains in place. Fannie Mae continues to participate in the secondary mortgage mar- ket. It purchases mortgages that meet its eligibility criteria, packages them into mortgage-backed securities, and sells those securities to investors, and it invests in mortgage- backed securities itself. One of those mortgage purchases led to Fannie Mae’s entanglement in this case. B Beverly Ann Hollis-Arrington refinanced her mortgage with Cendant Mortgage Corporation (Cendant) in the summer of 1999. Fannie Mae then bought the mortgage, while Cendant continued to service it. Unable to make her payments, Hollis-Arrington pursued a forbearance ar- 4 LIGHTFOOT v. CENDANT MORTGAGE CORP. Opinion of the Court rangement with Cendant. No agreement materialized, and the home entered foreclosure. Around this time, Cendant repurchased the mortgage from Fannie Mae because it did not meet Fannie Mae’s credit standards. To stave off the foreclosure, Hollis-Arrington and her daughter, Crystal Lightfoot, pursued bankruptcy and transferred the property between themselves. These ef- forts failed, and the home was sold at a trustee’s sale in 2001. The two then took to the courts to try to undo the foreclosure and sale. After two unsuccessful federal suits, the pair filed this suit in state court. They alleged that deficiencies in the refinancing, foreclosure, and sale of their home entitled them to relief against Fannie Mae.
|
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.