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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice White
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Ohio Code provides that “[e]very person accused of an offense is presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, and the burden of proof for all elements of the offense is upon the prosecution. The burden of going forward with the evidence of an affirmative defense, and the burden of proof by a preponderance of the evidence, for an affirmative defense, is upon the accused.” Ohio Rev. Code Ann. §2901.05(A)(1982). An affirmative defense is one involving “an excuse or justification peculiarly within the knowledge of the accused, on which he can fairly be required to adduce supporting evidence.” Ohio Rev. Code Ann. §2901.05(C)(2)(1982). The Ohio courts have “long determined that self-defense is an affirmative defense,” 21 Ohio St. 3d 91, 93, 488 N. E. 2d 166, 168 (1986), and that the defendant has the burden of proving it as required by § 2901.05(A).
As defined by the trial court in its instructions in this case, the elements of self-defense that the defendant must prove are that (1) the defendant was not at fault in creating the situation giving rise to the argument; (2) the defendant had an honest belief that she was in imminent danger of death or great bodily harm, and that her only means of escape from such danger was in the use of such force; and (3) the defendant did not violate any duty to retreat or avoid danger. App. 19. The question before us is whether the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment forbids placing the burden of proving self-defense on the defendant when she is charged by the State of Ohio with committing the crime of aggravated murder, which, as relevant to this case, is defined by the Revised Code of Ohio as “purposely, and with prior calculation and design, causing] the death of another.” Ohio Rev. Code Ann. §2903.01 (1982).
The facts of the case, taken from the opinions of the courts below, may be succinctly stated. On July 21, 1983, petitioner Earline Martin and her husband, Walter Martin, argued over grocery money. Petitioner claimed that her husband struck her in the head during the argument. Petitioner’s version of what then transpired was that she went upstairs, put on a robe, and later came back down with her husband’s gun which she intended to dispose of. Her husband saw something in her hand and questioned her about it. He came at her, and she lost her head and fired the gun at him. Five or six shots were fired, three of them striking and killing Mr. Martin. She was charged with and tried for aggravated murder. She pleaded self-defense and testified in her own defense. The judge charged the jury with respect to the elements of the crime and of self-defense and rejected petitioner’s Due Process Clause challenge to the charge placing on her the burden of proving self-defense. The jury found her guilty.
Both the Ohio Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court of Ohio affirmed the conviction. Both rejected the constitutional challenge to the instruction requiring petitioner to prove self-defense. The latter court, relying upon our opinion in Patterson v. New York, 432 U. S. 197 (1977), concluded that the State was required to prove the three elements of aggravated murder but that Patterson did not require it to disprove self-defense, which is a separate issue that did not require Mrs. Martin to disprove any element of the offense with which she was charged. The court said, “the state proved beyond a reasonable doubt that appellant purposely, and with prior calculation and design, caused the death of her husband. Appellant did not dispute the existence of these elements, but rather sought to justify her actions on grounds she acted in self defense.” 21 Ohio St. 3d, at 94, 488 N. E. 2d, at 168. There was thus no infirmity in her conviction. We granted certiorari, 475 U. S. 1119 (1986), and affirm the decision of the Supreme Court of Ohio.
In re Winship, 397 U. S. 358, 364 (1970), declared that the Due Process Clause “protects the accused against conviction except upon proof beyond a reasonable doubt of every fact necessary to constitute the crime with which he is charged.” A few years later, we held that Winship’s mandate was fully satisfied where the State of New York had proved beyond reasonable doubt each of the elements of murder, but placed on the defendant the burden of proving the affirmative defense of extreme emotional disturbance, which, if proved, would have reduced the crime from murder to manslaughter. Patterson v. New York, supra. We there emphasized the preeminent role of the States in preventing and dealing with crime and the reluctance of the Court to disturb a State’s decision with respect to the definition of criminal conduct and the procedures by which the criminal laws are to be enforced in the courts, including the burden of producing evidence and allocating the burden of persuasion. 432 U. S., at 201-202. New York had the authority to define murder as the intentional killing of another person. It had chosen, however, to reduce the crime to manslaughter if the defendant proved by a preponderance of the evidence that he had acted under the influence of extreme emotional distress. To convict of murder, the jury was required to find beyond a reasonable doubt, based on all the evidence, including that related to the defendant’s mental state at the time of the crime, each of the elements of murder and also to conclude that the defendant had not proved his affirmative defense. The jury convicted Patterson, and we held there was no violation of the Fourteenth Amendment as construed in Winship. Referring to Leland v. Oregon, 343 U. S. 790 (1952), and Rivera v. Delaware, 429 U. S. 877 (1976), we added that New York “did no more than Leland and Rivera permitted it to do without violating the Due Process Clause” and declined to reconsider those cases. 432 U. S., at 206, 207. It was also observed that “the fact that a majority of the States have now assumed the burden of disproving affirmative defenses — for whatever reasons — [does not] mean that those States that strike a different balance are in violation of the Constitution.” Id., at 211.
As in Patterson, the jury was here instructed that to convict it must find, in light of all the evidence, that each of the elements of the crime of aggravated murder has been proved by the State beyond reasonable doubt, and that the burden of proof with respect to these elements did not shift. To find guilt, the jury had to be convinced that none of the evidence, whether offered by the State or by Martin in connection with her plea of self-defense, raised a reasonable doubt that Martin had killed her husband, that she had the specific purpose and intent to cause his death, or that she had done so with prior calculation and design. It was also told, however, that it could acquit if it found by a preponderance of the evidence that Martin had not precipitated the confrontation, that she had an honest belief that she was in imminent danger of death or great bodily harm, and that she had satisfied any duty to retreat or avoid danger. The jury convicted Martin.
We agree with the State and its Supreme Court that this conviction did not violate the Due Process Clause. The State did not exceed its authority in defining the crime of murder as purposely causing the death of another with prior calculation or design. It did not seek to shift to Martin the burden of proving any of those elements, and the jury’s verdict reflects that none of her self-defense evidence raised a reasonable doubt about the State’s proof that she purposefully killed with prior calculation and design. She nevertheless had the opportunity under state law and the instructions given to justify the killing and show herself to be blameless by proving that she acted in self-defense. The jury thought she had failed to do so, and Ohio is as entitled to punish Martin as one guilty of murder as New York was to punish Patterson.
It would be quite different if the jury had been instructed that self-defense evidence could not be considered in determining whether there was a reasonable doubt about the State’s case, i. e., that self-defense evidence must be put aside for all purposes unless it satisfied the preponderance standard. Such an instruction would relieve the State of its burden and plainly run afoul of Winship’s mandate. 397 U. S., at 364. The instructions in this case could be clearer in this respect, but when read as a whole, we think they are adequate to convey to the jury that all of the evidence, including the evidence going to self-defense, must be considered in deciding whether there was a reasonable doubt about the sufficiency of the State’s proof of the elements of the crime.
We are thus not moved by assertions that the elements of aggravated murder and self-defense overlap in the sense that evidence to prove the latter will often tend to negate the former. It may be that most encounters in which self-defense is claimed arise suddenly and involve no prior plan or specific purpose to take life. In those cases, evidence offered to support the defense may negate a purposeful killing by prior calculation and design, but Ohio does not shift to the defendant the burden of disproving any element of the state’s case. When the prosecution has made out a prima facie case and survives a motion to acquit, the jury may nevertheless not convict if the evidence offered by the defendant raises any reasonable doubt about the existence of any fact necessary for the finding of guilt. Evidence creating a reasonable doubt could easily fall far short of proving self-defense by a preponderance of the evidence. Of course, if such doubt is not raised in the jury’s mind and each juror is convinced that the defendant purposely and with prior calculation and design took life, the killing will still be excused if the elements of the defense are satisfactorily established. We note here, but need not rely on, the observation of the Supreme Court of Ohio that “[ajppellant did not dispute the existence of [the elements of aggravated murder], but rather sought to justify her actions on grounds she acted in self-defense.” 21 Ohio St. 3d, at 94, 488 N. E. 2d, at 168.
Petitioner submits that there can be no conviction under Ohio law unless the defendant’s conduct is unlawful, and that because self-defense renders lawful what would otherwise be a crime, unlawfulness is an element of the offense that the state must prove by disproving self-defense. This argument founders on state law, for it has been rejected by the Ohio Supreme Court and by the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. White v. Arn, 788 F. 2d 338, 346-347 (1986); State v. Morris, 8 Ohio App. 3d 12, 18-19, 455 N. E. 2d 1352, 1359-1360 (1982). It is true that unlawfulness is essential for conviction, but the Ohio courts hold that the unlawfulness in cases like this is the conduct satisfying the elements of aggravated murder — an interpretation of state law that we are not in a position to dispute. The same is true of the claim that it is necessary to prove a “criminal” intent to convict for serious crimes, which cannot occur if self-defense is shown: the necessary mental state for aggravated murder under Ohio law is the specific purpose to take life pursuant to prior calculation and design. See White v. Arn, supra, at 346.
As we noted in Patterson, the common-law rule was that affirmative defenses, including self-defense, were matters for the defendant to prove. “This was the rule when the Fifth Amendment was adopted, and it was the American rule when the. Fourteenth Amendment was ratified.” 432 U. S., at 202. Indeed, well into this century, a number of States followed the common-law rule and required a defendant to shoulder the burden of proving that he acted in self-defense. Fletcher, Two Kinds of Legal Rules: A Comparative Study of Burden-of-Persuasion Practices in Criminal Cases, 77 Yale L. J. 880, 882, and n. 10 (1968). We are aware that all but two of the States, Ohio and South Carolina, have abandoned the common-law rule and require the prosecution to prove the absence of self-defense when it is properly raised by the defendant. But the question remains whether those States are in violation of the Constitution; and, as we observed in Patterson, that question is not answered by cataloging the practices of other States. We are no more convinced that the Ohio practice of requiring self-defense to be proved by the defendant is unconstitutional than we are that the Constitution requires the prosecution to prove the sanity of a defendant who pleads not guilty by reason of insanity. We have had the opportunity to depart from Leland v. Oregon, 343 U. S. 790 (1952), but have refused to do so. Rivera v. Delaware, 429 U. S. 877 (1976). These cases were important to the Patterson decision and they, along with Patterson, are authority for our decision today.
The judgment of the Ohio Supreme Court is accordingly
Affirmed.
The dissent believes that the self-defense instruction might have led the jury to believe that the defendant had the burden of proving the ab-senee of prior calculation and design. Indeed, its position is that no instruction could be clear enough not to mislead the jury. As is evident from the text, we disagree. We do not harbor the dissent’s mistrust of the jury; and the instructions were sufficiently clear to convey to the jury that the State’s burden of proving prior calculation did not shift and that self-defense evidence had to be considered in determining whether the State’s burden had been discharged. We do not depart from Patterson v. New York, 432 U. S. 197 (1977), in this respect, or in any other.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | D | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Blackmun
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case is yet another that presents a challenge to a punitive damages award.
I
In 1981, Lemmie L. Ruffin, Jr., was an Alabama-licensed agent for petitioner Pacific Mutual Life Insurance Company. He also was a licensed agent for Union Fidelity Life Insurance Company. Pacific Mutual and Union are distinct and nonaffiliated entities. Union wrote group health insurance for municipalities. Pacific Mutual did not.
Respondents Cleopatra Haslip, Cynthia Craig, Alma M. Calhoun, and Eddie Hargrove were employees of Roosevelt City, an Alabama municipality. Ruffin, presenting himself as an agent of Pacific Mutual, solicited the city for both health and life insurance for its employees. The city was interested. Ruffin gave the city a single proposal for both coverages. The city approved and, in August 1981, Ruffin prepared separate applications for the city and its employees for group health with Union and for individual life policies with Pacific Mutual. This packaging of health insurance with life insurance, although from different and unrelated insurers, was not unusual. Indeed, it tended to boost life insurance sales by minimizing the loss of customers who wished to have both health and life protection. The initial premium payments were taken by Ruffin and submitted to the insurers with the applications. Thus far, nothing is claimed to have been out of line. Respondents were among those with the health coverage.
An arrangement was made for Union to send its billings for health premiums to Ruffin at Pacific Mutual’s Birmingham office. Premium payments were to be effected through payroll deductions. The city clerk each month issued a check for those premiums. The check was sent to Ruffin or picked up by him. He, however, did not remit to Union the premium payments received from the city; instead, he misappropriated most of them. In late 1981, when Union did not receive payment, it sent notices of lapsed health coverage to respondents in care of Ruffin and Patrick Lupia, Pacific Mutual’s agent-in-charge of its Birmingham office. Those notices were not forwarded to respondents. Although there is some evidence to the contrary, see Reply Brief for Petitioner B1-B4, the trial court found, App. to Pet. for Cert. A2, that respondents did not know that their health policies had been canceled.
H — I J — H
Respondent Haslip was hospitalized on January 23, 1982. She incurred hospital and physician’s charges. Because the hospital could not confirm health coverage, it required Haslip, upon her discharge, to make a payment upon her bill. Her physician, when he was not paid, placed her account with a collection agency. The agency obtained a judgment against Haslip, and her credit was adversely affected.
In May 1982, respondents filed this suit, naming as defendants Pacific Mutual (but not Union) and Ruffin, individually and as a proprietorship, in the Circuit Court for Jefferson County, Ala. It was alleged that Ruffin collected premiums but failed to remit them to the insurers so that respondents’ respective health insurance policies lapsed without their knowledge. Damages for fraud were claimed. The case against Pacific Mutual was submitted to the jury under a theory of respondeat superior.
Following the trial court’s charge on liability, the jury was instructed that if it determined there was liability for fraud, it could award punitive damages. That part of the instructions is set forth in the margin. Pacific Mutual made no objection on the ground of lack of specificity in the instructions, and it did not propose a more particularized charge. No evidence was introduced as to Pacific Mutual’s financial worth. The jury returned general verdicts for respondents against Pacific Mutual and Ruffin in the following amounts:
Haslip: $1,040,000 Calhoun: $15,290
Craig: $12,400 Hargrove: $10,288
Judgments were entered accordingly.
On Pacific Mutual’s appeal, the Supreme Court of Alabama, by a divided vote, affirmed. 553 So. 2d 537 (1989). In addition to issues not now before us, the court ruled that, while punitive damages are not recoverable in Alabama for misrepresentation made innocently or by mistake, they are recoverable for deceit or willful fraud, and that on the evidence in this case a jury could not have concluded that Ruffin’s misrepresentations were made either innocently or mistakenly. Id., at 540. The majority then specifically upheld the punitive damages award. Id., at 543.
One justice concurred in the result without opinion. Ibid. Two justices dissented in part on the ground that the award of punitive damages violated Pacific Mutual’s due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment. Id., at 544-545.
Pacific Mutual, but not Ruffin, then brought the case here. It challenged punitive damages in Alabama as the product of unbridled jury discretion and as violative of its due process rights. We stayed enforcement of the Haslip judgment, 493 U. S. 1014 (1990), and then granted certiorari, 494 U. S. 1065 (1990), to review the punitive damages procedures and award in the light of the long-enduring debate about their propriety.
h-i HH
This Court and individual Justices thereof ón a number of occasions in recent years have expressed doubts about the constitutionality of certain punitive damages awards.
In Browning-Ferris Industries of Vt., Inc. v. Kelco Disposal, Inc., 492 U. S. 257 (1989), all nine participating Members of the Court noted concern. In that case, punitive damages awarded on a state-law claim were challenged under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments and on federal common-law grounds. The majority held that the Excessive Fines Clause of the Eighth Amendment did not apply to a punitive damages award in a civil case between private parties; that the claim of excessiveness under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment had not been raised in either the District Court or the Court of Appeals and therefore was not to be considered here; and that federal common law did not provide a basis for disturbing the jury’s punitive damages award. The Court said:
“The parties agree that due process imposes some limits on jury awards of punitive damages, and it is not disputed that a jury award may not be upheld if it was the product of bias or passion, or if it was reached in proceedings lacking the basic elements of fundamental fairness. But petitioners make no claim that the proceedings themselves were unfair, or that the jury was biased or blinded by emotion or prejudice. Instead, they seek further due process protections, addressed directly to the size of the damages award. There is some authority in our opinions for the view that the Due Process Clause places outer limits on the size of a civil damages award made pursuant to a statutory scheme... but we have never addressed the precise question presented here: whether due process acts as a check on undue jury discretion to award punitive damages in the absence of any express statutory limit.... That inquiry must await another day.” Id., at 276-277.
Justice Brennan, joined by Justice Marshall, wrote separately:
“I join the Court’s opinion on the understanding that it leaves the door open for a holding that the Due Process Clause constrains the imposition of punitive damages in civil cases brought by private parties....
“Without statutory (or at least common-law) standards for the determination of how large an award of punitive damages is appropriate in a given case, juries are left largely to themselves in making this important, and potentially devastating, decision....
“Since the Court correctly concludes that Browning-Ferris’ challenge based on the Due Process Clause is not properly before us, however, I leave fuller discussion of these matters for another day.” Id., at 280-282.
Justice O’Connor, joined by Justice Stevens, concurring in part and dissenting in part, observed:
“Awards of punitive damages are skyrocketing....
“... I do... agree with the Court that no due process claims — either procedural or substantive — are properly presented in this case, and that the award of punitive damages here should not be overturned as a matter of federal common law.... Moreover, I share Justice Brennan’s view, ante, at 280-282, that nothing in the Court’s opinion forecloses a due process challenge to awards of punitive damages or the method by which they are imposed....” Id., at 282-283.
In Bankers Life & Casualty Co. v. Crenshaw, 486 U. S. 71 (1988), a challenge to a punitive damages award was made. The Court, however, refused to reach claims that the award violated the Due Process Clause and other provisions of the Federal Constitution since those claims had not been raised and passed upon in state court. Id., at 76-80. Justice O’Connor, joined by Justice Scalia, concurring in part and concurring in the judgment, said:
“Appellant has touched on a due process issue that I: think is worthy of the Court’s attention in an appropriate case. Mississippi law gives juries discretion to award any amount of punitive damages in any tort case in which a defendant acts with a certain mental state. In my view, because of the punitive character of such awards, there is reason to think that this may violate the Due Process Clause.
“This due process question, serious as it is, should not be decided today.... I concur in the Court’s judgment on this question and would leave for another day the consideration of these issues.” Id., at 87-89.
In Aetna Life Ins. Co. v. Lavoie, 475 U. S. 813 (1986), another case that came here from the Supreme Court of Alabama, the appellant argued that the imposition of punitive damages was impermissible under the Eighth Amendment and violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court stated: “These arguments raise important issues which, in an appropriate setting, must be resolved; however, our disposition of the recusal-for-bias issue makes it unnecessary to reach them.” Id., at 828-829.
See also Newport v. Fact Concerts, Inc., 453 U. S. 247, 270-271 (1981) (“The impact of such a windfall recovery is likely to be both unpredictable and, at times, substantial...”); Electrical Workers v. Foust, 442 U. S. 42, 50-51 (1979); Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 418 U. S. 323, 350 (1974) (“In most jurisdictions jury discretion over the amounts awarded is limited only by the gentle rule that they not be excessive. Consequently, juries assess punitive damages in wholly unpredictable amounts bearing no necessary relation to the actual harm caused”); Rosenbloom v. Metromedia, Inc., 403 U. S. 29, 82-84 (1971) (Marshall, J., joined by Stewart, J., dissenting); Missouri Pacific R. Co. v. Tucker, 230 U. S. 340, 351 (1913); Southwestern Telegraph & Telephone Co. v. Danaher, 238 U. S. 482, 491 (1915); St. Louis, I. M. & S. R. Co. v. Williams, 251 U. S. 63, 67 (1919).
The constitutional status of punitive damages, therefore, is not an issue that is new to this Court or unanticipated by it. Challenges have been raised before; for stated reasons, they have been rejected or deferred. For example, in Browning-Ferris, supra, we rejected the claim that punitive damages awarded in a civil case could violate the Eighth Amendment and refused to consider the tardily raised due process argument. But the Fourteenth Amendment due process challenge is here once again.
I —! <1
Two preliminary and overlapping due process arguments raised by Pacific Mutual deserve attention before we reach the principal issue in controversy. Did Ruffin act within the scope of his apparent authority as an agent of Pacific Mutual? If so, may Pacific Mutual be held responsible for Ruffin’s fraud on a theory of respondeat superior?
Pacific Mutual was held responsible for the acts of Ruffin. The insurer mounts a challenge to this result on substantive due process grounds, arguing that it was not shown that either it or its Birmingham manager was aware that Ruffin was collecting premiums contrary to his contract; that Pacific Mutual had no notice of the actions complained of prior to the filing of the complaint in this litigation; that it did not authorize or ratify Ruffin’s conduct; that his contract with the company forbade his collecting any premium other than the initial one submitted with an application; and that Pacific Mutual was held liable and punished for unauthorized actions of its agent for acts performed on behalf of another company. Thus, it is said, when punitive damages were imposed on Pacific Mutual, the focus for determining the amount of those damages shifted from Ruffin, where it belonged, to Pacific Mutual, and obviously and unfairly contributed to the amount of the punitive damages and their disproportionality. Ruffin was acting not to benefit Pacific Mutual but for his own benefit, and to hold Pacific Mutual liable is “beyond the point of fundamental fairness,” Brief for Petitioner 29, embodied in due process, id., at 32. It is said that the burden of the liability comes to rest on Pacific Mutual’s other policyholders.
The jury found that Ruffin was acting as an employee of Pacific Mutual when he defrauded respondents. The Supreme Court of Alabama did not disturb that finding. There is no occasion for us to question it, for it is amply supported by the record. Ruffin had actual authority to sell Pacific Mutual life insurance to respondents. The insurer derived economic benefit from those life insurance sales. Ruffin’s defalcations related to the life premiums as well as to the health premiums. Thus, Pacific Mutual cannot plausibly claim that Ruffin was acting wholly as an agent of Union when he defrauded respondents.
The details of Ruffin’s representation admit of no other conclusion. He gave respondents a single proposal — not multiple ones — for both life and health insurance. He used Pacific Mutual letterhead, which he was authorized to use on Pacific Mutual business. There was, however, no indication that Union was a nonaffiliated company. The trial court found that Ruffin “spoke only of Pacific Mutual and indicated that Union Fidelity was a subsidiary of Pacific Mutual.” App. to Pet. for Cert. A2. Pacific Mutual encouraged the packaging of life and health insurance. Ruffin worked exclusively out of a Pacific Mutual branch office. Each month he presented to the city clerk a single invoice on Pacific Mutual letterhead for both life and health premiums.
Before the frauds in this case were effectuated, Pacific Mutual had received notice that its agent Ruffin was engaged in a pattern of fraud identical to those perpetrated against respondents. There were complaints to the Birmingham office about the absence of coverage purchased through Ruffin. The Birmingham manager was also advised of Ruffin’s receipt of noninitial premiums made payable to him, a practice in violation of company policy.
Alabama’s common-law rule is that a corporation is liable for both compensatory and punitive damages for the fraud of its employee effected within the scope of his employment. We cannot say that this does not rationally advance the State’s interest in minimizing fraud. Alabama long has applied this rule in the insurance context, for it has determined that an insurer is more likely to prevent an agent’s fraud if given sufficient financial incentive to do so. See British General Ins. Co. v. Simpson Sales Co., 265 Ala. 683, 688, 93 So. 2d 763, 768 (1957).
Imposing exemplary damages on the corporation when its agent commits intentional fraud creates a strong incentive for vigilance by those in a position “to guard substantially against the evil to be prevented.” Louis Pizitz Dry Goods Co. v. Yeldell, 274 U. S. 112, 116 (1927). If an insurer were liable for such damages only upon proof that it was at fault independently, it would have an incentive to minimize oversight of its agents. Imposing liability without independent fault deters fraud more than a less stringent rule. It therefore rationally advances the State’s goal. We cannot say this is a violation of Fourteenth Amendment due process. See American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Inc. v. Hydro level Corp., 456 U. S. 556 (1982); Pizitz, 274 U. S., at 115. These and other cases in a broad range of civil and criminal contexts make clear that imposing such liability is not fundamentally unfair and does not in itself violate the Due Process Clause. See Shevlin-Carpenter Co. v. Minnesota, 218 U. S. 57 (1910); United States v. Balint, 258 U. S. 250, 252 (1922); United States v. Park, 421 U. S. 658, 670 (1975).
We therefore readily conclude that Ruffin was acting as an employee of Pacific Mutual when he defrauded respondents, and that imposing liability upon Pacific Mutual for Ruffin’s fraud under the doctrine of respondeat superior does not, on the facts here, violate Pacific Mutual’s due process rights.
V
“Punitive damages have long been a part of traditional state tort law.” Silkwood v. Kerr-McGee Corp., 464 U. S. 238, 255 (1984). Blackstone appears to have noted their use. 3 W. Blackstone, Commentaries *137-*138. See also Wilkes v. Wood, Lofft 1, 98 Eng. Rep. 489 (C. P. 1763) (The Lord Chief Justice validating exemplary damages as compensation, punishment, and deterrence). Among the first reported American cases are Genay v. Norris, 1 Bay 6 (S. C. 1784), and Coryell v. Colbaugh, 1 N. J. L. 77 (1791).
Under the traditional common-law approach, the amount of the punitive award is initially determined by a jury instructed to consider the gravity of the wrong and the need to deter similar wrongful conduct. The jury’s determination is then reviewed by trial and appellate courts to ensure that it is reasonable.
This Court more than once has approved the common-law method for assessing punitive awards. In Day v. Woodworth, 13 How. 363 (1852), a case decided before the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, Justice Grier, writing for a unanimous Court, observed:
“It is a well-established principle of the common law, that in actions of trespass and all actions on the case for torts, a jury may inflict what are called exemplary, punitive, or vindictive damages upon a defendant, having in view the enormity of his offence rather than the measure of compensation to the plaintiff. We are aware that the propriety of this doctrine has been questioned by some writers; but if repeated judicial decisions for more than a century are to be received as the best exposition of what the law is, the question will not admit of argument. By the common as well as by statute law, men are often punished for aggravated misconduct or lawless acts, by means of a civil action, and the damages, inflicted by way of penalty or punishment, given to the party injured.
“... This has been always left to the discretion of the jury, as the degree of punishment to be thus inflicted must depend on the peculiar circumstances of each case.” Id., at 371.
In Missouri Pacific R. Co. v. Humes, 115 U. S. 512 (1885), the Court stated: “The discretion of the jury in such cases is not controlled by any very definite rules; yet the wisdom of allowing such additional damages to be given is attested by the long continuance of the practice.” Id., at 521. See also Barry v. Edmunds, 116 U. S. 550, 565 (1886) (“For nothing is better settled than that, in such cases as the present, and other actions for torts where no precise rule of law fixes the recoverable damages, it is the peculiar function of the jury to determine the amount by their verdict”); Minneapolis & St. Louis R. Co. v. Beckwith, 129 U. S. 26, 36 (1889) (“The imposition of punitive or exemplary damages in such cases cannot be opposed as in conflict with the prohibition against the deprivation of property without due process of law. It is only one mode of imposing a penalty for the violation of duty, and its propriety and legality have been recognized... by repeated judicial decisions for more than a century. Its authorization by the law in question... cannot therefore be justly assailed as infringing upon the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States”); Standard Oil Co. v. Missouri, 224 U. S. 270, 285 (1912) (“Nor, from a Federal standpoint, is there any invalidity in the judgment because there was no statute fixing a maximum penalty, no rule for measuring damages, and no hearing”); Louis Pizitz Dry Goods Co. v. Yeldell, supra (although the issue was raised in the briefs, the Court did not discuss the claim); Memphis Community School Dist. v. Stachura, 477 U. S. 299, 306, n. 9 (1986). Recently, in Smith v. Wade, 461 U. S. 30 (1983), this Court affirmed the assessment of punitive damages pursuant to 42 U. S. C. § 1983, where the trial court used the common-law method for determining the amount of the award.
So far as we have been able to determine, every state and federal court that has considered the question has ruled that the common-law method for assessing punitive damages does not in itself violate due process. But see New Orleans, J. & G. N. R. Co. v. Hurst, 36 Miss. 660 (1859). In view of this consistent history, we cannot say that the common-law method for assessing punitive damages is so inherently unfair as to deny due process and be per se unconstitutional. “ ‘If a thing has been practised for two hundred years by common consent, it will need a strong case for the Fourteenth Amendment to affect it.’” Sun Oil Co. v. Wortman, 486 U. S. 717, 730 (1988), quoting Jackman v. Rosenbaum Co., 260 U. S. 22, 31 (1922). As the Court in Day v. Woodworth, 13 How. 363 (1852), made clear, the common-law method for assessing punitive damages was well established before the Fourteenth Amendment was enacted. Nothing in that Amendment’s text or history indicates an intention on the part of its drafters to overturn the prevailing method. See Burnham v. Superior Court of Cal., County of Marin, 495 U. S. 604 (1990); Snyder v. Massachusetts, 291 U. S. 97, 111 (1934) (“The Fourteenth Amendment has not displaced the procedure of the ages”)
This, however, is not the end of the matter. It would be just as inappropriate to say that, because punitive damages have been recognized for so long, their imposition is never unconstitutional. See Williams v. Illinois, 399 U. S. 235, 239 (1970) (“[NJeither the antiquity of a practice nor the fact of steadfast legislative and judicial adherence to it through the centuries insulates it from constitutional attack...”). We note once again our concern about punitive damages that “run wild.” Having said that, we conclude that our task today is to determine whether the Due Process Clause renders the punitive damages award in this case constitutionally unacceptable.
VI
One must concede that unlimited jury discretion — or unlimited judicial discretion for that matter — in the fixing of punitive damages may invite extreme results that jar one’s constitutional sensibilities. See Waters-Pierce Oil Co. v. Texas (No. 1), 212 U. S. 86, 111 (1909). We need not, and indeed we cannot, draw a mathematical bright line between the constitutionally acceptable and the constitutionally unacceptable that would fit every case. We can say, however, that general concerns of reasonableness and adequate guidance from the court when the case is tried to a jury properly enter into the constitutional calculus. With these concerns in mind, we review the constitutionality of the punitive damages awarded in this case.
We conclude that the punitive damages assessed by the jury against Pacific Mutual were not violative of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. It is true, of course, that under Alabama law, as under the law of most States, punitive damages are imposed for purposes of retribution and deterrence. Aetna Life Ins. Co. v. Lavoie, 470 So. 2d 1060, 1076 (Ala. 1984). They have been described as quasi-criminal. See Smith v. Wade, 461 U. S. 30, 59 (1983) (Rehnquist, J., dissenting). But this in itself does not provide the answer. We move, then, to the points of specific attack.
1. We have carefully reviewed the instructions to the jury. By these instructions, see n. 1, supra, the trial court expressly described for the jury the purpose of punitive damages, namely, “not to compensate the plaintiff for any injury” but “to punish the defendant” and “for the added purpose of protecting the public by [deterring] the defendant and others from doing such wrong in the future.” App. 105-106. Any evidence of Pacific Mutual’s wealth was excluded from the trial in accord with Alabama law. See Southern Life & Health Ins. Co. v. Whitman, 358 So. 2d 1025, 1026-1027 (Ala. 1978).
To be sure, the instructions gave the jury significant discretion in its determination of punitive damages. But that discretion was not unlimited. It was confined to deterrence and retribution, the state policy concerns sought to be advanced. And if punitive damages were to be awarded, the jury “must take into consideration the character and the degree of the wrong as shown by the evidence and necessity of preventing similar wrong.” App. 106. The instructions thus enlightened the jury as to the punitive damages’ nature and purpose, identified the damages as punishment for civil wrongdoing of the kind involved, and explained that their imposition was not compulsory.
These instructions, we believe, reasonably accommodated Pacific Mutual’s interest in rational decisionmaking and Alabama’s interest in meaningful individualized assessment of appropriate deterrence and retribution. The discretion allowed under Alabama law in determining punitive damages is no greater than that pursued in many familiar areas of the law as, for example, deciding “the best interests of the child,” or “reasonable care,” or “due diligence,” or appropriate compensation for pain and suffering or mental anguish. As long as the discretion is exercised within reasonable constraints, due process is satisfied. See, e. g., Schall v. Martin, 467 U. S. 253, 279 (1984); Greenholtz v. Inmates of Nebraska Penal and Correctional Complex, 442 U. S. 1, 16 (1979). See also McGautha v. California, 402 U. S. 183, 207 (1971).
2. Before the trial in this case took place, the Supreme Court of Alabama had established post-trial procedures for scrutinizing punitive awards. In Hammond v. Gadsden, 493 So. 2d 1374 (1986), it stated that trial courts are “to reflect in the record the reasons for interfering with a jury verdict, or refusing to do so, on grounds of excessiveness of the damages.” Id., at 1379. Among the factors deemed “appropriate for the trial court’s consideration” are the “culpability of the defendant’s conduct,” the “desirability of discouraging others from similar conduct,” the “impact upon the parties,” and “other factors, such as the impact on innocent third parties.” Ibid. The Hammond test ensures meaningful and adequate review by the trial court whenever a jury has fixed the punitive damages.
3. By its review of punitive awards, the Alabama Supreme Court provides an additional check on the jury’s or trial court’s discretion. It first undertakes a comparative analysis. See, e. g., Aetna Life Ins. Co. v. Lavoie, 505 So. 2d 1050, 1053 (1987). It then applies the detailed substantive standards it has developed for evaluating punitive awards. In particular, it makes its review to ensure that the award does “not exceed an amount that will accomplish society’s goals of punishment and deterrence.” Green Oil Co. v. Hornsby, 539 So. 2d 218, 222 (1989); Wilson v. Dukona Corp., 547 So. 2d 70, 73 (1989). This appellate review makes certain that the punitive damages are reasonable in their amount and rational in light of their purpose to punish what has occurred and to deter its repetition.
Also before its ruling in the present case, the Supreme Court of Alabama had elaborated and refined the Hammond criteria for determining whether a punitive award is reasonably related to the goals of deterrence and retribution. Hornsby, 539 So. 2d, at 223-224; Central Alabama, 546 So. 2d, at 376-377. It was announced that the following could be taken into consideration in determining whether the award was excessive or inadequate: (a) whether there is a reasonable relationship between the punitive damages award and the harm likely to result from the defendant’s conduct as well as the harm that actually has occurred; (b) the degree of reprehensibility of the defendant’s conduct, the duration of that conduct, the defendant’s awareness, any concealment, and the existence and frequency of similar past conduct; (c) the profitability to the defendant of the wrongful conduct and the desirability of removing that profit and of having the defendant also sustain a loss; (d) the “financial position” of the defendant; (e) all the costs of litigation; (f) the imposition of criminal sanctions on the defendant for its conduct, these to be taken in mitigation; and (g) the existence of other civil awards against the defendant for the same conduct, these also to be taken in mitigation.
The application of these standards, we conclude, imposes a sufficiently definite and meaningful constraint on the discretion of Alabama factfinders in awarding punitive damages. The Alabama Supreme Court’s postverdict review ensures that punitive damages awards are not grossly out of proportion to the severity of the offense and have some understandable relationship to compensatory damages. While punitive damages in Alabama may embrace such factors as the heinousness of the civil wrong, its effect upon the victim, the likelihood of its recurrence, and the extent of the defendant’s wrongful gain, the factfinder must be guided by more than the defendant’s net worth. Alabama plaintiffs do not enjoy a windfall because they have the good fortune to have a defendant with a deep pocket.
These standards have real effect when applied by the Alabama Supreme Court to jury awards. For examples of their application in trial practice, see Hornsby, 539 So. 2d, at 219, and Williams v. Ralph Collins Ford-Chrysler, Inc., 551 So. 2d 964, 966 (1989). And postverdict review by the Alabama Supreme Court has resulted in reduction of punitive awards. See, e. g., Wilson v. Dukona Corp., 547 So. 2d, at 74; United Services Automobile Assn. v. Wade, 544 So. 2d 906, 917 (1989). The standards provide for a rational relationship in determining whether a particular award is greater than reasonably necessary to punish and deter. They surely are as specific as those adopted legislatively in Ohio Rev. Code Ann. § 2307.80(B) (Supp. 1989) and in Mont. Code Ann. §27-1-221 (1989).
Pacific Mutual thus had the benefit of the full panoply of Alabama’s procedural protections. The jury was adequately instructed. The trial court conducted a postverdict hearing that conformed with Hammond. The trial court specifically found that the conduct in question “evidenced intentional malicious, gross, or oppressive fraud,” App. to Pet. for Cert. A14, and found the amount of the award to be reasonable in light of the importance of discouraging insurers from similar conduct, id., at A15. Pacific Mutual also received the benefit of appropriate review by the Supreme Court of Alabama. It applied the Hammond standards and approved the verdict thereunder. It brought to bear all relevant factors recited in Hornsby.
We are aware that the punitive damages award in this case is more than 4 times the amount of compensatory damages, is more than 200 times the out-of-pocket expenses of respondent Haslip, see n. 2, supra, and, of course, is much in excess of the fine that could be imposed for insurance fraud under Ala. Code §§13A-5-ll and 13A-5-12(a) (1982), and Ala. Code §§27-1-12, 27-12-17, and 27-12-23 (1986). Imprisonment, however, could also be required of an individual in the criminal context. While the monetary comparisons are wide and, indeed, may be close to the line, the award here did not lack objective criteria. We conclude, after careful consideration, that in this case it does not cross the line into the area of constitutional impropriety. Accordingly, Pacific Mutual’s due process challenge must be, and is, rejected.
The judgment of the Supreme Court of Alabama is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
Justice Souter took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
“Now, if you find that fraud was perpetrated then in addition to compensatory damages you may in your discretion, when I use the word discretion, I say you don’t have to even find fraud, you wouldn’t have to, but you may, the law says you may award an amount of money known as punitive damages.
“This amount of money is awarded to the plaintiff but it is not to compensate the plaintiff for any injury. It is to punish the defendant. Punitive means to punish or it is also called exemplary damages, which means to make an example. So, if you feel or not feel, but if you are reasonably satisfied from the evidence that the plaintiff, whatever plaintiff you are talking about, has had a fraud perpetrated upon them and as a direct result they were injured and in addition to compensatory damages you may in your discretion award punitive damages.
“Now, the purpose of awarding punitive or exemplary damages is to allow money recovery to the plaintiffs, it does to the plaintiff, by way of punishment to the defendant and for the added purpose of protecting the public by deter ing [sic] the defendant and others from doing such wrong in the future. Imposition of punitive damages is entirely discretionary with the jury, that means you don’t have to award it unless this jury feels that you should do so.
“Should you award punitive damages, in fixing the amount, you must take into consideration the character and the degree of the wrong as shown by the evidence and necessity of preventing similar wrong.” App. 105-106.
Although there is controversy about the matter, it is probable that the general verdict for respondent Haslip contained a punitive damages component of not less than $840,000. In Haslip’s counsel’s argument to the jury, compensatory damages of $200,000 (including out-of-pocket expenditures of less than $4,000) and punitive damages of $3,000,000 were requested. Tr. 810-814. For present purposes, we accept this description of the verdict.
This justice, in a later case,
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | H | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice O’Connor
delivered the opinion of the Court.
We granted certoriari in this case to consider whether a federal habeas petitioner can show cause for a procedural default by establishing that competent defense counsel inadvertently failed to raise the substantive claim of error rather than deliberately withholding it for tactical reasons.
I
Respondent Clifford Carrier was convicted of rape and abduction by a Virginia jury in 1977. Before trial, respondent’s court-appointed counsel moved for discovery of the victim’s statements to police describing “her assailants, the vehicle the assailants were driving, and the location of where the alleged rape took place.” 2 Record 11. The presiding judge denied the motion by letter to counsel after examining the statements in camera and determining that they contained no exculpatory evidence. Id., at 31. Respondent’s counsel made a second motion to discover the victim’s statements immediately prior to trial, which the trial judge denied for the same reason after conducting his own in camera examination. Tr. 151-152.
After respondent was convicted, his counsel filed a notice of appeal to the Virginia Supreme Court assigning seven errors, of which the fifth was:
“Did the trial judge err by not permitting defendant’s counsel to examine the written statements of the victim prior to trial, and during the course of the trial?” 2 Record 83.
Without consulting respondent, counsel subsequently submitted the required petition for appeal but failed to include this claim, notwithstanding that Virginia Supreme Court Rule 5:21 provides that “[ojnly errors assigned in the petition for appeal will be noticed by this Court and no error not so assigned will be admitted as a ground for reversal of a decision below.” The Virginia Supreme Court refused the appeal and this Court denied certiorari. Carrier v. Virginia, 439 U. S. 1076 (1979).
A year later respondent, by this time proceeding pro se, filed a state habeas corpus petition claiming that he had been denied due process of law by the prosecution’s withholding of the victim’s statements. The State sought dismissal of his petition on the ground that respondent was barred from presenting his due process discovery claim on collateral review because he failed to raise that claim on appeal. The state ha-beas court dismissed the petition “for the reasons stated in the Motion to Dismiss,” 1 Record, Doc. No. 12, and the Virginia Supreme Court denied certiorari.
Respondent next filed a pro se habeas petition in the District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, renewing his due process discovery claim as grounds for relief. The State filed a motion to dismiss asserting that respondent’s failure to raise the issue on direct appeal was a procedural default barring federal habeas review under Wainwright v. Sykes, 433 U. S. 72 (1977), and that respondent had not exhausted his state remedies because he could bring an ineffective assistance of counsel claim in the state courts to establish that his procedural default should be excused. 1 Record, Doc. No. 3. The United States Magistrate to whom the case was referred recommended dismissal by virtue of the procedural default and also ruled that respondent had not exhausted his state remedies. In reply to the Magistrate’s report, respondent alleged that his procedural default was “due to ineffective assistance of counsel during the filing of his appeal.” App. 11. The District Court approved the Magistrate’s report, holding the discovery claim barred by the procedural default and indicating that respondent should establish cause for that default in the state courts.
At oral argument on appeal to the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, respondent abandoned any claim of ineffective assistance of counsel but asserted that counsel had mistakenly omitted his discovery claim from the petition for appeal and that this error was cause for his default. A divided panel of the Court of Appeals reversed and remanded. Carrier v. Hutto, 724 F. 2d 396 (1983). The court construed respondent’s objection to the denial of discovery as having rested throughout on a contention that Brady v. Maryland, 373 U. S. 83 (1963), requires the prosecution to disclose any evidence that might be material to guilt whether or not it is exculpatory, and concluded that when respondent’s counsel omitted this discovery claim from the petition for review “the issue was lost for purposes of direct and collateral review.” 724 F. 2d, at 399. The court framed the issue before it as whether “a single act or omission by counsel, insufficient by itself to contravene the sixth amendment, [can] satisfy the ‘cause’ prong of the exception to preclusive procedural default discussed in Waimvright?” Id., at 400. In answering this question, the court drew a dispositive distinction between procedural defaults resulting from deliberate tactical decisions and those resulting from ignorance or inadvertence. Id., at 401. The court determined that only in the latter category does an attorney’s error constitute cause because, whereas a tactical decision implies that counsel has, at worst, “reasonably but incorrectly exercisefd] her judgment,” ignorance or oversight implies that counsel “fail[ed] to exercise it at all, in dereliction of the duty to represent her client.” Ibid. Thus, in order to establish cause a federal habeas petitioner need only satisfy the district court “that the failure to object or to appeal his claim was the product of his attorney’s ignorance or oversight, not a deliberate tactic.” Ibid. Accordingly, the Court of Appeals remanded to the District Court:
“[Although the likelihood of attorney error appears very great in this case, we lack testimony from Carrier’s counsel which might disclose a strategic reason for failing to appeal the Brady issue. The question of counsel’s motivation is one of fact for the district court to resolve upon taking further evidence.” Id., at 402.
The court also ruled that the District Court erred in suggesting that respondent should establish cause for the default in the state courts. “The exhaustion requirement of 28 U. S. C. § 2254 pertains to independent claims for habeas relief, not to the proffer of Waimvright cause and prejudice.” Ibid. Since respondent did not allege ineffective assistance of counsel as an independent basis for habeas relief, the case presented no exhaustion question.
The dissenting judge believed that the petition should have been dismissed for failure to exhaust state remedies because respondent had never presented his discovery claim as a denial of due process in the state courts, id., at 403-404 (Hall, J., dissenting), and differed with the majority’s interpretation of the cause standard because “[it] will ultimately allow the exception to swallow the rule.” Id., at 405. The State sought rehearing, and the en banc Court of Appeals adopted the panel majority’s decision, with four judges dissenting. Carrier v. Hutto, 754 F. 2d 520 (1985). We now reverse and remand.
I — I u_i
Wainwright v. Sykes held that a federal habeas petitioner who has failed to comply with a State’s contemporaneous-objection rule at trial must show cause for the procedural default and prejudice attributable thereto in order to obtain review of his defaulted constitutional claim. 433 U. S., at 87. See also Francis v. Henderson, 425 U. S. 536 (1976). In so holding, the Court explicitly rejected the standard described in Fay v. Noia, 372 U. S. 391 (1963), under which a federal habeas court could refuse to review a defaulted claim only if “an applicant ha[d] deliberately by-passed the orderly procedure of the state courts,” id., at 438, by personal waiver of the claim amounting to “ ‘an intentional relinquishment or abandonment of a known right or privilege.’” Id., at 439 (quoting Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U. S. 458, 464 (1938)). See Wainwright v. Sykes, 433 U. S., at 87-88. At a minimum, then, Wainwright v. Sykes plainly implied that default of a constitutional claim by counsel pursuant to a trial strategy or tactical decision would, absent extraordinary circumstances, bind the habeas petitioner even if he had not personally waived that claim. See id., at 91, n. 14; Reed v. Ross, 468 U. S. 1, 13 (1984). Beyond that, the Court left open “for resolution in future decisions the precise definition of the ‘cause’-and-‘prejudice’ standard.” 433 U. S., at 87.
We revisited the cause and prejudice test in Engle v. Isaac, 456 U. S. 107 (1982). Like Waimvright v. Sykes, Engle involved claims that were procedurally defaulted at trial. In seeking to establish cause for their defaults, the prisoners argued that “they could not have known at the time of their trials” of the substantive basis for their constitutional claims, which were premised on In re Winship, 397 U. S. 358 (1970). Engle, 456 U. S., at 130. Without deciding “whether the novelty of a constitutional claim ever establishes cause for a failure to object,” id., at 131, we rejected this contention because we could not conclude that the legal basis for framing the prisoners’ constitutional claims was unavailable at the time. Id., at 133. In language that bears directly on the present case, we said:
“We do not suggest that every astute counsel would have relied upon Winship to assert the unconstitutionally of a rule saddling criminal defendants with the burden of proving an affirmative defense. Every trial presents a myriad of possible claims. Counsel might have overlooked or chosen to omit respondents’ due process argument while pursuing other avenues of defense. We have long recognized, however, that the Constitution guarantees criminal defendants only a fair trial and a competent attorney. It does not insure that defense counsel will recognize and raise every conceivable constitutional claim. Where the basis of a constitutional claim is available, and other defense counsel have perceived and litigated that claim, the demands of comity and finality counsel against labeling alleged unawareness of the objection as a cause for a procedural default.” Id., at 133-134 (footnote omitted).
The thrust of this part of our decision in Engle is unmistakable: the mere fact that counsel failed to recognize the factual or legal basis for a claim, or failed to raise the claim despite recognizing it, does not constitute cause for a procedural default. At least with respect to defaults that occur at trial, the Court of Appeals’ holding that ignorant or inadvertent attorney error is cause for any resulting procedural default is plainly inconsistent with Engle. It is no less inconsistent with the purposes served by the cause and prejudice standard. That standard rests not only on the need to deter intentional defaults but on a judgment that the costs of federal ha-beas review “are particularly high when a trial default has barred a prisoner from obtaining adjudication of his constitutional claim in the state courts.” Engle, 456 U. S., at 128. Those costs, which include a reduction in the finality of litigation and the frustration of “both the States’ sovereign power to punish offenders and their good-faith attempts to honor constitutional rights,” ibid., are heightened in several respects when a trial default occurs: the default deprives the trial court of an opportunity to correct any error without retrial, detracts from the importance of the trial itself, gives state appellate courts no chance to review trial errors, and “exacts an extra charge by undercutting the State’s ability to enforce its procedural rules.” Id., at 129. Clearly, these considerable costs do not disappear when the default stems from counsel’s ignorance or inadvertence rather than from a deliberate decision, for whatever reason, to withhold a claim.
Indeed, the rule applied by the Court of Appeals would significantly increase the costs associated with a procedural default in many cases. In order to determine whether there was cause for a procedural default, federal habeas courts would routinely be required to hold evidentiary hearings to determine what prompted counsel’s failure to raise the claim in question. While the federal habeas courts would no doubt strive to minimize the burdens to all concerned through the use of affidavits or other simplifying procedures, we are not prepared to assume that these costs would be negligible, particularly since, as we observed in Strickland v. Washington, 466 U. S. 668, 690 (1984), “[intensive scrutiny of counsel. . . could dampen the ardor and impair the independence of defense counsel, discourage the acceptance of assigned cases, and undermine the trust between attorney and client.” Nor will it always be easy to classify counsel’s behavior in accordance with the deceptively simple categories propounded by the Court of Appeals. Does counsel act out of “ignorance,” for example, by failing to raise a claim for tactical reasons after mistakenly assessing its strength on the basis of an incomplete acquaintance with the relevant precedent? The uncertain dimensions, of any exception for “inadvertence” or “ignorance” furnish an additional reason for rejecting it.
We think, then, that the question of cause for a procedural default does not turn on whether counsel erred or on the kind of error counsel may have made. So long as a defendant is represented by counsel whose performance is not constitutionally ineffective under the standard established in Strickland v. Washington, supra, we discern no inequity in requiring him to bear the risk of attorney error that results in a procedural default. Instead, we think that the existence of cause for a procedural default must ordinarily turn on whether the prisoner can show that some objective factor external to the defense impeded counsel’s efforts to comply with the State’s procedural rule. Without attempting an exhaustive catalog of such objective impediments to compliance with a procedural rule, we note that a showing that the factual or legal basis for a claim was not reasonably available to counsel, see Reed v. Ross, 468 U. S., at 16, or that “some interference by officials,” Brown v. Allen, 344 U. S. 443, 486 (1953), made compliance impracticable, would constitute cause under this standard.
Similarly, if the procedural default is the result of ineffective assistance of counsel, the Sixth Amendment itself requires that responsibility for the default be imputed to the State, which may not “conduc[t] trials at which persons who face incarceration must defend themselves without adequate legal assistance.” Cuyler v. Sullivan, 446 U. S. 335, 344 (1980). Ineffective assistance of counsel, then, is cause for a procedural default. However, we think that the exhaustion doctrine, which is “principally designed to protect the state courts’ role in the enforcement of federal law and prevent disruption of state judicial proceedings,” Rose v. Lundy, 455 U. S. 509, 518 (1982), generally requires that a claim of ineffective assistance be presented to the state courts as an independent claim before it may be used to establish cause for a procedural default. The question whether there is cause for a procedural default does not pose any occasion for applying the exhaustion doctrine when the federal habeas court can adjudicate the question of cause — a question of federal law— without deciding an independent and unexhausted constitutional claim on the merits. But if a petitioner could raise his ineffective assistance claim for the first time on federal ha-beas in order to show cause for a procedural default, the federal habeas court would find itself in the anomalous position of adjudicating an unexhausted constitutional claim for which state court review might still be available. The principle of comity that underlies the exhaustion doctrine would be ill served by a rule that allowed a federal district court “to upset a state court conviction without an opportunity to the state courts to correct a constitutional violation,” Darr v. Burford, 339 U. S. 200, 204 (1950), and that holds true whether an ineffective assistance claim is asserted as cause for a procedural default or denominated as an independent ground for habeas relief.
It is clear that respondent failed to show or even allege cause for his procedural default under this standard for cause, which Engle squarely supports. Respondent argues nevertheless that his case is not controlled by Engle because it involves a procedural default on appeal rather than at trial. Respondent does not dispute, however, that the cause and prejudice test applies to procedural defaults on appeal, as we plainly indicated in Reed v. Ross, 468 U. S., at 11. Reed, which involved a claim that was defaulted on appeal, held that a habeas petitioner could establish cause for a procedural default if his claim is “so novel that its legal basis is not reasonably available to counsel,” id., at 16. That holding would have been entirely unnecessary to the disposition of the prisoner’s claim if the cause and prejudice test were inapplicable to procedural defaults on appeal.
The distinction respondent would have us draw must therefore be made, if at all, in terms of the content of the cause requirement as applied to procedural defaults on appeal. Accordingly, respondent asks us to affirm the Court of Appeals’ judgment on the narrow ground that even if counsel’s ignorance or inadvertence does not constitute cause for a procedural default at trial, it does constitute cause for a procedural default on appeal. In support of this distinction, respondent asserts that the concerns that underlie the cause and prejudice test are not present in the case of defaults on appeal. A default on appeal, he maintains, does not detract from the significance of the trial or from the development of a full trial record, or deprive the trial court of an opportunity to correct error without the need for retrial. Moreover, unlike the rapid pace of trial, in which it is a matter of necessity that counsel’s decisions bind the defendant, “the appellate process affords the attorney time for reflection, research, and full consultation with his client.” Brief for Respondent 19. Finally, respondent suggests that there is no likelihood that an attorney will preserve an objection at trial yet choose to withhold it on appeal in order to “sandbag” the prosecution by raising the claim on federal habeas if relief is denied by the state courts.
These arguments are unpersuasive. A State’s procedural rules serve vital purposes at trial, on appeal, and on state collateral attack. The important role of appellate procedural rules is aptly captured by the Court’s description in Reed v. Ross of the purposes served by the procedural rule at issue there, which required the defendant initially to raise his legal claims on appeal rather than on postconviction review:
“It affords the state courts the opportunity to resolve the issue shortly after trial, while evidence is still available both to assess the defendant’s claim and to retry the defendant effectively if he prevails in his appeal. See Friendly, Is Innocence Irrelevant? Collateral Attack on Criminal Judgments, 38 U. Chi. L. Rev. 142, 147 (1970). This type of rule promotes not only the accuracy and efficiency of judicial decisions, but also the finality of those decisions, by forcing the defendant to litigate all of his claims together, as quickly after trial as the docket will allow, and while the attention of the appellate court is focused on his case.” 468 U. S., at 10-11.
These legitimate state interests, which are manifestly furthered by the comparable procedural rule at issue in this case, warrant our adherence to the conclusion to which they led the Court in Reed v. Ross — that the cause and prejudice test applies to defaults on appeal as to those at trial.
We likewise believe that the standard for cause should not vary depending on the timing of a procedural default or on the strength of an uncertain and difficult assessment of the relative magnitude of the benefits attributable to the state procedural rules that attach at each successive stage of the judicial process. “Each State’s complement of procedural rules . . . channels], to the extent possible, the resolution of various types of questions to the stage of the judicial process at which they can be resolved most fairly and efficiently.” Id., at 10. It is apparent that the frustration of the State’s interests that occurs when an appellate procedural rule is broken is not significantly diminished when counsel’s breach results from ignorance or inadvertence rather than a deliberate decision, tactical or not, to abstain from raising the claim. Failure to raise a claim on appeal reduces the finality of appellate proceedings, deprives the appellate court of .an opportunity to review trial error, and “undercuts] the State’s ability to enforce its procedural rules.” Engle, 456 U. S., at 129. As with procedural defaults at trial, these costs are imposed on the State regardless of the kind of attorney error that led to the procedural default. Nor do we agree that the possibility of “sandbagging” vanishes once a trial has ended in conviction, since appellate counsel might well conclude that the best strategy is to select a few promising claims for airing on appeal, while reserving others for federal habeas review should the appeal be unsuccessful. Moreover, we see little reason why counsel’s failure to detect a colorable constitutional claim should be treated differently from a deliberate but equally prejudicial failure by counsel to raise such a claim. The fact that the latter error can be characterized as a misjudgment, while the former is more easily described as an oversight, is much too tenuous a distinction to justify a regime of evidentiary hearings into counsel’s state of mind in failing to raise a claim on appeal.
The real thrust of respondent’s arguments appears to be that on appeal it is inappropriate to hold defendants to the errors of their attorneys. Were we to accept that proposition, defaults on appeal would presumably be governed by a rule equivalent to Fay v. Noia’s “deliberate bypass” standard, under which only personal waiver by the defendant would require enforcement of a procedural default. We express no opinion as to whether counsel’s decision not to take an appeal at all might require treatment under such a standard, see Wainwright v. Sykes, 433 U. S., at 88, n. 12, but, for the reasons already given, we hold that counsel’s failure to raise a particular claim on appeal is to be scrutinized under the cause and prejudice standard when that failure is treated as a procedural default by the state courts. Attorney error short of ineffective assistance of counsel does not constitute cause for a procedural default even when that default occurs on appeal rather than at trial. To the contrary, cause for a procedural default on appeal ordinarily requires a showing of some external impediment preventing counsel from constructing or raising the claim.
I — I ) — 4 1 — 4
Concurring in the judgment, Justice Stevens contends that our decision today erects an unwarranted procedural barrier to the correction through federal habeas corpus of violations of fundamental constitutional rights that have resulted in a miscarriage of justice. The cause and prejudice test, in his view, “must be considered within an overall inquiry into justice,” post, at 504, which requires consideration in every case of the character of the constitutional claim. If the federal right asserted is of “fundamental importance,” post, at 499, or if a violation of that right “calls into question the accuracy of the determination of . . . guilt,” ibid., Justice Stevens would then balance “the nature and strength of the constitutional claim” and “the nature and strength of the state procedural rule that has not been observed.” Post, at 506.
At the outset, it should be noted that this balancing is more apparent than real, for the concurrence makes plain that the controlling consideration must be whether the petitioner was denied “‘fundamental fairness in the state-court proceedings.’” Post, at 506, n. 13 (quoting Rose v. Lundy, 455 U. S. 509, 547, n. 17 (1982) (Stevens, J., dissenting)). And, while Justice Stevens argues at some length that an appellate default should be given less weight than a trial default in applying the balancing process he proposes, it is hard to believe that this distinction would make any difference given his simultaneous insistence on “carefully preserving] the exception which enables the federal writ to grant relief in cases of manifest injustice,” post, at 515 — an exception that he clearly would endorse regardless of the timing of the default.
The effect of such a reworking of the cause and prejudice test would essentially be to dispense with the requirement that the petitioner show cause and instead to focus exclusively on whether there has been a “manifest injustice” or a denial of “fundamental fairness.” We are not told whether this inquiry would require the same showing of actual prejudice that is required by the cause and prejudice test as interpreted in Engle and in United States v. Frady, 456 U. S. 152 (1982), but the thrust of the concurrence leaves little doubt that this is so. The showing of prejudice required under Wainwright v. Sykes is significantly greater than that necessary under “the more vague inquiry suggested by the words ‘plain error.’” Engle, 456 U. S., at 135; Frady, supra, at 166. See also Henderson v. Kibbe, 431 U. S. 145, 154 (1977). The habeas petitioner must show “not merely that the errors at. . . trial created a possibility of prejudice, but that they worked to his actual and substantial disadvantage, infecting his entire trial with error of constitutional dimensions.” Frady, supra, at 170. Such a showing of pervasive actual prejudice can hardly be thought to constitute anything other than a showing that the prisoner was denied “fundamental fairness” at trial. Since, for Justice Stevens, a “constitutional claim that implicates ‘fundamental fairness’ . . . compels review regardless of possible procedural defaults,” post, at 501, n. 8, it follows that a showing of prejudice would invariably make a showing of cause unnecessary.
As the concurrence acknowledges, Engle expressly rejected this contention that a showing of actual prejudice “should permit relief even in the absence of cause.” 456 U. S., at 134, n. 43. It may be true that the former Rule 12(b)(2) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, as interpreted in Shotwell Mfg. Co. v. United States, 371 U. S. 341 (1963), and Davis v. United States, 411 U. S. 233 (1973), treated prejudice as a component of the inquiry into whether there was cause for noncompliance with that rule. But, while the cause and prejudice test adopted in Wainwright v. Sykes finds its antecedents in cases interpreting Rule 12(b)(2), the Court in Wainwright v. Sykes declared that it was applying “the rule of Francis v. Henderson . . . barring federal habeas review absent a showing of ‘cause’ and ‘prejudice’ attendant to a state procedural waiver.” 433 U. S., at 87. In Francis, the Court could not have been clearer that both cause and prejudice must be shown, at least in a habeas corpus proceeding challenging a state court conviction. 425 U. S., at 542 (requiring “not only a showing of ‘cause’ for the defendant’s failure to challenge the composition of the grand jury before trial, but also a showing of actual prejudice”). We deal here with habeas review of a state court conviction, and at least three decisions of this Court — Francis, Sykes, and Engle — axe unambiguously contrary to the approach taken in the concurrence. We are unprepared, in the face of this weight of authority and in view of the principles of comity and finality these decisions reflect, to reduce the cause requirement to the vestigial role Justice Stevens envisions for it.
Moreover, although neither Francis nor Wainwright v. Sykes involved a constitutional claim that directly called into question the accuracy of the determination of the petitioner’s guilt, the defaulted claims in Engle, no less than respondent’s claim in this case, did involve issues bearing on the reliability of the verdict. In re Winship, 397 U. S. 358 (1970), which was “the basis for [the prisoners’] constitutional claim” in Engle, supra, at 131, holds that “the Due Process Clause protects the accused against conviction except upon proof beyond a reasonable doubt of every fact necessary to constitute the crime with which he is charged.” Winship, supra, at 364. In Ivan V. v. City of New York, 407 U. S. 203, 205 (1972) (per curiam), the Court held, the rule in Winship to be retroactive, because “the major purpose of the constitutional standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt announced in Winship was to overcome an aspect of a criminal trial that substantially impairs the truth-finding function.” Consequently, our rejection in Engle of the contention advanced today — that cause need not be shown if actual prejudice is shown — is fully applicable to constitutional claims that call into question the reliability of an adjudication of legal guilt.
However, as we also noted in Engle, “[i]n appropriate cases” the principles of comity and finality that inform the concepts of cause and prejudice “must yield to the imperative of correcting a fundamentally unjust incarceration.” 456 U. S., at 135. We remain confident that, for the most part, “victims of a fundamental miscarriage of justice will meet the cause-and-prejudice standard.” Ibid. But we do not pretend that this will always be true. Accordingly, we think that in an extraordinary case, where a constitutional violation has probably resulted in the conviction of one who is actually innocent, a federal habeas court may grant the writ even in the absence of a showing of cause for the procedural default.
There is an additional safeguard against miscarriages of justice in criminal cases, and one not yet recognized in state criminal trials when many of the opinions on which the concurrence relies were written. That safeguard is the right to effective assistance of counsel, which, as this Court has indicated, may in a particular case be violated by even an isolated error of counsel if that error is sufficiently egregious and prejudicial. United States v. Cronic, 466 U. S. 648, 657, n. 20 (1984). See also Strickland v. Washington, 466 U. S., at 693-696. The presence of such a safeguard may properly inform this Court’s judgment in determining “[w]hat standards should govern the exercise of the habeas court’s equitable discretion” with respect to procedurally defaulted claims, Reed v. Ross, 468 U. S., at 9. The ability to raise ineffective assistance claims based in whole or in part on counsel’s procedural defaults substantially undercuts any predictions of un-remedied manifest injustices. We therefore remain of the view that adherence to the cause and prejudice test “in the conjunctive,” Engle, supra, at 134, n. 43, will not prevent federal habeas courts from ensuring the “fundamental fairness [that] is the central concern of the writ of habeas corpus.” Strickland v. Washington, supra, at 697.
The cause and prejudice test may lack a perfect historical pedigree. But the Court acknowledged as much in Wainwright v. Sykes, noting its “historic willingness to overturn or modify its earlier views of the scope of the writ, even where the statutory language authorizing judicial action has remained unchanged.” 433 U. S., at 81. The cause and prejudice test as interpreted in Engle and in our decision today is, we think, a sound and workable means of channeling the discretion of federal habeas courts.
I — I <1
Respondent has never alleged any external impediment that might have prevented counsel from raising his discovery claim in his petition for review, and has disavowed any claim that counsel’s performance on appeal was so deficient as to make out an ineffective assistance claim. See generally Evitts v. Lucey, 469 U. S. 387 (1985) (right to effective assistance of counsel applies on an appeal as of right). Respondent’s petition for federal habeas review of his procedurally defaulted discovery claim must therefore be dismissed for failure to establish cause for the default, unless it is determined on remand that the victim’s statements contain material that would establish respondent’s actual innocence.
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.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Douglas
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This suit was brought in the Court of Claims for a tax refund. The taxpayer, a New York corporation, kept its books and accounts on the accrual basis and filed its federal income tax returns on the same basis, using the calendar year. The taxpayer had a net operating loss of $310,872.60 for 1946. This loss was carried back and set off against the taxpayer’s excess profits net income for 1944, and its excess profits tax for 1944 was adjusted accordingly. That carry-back was authorized by the Internal Revenue Code of 1939, § 122; and it is not in controversy here.
The taxpayer reported an excess profits tax liability of $346,643.22 for 1945. In 1946 the taxpayer paid $263,272.80 in excess profits taxes for 1945. It contends that that amount, paid in 1946, should have been added to the net operating loss of $310,872.60 for that year and that the sum of those figures, instead of $310,872.60, should have been carried back to 1944 as a net operating loss. If that should have been done, the United States would now owe the taxpayer the refund claimed.
The Court of Claims, by a divided vote, sustained the taxpayer’s contention and held that, in computing its net operating loss for 1946, the taxpayer was entitled to include the amount of excess profits tax paid in 1946 on account of its 1945 return. Judgment was accordingly entered for the taxpayer. ' 124 Ct. Cl. 33, 39, 108 F. Supp. 109, 110 F. Supp. 600. The case is here on a petition for a writ of certiorari which we granted (348 U. S. 808) because of a conflict between the decision below and Lewyt Corp. v. Commissioner, 215 F. 2d 518, decided by the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
Section 23 (s) of the Internal Revenue Code provides that, in computing net income, “the net operating loss deduction computed under section 122” shall be allowed as a deduction. Section 122, as applicable here, provides a complicated formula for carrying net operating losses back for two preceding taxable years and over into the two succeeding taxable years, thus taking for the limited purpose of § 122 a five-year period as the accounting unit. The part of § 122 of which the taxpayer seeks to take advantage is (b)(1) relating to the carry-back. By the express terms of § 122 (b)(1) the carry-back provisions are subject to the limitations contained in § 122 (d)(6), which provides in part, “There shall be allowed as a deduction the amount of tax imposed by Subchapter E of Chapter 2 paid or accrued within the taxable year . . . .” Subchapter E of Chapter 2 identifies the tax which may be used as a deduction as the Excess Profits Tax. But if it is to be used as a deduction, the tax must have been “paid or accrued” within the taxable year.
The controversy here revolves around the meaning of “paid or accrued.” The years 1944 and 1945 were years of profit for the taxpayer. The years 1946 and 1947 were years of loss. The taxpayer kept its books and filed its returns on the accrual basis of accounting. Its 1945 excess profits tax therefore accrued in 1945,- though it was paid in 1946. Yet the argument which prevailed below is that the tax paid in 1946 on account of the liability for 1945 could be used under § 122 (d) (6) as a net operating loss for 1946. We take the other view and conclude that § 122 (d) (6) does not grant a taxpayer an option to take deductions on a basis that is inconsistent with the method of accounting which it employs.
Section 41 states the general rule that net income shall be computed “in accordance with the method of accounting regularly employed in keeping the books” of the taxpayer.
Section 43 provides that deductions and credits may be taken “for the taxable year in which ‘paid or accrued’ or ‘paid or incurred,’ dependent upon the method of accounting upon the basis of which the net income is computed, unless in order to clearly reflect the income the deductions or credits should be taken as of a different period.”
Section 48 provides, “When used in this chapter . . . (c) The terms . . . ‘paid or accrued’ shall be construed according to the method of accounting upon the basis of which the net income is computed under this Part.” This provision of § 48 would itself seem to be conclusive of the question, since § 122 is “in this chapter,” to use the language of § 48. And § 48, together with § 41 and § 43, seem to indicate that the words “paid or accrued” have only one meaning throughout the chapter, not the changeable meaning which the taxpayer seeks to give them.
We deal here with a deduction which one obtains not as of right, but as of grace. Deputy v. du Pont, 308 U. S. 488, 493. The taxpayer has the burden to show that it is within the provision allowing the deduction. But the effort here made, if successful, would cause “paid or accrued,” as used in § 122 (d)(6), to mean something different than it does in other sections of the same chapter; and that would fly in the face of the express command of §48.
The Court of Claims recognized the force of this analysis, but concluded that Congress could not have meant what it said because, if so, this particular carry-back provision would have little application. First, most corporations are on the accrual not the cash basis. Second, if an accrual taxpayer is limited in its deductions to excess profits taxes accrued within the taxable year, the provision has little value since there is “rarely a case when a taxpayer would be liable for any excess profits tax in a year in which it had sustained a net operating loss . . . 124 Ct. Cl., at 37, 108 F. Supp., at 111. This taxpayer argues the inequity of the results which would follow from our construction of the Code. But as we have said before, “general equitable considerations” do not control the question of what deductions are permissible. Deputy v. du Pont, supra, at 493. It may be that Congress granted less than some thought or less than was originally intended. We can only take the Code as we find it and give it as great an internal symmetry and consistency as its words permit. We would not be faithful to the statutory scheme, as revealed by the words employed, if we gave “paid or accrued” a different meaning for the purposes of § 122 (d) (6) than it has in the other parts of the same chapter.
Our construction is in harmony with the general rule that a taxpayer on an accrual basis must take deductions in the year of accrual. See Security Mills Co. v. Commissioner, 321 U. S. 281.
The fact that the construction we feel compelled to make favors the taxpayer on the cash basis and discriminates against the taxpayer on the accrual basis may suggest that changes in the law are desirable. But if they are to be made, Congress must make them.
Reversed.
Me. Justice Harlan took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
Section 122(b)(1) is entitled “Net operating loss carry-back” and reads as follows:
“If for any taxable year beginning after December 31, 1941, the taxpayer has a net operating loss, such net operating loss shall be a net operating loss carry-back for each of the two preceding taxable years, except that the carry-back in the case of the first preceding taxable year shall be the excess, if any, of the amount of such net operating loss over the net income for the second preceding taxable year computed (A) with the exceptions, additions, and limitations provided in subsection (d)(1), (2), (4), and (6), and (B) by determining the net operating loss deduction for such second preceding taxable year without regard to such net operating loss.”
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | L | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Per Curiam.
Petitioners, a conditionally certified class of beer retailers in the Fresno, Cal., area, brought suit against respondent wholesalers alleging that they had conspired to eliminate short-term trade credit formerly granted on beer purchases in violation of § 1 of the Sherman Act, ch. 647, 26 Stat. 209, as amended, 15 U. S. C. § 1. The District Court entered an interlocutory order, which among other things, denied petitioners’ “motion to declare this a case of per se illegality,” and then certified to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 1292 (b), the question whether the alleged agreement among competitors fixing credit terms, if proved, was unlawful on its face. The Court of Appeals granted permission to appeal, and, with one judge dissenting, agreed with the District Court that a horizontal agreement among competitors to fix credit terms does not necessarily contravene the antitrust laws. 605 F. 2d 1097 (1979). We grant the petition for certiorari and reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals,
For purposes of decision we assume the following facts alleged in the amended complaint to be true. Petitioners allege that, beginning in early 1967, respondent wholesalers secretly agreed, in order to eliminate competition among themselves, that as of December 1967 they would sell to retailers only if payment were made in advance or upon delivery. Prior to the agreement, the wholesalers had extended credit without interest up to the 30- and 42-day limits permitted by state law. According to the petition, prior to the agreement wholesalers had competed with each other with respect to trade credit, and the credit terms for individual retailers had varied substantially. After entering into the agreement, respondents uniformly refused to extend any credit at all.
The Court of Appeals decided that the credit-fixing agreement should not be characterized as a form of price fixing. The court suggested that such an agreement might actually enhance competition in two ways: (1) “by removing a barrier perceived by some sellers to market entry,” and (2) “by the increased visibility of price made possible by the agreement to eliminate credit.” Id., at 1099.
In dissent, Judge Blumenfeld expressed the opinion that an agreement to eliminate credit was a form of price fixing. Id., at 1104. He reasoned that the extension of interest-free credit is an indirect price reduction and that the elimination of such credit is therefore a method of raising prices:
“The purchase of goods creates an obligation to pay for them. Credit is one component of the overall price paid for a product. The cost to a retailer of purchasing goods consists of (1) the amount he has to pay to obtain the goods, and (2) the date on which he has to make that payment. If there is a differential between a purchase for cash and one on time, that difference is not interest but part of the price. See Hogg v. Ruffner, 66 U. S. (1 Black) 115, 118-119 . . . (1861). Allowing a retailer interest-free short-term credit on beer purchases effectively reduces the price of beer, when compared to a requirement that the retailer pay the same amount immediately in cash; and, conversely, the elimination of free credit is the equivalent of a price increase.” Id., at 1103.
It followed, in his view, that the agreement was just as plainly anticompetitive as a direct agreement to raise prices. Consequently, no further inquiry under the rule of reason, see National Society of Professional Engineers v. United States, 435 U. S. 679 (1978), was required in order to establish the agreement's unlawfulness.
Our cases fully support Judge Blumenfeld’s analysis and foreclose both of the possible justifications on which the majority relied. In Broadcast Music, Inc. v. Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc., 441 U. S. 1, 7-8 (1979), we said:
“In construing and applying the Sherman Act's ban against contracts, conspiracies, and combinations in restraint of trade, the Court has held that certain agreements or practices are so ‘plainly anticompetitive,' National Society of Professional Engineers v. United States, 435 U. S. 679, 692 (1978); Continental T. V., Inc. v. GTE Sylvania Inc., 433 U. S. 36, 50 (1977), and so often ‘lack . . . any redeeming virtue,’ Northern Pac. R. Co. v. United States, 356 U. S. 1, 5 (1958), that they are conclusively presumed illegal without further examination under the rule of reason generally applied in Sherman Act cases.”
A horizontal agreement to fix prices is the archetypal example of such a practice. It has long been settled that an agreement to fix prices is unlawful per se. It is no excuse that the prices fixed are themselves reasonable. See, e. g., United States v. Trenton Potteries Co., 273 U. S. 392, 397-398 (1927); United States v. Trans-Missouri Freight Assn., 166 U. S. 290, 340-341 (1897). In United States v. Socony-Vacuum Oil Co., 310 U. S. 160 (1940), we held that an agreement among competitors to engage in a program of buying surplus gasoline on the spot market in order to prevent prices from falling sharply was unlawful without any inquiry into the reasonableness of the program, even though there was no direct agreement on the actual prices to be maintained. In the course of the opinion, the Court made clear that
“the machinery employed by a combination for price-fixing is immaterial.
“Under the Sherman Act a combination formed for the purpose and with the effect of raising, depressing, fixing, pegging, or stabilizing the price of a commodity in interstate or foreign commerce is illegal per se.” Id., at 223.
Thus, we have held agreements to be unlawful per se that had substantially less direct impact on price than the agreement alleged in this ease. For example, in Sugar Institute v. United States, 297 U. S. 553, 601-602 (1936), the Court held unlawful an agreement to adhere to previously announced prices and terms of sale, even though advance price announcements are perfectly lawful and even though the particular prices and terms were not themselves fixed by private agreement. Similarly, an agreement among competing firms of professional engineers to refuse to discuss prices with potential customers until after negotiations have resulted in the initial selection of an engineer was held unlawful without requiring further inquiry. National Society of Professional Engineers v. United States, supra, at 692-693. Indeed, a horizontal agreement among competitors to use a specific method of quoting prices may be unlawful. Cf. FTC v. Cement Institute, 333 U. S. 683, 690-693 (1948).
It is virtually self-evident that extending interest-free credit for a period of time is equivalent to giving a discount equal to the value of the use of the purchase price for that period of time. Thus, credit terms must be characterized as an inseparable part of the price. An agreement to terminate the practice of giving credit is thus tantamount to an agreement to eliminate discounts, and thus falls squarely within the traditional per se rule against price fixing. While it may be that the elimination of a practice of giving variable discounts will ultimately lead in a competitive market to corresponding decreases in the invoice price, that is surely not necessarily to be anticipated. It is more realistic to view an agreement to eliminate credit sales as extinguishing one form of competition among the sellers. In any event, when a particular concerted activity entails an obvious risk of anti-competitive impact with no apparent potentially redeeming value, the fact that a practice may turn out to be harmless in a particular set of circumstances will not prevent its being declared unlawful per se.
The majority of the panel of the Court of Appeals suggested, however, that a horizontal agreement to eliminate credit sales may remove a barrier to other sellers who may wish to enter the market. But in any case in which competitors are able to increase the price level or to curtail production by agreement, it could be argued that the agreement has the effect of making the market more attractive to potential new entrants. If that potential justifies horizontal agreements among competitors imposing one kind of voluntary restraint or another on their competitive freedom, it would seem to follow that the more successful an agreement is in raising the price level, the safer it is from antitrust attack. Nothing could be more inconsistent with our cases.
Nor can the informing function of the agreement, the increased price visibility, justify its restraint on the individual wholesaler’s freedom to select his own prices and terms of sale. For, again, it is obvious that any industrywide agreement on prices will result in a more accurate understanding of the terms offered by all parties to the agreement. As the Sugar Institute case demonstrates, however, there is a plain distinction between the lawful right to publish prices and terms of sale, on the one hand, and an agreement among competitiors limiting action with respect to the published prices, on the other.
Thus, under the reasoning of our cases, an agreement among competing wholesalers to refuse to sell unless the retailer makes payment in cash either in advance or upon delivery is “plainly anticompetitive.” Since it is merely one form of price fixing, and since price-fixing agreements have been adjudged to lack any “redeeming virtue,” it is conclusively presumed illegal without further examination under the rule of reason.
Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Title 28 U. S. C. § 1292 (b) provides:
“When a district judge, in making in a civil action an order not otherwise appealable under this section, shall be of the opinion that such order involves a controlling question of law as to which there is substantial ground for difference of opinion and that an immediate appeal from the order may materially advance the ultimate termination of the litigation, he shall so state in writing in such order. The Court of Appeals may thereupon, in its discretion, permit an appeal to be taken from such order, if application is made to it within ten days after the entry of the order: Provided, however, That application for an appeal hereunder shall not stay proceedings in the district court unless the district judge or the Court of Appeals or a judge thereof shall so order.”
In pertinent part, the District Judge's order read as follows:
“ 'In the opinion of the Court, this order involves a controlling question of law, whether an agreement among competitors to eliminate the extension of trade credit constitutes a per se violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act (15 U. S. C. § 1), as to which there is substantial ground for difference of opinion, and that an immediate appeal from the order will materially advance the ultimate termination of the litigation since this issue is central to the conduct of discovery and trial of this case.' ” App. D to Pet. for Cert.
The District Court had also granted summary judgment against two plaintiffs for failure to establish injury in fact. Those plaintiffs appealed separately. The Court of Appeals consolidated their appeal with the appeal taken pursuant to § 1292 (b) and unanimously reversed that portion of the District Court's order. No review is sought in this Court of that ruling.
See Record 152.
Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code Ann. §25509 (West Supp. 1980).
Pet. for Cert. 4.
Senior District Judge for the District of Connecticut, sitting by designation.
Respondents nowhere suggest a procompetitive justification for a horizontal agreement to fix credit. Their argument is confined to disputing that settled case law establishes that such an agreement is unlawful on its face.
The quotation from Northern Pacific R. Co. v. United States, 356 U. S. 1, 5 (1958), is drawn from the following passage: “[TJhere are certain agreements or practices which because of their pernicious effect on competition and lack of any redeeming virtue are conclusively presumed to be unreasonable and therefore illegal without elaborate inquiry as to the precise harm they have caused or the business excuse for their use. This principle of -per se unreasonableness not only makes the type of restraints which are proscribed by the Sherman Act more certain to the benefit of everyone concerned, but it also avoids the necessity for an incredibly complicated and prolonged economic investigation . . . — an inquiry so often wholly fruitless when undertaken. Among the practices which the courts have heretofore deemed to be unlawful in and of themselves are price fixing. . . .”
The Court there held that an agreement to use a multiple basing point pricing system was an unfair method of competition prohibited by § 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act, 15 U. S. C. § 45, even though the same conduct would also violate § 1 of the Sherman Act.
See Fortner Enterprises, Inc. v. United States Steel Corp., 394 U. S. 495, 507 (1969): “In the usual sale on credit the seller, a single individual or corporation, simply makes an agreement determining when and how much he will be paid for his product. In such a sale the credit may constitute such an inseparable part of the purchase price for the item that the entire transaction could be considered to involve only a single product.”
See also G. Lamb & C. Shields, Trade Association Law and Practice 129 (rev. ed. 1971) (“Credit terms are increasingly viewed as elements of price, and any interference with the elements of price is regarded as illegal per se under the Sherman Act”). Cf. P. Areeda, Antitrust Analysis 878 (2d ed. 1974) (“To charge cash and credit customers the same price is, economically speaking, to discriminate against the former”); Hogg v. Ruffner, 1 Black 115, 118-119 (1861).
Cf. Cement Mfrs. Protective Assn. v. United States, 268 U. S. 588, 600 (1925), in which the Court upheld an exchange of information concerning credit in order to prevent fraud on the members of the association, but also noted that “[t]he evidence falls far short of establishing any understanding on the basis of which credit was to be extended to customers or that any co-operation resulted from the distribution of this information, or that there were any consequences from it other than such as would naturally ensue from the exercise of the individual judgment of manufacturers in determining, on the basis of available information, whether to extend credit or to require cash or security from any given customer.”
See also Swift & Co. v. United States, 196 U. S. 375, 392, 394 (1905); Wall Products Co. v. National Gypsum Co., 326 F. Supp. 295 (ND Cal. 1971).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | H | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Clark
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This is a direct appeal from the judgment of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, 205 F. Supp. 394, dismissing a civil antitrust action brought by the United States against the Singer Manufacturing Company to prevent and restrain alleged violations of §§ 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act, 15 U. S. C. §§ 1 and 2. The complaint alleged that Singer combined and. conspired with two competitors, Gegauf. of Switzerland and Vigorelli of Italy, to restrain and monopolize and that Singer unilaterally attempted to monopolize interstate and foreign trade in the importation, sale and distribution of household zigzag sewing machines. The District Court dismissed after an extended trial, concluding that the charges were.without merit. The United States appealed under § 2 of the Expediting Act, 15 U. S. C. § 29, but has abandoned its claim as to attempted monopolization. We noted probable jurisdiction in light of the fact that unless we did so the parties would be deprived of any appellate review in the case. 371 U. S. 918., We have examined the record (1,723 pages) in detail, as is necessary in these direct appeals, and upon consideration of it, as well as the briefs and argument of counsel, have concluded that there was a conspiracy to exclude Japanese-competitor^ in household zigzag sewing machines and that the judgment must be reversed.
I.
The details of the facts are long and complicated. The amended and corrected opinion of the District Court includes not only a description of the sewing machines involved and their operation but also an analysis of the' patents covering them. We shall, therefore, not relate the facts in detail but satisfy ourselves with the overriding ones.
A. As the District Court stated, this action “concerns only the United States trade and commerce arising from the importation into the United States of a particular type of household sewing machine known as the ‘machine-carried multicam zigzag, machine.’ ” 205 F. Supp., at 396. The zigzag stitch machine produces various ornamental and functional zigzag stitches as well as straight ones. 'The automatic multicam zigzag machine, unlike the' manually operated zigzag and the replaceable cam machine, each of which requires hand manipulation or insertion, operates in response to the turning of a knob or dial on the exterior of the machine. While the multicam machines involved here function in slightly different ways, all are a variant of the same basic principle.
B. Singer is the sole United States manufacturer of household zigzag sewing machines. In addition to the multicam variety at issue here, it produces replaceable cam machines but • not the manually operated zigzag. Singer sells these machines in this country through a wholly owned subsidiary and in various foreign countries through independent distributors. Singer’s sales comprised approximately' 61.4% of all domestic sales in multicam zigzag machines in the United States in 1959. During the same year some 22.6% were imported from Japan and about 16% from Europe. In 1958 Singer’s percentage was 69.6%, Japanese imports 20.7% and European imports 9.7%. Further, Singer’s 1959 and 1960 domestic sales of multicam machines amounted to approximately $46 million per year, in each of which years such sales accounted for abóut 46% of all its domestic sewing machine sales.
C. It appears that Singer by April 29, 1953, through its experimental department, had completed a design of a multiple cam zigzag mechanism in what it calls the Singer “401” machine. It is disclosed in Singer’s Johnson Patent. In 1953 Singer was also developing its Perla Patent as used in its “306” replaceable cam machine and in 1954 its “319” machine-carried multiple cam machine. In September of 1953 Vigorelli, an Italian corporation, introduced in the United States a sewing machine incorporating a stack of cams with a single follower. Singer concluded that Vigorelli had on file applications covering its machine in the various patent offices in the world and that the Singer design would infringe. On June 10, 1955, Singer bought for $8,000 a patent disclosing a plurality of cams with a single cam follower from Garl Harris, a Canadian. It was believed that this patent, filed June 9, 1952, might be reissued with claims covering the Singer 401 as well as its 319 machine, and that the reissued patent would dominate the Vigorelli machine as well as a Japanese one introduced into the United States in September 1954 by Brother International.Corporation. Thereafter Singer concluded that litigation would result between it and Vigorelli unless a cross-licensing agreement. could be made, and this was effected on November 17, 1955. The license was nonexclusive, world-wide and royalty free. The trial court found that Singer’s only purpose was to effect a cross-licensing, but certain correspondence does cast some shadow upon these negotiations.. The agreement also contained provisions by which each of the parties, agreed not to bring any infringement action against the other- “in any country” or institute against the other any> opposition, nullity or invalidation proceedings in any country. In accordance with this agreement Singer withdrew its opposition to Vigorelli’s patent application in Brazil and Vigorelli later (1958) abandoned a United States interference to the Johnson application which cleared the way for the Johnson Patent to issue on December 2 of that year.
D. While Singer was negotiating the cross-license agreement. with Vigorelli it learned that Gegauf, a Swiss corporation, had a patent covering a multiple cam mechanism. • This placed an additional cloud over Singer’s Harris reissue plan because the Gegauf patent enjoyed an effective priority date in Italy of May 31, 1952. This was nine days earlier than Singer's Harris patent filing date in the' United States. In December 1955 Singer learned that Gegauf' and Vigorelli had entered a cross-licensing agreement covering their multiple cam patents similar to the Vigorelli-Singer agreement. In January 1956 Singer found that Gegauf had pending an application in the United States Patent Office and assumed that it was based on the same priority date, i. e., May 31,1952. If this was true Singer could use its Harris reissue patent only to oppose through interference the allowance of broad claims to Gegauf. It therefore made preparation to negotiate with Gegauf, first approaching Vigorelli in order to ascertain how the latter had induced Gegauf to grant him a royalty-free license and drop any claim of infringement. Singer made direct arrangements for a conference with Gegauf for April 12, 1956, and the license agreement was made April 14, 1956.
The setting for this meeting was that Gegauf had a dominant Swiss patent with applications in Germany, Italy, and the United States-all prior to Singer, in addition, Singer’s counsel had examined Gegauf’s Swiss patent and advised that it was valid. Singer opened conversation with indications of coming litigation on the Harris patent, concealing the Johnson and Perla applications. Gegauf felt secure in his patent claims but insecure with reference to the inroads the Japanese machines were making on the United States market. It was this “lever” which Singer used to secure the license, pointing out that without an agreement Gegauf and Singer might litigate for a protracted period; that they should not be fighting each other as that would only delay the issue of their respective patents; and, finally, that they should-license each other and.get their respective patents “so they could be enforced by whoever would own the particular patent.” Singer in the discussions worked upon these Gegauf fears of Japanese competition “because one of the strong points” of its argument was that an agreement should be made “in order to fight against this Japanese competition' in their building a machine that in any way reads on the patents of ourselves and of Bernina [Gegauf] which are in conflict.” The trial judge found that the only purpose “disclosed to Gegauf, and in fact the very one used to convince Gegauf of the advisability of entering into an agreement” was to “obtain protection against the Japanese machines which might be made under the Gegauf patent; this sprang from a fear which Singer had good reason to believe to be well founded.”. 205 F. Supp., at 413. While he found Singer’s, “underlying, dominant and sole purpose... was to settle the conflict in priority between the Gegauf and Harris patents and to secure for Singer a license right under the earlier patent,” ibid., it is significant that no such overriding purpose was found to-have been disclosed to Gegauf.
. The license agreement covered (1) the Singer-Harris patent and its reissue application in the United States'and nine corresponding foreign ones, and (2) the Gegauf Swiss, Italian and German patents, as well as the United States and German applications covering the same. The parties agreed in the first paragraph of the agreement “not to do anything, either directly or indirectly and in any country, the result of which might restrict the scope of the claims of the other party relating to the subject matter of the above mentioned patents and patent applications,” In addition “each undertakes, in accordance with the laws and regulations of the Patent Office concerned, to facilitate the allowance in any country of claims as broad as possible, as regards the subject matter of the patents and patent applications referred to above.” The parties also agreed not to.sue one another on the basis of any of the patent's or applications. -Singer agreed not to make a “slavish” copy of Gegauf’s machine and to-give Gegauf “the amical assistance of its patent attorneys for the defense of any of the above mentioned Gegauf patents or patent applications against-an action-im cancellation.” The agreement made no mention of Singer’s Perla or Johnson applications, the existence of which Singer did not wish Gegauf to know.
E. Approximately one week after the Gegauf cross-license agreement Singer met with Vigorelli at Milan, Italy, at the. latter’s request. Vigorelli at this meeting suggested that Singer, Gegauf and Vigorelli, having arrived at their respective agreements, should act in concert in prosecuting their patents against all others in the field. This was out of the question, Singer immediately replied,, advising that “what appeared to us to be proper action was for each one to prosecute his own patents and take eare of any cases of infringement that might appear.” The subsequent conversations at the meeting are reported from the same source as follows:
“Upon learning that there could be no joint action by the three companies who have been mentioned in prosecuting patents against all others in the field, that subject was dropped....
“At this point, it should perhaps be mentioned that Mr. Stanford and I have discussed between ourselves whether we should say anything to Mr. Gegauf about our feeling that we could prosecute his patents that will be issued sometime within the next few months in the United States better than perhaps he could if we owned them, but we had decided not to say anything to Mr. Gegauf about this at this time.
“In talking with Mr. Vigorelli’s lawyer, Mr. Stanford dropped this view to him. The point was immediately understood, and the question was raised if we would have any objection if they were to pass the word on to Mr. Gegauf that they were raising this point. We said that, of course, we would have no objection but that we ourselves did not wish to do this, and we would not want the suggestion coming to Mr. Gegauf at this time as from us. If they wanted to suggest it, it was all right. We would, of course, under such an arrangement have to give a license to Gegauf under the patent that he would turn over to us. Mr. Stanford believes that he would be able before the patent is issued to rewrite the claims and make it stronger than it now is and that it is a fact that, being in the United States, we would.be better able to prosecute any claims against this patent than would Mr. Gegauf.”
While the.testimony of Mr. Stanford, Singer’s patent attorney, varies somewhat from this memorandum of Mr. Waterman, it is substantially the same. That the approach to Gegauf was not casually laid is shown by a May 7, 1956, letter from Mr. Stanford to Patent Department employees of Singer in which he said, “When in Italy we laid careful plans for Gegauf to be advis.ed by a third party that Singer could best handle the patent situation if we owned the Gegauf U. S. Patent. Think it will bear fruit. This suggestion, with the U. S. attorney situation is pressure in the right direction.”
Mr. Majnoni reported in June 1956 that he had the “opportunity of talking to the Patent Attorneys of Mr. F. Gegauf on a number of occasions” concerning “the question of the advantage of the American Singer Company being in possession of the different patents which might be useful in defence of sewing machines with multiple cams....” He stated that “the particular character of the question,” i. e., “the -possibility and advantage that the Gegauf patent application in the States be assigned to Singer,” required that the approach be in “such a way as to prompt an initiative to this end by Gegauf.” He was hopeful that this had been accomplished. Thereafter on September 19 Dr. S. Lando, Singer representative in Milan, reported that Majnoni advised that Gegauf “is today effectively willing to transfer his patent application in the U. S. to the Singer, without regard or with little regard to the financial side of the matter.”.This was brought about, he said, by discussions between Vigorelli and Gegauf concerning a United States Van Tuyl patent and its effect upon the validity of the Gegauf German patent; that Gegauf had “made informally known to Mr. Vigorelli that the withdrawing of the Vigorelli application in the U. S. would be greatly appreciated, to prevent the issuance of a printed patent wherein the fact that the-Van Tuyl patent exists will be made known to third parties”; that Vigorelli had agreed to withdraw his application and that as a consequence Vigorelli would “drop any direct means adapted to protect his machines in the U. S., but he is quite sure that Singer will take care of the protection of the machines of the. general type of interest, by making use of the owned Harris and Gegauf patents.”
In the summer of 1956 Mr. F. Gegauf,-Jr., and his sister attended a sewing machine convention at Kansas City. On returning home they met with Singer (Messrs. Waterman & Stanford) in Singer’s office in' New York City. Gegauf expressed concern over the number of Japanese machines that he had seen at the convention. Singer again found opportunity to employ the Japanese problem and stressed to Gegauf, Jr., the -difficulties of enforcing a patent in the United States — namely, large number of importers, size of the country, number of judicial circuits, etc. Singer emphasized that these all presented problems to the owner of a United States patent. Singer being in the United States could, they said, enforce the patent better than Gegauf could. They asked Gegauf,'Jr., whether he thought his father would be interested in selling the patent to Singer. Thereafter, on September 3, Gegauf, Jr. wrote Mr. Waterman that Singer’s suggestion had been taken up with Gegauf, Sr., and “we might be interested in such an agreement.” The closing paragraph says: “We agree that something should be done against Japanese competition in your country and maybe South America and are therefore looking forward to your early reply.” Waterman replied on September 7 that he and Mr. Stanford would be in Germany on September 18 through 25; he asked that Gegauf’s United States patent attorney be directed to meet with Stánford in New York City with authorization to disclose the content of the Gegauf patent application so that time, might be saved in Europe. Mr. Waterman closed with the belief “that it may be possible that we can both strengthen our positions with respect to the Japanese competition which you mention....”■ The conference was set for September 23 at which time Gegauf demanded $250,000 for the patent and negotiations broke off. Singer wrote Dr. Lando, its Milan agent, on October 9, informing him. The letter closed with this paragraph: “I thought you would like to have this information if the subject should come up in talking with Mr. Vigorelli or his attorney.” And on October 24 Singer wrote Mr. Gegauf advising that the United States Patent Office had declared an interference between their patent applications; that their cross-license agreement provided that this interference be settled in accordance with the patent laws of the United States; that “since... interference proceedings are usually time consuming and costly to the parties involved, it would appear that it would be advantageous for us to settle the interference between ourselves rather than to continue the proceeding and rely on the United States Patent Office finally to award a priority”; and finally Singer suggested that the attorneys for the parties in the United States get together with a view to settling the interference. Singer abandoned its interference on March 15,1957, and the Gegauf claim was taken verbatim from the Singer Harris reissue claim.
Nothing more was done, by Singer toward securing the Gegauf application until September 12, 1957, when Singer wrote Gegauf that its Harris application was about to be issued as a patent. It also anticipated that several other patents relating to- ornamental stitch machines would soon be issued to it and presumed Gegauf’s application would soon be granted. Then followed this paragraph:
“When I had the pleasure of meeting you last fall we had some discussion relative to the procedures that might be followed to enforce the patents..., when issued, against infringing manufacturers who primarily are manufacturers in other countries seeking markets in the United States, and more and more throughout the entire world. These manufacturers are bringing out a large variety of ornamental stitch machines which would appear to come within the terms of claims which may be awarded in the United States with respect of the aforementioned Singer and Gegauf patents. A proper enforcement of these patents may make it necessary to instigate patent •suits against each of the importers in the United States, of whom there will perhaps be many. I think you will agree with me that neither one of us alone can protect himself most effectively.”
This letter brought on a meeting of the parties in Zurich on October 16, 1957. Gegauf’s position was that, as.the trial court found, “while it had no objection ‘to making an agreement with Singer, in order to stop as far as possible Japanese competitors in the United States market,’ it was willing to do so only under certain conditions.” 205 F. Supp., at 416. Finally, as the trial court found, Gegauf demanded $125,000 plus certain conditions declaring that it “was cheap and that it could not go lower since it could get more money if it licensed the invention. Kirker [of Singer] replied that there was no comparison since a sale to Singer was insurance against common competitors and that was why Singer was willing to pay.” Ibid. In another exchange Gegauf
“advanced the argument that, if stopped by Singer in the United States, the Japanese manufacturers would run to Europe; to this Singer answered that a greater risk was run in Europe if Singer were not permitted to first stop infringements in the United States.... Singer continued ‘to drive home the point’ that Gegauf stood to benefit more by enforcement of the patents in the United States because the ‘Brother Pacesetter’ machine, a big selling and patent infringing Japanese-made machine, was in direct competition with the Gegauf machine, for both machines were of the free arm type.” 205 F. Supp., at 417.
Finally Gegauf assigned to Singer its application and all rights in the invention claimed and to all United States patents which might be granted under- it for $90,000. The accompanying agreement provided that (1) Singer would grant Gegauf a nonexclusive royalty-free license to sell in the United States sewing machines made in Gegauf’s factory in Switzerland; (2) Singer would not institute, without the consent'of Gegauf, legal proceedings asserting the patents when issued against Pfaff in Germany or Vigorelli in Italy with respect to machines manufactured in their home factories; and (3) Singer would not make a “slavish” copy of Gegáuf’s Bernina machine.
F. The Gegaúf patent issued on April 29, 1958, and Singer filed two infringement suits against Brother, the largest domestic importer of Japanese machines. It also sued two other distributors of multicam machines, those actions terminating in consent decrees. Finally, in January 1959, eight months after the patent was issued, Singer brought a proceeding before the United States Tariff Commission under § 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930, 19 U. S. C. § 1337. It sought an order of the President of the United States excluding all imported machines coming within the claims of the Gegauf patent for the term of the patent, naming European as well as Japanese infringers. Singer alleged that the tremendous volume of imports from Japan of household sewing machines, other than automatic zigzag, had eliminated all domestic manufacturers save itself and one small straight stitch part-time concern! It further alleged that the increasing volume of infringing imports similarly threatened to result in the curtailment and ultimate cessation of manufacturing operations in the United States in automatic zigzags, with heavy loss of highly paid and skilled labor and large capital investment. At the time of the filing, Singer alleged, foreign-made machines, “primarily from Japan,” were being imported to the extent of 50% of the entire Singer sales of automatic zigzag machines in this country; it represented that the automatic zigzag machine is its most important product and that it sells for a minimum price of $300; that infringers from Japan sell at no firm price, the average being $100 less than Singer’s price but often far below that figure; and that the minimum price in Japan for export is $40 to $54.
During the hearing on its complaint Singer was asked whether Pfaff was licensed under the Gegauf patent. Singer replied in the negative but became skeptical and, believing that it might “have a better chance of prevailing before the Tariff' Commission,” decided to ask Gegauf to revise the agreement, which originally excepted Pfaff and Vigorelli from enforcement proceedings, except on consent of Gegauf. The latter agreed on condition that Phoenix, a German manufacturer which was a party-defendant in the proceedings, be substituted.
Upon commencement of this action by the United States, the Commission stayed the proceedings, and they are now in abeyance pending our disposition of this case.
II.
First it may be helpful to set out what is not involved in this case. There is no claim by the Government that it is illegal for one merely to acquire a patent in order to exclude his competitors; or that the owner of a lawfully acquired patent cannot use the patent laws to exclude all infringers of the patent; or that a licensee cannot lawfully acquire the covering patent in order better to enforce it on his own account, even when the patent dominates an industry in which the licensee is the dominant firm. Therefore, we put all these matters aside without discussion.
What is claimed here is that Singer engaged in a series of transactions with Gegauf and Vigorelli for an illegal purpose, i. e., to rid itself and Gegauf, together,-perhaps, with Vigorelli, of infringements by their common competitors, the Japanese manufacturers. The Government claims that in this respect there were an identity of purpose among the parties and actions pursuant thereto that in law amount to a combination or conspiracy violative of the Sherman Act. It claims that this can be established under the findings of the District Court.
We note from the findings that the importation of Japanese household multicam zigzag sewing machines first came to notice in the United States in 1954 with the introduction of such a machine by the Brother International Corporation. It incorporated the mechanism of the Vigorelli zigzag and the. Singer 401 machines. By 1959 importations of all Japanese household sewing machines reached 1,100,000, while importations of European machines reached only 100,000. Moreover, it appears that all but two domestic manufacturers were put out of business in three to four years after the Japanese machines first appeared. The two remaining domestic manufacturers were Singer and a company not specializing in sewing machines, which manufactured only straight stitch machines on order for a single domestic customer.
The trial court found that no mention was made of the Japanese machines during the negotiations covering the Vigorelli cross-licensing agreement with Singer. It first appeared during the Gegauf licensing negotiations where at those meetings Singer used “protection against the Japanese” as “one of the strong points’* on the cross-licensing of the Gegauf and Harris patents and applications. Here, though the trial court stated that the “dominant and sole purpose of the license agreement was to settle the conflict in priority,” it specifically, in the next paragraph of its opinion, found a “secondary” purpose, i. e., protection against the Japanese machines which were infringing the Gegauf patent. In this connection it is most important to note another finding of the trial court, namely, that this purpose to exclude the Japanese “was the only one disclosed to Gegauf, and in fact the very one used to convince Gegauf of the advisability of entering into an agreement.” 205 F. Supp., at 413. Under these findings it cannot be said that settlement of the conflict in priority was the “dominant and sole purpose” of Singer. Indeed, the two findings are in direct conflict. Furthermore the fact that the cross-license agreement provided that Singer and Gegauf would facilitate the allowance to each other of claims “as broad as' possible” indicates a desire to secure as broad coverage for the patent as possible, the more effectively to stifle competition, the overwhelming percentage of which was Japanese. This effect was accomplished, for when the Patent Office placed the Harris (Singer) and Gegauf patents in interference, Singer abandoned the proceeding, thus facilitating the issuance of broad claims to Gegauf.
We now come to the assignment of the Gegauf patent to Singer. The trial court found: (1) that six days after the license agreement was made with Gegauf, Singer proceeded to Italy'where a conference was held with Vigorelli. At this meeting two events took place that led to? the later acquisition of the patent by Singer.. The first was Vigorelli’s proposal that Singer, Gegauf and himself act “in concert against others” in enforcing the patent. This was rejected by Singer’s representatives, who said it was best for each “to prosecute his own parents.” At the same meeting, however, Singer proposed to Vigorelli that it could prosecute the Gegauf patent in the United States better than Gegauf and, after Vigorelli agreed, solicited his help in getting Gegauf to agree to assign the patent. (2) Vigorelli went to Gegauf “acting as Singer’s agent,” 205 F. Supp., at 414, and convinced the latter sufficiently for him to write Singer that he favored the idea of doing something “against Japanese competition.” (3) Singer replied to Gegauf by letter that an arrangement could be reached “equally advantageous to both.” (4) Singer went to Europe but was not able to agree on Gegauf’s terms and thereafter, in September 1957, wrote the latter that “their mutual interests required that something be done to protect themselves from the Japanese infringing machines.” (5) Gegauf replied that he would be happy to meet Singer to discuss “mutual enforcement” of its United States application and the Harris reissue. Then, (6) in the final conferences in Europe Gegauf told Singer that he had no objection “to making an agreement with Singer, in order to stop as far as possible Japanese competitors in the United States market.” Further,-the trial court found that Singer assured Gegauf that “Singer was insurance against common competitors” and Gegauf’s fears that if Singer stopped the Japanese infringements in the United States they (the Japanese) would go to Europe, where Gegauf was not.in as good a position to stop them, were unfounded because a greater risk was run in Europe if Singer were not permitted to first stop infringements in the United States. Finally, the court found that (7) Singer was determined “to drive home the point” that Gegauf stood to benefit more by enforcement of the patents in the United States' because the “Brother Pacesetter” machine, a big selling and patent infringing Japanese-made machine, was in direct competition with the Gegauf machine in the United States. As the trial.court put it, “[t]he point apparently reached home”— Gegauf ultimately assigned the patent for only $90,000, much less than its original asking price and much less than Gegauf believed it would realize annually from a license grant. Gegauf’s beliefs as to the inadequacy of the monetary consideration were well founded, since Singer received more than twice that amount in a two-year period from the one license it granted under the Gegauf patent. That licensé, incidentally, was to Sears, Roebuck & Company, which imported machines from Europe.
III.
As we have noted with reference to the cross-license agreement, the trial court decided that “[t]he undisputed facts support no conclusion other than that the underlying, dominant and sole purpose of the license agreement was to settle the conflict in priority between the Gegauf and Harris patents....” We have rejected this conclusion on the trial court’s own finding in the next paragraph of the opinion that Singer’s “secondary” purpose, the only one disclosed to Gegauf, was its “desire to obtain protection against the Japanese machines which might be made under the Gegauf patent.” Likewise we reject, as a question of law, the court’s inference that the attitude of suspicion, wariness and self-preservation of the parties negated a conspiracy: See United States v. Line Material Co., 333 U. S. 287, 297 (1948); United States v. Masonite Corp., 316 U. S. 265, 280-281 (1942); United States v. General Electric Co., 80 F. Supp. 989, 997-998 (S. D. N. Y. 1948).
The trial court held that the fact that Singer had a purpose, which “Gegauf well knew,” of enforcing the patent upon its acquisition, that the enforcement “would most certainly include Japanese manufacturers who were the principal infringers,” and “that Gegauf shared with Singer a common concern over Japanese competition” did not establish a conspiracy. 205 F. Supp., at 419. Given the court’s own findings and the clear import of the record, it is apparent that its conclusions were predicated upon “an erroneous interpretation of the standard to be applied....” Thus, “[b]ecause of the nature of the District Court’s error we are reviewing a question of law, namely, whether the District Court applied the proper standard to essentially undisputed facts.” United States v. Parke, Davis & Co., 362 U. S. 29, 44 (1960). There in a discussion of a like problem we held that “the inference of an agreement in violation of the Sherman Act” is not “merely limited to particular fact complexes,” ibid., citing United States v. Bausch & Lomb Optical Co., 321 U. S. 707 (1944), and Federal Trade Comm’n v. Beech-Nut Packing Co., 257 U. S. 441 (1922). “Both cases,” the Court continued, “teach that judicial inquiry is not to stop with a search of the record for evidence of purely contractual arrangements....” Ibid. Whether the conspiracy was achieved by agreement, by tacit understanding, or by “acquiescence... coupled with assistance in effectuating its purpose is immaterial.” United States v. Bausch & Lomb, supra, at 723. Here the patent was put in Singer’s hands to achieve the common purpose of enforcement “equally advantageous to both” Singer and Gegauf and to Vigorelli as well. What Singer had refused Vigorelli, i. e., acting “in concert against others,” was thus achieved by the simple expedient of transferring the patent to Singer.
Thus by entwining itself with Gegauf and Vigorelli in such a program Singer went far beyond its claimed purpose of merely protecting its own 401 machine — it was protecting Gegauf and Vigorelli, the sole licensees under the patent at the time, under the same umbrella. This the Sherman Act will not permit. As the Court held in Frey & Son, Inc., v. Cudahy Packing Co., 256 U. S. 208, 210 (1921), the conspiracy arises implicitly from the course of dealing of the parties, here resulting in Singer’s obligation to enforce the patent to the benefit of all three parties. While there was no contract so stipulating, the facts as found by the trial court indicate a common purpose to suppress the Japanese machine competition in the United States through the use of the patent, which was secured by Singer on the assurances to Gegauf and its colicensee, Vigorelli, that such would certainly be the result. See Federal Trade Comm’n v. Beech-Nut Packing Co., supra. Singer cannot, of course, contend that it sought the assignment of the patent merely to assure that it could produce and sell its machines, since the preceding cross-license agreement had assured that right. The fact that the enforcement plan likewise served Singer is of no consequence, the controlling factor being the overall common design, i. e., to destroy the Japanese sale of infringing machines in the United States by placing the patent in Singer’s hands the better to achieve this result. It is this concerted action to restrain trade, clearly established by the course of dealings, that condemns the transactions under the Sherman Act. As we said in United States v. Parke, Davis & Co., supra, at 44, “whether an unlawful combination or conspiracy is proved is to be judged by what the parties actually did rather than by the words they used.”
Moreover this overriding common design to exclude the Japanese machines in the United States is clearly illustrated by Singer’s action before the United States Tariff Commission. Less than eight months after the patent was issued it started this effort to bar infringers in one sweep. As an American corporation, it was the sole company of the three that was able to bring such an action. When it appeared that the references to Pfaff in the assignment agreement threatened the success of the Tariff Commission proceeding, Gegauf consented to the deletion of Pfaff from the agreement. This maneuver was for the purpose, as the trial court found, of giving Singer “ ‘a better chance of prevailing before' the Tariff Commission’ in its efforts to exclude” infringing machines. 205 F. Supp., at 427. While the tariff application was leveled against nine European- as well as the Japanese competitors, the allegations were clearly beamed at the infringing Japanese machines to which Singer attributed the destruction of all American domestic household sewing machine companies save itself. As the parties to the agreements and assignment well knew, and as the trial court itself stated, “[b]y far the largest number of infringers of the Gegauf patent and invention were the Japanese.” 205 F. Supp., at 418.
It is strongly urged upon us that application of the antitrust laws in this case will have a significantly deleterious effect on Singer’s position as the sole remaining domestic
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | H | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
OPINION OF THE COURT
[563 U.S. 113]
Justice Ginsburg
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Section 340B of the Public Health Services Act, 42 U.S.C. § 256b (2006 ed. and Supp. IV), imposes ceilings on prices drug manufacturers may charge for medications sold to specified health-care facilities. Those facilities, here called “340B” or “covered” entities, include public hospitals and community health centers, many of them providers of safety-net services to the poor. The § 340B ceiling-price program (340B Program) is superintended by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), a unit of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Drug manufacturers opt into the 340B Program by signing a form Pharmaceutical Pricing Agreement (PPA) used nationwide. PPAs are not transactional, bargained-for contracts. They are uniform agreements that recite the responsibilities § 340B imposes, respectively, on drug manufacturers and the Secretary of HHS. Manufacturers’ eligibility to participate in State Medicaid programs is conditioned on their entry into PPAs for covered drugs purchased by 340B entities.
It is conceded that Congress authorized no private right of action under § 340B for covered entities who claim they have been charged prices exceeding the statutory ceiling. This case presents the question whether 340B entities, though accorded no right to sue for overcharges under the statute itself, may nonetheless sue allegedly overcharging manufacturers as third-party beneficiaries of the PPAs to which the manufacturers subscribed. We hold that suits by 340B entities to enforce ceiling-price contracts running between drug manufacturers and the Secretary of HHS are incompatible with the statutory regime.
[563 U.S. 114]
Congress placed the Secretary (acting through her designate, HRSA) in control of § 340B’s drug-price prescriptions. That control could not be maintained were potentially thousands of covered entities permitted to bring suits alleging errors in manufacturers’ price calculations. If 340B entities may not sue under the statute, it would make scant sense to allow them to sue on a form contract implementing the statute, setting out terms identical to those contained in the statute. Though labeled differently, suits to enforce § 340B and suits to enforce PPAs are in substance one and the same. Their treatment, therefore, must be the same, “[n]o matter the clothing in which [340B entities] dress their claims.” Tenet v. Doe, 544 U.S. 1, 8, 125 S. Ct. 1230, 161 L. Ed. 2d 82 (2005).
I
A
The 340B Program is tied to the earlier-enacted, much larger Medicaid Drug Rebate Program. Adopted by Congress in 1990, the Medicaid Rebate Program covers a significant portion of drug purchases in the United States. See GAO, J. Dicken, Prescription Drugs: Oversight of Drug Pricing in Federal Programs 1 (GAO-0748IT, 2007) (testimony before the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, House of Representatives). To gain payment under Medicaid for covered drugs, a manufacturer must enter a standardized agreement with HHS; in the agreement, the manufacturer undertakes to provide rebates to States on their Medicaid drug purchases. 104 Stat. 1388-143, as amended, 124 Stat. 3290, 42 U.S.C. § 1396r-8(a). The amount of the rebates depends on the manufacturer’s “average”
[563 U.S. 115]
and “best” prices, as defined by legislation and regulation. § 1396r-8(c), (k).
Calculation of a manufacturer’s “average” and “best” prices, undertaken by the pharmaceutical company, is a complex enterprise requiring recourse to detailed information about the company’s sales and pricing. § 1396r-8(k); 42 CFR § 447.500-520 (2010). To enable HHS to calculate the rebate rate for each drug, manufacturers submit the relevant data to HHS on a quarterly basis. § 1396r-8(b)(3). With exceptions set out in the legislation, HHS is prohibited from disclosing the submitted information “in a form which discloses the identity of a specific manufacturer . . . [or] prices charged for drugs by such manufacturer.” § 1396r-8(b)(3)(D).
Under § 340B, added in 1992, 106 Stat. 4967, as amended, 124 Stat. 823, manufacturers participating in Medicaid must offer discounted drugs to covered entities, dominantly, local facilities that provide medical care for the poor. See § 256b(a); § 1396r-8(a)(1) (2006 ed.). The 340B Program, like the Medicaid Drug Rebate Program, employs a form contract as an opt-in mechanism. The 340B Program also draws on the larger scheme’s pricing methodology. In their 340B Program contracts with HHS, called Pharmaceutical Pricing Agreements (PPAs), see supra, at 113, 179 L. Ed. 2d, at 465, manufacturers agree to charge covered entities no more than predetermined ceiling prices, derived from the “average” and “best” prices and rebates calculated under the Medicaid Drug Rebate Program. § 256b(a)(l) (2006 ed., Supp. IV); see App. to Pet. for Cert. 165a-171a (PPA § I-ID.
If a manufacturer overcharges a covered entity, HRSA may require the manufacturer to reimburse the covered entity; HRSA may also terminate the manufacturer’s PPA,
[563 U.S. 116]
§ 1396r-8(b)(4)(B)(i), (v) (2006 ed.); App. to Pet. for Cert. 174a (PPA § IV(c)), which terminates as well the manufacturer’s eligibility for Medicaid coverage of its drugs, § 1396r-8(a)(l), (5). Currently, HRSA handles overcharge complaints through informal procedures. Manufacturer Audit Guidelines and Dispute Resolution Process, 61 Fed. Reg. 65412 (1996). The 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), Pub. L. 111-148, 124 Stat. 119, provides for more rigorous enforcement. The PPACA directs the Secretary to develop formal procedures for resolving overcharge claims. Id., at 826, 42 U.S.C. § 256b(d)(3)(A) (2006 ed., Supp. IV). Under those procedures, which are not yet in place, HRSA will reach an “administrative resolution” that is subject to judicial review under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U.S.C. § 701 et seq. See 124 Stat. 827, 42 U.S.C. § 256b(d)(3)(C). In addition to authorizing compensation awards to overcharged entities, the PPACA provides for the imposition of monetary penalties payable to the Government. Id., at 824-825, 42 U.S.C. § 256b(d)(l)(B)(ii), (vi).
B
Respondent Santa Clara County (County), operator of several 340B entities, commenced suit against As-tra and eight other pharmaceutical companies, alleging that the companies were overcharging 340B healthcare facilities in violation of the PPAs to which the companies subscribed. The County styled its suit a class action on behalf of both 340B entities in California and the counties that fund those entities. Asserting that the 340B entities and the counties that fund them are the intended beneficiaries of the PPAs, the County sought compensatory damages for the pharmaceutical companies’ breach of contract.
The District Court dismissed the complaint, concluding that the PPAs conferred no enforceable rights on 340B entities. Reversing the District Court’s judgment, the Ninth Circuit held that covered entities, although they have no
[563 U.S. 117]
right to sue under the statute, could maintain the action as third-party beneficiaries of the PPAs. 588 F.3d 1237, 1241 (2009).
We granted certiorari, 561 U.S. 1057, 131 S. Ct. 61, 177 L. Ed. 2d 1151 (2010), and now reverse the Ninth Circuit’s judgment.
II
As the County conceded below and before this Court, see 588 F.3d, at 1249; Tr. of Oral Arg. 45, covered entities have no right of action under § 340B itself. “[Recognition of any private right of action for violating a federal statute,” currently governing decisions instruct, “must ultimately rest on congressional intent to provide a private remedy.” Virginia Bankshares, Inc. v. Sandberg, 501 U.S. 1083, 1102, 111 S. Ct. 2749, 115 L. Ed. 2d 929 (1991). See also Stoneridge Investment Partners, LLC v. Scientific-Atlanta, Inc., 552 U.S. 148, 164, 128 S. Ct. 761, 169 L. Ed. 2d 627 (2008); Alexander v. Sandoval, 532 U.S. 275, 286, 121 S. Ct. 1511, 149 L. Ed. 2d 517 (2001). Congress vested authority to oversee compliance with the 340B Program in HHS and assigned no auxiliary enforcement role to covered entities.
Notwithstanding its inability to assert a statutory right of action, the County maintains that the PPAs implementing the 340B Program are agreements enforceable by covered entities as third-party beneficiaries. A nonparty becomes legally entitled to a benefit promised in a contract, the County recognizes, only if the contracting parties so intend. Brief for Respondent 31 (citing Restatement (Second) of Contracts § 302(l)(b) (1979)). The PPAs “specifically
[563 U.S. 118]
nam[e]” covered entities as the recipients of discounted drugs, the County observes; indeed the very object of the agreements is to ensure that those entities would be “charge [d] ... no more than the ceiling price.” Brief for Respondent 33. When the Government uses a contract to secure a benefit, the County urges, the intended recipient acquires a right to the benefit enforceable under federal common law. Id., at 30. But see 9 J. Murray, Corbin on Contracts § 45.6, p. 92 (rev. ed. 2007) ([10] “The distinction between an intention to benefit a third party and an intention that the third party should have the right to enforce that intention is emphasized where the promisee is a governmental entity.”).
The County’s argument overlooks that the PPAs simply incorporate statutory obligations and record the manufacturers’ agreement to abide by them. The form agreements, composed by HHS, contain no negotiable terms. Like the Medicaid Drug Rebate Program agreements, see supra, at 114-115, 179 L. Ed. 2d, at 466, the 340B Program agreements serve as the means by which drug manufacturers opt into the statutory scheme. A third-party suit to enforce an HHS-drug manufacturer agreement, therefore, is in essence a suit to enforce the statute itself. The absence of a private right to enforce the statutory ceiling-price obligations would be rendered meaningless if 340B entities could overcome that obstacle by suing to enforce the contract’s ceiling-price obligations instead. The statutory and contractual obligations, in short, are one and the same. See Grochowski v. Phoenix Construction, 318 F.3d 80, 86 (CA2 2003) ( when a government contract confirms a statutory obligation, “a third-party private contract action [to enforce that obligation] would be inconsistent with . . . the legislative scheme ... to the same extent as would a cause of action directly under the statute” (internal quotation marks omitted)).
Telling in this regard, the County based its suit on allegations that the manufacturers charged more than the § 340B ceiling price, see, e.g., Third Amended Complaint
[563 U.S. 119]
in No. 3:05-cv-03740 (ND Cal.), ¶¶1, 65, not that they violated any independent substantive obligation arising only from the PPAs. Repeatedly, the County acknowledged that § 340B is the source of the contractual term allegedly breached. See, e.g., id., ¶28 (“[Section] 340B requires pharmaceutical manufacturers to ensure that § 340B Participants pay no more than the ‘ceiling price’... for any pharmaceutical product.”); id., ¶36 (“Under both § 340B and the PPA, [drug manufacturers] are required to ensure that the § 340B Participants . . . pay no more for any product than the § 340B ceiling price.”).
The Ninth Circuit determined that “[p]ermitting covered entities to sue as intended beneficiaries of the PPA is . . . wholly compatible with the Section 340B program’s objectives” to ensure “that drug companies comply with their obligations under the program and provide [the required] discounts.” 588 F.3d, at 1251. Suits like the County’s, the Court of Appeals reasoned, would spread the enforcement burden instead of placing it “[entirely] on the government.” Ibid. (citing Price v. Pierce, 823 F.2d 1114, 1121 (CA7 1987)). But spreading the enforcement burden, the United States stressed, both in the Ninth Circuit and in this Court, is hardly what Congress contemplated when it “centralized enforcement in the government.” Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 32; see Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae in No. 09-15216 (CA9), p. 13 (County’s challenge is at
[563 U.S. 120]
odds with Congress’ unitary administrative and enforcement scheme).
Congress made HHS administrator of both the Medicaid Drug Rebate Program and the 340B Program, the United States observed, Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 33-34, and “[t]he interdependent nature of the two programs’ requirements means that an adjudication of rights under one program must proceed with an eye towards any implications for the other,” id., at 34. Far from assisting HHS, suits by 340B entities would undermine the agency’s efforts to administer both Medicaid and § 340B harmoniously and on a uniform, nationwide basis. Recognizing the County’s right to proceed in court could spawn a multitude of dispersed and uncoordinated lawsuits by 340B entities. With HHS unable to hold the control rein, the risk of conflicting adjudications would be substantial.
[563 U.S. 121]
As earlier noted, see supra, at 115, 179 L. Ed. 2d, at 465, the Medicaid Rebate Program’s statute prohibits HHS from disclosing pricing information in a form that could reveal the prices a manufacturer charges for drugs it produces. § 1396r-8(b)(3)(D). This ban on disclosure is a further indication of the incompatibility of private suits with the statute Congress enacted. If Congress meant to leave open the prospect of third-party beneficiary suits by 340B entities, it likely would not have barred the potential suitors from obtaining the very information necessary to determine whether their asserted rights have been violated.
It is true, as the Ninth Circuit observed, that HHS’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) has published reports finding that “HRSA lacks the oversight mechanisms and authority to ensure that [covered] entities pay at or below the . . . ceiling price.” 588 F.3d, at 1242 (quoting OIG, D. Levin-son, Deficiencies in the Oversight of the 340B Drug Pricing Program, p. ii (OE1-05-02-00072, Oct. 2005)). See also 588 F.3d, at 1242-1243 (citing OIG, D. Levinson, Review of 340B Prices 11 (OE1-05-02-00073, July 2006) (estimating that covered entities overpaid $3.9 million in June 2005 alone)). But Congress did not respond to the reports of inadequate HRSA enforcement by inviting 340B entities to launch lawsuits in district courts across the country. Instead, in the PPACA, Congress directed HRSA to create a formal dispute resolution procedure, institute refund and civil penalty systems, and perform audits of manufacturers. 124 Stat. 823-827, 42 U.S.C. § 256b(d). Congress thus opted to strengthen and
[563 U.S. 122]
formalize HRSA’s enforcement authority, to make the new adjudicative framework the proper remedy for covered entities complaining of “overcharges and other violations of the discounted pricing requirements,” id,, at 823, 42 U.S.C. § 256b(d)(l)(A), and to render the agency’s resolution of covered entities’ complaints binding, subject to judicial review under the APA, id,, at 827, 42 U.S.C. § 256b(d)(3)(C).
For the reasons stated, the judgment of the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is reversed.
Justice Kagan took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
. “In 2004, Medicaid . . . prescription drug spending reached $31 billion,’’ GAO, J. Dicken, Prescription Drugs: Oversight of Drug Pricing in Federal Programs 4 (GAO-07-48 IT, 2007) (testimony before the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, House of Representatives), while in 2003, 340B entities “spent an estimated $3.4 billion on drugs,’’ id., at 5.
. The 340B Program also covers over-the-counter medications for which there are no Medicaid rebates. 42 U.S.C. § 256b(a)(2)(B) (Oct. 2010 Supp.) (2006 ed. and Supp. IV). For such drugs, § 340B prescribes a substitute calculation method. § 256b(a)(2)(B)(i).
. U. S. Courts of Appeals have divided on the circumstances under which suits may be brought by alleged third-party beneficiaries of Government contracts. Compare 588 F.3d 1237, 1244 (CA9 2009) (case below) (“Any intended beneficiary has the right to enforce the obligor’s duty of performance . . . .’’), with Grochowski v. Phoenix Construction, 318 F.3d 80, 85-86 (CA2 2003) (“there is no presumption in favor of a right to bring suit’’ as third-party beneficiary of a government contract), and Dewakuku v. Martinez, 271 F.3d 1031, 1042 (CA Fed. 2001) (rejecting third-party suit).
. Whether a contracting agency may authorize third-party suits to enforce a Government contract is not at issue in this case. Cf. Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 22. We can infer no such authorization where a contract simply incorporates statutorily required terms and otherwise fails to demonstrate any intent to allow beneficiaries to enforce those terms. Permitting such a suit, it is evident, would “allo[w] third parties to circumvent Congress’s decision not to permit private enforcement of the statute.” Id., at 23-24; cf. Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae in No. 09-15216 (CA9), p. 21 (“In drafting and entering into [PPAs], HHS never imagined that a 340B entity could bring a third-party beneficiary lawsuit like [the County]’s.”).
. The County notes that in In re Pharmaceutical Industry Average Wholesale Price Litigation, 263 F. Supp. 2d 172 (Mass. 2003), the United States urged that the statute establishing the Medicaid Drug Rebate Program, § 1396r-8, does not preempt States from maintaining state-law fraud claims based on fraudulent reporting of “best prices” to HHS. Brief for Respondent 22-23. See Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae in No. 1:01-cv-12257 (D Mass.), pp. 6-9 (observing that States make their own payments to manufacturers and have long played a role in identifying and prosecuting Medicaid fraud). We take no position on this issue.
. Because the Ninth Circuit focused on the 340B Program in isolation, it failed to recognize that the interests of States under the Medicaid Drug Rebate Program and covered entities under the 340B Program may conflict. For example, “average” prices are used both to set the amount manufacturers must pay in Medicaid rebates and to establish § 340B ceiling prices. § 1396r-8(c); § 256b(a)(l). Typically, the lower the “average” price, the lower a product’s price to a 340B entity. Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae in No. 09-15216, p. 31. But the higher the “average” price, the more a State Medicaid agency typically receives in rebates from the manufacturers. Ibid. HHS can use its expertise to ascertain and balance the competing interests. Id., at 31-32. Courts as first-line decisionmakers are not similarly equipped to deal with the whole picture.
. HHS interprets this provision, the United States informs us, as prohibiting the agency from disclosing to covered entities the ceiling prices calculated based on information submitted by the manufacturers. Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 28.
. Going forward, the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Pub. L. 111-148, 124 Stat. 119, in conjunction with the new administrative adjudication process directed by the Act, will require HHS to give covered entities access to some of the information submitted by manufacturers. Id, at 826, 42 U.S.C. § 256b(d)(3)(B)(iii).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | I | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Chief Justice Warren
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question presented by this ease calls for interpretation of the Federal Bank Robbery Act. 18 U. S. C. § 2113. That statute creates and defines several crimes incidental to and related to thefts from banks organized or insured under federal laws. Included are bank robbery and entering a bank with intent to commit a robbery. We must decide here whether unlawful entry and robbery are two offenses consecutively punishable in a typical bank robbery situation.
Petitioner entered the Malone State Bank, in Malone, Texas, through an open door and during regular banking hours. He asked for and received certain directions. Thereupon he displayed a revolver, intimidating a bank employee and putting his life in jeopardy, and thus consummated a robbery. A grand jury returned a two-count indictment against him. The first charged the robbery offense; the second, entering the bank with the intent to commit a felony. Petitioner was convicted on both counts, and the district judge sentenced him to 20 years for robbery and 15 years for entering. The sentences were directed to be served consecutively. Some years thereafter, petitioner filed a “Motion to Vacate or Correct Illegal Sentence.” The District Court, treating it as a proceeding under Rule 35 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, denied relief without conducting a hearing. The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed. 230 F. 2d 568.
Whether the crime of entering a bank with intent to commit a robbery is merged with the crime of robbery when the latter is consummated has puzzled the courts for several years. A conflict has arisen between the circuits. We granted certiorari because of the recurrence of the question and to resolve the conflict. 351 U. S. 962. In addition to the Court of Appeals cases on the precise question, both petitioner and the Government cite as analogous other cases that involved fragmentation of crimes for purposes of punishment. None of these is particularly helpful to us because we are dealing with a unique statute of limited purpose and an inconclusive legislative history. It can and should be differentiated from similar problems in this general field raised under other statutes. The question of interpretation is a narrow one, and our decision should be correspondingly narrow.
The original Bank Robbery Act was passed in 1934. It covered only robbery, robbery accompanied by an aggravated assault, and homicide perpetrated in committing a robbery or escaping thereafter. In 1937 the Attorney General requested that the Act be amended. In his letter proposing the bill, the Attorney General declared that “incongruous results” had developed under the existing law. He cited- as a striking instance the case of
“. . . a man [who] was arrested in a national bank while walking out of the building with $11,000 of the bank’s funds on his person. He had managed to gain possession of the money during a momentary absence of one of the employees, without displaying any force or violence and without putting anyone in fear — necessary elements of the crime of robbery— and was about to leave the bank when apprehended. As a result, it was not practicable to prosecute him under any Federal statute.”
The Act was amended accordingly to add other crimes less serious than robbery. Two larceny provisions were enacted: one for thefts of property exceeding $50, the other for lesser amounts. Congress further made it a crime to
“. . . enter or attempt to enter any bank, . . . with intent to commit in such bank or building, or part thereof, so used, any felony or larceny . . . .”
Robbery, entering and larceny were all placed in one paragraph of the 1937 Act.
Congress provided for maximum penalties of either a prison term or a fine or both for each of these offenses. Robbery remained punishable by 20 years and $5,000. The larceny penalties were set according to the degree of the offense. Simple larceny could result in 1 year in jail and $1,000 fine, while the maximum for the more serious theft was set at 10 years and $5,000. No separate penalty clause was added for the crime of unlawfully entering. It was simply incorporated into the robbery provision.
The Government asks us to interpret this statute as amended to make each a completely independent offense. It is unnecessary to do so in order to vindicate the apparent purpose of the amendment. The only factor stressed by the Attorney General in his letter to Congress was the possibility that a thief might not commit all the elements of the crime of robbery. It was manifestly the purpose of Congress to establish lesser offenses. But in doing so there was no indication that Congress intended also to pyramid the penalties.
The Attorney General cited the situation of larceny to illustrate his position. It is highly unlikely that he would have wanted to have the offender given 10 years for the larceny plus 20 years for entering the bank with intent to steal. There is no reason to suppose that he wished to have the maximum penalty for robbery doubled by the imposition of 20 years for the robbery to which could be added 20 years for entering the bank. Nor is there anything in the reports of the House of Representatives or the Senate or the floor debates to warrant such a reading of the statute.
It is a fair inference from the wording in the Act, un-contradicted by anything in the meager legislative history, that the unlawful entry provision was inserted to cover the situation where a person enters a bank for the purpose of committing a crime, but is frustrated for some reason before completing the crime. The gravamen of the offense is not in the act of entering, which satisfies the terms of the statute even if it is simply walking through an open, public door during normal business hours. Rather the heart of the crime is the intent to steal. This mental element merges into the completed crime if the robbery is consummated. To go beyond this reasoning would compel us to find that Congress intended, by the 1937 amendment, to make drastic changes in authorized punishments. This we cannot do. If Congress had so intended, the result could have been accomplished easily with certainty rather than by indirection.
We hold, therefore, that when Congress made either robbery or an entry for that purpose a crime it intended that the maximum punishment for robbery should remain at 20 years, but that, even if the culprit should fall short of accomplishing his purpose, he could be imprisoned for 20 years for entering with the felonious intent.
While reasonable minds might differ on this conclusion, we think it is consistent with our policy of not attributing to Congress, in the enactment of criminal statutes, an intention to punish more severely than the language of its laws clearly imports in the light of pertinent legislative history.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed and the case is remanded to the District Court for the purpose of resentencing the petitioner in accordance with this opinion.
Reversed and remanded,
Mr. Justice Burton dissents for the reasons stated in the opinion of the Court of Appeals, 230 F. 2d 568.
Mr. Justice Black took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
“(a) Whoever, by force and violence, or by intimidation, takes, or attempts to take, from the person or presence of another any property or money or any other thing of value belonging to, or in the care, custody, control, management, or possession of, any bank, or any savings and loan association; or
“Whoever enters or attempts to enter any bank, or any savings and loan association, or any building used in whole or in part as a bank, or as a savings and loan association, with intent to commit in such bank, or in such savings and loan association, or building, or part thereof, so used, any felony affecting such bank or such savings and loan association and in violation of any statute of the United States, or any larceny—
“Shall be fined not more than $5,000 or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.
“(b) Whoever takes and carries away, with intent to steal or purloin, any property or money or any other thing of value exceeding $100 belonging to, or in the care, custody, control, management, or possession of any bank, or any savings and loan association, shall be fined not more than $5,000 or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; or
“Whoever takes and carries away, with intent to steal or purloin, any property or money or any other thing of value not exceeding $100 belonging to, or in the care, custody, control, management, or possession of any bank, or any savings and loan association, shall be fined not more than $1,000 or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.
"(d) Whoever, in committing, or in attempting to commit, any offense defined in subsections (a) and (b) of this section, assaults any person, or puts in jeopardy the life of any person by the use of a dangerous weapon or device, shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than twenty-five years, or both.”
As used in this opinion, “robbery” and “larceny” refer not to the common-law crimes, but rather to the analogous offenses in the Bank Robbery Act.
In accord with the decision of the Fifth Circuit is its own earlier ruling in Durrett v. United States, 107 F. 2d 438, and Rawls v. United States, 162 F. 2d 798, decided by the Tenth Circuit. Another decision of the Fifth Circuit affirmed consecutive sentences for robbery and entering with intent to commit robbery. Wells v. United States, 124 F. 2d 334. However, the prisoner, appearing pro se, had not raised a question of merger of these offenses in that proceeding. When he tried to do so later, the court held that he was barred ón the ground that he was making a second motion under 28 U. S. C. § 2255 for similar relief on behalf of the same prisoner. Wells v. United States, 210 F. 2d 112. Finally he sought remedy by writ of habeas corpus, but the Ninth Circuit concluded that the earlier § 2255 proceedings precluded jurisdiction. Madigan v. Wells, 224 F. 2d 577, reversing Wells v. Swope, 121 F. Supp. 718.
Contrary to the Fifth and Tenth Circuits are determinations of the Sixth Circuit in Simunov v. United States, 162 F. 2d 314, and a District Court in Wells v. Swope, supra. To the same effect are dicta in Ninth Circuit cases. Madigan v. Wells, supra, at 578; Barkdoll v. United States, 147 F. 2d 617.
United States v. Michener, 331 U. S. 789; United States v. Raynor, 302 U. S. 540; Blockburger v. United States, 284 U. S. 299; United States v. Adams, 281 U. S. 202; Albrecht v. United States, 273 U. S. 1; Morgan v. Devine, 237 U. S. 632; Gavieres v. United States, 220 U. S. 338; Burton v. United States, 202 U. S. 344; Carter v. McClaughry, 183 U. S. 365. See also Bell v. United States, 349 U. S. 81; United States v. Universal C. I. T. Credit Corp., 344 U. S. 218; Ebeling v. Morgan, 237 U. S. 625; United States v. Daugherty, 269 U. S. 360.
This appeared in 12 TJ. S. C. (1946 ed.) § 588b (a). The statute in its present form was enacted by the June 1948 revision. 18 U. S. C. §2113 (a). The legislative history indicates that no substantial change was made in this revision. It segregated the larceny provisions in §2113 (b), leaving robbery and unlawful entry in § 2113 (a). See note 1, supra.
The Bank Robbery Act has, since it was passed in 1934, contained a special provision for increased punishment for aggravated offenses. One who, in committing robbery, assaults any person or puts the life of any person in jeopardy by the use of a dangerous weapon can be sentenced to 25 years in jail or fined $10,000 or both. When the Act was amended in 1937 to add larceny and unlawful entry, these were incorporated in the same paragraph with robbery and thus made subject to the increased penalty under aggravating circumstances. This provision currently is found in 18 U. S. C. § 2113 (d). See note 1, supra.
Under the government view, if carried to its logical extreme, one who enters a bank and commits a robbery could be sentenced to 20 years for robbery, 10 years for larceny and 20 years for unlawful entry. The Government conceded that this was error in Heflin v. United States, 223 F. 2d 371 (robbery and larceny). However, it now declares that its confession of error was made by mistake and that larceny and robbery are separate offenses, cumulatively punishable.
H. R. Rep. No. 732, 75th Cong., 1st Sess.; S. Rep. No. 1259, 75th Cong., 1st Sess.; 81 Cong. Rec. 2731, 4656, 5376-5377, 9331.
This distinguishes the unlawful entry provision in the Bank Robbery Act from a very similar provision relating to post-office offenses.. 18 U. S. C. §2115:
“Whoever forcibly breaks into or attempts to break into any post office, or any building used in whole or in part as a post office, with intent to commit in such post office, or building, or part thereof, so used, any larceny or other depredation, shall be fined . . . .”
(Italics supplied.)
This section was held to create an offense separate from a completed post-office theft. Morgan v. Devine, 237 U. S. 632.
Further evidence that Congress was concerned only with proscribing additional activities and not with alteration of the scheme of penalties is revealed by the form in which the bill was cast. Introduced in the House of Representatives, the proposal merely interjected into the robbery provision clauses making larceny and entering criminal. H. R. 5900, 75th Cong., 1st Sess.; H. R. Rep. No. 732, 75th Cong., 1st Sess. 2. All three would have made violators subject to the existing penalty clause. During the debate on the floor, Rep. Wolcott pointed to the incongruity of establishing degrees of larceny without corresponding discrimination in punishment. 81 Cong. Rec. 4656. The Committee on the Judiciary then amended the bill to provide for punishments related to the larceny offenses. 81 Cong. Rec. 5376-5377. The Senate accepted the House version without debate. 81 Cong. Rec. 9331; see S. Rep. No. 1259, 75th Cong., 1st Sess.
In this case, petitioner was convicted of robbery aggravated by assault with a deadly weapon and was subject to the maximum of 25 years provided in 18 U. S. C. § 2113 (d). See note 6, supra.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Burton
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The issue before us is whether a state court, in 1952, had jurisdiction to entertain an action by an employee, who worked in an industry affecting interstate commerce, against a union and its agent, for malicious interference with such employee’s lawful occupation. In United Workers v. Laburnum Corp., 347 U. S. 656, 657, we held that Congress had not “given the National Labor Relations Board such exclusive jurisdiction over the subject matter of a common-law tort action for damages as to preclude an appropriate state court from hearing and determining its issues where such conduct constitutes an unfair labor practice” under the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947, or the National Labor Relations Act, as amended. For the reasons hereafter stated, we uphold the jurisdiction of the state courts in this case as we did in the Laburnum case.
This action was instituted in the Circuit Court of Morgan County, Alabama, in 1952, by Paul S. Russell, the respondent, against the petitioners, International Union, United Automobile, Aircraft and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, CIO, an unincorporated labor organization, here called the union, and its agent, Volk, together with other parties not now in the case. Russell was a maintenance electrician employed by Calumet and Hecla Consolidated Copper Company (Wolverine Tube Division) in Decatur, Alabama, at $1.75 an hour and earned approximately $100 a week. The union was the bargaining agent for certain employees of that Division but Russell was not a member of the union nor had he applied for such membership.
The allegations of his amended complaint may be summarized as follows: The union, on behalf of the employees it represented, called a strike to commence July 18, 1951. To prevent Russell and other hourly paid employees from entering the plant during the strike, and to thus make the strike effective, petitioners maintained a picket line from July 18 to September 24, 1951. This line was located along and in the public street which was the only means of ingress and egress to the plant. The line consisted of persons standing along the street or walking in a compact circle across the entire traveled portion of the street. Such pickets, on July 18, by force of numbers, threats of bodily harm to Russell and of damage to his property, prevented him from reaching the plant gates. At least one striker took hold of Russell’s automobile. Some of the pickets stood or walked in front of his automobile in such a manner as to block the street and make it impossible for him, and others similarly situated, to enter the plant. The amended complaint also contained a second count to the same general effect but alleging that petitioners unlawfully conspired with other persons to do the acts above described.
The amended complaint further alleged that petitioners willfully and maliciously caused Russell to lose time from his work from July 18 to August 22, 1951, and to lose the earnings which he would have received had he and others not been prevented from going to and from the plant. Russell, accordingly, claimed compensatory damages for his loss of earnings and for his mental anguish, plus punitive damages, in the total sum of $50,000.
Petitioners filed a plea to the jurisdiction. They claimed that the National Labor Relations Board had jurisdiction of the controversy to the exclusion of the state court. The trial court overruled Russell’s demurrer to the plea. However, the Supreme Court of Alabama reversed the trial court and upheld the jurisdiction of that court, even though the amended complaint charged a violation of §8 (b)(1)(A) of the Federal Act. 258 Ala. 615, 64 So. 2d 384.
On remand, petitioners’ plea to the jurisdiction was again filed but this time Russell’s demurrer to it was sustained. The case went to trial before a jury and resulted in a general verdict and a judgment for Russell in the amount of $10,000, including punitive damages. On appeal, the Supreme Court of Alabama reaffirmed the Circuit Court’s jurisdiction. It also affirmed the judgment for Russell on the merits, holding that Russell had proved the tort of wrongful interference with a lawful occupation. 264 Ala. 456, 88 So. 2d 175. Because of the importance of the jurisdictional issue, we granted certio-rari. 352 U. S. 915.
There was much conflict in the testimony as to what took place in connection with the picketing but those conflicts were resolved by the jury in favor of Russell. Accepting a view of the evidence most favorable to him, the jury was entitled to conclude that petitioners did, by mass picketing and threats of violence, prevent him from entering the plant and from engaging in his employment from July 18 to August 22. The jury could have found that work would have been available within the plant if Russell, and others desiring entry, had not been excluded by the force, or threats of force, of the strikers. This leaves no significant issue of fact for decision here. The principal issue of law is whether the state court had jurisdiction to entertain Russell’s amended complaint or whether that jurisdiction had been pre-empted by Congress and vested exclusively in the National Labor Relations Board.
At the outset, we note that the union’s activity in this case clearly was not protected by federal law. Indeed the strike was conducted in such a manner that it could have been enjoined by Alabama courts. Youngdahl v. Rainfair, Inc., 355 U. S. 131; Auto Workers v. Wisconsin Board, 351 U. S. 266.
In the Laburnum ease, supra, the union, with intimidation and threats of violence, demanded recognition to which it was not entitled. In that manner, the union prevented the employer from using its regular employees and forced it to abandon a construction contract with a consequent loss of profits. The employer filed a tort action in a Virginia court and received a judgment for about $30,000 compensatory damages, plus $100,000 punitive damages. On petition for certiorari, we upheld the state court's jurisdiction and affirmed its judgment. We assumed that the conduct of the union constituted a violation of §8 (b)(1)(A) of the Federal Act. Nevertheless, we held that the Federal Act did not expressly or impliedly deprive the employer of its common-law right of action in tort for damages.
This case is similar to Laburnum in many respects. In each, a state court awarded compensatory and punitive damages against a union for conduct which was a tort and also assumed to be an unfair labor practice. The situations are comparable except that, in the instant case, the Board is authorized, under § 10 (c) of the Federal Act, to award back pay to employees under certain circumstances. We assume, for the purpose of argument, that the Board would have had authority to award back pay to Russell. Petitioners assert that the possibility of partial relief distinguishes the instant case from Laburnum. It is our view that Congress has not made such a distinction and that it has not, in either case, deprived a victim of the kind of conduct here involved of common-law rights of action for all damages suffered.
Section 10 (c) of the Federal Act, upon which petitioners must rely, gives limited authority to the Board to award back pay to employees. The material provisions are the following:
“If upon the preponderance of the testimony taken the Board shall be of the opinion that any person named in the complaint has engaged in or is engaging in any such unfair labor practice, then the Board shall state its findings of fact and shall issue and cause to be served on such person an order requiring such person to cease and desist from such unfair labor practice, and to take such affirmative action including reinstatement of employees with or without back pay, as will effectuate the policies of this Act: Provided, That where an order directs reinstatement of an employee, back pay may be required of the employer or labor organization, as the case may be, responsible for the discrimination suffered by him . . . .” 61 Stat. 147, 29 U. S. C. § 160 (c).
If an award of damages by a state court for conduct such as is involved in the present case is not otherwise prohibited by the Federal Acts, it certainly is not prohibited by the provisions of § 10 (c). This section is far from being an express grant of exclusive jurisdiction superseding common-law actions, by either an employer or an employee, to recover damages caused by the tortious conduct of a union. To make an award, the Board must first be convinced that the award would “effectuate the policies” of the Act. “The remedy of back pay, it must be remembered, is entrusted to the Board’s discretion; it is not mechanically compelled by the Act.” Phelps Dodge Corp. v. Labor Board, 313 U. S. 177, 198. The power to order affirmative relief under § 10 (c) is merely incidental to the primary purpose of Congress to stop and to prevent unfair labor practices. Congress did not establish a general scheme authorizing the Board to award full compensatory damages for injuries caused by wrongful conduct. United Workers v. Laburnum Corp., 347 U. S. 656, 666-667. In Virginia Electric Co. v. Labor Board, 319 U. S. 533, 543, in speaking of the Board’s power to grant affirmative relief, we said:
“The instant reimbursement order [which directs reimbursement by an employer of dues checked off for a dominated union] is not a redress for a private wrong. Like a back pay order, it does restore to the employees in some measure what was taken from them because of the Company’s unfair labor practices. In this, both these types of monetary awards somewhat resemble-compensation for private injury, but it must be constantly remembered that both are remedies created by statute — the one explicitly and the other implicitly in the concept of effectuation of the policies of the Act — which are designed to aid in achieving the elimination of industrial conflict. They vindicate public, not private, rights. Cf. Agwilines, Inc. v. Labor Board, 87 F. 2d 146, 150-51; Phelps Dodge Corp. v. Labor Board, 313 U. S. 177. For this reason it is erroneous to characterize this reimbursement order as penal or as the adjudication of a mass tort. It is equally wrong to fetter the Board’s discretion by compelling it to observe conventional common law or chancery principles in fashioning such an order, or to force it to inquire into the amount of damages actually sustained. Whether and to what extent such matters should be considered is a complex problem for the Board to decide in the light of its administrative experience and knowledge.”
In Laburnum, in distinguishing Garner v. Teamsters Union, 346 U. S. 485, we said:
“To the extent that Congress prescribed preventive procedure against unfair labor practices, that case recognized that the Act excluded conflicting state procedure to the same end. To the extent, however, that Congress has not prescribed procedure for dealing with the consequences of tortious conduct already-committed, there is no ground for concluding that existing criminal penalties or liabilities for tortious conduct have been eliminated. The care we took in the Garner case to demonstrate the existing conflict between state and federal administrative remedies in that case was, itself, a recognition that if no conflict had existed, the state procedure would have survived.” 347 U. S., at 665.
In this case there is a possibility that both the Board and the state courts have jurisdiction to award lost pay. However, that possibility does not create the kind of “conflict” of remedies referred to in Laburnum. Our cases which hold that state jurisdiction is pre-empted are distinguishable. In them we have been concerned lest one forum would enjoin, as illegal, conduct which the other forum would find legal, or that the state courts would restrict the exercise of rights guaranteed by the Federal Acts.
In the instant case, there would be no “conflict” even if one forum awarded back pay and the other did not. There is nothing inconsistent in holding that an employee may recover lost wages as damages in a tort action under state law, and also holding that the award of such damages is not necessary to effectuate the purposes of the Federal Act.
In order to effectuate the policies of the Act, Congress has allowed the Board, in its discretion, to award back pay. Such awards may incidentally provide some compensatory relief to victims of unfair labor practices. This does not mean that Congress necessarily intended this discretionary relief to constitute an exclusive pattern of money damages for private injuries. Nor do we think that the Alabama tort remedy, as applied in this case, altered rights and duties affirmatively established by Congress.
To the extent that a back-pay award may provide relief for victims of an unfair labor practice, it is a partial alternative to a suit in the state courts for loss of earnings. If the employee’s common-law rights of action against a union tortfeasor are to be cut off, that would in effect grant to unions a substantial immunity from the consequences of mass picketing or coercion such as was employed during the strike in the present case.
The situation may be illustrated by supposing, in the instant case, that Russell’s car had been turned over resulting in damage to the car and personal injury to him. Under state law presumably he could have recovered for medical expenses, pain and suffering and property damages. Such items of recovery are beyond the scope of present Board remedial orders. Following the reasoning adopted by us in the Laburnum case, we believe that state jurisdiction to award damages for these items is not pre-empted. Cf. International Assn, of Machinists v. Gonzales, ante, p. 617, decided this day. Nor can we see any difference, significant for present purposes, between tort damages to recover medical expenses and tort damages to recover lost wages. We conclude that an employee’s right to recover, in the state courts, all damages caused him by this kind of tortious conduct cannot fairly be said to be pre-empted without a clearer declaration of congressional policy than we find here. Of course, Russell could not collect duplicate compensation for lost pay from the state courts and the Board.
Punitive damages constitute a well-settled form of relief under the law of Alabama when there is a willful and malicious wrong. Penney v. Warren, 217 Ala. 120, 115 So. 16. To the extent that such relief is penal in its nature, it is all the more clearly not granted to the Board by the Federal Acts. Republic Steel Corp. v. Labor Board, 311 U. S. 7, 10-12. The power to impose punitive sanctions is within the jurisdiction of the state courts but not within that of the Board. In Laburnum we approved a judgment that included $100,000 in punitive damages. For the exercise of the police power of a State over such a case as this, see also, Youngdahl v. Rainfair, Inc., 355 U. S. 131; Auto Workers v. Wisconsin Board, 351 U. S. 266, 274, n. 12.
Accordingly, the judgment of the Supreme Court of Alabama is
Affirmed.
Mr. Justice Black took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
61 Stat. 136, 29 U. S. C. § 141.
We assume, for the purposes of this case, that the union’s conduct did violate §8 (b)(1)(A) which provides:
“(b) It shall be an unfair labor practice for a labor organization or its agents—
“(1) to restrain or coerce (A) employees in the exercise of the rights guaranteed in section 7: Provided, That this paragraph shall not impair the right of a labor organization to prescribe its own rules with respect to the acquisition or retention of membership therein . . . 61 Stat. 141, 29 U. S. C. § 168 (b)(1)(A).
Among the instructions given to the jury were the following requested by petitioners:
“5. I charge you that unless you are reasonably satisfied from the evidence in this case that the proximate cause of [respondent’s] inability to work at the Decatur plant of Calumet and Hecla Consolidated Copper Company (Wolverine Tube Division) during the period from July 18, 1951 to August 22, 1951, was that a picket line was conducted by the [petitioners] in a manner which by force and violence, or threats of force and violence prevented [respondent] from entering the plant, and unless you are also reasonably satisfied from the evidence that work would have been available to [respondent] in the plant during said period, except for picketing in such manner, you should not return a verdict for the [respondent].
“6. I charge you that unless you are reasonably satisfied from the evidence that the acts complained of by [respondent] occurred, and that the [respondent] suffered a loss of wages as the natural and proximate result of said acts, you should return your verdict for the [petitioners].”
In its main charge to the jury, the trial court included the following statement:
“If, in this case, after considering all the evidence and under the instructions I have given you, you are reasonably satisfied that at the time complained of and in doing the acts charged, the [petitioners] . . . actuated by malice and actuated by ill-will, committed the unlawful and wrongful acts alleged, you, in addition to the actual damages, if any, may give damages for the sake of example and by way of punishing the [petitioners] or for the purpose of making the [petitioners] smart, not exceeding in all the amount claimed in the complaint.
“In order to authorize the fixing of such damages, you must be reasonably satisfied from the evidence that there was present willfulness or wantonness and a reckless disregard of the rights of the other person.”
On the evidence before it, the jury was entitled to find that about 400 of the employees who had attended union meetings on July 17 were in front of the plant gates at 8 o’clock the following morning. A crowd of between 1,500 and 2,000 people, including the above 400, was near the plant gates when the first shift was due to report for work at 8 a. m. Between 700 and 800 automobiles were parked along the street which led to and ended at the plant. A picket line of 25 to 30 strikers, carrying signs and walking about three feet apart, moved in a circle extending completely across the street. Adjacent to the street at that point, there was a group of about 150 people, some of whom changed places with those in the circle. On the other side of the street, there was another group of about 50 people. Many members of the first shift came, bringing their lunches, in expectation of working that day as usual. Russell was one of these and he tried to reach the plant gates. Because of the crowd, he proceeded slowly to within 20 or 30 feet of the picket line. There he felt a drag on his car and stopped. While thus stopped, the regional director of the union came to him and said, “If you are salaried, you can go on in. If you are hourly, this is as far as you can go.” Russell nevertheless edged toward the entrance until someone near the picket line called out, “He’s going to try to go through.” Another yelled, “Looks like we’re going to have to turn him over to get rid of him,” and several yelled, “Turn him over.” No one actually attempted to turn over Russell’s car but the picket line effectively blocked his further progress. He remained there for more than an hour and a half. From time to time, he tried to ease his car forward but, when he did so, the pickets would stop walking and turn their signs toward his car, some of them touching the car. When he became convinced that he could not get through the picket line without running over somebody or getting turned over, he went home. The plant’s offices were open and salaried employees worked there throughout the strike. Russell and other hourly employees necessary to operate the plant were prevented from reaching the company gates in the manner described. During the next five weeks he kept in touch with the unchanged situation at the plant entrance, and set about securing signatures to a petition of enough employees, who wished to resume work, to operate the plant. After obtaining over 200 signatures, the petition was presented to the company on or about August 18. On August 20, the company advertised in a local newspaper that on August 22 the plant would resume operations. All employees were requested to report to work at 8 a. m. on August 22. At that time, about 70 state highway patrol officers and 20 local police officers were at the gates and convoyed into the plant about 230 hourly paid employees reporting for work. Russell was among them and he was immediately put to work. Thereafter, he had no difficulty in entering the plant.
There also was evidence that on August 20 the company sought to run its switch engine out of the yard to bring in cars containing copper ingots. The engine, however, was met by strikers — some of whom stood in its path. One pulled out the engine’s ignition key and threw it away. Others in the crowd cut the engine’s fan belts, air hoses and spark plug wires, removed the distributor head and disabled the.brakes. The engine was then rolled back into the plant yard by the crew without its mission having been accomplished. There is no evidence that Russell was present on this occasion.
The Board has held that it can award back pay where a union has wrongfully caused a termination in the employee status, but not in a case such as this when a union merely interferes with access to work by one who remains at all times an employee. In re United Furniture Workers of America, CIO, 84 N. L. R. B. 563, 565. That view was acknowledged in Progressive Mine Workers v. Labor Board, 187 F. 2d 298, 306-307, and has been adhered to by the Board in subsequent eases.. E. g., Local 983, 115 N. L. R. B. 1123. Petitioners contend that the Board's above interpretation of its own power conflicts with the rationale of Phelps Dodge Corp. v. Labor Board, 313 U. S. 177, and Virginia Electric Co. v. Labor Board, 319 U. S. 533. See also, In re United Mine Workers, 92 N. L. R. B. 916, 920 (dissenting opinion); United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers, 95 N. L. R. B. 391, 392, n. 3. As the decision of this question is not essential in the instant ease, we do not pass upon it.
See, e. g., San Diego Council v. Garmon, 353 U. S. 26 (involving state injunction of peaceful picketing); Amalgamated Meat Cutters v. Fairlawn Meats, Inc., 353 U. S. 20, 23 (same); United Mine Workers v. Arkansas Oak Flooring Co., 351 U. S. 62, 75 (same); Garner v. Teamsters Union, 346 U. S. 485, 498-500 (same); Weber v. Anheuser-Busch, Inc., 348 U. S. 468, 475-476, 479-481 (involving state injunction of a strike and peaceful picketing); Bus Employees v. Wisconsin Board, 340 U. S. 383, 394-395, 398-399 (involving state statute restricting right to strike of, and compelling arbitration by, public utility employees); Automobile Workers v. O’Brien, 339 U. S. 454, 456-459 (involving state statute restricting right to strike by requiring, as a condition precedent, a strike vote resulting in an affirmative majority); La Crosse Telephone Corp. v. Wisconsin Board, 336 U. S. 18, 24-26 (involving state certification of the appropriate unit for collective bargaining); Bethlehem Steel Co. v. New York Board, 330 U. S. 767, 773-776 (same); Hill v. Florida ex rel. Watson, 325 U. S. 538, 541-543 (involving state statute restricting eligibility to be a labor representative).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | J | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
CHIEF Justice Rehnquist
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case calls on us to decide whether the Eighth Amendment requires that a capital jury be instructed on the concept of mitigating evidence generally, or on particular statutory mitigating factors. We hold it does not.
On the afternoon of September 15, 1987, Douglas Buchanan murdered his father, stepmother, and two younger brothers. Buchanan was convicted of the capital murder of more than one person as part of the same act or transaction by a jury in the Circuit Court of Amherst County, Virginia. See Va. Code Ann. § 18.2-31(7) (1996). A separate sentencing hearing was held, in which the prosecutor sought the death penalty on the basis of Virginia’s aggravating factor that the crime was vile. See Va. Code Ann. § 19.2-264.3 (1995).
In his opening statement in this proceeding, the prosecutor told the jury that he would be asking for the death penalty based on vileness. He conceded that Buchanan had had a troubled childhood and informed the jury that it would have to balance the things in petitioner’s favor against the crimes he had committed. App. 25-27. Defense counsel outlined the mitigating evidence he would present and told the jury that he was asking that petitioner not-be executed based on that evidence. Id., at 29. . For two days, the jury heard evidence from seven defense witnesses and eight prosecution witnesses. Buchanan’s witnesses recounted his mother’s early death from breast cancer, his father’s subsequent remarriage, and his parents’ attempts to prevent him from seeing his maternal relatives. A psychiatrist also testified that Buchanan was under extreme emotional disturbance at the time of the crime, based largely on stress caused by the manner in which the family had dealt with and reacted to his mother’s death. Two mental health experts testified for the prosecution. They agreed generally with the factual events of petitioner’s life but not with their effect on his commission of the crimes.
In closing argument, the prosecutor told the jury that “even if you find that there was that vileness ... you do not have to return the death sentence. I will not suggest that to you.” Id., at 43. While admitting the existence of mitigating evidence, and agreeing that the jury had to weigh that evidence against petitioner’s conduct, the prosecutor argued that the circumstances warranted the death penalty. Id., at 48-44, 57-58. Defense counsel also explained the concept of mitigation and noted that “practically any factor can be considered in mitigation.” He discussed at length petitioner’s lack of prior criminal activity, his extreme mental or emotional disturbance at the time of the offense, his significantly impaired capacity to appreciate the criminality of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the law’s requirements, and his youth. Counsel argued that these four mitigating factors, recognized in the Virginia Code, mitigated Buchanan’s offense. Id., at 59-61, 64-66.
The Commonwealth and Buchanan agreed that the court should instruct the jury with Virginia’s pattern capital sentencing instruction. That instruction told the jury that before it could fix the penalty at death, the Commonwealth first must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the conduct was vile. The instruction next stated that if the jury found that condition met, “then you may fix the punishment of the Defendant at death or if you believe from all the evidence that the death penalty is not justified, then you shall fix the punishment of the Defendant at life imprisonment.” Id., at 73. The instruction then stated that if the jury did not find the condition met, the jury must impose a life sentence. This instruction was given without objection. Id., at 39.
Buchanan requested several additional jury instructions. He proposed four instructions on particular mitigating factors — no significant history of prior criminal activity; extreme mental or emotional disturbance; significantly impaired capacity to appreciate the criminality of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the law’s requirements; and his age. These four factors are listed as facts in mitigation of the offense in the Virginia Code. Each of Buchanan’s proposed instructions stated that if the jury found the factor to exist, “then that is a fact which mitigates against imposing the death penalty, and you shall consider that fact in deciding whether to impose a sentence of death or life imprisonment.” Id., at 75-76. Buchanan also proposed an instruction stating that, “[ijn addition to the mitigating factors specified in other instructions, you shall consider the circumstances surrounding the offense, the history and background of [Buchanan,] and any other facts in mitigation of the offense.” Id., at 74. The court refused to give these instructions, relying on Virginia ease law holding that it was not proper to give instructions singling out certain mitigating factors to the sentencing jury. Id., at 39-40.
The jury was instructed that once it reached a decision on its two options, imposing a life sentence or imposing the death penalty, the foreman should sign the corresponding verdict form. The death penalty verdict form stated that the jury had unanimously, found petitioner’s conduct to be vile and that “having considered the evidence in mitigation of the offense,” it unanimously fixed his punishment at death. Id., at 77. When the jury returned with a verdict for the death penalty, the court read the verdict form and polled each juror on his agreement with the verdict.
The court, after a statutorily mandated sentencing hearing, see Va. Code Ann. § 19.2-264.5 (1995), subsequently imposed the sentence fixed by the jury. On direct appeal, the Virginia Supreme Court reviewed Buchanan’s sentence for proportionality, see Va. Code Ann. §§ 17.110.1-17.110.2 (1996), and affirmed his conviction and death sentence. Buchanan v. Commonwealth, 238 Va. 389, 384 S. E. 2d 757 (1989), cert. denied sub nom. Buchanan v. Virginia, 493 U. S. 1063 (1990).
Petitioner then sought federal habeas relief. The District Court denied the petition. The Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed. 103 F. 3d 344 (1996). That court recognized that the Eighth Amendment requires that a capital sentencing jury’s discretion be “ ‘guided and channeled by requiring examination of specific, factors that argue in favor of or against imposition of the death penalty”’ in order to eliminate arbitrariness and caprieiousness. Id., at 347 (quoting Proffitt v. Florida, 428 U. S. 242, 258 (1976)). However, relying on our decision in Zant v. Stephens, 462 U. S. 862, 890 (1983), and on its own precedent, the court concluded that the Eighth Amendment does not require States to adopt specific standards for instructing juries on mitigating circumstances. 103 F. 3d, at 347. It therefore held that by allowing the jury to consider all relevant mitigating evidence, Virginia’s sentencing procedure satisfied the Eighth Amendment requirement of individualized sentencing in capital cases. Id., at 347-348. We granted certiorari, 520 U. S. 1196 (1997), and now affirm.
Petitioner contends that the trial court violated his Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment rights to be free from arbitrary and capricious imposition of the death penalty when it failed to provide the jury with express guidance on the concept of mitigation, and to instruct the jury on particular statutorily defined mitigating factors. This lack of guidance, it is argued, renders his sentence constitutionally unacceptable.
Petitioner initially recognizes, as he must, that our cases have distinguished between two different aspects of the capital sentencing process, the eligibility phase and the selection phase. Tuilaepa v. California, 512 U. S. 967, 971 (1994). In the eligibility phase, the jury narrows the class of defendants eligible for the death penalty, often through consideration of aggravating circumstances. Ibid. In the selection phase, the jury determines whether to impose a death sentence on an eligible defendant. Id., at 972. Petitioner concedes that it is only the selection phase that is at stake in his case. He argues, however, that our decisions indicate that the jury at the selection phase must both have discretion to make an individualized determination and have that discretion limited and channeled. See, e. g., Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U. S. 153, 206-207 (1976). He further argues that the Eighth Amendment therefore requires the court to instruct the jury on its obligation and authority to consider mitigating evidence, and on particular mitigating factors deemed relevant by the State.
No such rule has ever been adopted by this Court. While petitioner appropriately recognizes the distinction between the eligibility and selection phases, he fails to distinguish the differing constitutional treatment we have accorded those two aspects of capital sentencing. It is in regard to the eligibility phase that we have stressed the need for channeling and limiting the jury’s discretion to ensure that the death penalty is a proportionate punishment and therefore not arbitrary or capricious in its imposition. In contrast, in the selection phase, we have emphasized the need for a broad inquiry into all relevant mitigating evidence to allow an individualized determination. Tuilaepa, supra, at 971-973; Romano v. Oklahoma, 512 U. S. 1, 6-7 (1994); McCleskey v. Kemp, 481 U. S. 279, 304-306 (1987); Stephens, supra, at 878-879.
In the selection phase, our cases have established that the sentencer may not be precluded from considering, and may not refuse to consider, any constitutionally relevant mitigating evidence. Penry v. Lynaugh, 492 U. S. 302, 317-318 (1989); Eddings v. Oklahoma, 455 U. S. 104, 113-114 (1982); Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U. S. 586, 604 (1978). However, the state may shape and structure the jury’s consideration of mitigation so long as it does not preclude the jury from giving effect to any relevant mitigating evidence. Johnson v. Texas, 509 U. S. 350, 362 (1993); Penry, supra, at 326; Franklin v. Lynaugh, 487 U. S. 164, 181 (1988). Our consistent concern has been that restrictions on the jury’s sentencing determination not preclude the jury from being able to give effect to mitigating evidence. Thus, in Boyde v. California, 494 U. S. 370 (1990), we held that the standard for determining whether jury instructions satisfy these principles was “whether there is a reasonable likelihood that the jury has applied the challenged instruction in a way that prevents the consideration of constitutionally relevant evidence.” Id., at 380; see also Johnson, supra, at 367-368.
But we have never gone further and held that the, state must affirmatively structure in a particular way the manner in which juries consider mitigating evidence. And indeed, our decisions suggest that complete jury discretion is constitutionally permissible. See Tuilaepa, supra, at 978-979 (noting that at the selection phase, the state is not confined to submitting specific propositional questions to the jury and may indeed allow the jury unbridled discretion); Stephens, supra, at 875 (rejecting the argument that a scheme permitting the jury to exercise “unbridled discretion” in determining whether to impose the death penalty after it has found the defendant eligible is unconstitutional, and noting that accepting that argument would require the Court to overrule Gregg, supra).
The jury instruction here did not violate these constitutional principles. The instruction did not foreclose the jury’s consideration of any mitigating evidence. By directing the jury to base its decision on “all the evidence,” the instruction afforded jurors an opportunity to consider mitigating evidence. The instruction informed the jurors that if they found the aggravating factor proved beyond a reasonable doubt then they “may fix” the penalty at death, but directed that if they believed that all the evidence justified a lesser sentence then they “shall” impose a life sentence. The jury was thus allowed to impose a life sentence even if it found the aggravating factor proved. Moreover, in contrast to the Texas special issues scheme in question in Penry, supra, at 326, the instructions here did not constrain the manner in which the jury was able to give effect to mitigation.
Even were we to entertain some doubt as to the clarity of the instructions, the entire context in which the instructions were given expressly informed the jury that it could consider mitigating evidence. In Boyde, we considered the validity of an instruction listing 11 factors that the jury was to consider in determining punishment, including a catchall factor allowing consideration of “ £[a]ny other circumstance which extenuates the gravity of the crime.’ ” 494 U. S., at 373-374. We expressly noted that even were the instruction at all unclear, “the context of the proceedings would have led reasonable jurors to believe that evidence of petitioner’s background and character could be considered in mitigation.” Id., at 383. We found it unlikely that reasonable jurors would believe that the court’s instructions transformed four days of defense testimony on the defendant’s background and character “‘into a virtual charade.’ ” Ibid, (quoting California v. Brown, 479 U. S. 538, 542 (1987)).
Similarly, here, there were two days of testimony relating to petitioner’s family background and mental and emotional problems. It is not likely that the jury would disregard this extensive testimony in making its decision, particularly given the instruction to consider “all the evidence.” Further buttressing this conclusion are the extensive arguments of both defense counsel and the prosecutor on the mitigating evidence and the effect it should be given in the sentencing determination. The parties in effect agreed that there was substantial mitigating evidence and that the jury had to weigh that evidence against petitioner’s conduct in making a discretionary decision on the appropriate penalty. In this context, “there is not a reasonable likelihood that the jurors in petitioner’s ease understood the challenged instructions to preclude consideration of relevant mitigating evidence offered by petitioner.” Boyde, supra, at 386; see also Johnson, 509 U. S., at 367.
The absence of an instruction on the concept of mitigation and of instructions on particular statutorily defined mitigating factors did not violate the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Affirmed.
The complete instruction is as follows:
“You have convicted the defendant of an offense which may be punishable by death. You must decide whether the defendant should be sentenced to death or to life imprisonment.
“Before the penalty can be fixed at death, the Commonwealth must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that his conduct in committing the murders of [his family] was outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible or inhuman, in that it involved torture, depravity of mind or aggravated battery to the above four victims, or to any one of them.
“If you find from the evidence that the Commonwealth has proved beyond a reasonable doubt the requirements of the preceding paragraph, then you may fix the punishment of the Defendant at death or if you believe from all the evidence that the death penalty is not justified, then you shall fix the punishment of the Defendant at life imprisonment.
“If the Commonwealth has failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt the requirements of the second paragraph in this instruction, then you shall fix the punishment of the Defendant at life imprisonment.” App. 73.
“Evidence which may be admissible, subject to the rules of evidence governing admissibility, may include the circumstances surrounding the offense, the history and background of the defendant, and any other facts in mitigation of the offense. Facts in mitigation may include, but shall not be limited to, the following: (i) The defendant has no significant history of prior criminal activity, (ii) the capital felony was committed while the defendant was under the influence of extreme mental or emotional disturbance, . . . (iv) at the time of the commission of the capital felony, the capacity of the defendant to appreciate the criminality of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of law was significantly impaired, (v) the age of the defendant at the time of the commission of the capital offense ....” Va. Code Ann. § 19.2-264.4(B) (1995) (amended, not in relevant part).
The proposed instruction on age simply told the jury that petitioner's age “is a fact which mitigates” that the jury “shall consider.” App. 75-76.
The dissent relies on an argument regarding the Virginia pattern sentencing instruction that petitioner belatedly attempted to adopt at oral argument. Post, at 280-284. This claim was waived, since petitioner expressly agreed to the pattern instruction at trial, the instruction was given without objection, and petitioner never raised this claim previously.
In any event, the dissent’s theory does not make sense. The dissent suggests that the disjunctive “or” clauses in the third paragraph may lead the jury to think that it can only impose life imprisonment if it does not find the aggravator proved. But this interpretation is at odds with the ordinary meaning of the instruction’s language and structure. The instruction presents a simple decisional tree. The second paragraph states that the Commonwealth must prove the aggravator beyond a reasonable doubt. The third and fourth paragraphs give the jury alternative tasks according to whether the Commonwealth succeeds or fails in meeting its burden. The third paragraph states that “if” the aggravator is proved, the jury may choose between death and life. The fourth paragraph states that “if” the aggravator is not proved, the jury must impose life. The “if” clauses clearly condition the choices that follow. And since the fourth paragraph tells the juiy what to do if the aggravator is not proved, the third paragraph clearly involves only the jury’s task if the aggravator is proved. The fact that counsel and the court agreed to this instruction is strong evidence that the “misconception” envisioned by the dissent could result only from a strained parsing of the language.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Reed
delivered the opinion of the Court.
These two cases concern the prosecution of three defendants for violations of the provisions of the Universal Military Training and Service Act. 50 U. S. C. App. § 451 et seq. We must determine the proper venue for the trial of these crimes.
Defendants Johnston and Sokol resided in the Western Judicial District of Pennsylvania and registered there with the local draft boards. Both were classified 1-0 (conscientious objectors) and both were ordered to report to the boards for assignment of civilian work in lieu of induction. They were instructed to report to separate state hospitals situated in the Eastern Judicial District of Pennsylvania. They reported to the boards but personally refused to comply with the instructions. They were indicted in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and the indictments were dismissed for lack of jurisdiction on the ground that venue could only be in the Western District. 131 F. Supp. 955. The Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit reversed and remanded the case for trial. That court reasoned that venue was where the defendants failed to report. 227 F. 2d 745.
Defendant Patteson, likewise classified 1-0, was ordered to report to his local board in Oklahoma for similar assignment. He, too, reported to the board and there personally refused to comply with instructions to report at the Topeka, Kansas, State Hospital. After indictment in Kansas, the Kansas District Court ordered the case transferred to Oklahoma under Rule 21 (b), Fed. Rules Crim. Proc. The Oklahoma court retransferred the case to Kansas as it thought the venue was there. The Kansas court thereupon dismissed the indictment on the ground that the venue was in Oklahoma. 132 F. Supp. 67. The judgment was affirmed by the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. 229 F. 2d 257.
Each registrant received an order, the pertinent parts of which follow:
“selective service system
“ORDER TO REPORT FOR CIVILIAN WORK AND STATEMENT OF EMPLOYER
“You are ordered to report to the local board named above at m. on the day of , 195 , where you will be given instructions to proceed to the place of employment.
“You are ordered to report for employment pursuant to the instructions of the local board, to remain in employment for twenty-four (24) consecutive months or until such time as you are released or transferred by proper authority.
“You will be instructed as to your duties at the place of employment.
“Failure to report at the hour and on the day named in this order, or to proceed to the place of employment pursuant to instructions, or to remain in this employment the specified time will constitute a violation of the Universal Military Training and Service Act, as amended, which is punishable by fine or imprisonment or both.
“(Clerk or Member of the Local Board)
“Statement of Employer
“Failed to report
“Personnel Director”
None of the registrants entered the district of his indictment after receiving his orders.
The indictment in each case charges the registrant, a conscientious objector, with violation of § 12 (a) of the Act. In the Johnston indictment the pertinent language is:
“. . . did knowingly neglect to perform a duty imposed upon him by the provision of said Act in that he failed and refused to obey an order of Local Board 87, New Castle, Pennsylvania, directing him to report for employment at Norristown State Hospital, Norristown, Pennsylvania, and to remain employed there for twenty-four consecutive months in violation of Title 50, U. S. C. Appx., Sections 456 and 462, as amended.”
In the Sokol case it is:
. . did knowingly neglect to perform a duty . . . in that he failed to report to the Philadelphia State Hospital, ... for assignment to perform civilian work contributing to the maintenance of the national health, safety or interest, in lieu of induction; in violation of Title 50 Appx. Secs. 456 (j) and 462.”
In the Patteson case it is:
. . did knowingly and willfully refuse, neglect and fail to report at the Topeka State Hospital at the time and place so designated in said order.”
The question at issue in these three cases is fairly presented by the registrants Johnston and Sokol in their petition for certiorari. It reads thus:
“Where each petitioner resided in the Western District of Pennsylvania, the Selective Service local board of each was located in the Western District of Pennsylvania, the orders to perform work were issued in the Western District of Pennsylvania and each petitioner did not go beyond his local board in the Western District of Pennsylvania and at all times refused to leave the Western District of Pennsylvania and did not proceed to the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, were the offenses committed in the Western District of Pennsylvania and not in the Eastern District and, therefore, does it violate rights guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution to indict and prosecute each petitioner in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania?”
Our analysis of the law and the facts in these cases convinces us that the venue of these violations of the orders lies in the district where the civilian work was to be performed, that is, for Patteson in Kansas, and the Eastern District of Pennsylvania for Johnston and Sokol.
We are led to this conclusion by the general rule that where the crime charged is a failure to do a legally required act, the place fixed for its performance fixes the situs of the crime. The possibility that registrants might be ordered to report to points remote from the situs of draft boards neither allows nor requires judicial changes in the law of venue. No showing of any arbitrary action appears in these cases. Article III of the Constitution and the Sixth Amendment fix venue “in the State” and “district wherein the crime shall have been committed.” The venue of trial is thereby predetermined, but those provisions do not furnish guidance for determination of the place of the crime. That place is determined by the acts of the accused that violate a statute. This requirement of venue states the public policy that fixes the situs of the trial in the vicinage of the crime rather than the residence of the accused. Cf. United States v. Anderson, 328 U. S. 699, 705. A variation from that rule for convenience of the prosecution or the accused is not justified. The result would be delay and confusion.
This rule was followed in United States v. Johnson, 323 U. S. 273, relied on by the registrants, where a maker and shipper of dentures mailed in Illinois was charged in Delaware, the State of receipt by a consignee, with violating the law by “use” of the mails “for the purpose of sending or bringing into” a State such dentures. Id., at 274. This Court, by interpretation of the statute, restricted prosecution of the shipper to the State of the shipment saying:
“It is a reasonable and not a strained construction to read the statute to mean that the crime of the sender is complete when he uses the mails in Chicago, and the crime of the unlicensed dentist in California or Florida or Delaware, who orders the dentures from Chicago, is committed in the State into which he brings the dentures. As a result, the trial of the sender is restricted to Illinois and that of the unlicensed dentist to Delaware or Florida or California.” Id., at 277-278.
Venue for these prosecutions lies where, under § 12 (a), supra, the registrants did “knowingly fail or neglect or refuse to perform any duty required of him under or in the execution of this title ... , or rules, regulations, or directions made pursuant to this title . . . .” These registrants were made subject to § 12 (a) by § 6 (j), which declares that a conscientious objector who fails or neglects to obey an order of his local board shall be deemed to have “failed or neglected to perform a duty required of him” by § 12.
The orders set out above, p. 217, could only be the basis of one conviction but they directed the registrant to perform two duties. The first is to report to the local board. This was done by each registrant. The second is to report for employment and to remain there in employment for 24 consecutive months. The “instructions to proceed” given by the board and the statement that “failure . . . to proceed to the place of employment pursuant to instructions” would constitute a crime, are for the registrant's information. They did not create another duty. This appears emphatically from the characterization in the explanatory paragraph that failure to report or proceed to the place of employment would be a violation of orders. The crimes charged arise from failure to complete the second duty — report for employment. Accordingly venue must lie where the failure occurred. See cases cited above, n. 5.
It will be noted that the indictments set out the place of the alleged crimes in the terms of the orders and give jurisdiction for trial in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and the District of Kansas. In each instance, the charge is failure to perform a “duty” in that the registrant failed “to report” to the respective hospitals. Thus, the indictments, based on the charged violation of the order, follow, as we see it, the requirements of law for trial in the State and district where the crime was committed.
We affirm the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in No. 643, Johnston and Sokol, and reverse the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit in No. 704, the Patteson case.
No. 67$, affirmed.
No. 704, reversed.
“(b) Offense Committed in Two or More Districts or Divisions. The court upon motion of the defendant shall transfer the proceeding as to him to another district or division, if it appears from the indictment or information or from a bill of particulars that the offense was committed in more than one district or division and if the court is satisfied that in the interest of justice the proceeding should be transferred to another district or division in which the commission of the offense is charged.”
The stipulations in the Johnston and Sokol cases show the use of this form. The Patteson ease also was argued on this understanding and defendant’s motion to dismiss was sustained on allegations of fact that confirm our assumption that his order also was on the same form.
50 U. S. C. App. § 456 (j):
“. . . Any person claiming exemption from combatant training and service because of such conscientious objections whose claim is sustained by the local board shall ... in lieu of such induction, be ordered by his local board ... to perform . . . such civilian work ... as the local board may deem appropriate and any such person who knowingly fails or neglects to obey any such order from his local board shall be deemed, for the purposes of section 12 of this title, ... to have knowingly failed or neglected to perform a duty required of him under this title. . . .”
50 U. S. C. App. § 462 (a):
“Any . . . person . . . who in any manner shall knowingly fail or neglect or refuse to perform any duty required of him under or in the execution of this title ... , or rules, regulations, or directions made pursuant to this title . . . shall, upon conviction in any district court of the United States of competent jurisdiction, be punished by imprisonment for not more than five years or a fine of not more than $10,000, or by both such fine and imprisonment . . . .”
Rumely v. McCarthy, 250 U. S. 283; United States v. Lombardo, 241 U. S. 73; Jones v. Pescor, 169 F. 2d 853; New York Central & H. R. Co. v. United States, 166 F. 267. See cases cited in United States v. Anderson, 328 U. S. 699, 705, n. 14, and see United States v. Wyman, 125 F. Supp. 276, 280. Compare state court decisions which hold that a State may punish a father for nonsupport of his child even though the defendant is outside the State while committing the offense. Comment, 6 Stan. L. Rev. 709.
Cf. United States v. Lombardo, 241 U. S. 73, 78; Haas v. Henkel, 216 U. S. 462.
See also United States v. Wilson and United States v. Purchasing Corp., 344 U. S. 923, where in an interpretation of a statutory duty to “forward” a report of shipments under the Tobacco Tax Act, 63 Stat. 884, we approved the District Court judgment that venue for prosecution was in the district of the shipper rather than the district of the receiver of the report.
We ruled in the case of Dodez v. United States, 329 U. S. 338, that Dodez had exhausted his administrative remedies and therefore could defend on indictment his failure when he violated an order to report to the local board for work of national importance. Venue was laid in the District of the Board. No question was raised or decided here as to venue. Petition for certiorari, p. 2; Brief of the United States. Furthermore, as the United States points out in this case, at the time of Dodez’ breach, the Government delivered the conscientious objector registrants to the place of work. See Order to Report for Work, R. 155, No. 86,1946 Term.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | C | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Marshall
delivered the opinion of the Court.
In this case the United States challenges the treatment given to its claim for unpaid taxes against an insolvent corporation in reorganization under Chapter X of the Bankruptcy Act, 11 U. S. C. §§ 501-676. Under the reorganization plan approved by the District Court, the debtor, Hancock Trucking, Inc., will sell its chief asset, its Interstate Commerce Commission operating rights, to Hennis Freight Lines, Inc., for $935,000. The sale contract provides for a $300,000 down payment, with the balance to be paid in 78 monthly installments. Under the reorganization plan, the down payment will be used to satisfy certain wage and state and local tax claims in full, to satisfy 20% of the claims of the unsecured creditors, and to satisfy about 10% of the United States’ tax claim of $375,386.55. The remainder of the United States’ claim will be paid out of the monthly installments. The plan, an atypical one for a corporate reorganization, does not contemplate the continued existence of the debtor as a going concern, but amounts in substance to a liquidation.
The United States objects to that aspect of the plan that provides for partial or complete payment of the claims of unsecured creditors and state and local government units before full payment of the federal tax claims. This, the Government urges, violates the command of § 3466 of the Revised Statutes, 31 U. S. C. § 191, that “[w]henever any person indebted to the United States is insolvent . . . the debts due to the United States shall be first satisfied.” Respondent urges that § 3466 does not apply to Chapter X proceedings, but that the United States is entitled only to “payment” of its tax claim, as provided by § 199 of the Bankruptcy Act, 11 U. S. C. § 599.
The Court of Appeals accepted respondent’s theory, and affirmed the order of the District Court approving the plan. 407 F. 2d 635 (C. A. 7th Cir. 1969). We granted certiorari, 396 U. S. 874 (1969), and we reverse.
Since the earliest days of the Republic, § 3466 and its predecessors have given the Government priority over all other claimants in collecting debts due it from insolvent debtors. The present statute has existed almost unchanged since 1797, and its historical roots reach back to the similar priority of the Crown in England, an aspect of the royal prerogative, founded upon a policy of protecting the public revenues. The same policy underlies the federal statute, United States v. State Bank of North Carolina, 6 Pet. 29, 35 (1832), and it is established that the terms of § 3466 are to be liberally construed to achieve this broad purpose. Beaston v. Farmers’ Bank, 12 Pet. 102, 134 (1838); Bramwell v. United States Fidelity Co., 269 U. S. 483, 487 (1926).
Section 3466 applies literally to the situation here. The debtor is concededly insolvent, and it is established that a tax debt is a “debt due to the United States” within the meaning of the statute. Price v. United States, 269 U. S. 492, 499 (1926). No provision of Chapter X explicitly excepts corporate debtors in reorganization from the application of § 3466, and so the only remaining question is whether the legislative scheme established in Chapter X, either by logical inconsistency or other manifestation, of congressional intent, implies such an exception.
In approaching a claim of an implied exception to § 3466, we start with the principle, noted above, that the statute must be given a liberal construction consonant with the public policy underlying it. Applying that principle to an earlier claim that a statutory scheme implicitly excluded § 3466, this Court held that “[o]nly the plainest inconsistency would warrant our finding an implied exception to the operation of so clear a command as that of § 3466.” United States v. Emory, 314 U. S. 423, 433 (1941).
Here the Court of Appeals discerned an intent not to apply § 3466 to Chapter X proceedings from § 199 of the Bankruptcy Act, which forbids the approval of any reorganization plan which does not provide for the “payment” of taxes or customs due to the United States, unless the Secretary of the Treasury accepts “a lesser amount.” The Court of Appeals further supported its inference of exclusionary intent from §§ 216 (7) and 221 of the Act, 11 U. S. C. §§ 616 (7) and 621. Section 216 (7) provides that where a class of creditors dissents from a reorganization plan, the District Court shall provide “adequate protection for the realization by them of the value of their claims against the property” in any of four ways, the last and most general of which is by “such method as will, under and consistent with the circumstances of the particular case, equitably and fairly provide such protection.” Section 221 merely sums up the applicable tests for a valid reorganization plan by providing that “[t]he judge shall confirm a plan if satisfied that” § 199 has been complied with and that “the plan is fair and equitable, and feasible.”
The Court of Appeals reasoned from these provisions to the implied exclusion of the operation of § 3466 as follows:
“Within Chapter X, §§199, 216 and 221 are inter-related statutes and part of a studied statutory plan. Section 199 outlines the nature of the government’s tax claim 'priority,’ and the two other sections establish an equitable standard to govern the method of payment. If, as the government would have us hold, § 3466 creates an absolute right to first payment in addition to full payment, there would be little need for §§ 199, 216 (7) and 221. These sections apply specifically to Chapter X proceedings and should control over the more general and conflicting direction of § 3466.” 407 F. 2d, at 638.
In our view these provisions are not logically inconsistent with the terms of § 3466, nor would they be rendered redundant if the older statute applied, nor does their language or legislative history reveal a purpose incongruous with its application.
In the first place, § 216 (7) has nothing to do with the priorities of different classes of claimants under Chapter X. That section merely provides that where an affected class of creditors (and here the United States itself constitutes the whole of such a class) dissents from a plan, their claims are to be dealt with in one of the four ways specified, one of which is that those claims must be disposed of “equitably and fairly.”
This Court has long held that these words, along with the words “fair and equitable” in § 221, in no way authorize a District Court to ignore or erode priorities otherwise granted by law, and it follows that this language cannot be taken to exclude by implication an explicit statutory priority, such as that granted the United States by § 3466. In short, the words “fair and equitable” in Chapter X are terms of art, and no plan can be “fair and equitable” which compromises the rights of senior creditors in order to protect junior creditors. Case v. Los Angeles Lumber Co., 308 U. S. 106, 115-116 (1939); Consolidated Rock Co. v. Du Bois, 312 U. S. 510, 527-529 (1941).
We turn then to the argument upon which respondent chiefly relies for his claim that § 3466 does not reach to Chapter X proceedings — the alleged inconsistency between application of the “first satisfied” requirement and the terms and purposes of § 199. As already noted, § 199 provides that the United States shall have “payment” of its tax claims in Chapter X proceedings unless the Secretary of the Treasury accepts “a lesser amount.” Respondent argues and the Court of Appeals held that this establishes by negative implication that Congress did not mean the United States to be able to insist upon the more onerous remedy of payment first in time.
As a matter of logic, we see no inconsistency between a requirement of payment and a requirement of first satisfaction. Congress surely could have provided that the United States receive payment out of a limited fund at the expense of other claimants, and quite consistently provided that when the wherewithal to make such payment became available in installments over time the United States should also have the right to claim the first of those installments and each succeeding one until its debt was satisfied. Separate provisions to this effect in the same statute could certainly be read in harmony with each other, and there is no reason why § 3466 should not be read to supplement the requirement of payment contained in § 199 in the same fashion.
Nor is § 199 redundant if § 3466 applies in Chapter X proceedings on the ground that a requirement of first satisfaction necessarily implies a requirement of payment. Section 3466 applies only to insolvent debtors. Yet Chapter X proceedings are not open merely to corporations that are insolvent, in that their liabilities exceed their assets, but also to those that are solvent in the bankruptcy or asset-liability sense and yet are unable to meet their obligations as they mature. Bankruptcy Act § 130 (1), 11 U. S. C. § 530 (1). Thus § 199 does not merely give the Government rights already granted by implication in § 3466, but extends the Government’s priority, for tax claims at least, to solvent corporations in Chapter X reorganization.
Thus, on the face of the statute, no inconsistency arises from applying both § 3466 and § 199 to Chapter X proceedings, much less the “plain inconsistency” required if respondent is to prevail under the test of United States v. Emory, supra. That in itself strongly suggests that § 3466 should apply here, and our examination of the background and legislative history of § 199 and of Chapter X generally does not reveal a contrary intent on the part of Congress.
Before the reorganization legislation of the 1930’s, the principal method of reorganizing corporations that were unable to meet their debts was the equity receivership. This judge-made device was designed to preserve the debtor business as a going concern by cancelling claims against it, in return for which cancellation the claimants received debt or equity interests in a new corporation, which then acquired the assets of the old corporation in a judicial sale. See T. Finletter, The Law of Bankruptcy Reorganization 1-17 (1939). By 1926, it was established that § 3466 applied to give the United States an absolute priority for payment of debts due it from insolvent corporations in equity receivership. Price v. United States, 269 U. S., at 502-503; and see Blair, The Priority of the United States in Equity Receiverships, 39 Harv. L. Rev. 1 (1925).
In 1933, Congress enacted § 77 of the Bankruptcy Act, 47 Stat. 1474, providing a statutory procedure for the reorganization of railroads. Section 77, as well as later corporate reorganization statutes discussed below, was designed to follow the general format of the equity receivership. As one of the early commentators on the federal statutes has noted, “[t]he principles of the equity receivership underlie nearly every substantive provision of the [reorganization acts].” Finletter, supra, at 3. These statutes were not, of course, mere codifications of the law governing equity receiverships. They were designed in part to correct abuses and inefficiencies that had existed under the prior regime. Duparquet Co. v. Evans, 297 U. S. 216, 218-219 (1936). However, the problems of the equity receivership that led to the legislative intervention did not include the Government’s priority under § 3466, a relatively uncontroversial aspect of the receivership procedure.
Nothing in § 77 casts any doubt on the continued priority of the United States under § 3466. Indeed the only provision in the new statute affecting the claims of the United States was § 77(e), which provided in pertinent part:
“If the United States of America is directly a creditor or stockholder, the Secretary of the Treasury is hereby authorized to accept or reject a plan in respect of the interests or claims of the United States.” 47 Stat. 1478.
The purpose of this provision was to overcome the effect of two prior rulings of the Attorney General that the Secretary of the Treasury lacked authority to compromise claims of indebtedness owed to the Government by the railroads, 33 Op. Atty. Gen. 423 (1923), 34 Op. Atty. Gen. 108 (1924).
In 1934, Congress enacted § 77B of the Bankruptcy Act, 48 Stat. 911, which provided a reorganization scheme for corporations generally, closely modeled on the railroad reorganization scheme of § 77; § 77B (e) (1) granted the Secretary of the Treasury power to compromise federal claims, in language almost identical with that of § 77 (e). 48 Stat. 918. There is no language in the statute, and nothing in its history, to suggest any intention to alter the established priority of the United States under § 3466.
In 1935, the Secretary of the Treasury called the attention of Congress to the fact that the courts were construing § 77B (e)(1) to include the United States among the general creditors in reorganization proceedings, so that plans disapproved by the Secretary for failure to satisfy a federal claim could nevertheless be confirmed if the necessary majority of general creditors approved. S. Rep. No. 953, 74th Cong., 1st Sess. (1935). The Secretary proposed an amendment, which, after some weakening in the House, see S. Rep. No. 1386, 74th Cong., 1st Sess. (1935), was adopted. 49 Stat. 966 (1935). In its relevant provisions, the amendment was identical with present § 199, and the 1938 revisions which culminated in the replacement of § 77B by present Chapter X did not affect it.
Thus § 199 is derived from an enactment designed to grant the Government the power to compromise its claims against debtors, and an amendment designed to ensure priority for federal claims over the claims of general creditors. Nothing in this background lends any support to respondent’s claim that the draftsmen of Chapter X meant to provide an exception to the operation of § 3466 for reorganization proceedings under the new statute. Indeed the established practice of applying § 3466 to equity receiverships, the acknowledged predecessor of the Chapter X proceeding, combined with the failure to indicate in any way an intent to alter that practice in the new statutes, supports the conclusion that Congress affirmatively meant § 3466 to' apply to statutory reorganization.
As we noted at the outset, § 3466 must apply according to its terms except where expressly superseded, or where excluded by a later enactment “plainly inconsistent” with it. Here the statute literally applies, and no plain inconsistency with the scheme of Chapter X appears. The terms of § 3466 are clearly not satisfied by the reorganization plan here in question, which provides payment in part to general creditors and other nonpre-ferred claimants before satisfaction of the federal tax claim. Therefore the judgment upholding the plan must be reversed, and the case remanded to the Court of Appeals for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
Reversed.
See, e. g., Act of July 31, 1789, § 21, 1 Stat. 42; Act of August 4,1790, § 45,1 Stat. 169.
See Act of March 3, 1797, § 5, 1 Stat. 515, as amended by Act of March 2, 1799, § 65, 1 Stat. 676.
See 33 Hen. 8, c. 39, §74 (1541); 13 Eliz. 1, c. 4 (1570).
Section 199 provides:
“If the United States is a secured or unsecured creditor or stockholder of a debtor, the claims or stock thereof shall be deemed to be affected by a plan under this chapter, and the Secretary of the Treasury is authorized to accept or reject a plan in respect of the claims or stock of the United States. If, in any proceeding under this chapter, the United States is a secured or unsecured creditor on claims for taxes or customs duties (whether or not the United States has any other interest in, or claim against the debtor, as secured or unsecured creditor or stockholder), no plan which does not provide for the payment thereof shall be confirmed by the judge except upon the acceptance of a lesser amount by the Secretary of the Treasury certified to the court: Provided, That if the Secretary of the Treasury shall fail to accept or reject a plan for more than ninety days after receipt of written notice so to do from the court to which the plan has been proposed, accompanied by a certified copy of the plan, his consent shall be conclusively presumed.” 11 U. S. C. § 599.
The Government argues in the alternative that even if § 3466 does not apply to claims against debtors in Chapter X, the plan here is defective even under the § 199 requirement of “payment” alone, since the deferment of payment of the Government’s tax claim while the cash flow from the installment contract is used to satisfy the claims of lower ranking creditors means that the Government is receiving a “lesser amount,” which § 199 in its terms contrasts with “payment,” than what it would receive if it had first claim on all cash as it came in. The argument is premised on the fact that the Government cannot collect post-petition interest on its claim. City of New York v. Saper, 336 U. S. 328 (1949); United States v. Edens, 189 F. 2d 876 (C. A. 4th Cir. 1951), aff’d per curiam, 342 U. S. 912 (1952). Because of our determination that § 3466 applies here and requires payment first in time, we need not reach this contention.
In the normal Chapter X reorganization no provision need be made for priority in time of different claims. Claimants receive debt or equity interests in a going concern in the usual situation, and the priority of one claimant over another means only that if there is insufficient going-concern value to satisfy both claims, the claimant with priority must receive value equivalent to his full claim if the other claimant is to receive anything. Here a second sense of priority is involved: when cash becomes available to pay off outstanding claims only over a period of time, the claimant with “priority” in this second sense receives his cash first in time; the nonpriority claimant may receive full payment, but receives it later. In its literal language — “first satisfied” — § 3466 provides this kind of priority, and respondent has not argued that it should not be so construed if it applies here.
It seems to § 3466 meant insolvent in the bankruptcy sense, and this Court clearly so held in United States v. Oklahoma, 261 U. S. 253, 260-261 (1923).
See Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Criticisms and Suggestions Relating to H. R. 14359 and S. 5551, Amending the Bankruptcy Act 19-20, 72d Cong., 2d Sess. (Comm. Print. 1933).
The Secretary had proposed that he be given a veto over plans that failed to provide for “payment” of any federal claim. See S. Rep. No. 953, supra. The House imposed the “payment” requirement only upon tax and customs claims, possibly intending to leave the Government in the position of a general creditor with respect to other claims, see S. Rep. No. 1386, supra, and this was the form in which the amendment was adopted. Section 199 preserves this apparent distinction between tax and other claims, see text at n. 4, supra. However the courts, relying on the strong presumption against implied exceptions to § 3466, have not treated the Government as a general creditor in its nontax claims, but rather have held that it has priority under § 3466. United States v. Anderson, 334 F. 2d 111 (C. A. 5th Cir. 1964); In re Cherry Valley Homes, Inc., 255 F. 2d 706 (C. A. 3d Cir. 1958); Reconstruction Finance Corp. v. Flynn, 175 F. 2d 761 (C. A. 2d Cir. 1949).
If, as appears from the present case, § 3466, if applicable, may, in some instances, give the Government .greater protection than § 199, it would be anomalous to deny that protection to Government tax claims while granting it to nontax claims, since Congress clearly intended that tax claims should have greater protection.
The leading authorities agree that § 3466 applies to Chapter X proceedings. Finletter, supra, at 388-393; 6A Collier on Bankruptcy 269 n. 11 (14th ed. 1969).
This case does not raise the question, never decided by this Court, whether § 3466 grants the Government priority over the prior specific liens of secured creditors. See United States v. Gilbert Associates, 345 U.S. 361, 365-366 (1953).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | L | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Chief Justice Roberts
delivered the opinion of the Court.
To prevail on the merits in a private securities fraud action, investors must demonstrate that the defendant’s deceptive conduct caused their claimed economic loss. This requirement is commonly referred to as “loss causation.” The question presented in this case is whether securities fraud plaintiffs must also prove loss causation in order to obtain class certification. We hold that they need not.
I
Petitioner Erica P. John Fund, Inc. (EPJ Fund), is the lead plaintiff in a putative securities fraud class action filed against Halliburton Co. and one of its executives (collectively Halliburton). The suit was brought on behalf of all investors who purchased Halliburton common stock between June 3,1999, and December 7, 2001.
EPJ Fund alleges that Halliburton made various misrepresentations designed to inflate its stock price, in violation of § 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Securities and Exchange Commission Rule 10b-5. See 48 Stat. 891, 15 U.S.C. §78j(b); 17 CFR §240.10b-5 (2010). The complaint asserts that Halliburton deliberately made false statements about (1) the scope of its potential liability in asbestos litigation, (2) its expected revenue from certain construction contracts, and (3) the benefits of its merger with another company. EPJ Fund contends that Halliburton later made a number of corrective disclosures that caused its stock price to drop and, consequently, investors to lose money.
After defeating a motion to dismiss, EPJ Fund sought to have its proposed class certified pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23. The parties agreed, and the District Court held, that EPJ Fund satisfied the general requirements for class actions set out in Rule 23(a): The class was sufficiently numerous, there were common questions of law or fact, the claims of the representative parties were typical, and the representative parties would fairly and adequately protect the interests of the class. See App. to Pet. for Cert. 3a.
The District Court also found that the action could proceed as a class action under Rule 23(b)(3), but for one problem: Circuit precedent required securities fraud plaintiffs to prove “loss causation” in order to obtain class certification. Id., at 4a, and n. 2 (citing Oscar Private Equity Invs. v. Allegiance Telecom, Inc., 487 F. 3d 261, 269 (CA5 2007)). As the District Court explained, loss causation is the “‘causal connection between the material misrepresentation and the [economic] loss’” suffered by investors. App. to Pet. for Cert. 5a, and n. 3 (quoting Dura Pharmaceuticals, Inc. v. Broudo, 544 U. S. 336, 342 (2005)). After reviewing the alleged misrepresentations and corrective disclosures, the District Court concluded that it could not certify the class in this case because EPJ Fund had “failed to establish loss causation with respect to any” of its claims. App. to Pet. for Cert. 54a. The court made clear, however, that absent “this stringent loss causation requirement,” it would have granted EPJ Fund’s certification request. Ibid.
The Court of Appeals affirmed the denial of class certification. See 597 F. 3d 330 (CA5 2010). It confirmed that, “[i]n order to obtain class certification on its claims, [EPJ Fund] was required to prove loss causation, i. e., that the corrected truth of the former falsehoods actually caused the stock price to fall and resulted in the losses.” Id., at 334. Like the District Court, the Court of Appeals concluded that EPJ Fund had failed to meet the “requirements for proving loss causation at the class certification stage.” Id., at 344.
We granted EPJ Fund’s petition for certiorari, 562 U. S. 1127 (2011), to resolve a conflict among the Circuits as to whether securities fraud plaintiffs must prove loss causation in order to obtain class certification. Compare 597 F. 3d, at 334 (case below), with In re Salomon Analyst Metromedia Litigation, 644 F. 3d 474, 483 (CA2 2008) (not requiring investors to prove loss causation at class certification stage); Schleicher v. Wendt, 618 F. 3d 679, 687 (CA7 2010) (same); In re DVI, Inc. Securities Litigation, 639 F. 3d 623, 636-637 (CA3 2011) (same; decided after certiorari was granted).
II
EPJ Fund contends that the Court of Appeals erred by requiring proof of loss causation for class certification. We agree.
A
As noted, the sole dispute here is whether EPJ Fund satisfied the prerequisites of Rule 23(b)(3). In order to certify a class under that Rule, a court must find “that the questions of law or fact common to class members predominate over any questions affecting only individual members, and that a class action is superior to other available methods for fairly and efficiently adjudicating the controversy.” Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 23(b)(3). Considering whether “questions of law or fact common to class members predominate” begins, of course, with the elements of the underlying cause of action. The elements of a private securities fraud claim based on violations of § 10(b) and Rule 10b-5 are: “ '(1) a material misrepresentation or omission by the defendant; (2) scienter; (3) a connection between the misrepresentation or omission and the purchase or sale of a security; (4) reliance upon the misrepresentation or omission; (5) economic loss; and (6) loss causation.’” Matrixx Initiatives, Inc. v. Siracusano, ante, at 37-38 (quoting Stoneridge Investment Partners, LLC v. Scientific-Atlanta, Inc., 552 U. S. 148, 157 (2008)).
Whether common questions of law or fact predominate in a securities fraud action often turns on the element of reliance. The courts below determined that EPJ Fund had to prove the separate element of loss causation in order to establish that reliance was capable of resolution on a common, class-wide basis.
“Reliance by the plaintiff upon the defendant’s deceptive acts is an essential element of the § 10(b) private cause of action.” Id., at 159. This is because proof of reliance ensures that there is a proper “connection between a defendant’s misrepresentation and a plaintiff’s injury.” Basic Inc. v. Levinson, 485 U. S. 224, 243 (1988). The traditional (and most direct) way a plaintiff can demonstrate reliance is by showing that he was aware of a company’s statement and engaged in a relevant transaction — e. g., purchasing common stock — based on that specific misrepresentation. In that situation, the plaintiff plainly would have relied on the company’s deceptive conduct. A plaintiff unaware of the relevant statement, on the other hand, could not establish reliance on that basis.
We recognized in Basic, however, that limiting proof of reliance in such a way “would place an unnecessarily unrealistic evidentiary burden on the Rule 10b-5 plaintiff who has traded on an impersonal market.” Id., at 245. We also observed that “[requiring proof of individualized reliance from each member of the proposed plaintiff class effectively would” prevent such plaintiffs “from proceeding with a class action, since individual issues” would “overwhelm[] the common ones.” Id., at 242.
The Court in Basic sought to alleviate those related concerns by permitting plaintiffs to invoke a rebuttable presumption of reliance based on what is known as the “fraud-on-the-market” theory. According to that theory, “the market price of shares traded on well-developed markets reflects all publicly available information, and, hence, any material misrepresentations.” Id., at 246. Because the market “transmits information to the investor in the processed form of a market price,” we can assume, the Court explained, that an investor relies on public misstatements whenever he “buys or sells stock at the price set by the market.” Id., at 244, 247 (internal quotation marks omitted); see also Stoneridge, supra, at 159; Dura Pharmaceuticals, 544 U. S., at 341-342. The Court also made clear that the presumption was just that, and could be rebutted by appropriate evidence. See Basic, supra, at 248.
B
It is undisputed that securities fraud plaintiffs must prove certain things in order to invoke Basic’s rebuttable presumption of reliance. It is common ground, for example, that plaintiffs must demonstrate that the alleged misrepresentations were publicly known (else how would the market take them into account?), that the stock traded in an efficient market, and that the relevant transaction took place “between the time the misrepresentations were made and the time the truth was revealed.” Basic, 485 U. S., at 248, n. 27; id., at 241-247; see also Stoneridge, supra, at 159.
According to the Court of Appeals, EPJ Fund also had to establish loss causation at the certification stage to “trigger the fraud-on-the-market presumption.” 597 F. 3d, at 335 (internal quotation marks omitted); see ibid. (EPJ Fund must “establish a causal link between the alleged falsehoods and its losses in order to invoke the fraud-on-the-market presumption”). The court determined that, in order to invoke a rebuttable presumption of reliance, EPJ Fund needed to prove that the decline in Halliburton’s stock was “because of the correction to a prior misleading statement” and “that the subsequent loss could not otherwise be explained by some additional factors revealed then to the market.” Id., at 836 (emphasis deleted). This is the loss causation requirement as we have described it. See Dura Pharmaceuticals, supra, at 342; see also 15 U. S. C. § 78u-4(b)(4).
The Court of Appeals’ requirement is not justified by Basic or its logic. To begin, we have never before mentioned loss causation as a precondition for invoking Basic’s rebuttable presumption of reliance. The term “loss causation” does not even appear in our Basic opinion. And for good reason: Loss causation addresses a matter different from whether an investor relied on a misrepresentation, presumptively or otherwise, when buying or selling a stock.
We have referred to the element of reliance in a private Rule 10b-5 action as “transaction causation,” not loss causation. Dura Pharmaceuticals, supra, at 341-342 (citing Basic, supra, at 248-249). Consistent with that description, when considering whether a plaintiff has relied on a misrepresentation, we have typically focused on facts surrounding the investor’s decision to engage in the transaction. See Dura Pharmaceuticals, supra, at 342. Under Basic’s fraud-on-the-market doctrine, an investor presumptively relies on a defendant’s misrepresentation if that “information is reflected in [the] market price” of the stock at the time of the relevant transaction. See Basic, supra, at 247.
Loss causation, by contrast, requires a plaintiff to show that a misrepresentation that affected the integrity of the market price also caused a subsequent economic loss. As we made clear in Dura Pharmaceuticals, the fact that a stock’s “price on the date of purchase was inflated because of [a] misrepresentation” does not necessarily mean that the misstatement is the cause of a later decline in value. 544 U. S., at 342 (emphasis deleted; internal quotation marks omitted). We observed that the drop could instead be the result of other intervening causes, such as “changed economic circumstances, changed investor expectations, new industry-specific or firm-specific facts, conditions, or other events.” Id., at 342-343. If one of those factors were responsible for the loss or part of it, a plaintiff would not be able to prove loss causation to that extent. This is true even if the investor purchased the stock at a distorted price, and thereby presumptively relied on the misrepresentation reflected in that price.
According to the Court of Appeals, however, an inability to prove loss causation would prevent a plaintiff from invoking the rebuttable presumption of reliance. Such a rule contravenes Basic’s fundamental premise — that an investor presumptively relies on a misrepresentation so long as it was reflected in the market price at the time of his transaction. The fact that a subsequent loss may have been caused by factors other than the revelation of a misrepresentation has nothing to do with whether an investor relied on the misrepresentation in the first place, either directly or presumptively through the fraud-on-the-market theory. Loss causation has no logical connection to the facts necessary to establish the efficient market predicate to the fraud-on-the-market theory.
The Court of Appeals erred by requiring EPJ Fund to show loss causation as a condition of obtaining class certification.
C
Halliburton concedes that securities fraud plaintiffs should not be required to prove loss causation in order to invoke Basic’s presumption of reliance or otherwise achieve class certification. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 26-29. Halliburton nonetheless defends the judgment below on the ground that the Court of Appeals did not actually require plaintiffs to prove-“loss causation” as we have used that term. See id., at 27- (“it’s not loss causation as this Court knows it in Dura)’): According to Halliburton, “loss causation” was merely “shorthand” for a different analysis. Brief for Respondents 18. The lower court’s actual inquiry, Halliburton insists, was whether EPJ Fund had demonstrated “price impact” — that is, whether the alleged misrepresentations affected the market price in the first place. See, e. g., id., at 16-19, 24-27, 50-51; see also Tr. of Oral Arg. 27 (stating that the Court of Appeals’ “test is simply price impact” and that EPJ Fund’s “only burden under the Fifth Circuit case law was to show price impact”).
“Price impact” simply refers to the effect of a misrepresentation on a stock price. Halliburton’s theory is that if a misrepresentation does not affect market price, an investor cannot be said to have relied on the misrepresentation merely because he purchased stock at that price. If the price is unaffected by the fraud, the price does not reflect the fraud.
We do not accept Halliburton’s wishful interpretation of the Court of Appeals’ opinion. As we have explained, loss causation is a familiar and distinct concept in securities law; it is riot price impact. While the opinion below may include some language consistent with a “price impact” approach, see, e. g., 597 F. 3d, at 336, we simply cannot ignore the Court of Appeals’ repeated and explicit references to “loss causation,” see id., at 334 (three times), 334, n. 2, 335 (twice), 335, n. 10 (twice), 335, n. 11, 336, 336, n. 19, 336, n. 20, 337, 338, 341 (twice), 341, n. 46, 342, n. 47, 343, 344 (three times).
Whatever Halliburton thinks the Court of Appeals meant to say, what it said was loss causation: “[EPJ Fund] was required to prove loss causation, i. e., that the corrected truth of the former falsehoods actually caused the stock price to fall and resulted in the losses.” Id., at 334; see id., at 335 (“we require plaintiffs to establish loss causation in order to trigger the fraud-on-the-market presumption” (internal quotation marks omitted)). We take the Court of Appeals at its word. Based on those words, the decision below cannot stand.
* * *
Because we conclude the Court of Appeals erred by requiring EPJ Fund to prove loss causation at the certification stage, we need not, and do not, address any other question about Basic, its presumption, or how and when it may be rebutted. To the extent Halliburton has preserved any further arguments against class certification, they may be addressed in the first instance by the Court of Appeals on remand.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is vacated, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Halliburton further concedes that, even if its conception of what the Court of Appeals meant by “loss causation” is correct, the Court of Appeals erred by placing the initial burden on EPJ Fund. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 29 (“We agree . . . that the Fifth Circuit put the initial burden of production on the plaintiff and that’s contrary to Basic”). According to Halliburton a plaintiff must prove price impact only after Basic’s presumption has been successfully rebutted by the defendant. Tr. of Oral Arg. 28, 38-40. We express no views on the merits of such a framework.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | I | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Per Curiam.
After argument, we continued this cause to enable the petitioner to apply for a certificate or other expression from the appropriate California courts to show whether the judgments rested on adequate and independent state grounds or whether decision of the federal question was necessary to the judgments rendered. 340 U. S. 622 (1951). Such expressions have been obtained.
The Supreme Court has informed us that its refusal to grant a writ of certiorari from the default judgment entered by the Superior Court was based upon petitioner’s failure to utilize the proper channel of review, namely, his failure to appeal from the default judgment. Inasmuch as our jurisdiction to review state court judgments extends only to final judgments rendered “by the highest court of a State in which a decision could be had,” 28 U. S. C. § 1257, we have no jurisdiction to review the proceedings arising from the default judgment.
The District Court of Appeal has informed us that the decision of the federal question was essential to its denial of the application for writ of prohibition, and that its judgment did not rest upon an independent state ground. The expression we have received from the California Supreme Court is also susceptible of the interpretation that its denial of a hearing from the judgment of the District Court of Appeal was based upon an adequate state ground. We do not consider the force of that statement since it is clear that the judgment properly before us is that of, the District Court of Appeal, which did decide the federal question. See American Railway Express Co. v. Levee, 263 U. S. 19, 20-21 (1923). We have jurisdiction over that judgment. Rescue Army v. Municipal Court, 331 U. S. 549, 565-568 (1947); Bandini Co. v. Superior Court, 284 U. S. 8 (1931), and cases cited at 14.
The presence of jurisdiction upon petition for writ of certiorari does not, of course, determine the exercise of that jurisdiction, for the issuance of the writ is discretionary. In this case petitioner could have obtained review of the final adjudication of the merits by appealing from the default judgment. The California Supreme Court has apparently refrained from taking action because of the existence of that remedy. In these circumstances we think it advisable not to exercise our jurisdiction. The writ is therefore dismissed as improvidently granted. Cf. Loftus v. Illinois, 337 U. S. 935 (1949); Phyle v. Duffy, 334 U. S. 431 (1948); Hedgebeth v. North Carolina, 334 U. S. 806 (1948).
Writ dismissed.
Mr. Justice Black, Mr. Justice Douglas, Mr. Justice Jackson and Mr. Justice Clark dissent.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | I | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Ginsburg
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case stems from a California county’s investigation of Native American tribe members for alleged off-reservation crimes. Pursuing the investigation, county law enforcement officers executed a state-court warrant for casino employment records kept by the Tribe on its reservation. The Tribe sued Inyo County (County), the District Attorney, and the Sheriff in federal court, asserting sovereign immunity from state-court processes and seeking declaratory, injunc-tive, and monetary relief.
The parties and, as amicus curiae, the United States agree that a Native American Tribe, like a State of the United States, is not a “person” subject to suit under 42 U. S. C. § 1983. We hold that, in the situation here presented, the Tribe does not qualify as a “person” who may sue under §1983. Whether the Tribe’s suit qualifies for federal-court jurisdiction because it arises under some federal law other than § 1983 is an issue the parties have not precisely addressed, and the trial and appellate courts have not clearly decided. We therefore remand the case for close consideration and specific resolution of that threshold question.
I
The Bishop Paiute Tribe is a federally recognized tribe located on the Bishop Paiute Reservation in California. The Bishop Paiute Gaming Corporation, chartered and wholly owned by the Tribe, operates and manages the Paiute Palace Casino (Casino), a tribal gaming operation run under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, 102 Stat. 2467, 25 U. S. C. § 2701 et seq.
In March 1999, the Inyo County Department of Health and Human Services (Department) received information from the State Department of Social Services indicating that three Casino employees had failed to report Casino earnings on their applications for state welfare benefits. Brief for Petitioners 4-5. According to the County, the employees failed to respond when the Department requested that they reconcile the apparent discrepancies between their Casino earnings and their welfare application forms. Id., at 5. The Department then forwarded the matter to the Inyo County District Attorney’s Office, which, in turn, asked the employees to reconcile the apparent discrepancies. Id., at 6. That request, the County asserts, was also ignored. Ibid.
In February 2000, the District Attorney’s Office asked the Casino for the three employees’ employment records, explaining that it was investigating “alleged welfare fraud.” 291 F. 3d 549, 554 (CA9 2002). The Tribe responded that its privacy policy precluded release of the records without the employees’ consent.
The District Attorney then sought and, on showing probable cause, obtained a search warrant from the Inyo County Superior Court. The warrant authorized a search of the Casino for payroll records of the three employees. On March 23, 2000, the Inyo County Sheriff and the District Attorney executed the warrant. They did so over the objection of tribal officials. Those officials urged that the state court lacked jurisdiction to authorize a search of premises and seizure of records belonging to a sovereign tribe. The Sheriff and the District Attorney, lacking cooperation from the Tribe, cut the locks off the storage facility containing the Casino’s personnel records. The county officials seized time-card entries, payroll registers, and payroll check registers relating to the three employees; the seizure also garnered information contained in quarterly wage and withholding reports the Corporation had submitted to the State. Each item seized contained at least one reference to an employee under investigation.
In July 2000, the District Attorney’s Office asked the Tribe for the personnel records of six other Casino employees. The Tribe reiterated its privacy policy, but offered to accept as evidence of consent a redacted copy of the last page of each employee’s signed welfare application. That page contained a statement that employment records of individuals applying for public assistance were subject to review by county officials. The District Attorney refused the offer.
To ward off any additional searches, the Tribe and the Corporation filed suit in Federal District Court naming as defendants the District Attorney and the Sheriff, in their individual and official capacities, and the County. Asserting federal-question jurisdiction under 28 U. S. C. §§ 1331, 1337, 1343(i)(3)(4), and the “federal common law of Indian affairs,” the Tribe sought injunctive and declaratory relief to vindicate its status as a sovereign immune from state processes under federal law, and to establish that state law was preempted to the extent that it purported to authorize seizure of tribal records. App. 97, ¶ 1, 105-114, ¶¶ 26-53. The Tribe’s complaint also sought relief under 42 U. S. C. § 1983, including compensatory damages. In this regard, the Tribe alleged that by acting beyond the scope of their jurisdiction and “without authorization of law” in executing the warrant, the defendants violated the Tribe’s and Corporation’s Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights, and the Tribe’s right to self-government. App. 109, ¶ 38; see id., at 108-110, ¶¶ 33-39.
On November 22, 2000, the District Court, on defendants’ motion, dismissed the Tribe’s complaint. Tribal sovereign immunity, the court held, did not categorically preclude the search and seizure of the Casino’s personnel records. Taking into account the competing interests of the State and the Tribe, the court concluded that, “[i]n the interest of a fair and uniform application of California’s criminal law, state officials should be able to execute search warranty] against the tribe and tribal property.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 62a. The court also held that the District Attorney and the Sheriff had qualified immunity from suit in their individual capacities. Id., at 57a-58a.
The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed the District Court’s judgment dismissing the action. “[Execution of a search warrant against the Tribe,” the Court of Appeals said, “interferes with ‘the right of reservation Indians to make their own laws and be ruled by them.’” 291 F. 3d, at 558 (quoting Williams v. Lee, 358 U. S. 217, 220 (1959)). In the appellate court’s view, the District Court should not have “balanced the interests at stake” to determine whether the warrant was enforceable. 291 F. 3d, at 559. This Court’s precedent, the Ninth Circuit said, advanced “a more categorical approach denying state jurisdiction . . . over a tribe absent á waiver by the tribe or a clear grant of authority by Congress.” Ibid, (citing Oklahoma Tax Comm’n v. Chickasaw Nation, 515 U. S. 450, 458 (1995)).
“[E]ven if a balancing test is the appropriate legal framework,” the Court of Appeals added, “the balance of interests favors a ruling for the Tribe.” 291 F. 3d, at 559. The Tribe’s privacy policies regarding employee records “promote tribal [self-government] interests,” the Ninth Circuit reasoned; notably, those policies fostered “a trusting relationship with tribal members,” and “affect[ed] the Casino, the Tribe’s predominant source of economic development revenue.” Ibid. The appeals court recognized the State’s countervailing “interest in investigating potential welfare fraud,” but thought it incumbent upon the State to further that interest “through far less intrusive means.” Ibid.
The Court of Appeals also ruled that the District Attorney and the Sheriff were not shielded by qualified immunity. “[A] reasonable county officer,” it held, “would have known . . . that seizing tribal property held on tribal land violated the Fourth Amendment because the property and land were outside the officer’s jurisdiction.” Id., at 568. The appeals court acknowledged prior Ninth Circuit precedent holding that the right to tribal self-government is not protected by § 1983. Id., at 568, n. 7 (citing Hoopa Valley Tribe v. Nevins, 881 F. 2d 657 (1989)); see Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 29, n. 15. But in this case, the Court of Appeals concluded, a §1983 claim could be maintained because the Tribe sought “protection from an unlawful search and seizure,” a right secured by the Fourth Amendment and therefore within §1983’s compass. 291 F. 3d, at 568, and n. 7. On December 2,2002, we granted certiorari. 537 U. S. 1043.
HH h — i
Central to our review is the question whether the Tribe’s complaint is actionable under §1983. That provision permits “citizen[s]” and “other person[s] within the jurisdiction” of the United States to seek legal and equitable relief from “person[s]” who, under color of state law, deprive them of federally protected rights. In Will v. Michigan Dept. of State Police, 491 U. S. 58 (1989), this Court held that a State is not a “person” amenable to suit under § 1983. “[I]n enaet-ing § 1983,” the Court said, “Congress did not intend to override well-established immunities or defenses under the common law,” including “[t]he doctrine of sovereign immunity.” Id., at 67. Although this case does not squarely present the question, the parties agree, and we will assume for purposes of this opinion, that Native American tribes, like States of the Union, are not subject to suit under § 1983. See Brief for Petitioners 35-38; Tr. of Oral Arg. 49; Kiowa Tribe of Okla. v. Manufacturing Technologies, Inc., 523 U. S. 751, 754 (1998) (“an Indian tribe is subject to suit only where Congress has authorized the suit or the tribe has waived its immunity”).
The issue pivotal here is whether a tribe qualifies as a claimant — a “person within the jurisdiction” of the United States — under § 1983. The United States maintains it does not, invoking the Court’s “longstanding interpretive presumption that ‘person’ does not include the sovereign,” a presumption that “may be disregarded only upon some affirmative showing of statutory intent to the contrary.” Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 7-8 (quoting Vermont Agency of Natural Resources v. United States ex rel. Stevens, 529 U. S. 765, 780-781 (2000)); see Will, 491 U. S., at 64. Nothing in the text, purpose, or history of § 1983, the Government contends, overcomes the interpretive presumption that “‘person’ does not include the sovereign.” Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 7-8 (some internal quotation marks omitted). Furthermore, the Government urges, given the Court’s decision that “person” excludes sovereigns as defendants under § 1983, it would be anomalous for the Court to give the same word a different meaning when it appears later in the same sentence. Id., at 8; see Brown v. Gardner, 513 U. S. 115, 118 (1994) (the “presumption that a given term is used to mean the same thing throughout a statute” is “surely at its most vigorous when a term is repeated within a given sentence”); cf. Lafayette v. Louisiana Power & Light Co., 435 U. S. 389, 397 (1978) (because municipalities are “persons” entitled to sue under the antitrust laws, they are also, in principle, “persons” capable of being sued under those laws).
The Tribe responds that Congress intended § 1983 “to provide a powerful civil remedy ‘against all forms of official violation of federally protected rights.’” Brief for Respondents 45 (quoting Monell v. New York City Dept. of Social Servs., 436 U. S. 658, 700-701 (1978)). To achieve that remedial purpose, the Tribe maintains, § 1983 should be “broadly construed.” Brief for Respondents 45 (citing Monell, 436 U. S., at 684-685 (internal quotation marks omitted)). Indian tribes, the Tribe here asserts, “have been especially vulnerable to infringement of their federally protected rights by states.” Brief for Respondents 42 (citing, inter alia, The Kansas Indians, 5 Wall. 737 (1867) (state taxation of tribal lands); Minnesota v. Mille Lacs Band of Chippewa Indians, 526 U. S. 172 (1999) (state infringement on tribal rights to hunt, fish, and gather on ceded lands); Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians v. Holyfield, 490 U. S. 30 (1989) (tribal jurisdiction over Indian child custody proceedings); California v. Cabazon Band of Mission Indians, 480 U. S. 202 (1987) (state attempt to regulate gambling on tribal land)). To guard against such infringements, the Tribe contends, the Court should read § 1983 to encompass suits brought by Indian tribes.
As we have recognized in other contexts, qualification of a sovereign as a “person” who may maintain a particular claim for relief depends not “upon a bare analysis of the word ‘person,’” Pfizer Inc. v. Government of India, 434 U. S. 308, 317 (1978), but on the “legislative environment” in which the word appears, Georgia v. Evans, 316 U. S. 159, 161 (1942). Thus, in Georgia, the Court held that a State, as purchaser of asphalt shipped in interstate commerce, qualified as a “person” entitled to seek redress under the Sherman Act for restraint of trade. Id., at 160-163. Similarly, in Pfizer, the Court held that a foreign nation, as purchaser of antibiotics, ranked as a “person” qualified to sue pharmaceuticals manufacturers under our antitrust laws. 434 U. S., at 309-320; cf. Stevens, 529 U. S., at 787, and n. 18 (deciding States are not “person[s]” subject to qui tarn liability under the False Claims Act, but leaving open the question whether they “can be ‘persons’ for purposes of commencing an FCA qui tarn action” (emphasis deleted)); United States v. Cleveland Indians Baseball Co., 532 U. S. 200, 213 (2001) (“Although we generally presume that identical words used in different parts of the same act are intended to have the same meaning, the presumption is not rigid, and the meaning of the same words well may vary to meet the purposes of the law.” (internal quotation marks, brackets, and citations omitted)).
There is in this case no allegation that the County lacked probable cause or that the warrant was otherwise defective. It is only by virtue of the Tribe’s asserted “sovereign” status that it claims immunity from the County’s processes. See App. 97-105, ¶¶ 1-25, 108-110, ¶¶ 33-39; 291 F. 3d, at 554 (Court of Appeals “find[s] that the County and its agents violated the Tribe’s sovereign immunity when they obtained and executed a search warrant against the Tribe and tribal property.” (emphasis added)). Section 1983 was designed to secure private rights against government encroachment, see Will, 491 U. S., at 66, not to advance a sovereign’s prerogative to withhold evidence relevant to a criminal investigation. For example, as the County acknowledges, a tribal member complaining of a Fourth Amendment violation would be a “person” qualified to sue under § 1983. See Brief for Petitioners 20, n. 7. But, like other private persons, that member would have no right to immunity from an appropriately executed search warrant based on probable cause. Accordingly, we hold that the Tribe may not sue under § 1983 to vindicate the sovereign right it here claims.
HH H-i > — <
In addition to §1983, the Tribe asserted as law under which its claims arise the “federal common law of Indian affairs.” Supra, at 706 (quoting App. 97, ¶ 1). But the Tribe has not explained, and neither the District Court nor the Court of Appeals appears to have carefully considered, what prescription of federal common law enables a tribe to maintain an action for declaratory and injunctive relief establishing its sovereign right to be free from state criminal processes. In short, absent §1983 as a foundation for the Tribe’s action, it is unclear what federal law, if any, the Tribe’s case “aris[es] under.” 28 U. S. C. § 1331. We therefore remand for focused consideration and resolution of that jurisdictional question.
* * *
The judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is vacated, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
The United States maintains, and the County does not dispute, that the Corporation is an “arm” of the Tribe for sovereign immunity purposes. See Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 11-14.
At oral argument, the County defended this refusal by asserting that federal law prohibited it from releasing the relevant pages of the employees’ welfare applications. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 4-5. But the United States assured the Court that “[t]here is no Federal regulation or other Federal requirement” that would have prevented the County from sharing the relevant information with the Tribe. Id., at 21. This entire controversy, it thus appears, might have been avoided had the county officials understood that federal law allowed the accommodation sought by the Tribe.
The Tribe did not dispute the State’s authority over the crimes under investigation. See Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 29.
The relevant portion of 42 U. S. C. § 1983 reads: “Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory or the District of Columbia, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress.”
Courts of Appeals have expressed divergent views on this question. See Native Village of Venetie IRA Council v. Alaska, 155 F. 3d 1150, 1152, n. 1 (CA9 1998) (concluding that Tribes are persons entitled to sue under § 1983); American Vantage Co. v. Table Mountain Rancheria, 292 F. 3d 1091, 1097, n. 4 (CA9 2002) (“[I]t is doubtful whether [a] Tribe qua sovereign would qualify as a ‘citizen of the United States or other person’ eligible to bring an action under § 1983.” (quoting White Mountain Apache Tribe v. Williams, 810 F. 2d 844, 865, n. 16 (CA9 1987) (Fletcher, J., dissenting))); cf. Illinois v. Chicago, 137 F. 3d 474, 477 (CA7 1998) (stating in dictum that “a state is not a ‘person’ under [§1983]”); Pennsylvania v. Porter, 659 F. 2d 306, 314-318 (CA3 1981) (en banc) (holding that a State may bring a § 1983 action in a parens patriae capacity).
It hardly “demean[s] . . . Native American tribes,” see post, at 713 (Stevens, J., concurring in judgment), in our view, to bracket them with States of the Union in this regard.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | B | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Stewart
delivered the opinion of the Court.
A one-count indictment was returned in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana charging the appellees with a violation of the Hobbs Act, 18 U. S. C. § 1951. In pertinent part, that Act provides:
“(a) Whoever in any way or degree obstructs, delays, or affects commerce or the movement of any article or commodity in commerce, by robbery or extortion or attempts or conspires so to do, or commits or threatens physical violence to any person or property in furtherance of a plan or purpose to do anything in violation of this section shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.”
“Extortion” is defined in the Act, as “the obtaining of property from another, with his consent, induced by wrongful use of actual or threatened force, violence, or fear...” 18 U. S. C. § 1951 (b)(2).
At the time of the alleged conspiracy, the employees of the Gulf States Utilities Company were out on strike. The appellees are members and officials of labor unions that were seeking a new collective-bargaining agreement with that company. The indictment charged that the appellees and two named coconspirators conspired to obstruct commerce, and that as part of that conspiracy, they
“would obtain the property of the Gulf States Utilities Company in the form of wages and other things of value with the consent of the Gulf States Utilities Company . . . , such consent to be induced by the wrongful use of actual force, violence and fear of economic injury by [the appellees] and co-conspirators, in that [the appellees] and the co-conspirators did commit acts of physical violence and destruction against property owned by the Gulf States Utilities Company in order to force said Company to agree to a contract with Local 2286 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers calling for higher wages and other monetary benefits.”
Five specific acts of violence were charged to have been committed in furtherance of the conspiracy — firing high-powered rifles at three Company transformers, draining the oil from a Company transformer, and blowing up a transformer substation owned by the Company. In short, the indictment charged that the appellees had conspired to use and did in fact use violence to obtain for the striking employees higher wages and other employment benefits from the Company.
The District Court granted the appellees’ motion to dismiss the indictment for failure to state an offense under the Hobbs Act. 335 F. Supp. 641. The court noted that the appellees were union members on strike against their employer, Gulf States, and that both the strike and its objective of higher wages were legal. The court expressed the view that if “the wages sought by violent acts are wages to be paid for unneeded or unwanted services, or for no services at all,” then that violence would constitute extortion within the meaning of the Hobbs Act. Id., at 645. But in this case, by contrast, the court noted that the indictment alleged the use of force to obtain legitimate union objectives: “The union had a right to disrupt the business of the employer by lawfully striking for higher wages. Acts of violence occurring during a lawful strike and resulting in damage to persons or property are undoubtedly punishable under State law. To punish persons for such acts of violence was not the purpose of the Hobbs Act.” Id., at 646. The court found “no case where a court has gone so far as to hold the type of activity involved here to be a violation of the Hobbs Act.” Id., at 645.
We noted probable jurisdiction of the Government’s appeal, 406 U. S. 916, to determine whether the Hobbs Act proscribes violence committed during a lawful strike for the purpose of inducing an employer’s agreement to legitimate collective-bargaining demands.
I
The Government contends that the statutory language unambiguously and without qualification proscribes interference with commerce by “extortion,” and that in terms of the statute, “extortion” is “the obtaining of property from another, with his consent, induced by wrongful use of actual or threatened force, violence, or fear . . . Wages are the “property” of the employer, the argument continues, and strike violence to obtain such “property” thus falls within the literal proscription of the Act. But the language of the statute is hardly as clear as the Government would make it out to be. Its interpretation of the Act slights the wording of the statute that proscribes obtaining property only by the “wrongful” use of actual or threatened force, violence, or fear. The term “wrongful,” which on the face of the statute modifies the use of each of the enumerated means of obtaining property — actual or threatened force, violence, or fear — would be superfluous if it only served to describe the means used. For it would be redundant to speak of “wrongful violence” or “wrongful force” since, as the Government acknowledges, any violence or force to obtain property is "wrongful.” Rather, “wrongful” has meaning in the Act only if it limits the statute’s coverage to those instances where the obtaining of the property would itself be “wrongful” because the alleged extortionist has no lawful claim to that property.
Construed in this fashion, the Hobbs Act has properly been held to reach instances where union officials threatened force or violence against an employer in order to obtain personal payoffs, and where unions used the proscribed means to exact “wage” payments from employers in return for “imposed, unwanted, superfluous and fictitious services” of workers. For in those situations, the employer’s property has been misappropriated. But the literal language of the statute will not bear the Government’s semantic argument that the Hobbs Act reaches the use of violence to achieve legitimate union objectives, such as higher wages in return for genuine services which the employer seeks. In that type of case, there has been no “wrongful” taking of the employer’s property; he has paid for the services he bargained for, and the workers receive the wages to which they are entitled in compensation for their services.
II
The legislative framework of the Hobbs Act dispels any ambiguity in the wording of the statute and makes it clear that the Act does not apply to the use of force to achieve legitimate labor ends. The predecessor of the Hobbs Act, § 2 of the Anti-Racketeering Act of 1934, 48 Stat. 979, proscribed, in connection with interstate commerce, the exaction of valuable consideration by force, violence, or coercion, "not including, however, the payment of wages by a bona-fide employer to a bona-fide employee . In United States v. Local 807, 315 U. S. 521, the Court held that this exception covered the members of a New York City truck drivers union who, by violence or threats, exacted payments for themselves from out-of-town truckers in return for the unwanted and superfluous service of driving out-of-town trucks to and from the city. The New York City teamsters would lie in wait for the out-of-town trucks, and then demand payment from the owners and drivers in return for allowing the trucks to proceed into the city. The teamsters sometimes drove the arriving trucks into the city, but in other instances, the out-of-town truckers paid the fees but rejected the teamsters' services and drove the trucks themselves. In several cases there was evidence that, having exacted their fees, the city drivers disappeared without offering to perform any services at all. Id., at 526. See also id., at 539 (Stone, C. J., dissenting). The Court held that the activities of the city teamsters were included within the wage exception to the Anti-Racketeering Act although what work they performed was unneeded and unwanted, and although in some cases their work was rejected.
Congressional disapproval of this decision was swift. Several bills were introduced with the narrow purpose of correcting the result in the Local 807 case. H. R. 32, which became the Hobbs Act, 60 Stat. 420, eliminated the wage exception that had been the basis for the Local 807 decision. But, as frequently emphasized on the floor of the House, the limited effect of the bill was to shut off the possibility opened up by the Local 807 case, that union members could use their protected status to exact payments from employers for imposed, unwanted, and superfluous services. As Congressman Hancock explained:
“This bill is designed simply to prevent both union members and nonunion people from making use of robbery and extortion under the guise of obtaining wages in the obstruction of interstate commerce. That is all it does.
“[T]his bill is made necessary by the amazing decision of the Supreme Court in the case of the United States against Teamsters’ Union 807, 3 years ago. That decision practically nullified the anti-racketeering bill of 1934 .... In effect the Supreme Court held that . . . members of the Teamsters’ Union . . . were exempt from the provisions of that law when attempting by the use of force or the threat of violence to obtain wages for a job whether they rendered any service or not.” 91 Cong. Rec. 11900.
Congressman Hancock proceeded to read approvingly from an editorial which characterized the teamsters’ action in the Local 807 case as “compelling the truckers to pay day’s wages to local union drivers whose services were neither wanted nor needed.” Ibid. Congressman Fellows stressed the fact that the facts of the Local 807 case showed that “these stick-up men disappeared as soon as the money was paid without rendering or offering to render any service.” Id., at 11907. And Congressman Rivers characterized the facts of the Local 807 case as “nothing short of hijacking, intimidation, extortion, and out-and-out highway robbery.” Id., at 11917.
But by eliminating the wage exception to the Anti-Racketeering Act, the Hobbs Act did not sweep within its reach violence during a strike to achieve legitimate collective-bargaining objectives. It was repeatedly emphasized in the debates that the bill did not “interfere in any way with any legitimate labor objective or activity”; “there is not a thing in it to interfere in the slightest degree with any legitimate activity on the part of labor people or labor unions . . . .” And Congressman Jennings, in responding to a question concerning the Act’s coverage, made it clear that the Act “does not have a thing in the world to do with strikes.” Id., at 11912.
Indeed, in introducing his original bill, Congressman Hobbs explicitly refuted the suggestion that strike violence to achieve a union’s legitimate objectives was encompassed by the Act:
“Mr. MARCANTONIO. All right. In connection with a strike, if an incident occurs which involves—
“Mr. HOBBS. The gentleman need go no further. This bill does not cover strikes or any question relating to strikes.
“Mr. MARCANTONIO. Will the gentleman put a provision in the bill stating so?
“Mr. HOBBS. We do not have to, because a strike is perfectly lawful and has been so described by the Supreme Court and by the statutes we have passed. This bill takes off from the springboard that the act must be unlawful to come within the purview of this bill.
“Mr. MARCANTONIO. That does not answer my point. My point is that an incident such as a simple assault which takes place in a strike could happen. Aha I correct?
“Mr. HOBBS. Certainly.
“Mr. MARCANTONIO. That then could become an extortion under the gentleman’s bill, and that striker as well as his union officials could be charged with violation of sections in this bill.
“Mr. HOBBS. I disagree with that and deny it in toto.” 89 Cong. Rec. 3213.
The Government would derive a different lesson from the legislative history. It points to statements made during the floor debates that the Act was meant to have “broad coverage” and, unlike its predecessor, to encompass the “employer-employee” relationship. But that proves no more than that the achievement of illegitimate objectives by employees or their representatives, such as the exaction of personal payoffs, or the pursuit of “wages” for unwanted or fictitious services, would not be exempted from the Act solely because the extortionist was an employee or union official and the victim an employer. The Government would also find support for its expansive interpretation of the statute in the rejection of two amendments, one proposed by Congressman Celler, the other by Congressman LaFollette, which would have inserted in the Act an exception for cases where violence was used to obtain the payment of wages by a bona-fide employer to a bona-fide employee. See 91 Cong. Rec. 11913, 11917, and 11919, 11922. But both amendments were rejected solely because they would have operated to continue the effect of the Local 807 case. Their rejection thus proves nothing more than that Congress was intent on undoing the restrictive impact of that case.
III
In the nearly three decades that have passed since the enactment of the Hobbs Act, no reported case has upheld the theory that the Act proscribes the use of force to achieve legitimate collective-bargaining demands.
The only previous case in this Court relevant to the issue, United States v. Green, 350 U. S. 415, held no more than that the Hobbs Act had accomplished its objective of overruling the Local 807 case. The alleged extortions in that case, as in Local 807, consisted of attempts to obtain so-called wages for “imposed, unwanted, superfluous and fictitious services of laborers . . . .” Id., at 417. The indictment charged that the employer's consent was obtained “by the wrongful use, to wit, the use for the purposes aforesaid, of actual and threatened force, violence and fear . . . Ibid. The Government thus did not rely, as it does in the present case, solely on the use of force in an employer-employee relationship; it alleged a wrongful purpose — to obtain money from the employer that the union officials had no legitimate right to demand. We concluded that the Hobbs Act could reach extortion in an employer-employee relationship and that personal profit to the extortionist was not required, but our holding was carefully limited to the charges in that case: “We rule only on the allegations of the indictment and hold that the acts charged against appellees fall within the terms of the Act.” Id., at 421.
A prior decision in the Third Circuit, United States v. Kemble, 198 F. 2d 889, on which the Government relied in Oreen, also concerned the exaction, by threats and violence, of wages for superfluous services. In affirming a conviction under the Hobbs Act of a union business agent for using actual and threatened violence against an out-of-town driver in an attempt to force him to hire a local union member, the Court of Appeals carefully limited its holding:
“We need not consider the normal demand for wages as compensation for services desired by or valuable to the employer. It is enough for this case, and all we decide, that payment of money for imposed, unwanted and superfluous services ... is within the language and intendment of the statute.” Id., at 892.
Most recently, in United States v. Caldes, 457 F. 2d 74, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit was squarely presented with the question at issue in this case. Two union officials were convicted of Hobbs Act violations in that they damaged property of a company with which they were negotiating for a collective-bargaining agreement, in an attempt to pressure the company into agreeing to the union contract. Concluding that the Act was not intended to reach militant activity in the pursuit of legitimate unions ends, the court reversed the convictions and ordered the indictment dismissed.
Indeed, not until the indictments were returned in 1970 in this and several other cases has the Government even sought to prosecute under the Hobbs Act actual or threatened violence employed to secure a union contract “calling for higher wages and other monetary benefits.” Yet, throughout this period, the Nation has witnessed countless economic strikes, often unfortunately punctuated by violence. It is unlikely that if Congress had indeed wrought such a major expansion of federal criminal jurisdiction in enacting the Hobbs Act, its action would have so long passed unobserved. See United States v. Laub, 385 U. S. 475, 485.
IY
The Government’s broad concept of extortion — the “wrongful” use of force to obtain even the legitimate union demands of higher wages — is not easily restricted. It would cover all overtly coercive conduct in the course of an economic strike, obstructing, delaying, or affecting commerce. The worker who threw a punch on a picket line, or the striker who deflated the tires on his employer’s truck would be subject to a Hobbs Act prosecution and the possibility of 20 years’ imprisonment and a $10,000 fine.
Even if the language and history of the Act were less clear than we have found them to be, the Act could not properly be expanded as the Government suggests— for two related reasons. First, this being a criminal statute, it must be strictly construed, and any ambiguity must be resolved in favor of lenity. United States v. Wiltberger, 5 Wheat. 76, 95; United States v. Halseth, 342 U. S. 277, 280; Bell v. United States, 349 U. S. 81, 83; Arroyo v. United States, 359 U. S. 419, 424; Rewis v. United States, 401 U. S. 808, 812. Secondly, it would require statutory language much more explicit than that before us here to lead to the conclusion that Congress intended to put the Federal Government in the business of policing the orderly conduct of strikes. Neither the language of the Hobbs Act nor its legislative history can justify the conclusion that Congress intended to work such an extraordinary change in federal labor law or such an unprecedented incursion into the criminal jurisdiction of the States. See San Diego Bldg. Trades Council v. Garmon, 359 U. S. 236, 247-248; United Constr. Workers v. Laburnum Constr. Corp., 347 U. S. 656, 665; Garner v. Teamsters Local 776, 346 U. S. 485, 488; UAW Local 232 v. Wisconsin Employment Relations Bd., 336 U. S. 245, 253.
As we said last Term:
“[U]nless Congress conveys its purpose clearly, it will not be deemed to have significantly changed the federal-state balance. Congress has traditionally been reluctant to define as a federal crime conduct readily denounced as criminal by the States. . . . [W]e will not be quick to assume that Congress has meant to effect a significant change in the sensitive relation between federal and state criminal jurisdiction.” United States v. Bass, 404 U. S. 336, 349 (footnotes omitted).
The District Court was correct in dismissing the indictment. Its judgment is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
This appeal was taken under 18 U. S. C. § 3731 (1964 ed.). The 1971 amendment to the Criminal Appeals Act, providing that all appeals from dismissals of indictments or informations must be taken to the Courts of Appeals, does not apply to cases instituted before January 2, 1971. Omnibus Crime Control Act of 1970, Pub. Law No. 91-644, § 14 (a), 84 Stat. 1890, codified, 18 U. S. C. § 3731. See United States v. Jorn, 400 U. S. 470, 474 n. 1, 477-478, n. 6. The present indictment was filed on October 15, 1970.
Congressman Hobbs indicated that “wrongful” was to modify the entire section. 91 Cong. Rec. 11908.
The Government suggests a convoluted construction of “wrongful.” It concedes that when the means used are not “wrongful,” such as where fear of economic loss from a strike is employed, then the objective must be- illegal. If, on the other hand, “wrongful” force and violence are used, even for a legal objective, the Government contends that the statute is satisfied. But that interpretation simply accepts the redundancy of the term “wrongful” whenever it applies to “force” and “violence” in the statute.
See, e. g., United States v. Iozzi, 420 F. 2d-512; United States v. Kramer, 355 F. 2d 891, cert. granted_and case remanded for resentencing, 384 U. S. 100; Bianchi v. United States, 219 F. 2d 182.
See, e. g., United States v. Green, 350 U. S. 415, 417; United States v. Kemble, 198 F. 2d 889.
Section 2 of the Act provided:
"Any person who, in connection with or in relation to any act in any way or in any degree affecting trade or commerce or any article or commodity moving or about to move in trade or commerce—
“(a) Obtains or attempts to obtain, by the use of or attempt to use or threat to use force, violence, or coercion, the payment of money or other valuable considerations, or the purchase or rental of property or protective services, not including, however, the payment of wages by a bona-fide employer to a bona-fide employee; or
“(b) Obtains the property of another, with his consent, induced by wrongful use of force or fear, or under color of official right; or
“(c) Commits or threatens to commit an act of physical violence or physical injury to a person or property in furtherance of a plan or purpose to violate sections (a) or (b); or
“(d) Conspires or acts concertedly with any other person or persons to commit any, of the foregoing acts; shall, upon conviction thereof, be guilty of a felony and shall be punished by imprisonment from one to ten years or by a fine of $10,000, or both.”
See § 2 (a), quoted in n. 6, supra. While the specific wage exception was found only in § 2 (a) of the Act, § 3 (b) excluded “wages paid by a bona-fide employer to a bona-fide employee” from the definition of “property,” “money,” or other “valuable considerations.” The wage exception thus permeated the entire Act. United States v. Green, 350 U. S., at 419 n. 4; United States v. Local 807, 315 U. S. 521, 527 n. 2.
S. 2347, 77th Cong., 2d Sess.; H. R. 6872, 77th Cong., 2d Sess.; H. R. 7067, 77th Cong., 2d Sess.; H. R. 653, 78th Cong., 1st Sess.; H. R. 32, 79th Cong., 1st Sess. See Callarian v. United States, 364 U. S. 587, 591 n. 5; United States v. Green, supra, at 419 n. 5.
See United States v. Green, supra, at 419 n. 5; Note, Labor Faces the Amended Anti-Racketeering Act, 101 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1030, 1033-1034 (1953).
The Hobbs Act also eliminated the proviso in § 6 of the Anti-Racketeering Act of 1934: “That no court of the United States shall construe or apply any of the provisions of this Act in such manner as to impair, diminish, or in any manner affect the rights of bona-fide labor organizations in lawfully carrying out the legitimate objects thereof, as such rights are expressed in existing statutes of the United States.” That proviso was one of the supports for the Local 807 decision, see 315 U. S., at 535, and it was eliminated to prevent reliance on that clause as a means of resuscitating the Local 807 decision. See 91 Cong. Rec. 11912 (remarks of Rep. Hobbs).
See also 91 Cong. Rec. 11842 (remarks of Rep. Michener); id., at 11905 (remarks of Rep. Robsion); id., at 11909 (remarks of Rep. Sumners); id., at 11912-11913 (remarks of Rep. Whittington).
In its report on the bill, the House Committee on the Judiciary-reproduced this Court’s decision in the Local 807 case and concluded that “[t]he need for the legislation was emphasized by the opinion of the Supreme Court in . . . United States v. Local 807 . . . .” H. R. Rep. No. 238, 79th Cong., 1st Sess., 10. See also S. Rep. No. 1516, 79th Cong., 2d Sess.
91 Cong. Rec. 11841 (remarks of Rep. Walter).
Id., at 11908 (remarks of Rep. Sumners). See also id., at 11900 (remarks of Rep. Hancock); id., at 11904 (remarks of Rep. Gwynne); id., at 11909 (remarks of Rep. Vursell).
The remarks with respect to that bill, H. R. 653, 78th Cong., 1st Sess., which passed only the House, are wholly relevant to an understanding of the Hobbs Act, since the operative language of the original bill was substantially carried forward into the Act. The congressional debates on the Hobbs Act in the 79th Congress repeatedly referred to the legislative history of the original bill. See 91 Cong. Rec. 11842 (remarks of Rep. Michener); id., at 11899— 11900 (remarks of Rep. Hancock); id., at 11900 (remarks of Rep. Hobbs). Surely an interpretation placed by the sponsor of a bill on the very language subsequently enacted by Congress cannot be dismissed out of hand, as the dissent would have it, simply because the interpretation was given two years earlier.
See also 89 Cong. Rec. 3202 (remarks of Rep. Gwynne) (Act does not cover “a clash between strikers and scabs during a strike”).
The proponents of the Hobbs Act defended the Act as no encroachment on the legitimate activities of labor unions on the ground that the statute did no more than incorporate New York’s conventional definition of extortion — "the obtaining of property from another . . . with his consent, induced by a wrongful use of force or fear, or under color of official right.” N. Y. Penal Law § 850 (1909). See 91 Cong. Rec. 11842 (remarks of Rep. Walter); id., at 11843 (remarks of Rep. Michener); id., at 11900 (remarks of Rep. Hancock); ibid, (remarks of Rep. Hobbs); id., at 11906 (remarks of Rep. Robsion). See also United States v. Caldes, 457 F. 2d 74, 77; United States v. Provenzano, 334 F. 2d 678, 686.
Judicial construction of the New York statute reinforces the conclusion that, however militant, union activities to obtain higher wages do not constitute extortion. For extortion requires an intent “ ‘to obtain that which in justice and equity the party is not entitled to receive.’ ” People v. Cuddihy, 151 Misc. 318, 324, 271 N. Y. S. 450, 456, aff’d, 243 App. Div. 694, 277 N. Y. S. 960; see People v. Weinseimer, 117 App. Div. 603, 616, 102 N. Y. S. 579, 588, aff’d, 190 N. Y. 537, 83 N. E. 1129. An accused would not be guilty of extortion for attempting to achieve legitimate labor goals; he could not be convicted without sufficient evidence that he “was actuated by the purpose of obtaining a financial benefit for himself . . . and was not attempting in good faith to advance the cause of unionism . . . .” People v. Adelstein, 9 App. Div. 2d 907, 908, 195 N Y. S. 2d 27, 28, aff’d sub nom. People v. Squillante, 8 N. Y. 2d 998, 169 N. E. 2d 425.
Hence, New York's highest court has interpreted its extortion statute to apply to a case where the accused received a payoff to buy an end to labor picketing. People v. Dioguardi, 8 N. Y. 2d 260, 168 N. E. 2d 683.
“The picketing here . . . may have been perfectly lawful in its inception (assuming it was part of a bona fide organizational effort) and may have remained so — despite its potentially ruinous effect on the employers’ businesses — so long as it was employed to accomplish the legitimate labor objective of organization. Its entire character changed from legality to criminality, however, when it was used as a pressure device to exact the payment of money as a condition of its cessation . . . .” Id., at 271, 168 N. E. 2d, at 690-691.
In short, when the objectives of the picketing changed from legitimate labor ends to personal payoffs, then the actions became extortionate.
The Government relies heavily on a statement by Congressman Michener, in a dialogue with two of his colleagues, to the effect that union members who “by robbery or exploitation collect a day’s wage — -a union wage — they are not exempted from the law solely because they are engaging in a legitimate union activity.” 91 Cong. Rec. 11843-11844. But Congressman Michener was referring to the activity of “robbery or exploitation,” and his statement continued: “I cannot understand how any union man can claim that the conduct described by Mr. Justice Stone is a legitimate union activity.” Id., at 11844. Mr. Chief Justice Stone’s dissenting opinion in the Local 807 case described payoffs for the superfluous and unwanted work involved in that ease. See 315 U. S., at 539.
See 91 Cong. Rec. 11914 (remarks of Rep. Hobbs); ibid, (remarks of Rep. Walter); id., at 11920 (remarks of Rep. Gwynne).
As noted above, the indictment in United States v. Caldes, 457 F. 2d was ordered to be dismissed by the Ninth Circuit. Two similar indictments returned in the Southern District of Florida were dismissed by the District Court without opinion in June 1970. United States v. Butcofsky, No. 70-101-CR-JE, June 24, 1970; United States v. Schiffman, No. 70-102-CR-JE, June 25, 1970. An additional indictment, based on a similar theory of the Hobbs Act, was filed in the Eastern District of New York on January 12, 1972, and is currently pending. United States v. Spero, No. 72-CR-17.
The briefs in the present case advise us of one other Hobbs Act prosecution that may have been brought under this theory — a 1962 indictment in United States v. Webb, ND Ala., No. 15080.
Realizing the breadth of its argument, the Government's brief concedes that there might be an exception for "the incidental injury to person or property that not infrequently occurs as a consequence of the charged atmosphere attending a prolonged labor dispute . . . .” But nothing, either in the language or the history of the Act, justifies any such exception.
Similarly, there is nothing to support the dissent's exception for “mischievous” conduct, post, at 418 n. 17, even if we could begin to define the meaning and limits of such a term.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Per Curiam.
The petitioner was convicted of robbery in the Criminal Court of Dade County, Florida, and the judgment of conviction was affirmed by the District Court of Appeal, 189 So. 2d 512, and the Supreme Court of Florida, 198 So. 2d 633. We granted certiorari because the case appeared to present a substantial constitutional question concerning the admissibility at trial of “lineup” identifications made after the petitioner was arrested without probable cause for the sole purpose of gathering evidence against him. 391 U. S. 934. However, upon the complete review of the record that has now become possible, and in the light of oral argument by able and conscientious counsel, it has become evident that the legality of the petitioner’s arrest was not at issue in the Florida appellate courts, and is not challenged here. Accordingly, the writ is dismissed as improvidently granted.
It is so ordered.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | I | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Per Curiam.
The petition for writ of certiorari to the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit is granted, and the judgment dismissing petitioner’s appeal to that court is reversed. The time limited by 28 U. S. C. § 2107 and Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 73 for the filing of the notice of appeal from the judgment appealed from was 30 days. However, Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 6 (a), as amended, provides that in computing the period, “[t]he last day of the period so computed shall be included, unless it is a Saturday, a Sunday, or a legal holiday, in which event the period runs until the end of the next day which is not a Saturday, a Sunday, or a legal holiday.” Since the thirtieth day following entry of the judgment appealed from was Saturday and the notice of appeal was filed the following Monday, we hold that the filing of the notice of appeal was timely. The provision of Rule 6 (a) was not made inapplicable by the order of the Court of Appeals directing that the District Court Clerk’s offices be open for business on Saturday mornings. The case is remanded to the Court of Appeals for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | I | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Chief Justice Burger
announced the judgment of the Court and an opinion in which Mr.- Justice Black and Mr. Justice Blackmun join, and in Part I of which Mr. Justice Stewart joins, and in Part III of which Mr. Justice White joins.
We granted certiorari in this case to consider the recurring question of what showing is constitutionally necessary to satisfy a magistrate that there is a substantial basis for crediting the report of an informant known to the police, but not identified to the magistrate, who purports to relate his personal knowledge of criminal activity.
In 1967 a federal tax investigator and a local constable entered the premises of respondent Harris, pursuant to a search warrant issued by a federal magistrate, and seized jugs of whiskey upon which the federal tax had not been paid. The warrant had been issued solely on the-basis of the investigator’s affidavit, which recited the following: •
“Roosevelt Harris has had a reputation with me for over 4 years • as being a trafficker of nontaxpaid distilled spirits, and over this period I have received numerous information [sic] from all types of persons as to his activities. Constable Howard Johnson located a sizeable stash of illicit whiskey in an abandoned house under Harris’ control during this period of time. This date, I have received information from a person who fears for their [sic] life and property should their name be revealed. I have interviewed this person, found this person to be a prudent person, and have, under • a sworn verbal statement, gained the following information: This person has personal knowledge of and has purchased illicit whiskey from within the residence described, for a period of more than 2 years, and most recently within the past 2 weeks, has knowledge of a person who purchased illicit whiskey within the past two days from the house, has personal knowledge that the illicit whiskey is consumed by purchasers in the outbuilding known as and utilized as the 'dance hall/ and has seen Roosevelt Harris go to the other outbuilding, located about 50 yards from the residence, on numerous occasions, to obtain the whiskey for this person and other persons.”
Respondent was subsequently charged with possession of nontaxpaid liquor, in violation of 26 U. S. C. § 5205 (a)(2). His pretrial motion to suppress the seized evidence on the ground that the affidavit was insufficient to establish probable cause was overruled, and he was convicted after a jury trial and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment. The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed the conviction, holding that the information in the affidavit was insufficient to enable the magistrate to assess the informant’s reliability and trustworthiness. 412 F. 2d 796, 797 (1969).
The Court of Appeals relied on Aguilar v. Texas, 378 U. S. 108 (1964), in which we held that an affidavit based solely • on the hearsay report of an unidentified informant must set forth “some of the underlying circumstances from which the officer concluded that the informant . . . was 'credible’ or his information 'reliable.’ ” Id., at 114. It concluded that the affidavit was insufficient because no information was presented to enable the magistrate to evaluate the informant’s reliability or trustworthiness. The court noted the absence of any allegation that the informant was a “truthful” person, but only an allegation that the informant was “prudent.” Having found the informant’s tip inadequate under Aguilar, the Court of Appeals, relying on Spinelli v. United States, 393 U. S. 410 (1969), looked to, the remaining allegations of the affidavit to determine whether they provided independent corroboration of the informant. The Court of Appeals held that the constable’s prior discovery of a cache on respondent’s property within the previous four years was too remote, and, citing certain language from Spmelli, it gave no weight whatever to the assertion that respondent had a general reputation known to the officer as a trafficker in illegal whiskey.
For the reasons stated below, we reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals and reinstate the judgment of conviction.
I'
In evaluating the showing of probable cause necessary to support a search warrant, against the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition of unreasonable searches and seizures, we would do well to heed the sound admonition of United States v. Ventresca, 380 U. S. 102 (1965):
“ [T]he Fourth Amendment’s commands, like all constitutional requirements, are practical and not abstract. If the teachings of the Court’s cases are to be followed and the constitutional policy served, affidavits for search warrants, such as the one involved here, must be tested and interpreted by magistrates and courts in a commonsense and realistic fashion. They are normally drafted by nonlawyers in the midst and haste of a criminal investigation. Technical requirements of elaborate specificity once exacted under common law pleadings have no proper place in this area. A grudging or negative attitude by reviewing courts toward warrants will tend to discourage police officers from submitting their evidence to a judicial officer before acting.” 380 U. S., at 108.
Aguilar in no way departed from these sound principles. There a warrant was issued on nothing more than an affidavit reciting:
“Affiants have received reliable information from a credible person and do believe that heroin, map-juana, barbiturates and other narcotics and narcotic paraphernalia are being kept at the above described premises' for the purpose of sale and use contrary to the provisions of the law.” 378 U. S., at 109.
The affidavit, therefore, contained none of the underlying “facts or circumstances” from which the mag’«trate could find probable cause. Nathanson v. United States, 290 U. S. 41, 47 (1933). On the contrary, the affidavit was a “mere affirmation of suspicion and belief” (Nathanson, supra, at 46) and gained nothing by the incorporation by reference of the informant’s unsupported belief. See Aguilar, supra, at 114 n. 4.
Significantly, the Court in Aguilar cited with approval the affidavit upheld in Jones v. United States, 362 U. S. 257 (1960). That affidavit read in pertinent part as follows:
“In the late afternoon of Tuesday, August 20, 1957, I, Detective Thomas Didone, Jr. received information that'Cecil Jones and Earline Richardson were involved in the illicit narcotic traffic and that they kept a ready supply of heroin on hand in the above mentioned apartment. The source of information also relates that the two aforementioned persons kept these same narcotics either on their person, under a pillow, on a dresser or on a window ledge in said apartment. The source of information goes on to relate that on many occasions the source of information has gone to said apartment and purchased narcotic drugs from the above mentioned persons and that the narcotics were secreated [sic] in the above mentioned places. The last time being August 20, 1957.” Id., at 267-268, n. 2.
The substance of the tip, held sufficient in Jones; closely parallels that here held insufficient by the Court of Appeals. Both recount personal and recent obsérva-tions by an unidentified informant of criminal activity, factors showing that the information had been gained in a reliable manner, and serving to distinguish both tips from that held' insufficient in Spinelli, supra, in which the affidavit failed to explain how the informant came by his information. Spinelli, supra, at 416.
The Court of Appeals seems to have believed, however, that there was no substantial basis for believing that the tip was truthful. Indeed, it emphasized that the affiant had never alleged that the informant was truthful, but only "prudent,” a word that “signifies that he is circumspect in the conduct of his affairs, but reveals nothing about his credibility.” 412 F. 2d, at 797-798. Such a construction of the affidavit is the very sort of hypertechnicality — the “elaborate specificity once exacted under common law” — condemned by this Court in Ven-tresca. A policeman’s affidavit “should not be judged as an entry in an essay contest,” Spinelli, supra, at 438 (Fortas, J., dissenting), but, rather, must be judged by the facts it contains. While a bare statement by an affiant that he believed the informant to be truthful would not, in itself, provide a factual basis for crediting the report of an unnamed informant, we conclude that the affidavit in the present case contains an ample factual basis for believing the informant which, when coupled with affiant’s own knowledge of' the respondent’s background, afforded a basis upon which a magistrate could reasonably issue a-warrant. The accusation by the informant was-plainly a declaration against interest since it could readily warrant a prosecution and could sustain a conviction against the informant himself. This will be developed in Part III.
II
In determining what quantum of information is necessary to support a belief that ah unidentified informant’s information is truthful, Jones v. United States, supra, is a suitable benchmark. The affidavit in Jones recounted the tip' of an anonymous informant, who claimed to have recently purchased narcotics from the defendant at his apartment, and described the apartment in some detail. After reciting the substance of the tip the affiant swore as follows:
“Both the aforementioned persons aré familiar to the undersigned and other members of the Narcotic Squad. Both have admitted to the use of narcotic drugs and display needle marks as evidence of same.
“This same information, regarding the illicit narcotic traffic, conducted by [the defendant] has been given to the undersigned and to other officers. of the narcotic squad by other sources of information.
“Because the source of information mentioned in the opening paragraph has given information to the undersigned on previous occasion and which was correct, and because this same information is given by other sources does believe that there is now illicit narcotic drugs being secreated [sic] in the above apartment . . . .” Id., at 268 n. 2.
Mr. Justice Frankfurter, writing for the Court in Jones, upheld the warrant. . Although the information in the affidavit was almost entirely hearsay, he concluded that there was' “substantial basis” for crediting the hearsay. The informant had previously given accurate information; his story was corroborated by “other sources” (albeit unnamed); additionally the defendant was known to the police as a user of narcotics. Justice Frankfurtér emphasized the last two of these factors:
“Corroboration through other sources of information reduced the chances of a reckless or prevaricating tale; that petitioner was a known user of narcotics made the charge against him much less subject to scepticism than would be such a charge against one without such a history.” Id., at 271.
Aguilar cannot be read as questioning the “substantial basis” approach of Jones. And unless Jones has somehow, without acknowledgment, been overruled by Spinelli, there would be no basis whatever for a holding that the affidavit in the present case is wanting. The affidavit in the present cáse, like that in Jones,- contained a substantial basis for crediting the hearsay. Both affidavits purport to relate the personal observations of the informant — a factor that clearly distinguishes Spinelli, in which the affidavit failed to explain how the informant came by his information. Both recite prior events within the affiant’s own knowledge — the needle marks in Jones and Constable Johnson’s prior seizure in the present case — indicating that the defendant had previously trafficked in contraband. These prior events again distinguish Spinelli, in which no facts were supplied to support the assertion that Spinelli was “known ... as a bookmaker, an associate of bookmakers, a gambler, and an associate of gamblers.” Spinelli, supra, at 422.
To be sure there is no averment in the-present affidavit, as.there was in Jones, that the informant had previously given “correct information,” but this Court in Jones never suggested that an averment of previous reliability was necessary. Indeed, when the inquiry is, as it always must, be in determining probable cause, whether the informant’s present information is truthful or reliable, it is curious, at the very least, that Mr. Justice Harlan would place such stress on vague attributes of “general background, employment . . . position in the community . . . .” (Post, at 600.) Were it not for some language in Spinelli, it is doubtful that any of these reputation attributes of the informant could be said to reveal any more about his present reliability than is afforded by the support of the officer’s personal knowledge of the suspect. In Spinelli, however, the Court rejected as entitled to no weight the “bald and unilluminating” assertion that the suspect was known to the affiant as a gambler. 393 U. S., at 414. For this proposition the Court relied on Nathanson v. United States, 290 U. S. 41 (1933). But a careful examination of Nathanson shows that the Spinelli opinion did not fully reflect' the critical points of what Nathanson held since it was limited to holding that reputation, standing alone, was insufficient; it surely did not hold it irrelevant when supported by other information. This reading of Nathanson is confirmed by Brinegar v. United States, 338 U. S. 160 (1949), in which the Court, in sustaining a finding of probable cause for a warrantless arrest, held proper the assertion of the searching officer that he had previously arrested the defendant for a similar offense and that the defendant had a reputation for hauling liquor. Such evidence would rarely be admissible at trial, but the Court took pains to emphasize the very different functions of criminal trials and preliminary determinations of probable cause. Trials are necessarily surrounded with evi-dentiary rules “developed to safeguard men from dubious and unjust convictions.” Id., at 174. But before the trial we deal only with probabilities that “are not technical; they are the factual and practical considerations of everyday life on which reasonable and prudent men, not legal technicians, act.” Brinegar, supra, at 175.
We cannot conclude that a policeman’s knowledge of a suspect’s reputation- — something that policemen frequently know and a factor that impressed such a “legal technician” as Mr. Justice Frankfurter — is not a “practical consideration of everyday life” upon which an officer (or a magistrate) may properly rely in assessing the reliability of an informant’s tip. To the-extent that Spinelli prohibits the use of such probative information, it has no support in our prior cases, logic, or experience and we decline to apply it to preclude a magistrate from relying on a law enforcement officer’s knowledge ~of a suspect’s reputation.
Ill
Quite apart from the affiant’s own knowledge of respondent’s activities, there was an additional reason for crediting the informant’s tip. Here the warrant’s affidavit recited extrajudicial statements of a declarant, who feared for his life and safety if his identity was revealed, that over the past two years he had many times and recently purchased “illicit whiskey.” These statements were against the informant’s penal interest, for he thereby admitted major elements of an offense under the Internal Revenue Code. Section 5205 (a)(2), Title 26, United States Code, proscribes the sale, purchase, or possession of unstamped liquor.
Common sense in the important daily affairs of life would induce a prudent and disinterested observer to credit these statements. People do not lightly admit a crime and place critical evidence in the hands of the police in the form of their own admissions. Admissions of crime, like admissions against proprietary interests, carry their own indicia of credibility — sufficient at least to support a finding of probable cause to search. That the informant may be paid or promised a “break” does not eliminate the residual risk and opprobrium of having admitted criminal conduct. Concededly admissions of crime do not always lend credibility to contemporaneous or later accusations of another. . But here the informant’s admission that over a long period and currently he had been buying illicit liquor on certain premises, itself and without more, implicated that property and furnished probable cause to search.
It may be that this informant’s out-of-cóurt declarations would not be admissible at respondent’s trial under Donnelly v. United States, 228 U. S. 243 (1913), or under Bruton v. United States, 391 U. S. 123 (1968). But Donnelly’s implication that statements against penal interest are without value and per se inadmissible hap been widely criticized; see the dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice Holmes in Donnelly, supra, at 277; 5 J. Wigmore, Evidence § 1477 (3d ed. 1940), and has been partially rejected in Rule 804 of the Proposed Rules of Evidence for the District Courts and Magistrates. More important, the issue in warrant proceedings is not guilt beyond reasonable doubt but probable cause for believing the occurrence of a crime and the secreting of evidence in specific premises. See Brinegar v. United States, supra, at 173. Whether or not Donnelly is to survive .as a rule of evidence in federal trials, it should not be extended to warrant proceedings to prevent magistrates from crediting, in all circumstances, statements of a declarant containing admissions of criminal conduct. As for Bruton, that case rested on the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment which seems inapposite to ex parte search warrant proceedings under the Fourth Amendment.
It will not do to say that warrants may not issue on uncorroborated hearsay. This only avoids the issue of whether there is reason for crediting the out'-of-court statement. Nor is it especially significant that neither the name nor the person of the informant was produced before the magistrate. The police themselves almost certainly knew his name, the truth of . the affidavit is not in issue, and McCray v. Illinois, 386 U. S. 300 (1967), disposed of the claim that the informant must be produced whenever the defendant so demands.
Reversed.
Mr. Justice Stewart joins in Part I of The Chief Justice’s opinion and in the judgment of the Court.
Mr. Justice White agrees with Part III of The Chief Justice’s opinion and has concluded that the affidavit, considered as a whole, was sufficient to support issuance of the warrant. He therefore concurs in the judgment of reversal.
We reject the contention of respondent that the informant’s observations were too stale to establish probable cause at the time the warrant was issued. The informant reported having purchased whiskey from respondent “within, the past 2 weeks,” which could well include purchases up to the date of the affidavit. Moreover, these recent purchases were part of a history of purchases over a two-year period. It was certainly reasonable for a magistrate, concerned only with a balancing'of probabilities, to conclude that there was a reasonable basis for a search.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Stevens
delivered the opinion of the Court.
As a class, women live longer than men. For this reason, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power required its female employees to make larger contributions to its pension fund than its male employees. We granted certiorari to decide whether this practice discriminated against individual female employees because of their sex in violation of § 703 (a)(1) of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended.
For many years the Department has administered retirement, disability, and death-benefit programs for its employees. Upon retirement each employee is eligible for a monthly retirement benefit computed as a fraction of his or her salary multiplied by years of service. The monthly benefits for men and women of the same age, seniority, and salary are equal. Benefits are funded entirely by contributions from the employees and the Department, augmented by the income earned on those contributions. No private insurance company is involved in the administration or payment of benefits.
Based on a study of mortality tables and its own experience, the Department determined that its 2,000 female employees, on the average, will live a few years longer than its 10,000 male employees. The cost of a pension for the average retired female is greater than for the average male retiree because more monthly payments must be made to the average woman. The Department therefore required female employees to make monthly contributions to the fund which were 14.84% higher than the contributions required of comparable male employees. Because employee contributions were withheld from paychecks, a female employee took home less pay than a male employee earning the same salary.
Since the effective date of the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972, the Department has been an employer within the meaning of Title V.II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. See 42 U. S. C. § 2000e (1970 ed., Supp. V). In 1973, respondents brought this suit in the United States District Court for the Central District of California on behalf of a class of women employed or formerly employed by the Department. They prayed for an injunction and restitution of excess contributions.
While this action was pending, the California Legislature enacted a law prohibiting certain municipal agencies from requiring female employees to make higher pension fund contributions than males. The Department therefore amended its plan, effective January 1, 1975. The current plan draws no distinction, either in contributions or in benefits, on the basis of sex. On a motion for summary judgment, the District Court held that the contribution differential violated § 703 (a)(1) and ordered a refund of all excess contributions made before the amendment of the plan. The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed.
The Department and various amici curiae contend that:
(1) the differential in take-home pay between men and women was not discrimination within the meaning of § 703 (a) (1) because it was offset by a difference in the value of the pension benefits provided to the two classes of employees; (2) the differential was based on a factor “other than sex” within the meaning of the Equal Pay Act of 1963 and was therefore protected by the so-called Bennett Amendment; (3) the rationale of General Electric Co. v. Gilbert, 429 U. S. 125, requires reversal; and (4) in any event, the retroactive monetary recovery is unjustified. We consider these contentions in turn.
I
There are both real and fictional differences between women and men. It is true that the average man is taller than the average woman; it is not true that the average woman driver is more accident prone than the average man. Before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was enacted, an employer could fashion his personnel policies on the basis of assumptions about the differences between men and women, whether or not the assumptions were valid.
It is now well recognized that employment decisions cannot be predicated on mere “stereotyped” impressions about the characteristics of males or females. Myths and purely habitual assumptions about a woman’s inability to perform certain kinds of work are no longer acceptable reasons for refusing to employ qualified individuals, or for paying them less. This case does not, however, involve a fictional difference between men and women. It involves a generalization that the parties accept as unquestionably true: Women, as a class, do live longer than men. The Department treated its women employees differently from its men employees because the two classes are in fact different. It is equally true, however, that all individuals in the respective classes do not share the characteristic that differentiates the average class representatives. Many women do not live as long as the average man and many men outlive the average woman. The question, therefore, is whether the existence or nonexistence of “discrimination” is to be determined by comparison of class characteristics or individual characteristics. A “stereotyped” answer to that question may not be the same as the answer that the language and purpose of the statute command.
The statute makes it unlawful “to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.” 42 U. S. C. § 2000e-2 (a)(1) (emphasis added). The statute’s focus on the individual is unambiguous. It precludes treatment of individuals as simply components of a racial, religious, sexual, or national class. If height is required for a job, a tall woman may not be refused employment merely because, on the average, women are too short. Even a true generalization about the class is an insufficient reason for disqualifying an individual to whom the generalization does not apply.
That proposition is of critical importance in this case because there is no assurance that any individual woman working for the Department will actually fit the generalization on which the Department’s policy is based. Many of those individuals will not live as long as the average man. While they were working, those individuals received smaller paychecks because of their sex, but they will receive no compensating advantage when they retire. ■
It is true, of course, that while contributions are being collected from the employees, the Department cannot know which individuals will predecease the average woman. Therefore, -unless women as a. class are assessed an extra charge, they will be subsidized, to some extent, by the class of male employees. It follows, according to the Department, that fairness to its class of male employees justifies the extra assessment against all of its female employees.
But the question of fairness to various classes affected by the statute is essentially a matter of policy for the legislature to address. Congress has decided that classifications based on sex, like those based on national origin or race, are unlawful. Actuarial studies could unquestionably identify differences in life expectancy based on race or national origin, as well as sex. But a statute that was designed to make race irrelevant in the employment market, see Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U. S. 424, 436, could not reasonably be construed to permit a take-home-pay differential based on a racial classification.
Even if the statutory language were less clear, the basic policy of the statute requires that we focus on fairness to individuals rather than fairness to classes. Practices that classify employees in terms of religion, race, or sex tend to preserve traditional assumptions about groups rather than thoughtful scrutiny of individuals. The generalization involved in this case illustrates the point. Separate mortality tables are easily interpreted as reflecting innate differences between the sexes; but a significant part of the longevity differential may be explained by the social fact that men are heavier smokers than women.
Finally, there is no reason to believe that Congress intended a special definition of discrimination in the context of employee group insurance coverage. It is true that insurance is concerned with events that are individually unpredictable, but that is characteristic of many employment decisions. Individual risks, like individual performance, may not be predicted by résort to classifications proscribed by Title VII. Indeed, the fact that this case involves a group insurance program highlights a basic flaw in the Department’s fairness argument. For when insurance risks are grouped, the better risks always subsidize the poorer risks. Healthy persons subsidize medical benefits for the less healthy; unmarried workers subsidize the pensions of married workers; persons who eat, drink, or smoke to excess may subsidize pension benefits for persons whose habits are more temperate. Treating different classes of risks as though they were the same for purposes of group insurance is a common practice that has never been considered inherently unfair. To insure the flabby and the fit as though they were equivalent risks may be more common than treating men and women alike; but nothing more than habit makes one “subsidy” seem less fair than the other.
An employment practice that requires 2,000 individuals to contribute more money into a fund than 10,000 other employees simply because each of them is a woman, rather than a man, is in direct conflict with both the language and the policy of the Act. Such a practice does not pass the simple test of whether the evidence shows “treatment of a person in a manner which but for that person’s sex would be different.” It constitutes discrimination and is unlawful unless exempted by the Equal Pay Act of 1963 or some other affirmative justification.
II
Shortly before the enactment of Title VII in 1964, Senator Bennett proposed an amendment providing that a compensation differential based on sex would not be unlawful if it was authorized by the Equal Pay Act, which had been passed a year earlier. The Equal Pay Act requires employers to pay members of both sexes the same wages for equivalent work, except when the differential is pursuant to one of four specified exceptions. The Department contends that the fourth exception applies here. That exception authorizes a “differential based on any other factor other than sex.”
The Department argues that the different contributions exacted from men and women were based on the factor of longevity rather than sex. It is plain, however, that any individual’s life expectancy is based on a number of factors, of which sex is only one. The record contains no evidence that any factor other than the employee’s sex was taken into account in calculating the 14.84% differential between the respective contributions by men and women. We agree with Judge Duniway’s observation that one cannot “say that an actuarial distinction, based entirely on sex is 'based on any other factor other than sex.’ Sex is exactly what it is based on.” 553 F. 2d 581, 588, (1976).
We are also unpersuaded by the Department’s reliance on a colloquy between Senator Randolph and Senator Humphrey during the debate on the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Commenting on the Bennett Amendment, Senator Humphrey expressed his understanding that it would allow many differences in the treatment of men and women under industrial benefit plans, including earlier retirement options for women.
Though h© did not address differences in employee contributions based on sex, Senator Humphrey apparently assumed that the 1964 Act would have little, if any, impact on existing pension plans. His statement cannot, however, fairly be made the sole guide to interpreting the Equal Pay Act,, which had been adopted a year earlier ; and it is the 1963 statute, with its exceptions, on which the Department ultimately relies. We conclude that Senator Humphrey’s isolated comment on the Senate floor cannot change the effect of the plain language of the statute itself.
Ill
The Department argues that reversal is required by General Electric Co. v. Gilbert, 429 U. S. 125. We are satisfied, however, that neither the holding nor the reasoning of Gilbert is controlling.
In Gilbert the Court held that the exclusion of pregnancy from an employer’s disability benefit plan did not constitute sex discrimination within the meaning of Title VII. Relying on the reasoning in Geduldig v. Aiello, 417 U. S. 484, the Court first held that the General Electric plan did not involve “discrimination based upon gender as such.” The two groups of potential recipients which that cáse concerned were pregnant women and nonpregnant persons. “ ‘While the first group is exclusively female, the second includes members of both sexes.’ ” 429 U. S., at 135. In contrast, each of the two groups of employees involved in this case is composed entirely and exclusively of members of the same sex. On its face, this plan discriminates on the basis of sex whereas the General Electric plan discriminated on the basis of a special physical disability.
In Gilbert the Court did note that the plan as actually administered had provided more favorable benefits to women as a class than to men as a class. This evidence supported the conclusion that not only had plaintiffs failed to establish a prima facie case by proving that the plan was discriminatory on its face, but they had also failed to prove any discriminatory effect.
In this case, however, the Department argues that the absence of a discriminatory effect on women as a class justifies an employment practice which, on its face, discriminated against individual employees because of their sex. But even if the Department’s actuarial evidence is sufficient to prevent plaintiffs from establishing a prima facie case on the theory that the effect of the practice on women as a class was discriminatory, that evidence does not defeat the claim that the practice, on its face, discriminated against every individual woman employed by the Department.
In essence, the Department is arguing that the prima facie showing of discrimination based on evidence of different contributions for the respective sexes is rebutted by its demonstration that there is a like difference in the cost of providing benefits for the respective classes. That argument might prevail if Title VII contained a cost-justification defense comparable to the affirmative defense available in a price discrimination suit. But neither Congress nor the courts have recognized such a defense under Title VII.
Although we conclude that the Department’s practice violated Title VII, we do not suggest that the statute was intended to revolutionize the insurance and pension industries. All that is at issue today is a requirement that men and women make unequal contributions to an employer-operated pension fund. Nothing in our holding implies that it would be unlawful for an employer to set aside equal retirement contributions for each employee and let each retiree purchase the largest benefit which his or her accumulated contributions could command in the open market. Nor does it call into question the insurance industry practice of considering the composition of an employer’s work force in determining the probable cost of a retirement or death benefit plan. Finally, we recognize that in a case of this kind it may be necessary to take special care in fashioning appropriate relief.
IV
The Department challenges the District Court’s award of retroactive relief to the entire class of female employees and retirees. Title VII does not require a district court to grant any retroactive relief. A court that finds unlawful discrimination “may enjoin [the discrimination]... and order such affirmative action as may be appropriate, which may include, but is not limited to, reinstatement... with or without back pay... or any other equitable relief as the court deems appropriate.” 42 U. S. C. § 2000e-5 (g) (1970 ed., Supp. V). To the point of redundancy, the statute stresses that retroactive relief “may” be awarded if it is “appropriate.”
In Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody, 422 U. S. 405, the Court reviewed the scope of a district court’s discretion to fashion appropriate remedies for a Title VII violation and concluded that “backpay should be denied only for reasons which, if applied generally, would not frustrate the central statutory purposes of eradicating discrimination throughout the economy and making persons whole for injuries suffered through past discrimination.” Id., at 421. Applying that standard, the Court ruled that an award of backpay should not be conditioned on a showing of bad faith. Id., at 422-423. But the Albemarle Court also held that backpay was not to be awarded automatically in every case.
The Albemarle presumption in favor of retroactive liability can seldom be overcome, but it does not make meaningless the district courts’ duty to determine that such relief is appropriate. For several reasons, we conclude that the District Court gave insufficient attention to the equitable nature of Title VII remedies. Although we now have no doubt about the application of the-statute in this case, we must recognize that conscientious and intelligent administrators of pension funds, who did not have the benefit of the extensive briefs and arguments presented to us, may well have assumed that a program like the Department’s was entirely lawful. The courts had been silent on the question, and the administrative agencies had conflicting views. The Department’s failure to act more swiftly is a sign, not of its recalcitrance, but of the problem’s complexity. As commentators have noted, pension administrators could reasonably have thought it unfair— or even illegal — to make male employees shoulder more than their “actuarial share” of the pension burden. There is no reason to believe that the threat of a backpay award is needed to cause other administrators to amend their practices to conform to this decision.
Nor can we ignore the potential impact which changes in rules affecting insurance and pension plans may have on the economy. Fifty million Americans participate in retirement plans other than Social Security. The assets held in trust for these employees are vast and growing — more than $400 billion was reserved for retirement benefits at the end of 1976 and reserves are increasing by almost $50 billion a year. These plans, like other forms of insurance, depend on the accumulation of large sums to cover contingencies. The amounts set aside are determined by a painstaking assessment of the insurer’s likely liability. Risks that the insurer foresees will be included in the calculation of liability, and the rates or contributions charged will reflect that calculation. The occurrence of major unforeseen contingencies, however, jeopardizes the insurer’s solvency and, ultimately, the insureds’ benefits. Drastic changes in the legal rules governing pension and insurance funds, like other unforeseen events, can have this effect. Consequently, the rules that apply to these funds should not be applied retroactively unless the legislature has plainly commanded that result. The EEOC itself has recognized that the administrators of retirement plans must be given time to adjust gradually to Title VII’s demands. Courts have also shown sensitivity to the special dangers of retroactive Title VII awards in this field. See Rosen v. Public Serv. Elec. & Gas Co., 328 F. Supp. 454, 466-468 (NJ 1971).
There can be no doubt that the prohibition against sex-differentiated employee contributions represents a marked departure from past practice. Although Title VII was enacted in 1964, this is apparently the first litigation challenging contribution differences based on valid actuarial tables. Retroactive liability could be devastating for a pension fund. The harm would fall in large part on innocent third parties. If, as the courts below apparently contemplated, the plaintiffs’ contributions are recovered from the pension fund, the administrators of the fund will be forced to meet unchanged obligations with diminished assets. If the reserve proves inadequate, either the expectations of all retired employees will be disappointed or current employees will be forced to pay not only -for their own future security but also for the unanticipated reduction in the contributions of past employees.
Without qualifying the force of the Albemarle presumption in favor of retroactive relief, we conclude that it was error to grant such relief in this case. Accordingly, although we agree with the Court of Appeals’ analysis of the statute, we vacate its judgment and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
ionIt is so ordered.
Mr. Justice Brennan took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
The section provides:
“It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer—
“(1) to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin... 78 Stat. 255,
42 U. S. C. §2000e-2 (a)(1).
In addition to the Department itself, the petitioners include members of the Board of Commissioners of the Department and members of the plan’s Board of Administration.
The plan itself is not in the record. In its brief the Department states that the plan provides for several kinds of pension benefits at the employee’s option, and that the most common is a formula pension equal to 2% of the average monthly salary paid during the last year of employment times the number of years of employment. The benefit is guaranteed for life.
The Department contributes an amount equal to 110% of all employee contributions.
The significance of the disparity is illustrated by the record of one woman whose contributions to the fund (including interest on the aihount withheld each month) amounted to $18,171.40; a similarly situated male would have contributed only $12,843.53.
86 Stat. 103 (effective Mar. 24, 1972).
In addition to five individual plaintiffs, respondents include the individuals’ union, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local Union No. 18.
See Cal. Govt. Code Ann. § 7500 (West Supp. 1978).
The court had earlier granted a preliminary injunction. 387 P. Supp. 980 (1975).
553 F. 2d 581 (1976). Two weeks after the Ninth Circuit decision, this Court decided General Electric Co. v. Gilbert, 429 U. S. 125. In response to a petition for rehearing, a majority of the Ninth Circuit panel concluded that its original decision did not conflict with Gilbert. 553 F. 2d, at 592 (1977). Judge Kilkenny dissented. Id., at 594.
See nn. 22 and 23, infra.
See Developments in the Law, Employment Discrimination and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 84 Harv. L. Rev. 1109, 1174 (1971).
“In forbidding employers to discriminate agaipst individuals because of their sex, Congress intended to strike at the entire spectrum of disparate treatment of men and women resulting from sex stereotypes. Section 703 (a) (1) subjects to scrutiny and eliminates such irrational impediments to job opportunities and enjoymept which have plagued women in the past.” Sprogis v. United Air Lines, Inc., 444 F. 2d 1194, 1198 (CA7 1971).
The size of the subsidy involved in this case is open to doubt, because the Department’s plan provides for survivors’ benefits. Since female spouses of male employees are likely to have greater life expectancies than the male spouses of female employees, whatever benefits men lose in “primary” coverage for themselves, they may regain in “secondary” coverage for their wives.
For example, the life expectancy of a white baby in 1973 was 72.2 years; a nonwhite baby could expect to live 65.9 years, a difference of 6.3 years. See Public Health Service, IIA Vital Statistics of the United States, 1973, Table 5-3.
Fortifying this conclusion is the fact that some States have banned higher life insurance rates for blacks since the 19th century. See generally M. James, The Metropolitan Life — A Study in Business Growth 338-339 (1947).
See R. Retherford, The Changing Sex Differential in Mortality 71-82 (1975). Other social causes, such as drinking or eating habits — perhaps even the lingering effects of past employment discrimination — may also affect the mortality differential.
A study of life expectancy in the United States for 1949-1951 showed that 20-year-old men could expect to live to 60.6 years of age if they were divorced. If married, they could expect to reach 70.9 years of age, a difference of more than 10 years. Id., at 93.
The record indicates, however, that the Department has funded its death-benefit plan by equal contributions from male and female employees. A death benefit — unlike a pension benefit — has less value for persons with longer life expectancies. Under the Department’s concept of fairness, then, this neutral funding of death benefits is unfair to women as a class.
A variation on the Department’s fairness theme is the suggestion that a gender-neutral pension plan would itself violate Title VII because of its disproportionately heavy impact on male employees. Cf. Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U. S. 424. This suggestion has no force in the sex discrimination context because each retiree’s total pension benefits are ultimately determined by his actual life span; any differential in benefits paid to men and women in the aggregate is thus “based on [a] factor other than sex,” and consequently immune from challenge under the Equal Pay Act, 29 U. S. C § 206 (d); cf. n 24, infra. Even under Title VII itself— assuming disparate-impact analysis applies to fringe benefits, cf. Nashville Gas Co. v. Satty, 434 U. S. 136, 144-145 — the male employees would not prevail. Even a completely neutral practice will inevitably have some disproportionate impact on one group or another. Griggs does not imply, and this Court has never held, that discrimination must always be inferred from such consequences.
Developments in the Law, supra n. 12, at 1170; see also Sprogis v. United Air Lines, Inc., 444 F. 2d, at 1205 (Stevens, J., dissenting).
The Bennett Amendment became part of § 703 (h), which provides in part:
“It shall not be an unlawful employment practice under this title for any employer to differentiate upon the basis of sex in determining the amount of the wages or compensation paid or to be paid to employees of such employer if such differentiation is authorized by the provisions of section 6 (d) of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, as amended (29 U. S. C. § 206 (d)).” 78 Stat. 257, 42 U. S. C. § 2000e-2 (h).
The Equal Pay Act provides, in part:
“No employer having employees subject to any provisions of thist section, shall discriminate, within any establishment in which such employees are employed, between employees on the basis of sex by paying wages to employees in such establishment at a rate less than the rate at which he pays wages to employees of the opposite sex in such establishment for equal work on jobs the performance of which requires equal skill, effort, and responsibility, and which are performed under similar working conditions, except where such payment is made pursuant to (i) a seniority system; (ii) a merit system; (iii) a system which measures earnings by quantity or quality of production; or (iv) a differential based on any other factor other than sex: Provided, That an employer who' is paying a wage rate differential in violation of this subsection shall not, in order to comply with the provisions of this subsection, reduce the wage rate of any employee.” 77 Stat. 56, 29 U. S. C. §206 (d).
We need not decide whether retirement benefits or contributions to benefit plans are “wages” under the Act, because the Bennett Amendment extends the Act’s four exceptions to all forms of “compensation” covered by Title VII. See n. 22, supra. The Department’s pension benefits, and the contributions that maintain them, are “compensation” under Title VII. Cf. Peters v. Missouri-Pacific R. Co., 483 F. 2d 490, 492 n. 3 (CA5 1973), cert. denied, 414 U. S. 1002.
The Department’s argument is specious because its contribution schedule distinguished only imperfectly between long-lived and short-lived employees, while distinguishing precisely between male and female employees. In contrast, an entirely gender-neutral system of contributions and benefits would result in differing retirement benefits precisely “based on” longevity, for retirees with long lives would always receive more money than comparable employees with short lives. Such a plan would also distinguish in a crude way between male and female pensioners, because of the difference in their average life spans. It is this sort of disparity — and not an explicitly gender-based differential — that the Equal Pay Act intended to authorize.
“MR. RANDOLPH. Mr. President, I wish to ask of the Senator from Minnesota [Mr. Humphrey], who is the effective manager of the pending bill, a clarifying question on the provisions of title VII.
“I have in mind that the social security system, in certain respects, treats men and women differently. For example, widows’ benefits are paid automatically; but a widower qualifies only if he is disabled or if he was actually supported by his deceased wife. Also, the wife of a retired employee entitled to social security receives an additional old age benefit; but the husband of such an employee does not. These differences in treatment as I recall, are of long standing.
“Am I correct, I ask the Senator from Minnesota, in assuming that similar differences of treatment in industrial benefit plants, including earlier retirement options for women, may continue in operation under this bill, if it becomes law?
“MR. HUMPHREY. Yes. That point was made unmistakably clear earlier today by the adoption of the Bennett amendment; so there can be n,o doubt about it.” 110 Cong. Rec. 13663-13664 (1964).
The administrative constructions of this provision look in two directions. The Wage and Hour Administrator, who is charged with enforcing the Equal Pay Act, has never expressly approved different employee contribution rates, but he has said that either equal employer contributions or equal benefits will satisfy the Act. 29 CFR § 800.116 (d) (1977). At the same time, he has stated that a wage differential based on differences in the average costs of employing men and women is not based on a “ 'factor other than sex.’” 29 CFR §800.151 (1977). The Administrator’s reasons for the second ruling are illuminating:
“To group employees solely on the basis of sex for purposes of comparison of costs necessarily rests on the assumption that the sex factor alone may justify the wage differential — an assumption plainly contrary to the terms and purpose of the Equal Pay Act. Wage differentials so based would serve only to perpetuate and promote the very discrimination at which the Act is directed, because in any grouping by sex of the employees to which the cost data relates, the group cost experience is necessarily assessed against an individual of one sex without regard to whether it costs an employer more or less to employ such individual than a particular individual of the opposite sex under similar working conditions in jobs requiring equal skill, effort, and responsibility.” Ibid.
To the extent that they conflict, we find that the reasoning of § 800.151 has more “power to persuade” than the ipse dixit of § 800.116. Cf. Skidmore v. Swift & Co., 323 U. S. 134, 140.
Quoting from the Geduldig opinion, the Court stated:
“ ‘[T]his case is thus a far cry from cases like Reed v. Reed, 404 U. S. 71 (1971), and Frontiero v. Richardson, 411 U. S. 677 (1973), involving discrimination based upon gender as such. The California insurance program does not exclude anyone.from benefit eligibility because of gender but merely removes one physical condition — pregnancy—from the list of compensable disabilities.’ ” 429 U. S., at 134.
After further quotation, the Court added:
“The quoted language from Geduldig leaves no doubt that our reason for rejecting appellee’s equal protection claim in that case was that the exclusion of pregnancy from coverage under California’s disability-benefits plan was not in itself discrimination based on sex.” Id., at 135.
See id., at 130-131, n. 9.
As the Court recently noted in Nashville Gas Co. v. Satty, 434 U. S., at 144, the Gilbert holding “did not depend on this evidence.” Rather, the holding rested on the plaintiff’s failure to prove either facial discrimination or discriminatory effect.
Some amici suggest that the Department’s discrimination is justified by business necessity. They argue that, if no gender distinction is drawn, many male employees will withdraw from the plan, or even the Department, because they can get a better pension plan in the private market. But the Department has long required equal contributions to its death-benefit plan, see n. 19, supra, and since 1975 it has required equal contributions to its pension plan. Yet the Department points to no “adverse selection” by the affected employees, presumably because an employee who wants to leave the plan must also leave his job, and few workers will quit because one of their fringe benefits could theoretically be obtained at a marginally lower price on the open market. In short, there has been no showing that sex distinctions are reasonably necessary to the normal operation of the Department’s retirement plan.
See 15 U. S. C. §13 (a) (1976 ed.). Under the Robinson-Patman Act, proof of cost differences justifies otherwise illegal price discrimination; it does not negate the existence of the discrimination itself. See FTC v. Morton Salt Co., 334 U. S. 37, 44-45. So here, even if the contribution differential were based on a sound and well-recognized business practice, it would nevertheless be discriminatory, and the defendant would be forced to assert an affirmative defense to escape liability.
Defenses under Title VII and the Equal Pay Act are considerably narrower. See, e. g., n. 30, supra. A broad cost-differential defense was proposed and rejected when the Equal Pay Act became law. Representative Findley offered an amendment to the Equal Pay Act that would have expressly authorized a wage differential tied to the “ascertainable and specific added cost resulting from employment of the opposite sex.” 109 Cong. Rec. 9217 (1963). He pointed out that the employment of women might be more costly because of such matters as higher turnover and state laws restricting women’s hours. Id., at 9205. The Equal Pay Act’s supporters responded that any cost differences could be handled by focusing on the factors other than sex which actually caused the differences, such as absenteeism or number of hours worked. The amendment was rejected as largely redundant for that reason. Id., at 9217.
The Senate Report, on the other hand, does seem to assume that the statute may recognize a very limited cost defense, based on “all of the elements'of the employment costs of both men and women.” S. Rep. No. 176, 88th Cong., 1st Sess., 4 (1963). It is difficult to find language in the statute supporting even this limited defense; in any event, no defense based on the total cost of employing men and women was attempted in this case.
Title VII and the Equal Pay Act primarily govern relations between employees and their employer, not between employees and third parties. We do not suggest, of course, that an employer can avoid his responsibilities by delegating discriminatory programs to corporate shells. Title VII applies to “any agent” of a covered employer, 42 U. S. C. § 2000e (b) (1970 ed., Supp. V), and the Equal Pay Act applies to “any person acting directly or indirectly in the interest of an employer in relation to an employee.” 29 U. S. C. § 203 (d). In this case, for example, the Department could not deny that the administrative board was its agent after it successfully argued that the two were so inseparable that both shared the city’s immunity from suit under 42 U. S. C. § 1983.
Title VII bans discrimination against an “individual” because of “such individual’s” sex. 42 U. S. C. § 2000e-2 (a) (1). The Equal Pay Act prohibits discrimination “within any establishment,” and discrimination is defined as “paying wages to employees... at a rate less than the rate at which [the employer] pays wages to employees of the opposite sex” for equal work. 29 U. S. C. § 206 (d) (1). Neither of these provisions makes it unlawful to determine the funding requirements for an establishment’s benefit plan by considering the composition of the entire force.
Specifically, the Court held
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | B | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Per Curiam.
Appellant Ashland Oil, Inc., a Kentucky corporation, is an integrated oil company that maintains business locations worldwide, including in West Virginia. During the years at issue here, West Virginia imposed a gross receipts tax on persons selling tangible property at wholesale. W. Va. Code § ll-13-2c (1983). Local manufacturers were exempt from the tax. §11-13-2. The West Virginia Tax Department conducted a detailed audit of Ashland’s tax returns for fiscal years ending September 1975 and 1976 and assessed a deficiency in tax payments of $181,313.22 for wholesale sales with West Virginia destinations. Ashland filed a timely petition for reassessment, primarily contending that the tax was unconstitutional as applied because there was an insufficient connection between its in-state activities and the transactions sought to be taxed. Juris. Statement 38a. After the State Tax Commissioner rejected Ashland’s petition, Ashland appealed to the Circuit Court of Kanawha County. While the appeal was pending, this Court decided Armco Inc. v. Hardesty, 467 U. S. 638 (1984), which invalidated the West Virginia tax scheme that had also been applied against Ashland as discriminatory against interstate commerce. The State Circuit Court granted Ashland summary judgment on the basis of our decision in Armco.
The West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals reversed, holding that Armco did not apply retroactively, and remanded for further proceedings. Relying on its state-law criteria for retroactivity, see Bradley v. Appalachian Power Co., 163 W. Va. 332, 266 S. E. 879 (1979), which it considered to “follow closely the analysis employed by the United States Supreme Court in Chevron Oil Co. v. Huson, 404 U. S. 97, 106 — [1]07 . . . (1971),” Ashland Oil, Inc. v. Rose, 177 W. Va. 20, 23, n. 6, 350 S. E. 2d 531, 534, n. 6 (1986), the court determined that Armco “represented a reversal of prior precedent, and that retroactive application of the Armco rule would cause severe hardship.” Id., at 25, 350 S. E. 2d, at 536. Accordingly, the court held that the State was not precluded from collecting the gross receipts taxes due for the fiscal years preceding the date of decision in Armco. Id., at 25-26, 350 S. E. 2d, at 536-537. We dismissed Ashland’s appeal of this decision for want of a final judgment. Ashland Oil, Inc. v. Rose, 481 U. S. 1025 (1987). On remand, the Circuit Court rejected Ashland’s remaining claim, and the State Supreme Court of Appeals denied Ash-land’s request for review.
In its appeal to this Court, Ashland contends, among other claims, that the State Supreme Court of Appeals erred in determining that Armco applied prospectively only. Because “[t]he determination whether a constitutional decision of this Court is retroactive ... is a matter of federal law,” American Trucking Assns., Inc. v. Smith, 496 U. S. 167, 177 (1990), we must examine the state court’s determination that Armco is not retroactive in light of our nonretroactivity doctrine.
Applying the view of retroactivity delineated by either the dissent or the plurality in American Trucking Assns., we must reverse the state court’s decision. Under the reasoning of the dissent in American Trucking Assns., Armco applies retroactively to the taxes assessed against Ashland because constitutional decisions apply retroactively to all cases on direct review. American Trucking Assns., Inc. v. Smith, supra, at 212 (Stevens, J., dissenting). Under the approach of the plurality in American Trucking Assns., the same result obtains, because Armco fails to satisfy the first prong of the plurality’s test for determining nonretroactivity. See Chevron Oil Co. v. Huson, 404 U. S. 97, 106-107 (1971), quoted in American Trucking Assns., Inc. v. Smith, supra, at 179 (plurality opinion).
The first prong of the Chevron Oil test requires that “the decision to be applied nonretroactively must establish a new principle of law, either by overruling clear past precedent on which litigants may have relied, or by deciding an issue of first impression whose resolution was not clearly foreshadowed.” 404 U. S., at 106-107 (citation omitted). In Armco, an Ohio corporation contested the applicability of West Virginia’s wholesale tax on its in-state sales of steel and wire rope. In ruling that the tax violated the Commerce Clause, the Court relied on Boston Stock Exchange v. State Tax Comm’n, 429 U. S. 318, 332, n. 12 (1977), which held that a State “may not discriminate between transactions on the basis of some interstate element.” On its face, West Virginia’s statutory scheme had just such a discriminatory effect, as it “provides that two companies selling tangible property at wholesale in West Virginia will be treated differently depending on whether the taxpayer conducts manufacturing in the State or out of it.” Armco, supra, at 642.
The Court next considered the argument that the State’s wholesale tax exemption did not discriminate against out-of-state taxpayers because it served as compensation for the imposition of a heavy manufacturing tax on in-state taxpayers. In Maryland v. Louisiana, 451 U. S. 725 (1981), we held that a tax on an out-of-state event may be considered a nondiscriminatory compensation for a tax on an in-state event when the State “is attempting to impose a tax on a substantially equivalent event to assure uniform treatment of goods and materials to be consumed in the State.” Id., at 759. Applying this test to the West Virginia tax scheme, the Court determined that “manufacturing and wholesaling are not ‘substantially equivalent events’ such that the heavy-tax on in-state manufacturers can be said to compensate for the admittedly lighter burden placed on wholesalers from out of State.” Armco, supra, at 643. The Court distinguished Alaska v. Arctic Maid, 366 U. S. 199 (1961), and Caskey Baking Co. v. Virginia, 313 U. S. 117 (1941), two cases that predated the compensatory tax doctrine enunciated in Boston Stock Exchange and Maryland v. Louisiana. Armco, supra, at 643, n. 7.
Finally, the Court rejected the argument that Armco should be required to prove the tax had actual discriminatory impact. Instead, the Court asserted that the “internal consistency” test, enunciated in Container Corp. of America v. Franchise Tax Bd., 463 U. S. 159, 169 (1983), was applicable “where the allegation is that a tax on its face discriminates against interstate commerce.” Armco, supra, at 644.
Armco unquestionably contributed to the development of our dormant Commerce Clause jurisprudence. See, e. g., Judson & Duffy, An Opportunity Missed: Armco, Inc. v. Hardesty, A Retreat from Economic Reality in Analysis of State Taxes, 87 W. Va. L. Rev. 723, 740-743 (1985) (suggesting that Armco’s invalidation of a facially discriminatory tax statute signaled a retreat from the economically realistic approach adopted by Complete Auto Transit, Inc. v. Brady, 430 U. S. 274 (1977), and a return to a more formalistic analysis); Lathrop, Armco — A Narrow and Puzzling Test for Discriminatory State Taxes Under the Commerce Clause, 63 Taxes 551, 558-559 (1985). In adopting the internal consistency test, Armco extended that doctrine beyond the context in which it had originated. See 467 U. S., at 648 (Rehnquist, J., dissenting). Nevertheless, Armco neither overturned established precedent nor decided “an issue of first impression whose resolution was not clearly foreshadowed.” Chevron Oil, supra, at 106. To be sure, Armco paved the way for Tyler Pipe Industries, Inc. v. Washington State Dept. of Revenue, 483 U. S. 232 (1987), which arguably “overturn[ed] a lengthy list of settled decisions” and “revolutionize^] the law of state taxation,” id., at 257 (Scalia, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part), by extending the internal consistency test. Armco itself, however, was not revolutionary. See American Trucking Assns., Inc. v. Scheiner, 483 U. S. 266, 303 (1987) (O’Con-nor, J., dissenting) (“At most, Armco may be read for the proposition that a tax that is facially discriminatory is unconstitutional if it is not ‘internally consistent’”).
Because Armco did not overrule clear past precedent nor decide a wholly new issue of first impression, it does not meet the first prong of the Chevron Oil test. Armco thus applies retroactively under either the rule advocated by the plurality or the rule advocated by the dissent in American Trucking Assns., Inc. v. Smith. Accordingly, the State Supreme Court of Appeals erred in declining to apply Armco retroactively to determine the constitutionality of the State’s imposition of taxes on Ashland for the years at issue. The motion of the Committee on State Taxation of the Council of State Chambers of Commerce for leave to file a brief as ami-cus curiae is granted. We reverse the judgment of the State Circuit Court and remand the case for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
The Court’s dismissal for want of a substantial federal question of Columbia Gas Transmission Corp. v. Rose, 459 U. S. 807 (1982), a case raising a nearly identical challenge to the state tax, see 467 U. S., at 644, n. 7, a year prior to deciding Armco, does not amount to the “overruling [of] clear past precedent on which litigants may have relied.” Chevron Oil Co. v. Huson, 404 U. S. 97, 106 (1971). The Court gives less deference to summary dispositions, see, e. g., Caban v. Mohammed, 441 U. S. 380, 390, n. 9 (1979), and it is unlikely that West Virginia relied upon the 1982 dismissal of Columbia Gas, given that the statute struck down in Armco had been in effect for more than 50 years.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | H | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice White
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Section 23(k)(1) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1939 provides for the deduction in full of worthless debts other than nonbusiness bad debts while § 23 (k) (4) restricts nonbusiness bad debts to the treatment accorded losses on the sale of short-term capital assets. The statute defines a nonbusiness bad debt in part as “a debt . . . other than a debt the'loss from the worthlessness of which is incurred in the taxpayer’s trade or business.” § 23 (k)(4). The question before us is whether petitioner’s activities in connection with several corporations in which he holds controlling interests can themselves be characterized as a trade or business so as to permit a debt owed by one of the corporations to him to be treated within the general rule of § 23 (k)(l) as a “business” rather than a “nonbusiness” bad debt.
Prior to 1941’ petitioner was a construction superintendent and ah estimator for a lumber company but during that year and over the next several ones he was instrumental in forming and was a member of a series of partnerships engaged in the construction or construction supply business. In 1949.and 1950 he was an original incorporator of seven corporations, some of which were successors to the partnerships, and in 1951 he sold his interest in the corporations along with his equity in five others in the rental and construction business, the profit on the sales being reported as long-term capital gains. In 1951 and 1952 he formed eight fiew corporations, one of which was Mission Orange Bottling Co. of Lubbock, Inc., bought the stock of a corporation known as Mason Root Beer and acquired an interest in a related vending machine business. From 1951 to 1953 he also bought and sold land, acquired and disposed of a restaurant and participated in several oil ventures.
On April 25, 1951, petitioner secured a franchise from Mission Dry Corporation entitling him to produce, bottle,. distribute and sell Mission beverages in various counties in Texas. Two days later he purchased the assets of a sole proprietorship in the bottling business and conducted that business pursuant to his franchise as a.sole proprietorship. On July 1, 1961, though retaining the franchise in his .own name, he sold the bottling equipment to Mission Orange Bottling Co. of Lubbock, Inc., a corporation organized by petitioner as mentioned, of which he owned approximately 80% of the shares outstanding. In 1952 he purchased land in Lubbock and erected a bottling plant thereon at a cost of $43,601 and then leased the plant to .Mission Orange for a 10-year term at- a prescribed rental. Depreciation was taken on the new bottling plant on petitioner’s individual tax returns for 1952 and 1953.
Petitioner made sizable cash advances to Mission Orange in 1952 and 1953, and on December 1, 1953, the balance due him-, including $25,502.50 still owing from his sale of the bottling assets to the corporation in July 1951, totaled $79,489.76. On December 15, 1953, petitioner advanced to Mission Orange an additional $48,000 to pay general creditors and on the same day received a transfer of the assets of the corporation with a book value of $70,414.66. The net amount owing to petitioner ultimately totaled $56,975.10, which debt became worthless in 1953 and is in issue here. During 1951, 1952 and 1953 Mission Orange made no payments of interest, rent or salary to petitioner although he did receive such income from some of his other corporations.
Petitioner deducted the $56,975.10 debt due from Mission Orange as a business bad debt in computing his 1953 taxable income. The Commissioner, claiming the debt, was a nonbusiness bad debt, assessed deficiencies. The Tax Court, after determining that petitioner in 1953 was not in the business of organizing, promoting, managing or financing corporations, of bottling soft drinks or of general financing and money lending, sustained the deficiencies. A divided Court of Appeals affirmed, 301 F..2d 108, and upon a claim of conflict among the Courts of Appeals, we granted certiorari. 371 U. S. 875.
I.
The concept of engaging in a trade or business as distinguished from other activities pursued for profit is not new to the tax laws. As early as 1916, Congress, by providing for the deduction of losses incurred in a trade .or business separately from those sustained in other transactions entered into for profit, § 5, Revenue Act of 1916, c. 463, 39 Stat. 756, distinguished the broad range of -income or profit producing activities from those satisfying the narrow category of trade or business. This pattern has been followed, elsewhere in the Code. See, e. g., '§ 23 (a)(1) and (2) (ordinary and necessary expenses); § 23 (e)(1) and (2) (losses); § 23 (1)(1) and (2) (depreciation); §122 (d)(5) (net operating loss deduction). It is not surprising, therefore, that we approach the problem of applying that term here with much writing upon the slate.
In Burnet v. Clark, 287 U. S. 410 (1932), the long-time president and principal stockholder of a corporation in the dredging business endorsed notes for the company which he was forced to pay. These amounts were deductible by him in the current year under the then existing law, but to carry over the loss to later years it was necessary for it to have resulted from the operation of a trade or business regularly carried on by the taxpayer. The Board of Tax Appeals denied the carry-over but the Court of Appeals fór thé District of Columbia held otherwise on the grounds that the taxpayer devoted all of his time and energies to carrying on the business of dredging and that he was compelled by circumstances to endorse the company’s notes in order to supply it with operating funds. This, Court in turn reversed and reinstated the judgment of the Board of Tax Appeals, since “[t]he respondent was employed as an officer of the corporation; the business which he conducted for it was not his own. . . . The unfortunate endorsements were no part of his ordinary business, but‘ occasional transactions intended to preserve the value, of ■ his investment in capital shares. ... A corporation and its stockholders are generally to be treated as separate entities.” A similar case, Dalton v. Bowers, 287 U. S. 404, decided the same day, applied the same principles.
A few years later, the same problem arose in another context. A taxpayer with large and diversified investment holdings, including a substantial but not controlling interest in the du Pont Company, obtained a block of stock of that corporation for- distribution to its officers in order to increase their management efficiency. The taxpayer, as. a result, became obligated to refund the annual dividends and taxes thereon arid these amounts he sought to deduct as ordinary and necessary expenses paid or incurred in the carrying on of a trade* or business pursuant to § 23 (a) of the Revenue Act of 1928. The Court, Deputy v. du Pont, 308 U. S. 488 (1940), assuming arguendo that the taxpayer’s activities in investing and managing his estate were a trade, or business, nevertheless denied the deduction because the transactions “had their origin in an effort by that company to increase the efficiency, of its management” and “arose out of transactions which were intended to preserve his investment in the corporation .... The well established decisions of this Court- do not permit any such blending of the corporation’s business with the business of its stockholders.” 308 U. S., at 494. Reliance was placed upon Burnet v. Clark and Dalton v. Bowers, supra.
The question assumed in du Pont was squarely up for' decision in Higgins v. Commissioner, 312 U. S. 212 (1941). Here the taxpayer devoted his time and energies to managing a sizable portfolio of securities and sought to deduct his expenses incident thereto as incurred in-a trade or business under § 23 (a). The Board of Tax Appeals, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and this Court Held that the evidence was insufficient to establish taxpayer’s activities as those of carrying on a trade or business. “The petitioner merely kept records and collected interest and dividends from his securities, through managerial attention for his' investments. No matter how large the estate or how continuous or extended the work required may be, such facts are not sufficient as a matter of law to permit the courts to reverse the decision of the Board.” 312 U. S., at 218.
Such was the state of the cases in this Court when Congress, in 1942, amended the Internal Revenue Code in respects crucial to this case. In response to the Higgins case and to give relief to Higgins-type taxpayers, see H. R. Rep. No. 2333, 77th Cong., 2d Sess. 46, § 23 (a) was amended not by disturbing the Court’s definition of “trade or business” but by following the pattern that had been established since 1916 of “[enlarging] the category of incomes with reference to which expenses were deductible,” McDonald v. Commissioner, 323 U. S. 57, 62; United States v. Gilmore, 372 U. S. 39, 45, to include expenses incurred in the production of income.
At the same time, to remedy what it deemed the abuses of permitting any worthless debt to be fully deducted,' as was.the case prior to this time, see H. R. Rep. No. 2333, 77th Cong., 2d Sess. 45, Congress restricted the full deduction under § 23 (k) to bad debts incurred in the taxpayer’s trade or business and provided that “nonbusiness” bad debts were to be deducted as short-term capital losses. Congress deliberately used the words “trade or business,” terminology familiar to the tax laws, and the respective committees made it clear that the .test of whether a debt is incurred in a trade or business “is substantially the same as that which is.made for the purpose of ascertaining whether a loss from the type of transaction covered by section 23 (e) is 'incurred in trade or business’ under paragraph (1) of that section.” H. R. Rep. No. 2333, 77th Cong., 2d Sess. 76-77; S. Rep. No. 1631, 77th Cóng., 2d Sess. 90. Section 23 (e)(1), of course, was a süccessor to the old § 5 of the Revenue Act of 1916 under which it had long been the rule to distinguish between activities in a trade or business and those undertaken for profit. The upshot was that Congress broadened § 23 (a) to reach income producing activities not amounting to a trade or business and conversely narrowed § 23 (k) to exclude bad debts arising from these same sources.
The 1942 amendment of § 23 (k), therefore, as the Court has already noted, Putnam v. Commissioner, 352 U. S. 82, 90-92, was intended to accomplish far more than to deny full' deductibility to the worthless debts of family and friends. It was designed to make full deductibility of a bad debt turn upon its proximate connection with activities which the tax laws recognized as a trade or business, a concept which falls far short of reaching every income or profit making activity.
II.
Petitioner, therefore, must demonstrate that he is engaged in a trade or business, and lying at the heart of his claim is the issue upon which the lower courts have divided and which brought the case here: That where a taxpayer furnishes regular services to one or many corporations, an independent trade or business of the taxpayer has been shown. But against the background of the 1942 amendments and the decisions of this Court in the Dalton, Bur-net, du Pont and Higgins cases, petitioners claim must be rejected.
Devoting one’s time and energies to the affairs of a corporation is not of itself, and without more> a trade or business of the person so engaged. Though such activities may produce income, profit or gain in the form of dividends or enhancement in the value of an investment, this return is distinctive.to the process of investing and is generated by the successful operation of the corporation’s business as distinguished from the trade or business of the taxpayer himself. When the only return is that of an investor, the taxpayer has not satisfied his burden of demonstrating that he is engaged in a trade or business since investing is not a trade or business and the return to the taxpayer, though substantially the product of his services, legally arises not from his own trade or business but from that of the corporation. Even if the taxpayer demonstrates an independent trade or business of his own, care must be taken to distinguish bad debt losses arising from his own business and those actually arising from activities peculiar to an investor concerned with, and participating in, the conduct of the corporate business.
If full-time service to one corporation does not alone amount to a trade or business, which it does not, it is difficult to understand how the same service to many corporations would suffice. To be sure, the presence of more than one corporation might lend support to a finding that the taxpayer was engaged in a regular course of promoting corporations for a fee or commission, see Ballantine, Corporations (rev. ed. 1946), 102, or for a profit on their sale, see Giblin v. Commissioner, 227 F. 2d 692 (C. A. 5th Cir.), but in such cases there is compensation other than the normal investor’s return, income received directly for his own services rather than indirectly through the corporate enterprise, and the principles of Burnet, Dalton, du Pont and Higgins are therefore not offended. On the other hand, since the Tax Court found, and the petitioner does not dispute, that there was no intention here of developing the corporations as going businesses for sale to customers in the ordinary course, the case before us inexorably rests upon the claim that one who actively engages in serving his own corporations for the purpose of creating future income through those enterprises is in a trade or business. That argument is untenable in light of Burnet, Dalton, du Pont and Higgins, and we reject it. Absent substantial additional evidence, furnishing management and other services to corporations for a reward not different from that flowing to an investor in those corporations is not a trade or business under § 23 (k)(4). We are, therefore, fully in agreement with this aspect of the decision below.
III.
With respect to the other claims by petitioner, we are unwilling to disturb the determinations of the Tax Court, affirmed by the Court of Appeals, that petitioner was not engaged in the business of money lending, of. financing corporations, of bottling soft drinks or of any combination of these since we cannot say they are clearly erroneous. See Commissioner v. Duberstein, 363 U. S. 278, 289-291. Nor need we consider or deal with those cases which hold that working as a corporate executive for a salary may be a trade or business. E. g., Trent v. Commissioner, 291 F. 2d 669 (C. A. 2d Cir.), Petitioner made no such claim in either the Tax Court or the Court of Appeals and, in any event, the contention would be groundless on this record since it was not shown that he has collected a salary from Mission Orange or that he was owed one. Moreover, there is no proof (which might bé difficult to furnish where' the taxpayer is the sole or dominant stockholder) that the loan was necessary to keep his job or was otherwise proximately related to maintaining his trade or business as an employee. Compare Trent v.. Commissioner, supra.
Wé are more concerned, however, with the evidence as to petitioner’s position as the owner and lessor of the real estate and' bottling plant in which Mission Orange did business. The United States does not dispute the fact that in this regard petitioner was engaged in a trade or business but argues that the loss from the worthless debt was not proximately related to petitioner’s real estate business. While the Tax Court and the Court of Appeals dealt separately with assertions relating to other phases of petitioner’s case, we do not find-that either court disposed of the possibility that' the loan to Mission Orange, a tenant of petitioner, was incurred in petitioner’s business of being a landlord. We take no position whatsoever on the merits of this matter but remand the case for further proceedings in the Tax Court. . ■ ■
Vacated and remanded.
Mr. Justice Douglas dissents.
The 1954 Code provision, § 166, is substantially identical to that in the 1939 Code with respect to the problem here. Preceding the enactment of the 1954 Code, there were statements from witnesses urging an express provision for the full bad debt deduction in circumstances such as these to overturn contrary lower court decisions like Commissioner v. Smith, 203 F. 2d 310 (C. A. 2d Cir.), Hearings before the House Committee on Ways and Means on Forty Topics Pertaining to the General Revision of the Internal Revenue Code, 83d Cong., 1st Sess. (pt. 3), 1519-1525, and bills introduced for that purpose, H. R. 3165 and H. R. 4853, 83d Cong., 1st Sess. The provision finally enacted, however, was one without these suggested modifications.
In general, short-term capital losses aré deductible only to the extent of the gains from the sale or exchange of capital assets, plus the taxable income of the taxpayer or $1,000, whichever is smaller. § 117 (d) (2). See also § 1211 (b), 1954 Code.
This corporation owned a franchise to distribute Mason root beer which petitioner bottled at the Mission Orange plant in Lubbock. Mason Hoot Beer failed in 1953 and petitioner’s return for that year, the same one as involved in this suit, reflects a $3,300 loss on the stock and a $53.33 nonbusiness bad debt from that corporation.
At the time Mission Orange was organized petitioner was issued 88% of the outstanding shares. The charter was amended in December of 1952 to authorize additional capital stock which, when subsequently issued, reduced his interest in the corporation to 77%. Sometime before the end of 1953, petitioner increased his holdings to about 79.5% of the outstanding shares.
He collected interest totaling $1,680.15 in 1951, $2,285.35 in 1952 and $1,747.59 in 1953; rental income of $15,570.78 in 1952 and $12,225.19 in 1953; and salaries totaling $29,400 for 1952 and $33,450 for 1953.
See note 10, infra.
The lower court relied in part upon the test'of trade or business announced in Washburn v. Commissioner, 51 F. 2d 949, 953:
“Á party may have investments in corporate stock, have no particular occupation, and live on the return of his investments. That would not constitute business under the statute in question. He may, however, take such an active part in the management of the enterprise in which he has investments as to amount to the' carrying on of a business.”
Dalton v. Bowers involved a taxpayer, owning all the stock of the debtor corporation, who argued that his trade or business was carrying on a comprehensive enterprise of exploiting his own inventions through corporations organized for limited purposes and that these personal activities transcended the separate corporate entities. As in Burnet, however, these contentions were rejected.
“He. treated [his corporation] as'something apart from his ordinary affairs, accepted credits for salaries as an officer, claimed loss to himself because of loans to it which had become worthless, and caused it to make returns for taxation distinct from his own. Nothing indicates that he regarded the corporation as his agent with authority to contract or act in his behalf. Ownership of all the stock is not enough to show that creation and management of the corporation was a part of his ordinary business. Certainly, under the general rule for tax purposes a corporation is an entity distinct from its stockholders . . . .” 287 U. S., at 410.
“The character of the debt for this purpose is not controlled by the circumstances attending its 'creation or its subsequent acquisition by the taxpayer or by the use to which the borrowed funds are put by the recipient, but is to be determined rather by the relation which the loss resulting from the debt’s becoming worthless bears to the trade or business of the taxpayer. If that relation is a proximate one in the conduct of the tra'de or business in which the taxpayer is engaged at the time the debt becomes worthless, the debt is not a nonbusiness debt for the purposes of this amendment.” H. R. Rep. No. 2333, 77th Cong., 2d Sess. 77; S. Rep. No. 1631, 77th Cong., 2d Sess. 90. Treasury Regulations 118, §39.23 (k)-6 (b), adopts substantially this language of the Committee. Reports as the test to be applied under § 23 (k).
To the extent that they hold or contain statements to the contrary, we disapprove of such cases as Maytag v. United States. 153 Ct. Cl. 622, 289 F. 2d 647; Mays v. Commissioner, 272 F. 2d 788 (C. A. 6th Cir.); Commissioner v. Stokes’ Estate, 200 F. 2d 637 (C. A. 3d Cir.); Foss v. Commissioner, 75 F. 2d 326 (C. A. 1st Cir.); Washburn v. Commissioner, 51 F. 2d 949 (C. A. 8th Cir.); Sage v. Commissioner, 15 T. C. 299; Campbell v. Commissioner, 11 T. C. 510; and Cluett v. Commissioner, 8 T. C. 1178.
Compare Maloney v. Spencer, 172 F. 2d 638 (C. A. 9th Cir.), and Dorminey v. Commissioner, 26 T. C. 940.
See under § 122 (net operating loss carry-over) Folker v. Johnson, 230 F. 2d 906 (C. A. 2d Cir.); Overly v. Commissioner, 243 F. 2d 576 (C. A. 3d Cir.); Batzell v. Commissioner, 266 F. 2d 371 (C. A. 4th Cir.); Roberts v. Commissioner, 258 F. 2d 634 (C. A. 5th Cir.) ; Pierce v. United States, 254 F. 2d 885 (C. A. 9th Cir.). But cf., McGinn v. Commissioner, 76 F. 2d 680 (C. A. 9th Cir.); Hughes v. Commissioner, 38 F. 2d 755 (C. A. 10th Cir.). See under § 23 (a) (1) (ordinary and necessary expenses of trade or business) Schmidlapp v. Commissioner, 96 F. 2d 680 (C. A. 2d Cir.); Noland v. Commissioner, 269 F. 2d 108, 111 (C. A. 4th Cir.).
Although petitioner received no rental payments from Mission Orange, there was rent owing to him under the 10-year-lease agreement.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | L | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Thomas
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This ease presents the question whether venue in a prosecution for using or carrying a firearm “during and in relation to any crime of violence,” in violation of 18 U. S. C. § 924(e)(1), is proper in any district where the crime of violence vías committed, even if the firearm was used or carried only in a single district.
I
During a drug transaction that took place in Houston, Texas, a New York drug dealer stole 80 kilograms of a Texas drug distributor’s cocaine. The distributor hired respondent, Jacinto Rodríguez-Moreno, and others to find the dealer and to hold captive the middleman in the transaction, Ephrain Avendano, during the search. In pursuit of the dealer, the distributor and his henchmen drove from Texas to New Jersey with Avendano in tow. The group used Avendano’s New Jersey apartment as a base for their operations for a few days. They soon moved to a house in New York and then to a house in Maryland, taking Avendano with them.
Shortly after respondent and the others arrived at the Maryland house, the owner of the home passed around a .357 magnum revolver and respondent took possession of the pistol. As it became clear that efforts to find the New York drug dealer would not bear fruit, respondent told his employer that he thought they should kill the middleman and end their search for the dealer. He put the gun to the back of Avendano’s neck but, at the urging of his cohorts, did not shoot. Avendano eventually escaped through the back door and ran to a neighboring house. The neighbors called the Maryland police, who arrested respondent along with the rest of the kidnapers. The police also seized the .357 magnum, on which they later found respondent’s fingerprint.
his codefendants were tried jointly in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey. Respondent was charged with, inter alia, conspiring to kidnap Avendano, kidnaping Avendano, and using and carrying a firearm in relation to the kidnaping of Avendano, in violation of 18 U. S. C. § 924(c)(1). At the conclusion of the Government’s case, respondent moved to dismiss the § 924(c)(1) count for lack of venue. He argued that venue was proper only in Maryland, the only place where the Government had proved he had actually used a gun. The District Court denied the motion, App. 54, and the jury found respondent guilty on the kidnaping counts and on the § 924(c)(1) charge as well. He was sentenced to 87 months’ imprisonment on the kidnaping charges, and was given a mandatory consecutive term of 60 months’ imprisonment for committing the § 924(c)(1) offense.
On a 2-to-l vote, the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit reversed respondent’s § 924(c)(1) conviction. United States v. Palma-Ruedas, 121 F. 3d 841 (1997). A majority of the Third Circuit panel applied what it called the “verb test” to § 924(c)(1), and determined that a violation of the statute is committed only in the district where a defendant “uses” or “carries” a firearm. Id., at 849. Accordingly, it concluded that venue for the § 924(c)(1) count was improper in New Jersey even though venue was proper there for the kidnap-ing of Avendano. The dissenting judge thought that the majority’s test relied too much “on grammatical arcana,” id., at 865, and argued that the proper approach was to “look at the substance of the statutes in question,” ibid. In his view, the crime of violence is an essential element of the course of conduct that Congress sought to criminalize in enacting § 924(e)(1), and therefore, “venue for a prosecution under [that] statute lies in any district in which the defendant committed the underlying crime of violence.” Id., at 863. The Government petitioned for review on the ground that the Third Circuit’s holding was in conflict with a decision of the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, United States v. Pomranz, 43 F. 3d 156 (1995). We granted certiorari, 524 U. S. 915 (1998), and now reverse.
b-i 5 — 1
Article III of the Constitution requires that “[t]he Trial of all Crimes . . . shall be held in the State where the said Crimes shall have been committed.” Art. Ill, § 2, cl. 3. Its command is reinforced by the Sixth Amendment’s requirement that “[i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed,” and is echoed by Rule 18 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure (“prosecution shall be had in a district in which the offense was committed”).
As we confirmed just last Term, the ‘“locus delicti [of the charged offense] must be determined from the nature of the crime alleged and the location of the act or acts constituting it.’ ” United States v. Cabrales, 524 U. S. 1, 6-7 (1998) (quoting United States v. Anderson, 328 U. S. 699, 703 (1946)). In performing this inquiry, a court must initially identify the conduct constituting the offense (the nature of the crime) and then discern the location of the commission of the criminal acts. See Cabrales, supra, at 6-7; Travis v. United States, 364 U. S. 631, 635-637 (1961); United States v. Cores, 356 U. S. 405, 408-409 (1958); Anderson, supra, at 703-706.
committed the offense and was tried, 18 U. S. C. § 924(e)(1) provided:
“Whoever, during and in relation to any crime of violence ... for which he may be prosecuted in a court of the United States, uses or carries a firearm, shall, in addition to the punishment provided for such crime of violence ... be sentenced to imprisonment for five years ... .”
The Third Circuit, as explained above, looked to the verbs of the statute to determine the nature of the substantive offense. But we have never before held, and decline to do so here, that verbs are the sole consideration in identifying the conduct that constitutes an offense. While the “verb test” certainly has value as an interpretative tool, it cannot be applied rigidly, to the exclusion of other relevant statutory language. The test unduly limits the inquiry into the nature of the offense and thereby creates a danger that certain conduct prohibited by statute will be missed.
In our view, the Third Circuit overlooked an essential conduct element of the § 924(c)(1) offense. Section 924(c)(1) prohibits using or carrying a firearm “during and in relation to any crime of violence ... for which [a defendant] may be prosecuted in a court of the United States.” That the crime of violence element of the statute is embedded in a prepositional phrase and not expressed in verbs does not dissuade us from concluding that a defendant’s violent acts are essential conduct elements. To prove the charged § 924(c)(1) violation in this case, the Government was required to show that respondent used a firearm, that he committed all the acts necessary to be subject to punishment for kidnaping (a crime of violence) in a court of the United States, and that he used the gun “during and in relation to” the kidnaping of Avendano. In sum, we interpret § 924(c)(1) to contain two distinct conduct elements — as is relevant to this case, the “using and carrying” of a gun and the commission of a kidnaping.
Respondent, however, argues that for venue purposes “the New Jersey kidnapping is completely irrelevant to the firearm crime, because respondent did not use or carry a gun during the New Jersey crime.” Brief for Respondent 12. In the words of one amicus, § 924(c)(1) is a “point-in-time” offense that only is committed in the place where the kidnap-ing and the use of a gun coincide. Brief for National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers as Amicus Curiae 11. We disagree. Several Circuits have determined that kid-naping, as defined by 18 U. S. C. § 1201 (1994 ed. and Supp. Ill), is a unitary crime, see United States v. Seals, 130 F. 3d 451, 461-462 (CADC 1997); United States v. Denny-Shaffer, 2 F. 3d 999, 1018-1019 (CA10 1993); United States v. Godinez, 998 F. 2d 471, 473 (CA7 1993); United States v. Garcia, 854 F. 2d 340, 343-344 (CA9 1988), and we agree with their conclusion. A kidnaping, once begun, does not end until the victim is free. It does not make sense, then, to speak of it in discrete geographic fragments. Section 924(e)(1) criminalized a defendant’s use of a firearm “during and in relation to” a crime of violence; in doing so, Congress proscribed both the use of the firearm and the commission of acts that constitute a violent crime. It does not matter that respondent used the .357 magnum revolver, as the Government concedes, only in Maryland because he did so “during and in relation to” a kidnaping that was begun in Texas and continued in New York, New Jersey, and Maryland. In our view, § 924(c)(1) does not define a “point-in-time” offense when a firearm is used during and in relation to a continuing crime of violence.
As we said in United States v. Lombardo, 241 U. S. 73 (1916), “where a crime consists of distinct parts which have different localities the whole may be tried where any part can be proved to have been done.” Id., at 77; cf. Hyde v. United States, 225 U. S. 347, 356-367 (1912) (venue proper against defendant in district where co-conspirator carried out overt acts even though there was no evidence that the defendant had ever entered that district or that the conspiracy was formed there). The kidnaping, to which the § 924(c)(1) offense is attached, was committed in all of the places that any part of it took place, and venue for the kid-naping charge against respondent was appropriate in any of them. (Congress has provided that continuing offenses can be tried “in any district in which such offense was begun, continued, or completed,” 18 U. S. C. § 3287(a).) Where venue is appropriate for the underlying crime of violence, so too it is for the § 924(e)(1) offense. As the kidnaping was property tried in New Jersey, the § 924(c)(1) offense could be tried there as well.
* * *
We hold that venue for this prosecution was proper in the district where it was brought. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is therefore reversed.
It is so ordered.
When we first announced this test in United States v. Anderson, 328 U. S., at 703, we were comparing § 11 of the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940, 54 Stat. 894, in which Congress did “not indicate where [it] considered the place of committing the crime to be,” 328 U. S., at 703, with statutes where Congress was explicit with respect to venue. Title 18 U. S. C. § 924(c)(1), like the Selective Training and Service Act, does not contain an express venue provision.
The Government argues that venue also may permissibly be based upon the effects of a defendant’s conduct in a district other than the one in which the defendant performs the acts constituting the offense. Brief for United States 16-17. Because this ease only concerns the locus de-licti, we express no opinion as to whether the Government’s assertion is correct.
The statute recently has been amended, see Pub. L. 105-386, 112 Stat. 3469, but it is not argued that the amendment is in any way relevant to our analysis in this case.
By way of comparison, last Term in United States v. Cabrales, 524 U. S. 1 (1998), we considered whether venue for money laundering, in violation of 18 U. S. C. §§ 1956(a)(1)(B)(ii) and 1957, was proper in Missouri, where the laundered proceeds were unlawfully generated, or rather, only in Florida, where the prohibited laundering transactions occurred. As we interpreted the laundering statutes at issue, they did not proscribe “the anterior criminal conduct that yielded the funds allegedly laundered.” Cabrales, 524 U. S., at 7. The existence of criminally generated proceeds was a circumstance element of the offense but the proscribed conduct— defendant’s money laundering activity — occurred “‘after the fact’ of an offense begun and completed by others.” Ibid. Here, by contrast, given the "during and in relation to” language, the underlying crime of violence is a critical part of the § 924(c)(1) offense.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | I | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Souter
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Liability under § 1 of the Sherman Act, 15 U. S. C. § 1, requires a “contract, combination..., or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce.” The question in this putative class action is whether a § 1 complaint can survive a motion to dismiss when it alleges that major telecommunications providers engaged in certain parallel conduct unfavorable to competition, absent some factual context suggesting agreement, as distinct from identical, independent action. We hold that such a complaint should be dismissed.
I
The upshot of the 1984 divestiture of the American Telephone & Telegraph Company’s (AT&T) local telephone business was a system of regional service monopolies (variously called “Regional Bell Operating Companies,” “Baby Bells,” or “Incumbent Local Exchange Carriers” (ILECs)), and a separate, competitive market for long-distance service from which the ILECs were excluded. More than a decade later, Congress withdrew approval of the ILECs’ monopolies by enacting the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (1996 Act), 110 Stat. 56, which “fundamentally restructure[d] local telephone markets” and “subjected] [ILECs] to a host of duties intended to facilitate market entry.” AT&T Corp. v. Iowa Utilities Bd., 525 U. S. 366, 371 (1999). In recompense, the 1996 Act set conditions for authorizing ILECs to enter the long-distance market. See 47 U. S. C. §271.
“Central to the [new] scheme [was each ILEC’s] obligation... to share its network with competitors,” Verizon Communications Inc. v. Law Offices of Curtis V. Trinko, LLP, 540 U. S. 398, 402 (2004), which came to be known as “competitive local exchange carriers” (CLECs), Pet. for Cert. 6, n. 1. A CLEC could make use of an ILEC’s network in any of three ways: by (1) “purchasing] local telephone services at wholesale rates for resale to end users,” (2) “leasing] elements of the [ILEC’s] network ‘on an unbundled basis,’ ” or (3) “interconnecting] its own facilities with the [ILEC’s] network.” Iowa Utilities Bd., supra, at 371 (quoting 47 U. S. C. § 251(c)). Owing to the “considerable expense and effort” required to make unbundled network elements available to rivals at wholesale prices, Trinko, supra, at 410, the ILECs vigorously litigated the scope of the sharing obligation imposed by the 1996 Act, with the result that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) three times revised its regulations to narrow the range of network elements to be shared with the CLECs. See Covad Communications Co. v. FCC, 450 F. 3d 528, 533-534 (CADC 2006) (summarizing the 10-year-long regulatory struggle between the ILECs and CLECs).
Respondents William Twombly and Lawrence Marcus (hereinafter plaintiffs) represent a putative class consisting of all “subscribers of local telephone and/or high speed internet services... from February 8, 1996 to present.” Amended Complaint in No. 02 CIV. 10220 (GEL) (SDNY) ¶ 53, App. 28 (hereinafter Complaint). In this action against petitioners, a group of ILECs, plaintiffs seek treble damages and declaratory and injunctive relief for claimed violations of §1 of the Sherman Act, ch. 647, 26 Stat. 209, as amended, 15 U. S. C. § 1, which prohibits “[ejvery contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations.”
The complaint alleges that the ILECs conspired to restrain trade in two ways, each supposedly inflating charges for local telephone and high-speed Internet services. Plaintiffs say, first, that the ILECs “engaged in parallel conduct” in their respective service areas to inhibit the growth of upstart CLECs. Complaint ¶47, App. 23-26. Their actions allegedly included making unfair agreements with the CLECs for access to ILEC networks, providing inferior connections to the networks, overcharging, and billing in ways designed to sabotage the CLECs’ relations with their own customers. Ibid. According to the complaint, the ILECs’ “compelling common motivatio[n]” to thwart the CLECs’ competitive efforts naturally led them to form a conspiracy; “[h]ad any one [ILEC] not sought to prevent CLECs... from competing effectively, the resulting greater competitive inroads into that [ILEC’s] territory would have revealed the degree to which competitive entry by CLECs would have been successful in the other territories in the absence of such conduct.” Id., ¶ 50, App. 26-27.
Second, the complaint charges agreements by the ILECs to refrain from competing against one another. These are to be inferred from the ILECs’ common failure “meaningfully [to] pursu[e]” “attractive business opportunities]” in contiguous markets where they possessed “substantial competitive advantages,” id., ¶¶ 40-41, App. 21-22, and from a statement of Richard Notebaert, chief executive officer (CEO) of the ILEC Qwest, that competing in the territory of another ILEC “ ‘might be a good way to turn a quick dollar but that doesn’t make it right,’” id., ¶ 42, App. 22.
The complaint couches its ultimate allegations this way:
“In the absence of any meaningful competition between the [ILECs] in one another’s markets, and in light of the parallel course of conduct that each engaged in to prevent competition from CLECs within their respective local telephone and/or high speed internet services markets and the other facts and market circumstances alleged above, Plaintiffs allege upon information and belief that [the ILECs] have entered into a contract, combination or conspiracy to prevent competitive entry in their respective local telephone and/or high speed internet services markets and have agreed not to compete with one another and otherwise allocated customers and markets to one another.” Id., ¶ 51, App. 27.
The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York dismissed the complaint for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. The District Court acknowledged that “plaintiffs may allege a conspiracy by citing instances of parallel business behavior that suggest an agreement,” but emphasized that “while ‘[circumstantial evidence of consciously parallel behavior may have made heavy inroads into the traditional judicial attitude toward conspiracy[,...] “conscious parallelism” has not yet read conspiracy out of the Sherman Act entirely.’” 313 F. Supp. 2d 174, 179 (2003) (quoting Theatre Enterprises, Inc. v. Paramount Film Distributing Corp., 346 U. S. 537, 541 (1954); alterations in original). Thus, the District Court understood that allegations of parallel business conduct, taken alone, do not state a claim under § 1; plaintiffs must allege additional facts that “ten[d] to exclude independent self-interested conduct as an explanation for defendants’ parallel behavior.” 313 F. Supp. 2d, at 179. The District Court found plaintiffs’ allegations of parallel ILEC actions to discourage competition inadequate because “the behavior of each ILEC in resisting the incursion of CLECs is fully explained by the ILEC’s own interests in defending its individual territory.” Id., at 183. As to the ILECs’ supposed agreement against competing with each other, the District Court found that the complaint does not “alleg[e] facts... suggesting that refraining from competing in other territories as CLECs was contrary to [the ILECs’] apparent economic interests, and consequently [does] not rais[e] an inference that [the ILECs’] actions were the result of a conspiracy.” Id., at 188.
The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed, holding that the District Court tested the complaint by the wrong standard. It held that “plus factors are not required to be pleaded to permit an antitrust claim based on parallel conduct to survive dismissal.” 425 F. 3d 99, 114 (2005) (emphasis in original). Although the Court of Appeals took the view that plaintiffs must plead facts that “include conspiracy among the realm of ‘plausible’ possibilities in order to survive a motion to dismiss,” it then said that “to rule that allegations of parallel anticompetitive conduct fail to support a plausible conspiracy claim, a court would have to conclude that there is no set of facts that would permit a plaintiff to demonstrate that the particular parallelism asserted was the product of collusion rather than coincidence.” Ibid.
We granted certiorari to address the proper standard for pleading an antitrust conspiracy through allegations of parallel conduct, 548 U. S. 903 (2006), and now reverse.
II
A
Because §1 of the Sherman Act “does not prohibit [all] unreasonable restraints of trade... but only restraints effected by a contract, combination, or conspiracy,” Copperweld Corp. v. Independence Tube Corp., 467 U. S. 752, 775 (1984), “[t]he crucial question” is whether the challenged anticompetitive conduct “stem[s] from independent decision or from an agreement, tacit or express,” Theatre Enterprises, 346 U. S., at 540. While a showing of parallel “business behavior is admissible circumstantial evidence from which the fact finder may infer agreement,” it falls short of “conclusively establishing] agreement or... itself constituting] a Sherman Act offense.” Id., at 540-541. Even “conscious parallelism,” a common reaction of “firms in a concentrated market [that] recogniz[e] their shared economic interests and their interdependence with respect to price and output deeisions” is “not in itself unlawful.” Brooke Group Ltd. v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., 509 U. S. 209, 227 (1993); see 6 P. Areeda & H. Hovenkamp, Antitrust Law ¶ 1433a, p. 236 (2d ed. 2003) (hereinafter Ajreeda & Hovenkamp) (“The courts are nearly unanimous in saying that mere interdependent parallelism does not establish the contract, combination, or conspiracy required by Sherman Act § 1”); Turner, The Definition of Agreement Under the Sherman Act: Conscious Parallelism and Refusals to Deal, 75 Harv. L. Rev. 655, 672 (1962) (“[M]ere interdependence of basic price decisions is not conspiracy”).
The inadequacy of showing parallel conduct or interdependence, without more, mirrors the ambiguity of the behavior: consistent with conspiracy, but just as much in line with a wide swath of rational and competitive business strategy unilaterally prompted by common perceptions of the market. See, e. g., AEI-Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies, Epstein, Motions to Dismiss Antitrust Cases: Separating Fact from Fantasy, Related Publication 06-08, pp. 3-4 (2006) (discussing problem of “false positives” in § 1 suits). Accordingly, we have previously hedged against false inferences from identical behavior at a number of points in the trial sequence. An antitrust conspiracy plaintiff with evidence showing nothing beyond parallel conduct is not entitled to a directed verdict, see Theatre Enterprises, supra; proof of a § 1 conspiracy must include evidence tending to exclude the possibility of independent action, see Monsanto Co. v. Spray-Rite Service Corp., 465 U. S. 752 (1984); and at the summary judgment stage a § 1 plaintiff’s offer of conspiracy evidence must tend to rule out the possibility that the defendants were acting independently, see Matsushita Elec. Industrial Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U. S. 574 (1986).
B
This case presents the antecedent question of what a plaintiff must plead in order to state a claim under §1 of the Sherman Act. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8(a)(2) requires only “a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief,” in order to “give the defendant fair notice of what the... claim is and the grounds upon which it rests,” Conley v. Gibson, 355 U. S. 41, 47 (1957). While a complaint attacked by a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss does not need detailed factual allegations, ibid.; Sanjuan v. American 13d. of Psychiatry and Neurology, Inc., 40 F. 3d 247, 251 (CA7 1994), a plaintiff’s obligation to provide the “grounds” of his “entitle[ment] to relief” requires more than labels and conclusions, and a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action will not do, see Papasan v. Allain, 478 U. S. 265, 286 (1986) (on a motion to dismiss, courts “are not bound to accept as true a legal conclusion couched as a factual allegation”). Factual allegations must be enough to raise a right to relief above the speculative level, see 5 C. Wright & A. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure § 1216, pp. 235-236 (3d ed. 2004) (hereinafter Wright & Miller) (“[T]he pleading must contain something more... than... a statement of facts that merely creates a suspicion [of] a legally cognizable right of action”), on the assumption that all the allegations in the complaint are true (even if doubtful in fact), see, e. g., Swierkiewicz v. Sorema N. A, 534 U. S. 506, 508, n. 1 (2002); Neitzke v. Williams, 490 U. S. 319, 327 (1989) (“Rule 12(b)(6) does not countenance... dismissals based on a judge’s disbelief of a complaint’s factual allegations”); Scheuer v. Rhodes, 416 U. S. 232, 236 (1974) (a well-pleaded complaint may proceed even if it appears “that a recovery is very remote and unlikely”).
In applying these general standards to a § 1 claim, we hold that stating such a claim requires a complaint with enough factual matter (taken as true) to suggest that an agreement was made. Asking for plausible grounds to infer an agreement does not impose a probability requirement at the pleading stage; it simply calls for enough fact to raise a reasonable expectation that discovery will reveal evidence of illegal agreement. And, of course, a well-pleaded complaint may proceed even if it strikes a savvy judge that actual proof of the facts alleged is improbable, and “that a recovery is very remote and unlikely.” Ibid. In identifying facts that are suggestive enough to render a § 1 conspiracy plausible, we have the benefit of the prior rulings and considered views of leading commentators, already quoted, that lawful parallel conduct fails to bespeak unlawful agreement. It makes sense to say, therefore, that an allegation of parallel conduct and a bare assertion of conspiracy will not suffice. Without more, parallel conduct does not suggest conspiracy, and a conclusory allegation of agreement at some unidentified point does not supply facts adequate to show illegality. Hence, when allegations of parallel conduct are set out in order to make a § 1 claim, they must be placed in a context that raises a suggestion of a preceding agreement, not merely parallel conduct that could just as well be independent action.
The need at the pleading stage for allegations plausibly suggesting (not merely consistent with) agreement reflects the threshold requirement of Rule 8(a)(2) that the “plain statement” possess enough heft to “sho[w] that the pleader is entitled to relief.” A statement of parallel conduct, even conduct consciously undertaken, needs some setting suggesting the agreement necessary to make out a § 1 claim; without that further circumstance pointing toward a meeting of the minds, an account of a defendant’s commercial efforts stays in neutral territory. An allegation of parallel conduct is thus much like a naked assertion of conspiracy in a § 1 complaint: it gets the eomplaint close to stating a claim, but without some further factual enhancement it stops short of the line between possibility and plausibility of “entitle[ment] to relief.” Cf. DM Research, Inc. v. College of Am. Pathologists, 170 F. 3d 53, 56 (CA1 1999) (“[T]erms like ‘conspiracy,’ or even ‘agreement,’ are border-line: they might well be sufficient in conjunction with a more specific allegation — for example, identifying a written agreement or even a basis for inferring a tacit agreement,... but a court is not required to accept such terms as a sufficient basis for a complaint”).
We alluded to the practical significance of the Rule 8 entitlement requirement in Dura Pharmaceuticals, Inc. v. Broudo, 544 U. S. 336 (2005), when we explained that something beyond the mere possibility of loss causation must be alleged, lest a plaintiff with “ ‘a largely groundless claim’ ” be allowed to “ ‘take up the time of a number of other people, with the right to do so representing an in terrorem increment of the settlement value.’” Id., at 347 (quoting Blue Chip Stamps v. Manor Drug Stores, 421 U. S. 723, 741 (1975)). So, when the allegations in a complaint, however true, could not raise a claim of entitlement to relief, “ ‘this basic deficiency should... be exposed at the point of minimum expenditure of time and money by the parties and the court.’” 5 Wright & Miller §1216, at 233-234 (quoting Daves v. Hawaiian Dredging Co., 114 F. Supp. 643, 645 (Haw. 1953)); see also Dura, supra, at 346; Asahi Glass Co. v. Pentech Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 289 F. Supp. 2d 986, 995 (ND Ill. 2003) (Posner, J., sitting by designation) (“[S]ome threshold of plausibility must be crossed at the outset before a patent antitrust ease should be permitted to go into its inevitably costly and protracted discovery phase”).
Thus, it is one thing to be cautious before dismissing an antitrust complaint in advance of discovery, cf. Poller v. Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc., 368 U. S. 464, 473 (1962), but quite another to forget that proceeding to antitrust discovery can be expensive. As we indicated over 20 years ago in Associated Gen. Contractors of Cal., Inc. v. Carpenters, 459 U. S. 519, 528, n. 17 (1983), “a district court must retain the power to insist upon some specificity in pleading before allowing a potentially massive factual controversy to proceed.” See also Car Carriers, Inc. v. Ford Motor Co., 745 F. 2d 1101, 1106 (CA7 1984) (“[T]he costs of modern federal antitrust litigation and the increasing caseload of the federal courts counsel against sending the parties into discovery when there is no reasonable likelihood that the plaintiffs can construct a claim from the events related in the complaint”); Note, Modeling the Effect of One-Way Fee Shifting on Discovery Abuse in Private Antitrust Litigation, 78 N. Y. U. L. Rev. 1887, 1898-1899 (2003) (discussing the unusually high cost of discovery in antitrust cases); Manual for Complex Litigation, Fourth, § 30, p. 519 (2004) (describing extensive scope of discovery in antitrust cases); Memorandum from Paul V. Niemeyer, Chair, Advisory Committee on Civil Rules, to Hon. Anthony J. Scirica, Chair, Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure (May 11,1999), 192 F. R. D. 354,357 (2000) (reporting that discovery accounts for as much as 90 percent of litigation costs when discovery is actively employed). That potential expense is obvious enough in the present case: plaintiffs represent a putative class of at least 90 percent of all subscribers to local telephone or high-speed Internet service in the continental United States, in an action against America’s largest telecommunications firms (with many thousands of employees generating reams and gigabytes of business records) for unspecified (if any) instances of antitrust violations that allegedly occurred over a period of seven years.
It is no answer to say that a claim just shy of a plausible entitlement to relief can, if groundless, be weeded out early in the discovery process through “careful case management,” post, at 573, given the common lament that the success of judicial supervision in checking discovery abuse has been on the modest side. See, e.g., Easterbrook, Discovery as Abuse, 69 B. U. L. Rev. 635, 638 (1989) (“Judges can do little about impositional discovery when parties control the legal claims to be presented and conduct the discovery themselves”). And it is self-evident that the problem of discovery abuse cannot be solved by “careful scrutiny of evidence at the summary judgment stage,” much less “lucid instructions to juries,” post, at 573; the threat of discovery expense will push cost-conscious defendants to settle even anemic cases before reaching those proceedings. Probably, then, it is only by taking care to require allegations that reach the level suggesting conspiracy that we can hope to avoid the potentially enormous expense of discovery in cases with no “ ‘reasonably founded hope that the [discovery] process will reveal relevant evidence’” to support a §1 claim. Dura, 544 U. S., at 347 (quoting Blue Chip Stamps, supra, at 741; alteration in Dura).
Plaintiffs do not, of course, dispute the requirement of plausibility and the need for something more than merely parallel behavior explained in Theatre Enterprises, Monsanto, and Matsushita, and their main argument against the plausibility standard at the pleading stage is its ostensible conflict with an early statement of ours construing Rule 8. Justice Black’s opinion for the Court in Conley v. Gibson spoke not only of the need for fair notice of the grounds for entitlement to relief but of “the accepted rule that a complaint should not be dismissed for failure to state a claim unless it appears beyond doubt that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts in support of his claim which would entitle him to relief.” 355 U. S., at 45-46. This “no set of facts” language can be read in isolation as saying that any statement revealing the theory of the claim will suffice unless its factual impossibility may be shown from the face of the pleadings; and the Court of Appeals appears to have read Conley in some such way when formulating its understanding of the proper pleading standard, see 425 F. 3d, at 106, 114 (invoking Conley’s “no set of facts” language in describing the standard for dismissal).
On such a focused and literal reading of Conley’s “no set of facts,” a wholly conclusory statement of claim would survive a motion to dismiss whenever the pleadings left open the possibility that a plaintiff might later establish some “set of [undisclosed] facts” to support recovery. So here, the Court of Appeals specifically found the prospect of unearthing direct evidence of conspiracy sufficient to preclude dismissal, even though the complaint does not set forth a single fact in a context that suggests an agreement. 425 F. 3d, at 106,114. It seems fair to say that this approach to pleading would dispense with any showing of a “ ‘reasonably founded hope’” that a plaintiff would be able to make a case, see Dura, 544 U. S., at 347 (quoting Blue Chip Stamps, 421 U. S., at 741); Mr. Micawber’s optimism would be enough.
Seeing this, a good many judges and commentators have balked at taking the literal terms of the Conley passage as a pleading standard. See, e. g., Car Carriers, 745 F. 2d, at 1106 (“Conley has never been interpreted literally” and, “[i]n practice, a complaint... must contain either direct or inferential allegations respecting all the material elements necessary to sustain recovery under some viable legal theory” (internal quotation marks omitted; emphasis and omission in original)); Ascon Properties, Inc. v. Mobil Oil Co., 866 F. 2d 1149, 1155 (CA9 1989) (tension between Conley’s “no set of facts” language and its acknowledgment that a plaintiff must provide the “grounds” on which his claim rests); O’Brien v. DiGrazia, 544 F. 2d 543, 546, n. 3 (CA1 1976) (“[W]hen a plaintiff... supplies facts to support his claim, we do not think that Conley imposes a duty on the courts to conjure up unpleaded facts that might turn a frivolous claim of unconstitutional... action into a substantial one”); McGregor v. Industrial Excess Landfill, Inc., 856 F. 2d 39,42-43 (CA6 1988) (quoting O’Brien’s analysis); Hazard, From Whom No Secrets Are Hid, 76 Texas L. Rev. 1665, 1685 (1998) (describing Conley as having “turned Rule 8 on its head”); Marcus, The Revival of Fact Pleading Under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, 86 Colum. L. Rev. 433, 463-465 (1986) (noting tension between Conley and subsequent understandings of Rule 8).
We could go on, but there is no need to pile up further citations to show that Conley’s “no set of facts” language has been questioned, criticized, and explained away long enough. To be fair to the Conley Court, the passage should be understood in light of the opinion’s preceding summary of the complaint’s concrete allegations, which the Court quite reasonably understood as amply stating a claim for relief. But the passage so often quoted fails to mention this understanding on the part of the Court, and after puzzling the profession for 50 years, this famous observation has earned its retirement. The phrase is best forgotten as an incomplete, negative gloss on an accepted pleading standard: once a claim has been stated adequately, it may be supported by showing any set of facts consistent with the allegations in the complaint. See Sanjuan, 40 F. 3d, at 251 (once a claim for relief has been stated, a plaintiff “receives the benefit of imagination, so long as the hypotheses are consistent with the complaint”); accord, Swierkiewicz, 534 U. S., at 514; National Organization for Women, Inc. v. Scheidler, 510 U. S. 249, 256 (1994); H. J. Inc. v. Northwestern Bell Telephone Co., 492 U. S. 229, 249-250 (1989); Hishon v. King & Spalding, 467 U. S. 69, 73 (1984). Conley, then, described the breadth of opportunity to prove what an adequate complaint claims, not the minimum standard of adequate pleading to govern a complaint’s survival.
III
When we look for plausibility in this complaint, we agree with the District Court that plaintiffs’ claim of conspiracy in restraint of trade comes up short. To begin with, the complaint leaves no doubt that plaintiffs rest their § 1 claim on descriptions of parallel conduct and not on any independent allegation of actual agreement among the ILECs. Supra, at 550-551. Although in form a few stray statements speak directly of agreement, on fair reading these are merely legal conclusions resting on the prior allegations. Thus, the complaint first takes account of the alleged “absence of any meaningful competition between [the ILECs] in one another’s markets,” “the parallel course of conduct that each [ILEC] engaged in to prevent competition from CLECs,” “and the other facts and market circumstances alleged [earlier]”; “in light of” these, the complaint concludes “that [the ILECs] have entered into a contract, combination or conspiracy to prevent competitive entry into their... markets and have agreed not to compete with one another.” Complaint ¶51, App. 27. The nub of the complaint, then, is the ILECs’ parallel behavior, consisting of steps to keep the CLECs out and manifest disinterest in becoming CLECs themselves, and its sufficiency turns on the suggestions raised by this conduct when viewed in light of common economic experience.
We think that nothing contained in the complaint invests either the action or inaction alleged with a plausible suggestion of conspiracy. As to the ILECs’ supposed agreement to disobey the 1996 Act and thwart the CLECs’ attempts to compete, we agree with the District Court that nothing in the complaint intimates that the resistance to the upstarts was anything more than the natural, unilateral reaction of each ILEC intent on keeping its regional dominance. The 1996 Act did more than just subject the ILECs to competition; it obliged them to subsidize their competitors with their own equipment at wholesale rates. The economic incentive to resist was powerful, but resisting competition is routine market conduct, and even if the ILECs flouted the 1996 Act in all the ways the plaintiffs allege, see id., ¶ 47, App. 23-24, there is no reason to infer that the companies had agreed among themselves to do what was only natural anyway; so natural, in fact, that if alleging parallel decisions to resist competition were enough to imply an antitrust conspiracy, pleading a § 1 violation against almost any group of competing businesses would be a sure thing.
The complaint makes its closest pass at a predicate for conspiracy with the claim that collusion was necessary because success by even one CLEG in an ILEC’s territory “would have revealed the degree to which competitive entry by CLECs would have been successful in the other territories.” Id., ¶ 50, App. 26-27. But, its logic aside, this general premise still fails to answer the point that there was just no need for joint encouragement to resist the 1996 Act; as the District Court said, “each ILEC has reason to want to avoid dealing with CLECs” and “each ILEC would attempt to keep CLECs out, regardless of the actions of the other ILECs.” 313 F. Supp. 2d, at 184; cf. Kramer v. Pollock-Krasner Foundation, 890 F. Supp. 250, 256 (SONY 1995) (while the plaintiff “may believe the defendants conspired..., the defendants’ allegedly conspiratorial actions could equally have been prompted by lawful, independent goals which do not constitute a conspiracy”).
Plaintiffs’ second conspiracy theory rests on the competitive reticence among the ILECs themselves in the wake of the 1996 Act, which was supposedly passed in the “‘hop[e] that the large incumbent local monopoly companies... might attack their neighbors’ service areas, as they are the best situated to do so.’” Complaint ¶38, App. 20 (quoting Consumer Federation of America, Lessons from 1996 Telecommunications Act: Deregulation Before Meaningful Competition Spells Consumer Disaster, p. 12 (Feb. 2000)). Contrary to hope, the ILECs declined “ ‘to enter each other’s service territories in any significant way,’ ” Complaint ¶ 38, App. 20, and the local telephone and high-speed Internet market remains highly compartmentalized geographically, with minimal competition. Based on this state of affairs, and perceiving the ILECs to be blessed with “especially attractive business opportunities” in surrounding markets dominated by other ILECs, the plaintiffs assert that the ILECs’ parallel conduct was “strongly suggestive of conspiracy.” Id., ¶ 40, App. 21.
But it was not suggestive of conspiracy, not if history teaches anything. In a traditionally unregulated industry with low barriers to entry, sparse competition among large firms dominating separate geographical segments of the market could very well signify illegal agreement, but here we have an obvious alternative explanation. In the decade preceding the 1996 Act and well before that, monopoly was the norm in telecommunications, not the exception. See Verizon Communications Inc. v. FCC, 535 U. S. 467, 477-478 (2002) (describing telephone service providers as traditional public monopolies). The ILECs were born in that world, doubtless liked the world the way it was, and surely knew the adage about him who lives by the sword. Hence, a natural explanation for the noncompetition alleged is that the former Government-sanctioned monopolists were sitting tight, expecting their neighbors tp do the same thing.
In fact, the complaint itself gives reasons to believe that the ILECs would see their best interests in keeping to their old turf. Although the complaint says generally that the ILECs passed up “especially attractive business opportunities]” by declining to compete as CLECs against other ILECs, Complaint ¶ 40, App. 21, it does not allege that competition as CLECs was potentially any more lucrative than other opportunities being pursued by the ILECs during the same period, and the complaint is replete with indications that any CLEC faced nearly insurmountable barriers to profitability owing to the ILECs’ flagrant resistance to the network sharing requirements of the 1996 Act, id., ¶ 47, App. 23-26. Not only that, but even without a monopolistic tradition and the peculiar difficulty of mandating shared networks, “[f]irms do not expand without limit and none of them enters every market that an outside observer might regard as profitable, or even a small portion of such markets.” Areeda & Hovenkamp ¶ 307d, at 155 (Supp. 2006) (commenting on the case at bar). The upshot is that Congress may have expected some ILECs to become CLECs in the legacy territories of other ILECs, but the disappointment does not make conspiracy plausible. We agree with the District Court’s assessment that antitrust conspiracy was not suggested by the facts adduced under either theory of the complaint, which thus fails to state a valid § 1 claim.
Plaintiffs say that our analysis runs counter to Swierkiewicz, 534 U. S., at 508, which held that “a complaint in an employment discrimination lawsuit [need] not contain specific facts establishing a prima facie case of discrimination under the framework set forth in McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U. S. 792 (1973).” They argue that just as the prima facie case is a “flexible evidentiary standard” that “should not be transposed into a rigid pleading standard for discrimination cases,” Swierkiewicz, supra, at 512, “trans-posting] 'plus factor’ summary judgment analysis woodenly into a rigid Rule 12(b)(6) pleading standard... would be unwise,” Brief for Respondents 39. As the District Court correctly
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | H | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Per Curiam.
There being no final judgment, the writ of certiorari is dismissed for want of jurisdiction.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | I | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Brennan
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case requires us to decide a recurring question concerning the relationship between the Interstate Agreement on Detainers and the Uniform Criminal Extradition Act. The specific issue presented is whether a prisoner incarcerated in a jurisdiction that has adopted the Extradition Act is entitled to the procedural protections of that Act — particularly the right to a pretransfer hearing — before being transferred to another jurisdiction pursuant to Art. IY of the Detainer Agreement. The Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit held as a matter of statutory construction that a prisoner is entitled to such protections. 592 F. 2d 720 (1979). The Courts of Appeals and state courts are divided upon the question, and we granted certiorari to resolve the conflict. 444 U. S. 1069 (1980).
I
In April 1976, respondent John Adams was convicted in Pennsylvania state court of robbery and was sentenced to 30 years in the State Correctional Institution at Graterford, Pa. The Camden County (New Jersey) prosecutor’s office subsequently lodged a detainer against respondent and in May 1977 filed a “Request for Temporary Custody” pursuant to Art. IV of the Detainer Agreement in order to bring him to Camden for trial on charges of armed robbery and other offenses.
In an effort to prevent his transfer, respondent filed a pro se class-action complaint in June 1977 in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. He sought declaratory, injunctive, and monetary relief under 42 U. S. C. §§ 1981 and 1983, alleging (1) that petitioners had violated the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses by failing to grant him the pretransfer hearing that would have been available had he been transferred pursuant to the Extradition Act; and (2) that petitioners had violated the Due Process Clause by failing to inform him of his right pursuant to Art. IV (a) of the Detainer Agreement to petition Pennsylvania’s Governor to disapprove New Jersey’s request for custody. Respondent contended, inter alia, that had he been granted a hearing or advised of his right to petition the Governor, he would have been able to convince Pennsylvania authorities to deny the custody request.
The District Court, without reaching the class certification issue, dismissed respondent’s complaint in October 1977 for failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. 441 P. Supp. 556. Respondent was then transferred to New Jersey, where he was convicted, sentenced to a 9%-year prison term (to be served concurrently with his Pennsylvania sentence), and returned to Pennsylvania.
The Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit vacated the District Court judgment and remanded for further proceedings. 592 F. 2d 720 (1979). Finding no need to reach respondent’s constitutional claims, see Hagans v. Lavine, 415 U. S. 528, 543 (1974), it concluded as a matter of statutory construction that respondent had a right under Art. IV (d) of the Detainer Agreement to the procedural safeguards, including a pretransfer “hearing,” prescribed by § 10 of the Extradition Act. It made no finding with respect to respondent’s argument that he was entitled to notification of his right to petition the Governor.
II
' While this case was on appeal, a Pennsylvania state court held that state prisoners transferred under Art. IV of the Detainer Agreement have no constitutional right to a pre-transfer hearing. Commonwealth ex rel. Coleman v. Cuyler, 261 Pa. Super. 274, 396 A. 2d 394 (1978). Although the Court of Appeals did not reach this constitutional issue, it held that it was not bound by the state court’s result because the Detainer Agreement is an interstate compact approved by Congress and is thus a federal law subject to federal rather than state construction. Before reaching the merits of the Third Circuit’s decision, we must determine whether that conclusion was correct. We hold that it was.
The Compact Clause of the United States Constitution, Art. I, § 10, cl. 3, provides that “No State shall, without the Consent of the Congress, . . . enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State Because congressional consent transforms an interstate compact within this Clause into a law of the United States, we have held that the construction of an interstate agreement sanctioned by Congress under the Compact Clause presents a federal question. See Petty v. Tennessee-Missouri Bridge Comm’n, 359 U. S. 275, 278 (1959); West Virginia ex rel. Dyer v. Sims, 341 U. S. 22, 28 (1951); Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Comm’n v. Colburn, 310 U. S. 419, 427 (1940). It thus remains to be determined whether the Detainer Agreement is a congressionally sanctioned interstate compact within Art I, § 10, of the Constitution.
The requirement of congressional consent is at the heart of the Compact Clause. By vesting in Congress the power to grant or withhold consent, or to condition consent on the States’ compliance with specified conditions, the Framers sought to ensure that Congress would maintain ultimate supervisory power over cooperative state action that might otherwise interfere with the full and free exercise of federal authority. See Frankfurter & Landis, The Compact Clause of the Constitution — A Study in Interstate Adjustments, 34 Yale L. J. 685, 694-695 (1925).
Congressional consent is not required for interstate agreements that fall outside the scope of the Compact Clause. Where an agreement is not “directed to the formation of any combination tending to the increase of political power in the States, which may encroach upon or interfere with the just supremacy of the United States,” it does not fall within the scope of the Clause and will not be invalidated for lack of congressional consent. See, e. g., United States Steel Corp. v. Multistate Tax Comm’n, 434 U. S. 452, 468 (1978), quoting Virginia v. Tennessee, 148 U. S. 503, 519 (1893); New Hampshire v. Maine, 426 U. S. 363, 369-370 (1976). But where Congress has authorized the States to enter into a cooperative agreement, and where the subject matter of that agreement is an appropriate subject for congressional legislation, the consent of Congress transforms the States’ agreement into federal law under the Compact Clause.
Congress may consent to an interstate compact by authorizing joint state action in advance or by giving expressed or implied approval to an agreement the States have already joined. Virginia v. Tennessee, supra, at 521; Green v. Biddle, 8 Wheat. 1, 85-87 (1823). In the case of the Detainer Agreement, Congress gave its consent in advance by enacting the Crime Control Consent Act of 1934, 48 Stat. 909, as amended. In pertinent part, this Act provides:
“The consent of Congress is hereby given to any two or more States to enter into agreements or compacts for cooperative effort and mutual assistance in the prevention of crime and in the enforcement of their respective criminal laws and policies . . . 4U. S. C. § 112 (a).
Because this Act was intended to be a grant of consent under the Compact Clause, and because the subject matter of the Act is an appropriate subject for congressional legislation, we conclude that the Detainer Agreement is a congressionally sanctioned interstate compact the interpretation of which presents a question of federal law. We therefore turn to the merits of the Court of Appeals’ holding that as a matter of statutory construction Art. IV (d) of the Detainer Agreement is to be read as incorporating the procedural safeguards provided by § 10 of the Extradition Act.
III
The Detainer Agreement and the Extradition Act both establish procedures for the transfer of a prisoner in one jurisdiction to the temporary custody of another jurisdiction. A prisoner transferred under the Extradition Act is explicitly granted a right to a pretransfer “hearing” at which he is informed of the receiving State’s request for custody, his right to counsel, and his right to apply for a writ of habeas corpus challenging the custody request. He is also permitted “a reasonable time” in which to apply for the writ. However, no similar explicit provision is to be found in the Detainer Agreement.
The Detainer Agreement establishes two procedures under which the prisoner against whom a detainer has been lodged may be transferred to the temporary custody of the receiving State. One of these procedures may be invoked by the prisoner; the other by the prosecuting attorney of the receiving State.
Article III of the Agreement provides the prisoner-initiated procedure. It requires the warden to notify the prisoner of all outstanding detainers and then to inform him of his right to request final disposition of the criminal charges underlying those detainers. If the prisoner initiates the transfer by demanding disposition (which under the Agreement automatically extends to all pending charges in the receiving State), the authorities in the receiving State must bring him to trial within 180 days or the charges will be dismissed with prejudice, absent good cause shown.
Article IV of the Agreement provides the procedure by which the prosecutor in the receiving State may initiate the transfer. First, the prosecutor must file with the authorities in the sending State written notice of the custody request, approved by a court having jurisdiction to hear the underlying charges. For the next 30 days, the prisoner and prosecutor must wait while the Governor of the sending State, on his own motion or that of the prisoner, decides whether to disapprove the request. If the Governor does not disapprove, the prisoner is transferred to the temporary custody of the receiving State where he must be brought to trial on the charges underlying the detainer within 120 days of his arrival. Again, if the prisoner is not brought to trial within the time period, the charges will be dismissed with prejudice, absent good cause shown.
Although nothing in the Detainer Agreement explicitly provides for a pretransfer hearing, respondent contends that prisoners who are involuntarily transferred under Art. IV are entitled to greater procedural protections than those who initiate the transfer procedure under Art. III. He argues that a prisoner who initiates his own transfer to the receiving State receives a significant benefit under the Agreement and may thus be required to waive any right he might have to contest his transfer; but that a prisoner transferred against his will to the receiving State under Art. IY does not benefit from the Agreement and is thus entitled to assert any right he might have had under the Extradition Act (or any other state law applicable to interstate transfer of prisoners) to challenge his transfer.
Respondent’s argument has substantial support in the language of the Detainer Agreement. Article III (e) provides that “[a]ny request for final disposition made by a prisoner [under this Article] shall also be deemed to be a waiver of extradition with respect to any charge or proceeding contemplated thereby . . . .” (Emphasis added.) The reference to “waiver of extradition” can reasonably be interpreted to mean “waiver of those rights the sending state affords persons being extradited.” Since Pennsylvania has adopted the Uniform Criminal Extradition Act, those rights would include the rights provided by § 10 of that Act.
The language of Art. IV supports respondent’s further contention that a prisoner’s extradition rights are meant to be preserved when the receiving State seeks disposition of an outstanding detainer. Article IV (d) provides:
“Nothing contained in this Article shall be construed to deprive any prisoner of any right which he may have to contest the legality of his delivery as provided in paragraph (a) hereof, but such delivery may not be opposed or denied on the ground that the executive authority of the sending state has not affirmatively consented to or ordered such delivery.”
Petitioners argue that the phrase “as provided in paragraph (a) hereof” modifies “right,” not “delivery,” and that paragraph (d) does no more than protect the right paragraph (a) gives the prisoner to petition the Governor to disapprove the custody request. The Court of Appeals rejected this interpretation, concluding that the phrase “as provided in paragraph (a) hereof” modifies “delivery,” not “right.” Since the major thrust of paragraph (a) is to describe the means by which the receiving State may obtain temporary custody of the prisoner, the Court of Appeals held that paragraph (d) must have been intended as the vehicle for incorporating all rights a prisoner would have under state or other laws to contest his transfer, except that the prisoner must forfeit his right, otherwise available under § 7 of the Extradition Act, to oppose such transfer on the ground that the Governor had not explicitly approved the custody request.
There are three textual reasons why we find this interpretation convincing. First, if paragraph (d) protects only the right provided by paragraph (a) to petition the Governor, as petitioners claim, it is difficult to understand what purpose paragraph (d) serves in the Agreement. Why would the drafters add a second provision to protect a right already explicitly provided? Common sense requires paragraph (d) to be construed as securing something more.
Second, the one ground for contesting a transfer that paragraph (d) explicitly withholds from the prisoner — that the transfer has not been affirmatively approved by the Governor — is a ground that the Extradition Act expressly reserves to the prisoner. It is surely reasonable to conclude from the elimination of this ground in the Detainer Agreement that the drafters meant the Detainer Agreement to be read as not affecting any rights given prisoners by the Extradition Act that are not expressly withheld by the Detainer Agreement. As the Court of Appeals concluded, “the fact that Article IV (d) does specifically refer to one minor procedural feature of the extradition process which is to be affected suggests forcefully that the other aspects, particularly those furnishing safeguards to the prisoner, are to continue in effect.” 592 F. 2d, at 724.
Finally, paragraph (d) refers to “any right [the prisoner] may have” (emphasis added) to challenge the legality of his transfer. This suggests that more than one right is involved, a suggestion that is consistent with respondent’s contention that all pre-existing rights are preserved. If petitioners’ contention were correct — that the only right preserved is the right provided in paragraph (a) to petition the Governor — it is much more likely that paragraph (d) would have referred narrowly to “the right the prisoner does have” to challenge the legality of his transfer.
The legislative history of the Detainer Agreement, contained in the comments on the draft Agreement made by the Council of State Governments at its 1956 conference and circulated to all the adopting States, further supports the Court of Appeals’ reading. In discussing the different degrees of protection to which a prisoner is entitled under Arts. Ill and IV of the Agreement, the drafters stated:
“Article IV (d) safeguards certain of the prisoner’s rights. Normally, the only way to get a prisoner from one jurisdiction to another for purposes of trial on an indictment, information or complaint is through rfesort to extradition or waiver thereof. If the prisoner waives, there is no problem. However, if he does not waive extradition, it is not appropriate to attempt to force him to give up the safeguards of the extradition process, even if this could be done constitutionally.” Council of State Governments, Suggested State Legislation, Program for 1957, pp. 78-79 (1956) (emphasis added).
The suggestion, of course, is that a prisoner transferred against his will under Art. IV should be entitled to whatever “safeguards of the extradition process” he might otherwise have enjoyed. Those safeguards include the procedural protections of the Extradition Act (in those States that have adopted it), as well as any other procedural protections the sending State guarantees persons being extradited from within its borders.
That this is what the drafters intended is further suggested by the distinction they make between Art. Ill and Art. IV procedures:
“The situation contemplated by this portion of the agreement [Article IV] is different than that dealt with in Article III. [Article III] relates to proceedings initiated at the request of the prisoner. Accordingly, in such instances it is fitting that the prisoner be required to waive extradition. In Article IV the prosecutor initiates the proceeding. Consequently, it probably would be improper to require the prisoner to waive those features of the extradition process which are designed for the protection of his rights.” Id., at 79.
These statements strongly support respondent’s contention that prisoners were meant to be treated differently depending on which Article was being invoked, and that the general body of procedural rights available in the extradition context was meant to be preserved when the transfer was effected pursuant to Art. IV.
Article IX of the Detainer Agreement states that the Agreement “shall be liberally construed so as to effectuate its purpose.” The legislative history of the Agreement, including the comments of the Council of State Governments and the congressional Reports and debates preceding the adoption of the Agreement on behalf of the District of Columbia and the Federal Government, emphasizes that a primary purpose of the Agreement is to protect prisoners against whom de-tainers are outstanding. As stated in the House and Senate Reports:
“[A] prisoner who has had a detainer lodged against him is seriously disadvantaged by such action. He is in custody and therefore in no position to seek witnesses or to preserve his defense. He must often be kept in close custody and is ineligible for desirable work assignments. What is more, when detainers are filed against a prisoner he sometimes loses interest in institutional opportunities because he must serve his sentence without knowing what additional sentences may lie before him, or when, if ever, he will be in a position to employ the education and skills he may be developing.” H. R. Rep. No. 91-1018, p. 3 (1970); S. Rep. No. 91-1356, p. 3 (1970).
The remedial purpose of the Agreement supports an interpretation that gives prisoners the right to a judicial hearing in which they can bring a limited challenge to the receiving State’s custody request. In light of the purpose of the De-tainer Agreement, as reflected in the structure of the Agreement, its language, and its legislative history, we conclude as a matter of federal law that prisoners transferred pursuant to the provisions of the Agreement are not required to forfeit any pre-existing rights they may have under state or federal law to challenge their transfer to the receiving State. Respondent Adams has therefore stated a claim for relief under 42 U. S. C. § 1983 for the asserted violation by state officials of the terms of the Detainer Agreement. See Maine v. Thiboutot, 448 U. S. 1 (1980).
Affirmed.
The Interstate Agreement on Detainers, codified in Pennsylvania at 42 Pa. Cons. Stat. §9101 et seq. (Supp. 1980), is a compact among 48 States, the District of Columbia, and the United States. Initially drafted by the Council of State Governments in 1956 and included in the Council’s Suggested State Legislation Program for 1957, the Agreement establishes procedures by which one jurisdiction may obtain temporary custody of a prisoner incarcerated in another jurisdiction for the purpose of bringing that prisoner to trial. Unlike the Extradition Act, the Detainer Agreement establishes procedures under which a prisoner may initiate his transfer to the receiving State and procedures that ensure protection of the prisoner’s speedy trial rights.
The Uniform Criminal Extradition Act, codified in Pennsylvania at 42 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 9121 et seq. (Supp. 1980), has been adopted by 48 States, Puerto Eico, and the Virgin Islands. Initially drafted in 1926 and revised 10 years later, the Extradition Act, like the Detainer Agreement, establishes procedures for the interstate transfer of persons against whom criminal charges are outstanding. Unlike the Detainer Agreement, the Extradition Act applies to persons at liberty as well as to persons in prison.
Compare Atkinson v. Hanberry, 589 F. 2d 917 (CA5 1979); Commonwealth ex rel. Coleman v. Cuyler, 261 Pa. Super. 274, 396 A. 2d 394 (1978); State v. Thompson, 133 N. J. Super. 180, 336 A. 2d 11 (1975); Hystad v. Rhay, 12 Wash. App. 872, 533 P. 2d 409 (1975); and Wertheimer v. State, 294 Minn. 293, 201 N. W. 2d 383 (1972); with 592 F. 2d 720 (CA3 1979) (case below); McQueen v. Wyrick, 543 S. W. 2d 778 (Mo. 1976); Moen v. Wilson, 189 Colo. 85, 536 P. 2d 1129 (1975); and State ex rel. Garner v. Gray, 55 Wis. 2d 574, 201 N. W. 2d 163 (1972).
While the term “detainer” is nowhere defined in the Detainer Agreement, we noted in United States v. Mauro, 436 U. S. 340 (1978), that the House and Senate Reports accompanying Congress’ adoption of the De-tainer Agreement had defined a detainer as “ ‘a notification filed with the institution in which a prisoner is serving a sentence, advising that he is wanted to face pending criminal charges in another jurisdiction.’ ” Id., at 359, quoting H. R. Rep. No. 91-1018, p. 2 (1970); S. Rep. No. 91-1356, p. 2 (1970).
Apparently, Adams intended to argue that the State of New Jersey had acted in bad faith by deliberately not filing its custody request until after his chief alibi witness had died. While Adams presumably could have raised that argument in his petition to the Governor, he could not have raised it in either a pretransfer “hearing” under the Extradition Act or in a subsequent habeas proceeding. See n. 11, infra.
Although the District Court stated in its October 1977 opinion that Adams had already been transferred to New Jersey, petitioners have informed this Court that the transfer did not actually occur until January 1978, three months after the District Court opinion. See Brief for Petitioners 31, n. 4.
Accordingly, we do not reach this issue.
The “law of the Union” doctrine upon which this principle is based had its origin in Pennsylvania v. Wheeling & Belmont Bridge Co., 13 How. 518 (1852). In that case, a bridge construction company defended a nuisance suit on the ground that the state legislature had authorized construction of the offending bridge. The company argued that the state legislative authorization shielded it from the nuisance suit because “there is no act of Congress prohibiting obstructions on the Ohio River, and . . . until there shall be such a regulation, a State, in the construction of bridges, has a right to exercise its own discretion on the subject.” This Court rejected that argument in light of a clause in the Virginia-Kentucky Compact of 1789, sanctioned by Congress, declaring that the use and navigation of the Ohio River shall be “free and common to the citizens of the United States.” Id., at 565. Even though there had been no Act of Congress explicitly regulating navigation on the river, the Court stated that the prohibition in the Compact was controlling because “[t]his compact, by the sanction of Congress, has become a law of the Union. What further legislation can be desired for judicial action?” Id., at 566; see also Wedding v. Meyler, 192 U. S. 573, 581-582 (1904).
Although the law-of-the-Union doctrine was questioned in People v. Central R. Co., 12 Wall. 455, 456 (1872) and in Hinderlider v. La Plata River & Cherry Creek Ditch Co., 304 U. S. 92, 109 (1938), any doubts as to its continued vitality were put to rest in Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Comm’n v. Colburn, 310 U. S., at 427-428, where the Court stated: “In People v. Central Railroad, . . . jurisdiction of this Court to review a judgment of a state court construing a compact between states was denied on the ground that the Compact was not a statute of the United States and that the construction of the Act of Congress giving consent was in no way drawn in question, nor was any right set up under it. This decision has long been doubted, . . . and we now conclude that the construction of such a compact sanctioned by Congress by virtue of Article 1, § 10, Clause 3 of the Constitution, involves a federal ‘title, right, privilege or immunity’ which when ‘specially set up and claimed’ in a state court may be reviewed here on certiorari under § 237 (b) of the Judicial Code, 28 U. S. C. § 344.” Id., at 427.
This holding reaffirmed the law-of-the-Union doctrine and the underlying principle that congressional consent can transform interstate compacts into federal law. Accord, Petty v. Tennessee-Missouri Bridge Comm’n, 359 U. S., at 278; see also United States ex rel. Esola v. Groomes, 520 F. 2d 830, 841 (CA3 1975) (Garth, J., concurring); League to Save Lake Tahoe v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, 507 F. 2d 517 (CA9 1974), cert. denied, 420 U. S. 974 (1975).
See West Virginia ex rel. Dyer v. Sims, 341 U. S. 22, 26 (1951) (congressional consent given to compact to control pollution in interstate streams, “an appropriate subject for national legislation”); Petty v. Tennessee-Missouri Bridge Comm’n, supra, at 281 (congressional consent given to compact affecting navigable waters and interstate commerce).
As Justice White stated, dissenting in United States Steel Corp. v. Multistate Tax Comm’n, 434 U. S. 452 (1978):
“Congress does not pass upon a submitted compact in the manner of a court of law deciding a question of constitutionality. Rather, the requirement that Congress approve a compact is to obtain its political judgment: Is the agreement likely to interfere with federal activity in the area, is it likely to disadvantage other States to an important extent, is it a matter that would better be left untouched by state and federal regulation?” Id., at 485 (footnotes omitted).
Congress enacted the Crime Control Consent Act for the express purpose of complying with the “congressional consent” requirement of the Compact Clause. As stated in both the House and Senate Reports accompanying the Act:
“Legislation is necessary to accomplish the purpose sought by the bill because of the language of that part of article I, section 10, of the Constitution which provides:
“ 'No State shall, without the consent of Congress . . . enter into an agreement or compact with another State . . . .'
“This bill seeks to remove the obstruction imposed by the Federal Constitution and allow the States cooperatively and by mutual agreement to work out their problems of law enforcement.” S. Rep. No. 1007, 73d Cong., 2d Sess., 1 (1934); H. R. Rep. No. 1137, 73d Cong., 2d Sess., i_2 (1934).
There can be no doubt that the Detainer Agreement falls within the scope of this congressional authorization. Not only do the drafters of the Agreement state in their interpretive handbook that it “falls within the purview” of the 1934 Act and therefore has the consent of Congress, see Council of State Governments, The Handbook of Interstate Crime Control 117 (1978), but also Congress itself, when adopting the Detainer Agreement on behalf of the District of Columbia and the United States, Pub. L. 91-538, 84 Stat. 1397, expressly stated that it had authorized the Detainer Agreement in the Crime Control Consent Act. See H. R. Rep. No. 91-1018 (1970); S. Rep. No. 91-1356 (1970). At the same time, Congress implicitly reaffirmed its consent to the Agreement.
Congressional power to legislate in this area is derived from both the Commerce Clause and the Extradition Clause. The latter Clause, Art. IV, § 2, cl. 2, has provided Congress with power to legislate in the extradition area since 1793 when it passed the first Federal Extradition Act, 1 Stat. 302, now codified at 18 U. S. C. § 3182. See Michigan v. Doran, 439 U. S. 282, 286-287 (1978); Innes v. Tobin, 240 U. S. 127, 130-131, 131-135 (1916); Roberts v. Reilly, 116 U. S. 80, 94 (1885); Robb v. Connolly, 111 U. S. 624, 628 (1884); Kentucky v. Dennison, 24 How. 66, 104-105 (1861); DeGenna v. Grasso, 413 F. Supp. 427, 431 (Conn.), aff’d sub nom. Carino v. Grasso, 426 U. S. 913 (1976).
Congress’ recognition that it had power to legislate in this area is also evidenced by the House and Senate Reports accompanying the 1934 Act,
“The rapidity with which persons may move from one State to another, those charged with crime and those who are necessary witnesses in criminal proceedings, *fld the fact that there are no barriers between the States obstructing this movement, makes it necessary that one of two things shall be done, either that the criminal jurisdiction of the Federal Government shall be greatly extended or that the States by mutual agreement shall aid each other in the detection and punishment of offenders against their respective criminal laws.” S. Rep. No. 1007, supra, at 1 (emphasis added); H. R. Rep. No. 1137, supra, at 1 (emphasis added).
Despite the contrary suggestion made by the dissent, post, at 453-454, we do not decide today whether the cited examples of “reciprocal legislation in the criminal area” have received congressional consent or whether the subject matter of any of the cited Acts is an appropriate subject for congressional legislation. Those determinations must await cases properly raising the Compact Clause question with respect to those Acts.
Section 10 of the Uniform Criminal Extradition Act, codified in Pennsylvania at 42 Pa. Cons. Stat. §9131 (Supp. 1980), provides;
“No person arrested upon such warrant shall be delivered over to the agent whom the executive authority demanding Mm shall have appointed to receive him unless he shall first be taken forthwith before a judge of a court of record in this Commonwealth who shall inform him of the demand made for his surrender and of the crime with which he is charged and that he has the right to demand and procure legal counsel, and, if the prisoner or Ms counsel shall state that he or they desire to test the legality of Ms arrest, the judge of such court of record shall fix a reasonable time to be allowed Mm withm which to apply for a writ of habeas corpus.”
The person being extradited has no right to challenge the facts surrounding the underlying crime or the lodgmg of the custody request at the first hearing. Even at the later habeas corpus hearing, if any, he is permitted to question only
“(a) whether the extradition documents on their face are in order; (b) whether [he] has been charged with a crime in the demanding state; (c) whether [he] is the person named in the request for extradition; and (d) whether [he] is a fugitive.” Michigan v. Doran, supra, at 289.
Article IV (a) provides in pertinent part:
“[T]here shall be a period of 30 days after receipt by the appropriate authorities before the request be honored, within which period the Governor of the sending state may disapprove the request for temporary custody or availability, either upon his own motion or upon motion of the prisoner.”
Paragraph (a) performs two functions. First, it provides the means by which the receiving State may request the custody of a prisoner incarcerated in the sending State. Second, it authorizes the Governor of the sending State to disapprove that custody request either on his own motion or on that of the prisoner.
Section 7 of the Uniform Criminal Extradition Act, codified in Pennsylvania at 42 Pa. Cons. Stat. §9128 (Supp. 1980), provides:
“If the Governor decides that the demand should be complied with he shall sign a warrant of arrest which shall be sealed with the State seal and be directed to any peace officer or other person whom he may think fit to entrust with the execution thereof. The warrant must substantially recite the facts necessary to the validity of its issuance.”
Petitioners contend that our interpretation frustrates one of the major purposes of the Detainer Agreement, which is to streamline the extradition process. We cannot accept that argument. The Detainer Agreement already provides a 30-day period from the date the prosecutor makes a request for custody until the date the prisoner can be transferred. Even if the hearing required by the Extradition Act could not be held until after the expiration of that 30-day period, which we do not now decide, there is no reason the prisoner could not be brought before a court on the 31st day. Moreover, the “reasonable time” a judge fixes for a prisoner to file for a writ of habeas corpus under the Extradition Act might also be computed in recognition of the 30-day period established by the Detainer Agreement.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Chief Justice Rehnquist
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Title I of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty-Act of 1996 (Act) works substantial changes to chapter 153 of Title 28 of the United States Code, which authorizes federal courts to grant the writ of habeas corpus. Pub. L. 104-132, 110 Stat. 1217. We hold that the Act does not preclude this Court from entertaining an application for habeas corpus relief, although it does affect the standards governing the granting of such relief. We also conclude that the availability of such relief in this Court obviates any claim by petitioner under the Exceptions Clause of Article III, § 2, of the Constitution, and that the operative provisions of the Act do not violate the Suspension Clause of the Constitution, Art. I, §9.
I
On a night in 1976, petitioner approached Jane W. in his car as she got out of hers. Claiming to be lost and looking for a party nearby, he used a series of deceptions to induce Jane to accompany him to his trailer home in town. Petitioner forcibly subdued her, raped her, and sodomized her. Jane pleaded with petitioner to let her go, but he said he could not because she would notify the police. She escaped later, when petitioner fell asleep. Jane notified the police, and petitioner was eventually convicted of aggravated sodomy and sentenced to 12 years’ imprisonment.
Petitioner was paroled four years later. On November 23, 1981, he met Joy Ludlam, a cocktail waitress, at the lounge where she worked. She was interested in changing jobs, and petitioner used a series of deceptions involving offering her a job at “The Leather Shoppe,” a business he owned, to induce her to visit him the next day. The last time Joy was seen alive was the evening of the next day. Her dead body was discovered two weeks later in a creek. Forensic analysis established that she had been beaten, raped, and sodom- . ized, and that she had been strangled to death before being left in the creek. Investigators discovered hair resembling petitioner’s on Joy’s body and clothes, hair resembling Joy’s in petitioner’s bedroom, and clothing fibers like those in Joy’s coat in the hatchback of petitioner’s car. One of petitioner’s neighbors reported seeing Joy’s car at petitioner’s house the day she disappeared.
A jury convicted petitioner of murder, rape, aggravated sodomy, and false imprisonment. Petitioner was sentenced to death on the murder charge. The Georgia Supreme Court affirmed petitioner’s conviction and death sentence, Felker v. State, 252 Ga. 351, 314 S. E. 2d 621, and we denied certiorari, 469 U. S. 873 (1984). A state trial court denied collateral relief, the Georgia Supreme Court declined to issue a certificate of probable cause to appeal the denial, and we again denied certiorari. Felker v. Zant, 502 U. S. 1064 (1992).
Petitioner then filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Georgia, alleging that (1) the State’s evidence was insufficient to convict him; (2) the State withheld exculpatory evidence, in violation of Brady v. Maryland, 373 U. S. 83 (1963); (3) petitioner’s counsel rendered ineffective assistance at sentencing; (4) the State improperly used hypnosis to refresh a witness’ memory; and (5) the State violated double jeopardy and collateral estoppel principles by using petitioner’s crime against Jane W. as evidence at petitioner’s trial for crimes against Joy Ludlam. The District Court denied the petition. The United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit affirmed, 52 F. 3d 907, extended on denial of petition for rehearing, 62 F. 3d 342 (1995), and we denied certiorari, 516 U. S. 1133 (1996).
The State scheduled petitioner’s execution for the period May 2-9, 1996. On April 29, 1996, petitioner filed a second petition for state collateral relief. The state trial court denied this petition on May 1, and the Georgia Supreme Court denied certiorari on May 2.
On April 24, 1996, the President signed the Act into law. Title I of this Act contained a series of ámendments to existing federal habeas corpus law. The provisions of the Act pertinent to this case concern second or successive ha-beas corpus applications by state prisoners. Section 106(b) specifies the conditions under which claims in second or successive applications must be dismissed, amending 28 U. S. C. § 2244(b) to read:
“(1) A claim presented in a second or successive ha-beas corpus application under section 2254 that was presented in a prior application shall be dismissed.
“(2) A claim presented in a second or successive ha-beas corpus application under section 2254 that was not presented in a prior application shall be dismissed unless—
“(A) the applicant shows that the claim relies on a new rule of constitutional law, made retroactive to cases on collateral review by the Supreme Court, that was previously unavailable; or
“(B)(i) the factual predicate for the claim could not have been discovered previously through the exercise of due diligence; and
“(ii) the facts underlying the claim, if proven and viewed in light of the evidence as a whole, would be sufficient to establish by clear and convincing evidence that, but for constitutional error, no reasonable fact-finder would have found the applicant guilty of the underlying offense.”
Title 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(3) (1994 ed., Supp. II) creates a “gatekeeping” mechanism for the consideration of second or successive applications in district court. The prospective applicant must file in the court of appeals a motion for leave to file a second or successive habeas application in the district court. § 2244(b)(3)(A). A three-judge panel has 30 days to determine whether “the application makes a prima facie showing that the application satisfies the requirements of” § 2244(b). § 2244(b)(3)(C); see §§ 2244(b)(3)(B), (D). Section 2244(b)(3)(E) specifies that “[t]he grant or denial of an authorization by a court of appeals to file a second or successive application shall not be appealable and shall not be the subject of a petition for rehearing or for a writ of certiorari.”
On May 2,1996, petitioner filed in the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit a motion for stay of execution and a motion for leave to file a second or successive federal habeas corpus petition under §2254. Petitioner sought to raise two claims in his second petition, the first being that the state trial court violated due process by equating guilt “beyond a reasonable doubt” with “moral certainty” of guilt in voir dire and jury instructions. See Cage v. Louisiana, 498 U. S. 39 (1990) (per curiam). He also alleged that qualified experts, reviewing the forensic evidence after his conviction, had established that Joy must have died during a period when petitioner was under police surveillance for Joy’s disappearance and thus had a valid alibi. He claimed that the testimony of the State’s forensic expert at trial was suspect because he is not a licensed physician, and that the new expert testimony so discredited the State’s testimony at trial that petitioner had a colorable claim of factual innocence.
The Court of Appeals denied both motions the day they were filed, concluding that petitioner’s claims had not been presented in his first habeas petition, that they did not meet the standards of § 2244(b)(2), and that they would not have satisfied pre-Act standards for obtaining review on the merits of second or successive claims. 83 F. 3d 1303 (CA11 1996). Petitioner filed in this Court a pleading styled a “Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus, for Appellate or Certiorari Review of the Decision of the United States Circuit Court for the Eleventh Circuit, and for Stay of Execution.” On May 3, we granted petitioner’s stay application and petition for certiorari. We ordered briefing on the extent to which the provisions of Title I of the Act apply to a petition for habeas corpus filed in this Court, whether application of the Act suspended the writ of habeas corpus in this case, and whether Title I of the Act, especially the provision to be codified at § 2244(b)(3)(E), constitutes an unconstitutional restriction on the jurisdiction of this Court. 517 U. S. 1182 (1996).
II
We first consider to what extent the provisions of Title I of the Act apply to petitions for habeas corpus filed as original matters in this Court pursuant to 28 U. S. C. §§ 2241 and 2254. We conclude that although the Act does impose new conditions on our authority to grant relief, it does not deprive this Court of jurisdiction to entertain original habeas petitions.
A
Section 2244(b)(3)(E) prevents this Court from reviewing a court of appeals order denying leave to file a second ha-beas petition by appeal or by writ of certiorari. More than a century ago, we considered whether a statute barring review by appeal of the judgment of a circuit court in a habeas case also deprived this Court of power to entertain an original habeas petition. Ex parte Yerger, 8 Wall. 85 (1869). We consider the same question here with respect to § 2244(b)(3)(E).
Yerger’s holding is best understood in the light of the availability of habeas corpus review at that time. Section 14 of the Judiciary Act of 1789 authorized all federal courts, including this Court, to grant the writ of habeas corpus when prisoners were “in custody, under or by colour of the authority of the United States, or [were] committed for trial before some court of the same.” Act of Sept. 24, 1789, ch. 20, § 14, 1 Stat. 82. Congress greatly expanded the scope of federal habeas corpus in 1867, authorizing federal courts to grant the writ, “in addition to the authority already conferred by law,” “in all cases where any person may be restrained of his or her liberty in violation of the constitution, or of any treaty or law of the United States.” Act of Feb. 5, 1867, ch. 28, 14 Stat. 385. Before the Act of 1867, the only instances in which a federal court could issue the writ to produce a state prisoner were if the prisoner was “necessary to be brought into court to testify,” Act of Sept. 24,1789, ch. 20, § 14,1 Stat. 82, was “committed ... for any act done ... in pursuance of a law of the United States,” Act of Mar. 2,1833, ch. 57, § 7, 4 Stat. 634-635, or was a “subjec[t] or citize[n] of a foreign State, and domiciled therein,” and held under state law, Act of Aug. 29, 1842, ch. 257, 5 Stat. 539-540.
The Act of 1867 also expanded our statutory appellate jurisdiction to authorize appeals to this Court from the final decision of any circuit court on a habeas petition. 14 Stat. 386. This enactment changed the result of Barry v. Mercein, 5 How. 103 (1847), in which we had held that the Judiciary Act of 1789 did not authorize this Court to conduct appellate review of circuit court habeas decisions. However, in 1868, Congress revoked the appellate jurisdiction it had given in 1867, repealing “so much of the [Act of 1867] as authorizes an appeal from the judgment of the circuit court to the Supreme Court of the United States.” Act of Mar. 27, 1868, ch. 34, §2, 15 Stat. 44.
In Yerger, we considered whether the Act of 1868 deprived us not only of power to hear an appeal from an inferior court’s decision on a habeas petition, but also of power to entertain a habeas petition to this Court under § 14 of the Act of 1789. We concluded that the 1868 Act did not affect our power to entertain such habeas petitions. We explained that the 1868 Act’s text addressed only jurisdiction over appeals conferred under the Act of 1867, not habeas jurisdiction conferred under the Acts of 1789 and 1867. We rejected the suggestion that the Act of 1867 had repealed our habeas power by implication. Yerger, 8 Wall., at 105. Repeals by implication are not favored, we said, and the continued exercise of original habeas jurisdiction was not “repugnant” to a prohibition on review by appeal of circuit court habeas judgments. Ibid.
Turning to the present case, we conclude that Title I of the Act has not repealed our authority to entertain original habeas petitions, for reasons similar to those stated in Yerger. No provision of Title I mentions our authority to entertain original habeas petitions; in contrast, § 103 amends the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure to bar consideration of original habeas petitions in the courts of appeals. Although § 2244(b)(3)(E) precludes us from reviewing, by-appeal or petition for certiorari, a judgment on an application for leave to file a second habeas petition in district court, it makes no mention of our authority to hear habeas petitions filed as original matters in this Court. As we declined to find a repeal of § 14 of the Judiciary Act of 1789 as applied to this Court by implication then, we decline to find a similar repeal of §2241 of Title 28 — its descendant, n. 1, supra — by implication now.
This conclusion obviates one of the constitutional challenges raised. The critical language of Article III, §2, of the Constitution provides that, apart from several classes of cases specifically enumerated in this Court’s original jurisdiction, “[i]n all the other Cases . . . the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.” Previous decisions construing this clause have said that while our appellate powers “are given by the constitution,” “they are limited and regulated by the [Judiciary Act of 1789], and by such other acts as have been passed on the subject.” Durousseau v. United States, 6 Cranch 307, 314 (1810); see also United States v. More, 3 Cranch 159, 172-173 (1805). The Act does remove our authority to entertain an appeal or a petition for a writ of cer-tiorari to review a decision of a court of appeals exercising its “gatekeeping” function over a second petition. But since it does not repeal our authority to entertain a petition for habeas corpus, there can be no plausible argument that the Act has deprived this Court of appellate jurisdiction in violation of Article III, §2.
B
We consider next how Title I affects the requirements a state prisoner must satisfy to show he is entitled to a writ of habeas corpus from this Court. Title I of the Act has changed the standards governing our consideration of habeas petitions by imposing new requirements for the granting of relief to state prisoners. Our authority to grant habeas relief to state prisoners is limited by § 2254, which specifies the conditions under which such relief may be granted to “a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court.” § 2254(a). Several sections of the Act impose new requirements for the granting of relief under this section, and they therefore inform our authority to grant such relief as well.
Section 2244(b) addresses second or successive habeas petitions. Section 2244(b)(3)’s “gatekeeping” system for second petitions does not apply to our consideration of habeas petitions because it applies to applications “filed in the district court.” § 2244(b)(3)(A). There is no such limitation, however, on the restrictions on repetitive and new claims imposed by §§ 2244(b)(1) and (2). These restrictions apply without qualification to any “second or successive habeas corpus application under section 2254.” §§ 2244(b)(1), (2). Whether or not we are bound by these restrictions, they certainly inform our consideration of original habeas petitions.
III
Next, we consider whether the Act suspends the writ of habeas corpus in violation of Article I, § 9, clause 2, of the Constitution. This Clause provides that “[t]he Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.”
The writ of habeas corpus known to the Framers was quite different from that which exists today. As we explained previously, the first Congress made the writ of habeas corpus available only to prisoners confined under the authority of the United States, not under state authority. Supra, at 659-660; see Ex parte Dorr, 3 How. 103 (1844). The class of judicial actions reviewable by the writ was more restricted as well. In Ex parte Watkins, 3 Pet. 193 (1830), we denied a petition for a writ of habeas corpus from a prisoner “detained in prison by virtue of the judgment of a court, which court possesses general and final jurisdiction in criminal cases.” Id., at 202. Reviewing the English common law which informed American courts’ understanding of the scope of the writ, we held that “[t]he judgment of the circuit court in a criminal case is of itself evidence of its own legality,” and that we could not “usurp that power by the instrumentality of the writ of habeas corpus.” Id., at 207.
It was not until 1867 that Congress made the writ generally available in “all cases where any person may be restrained of his or her liberty in violation of the constitution, or of any treaty or law of the United States.” Supra, at 659. And it was not until well into this century that this Court interpreted that provision to allow a final judgment of conviction in a state court to be collaterally attacked on habeas. See, e. g., Waley v. Johnston, 316 U. S. 101 (1942) (per curiam); Brown v. Allen, 344 U. S. 443 (1953). But we assume, for purposes of decision here, that the Suspension Clause of the Constitution refers to the writ as it exists today, rather than as it existed in 1789. See Swain v. Pressley, 430 U. S. 372 (1977); id., at 384 (Burger, C. J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment).
The Act requires a habeas petitioner to obtain leave from the court of appeals before filing a second habeas petition in the district court. But this requirement simply transfers from the district court to the court of appeals a screening function which would previously have been performed by the district court as required by 28 U. S. C. § 2254 Rule 9(b). The Act also codifies some of the pre-existing limits on successive petitions, and further restricts the availability of relief to habeas petitioners. But we have long recognized that “the power to award the writ by any of the courts of the United States, must be given by written law,” Ex parte Bollman, 4 Cranch 75, 94 (1807), and we have likewise recognized that judgments about the proper scope of the writ are “normally for Congress to make.” Lonchar v. Thomas, 517 U. S. 314, 323 (1996).
The new restrictions on successive petitions constitute a modified res judicata rule, a restraint on what is called in habeas corpus practice “abuse of the writ.” In McCleskey v. Zant, 499 U. S. 467 (1991), we said that “the doctrine of abuse of the writ refers to a complex and evolving body of equitable principles informed and controlled by historical usage, statutory developments, and judicial decisions.” Id., at 489. The added restrictions which the Act places on second habeas petitions are well within the compass of this evolutionary process, and we hold that they do not amount to a “suspension” of the writ contrary to Article I, § 9.
> I
We have answered the questions presented by the petition for certiorari in this case, and we now dispose of the petition
for an original writ of habeas corpus. Our Rule 20.4(a) delineates the standards under which we grant such writs:
“A petition seeking the issuance of a writ of habeas corpus shall comply with the requirements of 28 U. S. C. §§ 2241 and 2242, and in particular with the provision in the last paragraph of § 2242 requiring a statement of the ‘reasons for not making application to the district court of the district in which the applicant is held.’ If the relief sought is from the judgment of a state court, the petition shall set forth specifically how and wherein the petitioner has exhausted available remedies in the state courts or otherwise comes within the provisions of 28 U. S. C. § 2254(b). To justify the granting of a writ of habeas corpus, the petitioner must show exceptional circumstances warranting the exercise of the Court’s discretionary powers and must show that adequate relief cannot be obtained in any other form or from any other court. These writs are rarely granted.”
Reviewing petitioner’s claims here, they do not materially differ from numerous other claims made by successive ha-beas petitioners which we have had occasion to review on stay applications to this Court. Neither of them satisfies the requirements of the relevant provisions of the Act, let alone the requirement that there be “exceptional circumstances” justifying the issuance of the writ.
* * *
The petition for writ of certiorari is dismissed for want of jurisdiction. The petition for an original writ of habeas corpus is denied.
It is so ordered.
Section 14 is the direct ancestor of 28 U. S. C. § 2241, subsection (a) of which now states in pertinent part: “Writs of habeas corpus may be granted by the Supreme Court, any justice thereof, the district courts and any circuit judge within their respective jurisdictions.”
This language from the 1867 Act is the direct ancestor of § 2241(c)(3), which states: “The writ of habeas corpus shall not extend to a prisoner unless . . . [h]e is in custody in violation of the Constitution or laws or treaties of the United States.”
Section 103 of the Act amends Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 22(a) to read: “An application for a writ of habeas corpus shall be made to the appropriate district court. If application is made to a circuit judge, the application shall be transferred to the appropriate district court. If an application is made to or transferred to the district court and denied, renewal of the application before a circuit judge shall not be permitted. The applicant may, pursuant to section 2253 of title 28, United States Code, appeal to the appropriate court of appeals from the order of the district court denying the writ.”
As originally enacted in 1948, 28 U. S. C. § 2254 specified that “[a]n application for a writ of habeas corpus in behalf of a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court shall not be granted unless it appears that the applicant has exhausted the remedies available in the courts of the State.” 28 U. S. C. §2254 (1946 ed., Supp. III). The reviser’s notes, citing Ex parte Hawk, 321 U. S. 114 (1944) (per curiam), indicated that “[t]his new section is declaratory of existing law as affirmed by the Supreme Court.” Reviser’s Note following 28 U. S. C. §2254, p. 1109 (1946 ed., Supp. III). Hawk was one of a series of opinions in which we applied the exhaustion requirement first announced in Ex parte Royall, 117 U. S. 241 (1886), to deny relief to applicants seeking writs of habeas corpus from this Court.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Breyer
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA or Act) requires a state prisoner whose conviction has become final to seek federal habeas corpus relief within one year. 28 U. S. C. § 2244(d)(1)(A). The Act tolls this 1-year limitations period for the “time during which a properly filed application for State post-conviction or other collateral review ... is pending.” § 2244(d)(2). The time that an application for state postconviction review is “pending” includes the period between (1) a lower court’s adverse determination, and (2) the prisoner’s filing of a notice of appeal, provided that the filing of the notice of appeal is timely under state law. Carey v. Saffold, 536 U. S. 214 (2002).
In most States a statute sets out the number of days for filing a timely notice of appeal, typically a matter of a few days. See id., at 219. California, however, has a special system governing appeals when prisoners seek relief on collateral review. Under that system, the equivalent of a notice of appeal is timely if filed within a “reasonable time.” In re Harris, 5 Cal. 4th 813, 828, n. 7, 855 P. 2d 391, 398, n. 7 (1993); see also Saffold, supra, at 221.
In this case, the Ninth Circuit found timely a California prisoner’s request for appellate review made three years after the lower state court ruled against him. Chavis v. LeMarque, 382 F. 3d 921 (2004). We conclude that the Circuit departed from our interpretation of the Act as applied to California’s system, Carey v. Saffold, supra, and we therefore reverse its judgment.
I
We begin with our holding in Carey v. Saffold. In that case we addressed three questions.
A
We initially considered the question just mentioned: For purposes of tolling AEDPA’s 1-year limitations period, is a state habeas application “pending” during the interval between (1) the time a lower state court reaches an adverse decision, and (2) the day the prisoner timely files an appeal? We answered this question “yes.” 536 U. S., at 219-221. If the filing of the appeal is timely, the period between the adverse lower court decision and the filing (typically just a few days) is not counted against the 1-year AEDPA time limit.
B
We then pointed out that in most States a prisoner who seeks review of an adverse lower court decision must file a notice of appeal in a higher court, and the timeliness of that notice of appeal is measured in terms of a determinate time period, such as 30 or 60 days. Id., at 219. As we explained, however, California has a different rule. In California, a state prisoner may seek review of an adverse lower court decision by filing an original petition (rather than a notice of appeal) in the higher court, and that petition is timely if filed within a “reasonable time.” Id., at 221. We asked whether this distinction made a difference for AEDPA tolling purposes. We answered that question “no.” Id., at 222-223. California’s system is sufficiently analogous to appellate review systems in other States to treat it similarly. See id., at 222 (“The upshot is that California’s collateral review process functions very much like that of other States, but for the fact that its timeliness rule is indeterminate”). As long as the prisoner filed a petition for appellate review within a “reasonable time,” he could count as “pending” (and add to the 1-year time limit) the days between (1) the time the lower state court reached an adverse decision, and (2) the day he filed a petition in the higher state court. Id., at 222-223. We added, “The fact that California’s timeliness standard is general rather than precise may make it more difficult for federal courts to determine just when a review application (i. e., a filing in a higher court) comes too late.” Id., at 223. Nonetheless, the federal courts must undertake that task.
C
We considered finally whether the state habeas petition at issue in the case had itself been timely filed. Saffold had filed that petition (a petition for review by the California Supreme Court) not within 30 or even 60 days after the lower court (the California Court of Appeal) had reached its adverse decision, but, rather, 4½months later. The filing was not obviously late, however, because the delay might have been due to excusable neglect — Saffold said he had taken 4½ months because he had not received timely notice of the adverse lower court decision. Id., at 226.
We sent the case back to the Ninth Circuit to decide whether the prisoner had filed his California Supreme Court petition within a “reasonable time,” thus making the filing timely under California law. We also set forth several legal propositions that set the boundaries within which the Ninth Circuit must answer this question.
First, we pointed out that if “the California Supreme Court had clearly ruled that Saffold’s 4½-month delay was ‘unreasonable,’ that would be the end of the matter.” Ibid.
Second, we noted that the California Supreme Court order denying Saffold’s petition had stated that the denial was “ ‘on the merits and for lack of diligence.’ ” Id., at 225. But, we added, these words alone did not decide the question. Id., at 225-226.
Third, we stated that the words “lack of diligence” did not prove that the California Supreme Court thought the petition was untimely. That is because those words might have referred to a totally different, earlier delay that was “irrelevant” to the timeliness of Saffold’s California Supreme Court petition. Id., at 226.
Fourth, we stated that the words “on the merits” did not prove that the California Supreme Court thought the petition was timely. That is because the California Supreme Court might have decided to address the merits of the petition even if the petition had been untimely. A “court,” we said,
“will sometimes address the merits of a claim that it believes was presented in an untimely way: for instance, where the merits present no difficult issue; where the court wants to give a reviewing court alternative grounds for decision; or where the court wishes to show a prisoner (who may not have a lawyer) that it was not merely a procedural technicality that precluded him from obtaining relief.” Id., at 225-226.
We ultimately concluded that the Ninth Circuit must not take “such words” (i. e., the words “on the merits”) as “an absolute bellwether” on the timeliness question. Id., at 226 (emphasis added). We pointed out that the Circuit’s contrary approach (i. e., an approach that presumed that an order denying a petition “on the merits” meant that the petition was timely) would lead to the tolling of AEDPA’s limitations period in circumstances where the law does not permit tolling. Ibid. And we gave as an example of the incorrect approach a case in which the Ninth Circuit had found timely a petition for review filed four years after the lower court reached its decision. Ibid, (citing Welch v. Newland, 267 F. 3d 1013 (CA9 2001)).
II
We turn now to the present case. Respondent Reginald Chavis, a California state prisoner, filed a state habeas corpus petition on May 14, 1993. The trial court denied the petition. He sought review in the California Court of Appeal, which also held against him. The Court of Appeal released its decision on September 29, 1994. Chavis then waited more than three years, until November 5,1997, before filing a petition for review in the California Supreme Court. On April 29,1998, the California Supreme Court denied the petition in an order stating simply, “Petition for writ of ha-beas corpus [i. e., review in the California Supreme Court] is DENIED.” App. G to Pet. for Cert. 1.
Subsequently, on August 30,2000 (after bringing a second round of state habeas petitions), Chavis filed a federal habeas petition. The State asked the federal court to dismiss the petition on the ground that it was untimely. After all, AEDPA gives prisoners only one year to file their federal petitions, and Chavis had filed his federal petition more than four years after AEDPA became effective. Still, AEDPA also provides for tolling, adding to the one year those days during which an application for state collateral review is “pending.” And the federal courts consequently had to calculate how many days Chavis’ state collateral review applications had been “pending” in the state courts and add those days to the 1-year limitations period.
Ultimately, after the ease reached the Ninth Circuit, that court concluded that the timeliness of the federal petition turned upon whether the “pending” period included the 3-year period between (1) the time a lower state court, the California Court of Appeal, issued its opinion (September 29, 1994), and (2) the time Chavis sought review in a higher state court, the California Supreme Court (on November 5, 1997). The Ninth Circuit held that the state collateral review application was “pending” during this time; hence, it should add those three years to the federal 1-year limitations period, and the addition of those three years, along with various other additions, rendered the federal filing timely.
The Ninth Circuit’s reasoning as to why it should add the three years consists of the following:
“Under our decision in Saffold, because Chavis’s November 1997 habeas petition to the California Supreme Court was denied on the merits, it was pending during the interval between the Court of Appeal decision and the Supreme Court petition and he is entitled to tolling. See [Saffold v. Carey, 312 F. 3d 1031, 1034-1036 (2002)]. When the California Supreme Court denies a habeas petition without comment or citation, we have long treated the denial as a decision on the merits. Hunter v. Aispuro, 982 F. 2d 344, 348 (9th Cir. 1992). Therefore, the California Supreme Court’s summary denial was on the merits, and the petition was not dismissed as untimely. See id.; see also Delhomme v. Ramirez, 340 F. 3d 817, 819, 820 n. 2 (9th Cir. 2003) (noting that there was no indication that a state habeas petition was untimely where the California Supreme Court denied the petition without comment or citation). As a result, Chavis is entitled to tolling during [the relevant period].” 382 F. 3d, at 926 (emphasis added).
California sought certiorari on the ground that the Ninth Circuit’s decision was inconsistent with our holding in Saf-fold. We granted the writ.
III
A
California argues that the Ninth Circuit’s decision in this case is inconsistent with our decision in Saffold. Like California, we do not see how it is possible to reconcile the two cases.
In Saffold, we held that (1) only a timely appeal tolls AEDPA’s 1-year limitations period for the time between the lower court’s adverse decision and the filing of a notice of appeal in the higher court; (2) in California, “unreasonable” delays are not timely; and (3) (most pertinently) a California Supreme Court order denying a petition “on the merits” does not automatically indicate that the petition was timely filed. In addition, we referred to a Ninth Circuit case holding that a 4-year delay was reasonable as an example of what the law forbids the Ninth Circuit to do.
Nonetheless, the Ninth Circuit in this case said in effect that the California Supreme Court’s denial of a petition “on the merits” did automatically mean that the petition was timely (and thus that a 3-year delay was reasonable). More than that, it treated an order from the California Supreme Court that was silent on the grounds for the court’s decision as if it were equivalent to an order in which the words “on the merits” appeared. 382 F. 3d, at 926. If the appearance of the words “on the merits” does not automatically warrant a holding that the filing was timely, the absence of those words could not automatically warrant a holding that the filing was timely. After all, the fact that the California Supreme Court did not include the words “on the merits” in its order denying Chavis relief makes, it less likely, not more likely, that the California Supreme Court believed that Chavis’ 3-year delay was reasonable. Thus, the Ninth Circuit’s presumption (“that an order decided entirely on the merits indicates that the state court did not find the petition to be untimely,” post, at 205 (STEVENS, J., concurring in judgment)) is not consistent with Saffold. See supra, at 194.
Neither do the cases cited by the Ninth Circuit provide it with the necessary legal support. The Circuit’s opinion in Saffold (written on remand from this Court) said nothing about the significance of the words “on the merits.” Saffold v. Carey, 312 F. 3d 1031 (2002). Hunter v. Aispuro, 982 F. 2d 344 (CA9 1992), predated AEBPA, not to mention our decision in Saffold, and in any event concerned an entirely different issue of federal habeas corpus law. Delhomme v. Ramirez, 340 F. 3d 817 (CA9 2003), addressed the timeliness issue in one sentence in a footnote, id., at 820, n. 2, and did not discuss at any length our opinion in Saffold, which must control the result here.
In the absence of (1) clear direction or explanation from the California Supreme Court about the meaning of the term “reasonable time” in the present context, or (2) clear indication that a particular request for appellate review was timely or untimely, the Circuit must itself examine the delay in each case and determine what the state courts would have held in respect to timeliness. That is to say, without using a merits determination as an “absolute bellwether” (as to timeliness), the federal court must decide whether the filing of the request for state-court appellate review (in state collateral review proceedings) was made within what California would consider a “reasonable time.” See supra, at 193. This is what we believe we asked the Circuit to do in Saffold. This is what we believe it should have done.
B
The discrepancy between the Ninth Circuit’s view of the matter and ours may reflect an administrative problem. The Ninth Circuit each year must hear several hundred petitions by California prisoners seeking federal habeas relief. Some of these cases will involve filing delays, and some of those delays will require the federal courts to determine whether a petition for appellate review in a related state collateral proceeding was timely. Given the uncertain scope of California’s “reasonable time” standard, it may not be easy for the Circuit to decide in each such case whether the prisoner’s state-court review petition was timely. And it is consequently not surprising that the Circuit has tried to create rules of thumb that look to the label the California Supreme Court applied to the denial order, even where that label does not refer to timeliness. For the reasons we gave in Saffold, however, we do not believe these shortcuts remain true, either to California’s timeliness rule or to Congress’ intent in AEDPA to toll the 1-year limitations period only when the state collateral review proceeding is “pending.” 536 U. S., at 220-221, 225-226.
The California courts themselves might alleviate the problem by clarifying the scope of the words “reasonable time” in this context or by indicating, when denying a petition, whether the filing was timely. And the Ninth Circuit might seek guidance on the matter by certifying a question to the California Supreme Court in an appropriate case. Id., at 226-227. Alternatively, the California Legislature might itself decide to impose more determinate time limits, conforming California law in this respect with the law of most other States. Indeed, either state body might adopt a state-law presumption of the kind the concurrence here suggests. See post, at 209. In the absence of any such guidance, however, we see no alternative way of applying state law to a case like this one but for the Ninth Circuit simply to ask and to decide whether the state prisoner made the relevant filing within a reasonable time. In doing so, the Circuit must keep in mind that, in Saffold, we held that timely filings in California (as elsewhere) fell within the federal tolling provision on the assumption that California law in this respect did not differ significantly from the laws of other States, i. e., that California’s “reasonable time” standard would not lead to filing delays substantially longer than those in States with determinate timeliness rules. 536 U. S., at 222-223. California, of course, remains free to tell us if, in this respect, we were wrong.
IV
As we have pointed out, supra, at 195, Chavis had one year from the date AEDPA became effective (April 24, 1996) to file a federal habeas petition. Chavis did not actually file his petition in federal district court until August 30, 2000, four years and 128 days after AEDPA’s effective date. Hence Chavis’ federal petition was timely only if “a properly filed application for State post-conviction or other collateral review [was] pending” for at least three years and 128 days of this time. 28 U. S. C. § 2244(d)(2). Under the Ninth Circuit’s reasoning Chavis’ state collateral review proceedings were “pending” for three years and 130 days, which period (when added to the 1-year federal limitations period) makes the federal petition timely.
As we have explained, however, we find the Ninth Circuit’s reasoning in conflict with our Saffold holding. And, after examining the record, we are convinced that the iaw does not permit a holding that Chavis’ federal habeas petition was timely. Chavis filed his state petition for habeas review in the California Supreme Court approximately three years and one month after the California Court of Appeal released its decision denying him relief. Chavis tries to explain this long delay by arguing that he could not use the prison library to work on his petition during this time either because (1) his prison job’s hours coincided with those of the library, or (2) prison lockdowns confined him to his cell. And, he adds, his inability to use the library excuses the three year and one month delay — to the point where, despite the delay, he filed his petition for California Supreme Court review within a “reasonable time.”
Chavis concedes, however, that in March 1996, App. 38, about a year and a half after the California Court of Appeal denied his habeas petition, he was given a new prison job. He nowhere denies California’s assertion, id., at 68, that this new job’s working hours permitted him to use the library. And he also concedes that the prison “remained relatively lockdown free” between February 1997 and August 1997, id., at 39, a 6-month period. Thus, viewing every disputed issue most favorably to Chavis, there remains a totally unexplained, hence unjustified, delay of at least six months.
Six months is far longer than the “short period[s] of time,” 30 to 60 days, that most States provide for filing an appeal to the state supreme court. Saffold, supra, at 219. It is far longer than the 10-day period California gives a losing party to file a notice of appeal in the California Supreme Court, see Cal. App. Ct. Rule 28(e)(1) (2004). We have found no authority suggesting, nor found any convincing reason to believe, that California would consider an unjustified or unexplained 6-month filing delay “reasonable.” Nor do we see how an unexplained delay of this magnitude could fall within the scope of the federal statutory word “pending” as interpreted in Saffold. See 536 U. S., at 222-223. Thus, since Chavis needs all but two days of the lengthy (three year and one month) delay to survive the federal 1-year habeas filing period, see 382 F. 3d, at 927, he cannot succeed.
The concurrence reaches the same ultimate conclusion in a different way. Unlike the Ninth Circuit, it would not count in Chavis’ favor certain days during which Chavis was pursuing a second round of state collateral review efforts. See post, at 210. Because, as the Ninth Circuit pointed out, the parties did not argue this particular matter below, 382 F. 3d, at 925, n. 3, we. do not consider it here.
For these reasons, the judgment of the Ninth Circuit is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice O’Connor
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The author of a pre-existing work may assign to another the right to use it in a derivative work. In this case the author of a pre-existing work agreed to assign the rights in his renewal copyright term to the owner of a derivative work, but died before the commencement of the renewal period. The question presented is whether the owner of the derivative work infringed the rights of the successor owner of the pre-existing work by continued distribution and publication of the derivative work during the renewal term of the preexisting work.
I
Cornell Woolrich authored the story “It Had to Be Murder,” which was first published in February 1942 in Dime Detective Magazine. The magazine’s publisher, Popular Publications, Inc., obtained the rights to magazine publication of the story and Woolrich retained all other rights. Popular Publications obtained a blanket copyright for the issue of Dime Detective Magazine in which “It Had to Be Murder” was published.
The Copyright Act of 1909 (1909 Act), 35 Stat. 1075, 17 U. S. C. § 1 et seq. (1976 ed.), provided authors a 28-year initial term of copyright protection plus a 28-year renewal term. See 17 U. S. C. § 24 (1976 ed.). In 1945, Woolrich agreed to assign the rights to make motion picture versions of six of his stories, including “It Had to Be Murder,” to B. G. De Sylva Productions for $9,250. He also agreed to renew the copyrights in the stories at the appropriate time and to assign the same motion picture rights to De Sylva Productions for the 28-year renewal term. In 1953, actor Jimmy Stewart and director Alfred Hitchcock formed a production company, Patron, Inc., which obtained the motion picture rights in “It Had to Be Murder” from De Sylva’s successors in interest for $10,000.
In 1954, Patron, Inc., along with Paramount Pictures, produced and distributed “Rear Window,” the motion picture version of Woolrich’s story “It Had to Be Murder.” Wool-rich died in 1968 before he could obtain the rights in the renewal term for petitioners as promised and without a surviving spouse or child. He left his property to a trust administered by his executor, Chase Manhattan Bank, for the benefit of Columbia University. On December 29, 1969, Chase Manhattan Bank renewed the copyright in the “It Had to Be Murder” story pursuant to 17 U. S. C. §24 (1976 ed.). Chase Manhattan assigned the renewal rights to respondent Abend for $650 plus 10% of all proceeds from exploitation of the story.
“Rear Window” was broadcast on the ABC television network in 1971. Respondent then notified petitioners Hitchcock (now represented by cotrustees of his will), Stewart, and MCA Inc., the owners of the “Rear Window” motion picture and renewal rights in the motion picture, that he owned the renewal rights in the copyright and that their distribution of the motion picture without his permission infringed his copyright in the story. Hitchcock, Stewart, and MCA nonetheless entered into a second license with ABC to rebroadcast the motion picture. In 1974, respondent filed suit against these same petitioners, and others, in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, alleging copyright infringement. Respondent dismissed his complaint in return for $25,000.
Three years later, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit decided Rohauer v. Killiam Shows, Inc., 551 F. 2d 484, cert. denied, 431 U. S. 949 (1977), in which it held that the owner of the copyright in a derivative work may continue to use the existing derivative work according to the original grant from the author of the pre-existing work even if the grant of rights in the pre-existing work lapsed. 551 F. 2d, at 494. Several years later, apparently in reliance on Rohauer, petitioners re-released the motion picture in a variety of media, including new 35 and 16 millimeter prints for theatrical exhibition in the United States, videocassettes, and videodiscs. They also publicly exhibited the motion picture in theaters, over cable television, and through videodisc and videocassette rentals and sales.
Respondent then brought the instant suit in the United States District Court for the Central District of California against Hitchcock, Stewart, MCA, and Universal Film Exchanges, a subsidiary of MCA and the distributor of the motion picture. Respondent’s complaint alleges that the re-release of the motion picture infringes his copyright in the story because petitioners’ right to use the story during the renewal term lapsed when Woolrich died before he could register for the renewal term and transfer his renewal rights to them. Respondent also contends that petitioners have interfered with his rights in the renewal term of the story in other ways. He alleges that he sought to contract with Home Box Office (HBO) to produce a play and television version of the story, but that petitioners wrote to him and HBO stating that neither he nor HBO could use either the title, “Rear Window” or “It Had to Be Murder.” Respondent also alleges that petitioners further interfered with the renewal copyright in the story by attempting to sell the right to make a television sequel and that the re-release of the original motion picture itself interfered with his ability to produce other derivative works.
Petitioners filed motions for summary judgment, one based on the decision in Rohauer, supra, and the other based on alleged defects in the story’s copyright. Respondent moved for summary judgment on the ground that petitioners’ use of the motion picture constituted copyright infringement. Petitioners responded with a third motion for summary judgment based on a “fair use” defense. The District Court granted petitioners’ motions for summary judgment based on Rohauer and the fair use defense and denied respondent’s motion for summary judgment, as well as petitioners’ motion for summary judgment alleging defects in the story’s copyright. Respondent appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and petitioners cross-appealed.
The Court of Appeals reversed, holding that respondent’s copyright in the renewal term of the story was not defective. Abend v. MCA, Inc., 863 F. 2d 1465, 1472 (1988). The issue before the court, therefore, was whether petitioners were entitled to distribute and exhibit the motion picture without respondent’s permission despite respondent’s valid copyright in the pre-existing story. Relying on the renewal provision of the 1909 Act, 17 U. S. C. § 24 (1976 ed.), respondent argued before the Court of Appeals that because he obtained from Chase Manhattan Bank, the statutory successor, the renewal right free and clear of any purported assignments of any interest in the renewal copyright, petitioners’ distribution and publication of “Rear Window” without authorization infringed his renewal copyright. Petitioners responded that they had the right to continue to exploit “Rear Window” during the 28-year renewal period because Woolrich had agreed to assign to petitioners’ predecessor in interest the motion picture rights in the story for the renewal period.
Petitioners also relied, as did the District Court, on the decision in Rohauer v. Killiam Shows, Inc., supra. In Rohauer, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held that statutory successors to the renewal copyright in a preexisting work under § 24 could not “depriv[e] the proprietor of the derivative copyright of a right... to use so much of the underlying copyrighted work as already has been embodied in the copyrighted derivative work, as a matter of copyright law.” Id., at 492. The Court of Appeals in the instant case rejected this reasoning, concluding that even if the preexisting work had been incorporated into a derivative work, use of the pre-existing work was infringing unless the owner of the derivative work held a valid grant of rights in the renewal term.
The court relied on Miller Music Corp. v. Charles N. Daniels, Inc., 362 U. S. 373 (1960), in which we held that assignment of renewal rights by an author before the time for renewal arrives cannot defeat the right of the author’s statutory successor to the renewal rights if the author dies before the right to renewal accrues. An assignee of the renewal rights takes only an expectancy: “Until [the time for registration of renewal rights] arrives, assignees of renewal rights take the risk that the rights acquired may never vest in their assignors. A purchaser of such an interest is deprived of nothing. Like all purchasers of contingent interests, he takes subject to the possibility that the contingency may not occur.” Id., at 378. The Court of Appeals reasoned that “[i]f Miller Music makes assignment of the full renewal rights in the underlying copyright unenforceable when the author dies before effecting renewal of the copyright, then, a fortiori, an assignment of part of the rights in the underlying work, the right to produce a movie version, must also be unenforceable if the author dies before effecting renewal of the underlying copyright.” 863 F. 2d, at 1476. Finding further support in the legislative history of the 1909 Act and rejecting the Rohauer court’s reliance on the equities and the termination provisions of the 1976 Act, 17 U. S. C. §§ 203(b)(1), 304(c)(6)(A), the Court of Appeals concluded that petitioners received from Woolrich only an expectancy in the renewal rights that never matured; upon Woolrich’s death, Woolrich’s statutory successor, Chase Manhattan Bank, became “entitled to a renewal and extension of the copyright,” which Chase Manhattan secured “within one year prior to the expiration of the original term of copyright.” 17 U. S. C. § 24 (1976 ed.). Chase Manhattan then assigned the existing rights in the copyright to respondent.
The Court of Appeals also addressed at length the proper remedy, an issue not relevant to the issue on which we granted certiorari. We granted certiorari to resolve the conflict between the decision in Rohauer, supra, and the decision below. 493 U. S. 807 (1989). Petitioners do not challenge the Court of Appeals’ determination that respondent’s copyright in the renewal term is valid, and we express no opinion regarding the Court of Appeals’ decision on this point.
II
A
Petitioners would have us read into the Copyright Act a limitation on the statutorily created rights of the owner of an underlying work. They argue in essence that the rights of the owner of the copyright in the derivative use of the preexisting work are extinguished once it is incorporated into the derivative work, assuming the author of the pre-existing work has agreed to assign his renewal rights. Because we find no support for such a curtailment of rights in either the 1909 Act or the 1976 Act, or in the legislative history of either, we affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
Petitioners and amicus Register of Copyrights assert, as the Court of Appeals assumed, that §23. of the 1909 Act, 17 U. S. C. §24 (1976 ed.), and the case law interpreting that provision, directly control the disposition of this case. Respondent counters that the provisions of the 1976 Act control, but that the 1976 Act re-enacted § 24 in § 304 and, therefore, the language and judicial interpretation of § 24 are relevant to our consideration of this case. Under either theory, we must look to the language of and case law interpreting § 24.
The right of renewal found in § 24 provides authors a second opportunity to obtain remuneration for their works. Section 24 provides:
“[T]he author of [a copyrighted] work, if still living, or the widow, widower, or children of the author, if the author be not living, or if such author, widow, widower, or children be not living, then the author’s executors, or in the absence of a will, his next of kin shall be entitled to a renewal and extension of the copyright in such work for a further term of twenty-eight years when application for such renewal and extension shall have been made to the copyright office and duly registered therein within one year prior to the expiration of the original term of copyright.” 17 U. S. C. § 24 (1976 ed.)
Since the earliest copyright statute in this country, the copyright term of ownership has been split between an original term and a renewal term. Originally, the renewal was intended merely to serve as an extension of the original term; at the end of the original term, the renewal could be effected and claimed by the author, if living, or by the author’s executors, administrators, or assigns. See Copyright Act of May 31, 1790, ch. XV, § 1, 1 Stat. 124. In 1831, Confess altered the provision so that the author could assign his contingent interest in the renewal term, but could not, through his assignment, divest the rights of his widow or children in the renewal term. See Copyright Act of February 3, 1831, ch. XVI, 4 Stat. 436; see also G. Curtis, Law of Copyright 235 (1847). The 1831 renewal provisions created “an entirely new policy, completely dissevering the title, breaking up the continuance... and vesting an absolutely new title eo no-mine in the persons designated.” White-Smith Music Publishing Co. v. Goff, 187 F. 247, 250 (CA1 1911). In this way, Congress attempted to give the author a second chance to control and benefit from his work. Congress also intended to secure to the author’s family the opportunity to exploit the work if the author died before he could register for the renewal term. See Bricker, Renewal and Extension of Copyright, 29 S. Cal. L. Rev. 23, 27 (1955) (“The renewal term of copyright is the law’s second chance to the author and his family to profit from his mental labors”). “The evident purpose of [the renewal provision] is to provide for the family of the author after his death. Since the author cannot assign his family’s renewal rights, [it] takes the form of a compulsory bequest of the copyright to the designated persons.” De Sylva v. Ballentine, 351 U. S. 570, 582 (1956). See Fred Fisher Music Co. v. M. Witmark & Sons, 318 U. S. 643, 651 (1943) (if at the end of the original copyright period, the author is not living, “his family stand[s] in more need of the only means of subsistence ordinarily left to them” (citation omitted)).
In its debates leading up to the Copyright Act of 1909, Congress elaborated upon the policy underlying a system comprised of an original term and a completely separate renewal term. See G. Ricordi & Co. v. Paramount Pictures, Inc., 189 F. 2d 469, 471 (CA2) (the renewal right “creates a new estate, and the... cases which have dealt with the subject assert that the new estate is clear of all rights, interests or licenses granted under the original copyright”), cert. denied, 342 U. S. 849 (1951). “It not infrequently happens that the author sells his copyright outright to a publisher for a comparatively small sum.” H. R. Rep. No. 2222, 60th Cong., 2d Sess., 14 (1909). The renewal term permits the author, originally in a poor bargaining position, to renegotiate the terms of the grant once the value of the work has been tested. “[UJnlike real property and other forms of personal property, [a copyright] is by its very nature incapable of accurate monetary evaluation prior to its exploitation.” 2 M. Nimmer & D. Nimmer, Nimmer on Copyright § 9.02, p. 9-23 (1989) (hereinafter Nimmer). “If the work proves to be a great success and lives beyond the term of twenty-eight years,... it should be the exclusive right of thé author to take the renewal term, and the law should be framed... so that [the author] could not be deprived of that right.” H. R. Rep. No. 2222, supra, at 14. With these purposes in mind, Congress enacted the renewal provision of the Copyright Act of 1909, 17 U. S. C. § 24 (1976 ed.). With respect to works in their original or renewal term as of January 1, 1978, Congress retained the two-term system of copyright protection in the 1976 Act. See 17 U. S. C. §§ 304(a) and (b) (1988 ed.) (incorporating language of 17 U. S. C. § 24 (1976 ed.)).
Applying these principles in Miller Music Corp. v. Charles N. Daniels, Inc., 362 U. S. 373 (1960), this Court held that when an author dies before the renewal period arrives, his executor is entitled to the renewal rights, even though the author previously assigned his renewal rights to another party. “An assignment by an author of his renewal rights made before the original copyright expires is valid against the world, if the author is alive at the commencement of the renewal period. [Fred] Fisher Co. v. [M.] Witmark & Sons, 318 U. S. 643, so holds.” Id., at 375. If the author dies before that time, the “next of kin obtain the renewal copyright free of any claim founded upon an assignment made by the author in his lifetime. These results follow not because the author’s assignment is invalid but because he had only an expectancy to assign; and his death, prior to the renewal period, terminates his interest in the renewal which by § 24 vests in the named classes.” Ibid. The legislative history of the 1909 Act echoes this view: “The right of renewal is contingent. It does not vest until the end [of the original term]. If [the author] is alive at the time of renewal, then the original contract may pass it, but his widow or children or other persons entitled would not be bound by that contract.” 5 Legislative History of the 1909 Copyright Act, Part K, p. 77 (E. Brylawski & A. Goldman eds. 1976) (statement of Mr. Hale). Thus, the renewal provisions were intended to give the author a second chance to obtain fair remuneration for his creative efforts and to provide the author’s family a “new estate” if the author died before the renewal period arrived.
An author holds a bundle of exclusive rights in the copyrighted work, among them the right to copy and the right to incorporate the work into derivative works. By assigning the renewal copyright in the work without limitation, as in Miller Music, the author assigns all of these rights. After Miller Music, if the author dies before the commencement of the renewal period, the assignee holds nothing. If the assignee of all of the renewal rights holds nothing upon the death of the assignor before arrival of the renewal period, then, a fortiori, the assignee of a portion of the renewal rights, e. g., the right to produce a derivative work, must also hold nothing. See also Brief for Register of Copyrights as Amicus Curiae 22 (“[A]ny assignment of renewal rights made during the original term is void if the author dies before the renewal period”). Therefore, if the author dies before the renewal period, then the assignee may continue to use the original work only if the author’s successor transfers the renewal rights to the assignee. This is the rule adopted by the Court of Appeals below and advocated by the Register of Copyrights. See 863 F. 2d, at 1478; Brief for Register of Copyrights as Amicus Curiae 22. Application of this rule to this case should end the inquiry. Woolrich died before the commencement of the renewal period in the story, and, therefore, petitioners hold only an unfulfilled expectancy. Petitioners have been “deprived of nothing. Like all purchasers of contingent interests, [they took] subject to the possibility that the contingency may not occur.” Miller Music, supra, at 378.
B
The reason that our inquiry does not end here, and that we granted certiorari, is that the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reached a contrary result in Rohauer v. Killiam Shows, Inc., 551 F. 2d 484 (1977). Petitioners’ theory is drawn largely from Rohauer. The Court of Appeals, in Rohauer attempted to craft a “proper reconciliation” between the owner of the pre-existing work, who held the right to the work pursuant to Miller Music, and the owner of the derivative work, who had a great deal to lose if the work could not be published or distributed. 551 F. 2d, at 490. Addressing a case factually similar to this case, the court concluded that even if the death of the author caused the renewal rights in the pre-existing work to revert to the statutory successor, the owner of the derivative work could continue to exploit that work. The court reasoned that the 1976 Act and the relevant precedents did not preclude such a re-suit and that it was necessitated by a balancing of the equities:
“[T]he equities lie preponderantly in favor of the proprietor of the derivative copyright. In contrast to the situation where an assignee or licensee has done nothing more than print, publicize and distribute a copyrighted story or novel, a person who with the consent of the author has created an opera or a motion picture film will often have made contributions literary, musical and economic, as great as or greater than the original author.... [T]he purchaser of derivative rights has no truly effective way to protect himself against the eventuality of the author’s death before the renewal period since there is no way of telling who will be the surviving widow, children or next of kin or the executor until that date arrives.” Id., at 493.
The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit thereby shifted the focus from the right to use the pre-existing work in a derivative work to a right inhering in the created derivative work itself. By rendering the renewal right to use the original work irrelevant, the court created an exception to our ruling in Miller Music and, as petitioners concede, created an “intrusion” on the statutorily created rights of the owner of the pre-existing work in the renewal term. Brief for Petitioners 33.
Though petitioners do not, indeed could not, argue that its language expressly supports the theory they draw from Rohauer, they implicitly rely on §6 of the 1909 Act, 17 U. S. C. §7 (1976 ed.), which states that “dramatizations... of copyrighted works when produced with the consent of the proprietor of the copyright in such works... shall be regarded as new works subject to copyright under the provisions of this title.” Petitioners maintain that the creation of the “new,” i. e., derivative, work extinguishes any right the owner of rights in the pre-existing work might have had to sue for infringement that occurs during the renewal term.
We think, as stated in Nimmer, that “[t]his conclusion is neither warranted by any express provision of the Copyright Act, nor by the rationale as to the scope of protection achieved in a derivative work. It is moreover contrary to the axiomatic copyright principle that a person may exploit only such copyrighted literary material as he either owns or is licensed to use.” 1 Nimmer § 3.07[A], pp. 3-23 to 3-24 (footnotes omitted). The aspects of a derivative work added by the derivative author are that author’s property, but the element drawn from the pre-existing work remains on grant from the owner of the pre-existing work. See Russell v. Price, 612 F. 2d 1123, 1128 (CA9 1979) (reaffirming “well-established doctrine that a derivative copyright protects only the new material contained in the derivative work, not the matter derived from the underlying work”), cert. denied, 446 U. S. 952 (1980); see also Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc. v. Nation Enterprises, 471 U. S. 539, 547 (1985) (“The copyright is limited to those aspects of the work — termed ‘expression’ — that display the stamp of the author’s originality”). So long as the pre-existing work remains out of the public domain, its use is infringing if one who employs the work does not have a valid license or assignment for use of the preexisting work. Russell v. Price, supra, at 1128 (“[Established doctrine prevents unauthorized copying or other infringing use of the underlying work or any part of that work contained in the derivative product so long as the underlying work itself remains copyrighted”). It is irrelevant whether the pre-existing work is inseparably intertwined with the derivative work. See Gilliam v. American Broadcasting Cos., 538 F. 2d 14, 20 (CA2 1976) (“[CJopyright in the underlying script survives intact despite the incorporation of that work into a derivative work”). Indeed, the plain language of § 7 supports the view that the full force of the copyright in the pre-existing work is preserved despite incorporation into the derivative work. See 17 U. S. C. § 7 (1976 ed.) (publication of the derivative work “shall not affect the force or validity of any subsisting copyright upon the matter employed”); see also 17 U. S. C. § 3 (1976 ed.) (copyright protection of a work extends to “all matter therein in which copyright is already subsisting, but without extending the duration or scope of such copyright”). This well-settled rule also was made explicit in the 1976 Act:
“The copyright in a compilation or derivative work extends only to the material contributed by the author of such work, as distinguished from the preexisting material employed in the work, and does not imply any exclusive right in the preexisting material. The copyright in such work is independent of, and does not affect or enlarge the scope, duration, ownership, or subsistence of, any copyright protection in the pre-existing material.” 17 U. S. C. § 103(b).
See also B. Ringer, Renewal of Copyright (1960), reprinted as Copyright Law Revision Study No. 31, prepared for the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 86th Cong., 2d. Sess., 169-170 (1961) (“[0]n the basis of judicial authority, legislative history, and the opinions of the commentators,... someone cannot avoid his obligations to the owner of a renewal copyright merely because he created and copyrighted a ‘new version’ under a license or assignment which terminated at the end of the first term”) (footnotes omitted).
Properly conceding there is no explicit support for their theory in the 1909 Act, its legislative history, or the case law, petitioners contend, as did the court in Rohauer, that the termination provisions of the 1976 Act, while not controlling, support their theory of the case. For works existing in their original or renewal terms as of January 1, 1978, the 1976 Act added 19 years to the 1909 Act’s provision of 28 years of initial copyright protection and 28 years of renewal protection. See 17 U. S. C. §§ 304(a) and (b). For those works, the author has the power to terminate the grant of rights at the end of the renewal term and, therefore, to gain the benefit of that additional 19 years of protection. See § 304(c). In effect, the 1976 Act provides a third opportunity for the author to benefit from a work in its original or renewal term as of January 1, 1978. Congress, however, created one exception to the author’s right to terminate: The author may not, at the end of the renewal term, terminate the right to use a derivative work for which the owner of the derivative work has held valid rights in the original and renewal terms. See § 304(c)(6)(A). The author, however, may terminate the right to create new derivative works. Ibid. For example, if petitioners held a valid copyright in the story throughout the original and renewal terms, and the renewal term in “Rear Window” were about to expire, petitioners could continue to distribute the motion picture even if respondent terminated the grant of rights, but could not create a new motion picture version of the story. Both the court in Rohauer and petitioners infer from this exception to the right to terminate an intent by Congress to prevent authors of pre-existing works from blocking distribution of derivative works. In other words, because Congress decided not to permit authors to exercise a third opportunity to benefit from a work incorporated into a derivative work, the Act expresses a general policy of undermining the author’s second opportunity. We disagree.
The process of compromise between competing special interests leading to the enactment of the 1976 Act undermines any such attempt to draw an overarching policy out of § 304(c)(6)(A), which only prevents termination with respect to works in their original or renewal copyright terms as of January 1, 1978, and only at the end of the renewal period. See Ringer, First Thoughts on the Copyright Act of 1976, 13 Copyright 187, 188-189 (1977) (each provision of 1976 Act was drafted through series of compromises between interested parties). More specifically, § 304(c)
“was part of a compromise package involving the controversial and intertwined issues of initial ownership, duration of copyright, and reversion of rights. The Register, convinced that the opposition... would scuttle the proposed legislation, drafted a number of alternative proposals....
“Finally, the Copyright Office succeeded in urging negotiations among representatives of authors, composers, book and music publishers, and motion picture studios that produced a compromise on the substance and language of several provisions.
“Because the controversy surrounding the provisions disappeared once the parties reached a compromise, however, Congress gave the provisions little or no detailed consideration.... Thus, there is no evidence whatsoever of what members of Congress believed the language to mean.” Litman, Copyright, Compromise, and Legislative History, 72 Cornell L. Rev. 857, 865-868 (1987) (footnotes omitted).
In fact, if the 1976 Act’s termination provisions provide any guidance at all in this case, they tilt against petitioners’ theory. The plain language of the termination provision itself indicates that Congress assumed that the owner of the pre-existing work possessed the right to sue for infringement even after incorporation of the pre-existing work in the derivative work.
“A derivative work prepared under authority of the grant before its termination may continue to be utilized under the terms of the grant after its termination, but this privilege does not extend to the preparation after the termination of other derivative works based upon the copyrighted work covered by the terminated grant.” § 304(c)(6)(A) (emphasis added).
Congress would not have stated explicitly in § 304(c)(6)(A) that, at the end of the renewal term, the owner of the rights in the pre-existing work may not terminate use rights in existing derivative works unless Congress had assumed that the owner continued to hold the right to sue for infringement even after incorporation of the pre-existing work into the derivative work. Cf. Mills Music, Inc. v. Snyder, 469 U. S. 153, 164 (1985) (§ 304(c)(6)(A) “carves out an exception from the reversion of rights that takes place when an author exercises his right to termination”).
Accordingly, we conclude that neither the 1909 Act nor the 1976 Act provides support for the theory set forth in Rohauer. And even if the theory found some support in the statute or the legislative history, the approach set forth in Rohauer is problematic. Petitioners characterize the result in Rohauer as a bright-line “rule.” The Court of Appeals in Rohauer, however, expressly implemented policy considerations as a means of reconciling what it viewed as the competing interests in that case. See 551 F. 2d, at 493-494. While the result in Rohauer might make some sense in some contexts, it makes no sense in others. In the case of a condensed book, for example, the contribution by the derivative author may be little, while the contribution by the original author is great. Yet, under the Rohauer “rule,” publication of the condensed book would not infringe the pre-existing work even though the derivative author has no license or valid grant of rights in the pre-existing work. See Brief for Committee for Literary Property Studies as Amicus Curiae 29-31; see also Brief for Songwriters Guild of America as Amicus Curiae 11-12 (policy reasons set forth in Rohauer make little sense when applied to musical compositions). Thus, even if the Rohauer “rule” made sense in terms of policy in that case, it makes little sense when it is applied across the derivative works spectrum. Indeed, in the view of the commentators, Rohauer did not announce a “rule,” but rather an “interest-balancing approach.” See Jaszi, When Works Collide: Derivative Motion Pictures, Underlying Rights, and the Public Interest, 28 UCLA L. Rev. 715, 758-761 (1981); Note, Derivative Copyright and the 1909 Act — New Clarity or Confusion?, 44 Brooklyn L. Rev. 905, 926-927 (1978).
Finally, petitioners urge us to consider the policies underlying the Copyright Act. They argue that the rule announced by the Court of Appeals will undermine one of the policies of the Act — the dissemination of creative works — by leading to many fewer works reaching the public. Amicus Columbia Pictures asserts that “[s]ome owners of underlying work renewal copyrights may refuse to negotiate, preferring instead to retire their copyrighted works, and all derivative works based thereon, from public use. Others may make demands — like respondent’s demand for 50% of petitioners’ future gross proceeds in excess of advertising expenses... — which are so exorbitant that a negotiated economic accommodation will be impossible.” Brief for Columbia Pictures et al. as Amici Curiae 21. These arguments are better addressed by Congress than the courts.
In any event, the complaint that respondent’s monetary request in this case is so high as to preclude agreement fails to acknowledge that an initially high asking price does not preclude bargaining. Presumably, respondent is asking for a share in the proceeds because he wants to profit from the distribution of the work, not because he seeks suppression of it.
Moreover, although dissemination of creative works is a goal of the Copyright Act, the Act creates a balance between the artist’s right to control the work during the term of the copyright protection and the public’s need for access to creative works. The copyright term is limited so that the public will not be permanently deprived of the fruits of an artist’s labors. See Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc., 464 U. S. 417, 429 (1984) (the limited monopoly conferred by the Copyright Act “is intended to motivate creative activity of authors and inventors by the provision of a special reward, and to allow the public access to the products of their genius after the limited period of exclusive control has expired”). But nothing in the copyright statutes would prevent an author from hoarding all of his works during the term of the copyright. In fact, this Court has held that a copyright owner has the capacity arbitrarily to refuse to license one who seeks to exploit the work. See Fox Film
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | H | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Minton
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The petitioner and two others, Jim Cook and Elmer Matthews, employees on strike from a mill at Tarboro, North Carolina, were arrested for firing five shots from a passing auto into the house of a watchman at the mill, J. D. Wyatt. Wyatt’s house was occupied at the time of the shooting by himself, his wife, his daughter and son-in-law, and the latter couple’s baby. After the shooting, the petitioner and Cook and Matthews were taken to the jail. In the presence of the sheriff, a police officer, and the petitioner, Cook stated that the petitioner had helped plan the assault and had fired the shots.
Cook and Matthews were tried first and were found guilty of assault with a deadly weapon. Before judgments were entered on their convictions, the petitioner was placed on trial. The State put three witnesses on the stand — the sheriff, the police officer, and Wyatt’s son-in-law. The State then put Cook and Matthews on the stand, intending to use their testimony to corroborate that of the other three witnesses. Cook and Matthews refused to answer the questions of the State on the ground that such answers might tend to incriminate them, and their counsel informed the court that in the event of an adverse judgment on their convictions, they would appeal therefrom to the Supreme Court of North Carolina. The trial court upheld their refusal to answer. The State represented to the court that the testimony of Cook and Matthews was necessary for the State to present its case fully before the jury, and moved that the court withdraw a juror from the sworn panel and declare a mistrial. The court did so, stating: “being of the opinion that the ends of justice require that the State have available for its [sic] testimony of the witnesses Jim Cook and Elmer Matthews when the case is tried and that the State is entitled to have those witnesses to testify after their cases have been disposed of in the Supreme Court, in its discretion withdraws a juror . . . and orders a mistrial of this case and that the same be continued.” The petitioner objected.
The Supreme Court of North Carolina affirmed the convictions of Cook and Matthews. 231 N. C. 617, 58 S. E. 2d 625. The State then proceeded to impanel a jury for the second time, and this time it tried the petitioner to conclusion before this panel. He objected that to do so would place him in jeopardy a second time and thus deny him due process of law, contrary to the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. His objection was overruled, and he was placed on trial. Cook testified as a witness for the State. The petitioner was found guilty and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment. From this judgment, he appealed to the Supreme Court of North Carolina, which affirmed his conviction. State v. Brock, 234 N. C. 390, 67 S. E. 2d 282. He then sought certiorari here, which we granted. 343 U. S. 914.
North Carolina has said there is no double jeopardy because the trial court has the discretion to declare a mistrial and require the defendant to be presented before another jury if it be in the interest of justice to do so. This has long been the common-law rule in North Carolina. State v. Brock, supra; State v. Dove, 222 N. C. 162, 22 S. E. 2d 231; State v. Guice, 201 N. C. 761, 161 S. E. 533; State v. Weaver, 13 Ired. L. (35 N. C.) 203.
The question whether such a procedure would be double jeopardy under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States is not raised in this case, as the Fifth Amendment applies only to federal jurisdictions. Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U. S. 319; Twining v. New Jersey, 211 U. S. 78.
The question before us is whether the requirement that the defendant shall be presented for trial before a second jury for the same offense violates due process of law as required of the State under the Fourteenth Amendment. The question has been here before under different circumstances. In Palko v. Connecticut, supra, the defendant was first tried for murder in the first degree and was found guilty of murder in the second degree. Pursuant to a statute of Connecticut, the State appealed and obtained a reversal for errors of law at the trial. The defendant was retried, convicted of murder in the first degree, and sentenced to death. An appeal to this Court raised the question whether or not the requirement that he stand trial a second time for the same offense placed him twice in jeopardy, in violation of due process.
This Court held that the State had not denied the defendant due process of law. In order to indicate the nature of due process, this Court asked two questions:
“Is that kind of double jeopardy to which the statute has subjected him a hardship so acute and shocking that our polity will not endure it? Does it violate those 'fundamental principles of liberty and justice which lie at the base of all our civil and political institutions’? . . . The answer surely must be'no.’” 302 U. S. 319, 328.
Here the answer must be the same.
This Court has long favored the rule of discretion in the trial judge to declare a mistrial and to require another panel to try the defendant if the ends of justice will be best served. Wade v. Hunter, 336 U. S. 684; Thompson v. United States, 155 U. S. 271, 273-274. As was said in Wade v. Hunter, supra, p. 690, “a trial can be discontinued when particular circumstances manifest a necessity for so doing, and when failure to discontinue would defeat the ends of justice.” Justice to either or both parties may indicate to the wise discretion of the trial judge that he declare a mistrial and require the defendant to stand trial before another jury. As in all cases involving what is or is not due process, so in this case, no hard and fast rule can be laid down. The pattern of due process is picked out in the facts and circumstances of each case. The pattern here, long in use in North Carolina, does not deny the fundamental essentials of a trial, “the very essence of a scheme of ordered justice,” which is due process.
The judgment is
Affirmed.
Mr. Justice Black took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Per Curiam.
The question presented in this petition for certiorari is whether Miranda warnings are required if the suspect is not placed under arrest, voluntarily comes to the police station, and is allowed to leave unhindered by police after a brief interview. Because this question has already been settled clearly by past decisions of this Court, we reverse a decision of the California Court of Appeal holding that Miranda warnings are required in these circumstances.
H
The respondent, Jerry Beheler, and several acquaintances, attempted to steal a quantity of hashish from Peggy Dean, who was selling the drug in the parking lot of a liquor store. Dean was killed by Beheler’s companion and stepbrother, Danny Wilbanks, when she refused to relinquish her hashish. Shortly thereafter, Beheler called the police, who arrived almost immediately. See Brief in Opposition 3. He told the police that Wilbanks had killed the victim, and that other companions had hidden the gun in the Behelers’ backyard. Beheler gave consent to search the yard and the gun was found. Later that evening, Beheler voluntarily agreed to accompany police to the station house, although the police specifically told Beheler that he was not under arrest.
At the station house, Beheler agreed to talk to police about the murder, although the police did not advise Beheler of the rights provided him under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436 (1966). The interview lasted less than 30 minutes. After being told that his statement would be evaluated by the District Attorney, Beheler was permitted to return to his home. Five days later, Beheler was arrested in connection with the Dean murder. After he was fully advised of his Miranda rights, he waived those rights and gave a second, taped confession during which he admitted that his earlier interview with the police had been given voluntarily. The trial court found that it was not necessary for police to advise Beheler of his Miranda rights prior to the first interview, and Beheler’s statements at both interviews were admitted into evidence.
The California Court of Appeal reversed Beheler’s conviction for aiding and abetting first-degree murder, holding that the first interview with police constituted custodial interrogation, which activated the need for Miranda warnings. The court focused on the fact that the interview took place in the station house, that before the station house interview the police had already identified Beheler as a suspect in the case because Beheler had discussed the murder with police earlier, and that the interview was designed to produce incriminating responses. Although the indicia of arrest were not present, the balancing of the other factors led the court to conclude that the State “has not met its burden of establishing that [Beheler] was not in custody” during the first interview. App. to Pet. for Cert. 36.
We held in Miranda that “[b]y custodial interrogation, we mean questioning initiated by law enforcement officers after a person has been taken into custody or otherwise deprived of his freedom of action in any significant way.” 384 U. S., at 444 (footnote omitted). It is beyond doubt that Beheler was neither taken into custody nor significantly deprived of his freedom of action. Indeed, Beheler’s freedom was not restricted in any way whatsoever.
In Oregon v. Mathiason, 429 U. S. 492 (1977), which involved a factual context remarkably similar to the present case, we held that the suspect was not “in custody” within the meaning of Miranda. The police initiated contact with Mathiason, who agreed to come to the patrol office. There, the police conducted an interview after informing Mathiason that they suspected him of committing a burglary, and that the truthfulness of any statement that he made would be evaluated by the District Attorney or a judge. The officer also falsely informed Mathiason that his fingerprints were found at the scene of the crime. Mathiason then admitted to his participation in the burglary. The officer advised Mathiason of his Miranda rights, and took a taped confession, but released him pending the District Attorney’s decision to bring formal charges. The interview lasted for 30 minutes.
In summarily reversing the Oregon Supreme Court decision that Mathiason was in custody for purposes of receiving Miranda protection, we stated: “Such a noncustodial situation is not converted to one in which Miranda applies simply because a reviewing court concludes that, even in the absence of any formal arrest or restraint on freedom of movement, the questioning took place in a ‘coercive environment.’” 429 U. S., at 495. The police are required to give Miranda warnings only “where there has been such a restriction on a person’s freedom as to render him ‘in custody.’” 429 U. S., at 495. Our holding relied on the very practical recognition that “[a]ny interview of one suspected of a crime by a police officer will have coercive aspects to it, simply by virtue of the fact that the police officer is part of a law enforcement system which may ultimately cause the suspect to be charged with a crime.” Ibid.
The court below believed incorrectly that Mathiason could be distinguished from the present case because Mathiason was not questioned by police until some 25 days after the burglary. In the present case, Beheler was interviewed shortly after the crime was committed, had been drinking earlier in the day, and was emotionally distraught. See App. to Pet. for Cert. 24-25. In addition, the court observed that the police had a great deal more information about Beheler before their interview than did the police in Mathiason, and that Mathiason was a parolee who knew that “it was incumbent upon him to cooperate with police.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 25. Finally, the court noted that our decision in Mathiason did not preclude a consideration of the “totality of circumstances” in determining whether a suspect is “in custody.”
Although the circumstances of each case must certainly influence a determination of whether a suspect is “in custody” for purposes of receiving Miranda protection, the ultimate inquiry is simply whether there is a “formal arrest or restraint on freedom of movement” of the degree associated with a formal arrest. Mathiason, supra, at 495. In the present case, the “totality of circumstances” on which the court focused primarily were that the interview took place in a station house, and that Beheler was a suspect because he had spoken to police earlier. But we have explicitly recognized that Miranda warnings are not required “simply because the questioning takes place in the station house, or because the questioned person is one whom the police suspect. ” 429 U. S., at 495. That the police knew more about Beheler before his interview than they did about Mathiason before his is irrelevant, see n. 2, supra, especially because it was Beheler himself who had initiated the earlier communication with police. Moreover, the length of time that elapsed between the commission of the crime and the police interview has no relevance to the inquiry.
I — I I — i HH
Accordingly, the motion of respondent for leave to proceed informa pawperis and the petition for writ of certiorari are granted, the judgment of the California Court of Appeal is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Beheler suggests that the decision below rested upon adequate and independent state grounds in that the court applied state “in custody” standards. See Brief in Opposition 9, n. 5. It is clear from the face of the opinion, however, that the opinion below rested exclusively on the court’s “decision on the Miranda issue.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 37. Although the court relied in part on People v. Herdan, 42 Cal. App. 3d 300, 116 Cal. Rptr. 641 (1974), that decision applies Miranda.
Our holding in Mathiason reflected our earlier decision in Beckwith v. United States, 425 U. S. 341 (1976), in which we rejected the notion that the “in custody” requirement was satisfied merely because the police interviewed a person who was the “focus” of a criminal investigation. We made clear that “Miranda implicitly defined ‘focus’... as ‘questioning initiated by law enforcement officers after a person has been taken into custody or otherwise deprived of his freedom of action in any significant way.’ ” Id., at 347 (quoting Miranda, 384 U. S., at 444).
Beheler offers a number of arguments in opposition to the State’s petition for certiorari. The thrust of these arguments is that even though he voluntarily engaged in the interview with police, his participation was “coerced” because he was unaware of the consequences of his participation. Beheler cites no authority to support his contention that his lack of awareness transformed the situation into a custodial one. In addition, Beheler argues that it would be unjust to uphold his conviction because the trigger-man was convicted only of voluntary manslaughter. We do not find Beheler’s argument to be persuasive. See Standefer v. United States, 447 U. S. 10 (1980).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Chief Justice Warren
announced the judgment of the Court and an opinion in which
Mr. Justice Black, Mr. Justice Clark, and Mr. Justice Whittaker concur.
This case concerns the constitutional validity of the application to appellants of the Pennsylvania criminal statute, enacted in 1959, which proscribes the Sunday retail sale of certain enumerated commodities. Among the questions presented are whether the statute is a law respecting an establishment of religion and whether the statute violates equal protection. Since both of these questions, in reference to this very statute, have already been answered in the negative, Two Guys from Harrison-Allentown, Inc., v. McGinley, ante, p. 582, and since appellants present nothing new regarding them, they need not be considered here. Thus, the only question for consideration is whether the statute interferes with the free exercise of appellants’ religion.
Appellants are merchants in Philadelphia who engage in the retail sale of clothing and home furnishings within the proscription of the statute in issue. Each of the appellants is a member of the Orthodox Jewish faith, which requires the^closing of their places of business and a total abstention from all manner of work from nightfall each Friday until nightfall each Saturday. They instituted a suit in the court below seeking a permanent injunction against the enforcement of the 1959 statute. Their complaint, as amended, alleged that appellants had previously kept their places of business open on Sunday; that each of appellants had done a substantial amount of business on Sunday, compensating somewhat for their closing on Saturday; that Sunday closing will result in impairing the ability of all appellants to earn a livelihood and will render appellant Braunfeld unable to continue in his business, thereby losing his capital investment; that the statute is unconstitutional for the reasons stated above.
A three-judge court was properly convened and it dismissed the complaint on the authority of the Two Guys From Harrison case. 184 F. Supp. 352. On appeal brought under 28 U. S. C. § 1253, we noted probable jurisdiction, 362 U. S. 987.
Appellants contend that the enforcement against them of the Pennsylvania statute will prohibit the free exercise of their religion because, due to the statute’s compulsion to close on Sunday, appellants will suffer substantial economic loss, to the benefit of their non-Sabbatarian competitors, if appellants also continue their Sabbath observance by closing their businesses on Saturday; that this result will either compel appellants to give up their Sabbath observance, a basic tenet of the Orthodox Jewish faith, or will put appellants at a serious economic disadvantage if they continue to adhere to their Sabbath. Appellants also assert that the statute will operate so as to hinder the Orthodox Jewish faith in gaining new adherents. And the corollary to these arguments is that if the free exercise of appellants’ religion is impeded, that religion is being subjected to discriminatory treatment by the State.
In McGowan v. Maryland, ante, at pp. 437-440, we noted the significance that this Court has attributed to the development of religious freedom in Virginia in determining the scope of the First Amendment’s protection. We observed that when Virginia passed its Declaration of Rights in 1776, providing that “all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion,” Virginia repealed its laws which in any way penalized “maintaining any opinions in matters of religion, forbearing to repair to church, or the exercising any mode of worship whatsoever.” But Virginia retained its laws prohibiting Sunday labor.
We also took cognizance, in McGowan, of the evolution of Sunday Closing Laws from wholly religious sanctions to legislation concerned with the establishment of a day of community tranquillity, respite and recreation, a day when the atmosphere is one of calm and relaxation rather than one of commercialism, as it is during the other six days of the week. We reviewed the still growing state preoccupation with improving the health, safety, morals and general well-being of our citizens.
Concededly, appellants and all other persons who wish to work on Sunday will be burdened economically by the State’s day of rest mandate; and appellants point out that their religion requires them to refrain from work on Saturday as well. Our inquiry then is whether, in these circumstances, the First and Fourteenth Amendments forbid application of the Sunday Closing Law to appellants.
Certain aspects of religious exercise cannot, in any way, be restricted or burdened by either federal or state legislation. Compulsion by law of the acceptance of any creed or the practice of any form of worship is strictly forbidden. The freedom to hold religious beliefs and opinions is absolute. Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296, 303; Reynolds v. United States, 98 U. S. 145, 166. Thus, in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U. S. 624, this Court held that state action compelling school children to salute the flag, on pain of expulsion from public school, was contrary to the First and Fourteenth Amendments when applied to those students whose religious beliefs forbade saluting a flag. But this is not the case at bar; the statute before us does not make criminal the holding of any religious belief or opinion, nor does it force anyone to embrace any religious belief dr to say or believe anything in conflict with his religious tenets.
However, the freedom to act, even when the action is in accord with one’s religious convictions, is not totally free from legislative restrictions. Cantwell v. Connecticut, supra, at pp. 303-304, 306. As pointed out in Reynolds v. United States, supra, at p. 164, legislative power over mere opinion is forbidden but it may reach people’s actions when they are found to be in violation of important social duties or subversive of good order, even when the actions are demanded by one’s religion. This was articulated by Thomas Jefferson when he said:
“Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between church arid State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.” (Emphasis added.) 8 Works of Thomas Jefferson 113.
And, in the Barnette case, the Court was careful to point out that “The freedom asserted by these appellees does not bring them into collision with rights asserted by any other individual. It is such conflicts which most frequently require intervention of the State to determine where the rights of one end and those of another begin. ... It is ... to be noted that the compulsory flag salute and pledge requires affirmation of a belief and an attitude of mind." 319 U. S., at 630, 633. (Emphasis added.)
Thus, in Reynolds v. United States, this Court upheld the polygamy conviction of a member of the Mormon faith despite the fact that an accepted doctrine of his church then imposed upon its male members the duty to practice polygamy. And, in Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U. S. 158, this Court upheld a statute making it a crime for a girl under eighteen years of age to sell any newspapers, periodicals or merchandise in public places despite the fact that a child of the Jehovah’s Witnesses faith believed that it was her religious duty to perform this work.
It is to be noted that, in the two cases just mentioned, the religious practices themselves conflicted with the public vinterest. In such cases, to make accommodation between the religious action and an exercise of state authority is a particularly delicate task, id., at 165, because resolution in favor of the State results in the choice to the individual of either abandoning his religious principle or facing criminal prosecution.
But, again, this is not the case before us because the statute at bar does not make unlawful any religious practices of appellants; the Sunday law simply regulates a secular activity and, as applied to appellants, operates so as to make the practice of their religious beliefs more expensive. Furthermore, the law’s effect does not inconvenience all members of the Orthodox Jewish faith but only those who believe it necessary to work on Sunday. And even these are not faced with as serious a choice as forsaking their religious practices or subjecting themselves to criminal prosecution. Fully recognizing that the alternatives open to appellants and others similarly situated — retaining their present occupations and incurring economic disadvantage or engaging in some other commercial activity which does not call, for either Saturday or Sunday labor — may well result in some financial sacrifice in order to observe their religious beliefs, still the option is wholly different than when the legislation attempts to make a religious practice itself unlawful.
To strike down, without the most critical scrutiny, legislation which imposes only an indirect burden on the exercise of religion, i. e., legislation which does not make unlawful the religious practice itself, would radically restrict the operating latitude of the legislature. Statutes which tax income and limit the amount which may be deducted for religious contributions impose an indirect economic burden on the observance of the religion of the citizen whose religion requires him to donate a greater amount to his church; statutes which require the courts to be closed on Saturday and Sunday impose a similar indirect burden on the observance of the religion of the trial lawyer whose religion requires him to rest on a weekday. The list of legislation of this nature is nearly limitless.
Needless to say, when entering the area of religious freedom, we must be fully cognizant of the particular protection that the Constitution has accorded it. Abhorrence of religious persecution and intolerance is a basic part of our heritage. But we are a cosmopolitan nation made up of people of almost every conceivable religious preference. These denominations number almost three hundred. Year Book of American Churches for 1958, 257 et seg. Consequently, it cannot be expected, much less required, that legislators enact no law regulating conduct that may in some way result in an economic disadvantage to some religious sects and not to others because of the special practices of the various religions. We do not believe that such an effect is an absolute test for determining whether the legislation violates the freedom of religion protected by the First Amendment.
Of course, to hold unassailable all legislation regulating conduct which imposes solely an indirect burden on the observance of religion would be a gross oversimplification. If the purpose or effect of a law is to impede the observance of one or all religions or is to discriminate invidiously between religions, that law is constitutionally invalid even though the burden may be characterized as being only indirect. But if the State regulates conduct by enacting a general law within its power, the purpose and effect of which is to advance the State’s secular goals, the statute is valid despite its indirect burden on religious observance unless the State may accomplish its purpose by means which do not impose such a burden. See Cantwell v. Connecticut, supra, at pp. 304-305.
As we pointed out in McGowan v. Maryland, supra, at pp. 444-445, we cannot find a State without power to provide a weekly respite from all labor and, at the same time, to set one day of the week apart from the others as a day of rest, repose, recreation and tranquillity- — a day when the hectic tempo of everyday existence ceases and a more pleasant atmosphere is created, a day which all members of the family and community have the opportunity to spend and enjoy together, a day on which people may visit friends and relatives who are not available during working days, a day when the weekly laborer may best regenerate himself. This is particularly true in this day and age of increasing state concern with public welfare legislation.
Also, in McGowan, we examined several suggested alternative means by which it was argued that the State might accomplish its secular goals without even remotely or incidentally affecting religious freedom. Ante, at pp. 450-452. We found there that a State might well find that those alternatives would not accomplish bringing about a general day of rest. We need not examine them again here.
However, appellants advance yet another means at the State’s disposal which they would find unobjectionable. They contend that the State should cut an exception from the Sunday labor proscription for those people who, because of religious conviction, observe a day of rest other than Sunday. By such regulation, appellants contend, the economic disadvantages imposed by the present system would be removed and the State’s interest in having all people rest one day would be satisfied.
A number of States provide such an exemption, and this may well be the wiser solution to the problem. But our concern is not with the wisdom of legislation but with its constitutional limitation. Thus, reason and experience teach that to permit the exemption might well undermine the State’s goal of providing a day that, as best possible, eliminates the atmosphere of commercial noise and activity. Although not dispositive of the issue, enforcement problems would be more difficult since there would be two or more days to police rather than one and it would be more difficult to observe whether violations were occurring.
Additional problems might also be presented by a regulation of this sort. To allow only people who rest on a day other than Sunday to keep their businesses open oh that day might well provide these people with an economic advantage over their competitors who must remain closed on that day; this might cause the Sunday-observers to complain that their religions are being discriminated against. With this competitive advantage existing, there could well be the temptation for some, in order to keep their businesses open on Sunday, to assert that they have religious convictions which compel them to close their businesses on what had formerly been their least profitable day. This might make necessary a state-conducted inquiry into the sincerity of the individual’s religious beliefs, a practice which a State might believe would itself run afoul of the spirit of constitutionally protected religious guarantees. Finally, in order to keep the disruption of the day at a minimum, exempted employers would probably have to hire employees who themselves qualified for the exemption because of their own religious beliefs, a practice which a State might feel to be opposed to its general policy prohibiting religious discrimination in hiring. For' all of these reasons, we cannot say that the Pennsylvania statute before us is invalid, either on its face or as applied.
Mr. Justice Harlan concurs in the judgment. Mr. Justice Brennan and Mr. Justice Stewart concur in our disposition of appellants’ claims under the Establishment Clause and the Equal Protection Clause. Mr. Justice Frankfurter and Mr. Justice Harlan have rejected appellants’ claim under the Free Exercise Clause in a separate opinion.
Accordingly, the decision is
Affirmed.
[For opinion of Mr. Justice Frankfurter, joined by Mr. Justice Harlan, see ante, p. 459.]
[For dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice Douglas, see ante, p. 561.]
18 Purdon’s Pa. Stat. Ann. (1960 Cum. Supp.) § 4699.10 provides:
“Selling certain personal property on Sunday
“Whoever engages on Sunday in the business of selling, or sells or offers for sale, on such day, at retail, clothing and wearing apparel, clothing accessories, furniture, housewares, home, business or office furnishings, household, business or office appliances, hardware, tools, paints, building and lumber supply materials, jewelry, silverware, watches, clocks, luggage, musical instruments and recordings, or toys, excluding novelties and souvenirs, shall, upon conviction thereof in a summary proceeding for the first offense, be sentenced to pay a fine of not exceeding one hundred dollars ($100), and for the second or any subsequent offense committed within one year after conviction for the first offense, be sentenced to pay a fine of not exceeding two hundred dollars ($200) or undergo imprisonment not exceeding thirty days in default thereof.
“Each separate sale or offer to sell shall constitute a separate offense.
“Information charging violations of this section shall be brought within seventy-two hours after the commission of the alleged offense and not thereafter.”
Oliver Ellsworth, a member of the Constitutional Convention and later Chief Justice, wrote:
“But while I assert the rights of religious liberty, I would not deny that the civil power has a right, in some cases, to interfere in matters of religion. It has a right to prohibit and punish gross immoralities and impieties; because the open practice of these is of evil example and detriment.” (Emphasis added.) Written in the Connecticut Courant, Dec. 17, 1787, as quoted in 1 Stokes, Church and State in the United States, 535.
See the concurring opinion of Mr. Justice Cardozo, joined by Mr. Justice Brandéis and Mr. Justice Stone, in Hamilton v. Regents, 293 U. S. 245, 265-268.
Thus in eases like Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 U. S. 105, and Follett v. McCormick, 321 U. S. 573, this Court struck down municipal ordinances which, in application, required religious colporteurs to pay a license tax as a condition to the pursuit of their activities because the State’s interest, the obtaining of revenue, could be easily satisfied by imposing this tax on nonreligious sources.
E. g., Ind. Ann. Stat. § 10-4301.
“If he [the Orthodox Jewish storekeeper] opens on Saturday, he is subjected to very fierce competition indeed from Christian shopkeepers, whereas on Sunday, supposing he closes on Saturday, he has an absolutely free run and no competition from Christian shopkeepers at all.” 311 Parliamentary Debates, Commons, 492.
“It is true that the orthodox Jew will only be allowed to trade until two o’clock on Sunday, but during that time he will have a monopoly. That is a tremendous advantage. In many districts he will be the only trader with a shop open in that district.” 101 Parliamentary Debates, Lords, 430.
Connecticut, which has such an exemption statute, requires that Sabbatarians, in ofder to qualify, file a written notice of religious belief with the prosecuting attorney. Conn. Gen. Stat. Rev. § 53-303.
E. g., Va. Code Ann., § 18.1-359.
E. g., .43 Purdon’s Pa. Stat. Ann. (1960 Cum. Supp.) §§ 951-963.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | C | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice White
announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion, Parts I, II, and III-A of which represent the views of the Court, and Parts III-B, IV, and V of which are joined by The Chief Justice, Justice Powell, and Justice Scalia.
This case involves the award of an attorney’s fee to the prevailing party pursuant to § 304(d) of the Clean Air Act, 42 U. S. C. § 7604(d).
h-H
We set forth a detailed statement of the facts underlying this litigation in Pennsylvania v. Delaware Valley Citizens' Council for Clean Air, 478 U. S. 546 (1986), and recite only an abbreviated version of those facts here. In 1977, the Delaware Valley Citizens’ Council for Clean Air (hereinafter respondent) and the United States each filed suit to compel the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to comply with certain provisions of the Clean Air Act. The parties entered into a consent decree, approved by the District Court in 1978, which obligated the Commonwealth to establish a program for the inspection and maintenance of vehicle emissions systems in 10 counties in the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh areas by August 1, 1980. The Commonwealth failed to implement the program by this date, and protracted litigation ensued. Ultimately, in May 1983, the parties agreed to set June 1, 1984, as the date on which the Commonwealth would commence the inspection and maintenance program. Shortly after this agreement, respondent petitioned the District Court for attorney’s fees and costs for the work performed after the issuance of the consent decree. In determining the amount of fees to be awarded, the District Court divided the work performed by respondent’s counsel into nine phases. See 478 U. S., at 549-553. After computing the lodestar for each phase, the District Court adjusted this figure upward in phases four, five, and seven by doubling the lodestar to reflect the risk presumably faced by respondent that it would not prevail on these phases of the litigation. The District Court observed:
“The contingent nature of plaintiff’s success has been apparent throughout this litigation. Plaintiffs entered the litigation against the U. S. Government and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The case involved new and novel issues, the resolution of which had little or no precedent.... [Plaintiffs have had to defend their rights under the consent decree due to numerous attempts by defendants and others to overturn or circumvent this Court’s Orders.” 581 F. Supp. 1412, 1431 (1984).
The Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed the District Court’s enhancement of the fee award for contingency of success, 762 F. 2d 272, 282 (1985), a judgment that we now reverse.
II
We first focus on the nature of the issue before us. Under the typical fee-shifting statute, attorney’s fees are awarded to a prevailing party and only to the extent that party prevails. See, e. g., Maher v. Gagne, 448 U. S. 122, 129-130 (1980); Hensley v. Eckerkart, 461 U. S. 424, 435 (1983). Hence, if the case is lost, the loser is awarded no fee; and unless its attorney has an agreement with the client that the attorney will be paid, win or lose, the attorney will not be paid at all. In such cases, the attorney assumes a risk of nonpayment when he takes the case. The issue before us is whether, when a plaintiff prevails, its attorney should or may be awarded separate compensation for assuming the risk of not being paid. That risk is measured by the risk of losing rather than winning and depends on how unsettled the applicable law is with respect to the issues posed by the case and by how likely it is that the facts could be decided against the complainant. Looked at in this way, there are various factors that have little or no bearing on the question before us.
First is the matter of delay. When plaintiffs’ entitlement to attorney’s fees depends on success, their lawyers are not paid until a favorable decision finally eventuates, which may be years later, as in this case. Meanwhile, their expenses of doing business continue and must be met. In setting fees for prevailing counsel, the courts have regularly recognized the delay factor, either by basing the award on current rates or by adjusting the fee based on historical rates to reflect its present value. See, e. g., Sierra Club v. EPA, 248 U. S. App. D. C. 107, 120-121, 769 F. 2d 796, 809-810 (1985); Louisville Black Police Officers Organization, Inc. v. Louisville, 700 F. 2d 268, 276, 281 (CA6 1983). Although delay and the risk of nonpayment are often mentioned in the same breath, adjusting for the former is a distinct issue that is not involved in this case. We do not suggest, however, that adjustments for delay are inconsistent with the typical fee-shifting statute.
Second, that a case involves an issue of public importance, that the plaintiff’s position is unpopular in the community, or that defendant is difficult or obstreperous does not enter into assessing the risk of loss or determining whether that risk should be compensated. Neither does the chance that the court will find unnecessary and not compensate some of the time and effort spent on prosecuting the case.
Third, when the plaintiff has agreed to pay its attorney, win or lose, the attorney has not assumed the risk of nonpayment and there is no occasion to adjust the lodestar fee because the case was a risky one. See, e. g., Jones v. Central Soya Co., 748 F. 2d 586, 593 (CA11 1984), where the court said that “[a] lawyer may not preserve a right of recourse against his client for fees and still expect to be compensated as if he had sacrificed completely his right to payment in the event of an unsuccessful outcome.”
r-H h — I ► — I
A
Although the issue of compensating for assuming the risk of nonpayment was left open in Blum v. Stenson, 465 U. S. 886 (1984), Justice Brennan wrote that “the risk of not prevailing, and therefore the risk of not recovering any attorney’s fees is a proper basis on which a district court may award an upward adjustment to an otherwise compensatory fee.” Id., at 902 (concurring). Most Courts of Appeals are of a similar view and have allowed upward adjustment of fee awards because of the risk of loss factor. The First Circuit, in Wildman v. Lerner Stores Corp., 771 F. 2d 605 (1985), for example, takes this approach and allows an upward adjustment to the lodestar to account for the contingency factor. In that case, the District Court entered judgment on a jury verdict finding an employer liable for violating the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, 29 U. S. C. § 621 et seq., and two Puerto Rican statutes. The court awarded the prevailing party a lodestar fee amount of $56,500 and then increased that figure by 50% to account for the fact that because of the difficulties of the action and the novelty of the issue, “the plaintiffs’ attorneys... faced a contingency of losing all their time and effort.” 771 F. 2d, at 610. In sustaining the enhancement of fee awards based on contingency, the Court of Appeals relied on the legislative history of 42 U. S. C. § 1988, detailed several additional reasons as to why it is necessary to increase the lodestar figure for contingent-fee cases, and concluded that rather than compensating lawyers for unsuccessful claims, an adjustment of the lodestar figure may be necessary in particular cases to provide for the reasonable attorney’s fee envisioned by Congress.
This construction of the fee-shifting statutes has not been universal. The District of Columbia Circuit is particularly skeptical of the purpose served by enhancing the lodestar amount to account for the risk of not prevailing. In Laffey v. Northwest Airlines, Inc., 241 U. S. App. D. C. 11, 746 F. 2d 4 (1984), cert. denied, 472 U. S. 1021 (1985), the court reversed the trial court’s decision to double the lodestar based on the risk factor, citing a wide variety of problems with such an approach. The court found that, in theory, there should be no limit on the size of the fee if risk enhancement is permitted, for the less likely the chances of success in a particular case, the more “entitled” the prevailing party should be to have the fee award reflect acceptance of this risk. In a similar vein, the contingency factor penalizes the losing parties with the strongest and most reasonable defenses, thus “creating a perverse penalty for those least culpable.” 241 U. S. App. D. C., at 33, 746 F. 2d, at 26. Moreover, even if the risk of loss should be taken into account, “the chances of winning could not be set with anything approaching mathematical precision, and so vast increases in attorneys [fees] would derive from a spurious mathematical base.” Id., at 33-34, 746 F. 2d, at 26-27 (footnote omitted).
On a more fundamental level, the court found that using the risk of loss to increase the lodestar figure compensates attorneys not only for their successful efforts in one case, but for their unsuccessful claims asserted in related cases. This not only “encourag[es] marginal litigation,” but raises “the reasonable question of ‘why the subsidy [for unsuccessful litigation] should come from the defendant in another case.’” Id., at 34, n. 138, 746 F. 2d, at 27, n. 138 (citations omitted).
Such a scheme was deemed to be manifestly inconsistent with Congress’ intent to award attorney’s fees only to prevailing parties. Relying on this Court’s holding in Hensley that attorney’s fees could not be awarded for claims unrelated to those on which the party ultimately prevailed, the court reasoned:
“The same logic which restricts compensation to those portions of a lawsuit directly related to the relief procured also forbids multiplying attorneys fees so as effectively to compensate counsel for other, losing claims which may be brought. The prevailing party may expect full compensation for prevailing claims; there is no provision for compensating losing, unrelated claims in the same case, or other losing cases which might or might not involve the same parties. Any crude multiplier derived simply from the plaintiff’s chance of success must be rejected as contrary to the congressional scheme.” Id., at 34-35, 746 F. 2d, at 27-28.
Finally, the court held that even if a contingency enhancement, as opposed to a contingency multiplier, could be used to reflect the party’s initial chance of success, Blum made clear that such enhancements were proper only in the most exceptional of cases, and because “this case did not present an exceptional level of risk, no risk enhancement should be awarded.” Id., at 36, 746 F. 2d, at 29.
The bar and legal commentators have been much interested in the issue. Some writers unqualifiedly have endorsed the concept of increasing the fee award to insure that lawyers will be adequately compensated for taking the risk of not prevailing. “The experience of the marketplace indicates that lawyers generally will not provide legal representation on a contingent basis unless they receive a premium for taking that risk.” Berger, Court Awarded Attorneys’ Fees: What is “Reasonable”?, 126 U. Pa. L. Rev. 281, 324-325 (1977). See also, Developments in the Law—Class Actions, 89 Harv. L. Rev. 1318, 1615 (1976); Comment, 122 U. Pa. L. Rev. 636, 708-711 (1974).
Others have been considerably more reserved in their endorsement of a contingency bonus, focusing on four major problems with the use of this factor. First, evaluation of the risk of loss creates a potential conflict of interest between an attorney and his client, for in order to increase a fee award, a plaintiff’s lawyer must expose all of the weaknesses and inconsistencies in his client’s case, and a defendant’s attorney must either concede the strength of the plaintiff’s case in order to keep down the fee award, or “allo[w] the fee to be boosted by the contingency bonus [by] insisting that the plaintiff’s victory was freakish.” Leubsdorf, The Contingency Factor in Attorney Fee Awards, 90 Yale L. J. 473, 483 (1981) (Leubsdorf). Second, in order to determine the proper size of the contingency bonus, a court must retroactively estimate the prevailing party’s chances for success from the perspective of the attorney when he first considered filing the suit. Not only is this mathematically difficult to compute, but “once the result is known, it is hard for judges and lawyers to regain a perspective of ignorance and to treat the result as only one of several that were initially possible.” Id., at 486.
The third problem with increasing the fee award to account for the risk of not prevailing is the same one identified by the courts which have questioned this practice: it penalizes the defendant with the strongest defense, and forces him to subsidize the plaintiff’s attorney for bringing other unsuccessful actions against other defendants. Id., at 488-491. See Note, 80 Colum. L. Rev. 346, 375 (1980). Finally, because the contingency bonus cannot be determined with either certainty or accuracy, it “cannot be justified on the ground that it provides an appropriate incentive for litigation.” Leubsdorf 496. Cf. Note, 96 Harv. L. Rev. 677, 686, n. 51 (1983); Comment, 53 U. Chi. L. Rev. 1074 (1986).
There are other considerations. Fee-shifting removes the interest a paying client would have in ensuring that the lawyer is serving the client economically; the task of monitoring the attorney is shifted to the judge in separate litigation over fees if the plaintiff wins. Fee litigation occurs on a case-to-case basis and is often protracted, complicated, and exhausting. There is little doubt that it should be simplified to the maximum extent possible. If the decided cases are any measure, assessing the initial risk of loss when the case is over is a particularly uncertain matter, especially for a judge who is confident that he has correctly decided for the plaintiff, but then must inquire how weak the plaintiff’s case was and how likely it was that he, the judge, would have been mistaken. It may be absurd to ask the judge to “determine the probability that he would have decided the case incorrectly.” Id., at 1094.
B
The disagreement among the Circuits and commentators indicates that Congress has not clearly directed or authorized multipliers or enhancements for assuming the risk of loss. Neither the Clean Air Act nor § 1988 expressly provides for using the risk of loss as an independent basis for increasing an otherwise reasonable fee, and it is doubtful that the legislative history supports.the use of this factor. In concluding that risk-enhancement is authorized, Justice Brennan in Blum, 465 U. S., at 902, relied on the fact that one of the items to be relied on in setting a fee and enumerated in Johnson v. Georgia Highway Express, Inc., 488 F. 2d 714 (CA5 1974), is whether the fee is fixed or contingent, and that Congress endorsed consideration of this factor. See S. Rep. No. 94-1011, p. 6 (1976) (S. Rep). But a careful reading of Johnson shows that the contingency factor was meant to focus judicial scrutiny solely on the existence of any contract for attorney’s fees which may have been executed between the party and his attorney. “The fee quoted to the client or the percentage of the recovery agreed to is helpful in demonstrating the attorney’s fee expectations when he accepted the case.” 488 F. 2d, at 718. See Leubsdorf 479, n. 38. At most, therefore, Johnson suggests that the nature of the fee contract between the client and his attorney should be taken into account when determining the reasonableness of a fee award, but there is nothing in Johnson to show that this factor was meant to reflect the contingent nature of prevailing in the lawsuit as a whole.
Justice Brennan also noted that Congress cited Stanford Daily v. Zurcher, 64 F. R. D. 680 (ND Cal. 1974) (subsequently aff’d, 550 F. 2d 464 (CA9 1977), rev’d on other grounds, 436 U. S. 547 (1978)), as one of several cases which “correctly applied” the Johnson factors. Blum, supra, at 903. The court there increased the lodestar based, in part, on contingency-of-success considerations. But Congress also cited two other cases which it found also “correctly applied” the Johnson criteria. In Davis v. County of Los Angeles, 8 EPD ¶ 9444, p. 5047 (CD Cal. 1974), the District Court added a “Result Charge” to the basic fee award. This award was not intended to compensate the lawyers for assuming the risk of not prevailing on the merits; instead, as the label suggests, the court increased the - award because “counsel [had] achieved excellent results,” and “[t]he nature of the case made it difficult to litigate....” Id., at 5048. The court in Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Bd. of Ed., 66 F. R. D. 483 (WDNC 1975), the third illustrative case cited.with approval by Congress, did not increase the basic fee award at all. Instead, after reviewing nine factors similar to those listed in Johnson, the court reduced the prevailing party’s fee request by nearly 15%, choosing to “err on the conservative side in dealing with any fee question” rather than “contribute unnecessarily to the overpricing of litigation in this or any other court.” 66 F. R. D., at 486. Given the divergence in both analysis and result between these three cases, the legislative history is, at best, inconclusive in determining whether Congress endorsed the concept of increasing the lodestar amount to reflect the risk of not prevailing on the merits.
We must nevertheless come to a decision and have concluded that the judgment must be reversed.
IV
We are impressed with the view of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that enhancing fees for risk of loss forces losing defendants to compensate plaintiff’s lawyers for not prevailing against defendants in other cases.' This result is not consistent with Congress’ decision to adopt the rule that only prevailing parties are entitled to fees. If risk multipliers or enhancement are viewed as no more than compensating attorneys for their willingness to take the risk of loss and of nonpayment, we are nevertheless not at all sure that Congress intended that fees be denied when a plaintiff loses, but authorized payment for assuming the risk of an uncompensated loss. Such enhancement also penalizes the defendants who have the strongest case; and in theory, at least, would authorize the highest fees in cases least likely to be won and hence encourage the bringing of more risky cases, especially by lawyers whose time is not fully occupied with other work. Because it is difficult ever to be completely sure that a case will be won, enhancing fees for the assumption of the risk of nonpayment would justify some degree of enhancement in almost every case.
Weighing all of these considerations, we are unconvinced that Congress intended the risk of losing a lawsuit to be an independent basis for increasing the amount of any otherwise reasonable fee for the time and effort expended in prevailing. As the Senate Report observed: “In computing the fee, counsel for prevailing parties should be paid, as is traditional with attorneys compensated by a fee-paying client, ‘for all time reasonably expended on a matter.’ Davis, supra; Stanford Daily, supra, at 684.” S. Rep. 6.
The contrary argument is that without the promise of multipliers or enhancement for risk-taking, attorneys will not take cases for clients who cannot pay, and the fee-shifting statutes will therefore not serve their purpose. We agree that a fundamental aim of such statutes is to make it possible for those who cannot pay a lawyer for his time and effort to obtain competent counsel, this by providing lawyers with reasonable fees to be paid by the the losing defendants. But it does not follow that fee enhancement for risk is necessary or allowable. Surely that is not the case where plaintiffs can afford to pay and have agreed to pay, win or lose. The same is true where any plaintiff, impecunious or otherwise, has a damages case that competent lawyers would take in the absence of fee-shifting statutes. Nor is it true in those cases where plaintiffs secure help from organizations whose very purpose is to provide legal help through salaried counsel to those who themselves cannot afford to pay a lawyer. It is also unlikely to be true in any market where there are competent lawyers whose time is not fully occupied by other matters.
The issue thus involves damages cases that lawyers would not take, not because they are too risky (the fee-shifting statutes should not encourage such suits to be brought), but because the damages likely to-be recovered are not sufficient to provide adequate compensation to counsel, as well as those frequent cases in which the goal is to secure injunctive relief to the exclusion of any claim for damages. In both situations, the fee-shifting statutes guarantee reasonable payment for the time and effort expended if the case is won. Respondent’s position is that without the prospect of being awarded fees exceeding such reasonable payment, plaintiffs with such cases will be unable to secure the help that the statutes aimed to provide.
We are not persuaded that this will be the case. Indeed, it may well be that using a contingency enhancement is superfluous and unnecessary under the lodestar approach to setting a fee. The reasons a particular lawsuit are considered to be “risky” for an attorney are because of the novelty and difficulty of the issues presented, and because of the potential for protracted litigation. Moreover, when an attorney ultimately prevails in such a lawsuit, this success will be primarily attributable to his legal skills and experience, and to the hours of hard work he devoted to the case. These factors, however, are considered by the court in determining the reasonable number of hours expended and the reasonable hourly rate for the lodestar, and any further increase in this sum based on the risk of not prevailing would result not in a “reasonable” attorney’s fee, but in a windfall for an attorney who prevailed in a difficult case.
It may be that without the promise of risk enhancement some lawyers will decline to take cases; but we doubt that the bar in general will so often be unable to respond that the goal of the fee-shifting statutes will not be achieved. In any event, risk enhancement involves difficulties in administration and possible inequities to those who must pay attorney’s fees; and in the absence of further legislative guidance, we conclude that multipliers or other enhancement of a reasonable lodestar fee to compensate for assuming the risk of loss is impermissible under the usual fee-shifting statutes.
Even if § 304(d) and other typical fee-shifting statutes are construed to permit supplementing the lodestar in appropriate cases by paying counsel for assuming the risk of nonpayment, for the reasons set out below, it was error to do so in this case.
V
Section 304(d), like § 1988, does not indicate that adjustment for risk should be the rule rather than the exception; neither does it require such an adjustment in any case. At most, it leaves the matter of risk enhancement to the informed discretion of the courts. There are, however, severe difficulties and possible inequities involved in making upward adjustments for assuming the risk of nonpayment, and we deem it appropriate, in order to guide the exercise of the trial courts’ discretion in awarding fees, to adopt here the approach followed in Blum in dealing with other multipliers. As in that case, payment for the time and effort involved— the lodestar — is presumed to be the reasonable fee authorized by the statute, and enhancement for the risk of nonpayment should be reserved for exceptional cases where the need and justification for such enhancement are readily apparent and are supported by evidence in the record and specific findings by the courts. Blum, 465 U. S., at 898-901. For several reasons, the circumstances of this case do not justify the risk multiplier employed by the District Court.
First, the District Court doubled the lodestar in three phases of the case in recognition of the risk of loss, saying that the “contingent nature of plaintiffs’ success has been apparent” from the outset, that plaintiffs entered the litigation against the United States and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and that the case involved new and novel issues, the resolution of which had little or no precedent. Furthermore, they had to “defend their rights under the consent decree due to numerous attempts by defendants and others to overturn or circumvent this court’s orders.” 581 F. Supp., at 1431. This case, however, concerns only the reasonable fee for work done after the consent decree was entered, and fees have already been awarded for work done before that time. The risk of nonpayment should be determined at the beginning of the litigation. Lewis v. Coughlin, 801 F. 2d 570, 576 (CA2 1986); Ramos v. Lamm, 713 F. 2d 546, 558 (CA10 1983). Whatever counsel thought the risk of losing was at the outset, it is doubtful that counsel anticipated a similar risk in enforcing a decree if plaintiff was successful in having one entered. In any event, the District Court did not specifically identify any new and novel issues, and we fail to discern any, that emerged in the long process of enforcing the court decree in accordance with its terms. And whether the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania was a substantial opponent or whether it tried to circumvent the decree has little or nothing to do with whether the there was a real risk of not persuading the District Court to enforce its own decree. The matter may have been difficult, wearing, and time consuming, but that kind of effort has been recognized in the lodestar award.
Second, if it be assumed that this is one of the exceptional cases in which enhancement for assuming the risk of nonpayment is justified, we conclude that doubling the lodestar for certain phases of the work was excessive. We have alluded to the uncertainties involved in determining the risk of not prevailing and the burdensome nature of fee litigation. We deem it desirable and an appropriate application of the statute to hold that if the trial court specifically finds that there was a real risk-of-not-prevailing issue in the case, an upward adjustment of the lodestar may be made, but, as a general rule, in an amount no more than one-third of the lodestar. Any additional adjustment would require the most exacting justification. This limitation will at once protect against windfalls for attorneys and act as some deterrence against bringing suits in which the the attorney believes there is less than a 50-50 chance of prevailing. Riskier suits may be brought, and if won, a reasonable lodestar may be awarded, but risk enhancement will be limited to one-third of the lodestar, if awarded at all. Here, even assuming an adjustment for risk was justified, the multiplier employed was excessive.
Third, whatever the risk of winning or losing in a specific case might be, a fee award should be informed by the statutory purpose of making it possible for poor clients with good claims to secure competent help. Before adjusting for risk assumption, there should be evidence in the record, and the trial court should so find, that without risk enhancement plaintiff would have faced substantial difficulties in finding counsel in the local or other relevant market. Here, there were no such findings.
Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Reversed.
Section 304(d) provides, in relevant part:
“The Court, in issuing any final order in any action brought pursuant to subsection (a) of this section may award costs of litigation (including reasonable attorney and expert witness fees) to any party, whenever the Court determines such award is appropriate.”
Last Term in Pennsylvania v. Delaware Valley Citizens’ Council for Clean Air, 478 U. S. 546 (1986), we agreed with the Court of Appeals that in awarding attorney’s fees under § 304(d) the courts should follow the principles and ease law governing the award of such fees under 42 U. S. C. § 1988, which provides that in the actions specified in that section “the court, in its discretion, may allow the prevailing party, other than the United States, a reasonable attorney’s fee as part of the costs.”
At this time, respondent was awarded an attorney’s fee for work done by its counsel, the Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia (PILCOP), prior to the date of the consent decree.
We granted certiorari last Term, 474 U. S. 815 (1984), heard argument, and issued an opinion holding that respondent was entitled to attorney’s fees under § 304(d) for its counsel’s work done in certain administrative proceedings because the work “was crucial to the vindication of Delaware Valley’s rights under the consent decree....” 478 U. S., at 561. We also concluded that the District Court erred by enhancing the fee award based on the “superior quality” of counsel’s performance, reasoning that respondent did not show “why the lodestar did not provide a reasonable fee award reflecting the quality of representation....” Id., at 567. We did not, however, address the merits of the question now before of us, an issue that was left open in Blum v. Stenson, 465 U. S. 886 (1984). We thought that reargument on this issue would be beneficial. We therefore restored this aspect of the case to the docket for decision this Term. 478 U. S., at 568.
Numerous Courts of Appeals, acting under fee-shifting statutes, have approved an upward adjustment of the lodestar to compensate for the risk of not prevailing. See, e. g., Crumbaker v. Merit Systems Protection Board, 781 F. 2d 191, 196-197 (CA Fed. 1986); Vaughns v. Board of Ed. of Prince Georges County, 770 F. 2d 1244 (CA4 1986), aff’g 698 F. Supp. 1262, 1285-1286 (Md. 1984); Riddell v. National Democratic Party, 712 F. 2d 165, 169-170 (CA5 1983); Kelley v. Metropolitan County Bd. of Ed., 773 F. 2d 677, 683, 686 (CA6 1985) (en banc), cert. denied, 474 U. S. 1083 (1986); Craik v. Minnesota State University Bd., 738 F. 2d 348, 350-351 (CA8 1984); White v. Richmond, 713 F. 2d 458, 462 (CA9 1983); Ramos v. Lamm, 713 F. 2d 546, 557-558 (CA10 1983); Jones v. Central Soya Co., 748 F. 2d 586, 591 (CA11 1984).
In addition to the Courts of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and the Seventh Circuit, other courts have refused risk enhancement for a variety of reasons. See, e. g., Lewis v. Coughlin, 801 F. 2d 570, 576 (CA2 1986) (upward adjustment vacated for failure to evaluate risk of loss); Lanasa v. New Orleans, 619 F. Supp. 39, 50-51 (ED La. 1985) (settlement for low money damages figure could have been agreed to much earlier in litigation); Littlejohn v. Null Mfg. Co., 619 F. Supp. 149, 152 (WDNC 1985) (attorney received fully compensatory fee without adjustment); Bennett v. Central Telephone Co. of Illinois, 619 F. Supp. 640, 653 (ND Ill. 1985) (lack of supporting evidence and high hourly rates); EEOC v. Burlington Northern Inc., 618 F. Supp. 1046, 1061-1062 (ND Ill. 1985) (high hourly rates and risk of nonsuccess not unusually high); Litton Systems, Inc. v. American Telephone & Telegraph Co., 613 F. Supp. 824, 835 (SDNY 1985) (no great incentive needed to encourage appellee to defend its $276 million antitrust judgment on appeal); Cook v. Block, 609 F. Supp. 1036, 1043-1044 (DC 1985) (counsel guaranteed payment by client even if suit was unsuccessful); Cherry v. Rockdale County, 601 F. Supp. 78, 80-81 (ND Ga. 1984) (insufficient evidence supporting adjustment); Inmates of Maine State Prison v. Zitnay, 590 F. Supp. 979, 987 (Me. 1984) (contingency already reflected in lodestar); Rank v. Balshy, 590 F. Supp. 787, 799-800 (MD Pa. 1984) (contingency already reflected in lodestar).
What the court viewed as the simple economics of the practice of law played a major part in the Court of Appeals’ analysis:
“[T]he lodestar figure alone does not differentiate between the case taken on a full retainer and a case in which an attorney spends many hours over a period of months or years with no assurance of any pay if the suit is unsuccessful. Even if the client ultimately prevails, the burden of supporting salaried employees and fixed costs during the course of the contingent litigation can be substantial.
“Moreover, the attorney may face a second risk once his clients has prevailed — that the court will find some of his time duplicative, unnecessary, or inefficiently expended.
“We think it clear that Congress did not intend that the enforcement of civil rights be limited primarily to those able to pay an attorney a full retainer or attract one of the few pro bono legal service organizations to their cause... [to] deny all considerations of the added burden and additional risks an attorney under a contingent fee agreement may have to bear does not strike us as ‘reasonable.’” 771 F. 2d, at 612-613 (citations omitted). We note that some of the factors mentioned by the Court of Appeals are, in our mind, irrelevant to whether there should be separate compensation for assuming the risk of nonpayment.
The Seventh Circuit has ruled that “the risk of losing ‘alone does not justify the use of a multiplier.”’ McKinnon v. Berwyn, 750 F. 2d 1383, 1392 (1984) (citations omitted). That court followed the reasoning of Laffey v. Northwest Airlines, Inc., 241 U. S. App. D. C. 11, 746 F. 2d 4 (1984), finding that “[t]he fundamental problem of a risk bonus is that it compensates attorneys, indirectly but effectively, for bringing unsuccessful... suits, even though the attorney’s fee statute is expressly limited to cases where the party seeking the fee prevails.” 750 F. 2d, at 1392. The court also reasoned that, in cases where the attorney has entered into a contingent-fee contract with his client, the attorney is already being compensated for the risk of loss, and “is not entitled to more insurance in the form of a risk multiplier.” Id., at 1393. Ohio-Se
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | F | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Blackmun
delivered the opinion of the Court.
In this protracted school desegregation litigation, the District Court awarded the plaintiff-petitioners expenses and attorneys’ fees for services rendered from March 10, 1970, to January 29, 1971. 53 F. R. D. 28 (ED Va. 1971). The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, one judge dissenting, reversed. 472 F. 2d 318 (1972). We granted certiorari, 412 U. S. 937 (1973), to determine whether the allowance of attorneys’ fees was proper. Pertinent to the resolution of the issue is the enactment in 1972 of § 718 of Title VII, the Emergency School Aid Act, 20 U. S. C. § 1617 (1970 ed., Supp. II), as part of the Education Amendments of 1972, Pub. L. 92-318, 86 Stat. 235, 369.
I
The suit was instituted in 1961 by 11 Negro parents aiid guardians against the. School Board of the city of Richmond, Virginia, as a class, action under the Civil Rights Act of 1871, 42 U. S. C. § 1983, to. desegregate the public schools. On March. 16, 1964, after extended consideration, the District Court approved a “freedom of choice” plan by which every pupil was permitted to attend the school of. the pupil’s or the parents’ choice, limited only by a time requirement for the transfer application and by lack of capacity at the school to which transfer was sought. On appeal,-the Fourth Circuit, sitting en banc, affirmed, with two judges dissenting in part, and held that the plan satisfied the Board’s constitutional obligations. 345 F. 2d 310 (1965). The court saw no error in the trial court’s refusal to allow the plaintiffs’ attorneys more than a nominal fee ($75). Id,., at 321. The dissenters referred to the fee as “egregiously inadequate.” Id., at 324. On petition for a writ-of certiorari, this Court, per curiam, 382 U. S. 103 (1965), summarily held that the petitioners improperly had been denied a full evidentiary hearing on their claim that a racially based faculty allocation system rendered the plan constitutionally inadequate under Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U. S. 483 (1954). In vacating the judgment of the Court of Appeals and in remanding the case, we expressly declined to pass on the merits of the desegregation plan and noted that further judicial review following.the hearing was not precluded. 382 U. S., at 105.
After the required hearing, the District Courtj on March 30, 1966, approved a revised “freedom of choice” plan submitted by the Board and agreed to by the petitioners, App. 17a. It provided that if the steps taken by the Board “do not produce significant results during the 1966-67 school year, it is recognized that the freedom of choice plan will have to be modified.” Id., at 23a. This plan was in operation about four years. While it was in effect, Green v. County School Board of New Kent County, 391 U. S. 430 (1968), was decided. The Court there held that where methods promising speedier and more effective conversion to a unitary system were reasonably available, a freedom-of-choice plan was not acceptable. Id., at 439-441.
Thereafter, on March 10, 1970, petitioners filed with the District Court a motion for further relief in the light of ‘ the opinions of this Court in Green, supra, in Alexander v. Holmes County Board of Education, 396 U. S. 19 (1969), and in Carter v. West Feliciana Parish School Board, 396 U. S. 290 (1970). Specifically, -petitioners asked that the court “require the defendant school board forthwith to put,into effect”- a plan that would “promptly and realistically convert the public schools of the City of Richmond into a unitary non-racial system,” and that the court “award a reasonable fee to [petitioners’] counsel.” App. 25a. The court then ordered the Board to advise the court whether the public schools wére being operated “in accordance with the constitutional requirements..'. enunciated by the United States Supreme Court.” Id., at 27a. The Board, by a statement promptly filed with the District Court, averred that it had operated the school system to the best of its knowledge and belief in accordance with the decree of March 30, 1966, but that it has “been advised” that the city schools were “not being operated as unitary schools in accordance with the most recent enunciations of the Supreme Court.” Id., at 28a. It was also asserted that the Board had requested the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare to make a study and recommendation; that the Department had agreed to undertake to do this by May 1; and that the Board would submit a plan for the operation of the public school system not later than May 11. Ibid. Following a hearing, however, the District Court, on April 1, 1970, entered a formal order vacating jts order of March 30, 1966, and enjoining the defendants “to disestablish the existing dual system” and to replace it “with a unitary system.” See 317 F. Supp. 555, 558 (ED Va. 1970). Thereafter, the Board and several intervenors filed desegregation plans.
The initial plan offered by the Board and HEW was held unacceptable by the District Court on June 26, 1970. Id., at 572. The court was concerned (a) with the fact that the Board had taken no voluntary action to change its freedom-of-choice plan after this Court’s decision in Oreen two years before, id., at 560, (b) with the plan’s failure to consider patterns of residential segregation in fixing school zoné lines or to use transportation'as a desegregation tool, despite the decision in Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, 431 F. 2d 138 (CA4 1970), aff’d as modified, 402 U. S. 1 (1971), and (c) with its failure to consider racial factors, in zoning, despite the approval thereof in Warner v. County School Board of Arlington County, 357 F. 2d 452 (CA4 1966). 317 F. Supp., at 577-578. The District Court also rejected desegregation plans offered by intervenors and by the petitioners.
' A second plan submitted by the Board was also deemed to be unsatisfactory in certain respects. Nonetheless, on August 17 the court found its adoption on an interim basis for 1970-1971 to be necessary, since the school year was to' begin in two weeks. Id., at 578. The court directed the defendants to file within 90 days a report setting out the steps taken “to create a unitary system... and... the earliest practical and reasonable date that any such system could be put into effect.” Ibid.
The Board then submitted three other desegregation plans. Hearings were held on these and on still another plan submitted by the petitioners. On April 5, 1971, the. court adopted the Board’s third plan, which involved pupil reassignments and extensive transportation within.the city. 325 F. Supp. 828 (ED Va. 1971).
Meanwhile, the Board had moved for leave to make the school boards and governing bodies of adjoining Chesterfield and Henrico Counties, as well as the Virginia State Board of Education, parties to the litigation, and to serve upon these entities a third-party complaint to compel them to take all necessary action to bring about the consolidation of the systems and the merger of.the-boards. The court denied the defense motion for the convening of a three-judge court. 324 F. Supp. 396 (ED Va. 1971).
On January 10, 1972, the court ordered into effect a plan for the integration of the Richmond schools with' those of Henrico and Chesterfield Counties. 338 F. Supp. 67 (ED Va. 1972). On appeal, the Fourth Circuit,’ sitting en banc, reversed,- with one judge dissenting, holding that state-imposed segregation had been “completely removed” in the Richmond school district and that-.the consolidation was not justified in the absence of a showing of some constitutional violation in the establishment and maintenance of these adjoining and separate school districts. 462 F. 2d 1058, 1069 (1972). We granted cross-petitions for writs of certiorari. 409 U. S. 1124 (1973). After argument, the-Court of Appeals’ judgment was affirmed by an equally divided Court. Richmond School Board v. Board of Education, 412 U. S. 92 (1973).
II
The petitioners’ request for a significant award of attorneys’ fees was included, as has been noted, in their pivotal motion of March 10, 1970. App. 25a. That application was renewed on July 2. Id., at 66a.. The District Court first suggested, by letter to the parties, that they attempt to reách agreement as to fees. When agreement-was not reached, the court called for supporting material and briefs. In due course the court awarded counsel fees in the amount of $43,355 for services rendered from March. 10, 1970, to January 29, 1971, and expenses of $13,064.65. 53 F. R. D. 28, 43-44 (ED Va. 1971). • ■
Noting the absence at that time of any explicit statutory authorization for an award of fees in school desegregation actions, id., at 34, the court based the award on two alternative grounds rooted in its «-general equity power. First, the court observed that prior desegregation decisions demonstrated the propriety of awarding counsel fees when the evidence revealed obstinate noncompliance with the law or the use of the judicial process for purposes of harassment or delay-in affording rights clearly owed.' Applying the test enunciated by the Fourth Circuit in 345 F. 2d, at 321, the court sought to determine whether “the bringing of the action should have been unnecessary and was compelled' by the school board’s unreasonable, obdurate obstinacy.”- Examining the hisr tory of the litigation, the court found that at least since 1968 the Board clearly had been in default in its constitutional duty as enunciated in Green. While reluctant to characterize the litigation engendered by that default as unnecessary in view of the ongoing development of relevant legal standards, the court observed that the actions taken and the defenses asserted by the Board had -caused an unreasonable delay in the desegregation of the schools and, as a- result, had caused the plaintiffs to incur substantial expenditures of time and money to secure their constitutional rights.
As an alternative basis for the award, the District Court observed that the circumstances that persuaded Congress to authorize by statute the payment of counsel fees under certain sections of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 were present in even greater degree in school desegregation litigation. In 1970-1971, cases of this kind were characterized by complex issues pressed on behalf of large classes and thus involved substantial expenditures of lawyers’ time with little likelihood of compensation or award of monetary damages. If forced to bear the burden of attorneys’ fees, few aggrieved persons would be in a position to secure their - and the public’s interests in a nondiscriminatory public school system. Reasoning from this Court’s per curiam decision in Newman v. Piggie Park Enterprises, Inc., 390 U. S. 400, 402 (1968), the District Judge held that plaintiffs in actions of this kind were acting as private attorneys general in leading school boards into compliance with the law, thereby effectuating the constitutional guarantee of nondiscrimination and rendering appropriate the award of counsel fees. 63 F. R. D., at 41-42.,
’The- Court of 4PPeals, in reversing, emphasized that the Board was not operating “in an area where the practical methods to be used were plainly illuminated or where prior decisions had -not left a 'lingering doubt’ as to the proper procedure to be followed,” particularly in.the light of uncertainties existing prior to this Court’s then impending decision in Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, 402 U. S. 1 (1971). 472 F. 2d, at 327. It felt that by the failure of Congress to provide specifically for counsel fees “in a statutory scheme designed to further a public purpose, it may be fairly accepted that it did so purposefully,” and that “if such awards are to be made to promote the public policy expressed in legislative action, they shotild be authorized by Congress and not by the courts.” Id., at 330-331.
After initial submission of the case to the Court of Appeals, but prior to its decision, the Education Amendments of. 1972, of which § 718. of Title VII of the Emergency School Aid Act is a part, became law. Section 718, 20 U. S. C. § 1617 (1970 ed., Supp. II), grants authority to a federal court to award a reasonable attorney’s fee when appropriate in a school desegregation case. The Court of Appeals, sitting en banc, then heard argument as to the applicability of § 718 to this and other litigation. In the other cases it held that only legal services rendered after July 1, 1972, the effective date of § 718, see Pub. L. 92-318, §2 (c)(1), 86 Stat. 236, were compensable under that statute. Thompson v. School Board of the City of Newport News, 472 F. 2d 177 (CA4 1972). In the instant case the court held that, because there were no orders pending or appealable on either May 26, 1971, when the District Court made its fee award, or on July 1, 1972, when the statute became effective, § 718 did not sustain the allowance of counsel fees.
Ill
In Northcross v. Board of Education of the Memphis City Schools, 412 U. S. 427, 428 (1973), we held that under § 718 “the. successful plaintiff ‘should ordinarily recover an attorney’s fee unless special circuipstances would render such an award unjust.’ ” We decide today a question left open in Northcross, namely, “whether § 718 authorizes an award of attorneys’ fees insofar as those expenses were incurred prior to the date that that section came into effect.” Id., at 429 n. 2.
The District bourt in this case awarded counsel fees •for services rendered from March 10, 1970, when petitioners filed their motion for further relief, to January 29, 1971, when the court declined to implement the plan proposed by the petitioners. It made its award on May 26, 1971, after.it had ordered into effect the non-interim desegregation plan which it had approved. The-Board appealed from that award, and its appeal was pending when Congress enacted § 718. The question, properly viewed, then, is not simply one relating to the propriety of retroactive application of §.718 to services rendered prior to its enactment, but rather, one relating to the applicability of that section to a situation where the propriety of a fee award was pending resolution on appeal when the statute became law.
This Court in the past has recognized a distinction between the application of a change in the.law that takes place while a case is on direct, review, on the one hand, and its effect on a final, judgment under collateral attack, on the other hand. Linkletter v. Walker, 381 U. S. 618, 627 (1965). We are concerned here only with direct review.
A
We anchor our holding in this case.on the principle that a court is to apply the law. in effect at the time it renders its decision, unless doing so would result in manifest injustice or there is statutory direction or legislative history to the contrary.
The origin and the justification for this rub' are found in the words of Mr. Chief Justice Marshall in United States v. Schooner Peggy, 1 Cranch 103 (1801).
“It is in the general true that the province of an appellate court is only to enquire whether a judgment when rendered was erroneous or not. But if subsequent to the judgment and before the decision of the appellate court, a law intervenes and positively changes the rule which governs, the law must be obeyed; or its obligation denied. If the law be constitutional..II know of no court which can contest its obligation. It is true that in mere private cases between individuals, a court will and ought to struggle- hard against a construction which will, by a retrospective operation, affect the rights of parties, but in great national concérns... the court must' decide according to existing laws, and if it be, necessary to set aside a judgment, rightful when rendered, but which cannot be affirmed but in violation of law, the judgment must be set aside.” Id., at 110.
In the wake of Schooner Peggy, however, it remained unclear whether a change in the law occurring while a case was pending on appeal was to be given effect only where, by its terms, the law was to apply to pending cases, as was true of the convention under consideration in Schooner Peggy, or, conversely, whether such a change in the law must be given effect unless there was clear indication that it was not to apply in pending cases. For a very long time the Court’s decisions did little to clarify this issue.
Ultimately, in Thorpe v. Housing Authority of the City of Durham, 393 U. S. 268 (1969), the broader reading of Schooner Peggy was adopted, and this Court ruled that “an appellate court must apply the law in effect at the time it renders its decision.” Id., at 281. In that case, after the plaintiff Housing Authority had secured a state court eviction order, and it had been affirmed by the Supreme Court of North Carolina, Housing Authority of the City of Durham v. Thorpe, 267 N. C. 431, 148 S. E. 2d 290 (1966), and this Court had granted certiorari, 385 U. S. 967 (1966), the Department of Housing and Urban De-. velopment ordered a new procedural prerequisite for an eviction. Following remand by this Court for such further proceedings as might be appropriate in the light of the new directive, 386 U. S. 670 (1967), the state court ad“hered to' its decision. 271 N. C. 468, 157 S. E. 2d 147 (1967). This Court again granted certiorari. 390 U. S. 942 (1968). Upon review, we held that, although the circular effecting the change did not indicate whether it was to be applied to pending cases or to events that had transpired prior to its issuance, it was, nonetheless, to be applied to anyone residing in the housing project on the date of its promulgation. The Court recited the language in Schooner Peggy, quoted above, and noted that that reasoning “has been applied where the change was constitutional, statutory, or judicial,” 393 U. S., at 282 (footnotes omitted), and that it must apply “with equal force where the change is made by an administrative agency acting pursuant to legislative authorization.” Ibid. Thorpe thus stands for the proposition that even where the intervening law does not explicitly recite that it is to be applied to pending cases, it is to be given recognition and effect.
Accordingly, we must reject the contention that a change in the law is to be given effect in a pending case only where that is the. clear and stated intention of the legislature. While neither our decision in Thorpe nor our decision today purports to hold that courts must always thus apply new laws to pending cases in the absence of clear legislative direction to the contrary, we do note that insofar as the legislative history of § 718 is supportive of either position, it would seem to provide at least implicit support for the application of'the statute to pending cases.
B
The Court in Thorpe, however, observed that exceptions to the general rule that a court is to apply a law in effect at thé time it renders- its decision “had been' made to prevent manifest injustice,” citing Greene v. United States, 376 U. S. 149 (1964). Although the precise category of cases to which this exception applies has not been clearly delineated, the Court in Schooner Peggy suggested that such injustice could result “in mere pri-. vate cases between individuals,” and implored the courts to “struggle hard against a construction which will, by a retrospective operation, affect the rights of parties.” 1 Cranch, at 110. We perceive no such threat of manifest injustice present in this case. We decline, accordingly, to categorize it as an exception to Thorpe’s general. rule.
The concerns expressed by the Court in Schooner Peggy and. in Thorpe relative to the possible working of an injustice center upon, (a) the nature and. identity of the parties, (b) the nature of their rights, and (c) the nature of the impact of the change in law upori those rights.
In this case the parties consist, on the one hand, of the School Board, a publicly funded governmental entity, and, on the other, a class of children whose constitutional right to a nondiscriminatory education has been advanced by this litigation. The District Court.rather vividly described what it regarded as the disparity in the respective abilities of the parties adequately to present and protect their interests. Moreover, school desegregation litigation is of a kind different from “mere private cases between individuals.” With the Board responsible for the education of the very students who brought suit against it to require that such education comport with constitutional standards, it is not appropriate to view the parties as engaged in a routine private lawsuit. In this litigation the plaintiffs may be recognized as having rendered substantial service both to the Board itself, by bringing it into compliance with its constitutional mandate, and to the community at large by securing for it the benefits assumed to flow from a nondiscriminatory educational system. Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U. S., at 494.
In Norther oss we construed, as in pari passu, §718 and § 204 (b) of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U. S. C. §2000a-3(b), providing for an award of counsel fees' to a successful plaintiff under the public accommodation subchapter of that Act. Our discussion of the latter provision in Piggie Park is particularly apt in the context of school desegregation litigation:
“When the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed, it was evident that enforcement would prove difficult and that the Nation would have, to rely in part upon private litigation as a means of securing broad compliance with the law.. A Title II suit is thus private in form only. When a plaintiff brings an action under that Title, he cannot recover dani-, ages. If he obtains an injunction, he does so not for himself alone but also as a 'private attorney general,’ vindicating a policy that Congress considered of the highest priority. If successful plaintiffs were routinely forced to bear their own attorneys’ fees, few aggrieved parties would be in a position to advance the public interest by invoking the injunctive powers of the federal courts.” 390 U. S., at 401-402 (footnotes omitted).
Application of § 718 to such litigation would thus appear to have been anticipated by Mr. Chief Justice Marshall. in Schooner Peggy when he noted that in “great national concerns... the court must decide according to existing laws.” 1 Cranch, at 110' Indeed, the circumstances surrounding the passage of § 718, and the numerous expressions of congressional concern and intent with, respect to the enactment of that statute, all proclaim its status as having to do with a “great national, concern.”
The second aspect of the Court's concern that injustice may arise from retrospective application of a change in law relates to the nature of the rights effected by the change. The Court has refused to apply an intervening change to a pending action where it has concluded that to do so would infringe upon or deprive a person of a right that had matured or become unconditional. See Greene v. United States, 376 U. S., at 160; Claridge Apartments Co. v. Commissioner, 323 U. S. 141, 164 (1944); Union Pacific R. Co. v. Laramie Stock Yards Co., 231 U. S. 190, 199 (1913). We find here no such matured or unconditional right affected by the application of § 7Í8'. It cannot be claimed that the publicly elected School Board had such a right in the funds allocated to it by thé taxpayers. These funds were essentially held in trust for the public, and at all times the Board was subject to such conditions or instructions on the use of (he funds as the public wished to make through its duly elected representatives.
The third concern has to do with the nature of the impact of the change in law upon existing rights, or, to state it another way, stems from the possibility that new and unanticipated obligations may be imposed upon a party without notice or 'an' opportunity to be heard. • In Thorpe, we were careful to note that by the' circular the “respective obligations of both HUD and the Authority under the annual contributions contract remain unchanged.... Likewise, the lease agreement between the Authority and petitioner remains inviolate.” 393 U. S., at'279. Here no increased burden was imposed since § 718 did not alter the Board’s constitutional responsibility for providing pupils with a nondiscriminatory education. Also, there whs no change in the substantive obligation of the parties. From. the outset, upon the filing of, the original complaint in 1961, the Board en-. gaged in a conscious course of conduct with the knowledge that, under different theories, discussed by the District Court and the Court of Appeals, the Board could have been required to pay attorneys’ fees. Even assuming a degree of uncertainty in the law at that time regarding the Board’s constitutional obligations, there is no indication that the obligation under § 718, if known, rather than simply the common-law availability of an award, would have caused the Board to order its conduct so as to render this litigation unnecessary and thereby preclude the incurring of such costs.
The availability of § 718 to sustain the award of fees against the Board therefore merely serves to create an additional basis or source for the Board’s potential obligation to pay attorneys’ fees. It does not impose an additional or unforeseeable obligation upon it.
Accordingly, upon considering the parties, the nature of the rights, and the impact,of § 718 upon those rights, it cannot be said that the application of the statute to an award of fees for services rendered prior to its effective date, in an action pending on that date, would cause “manifest injustice,” as that term is used in Thorpe, so as to compel an exception of the case from the rule of Schooner Peggy.
C
Finally, we disagree with the Court of Appeals’ conclusion that.§.718 by its very terms is inapplicable to the petitioners’ request for fees “because there was no ‘final order’ pending unresolved on appeal,” 472 F. 2d, at 331, when § 718 became effective, or on May 26, 1971, when the District Court made its award.
It is true that when the District Court éntered its order, it w'as at least arguable that the petitioners had not yet become “the prevailing party,” within the meaning of § 718. The application for fees had been included in their March 10, Í970, motion for further relief in the light of developments indicated by the decision two years before in Green. The Board’s first plan was dis¿pproved by the District Court on June 26. Its second plan was also disapproved but was ordered into effect on an interim basis on August 17 for the year about to begin. The third plan was ultimately approved on April 5, 1971, and the order allowing fees followed shortly thereafter.
Surely, the language of § 718 is not to be read to the effect that a fee award must be made simultaneously with the entry of a desegregation order. The statute, instead,' expectedly makes the existence of a final order a prerequisite to the award. The unmanageability of a requirement of simultaneity is apparent when one considers the typical course of litigation in a school desegregation action. The history of this litigation from 1970 to 1972 is illustrative. The order of June 20, 1970, suspending school construction, the order of August 17 of that year placing an interim plan in operation, and the order of April 5, 1971, ordering the third plan into effect, all had become final when the fee award was made on May 26, 1971. Since most school cases can be expected to involve relief of an injunctive nature that must prove its efficacy only oyer a period of time and often with frequent modifications, many final orders may issue in the course of the litigation.'To delay a fee award until the entire litigation is concluded would work substantial hardship on plaintiffs and their counsel, and discourage the institution of actions despite the clear congressional intent to the contrary evidenced by the passage of § 718. A district court must have discretion to award fees and costs incident to the final disposition of interim matters. See 6 J. Moore, Federal Practice ¶ 54.70 (5) (1974 ed.). Further, the resolution of the fee issue may be a matter of some complexity and require, as here, the taking of evidence and briefing. It would therefore be undesirable to delay the implementation of a desegregation plan in order to resolve the question of fees simultaneously. The District Court properly chose not to address itself to the question of the award until after it had approved the noninterim plan for achievement of the unitary school system in Richmond on April 5, 1971.
We are in agreement, however, with the dissenting judge of the Court, of Appeals when he observed, 472 F. 2d, at 337, that the award made by the District Court for services from March 10, 1970, to January 29, 1971, did not precisely fit § 718’s requirement that the' bene-. ficiary of the fee order be “the prevailing party.” In January 1971 the petitioners had not yet “prevailed” and realistically did not do so until April 5. Consequently, any fee award was not appropriately to be made until April 5. Thereafter, it may include services at least through that date.. This, of course, will be attended to on remand.
Accordingly, we hold that § 718 is applicable to the present situation, and that in this case the District Court in its discretion may allow the petitioners reasonable attorneys’ fees for services rendered from March 10,1970, to or beyond April 5, 1971. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is vacated and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Mr. Justice Marshall and Mr. Justice Powell took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
See 317 F. 2d 429 (CA4 1963). Before trial, one pupil-plaintiff was admitted to the school of his choice, and the court ordered admission of- the remaining 10. The District Court found that; in general, during the 1961-1962 school year, pupil assignments in Richmond were being made on the basis of dual attendance zones; •that promotions.were controlled, by. a “feeder” system whereby pupils initially.assigned to Negro schools were promoted routinely only to Negro. schools; and that, in the handling of some transfer requests from Negro pupils, the' studénts were required to meet criteria to which white students of the same scholastic aptitude were not. subject. The court declined, however, to grant general injunctive relief and ordered only the admission of the 10 pupils.
The Court of Appeals reversed in part. It held that not only were the individual minor plaintiffs entitled to relief, but that they were entitled to an injünction, on behalf of others of the class they represented and whó weré similarly situated, against the continuation of the discriminatory system, and practices that were found to exist. Id., at 438.
Under the approved plan, the Board undertook steps “to eliminate a dual school system in the assignment of pupils” and to assure that opportunities wére provided “for white children and Negro children to associate on equal terms in the public schools.” App. 21a-22a, Generally, the plan permittéd any child to attend, any school in the city at his proper grade. The specific steps to be taken included (a) action to correct inequality in enrollment in relationship.to capacity where schools in close proximity to each other had significant enrollment differences, (b) efforts to acquaint pupils in all- schools with opportunities in other schools, and' (c) the planning and creation of citywide centers, including workshops, institutes, and seminars, serving pupils from all areas of the city. Id., at 22a-23a. In addition, the Board undertook to insure that the “pattern of assignment of teachers and other professional staff among the various schools of the system will not be such that schools are identifiable as intended for students of a particular race, color or national origin, or such that ‘teachers or other professional staff of a particular race are.-concentrated' in those schools where all, or the majority, of the students are of that race.” Id,., at 20a. Finally, the Board undertook to insure that the program for constriction of new schools' or additions to existing schools would “not be designed to perpetuate, maintain, or support racial segregation.” Id., at 23a.
The court rejected the- petitioners’ plan for utilizing contiguous zoning and pairing, satellite.zoning,' and noncontiguous pairing, together with the use of school and public transportation, because it felt that the lack of immediately available transportation facilities would preclude the plan’s operation for the opening of the 1970-1971 school year. It noted that it otherwise found the plan to be reasonable and, if adopted, that it would result in a unitary system. 317 F. Supp. 655, 572 and 576 (ED Va. 1970). The court suggested that Richmond could not be desegregated without employment of techniques suggested by the petitioners and observed, “It would seem to the Court highly reasonable to require that the defendant school board take reasonably immediate steps toward this end.” Id., at 575.
The interim plan included contiguous and satellite Zoning, pairing, and some public transportation, principally of those pupils who were indigent. The problems that continued to concern the court were, most importantly, thg fact that under the plan a large number of the district’s elementary, students would continue.to attend schools that-would be 90% or more Negro, while at the same time four elementary schools 'Would remain all
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | F | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Vague laws invite arbitrary power. Before the Revolution, the crime of treason in English law was so capaciously construed that the mere expression of disfavored opinions could invite transportation or death. The founders cited the crown's abuse of "pretended" crimes like this as one of their reasons for revolution. See Declaration of Independence ¶ 21. Today's vague laws may not be as invidious, but they can invite the exercise of arbitrary power all the same-by leaving the people in the dark about what the law demands and allowing prosecutors and courts to make it up.
The law before us today is such a law. Before holding a lawful permanent resident alien like James Dimaya subject to removal for having committed a crime, the Immigration and Nationality Act requires a judge to determine that the ordinary case of the alien's crime of conviction involves a substantial risk that physical force may be used. But what does that mean? Just take the crime at issue in this case, California burglary, which applies to everyone from armed home intruders to door-to-door salesmen peddling shady products. How, on that vast spectrum, is anyone supposed to locate the ordinary case and say whether it includes a substantial risk of physical force? The truth is, no one knows. The law's silence leaves judges to their intuitions and the people to their fate. In my judgment, the Constitution demands more.
*
I begin with a foundational question. Writing for the Court in Johnson v. United States, 576 U.S. ----, 135 S.Ct. 2551, 192 L.Ed.2d 569 (2015), Justice Scalia held the residual clause of the Armed Career Criminal Act void for vagueness because it invited "more unpredictability and arbitrariness" than the Constitution allows. Id., at ----, 135 S.Ct., at 2558. Because the residual clause in the statute now before us uses almost exactly the same language as the residual clause in Johnson, respect for precedent alone would seem to suggest that both clauses should suffer the same judgment.
But first in Johnson and now again today Justice THOMAS has questioned whether our vagueness doctrine can fairly claim roots in the Constitution as originally understood. See, e.g., post, at 1242 - 1245 (dissenting opinion); Johnson, supra, at 1226 - 1233 (opinion concurring in judgment) ( 576 U.S., at ---- - ----, 135 S.Ct., at 2566-2573 ). For its part, the Court has yet to offer a reply. I believe our colleague's challenge is a serious and thoughtful one that merits careful attention. At day's end, though, it is a challenge to which I find myself unable to subscribe. Respectfully, I am persuaded instead that void for vagueness doctrine, at least properly conceived, serves as a faithful expression of ancient due process and separation of powers principles the framers recognized as vital to ordered liberty under our Constitution.
Consider first the doctrine's due process underpinnings. The Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments guarantee that "life, liberty, or property" may not be taken "without due process of law." That means the government generally may not deprive a person of those rights without affording him the benefit of (at least) those "customary procedures to which freemen were entitled by the old law of England." Pacific Mut. Life Ins. Co. v. Haslip, 499 U.S. 1, 28, 111 S.Ct. 1032, 113 L.Ed.2d 1 (1991) (Scalia, J., concurring in judgment) (internal quotation marks omitted). Admittedly, some have suggested that the Due Process Clause does less work than this, allowing the government to deprive people of their liberty through whatever procedures (or lack of them) the government's current laws may tolerate. Post, at 1243, n. 1 (opinion of THOMAS, J.) (collecting authorities). But in my view the weight of the historical evidence shows that the clause sought to ensure that the people's rights are never any less secure against governmental invasion than they were at common law. Lord Coke took this view of the English due process guarantee. 1 E. Coke, The Second Part of the Institutes of the Laws of England 50 (1797). John Rutledge, our second Chief Justice, explained that Coke's teachings were carefully studied and widely adopted by the framers, becoming " 'almost the foundations of our law.' " Klopfer v. North Carolina, 386 U.S. 213, 225, 87 S.Ct. 988, 18 L.Ed.2d 1 (1967). And many more students of the Constitution besides-from Justice Story to Justice Scalia-have agreed that this view best represents the original understanding of our own Due Process Clause. See, e.g., Murray's Lessee v. Hoboken Land & Improvement Co., 18 How. 272, 277, 15 L.Ed. 372 (1856) ; 3 J. Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States § 1783, p. 661 (1833); Pacific Mut., supra, at 28-29, 111 S.Ct. 1032 (opinion of Scalia, J.); Eberle, Procedural Due Process: The Original Understanding, 4 Const. Comment. 339, 341 (1987).
Perhaps the most basic of due process's customary protections is the demand of fair notice. See Connally v. General Constr. Co., 269 U.S. 385, 391, 46 S.Ct. 126, 70 L.Ed. 322 (1926) ; see also Note, Textualism as Fair Notice, 123 Harv. L. Rev. 542, 543 (2009) ("From the inception of Western culture, fair notice has been recognized as an essential element of the rule of law"). Criminal indictments at common law had to provide "precise and sufficient certainty" about the charges involved. 4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 301 (1769) (Blackstone). Unless an "offence [was] set forth with clearness and certainty," the indictment risked being held void in court. Id., at 302 (emphasis deleted); 2 W. Hawkins, Pleas of the Crown, ch. 25, §§ 99, 100, pp. 244-245 (2d ed. 1726) ("[I]t seems to have been anciently the common practice, where an indictment appeared to be [in]sufficient, either for its uncertainty or the want of proper legal words, not to put the defendant to answer it").
The same held true in civil cases affecting a person's life, liberty, or property. A civil suit began by obtaining a writ-a detailed and specific form of action asking for particular relief. Bellia, Article III and the Cause of Action, 89 Iowa L. Rev. 777, 784-786 (2004) ; Subrin, How Equity Conquered Common Law: The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure in Historical Perspective, 135 U. Pa. L. Rev. 909, 914-915 (1987). Because the various civil writs were clearly defined, English subjects served with one would know with particularity what legal requirement they were alleged to have violated and, accordingly, what would be at issue in court. Id., at 917 ; Moffitt, Pleadings in the Age of Settlement, 80 Ind. L.J. 727, 731 (2005). And a writ risked being held defective if it didn't provide fair notice. Goldington v. Bassingburn, Y.B. Trin. 3 Edw. II, f. 27b (1310) (explaining that it was "the law of the land" that "no one [could] be taken by surprise" by having to "answer in court for what [one] has not been warned to answer").
The requirement of fair notice applied to statutes too. Blackstone illustrated the point with a case involving a statute that made "stealing sheep, or other cattle" a felony. 1 Blackstone 88 (emphasis deleted). Because the term "cattle" embraced a good deal more then than it does now (including wild animals, no less), the court held the statute failed to provide adequate notice about what it did and did not cover-and so the court treated the term "cattle" as a nullity. Ibid. All of which, Blackstone added, had the salutary effect of inducing the legislature to reenter the field and make itself clear by passing a new law extending the statute to "bulls, cows, oxen," and more "by name." Ibid.
This tradition of courts refusing to apply vague statutes finds parallels in early American practice as well. In The Enterprise, 8 F.Cas. 732 (No. 4,499) (C.C.N.Y. 1810), for example, Justice Livingston found that a statute setting the circumstances in which a ship may enter a port during an embargo was too vague to be applied, concluding that "the court had better pass" the statutory terms by "as unintelligible and useless" rather than "put on them, at great uncertainty, a very harsh signification, and one which the legislature may never have designed." Id., at 735. In United States v. Sharp, 27 F.Cas. 1041 (No. 16,264) (C.C.Pa.1815), Justice Washington confronted a statute which prohibited seamen from making a "revolt." Id., at 1043. But he was unable to determine the meaning of this provision "by any authority... either in the common, admiralty, or civil law." Ibid. As a result, he declined to "recommend to the jury, to find the prisoners guilty of making, or endeavouring to make a revolt, however strong the evidence may be." Ibid.
Nor was the concern with vague laws confined to the most serious offenses like capital crimes. Courts refused to apply vague laws in criminal cases involving relatively modest penalties. See, e.g., McJunkins v. State, 10 Ind. 140, 145 (1858). They applied the doctrine in civil cases too. See, e.g., Drake v. Drake, 15 N.C. 110, 115 (1833) ; Commonwealth v. Bank of Pennsylvania, 3 Watts & Serg. 173, 177 (Pa.1842). As one court put it, "all laws" "ought to be expressed in such a manner as that its meaning may be unambiguous, and in such language as may be readily understood by those upon whom it is to operate." McConvill v. Mayor and Aldermen of Jersey City, 39 N.J.L. 38, 42 (1876). " 'It is impossible... to dissent from the doctrine of Lord Coke, that acts of parliament ought to be plainly and clearly, and not cunningly and darkly penned, especially in penal matters.' " Id., at 42-43.
These early cases, admittedly, often spoke in terms of construing vague laws strictly rather than declaring them void. See, e.g., post, at 1243 - 1244 (opinion of THOMAS, J.); Johnson, 576 U.S., at ---------, 135 S.Ct., at 2567-2568 (opinion of THOMAS, J.). But in substance void the law is often exactly what these courts did: rather than try to construe or interpret the statute before them, judges frequently held the law simply too vague to apply. Blackstone, for example, did not suggest the court in his illustration should have given a narrowing construction to the term "cattle," but argued against giving it any effect at all. 1 Blackstone 88; see also Scalia, Assorted Canards of Contemporary Legal Analysis, 40 Case W. Res. L. Rev. 581, 582 (1989) ("I doubt... that any modern court would go to the lengths described by Blackstone in its application of the rule that penal statutes are to be strictly construed"); Note, Indefinite Criteria of Definiteness in Statutes, 45 Harv. L. Rev. 160, n. 3 (1931) (explaining that "since strict construction, in effect, nullified ambiguous provisions, it was but a short step to declaring them void ab initio "); supra, at 1226, n. 1 (state courts holding vague statutory terms "void" or "null").
What history suggests, the structure of the Constitution confirms. Many of the Constitution's other provisions presuppose and depend on the existence of reasonably clear laws. Take the Fourth Amendment's requirement that arrest warrants must be supported by probable cause, and consider what would be left of that requirement if the alleged crime had no meaningful boundaries. Or take the Sixth Amendment's mandate that a defendant must be informed of the accusations against him and allowed to bring witnesses in his defense, and consider what use those rights would be if the charged crime was so vague the defendant couldn't tell what he's alleged to have done and what sort of witnesses he might need to rebut that charge. Without an assurance that the laws supply fair notice, so much else of the Constitution risks becoming only a "parchment barrie[r]" against arbitrary power. The Federalist No. 48, p. 308 (C. Rossiter ed. 1961) (J. Madison).
Although today's vagueness doctrine owes much to the guarantee of fair notice embodied in the Due Process Clause, it would be a mistake to overlook the doctrine's equal debt to the separation of powers. The Constitution assigns "[a]ll legislative Powers" in our federal government to Congress. Art. I, § 1. It is for the people, through their elected representatives, to choose the rules that will govern their future conduct. See The Federalist No. 78, at 465 (A. Hamilton) ("The legislature... prescribes the rules by which the duties and rights of every citizen are to be regulated"). Meanwhile, the Constitution assigns to judges the "judicial Power" to decide "Cases" and "Controversies." Art. III, § 2. That power does not license judges to craft new laws to govern future conduct, but only to "discer[n] the course prescribed by law" as it currently exists and to "follow it" in resolving disputes between the people over past events. Osborn v. Bank of United States, 9 Wheat. 738, 866, 6 L.Ed. 204 (1824).
From this division of duties, it comes clear that legislators may not "abdicate their responsibilities for setting the standards of the criminal law," Smith v. Goguen, 415 U.S. 566, 575, 94 S.Ct. 1242, 39 L.Ed.2d 605 (1974), by leaving to judges the power to decide "the various crimes includable in [a] vague phrase," Jordan v. De George, 341 U.S. 223, 242, 71 S.Ct. 703, 95 L.Ed. 886 (1951) (Jackson, J., dissenting). For "if the legislature could set a net large enough to catch all possible offenders, and leave it to the courts to step inside and say who could be rightfully detained, and who should be set at large[,][t]his would, to some extent, substitute the judicial for the legislative department of government." Kolender v. Lawson, 461 U.S. 352, 358, n. 7, 103 S.Ct. 1855, 75 L.Ed.2d 903 (1983) (internal quotation marks omitted). Nor is the worry only that vague laws risk allowing judges to assume legislative power. Vague laws also threaten to transfer legislative power to police and prosecutors, leaving to them the job of shaping a vague statute's contours through their enforcement decisions. See Grayned v. City of Rockford, 408 U.S. 104, 108-109, 92 S.Ct. 2294, 33 L.Ed.2d 222 (1972) ("A vague law impermissibly delegates basic policy matters to policemen, judges, and juries for resolution on an ad hoc and subjective basis").
These structural worries are more than just formal ones. Under the Constitution, the adoption of new laws restricting liberty is supposed to be a hard business, the product of an open and public debate among a large and diverse number of elected representatives. Allowing the legislature to hand off the job of lawmaking risks substituting this design for one where legislation is made easy, with a mere handful of unelected judges and prosecutors free to "condem[n] all that [they] personally disapprove and for no better reason than [they] disapprove it." Jordan, supra, at 242, 71 S.Ct. 703 (Jackson, J., dissenting). Nor do judges and prosecutors act in the open and accountable forum of a legislature, but in the comparatively obscure confines of cases and controversies. See, e.g., A. Bickel, The Least Dangerous Branch: The Supreme Court at the Bar of Politics 151 (1962) ("A vague statute delegates to administrators, prosecutors, juries, and judges the authority of ad hoc decision, which is in its nature difficult if not impossible to hold to account, because of its narrow impact"). For just these reasons, Hamilton warned, while "liberty can have nothing to fear from the judiciary alone," it has "every thing to fear from" the union of the judicial and legislative powers. The Federalist No. 78, at 466. No doubt, too, for reasons like these this Court has held "that the more important aspect of vagueness doctrine 'is not actual notice, but... the requirement that a legislature establish minimal guidelines to govern law enforcement' " and keep the separate branches within their proper spheres. Kolender, supra, at 358, 103 S.Ct. 1855 (quoting Goguen, supra, at 575, 94 S.Ct. 1242 (emphasis added)).
*
Persuaded that vagueness doctrine enjoys a secure footing in the original understanding of the Constitution, the next question I confront concerns the standard of review. What degree of imprecision should this Court tolerate in a statute before declaring it unconstitutionally vague? For its part, the government argues that where (as here) a person faces only civil, not criminal, consequences from a statute's operation, we should declare the law unconstitutional only if it is "unintelligible." But in the criminal context this Court has generally insisted that the law must afford "ordinary people... fair notice of the conduct it punishes." Johnson, 576 U.S., at ----, 135 S.Ct., at 2557. And I cannot see how the Due Process Clause might often require any less than that in the civil context either. Fair notice of the law's demands, as we've seen, is "the first essential of due process." Connally, 269 U.S., at 391, 46 S.Ct. 126. And as we've seen, too, the Constitution sought to preserve a common law tradition that usually aimed to ensure fair notice before any deprivation of life, liberty, or property could take place, whether under the banner of the criminal or the civil law. See supra, at 1224 - 1227.
First principles aside, the government suggests that at least this Court's precedents support adopting a less-than-fair-notice standard for civil cases. But even that much I do not see. This Court has already expressly held that a "stringent vagueness test" should apply to at least some civil laws-those abridging basic First Amendment freedoms. Hoffman Estates v. Flipside, Hoffman Estates, Inc., 455 U.S. 489, 499, 102 S.Ct. 1186, 71 L.Ed.2d 362 (1982). This Court has made clear, too, that due process protections against vague laws are "not to be avoided by the simple label a State chooses to fasten upon its conduct or its statute." Giaccio v. Pennsylvania, 382 U.S. 399, 402, 86 S.Ct. 518, 15 L.Ed.2d 447 (1966). So the happenstance that a law is found in the civil or criminal part of the statute books cannot be dispositive. To be sure, this Court has also said that what qualifies as fair notice depends "in part on the nature of the enactment." Hoffman Estates, 455 U.S., at 498, 102 S.Ct. 1186. And the Court has sometimes "expressed greater tolerance of enactments with civil rather than criminal penalties because the consequences of imprecision are qualitatively less severe." Id., at 498-499, 102 S.Ct. 1186. But to acknowledge these truisms does nothing to prove that civil laws must always be subject to the government's emaciated form of review.
In fact, if the severity of the consequences counts when deciding the standard of review, shouldn't we also take account of the fact that today's civil laws regularly impose penalties far more severe than those found in many criminal statutes? Ours is a world filled with more and more civil laws bearing more and more extravagant punishments. Today's "civil" penalties include confiscatory rather than compensatory fines, forfeiture provisions that allow homes to be taken, remedies that strip persons of their professional licenses and livelihoods, and the power to commit persons against their will indefinitely. Some of these penalties are routinely imposed and are routinely graver than those associated with misdemeanor crimes-and often harsher than the punishment for felonies. And not only are "punitive civil sanctions... rapidly expanding," they are "sometimes more severely punitive than the parallel criminal sanctions for the same conduct." Mann, Punitive Civil Sanctions: The Middleground Between Criminal and Civil Law, 101 Yale L.J. 1795, 1798 (1992) (emphasis added). Given all this, any suggestion that criminal cases warrant a heightened standard of review does more to persuade me that the criminal standard should be set above our precedent's current threshold than to suggest the civil standard should be buried below it.
Retreating to a more modest line of argument, the government emphasizes that this case arises in the immigration context and so implicates matters of foreign relations where the Executive enjoys considerable constitutional authority. But to acknowledge that the President has broad authority to act in this general area supplies no justification for allowing judges to give content to an impermissibly vague law.
Alternatively still, Justice THOMAS suggests that, at least at the time of the founding, aliens present in this country may not have been understood as possessing any rights under the Due Process Clause. For support, he points to the Alien Friends Act of 1798. An Act Concerning Aliens § 1, 1 Stat. 571; post, at 1244 - 1248 (opinion of THOMAS, J.). But the Alien Friends Act-better known as the "Alien" part of the Alien and Sedition Acts-is one of the most notorious laws in our country's history. It was understood as a temporary war measure, not one that the legislature would endorse in a time of tranquility. See, e.g., Fehlings, Storm on the Constitution: The First Deportation Law, 10 Tulsa J. Comp. & Int'l L. 63, 70-71 (2002). Yet even then it was widely condemned as unconstitutional by Madison and many others. It also went unenforced, may have cost the Federalist Party its existence, and lapsed a mere two years after its enactment. With this fuller view, it seems doubtful the Act tells us a great deal about aliens' due process rights at the founding.
Besides, none of this much matters. Whether Madison or his adversaries had the better of the debate over the constitutionality of the Alien Friends Act, Congress is surely free to extend existing forms of liberty to new classes of persons-liberty that the government may then take only after affording due process. See, e.g., Sandin v. Conner, 515 U.S. 472, 477-478, 115 S.Ct. 2293, 132 L.Ed.2d 418 (1995) ; Easterbrook, Substance and Due Process, 1982 S.Ct. Rev. 85, 88 ("If... the constitution, statute, or regulation creates a liberty or property interest, then the second step-determining 'what process is due'-comes into play"). Madison made this very point, suggesting an alien's admission in this country could in some circumstances be analogous to "the grant of land to an individual," which "may be of favor not of right; but the moment the grant is made, the favor becomes a right, and must be forfeited before it can be taken away." Madison's Report 319. And, of course, that's exactly what Congress eventually chose to do here. Decades ago, it enacted a law affording Mr. Dimaya lawful permanent residency in this country, extending to him a statutory liberty interest others traditionally have enjoyed to remain in and move about the country free from physical imprisonment and restraint. See Dimaya v. Lynch, 803 F.3d 1110, 1111 (C.A.9 2015) ; 8 U.S.C. §§ 1101(20), 1255. No one suggests Congress had to enact statutes of this sort. And exactly what processes must attend the deprivation of a statutorily afforded liberty interest like this may pose serious and debatable questions. Cf. Murray's Lessee, 18 How., at 277 (approving summary procedures in another context). But however summary those procedures might be, it's hard to fathom why fair notice of the law-the most venerable of due process's requirements-would not be among them. Connally, 269 U.S., at 391, 46 S.Ct. 126.
Today, a plurality of the Court agrees that we should reject the government's plea for a feeble standard of review, but for a different reason. Ante, at 1212 - 1213. My colleagues suggest the law before us should be assessed under the fair notice standard because of the special gravity of its civil deportation penalty. But, grave as that penalty may be, I cannot see why we would single it out for special treatment when (again) so many civil laws today impose so many similarly severe sanctions. Why, for example, would due process require Congress to speak more clearly when it seeks to deport a lawfully resident alien than when it wishes to subject a citizen to indefinite civil commitment, strip him of a business license essential to his family's living, or confiscate his home? I can think of no good answer.
*
With the fair notice standard now in hand, all that remains is to ask how it applies to the case before us. And here at least the answer comes readily for me: to the extent it requires an "ordinary case" analysis, the portion of the Immigration and Nationality Act before us fails the fair notice test for the reasons Justice Scalia identified in Johnson and the Court recounts today.
Just like the statute in Johnson, the statute here instructs courts to impose special penalties on individuals previously "convicted of" a "crime of violence." 8 U.S.C. §§ 1227(a)(2)(A)(iii), 1101(a)(43)(F). Just like the statute in Johnson, the statute here fails to specify which crimes qualify for that label. Instead, and again like the statute in Johnson, the statute here seems to require a judge to guess about the ordinary case of the crime of conviction and then guess whether a "substantial risk" of "physical force" attends its commission. 18 U.S.C. § 16(b) ; Johnson, 576 U.S., at ---------, 135 S.Ct., at 2556-2558. Johnson held that a law that asks so much of courts while offering them so little by way of guidance is unconstitutionally vague. And I do not see how we might reach a different judgment here.
Any lingering doubt is resolved for me by taking account of just some of the questions judges trying to apply the statute using an ordinary case analysis would have to confront. Does a conviction for witness tampering ordinarily involve a threat to the kneecaps or just the promise of a bribe? Does a conviction for kidnapping ordinarily involve throwing someone into a car trunk or a noncustodial parent picking up a child from daycare? These questions do not suggest obvious answers. Is the court supposed to hold evidentiary hearings to sort them out, entertaining experts with competing narratives and statistics, before deciding what the ordinary case of a given crime looks like and how much risk of violence it poses? What is the judge to do if there aren't any reliable statistics available? Should (or must) the judge predict the effects of new technology on what qualifies as the ordinary case? After all, surely the risk of injury calculus for crimes like larceny can be expected to change as more thefts are committed by computer rather than by gunpoint. Or instead of requiring real evidence, does the statute mean to just leave it all to a judicial hunch? And on top of all that may be the most difficult question yet: at what level of generality is the inquiry supposed to take place? Is a court supposed to pass on the ordinary case of burglary in the relevant neighborhood or county, or should it focus on statewide or even national experience? How is a judge to know? How are the people to know?
The implacable fact is that this isn't your everyday ambiguous statute. It leaves the people to guess about what the law demands-and leaves judges to make it up. You cannot discern answers to any of the questions this law begets by resorting to the traditional canons of statutory interpretation. No amount of staring at the statute's text, structure, or history will yield a clue. Nor does the statute call for the application of some preexisting body of law familiar to the judicial power. The statute doesn't even ask for application of common experience. Choice, pure and raw, is required. Will, not judgment, dictates the result.
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Having said this much, it is important to acknowledge some limits on today's holding too. I have proceeded on the premise that the Immigration and Nationality Act, as it incorporates § 16(b) of the criminal code, commands courts to determine the risk of violence attending the ordinary case of conviction for a particular crime. I have done so because no party before us has argued for a different way to read these statutes in combination; because our precedent seemingly requires this approach; and because the government itself has conceded (repeatedly) that the law compels it. Johnson, supra, at 1217, 135 S.Ct., at 2561-2562 ; Taylor v. United States, 495 U.S. 575, 600, 110 S.Ct. 2143, 109 L.Ed.2d 607 (1990) ; Brief for Petitioner 11, 30, 32, 36, 40, 47 (conceding that an ordinary case analysis is required).
But any more than that I would not venture. In response to the problems engendered by the ordinary case analysis, Justice THOMAS suggests that we should overlook the government's concession about the propriety of that approach; reconsider our precedents endorsing it; and read the statute as requiring us to focus on the facts of the alien's crime as committed rather than as the facts appear in the ordinary case of conviction. Post, at 1252 - 1259. But normally courts do not rescue parties from their concessions, maybe least of all concessions from a party as able to protect its interests as the federal government. And normally, too, the crucible of adversarial testing is crucial to sound judicial decisionmaking. We rely on it to "yield insights (or reveal pitfalls) we cannot muster guided only by our own lights." Maslenjak v. United States, 582 U.S. ----, ----, 137 S.Ct. 1918, 1931, 198 L.Ed.2d 460 (2017) (GORSUCH, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment).
While sometimes we may or even must forgo the adversarial process, I do not see the case for doing so today. Maybe especially because I am not sure Justice THOMAS's is the only available alternative reading of the statute we would have to consider, even if we did reject the government's concession and wipe the precedential slate clean. We might also have to consider an interpretation that would have courts ask not whether the alien's crime of conviction ordinarily involves a risk of physical force, or whether the defendant's particular crime involved such a risk, but whether the defendant's crime of conviction always does so. After all, the language before us requires a conviction for an "offense... that, by its nature, involves a substantial risk of physical force." 18 U.S.C. § 16(b) (emphasis added). Plausibly, anyway, the word "nature" might refer to an inevitable characteristic of the offense; one that would present itself automatically, whenever the statute is violated. See 10 Oxford English Dictionary 247 (2d ed. 1989). While I remain open to different arguments about our precedent and the proper reading of language like this, I would address them in another case, whether involving the INA or a different statute, where the parties have a chance to be heard and we might benefit from their learning.
It's important to note the narrowness of our decision today in another respect too. Vagueness doctrine represents a procedural, not a substantive, demand. It does not forbid the legislature from acting toward any end it wishes, but only requires it to act with enough clarity that reasonable people can know what is required of them and judges can apply the law consistent with their limited office. Our history surely bears examples of the judicial misuse of the so-called "substantive component" of due process to dictate policy on matters that belonged to the people to decide. But concerns with substantive due process should not lead us to react by withdrawing an ancient procedural protection compelled by the original meaning of the Constitution.
Today's decision sweeps narrowly in yet one more way. By any fair estimate, Congress has largely satisfied the procedural demand of fair notice even in the INA provision before us. The statute lists a number of specific crimes that can lead to a lawful resident's removal-for example, murder, rape, and sexual abuse of a minor. 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(43)(A). Our ruling today does not touch this list. We address only the statute's "residual clause" where Congress ended its own list and asked us to begin writing our own. Just as Blackstone's legislature passed a revised statute clarifying that "cattle" covers bulls and oxen, Congress remains free at any time to add more crimes to its list. It remains free, as well, to write a new residual clause that affords the fair notice lacking here. Congress might, for example, say that a conviction for any felony carrying a prison sentence of a specified length opens an alien to removal. Congress has done almost exactly this in other laws. See, e.g., 18 U.S.C. § 922(g). What was done there could be done here.
But those laws are not this law. And while the statute before us doesn't rise to the level of threatening death for "pretended offences" of treason, no one should be surprised that the Constitution looks unkindly on any law so vague that reasonable people cannot understand its terms and judges do not know where to begin in applying it. A government of laws and not of men can never tolerate that arbitrary power. And, in my judgment, that foundational principle dictates today's result. Because I understand them to be consistent with what I have said here, I join Parts I, III, IV-B, and V of the Court's opinion and concur in the judgment.
Chief Justice ROBERTS, with whom Justice KENNEDY, Justice THOMAS, and Justice ALITO join, dissenting.
In Johnson v. United States, we concluded that the residual clause
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | D | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Chief Justice Roberts
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Accidents happen. Sometimes they happen to individuals committing crimes with loaded guns. The question here is whether extra punishment Congress imposed for the discharge of a gun during certain crimes applies when the gun goes off accidentally.
I
Title 18 U. S. C. § 924(c)(1)(A) criminalizes using or carrying a firearm during and in relation to any violent or drug trafficking crime, or possessing a firearm in furtherance of such a crime. An individual convicted of that offense receives a 5-year mandatory minimum sentence, in addition to the punishment for the underlying crime. § 924(c)(l)(A)(i). The mandatory minimum increases to 7 years “if the firearm is brandished” and to 10 years “if the firearm is discharged.” §§ 924(c)(l)(A)(ii), (iii).
In this case, a masked man entered a bank, waved a gun, and yelled at everyone to get down. He then walked behind the teller counter and started removing money from the teller stations. He grabbed bills with his left hand, holding the gun in his right. At one point, he reached over a teller to remove money from her drawer. As he was collecting the money, the gun discharged, leaving a bullet hole in the partition between two stations. The robber cursed and dashed out of the bank. Witnesses later testified that he seemed surprised that the gun had gone off. No one was hurt. App. 16-19, 24, 27, 47-48, 79.
Police arrested Christopher Michael Dean and Ricardo Curtis Lopez for the crime. Both defendants were charged with conspiracy to commit a robbery affecting interstate commerce, in violation of 18 U. S. C. § 1951(a), and aiding and abetting each other in using, carrying, possessing, and discharging a firearm during an armed robbery, in violation of § 924(c)(l)(A)(iii) and §2. App. 11-12. At trial, Dean admitted that he had committed the robbery, id., at 76-81, and a jury found him guilty on both the robbery and firearm counts. The District Court sentenced Dean to a mandatory minimum term of 10 years in prison on the firearm count, because the firearm “discharged” during the robbery. § 924(c)(1)(A)(iii); App. 136.
Dean appealed, contending that the discharge was accidental, and that the sentencing enhancement in § 924(c)(l)(A)(iii) requires proof that the defendant intended to discharge the firearm. The Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that separate proof of intent was not required. 517 F. 3d 1224, 1229 (CA11 2008). That decision created a conflict among the Circuits over whether the accidental discharge of a firearm during the specified crimes gives rise to the 10-year mandatory minimum. See United States v. Brown, 449 F. 3d 154 (CADC 2006) (holding that it does not). We granted certiorari to resolve that conflict. 555 U. S. 1028 (2008).
II
Section 924(e)(1)(A) provides:
“[A]ny person who, during and in relation to any crime of violence or drug trafficking crime . . . uses or carries a firearm, or who, in furtherance of any such crime, possesses a firearm, shall, in addition to the punishment provided for such crime of violence or drug trafficking crime—
“(i) be sentenced to a term of imprisonment of not less than 5 years;
“(ii) if the firearm is brandished, be sentenced to a term of imprisonment of not less than 7 years; and
“(iii) if the firearm is discharged, be sentenced to a term of imprisonment of not less than 10 years.”
The principal paragraph defines a complete offense and the subsections “explain how defendants are to ‘be sentenced.’ ” Harris v. United States, 536 U. S. 545, 552 (2002). Subsection (i) “sets a catchall minimum” sentence of not less than five years. Id., at 552-553. Subsections (ii) and (iii) increase the minimum penalty if the firearm “is brandished” or “is discharged.” See id., at 553. The parties disagree over whether § 924(c)(l)(A)(iii) contains a requirement that the defendant intend to discharge the firearm. We hold that it does not.
A
“We start, as always, with the language of the statute.” Williams v. Taylor, 529 U. S. 420, 431 (2000). The text of subsection (iii) provides that a defendant shall be sentenced to a minimum of 10 years “if the firearm is discharged.” It does not require that the discharge be done knowingly or intentionally, or otherwise contain words of limitation. As we explained in Bates v. United States, 522 U. S. 23 (1997), in declining to infer an “Intent to defraud’” requirement into a statute, “we ordinarily resist reading words or elements into a statute that do not appear on its face.” Id., at 29.
Congress’s use of the passive voice further indicates that subsection (iii) does not require proof of intent. The passive voice focuses on an event that occurs without respect to a specific actor, and therefore without respect to any actor’s intent or culpability. Cf. Watson v. United States, 552 U. S. 74, 81 (2007) (use of passive voice in statutory phrase “to be used” in 18 U. S. C. § 924(d)(1) reflects “agnosticism ... about who does the using”). It is whether something happened— not how or why it happened — that matters.
The structure of the statute also suggests that subsection (iii) is not limited to the intentional discharge of a firearm. Subsection (ii) provides a 7-year mandatory minimum sentence if the firearm “is brandished.” Congress expressly included an intent requirement for that provision, by defining “brandish” to mean “to display all or part of the firearm, or otherwise make the presence of the firearm known to another person, in order to intimidate that person.” § 924(c)(4) (emphasis added). The defendant must have intended to brandish the firearm, because the brandishing must have been done for a specific purpose. Congress did not, however, separately define “discharge” to include an intent requirement. “[W]here Congress includes particular language in one section of a statute but omits it in another section of the same Act, it is generally presumed that Congress acts intentionally and purposely in the disparate inclusion or exclusion.” Russello v. United States, 464 U. S. 16, 23 (1983) (internal quotation marks omitted).
Dean argues that the statute is not silent on the question presented. Congress, he contends, included an intent element in the opening paragraph of § 924(c)(1)(A), and that element extends to the sentencing enhancements. Section 924(c)(1)(A) criminalizes using or carrying a firearm “during and in relation to” any violent or drug trafficking crime. In Smith v. United States, 508 U. S. 223 (1993), we stated that the phrase “in relation to” means “that the firearm must have some purpose or effect with respect to the drug trafficking crime; its presence or involvement cannot be the result of accident or coincidence.” Id., at 238. Dean argues that the adverbial phrase thus necessarily embodies an intent requirement, and that the phrase modifies all the verbs in the statute — not only use, carry, and possess, but also brandish and discharge. Such a reading requires that a perpetrator knowingly discharge the firearm for the enhancement to apply. If the discharge is accidental, Dean argues, it is not “in relation to” the underlying crime.
The most natural reading of the statute, however, is that “in relation to” modifies only the nearby verbs “uses” and “carries.” The next verb — “possesses”—is modified by its own adverbial clause, “in furtherance of.” The last two verbs — “is brandished” and “is discharged” — appear in separate subsections and are in a different voice than the verbs in the principal paragraph. There is no basis for reading “in relation to” to extend all the way down to modify “is discharged.” The better reading of the statute is that the adverbial phrases in the opening paragraph — “in relation to” and “in fiirtherance of” — modify their respective nearby verbs, and that neither phrase extends to the sentencing factors.
But, Dean argues, such a reading will lead to absurd results. The discharge provision on its face contains no temporal or causal limitations. In the absence of an intent requirement, the enhancement would apply “regardless of when the actions occur, or by whom or for what reason they are taken.” Brief for Petitioner 11-12. It would, for example, apply if the gun used during the crime were discharged “weeks (or years) before or after the crime.” Reply Brief for Petitioner 11.
We do not agree that implying an intent requirement is necessary to address such concerns. As the Government recognizes, sentencing factors such as the one here “often involve . . . special features of the manner in which a basic crime was carried out.” Brief for United States 29 (quoting Harris, 536 U. S., at 553; internal quotation marks omitted). The basic crime here is using or carrying a firearm during and in relation to a violent or drug trafficking crime, or possessing a firearm in furtherance of any such crime. Fanciful hypotheticals testing whether the discharge was a “special featur[e]” of how the “basic crime was carried out,” id., at 553 (internal quotation marks omitted), are best addressed in those terms, not by contorting and stretching the statutory language to imply an intent requirement.
B
Dean further argues that even if the statute is viewed as silent on the intent question, that silence compels a ruling in his favor. There is, he notes, a presumption that criminal prohibitions include a requirement that the Government prove the defendant intended the conduct made criminal. In light of this presumption, we have “on a number of occasions read a state-of-mind component into an offense even when the statutory definition did not in terms so provide.” United States v. United States Gypsum Co., 438 U. S. 422, 437 (1978). “[S]ome indication of congressional intent, express or implied, is required to dispense with mens rea as an element of a crime.” Staples v. United States, 511 U. S. 600, 606 (1994).
Dean argues that the presumption is especially strong in this case, given the structure and purpose of the statute. In his view, the three subsections are intended to provide harsher penalties for increasingly culpable conduct: a 5-year minimum for using, carrying, or possessing a firearm; a 7-year minimum for brandishing a firearm; and a 10-year minimum for discharging a firearm. Incorporating an intent requirement into the discharge provision is necessary to give effect to that progression, because an accidental discharge is less culpable than intentional brandishment. See Brown, 449 F. 3d, at 156.
It is unusual to impose criminal punishment for the consequences of purely accidental conduct. But it is not unusual to punish individuals for the unintended consequences of their unlawful acts. See 2 W. LaFave, Substantive Criminal Law §14.4, pp. 436-437 (2d ed. 2003). The felony-murder rule is a familiar example: If a defendant commits an unintended homicide while committing another felony, the defendant can be convicted of murder. See 18 U. S. C. §1111. The Sentencing Guidelines reflect the same principle. See United States Sentencing Commission, Guidelines Manual §2A2.2(b)(3) (Nov. 2008) (USSG) (increasing offense level for aggravated assault according to the seriousness of the injury); § 2D2.3 (increasing offense level for operating or directing the operation of a common carrier under the influence of alcohol or drugs if death or serious bodily injury results).
Blackstone expressed the idea in the following terms:
“[I]f any accidental mischief happens to follow from the performance of a lawful act, the party stands excused from all guilt: but if a man be doing any thing unlawful, and a consequence ensues which he did not foresee or intend, as the death of a man or the like, his want of foresight shall be no excuse; for, being guilty of one of-fence, in doing antecedently what is in itself unlawful, he is criminally guilty of whatever consequence may follow the first misbehaviour.” 4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 26-27 (1769).
Here the defendant is already guilty of unlawful conduct twice over: a violent or drug trafficking offense and the use, carrying, or possession of a firearm in the course of that offense. That unlawful conduct was not an accident. See Smith, 508 U. S., at 238.
The fact that the actual discharge of a gun covered under §924(c)(l)(A)(iii) may be accidental does not mean that the defendant is blameless. The sentencing enhancement in subsection (iii) accounts for the risk of harm resulting from the manner in which the crime is carried out, for which the defendant is responsible. See Harris, supra, at 553. An individual who brings a loaded weapon to commit a crime runs the risk that the gun will discharge accidentally. A gunshot in such circumstances — whether accidental or intended — increases the risk that others will be injured, that people will panic, or that violence (with its own danger to those nearby) will be used in response. Those criminals wishing to avoid the penalty for an inadvertent discharge can lock or unload the firearm, handle it with care during the underlying violent or drug trafficking crime, leave the gun at home, or — best yet — avoid committing the felony in the first place.
Justice Stevens contends that the statute should be read to require a showing of intent because harm resulting from a discharge may be punishable under other provisions, such as the Sentencing Guidelines (but only if “bodily injury” results). Post, at 583 (dissenting opinion) (citing USSG §2B3.1(b)(3)). But Congress in § 924(c)(l)(A)(iii) elected to impose a mandatory term, without regard to more generally applicable sentencing provisions. Punishment available under such provisions therefore does not suggest that the statute at issue here is limited to intentional discharges.
And although the point is not relevant under the correct reading of the statute, it is wrong to assert that the gunshot here “caused no harm.” Post, at 578. By pure luck, no one was killed or wounded. But the gunshot plainly added to the trauma experienced by those held during the armed robbery. See, e. g., App. 22 (the gunshot “shook us all”); ibid. (“Melissa in the lobby popped up and said, ‘oh, my God, has he shot Nora?’ ”).
C
Dean finally argues that any doubts about the proper interpretation of the statute should be resolved in his favor under the rule of lenity. See Brief for Petitioner 6. “The simple existence of some statutory ambiguity, however, is not sufficient to warrant application of that rule, for most statutes are ambiguous to some degree.” Muscarello v. United States, 524 U. S. 125, 138 (1998); see also Smith, supra, at 239 (“The mere possibility of articulating a narrower construction, however, does not by itself make the rule of lenity applicable”). “To invoke the rule, we must conclude that there is a grievous ambiguity or uncertainty in the statute.” Muscarello, supra, at 138-139 (internal quotation marks omitted). In this case, the statutory text and structure convince us that the discharge provision does not contain an intent requirement. Dean’s contrary arguments are not enough to render the statute grievously ambiguous.
* * *
Section 924(c)(l)(A)(iii) requires no separate proof of intent. The 10-year mandatory minimum applies if a gun is discharged in the course of a violent or drug trafficking crime, whether on purpose or by accident. The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Chief Justice Burger
delivered the opinion of the Court.
We granted certiorari to consider whether a West Virginia statute violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution by making it a crime for a newspaper to publish, without the written approval of the juvenile court, the name of any youth charged as a juvenile offender.
(1)
The challenged West Virginia statute provides:
“[N]or shall the name of any child, in connection with any proceedings under this chapter, be published in any newspaper without a written order of the court. ...” W. Va. Code §49-7-3 (1976);
and:
“A person who violates ... a provision of this chapter for which punishment has not been specifically provided, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor,, and upon conviction shall be fined not less than ten nor more than one hundred dollars, or confined in jail not less than five days nor more than six months, or both such fine and imprisonment.” § 49-7-20.
On February 9, 1978, a 15-year-old student was- shot and killed at Hayes Junior High School in St. Albans, W. Va., a small community located about 13 miles outside of Charleston, W. Va. The alleged assailant, a 14-year-old classmate, was identified by seven different eyewitnesses and was arrested by police soon after the incident.
The Charleston Daily Mail and the Charleston Gazette, respondents here, learned of the shooting by monitoring routinely the police band radio frequency; they immediately dispatched reporters and photographers to the junior high school. The reporters for both papers obtained the name of the alleged assailant simply by asking various witnesses, the police, and an assistant prosecuting attorney who were at the school.
The staffs of both newspapers prepared articles for publication about the incident. The Daily Mail’s first article appeared in its February 9 afternoon edition. The article did not mention the alleged attacker’s name. The editorial decision to omit the name was made because of the statutory prohibition against publication without prior court approval.
The Gazette made a contrary editorial decision and published the juvenile’s name and picture in an article about the shooting that appeared in the February 10 morning edition of the paper. In addition, the name,of the alleged juvenile attacker was broadcast over at least three different radio stations on February 9 and 10. Since the information had become public knowledge, the Daily Mail decided to include the juvenile’s name in an article in its afternoon paper on February 10.
On March 1, an indictment against the respondents was returned by a grand jury. The indictment alleged that each knowingly published the name of a youth involved in a juvenile proceeding in violation of W. Ya. Code § 49-7-3 (1976). Respondents then filed an original-jurisdiction petition with the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals, seeking a writ of prohibition against the prosecuting attorney and the Circuit Court Judges of Kanawha County, petitioners here. Respondents alleged that the indictment was based on a statute that violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution and several provisions of the State’s Constitution and requested an order prohibiting the county officials from taking any action on the indictment.
The West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals issued the writ of prohibition. -W. Va.—, 248 S. E. 2d 269 (1978). Relying on holdings of this Court, it held that the statute abridged the freedom of the press. The court reasoned that the statute operated as a prior restraint on speech and that the State’s interest in protecting the identity of the juvenile offender did not overcome the heavy presumption against the constitutionality of such prior restraints.
We granted certiorari. 439 U. S. 963 (1978).
(2)
Respondents urge this Court to hold that because § 49-7-3 requires court approval prior to publication of the juvenile’s name it operates as a “prior restraint” on speech. See Ne braska Press Assn. v. Stuart, 427 U. S. 539 (1976); New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U. S. 713 (1971); Organization for a Better Austin v. Keefe, 402 U. S. 415 (1971); Near v. Minnesota, ex rel. Olson, 283 U. S. 697 (1931). Responents concede that this statute is not in the classic mold of prior restraint, there being no prior injunction against publication. Nonetheless, they contend that the prior-approval requirement acts in “operation and effect” like a licensing scheme and thus is another form of prior restraint. See Near v. Minnesota ex rel. Olson, supra, at 708. As such, respondents argue, the statute bears “a 'heavy presumption’ against its constitutional validity.” Organization for a Better Austin v. Keefe, supra, at 419. They claim that the State’s interest in the anonymity of a juvenile offender is not sufficient to overcome that presumption.
Petitioners do not dispute that the statute amounts to a prior restraint on speech. Rather, they take the view that even if it is a prior restraint the statute is constitutional because of the significance of the State’s interest in protecting the identity of juveniles.
(3)
The resolution of this case does not turn on whether the statutory grant of authority to the juvenile judge to permit publication of the juvenile’s name is, in and of itself, a prior restraint. First Amendment protection reaches beyond prior restraints, Landmark Communications, Inc. v. Virginia, 435 U. S. 829 (1978); Cox Broadcasting Corp. v. Cohn, 420 U. S. 469 (1975), and respondents acknowledge that the statutory provision for court approval of disclosure actually may have a less oppressive effect on freedom of the press than a total ban on the publication of the child’s name.
Whether we view the statute as a prior restraint or as a penal sanction for publishing lawfully obtained, truthful information is not dispositive because even the latter action requires the highest form of state interest to sustain its validity. Prior restraints have been accorded the most exacting scrutiny in previous cases. See Nebraska Press Assn. v. Stuart, supra, at 561; Organization for a Better Austin v. Keefe, supra, at 419; Near v. Minnesota ex rel. Olson, supra, at 716. See also Southeastern Promotions, Ltd. v. Conrad, 420 U. S. 546 (1975). However, even when a state attempts to punish publication after the event it must nevertheless demonstrate that its punitive action was necessary to further the state interests asserted. Landmark Communications, Inc. v. Virginia, supra, at 843. Since we conclude that this statute cannot satisfy the constitutional standards defined in Landmark Communications, Inc., we need not decide whether, as argued by respondents, it operated as a prior restraint.
Our recent decisions demonstrate that state action to punish the publication of truthful information seldom can satisfy constitutional standards. In Landmark Communications we declared unconstitutional a Virginia statute making it a crime to publish information regarding confidential proceedings before a state judicial review commission that heard complaints about alleged disabilities and misconduct of state-court judges. In declaring that statute unconstitutional, we concluded:
“[T]he publication Virginia seeks to punish under its statute lies near the core of the First Amendment, and the Commonwealth’s interests advanced by the imposition of criminal sanctions are insufficient to justify the actual and potential encroachments on freedom of speech and of the press which follow therefrom.” 435 U. S., at 838.
In Cox Broadcasting Corp. v. Cohn, supra, we held that damages could not be recovered against a newspaper for publishing the name of a rape victim. The suit had been based on a state statute that made it a crime to publish the name of the victim; the purpose of the statute was to protect the privacy right of the individual and the family. The name of the victim had become known to the public through official court records dealing with the trial of the rapist. In declaring the statute unconstitutional, the Court, speaking through Mr. Justice White, reasoned:
“By placing the information in the public domain on official court records, the State must be presumed to have concluded that the public interest was thereby being served. . . . States may not impose sanctions on the publication of truthful information contained in official court records open to public inspection.” 420 U. S., at 495.
One case that involved a classic prior restraint is particularly relevant to our inquiry. In Oklahoma Publishing Co. v. District Court, 430 U. S. 308 (1977), we struck down a state-court injunction prohibiting the news media from publishing the name or photograph of an 11-year-old boy who was being tried before a juvenile court. The juvenile court judge had permitted reporters and other members of the public to attend a hearing in the case, notwithstanding a state statute closing such trials to the public. The court then attempted to halt publication of the information obtained from that hearing. We held that once the truthful information was “publicly revealed” or “in the public domain” the court could not constitutionally restrain its dissemination.
None of these opinions directly controls this case; however, all suggest strongly that if a newspaper lawfully obtains truthful information about a matter of public significance then state officials may not constitutionally punish publication of the information, absent a need to further a state interest of the highest order. These cases involved situations where the government itself provided or madé possible press access to the information. That factor is not controlling. Here respondents relied upon routine newspaper reporting techniques to ascertain the identity of the alleged assailant. A free press cannot be made to rely solely upon the sufferance of government to supply it with information. See Houchins v. KQED, Inc., 438 U. S. 1, 11 (1978) (plurality opinion); Branzburg v. Hayes, 408 U. S. 665, 681 (1972). If the information is lawfully obtained, as it was here, the state may not punish its publication except when necessary to further an interest more substantial than is present here.
(4)
The sole interest advanced by the State to justify its criminal statute is to protect the anonymity of the juvenile offender. It is asserted that confidentiality will further his rehabilitation because publication of the name may encourage further antisocial conduct and also may cause the juvenile to lose future employment or suffer other consequences for this single offense. In Davis v. Alaska, 415 U. S. 308 (1974), similar arguments were advanced by the State to justify not permitting a criminal defendant to impeach a prosecution witness on the basis of his juvenile record. We said there that “[w]e do not and need not challenge the State’s interest as a matter of its own policy in the administration of criminal justice to seek to preserve the anonymity of a juvenile offender.” Id., at 319. However, we concluded that the State’s policy must be subordinated to the defendant’s Sixth Amendment right of confrontation. Ibid. The important rights created by the First Amendment must be considered along with the rights of defendants guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment. See Nebraska Press Assn. v. Stuart, 427 U. S., at 561.. Therefore, the reasoning of Davis that the constitutional right must prevail over the state’s interest in protecting juveniles applies with equal force here.
The magnitude of the State’s interest in this statute is not sufficient to justify application of a criminal penalty to respondents. Moreover, the statute’s approach does not satisfy constitutional requirements. The statute does not restrict the electronic media or any form of publication, except “newspapers,” from printing the names of youths charged in a juvenile proceeding. In this very case, three radio stations announced the alleged assailant’s name before the Daily Mail decided to publish it. Thus, even assuming the statute served a state interest of the highest order, it does not accomplish its stated purpose.
In addition, there is no evidence to demonstrate that the imposition of criminal penalties is necessary to protect the confidentiality of juvenile proceedings. As the Brief for Respondents points out at 29 n. **, all 50 states have statutes that provide in some way for confidentiality, but only 5, including West Virginia, impose criminal penalties on nonparties for publication of the identity of the juvenile. Although every state has asserted a similar interest, all but a handful have found other ways of accomplishing the objective. See Landmark Communications, Inc. v. Virginia, 435 U. S., at 843.
(5)
Our holding in this case is narrow. There is no issue before us of unlawful press access to confidential judicial proceedings, see Cox Broadcasting Corp. v. Cohn, 420 U. S., at 496 n. 26; there is no issue here of privacy or prejudicial pretrial publicity. At issue is simply the power of a state to punish the truthful publication of an alleged juvenile delinquent’s name lawfully obtained by a newspaper. The asserted state interest cannot justify the statute’s imposition of criminal sanctions on this type of publication. Accordingly, the judgment of the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals is
Affirmed.
Mr. Justice Powell took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
Respondents do not argue that the statute is a prior restraint because it imposes a criminal sanction for certain types of publication. At page 11 of their brief they state: “The statute in question is, to be sure, not a prior restraint because it subjects newspapers to criminal punishments for what they print” after the event.
So far as the Daily Mail was concerned, the statute operated as a deterrent for 24 hours and became the basis for a prosecution after the delayed publication.
Colo. Rev. Stat. § 19-1-107 (6) (1973); Ga. Code § 24A-3503 (g) (1) (1978); N. H. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 169:27-28 (1977); S. C. Code § 1^-21-30 (1976).
The approach advocated by the National Council of Juvenile Court Judges is based on cooperation between juvenile court personnel and newspaper editors. It is suggested that if the courts make clear their purpose and methods then the press will exercise discretion and generally decline to publish the juvenile’s name without some prior consultation with the juvenile court judge. See Conway, Publicizing the Juvenile Court: A Public Responsibility, 16 Juv. Ct. Judges J. 21, 21-22 (1965); Riederer, Secrecy or Privacy? Communication Problems in the Juvenile Court Field, 17 J. Mo. Bar 66, 69-70 (1961).
In light of our disposition of the First and Fourteenth Amendment issue, we need,not reach respondents’ claim that the statute violates equal protection by being applicable only to newspapers but not other forms of journalistic expression.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | C | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice GINSBURG delivered the opinion of the Court.
Bobby James Moore fatally shot a store clerk during a botched robbery. He was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death. Moore challenged his death sentence on the ground that he was intellectually disabled and therefore exempt from execution. A state habeas court made detailed factfindings and determined that, under this Court's decisions in Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304, 122 S.Ct. 2242, 153 L.Ed.2d 335 (2002), and Hall v. Florida, 572 U.S. ----, 134 S.Ct. 1986, 188 L.Ed.2d 1007 (2014), Moore qualified as intellectually disabled. For that reason, the court concluded, Moore's death sentence violated the Eighth Amendment's proscription of "cruel and unusual punishments." The habeas court therefore recommended that Moore be granted relief.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA) declined to adopt the judgment recommended by the state habeas court. In the CCA's view, the habeas court erroneously employed intellectual-disability guides currently used in the medical community rather than the 1992 guides adopted by the CCA in Ex parte Briseno, 135 S.W.3d 1 (2004). See Ex parte Moore, 470 S.W.3d 481, 486-487 (2015). The appeals court further determined that the evidentiary factors announced in Briseno "weigh[ed] heavily" against upsetting Moore's death sentence. 470 S.W.3d, at 526.
We vacate the CCA's judgment. As we instructed in Hall, adjudications of intellectual disability should be "informed by the views of medical experts." 572 U.S., at ----, 134 S.Ct., at 2000 ; see id., at ----, 134 S.Ct., at 1993. That instruction cannot sensibly be read to give courts leave to diminish the force of the medical community's consensus. Moreover, the several factors Briseno set out as indicators of intellectual disability are an invention of the CCA untied to any acknowledged source. Not aligned with the medical community's information, and drawing no strength from our precedent, the Briseno factors "creat[e] an unacceptable risk that persons with intellectual disability will be executed," 572 U.S., at ----, 134 S.Ct., at 1990. Accordingly, they may not be used, as the CCA used them, to restrict qualification of an individual as intellectually disabled.
I
In April 1980, then-20-year-old Bobby James Moore and two others were engaged in robbing a grocery store. Ex parte Moore, 470 S.W.3d 481, 490-491 (Tex.Crim.App.2015) ; App. 58. During the episode, Moore fatally shot a store clerk. 470 S.W.3d, at 490. Some two months later, Moore was convicted and sentenced to death. See id., at 492. A federal habeas court later vacated that sentence based on ineffective assistance of trial counsel, see Moore v. Collins, 1995 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 22859, *35 (SD Tex., Sept. 29, 1995), and the Fifth Circuit affirmed, see Moore v. Johnson, 194 F.3d 586, 622 (1999). Moore was resentenced to death in 2001, and the CCA affirmed on direct appeal. See Moore v. State, 2004 WL 231323, *1 (Tex.Crim.App., Jan. 14, 2004), cert. denied, 543 U.S. 931, 125 S.Ct. 312, 160 L.Ed.2d 233 (2004).
Moore subsequently sought state habeas relief. In 2014, the state habeas court conducted a two-day hearing on whether Moore was intellectually disabled. See Ex parte Moore, No. 314483-C (185th Jud. Dist., Harris Cty., Tex., Feb. 6, 2015), App. to Pet. for Cert. 129a. The court received affidavits and heard testimony from Moore's family members, former counsel, and a number of court-appointed mental-health experts. The evidence revealed that Moore had significant mental and social difficulties beginning at an early age. At 13, Moore lacked basic understanding of the days of the week, the months of the year, and the seasons; he could scarcely tell time or comprehend the standards of measure or the basic principle that subtraction is the reverse of addition. Id., at 187a. At school, because of his limited ability to read and write, Moore could not keep up with lessons. Id., at 146a, 182a-183a. Often, he was separated from the rest of the class and told to draw pictures. Ibid. Moore's father, teachers, and peers called him "stupid" for his slow reading and speech. Id., at 146a, 183a. After failing every subject in the ninth grade, Moore dropped out of high school. Id., at 188a. Cast out of his home, he survived on the streets, eating from trash cans, even after two bouts of food poisoning. Id., at 192a-193a.
In evaluating Moore's assertion of intellectual disability, the state habeas court consulted current medical diagnostic standards, relying on the 11th edition of the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (AAIDD) clinical manual, see AAIDD, Intellectual Disability: Definition, Classification, and Systems of Supports (2010) (hereinafter AAIDD-11), and on the 5th edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders published by the American Psychiatric Association (APA), see APA, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (2013) (hereinafter DSM-5). App. to Pet. for Cert. 150a-151a, 202a. The court followed the generally accepted, uncontroversial intellectual-disability diagnostic definition, which identifies three core elements: (1) intellectual-functioning deficits (indicated by an IQ score "approximately two standard deviations below the mean"-i.e., a score of roughly 70-adjusted for "the standard error of measurement," AAIDD-11, at 27); (2) adaptive deficits ("the inability to learn basic skills and adjust behavior to changing circumstances," Hall v. Florida, 572 U.S. ----, ----, 134 S.Ct. 1986, 1994, 188 L.Ed.2d 1007 (2014) ); and (3) the onset of these deficits while still a minor. See App. to Pet. for Cert. 150a (citing AAIDD-11, at 1). See also Hall, 572 U.S., at ----, 134 S.Ct., at 1993-1994.
Moore's IQ scores, the habeas court determined, established subaverage intellectual functioning. The court credited six of Moore's IQ scores, the average of which (70.66) indicated mild intellectual disability. App. to Pet. for Cert. 167a-170a.
And relying on testimony from several mental-health experts, the habeas court found significant adaptive deficits. In determining the significance of adaptive deficits, clinicians look to whether an individual's adaptive performance falls two or more standard deviations below the mean in any of the three adaptive skill sets (conceptual, social, and practical). See AAIDD-11, at 43. Moore's performance fell roughly two standard deviations below the mean in all three skill categories. App. to Pet. for Cert. 200a-201a. Based on this evidence, the state habeas court recommended that the CCA reduce Moore's sentence to life in prison or grant him a new trial on intellectual disability. See id., at 203a.
The CCA rejected the habeas court's recommendations and denied Moore habeas relief. See 470 S.W.3d 481. At the outset of its opinion, the CCA reaffirmed Ex parte Briseno, 135 S.W.3d 1 (Tex.Crim.App.2004), as paramount precedent on intellectual disability in Texas capital cases. See 470 S.W.3d, at 486-487. Briseno adopted the definition of, and standards for assessing, intellectual disability contained in the 1992 (ninth) edition of the American Association on Mental Retardation (AAMR) manual, predecessor to the current AAIDD-11 manual. See 135 S.W.3d, at 7 (citing AAMR, Mental Retardation: Definition, Classification, and Systems of Supports (9th ed. 1992) (hereinafter AAMR-9)).
Briseno incorporated the AAMR-9's requirement that adaptive deficits be "related" to intellectual-functioning deficits. 135 S.W.3d, at 7 (quoting AAMR-9, at 25). To determine whether a defendant has satisfied the relatedness requirement, the CCA instructed in this case, Texas courts should attend to the "seven evidentiary factors" first set out in Briseno. 470 S.W.3d, at 489. No citation to any authority, medical or judicial, accompanied the Briseno court's recitation of the seven factors. See 135 S.W.3d, at 8-9.
The habeas judge erred, the CCA held, by "us[ing] the most current position, as espoused by AAIDD, regarding the diagnosis of intellectual disability rather than the test... in Briseno." 470 S.W.3d, at 486. This Court's decision in Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304, 122 S.Ct. 2242, 153 L.Ed.2d 335 (2002), the CCA emphasized, "left it to the States to develop appropriate ways to enforce the constitutional restriction" on the execution of the intellectually disabled. 470 S.W.3d, at 486. Thus, even though "[i]t may be true that the AAIDD's and APA's positions regarding the diagnosis of intellectual disability have changed since Atkins and Briseno, " the CCA retained Briseno's instructions, both because of "the subjectivity surrounding the medical diagnosis of intellectual disability" and because the Texas Legislature had not displaced Briseno with any other guideposts. 470 S.W.3d, at 486-487. The Briseno inquiries, the court said, "remai[n] adequately 'informed by the medical community's diagnostic framework.' " 470 S.W.3d, at 487 (quoting Hall, 572 U.S., at ----, 134 S.Ct., at 2000 ).
Employing Briseno, the CCA first determined that Moore had failed to prove significantly subaverage intellectual functioning. 470 S.W.3d, at 514-519. Rejecting as unreliable five of the seven IQ tests the habeas court had considered, the CCA limited its appraisal to Moore's scores of 78 in 1973 and 74 in 1989. Id., at 518-519. The court then discounted the lower end of the standard-error range associated with those scores. Id., at 519 ; see infra, at 1048 - 1050 (describing standard error of measurement). Regarding the score of 74, the court observed that Moore's history of academic failure, and the fact that he took the test while "exhibit[ing] withdrawn and depressive behavior" on death row, might have hindered his performance. 470 S.W.3d, at 519. Based on the two scores, but not on the lower portion of their ranges, the court concluded that Moore's scores ranked "above the intellectually disabled range" (i.e., above 70). Ibid. ; see id., at 513.
"Even if [Moore] had proven that he suffers from significantly sub-average general intellectual functioning," the court continued, he failed to prove "significant and related limitations in adaptive functioning." Id., at 520. True, the court acknowledged, Moore's and the State's experts agreed that Moore's adaptive-functioning test scores fell more than two standard deviations below the mean. Id., at 521 ; see supra, at ----. But the State's expert ultimately discounted those test results because Moore had "no exposure" to certain tasks the testing included, "such as writing a check and using a microwave oven." 470 S.W.3d, at 521-522. Instead, the expert emphasized Moore's adaptive strengths in school, at trial, and in prison. Id., at 522-524.
The CCA credited the state expert's appraisal. Id., at 524. The habeas court, the CCA concluded, had erred by concentrating on Moore's adaptive weaknesses. Id., at 489. Moore had demonstrated adaptive strengths, the CCA spelled out, by living on the streets, playing pool and mowing lawns for money, committing the crime in a sophisticated way and then fleeing, testifying and representing himself at trial, and developing skills in prison. Id., at 522-523. Those strengths, the court reasoned, undercut the significance of Moore's adaptive limitations. Id., at 524-525.
The habeas court had further erred, the CCA determined, by failing to consider whether any of Moore's adaptive deficits were related to causes other than his intellectual-functioning deficits. Id., at 488, 526. Among alternative causes for Moore's adaptive deficits, the CCA suggested, were an abuse-filled childhood, undiagnosed learning disorders, multiple elementary-school transfers, racially motivated harassment and violence at school, and a history of academic failure, drug abuse, and absenteeism. Ibid. Moore's significant improvement in prison, in the CCA's view, confirmed that his academic and social difficulties were not related to intellectual-functioning deficits. Ibid. The court then examined each of the seven Briseno evidentiary factors, see supra, at 1046 - 1047, and n. 6, concluding that those factors "weigh[ed] heavily" against finding that Moore had satisfied the relatedness requirement. 470 S.W.3d, at 526-527.
Judge Alcala dissented. Atkins and Hall, she would have held, require courts to consult current medical standards to determine intellectual disability. 470 S.W.3d, at 530. She criticized the majority for relying on manuals superseded in the medical community, id., at 530-534, 536-539, and for disregarding the habeas court's credibility determinations, id., at 535-536, 538-539. Judge Alcala questioned the legitimacy of the seven Briseno factors, recounting wide criticism of the factors and explaining how they deviate from the current medical consensus. See 470 S.W.3d, at 529-530, and n. 5. Most emphatically, she urged, the CCA "must consult the medical community's current views and standards in determining whether a defendant is intellectually disabled"; "reliance on... standard[s] no longer employed by the medical community," she objected, "is constitutionally unacceptable." Id., at 533.
We granted certiorari to determine whether the CCA's adherence to superseded medical standards and its reliance on Briseno comply with the Eighth Amendment and this Court's precedents. 578 U.S. ----, 136 S.Ct. 2407, 195 L.Ed.2d 779 (2016).
II
The Eighth Amendment prohibits "cruel and unusual punishments," and "reaffirms the duty of the government to respect the dignity of all persons," Hall, 572 U.S., at ----, 134 S.Ct., at 1992 (quoting Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551, 560, 125 S.Ct. 1183, 161 L.Ed.2d 1 (2005) ). "To enforce the Constitution's protection of human dignity," we "loo[k] to the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society," recognizing that "[t]he Eighth Amendment is not fastened to the obsolete." Hall, 572 U.S., at ----, 134 S.Ct., at 1992 (internal quotation marks omitted).
In Atkins v. Virginia, we held that the Constitution "restrict [s]... the State's power to take the life of" any intellectually disabled individual. 536 U.S., at 321, 122 S.Ct. 2242. See also Hall, 572 U.S., at ----, 134 S.Ct., at 1992-1993 ; Roper, 543 U.S., at 563-564, 125 S.Ct. 1183. Executing intellectually disabled individuals, we concluded in Atkins, serves no penological purpose, see 536 U.S., at 318-320, 122 S.Ct. 2242 ; runs up against a national consensus against the practice, see id., at 313-317, 122 S.Ct. 2242 ; and creates a "risk that the death penalty will be imposed in spite of factors which may call for a less severe penalty," id., at 320, 122 S.Ct. 2242 (internal quotation marks omitted); see id., at 320-321, 122 S.Ct. 2242.
In Hall v. Florida, we held that a State cannot refuse to entertain other evidence of intellectual disability when a defendant has an IQ score above 70. 572 U.S., at ---- - ----, 134 S.Ct., at 2000-2001. Although Atkins and Hall left to the States "the task of developing appropriate ways to enforce" the restriction on executing the intellectually disabled, 572 U.S., at ----, 134 S.Ct., at 1998 (quoting Atkins, 536 U.S., at 317, 122 S.Ct. 2242 ), States' discretion, we cautioned, is not "unfettered," 572 U.S., at ----, 134 S.Ct., at 1998. Even if "the views of medical experts" do not "dictate" a court's intellectual-disability determination, id., at ----, 134 S.Ct., at 2000, we clarified, the determination must be "informed by the medical community's diagnostic framework," id., at ---- - ----, 134 S.Ct., at 2000. We relied on the most recent (and still current) versions of the leading diagnostic manuals-the DSM-5 and AAIDD-11. Id., at ----, --- -, ---- - ----, ---- - ----, 134 S.Ct., at 1991, 1993-1994, 1994-1995, 2000-2001. Florida, we concluded, had violated the Eighth Amendment by "disregard[ing] established medical practice." Id., at ----, 134 S.Ct., at 1995. We further noted that Florida had parted ways with practices and trends in other States. Id., at ---- - ----, 134 S.Ct., at 1995-1998. Hall indicated that being informed by the medical community does not demand adherence to everything stated in the latest medical guide. But neither does our precedent license disregard of current medical standards.
III
The CCA's conclusion that Moore's IQ scores established that he is not intellectually disabled is irreconcilable with Hall. Hall instructs that, where an IQ score is close to, but above, 70, courts must account for the test's "standard error of measurement." See id., at ---- - ----, ---- - ----, 134 S.Ct., at 1995, 2001. See also Brumfield v. Cain, 576 U.S. ----, ----, 135 S.Ct. 2269, 2278, 192 L.Ed.2d 356 (2015) (relying on Hall to find unreasonable a state court's conclusion that a score of 75 precluded an intellectual-disability finding). As we explained in Hall, the standard error of measurement is "a statistical fact, a reflection of the inherent imprecision of the test itself." 572 U.S., at ----, 134 S.Ct., at 1995. "For purposes of most IQ tests," this imprecision in the testing instrument "means that an individual's score is best understood as a range of scores on either side of the recorded score... within which one may say an individual's true IQ score lies." Id., at ----, 134 S.Ct., at 1995. A test's standard error of measurement "reflects the reality that an individual's intellectual functioning cannot be reduced to a single numerical score." Ibid. See also id., at ---- - ----, 134 S.Ct., at 1995 ; DSM-5, at 37; AAIDD, User's Guide: Intellectual Disability: Definition, Classification, and Systems of Supports 22-23 (11th ed. 2012) (hereinafter AAIDD-11 User's Guide).
Moore's score of 74, adjusted for the standard error of measurement, yields a range of 69 to 79, see 470 S.W.3d, at 519, as the State's retained expert acknowledged, see Brief for Petitioner 39, n. 18; App. 185, 189-190. Because the lower end of Moore's score range falls at or below 70, the CCA had to move on to consider Moore's adaptive functioning. See Hall, 572 U.S., at ---- - ----, 134 S.Ct., at 2001 ; 470 S.W.3d, at 536 (Alcala, J., dissenting) (even if the majority correctly limited the scores it would consider, "current medical standards... would still require [the CCA] to examine whether [Moore] has adaptive deficits").
Both Texas and the dissent maintain that the CCA properly considered factors unique to Moore in disregarding the lower end of the standard-error range. Post, at 1060 - 1061; Brief for Respondent 41-42; see supra, at 1046 - 1047; 470 S.W.3d, at 519. But the presence of other sources of imprecision in administering the test to a particular individual, see post, at 1060 - 1062, and n. 3, cannot narrow the test-specific standard-error range.
In requiring the CCA to move on to consider Moore's adaptive functioning in light of his IQ evidence, we do not suggest that "the Eighth Amendment turns on the slightest numerical difference in IQ score," post, at 1061. Hall invalidated Florida's strict IQ cutoff because the cutoff took "an IQ score as final and conclusive evidence of a defendant's intellectual capacity, when experts in the field would consider other evidence." 572 U.S., at ----, 134 S.Ct., at 1995. Here, by contrast, we do not end the intellectual-disability inquiry, one way or the other, based on Moore's IQ score. Rather, in line with Hall, we require that courts continue the inquiry and consider other evidence of intellectual disability where an individual's IQ score, adjusted for the test's standard error, falls within the clinically established range for intellectual-functioning deficits.
IV
The CCA's consideration of Moore's adaptive functioning also deviated from prevailing clinical standards and from the older clinical standards the court claimed to apply.
A
In concluding that Moore did not suffer significant adaptive deficits, the CCA overemphasized Moore's perceived adaptive strengths. The CCA recited the strengths it perceived, among them, Moore lived on the streets, mowed lawns, and played pool for money. See 470 S.W.3d, at 522-523, 526-527. Moore's adaptive strengths, in the CCA's view, constituted evidence adequate to overcome the considerable objective evidence of Moore's adaptive deficits, see supra, at 1045; App. to Pet. for Cert. 180a-202a. See 470 S.W.3d, at 522-524, 526-527. But the medical community focuses the adaptive-functioning inquiry on adaptive deficits. E.g., AAIDD-11, at 47 ("significant limitations in conceptual, social, or practical adaptive skills [are] not outweighed by the potential strengths in some adaptive skills"); DSM-5, at 33, 38 (inquiry should focus on "[d]eficits in adaptive functioning"; deficits in only one of the three adaptive-skills domains suffice to show adaptive deficits); see Brumfield, 576 U.S., at ----, 135 S.Ct., at 2281 ("[I]ntellectually disabled persons may have'strengths in social or physical capabilities, strengths in some adaptive skill areas, or strengths in one aspect of an adaptive skill in which they otherwise show an overall limitation.' " (quoting AAMR, Mental Retardation: Definition, Classification, and Systems of Supports 8 (10th ed. 2002))).
In addition, the CCA stressed Moore's improved behavior in prison. 470 S.W.3d, at 522-524, 526-527. Clinicians, however, caution against reliance on adaptive strengths developed "in a controlled setting," as a prison surely is. DSM-5, at 38 ("Adaptive functioning may be difficult to assess in a controlled setting (e.g., prisons, detention centers); if possible, corroborative information reflecting functioning outside those settings should be obtained."); see AAIDD-11 User's Guide 20 (counseling against reliance on "behavior in jail or prison").
B
The CCA furthermore concluded that Moore's record of academic failure, along with the childhood abuse and suffering he endured, detracted from a determination that his intellectual and adaptive deficits were related. See 470 S.W.3d, at 488, 526 ; supra, at 1046, 1047 - 1048. Those traumatic experiences, however, count in the medical community as "risk factors " for intellectual disability. AAIDD-11, at 59-60 (emphasis added). Clinicians rely on such factors as cause to explore the prospect of intellectual disability further, not to counter the case for a disability determination. See id., at 60 ("[A]t least one or more of the risk factors [described in the manual] will be found in every case of" intellectual disability.).
The CCA also departed from clinical practice by requiring Moore to show that his adaptive deficits were not related to "a personality disorder." 470 S.W.3d, at 488 ; see id., at 526 (Moore's problems in kindergarten were "more likely cause[d]" by "emotional problems" than by intellectual disability). As mental-health professionals recognize, however, many intellectually disabled people also have other mental or physical impairments, for example, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, depressive and bipolar disorders, and autism. DSM-5, at 40 ("[c]o-occurring mental, neurodevelopmental, medical, and physical conditions are frequent in intellectual disability, with rates of some conditions (e.g., mental disorders, cerebral palsy, and epilepsy ) three to four times higher than in the general population"); see AAIDD-11, at 58-63. Coexisting conditions frequently encountered in intellectually disabled individuals have been described in clinical literature as "[c]omorbidit[ies]." DSM-5, at 40. See also Brief for AAIDD et al. as Amici Curiae 20, and n. 25. The existence of a personality disorder or mental-health issue, in short, is "not evidence that a person does not also have intellectual disability." Brief for American Psychological Association, APA, et al. as Amici Curiae 19.
C
The CCA's attachment to the seven Briseno evidentiary factors further impeded its assessment of Moore's adaptive functioning.
1
By design and in operation, the Briseno factors "creat[e] an unacceptable risk that persons with intellectual disability will be executed," Hall, 572 U.S., at ----, 134 S.Ct., at 1990. After observing that persons with "mild" intellectual disability might be treated differently under clinical standards than under Texas' capital system, the CCA defined its objective as identifying the "consensus of Texas citizens " on who "should be exempted from the death penalty." Briseno, 135 S.W.3d, at 6 (emphasis added). Mild levels of intellectual disability, although they may fall outside Texas citizens' consensus, nevertheless remain intellectual disabilities, see Hall, 572 U.S., at ---- - ----, 134 S.Ct., at 1998-1999 ; Atkins, 536 U.S., at 308, and n. 3, 122 S.Ct. 2242 ; AAIDD-11, at 153, and States may not execute anyone in "the entire category of [intellectually disabled] offenders," Roper, 543 U.S., at 563-564, 125 S.Ct. 1183 (emphasis added); see supra, at 1048.
Skeptical of what it viewed as "exceedingly subjective" medical and clinical standards, the CCA in Briseno advanced lay perceptions of intellectual disability. 135 S.W.3d, at 8 ; see supra, at 1046 - 1047, and n. 6. Briseno asks, for example, "Did those who knew the person best during the developmental stage-his family, friends, teachers, employers, authorities-think he was mentally retarded at that time, and, if so, act in accordance with that determination?" 135 S.W.3d, at 8. Addressing that question here, the CCA referred to Moore's education in "normal classrooms during his school career," his father's reactions to his academic challenges, and his sister's perceptions of Moore's intellectual abilities. 470 S.W.3d, at 526-527. But the medical profession has endeavored to counter lay stereotypes of the intellectually disabled. See AAIDD-11 User's Guide 25-27; Brief for AAIDD et al. as Amici Curiae 9-14, and nn. 11-15. Those stereotypes, much more than medical and clinical appraisals, should spark skepticism.
2
The Briseno factors are an outlier, in comparison both to other States' handling of intellectual-disability pleas and to Texas' own practices in other contexts. See Hall, 572 U.S., at ----, 134 S.Ct., at 1996 (consensus in the States provides "objective indicia of society's standards in the context of the Eighth Amendment" (internal quotation marks omitted)). No state legislature has approved the use of the Briseno factors or anything similar. In the 12 years since Texas adopted the factors, only one other state high court and one state intermediate appellate court have authorized their use. See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Bracey, 632 Pa. 75, 100-103, 117 A.3d 270, 286-287 (2015) ; Howell v. State, 2011 WL 2420378, *18 (Tenn.Crim.App., June 14, 2011).
Indeed, Texas itself does not follow Briseno in contexts other than the death penalty. See Brief for Constitution Project as Amicus Curiae 14-17. For example, the relatedness requirement Texas defends here, see supra, at 1046 - 1047, is conspicuously absent from the standards the State uses to assess students for intellectual disabilities. See 19 Tex. Admin. Code § 89.1040(c)(5) (2015). And even within Texas' criminal-justice system, the State requires the intellectual-disability diagnoses of juveniles to be based on "the latest edition of the DSM." 37 Tex. Admin. Code § 380.8751(e)(3) (2016). Texas cannot satisfactorily explain why it applies current medical standards for diagnosing intellectual disability in other contexts, yet clings to superseded standards when an individual's life is at stake.
V
As noted supra, at 1048, States have some flexibility, but not "unfettered discretion,"
in enforcing Atkins'holding. Hall, 572 U.S., at ----, 134 S.Ct., at 1998. "If the States were to have complete autonomy to define intellectual disability as they wished," we have observed, "Atkins could become a nullity, and the Eighth Amendment's protection of human dignity would not become a reality." Id., at ---- - ----, 134 S.Ct., at 1999.
The medical community's current standards supply one constraint on States' leeway in this area. Reflecting improved understanding over time, see DSM-5, at 7; AAIDD-11, at xiv-xv, current manuals offer "the best available description of how mental disorders are expressed and can be recognized by trained clinicians," DSM-5, at xli. See also Hall, 572 U.S., at ----, ----, ----, ---- - ----, ---- - ----, 134 S.Ct., at 1990, 1991, 1993-1994, 1994-1996 (employing current clinical standards); Atkins, 536 U.S., at 308, n. 3, 317, n. 22, 122 S.Ct. 2242 (relying on then-current standards).
In Moore's case, the habeas court applied current medical standards in concluding that Moore is intellectually disabled and therefore ineligible for the death penalty. See, e.g., App. to Pet. for Cert. 150a-151a, 200a-203a. The CCA, however, faulted the habeas court for "disregarding [the CCA's] case law and employing the definition of intellectual disability presently used by the AAIDD." 470 S.W.3d, at 486. The CCA instead fastened its intellectual-disability determination to "the AAMR's 1992 definition of intellectual disability that [it] adopted in Briseno for Atkins claims presented in Texas death-penalty cases." Ibid. By rejecting the habeas court's application of medical guidance and clinging to the standard it laid out in Briseno, including the wholly nonclinical Briseno factors, the CCA failed adequately to inform itself of the "medical community's diagnostic framework," Hall, 572 U.S., at ---- - ----, 134 S.Ct., at 2000. Because Briseno pervasively infected the CCA's analysis, the decision of that court cannot stand.
* * *
For the reasons stated, the judgment of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals is vacated, and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Chief Justice ROBERTS, with whom Justice THOMAS and Justice ALITO join, dissenting.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA) concluded that Bobby James Moore was not intellectually disabled so as to be exempt from the death penalty under Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304, 122 S.Ct. 2242, 153 L.Ed.2d 335 (2002). It reached that conclusion based on its findings that he had failed to establish either significantly subaverage intellectual functioning or related significant deficits in adaptive behavior. The latter conclusion was based, in part, on the CCA's analysis of a set of seven "evidentiary factors" from Ex parte Briseno, 135 S.W.3d 1, 8 (Tex.Crim.App.2004). I agree with the Court today that those factors are an unacceptable method of enforcing the guarantee of Atkins, and that the CCA therefore erred in using them to analyze adaptive deficits. But I do not agree that the CCA erred as to Moore's intellectual functioning. Because the CCA's determination on that ground is an independent basis for its judgment, I would affirm the decision below.
My broader concern with today's opinion, however
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Marshall
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Montana, like many other States, imposes a severance tax on mineral production in the State. In this appeal, we consider whether the tax Montana levies on each ton of coal mined in the State, Mont. Code Ann. § 15-35-101 et seq. (1979), violates the Commerce and Supremacy Clauses of the United States Constitution.
I
Buried beneath Montana are large deposits of low-sulfur coal, most of it on federal land. Since 1921, Montana has imposed a severance tax on the output of Montana coal mines, including coal mined on federal land. After commissioning a study of coal production taxes in 1974, see House Resolutions Nos. 45 and 93, Senate Resolution No. 83, 1974 Mont. Laws 1619-1620, 1653-1654, 1683-1684 (Mar. 14 and 16, 1974); Montana Legislative Council, Fossil Fuel Taxation (1974), in 1975, the Montana Legislature enacted the tax schedule at issue in this case. Mont. Code Ann. § 15-35-103 (1979). The tax is levied at varying rates depending on the value, energy content, and method of extraction of the coal, and may equal, at a maximum, 30% of the “contract sales price.” Under the terms of a 1976 amendment to the Montana Constitution, after December 31, 1979, at least 50% of the revenues generated by the tax must be paid into a permanent trust fund, the principal of which may be appropriated only by a vote of three-fourths of the members of each house of the legislature. Mont. Const., Art. IX, § 5.
Appellants, 4 Montana coal producers and 11 of their out-of-state utility company customers, filed these suits in Montana state court in 1978. They sought refunds of over $5.4 million in severance taxes paid under protest, a declaration that the tax is invalid under the Supremacy and Commerce Clauses, and an injunction against further collection of the tax. Without receiving any evidence, the court upheld the tax and dismissed the complaints.
On appeal, the Montana Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the trial court. -Mont.-, 615 P. 2d 847 (1980). The Supreme Court held that the tax is not subject to scrutiny under the Commerce Clause because it is imposed on the severance of coal, which the court characterized as an intrastate activity preceding entry of the coal into interstate commerce. In this regard, the Montana court relied on this Court’s decisions in Heisler v. Thomas Colliery Co., 260 U. S. 245 (1922), Oliver Iron Mining Co. v. Lord, 262 U. S. 172 (1923), and Hope Natural Gas Co. v. Hall, 274 U. S. 284 (1927), which employed similar reasoning in upholding state severance taxes against Commerce Clause challenges. As an alternative basis for its resolution of the Commerce Clause issue, the Montana court held, as a matter of law, that the tax survives scrutiny under the four-part test articulated by this Court in Complete Auto Transit, Inc. v. Brady, 430 U. S. 274 (1977). The Montana court also rejected appellants’ Supremacy Clause challenge, concluding that appellants had failed to show that the Montana tax conflicts with any federal statute.
We noted probable jurisdiction, 449 TJ. S. 1033 (1980), to consider the important issues raised. We now affirm.
II
A
As an initial matter, appellants assert that the Montana Supreme Court erred in concluding that the Montana tax is not subject to the strictures of the Commerce Clause. In appellants’ view, Heisler’s “mechanical” approach, which looks to whether a state tax is levied on goods prior to their entry into interstate commerce, no longer accurately reflects the law. Appellants contend that the correct analysis focuses on whether the challenged tax substantially affects interstate commerce, in which case it must be scrutinized under the Complete Auto Transit test.
We agree that Heisler’s reasoning has been undermined by more recent cases. The Heisler analysis evolved at a time when the Commerce Clause was thought to prohibit the States from imposing any direct taxes on interstate commerce. See, e. g., Helson & Randolph v. Kentucky, 279 U. S. 245, 250-252 (1929); Ozark Pipe Line Corp. v. Monier, 266 U. S. 555, 562 (1925). Consequently, the distinction between intrastate activities and interstate commerce was crucial to protecting the States’ taxing power.
The Court has, however, long since rejected any suggestion that a state tax or regulation affecting interstate commerce is immune from Commerce Clause scrutiny because it attaches only to a “local” or intrastate activity. See Hunt v. Washington Apple Advertising Comm’n, 432 U. S. 333, 350 (1977); Pike v. Bruce Church, Inc., 397 U. S. 137, 141-142 (1970); Nippert v. Richmond, 327 U. S. 416, 423-424 (1946). Correspondingly, the Court has rejected the notion that state taxes levied on interstate commerce are per se invalid. See, e. g., Washington Revenue Dept. v. Association of Wash. Stevedoring Cos., 435 U. S. 734 (1978); Complete Auto Transit, Inc. v. Brady, supra. In reviewing Commerce Clause challenges to state taxes, our goal has instead been to “establish a consistent and rational method of inquiry” focusing on “the practical effect of a challenged tax.” Mobil Oil Corp. v. Commissioner of Taxes, 445 U. S. 425, 443 (1980). See Moorman Mfg. Co. v. Bair, 437 U. S. 267, 276-281 (1978); Washington Revenue Dept. v. Association of Wash. Stevedor ing Cos., supra, at 743-751; Complete Auto Transit, Inc. v. Brady, supra, at 277-279. We conclude that the same “practical” analysis should apply in reviewing Commerce Clause challenges to state severance taxes.
In the first place, there is no real distinction — in terms of economic effects — between severance taxes and other types of state taxes that have been subjected to Commerce Clause scrutiny. See, e. g., Michigan-Wisconsin Pipe Line Co. v. Calvert, 347 U. S. 157 (1954); Joseph v. Carter & Weekes Stevedoring Co., 330 U. S. 422 (1947), Puget Sound Stevedoring Co. v. State Tax Comm’n, 302 U. S. 90 (1937), both overruled in Washington Revenue Dept. v. Association of Wash. Stevedoring Cos., supra. State taxes levied on a “local” activity preceding entry of the goods into interstate commerce may substantially affect interstate commerce, and this effect is the proper focus of Commerce Clause inquiry. See Mobil Oil Corp. v. Commissioner of Taxes, supra, at 443. Second, this Court has acknowledged that “a State has a significant interest in exacting from interstate commerce its fair share of the cost of state government,” Washington Revenue Dept. v. Association of Wash. Stevedoring Cos., supra, at 748. As the Court has stated, “ ‘[e]ven interstate business must pay its way.’ ” Western Live Stock v. Bureau of Revenue, 303 U. S. 250, 254 (1938), quoting Postal Telegraph-Cable Co. v. Richmond, 249 U. S. 252, 259 (1919). Consequently, the Heisler Court’s concern that a loss of state taxing authority would be an inevitable result of subjecting taxes on “local” activities to Commerce Clause scrutiny is no longer tenable.
We therefore hold that a state severance tax is not immunized from Commerce Clause scrutiny by a claim that the tax is imposed on goods prior to their entry into the stream of interstate commerce. Any contrary statements in Heisler and its progeny are disapproved. We agree with appellants that the Montana tax must be evaluated under Complete Auto Transit’s four-part test. Under that test, a state tax does not offend the Commerce Clause if it “is applied to an activity with a substantial nexus with the taxing State, is fairly apportioned, does not discriminate against interstate commerce, and is fairly related to services provided by the State.” 430 U. S., at 279.
B
Appellants do not dispute that the Montana tax satisfies the first two prongs of the Complete Auto Transit test. As the Montana Supreme Court noted, “there can be no argument here that a substantial, in fact, the only nexus of the severance of coal is established in Montana.” -Mont., at-, 615 P. 2d, at 855. Nor is there any question here regarding apportionment or potential multiple taxation, for as the state court observed, “the severance can occur in no other state” and “no other state can tax the severance.” Ibid. Appellants do contend, however, that the Montana tax is invalid under the third and fourth prongs of the Complete Auto Transit test.
Appellants assert that the Montana tax “discriminate [s] against interstate commerce” because 90% of Montana coal is shipped to other States under contracts that shift the tax burden primarily to non-Montana utility companies and thus to citizens of other States. But the Montana tax is computed at the same rate regardless of the final destination of the coal, and there is no suggestion here that the tax is administered in a manner that departs from this evenhanded formula. We are not, therefore, confronted here with the type of differential tax treatment of interstate and intrastate commerce that the Court has found in other “discrimination” cases. See, e. g., Maryland v. Louisiana, 451 U. S. 725 (1981); Boston Stock Exchange v. State Tax Comm’n, 429 U. S. 318 (1977); cf. Lewis v. BT Investment Managers, Inc., 447 U. S. 27 (1980); Philadelphia v. New Jersey, 437 U. S. 617 (1978).
Instead, the gravamen of appellants’ claim is that a state tax must be considered discriminatory for purposes of the Commerce Clause if the tax burden is borne primarily by out-of-state consumers. Appellants do not suggest that this assertion is based on any of this Court’s prior discriminatory tax cases. In fact, a similar claim was considered and rejected in Heisler. There, it was argued that Pennsylvania had a virtual monopoly of anthracite coal and that, because 80% of the coal was shipped out of State, the tax discriminated against and impermissibly burdened interstate commerce. 260 U. S., at 251-253. The Court, however, dismissed these factors as “adventitious considerations.” Id., at 259. We share the Heisler Court’s misgivings about judging the validity of a state tax by assessing the State’s “monopoly” position or its “exportation” of the tax burden out of State.
The premise of our discrimination cases is that “[t]he very purpose of the Commerce Clause was to create an area of free trade among the several States.” McLeod v. J. E. Dilworth Co., 322 U. S. 327, 330 (1944). See Hunt v. Washington Apple Advertising Comm’n, 432 U. S., at 350; Boston Stock Exchange v. State Tax Comm’n, supra, at 328. Under such a regime, the borders between the States are essentially irrelevant. As the Court stated in West v. Kansas Natural Gas Co., 221 U. S. 229, 255 (1911), “‘in matters of foreign and interstate commerce there are no state lines.’ ” See Boston Stock Exchange v. State Tax Comm’n, supra, at 331-332. Consequently., to accept appellants’ theory and invalidate the Montana tax solely because most of Montana’s coal is shipped across the very state borders that ordinarily are to be considered irrelevant would require a significant and, in our view, unwarranted departure from the rationale of our prior discrimination cases.
Furthermore, appellants’ assertion that Montana may not “exploit” its “monopoly” position by exporting tax burdens to other States, cannot rest on a claim that there is need to protect the out-of-state Consumers of Montana coal from discriminatory tax treatment. As previously noted, there is no real discrimination in this case; the tax burden is borne according to the amount of coal consumed and not according to any distinction between in-state and out-of-state consumers. Rather, appellants assume that the Commerce Clause gives residents of one State a right of access at “reasonable” prices to resources located in another State that is richly endowed with such resources, without regard to whether and on what terms residents of the resource-rich State have access to the resources. We are not convinced that the Commerce Clause, of its own force, gives the residents of one State the right to control in this fashion the terms of resource development and depletion.in a sister State. Cf. Philadelphia v. New Jersey, supra, at 626.
In any event, appellants’ discrimination theory ultimately collapses into their claim that the Montana tax is invalid under the fourth prong of the Complete Auto Transit test: that the tax is not “fairly related to the services provided by the State.” 430 U. S., at 279. Because appellants concede that Montana may impose some severance tax on coal mined in the State, the only remaining foundation for their discrimination theory is a claim that the tax burden borne by the out-of-state consumers of Montana coal is excessive. This is, of course, merely a variant of appellants’ assertion that the Montana tax does not satisfy the “fairly related” prong of the Complete Auto Transit test, and it is to this contention that we now turn.
Appellants argue that they are entitled to an opportunity to prove that the amount collected under the Montana tax is not fairly related to the additional costs the State incurs because of coal mining. Thus, appellants’ objection is to the rate of the Montana tax, and even then, their only complaint is that the amount the State receives in taxes far exceeds the value of the services provided to the coal mining industry. In objecting to the tax on this ground, appellants may be assuming that the Montana tax is, in fact, intended to reimburse the State for the cost of specific services furnished to the coal mining industry. Alternatively, appellants could be arguing that a State’s power to tax an activity connected to interstate commerce cannot exceed the value of the services specifically provided to the activity. Either way, the premise of appellants’ argument is invalid. Furthermore, appellants have completely misunderstood the nature of the inquiry under the fourth prong of the Complete Auto Transit test.
The Montana Supreme Court held that the coal severance tax is “imposed for the general support of the government.” -Mont., at-, 615 P. 2d, at 856, and we have no reason to question this characterization of the Montana tax as a general revenue tax. Consequently, in reviewing appellants’ contentions, we put to one side those cases in which the Court reviewed challenges to “user” fees or “taxes” that were designed and defended as a specific charge imposed by the State for the use of state-owned or state-provided transportation or other facilities and services. See, e. g., Evans ville-Vanderburgh Airport Authority Dist. v. Delta Airlines, Inc., 405 U. S. 707 (1972); Clark v. Paul Cray, Inc., 306 U. S. 583 (1939); Ingels v. Morf, 300 U. S. 290 (1937).
This Court has indicated that States have considerable latitude in imposing general revenue taxes. The Court has, for example, consistently rejected claims that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment stands as a barrier against taxes that are “unreasonable” or “unduly burdensome.” See, e. g., Pittsburgh v. Alco Parking Corp., 417 U. S. 369 (1974); Magnano Co. v. Hamilton, 292 U. S. 40 (1934); Alaska Fish Salting & By-Products Co. v. Smith, 255 U. S. 44 (1921). Moreover, there is no requirement under the Due Process Clause that the amount of general revenue taxes collected from a particular activity must be reasonably related to the value of the services provided to the activity. Instead, our consistent rule has been:
“Nothing is more familiar in taxation than the imposition of a tax upon a class or upon individuals who enjoy no direct benefit from its expenditure, and who are not responsible for the condition to be remedied.
“A tax is not an assessment of benefits. It is, as we have said, a means of distributing the burden of the cost of government. The only benefit to which the taxpayer is constitutionally entitled is that derived from his enjoyment of the privileges of living in an organized society, established and safeguarded by the devotion of taxes to public purposes. Any other view would preclude the levying of taxes except as they are used to compensate for the burden on those who pay them, and would involve abandonment of the most fundamental principle of government — that it exists primarily to provide for the common good.” Carmichael v. Southern Coal & Coke Co., 301 U. S. 495, 521-523 (1937) (citations and footnote omitted).
See St. Louis & S. W. R. Co. v. Nattin, 277 U. S. 157, 159 (1928); Thomas v. Gay, 169 U. S. 264, 280 (1898).
There is no reason to suppose that this latitude afforded the States under the Due Process Clause is somehow divested by the Commerce Clause merely because the taxed activity has some connection to interstate commerce; particularly when the tax is levied on an activity conducted within the State. “The exploitation by foreign corporations [or consumers] of intrastate opportunities under the protection and encouragement of local government offers a basis for taxation as unrestricted as that for domestic corporations.” Ford Motor Co. v. Beauchamp, 308 U. S. 331, 334-335 (1939); see also Ott v. Mississippi Valley Barge Line Co., 336 U. S. 169 (1949). To accept appellants’ apparent suggestion that the Commerce Clause prohibits the States from requiring an activity connected to interstate commerce to contribute to the general cost of providing governmental services, as distinct from those costs attributable to the taxed activity, would place such commerce in a privileged position. But as we recently reiterated, “‘[i]t was not the purpose of the commerce clause to relieve those engaged in interstate commerce from their just share of state tax burden even though it increases the cost of doing business.’ ” Colonial Pipeline Co. v. Traigle, 421 U. S. 100, 108 (1975), quoting Western Live Stock v. Bureau of Revenue, 303 U. S., at 254. The “just share of state tax burden” includes sharing in the cost of providing “police and fire protection, the benefit of a trained work force, and The advantages of a civilized society.’.” Exxon Corp. v. Wisconsin Dept. of Revenue, 447 U. S. 207, 228 (1980), quoting Japan Line, Ltd. v. County of Los Angeles, 441 U. S. 434, 445 (1979). See Washington Revenue Dept. v. Association of Wash. Stevedoring Cos., 435 U. S., at 750-751; id., at 764 (Powell, J., concurring in part and concurring in result); General Motors Corp. v. Washington, 377 U. S. 436, 440-441 (1964).
Furthermore, there can be no question that Montana may constitutionally raise general revenue by imposing a'severance tax on coal mined in the State. The entire value of the coal, before transportation, originates in the State, and mining of the coal depletes the resource base and wealth of the State, thereby diminishing a future source of taxes and economic activity. Cf. Maryland v. Louisiana, 451 U. S., at 758-759. In many respects, a severance tax is like a real property tax, which has never been doubted as a legitimate means of raising revenue by the situs State (quite apart from the right of that or any other State to tax income derived from use of the property). See, e. g., Old Dominion S.S. Co. v. Virginia, 198 U. S. 299 (1905); Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Missouri ex rel. Gottlieb, 190 U. S. 412 (1903); Postal Telegraph Cable Co. v. Adams, 155 U. S. 688 (1895). When, as here, a general revenue tax does not discriminate against interstate commerce and is apportioned to activities occurring within the State, the State “is free to pursue its own fiscal policies, unembarrassed by the Constitution, if by the practical operation of a tax the state has exerted its power in relation to opportunities which it has given, to protection which it has afforded, to benefits which it has conferred by the fact of being an orderly, civilized society.” Wisconsin v. J. C. Penney Co., 311 U. S. 435, 444 (1940). As we explained in General Motors Corp. v. Washington, supra, at 440-441:
“[T]he validity of the tax rests upon whether the State is exacting a constitutionally fair demand for that aspect of interstate commerce to which it bears a special relation. For our purposes, the decisive issue turns on the operating incidence of the tax. In other words, the question is whether the State has exerted its power in proper proportion to appellant’s activities within the State and to appellant’s consequent enjoyment of the opportunities and protections which the State has afforded.... As was said in Wisconsin v. J. C. Penney Co., 311 U. S. 435, 444 (1940), ‘[t]he simple but controlling question is whether the state has given anything for which it can ask return.’ ”
The relevant inquiry under the fourth prong of the Complete Auto Transit test is not, as appellants suggest, the amount of the tax or the value of the benefits allegedly bestowed as measured by the costs the State incurs on account of the taxpayer’s activities. Rather, the test is closely connected to the first prong of the Complete Auto Transit test. Under this threshold test, the interstate business must have a substantial nexus with the State before any tax may be levied on it. See National Bellas Hess, Inc. v. Illinois Revenue Dept., 386 U. S. 753 (1967). Beyond that threshold requirement, the fourth prong of the Complete Auto Transit test imposes the additional limitation that the measure of the tax must be reasonably related to the extent of the contact, since it is the activities or presence of the taxpayer in the State that may properly be made to bear a “just share of state tax burden,” Western Live Stock v. Bureau of Revenue, 303 U. S., at 254. See National Geographic Society v. California Board of Equalization, 430 U. S. 551 (1977); Standard Pressed Steel Co. v. Washington Revenue Dept., 419 U. S. 560 (1975). As the Court explained in Wisconsin v. J. C. Penney Co., supra, at 446 (emphasis added), “the incidence of the tax as well as its measure [must be] tied to the earnings which the State... has made possible, insofar as government is the prerequisite for the fruits of civilization for which, as Mr. Justice Holmes was fond of saying, we pay taxes.”
Against this background, we have little difficulty concluding that the Montana tax satisfies the fourth prong of the Complete Auto Transit test. The “operating incidence” of the tax, see General Motors Corp. v. Washington, 377 U. S., at 440-441, is on the mining of coal within Montana. Because it is measured as a percentage of the value of the coal taken, the Montana tax is in “proper proportion” to appellants’ activities within the State and, therefore, to their “consequent enjoyment of the opportunities and protections which the State has afforded” in connection with those activities. Id., at 441. Cf. Nippert v. Richmond, 327 U. S., at 427. When a tax is assessed in proportion to a taxpayer’s activities or presence in a State, the taxpayer is shouldering its fair share of supporting the State’s provision of “police and fire protection, the benefit of a trained work force, and 'the advantages of a civilized society.’ ” Exxon Corp. v. Wisconsin Dept. of Revenue, 447 U. S., at 228, quoting Japan Line, Ltd. v. County of Los Angeles, 441 U. S., at 445.
Appellants argue, however, that the fourth prong of the Complete Auto Transit test must be construed as requiring a factual inquiry into the relationship between the revenues generated by a tax and costs incurred on account of the taxed activity, in order to provide a mechanism for judicial disapproval under the Commerce Clause of state taxes that are excessive. This assertion reveals that appellants labor under a misconception about a court’s role in cases such as this. The simple fact is that the appropriate level or rate of taxation is essentially a matter for legislative, and not judicial, resolution. See Helson & Randolph v. Kentucky, 279 U. S. 245, 252 (1929); cf. Pittsburgh v. Alco Parking Corp., 417 U. S. 369 (1974); Magnano Co. v. Hamilton, 292 U. S. 40 (1934). In essence, appellants ask this Court to prescribe a test for the validity of state taxes that would require state and federal courts, as a matter of federal constitutional law, to calculate acceptable rates or levels of taxation of activities that are conceded to be legitimate subjects of taxation. This we decline to do.
In the first place, it is doubtful whether any legal test could adequately reflect the numerous and competing economic, geographic, demographic, social, and political considerations that must inform a decision about an acceptable rate or level of state taxation, and yet be reasonably capable of application in a wide variety of individual cases. But even apart from the difficulty of the judicial undertaking, the nature of the factfinding and judgment that would be required of the courts merely reinforces the conclusion that questions about the appropriate level of state taxes must be resolved through the political process. Under our federal system, the determination is to be made by state legislatures in the first instance and, if necessary, by Congress, when particular state taxes are thought to be contrary to federal interests. Cf. Mobil Oil Corp. v. Commissioner of Taxes, 445 U. S., at 448-449; Moorman Mfg. Co. v. Bair, 437 U. S., at 280.
Furthermore, the reference in the cases to police and fire protection and other advantages of civilized society is not, as appellants suggest, a disingenuous incantation designed to avoid a more searching inquiry into the relationship between the value of the benefits conferred on the taxpayer and the amount of taxes it pays. Rather, when the measure of a tax is reasonably related to the taxpayer’s activities or presence in the State — from which it derives some benefit such as the substantial privilege of mining coal — the taxpayer will realize, in proper proportion to the taxes it pays, “[t]he only benefit to which the taxpayer is constitutionally entitled...[:] that derived from his enjoyment of the privileges of living in an organized society, established and safeguarded by the devotion of taxes to public purposes.” Carmichael v. Southern Coal & Coke Co., 301 U. S., at 522. Correspondingly, when the measure of a tax bears no relationship to the taxpayers’ presence or activities in a State, a court may properly conclude under the fourth prong of the Complete Auto Transit test that the State is imposing an undue burden on interstate commerce. See Nippert v. Richmond, 327 U. S., at 427; cf. Michigan-Wisconsin Pipe Line Co. v. Calvert, 347 U. S. 157 (1954). We are satisfied that the Montana tax, assessed under a formula that relates the tax liability to the value of appellant coal producers’ activities within the State, comports with the requirements of the Complete Auto Transit test. We therefore turn to appellants’ contention that the tax is invalid under the Supremacy Clause.
Ill
A
Appellants contend that the Montana tax, as applied to mining of federally owned coal, is invalid under the Supremacy Clause because it “substantially frustrates” the purposes of the Mineral Lands Leasing Act of 1920, ch. 85, 41 Stat. 437, 30 U. S. C. § 181 et seg. (1976 ed. and Supp. Ill) (1920 Act), as amended by the Federal Coal Leasing Amendments Act of 1975, Pub. L. 94-377, 90 Stat. 1083 (1975 Amendments). Appellants argue that under the 1920 Act, the “economic rents” attributable to the mining of coal on federal land — i. e., the difference between the cost of production (including a reasonable profit) and the market price of the coal— are to be captured by the Federal Government in the form of royalty payments from federal lessees. The payments thus received are then to be divided between the States and the Federal Government according to a formula prescribed by the Act. In appellants’ view, the Montana tax seriously undercuts and disrupts the 1920 Act’s division of revenues between the Federal and State Governments by appropriating directly to Montana a major portion of the “economic rents.” Appellants contend the Montana tax will alter the statutory scheme by causing potential coal producers to reduce the amount they are willing to bid in royalties on federal leases.
As an initial matter, we note that this argument rests on a factual premise — that the principal effect of the tax is to shift a major portion of the relatively fixed “economic rents” attributable to the extraction of federally owned coal from the Federal Treasury to the State of Montana — that appears to be inconsistent with the premise of appellants’ Commerce Clause claims. In pressing their Commerce Clause arguments, appellants assert that the Montana tax increases the cost of Montana coal, thereby increasing the total amount of “economic rents,” and that the burden of the tax is borne by out-of-state consumers, not the Federal Treasury. But even assuming that the Montana tax may reduce royalty payments to the Federal Government under leases executed in Montana, this fact alone hardly demonstrates that the tax is inconsistent with the 1920 Act. Indeed, appellants’ argu-ment is substantially undermined by the fact that in § 32 of the 1920 Act, 41 Stat. 450, 30 U. S. C. § 189, Congress expressly authorized the States to impose severance taxes on federal lessees without imposing any limits on the amount of such taxes. Section 32, as set forth in 30 U. S. C. § 189, provides in pertinent part:
“Nothing in this chapter shall be construed or held to affect the rights of the States or other local authority to exercise any rights which they may have, including the right to levy and collect taxes upon improvements, output of mines, or other rights, property, or assets of any lessee of the United States.”
This Court had occasion to construe § 32 soon after it was enacted. The Court explained:
“Congress... meant by the proviso to say in effect that, although the act deals with the letting of public lands and the relations of the [federal] government to the lessees thereof, nothing in it shall be so construed as to affect the right of the states, in respect of such private persons and corporations, to levy and collect taxes as though the government were not concerned....
“We think the proviso plainly discloses the intention of Congress that persons and corporations contracting with the United States under the act, should not, for that reason, he exempt from any form of state taxation other wise lawful.” Mid-Northern Oil Co. v. Walker, 268 U. S. 45, 48-50 (1925) (emphasis added).
It necessarily follows that if the Montana tax is “otherwise lawful,” the 1920 Act does not forbid it.
Appellants contend that the Montana tax is not “otherwise lawful” because it conflicts with the very purpose of the 1920 Act. We do not agree. There is nothing in the language or legislative history of either the 1920 Act or the 1975 Amendments to support appellants’ assertion that Congress intended to maximize and capture all “economic rents” from the mining of federal coal, and then to distribute the proceeds in accordance with the statutory formula. The House Report on the 1975 Amendments, for example, speaks only in terms of a congressional intent to secure a “fair return to the public.” H. R. Rep. No. 94-681, pp. 17-18 (1975). Moreover, appellants’ argument proves too much. By definition, any state taxation of federal lessees reduces the “economic rents” accruing to the Federal Government, and appellants’ argument would preclude any such taxes despite the explicit grant of taxing authority to the States by § 32. Finally, appellants’ contention necessarily depends on inferences to be drawn from §§ 7 and 35 of the 1920 Act, 30 U. S. C. §§ 207 and 191, which, as amended, prescribe the statutory formula for the division of the payments received by the Federal Government. See Complaint ¶¶ 38-41, J. S. App. 57a-58a. Yet § 32 of the 1920 Act, as set forth in 30 U. S. C. § 189, states that “[n]othing in this chapter” — which includes §§ 7 and 35 — “shall be construed or held to affect the rights of the States... to levy and collect taxes upon... output of mines... of any lessee of the United States.” And if, as the Court has held, the States may “levy and collect taxes as though the [federal] government were not concerned,” Mid-Northern Oil Co. v. Walker, supra, at 49, the manner in which the Federal Government collects receipts from its lessees and then shares them with the States has no bearing on the validity of a state tax. We therefore reject appellants’ contention that the Montana tax must be invalidated as inconsistent with the Mineral Lands Leasing Act.
B
The final issue we must consider is appellants’ assertion that the Montana tax is unconstitutional because it substantially frustrates national energy policies, reflected in several federal statutes, encouraging the production and use of coal, particularly low-sulfur coal such as is found in Montana. Appellants insist that they are entitled to a hearing to explore the contours of these national policies and to adduce evidence supporting their claim that the Montana tax substantially frustrates and impairs the policies.
We cannot quarrel with appellants’ recitation of federal statutes encouraging the use of coal. Appellants correctly note that § 2 (6) of the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975, 89 Stat. 874, 42 U. S. C. § 6201 (6), declares that one of the Act’s purposes is “to reduce the demand for petroleum products and natural gas through programs designed to provide greater availability and use of this Nation’s abundant coal resources.”
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | H | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Chief Justice Vinson
delivered the opinion of the Court.
In these cases, the constitutionality of labor legislation of the State of Wisconsin known as the Public Utility Anti-Strike Law, has been drawn in question.
Petitioners in No. 329 are the union and its officers who represent the employees of the Milwaukee Electric Railway and Transport Company of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, for collective-bargaining purposes. For many years, the transit workers entered into collective-bargaining agreements with the transit company without resorting to strike. In 1948, however, the collective agreement was terminated when the parties were unable to agree on wages, hours and working conditions and the transit workers’ union called a strike to enforce union demands. The respondent Wisconsin Employment Relations Board secured immediately an ex parte order from a State Circuit Court restraining the strike and, in compliance with that order, the union postponed its strike. Thereafter, the same Circuit Court entered a judgment under which petitioners are “perpetually restrained and enjoined from calling a strike . . . which would cause an interruption of the passenger service of the [transit company].” The Wisconsin Supreme Court affirmed the judgment, 257 Wis. 43, 42 N. W. 2d 471 (1950), and we granted certiorari, 340 U. S. 874 (1950), to review the important questions decided below.
Petitioners in No. 438 are the union and its officers who represent employees of the Milwaukee Gas Light Company and its subsidiary, the Milwaukee Solvay Coke Company, both of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, pursuant to a certification of the National Labor Relations Board. In 1949, the collective agreement between petitioners and the gas company was terminated and, upon failure of further bargaining and conciliation to resolve the dispute, a strike was called and the gas workers left their jobs. Respondent Wisconsin Employment Relations Board obtained forthwith an ex parte restraining order from a State Circuit Court requiring that petitioners “absolutely desist and refrain from calling a strike [or] going out on strike . . . which would cause an interruption of the service of the [gas company]” and ordering petitioners to “take immediate steps to notify all employes called out on strike to resume service forthwith.” Although the strike was settled soon thereafter, the Circuit Court found that petitioners had not obeyed the restraining order and entered a judgment of contempt, imposing fines of $250 upon each petitioner. The Wisconsin Supreme Court affirmed that judgment, 258 Wis. 1, 44 N. W. 2d 547 (1950), and we granted certiorari, 340 U. S. 903 (1950), since this case raises the same substantial questions as those before the Court in No. 329.
The injunctions were issued in each case upon the complaint of the Wisconsin Employment Relations Board, charged by statute with the enforcement of the Public Utility Anti-Strike Law. That act vests in the state circuit courts jurisdiction to enjoin violations of the act, Wis. Stat., 1949, § 111.63, the substantive provision involved in these cases providing as follows:
“It shall be unlawful for any group of employes of a public utility employer acting in concert to call a strike or to go out on strike, or to cause any work stoppage or slowdown which would cause an interruption of an essential service; it also shall be unlawful for any public utility employer to lock out his employes when such action would cause an interruption of essential service; and it shall be unlawful for any person or persons to instigate, to induce, to conspire with, or to encourage any other person or persons to engage in any strike or lockout or slowdown or work stoppage which would cause an interruption of an essential service. Any violation of this section by any member of a group of employes acting in concert or by any employer or by any officer of an employer acting for such employer, or by any other individual, shall constitute a misdemeanor.” Wis. Stat., 1949, § 111.62.
This provision is part of a statutory pattern designed to become effective whenever collective bargaining results in an “impasse and stalemate” likely to cause interruption of the supply of an “essential public utility service,” Wis. Stat., 1949, § 111.50, that service including water, heat, gas, electric power, public passenger transportation and communications. Id., § 111.51. Whenever such an “impasse” occurs, the Wisconsin Employment Relations Board is empowered to appoint a conciliator to meet with the parties in an effort to settle the dispute. Id., § 111.54. In the event of a failure of conciliation, the Board is directed to select arbitrators who shall “hear and determine” the dispute. Id., § 111.55. The act establishes standards to govern the decision of the arbitrators, id., §§ 111.57-111.58, and provides that the order of the arbitrators shall be final and binding upon the parties, id., § 111.59, subject to judicial review, id., § 111.60. In summary, the act substitutes arbitration upon order of the Board for collective bargaining whenever an impasse is reached in the bargaining process. And, to insure conformity with the statutory scheme, Wisconsin denies to utility employees the right to strike.
In upholding the constitutionality of the Public Utility Anti-Strike Act, the Wisconsin Supreme Court stressed the importance of utility service to the public welfare and the plenary power which a state is accustomed to exercise over such enterprises. Petitioners’ claim that the Wisconsin law conflicts with federal legislation enacted under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution (Art. I, § 8) was overruled, as were petitioners’ contentions that the Wisconsin Act violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and the Thirteenth Amendment. Respondents controvert each of these contentions and, apart from the questions of res judicata discussed in No. 302, decided this day, post, p. 411, raise no other grounds in support of the judgments below. We deal only with the question of conflicting federal legislation as we have found that issue dispositive of both cases.
First. We have recently examined the extent to which Congress has regulated peaceful strikes for higher wages in industries affecting commerce. Automobile Workers v. O’Brien, 339 U. S. 454 (1950). We noted that Congress, in § 7 of the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, as amended by the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947, expressly safeguarded for employees in such industries the “right ... to engage in . . . concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection,” “e. g., to strike.” We also listed the qualifications and regulations which Congress .itself has imposed upon its guarantee of the right to strike, including requirements that notice be given prior to any strike upon termination of a contract, prohibitions on strikes for certain objectives declared unlawful by Congress, and special procedures for certain strikes which might create national emergencies. Upon review of these federal legislative provisions, we held, 339 U. S. at 457:
“None of these sections can be read as permitting concurrent state regulation of peaceful strikes for higher wages. Congress occupied this field and closed it to state regulation. Plankinton Packing Co. v. Wisconsin Board, 338 U. S. 953 (1950); La Crosse Telephone Corp. v. Wisconsin Board, 336 U. S. 18 (1949); Bethlehem Steel Co. v. New York Labor Board, 330 U. S. 767 (1947); Hill v. Florida, 325 U. S. 538 (1945).”
Second. The Wisconsin court sought to distinguish Automobile Workers v. O’Brien, supra, on the ground that the industry to which Michigan applied its notice and strike-vote provisions was a national manufacturing organization rather than a local public utility. Congress drew no such distinction but, instead, saw fit to regulate labor relations to the full extent of its constitutional power under the Commerce Clause, Labor Board v. Fainblatt, 306 U. S. 601, 607 (1939). Ever since the question was fully argued and decided in Consolidated Edison Co. v. Labor Board, 305 U. S. 197 (1938), it has been clear that federal labor legislation, encompassing as it does all industries “affecting commerce,” applies to a privately owned public utility whose business and activities are carried on wholly within a single state. The courts of appeal have uniformly held enterprises similar to and no more important to interstate commerce than the Milwaukee gas and transit companies before us in these cases subject to the provisions of the federal labor law. No distinction between public utilities and national manufacturing organizations has been drawn in the administration of the Federal Act and, when separate treatment for public utilities was urged upon Congress in 1947, the suggested differentiation was expressly rejected. Creation of a special classification for public utilities is for Congress, not for this Court.
Third. As we have noted, in 1947 Congress enacted special procedures to deal with strikes which might create national emergencies. Respondents rely upon that action as showing a congressional intent to carve out a separate field of “emergency” labor disputes and, pointing to the fact that Congress acted only in respect to “national emergencies,” respondents ask us to hold that Congress intended, by silence, to leave the states free to regulate “local emergency” disputes. However, the Wisconsin Act before us is not “emergency” legislation but a comprehensive code for the settlement of labor disputes between public-utility employers and employees. Far from being limited to “local emergencies,” the act has been applied to disputes national in scope, and application of the act does not require the existence of an “emergency.” In any event, congressional imposition of certain restrictions on petitioners’ right to strike, far from supporting the Wisconsin Act, shows that Congress has closed to state regulation the field of peaceful strikes in industries affecting commerce. Automobile Workers v. O’Brien, supra, at 457. And where, as here, the state seeks to deny entirely a federally guaranteed right which Congress itself restricted only to a limited extent in case of national emergencies, however serious, it is manifest that the state legislation is in conflict with federal law.
Like the majority strike-vote provision considered in O’Brien, a proposal that the right to strike be denied, together with the substitution of compulsory arbitration in cases of “public emergencies,” local or national, was before Congress in 1947. This proposal, closely resembling the pattern of the Wisconsin Act, was rejected by Congress as being inconsistent with its policy in respect to enterprises covered by the Federal Act, and not because of any desire to leave the states free to adopt it. Michigan, in O’Brien, sought to impose conditions on the right to strike and now Wisconsin seeks to abrogate that right altogether insofar as petitioners are concerned. Such state legislation must yield as conflicting with the exercise of federally protected labor rights.
Fourth. Much of the argument generated by these cases has been considerably broader than the legal questions presented.
The utility companies, the State of Wisconsin and other states as amici stress the importance of gas and transit service to the local community and urge that predominantly local problems are best left to local governmental authority for solution. On the other hand, petitioners and the National Labor Relations Board, as amicus, argue that prohibition of strikes with reliance upon compulsory arbitration for ultimate solution of labor disputes destroys the free collective bargaining declared by Congress to be the bulwark of the national labor policy. This, it is said, leads to more labor unrest and disruption of service than is now experienced under a system of free collective bargaining accompanied by the right to strike. The very nature of the debatable policy questions raised by these contentions convinces us that they cannot properly be resolved by the Court. In our view, these questions are for legislative determination and have been resolved by Congress adversely to respondents.
When it amended the Federal Act in 1947, Congress was not only cognizant of the policy questions that have been argued before us in these cases, but it was also well aware of the problems in balancing state-federal relationships which its 1935 legislation had raised. The legislative history of the 1947 Act refers to the decision of this Court in Bethlehem Steel Co. v. New York Labor Board, 330 U. S. 767 (1947), and, in its handling of the problems presented by that case, Congress demonstrated that it knew how to cede jurisdiction to the states. Congress knew full well that its labor legislation “preempts the field that the act covers insofar as commerce within the meaning of the act is concerned” and demonstrated its ability to spéll out with particularity those areas in which it desired state regulation to be operative. This Court, in the exercise of its judicial function, must take the comprehensive and valid federal legislation as enacted and declare invalid state regulation which impinges on that legislation.
Fifth. It would be sufficient to state that the Wisconsin Act, in forbidding peaceful strikes for higher wages in industries covered by the Federal Act, has forbidden the exercise of rights protected by § 7 of the Federal Act. In addition, it is not difficult to visualize situations in which application of the Wisconsin Act would work at cross-purposes with other policies of the National Act. But we content ourselves with citation of examples of direct conflict found in the records before us. In the case of the transit workers, the union agreed to continue collective bargaining after the strike became imminent, whereas the company insisted upon invocation of the compulsory arbitration features of the Wisconsin Act. That act requires that collective bargaining continue until an “impasse” is reached, Wis. Stat., 1949; § 111.52, whereas the Federal Act requires that both employer and employees continue •to bargain collectively, even though a strike may actually be in progress. Labor Board v. Mackay Radio & Telegraph Co., 304 U. S. 333, 345 (1938). Further, the transit company was able to avoid entirely any determination of certain union demands when the arbitrators, in accordance with Wis. Stat., 1949, § 111.58, ruled that the matter of assigning of workers to certain shifts “infringe [s] upon the right of the employer to manage his business.” Yet similar problems of work scheduling and shift assignment have been held to be appropriate subjects for collective bargaining under the Federal Act as administered by the National Labor Relations Board. See Woodside Cotton Mills Co., 21 N. L. R. B. 42, 54-55 (1940); American National Ins. Co., 89 N. L. R. B. 185 (1950), and eases cited therein.
The National Labor Relations Act of 1935 and the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947, passed by Congress pursuant to its powers under the Commerce Clause, are the supreme law of the land under Art. VI of the Constitution. Having found that the Wisconsin Public Utility Anti-Strike Law conflicts with that federal legislation, the judgments enforcing the Wisconsin Act cannot stand.
Reversed.
Wis. .Stat., 1949, §§ 111.50 et seq.
The National Labor Relations Board has exercised jurisdiction' over the transit company and its employees in conducting a so-called union shop election pursuant to § 9 (e) (1) of the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947, 29 U. S. C. (Supp. Ill) § 159 (e) (1). The National Labor Relations Board is presently investigating a charge filed by the transit workers’ union in respect to an alleged unfair labor practice said to have been committed in respect to the controversy out of which this case arose.
Milwaukee Gas Light Co., 50 N. L. R. B. 809, as amended, 52 N. L. R. B. 1213 (1943). The N. L. R. B. has also conducted a union shop election under § 9 (e) (1) of the Federal Act, supra, note 2, in respect to the supervisory employees of the gas company. And a union complaint that the gas company, committed an unfair labor practice in respect to the dispute out of which this proceeding arose has been filed with the N. L. R. B.
Under Wis. Stat., 1949, §111.64, the following is applicable to the above provision:
“Nothing in this subchapter shall be construed to require any individual employe to render labor or service without his consent, or to make illegal the quitting of his labor or service or the withdrawal from his place of employment unless done in concert or agreement with others. No court shall have power to issue any process to compel an individual employe to render labor or service or to remain at his place of employment without his consent. It is the intent of this subchapter only to forbid employes of a public utility employer to engage in a strike or to engage in a work slowdown or stoppage in concert, and to forbid a public utility employer to lock out his employes, where such acts would cause an interruption of essential service.”
We have before us, then, a statute aimed only at “concerted” activities of public utility employees.
49 Stat. 449, 29 U. S. C. § 151 et seq.
61 Stat. 136, 29 U. S. C. (Supp. III) § 141 et seq.
Section 7 of both acts, 29 U. S. C. (Supp. III) § 157. See also §§ 2 (3) and 13, 29 U. S. C. (Supp. III) §§ 15.2 (3), 163; S. Rep. No. 573, 74th Cong., 1st Sess. 8-9 (1935); House Conf. Rep. No. 510, 80th Cong., 1st Sess. 38 (1947).
In the “Declaration of Policy” of the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947, Congress stated:
“It is the purpose and policy of this Act, in order to promote the full flow of commerce, to prescribe the legitimate rights of both employees and employers in their relations affecting commerce ...” 29 U. S. C. (Supp. Ill) § 141 (b).
The “Findings and Policies” of the National Labor Relations Act provides, inter alia:
“It is hereby declared to be the policy of the United States to eliminate the causes of certain substantial obstructions to the free flow of commerce and to mitigate and eliminate these obstructions when they have occurred by encouraging the practice arid procedure of collective bargaining and by protecting the exercise by workers of full freedom of association, self-organization, and designation of representatives of their own choosing, for the purpose of negotiating the terms and conditions of their employment or other mutual aid or protection.” 49 Stat. 449, 29 U. S. C. (Supp. Ill) § 151.
H. R. Rep. No. 245,80th Cong., 1st Sess. 26 (1947).
Section 8 (d) of the 1947 Act, 29 U. S. C. (Supp. Ill) § 158 (d). Petitioners in both cases had complied with all notice requirements before strike action was taken.
Section 8 (b) (4) of the 1947 Act, 29 U. S. C. (Supp. Ill) § 158 (b) (4). See also §§ 10 (j) and 10 (1), 29 U. S. C. (Supp: III) §§ 160 (j), 160 (1), empowering and directing the N. L. R. B. to obtain injunctive relief against such unlawful strikes.
Sections 206-210 of the 1947 Act, 29 U. S. C. (Supp. Ill) §§ 176-180.
Our decision in O’Brien, supra, followed shortly after our reversal, per curiam, in Plankinton Packing Co., supra, where the Wisconsin Employment Relations Board had, with the approval of the State Supreme Court, ordered reinstatement of an employee discharged because of his failure to join a union, even though his employment was not covered by a union shop or similar contract. Section 7 of the Labor Management Relations Act not only guarantees the right of self-organization and the right to strike, but also guarantees to individual employees the “right to refrain from any or all of such activities,” at least in the absence of a union shop or similar contractual arrangement applicable to the individual. Since the N. L. R. B. was given jurisdiction to enforce the rights of the employees, it was clear that the Federal Act had occupied this field to the exclusion of state regulation. Plankinton and O’Brien both show that states may not regulate in respect to rights guaranteed by Congress in § 7.
E. g., Labor Board v. Baltimore Transit Co., 140 F. 2d 51, 53-54 (C. A. 4th Cir., 1944) (local transit company); Pueblo Gas & Fuel Co. v. Labor Board, 118 F. 2d 304, 305-306 (C. A. 10th Cir., 1941) (local gas company); Labor Board v. Western Massachusetts Electric Co., 120 F. 2d 455, 456-457 (C. A. 1st Cir., 1941); Labor Board v. Gulf Public Service Co., 116 F. 2d 852, 854 (C. A. 5th Cir., 1941); Consumers Power Co. v. Labor Board, 113 F. 2d 38, 39-41 (C. A. 6th Cir., 1940); Southern Colorado Power Co. v. Labor Board, 111 F. 2d 539, 541-543 (C. A. 10th Cir., 1940) (local power companies). See also Virginia Elec. & Power Co. v. Labor Board, 115 F. 2d 414, 415-416 (C. A. 4th Cir., 1940), upheld on the question of jurisdiction in Labor Board v. Virginia Elec. & Power Co., 314 U. S. 469, 476 (1941).
The question of the applicability of the federal labor laws to local utilities is rarely litigated today. The Milwaukee Gas Light Company, employer in No. 438, conceded before the N. L. R. B. that it is engaged in commerce within the meaning of the Federal Act. 50 N. L.R.B.809, 810 (1943).
In 1947, it was proposed that the coverage of the Federal Act be limited so as to exclude utilities and other enterprises whose productive effort did not extend across state lines. H. R. 1095, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., § 2 (b). Congress did not adopt any such limitation on the application of the National Labor Relations Act, but, instead, amended that Act with full appreciation of the extent of its coverage. See H. R. Rep. No. 245,80th Cong., 1st Sess. 40,44 (1947); S. Rep. No. 105,80th Cong., 1st Sess. 26 (1947); H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 510, 80th Cong., 1st Sess. 60 (1947).
The N. L. R. B. has specifically rejected the suggestion that in granting the right to strike or in the other provisions of the Federal Act Congress intended that there be any distinction between public utility employees and those otherwise employed. El Paso Electric Co., 13 N. L. R. B. 213, 240 (1939), enforced in El Paso Electric Co. v. Labor Board, 119 F. 2d 581 (C. A. 5th Cir., 1941).
In a recent statement of policy, the N. L. R. B. declared that, in view of the “important impact on commerce,” jurisdiction will be exercised in “all cases” involving the type of public utilities before us in these cases. Local Transit Lines, 91 N. L. R. B. 623, 26 LRR Man. 1547 (1950).
93 Cong. Rec. 3835 (1947), statement of Senator Taft, quoted in note 21, infra. The Case Bill, H. R. 4908, 79th Cong., 2d Sess. (1946), passed by both Houses of Congress during the session immediately preceding the enactment of the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947, proposed special techniques, including a temporary denial of the right to strike, in connection with “labor dispute [s] affecting commerce, involving a public utility whose rates are fixed by some governmental agency.” § 6 (a). In his veto message, the President criticized the special treatment accorded to public utilities, 92 Cong. Rec. 6674, 6676, (1946). Congress did not override the veto and, while such special treatment for public utilities was again proposed in 1947, note 16, infra, no such distinction is found in the 1947 legislation as finally enacted by Congress.
Sections 206-210 of the 1947 Act, 29 U. S. C. (Supp. Ill) §§ 176-180. These so-called national emergency provisions call for the appointment of a board of inquiry to report the facts of the dispute, followed by a vote of the employees on whether to strike. An injunction to maintain the status quo for a limited period pending the exhaustion of these remedies is authorized by the Act.
The House version of the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947, H. R. 3020, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., contained a broader provision calling for a temporary prohibition on strikes whenever interstate commerce in an essential public service was threatened, during which time an advisory settlement board would recommend specific terms for settlement. A similar plan was proposed on a temporary basis in H. R. 2861, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., and approved by H. R. Rep. No. 235, 80th Cong., 1st Sess. (1947). This plan was rejected in favor of the Senate version which permitted a temporary injunction against strikes only when the “national health or safety” was imperiled and then only while a board of inquiry sifted the facts without making recommendations. H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 510, 80th Cong., 1st Sess. 63-64 (1947).
The Wisconsin Act applies generally to “labor disputes between public utility employers and their employes which cause or threaten to cause an interruption in the supply of an essential public utility service.” Wis. Stat., 1949, § 111.50.
Communications Workers of America, C. I. O., Div. 23, and Wisconsin Telephone Co., Wis. E. R. B. Decision No. 2358-C (1950), (arbitrators appointed to determine the Wisconsin phase of the national telephone strike threatened in the spring of 1950).
Far from being legislation aimed at “emergencies,” the Wisconsin Act has been invoked to avert a threatened strike of clerical workers of a utility. Wisconsin Telephone Clerical Union and Wisconsin Telephone Co., Wis. E. R. B. Case No. 2273 PU-9 (1949). See Wisconsin Telephone Co. v. Wisconsin E. R. B., 253 Wis. 584, 34 N. W. 2d 844 (1948), where the Wisconsin Supreme Court refused to set aside the Board order appointing a conciliator in the same proceeding on the ground that the order was not appealable.
H. R. 17; H. R. 34; H. R. 68; H. R. 75; H. R. 76, all of the 80th Cong., 1st Sess. In addition to granting federal authority to ban strikes under certain circumstances, § 6 (a) of each act would have permitted the operation of state anti-strike legislation. This legislative proposal is discussed by Representative Case in 93 Cong. Rec. A1007-A1009 (1947).
See also the other proposals before the same Session of Congress to deny the right to strike in specified instances. H. R. 90 and H. R. 1095, both of the 80th Cong., 1st Sess.
The reasoning behind the congressional rejection of any proposals similar to the Wisconsin Act was stated by Senator Taft as follows, 93 Cong. Rec. 3835-3836 (1947):
“Basically, I believe that the committee feels, almost unanimously, that the solution of our labor problems must rest on a free economy and on free collective bargaining. The bill is certainly based upon that proposition. That means that we recognize freedom to strike when the question involved is the improvement of wages, hours, and working conditions, when a contract has expired and neither side is bound by a contract. We recognize that right in spite of the inconvenience, and in some cases perhaps danger, to the people of the United States which may result from the exercise of such right. In the long run, I do not believe that that right will be abused. In the past few disputes finally reached the point where there was a direct threat to and defiance of the rights of the people of the United States.
“We have considered the question whether the right to strike can be modified. I think it can be modified in cases which do not involve the basic question of wages, prices, and working conditions. But if we impose compulsory arbitration, or if we give the Government power to fix wages at which men must work for another year or for two years to come, I do not see how in the end we can escape a collective economy. If we give the Government power to fix wages, I do not see how we can take from the Government the power to fix prices; and if the Government fixes wages and prices, we soon reach the point where all industry is under Government control, and finally there is a complete socialization of our economy.
“I feel very strongly that so far as possible we should avoid any system which attempts to give to the Government this power finally to fix the wages of any man. Can we do so constitutionally? Can we say to all the people of the United States, ‘You must work at wages fixed by the Government’? I think it is a long step from free-dona and a long step from a free economy to give the Government such a right.
“It is suggested that we might do so in the case of public utilities; and I suppose the argument is stronger there, because we fix the rates of public utilities, and we might, I suppose,, fix the wages of public-utility workers. Yet we have hesitated to embark even on that course, because if we once begin a process of the Government fixing wages, it must end in more and more wage fixing and finally Government price fixing. It may be a popular thing to do. Today people seem to think that all that it is necessary to do is to forbid strikes, fix wages, and compel men to continue working, without consideration of the human and constitutional problems involved in that process.
“If we begin with public utilities, it will be said that coal and steel are just as important as public utilities. I do not know where we could draw the line. So far as the bill is concerned, we have proceeded on the theory that there is a right to strike and that labor peace must be based on free collective bargaining. We have done nothing to outlaw strikes for basic wages, hours, and working conditions after proper opportunity for mediation.
“We did not feel that we should put into the law, as a part of the collective-bargaining machinery, an ultimate resort to compulsory arbitration, or to seizure, or to any other action. We feel that it would interfere with the whole process of collective bargaining. If such a remedy is available as a routine remedy, there will always be pressure to resort to it by whichever party thinks it will receive better treatment through such a process than it would receive in collective bargaining, and it will back out of collective bargaining. It will not make a bona-fide attempt to settle if it thinks it will receive a better deal under the final arbitration which may be provided.”
See also S. Rep. No. 105, 80th Cong., 1st Sess. 13-14, 28 (1947).
Congress demonstrated its ability to deny in express terms the right to strike when it so desired. See § 305 of the 1947 Act, 29 U. S. C. (Supp. Ill) § 188, making it unlawful for employees of the United States or its agencies to participate in any strike.
Section 10 (a) of the 1947 Act, 29 U. S. C. (Supp. Ill) § 160 (a). A proviso of § 10 (a) authorizes cession of jurisdiction to the states only where the state law is consistent with the federal legislation. This insures that the national labor policy will not be thwarted even in the predominantly local enterprises to which the proviso applies. S. Rep. No. 105, 80th Cong., 1st Sess. 26 (1947). See also minority views to same report, id., pt. 2, 38, agreeing as to this feature of the legislation.
H. R. Rep. No. 245,80th Cong., 1st Sess. 44 (1947).
See §§ 8 (d), 14 (b), 202 (c) and 203 (b), 29 U. S. C. (Supp. Ill) §§ 158 (d), 164 (b), 172 (c), and 173 (b), in addition to § 10 (a) of the 1947 Act for examples of congressional direction as to the role that states were to play in the area of labor regulation covered by the Federal Act. And §§2 (2) and 2 (3) of the Federal Act,- 29 U. S. C. (Supp. Ill) §§ 152 (2), 152 (3), specifically exclude from its operation the employees of “any State or political subdivision thereof.”
§§ 8 (a) (5) and 8 (b) (3); 29 U. S. C. (Supp. Ill) §§ 158 (a) (5), 158 (b) (3).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | J | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Stewart
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This appeal draws in question certain provisions of Chapter 531, 1964 Session Laws of New York, which worked substantial changes in the State’s Alcoholic Beverage Control Law. The appellants are distillers, wholesalers, or importers of distilled spirits, who commenced this action in a New York court for an injunction and declaratory judgment against the appropriate state officials, upon the ground that § 9 of Chapter 531 violates the Federal Constitution in several respects. The trial court upheld the constitutionality of the law, and its judgment was affirmed by the Appellate Division and by the New York Court of Appeals. The appellants brought the case here, and we now affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
Chapter 531 was enacted as the result of a sweeping redirection of New York's policy regulating the sale of liquor in the State. For more than 20 years the Alcoholic Beverage Control Law (hereinafter ABC Law) had required brand owners of alcoholic beverages or their agents to file with the State Liquor Authority monthly schedules listing the bottle and case price to be charged to wholesalers and retailers within the State. These schedules were publicly displayed, and sales were prohibited except at the listed prices. In 1950 the ABC Law was amended by the addition of a section which required brand owners or their agents to file price schedules listing the minimum retail price at which each brand could be sold to consumers and which prohibited retail sales at prices less than those fixed in the schedules. The enforcement of these mandatory minimum retail prices was entrusted to the State Liquor Authority rather than to private action, but the Authority was given no power to determine the reasonableness of the prices that were fixed.
In 1963, against a background of irregularities within the State Liquor Authority and extensive dissatisfaction with the operation of the ABC Law, the Governor of New York appointed a Commission to study the sale and distribution of alcoholic beverages within the State. The Commission sponsored various study papers and issued a series of reports and recommendations. It found unequivocally that compulsory resale price maintenance had had “no significant effect upon the consumption of alcoholic beverages, upon temperance or upon the incidence of social problems related to alcohol.” It also found that New York liquor consumers had been the victims of serious discrimination because of the higher prices and reduced competition fostered by the mandatory minimum price maintenance provision of the law. The Commission therefore recommended the repeal of that provision, and the ultimate response of the legislature was the enactment of Chapter 531.
The legislature did not stop, however, with repeal of the mandatory resale price maintenance provision of the law. In § 9 of Chapter 531 it imposed the additional requirement that the monthly price schedules for sales to wholesalers and retailers filed with the State Liquor Authority must be accompanied by an affirmation that “the bottle and case price of liquor... is no higher than the lowest price” at which sales were made anywhere in the United States during the preceding month. It is this provision that is the principal object of the appellants’ constitutional attack in this litigation.
Section 9 effects the “no higher than the lowest price” requirement by the addition of paragraphs (d)-(k) to § ioi-b-3 of the ABC Law. The affirmation required by paragraph (d), which must be filed and verified by brand owners or their agents who sell to wholesalers in New York, must cover all sales to wholesalers anywhere in the United States by the brand owner, his agent, or any “related person.” The less extensive affirmation required by paragraph (e), which applies to persons other than brand owners or their agents who file schedules for sales to wholesalers, need only cover sales elsewhere by the person filing the schedule. The affirmation required by paragraph (f), which must be filed by brand owners, their agents, or “related persons” who sell to retailers in New York, must be verified by the brand owner or his agent and must cover all sales to retailers anywhere in the United States by the brand owner, his agent, or any “related person.” The less extensive affirmation required by paragraph (g), which applies to wholesalers who are not “related persons,” need only cover sales elsewhere by the person filing the schedule.
The term “related person” is defined in paragraphs (d) and (f) to include any person, the “exclusive, principal or substantial business of which is the sale of a brand or brands of liquor purchased from” the brand owner or his agent. In consequence, before a “related person” wholesaler may sell a particular brand of liquor to a New York retailer, he must secure an affirmation from the brand owner or his agent that the price charged by the wholesaler is no higher than the lowest price at which the brand was sold to any retailer in any other part of the country by any wholesaler doing “substantial” business with the brand owner. Thus, a brand owner doing business in New York must keep himself informed of the prices charged by all “related persons” throughout the United States.
The scheme of § 9 of Chapter 531 is rounded out by the addition to § 101-b-3 of the ABC Law of paragraph (h), which prohibits sales to wholesalers and retailers of brands for which no affirmation has been filed; paragraph (i), which requires the “lowest price” to reflect all discounts and other allowances to wholesalers and retailers, with the exception of state taxes and delivery costs; and paragraphs (j) and (k), which impose criminal penalties for the filing of a false affirmation.
As a result of a series of stays granted throughout this litigation, the provisions of § 9 have not yet been put into effect. Our concern here, therefore, is only with the constitutionality of those provisions on their face. The appellants attack § 9 on many constitutional fronts. They contend that its provisions place an illegal burden upon interstate commerce, conflict with federal antitrust legislation and thus fall under the Supremacy Clause, and violate both the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. We find all these contentions without merit.
Consideration of any state law regulating intoxicating beverages must begin with the Twenty-first Amendment, the second section of which provides that: “The transportation or importation into any State, Territory, or possession of the United States for delivery or use therein of intoxicating liquors, in violation of the laws thereof, is hereby prohibited.” As this Court has consistently held, “That Amendment bestowed upon the states broad regulatory power over the liquor traffic within their territories.” United States v. Frankfort Distilleries, 324 U. S. 293, 299. Cf. Nippert v. Richmond, 327 U. S. 416, 425, n. 15. Just two Terms ago we took occasion to reiterate that “a State is totally unconfined by traditional Commerce Clause limitations when it restricts the importation of intoxicants destined for use, distribution, or consumption within its borders.” Hostetter v. Idlewild Liquor Corp., 377 U. S. 324, 330. See State Board of Equalization v. Young’s Market Co., 299 U. S. 59; Mahoney v. Joseph Triner Corp., 304 U. S. 401; Ziffrin, Inc. v. Reeves, 308 U. S. 132; California v. Washington, 358 U. S. 64. Cf. Indianapolis Brewing Co. v. Liquor Comm’n, 305 U. S. 391; Joseph S. Finch & Co. v. McKittrick, 305 U. S. 395. As the Idlewild case made clear, however, the second section of the Twenty-first Amendment has not operated totally to repeal the Commerce Clause in the area of the regulation of traffic in liquor. In Idlewild the ultimate delivery and use of the liquor was in a foreign country, and the Court held that under those circumstances New York could not forbid sales made under the explicit supervision of the United States Customs Bureau, pursuant to laws enacted by Congress under the Commerce Clause for the regulation of commerce with foreign nations. Cf. Dept. of Alcoholic Beverage Control v. Ammex Warehouse Co., 378 U. S. 124; Collins v. Yosemite Park Co., 304 U. S. 518.
Unlike Idlewild, the present case concerns liquor destined for use, distribution, or consumption in the State of New York. In that situation, the Twenty-first Amendment demands wide latitude for regulation by the State. We need not now decide whether the mode of liquor regulation chosen by a State in such circumstances could ever constitute so grave an interference with a company’s operations elsewhere as to make the regulation invalid under the Commerce Clause. See Baldwin v. G. A. F. Seelig, 294 U. S. 511. No such situation is presented in this case. The mere fact that § 9 is geared to appellants’ pricing policies in other States is not sufficient to invalidate the statute. As part of its regulatory scheme for the sale of liquor, New York may constitutionally insist that liquor prices to domestic wholesalers and retailers be as low as prices offered elsewhere in the country. The serious discriminatory effects of § 9 alleged by appellants on their business outside New York are largely matters of conjecture. It is by no means clear, for instance, that § 9 must inevitably produce higher prices in other States, as claimed by appellants, rather than the lower prices sought for New York. It will be time enough to assess the alleged extraterritorial effects of § 9 when a case arises that clearly presents them. “The mere fact that state action may have repercussions beyond state lines is of no judicial significance so long as the action is not within that domain which the Constitution forbids.” Osborn v. Ozlin, 310 U. S. 53, 62. Cf. Hoopeston Canning Co. v. Cullen, 318 U. S. 313; South Carolina Highway Dept. v. Barnwell Bros., 303 U. S. 177, 189; Baldwin v. G. A. F. Seelig, 294 U. S. 511, 528.
Moreover, as the Court of Appeals observed, the regulatory procedure followed by New York is comparable to that practiced by those States, 17 in number, in which liquor is sold by the State itself and not by private enterprise. Each of these monopoly States, we are told, requires distillers to warrant that the price charged the State is no higher than the price charged in other States. In at least one of these States, the distillers are required to adjust the sales price to include all rebates and other allowances made to purchasers elsewhere, and the State has taken positive precautions to insure that the contractual commitments are fulfilled. In some respects, the burden of gathering information for the warranties made to the monopoly States may be more onerous than that required for the affirmations under § 9, since the warranties generally cover prices in other States at the very time of sale to the monopoly State, whereas the affirmations filed under § 9 cover prices charged elsewhere during the preceding month.
We therefore conclude that the provisions of § 9 on their face place no unconstitutional burden on interstate commerce.
The appellants’ contention that § 9 violates the command of the Supremacy Clause needs no extended discussion. The argument is based upon a claimed inconsistency between § 9 and the federal antitrust laws, specifically the Sherman Act, 26 Stat. 209, as amended, 15 U. S. C. §§ 1-7 (1964 ed.), and § 2 of the Clayton Act, 38 Stat. 730, as amended by the Robinson-Patman Act, 49 Stat. 1526, 15 U. S. C. § 13 (1964 ed.).
In this as in other areas of coincident federal and state regulation, the “teaching of this Court’s decisions... enjoin [s] seeking out conflicts between state and federal regulation where none clearly exists.” Huron Cement Co. v. Detroit, 362 U. S. 440, 446. We find no such clear conflict in the present case. The bare compilation, without more, of price information on sales to wholesalers and retailers to support the affirmations filed with the State Liquor Authority would not of itself violate the Sherman Act. Maple Flooring Assn. v. United States, 268 U. S. 563, 582-586; cf. American Column Co. v. United States, 257 U. S. 377. Section 9 imposes no irresistible economic pressure on the appellants to violate the Sherman Act in order to comply with the requirements of § 9. On the contrary, § 9 appears firmly anchored to the assumption that the Sherman Act will deter any attempts by the appellants to preserve their New York price level by conspiring to raise the prices at which liquor is sold elsewhere in the country. Nothing in the Twenty-first Amendment, of course, would prevent enforcement of the Sherman Act against such a conspiracy. United States v. Frankfort Distilleries, 324 U. S. 293, 299.
Although it is possible to envision circumstances under which price discriminations proscribed by the Robinson-Patman Act might be compelled by § 9, the existence of such potential conflicts is entirely too speculative in the present posture of this ease to support the conclusion that New York is foreclosed from regulating liquor prices in the manner it has chosen. Moreover, § 7 of Chapter 531 has amended the ABC Law by granting to the State Liquor Authority ample discretion to modify the schedule requirements. We cannot presume that the Authority will not exercise that discretion to alleviate any friction that might result should the ABC Law chafe against the Robinson-Patman Act or any other federal statute.
There remain for consideration the appellants’ Fourteenth Amendment claims. Section 9, they say, violates the Due Process Clause in two respects, first because it imposes an “unreasonable, arbitrary, and capricious” burden upon them, and second because the statutory definition of “related person” is so vague as to be constitutionally intolerable. And § 9 violates the Equal Protection Clause, they say, because it arbitrarily discriminates among various segments of the liquor industry.
The first contention amounts to a claim of a deprivation of due process of law, based on the argument that § 9 is not designed to promote temperance and that it is an unwise, impractical, and oppressive law. But it is not “the province of courts to draw on their own views as to the morality, legitimacy, and usefulness of a particular business in order to decide whether a statute bears too heavily upon that business and by so doing violates due process. Under the system of government created by our Constitution, it is up to legislatures, not courts, to decide on the wisdom and utility of legislation. There was a time when the Due Process Clause was used by this Court to strike down laws which were thought unreasonable, that is, unwise or incompatible with some particular economic or social philosophy.... The doctrine... that due process authorizes courts to hold laws unconstitutional when they believe the legislature has acted unwisely... has long since been discarded. We have returned to the original constitutional proposition that courts do not substitute their social and economic beliefs for the judgment of legislative bodies, who are elected to pass laws....” Ferguson v. Skrupa, 372 U. S. 726, 728-730.
Moreover, nothing in the Twenty-first Amendment or any other part of the Constitution requires that state laws regulating the liquor business be motivated exclusively by a desire to promote temperance. The announced purpose of the legislature was to eliminate “discrimination against and disadvantage of consumers” in the State. Frustrated by years of unhappy experience with a state-enforced mandatory resale price maintenance system that placed exclusive price-fixing power in the hands of the distillers, the legislature adopted § 9 as the core of the liquor price reform contemplated by Chapter 531. We cannot say that the legislature acted unconstitutionally when it determined that only by imposing the relatively drastic “no higher than the lowest price” requirement of § 9 could the grip of the liquor distillers on New York liquor prices be loosened. In a variety of cases in areas no more sensitive than that of liquor control, this Court has upheld state maximum price legislation. See Nebbia v. New York, 291 U. S. 502; Townsend v. Yeomans, 301 U. S. 441; O’Gorman & Young v. Hartford Fire Ins. Co., 282 U. S. 251; Gold v. DiCarlo, 380 U. S. 520.
The statutory definition of “related person,” which the appellants attack as unconstitutionally vague, includes any person “the exclusive, principal or substantial business of which is the sale of a brand or brands of liquor purchased from such brand owner or wholesaler designated as agent....” The claim of vagueness is centered upon the term “principal or substantial.” We cannot agree that that language is so vague as to be constitutionally invalid. The Deputy Commissioner of the State Liquor Authority testified in these proceedings that where the determination of “related persons” is unclear, the appellants will have access to the Authority for a ruling to clarify the issue. As the Court said in Board of Governors v. Agnew, 329 U. S. 441, 449, “... we think it plain under our decisions that if substantiality is the statutory guide, the limits of administrative action are sufficiently definite or ascertainable so as to survive challenge on the grounds of unconstitutionality.” Cf. Opp Cotton Mills v. Administrator, 312 U. S. 126, 142-146; Bowles v. Willingham, 321 U. S. 503, 512-516.
Further, as the record indicates, the structure of the liquor industry is such that even the largest national distillers deal through a relatively limited number of wholesalers. Frequently, a wholesaler agrees with a distiller not to sell brands of competing distillers in the same price range, and the prices charged by these wholesalers are potentially subject to the influence of the distillers. We cannot say, therefore, that § 9 on its face imposes an unconstitutional burden on distillers or wholesalers in ascertaining the wholesalers who satisfy the “related person” criterion or in obtaining information on prices charged by such wholesalers.
We come, then, to the appellants’ argument that § 9 violates the Equal Protection Clause. That argument is based upon the claim that it was arbitrary for the legislature to except consumer sales and private label brands of liquor from the “no higher than the lowest price” requirement of § 9, and to reduce the scope of the price affirmation required with respect to sales made to wholesalers and retailers by those who are not “related persons.”
We do not find that these differentiations constitute invidious discrimination. The legislature could reasonably have believed that, once the prices on sales by distillers and “related persons” were reduced, the prices of private label brands and brands sold by non-“related persons” would follow suit. Nor was it necessary for the legislature to impose the “no higher than the lowest price” requirement on sales by retailers to consumers. The legislature might reasonably have concluded that consumer prices would adequately reflect the reductions in prices to wholesalers and retailers accomplished by § 9, even though the state fair trade statute, which permits private resale price maintenance agreements on sales to consumers, appears to have emerged unscathed by the enactment of Chapter 531. “A statute is not invalid under the Constitution because it might have gone farther than it did, or because it may not succeed in bringing about the result that it tends to produce.” Roschen v. Ward, 279 U. S. 337, 339. “[T]he reform may take one step at a time, addressing itself to the phase of the problem which seems most acute to the legislative mind.” Williamson v. Lee Optical Co., 348 U. S. 483, 489.
Although the appellants’ primary attack is upon the constitutionality of § 9, they also challenge two minor provisions added by § 7 of Chapter 531 to the schedule requirements of the ABC Law. The first provision, which requires the price schedules to cover sales to wholesalers “irrespective of the place of sale or delivery,” is designed to bring wholesalers within the price-publicity requirement of the law, even though they take delivery of the liquor outside New York for distribution within the State. The second provision, which requires the price schedules on sales to both wholesalers and retailers to include “the net bottle and case price paid by the seller,” tends to promote publicity of the seller’s profit margins. There is no indication in the present record that the State Liquor Authority will require the appellants to file schedules of prices on sales unrelated to the distribution of liquor in New York. As the Court of Appeals observed with regard to these provisions, “The statute is concerned with New York practices and, if the sales in other States have no relevancy to New York enforcement, the statute permits the Liquor Authority for good cause to waive the general prohibition against sales to wholesalers in the absence of such schedules. It would be reasonable to expect that the statute would be administered consistently with its sole purpose to regulate the intrastate sale of liquor.” 16 N. Y. 2d 47, 59; 209 N. E. 2d 701, 706. We accept this construction of the statute by New York’s highest court. N. A. A. C. P. v. Button, 371 U. S. 415, 432. As so construed, these provisions serve a clear and legitimate interest of New York in the exercise of its constitutional power to regulate the sale of liquor within its borders.
For the reasons that we have stated, we find no constitutional infirmity in any of the 1964 amendments to the New York ABC Law challenged on this appeal. Although it is possible that specific future applications of Chapter 531 may engender concrete problems of constitutional dimension, it will be time enough to consider any such problems when they arise. We deal here only with the statute on its face. And we hold that, so considered, the legislation is constitutionally valid. Accordingly, the judgment of the New York Court of Appeals is
Affirmed.
APPENDIX TO OPINION OF THE COURT.
Chapter 531, 1964 Session Laws of New York.
§ 7. Section one hundred one-b of such law, as added by chapter eight hundred ninety-nine of the laws of nineteen hundred forty-two, subdivision four thereof having been amended by chapter five hundred fifty-one of the laws of nineteen hundred forty-eight, is hereby amended to read as follows:
§ 101-b. Unlawful discriminations prohibited; filing of schedules; schedule listing fund
3. (a) No brand of liquor or wine shall be sold to or purchased by a wholesaler, irrespective of the place of sale or delivery, unless a schedule, as provided by this section, is filed with the liquor authority, and is then in effect. Such schedule shall be in writing duly verified, and filed in the number of copies and form as required by the authority, and shall contain, with respect to each item, the exact brand or trade name, capacity of package, nature of contents, age and proof where stated on the label, the number of bottles contained in each case, the bottle and case price to wholesalers, the net bottle and case price paid by the seller, which prices, in each instance, shall be individual for each item and not in “combination” with any other item, the discounts for quantity, if any, and the discounts for time of payment, if any. Such brand of liquor or wine shall not be sold to wholesalers except at the price and discounts then in effect unless prior written permission of the authority is granted for good cause shown and for reasons not inconsistent with the purpose of this chapter. Such schedule shall be filed by (1) the owner of such brand, or (2) a wholesaler selling such brand and who is designated as agent for the purpose of filing such schedule if the owner of the brand is not licensed by the authority, or (3) with the approval of the authority, by a wholesaler, in the event that the owner of the brand is unable to file a schedule or designate an agent for such purpose.
(b) No brand of liquor or wine shall be sold to or purchased by a retailer unless a schedule, as provided by this section, is filed with the liquor authority, and is then in effect. Such schedule shall be in writing duly verified, and filed in the number of copies and form as required by the authority, and shall contain, with respect to each item, the exact brand or trade name, capacity of package, nature of contents, age and proof where stated on the label, the number of bottles contained in each case, the bottle and case price to retailers, the net bottle and case price paid by the seller, which prices, in each instance, shall be individual for each item and not in “combination” with any other item, the discounts for quantity, if any, and the discounts for time of payment, if any. Such brand of liquor or wine shall not be sold to retailers except at the price and discounts then in effect unless prior written permission of the authority is granted for good cause shown and for reasons not inconsistent with the purpose of this chapter. Such schedule shall be filed by each manufacturer selling such brand to retailers and by each wholesaler selling such brand to retailers.
(c) Provided however, nothing contained in this section shall require any manufacturer or wholesaler to list in any schedule to be filed pursuant to this section any item offered for sale to a retailer under a brand which is owned exclusively by one retailer and sold at retail within the state exclusively by such retailer.
§ 8. In enacting section eleven of this act, it is the firm intention of the legislature (a) that fundamental principles of price competition should prevail in the manufacture, sale and distribution of liquor in this state, (b) that consumers of alcoholic beverages in this state should not be discriminated against or disadvantaged by paying unjustifiably higher prices for brands of liquor than are paid by consumers in other states, and that price discrimination and favoritism are contrary to the best interests and welfare of the people of this state, and (c) that enactment of section eleven of this act will provide a basis for eliminating such discrimination against and disadvantage of consumers in this state. In order to forestall possible monopolistic and anti-competitive practices designed to frustrate the elimination of such discrimination and disadvantage, it is hereby further declared that the sale of liquor should be subjected to certain further restrictions, prohibitions and regulations, and the necessity for the enactment of the provisions of section nine of this act is, therefore, declared as a matter of legislative determination.
§ 9. Subdivision three of section one hundred one-b of such law, as amended by section seven of this act, is hereby amended to add eight new paragraphs, to be paragraphs (d), (e), (f), (g), (h), (i), (j) and (k), to read as follows:
(d) There shall be filed in connection with and when filed shall be deemed part of the schedule filed for a brand of liquor pursuant to paragraph (a) of this subdivision an affirmation duly verified by the owner of such brand of liquor, or by the wholesaler designated as agent for the purpose of filing such schedule if the owner of the brand of liquor is not licensed by the authority, that the bottle and case price of liquor to wholesalers set forth in such schedule is no higher than the lowest price at which such item of liquor was sold by such brand owner or such wholesaler designated as agent, or any related person, to any wholesaler anywhere in any other state of the United States or in the District of Columbia, or to any state (or state agency) which owns and operates retail liquor stores, at any time during the calendar month immediately preceding the month in which such schedule is filed. As used in this paragraph (d), the term “related person” shall mean any person (1) in the business of which such brand owner or wholesaler designated as agent has an interest, direct or indirect, by stock or other security ownership, as lender or lienor, or by interlocking directors or officers, or (2) the exclusive, principal or substantial business of which is the sale of a brand or brands of liquor purchased from such brand owner or wholesaler designated as agent, or (3) which has an exclusive franchise or contract to sell such brand or brands.
(e) There shall be filed in connection with and when filed shall be deemed part of any other schedule filed for a brand of liquor pursuant to paragraph (a) of this subdivision an affirmation duly verified by the person filing such schedule that the bottle and case price of liquor to wholesalers set forth in such schedule is no higher than the lowest price at which such item of liquor was sold by such person to any wholesaler anywhere in any other state of the United States or in the District of Columbia, or to any state (or state agency), which owns and operates retail liquor stores, at any time during the calendar month immediately preceding the month in which such schedule is filed.
(f) There shall be filed in connection with and when filed shall be deemed part of any schedule filed for a brand of liquor pursuant to paragraph (b) of this subdivision by the owner of such brand of liquor, or by the wholesaler designated as agent for the purpose of filing such schedule if the owner of the brand of liquor is not licensed by the authority, or by a related person, an affirmation duly verified by such brand owner or such wholesaler designated as agent that the bottle and case price of liquor to retailers set forth in such schedule is no higher than the lowest price at which such item of liquor was sold by such brand owner of [sic] such wholesaler designated as agent, or any related person, to any retailer anywhere in any other state of the United States or in the District of Columbia, other than to any state (or state agency) which owns and operates retail liquor stores, at any time during the calendar month immediately preceding the month in which such schedule is filed. As used in this paragraph (f), the term “related person” shall mean any person (1) in the business of which such brand owner or wholesaler designated as agent has an interest, direct or indirect, by stock or other security ownership, as lender or lienor, or by interlocking directors or officers, or (2) the exclusive, principal or substantial business of which is the sale of a brand or brands of liquor purchased from such brand owner or wholesaler designated as agent, or (3) who has an exclusive franchise or contract to sell such brand or brands.
(g) There shall be filed in connection with and when filed shall be deemed part of any other schedule filed for a brand of liquor pursuant to paragraph (b) of this subdivision an affirmation duly verified by the person filing such schedule that the bottle and case price of liquor to retailers set forth in such schedule is no higher than the lowest price at which such item of liquor was sold by such person to any retailer anywhere in any other state of the United States or in the District of Columbia, other than to any state (or state agency) which owns and operates retail liquor stores, at any time during the calendar month preceding the month in which such schedule is filed.
(h) In the event an affirmation with respect to any item of liquor is not filed within the time provided by this section, any schedule for which such affirmation is required shall be deemed invalid with respect to such item of liquor, and no such item may be sold to or purchased by any wholesaler or retailer during the period covered by any such schedule.
(i) In determining the lowest price for which any item of liquor was sold in any other state or in the District of Columbia, or to any state (or state agency) which owns and operates retail liquor stores, appropriate reductions shall be made to reflect all discounts in excess of those to be in effect under such schedule, and all rebates, free goods, allowances and other inducements of any kind whatsoever offered or given to any such wholesaler, state (or state agency) or retailer, as the case may be, purchasing such item in such other state or in the District of Columbia; provided that nothing contained in paragraphs (d), (e), (f) and (g) of this subdivision shall prevent differentials in price which make only due allowance for differences in state taxes and fees, and in the actual cost of delivery. As used in this paragraph, the term “state taxes or fees” shall mean the excise taxes imposed or the fees required by any state or the District of Columbia upon or based upon the gallon of liquor, and the term “gallon” shall mean one hundred twenty-eight fluid ounces.
(j) Notwithstanding and in lieu of any other penalty provided in any other provisions of this chapter, any person who makes a false statement in any affirmation made and filed pursuant to paragraph (d), (e), (f) or (g) of this subdivision shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction thereof shall be punishable by a fine of not more than ten thousand dollars or by imprisonment in a county jail or penitentiary for a term of not more than six months or by both such fine and imprisonment. Every affirmation made and filed pursuant to paragraph (d), (e), (f) or (g) of this subdivision shall be deemed to have been made in every county in this state in which the brand of liquor is offered for sale under the terms of said schedule. The attorney general or any district attorney may prosecute any person charged with the commission of a violation of this paragraph. In any such prosecution by the attorney general, he may appear in person or by his deputy or assistant before any court or any grand jury and exercise all the powers and perform all the duties in respect of any such proceeding which the district attorney would otherwise be authorized or required to exercise or perform, and in such prosecution the district attorney shall only exercise such powers and perform such duties as are required of him by the attorney general or his deputy or assistant so attending.
(k) Upon final judgment of conviction of any person after appeal, or in the event no appeal is taken, upon the expiration of the time during which an appeal could have been taken, the liquor authority may refuse to accept for any period of months not exceeding three calendar months any affirmation required to be filed by such person.
The appellants also challenged two minor provisions of § 7 of Chapter 531, 1964 Session Laws of New York. See pp. 51-52, infra. The relevant provisions of §§ 7, 8 and 9 of Chapter 531 are set out in the Appendix to this opinion.
45 Misc. 2d 956, 258 N. Y. S. 2d 442.
23 App. Div. 2d 933, 259 N. Y. S. 2d 644.
16 N. Y. 2d 47, 209 N. E. 2d 701.
382 U. S. 924.
Laws 1942, c. 899, § 1, Alcoholic Beverage Control Law, §§ 101-b-3 (a)-(d) (1946 ed.).
Laws 1950, c. 689, § 1, Alcoholic Beverage Control Law, § 101-c (1964 Supp.).
See New York State Legislative Annual 401-408, 484-489, 498-500 (1964); Breuer, Moreland Act Investigations in New York: 1907-65, pp. 131-169 (1965). The Commission’s Study Paper Number 5 (“Resale Price Maintenance in the Liquor Industry”) and Report and Recommendations No. 3 (“Mandatory Resale Price Maintenance”) are part of the record in this case.
Based upon the comparative price data it assembled, including examples of wholesale liquor prices in New York higher than retail prices elsewhere, the Commission concluded that, because of the mandatory resale price maintenance provision, New Yorkers were subsidizing the liquor industry by $150,000,000 a year.
The Commission made various other recommendations, including relaxation of certain restrictions on package store licenses and elimination of some of the conditions imposed on establishments serving liquor by the drink.
The mandatory resale price maintenance provision, § 101-c, was repealed by § 11 of Chapter 531.
Sellers seeking to take advantage of the milder affirmations required by paragraphs (e) and (g) must file a representation that they are not “related persons.” See Alcoholic Beverage Control
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | H | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Rutledge
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case involves an amended plan filed under § 11 (e) of the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935 by Engineers Public Service Company. The plan provided, inter alia, for satisfying the claims of Engineers’ preferred stockholders in cash as a preliminary to distributing the remaining assets to common stockholders and dissolving the company. Broadly, the question is whether the Securities and Exchange Commission, in reviewing the plan, correctly applied the “fair and equitable” standard of § 11 (e) in determining the amounts to be paid the preferred stockholders in satisfaction of their claims.
As will appear, the ultimate effect of the Commission’s determination was to allow the holders of the three series of Engineers’ outstanding cumulative preferred stock to receive the call (or voluntary liquidation and redemption) prices for their shares, namely, $105 per share, $110 per share and $110 per share, rather than the involuntary liquidation preference which, for each of the three series, was $100 per share. Common shareholders oppose the allowance to the preferred of the call price value, insisting that the maximum to which the preferred are entitled is the involuntary liquidation preference of $100.
In this view the District Court and, generally speaking, the Court of Appeals have concurred, declining to give effect to the plan as approved in this respect by the Commission. Consequently we are confronted not only with issues concerning the propriety of the Commission’s action in applying the “fair and equitable” standard of § 11 (e), but with the further question whether its judgment in these matters is to be given effect or that of the District Court, either as exercised by it or as modified in certain respects by the Court of Appeals.
The facts and the subsidiary issues involved in the various determinations are of some complexity and must be set forth in considerable detail for their appropriate understanding and disposition.
At the time the Public Utility Holding Company Act was enacted, the holding company system dominated by Engineers consisted of 17 utility and nonutility companies. Of these, nine were direct subsidiaries of Engineers and eight were indirect subsidiaries. Integration proceedings under § 11 (b) (1) of the Act were instituted with respect to Engineers and its subsidiaries in 1940. In a series of orders issued in 1941 and 1942 the Securities and Exchange Commission directed Engineers to dispose of its interests in all companies except either Virginia Electric and Power Company or Gulf States Utilities Company, and designated Virginia as the principal system if Engineers failed to elect between it and Gulf States. At the time the plan now under review was filed Engineers had complied with the divestment orders to the extent of disposing of all its properties except its interest in Virginia, consisting of 99.8 per cent of that company’s common stock, and its interest in Gulf States and El Paso Electric Company, consisting of all their common stock. Engineers’ principal assets were the securities representing its interest in these companies and $14,650,000 in cash and United States Treasury securities.
Engineers had no debts. It had outstanding three series of cumulative preferred stock of equal rank: 143,951 shares of $5 annual dividend series, 183,406 shares of $5.50 series, and 65,098 shares of $6 series. As has been said, all three series had involuntary liquidation preferences of $100 per share, call prices of $105 for the $5 series and $110 for the $5.50 and $6 series, and voluntary liquidation preferences equal to the call prices.
Proceedings before the Commission. The Plan as Originally Filed. The plan as originally filed by Engineers provided for the retirement of all three series of preferred stock by payment of the involuntary liquidation preference of $100 per share, plus accrued dividends to the date of payment. The remaining properties of Engineers were then to be distributed among the common stockholders, and Engineers was to dissolve.
In order to insure adequate presentation of the views of the preferred stockholders, Engineers’ board of directors authorized one of its members, Thomas W. Streeter, who was primarily interested in the preferred stock, to retain counsel partly at the company’s expense. Streeter and members of his family are petitioners in No. 227. These preferred stockholders and representatives of a group of institutional investors who held preferred stock, the Home Insurance Company and Tradesmens National Bank and Trust Company, petitioners in No. 243, appeared before the Commission in opposition to the plan. They contended that they should receive amounts equal to the voluntary liquidation preference of the preferred.
After summarizing the issuing prices, the dividend history, and the market history of the three series of preferreds, the Commission analyzed the assets coverage and earnings coverage of the stock. The preferred stock of Engineers represented 17.5 per cent of the consolidated capitalization and surplus of the system. That stock was junior to the 66.2 per cent of the consolidated capitalization and surplus which consisted of securities of Engineers’ subsidiaries held by the public, and senior to 16.3 per cent, consisting of Engineers’ total common stock and surplus.
The system’s average earnings coverage of fixed charges and preferred dividends for the last five years prior to the submission of the plan was 1.4 times. For these five years Engineers’ average earnings coverage of preferred dividends was 1.5 times.
Certain expert testimony concerning the going-concern or investment value of the preferred stock was adduced before the Commission. Dr. Ralph E. Badger was an expert witness on behalf of certain preferred stockholders. He made a detailed analysis of the earnings and assets of Engineers and of the three series of preferred stock. He then compared Engineers and the preferred stock with relevant information concerning other comparable companies and securities. He concluded that, apart from their call provisions and on the basis of quality and yield, the three series of preferred stock should be valued at $108.70, $119.57, and $130.33 respectively, but that because of the redemption privilege, “the present investment values are represented by their call price, plus a slight premium to account for the time required to effect a call.” The fair investment values of the preferred, in view of the redemption privilege, were: $5 series— $106.25; $5.50 series — $111.38; $6 series — $111.50. No rebuttal testimony was introduced, and there was no serious challenge to Badger’s conclusions that the fair investment value of each series of the preferred exceeded the call prices.
Donald C. Barnes, Engineers’ president, testified that apart from the impact of § 11 of the Act and taking into account the call prices, the fair value of the preferreds, i. e., “what a willing buyer would pay and what a willing seller would take in today’s market for such securities,” was somewhat above the redemption prices. Barnes spoke of several factors, viz., possibilities of continued inflation, of depression, government competition, adverse changes in regulatory policy, or developments in atomic energy, all “common to the utility industry generally,” which might have a future adverse effect on the value of Engineers preferred. Both witnesses agreed, however, as Engineers stated in its brief before the Commission, that “the present value or investment worth of these three series of stock, on a going concern basis and apart from the Act, under prevailing yields applied to comparable securities” was in excess of the call prices. Barnes also testified that the preferred stock would have been called if it had not been for the impact of § 11.
The Commission first held that “the dissolution of Engineers [was] 'necessary’ under the standards of the Act.” However, since such a liquidation, under Otis & Co. v. Securities and Exchange Commission, 323 U. S. 624, “does not mature preferred stockholders’ claims,” the so-called involuntary liquidation provision of Engineers’ charter was not operative. The Otis case ruled “that Congress did not intend that its exercise of power to simplify should mature rights, created without regard to the possibility of simplification of system structure, which otherwise would only arise by voluntary action of stockholders or, involuntarily, through action of creditors.” 323 U. S. at 638.
After announcing that in a § 11 reorganization “a security holder must receive, in the order of his priority, from that which is available for the satisfaction of his claim, the equitable equivalent of the rights surrendered,” the Commission considered all the charter provisions which affected the preferred, “such as the dividend rate and the call price as well as the liquidation preferences,” and analyzed the financial condition of the company “with particular regard to the asset and earnings coverage of the preferred.” On the basis of the undisputed testimony the Commission found that the going-concern or investment value of the preferred was at least equal to the respective call prices. Since the call prices operated as ceilings on the value of the security by providing with respect to each series, “a means, apart from the Act, whereby the security can be retired at a maximum price,” no attempt was made to determine whether the investment value of any series of preferred would exceed the call price if there were no call provision.
The Commission concluded that the payment of only $100 per share, plus accrued dividends, would not be fair and equitable to the preferred stockholders. It therefore refused to approve that provision of the plan which provided for retirement of the preferred at involuntary liquidation preferences.
Turning its attention to whether the plan was fair to the common stock, the Commission stated that, because of the accumulation of large amounts of idle cash, elimination of preferred stock having fixed dividend requirements was “highly beneficial to the common.” Moreover, by implementing adjustment of the system to compliance with the Act, retirement of the preferred brought the common closer to the time when it would begin receiving dividends.
Engineers contended that payment to the preferred of any amount in excess of $100 per share was unfair, because certain divestments required by the Act resulted in losses to the common stock and also eliminated the advantages of a “diversified portfolio of securities.” In reply to this the Commission noted that it did not accept the hypothesis that losses were incurred by divestments caused by the Act, and stated that the preferred claims, measured by their going-concern value, were entitled to absolute priority, and that what remained to junior security holders after satisfying this priority was necessarily their fair share.
Certain mechanical features of the plan were also disapproved by the Commission.
The Amended Plan. Engineers then acquiesced in the Commission’s determination and submitted an amended plan. In addition to meeting the Commission’s mechanical objections to the original plan, the amended plan provided for payment of the preferred stocks at their voluntary liquidation or call prices.
Over the objections of certain common stockholders, the Commission approved the plan as amended. It stated that, in the event the common stockholders continued to litigate the fairness of the plan after approval by the district court, it would be appropriate “to achieve expeditious compliance with the Act and fairness to the persons affected... for Engineers to make prompt payment of $100 per share and accrued dividends in order to stop the accrual of further dividends, and set up an escrow arrangement.” The escrow would secure the payment of the amount in issue and also “an additional amount to provide the preferred 'for the period of the escrow a return on the amount in escrow which is measured by the return which would have been received by it if the stock remained outstanding.’ ” Such an escrow could be established under court supervision without returning the plan to the Commission. Holding Company Act Release No. 7119, p. 6. By later order the Commission provided for the establishment of such an escrow at the option of Engineers if it appeared likely that common stockholders would litigate beyond the district court. Holding Company Act Release No. 7190.
Proceedings in the District Court. The Commission applied to the District Court for the District of Delaware for approval of the plan as amended. § 11 (e). Certain common stockholders, respondents in Nos. 226, 227, and 243, and petitioners in No. 266, filed objections to the plan, contending that the Commission had erred in awarding to the preferred stockholders the equivalent of the voluntary liquidation preferences of their shares. The Streeter group of preferred stockholders objected to the Commission’s finding of the appropriateness of an escrow arrangement to stop the accrual of further dividends in the event of continued litigation.
The District Court considered the case on the record made before the Commission. It preferred not to determine whether the involuntary liquidation preferences controlled, but stated that “in each case the inquiry is one of relative rights based on colloquial equity.” 71 F. Supp. 797, 802. That standard, thought the court, necessitated consideration of various factors to which it was thought the Commission had attached little or no importance. Thus it was important to consider not only the charter provisions but the issuing price in terms of what the company received for the securities, and the market history of the preferred. These factors might more than offset the factor of investment value, the testimony as to which the court accepted. In any event, thought the court, several other considerations have this effect. The Act, in addition to compelling the preferred stockholders to surrender “this present enhanced value,” worked hardships on the common. All classes of securities, the court said, suffered losses as a result of the divestment orders issued by the Commission under the Act. Earnings retained in the system at a sacrifice to the common contributed to the enhancement of the value of the preferred. These standards of “colloquial equity,” which the District Court conceived to be controlling in our decision in Otis & Co. v. Securities and Exchange Commission, supra, compelled the conclusion that it would not be fair and equitable to give the preferred more than $100 per share. Arguments concerning the worth of the preferred in the absence of a Public Utility Holding Company Act were thought not profitable to consider “for there is a Public Utility Holding Company Act.” In effect amending the plan to provide for payment of the preferred at $100 per share, the District Court approved the plan as thus amended. The escrow agreement prescribed by the Commission was approved, the court concluding that there was no merit in the preferred stockholders’ objections to this feature. 71 F. Supp. 797.
Proceedings in the Court of Appeals. The Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit regarded as a central issue in the case the question whether the District Court had exceeded the scope of review properly exercised by a district court reviewing a plan under § 11 (e) of the Public Utility Holding Company Act. It concluded that the District Court was charged with the duty of exercising a full and independent judgment as to the fairness and equity of a plan, “to function as an equity reorganization tribunal within the limitations prescribed by the Act.” 168 F. 2d 722, 736.
Turning to the various factors which should have been taken into consideration in arriving at the equitable equivalent to the rights surrendered by the preferred shareholders, the Court of Appeals criticized the Commission for finding the investment value of the preferred as if there were no Holding Company Act while omitting to evaluate the common by the same standard, and for failing to consider factors other than the investment value. It was thought that the Commission should have estimated the future earning power of Engineers, absent a Holding Company Act, and apportioned that power between preferred and common stockholders in accordance with their respective claims. It was also thought that, in the process of valuing the preferred and the common by the same approach, the Commission should have considered “the substantial losses which occurred to Engineers by virtue of divestitures compelled by the Act.” Losses of this nature “should be returned to the credit side of the enterprise’s balance sheet as a matter of bookkeeping.” Id. at 737-738.
But even an investment value figure properly arrived at is “only one of a series of factors to be used in arriving at equitable equivalents.” The Commission was required to consider “All pertinent factors and all substantial equities,” which presumably included the “colloquial equities” adverted to by the District Court. Id. at 738.
The District Court, however, was held to have erred in one particular: it had amended the plan by substituting its own valuation of $100 per share for the preferred stock for that of the Commission. The court had no power to do this. It could only reject the Commission’s valuation, and return the case to the Commission for further action in the light of the court’s views.
At the time the opinion of the Court of Appeals was rendered, the plan had been consummated, with the exception of the payment of the disputed amounts in excess of the involuntary liquidation preferences of the preferred. The escrow arrangement, which had been employed to preserve the issue of the amount to which the preferred was entitled after having been approved by the Commission and the District Court, was held to be proper.
We granted certiorari because of the importance of the questions presented in the administration of the Public Utility Holding Company Act. 335 U. S. 851.
I.
The Court of Appeals was of the view that the question of the extent of “the power conferred on the district courts... by the Act” was one which went “to the heart of the instant controversy.” 168 F. 2d at 729. The Commission apparently took the position before that court that the District Court had erred in setting aside the agency’s conclusions unless those conclusions lacked “any rational and statutory foundation.” This view was rejected by the Court of Appeals. Distinguishing judicial review under § 24 (a) as being limited to the inquiry whether the Commission “has plainly abused its discretion in these matters,” Securities and Exchange Commission v. Chenery Corp., 332 U. S. 194, 208, the Court of Appeals held that a § 11 (e) court was charged with the duty of exercising a full and independent judgment as to the fairness and equity of a plan, “to function as an equity reorganization tribunal within the limitations prescribed by the Act.” 168 F. 2d at 736.
This position is maintained before this Court by the representatives of the common stockholders. The preferred stockholders’ representatives urge that the Court of Appeals erred in this regard, and that the conclusion of the Commission should not have been disturbed by the District Court, because that conclusion was supported by substantial evidence and was within the agency’s statutory authority. The District Court, in their view, exceeded the proper scope of review.
The Commission apparently no longer takes so restrictive a view of the District Court’s function as it formerly held. It now concedes that that court had power to review “independently” the method of valuation employed. But it urges that in this case the question, whether a proper method of valuation was employed, is one of law, since Congress has itself prescribed the standard for compensating the various classes of security holders instead of delegating to the Commission the task of fixing that standard.
In the alternative the Commission argues that “If, as the court below seemed to assume, the question is not one of law,... the scope of review under Section 11 (e) is limited in the same manner as that applicable to determinations of the Interstate Commerce Commission under Section 77 of the Bankruptcy Act,” which is said to embody a similar statutory scheme and under which administrative determinations of valuation are sustained if supported by substantial evidence and not contrary to law. Ecker v. Western Pacific R. Corp., 318 U. S. 448, 473; R. F. C. v. Denver & Rio Grande W. R. Co., 328 U. S. 495, 505-509.
The problem of the scope of review which Congress intended the district court to exercise under § 11 (e) arises from and is complicated by the fact that Congress provided not one, but two procedures for reviewing Commission orders of the type now in question.
The first is afforded by § 11 (e) itself. It relates to orders approving voluntary plans submitted by any registered holding company or subsidiary for compliance with subsection (b). The Commission is authorized to approve such a plan if, after notice and opportunity for hearing, it “shall find such plan, as submitted or as modified, necessary to effectuate the provisions of subsection (b) and fair and equitable to the persons affected by such plan.” Then follows the provision that “the Commission, at the request of the company, may apply to a court... to enforce and carry out the terms and provisions of such plan. If... the court, after notice and opportunity for hearing, shall approve such plan as fair and equitable and as appropriate to effectuate the provisions of section 11,” the court is authorized “as a court of equity” to take exclusive jurisdiction and possession of the company or companies and their assets, and to appoint a trustee, which may be the Commission, for purposes of carrying out the plan.
The alternative mode of review is provided by § 24 (a). It applies to all orders issued by the Commission under the Act and in abbreviated form is as follows:
“Any person or party aggrieved by an order issued by the Commission... may obtain a review of such order in the circuit court of appeals... by filing in such court, within sixty days... a written petition.... [T]he Commission shall certify and file in the court a transcript of the record upon which the order complained of was entered.... [S]uch court shall have exclusive jurisdiction to affirm, modify, or set aside such order, in whole or in part. No objection to the order of the Commission shall be considered by the court unless such objection shall have been urged before the Commission or unless there were reasonable grounds for failure so to do. The findings of the Commission as to the facts, if supported by substantial evidence, shall be conclusive.”
The District Court and the Court of Appeals, focusing their attention primarily on § 11 (e), emphasized the section’s requirement of approval by the District Court, that court’s declared status “as a court of equity,” and the absence from § 11 (e) of such explicit provisions as those of § 24 (a) making the Commission’s findings of fact conclusive, if supported by substantial evidence; limiting the court to consideration of objections urged before the Commission in the absence of reasonable grounds for failure to urge them; and restricting the court’s consideration to the record made before the Commission in the absence of any showing requiring remand to the Commission for the taking of additional evidence.
Chiefly from these factors the two courts reached their respective conclusions that the District Court was required to exercise a full and independent judgment as to the fairness and equity of the plan, functioning as an equity reorganization tribunal within the limitations prescribed by the Act. However, they differed, as has been noted, concerning the scope of those limitations.
The District Court thought it was authorized to substitute its own judgment for that of the Commission as to whether the plan was “fair and equitable,” after considering independently the various matters it denominated as “colloquial equities.” Accordingly, after reaching numerous conclusions on those matters contrary to the Commission’s or not given final effect in its determinations, the court arrived at an over-all judgment opposite to that of the Commission and held the plan not “fair and equitable” to the common stockholders in awarding the preferred more than $100 per share. Modifying the plan to allow the latter only that amount, the court ordered it enforced as modified.
The Court of Appeals was in general agreement with the District Court concerning its power to exercise a full and independent judgment in giving or withholding approval of the plan as “fair and equitable” and, on the whole, was in accord with the District Court’s dispositions of the matters of “colloquial equity.” Stressing statements appearing in the legislative history of § 11, the court thought they gave basis for a strong analogy between the functions of district courts under § 11 (e) and those of such courts “when called upon under the Sherman and Hepburn Acts to effect compulsory corporate readjustments required by the public policy expressed in those acts.” The court’s opinion then added: “We think that it will not be contended that a district court... adjudging a controversy arising under the Sherman Act would function other than as in an original equity proceeding, exercising all the powers and duties inherent in a court of equity under such circumstances.” 168 F. 2d at 729. Accordingly, the court upheld the District Court’s view that it had power, as a court of equity, to withhold approval and enforcement of the plan upon its own independent judgment of the “colloquial equities,” notwithstanding the Commission’s contrary judgment and, apparently, even though the Commission’s judgment involved no clear error of law or abuse of discretion.
The Court of Appeals, however, viewed somewhat differently the limitations placed by the Act upon the power of review. “The proceedings before the equity reorganization court are not strictly de novo since the district court can only approve a plan when it has been approved by the Commission. See Application of Securities and Exchange Commission, D. C. Del., 50 F. Supp. 965, 966.” 168 F. 2d at 732. The District Court, it was said, could receive evidence aliunde the Commission’s record, could decide on that evidence and the Commission’s record that the plan is unfair and inequitable, and remand the cause to the Commission for further consideration, or could remand without taking new evidence. The District Court therefore was wrong in ordering enforcement of the plan as modified by itself. It could only approve and enforce or refuse approval and remand. Only a plan approved by the Commission and by the court could be enforced.
These views were thought supported by the history of the law of reorganization, including equity receiverships, reorganization of insolvent companies under former § 77 B of the Bankruptcy Act, 11 U. S. C. § 207 et seq., and Chapter X reorganizations (id. at § 501 et seq.), although the court did not “mean to imply that Congress intended to grant a Section 11 (e) court the same full and untrammeled scope that a court of bankruptcy would have in a Chapter X proceeding.” 168 F. 2d at 735-736. Nevertheless, “Any question which goes to the issue of what is fair and equitable may be raised and must be passed upon.” Id. at 735. Moreover, since “the critical phrase employed alike by courts of equity and by Congress in framing the test under which a plan shall be approved or disapproved, has always embraced the phrase ‘fair and equitable’ or its substantial equivalent,” the court thought that the power and functions of the district courts in review of plans submitted did not “vary much from statute to statute and from case to case,” id. at 734, i. e., whether the plan was to be consummated by way of equity receivership, by action under former § 77 B, by suit under Chapter X, by a proceeding under § 77, 11 U. S. C. § 205, or by petition to a district court under § 11(e).
The variant views held respectively by the Commission, the District Court, the Court of Appeals, and the parties to the proceeding demonstrate the complexity of the problem. Each view has a rational basis of support, but none is without its difficulties, either in statutory terms, history and intent or in practical consequences.
The legislative history of § 11 (e) throws little light on the problem. There was, surprisingly, only casual, indeed tangental, discussion of it. The analogy to proceedings under § 77 of the Bankruptcy Act, drawn by the Commission and referred to by the Court of Appeals, rests chiefly upon the statement of Senator Wheeler, co-sponsor of the bill, made during a colloquy in debate on the Senate floor and set forth in the margin. But that statement did not occur in any detailed consideration of the scope and incidence of judicial review. It arose only as it were incidentally in the course of extended discussion which centered about the receivership provisions of § 11 (e) as it stood at the time of the debate.
Moreover, the discussion did not and could not take account of the fact that, under our subsequent decisions in the Western Pacific and Denver & Rio Grande cases, supra, matters of valuation in § 77 reorganizations have been held to be exclusively for the Interstate Commerce Commission, not for the district courts, except as stated above. Ecker v. Western Pacific R. Corp., supra; R. F. C. v. Denver & Rio Grande W. R. Co., supra. Significantly, this fact seems not to have been taken into account when the Court of Appeals included the § 77 proceedings among its general grouping of reorganization procedures for analogical purposes. And in this respect the Commission makes clear its difference from the Court of Appeals, pointing out that under the Western Pacific and Bio Grande decisions the Commission decides questions of valuation, subject only to the narrow scope of review there allowed.
But, as if to complicate the matter further, the Commission’s analogy is somewhat weakened by the fact that the Western Pacific and Bio Grande rulings concerning review of valuation matters rested upon language in § 77 not repeated in § 11 (e) of the Act presently in question. That language, appearing in subsection (e) of § 77, provided: “If it shall be necessary to determine the value of any property for any purpose under this section, the Commission shall determine such value and certify the same to the court in its report on the plan.” This, the Court held, left to the Interstate Commerce Commission the determination of value “without the necessity of a reexamination by the court, when that determination is reached with material evidence to support the conclusion and in accordance with legal standards.” 318 U. S. at 472-473.
On the other hand, the opposing analogy drawn by the Court of Appeals from the history of the law of reorganization in general is highly indiscriminate. Insofar as it includes equity receiverships, e. g., pursuant to Sherman and Hepburn Act readjustments, it ignores the important fact that in such proceedings there is no effort to brigade the administrative and judicial processes. Nor does it take account of the substantial differences “from statute to statute,” e. g., between proceedings under § 77 of the Bankruptcy Act as construed in the Western Pacific and Bio Grande cases, on the one hand, and Chapter X reorganizations, on the other. Moreover, and perhaps most important, it substitutes analogy drawn from other statutes and judicial proceedings, together with a reading of § 11 (e) in comparative isolation from the other provisions of the Act, for a consideration of that section in the context of the Act, as a whole and particularly with reference to any effort toward harmonizing the section with § 24 (a) and bringing the two as close together as possible in practical operation.
Of course Congress could provide two entirely dissimilar procedures for review, depending on whether appeal were taken by an aggrieved person to a Court of Appeals or the plan were submitted by the Commission at the Company’s request to a district court. But it is hard to imagine any good reason that would move Congress to do this deliberately. The practical effect of assuming that Congress intended the review under § 11 (e) to be conducted wholly without reference to or consideration of the limitations expressly provided for the review under § 24 (a) certainly would produce incongruous results which would be very difficult to impute to Congress in the absence of unmistakably explicit command.
For one thing the consequence would be, in effect, to create to a very large possible extent differing standards for administration and application of the act, depending upon which mode of review were invoked. In the one instance, apart from reviewable legal questions, the Commission’s expert judgment on the very technical and complicated matters to deal with which the Commission was established, would be controlling. In the other instance, it would have to give way to the contrary view of whatever district court the plan might be submitted to.
Conceivably the same plan might be brought under review by both routes. Indeed, in one instance the District Court for Delaware, to which the plan here was submitted, held that its determination of the issues in a § 11 (e) proceeding was precluded by a prior affirmation of the same order by a Court of Appeals in a § 24 (a) review proceeding. See L. J. Marquis & Co. v. Securities & Exchange Commission, 134 F. 2d 822, and Application of Securities and Exchange Commission, 50 F. Supp. 965. Presumably, under the views now taken by the District Court and the Court of Appeals, if district court review under § 11 (e) could be had first, that determination likewise would be conclusive as against contrary views held by the Commission and a Court of Appeals in a later § 24 (a) proceeding.
Moreover, apart from legal questions, the controlling standard would be fixed by the discretion of the district court to which the plan might be submitted. And since such a court might be any of the many district courts available for that purpose, there hardly could be the uniform application of the “fair and equitable” standard which Congress undoubtedly had in mind when it entrusted its primary administration to the Commission’s expert judgment and experience, and when it drafted the detailed provisions of § 24 (a) for review. To the extent at least that the standard contemplated an area of expert discretion, its content under the view taken by the District Court and the Court of Appeals could not be uniform, but would vary from court to court as the judicial discretion might differ from that of the Commission or other courts.
In contrast with the specific limitations of § 24 (a), the very brevity and lack of specificity of § 11 (e), together with the paucity and tentative character of the legislative history, concerning the scope of review under the latter section, give caution against reading its.terms as importing a breadth of review highly inconsistent with the limitations expressly provided by § 24 (a). Both sections are parts of the same statute, designed to give effect to the same legislative policies and to secure uniform application of the statutory standards. That statutory context and those objects should outweigh any general considerations or analogies drawn indiscriminately from differing statutes or from the history of reorganizations in general, leading as these do to incongruities and diversities in practical application of the Act’s terms and policies.
Indeed we think it is fair to conclude that the primary-object of § 11 (e) was not to provide a highly different scope of judicial review from that afforded by § 24 (a), but was to enable the Commission, by giving it the authority to invoke the court’s power, to mobilize the judicial authority in carrying out the policies of the Act. To do this the court “as a court of equity” was authorized to “take exclusive jurisdiction and possession of” the company or companies and their assets and to appoint a trustee to hold and administer the assets under the court’s direction.
True, the court was to approve the plan as fair and equitable; but nothing was said expressly as to the scope of review or the resolution of differences in discretionary matters between the Commission and the court. The court’s characterization as “a court of equity” was appropriate in relation to the powers of enforcement conferred. We do not think it was intended to define with accuracy the scope of review to be exercised over matters committed to the Commission’s discretion and expert judgment, not involving questions of law, or to set up a different and conflicting standard in those matters from the one to be applied in proceedings under § 24 (a). This view is not inconsistent with Senator Wheeler’s comparison with § 77 proceedings under the Bankruptcy Act, which perhaps, despite its rather casual interjection, most nearly approaches disclosure of the legislative intent as to the present problem.
It may be added that, in general, the courts which have dealt with the problem appear to have taken the view we take, as against the one prevailing in the District
Court and the Court of Appeals which reviewed this case, although in no case has the question been so sharply-focused as here. While § 11 (e), as we have noted, does not contain language the equivalent of subsection (e) of § 77 of the Bankruptcy Act upon which this Court rested its ruling concerning review of valuations in the Western Pacific case, that lack may be supplied in this case by the correlation we think is required between the terms of § 11 (e) and those of § 24 (a). Accordingly we are unable to accept the conclusion of the Court of Appeals and the District Court that the
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | H | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Ginsburg
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case concerns the taxing authority of the State of Oklahoma over the Chickasaw Nation (Tribe) and its members. We take up two questions: (1) May Oklahoma impose its motor fuels excise tax upon fuel sold by Chickasaw Nation retail stores on tribal trust land; (2) May Oklahoma impose its income tax upon members of the Chickasaw Nation who are employed by the Tribe but who reside in the State outside Indian country.
We hold that Oklahoma may not apply its motor fuels tax, as currently designed, to fuel sold by the Tribe in Indian country. In so holding, we adhere to settled law: when Congress does not instruct otherwise, a State’s excise tax is unenforceable if its legal incidence falls on a Tribe or its members for sales made within Indian country. We further hold, however, that Oklahoma may tax the income (including wages from tribal employment) of all persons, Indian and non-Indian alike, residing in the State outside Indian country. The Treaty between the United States and the Tribe, which guarantees the Tribe and its members that “no Territory or State shall ever have a right to pass laws for the government of” the Chickasaw Nation, does not displace the rule, accepted interstate and internationally, that a sovereign may tax the entire income of its residents.
I
The Chickasaw Nation, a federally recognized Indian Tribe, commenced this civil action in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma, to stop the State of Oklahoma from enforcing several state taxes against the Tribe and its members. Pertinent here, the District Court, ruling on cross-motions for summary judgment, held for the State on the motor fuels tax imposition and largely for the Tribe on the income tax issue. The Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit ruled for the Tribe and its members on both issues: It held that the State may not apply the motor fuels tax to fuel sold by the Tribe’s retail stores, and, further, that the State may not tax the wages of members of the Chickasaw Nation who work for the Tribe, even if they reside outside Indian country. 31 F. 3d 964 (1994).
Concerning the motor fuels tax, the Tenth Circuit disapproved the District Court’s “balancing of the respective tribal and state interests” approach. Id., at 972. The legal incidence of the tax, the Court of Appeals ruled, is the key concept. That incidence, the Tenth Circuit determined, falls directly on fuel retailers — here, on the Tribe, due to its operation of two convenience stores that sell fuel to tribal members and other persons. Oklahoma’s imposition of its fuels tax on the Tribe as retailer, the Court of Appeals concluded, “conflicts with ... the traditional scope of Indian sovereign authority.” Ibid. Because the State asserted no congressional authorization for its exaction, the Tenth Circuit declared the fuels tax preempted.
Oklahoma’s income tax, in the Court of Appeals’ view, could not be applied to any tribal member employed by the Tribe; residence, the Tenth Circuit said, was “simply not relevant to [its] determination.” Id., at 979. The Court of Appeals relied on the provision of the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek, Sept. 27, 1830, Art. IV, 7 Stat. 333-334, that “no Territory or State shall ever have a right to pass laws for the government of the [Chickasaw] Nation of Red People and their descendants.” To this treaty language, the Tenth Circuit applied “the general rule that ‘[d]oubtful expressions are to be resolved in favor of’ the Indians.” 31 F. 3d, at 978 (quoting McClanahan v. Arizona Tax Comm'n, 411 U. S. 164, 174 (1973)). The Court of Appeals also noted that it had endeavored to “rea[d] the treaty as the Indians [who signed it] would have understood it.” 31 F. 3d, at 979.
We granted the State’s petition for certiorari, 513 U. S. 1071 (1995), and now (1) affirm the Court of Appeals’ judgment as to the motor fuels tax, and (2) reverse that judgment as to the income tax applied to earnings of tribal members who work for the Tribe but reside in the State outside Indian country.
II
The Tribe contends, and the Tenth Circuit held, that Oklahoma’s fuels tax is levied on retailers, not on distributors or consumers. The respect due to the Chickasaw Nation’s sovereignty, the Tribe maintains, means Oklahoma — absent congressional permission — may not collect its tax for fuel supplied to, and sold by, the Tribe at its convenience stores. In support of the tax immunity it asserts, the Tribe recalls our reaffirmations to this effect: “The Constitution vests the Federal Government with exclusive authority over relations with Indian tribes . . . , and in recognition of the sovereignty retained by Indian tribes even after formation of the United States, Indian tribes and individuals generally are exempt from state taxation within their own territory.” Montana v. Blackfeet Tribe, 471 U. S. 759, 764 (1985); see also, e. g., Mescalero Apache Tribe v. Jones, 411 U. S. 145, 148 (1973).
In response, Oklahoma urges that Indian tribes and their members are not inevitably, but only “ ‘generally,’ ” immune from state taxation. Brief for Petitioner 19 (quoting Blackfeet Tribe, 471 U. S., at 764). At least as to some aspects of state taxation, Oklahoma asserts, an approach “balancing the state and tribal interests” is in order. Brief for Petitioner 17. Even if the legal incidence of the fuels tax falls on the Tribe (as retailer), Oklahoma concludes, tax immunity should be disallowed here because “the state interest supporting the levy is compelling, . . . the tribal interest is insubstantial, and . . . the state tax would have no effect on ‘tribal governance and self-determination.’” Id., at 22 (emphasis in original).
In the alternative, Oklahoma argues that the Court of Appeals “erred in holding that the legal incidence of the fuel tax falls on the retailer.” Id., at 10. Moreover, the State newly contends, even if the fuels tax otherwise would be impermissible, Congress, in the 1936 Hayden-Cartwright Act, 4 U. S. C. § 104, expressly permitted state taxation of reservation activity of this type. Brief for Petitioner 23-24.
We set out first our reason for refusing to entertain at this late date Oklahoma’s argument that the Hayden-Cartwright Act expressly permits state levies on motor fuels sold on Indian reservations. We then explain why we agree with the Tenth Circuit on the Tribe’s exemption from Oklahoma’s fuels tax.
A
On brief, the State points out — for the first time in this litigation — that the Hayden-Cartwright Act, 4 U. S. C. § 104, expressly authorizes States to tax motor fuel sales on “United States military or other reservations.” § 104(a). The Act’s word “reservations,” Oklahoma maintains, encompasses Indian reservations. Brief for Petitioner 23-24. We decline to address this question of statutory interpretation. The State made no reference to the Hayden-Cartwright Act in the courts of first and second instance. And even though the Court of Appeals flagged the Act’s possible relevance, Oklahoma did not mention this 1936 legislation in its petition for certiorari. Nor is Oklahoma’s newly discovered claim of vintage legislative authorization “fairly included” in the question the State tendered for our review: “Whether principles of federal pre-emption or Indian sovereignty preclude a State from imposing a tax on motor fuel sold by an Indian tribe ....?” Pet. for Cert. (i). As a court of review, not one of first view, we will entertain issues withheld until merits briefing “‘only in the most exceptional cases.’” Yee v. Escondido, 503 U. S. 519, 535 (1992) (citation omitted). This case does not fit that bill.
B
Assuming, then, that Congress has not expressly authorized the imposition of Oklahoma’s fuels tax on fuel sold by the Tribe, we must decide if the State’s exaction is nonetheless permitted. Oklahoma asks us to make the determination by weighing the relevant state and tribal interests, and urges that the balance tilts in its favor. Oklahoma emphasizes that the fuel sold is used “almost exclusively on state roads,” imposing “very substantial costs on the State — but no burden at all on the Tribe.” Brief for Petitioner 9. The State also stresses that “the levy does not reach any value generated by the Tribe on Indian la.nd,” id., at 10; i. e., the fuel is not produced or refined in Indian country, and is often sold to outsiders.
We have balanced federal, state, and tribal interests in diverse contexts, notably, in assessing state regulation that does not involve taxation, see, e. g., California v. Cabazon Band of Mission Indians, 480 U. S. 202, 216-217 (1987) (balancing interests affected by State’s attempt to regulate on-reservation high-stakes bingo operation), and state attempts to compel Indians to collect and remit taxes actually imposed on non-Indians, see, e. g., Moe v. Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of Flathead Reservation, 426 U. S. 463, 483 (1976) (balancing interests affected by State’s attempt to require tribal sellers to collect cigarette tax on non-Indians; precedent about state taxation of Indians is not controlling because “this [collection] burden is not, strictly speaking, a tax at all”).
But when a State attempts to levy a tax directly on an Indian tribe or its members inside Indian country, rather than on non-Indians, we have employed, instead of a balancing inquiry, “a more categorical approach: ‘[A]bsent cession of jurisdiction or other federal statutes permitting it,’ we have held, a State is without power to tax reservation lands and reservation Indians.” County of Yakima v. Confederated Tribes and Bands of Yakima Nation, 502 U. S. 251, 258 (1992) (citation omitted). Taking this categorical approach, we have held unenforceable a number of state taxes whose legal incidence rested on a tribe or on tribal members inside Indian country. See, e. g., Bryan v. Itasca County, 426 U. S. 373 (1976) (tax on Indian-owned personal property situated in Indian country); McClanahan, 411 U. S., at 165-166 (tax on income earned on reservation by tribal members residing on reservation).
The initial and frequently dispositive question in Indian tax cases, therefore, is who bears the legal incidence of a tax. If the legal incidence of an excise tax rests on a tribe or on tribal members for sales made inside Indian country, the tax cannot be enforced absent clear congressional authorization. See, e. g., Moe, 425 U. S., at 475-481 (Montana’s cigarette sales tax imposed on retail consumers could not be applied to on-reservation “smoke shop” sales to tribal members). But if the legal incidence of the tax rests on non-Indians, no categorical bar prevents enforcement of the tax; if the balance of federal, state, and tribal interests favors the State, and federal law is not to the contrary, the State may impose its levy, see Washington v. Confederated Tribes of Colville Reservation, 447 U. S. 134, 154-157 (1980), and may place on a tribe or tribal members “minimal burdens” in collecting the toll, Department of Taxation and Finance of N. Y v. Milhelm Attea & Bros., 512 U. S. 61, 73 (1994). Thus, the inquiry proper here is whether the legal incidence of Oklahoma’s fuels tax rests on the Tribe (as retailer), or on some other transactors — here, the wholesalers who sell to the Tribe or the consumers who buy from the Tribe.
Judicial focus on legal incidence in lieu of a more venturesome approach accords due deference to the lead role of Congress in evaluating state taxation as it bears on Indian tribes and tribal members. See Yakima, 502 U. S., at 267. The State complains, however, that the legal incidence of a tax “ ‘has no relationship to economic realities.’ ” Brief for Petitioner 30 (quoting Complete Auto Transit, Inc. v. Brady, 430 U. S. 274, 279 (1977)). But our focus on a tax’s legal incidence accommodates the reality that tax administration requires predictability. The factors that would enter into an inquiry of the kind the State urges are daunting. If we were to make “economic reality” our guide, we might be obliged to consider, for example, how completely retailers can pass along tax increases without sacrificing sales volume — a complicated matter dependent on the characteristics of the market for the relevant product. Cf. Yakima, 502 U. S., at 267-268 (categorical approach safeguards against risk of litigation that could “engulf the States’ annual assessment and taxation process, with the validity of each levy dependent upon a multiplicity of factors that vary from year to year, and from parcel to parcel”).
By contrast, a “legal incidence” test, as 11 States with large Indian populations have informed us, “provide[s] a reasonably bright-line standard which, from a tax administration perspective, responds to the need for substantial certainty as to the permissible scope of state taxation authority.” Brief for South Dakota et al. as Amici Curiae 2. And if a State is unable to enforce a tax because the legal incidence of the impost is on Indians or Indian tribes, the State generally is free to amend its law to shift the tax’s legal incidence. So, in this case, the State recognizes and the Tribe agrees that Oklahoma could accomplish what it here seeks “by declaring the tax to fall on the consumer and directing the Tribe to collect and remit the levy.” Pet. for Cert. 17; see Brief for Respondent 10-13.
c
The State also argues that, even if legal incidence is key, the Tenth Circuit erred in holding that the fuels tax’s legal incidence rests on the retailer (here, the Tribe). We consider the Court of Appeals’ ruling on this point altogether reasonable, and therefore uphold it. See, e. g., Haring v. Prosise, 462 U. S. 306, 314, n. 8 (1983) (noting “our practice to accept a reasonable construction of state law by the court of appeals”).
The Oklahoma legislation does not expressly identify who bears the tax’s legal incidence — distributors, retailers, or consumers; nor does it contain a “pass through” provision, requiring distributors and retailers to pass on the tax’s cost to consumers. Cf. Moe, 425 U. S., at 482 (statute at issue provided that Montana cigarette tax “ ‘shall be conclusively presumed to be [a] direct [tax] on the retail consumer precollected for the purpose of convenience and facility only’ ”).
In the absence of such dispositive language, the question is one of “fair interpretation of the taxing statute as written and applied.” California Bd. of Equalization v. Chemehuevi Tribe, 474 U. S. 9, 11 (1985) (per curiam). Oklahoma’s law requires fuel distributors to “remit” the amount of tax due to the Tax Commission; crucially, the statute describes this remittal by the distributor as “on behalf of a licensed retailer.” Okla. Stat., Tit. 68, § 505(C) (1991) (emphasis added). The inference that the tax obligation is legally the retailer’s, not the distributor’s, is supported by the prescriptions that sales between distributors are exempt from taxation, §507, but sales from a distributor to a retailer are subject to taxation, § 505(E). Further, if the distributor remits taxes it subsequently is unable to collect from the retailer, the distributor may deduct the uncollected amount from its future payments to the Tax Commission. § 505(C). The distributor, then, “is no more than a transmittal agent for the taxes imposed on the retailer.” 31 F. 3d, at 971. And for their services as “agent of the state for [tax] collection,” distributors retain a small portion of the taxes they collect. § 506(a).
The fuels tax law contains no comparable indication that retailers are simply collection agents for taxes ultimately imposed on consumers. No provision sets off the retailer’s liability when consumers fail to make payments due; neither are retailers compensated for their tax collection efforts. And the tax imposed when a distributor sells fuel to a retailer applies whether or not the fuel is ever purchased by a consumer. See, e. g., § 502 (“There is hereby levied an excise tax . . . upon the sale of each and every gallon of gasoline sold, or stored and distributed, or withdrawn from storage . . . .”). Finally, Oklahoma’s law imposes no liability of any kind on a consumer for purchasing, possessing, or using untaxed fuel; in contrast, the legislation makes it unlawful for distributors or retailers “to sell or offer for sale in this state, motor fuel or diesel fuel while delinquent in the payment of any excise tax due the state.” § 505(C).
As the Court of Appeals fairly and reasonably concluded: “[T]he import of the language and the structure of the fuel tax statutes is that the distributor collects the tax from the retail purchaser of the fuel”; the “motor fuel taxes are legally imposed on the retailer rather than on the distributor or the consumer.” 31 F. 3d, at 971-972.
I — l
Regarding Oklahoma’s income tax, the Court of Appeals declared that the State may not tax the wages of members of the Chickasaw Nation who work for the Tribe, including members who reside in Oklahoma outside Indian country.
The holding on tribal members who live in the State outside Indian country runs up against a well-established principle of interstate and international taxation — namely, that a jurisdiction, such as Oklahoma, may tax all the income of its residents, even income earned outside the taxing jurisdiction:
“That the receipt of income by a resident of the territory of a taxing sovereignty is a taxable event is universally recognized. Domicil itself affords a basis for such taxation. Enjoyment of the privileges of residence in the state and the attendant right to invoke the protection of its laws are inseparable from responsibility for sharing the costs of government .... These are rights and privileges which attach to domicil within the state. . . . Neither the privilege nor the burden is affected by the character of the source from which the income is derived.” New York ex rel. Cohn v. Graves, 300 U. S. 308, 312-313 (1937).
This “general principle] ... ha[s] international acceptance.” American Law Institute, Federal Income Tax Project: International Aspects of United States Income Taxation 4, 6 (1987); see, e. g., C. Cretton, Expatriate Tax Manual 1 (2d ed. 1991) (“An individual who is resident in the UK is subject to income tax on all his sources of income, worldwide.”). It has been applied both to the States, e. g., Shaffer v. Carter, 252 U. S. 37, 57 (1920); see 2 J. Hellerstein & W. Hellerstein, State Taxation §20.04, p. 20-13 (1992), and to the Federal Government, e. g., Cook v. Tait, 265 U. S. 47, 56 (1924); see 1 J. Isenbergh, International Taxation 45-56 (1990).
The Tribe seeks to block the State from exercising its ordinary prerogative to tax the income of every resident; in particular, the Tribe seeks to shelter from state taxation the income of tribal members who live in Oklahoma outside Indian country but work for the Tribe on tribal lands. For the exception the Tribe would carve out of the State’s taxing authority, the Tribe gains no support from the rule that Indians and Indian tribes are generally immune from state taxation, McClanahan v. Arizona Tax Comm’n, 411 U. S. 164 (1973), as this principle does not operate outside Indian country. Oklahoma Tax Comm’n v. Sac and Fox Nation, 508 U. S. 114, 123-126 (1993).
Notably, the Tribe has not asserted here, or before the Court of Appeals, that the State’s tax infringes on tribal self-governance. See Brief in Opposition 9-10 (“infringement” question is not presented to this Court); Brief for Respondent 42, n. 37; see also Sac and Fox, 508 U. S., at 126 (reserving question “whether the Tribe’s right to self-governance could operate independently of its territorial jurisdiction to pre-empt the State’s ability to tax income earned from work performed for the Tribe itself when the employee does not reside in Indian country”).
Instead, the Tribe relies on the argument that Oklahoma’s levy impairs rights granted or reserved by federal law. See Mescalero Apache Tribe v. Jones, 411 U. S., at 148-149 (“[Ejxpress federal law to the contrary” overrides the general rule that “Indians going beyond reservation boundaries have generally been held subject to nondiscriminatory state law otherwise applicable to all citizens of the State.”). The Tribe invokes the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek, Sept. 27, 1830, Art. IV, 7 Stat. 333-334, which provides in pertinent part:
“The Government and people of the United States are hereby obliged to secure to the said [Chickasaw] Nation of Red People the jurisdiction and government of all the persons and property that may be within their limits west, so that no Territory or State shall ever have a right to pass laws for the government of the [Chickasaw] Nation of Red People and their descendants ... but the U. S. shall forever secure said [Chickasaw] Nation from, and against, all [such] laws ....”
According to the Tribe, the State’s income tax, when imposed on tribal members employed by the Tribe, is a law “for the government of the [Chickasaw] Nation of Red People and their descendants,” and it is immaterial that these “descendants” live outside Indian country.
In evaluating this argument, we are mindful that “treaties should be construed liberally in favor of the Indians.” County of Oneida v. Oneida Indian Nation of N. Y., 470 U. S. 226, 247 (1985). But liberal construction cannot save the Tribe’s claim, which founders on a clear geographic limit in the Treaty. By its terms, the Treaty applies only to persons and property “within [the Nation’s] limits.” We comprehend this Treaty language to provide for the Tribe’s sovereignty within Indian country. We do not read the Treaty as conferring super-sovereign authority to interfere with another jurisdiction’s sovereign right to tax income, from all sources, of those who choose to live within that jurisdiction’s limits.
The Tribe and the United States further urge us to read the Treaty in accord with the repudiated view that an income tax imposed on government employees should be treated as a tax on the government. See Dobbins v. Commissioners of Erie Cty., 16 Pet. 435 (1842). But see Graves v. New York ex rel. O’Keefe, 306 U. S. 466, 480 (1939) (“The theory, which once won a qualified approval, that a tax on income is legally or economically a tax on its source, is no longer tenable .. . .”). Under this view, a tax on tribal members employed by the Tribe would be seen as an impermissible tax on the Tribe itself.
We doubt the signatories meant to incorporate this now-defunct view into the Treaty. They likely gave no thought to a State’s authority to tax the income of tribal members living in the State’s domain, because they did not expect any members to be there. On the contrary, the purpose of the Treaty was to put distance between the Tribe and the States. Under the Treaty, the Tribe moved across the Mississippi River, from its traditional lands within Mississippi and Alabama, to unsettled lands not then within a State. See D. Hale & A. Gibson, The Chickasaw 46-59 (1991).
Moreover, importing the Dobbins rule into the Treaty would prove too much. That dubious doctrine, by typing taxation of wages earned by tribal employees as taxation of the Tribe itself, would require an exemption for all employees of the Tribe — not just tribal members, but nonmembers as well. The Court of Appeals rejected such an extension, see 31 F. 3d, at 975 (“It is settled that the income tax is imposed on the employee, not the employer .... Therefore, to the extent that the income tax is imposed on non-member employees who have no established claim to tribal ancestry, the tax does not infringe upon the treaty prohibition.”), and •even the Tribe is not urging this view before us, admitting that it is “substantially more tenuous.” Brief for Respondent 47.
* * *
For the reasons stated, we affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals as to the motor fuels tax, reverse that judgment as to the income tax, and remand the case for proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
APPENDIX TO OPINION OF THE COURT
Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek,
Sept. 27,1830, Article IV,
7 Stat. 333-334
The Government and people of the United States are hereby obliged to secure to the said [Chickasaw] Nation of Red People the jurisdiction and government of all the persons and property that may be within their limits west, so that no Territory or State shall ever have a right to pass laws for the government of the [Chickasaw] Nation of Red People and their descendants; and that no part of the land granted them shall ever be embraced in any Territory or State; but the U. S. shall forever secure said [Chickasaw] Nation from, and against, all laws except such as from time to time may be enacted in their own National Councils, not inconsistent with the Constitution, Treaties, and Laws of the United States; and except such as may, and which have been enacted by Congress, to the extent that Congress under the Constitution are required to exercise a legislation over Indian Affairs. But the [Chickasaws], should this Treaty be ratified, express a wish that Congress may grant to the [Chickasaws] the right of punishing by their own laws, any white man who shall come into their nation, and infringe any of their national regulations.
For the Court’s most recent encounters with questions of state authority to tax Indian Tribes and their members, and tribal immunity from state taxation, see Department of Taxation and Finance of N Y. v. Milhelm Attea & Bros., 612 U. S. 61 (1994); Oklahoma Tax Comm’n v. Sac and Fox Nation, 508 U. S. 114 (1993); County of Yakima v. Confederated Tribes and Bands of Yakima Nation, 502 U. S. 251 (1992); Oklahoma Tax Comm’n v. Citizen Band of Potawatomi Tribe of Okla., 498 U. S. 505 (1991).
“Indian country,” as Congress comprehends that term, see 18 U. S. C. § 1151, includes “formal and informal reservations, dependent Indian communities, and Indian allotments, whether restricted or held in trust by the United States.” Sac and Fox, 508 U. S., at 123.
In addition to the motor fuels and income taxes before us, the Tribe’s complaint challenged motor vehicle excise taxes on Tribe-owned vehicles, retail sales taxes on certain purchases by the Tribe for its own use, and sales taxes on 3.2% beer sold at the Tribe’s two convenience stores, as well as tax warrants issued against officers of the Tribe. In the course of litigation, Oklahoma apparently decided not to contest the Tribe’s claims regarding the vehicle and retail sales taxes, and withdrew the warrants; the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit affirmed the District Court’s grant of summary judgment for the State on the 3.2% beer tax, and the Tribe has not sought our review of that issue.
In a ruling not before us, see Brief for Respondent 47, the Court of Appeals upheld application of Oklahoma’s income tax to Chickasaw Nation employees who are not members of the Tribe.
According to the State’s Tax Commission, Oklahoma imposes fuels tax at the rate of 17 cents per gallon for gasoline and 14 cents per gallon for diesel fuel. Brief for Petitioner 2-3; see Okla. Stat., Tit. 68, §§ 502, 502.2, 502.4, 502.6, 516, 520, 522 (1991) (gasoline); §§502.1, 502.3, 502.5, 502.7, 522.1 (diesel fuel).
The Court of Appeals noted:
“In White Mountain Apache Tribe v. Bracker, 448 U. S. 136, 151, n. 16 ... (1980), the Supreme Court declined to reach the question whether Indian reservations might be encompassed by the Hayden-Cartwright Act, 4 U. S. C. § 104, which provides for the imposition of state fuel taxes ‘on United States military or other reservations.’ This issue was not raised before this court, and we express no opinion on it.” 31 F. 3d 964, 972, n. 4 (1994).
This Court’s Rule 14.1(a); see Yee v. Escondido, 503 U. S. 519, 633 (1992). Cf. Lebron v. National Railroad Passenger Corporation, 613 U. S. 374, 379-380 (1995) (reaching issue addressed in decision under review and “fairly embraced within” both the question set forth in the petition for certiorari and the argument advanced in the petition).
In weighing the affected interests without determining the legal incidence of the fuels tax, the District Court apparently confused our cases about state taxation of non-Indians with those about state taxation of Indians. The court cited a case of the former type, Washington v. Confederated Tribes of Colville Reservation, 447 U. S. 134 (1980). See App. to Pet. for Cert. 36a. But in Colville we resorted to balancing only after determining that the legal incidence of the challenged levy was on non-Indian consumers. 447 U. S., at 142, n. 9.
Support for focusing on legal incidence is also indicated in cases arising in the analogous context of the Federal Government’s immunity from state taxation. See United States v. County of Fresno, 429 U. S. 452, 459 (1977) (“States may not... impose taxes the legal incidence of which falls on the Federal Government.”).
A measure designed to do just that, Committee Substitute for H. B. 1522, 45th Okla. Leg., 1st Sess. (1995), was approved by the Oklahoma House of Representatives on March 9, 1995, but failed to gain passage in the Oklahoma Senate during the legislature’s 1995 session. See Brief for-Respondent 11, la-23a; Supplemental Brief for Respondent 1.
For nonresidents, in contrast, jurisdictions generally may tax only income earned within the jurisdiction. See Shaffer v. Carter, 252 U. S. 37, 57 (1920) (as to residents, a State “may, and does, exert its taxing power over their income from all sources”; as to nonresidents, “the tax is only on such income as is derived from . .. sources [within the State]”).
Although sovereigns have authority to tax all income of their residents, including income earned outside their borders, they sometimes elect not to do so, and they commonly credit income taxes paid to other sovereigns. But “[i]f foreign income of a domiciliary taxpayer is exempted, this is an independent policy decision and not one compelled by jurisdictional considerations.” American Law Institute, Federal Income Tax Project: International Aspects of United States Income Taxation 6 (1987).
Concerning salaries of United States resident “diplomats and employees of international organizations,” post, at 470, the dissent speaks of “treaties” as the wellsprings of “an exception” to otherwise governing tax law. That is not quite right. It is dominantly United States internal law that sets the ground rules for exemptions accorded employees of foreign governments and international organizations. In return for exemption of foreign government employees from United States federal taxation, § 893 of the Internal Revenue Code requires that the employer government grant equivalent exemption to United States Government employees performing similar services abroad. 26 U. S. C. § 893(a)(3); see Toll v. Moreno, 458 U. S. 1, 15-16 (1982) (identifying statutory genesis of § 893 exemption); 1 J. Isenbergh, International Taxation 393-394 (1990).
The Tribe’s claim, as presented in this case, is a narrow one. The Tribe does not assert here its authority to tax the income of these tribal members. Nor does it complain that Oklahoma fails to award a credit against state taxes for taxes paid to the Tribe.
The United States suggests, as a potential disposition, that we remand on the “self-governance” question. Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 30, n. 18. But an interference-with-self-govemance plea was neither made in the lower courts nor presented here, and is therefore foreclosed in this case.
This treaty, first concluded between the United States and the Choctaw Nation in 1830, became applicable to the Chickasaw Nation in 1837. See Treaty of Jan. 17, 1837, Art. 1,11 Stat. 573.
In its alliance with the Tribe, the United States is not an entirely disinterested party. The United States affords Chickasaw tribal member employees no exemption from federal income tax. See Squire v. Capoeman, 361 U. S. 1, 6 (1966) (“[I]n ordinary affairs of life, not governed by treaties or remedial legislation, [Indians] are subject to the payment of income taxes as are other citizens.”); Hoptowit v. Commissioner, 709 F. 2d 564 (CA9 1983) (rejecting claim of federal tax exemption for income from tribal employment); Jourdain v. Commissioner, 617 F. 2d 507 (CA8) (per curiam) (same), cert. denied, 449 U. S. 839 (1980). And, in computing employees’ federal income tax base, state income tax is allowed as an itemized deduction. 26 U. S. C. § 164(a)(3). Thus, an exemption of wages from state income tax increases federal income tax revenue.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | B | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Brennan
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Appellee was convicted in Superior Court, Fulton County, Georgia, on two counts of using opprobrious words and abusive language in violation of Georgia Code Ann. § 26-6303, which provides: “Any person who shall, without provocation, use to or of another, and in his presence ... opprobrious words or abusive language, tending to cause a breach of the peace . . . shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.” Appellee appealed the conviction to the Supreme Court of Georgia on the ground, among others, that the statute violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments because vague and overbroad. The Georgia Supreme Court rejected that contention and sustained the conviction. Wilson v. State, 223 Ga. 531, 156 S. E. 2d 446 (1967). Appellee then sought federal habeas corpus relief in the District Court for the Northern District of Georgia. The District Court found that, because appellee had failed to exhaust his available state remedies as to the other grounds he relied upon in attacking his conviction, only the contention that § 26-6303 was facially unconstitutional was ripe for decision. 303 F. Supp. 952 (1969). On the merits of that question, the District Court, in disagreement with the Georgia Supreme Court, held that § 26-6303, on its face, was unconstitutionally vague and broad and set aside appellee’s conviction. The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed. 431 F. 2d 855 (1970). We noted probable jurisdiction of the State’s appeal, 403 U. S. 930 (1971). We affirm.
Section 26-6303 punishes only spoken words. It can therefore withstand appellee’s attack upon its facial constitutionality only if, as authoritatively construed by the Georgia courts, it is not susceptible of application to speech, although vulgar or offensive, that is protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments, Cohen v. California, 403 U. S. 15, 18-22 (1971); Terminiello v. Chicago, 337 U. S. 1, 4-5 (1949). Only the Georgia courts can supply the requisite construction, since of course “we lack jurisdiction authoritatively to construe state legislation.” United States v. Thirty-seven Photographs, 402 U. S. 363, 369 (1971). It matters not that the words appellee used might have been constitutionally prohibited under a narrowly and precisely drawn statute. At least when statutes regulate or proscribe speech and when “no readily apparent construction suggests itself as a vehicle for rehabilitating the statutes in a single prosecution,” Dombrowski v. Pfister, 380 U. S. 479, 491 (1965), the transcendent value to all society of constitutionally protected expression is deemed to justify allowing “attacks on overly broad statutes with no requirement that the person making the attack demonstrate that his own conduct could not be regulated by a statute drawn with the requisite narrow specificity,” id., at 486; see also Baggett v. Bullitt, 377 U. S. 360, 366 (1964); Coates v. City of Cincinnati, 402 U. S. 611, 616 (1971); id., at 619-620 (White, J., dissenting); United States v. Raines, 362 U. S. 17, 21-22 (1960); NAACP v. Button, 371 U. S. 415, 433 (1963). This is deemed necessary because persons whose expression is constitutionally protected may well refrain from exercising their rights for fear of criminal sanctions provided by a statute susceptible of application to protected expression.
“Although a statute may be neither vague, over-broad, nor otherwise invalid as applied to the conduct charged against a particular defendant, he is permitted to raise its vagueness or unconstitutional overbreadth as applied to others. And if the law is found deficient in one of these respects, it may not be applied to him either, until and unless a satisfactory limiting construction is placed on the statute. The statute, in effect, is stricken down on its face. This result is deemed justified since the otherwise continued existence of the statute in unnarrowed form would tend to suppress constitutionally protected rights.” Coates v. City of Cincinnati, supra, at 619-620 (opinion of White, J.) (citation omitted).
The constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech forbid the States to punish the use of words or language not within “narrowly limited classes of speech.” Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U. S. 568, 571 (1942). Even as to such a class, however, because “the line between speech unconditionally guaranteed and speech which may legitimately be regulated, suppressed, or punished is finely drawn,” Speiser v. Randall, 357 U. S. 513, 525 (1958), “[i]n every case the power to regulate must be so exercised as not, in attaining a permissible end, unduly to infringe the protected freedom,” Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296, 304 (1940). In other words, the statute must be carefully drawn or be authoritatively construed to punish only unprotected speech and not be susceptible of application to protected expression. “Because First Amendment freedoms need breathing space to survive, government may regulate in the area only with narrow specificity.” NAACP v. Button, supra, at 433.
Appellant does not challenge these principles but contends that the Georgia statute is narrowly drawn to apply only to a constitutionally unprotected class of words — “fighting” words — “those which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace.” Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, supra, at 572. In Chaplinsky, we sustained a conviction under Chapter 378, § 2, of the Public Laws of New Hampshire, which provided: “No person shall address any offensive, derisive or annoying word to any other person who is lawfully in any street or other public place, nor call him by any offensive or derisive name . . . .” Chaplinsky was convicted for addressing to another on a public sidewalk the words, “You are a God damned racketeer,” and “a damned Fascist and the whole government of Rochester are Fascists or agents of Fascists.” Chaplinsky challenged the constitutionality of the statute as inhibiting freedom of expression because it was vague and indefinite. The Supreme Court of New Hampshire, however, “long before the words for which Chaplinsky was convicted/’ sharply limited the statutory language “offensive, derisive or annoying word” to “fighting” words:
“[N]o words were forbidden except such as have a direct tendency to cause acts of violence by the person to whom, individually, the remark is addressed. . . .
“The test is what men of common intelligence would understand would be words likely to cause an average addressee to fight. . . . Derisive and annoying words can be taken as coming within the purview of the statute . . . only when they have this characteristic of plainly tending to excite the addressee to a breach of the peace. . . .
“The statute, as construed, does no more than prohibit the face-to-face words plainly likely to cause a breach of the peace by the addressee . . . .” 91 N. H. 310, 313, 320-321, 18 A. 2d 754, 758, 762 (1941).
In view of that authoritative construction, this Court held: “We are unable to say that the limited scope of the statute as thus construed contravenes the Constitutional right of free expression. It is a statute narrowly drawn and limited to define and punish specific conduct lying within the domain of state power, the use in a public place of words likely to cause a breach of the peace.” 315 U. S., at 573. Our decisions since Chaplinsky have continued to recognize state power constitutionally to punish “fighting” words under carefully drawn statutes not also susceptible of application to protected expression, Cohen v. California, 403 U. S., at 20; Bachellar v. Maryland, 397 U. S. 564, 567 (1970); see Street v. New York, 394 U. S. 576, 592 (1969). We reaffirm that proposition today.
Appellant argues that the Georgia appellate courts have by construction limited the proscription of § 26-6303 to “fighting” words, as the New Hampshire Supreme Court limited the New Hampshire statute. “A consideration of the [Georgia] cases construing the elements of the offense makes it clear that the opprobrious words and abusive language which are thereby prohibited are those which as a matter of common knowledge and under ordinary circumstances will, when used to or of another person, and in his presence, naturally tend to provoke violent resentment. The statute under attack simply states in statutory language what this Court has previously denominated 'fighting words.’ ” Brief for Appellant 6. Neither the District Court nor the Court of Appeals so read the Georgia decisions. On the contrary, the District Court expressly stated, “Thus, in the decisions brought to this Court’s attention, no meaningful attempt has been made to limit or properly define these terms.” 303 F. Supp., at 955. The District Judge and one member of the unanimous Court of Appeals panel were Georgia practitioners before they ascended the bench. Their views of Georgia law necessarily are persuasive with us. C. Wright, Law of Federal Courts § 58, pp. 240-241 (2d ed. 1970). We have, however, made our own examination of the Georgia cases, both those cited and others discovered in research. That examination brings us to the conclusion, in agreement with the courts below, that the Georgia appellate decisions have not construed § 26-6303 to be limited in application, as in Chaplinsky, to words that “have a direct tendency to cause acts of violence by the person to whom, individually, the remark is addressed.”
The dictionary definitions of “opprobrious” and “abusive” give them greater reach than “fighting” words. Webster’s Third New International Dictionary (1961) defined “opprobrious” as “conveying or intended to convey disgrace,” and “abusive” as including “harsh insulting language.” Georgia appellate decisions have construed § 26-6303 to apply to utterances that, although within these definitions, are not “fighting” words as Chaplinsky defines them. In Lyons v. State, 94 Ga. App. 570, 95 S. E. 2d 478 (1956), a conviction under the statute was sustained for awakening 10 women scout leaders on a camp-out by shouting, “Boys, this is where we are going to spend the night.” “Get the G— d— bed rolls out . . . let’s see how close we can come to the G— d— tents.” Again, in Fish v. State, 124 Ga. 416, 52 S. E. 737 (1905), the Georgia Supreme Court held that a jury question was presented by the remark, “You swore a lie.” Again, Jackson v. State, 14 Ga. App. 19, 80 S. E. 20 (1913), held that a jury question was presented by the words addressed to another, “God damn you, why don’t you get out of the road?” Plainly, although “conveying . . . disgrace” or “harsh insulting language,” these were not words “which by their very utterance . . . tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace.” Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, supra, at 572.
Georgia appellate decisions construing the reach of “tending to cause a breach of the peace” underscore that § 26-6303 is not limited, as appellant argues, to words that “naturally tend to provoke violent resentment.” Lyons v. State, supra; Fish v. State, supra; and Jackson v. State, supra. Indeed, the Georgia Court of Appeals in Elmore v. State, 15 Ga. App. 461, 83 S. E. 799 (1914), construed “tending to cause a breach of the peace” as mere
“words of description, indicating the kind or character of opprobrious or abusive language that is penalized, and the use of language of this character is a violation of the statute, even though it be addressed to one who, on account of circumstances or by virtue of the obligations of office, can not actually then and there resent the same by a breach of the peace ....
“. . . Suppose that one, at a safe distance and out of hearing of any other than the person to whom he spoke, addressed such language to one locked in a prison cell or on the opposite bank of an impassable torrent, and hence without power to respond immediately to such verbal insults by physical retaliation, could it be reasonably contended that, because no breach of the peace could then follow, the statute would not be violated? . . .
“. . . [T] hough, on account of circumstances or obligations imposed by office, one may not be able at the time to assault and beat another on account of such language, it might still tend to cause a breach of the peace at some future time, when the person to whom it was addressed might be no longer hampered by physical inability, present conditions, or official position.” 15 Ga. App., at 461-463, 83 S. E., at 799-800.
Moreover, in Samuels v. State, 103 Ga. App. 66, 67, 118 S. E. 2d 231, 232 (1961), the Court of Appeals, in applying another statute, adopted from a textbook the common-law definition of “breach of the peace.”
“The term ‘breach of the peace’ is generic, and includes all violations of the public peace or order, or decorum; in other words, it signifies the offense of disturbing the public peace or tranquility enjoyed by the citizens of a community .... By ‘peace,’ as used in this connection, is meant the tranquility enjoyed by the citizens of a municipality or a community where good order reigns among its members.”
This definition makes it a “breach of peace” merely to speak words offensive to some who hear them, and so sweeps too broadly. Street v. New York, 394 U. S., at 592. “[H]ow infinitely more doubtful and uncertain are the boundaries of an offense including any ‘diversion tending to a breach of the peace’ . . . .” Gregory v. Chicago, 394 U. S. 111, 119 (1969) (Black, J., concurring) (emphasis supplied).
Accordingly, we agree with the District Court that our decisions in Ashton v. Kentucky, 384 U. S. 195 (1966), and Cox v. Louisiana, 379 U. S. 536 (1965), compel the conclusion that § 26-6303, as construed, does not define the standard of responsibility with requisite narrow specificity. In Ashton we held that “to make an offense of conduct which is ‘calculated to create disturbances of the peace’ leaves wide open the standard of responsibility.” 384 U. S., at 200. In Cox v. Louisiana the statute struck down included as an element congregating with others “with intent to provoke a breach of the peace, or under circumstances such that a breach of the peace may be occasioned thereby.” As the District Court observed, “[a]s construed by the Georgia courts, especially in the instant case, the Georgia provision as to breach of the peace is even broader than the Louisiana statute.” 303 F. Supp., at 956.
We conclude that “[t]he separation of legitimate from illegitimate speech calls for more sensitive tools than [Georgia] has supplied.” Speiser v. Randall, 357 U. S., at 525. The most recent decision of the Georgia Supreme Court, Wilson v. State, supra, in rejecting appel-lee’s attack on the constitutionality of § 26-6303, stated that the statute “conveys a definite meaning as to the conduct forbidden, measured by common understanding and practice.” 223 Ga., at 533, 156 S. E. 2d, at 448. Because earlier appellate decisions applied § 26-6303 to utterances where there was no likelihood that the person addressed would make an immediate violent response, it is clear that the standard allowing juries to determine guilt “measured by common understanding and practice” does not limit the application of § 26-6303 to “fighting” words defined by Chaplinsky. Rather, that broad standard effectively “licenses the jury to create its own standard in each case.” Herndon v. Lowry, 301 U. S. 242, 263 (1937). Accordingly, we agree with the conclusion of the District Court, “[t]he fault of the statute is that it leaves wide open the standard of responsibility, so that it is easily susceptible to improper application.” 303 F. Supp., at 955-956. Unlike the construction of the New Hampshire statute by the New Hampshire Supreme Court, the Georgia appellate courts have not construed § 26-6303 “so as to avoid all constitutional difficulties.” United States v. Thirty-seven Photographs, 402 U. S., at 369.
Affirmed.
Mr. Justice Powell- and Mr. Justice Rehnquist took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
The District Court stated, “Accordingly, this order will not deal with the alleged unconstitutional application of this statute nor any of the other points raised in the writ, except for the facial unconstitutionality of Georgia Code §26-6303.” 303 F. Supp., at 953. The state conviction was upon two counts of assault and battery as well as upon two counts of using opprobrious and abusive language. Appellee was also convicted of federal offenses arising out of the same incident, and those convictions were affirmed by the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Tillman v. United States, 406 F. 2d 930 (1969). The facts giving rise to the prosecutions are stated in the opinion of the Supreme Court of Georgia as follows:
“The defendant was one of a group of persons who, on August 18, 1966, picketed the building in which the 12th Corps Headquarters of the United States Army was located, carrying signs opposing the war in Viet Nam. When the inductees arrived at the building, these persons began to block the door so that the inductees could not enter. They were requested by police officers to move from the door, but refused to do so. The officers attempted to remove them from the door, and a scuffle ensued. There was ample evidence to show that the defendant committed assault and battery on the two police officers named in the indictment. There was also sufficient evidence of the use of the opprobrious and abusive words charged, and the jury was authorized to find from the circumstances shown by the evidence that the words were spoken without sufficient provocation, and tended to cause a breach of the peace.” 223 Ga. 531, 535, 156 S. E. 2d 446, 449-450.
“Count 3 of the indictment alleged that the accused 'did without provocation use to and of M. G. Redding and in his presence, the following abusive language and opprobrious words, tending to cause a breach of the peace: “White son of a bitch, I’ll kill you.” “You son of a bitch, I’ll choke you to death.”’ Count 4 alleged that the defendant ‘did without provocation use to and of T. L. Raborn, and in his presence, the following abusive language and opprobrious words, tending to cause a breach of the peace: “You son of a bitch, if you ever put your hands on me again, I’ll cut you all to pieces.” ’ ” Id., at 534, 156 S. E. 2d, at 449.
Judge Sidney O. Smith, Jr., of Gainesville, Georgia, was the District Judge. Judge Lewis R. Morgan of Newnan, Georgia, a member of the Court of Appeals panel, sat as District Judge in Georgia before his appointment to the Court of Appeals.
We were informed in oral argument that the Court of Appeals of Georgia is a court of statewide jurisdiction, the decisions of which are binding upon all trial courts in the absence of a conflicting decision of the Supreme Court of Georgia. Federal courts therefore follow these holdings as to Georgia law. Fidelity Union Trust Co. v. Field, 311 U. S. 169 (1940); Bernhardt v. Polygraphic Co. of America, 350 U. S. 198, 205 (1956).
The dissents question reliance upon Georgia cases decided more than 50 years ago. But Fish v. State, 124 Ga. 416, 52 S. E. 737 (1905), and Jackson v. State, 14 Ga. App. 19, 80 S. E. 20 (1913), were cited by the Supreme Court of Georgia in 1967 in Wilson v. State, 223 Ga. 531, 156 S. E. 2d 446, to support that holding. Thus, Fish and Jackson remain authoritative interpretations of § 26-6303 by the State’s highest court.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | C | sc_issuearea |
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Justice Sotomayor
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case presents the question whether the age of a child subjected to police questioning is relevant to the custody-analysis of Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436 (1966). It is beyond dispute that children will often feel bound to submit to police questioning when an adult in the same cireum-stances would feel free to leave. Seeing no reason for police officers or courts to blind themselves to that commonsense reality, we hold that a child’s age properly informs the Miranda custody analysis.
I
A
Petitioner J. D. B. was a 13-year-old, seventh-grade student attending class at Smith Middle School in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, when he was removed from his classroom by a uniformed police officer, escorted to a closed-door conference room, and questioned by police for at least half an hour.
This was the second time that police questioned J. D. B. in the span of a week. Five days earlier, two home break-ins occurred, and various items were stolen. Police stopped and questioned J. D. B. after he was seen behind a residence in the neighborhood where the crimes occurred. That same day, police also spoke to J. D. B.’s grandmother — his legal guardian — as well as his aunt.
Police later learned that a digital camera matching the description of one of the stolen items had been found at J. D. B.’s middle school and seen in J. D. B.’s possession. Investigator DiCostanzo, the juvenile investigator with the local police force who had been assigned to the case, went to the school to question J. D. B. Upon arrival, DiCostanzo informed the uniformed police officer on detail to the school (a so-called school resource officer), the assistant principal, and an administrative intern that he was there to question J. D. B. about the break-ins. Although DiCostanzo asked the school administrators to verify J. D. B.’s date of birth, address, and parent contact information from school records, neither the police officers nor the school administrators contacted J. D. B.’s grandmother.
The uniformed officer interrupted J. D. B.’s afternoon social studies class, removed J. D. B. from the classroom, and escorted him to a school conference room. There, J. D. B. was met by DiCostanzo, the assistant principal, and the administrative intern. The door to the conference room was closed. With the two police officers and the two administrators present, J. D. B. was questioned for the next 30 to 45 minutes. Prior to the commencement of questioning, J. D. B. was given neither Miranda warnings nor the opportunity to speak to his grandmother. Nor was he informed that he was free to leave the room.
Questioning began with small talk — discussion of sports and J. D. B.’s family life. DiCostanzo asked, and J. D. B. agreed, to discuss the events of the prior weekend. Denying any wrongdoing, J. D. B. explained that he had been in the neighborhood where the crimes occurred because he was seeking work mowing lawns. DiCostanzo pressed J. D. B. for additional detail about his efforts to obtain work; asked J. D. B. to explain a prior incident, when one of the victims returned home to find J. D. B. behind her house; and confronted J. D. B. with the stolen camera. The assistant principal urged J. D. B. to “do the right thing,” warning J.' D. B. that “the truth always comes out in the end.” App. 99a, 112a.
Eventually, J. D. B. asked whether he would “still be in trouble” if he returned the “stuff.” Ibid. In response, DiCostanzo explained that return of the stolen items would be helpful, but “this thing is going to court” regardless. Id., at 112a; ibid. (“[WJhat’s done is done[;] now you need to help yourself by making it right”); see also id., at 99a. DiCos-tanzo then warned that he may need to seek a secure custody order if he believed that J. D. B. would continue to break into other homes. When J. D. B. asked what a secure custody order was, DiCostanzo explained that “it’s where you get sent to juvenile detention before court.” Id,, at 112a.
After learning of the prospect of juvenile detention, J. D. B. confessed that he and a friend were responsible for the break-ins. DiCostanzo only then informed J. D. B. that he could refuse to answer the investigator’s questions and that he was free to leave. Asked whether he understood, J. D. B. nodded and provided further detail, including information about the location of the stolen items. Eventually J. D. B. wrote a statement, at DiCostanzo’s request. When the bell rang indicating the end of the schoolday, J. D. B. was allowed to leave to catch the bus home.
B
Two juvenile petitions were filed against J. D. B., each alleging one count of breaking and entering and one count of larceny. J. D. B.’s public defender moved to suppress his statements and the evidence derived therefrom, arguing that suppression was necessary because J. D. B. had been “interrogated by police in a custodial setting without being afforded Miranda warning[s],” id., at 89a, and because his statements were involuntary under the totality of the circumstances test, id., at 142a; see Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U. S. 218, 226 (1973) (due process precludes admission of a confession where “a defendant’s will was overborne” by the circumstances of the interrogation). After a suppression hearing at which DiCostanzo and J. D. B. testified, the trial court denied the motion, deciding that J. D. B. was not in custody at the time of the schoolhouse interrogation and that his statements were voluntary. As a result, J. D. B. entered a transcript of admission to all four counts, renewing his objection to the denial of his motion to suppress, and the court adjudicated J. D. B. delinquent.
A divided panel of the North Carolina Court of Appeals affirmed. In re J. D. B., 196 N. C. App. 234, 674 S. E. 2d 795 (2009). The North Carolina Supreme Court held, over two dissents, that J. D. B. was not in custody when he confessed, “declin[ing] to extend the test for custody to include consideration of the age... of an individual subjected to questioning by police.” In re J. D. B., 363 N. C. 664, 672, 686 S. E. 2d 135, 140 (2009).
We granted certiorari to determine whether the Miranda custody analysis includes consideration of a juvenile suspect’s age. 562 U. S. 1001 (2010).
I — t t-H
A
Any police interview of an individual suspected of a crime has “coercive aspects to it.” Oregon v. Mathiason, 429 U. S. 492, 495 (1977) (per curiam). Only those interrogations that occur while a suspect is in police custody, however, “heighte[n] the risk” that statements obtained are not the product of the suspect’s free choice. Dickerson v. United States, 530 U. S. 428, 435 (2000).
By its very nature, custodial police interrogation entails “inherently compelling pressures.” Miranda, 384 U. S., at 467. Even for an adult, the physical and psychological isolation of custodial interrogation can “undermine the individual’s will to resist and... compel him to speak where he would not otherwise do so freely.” Ibid. Indeed, the pressure of custodial interrogation is so immense that it “can induce a frighteningly high percentage of people to confess to crimes they never committed.” Corley v. United States, 556 U. S. 303, 321 (2009) (citing Drizin & Leo, The Problem of False Confessions in the Post-DNA World, 82 N. C. L. Rev. 891, 906-907 (2004)); see also Miranda, 384 U. S., at 455, n. 23. That risk is all the more troubling — and recent studies suggest, all the more acute — when the subject of custodial interrogation is a juvenile. See Brief for Center on Wrongful Convictions of Youth et al. as Amici Curiae 21-22 (collecting empirical studies that “illustrate the heightened risk of false confessions from youth”).
Recognizing that the inherently coercive nature of custodial interrogation “blurs the line between voluntary and involuntary statements,” Dickerson, 530 U. S., at 435, this Court in Miranda adopted a set of prophylactic measures designed to safeguard the constitutional guarantee against self-incrimination. Prior to questioning, a suspect “must be warned that he has a right to remain silent, that any statement he does make may be used as evidence against him, and that he has a right to the presence of an attorney, either retained or appointed.” 384 U. S., at 444; see also Florida v. Powell, 559 U. S. 50, 60 (2010) (“The four warnings Miranda requires are invariable, but this Court has not dictated the words in which the essential information must be conveyed”). And, if a suspect makes a statement during custodial interrogation, the burden is on the Government to show, as a “prerequisite]” to the statement’s admissibility as evidence in the Government’s case in chief, that the defendant “voluntarily, knowingly and intelligently” waived his rights. Miranda, 384 U. S., at 444, 475-476; Dickerson, 530 U. S., at 443-444.
Because these measures protect the individual against the coercive nature of custodial interrogation, they are required “ ‘only where there has been such a restriction on a person’s freedom as to render him “in custody.”’” Stansbury v. California, 511 U. S. 318, 322 (1994) (per curiam) (quoting Mathiason, 429 U. S., at 495). As we have repeatedly emphasized, whether a suspect is “in custody” is an objective inquiry.
“Two discrete inquiries are essential to the determination: first, what were the circumstances surrounding the interrogation; and second, given those circumstances, would a reasonable person have felt he or she was at liberty to terminate the interrogation and leave. Once the scene is set and the players’ lines and actions are reconstructed, the court must apply an objective test to resolve the ultimate inquiry: was there a formal arrest or restraint on freedom of movement of the degree associated with formal arrest.” Thompson v. Keohane, 516 U. S. 99, 112 (1995) (internal quotation marks, alteration, and footnote omitted).
See also Yarborough v. Alvarado, 541 U. S. 652, 662-663 (2004); Stansbury, 511 U. S., at 323; Berkemer v. McCarty, 468 U. S. 420, 442, and n. 35 (1984). Rather than demarcate a limited set of relevant circumstances, we have required police officers and courts to “examine all of the circumstances surrounding the interrogation,” Stansbury, 511 U. S., at 322, including any circumstance that “would have affected how a reasonable person” in the suspect’s position “would perceive his or her freedom to leave,” id., at 325. On the other hand, the “subjective views harbored by either the interrogating officers or the person being questioned” are irrelevant. Id., at 323. The test, in other words, involves no consideration of the “actual mindset” of the particular suspect subjected to police questioning. Alvarado, 541 U. S., at 667; see also California v. Beheler, 463 U. S. 1121, 1125, n. 3 (1983) (per curiam).
The benefit of the objective custody analysis is that it is “designed to give clear guidance to the police.” Alvarado, 541 U. S., at 668. But see Berkemer, 468 U. S., at 441 (recognizing the “occasiona[l]... difficulty” that police and courts nonetheless have in “deciding exactly when a suspect has been taken into custody”). Police must make in-the-moment judgments as to when to administer Miranda warnings. By limiting analysis to the objective circumstances of the interrogation, and asking how a reasonable person in the suspect’s position would understand his freedom to terminate questioning and leave, the objective test avoids burdening police with the task of anticipating the idiosyncrasies of every individual suspect and divining how those particular traits affect each person’s subjective state of mind. See id., at 430-431 (officers are not required to “make guesses” as to circumstances “unknowable” to them at the time); Alvarado, 541 U. S., at 668 (officers are under no duty “to consider... contingent psychological factors when deciding when suspects should be advised of their Miranda rights”).
B
The State and its amici contend that a child’s age has no place in the custody analysis, no matter how young the child subjected to police questioning. We cannot agree. In some circumstances, a child’s age “would have affected how a reasonable person” in the suspect’s position “would perceive his or her freedom to leave.” Stansbury, 511 U. S., at 325. That is, a reasonable child subjected to police questioning will sometimes feel pressured to submit when a reasonable adult would feel free to go. We think it clear that courts can account for that reality without doing any damage to the objective nature of the custody analysis.
A child’s age is far “more than a chronological fact.” Eddings v. Oklahoma, 455 U. S. 104, 115 (1982); accord, Gall v. United States, 552 U. S. 38, 58 (2007); Roper v. Simmons, 543 U. S. 551, 569 (2005); Johnson v. Texas, 509 U. S. 350, 367 (1993). It is a fact that “generates commonsense conclusions about behavior and perception.” Alvarado, 541 U. S., at 674 (Breyer, J., dissenting). Such conclusions apply broadly to children as a class. And, they are self-evident to anyone who was a child once himself, including any police officer or judge.
Time and again, this Court has drawn these commonsense conclusions for itself. We have observed that children “generally are less mature and responsible than adults,” Ed-dings, 455 U. S., at 115-116; that they “often lack the experience, perspective, and judgment to recognize and avoid choices that could be detrimental to them,” Bellotti v. Baird, 443 U. S. 622, 635 (1979) (plurality opinion); that they “are more vulnerable or susceptible to... outside pressures” than adults, Roper, 543 U. S., at 569; and so on. See Graham v. Florida, 560 U. S. 48, 68 (2010) (finding no reason to “reconsider” these observations about the common “nature of juveniles”). Addressing the specific context of police interrogation, we have observed that events that “would leave a man cold and unimpressed can overawe and overwhelm a lad in his early teens.” Haley v. Ohio, 332 U. S. 596, 599 (1948) (plurality opinion); see also Gallegos v. Colorado, 370 U. S. 49, 54 (1962) (“[N]o matter how sophisticated,” a juvenile subject of police interrogation “cannot be compared” to an adult subject). Describing no one child in particular, these observations restate what “any parent knows” — indeed, what any person knows — about children generally. Roper, 543 U. S., at 569.
Our various statements to this effect are far from unique. The law has historically reflected the same assumption that children characteristically lack the capacity to exercise mature judgment and possess only an incomplete ability to understand the world around them. See, e. g., 1 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England *464-*465 (hereinafter Blackstone) (explaining that limits on children’s legal capacity under the common law “secure them from hurting themselves by their own improvident acts”). Like this Court’s own generalizations, the legal disqualifications placed on children as a class — e. g., limitations on their ability to alienate property, enter a binding contract enforceable against them, and marry without parental consent — exhibit the settled understanding that the differentiating characteristics of youth are universal.
Indeed, even where a “reasonable person” standard otherwise applies, the common law has reflected the reality that children are not adults. In negligence suits, for instance, where liability turns on what an objectively reasonable person would do in the circumstances, “[a]ll American jurisdictions accept the idea that a person’s childhood is a relevant circumstance” to be considered. Restatement (Third) of Torts § 10, Comment b, p. 117 (2005); see also id., Reporters’ Note, pp. 121-122 (collecting cases); Restatement (Second) of Torts §283A, Comment b, p. 15 (1963-1964) (“[TJhere is a wide basis of community experience upon which it is possible, as a practical matter, to determine what is to be expected of [children]”).
As this discussion establishes, “[o]ur history is replete with laws and judicial recognition” that children cannot be viewed simply as miniature adults. Eddings, 455 U. S., at 115-116. We see no justification for taking a different course here. So long as the child’s age was known to the officer at the time of the interview, or would have been objectively apparent to any reasonable officer, including age as part of the custody analysis requires officers neither to consider circumstances “unknowable” to them, Berkemer, 468 U. S., at 430, nor to “anticipate] the frailties or idiosyncrasies” of the particular suspect whom they question, Alvarado, 541 U. S., at 662 (internal quotation marks omitted). The same “wide basis of community experience” that makes it possible, as an objective matter, “to determine what is to be expected” of children in other contexts, Restatement (Second) of Torts §283A, at 15; see supra, at 273, and n. 6, likewise makes it possible to know what to expect of children subjected to police questioning.
In other words, a child’s age differs from other personal characteristics that, even when known to police, have no objectively discernible relationship to a reasonable person’s understanding of his freedom of action. Alvarado holds, for instance, that a suspect’s prior interrogation history with law enforcement has no role to play in the custody analysis because such experience could just as easily lead a reasonable person to feel free to walk away as to feel compelled to stay in place. 541 U. S., at 668. Because the effect in any given case would be “contingent [on the] psychologty]” of the individual suspect, the Court explained, such experience cannot be considered without compromising the objective nature of the custody analysis. Ibid. A child’s age, however, is different. Precisely because childhood yields objective conclusions like those we have drawn ourselves — among others, that children are “most susceptible to influence,” Eddings, 455 U. S., at 115, and “outside pressures,” Roper, 543 U. S., at 569 — considering age in the custody analysis in no way involves a determination of how youth “subjectively affect[s] the mindset” of any particular child, Brief for Respondent 14.
In fact, in many cases involving juvenile suspects, the custody analysis would be nonsensical absent some consideration of the suspect’s age. This case is a prime example. Were the court precluded from taking J. D. B.’s youth into account, it would be forced to evaluate the circumstances present here through the eyes of a reasonable person of average years. In other words, how would a reasonable adult understand his situation, after being removed from a seventh-grade social studies class by a uniformed school resource officer; being encouraged by his assistant principal to “do the right thing”; and being warned by a police investigator of the prospect of juvenile detention and separation from his guardian and primary caretaker? To describe such an inquiry is to demonstrate its absurdity. Neither officers nor courts can reasonably evaluate the effect of objective circumstances that, by their nature, are specific to children without accounting for the age of the child subjected to those circumstances.
Indeed, although the dissent suggests that concerns “regarding the application of the Miranda custody rule to minors can be accommodated by considering the unique circumstances present when minors are questioned in school,” post, at 297 (opinion of Auto, J.), the effect of the schoolhouse setting cannot be disentangled from the identity of the person questioned. A student — whose presence at school is compulsory and whose disobedience at school is cause for disciplinary action — is in a far different position than, say, a parent volunteer on school grounds to chaperone an event, or an adult from the community on school grounds to attend a basketball game. Without asking whether the person “questioned in school” is a “minor,” ibid., the coercive effect of the schoolhouse setting is unknowable.
Our prior decision in Alvarado in no way undermines these conclusions. In that case, we held that a state-court decision that failed to mention a 17-year-old’s age as part of the Miranda custody analysis was not objectively unreasonable under the deferential standard of review set forth by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), 110 Stat. 1214. Like the North Carolina Supreme Court here, see 363 N. C., at 672, 686 S. E. 2d, at 140, we observed that accounting for a juvenile’s age in the Miranda custody analysis “could be viewed as creating a subjective inquiry,” 541U. S., at 668. We said nothing, however, of whether such a view would be correct under the law. Cf. Renico v. Lett, 559 U. S. 766, 778, n. 3 (2010) (“[Wjhether the [state court] was right or wrong is not the pertinent question under AEDPA”). To the contrary, Justice O’Con-nor’s concurring opinion explained that a suspect’s age may indeed “be relevant to the 'custody’ inquiry.” Alvarado, 541 U. S.; at 669. '
Reviewing the question de novo today, we hold that so long as the child’s age was known to the officer at the time of police questioning, or would have been objectively apparent to a reasonable officer, its inclusion in the custody analysis is consistent with the objective nature of that test. This is not to say that a child’s age will be a determinative, or even a significant, factor in every case. Cf. ibid. (O’Connor, J., concurring) (explaining that a state-court decision omitting any mention of the defendant’s age was not unreasonable under AEDPA’s deferential standard of review where the defendant “was almost 18 years old at the time of his interview”); post, at 296 (suggesting that “teenagers nearing the age of majority” are likely to react to an interrogation as would a “typical 18-year-old in similar circumstances”). It is, however, a reality that courts cannot simply ignore.
Ill
The State and its amici offer numerous reasons that courts must blind themselves to a juvenile defendant’s age. None is persuasive.
To start, the State contends that a child’s age must be excluded from the custody inquiry because age is a personal characteristic specific to the suspect himself rather than an “external” circumstance of the interrogation. Brief for Respondent 21; see also id., at 18-19 (distinguishing “personal characteristics” from “objective facts related to the interrogation itself” such as the location and duration of the interrogation). Despite the supposed significance of this distinction, however, at oral argument counsel for the State suggested without hesitation that at least some undeniably personal characteristics — for instance, whether the individual being questioned is blind — are circumstances relevant to the custody analysis. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 41. Thus, the State's quarrel cannot be that age is a personal characteristic, without more.
The State further argues that age is irrelevant to the custody analysis because it “go[esj to how a suspect may internalize and perceive the circumstances of an interrogation.” Brief for Respondent 12; see also Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 21 (hereinafter U. S. Brief) (arguing that a child’s age has no place in the custody analysis because it goes to whether a suspect is “particularly susceptible” to the external circumstances of the interrogation (some internal quotation marks omitted)). But the same can be said of every objective circumstance that the State agrees is relevant to the custody analysis: Each circumstance goes to how a reasonable person would “internalize and perceive” every other. See, e. g., Stansbury, 511 U. S., at 325. Indeed, this is the very reason that we ask whether the objective circumstances “add up to custody,” Keohane, 516 U. S., at 113, instead of evaluating the circumstances one by one.
In the same vein, the State and its amici protest that the “effect of... age on [the] perception of custody is internal,” Brief for Respondent 20, or “psychological,” U. S. Brief 21. But the whole point of the custody analysis is to determine whether, given the circumstances, “a reasonable person [would] have felt he or she was... at liberty to terminate the interrogation and leave.” Keohane, 516 U. S., at 112. Because the Miranda custody inquiry turns on the mindset of a reasonable person in the suspect’s position, it cannot be the ease that a circumstance is subjective simply because it has an “internal” or “psychological” impact on perception. Were that so, there would be no objective circumstances to consider at all.
Relying on our statements that the objective custody test is “designed to give clear guidance to the police,” Alvarado, 541 U. S., at 668, the State next argues that a child’s age must be excluded from the analysis in order to preserve clarity. Similarly, the dissent insists that the clarity of the custody analysis will be destroyed unless a “one-size-fits-all reasonable-person test” applies. Post, at 293. In reality, however, ignoring a juvenile defendant’s age will often make the inquiry more artificial, see supra, at 275-276, and thus only add confusion. And in any event, a child’s age, when known or apparent, is hardly an obscure factor to assess. Though the State and the dissent worry about gradations among children of different ages, that concern cannot justify ignoring a child’s age altogether. Just as police officers are competent to account for other objective circumstances that are a matter of degree such as the length of questioning or the number of officers present, so too are they competent to evaluate the effect of relative age. Indeed, they are competent to do so even though an interrogation room lacks the “reflective atmosphere of a [jury] deliberation room,” post, at 295. The same is true of judges, including those whose childhoods have long since passed, see post, at 293. In short, officers and judges need no imaginative powers, knowledge of developmental psychology, training in cognitive science, or expertise in social and cultural anthropology to account for a child’s age. They simply need the common sense to know that a 7-year-old is not a 13-year-old and neither is an adult.
There is, however, an even more fundamental flaw with the State’s plea for clarity and the dissent’s singular focus on simplifying the analysis: Not once have we excluded from the custody analysis a circumstance that we determined was relevant and objective, simply to make the fault line between custodial and noncustodial “brighter.” Indeed, were the guiding concern clarity and nothing else, the custody test would presumably ask only whether the suspect had been placed under formal arrest. Berkemer, 468 U. S., at 441; see ibid, (acknowledging the “occasional]... difficulty” police officers confront in determining when a suspect has been taken into custody). But we have rejected that “more easily administered line,” recognizing that it would simply “enable the police to circumvent the constraints on custodial interrogations established by Miranda.” Ibid.; see also ibid., n. 33.
Finally, the State and the dissent suggest that excluding age from the custody analysis comes at no cost to juveniles’ constitutional rights because the due process voluntariness test independently accounts for a child’s youth. To be sure, that test permits consideration of a child’s age, and it erects its own barrier to admission of a defendant’s inculpatory statements at trial. See Gallegos, 370 U. S., at 63-55; Haley, 332 U. S., at 599-601 (plurality opinion); see also post, at 297 (“[Cjourts should be instructed to take particular care to ensure that [young children’s] incriminating statements were not obtained involuntarily”). But Miranda’s procedural safeguards exist precisely because the voluntariness test is an inadequate barrier when custodial interrogation is at stake. See 384 U. S., at 458 (“Unless adequate protective devices are employed to dispel the compulsion inherent in custodial surroundings, no statement obtained from the defendant can truly be the product of his free choice”); Dickerson, 530 U. S., at 442 (“[Rjeliance on the traditional totality-of-the-circumstanees test raise[s] a risk of overlooking an involuntary custodial confession”); see also supra, at 268-270. To hold, as the State requests, that a child’s age is never relevant to whether a suspect has been taken into custody — and thus to ignore the very real differences between children and adults — would be to deny children the full scope of the procedural safeguards that Miranda guarantees to adults.
* * *
The question remains whether J. D. B. was in custody when police interrogated him. We remand for the state courts to address that question, this time taking account of all of the relevant circumstances of the interrogation, including J. D. B.’s age at the time. The judgment of the North Carolina Supreme Court is reversed, and the case is remanded for proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Although the State suggests that the “record is unclear as to who brought J. D. B. to the conference room, and the trial court made no factual findings on this specific point,” Brief for Respondent 3, n. 1, the State agreed at the certiorari stage that “the SRO [school resource officer] escorted petitioner” to the room, Brief in Opposition 8.
The North Carolina Supreme Court noted that the trial court’s factual findings were “uncontested and therefore... binding” on it. In re J. D. B., 363 N. C. 664, 668, 686 S. E. 2d 135, 137 (2009). The court described the sequence of events set forth in the text. See id., at 670-671, 686 S. E. 2d, at 139 (“Immediately following J. D. B.’s initial confession, Investigator DiCostanzo informed J. D. B. that he did not have to speak with him and that he was free to leave” (internal quotation marks and alie rations omitted)). Though less than perfectly explicit, the trial court’s order indicates a finding that J. D. B. initially confessed prior to DiCostan-zo’s warnings. See App. 99a.
Nonetheleoo, both portico’ oubmicoiono to this Court suggest that the warnings came after DiCostanzo raised the possibility of a secure custody order but before J. D. B. confessed for the first time. See Brief for Petitioner 5; Brief for Respondent 6. Because we remand for a determination whether J. D. B. was in custody under tire proper analysis, the state courts remain free to revisit whether the trial court made a conclusive finding of fact in this respect.
J. D. B.’s challenge in the North Carolina Supreme Court focused on the lower courts’ conclusion that he was not in custody for purposes of Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436 (1966). The North Carolina Supreme Court did not address the trial court’s holding that the statements were voluntary, and that question is not before us.
Amici on behalf of J. D. B. question whether children of all ages can comprehend Miranda, warnings and suggest that additional procedural safeguards may bo noeoGsary to protect their Miranda, rights. Brief for Juvenile Law Center et at 13-14, n. 7. Whatever the merit of that contention, it has no relevance here, where no Miranda warnings were administered at all.
Although citation to social scionco and cognitive science authorities is unnecessary to cotabliah these eommon3enoo propositions, the literature confirms what experience bears out. See, e. g., Graham v. Florida, 560 U. S. 48, 68 (2010) (“[D]evelopments in psychology and brain science continue to show fundamental differ onceo botwoen juvenile and adult mindo”).
See, e.g., 1 E. Farnsworth, Contracts §4.4, p. 379, and n. 1 (1990) (“Common law courts early announced the prevailing mow that a minor’s contact is 'voidable’ at the instance of the minor" (citing 8 W. Iloldsworih, History of English Law 51 (1926))); 1 D. Kramer, Legal Rights of Children § 8.1, p. 663 (rev. 2d ed. 2005) (“[W]hilo minor children have the right to acquire and own property, they are considered incapable of property management” (footnote omitted)); 2 J. Kent, Commentaries on American Law *78-*79, *90 (G. Comstock ed., 11th ed. 1867); see generally id., at *233 (explaining that, under the common law, “[t]he necessity of guardians results from the inability of infants to take care of themselves... and this inability continues, in contemplation of law, until the infant has attained the age of [21]”); 1 Blackstone *465 (“It is generally true, that an infant can neither aliono his lands, nor do any legal act, nor maleo a doed, nor indeed any manner of contract, that will bind him”); Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice SOTOMAYOR delivered the opinion of the Court.
A Florida jury convicted Timothy Lee Hurst of murdering his co-worker, Cynthia Harrison. A penalty-phase jury recommended that Hurst's judge impose a death sentence. Notwithstanding this recommendation, Florida law required the judge to hold a separate hearing and determine whether sufficient aggravating circumstances existed to justify imposing the death penalty. The judge so found and sentenced Hurst to death.
We hold this sentencing scheme unconstitutional. The Sixth Amendment requires a jury, not a judge, to find each fact necessary to impose a sentence of death. A jury's mere recommendation is not enough.
I
On May 2, 1998, Cynthia Harrison's body was discovered in the freezer of the restaurant where she worked-bound, gagged, and stabbed over 60 times. The restaurant safe was unlocked and open, missing hundreds of dollars. The State of Florida charged Harrison's co-worker, Timothy Lee Hurst, with her murder. See 819 So.2d 689, 692-694 (Fla.2002).
During Hurst's 4-day trial, the State offered substantial forensic evidence linking Hurst to the murder. Witnesses also testified that Hurst announced in advance that he planned to rob the restaurant; that Hurst and Harrison were the only people scheduled to work when Harrison was killed; and that Hurst disposed of blood-stained evidence and used stolen money to purchase shoes and rings.
Hurst responded with an alibi defense. He claimed he never made it to work because his car broke down. Hurst told police that he called the restaurant to let Harrison know he would be late. He said she sounded scared and he could hear another person-presumably the real murderer-whispering in the background.
At the close of Hurst's defense, the judge instructed the jury that it could find Hurst guilty of first-degree murder under two theories: premeditated murder or felony murder for an unlawful killing during a robbery. The jury convicted Hurst of first-degree murder but did not specify which theory it believed.
First-degree murder is a capital felony in Florida. See Fla. Stat. § 782.04(1)(a) (2010). Under state law, the maximum sentence a capital felon may receive on the basis of the conviction alone is life imprisonment. § 775.082(1). "A person who has been convicted of a capital felony shall be punished by death" only if an additional sentencing proceeding "results in findings by the court that such person shall be punished by death." Ibid. "[O]therwise such person shall be punished by life imprisonment and shall be ineligible for parole." Ibid.
The additional sentencing proceeding Florida employs is a "hybrid" proceeding "in which [a] jury renders an advisory verdict but the judge makes the ultimate sentencing determinations." Ring v. Arizona, 536 U.S. 584, 608, n. 6, 122 S.Ct. 2428, 153 L.Ed.2d 556 (2002). First, the sentencing judge conducts an evidentiary hearing before a jury. Fla. Stat. § 921.141(1) (2010). Next, the jury renders an "advisory sentence" of life or death without specifying the factual basis of its recommendation. § 921.141(2). "Notwithstanding the recommendation of a majority of the jury, the court, after weighing the aggravating and mitigating circumstances, shall enter a sentence of life imprisonment or death." § 921.141(3). If the court imposes death, it must "set forth in writing its findings upon which the sentence of death is based." Ibid. Although the judge must give the jury recommendation "great weight," Tedder v. State, 322 So.2d 908, 910 (Fla.1975) (per curiam ), the sentencing order must "reflect the trial judge's independent judgment about the existence of aggravating and mitigating factors," Blackwelder v. State, 851 So.2d 650, 653 (Fla.2003) (per curiam ).
Following this procedure, Hurst's jury recommended a death sentence. The judge independently agreed. See 819 So.2d, at 694-695. On postconviction review, however, the Florida Supreme Court vacated Hurst's sentence for reasons not relevant to this case. See 18 So.3d 975 (2009).
At resentencing in 2012, the sentencing judge conducted a new hearing during which Hurst offered mitigating evidence that he was not a "major participant" in the murder because he was at home when it happened. App. 505-507. The sentencing judge instructed the advisory jury that it could recommend a death sentence if it found at least one aggravating circumstance beyond a reasonable doubt: that the murder was especially "heinous, atrocious, or cruel" or that it occurred while Hurst was committing a robbery. Id ., at 211-212. The jury recommended death by a vote of 7 to 5.
The sentencing judge then sentenced Hurst to death. In her written order, the judge based the sentence in part on her independent determination that both the heinous-murder and robbery aggravators existed. Id ., at 261-263. She assigned "great weight" to her findings as well as to the jury's recommendation of death. Id ., at 271.
The Florida Supreme Court affirmed 4 to 3. 147 So.3d 435 (2014). As relevant here, the court rejected Hurst's argument that his sentence violated the Sixth Amendment in light of Ring, 536 U.S. 584, 122 S.Ct. 2428, 153 L.Ed.2d 556. Ring, the court recognized, "held that capital defendants are entitled to a jury determination of any fact on which the legislature conditions an increase in the maximum punishment." 147 So.3d, at 445. But the court considered Ring inapplicable in light of this Court's repeated support of Florida's capital sentencing scheme in pre-Ring cases. 147 So.3d, at 446-447 (citing Hildwin v. Florida, 490 U.S. 638, 109 S.Ct. 2055, 104 L.Ed.2d 728 (1989) (per curiam )); see also Spaziano v. Florida, 468 U.S. 447, 457-465, 104 S.Ct. 3154, 82 L.Ed.2d 340 (1984). Specifically, in Hildwin, this Court held that the Sixth Amendment "does not require that the specific findings authorizing the imposition of the sentence of death be made by the jury." 490 U.S., at 640-641, 109 S.Ct. 2055. The Florida court noted that we have "never expressly overruled Hildwin, and did not do so in Ring ." 147 So.3d, at 446-447.
Justice Pariente, joined by two colleagues, dissented from this portion of the court's opinion. She reiterated her view that "Ring requires any fact that qualifies a capital defendant for a sentence of death to be found by a jury." Id., at 450 (opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part).
We granted certiorari to resolve whether Florida's capital sentencing scheme violates the Sixth Amendment in light of Ring . 575 U.S. ----, 135 S.Ct. 1531, 191 L.Ed.2d 558 (2015). We hold that it does, and reverse.
II
The Sixth Amendment provides: "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury...." This right, in conjunction with the Due Process Clause, requires that each element of a crime be proved to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. Alleyne v. United States, 570 U.S. ----, ----, 133 S.Ct. 2151, 2156, 186 L.Ed.2d 314 (2013). In Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466, 494, 120 S.Ct. 2348, 147 L.Ed.2d 435 (2000), this Court held that any fact that "expose[s] the defendant to a greater punishment than that authorized by the jury's guilty verdict" is an "element" that must be submitted to a jury. In the years since Apprendi, we have applied its rule to instances involving plea bargains, Blakely v. Washington, 542 U.S. 296, 124 S.Ct. 2531, 159 L.Ed.2d 403 (2004), sentencing guidelines, United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220, 125 S.Ct. 738, 160 L.Ed.2d 621 (2005), criminal fines, Southern Union Co. v. United States, 567 U.S. ----, 132 S.Ct. 2344, 183 L.Ed.2d 318 (2012), mandatory minimums, Alleyne, 570 U.S., at ----, 133 S.Ct., at 2166 and, in Ring, 536 U.S. 584, 122 S.Ct. 2428, 153 L.Ed.2d 556, capital punishment.
In Ring, we concluded that Arizona's capital sentencing scheme violated Apprendi 's rule because the State allowed a judge to find the facts necessary to sentence a defendant to death. An Arizona jury had convicted Timothy Ring of felony murder. 536 U.S., at 591, 122 S.Ct. 2428. Under state law, "Ring could not be sentenced to death, the statutory maximum penalty for first-degree murder, unless further findings were made." Id., at 592, 122 S.Ct. 2428. Specifically, a judge could sentence Ring to death only after independently finding at least one aggravating circumstance. Id., at 592-593, 122 S.Ct. 2428. Ring's judge followed this procedure, found an aggravating circumstance, and sentenced Ring to death.
The Court had little difficulty concluding that " 'the required finding of an aggravated circumstance exposed Ring to a greater punishment than that authorized by the jury's guilty verdict.' " Id., at 604, 122 S.Ct. 2428 (quoting Apprendi, 530 U.S., at 494, 120 S.Ct. 2348 ; alterations omitted). Had Ring's judge not engaged in any factfinding, Ring would have received a life sentence. Ring, 536 U.S., at 597, 122 S.Ct. 2428. Ring's death sentence therefore violated his right to have a jury find the facts behind his punishment.
The analysis the Ring Court applied to Arizona's sentencing scheme applies equally to Florida's. Like Arizona at the time of Ring, Florida does not require the jury to make the critical findings necessary to impose the death penalty. Rather, Florida requires a judge to find these facts. Fla. Stat. § 921.141(3). Although Florida incorporates an advisory jury verdict that Arizona lacked, we have previously made clear that this distinction is immaterial: "It is true that in Florida the jury recommends a sentence, but it does not make specific factual findings with regard to the existence of mitigating or aggravating circumstances and its recommendation is not binding on the trial judge. A Florida trial court no more has the assistance of a jury's findings of fact with respect to sentencing issues than does a trial judge in Arizona." Walton v. Arizona, 497 U.S. 639, 648, 110 S.Ct. 3047, 111 L.Ed.2d 511 (1990) ; accord, State v. Steele, 921 So.2d 538, 546 (Fla.2005) ("[T]he trial court alone must make detailed findings about the existence and weight of aggravating circumstances; it has no jury findings on which to rely").
As with Timothy Ring, the maximum punishment Timothy Hurst could have received without any judge-made findings was life in prison without parole. As with Ring, a judge increased Hurst's authorized punishment based on her own factfinding. In light of Ring, we hold that Hurst's sentence violates the Sixth Amendment.
III
Without contesting Ring 's holding, Florida offers a bevy of arguments for why Hurst's sentence is constitutional. None holds water.
A
Florida concedes that Ring required a jury to find every fact necessary to render Hurst eligible for the death penalty. But Florida argues that when Hurst's sentencing jury recommended a death sentence, it "necessarily included a finding of an aggravating circumstance." Brief for Respondent 44. The State contends that this finding qualified Hurst for the death penalty under Florida law, thus satisfying Ring . "[T]he additional requirement that a judge also find an aggravator," Florida concludes, "only provides the defendant additional protection." Brief for Respondent 22.
The State fails to appreciate the central and singular role the judge plays under Florida law. As described above and by the Florida Supreme Court, the Florida sentencing statute does not make a defendant eligible for death until "findings by the court that such person shall be punished by death." Fla. Stat. § 775.082(1) (emphasis added). The trial court alone must find "the facts ... [t]hat sufficient aggravating circumstances exist" and "[t]hat there are insufficient mitigating circumstances to outweigh the aggravating circumstances." § 921.141(3) ; see Steele, 921 So.2d, at 546. "[T]he jury's function under the Florida death penalty statute is advisory only." Spaziano v. State, 433 So.2d 508, 512 (Fla.1983). The State cannot now treat the advisory recommendation by the jury as the necessary factual finding that Ring requires.
B
Florida launches its second salvo at Hurst himself, arguing that he admitted in various contexts that an aggravating circumstance existed. Even if Ring normally requires a jury to hear all facts necessary to sentence a defendant to death, Florida argues, "Ring does not require jury findings on facts defendants have admitted." Brief for Respondent 41. Florida cites our decision in Blakely v. Washington, 542 U.S. 296, 124 S.Ct. 2531, 159 L.Ed.2d 403 (2004), in which we stated that under Apprendi, a judge may impose any sentence authorized "on the basis of the facts reflected in the jury verdict or admitted by the defendant." 542 U.S., at 303, 124 S.Ct. 2531 (emphasis deleted). In light of Blakely, Florida points to various instances in which Hurst's counsel allegedly admitted the existence of a robbery. Florida contends that these "admissions" made Hurst eligible for the death penalty. Brief for Respondent 42-44.
Blakely, however, was a decision applying Apprendi to facts admitted in a guilty plea, in which the defendant necessarily waived his right to a jury trial. See 542 U.S., at 310-312, 124 S.Ct. 2531. Florida has not explained how Hurst's alleged admissions accomplished a similar waiver. Florida's argument is also meritless on its own terms. Hurst never admitted to either aggravating circumstance alleged by the State. At most, his counsel simply refrained from challenging the aggravating circumstances in parts of his appellate briefs. See, e.g., Initial Brief for Appellant in No. SC12-1947 (Fla.), p. 24 ("not challeng[ing] the trial court's findings" but arguing that death was nevertheless a disproportionate punishment).
C
The State next argues that stare decisis compels us to uphold Florida's capital sentencing scheme. As the Florida Supreme Court observed, this Court "repeatedly has reviewed and upheld Florida's capital sentencing statute over the past quarter of a century." Bottoson v. Moore, 833 So.2d 693, 695 (2002) (per curiam ) (citing Hildwin, 490 U.S. 638, 109 S.Ct. 2055, 104 L.Ed.2d 728 ; Spaziano, 468 U.S. 447, 104 S.Ct. 3154, 82 L.Ed.2d 340 ). "In a comparable situation," the Florida court reasoned, "the United States Supreme Court held:
'If a precedent of this Court has direct application in a case, yet appears to rest on reasons rejected in some other line of decisions, the [other courts] should follow the case which directly controls, leaving to this Court the prerogative of overruling its own decisions.' " Bottoson, 833 So.2d, at 695 (quoting Rodriguez de Quijas v. Shearson/American Express, Inc., 490 U.S. 477, 484, 109 S.Ct. 1917, 104 L.Ed.2d 526 (1989) ); see also 147 So.3d, at 446-447 (case below).
We now expressly overrule Spaziano and Hildwin in relevant part.
Spaziano and Hildwin summarized earlier precedent to conclude that "the Sixth Amendment does not require that the specific findings authorizing the imposition of the sentence of death be made by the jury." Hildwin, 490 U.S., at 640-641, 109 S.Ct. 2055. Their conclusion was wrong, and irreconcilable with Apprendi . Indeed, today is not the first time we have recognized as much. In Ring, we held that another pre-Apprendi decision-Walton, 497 U.S. 639, 110 S.Ct. 3047, 111 L.Ed.2d 511 -could not "survive the reasoning of Apprendi ." 536 U.S., at 603, 122 S.Ct. 2428. Walton, for its part, was a mere application of Hildwin 's holding to Arizona's capital sentencing scheme. 497 U.S., at 648, 110 S.Ct. 3047.
"Although ' "the doctrine of stare decisis is of fundamental importance to the rule of law[,]" ... [o]ur precedents are not sacrosanct.' ... '[W]e have overruled prior decisions where the necessity and propriety of doing so has been established.' " Ring, 536 U.S., at 608, 122 S.Ct. 2428 (quoting Patterson v. McLean Credit Union, 491 U.S. 164, 172, 109 S.Ct. 2363, 105 L.Ed.2d 132 (1989) ). And in the Apprendi context, we have found that "stare decisis does not compel adherence to a decision whose 'underpinnings' have been 'eroded' by subsequent developments of constitutional law." Alleyne, 570 U.S., at ----, 133 S.Ct., at 2155 (SOTOMAYOR, J., concurring); see also United States v. Gaudin, 515 U.S. 506, 519-520, 115 S.Ct. 2310, 132 L.Ed.2d 444 (1995) (overruling Sinclair v. United States, 279 U.S. 263, 49 S.Ct. 268, 73 L.Ed. 692 (1929) ); Ring, 536 U.S., at 609, 122 S.Ct. 2428 (overruling Walton, 497 U.S., at 639, 110 S.Ct. 3047 ); Alleyne, 570 U.S., at ----, 133 S.Ct., at 2162-2163 (overruling Harris v. United States, 536 U.S. 545, 122 S.Ct. 2406, 153 L.Ed.2d 524 (2002) ).
Time and subsequent cases have washed away the logic of Spaziano and Hildwin . The decisions are overruled to the extent they allow a sentencing judge to find an aggravating circumstance, independent of a jury's factfinding, that is necessary for imposition of the death penalty.
D
Finally, we do not reach the State's assertion that any error was harmless. See Neder v. United States, 527 U.S. 1, 18-19, 119 S.Ct. 1827, 144 L.Ed.2d 35 (1999) (holding that the failure to submit an uncontested element of an offense to a jury may be harmless). This Court normally leaves it to state courts to consider whether an error is harmless, and we see no reason to depart from that pattern here. See Ring, 536 U.S., at 609, n. 7, 122 S.Ct. 2428.
* * *
The Sixth Amendment protects a defendant's right to an impartial jury. This right required Florida to base Timothy Hurst's death sentence on a jury's verdict, not a judge's factfinding. Florida's sentencing scheme, which required the judge alone to find the existence of an aggravating circumstance, is therefore unconstitutional.
The judgment of the Florida Supreme Court is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
So ordered.
Justice BREYER, concurring in the judgment.
For the reasons explained in my opinion concurring in the judgment in Ring v. Arizona, 536 U.S. 584, 613-619, 122 S.Ct. 2428, 153 L.Ed.2d 556 (2002), I cannot join the Court's opinion. As in that case, however, I concur in the judgment here based on my view that "the Eighth Amendment requires that a jury, not a judge, make the decision to sentence a defendant to death." Id., at 614, 122 S.Ct. 2428 ; see id., at 618, 122 S.Ct. 2428 ("[T]he danger of unwarranted imposition of the [death] penalty cannot be avoided unless 'the decision to impose the death penalty is made by a jury rather than by a single government official' " (quoting Spaziano v. Florida, 468 U.S. 447, 469, 104 S.Ct. 3154, 82 L.Ed.2d 340 (1984) (STEVENS, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part))). No one argues that Florida's juries actually sentence capital defendants to death-that job is left to Florida's judges. See Fla. Stat. § 921.141(3) (2010). Like the majority, therefore, I would reverse the judgment of the Florida Supreme Court.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice White,
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case concerns the scope of the cause of action made available by 42 U. S. C. §1985(3) (1976 ed., Supp. V) to those injured by conspiracies formed “for the purpose of depriving, either directly or indirectly, any person or class of persons of the equal protection of the laws, or of equal privileges and immunities under the laws.”
A. A. Cross Construction Co., Inc. (Cross), contracted with the Department of the Army to construct the Alligator Bayou Pumping Station and Gravity Drainage Structure on the Taylor Bayou Hurricane Levee near Port Arthur, Tex. In accordance with its usual practice, Cross hired workers for the project without regard to union membership. Some of them were from outside the Port Arthur area. Employees of Cross were several times warned by local residents that Cross’ practice of hiring nonunion workers was a matter of serious concern to many in the area and that it could lead to trouble. According to the District Court, the evidence showed that at a January 15, 1975, meeting of the Executive Committee of the Sabine Area Building and Construction Trades Council a citizen protest against Cross’ hiring practices was discussed and a time and place for the protest were chosen. On the morning of January 17, a large group assembled at the entrance to the Alligator Bayou construction site. In the group were union members present at the January 15 meeting. From this gathering several truckloads of men emerged, drove on to the construction site, assaulted and beat Cross employees, and burned and destroyed construction equipment. The District Court found that continued violence was threatened “if the nonunion workers did not leave the area or concede to union policies and principles.” Scott v. Moore, 461 F. Supp. 224, 227 (ED Tex. 1978). The violence and vandalism delayed construction and led Cross to default on its contract with the Army.
The plaintiffs in this case, after amendment of the complaint, were respondents Scott and Matthews — two Cross employees who had been beaten — and the company itself. The Sabine Area Building and Trades Council, 25 local unions, and various individuals were named as defendants. Plaintiffs asserted that defendants had conspired to deprive plaintiffs of their legally protected rights, contrary to 42 U. S. C. § 1985(3) (1976 ed., Supp. V). The case was tried to the court. A permanent injunction was entered, and damages were awarded against 11 of the local unions, $5,000 each to the individual plaintiffs and $112,385.44 to Cross, plus attorney’s fees in the amount of $25,000.
In arriving at its judgment, the District Court recognized that to make out a violation of § 1985(3), as construed in Griffin v. Breckenridge, 403 U. S. 88, 102-103 (1971), the plaintiff must allege and prove four elements: (1) a conspiracy; (2) for the purpose of depriving, either directly or indirectly, any person or class of persons of the equal protection of the laws, or of equal privileges and immunities under the laws; and (3) an act in furtherance of the conspiracy; (4) whereby a person is either injured in his person or property or deprived of any right or privilege of a citizen of the United States. The District Court found that the first, third, and fourth of these elements were plainly established. The issue, the District Court thought, concerned the second element, for in construing that requirement in Griffin, we held that the conspiracy not only must have as its purpose the deprivation of “equal protection of the laws, or of equal privileges and immunities under the laws,” but also must be motivated by “some racial, or perhaps otherwise class-based, invidiously discriminatory animus behind the conspirators’ action.” Id., at 102. Griffin having involved racial animus and interference with rights that Congress could unquestionably protect against private conspiracies, the issue the District Court identified was whether private conspiratorial discrimination against employees of a nonunionized entity is the kind of conduct that triggers the proscription of §1985(3). The District Court concluded that the conspiracy encompassed violations of both the civil and criminal laws of the State of Texas, thus depriving plaintiff of the protections afforded by those laws, that § 1985(3) proscribes class-based animus other than racial bias, and that the class of nonunion laborers and employers is a protected class under the section. The District Court believed that “men and women have the right to associate or not to associate with any group or class of individuals, and concomitantly, to be free of violent acts against their bodies and property because of such association or non-association.” 461 F. Supp., at 230. The conduct evidenced a discriminatory animus against nonunion workers; hence, there had been a violation of the federal law.
The Court of Appeals, sitting en banc, except for setting aside for failure of proof the judgment against 8 of the 11 local unions, affirmed the judgment of the District Court. Scott v. Moore, 680 F. 2d 979 (CA5 1982). The Court of Appeals understood respondents’ submission to be that petitioners’ conspiracy was aimed at depriving respondents of their First Amendment right to associate with their fellow nonunion employees and that this curtailment was a deprivation of the equal protection of the laws within the meaning of § 1985(3). The Court of Appeals agreed, for the most part, holding that the purpose of the conspiracy was to deprive plaintiffs of their First Amendment right not to associate with a union. The court rejected the argument that it was necessary to show some state involvement to demonstrate an infringement of First Amendment rights. This argument, it thought, had been expressly rejected in Griffin, and it therefore felt compelled to disagree with two decisions of the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit espousing that position. Murphy v. Mount Carmel High School, 543 F. 2d 1189 (1976); Dombrowski v. Dowling, 459 F. 2d 190 (1972). The Court of Appeals went on to hold that §1985(3) reached conspiracies motivated either by political or economic bias. Thus petitioners’ conspiracy to harm the nonunion employees of a nonunionized contractor embodied the kind of class-based animus contemplated by §1985(3) as construed in Griffin. Because of the importance of the issue involved, we granted certiorari, 459 U. S. 1034. We now reverse.
I — 1 I — l
We do not disagree with the District Court and the Court of Appeals that there was a conspiracy, an act done in furtherance thereof, and a resultant injury to persons and property. Contrary to the Court of Appeals, however, we conclude that an alleged conspiracy to infringe First Amendment rights is not a violation of § 1985(3) unless it is proved that the State is involved in the conspiracy or that the aim of the conspiracy is to influence the activity of the State. We also disagree with the Court of Appeals’ view that there was present here the kind of animus that § 1985(3) requires.
A
The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits any State from denying any person the equal protection of the laws. The First Amendment, which by virtue of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment now applies to state governments and their officials, prohibits either Congress or a State from making any “law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, ... or the right of the people peaceably to assemble.” Had § 1985(3) in so many words prohibited conspiracies to deprive any person of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment or of freedom of speech guaranteed by the First Amendment, it would be untenable to contend that either of those provisions could be violated by a conspiracy that did not somehow involve or affect a State.
“It is a commonplace that rights under the Equal Protection Clause itself arise only where there has been involvement of the State or of one acting under the color of its authority. The Equal Protection Clause ‘does not . . . add any thing to the rights which one citizen has under the Constitution against another.’ United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U. S. 542, 554-555. As Mr. JUSTICE Douglas more recently put it, ‘The Fourteenth Amendment protects the individual against state action, not against wrongs done by individuals.’ United States v. Williams, 341 U. S. 70, 92 (dissenting opinion). This has been the view of the Court from the beginning. United States v. Cruikshank, supra; United States v. Harris, 106 U. S. 629; Civil Rights Cases, 109 U. S. 3; Hodges v. United States, 203 U. S. 1; United States v. Powell, 212 U. S. 564. It remains the Court’s view today. See, e. g., Evans v. Newton, 382 U. S. 296; United States v. Price, post, p. 787.” United States v. Guest, 383 U. S. 745, 755 (1966).
The opinion for the Court by Justice Fortas in the companion case characterized the Fourteenth Amendment rights in the same way:
“As we have consistently held ‘The Fourteenth Amendment protects the individual against state action, not against wrongs done by individuals.’ Williams I, 341 U. S., at 92 (opinion of Douglas, J.)” United States v. Price, 383 U. S. 787, 799 (1966).
In this respect, the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit was thus correct in holding that a conspiracy to violate First Amendment rights is not made out without proof of state involvement. Murphy v. Mount Carmel High School, supra, at 1193.
Griffin v. Breckenridge is not to the contrary. There we held that § 1985(3) reaches purely private conspiracies and, as so interpreted, was not invalid on its face or as there applied. We recognized that the language of the section referring to deprivations of “equal protection” or of “equal privileges and immunities” resembled the language and prohibitions of the Fourteenth Amendment, and that if § 1985(3) was so understood, it would be difficult to conceive of a violation of the statute that did not involve the State in some respect. But we observed that the section does not expressly refer to the Fourteenth Amendment and that there is nothing “inherent” in the language used in § 1985(3) “that requires the action working the deprivation to come from the State.” 403 U. S., at 97. This was a correct reading of the language of the Act; the section is not limited by the constraints of the Fourteenth Amendment. The broader scope of § 1985(3) became even more apparent when we explained that the conspiracy at issue was actionable because it was aimed at depriving the plaintiffs of rights protected by the Thirteenth Amendment and the right to travel guaranteed by the Federal Constitution. Section 1985(3) constitutionally can and does protect those rights from interference by purely private conspiracies.
Griffin did not hold that even when the alleged conspiracy is aimed at a right that is by definition a right only against state interference the plaintiff in a § 1985(3) suit nevertheless need not prove that the conspiracy contemplated state involvement of some sort. The complaint in Griffin alleged, among other things, a deprivation of First Amendment rights, but we did not sustain the action on the basis of that allegation and paid it scant attention. Instead, we upheld the application of § 1985(3) to private conspiracies aimed at interfering with rights constitutionally protected against private, as well as official, encroachment.
Neither is respondents’ position helped by the assertion that even if the Fourteenth Amendment does not provide authority to proscribe exclusively private conspiracies, precisely the same conduct could be proscribed by the Commerce Clause. That is no doubt the case; but § 1985(3) is not such a provision, since it “provides no substantive rights itself” to the class conspired against. Great American Federal Savings & Loan Assn. v. Novotny, 442 U. S. 366, 372 (1979). The rights, privileges, and immunities that § 1985(3) vindicates must be found elsewhere, and here the right claimed to have been infringed has its source in the First Amendment. Because that Amendment restrains only official conduct, to make out their § 1985(3) case, it was necessary for respondents to prove that the State was somehow involved in or affected by the conspiracy.
The Court of Appeals accordingly erred in holding that § 1985(3) prohibits wholly private conspiracies to abridge the right of association guaranteed by the First Amendment. Because of that holding the Court of Appeals found it unnecessary to determine whether respondents’ action could be sustained under § 1985(3) as involving a conspiracy to deprive respondents of rights, privileges, or immunites under state law or those protected against private action by the Federal Constitution or federal statutory law. Conceivably, we could remand for consideration of these possibilities, or we ourselves could consider them. We take neither course, for in our view the Court of Appeals should also be reversed on the dispositive ground that § 1985(3)’s requirement that there must be “some racial, or perhaps otherwise class-based, invidiously discriminatory animus behind the conspirators’ action,” Griffin v. Breckenridge, 403 U. S., at 102, was not satisfied in this case.
B
As indicated above, after examining the language, structure, and legislative history of § 1985(3), the Griffin opinion emphatically declared that the section was intended to reach private conspiracies that in no way involved the State. The Court was nevertheless aware that the sweep of § 1985 as originally introduced in the House provoked strong opposition in that chamber and precipitated the proposal and adoption of a narrowing amendment, which limited the breadth of the bill so that the bill did not provide a federal remedy for “all tortious, conspiratorial interferences with the rights of others.” 403 U. S., at 101. In large part, opposition to the original bill had been motivated by a belief that Congress lacked the authority to punish every assault and battery committed by two or more persons. Id., at 102; Cong. Globe, 42d Cong., 1st Sess., App. 68, 115, 153, 188, 315 (1871); id., at 485-486, 514. As we interpreted the legislative history 12 years ago in Griffin, the narrowing amendment “centered entirely on the animus or motivation that would be required _” 403 U. S., at 100. Thus:
“The constitutional shoals that would lie in the path of interpreting § 1985(3) as a general federal tort law can be avoided by giving full effect to the congressional purpose — by requiring, as an element of the cause of action, the kind of invidiously discriminatory motivation stressed by the sponsors of the limiting amendment. See the remarks of Representatives Willard and Shellabarger, quoted supra, at 100. The language requiring intent to deprive of equal protection, or equal privileges and immunities, means that there must be some racial, or perhaps otherwise class-based, invidiously discriminatory animus behind the conspirators’ action. The conspiracy, in other words, must aim at a deprivation of the equal enjoyment of rights secured by the law to all.” Id., at 102 (footnotes omitted).
This conclusion was warranted by the legislative history, was reaffirmed in Novotny, supra, and we accept it as the authoritative construction of the statute.
Because the facts in Griffin revealed an animus against Negroes and those who supported them, a class-based, invidious discrimination which was the central concern of Congress in enacting § 1985(3), the Court expressly declined to decide “whether a conspiracy motivated by invidiously discriminatory intent other than racial bias would be actionable under the portion of § 1985(3) before us.” 403 U. S., at 102, n. 9. Both courts below answered that question; both held that the section not only reaches conspiracies other than those motivated by racial bias but also forbids conspiracies against workers who refuse to join a union. We disagree with the latter conclusion and do not affirm the former.
C
The Court of Appeals arrived at its result by first describing the Reconstruction-era Ku Klux Klan as a political organization that sought to deprive a large segment of the Southern population of political power and participation in the governance of those States and of the Nation. The Court of Appeals then reasoned that because Republicans were among the objects of the Elan’s conspiratorial activities, Republicans in particular and political groups in general were to be protected by § 1985(3). Finally, because it believed that an animus against an economic group such as those who preferred nonunion association is “closely akin” to the animus against political association, the Court of Appeals concluded that the animus against nonunion employees in the Port Arthur area was sufficiently similar to the animus against a political party to satisfy the requirements of § 1985(3).
We are unpersuaded. In the first place, it is a close question whether § 1985(3) was intended to reach any class-based animus other than animus against Negroes and those who championed their cause, most notably Republicans. The central theme of the bill’s proponents was that the Klan and others were forcibly resisting efforts to emancipate Negroes and give them equal access to political power. The predominant purpose of § 1985(3) was to combat the prevalent animus against Negroes and their supporters. The latter included Republicans generally, as well as others, such as Northerners who came South with sympathetic views towards the Negro. Although we have examined with some care the legislative history that has been marshaled in support of the position that Congress meant to forbid wholly nonracial, but politically motivated conspiracies, we find difficult the question whether § 1985(3) provided a remedy for every concerted effort by one political group to nullify the influence of or do other injury to a competing group by use of otherwise unlawful means. To accede to that view would go far toward making the federal courts, by virtue of § 1985(3), the monitors of campaign tactics in both state and federal elections, a role that the courts should not be quick to assume. If respondents’ submission were accepted, the proscription of § 1985(3) would arguably reach the claim that a political party has interfered with the freedom of speech of another political party by encouraging the heckling of its rival’s speakers and the disruption of the rival’s meetings.
We realize that there is some legislative history to support the view that § 1985(3) has a broader reach. Senator Edmunds’ statement on the floor of the Senate is the clearest expression of this view. He said that if a conspiracy were formed against a man “because he was a Democrat, if you please, or because he was a Catholic, or because he was a Methodist, or because he was a Vermonter,. .. then this section could reach it.” Cong. Globe, 42d Cong., 1st Sess., 567 (1871). The provision that is now § 1985(3), however, originated in the House. The narrowing amendment, which changed § 1985(3) to its present form, was proposed, debated, and adopted there, and the Senate made only technical changes to the bill. Senator Edmunds’ views, since he managed the bill on the floor of the Senate, are not without weight. But we were aware of his views in Griffin, 403 U. S., at 102, n. 9, and still withheld judgment on the question whether § 1985(3), as enacted, went any farther than its central concern — combating the violent and other efforts of the Klan and its allies to resist and to frustrate the intended effects of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments. Lacking other evidence of congressional intention, we follow the same course here.
D
Even if the section must be construed to reach conspiracies aimed at any class or organization on account of its political views or activities, or at any of the classes posited by Senator Edmunds, we find no convincing support in the legislative history for the proposition that the provision was intended to reach conspiracies motivated by bias towards others on account of their economic views, status, or activities. Such a construction would extend § 1985(3) into the economic life of the country in a way that we doubt that the 1871 Congress would have intended when it passed the provision in 1871.
Respondents submit that Congress intended to protect two general classes of Republicans, Negroes and Northern immigrants, the latter because the Klan resented carpetbagger efforts to dominate the economic life of the South. Respondents rely on a series of statements made during the debates on the Civil Rights Act of 1871, of which § 1985 was a part, indicating that Northern laborers and businessmen who had come from the North had been the targets of Bilan conspiracies. Brief for Respondents 42-44. As we understand these remarks, however, the speakers believed that these Northerners were viewed as suspect because they were Republicans and were thought to be sympathetic to Negroes. We do not interpret these parts of the debates as asserting that the Klan had a general animus against either labor or capital, or against persons from other States as such. Nor is it plausible that the Southern Democrats were prejudiced generally against enterprising persons trying to better themselves, even if those enterprising persons were from Northern States. The animus was against Negroes and their sympathizers, and perhaps against Republicans as a class, but not against economic groups as such. Senator Pool, on whose remarks respondents rely, identified what he thought was the heart of the matter:
“The truth is that whenever a northern man, who goes into a southern State, will prove a traitor to the principles which he entertained at home, when he will lend himself to the purposes of the Democracy or be purchased by them, they forget that he is a carpet-bagger and are ready to use him and elevate him to any office within their gift.” Cong Globe, 42nd Cong., 1st. Sess., 607 (1871).
We thus cannot construe §1985(3) to reach conspiracies motivated by economic or commercial animus. Were it otherwise, for example, § 1985(3) could be brought to bear on any act of violence resulting from union efforts to organize an employer or from the employer’s efforts to resist it, so long as the victim merely asserted and proved that the conduct involved a conspiracy motivated by an animus in favor of unionization, or against it, as the case may be. The National Labor Relations Act, 29 U. S. C. § 151 et seq. (1976 ed. and Supp. V), addresses in great detail the relationship between employer, employee, and union in a great variety of sitúa-tions, and it would be an unsettling event to rule that strike and picket-line violence must now be considered in the light of the strictures of § 1985(3). Moreover, if antiunion, anti-nonunion, or antiemployer biases represent the kinds of animus that trigger § 1985(3), there would be little basis for concluding that the statute did not provide a cause of action in a variety of other situations where one economic group is pitted against another, each having the intent of injuring or destroying the economic health of the other. We think that such a construction of the statute, which is at best only arguable and surely not compelled by either its language or legislative history, should be eschewed and that group actions generally resting on economic motivations should be deemed beyond the reach of §1985(3). Economic and commercial conflicts, we think, are best dealt with by statutes, federal or state, specifically addressed to such problems, as well as by the general law proscribing injuries to persons and property. If we have misconstrued the intent of the 1871 Congress, or, in any event, if Congress now prefers to take a different tack, the Court will, of course, enforce any statute within the power of Congress to enact.
Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Reversed.
Title 42 U. S. C. § 1985(3) (1976 ed., Supp. V), in its entirety, provides as follows:
“(3) Depriving persons of rights or privileges
“If two or more persons in any State or Territory conspire or go in disguise on the highway or on the premises of another, for the purpose of depriving, either directly or indirectly, any person or class of persons of the equal protection of the laws, or of equal privileges and immunities under the laws; or for the purpose of preventing or hindering the constituted authorities of any State or Territory from giving or securing to all persons within such State or Territory the equal protection of the laws; or if two or more persons conspire to prevent by force, intimidation, or threat, any citizen who is lawfully entitled to vote, from giving his support or advocacy in a legal manner, toward or in favor of the election of any lawfully qualified person as an elector for President or Vice President, or as a Member of Congress of the United States; or to injure any citizen in person or property on account of such support or advocacy; in any case of conspiracy set forth in this section, if one or more persons engaged therein do, or cause to be done, any act in furtherance of the object of such conspiracy, whereby another is injured in his person or property, or deprived of having and exercising any right or privilege of a citizen of the United States, the party so injured or deprived may have an action for the recovery of damages occasioned by such injury or deprivation, against any one or more of the conspirators.”
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | B | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Thomas
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Kansas law provides that if a unanimous jury finds that aggravating circumstances are not outweighed by mitigating circumstances, the death penalty shall be imposed. Kan. Stat. Ann. § 21-4624(e) (1995). We must decide whether this statute, which requires the imposition of the death penalty when the sentencing jury determines that aggravating evidence and mitigating evidence are in equipoise, violates the Constitution. We hold that it does not.
I
Respondent Michael Lee Marsh II broke into the home of Marry Ane Pusch and lay in wait for her to return. When Marry Ane entered her home with her 19-month-old daughter, M. P., Marsh repeatedly shot Marry Ane, stabbed her, and slashed her throat. The home was set on fire with the toddler inside, and M. P. burned to death.
The jury convicted Marsh of the capital murder of M. P., the first-degree premeditated murder of Marry Ane, aggravated arson, and aggravated burglary. The jury found beyond a reasonable doubt the existence of three aggravating circumstances, and that those circumstances were not outweighed by any mitigating circumstances. On the basis of those findings, the jury sentenced Marsh to death for the capital murder of M. P. The jury also sentenced Marsh to life imprisonment without possibility of parole for 40 years for the first-degree murder of Marry Ane, and consecutive sentences of 51 months’ imprisonment for aggravated arson and 34 months’ imprisonment for aggravated burglary.
On direct appeal, Marsh challenged §21-4624(e), which reads:
“If, by unanimous vote, the jury finds beyond a reasonable doubt that one or more of the aggravating circumstances enumerated in K. S. A. 21-4625 . . . exist and, further, that the existence of such aggravating circumstances is not outweighed by any mitigating circumstances which are found to exist, the defendant shall be sentenced to death; otherwise, the defendant shall be sentenced as provided by law.”
Focusing on the phrase “shall be sentenced to death,” Marsh argued that § 21-4624(e) establishes an unconstitutional presumption in favor of death because it directs imposition of the death penalty when aggravating and mitigating circumstances are in equipoise.
The Kansas Supreme Court agreed, and held that the Kansas death penalty statute, § 21-4624(e), is facially unconstitutional. 278 Kan. 520, 534-535, 102 P. 3d 445, 458 (2004). The court concluded that the statute’s weighing equation violated the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution because, “[i]n the event of equipoise, i. e., the jury’s determination that the balance of any aggravating circumstances and any mitigating circumstances weighed equal, the death penalty would be required.” Id., at 534, 102 P. 3d, at 457. The Kansas Supreme Court affirmed Marsh’s conviction and sentence for aggravated burglary and premeditated murder of Marry Ane, and reversed and remanded for new trial Marsh’s convictions for capital murder of M. P. and aggravated arson. We granted certiorari, 544 U. S. 1060 (2005), and now reverse the Kansas Supreme Court’s judgment that Kansas’ capital sentencing statute, Kan. Stat. Ann. §21-4624(e), is facially unconstitutional.
II
In addition to granting certiorari to review the constitutionality of Kansas’ capital sentencing statute, we also directed the parties to brief and argue: (1) whether we have jurisdiction to review the judgment of the Kansas Supreme Court under 28 U. S. C. § 1257, as construed by Cox Broadcasting Corp. v. Cohn, 420 U. S. 469 (1975); and (2) whether the Kansas Supreme Court’s judgment is supported by adequate state grounds independent of federal law. 544 U. S. 1060. Having considered the parties’ arguments, we con-elude that we have jurisdiction in this case and that the constitutional issue is properly before the Court.
A
Title 28 U. S. C. § 1257 authorizes this Court to review, by writ of certiorari, the final judgment of the highest court of a State when the validity of a state statute is questioned on federal constitutional grounds. This Court has determined that the foregoing authorization permits review of the judgment of the highest court of a State, even though the state-court proceedings are not yet complete, “where the federal claim has been finally decided, with further proceedings on the merits in the state courts to come, but in which later review of the federal issue cannot be had, whatever the ultimate outcome of the case.” Cox Broadcasting, supra, at 481.
Here, although Marsh will be retried on the capital murder and aggravated arson charges, the Kansas Supreme Court’s determination that Kansas’ death penalty statute is facially unconstitutional is final and binding on the lower state courts. Thus, the State will be unable to obtain further review of its death penalty law later in this case. If Marsh is acquitted of capital murder, double jeopardy and state law will preclude the State from appealing. If he is reconvicted, the State will be prohibited under the Kansas Supreme Court’s decision from seeking the death penalty, and there would be no opportunity for the State to seek further review of that prohibition. Although Marsh argues that a provision of the Kansas criminal appeals statute, Kan. Stat. Ann. § 22-3602(b) (2003 Cum. Supp.), would permit the State to appeal the invalidation of Kansas’ death penalty statute, that contention is meritless. That statute provides for limited appeal in only four enumerated circumstances, none of which apply here. . We have deemed lower court decisions final for 28 U. S. C. § 1257 purposes in like circumstances, see Florida v. Meyers, 466 U. S. 380 (1984) (per curiam); South Dakota v. Neville, 459 U. S. 553 (1983); New York v. Quarles, 467 U. S. 649 (1984), and do so again here.
B
Nor is the Kansas Supreme Court’s decision supported by adequate and independent state grounds. Marsh maintains that the Kansas Supreme Court’s decision was based on the severability of § 21-4624(e) under state law, and not the constitutionality of that provision under federal law, the latter issue having been resolved by the Kansas Supreme Court in State v. Kleypas, 272 Kan. 894, 40 P. 3d 139 (2001) (per curiam). Marsh’s argument fails.
Kleypas, itself, rested on federal law. See id., at 899-903, 40 P. 3d, at 166-167. In rendering its determination here, the Kansas Supreme Court observed that Kleypas, “held that the weighing equation in K. S. A. 21-4624(e) as written was unconstitutional under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments” as applied to cases in which aggravating evidence and mitigating evidence are equally balanced. 278 Kan., at 534, 102 P. 3d, at 457. In this case, the Kansas Supreme Court chastised the Kleypas court for avoiding the constitutional issue of the statute’s facial validity, squarely held that §21-4624(e) is unconstitutional on its face, and overruled the portion of Kleypas upholding the statute through the constitutional avoidance doctrine and judicial revision. 278 Kan., at 534-535, 539-542, 102 P. 3d, at 458, 462. As in Kleypas, the Kansas Supreme Court clearly rested its decision here on the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. We, therefore, have jurisdiction to review its decision. See Michigan v. Long, 463 U. S. 1032, 1040-1041 (1983).
Ill
This ease is controlled by Walton v. Arizona, 497 U. S. 639 (1990), overruled on other grounds, Ring v. Arizona, 536 U. S. 584 (2002). In that case, a jury had convicted Walton of a capital offense. At sentencing, the trial judge found the existence of two aggravating circumstances and that the mitigating circumstances did not call for leniency, and sentenced Walton to death. 497 U. S., at 645. The Arizona Supreme Court affirmed, and this Court granted certiorari to resolve the conflict between the Arizona Supreme Court’s decision in State v. Walton, 159 Ariz. 571, 769 P. 2d 1017 (1989) (en banc) (holding the Arizona death penalty statute constitutional), and the Ninth Circuit’s decision in Adamson v. Ricketts, 865 F. 2d 1011, 1043-1044 (1988) (en banc) (finding the Arizona death penalty statute unconstitutional because, “in situations where the mitigating and aggravating circumstances are in balance, or, where the mitigating circumstances give the court reservation but still fall below the weight of the aggravating circumstances, the statute bars the court from imposing a sentence less than death”). See Walton, supra, at 647.
Consistent with the Ninth Circuit’s conclusion in Adam-son, Walton argued to this Court that the Arizona capital sentencing system created an unconstitutional presumption in favor of death because it “tells an Arizona sentencing judge who finds even a single aggravating factor, that death must be imposed, unless—as the Arizona Supreme Court put it in Petitioner’s case—there are ‘outweighing mitigating factors.’” Brief for Petitioner in Walton v. Arizona, O. T. 1989, No. 88-7351, p. 33; see also id., at 34 (arguing that the statute is unconstitutional because the defendant “ ‘must. .. bear the risk of nonpersuasion that any mitigating circumstance will not outweigh the aggravating circumstance’ ” (alteration omitted)). Rejecting Walton’s argument, see 497 U. S., at 650, 651, this Court stated:
“So long as a State’s method of allocating the burdens of proof does not lessen the State’s burden to prove every element of the offense charged, or in this case to prove the existence of aggravating circumstances, a defendant’s constitutional rights are not violated by placing on him the burden of proving mitigating circumstances sufficiently substantial to call for leniency.” Id., at 650.
This Court noted that, as a requirement of individualized sentencing, a jury must have the opportunity to consider all evidence relevant to mitigation, and that a state statute that permits a jury to consider any mitigating evidence comports with that requirement. Id., at 652 (citing Blystone v. Pennsylvania, 494 U. S. 299, 307 (1990)). The Court also pointedly observed that while the Constitution requires that a sentencing jury have discretion, it does not mandate that discretion be unfettered; the States are free to determine the manner in which a jury may consider mitigating evidence. 497 U. S., at 652 (citing Boyde v. California, 494 U. S. 370, 374 (1990)). So long as the sentencer is not precluded from considering relevant mitigating evidence, a capital sentencing statute cannot be said to impermissibly, much less automatically, impose death. 497 U. S., at 652 (citing Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U. S. 280 (1976) (plurality opinion), and Roberts v. Louisiana, 428 U. S. 325 (1976) (plurality opinion)). Indeed, Walton suggested that the only capital sentencing systems that would be impermissibly mandatory were those that would “automatically impose death upon conviction for certain types of murder.” 497 U. S., at 652.
Contrary to Marsh’s contentions and the Kansas Supreme Court’s conclusions, see 278 Kan., at 536-538, 102 P. 3d, at 459, the question presented in the instant case was squarely before this Court in Walton. Though, as Marsh notes, the Walton Court did not employ the term “equipoise,” that issue undeniably gave rise to the question this Court sought to resolve, and it was necessarily included in Walton’s argument that the Arizona system was unconstitutional because it required the death penalty unless the mitigating circumstances outweighed the aggravating circumstances. See swpra, at 170. Moreover, the dissent in Walton reinforces what is evident from the opinion and the judgment of the Court—that the equipoise issue was before the Court, and that the Court resolved the issue in favor of the State. Indeed, the “equipoise” issue was, in large measure, the basis of the Walton dissent. See 497 U. S., at 687-688 (opinion of Blackmun, J.) (“If the mitigating and aggravating circumstances are in equipoise, the [Arizona] statute requires that the trial judge impose capital punishment. The assertion that a sentence of death may be imposed in such a case runs directly counter to the Eighth Amendment requirement that a capital sentence must rest upon a 'determination that death is the appropriate punishment in a specific case’”). Thus, although Walton did not discuss the equipoise issue explicitly, that issue was resolved by its holding. Cf. post, at 199-200 (Stevens, J., dissenting); cf. also post, at 203-204, n. 1 (Souter, J., dissenting).
Our conclusion that Walton controls here is reinforced by the fact that the Arizona and Kansas statutes are comparable in important respects. Similar to the express language of the Kansas statute, the Arizona statute at issue in Walton has been consistently construed to mean that the death penalty will be imposed upon a finding that aggravating circumstances are not outweighed by mitigating circumstances. See State v. Ysea, 191 Ariz. 372, 375, 956 P. 2d 499, 502 (1998) (en banc); State v. Gretzler, 135 Ariz. 42, 55, 659 P. 2d 1, 14 (1983) (in banc); Adamson, supra, at 1041-1043. Like the Kansas statute, the Arizona statute places the burden of proving the existence of aggravating circumstances on the State, and both statutes require the defendant to proffer mitigating evidence.
The statutes are distinct in one respect. The Arizona statute, once the State has met its burden, tasks the defendant with the burden of proving sufficient mitigating circumstances to overcome the aggravating circumstances and that a sentence less than death is therefore warranted. In contrast, the Kansas statute requires the State to bear the burden of proving to the jury, beyond a reasonable doubt, that aggravators are not outweighed by mitigators and that a sentence of death is therefore appropriate; it places no additional evidentiary burden on the capital defendant. This distinction operates in favor of Kansas capital defendants. Otherwise the statutes function in substantially the same manner and are sufficiently analogous for our purposes. Thus, Walton is not distinguishable from the instant case.
Accordingly, the reasoning of Walton requires approval of the Kansas death penalty statute. At bottom, in Walton, the Court held that a state death penalty statute may place the burden on the defendant to prove that mitigating circumstances outweigh aggravating circumstances. A fortiori, Kansas’ death penalty statute, consistent with the Constitution, may direct imposition of the death penalty when the State has proved beyond a reasonable doubt that mitigators do not outweigh aggravators, including where the aggravating circumstances and mitigating circumstances are in equipoise.
IV
A
Even if, as Marsh contends, Walton does not directly control, the general principles set forth in our death penalty jurisprudence would lead us to conclude that the Kansas capital sentencing system is constitutionally permissible. Together, our decisions in Furman v. Georgia, 408 U. S. 238 (1972) (per curiam), and Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U. S. 153 (1976) (joint opinion of Stewart, Powell, and Stevens, JJ.), establish that a state capital sentencing system must: (1) rationally narrow the class of death-eligible defendants; and (2) permit a jury to render a reasoned, individualized sentencing determination based on a death-eligible defendant’s record, personal characteristics, and the circumstances of his crime. See id., at 189. So long as a state system satisfies these requirements, our precedents establish that a State enjoys a range of discretion in imposing the death penalty, including the manner in which aggravating and mitigating circumstances are to be weighed. See Franklin v. Lynaugh, 487 U. S. 164, 179 (1988) (plurality opinion) (citing Zant v. Stephens, 462 U. S. 862, 875-876, n. 13 (1983)).
The use of mitigation evidence is a product of the requirement of individualized sentencing. See Graham v. Collins, 506 U. S. 461, 484-489 (1993) (Thomas, J., concurring) (discussing the development of mitigation precedent). In Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U. S. 586, 604 (1978), a plurality of this Court held that “the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments require that the sentencer .. . not be precluded from considering, as a mitigating factor, any aspect of a defendant’s character or record and any of the circumstances of the offense that the defendant proffers as a basis for a sentence less than death.” (Emphasis in original.) The Court has held that the sentencer must have full access to this “ ‘highly relevant’ ” information. Id., at 603 (quoting Williams v. New York, 337 U. S. 241, 247 (1949); alteration omitted). Thus, in Lockett, the Court struck down the Ohio death penalty statute as unconstitutional because, by limiting a jury’s consideration of mitigation to three factors specified in the statute, it prevented sentencers in capital cases from giving independent weight to mitigating evidence militating in favor of a sentence other than death. 438 U. S., at 604-605. Following Lockett, in Eddings v. Oklahoma, 455 U. S. 104 (1982), a majority of the Court held that a sentencer may not categorically refuse to consider any relevant mitigating evidence. Id., at 114; see also Skipper v. South Carolina, 476 U. S. 1, 3-4 (1986) (discussing Eddings).
In aggregate, our precedents confer upon defendants the right to present sentencers with information relevant to the sentencing decision and oblige sentencers to consider that information in determining the appropriate sentence. The thrust of our mitigation jurisprudence ends here. “[W]e have never held that a specific method for balancing mitigating and aggravating factors in a capital sentencing proceeding is constitutionally required.” Franklin, supra, at 179 (citing Zant, supra, at 875-876, n. 13). Rather, this Court has held that the States enjoy “ ‘a constitutionally permissible range of discretion in imposing the death penalty.’” Blystone, 494 U. S., at 308 (quoting McCleskey v. Kemp, 481 U. S. 279, 305-306 (1987)). See also 494 U. S., at 307 (stating that “[t]he requirement of individualized sentencing in capital cases is satisfied by allowing the jury to consider all relevant mitigating evidence”); Graham, supra, at 490 (Thomas, J., concurring) (stating that “[o]ur early mitigating cases may thus be read as doing little more than safeguarding the adversary process in sentencing proceedings by conferring on the defendant an affirmative right to place his relevant evidence before the sentencer”).
B
The Kansas death penalty statute satisfies the constitutional mandates of Furman and its progeny because it rationally narrows the class of death-eligible defendants and permits a jury to consider any mitigating evidence relevant to its sentencing determination. It does not interfere, in a constitutionally significant way, with a jury’s ability to give independent weight to evidence offered in mitigation.
Kansas’ procedure narrows the universe of death-eligible defendants consistent with Eighth Amendment requirements. Under Kansas law, imposition of the death penalty is an option only after a defendant is convicted of capital murder, which requires that one or more specific elements beyond intentional premeditated murder be found. See Kan. Stat. Ann. §21-3439. Once convicted of capital murder, a defendant becomes eligible for the death penalty only if the State seeks a separate sentencing hearing, §§21-4706(c) (2003 Cum. Supp.), 21-4624(a); App. 23 (Instruction No. 2), and proves beyond a reasonable doubt the existence of one or more statutorily enumerated aggravating circumstances. Kan. Stat. Ann. §§ 21-4624(c), (e), and 21-4625; App. 24 (Instruction No. 3).
Consonant with the individualized sentencing requirement, a Kansas jury is permitted to consider any evidence relating to any mitigating circumstance in determining the appropriate sentence for a capital defendant, so long as that evidence is relevant. §21-4624(c). Specifically, jurors are instructed:
“A mitigating circumstance is that which in fairness or mercy may be considered as extenuating or reducing the degree of moral culpability or blame or which justify a sentence of less than death, although it does not justify or excuse the offense. The determination of what are mitigating circumstances is for you as jurors to resolve under the facts and circumstances of this case.
“The appropriateness of the exercise of mercy can itself be a mitigating factor you may consider in determining whether the State has proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the death penalty is warranted.” Id., at 24 (Instruction No. 4).
Jurors are then apprised of, but not limited to, the factors that the defendant contends are mitigating. Id., at 25-26. They are then instructed that “[e]ach juror must consider every mitigating factor that he or she individually finds to exist.” Id., at 26.
Kansas’ weighing equation, ibid. (Instruction No. 5), merely channels a jury’s discretion by providing it with criteria by which it may determine whether a sentence of life or death is appropriate. The system in Kansas provides the type of “ ‘guided discretion,’ ” Walton, 497 U. S., at 659 (citing Gregg, 428 U. S., at 189), we have sanctioned in Walton, Boyde, and Blystone.
Indeed, in Boyde, this Court sanctioned a weighing jury instruction that is analytically indistinguishable from the Kansas jury instruction under review today. The Boyde jury instruction read:
“‘If you conclude that the aggravating circumstances outweigh the mitigating circumstances, you shall impose a sentence of death. However, if you determine that the mitigating circumstances outweigh the aggravating circumstances, you shall impose a sentence of confinement in the state prison for life without the possibility of parole.’” 494 U. S., at 374 (emphasis in original).
Boyde argued that the mandatory language of the instruction prevented the jury from rendering an individualized sentencing determination. This Court rejected that argument, concluding that it was foreclosed by Blystone, where the Court rejected a nearly identical challenge to the Pennsylvania death penalty statute. 494 U. S., at 307. In so holding, this Court noted that the mandatory language of the statute did not prevent the jury from considering all relevant mitigating evidence. Boyde, supra, at 374. Similarly here, § 21-4624(e) does not prevent a Kansas jury from considering mitigating evidence. Marsh’s argument that the Kansas provision is impermissibly mandatory is likewise foreclosed.
Contrary to Marsh’s argument, §21-4624(e) does not create a general presumption in favor of the death penalty in the State of Kansas. Rather, the Kansas capital sentencing system is dominated by the presumption that life imprisonment is the appropriate sentence for a capital conviction. If the State fails to meet its burden to demonstrate the existence of an aggravating circumstance(s) beyond a reasonable doubt, a sentence of life imprisonment must be imposed. Ibid.; App. 27 (Instruction No. 10). If the State overcomes this hurdle, then it bears the additional burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that aggravating circumstances are not outweighed by mitigating circumstances. Ibid. (Instruction No. 10); id., at 26 (Instruction No. 5). Significantly, although the defendant appropriately bears the burden of proffering mitigating circumstances—a burden of production—he never bears the burden of demonstrating that mitigating circumstances outweigh aggravating circumstances. Instead, the State always has the burden of demonstrating that mitigating evidence does not outweigh aggravating evidence. Absent the State’s ability to meet that burden, the default is life imprisonment. Moreover, if the jury is unable to reach a unanimous decision—in any respect—a sentence of life must be imposed. §21-4624(c); App. 28 (Instruction No. 12). This system does not create a presumption that death is the appropriate sentence for capital murder.
Nor is there any force behind Marsh’s contention that an equipoise determination reflects juror confusion or inability to decide between life and death, or that a jury may use equipoise as a loophole to shirk its constitutional duty to render a reasoned, moral decision, see California v. Brown, 479 U. S. 588, 545 (1987) (O’Connor, J., concurring), regarding whether death is an appropriate sentence for a particular defendant. Such an argument rests on an implausible characterization of the Kansas statute—that a jury’s determination that aggravators and mitigators are in equipoise is not a decision, much less a decision for death—and thus misses the mark. Cf. post, at 206-207 (Souter, J., dissenting) (arguing that Kansas’ weighing equation undermines individualized sentencing). Weighing is not an end; it is merely a means to reaching a decision. The decision the jury must reach is whether life or death is the appropriate punishment. The Kansas jury instructions clearly inform the jury that a determination that the evidence is in equipoise is a decision for—not a presumption in favor of—death. Kansas jurors, presumed to follow their instructions, are made aware that: a determination that mitigators outweigh aggravators is a decision that a life sentence is appropriate; a determination that aggravators outweigh mitigators or a determination that mitigators do not outweigh aggravators—including a finding that aggravators and mitigators are in balance—is a decision that death is the appropriate sentence; and an inability to reach a unanimous decision will result in a sentence of life imprisonment. So informed, far from the abdication of duty or the inability to select an appropriate sentence depicted by Marsh and Justice Souter, a jury’s conclusion that aggravating evidence and mitigating evidence are in equipoise is a decision for death and is indicative of the type of measured, normative process in which a jury is constitutionally tasked to engage when deciding the appropriate sentence for a capital defendant.
V
The Kansas Supreme Court found that the trial court committed reversible error by excluding circumstantial evidence of third-party guilt connecting Eric Pusch, Marry Ane’s husband, to the crimes, and accordingly ordered a new trial on this ground. 278 Kan., at 528-533, 102 P. 3d, at 454-457.
Arizona Rev. Stat. Ann. §13-703(E) (West Supp. 2005) provides:
“In determining whether to impose a sentence of death or life imprisonment, the trier of fact shall take into account the aggravating and mitigating circumstances that have been proven. The trier of fact shall impose a sentence of death if the trier of fact finds one or more of the aggravating circumstances enumerated in subsection F of this section and then determines that there are no mitigating circumstances sufficiently substantial to call for leniency.”
The “mercy” jury instruction alone forecloses the possibility of Nwrmcm-type error as it “eliminatejs] the risk that a death sentence will be imposed in spite of facts calling for a lesser penalty.” Post, at 206 (Souter, J., dissenting).
In Blystone, the Pennsylvania statute authorized imposition of a death sentence if the jury concluded “that the aggravating circumstances out-weighted] the mitigating circumstances present in the particular crime committed by the particular defendant, or that there [werel no such mitigating circumstances.” 494 U. S., at 305.
Contrary to JUSTICE Souter’s assertion, the Court’s decisions in Boyde and Blystone did not turn on the “predominance of the aggravators” in those cases. Post, at 205 (dissenting opinion). Rather, those decisions plainly turned on the fact that the mandatory language of the respective statutes did not prevent the sentencing jury from “considering] and giving] effect to all relevant mitigating evidence.” Blystone, supra, at 305. See also Boyde, 494 U. S., at 377 (“[T]he legal principle we expounded in Blystone clearly requires rejection of Boyde’s claim as well, because the mandatory language of [California jury instruction] 8.84.2 is not alleged to have interfered with the consideration of mitigating evidence”). The language of the Kansas statute at issue here no more “dietate[s] death,” post, at 205, than the mandatory language at issue in Boyde and Blystone. See Blystone, supra, at 305 (explaining that the Pennsylvania statute is not “ ‘mandatory’ as that term was understood in Woodson [v. North Carolina, 428 U. S. 280 (1976),] or Roberts [v. Louisiana, 428 U. S. 325 (1976),]” because “[d]eath is not automatically imposed upon conviction for certain types of murder”).
Additionally, Marsh’s argument turns on reading §21-4624(e) in isolation. Such a reading, however, is contrary to “ ‘the well-established proposition that a single instruction to a jury may not be judged in artificial isolation, but must be viewed in the context of the overall charge.’” Boyde v. California, 494 U. S. 370, 378 (1990) (citing Boyd v. United States, 271 U. S. 104, 107 (1926)). The constitutionality of a State’s death penalty system turns on review of that system in context. We thus reject his disengaged interpretation of § 21-4624(e).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Black
delivered the opinion of the Court.
In 1956 petitioner was convicted of grand larceny in the Criminal Court of Polk County, Florida, and sentenced to serve two years in prison. In December 1957, with time for good behavior, petitioner was released from prison and discharged from custody as an absolutely free man. Some two months after his release and discharge, the Polk County prosecutor filed an information against petitioner charging that he “has been convicted of two (2) felonies under the laws of the State of Florida, contrary to Section 775.09, Florida Statutes, 1957. . . and against the peace and dignity of the State of Florida.” The two convictions referred to were the 1956 conviction for grand larceny and a 1934 conviction for robbery for which petitioner had also completely served his sentence. Upon the filing of this information, petitioner was promptly arrested, arraigned and, according to the judgment of the trial court, “did then and there freely and voluntarily plead guilty to the Information filed.” The court then proceeded to find petitioner “guilty of the offense of Second Offender” and ordered that for “said offense, [he] be confined in the State Prison of Florida at hard labor for a term of-Ten (10) Years.” Petitioner later brought this original petition for habeas corpus in the Supreme Court of Florida challenging his confinement under this judgment on the ground that it was not authorized by the Florida second-offender statute and that it violated both the State and the Federal Constitutions in several different respects. Despite the fact that none of the charges made by petitioner were denied by the State, the Florida court dismissed his petition without a hearing. We granted certiorari to consider the correctness of this peremptory denial of the petition in view of the serious nature of the charges made.
Since it is conceded by the State that the federal questions presented here were properly raised and passed on below, and since it is clear that for the purposes of this proceeding the facts set forth by petitioner must be accepted as true, we go directly to the charges made in the petition. Those charges were clearly stated by petitioner himself in the following excerpt from his rather crudely drawn application for habeas corpus:
“Your petitioner would show this Honorable Court that at the time of his arrest he was living in Valusia County, DeLand Florida, that he was arrested without a warrant, that he was arrested on strength of a pick up order from Sheriff Office, Bartow, Polk County, Florida, that the arresting officer, a deputy sheriff of Volusia County did not know why he was arresting your petitioner and did not have a warrant to make a legal arrest, further that your petitioner was taken against his will across five (5) county lines. The said county lines being Volusia, Seminole, Orange, Osceala, into Polk County all of State of Florida, without his knowing why he was arrested or the arresting officer knowing why or what charge he was making arrest for; Your petitioner, was taken across the afore said counties by the arresting officer, a deputy sheriff of Volusia County, Florida.
“Your petitioner contends that once he was in the clutches of the Criminal Court of Record in and for Polk County Florida; he was a convicted person before he was ever tried.
“To support the above statement your petitioner would show that he was forced to go before the court against his will; that once before the court your petitioner informed the court that he then had legal counsel on the way to represent him in what ever charge may be; a better description of afore said known by Mrs. Sadie M. Bradley, 317 West Minn-casata Avenue, DeLand Volusia County, Florida, and, D. C. Laird; attorney at Law, Lakeland Polk Florida. • That petitioner had been arrested on the 18th day of February 1958 in Valusia County, and his attorney was to arrive this morning this date being the 20th day of February 1958, that after being so informed ‘the trial court so stated to your petitioner ‘you do not need counsel in this case.’ Counsel would not be of any assistance you your petitioner, ‘No point in calling a Doctor to a man already dead.’
“The trial court then proceeded to read off two (2) convictions from your petitioners record and then asked, You are guilty of these two convictions, are yoü not? Petitioner saying yes your Honor, but the court, I find, you guilty of being a ‘second offender’ and sentence you Stephen Franklin Reynolds to ten (10) years in State Prison . . . .”
On the basis of these facts, petitioner contends, among other things, that his confinement is not authorized by the Florida second-offender statute because he had already served the sentences imposed upon each of his prior convictions, and that such confinement violates the state and federal constitutional prohibitions against ex post facto laws and against double jeopardy. It would, of course, be entirely inappropriate under the circumstances of this case for this Court to consider the questions posed under state law. Nor do we find it necessary to consider these particular questions raised under the Federal Constitution beyond the observation that they certainly cannot fairly be characterized as frivolous. For we think it clear that this case must be reversed for a hearing in order to afford petitioner an opportunity to prove his allegations with regard to another constitutional claim — that he was deprived of due process by the refusal of the trial judge to grant his motion for a continuance in order that he might have the assistance of the counsel he had retained in the proceeding against him.
In Chandler v. Fretag, we made it emphatically clear that a person proceeded against as a multiple offender has a constitutional right to the assistance of his own counsel in that proceeding. Under the facts of this case, as alleged in the petition filed before the Florida Supreme Court, the decision in Chandler is squarely in point and controlling. Under those facts, the statement of this Court in Powell v. Alabama, which provided the basis of our holding in Chandler is wholly applicable: “If in any case, civil or criminal, a state or federal court were arbitrarily to refuse to hear a party by counsel, employed by and appearing for him, it reasonably may not be doubted that such a refusal would be a denial of a hearing, and, therefore, of due process in the constitutional sense.”
The State seeks to avoid the application of the holding in Chandler on the basis of a contention that even if it was error for the trial judge to deny petitioner’s motion for a continuance, that error was harmless under the facts of this case. The argument offered in support of this contention is that since petitioner admitted the only fact at issue in the proceeding — that he had been convicted of a previous felony in 1934 as charged in the information — a lawyer would have been of no use to him. We find this argument totally inadequate to meet the decision in Chandler. Even assuming, which we do not, that the deprivation to an accused of the assistance of counsel when that counsel has been privately employed could ever be termed “harmless error,” it is clear that such deprivation was not harmless under the facts as presented in this case. In the first place, petitioner asked for a continuance to enable him to consult with counsel before he admitted the truth of the charge of prior felony conviction. Thus, if petitioner had been allowed the assistance of his counsel when he first asked for it, we cannot know that counsel could not have found defects in the 1934 conviction that would have precluded its admission in a multiple-offender proceeding.
Secondly, and perhaps even more importantly, the State’s contention that this factual issue was the only issue in the proceeding seems to constitute an oversimplification of the matter. For, in addition to the constitutional issues mentioned above, able counsel appointed to represent petitioner in this Court has also pointed out that the proceeding involved a difficult question of statutory construction under Florida law. Counsel has pointed out, for example, that the Florida Supreme Court has never had occasion to pass upon the question whether the second-offender statute may be applied to reimprison a person who has completely satisfied the sentence imposed upon his second conviction and has been discharged from custody. In one case in which that question was argued, the Florida court found that it was not properly presented by the facts of the case before it and then went on to say: “On this question there is a difference of opinion among the members of the Court but, as it is not ripe for determination under the record here, no useful purpose could be served by discussing it.” Moreover, another decision of that court has indicated that the statute permitting the filing of an information against a second offender “at any time” would not necessarily be interpreted so mechanically as to allow the second-offender statute to hang over a defendant’s head to the end of his natural life.
We of course express no opinion as to how this question of statutory construction should eventually be decided by the Florida courts. But its mere existence dramatically illustrates that even in the most routine-appearing proceedings the assistance of able counsel may be of inestimable value. Plainly, such assistance might have been of great value to petitioner here. The allegations of his petition for habeas corpus indicated, if true, that he had been denied the assistance of counsel.he had retained. He is entitled to a hearing to establish the truth of those allegations. The case must therefore be and is reversed and remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
Reversed and remanded.
“A person who, after having been convicted within this state of a felony or an attempt to commit a felony, or under the laws of any other state, government or country, of a crime which, if committed within this state wrould be a felony, commits any felony within this state is punishable upon conviction of such second offense as follows: If the subsequent felony is such that upon a first conviction the offender would be punishable by imprisonment for any term less than his natural life then such person must be sentenced to imprisonment for a term no less than the longest term nor more than twice the longest term prescribed upon' a first conviction. . . .” Fla. Stat., 1957, § 775.09.
The theory used by the State in its proceedings against petitioner, as disclosed by the quoted recitals of the information and judgment, seems to be completely at variance with that upon which multiple-offender proceedings are normally based. For normally the punishment provided for in a multiple-offender statute is viewed as increased punishment for the last offense in the sequence. Here, on the other hand, the theory seems to have been that petitioner, by virtue of his convictions for two previous offenses, has committed a third and entirely separate offense — to quote the judgment, “the offense of Second Offender.” Because of the disposition we make of this case on other grounds, however, we need not reach the questions posed as to the constitutionality of confinement based upon such a theory. In any event, prior .opinions of the Supreme Court of Florida indicate that there might be room for considerable doubt whether § 775.09 authorizes' confinement on such a theory. See Cross v. State, 96 Fla. 768, 119 So. 380; Washington v. Mayo, 91 So. 2d 621.
The Supreme Court of Florida issued no opinion, the ease being disposed of with the following order: “The above-named petitioner has filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus to be issued to the respondent in the above entitled cause, and upon consideration thereof, it is ordered that said petition be and the same is hereby denied.”
363 U. S. 801.
Cash v. Culver, 358 U. S. 633, 634; Hawk v. Olson, 326 U. S. 271, 273.
Section 775.09, set forth in n. 1, supra, is supplemented by a provision which, on its face at least, appears to condone imposition of second-offender penalties even at such a late date: “If at any time after sentence or conviction it shall appear that a person convicted of a felony has previously been convicted of crimes as set forth either in § 775.09 or § 775.10 the prosecuting attorney of the county in which such conviction was had, shall file an information accusing said person of such previous convictions, whereupon the court in which such conviction was had shall cause said person, whether confined in prison or otherwise, to be brought before it and shall inform him of the allegations contained in such information and of his right to be tried as to the truth thereof, according to law, and shall require such offender to say whether he is the same person as charged in such, information or not.” Fla. Stat., 1957, § 775.11. (Emphasis supplied.)
The problem presented by these questions is rather dramatically stated by petitioner himself in his petition for habeas corpus: “In the instant case how can your petitioner know when in his life he is no longer subject to have his liberty translated to imprisonment, even after expiration of the present sentence, can he again be imprisoned without committing another crime as in the instant case?? Surely this Honorable Court will not condone this practice . . . .”
As in Chandler v. Fretag, n. 9, infra, the petitioner here also alleged a denial of due process in that he was not given pretrial notice of the charge against him. But as in Chandler, we find it unnecessary to pass upon this contention. See 348 U. S. 3, 5-6, n. 4.
348 U. S. 3.
287 U. S. 45, 69.
348 U. S., at 9-10.
It is significant that in Chandler we did not require any showing that the defendant there would have derived any particular benefit from the assistance of counsel.
The proof of prior convictions in a second-offender proceeding may raise difficult evidentiary problems. See, e. g., Shargaa v. State, 102 So. 2d 809. Moreover, it can be presumed that if an accused second offender were able to make a successful collateral attack upon his first conviction, § 775.09 would not be applied. Cf. Fields v. State, 85 So. 2d 609.
Milan v. State, 102 So. 2d 595, 596.
See n. 6, supra.
In Ard v. State, 91 So. 2d 166, the Florida Supreme Court held that the second-offender statute did not apply to a person who had concededly committed two felonies but who had been on probation for five years between the date of his conviction of the second felony- and the filing of the second-offender information.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Per Curiam.
Following judicial, invalidation of the constitutional and statutory provisions governing the. apportionment of the Texas State Legislature, the State Legislature reapportioned both the House and the Senate. Appellants promptly challenged on various grounds the constitutionality of H. B. 195 which reapportioned the House of Representatives in a combination of single-member, multi-member and floterial districts. The District Court sustained all aspects of the plan , except those provisions respecting the counties included in 11 floterial districts, 252 F. Supp. 404, which were found violative of the equality principles announced in Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U. S. 533. The court did, however, over appellants’ objections, permit the 1966 election to proceed under H. B. 195 with a proviso to the effect that if the legislature did not adopt corrective legislation by August 1, 1967, the counties in the floterial districts would be reconstituted as multi-member districts and all the representatives assigned to those counties would be. elected at. large.
We affirm the District Court’s action in permitting the 1966 election to proceed under H. B. 195 although constitutionally infirm in certain respects. In- the particular circumstances of this case there is ample precedent for the court’s action. See Drum v. Seawell, 383 U. S. 831; Toombs v. Fortson, 384 U. S. 210. We also affirm the court’s judgment insofar as it held that appellants had not proved their allegations that H. B. 195 Was a racial or political gerrymander violating the Fourteenth Amendment, that it unconstitutionally deprived Negroes of their franchise and that because of its utilization of single-member, multi-member, and floterial districts it was an unconstitutional "crazy quilt.”
In another respect, however, the District Court committed reversible error. Appellants alleged that in'addition to the inequalities inherent in the floterial districts, H. B. 195 also infringed Fourteenth Amendment rights because in the remaining legislative districts of the State there were unacceptable variations from the principle of Reynolds v. Sims that among legislative districts the population per representative should be substantially equal Appellants’ proof showed that in these other districts the population per representative varies from 54,385 to 71,301, or from 14.84%. overrepresented to 11.64% underrepresented. The ratio between the largest and the smallest district is thus 1.31 to 1. The deviation from the average population per representative is greater than 10% in 12 single-member districts, and a total of 55 representatives would be elected from eight multi-member districts in which the population per representative varies from the ideal by more than 6%..
The District Court sustained the constitutionality of H. B. 195 on two grounds. First, it held that appellants had the burden not only of demonstrating the degree of variance from the equality principle but also of “negating] the existence of any state of facts which would sustain the constitutionality of the legislation.” 252 F. Supp. 404, 414. This, the court held, appellants had not done. At. that time, of course, Swann v. Adams, 385 U. S. 440, had not been announced. Under that case it is quite clear that unless satisfactorily justified by the court or by the evidence of record, population variances of the size and significance evident here are sufficient to invalidate an apportionment plan. Without such justification, appellants’ analysis of H. B. 195 made out a sufficiént'case under the Fourteenth Amendment. —
Second, the District Court, not resting exclusively on its burden of proof ruling, found that the deviations from the equal population principle were amply justified here because they resulted from a bona fide attempt to conform to the state policy requiring legislative apportionment plans to respect county boundaries wherever possible, We are doubtful, however, that the deviations evident here are the kind of “minor” variations which Reynolds v. Sims indicated might be justified by local policies counseling the maintenance of established political subdivisions in apportionment plans. 377 U. S. 533, 578-579. But we need not reach that constitutional question, for we are not convinced that the announced policy of the State of Texas necessitated the range of deviations between legislative districts which is evident here. In the first place, Texas policy, as elaborated by the Attorney General and concurred in by the District Court, permits the formation of multi-member and floterial districts and even, where necessary, the violation of county lines in order to surmount undue population variations. In the second place, the District Court did not relate its . declared justification to any specific inequalities among the districts, not demonstrate why. or how respect for the integrity of county lines required the particular deviations called for by H. B. 196. Nor did the. District Court articulate any satisfactory grounds for rejecting at least two other plans presented to the court, which respected county lines but which produced substantially smaller deviations from the principles of Reynolds v. Sims. Similar fault can be found in accepting a general county-line justification for the population deviations that would occur should the present floterial districts be reconstituted ' as multi-member districts. The ratio between the largest reconstituted district and the smallest district created by H. B. 195 would be 1.21 to 1, and seven representatives would be elected from districts overrepresented by 13% or more. Another five representatives would be elected from districts overrepresented by 8% or more.
Appellants also raise specific challenges to the provisions of H. B. 195 with respect to Dallas, Bexar, and Harris Counties. Dallas and Bexar Counties are relatively densely populated multi-member districts. Measured by population alone, each county could support one more representative than is allocated to it under H. B. 195, and thus more nearly approximate the arithmetic ideal. Giving each of them one more representative would not, of course, violate their county lines; and.we cannot be sure, at least on this record and in view of the 150-member limit on the House of Representatives, that Dallas and Bexar Counties must be denied additional representation in order to adhere to county lines in other districts throughout the State. If other districts cannot be re-formed within county lines in such a way as to afford Dallas and Bexar Counties another representative and at the same time to afford the re-formed districts constitutional representation, we would have to meet the question whether the state policy advanced here justifies the seeming underrepresentation in Dallas and Bexar Counties, which is 6.42% and 7.59,% respectively. But on the record that is now before us we do not reach this, issue and believe that the District Court should give further consideration to these counties.
Appellants complain that district 24 in Harris County is assigned only six representatives whereas district 22 in the sanie county with a slightly smaller population is assigned seven representatives. The court found the record to establish that the population in district 22 was growing rapidly as compared with district 24 and would soon justify the extra representative. This factual determination not being challenged here, we accept the ruling of the District Court regarding these districts.
The judgment is reversed in part and the case remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Tex. Rev. Civ. Stat. Ann., Art. 195a contains House Bill .195. The Senate reapportionment of 1965, Tex. Rev. Civ. Stat. Ann., Art. 193a, is not here in issue.
The Attorney General expressed the state policy in a letter to the Speaker of the House, included as Appendix “D” in the opinion below, 252 F. Supp. 404, 455-456.
.May 19, 1965
Honorable Ben Barnes
Speaker of the House
Austin, Texas
Dear Mr. Speaker:
As a result of the analyzing and briefing of Section 26, Article III of the Texas Constitution of 1876 and the recent decisions of the U. S. Supreme Court on the subject of state reapportionment, this office has reached the following legal conclusions.
1. Whenever a single county has sufficient population to be entitled to more than one representative, all the representatives to which it is entitled shall be apportioned, to that county.
2. Multi-representative counties may be apportioned so that the representatives can run at-large within the county or from individual districts within the county or¡ a combination of any of these methods.
3. If a single county does not have sufficient population to entitle it to one representative, such county shall be joined with one or more contiguous counties until the proper population ratio is achieved. The above cited provision of the Texas Constitution requires that counties be kept intact and their boundaries not be violated. ■ ■
4. Should the keeping of counties intact result in a violation of the Supreme Court “one man, one vote” rule, then the county lines must be violated but only to the extent necessary to carry out the mándate of the Supreme Court. In all other instances, county lines must remain intact and multi-county districts or flotorial districts be formed by the joining of complete and contiguous counties. .
The above legal conclusions have been set out as clearly and concisely as possible. These conclusions have been reached by a thorough analysis of the Texas constitutional provisions-as well as recent federal court decisions. Our research has also thoroughly developed the legislative history and legislative interpretation of the legislative sessions immediately prior to and immediately subsequent to the adoption of the constitutional provisions involved.
Yours very truly,
s/Waggoner Carr
Our cases do not foreclose ■ attempts to show that in the particular circumstances of a given case multi-member districts are invidiously discriminatory. See Burns v. Richardson, 384 U. S. 73, 88-89. .It has recently been suggested that multi-member districts such as Dallas and Bexar are adequately represented, if not overrepresented.- See Banzh'af, Multi-member Electoral Districts — Do They Violate-the “One Man, One-Vote” Principle, 75 Yale L. J. 1309 (1966).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | B | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Per Curiam.
' The writ of certiorari is dismissed, as improvidently granted.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | I | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice GINSBURG delivered the opinion of the Court.
In the Federal Employees Health Benefits Act of 1959 (FEHBA), 5 U.S.C. § 8901 et seq., Congress authorized the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to contract with private carriers for federal employees' health insurance. § 8902(a), (d). FEHBA contains a provision expressly preempting state law. § 8902(m)(1). That provision reads:
"The terms of any contract under this chapter which relate to the nature, provision, or extent of coverage or benefits (including payments with respect to benefits) shall supersede and preempt any State or local law, or any regulation issued thereunder, which relates to health insurance or plans."
Contracts OPM negotiates with private carriers provide for reimbursement and subrogation. Reimbursement requires an insured employee who receives payment from another source (e.g., the proceeds yielded by a tort claim) to return healthcare costs earlier paid out by the carrier. Subrogation involves transfer of the right to a third-party payment from the insured employee to the carrier, who can then pursue the claim against the third party. Several States, however, Missouri among them, bar enforcement of contractual subrogation and reimbursement provisions.
The questions here presented: Does FEHBA's express-preemption prescription, § 8902(m)(1), override state law prohibiting subrogation and reimbursement; and if § 8902(m)(1) has that effect, is the statutory prescription consistent with the Supremacy Clause, U.S. Const. Art. VI, cl. 2 ? We hold, contrary to the decision of the Missouri Supreme Court, that contractual subrogation and reimbursement prescriptions plainly "relate to ... payments with respect to benefits," § 8902(m)(1) ; therefore, by statutory instruction, they override state law barring subrogation and reimbursement. We further hold, again contrary to the Missouri Supreme Court, that the regime Congress enacted is compatible with the Supremacy Clause. Section 8902(m)(1) itself, not the contracts OPM negotiates, triggers the federal preemption. As Congress directed, where FEHBA contract terms "relate to the nature, provision, or extent of coverage or benefits (including payments with respect to benefits)," § 8902(m)(1) ensures that those terms will be uniformly enforceable nationwide, free from state interference.
I
A
FEHBA "establishes a comprehensive program of health insurance for federal employees." Empire Healthchoice Assurance, Inc. v. McVeigh, 547 U.S. 677, 682, 126 S.Ct. 2121, 165 L.Ed.2d 131 (2006). As just noted, supra, at 1194, FEHBA
contains an express-preemption provision, § 8902(m)(1). FEHBA assigns to OPM broad administrative and rulemaking authority over the program. See §§ 8901 - 8913. OPM contracts with private insurance carriers to offer a range of healthcare plans. §§ 8902, 8903.
OPM's contracts with private carriers have long included provisions requiring those carriers to seek subrogation and reimbursement. Accordingly, OPM has issued detailed regulations governing subrogation and reimbursement clauses in FEHBA contracts. See 5 C.F.R. § 890.106 (2016). Under those regulations, a carrier's "right to pursue and receive subrogation and reimbursement recoveries constitutes a condition of and a limitation on the nature of benefits or benefit payments and on the provision of benefits under the plan's coverage." § 890.106(b)(1).
In 2015, after notice and comment, OPM published a rule confirming that "[a] carrier's rights and responsibilities pertaining to subrogation and reimbursement under any [FEHBA] contract relate to the nature, provision, and extent of coverage or benefits (including payments with respect to benefits) within the meaning of" § 8902(m)(1). § 890.106(h). Such "rights and responsibilities," OPM's rule provides, "are ... effective notwithstanding any state or local law, or any regulation issued thereunder, which relates to health insurance or plans." Ibid. Its rule, OPM explained, "comports with longstanding Federal policy and furthers Congres[s'] goals of reducing health care costs and enabling uniform, nationwide application of [FEHBA] contracts." 80 Fed.Reg. 29203 (2015) (final rule).
B
Respondent Jodie Nevils is a former federal employee who enrolled in and was insured under a FEHBA plan offered by petitioner Coventry Health Care of Missouri. Nevils v. Group Health Plan, Inc., 418 S.W.3d 451, 453 (Mo.2014) (Nevils I ). When Nevils was injured in an automobile accident, Coventry paid his medical expenses. Ibid. Nevils sued the driver who caused his injuries and recovered a settlement award. Ibid. Based on its contract with OPM, see App. to Pet. for Cert. 129a-130a, Coventry asserted a lien for $6,592.24 against part of the settlement proceeds to cover medical bills it had paid. Nevils I, 418 S.W.3d, at 453. Nevils repaid that amount, thereby satisfying the lien. Ibid.
Nevils then filed this class action against Coventry in Missouri state court, alleging that Coventry had unlawfully obtained reimbursement. Ibid. Nevils premised his claim on Missouri law, which does not permit subrogation or reimbursement in this context, see, e.g., Benton House, LLC v. Cook & Younts Ins., Inc., 249 S.W.3d 878, 881-882 (Mo.App.2008). Coventry countered that § 8902(m)(1) makes subrogation and reimbursement clauses in FEHBA contracts enforceable notwithstanding state law. The trial court granted summary judgment in Coventry's favor, Nevils v. Group Health Plan, Inc., No. 11SL-CC00535 (Cir. Ct., St. Louis Cty., Mo., May 21, 2012), App. to Pet. for Cert. 28a, 32a, and the Missouri Court of Appeals affirmed, Nevils v. Group Health Plan, Inc., 2012 WL 6689542, *5 (Dec. 26, 2012).
The Missouri Supreme Court reversed. Nevils I, 418 S.W.3d, at 457. That court began with "the assumption that the historic police powers of the States [are] not to be superseded by ... Federal Act unless that [is] the clear and manifest purpose of Congress." Id., at 454 (quoting Cipollone v. Liggett Group, Inc., 505 U.S. 504, 516, 112 S.Ct. 2608, 120 L.Ed.2d 407 (1992) ) (alterations in original). Finding § 8902(m)(1) susceptible to diverse "plausible readings," the court invoked a "presumption against preemption" to conclude that the federal statute's preemptive scope excluded subrogation and reimbursement. 418 S.W.3d, at 455.
Judge Wilson, joined by Judge Breckenridge, concurred in the judgment. Id., at 457. Observing that "it defies logic to insist that benefit repayment terms do not relate to the nature or extent of Nevils' benefits," id., at 460 (emphasis deleted), Judge Wilson concluded that "Congress plainly intended for § 8902(m)(1) to apply to the benefit repayment terms in [Coventry's] contract," id., at 462. He nevertheless concurred, reasoning that the Supremacy Clause did not authorize preemption based on the terms of FEHBA contracts. Id., at 462-465.
Coventry sought our review, and we invited the Solicitor General to file a brief expressing the views of the United States. Coventry Health Care of Mo., Inc. v. Nevils, 574 U.S. ----, 135 S.Ct. 323, 190 L.Ed.2d 19 (2014). While Coventry's petition was pending, OPM finalized its rule governing subrogation and reimbursement. See supra, at 1195. This Court granted certiorari, vacated the Missouri Supreme Court's judgment, and remanded for further consideration in light of OPM's recently adopted rule. Coventry Health Care of Mo., Inc. v. Nevils, 576 U.S. ----, 135 S.Ct. 2886, 192 L.Ed.2d 918 (2015).
On remand, the Missouri Supreme Court adhered to its earlier decision. Nevils v. Group Health Plan, Inc., 492 S.W.3d 918, 920, 925 (2016). OPM's rule, the court maintained, "does not overcome the presumption against preemption and demonstrate Congress' clear and manifest intent to preempt state law." Id., at 920.
Judge Wilson again concurred, this time joined by a majority of the judges of the Missouri Supreme Court. Id., at 925. In their view, Congress' "attempt to give preemptive effect to the provisions of a contract between the federal government and a private party is not a valid application of the Supremacy Clause" and, "therefore, does not displace Missouri law here." Ibid.
We granted certiorari to resolve conflicting interpretations of § 8902(m)(1). 580 U.S. ----, 137 S.Ct. 446, 196 L.Ed.2d 326 (2016). Compare 492 S.W.2d, at 925 (majority opinion), with Bell v. Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Okla., 823 F.3d 1198, 1199 (C.A.8 2016) ( § 8902(m)(1) preempts state antisubrogation law); Helfrich v. Blue Cross & Blue Shield Assn., 804 F.3d 1090, 1092 (C.A.10 2015) (same).
II
Section 8902(m)(1) places two preconditions on federal preemption. See supra, at 1194. The parties agree that Missouri's law prohibiting subrogation and reimbursement meets one of the two limitations, i.e., the State's law "relates to health insurance or plans." § 8902(m)(1). They dispute only whether the subrogation and reimbursement requirements in OPM's contract with Coventry "relate to the nature, provision, or extent of coverage or benefits," "including payments with respect to benefits." Ibid.
Coventry contends that § 8902(m)(1) unambiguously covers the contractual terms at issue here. In any event, Coventry, joined by the United States as amicus curiae, urges that the rule published by OPM in 2015 leaves no room for doubt that insurance-contract terms providing for subrogation and reimbursement fall within § 8902(m)(1)'s preemptive scope. See supra, at 1195. Deference is due to OPM's reading, Coventry and the United States assert, under Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837, 104 S.Ct. 2778, 81 L.Ed.2d 694 (1984). In Nevils' view, by contrast, § 8902(m)(1) does not preempt state antisubrogation and antireimbursement laws in light of the presumption against preemption. Given that presumption, Nevils maintains, OPM's rule is not entitled to deference. Though we have called Nevils' construction "plausible," McVeigh, 547 U.S., at 698, 126 S.Ct. 2121 the reading advanced by Coventry and the United States best comports with § 8902(m)(1)'s text, context, and purpose.
A
Contractual provisions for subrogation and reimbursement "relate to ... payments with respect to benefits" because subrogation and reimbursement rights yield just such payments. When a carrier exercises its right to either reimbursement or subrogation, it receives from either the beneficiary or a third party "payment" respecting the benefits the carrier had previously paid. The carrier's very provision of benefits triggers the right to payment. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 31; Helfrich, 804 F.3d, at 1106 ; Bell, 823 F.3d, at 1204.
Congress' use of the expansive phrase "relate to" shores up that understanding. We have "repeatedly recognized" that the phrase "relate to" in a preemption clause "express[es] a broad pre-emptive purpose." Morales v. Trans World Airlines, Inc., 504 U.S. 374, 383, 112 S.Ct. 2031, 119 L.Ed.2d 157 (1992) ; accord Northwest, Inc. v. Ginsberg, 572 U.S. ----, ----, ----, 134 S.Ct. 1422, 1428, 1430, 188 L.Ed.2d 538 (2014). Congress characteristically employs the phrase to reach any subject that has "a connection with, or reference to," the topics the statute enumerates. Morales, 504 U.S., at 384, 112 S.Ct. 2031. The phrase therefore weighs against Nevils' effort to narrow the term "payments" to exclude payments that occur "long after" a carrier's provision of benefits (Brief for Respondent 27 (quoting McVeigh, 547 U.S., at 697, 126 S.Ct. 2121 )). See Nevils I, 418 S.W.3d, at 460 (Wilson, J., concurring); cf. Hillman v. Maretta, 569 U.S. ----, ----, 133 S.Ct. 1943, 1952, 186 L.Ed.2d 43 (2013) (in the Federal Employees' Group Life Insurance Act context, it "makes no difference" whether state law withholds benefits in the first instance or instead takes them away after they have been paid). Given language notably "expansive [in] sweep," Morales, 504 U.S., at 384, 112 S.Ct. 2031 (internal quotation marks omitted), Nevils' argument that Congress intended to preempt only state coverage requirements (e.g., for acupuncture and chiropractic services, see Brief for Respondent 36) also miscarries.
The statutory context and purpose reinforce our conclusion. FEHBA concerns "benefits from a federal health insurance plan for federal employees that arise from a federal law" in an area with a "long history of federal involvement." Bell, 823 F.3d, at 1202. Strong and "distinctly federal interests are involved," McVeigh, 547 U.S., at 696, 126 S.Ct. 2121 in uniform administration of the program, free from state interference, particularly in regard to coverage, benefits, and payments. The Federal Government, moreover, has a significant financial stake. OPM estimates that, in 2014 alone, FEHBA "carriers were reimbursed by approximately $126 million in subrogation recoveries." 80 Fed.Reg. 29203. Such "recoveries translate to premium cost savings for the federal government and [FEHBA] enrollees." Ibid.
B
Invoking our suggestion in McVeigh that § 8902(m)(1) has two "plausible" interpretations, 547 U.S., at 698, 126 S.Ct. 2121 Nevils nonetheless urges us to apply a presumption against preemption because § 8902(m)(1) does not clearly cover contractual terms pertaining to subrogation and reimbursement. This argument is blind to McVeigh 's context.
In McVeigh, we considered the discrete question whether 28 U.S.C. § 1331 gives federal courts subject-matter jurisdiction over FEHBA reimbursement actions. See 547 U.S., at 683, 126 S.Ct. 2121. Our principal holding was that § 1331 did not confer federal jurisdiction. Ibid. ; see Bell, 823 F.3d, at 1205.
The carrier in McVeigh, as part of its argument in favor of federal jurisdiction, asserted that § 8902(m)(1) itself conferred federal jurisdiction. See 547 U.S., at 697, 126 S.Ct. 2121. In responding to that assertion, we summarized competing interpretations of § 8902(m)(1) advanced in briefing, readings that map closely onto the parties' positions here. See ibid. (carrier and United States as amicus curiae urged interpretation similar to Coventry's; an amicus brief in support of beneficiary offered interpretation similar to Nevils').
We made no choice between the two interpretations set out in McVeigh, however, because the answer made no difference to the question there presented. Id., at 698, 126 S.Ct. 2121. "[E]ven if FEHBA's preemption provision reaches contract-based reimbursement claims," we explained, "that provision is not sufficiently broad to confer federal jurisdiction." Ibid. Because § 8902(m)(1) is a "choice-of-law prescription," not a "jurisdiction-conferring provision," id., at 697, 126 S.Ct. 2121 we had no cause to consider § 8902(m)(1)'s text, context, and purpose, as we do today, see supra, at 1196 - 1198.
III
Nevils further contends that, if § 8902(m)(1) covers subrogation and reimbursement clauses in OPM contracts, then the statute itself would violate the Supremacy Clause by assigning preemptive effect to the terms of a contract, not to the laws of the United States. We conclude, however, that the statute, not a contract, strips state law of its force.
Without § 8902(m)(1), there would be no preemption of state insurance law. FEHBA contract terms have preemptive force only as they "relate to the nature, provision, or extent of coverage or benefits (including payments with respect to benefits)," § 8902(m)(1) -i.e., when the contract terms fall within the statute's preemptive scope. It is therefore the statute that "ensures that [FEHBA contract] terms will be uniformly enforceable nationwide, notwithstanding any state law relating to health insurance or plans." Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 28 (internal quotation marks omitted).
Many other federal statutes preempt state law in this way, leaving the context-specific scope of preemption to contractual terms. The Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), 29 U.S.C. § 1001 et seq., for example, preempts "any and all State laws insofar as they ... relate to any employee benefit plan." § 1144(a). And the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA), 9 U.S.C. § 1 et seq., limits the grounds for denying enforcement of "written provision[s] in ... contract[s]" providing for arbitration, thereby preempting state laws that would otherwise interfere with such contracts. § 2. This Court has several times held that those statutes preempt state law, see, e.g., Gobeille v. Liberty Mut. Ins. Co., 577 U.S. ----, ---- - ----, 136 S.Ct. 936, 942-947, 194 L.Ed.2d 20 (2016) (ERISA); Marmet Health Care Center, Inc. v. Brown, 565 U.S. 530, 532-534, 132 S.Ct. 1201, 182 L.Ed.2d 42 (2012) (per curiam ) (FAA), and Nevils does not contend that those measures violate the Supremacy Clause, see Brief for Respondent 22.
Nevils instead attempts to distinguish those other statutes by highlighting a particular textual feature of § 8902(m)(1) : Section 8902(m)(1) states that the "terms of any contract " between OPM and a carrier "shall supersede and preempt" certain state or local laws. (Emphasis added.) That formulation, Nevils asserts, violates the Supremacy Clause's mandate that only the "Laws of the United States" may reign supreme over state law. U.S. Const. Art. VI, cl. 2 (emphasis added). Nevils' argument elevates semantics over substance. While Congress' formulation might differ from the phrasing of other statutes, § 8902(m)(1) manifests the same intent to preempt state law. Because we do not require Congress to employ a particular linguistic formulation when preempting state law, Nevils' Supremacy Clause challenge fails.
For the reasons stated, the judgment of the Supreme Court of Missouri is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Justice GORSUCH took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
Coventry was formerly known as Group Health Plan, Inc. Pet. for Cert. ii. We refer to both the current and former entities as "Coventry."
Under Missouri law, a "concurring opinion" in which "a majority of the court concur[s]" is binding precedent. Mueller v. Burchfield, 359 Mo. 876, 880, 224 S.W.2d 87, 89 (1949).
Because the statute alone resolves this dispute, we need not consider whether Chevron deference attaches to OPM's 2015 rule.
Congress' choice of language is not unique to § 8902(m)(1). Several related statutes governing federal-employee and military-member benefits employ similar formulations. See § 8959 ("The terms of any contract that relate to the nature, provision, or extent of coverage or benefits (including payments with respect to benefits) shall supersede and preempt any State or local law, or any regulation issued thereunder, which relates to dental benefits, insurance, plans, or contracts."); § 8989 (same for vision); § 9005(a) (same for long-term care); 10 U.S.C. § 1103(a) (certain state laws "shall not apply to any contract entered into pursuant to this chapter").
Nevils' speculation about the Government's outsourcing preemption to private entities, see Brief for Respondent 24, is far afield from the matter before us. This case involves only Congress' preemption of state insurance laws to ensure that the terms in contracts negotiated by OPM, a federal agency, operate free from state interference.
* * *
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | J | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Souter
delivered the opinion of the Court.
In this case we construe the term “employee” as it appears in § 3(6) of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), 88 Stat. 834, 29 U. S. C. § 1002(6), and read it to incorporate traditional agency law criteria for identifying master-servant relationships.
I
From 1962 through 1980, respondent Robert Darden operated an insurance agency according to the terms of several contracts he signed with petitioners Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. et al. Darden promised to sell only Nationwide insurance policies, and, in exchange, Nationwide agreed to pay him commissions on his sales and enroll him in a company retirement scheme called the “Agent’s Security Compensation Plan” (Plan). The Plan consisted of two different programs: the “Deferred Compensation Incentive Credit Plan,” under which Nationwide annually credited an agent’s retirement account with a sum based on his business performance, and the “Extended Earnings Plan,” under which Nationwide paid an agent, upon retirement or termination, a sum equal to the total of his policy renewal fees for the previous 12 months.
Such were the contractual terms, however, that Darden would forfeit his entitlement to the Plan’s benefits if, within a year of his termination and 25 miles of his prior business location, he sold insurance for Nationwide’s competitors. The contracts also disqualified him from receiving those benefits if, after he stopped representing Nationwide, he ever induced a Nationwide policyholder to cancel one of its policies.
In November 1980, Nationwide exercised its contractual right to end its relationship with Darden. A month later, Darden became an independent insurance agent and, doing business from his old office, sold insurance policies for several of Nationwide’s competitors. The company reacted with the charge that his new business activities disqualified him from receiving the Plan benefits to which he would have been entitled otherwise. Darden then sued for the benefits, which he claimed were nonforfeitable because already vested under the terms of ERISA. 29 U. S. C. § 1053(a).
Darden brought his action under 29 U. S. C. § 1132(a), which enables a benefit plan “participant” to enforce the substantive provisions of ERISA. The Act elsewhere defines “participant” as “any employee or former employee of an employer .. . who is or may become eligible to- receive a benefit of any type from an employee benefit plan . . . .” § 1002(7). Thus, Darden’s ERISA claim can succeed only if he was Nationwide’s “employee,” a term the Act defines as “any individual employed by an employer.” § 1002(6).
It was on this point that the District Court granted summary judgment to Nationwide. After applying common-law agency principles and, to an extent unspecified, our decision in United States v. Silk, 331 U. S. 704 (1947), the court found that “ ‘the total factual context’ of Mr. Darden’s relationship with Nationwide shows that he was an independent contractor and not an employee.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 47a, 50a, quoting NLRB v. United Ins. Co. of America, 390 U. S. 254 (1968).
The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit vacated. Darden v. Nationwide Mutual Ins. Co., 796 F. 2d 701 (1986). After observing that “Darden most probably would not qualify as an employee” under traditional principles of agency law, id., at 705, it found the traditional definition inconsistent with the “ ‘declared policy and purposes’ ” of ERISA, id., at 706, quoting Silk, supra, at 713, and NLRB v. Hearst Publications, Inc., 322 U. S. 111, 131-132 (1944), and specifically with the congressional statement of purpose found in § 2 of the Act, 29 U. S. C. § 1001. It therefore held that an ERISA plaintiff can qualify as an “employee” simply by showing “(1) that he had a reasonable expectation that he would receive [pension] benefits, (2) that he relied on this expectation, and (3) that he lacked the economic bargaining power to contract out of [benefit plan] forfeiture provisions.” 922 F. 2d 203, 205 (CA4 1991) (summarizing 796 F. 2d 701 (CA4 1986)). The court remanded the case to the District Court, which then found that Darden had been Nationwide’s “employee” under the standard set by the Court of Appeals. 717 F. Supp. 388 (EDNC 1989). The Court of Appeals affirmed. 922 F. 2d 203 (1991).
In due course, Nationwide filed a petition for certiorari, which we granted on October 15, 1991. 502 U. S. 905. We now reverse.
II
We have often been asked to construe the meaning of “employee” where the statute containing the term does not helpfully define it. Most recently we confronted this problem in Community for Creative Non-Violence v. Reid, 490 U. S. 730 (1989), a case in which a sculptor and a nonprofit group each claimed copyright ownership in a statue the group had commissioned from the artist. The dispute ultimately turned on whether, by the terms of §101 of the Copyright Act of 1976, 17 U. S. C. § 101, the statue had been “prepared by an employee within the scope of his or her employment.” Because the Copyright Act nowhere defined the term “employee,” we unanimously applied the “well established” principle that
“[w]here Congress uses terms that have accumulated settled meaning under ... the common law, a court must infer, unless the statute otherwise dictates, that Congress means to incorporate the established meaning of these terms. ... In the past, when Congress has used the term ‘employee’ without defining it, we have concluded that Congress intended to describe the conventional master-servant relationship as understood by common-law agency doctrine. See, e. g., Kelley v. Southern Pacific Co., 419 U. S. 318, 322-323 (1974); Baker v. Texas & Pacific R. Co., 359 U. S. 227, 228 (1959) (per curiam); Robinson v. Baltimore & Ohio R. Co., 237 U. S. 84, 94 (1915).” 490 U. S., at 739-740 (internal quotation marks omitted).
While we supported this reading of the Copyright Act with other observations, the general rule stood as independent authority for the decision.
So too should it stand here. ERISA’s nominal definition of “employee” as “any individual employed by an employer,” 29 U. S. C. § 1002(6), is completely circular and explains nothing. As for the rest of the Act, Darden does not cite, and we do not find, any provision either giving specific guidance on the term’s meaning or suggesting that construing it to incorporate traditional agency law principles would thwart the congressional design or lead to absurd results. Thus, we adopt a common-law test for determining who qualifies as an “employee” under ERISA, a test we most recently summarized in Reid:
“In determining whether a hired party is an employee under the general common law of agency, we consider the hiring party’s right to control the manner and means by which the product is accomplished. Among the other factors relevant to this inquiry are the skill required; the source of the instrumentalities and tools; the location of the work; the duration of the relationship between the parties; whether the hiring party has the right to assign additional projects to the hired party; the extent of the hired party’s discretion over when and how long to work; the method of payment; the hired party’s role in hiring and paying assistants; whether the work is part of the regular business of the hiring party; whether the hiring party is in business; the provision of employee benefits; and the tax treatment of the hired party.” 490 U. S., at 751-752 (footnotes omitted).
Cf. Restatement (Second) of Agency § 220(2) (1958) (listing nonexhaustive criteria for identifying master-servant relationship); Rev. Rui. 87-41, 1987-1 Cum. Bull. 296, 298-299 (setting forth 20 factors as guides in determining whether an individual qualifies as a common-law “employee” in various tax law contexts). Since the common-law test contains “no shorthand formula or magic phrase that can be applied to find the answer,... all of the incidents of the relationship must be assessed and weighed with no one factor being decisive.” NLRB v. United Ins. Co. of America, 390 U. S., at 258.
In taking its different tack, the Court of Appeals cited NLRB v. Hearst Publications, Inc., 322 U. S., at 120-129, and United States v. Silk, 331 U. S., at 713, for the proposition that “the content of the term ‘employee’ in the context of a particular federal statute is ‘to be construed “in the light of the mischief to be corrected and the end to be attained.” ’ ” Darden, 796 F. 2d, at 706, quoting Silk, supra, at 713, in turn quoting Hearst, supra, at 124. But Hearst and Silk, which interpreted “employee” for purposes of the National Labor Relations Act and Social Security Act, respectively, are feeble precedents for unmooring the term from the common law. In each case, the Court read “employee,” which neither statute helpfully defined, to imply something broader than the common-law definition; after each opinion, Congress amended the statute so construed to demonstrate that the usual common-law principles were the keys to meaning. See United Ins. Co., supra, at 256 (“Congressional reaction to [Hearst] was adverse and Congress passed an amendment . . . [t]he obvious purpose of [which] was to have the . . . courts apply general agency principles in distinguishing between employees and independent contractors under the Act”); Social Security Act of 1948, ch. 468, § 1(a), 62 Stat. 438 (1948) (amending statute to provide that term “employee” “does not include . . . any individual who, under the usual common-law rules applicable in determining the employer-employee relationship, has the status of an independent contractor”) (emphasis added); see also United States v. W. M. Webb, Inc., 397 U. S. 179, 183-188 (1970) (discussing congressional reaction to Silk).
To be sure, Congress did not, strictly speaking, “overrule” our interpretation of those statutes, since the Constitution invests the Judiciary, not the Legislature, with the final power to construe the law. But a principle of statutory construction can endure just so many legislative revisitations, and Reid’s presumption that Congress means an agency law definition for “employee” unless it clearly indicates otherwise signaled our abandonment of Silk’s emphasis on construing that term “ ‘in the light of the mischief to be corrected and the end to be attained.’” Silk, supra, at 713, quoting Hearst, supra, at 124.
At oral argument, Darden tried to subordinate Reid to Rutherford Food Corp. v. McComb, 331 U. S. 722 (1947), which adopted a broad reading of “employee” under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). And amicus United States, while rejecting Darden’s position, also relied on Rutherford Food for the proposition that, when enacting ERISA, Congress must have intended a modified common-law definition of “employee” that would advance, in a way not defined, the Act’s “remedial purposes.” Brief for United States as Ami- cus Curiae 15-21. But Rutherfood Food supports neither position. The definition of “employee” in the FLSA evidently derives from the child labor statutes, see Rutherford Food, supra, at 728, and, on its face, goes beyond its ERISA counterpart. While the FLSA, like ERISA, defines an “employee” to include “any individual employed by an employer,” it defines the verb “employ” expansively to mean “suffer or permit to work.” 52 Stat. 1060, §3, codified at 29 U. S. C. §§ 203(e), (g). This latter definition, whose striking breadth we have previously noted, Rutherford Food, supra, at 728, stretches the meaning of “employee” to cover some parties who might not qualify as such under a strict application of traditional agency law principles. ERISA lacks any such provision, however, and the textual asymmetry between the two statutes precludes reliance on FLSA cases when construing ERISA’s concept of “employee.”
Quite apart from its inconsistency with our precedents, the Fourth Circuit’s analysis reveals an approach infected with circularity and unable to furnish predictable results. Applying the first element of its test, which ostensibly enquires into an employee’s “expectations,” the Court of Appeals concluded that Nationwide had “created a reasonable expectation on the ‘employees’ part that benefits would be paid to them in the future,” Darden, 796 F. 2d, at 706, by establishing “a comprehensive retirement benefits program for its insurance agents,” id., at 707. The court thought it was simply irrelevant that the forfeiture clause in Darden’s contract “limited” his expectation of receiving pension benefits, since “it is precisely that sort of employer-imposed condition on the employee’s anticipations that Congress intended to outlaw with the enactment of ERISA.” Id., at 707, n. 7 (emphasis added). Thus, the Fourth Circuit’s test would turn not on a claimant’s actual “expectations,” which the court effectively deemed inconsequential, ibid., but on his statutory entitlement to relief, which itself depends on his very status as an “employee.” This begs the question.
This circularity infects the test’s second prong as well, which considers the extent to which a claimant has relied on his “expectation” of benefits by “remaining for ‘long years,’ or a substantial period of time, in the ‘employer’s’ service, and by foregoing other significant means of providing for [his] retirement.” Id., at 706. While this enquiry is ostensibly factual, we have seen already that one of its objects may not be: to the extent that actual “expectations” are (as in Darden’s case) unnecessary to relief, the nature of a claimant’s required “reliance” is left unclear. Moreover, any en-quiry into “reliance,” whatever it might entail, could apparently lead to different results for claimants holding identical jobs and enrolled in identical plans. Because, for example, Darden failed to make much independent provision for his retirement, he satisfied the “reliance” prong of the Fourth Circuit’s test, see 922 F. 2d, at 206, whereas a more provident colleague who signed exactly the same contracts, but saved for a rainy day, might not.
Any such approach would severely compromise the capacity of companies like Nationwide to figure out who their “employees” are and what, by extension, their pension-fund obligations will be. To be sure, the traditional agency law criteria offer no paradigm of determinacy. But their application generally turns on factual variables within an employer’s knowledge, thus permitting categorical judgments about the “employee” status of claimants with similar job descriptions. Agency law principles comport, moreover, with our recent precedents and with the common understanding, reflected in those precedents, of the difference between an employee and an independent contractor.
HH H-I
While the Court of Appeals noted that “Darden most probably would not qualify as an employee” under traditional agency law principles, Darden, supra, at 705, it did not actually decide that issue. We therefore reverse the judgment and remand the case to that court for proceedings consistent with this opinion.
So ordered.
The Court of Appeals cited Congress’s declaration that “many employees with long years of employment are losing anticipated retirement benefits,” that employee benefit plans “have become an important factor affecting the stability of employment and the successful development of industrial relations,” and that ERISA was necessary to “assur[e] the equitable character of such plans and their financial soundness.” 796 F. 2d, at 706, quoting 29 U. S. C. § 1001. None of these passages deals specifically with the scope of ERISA’s class of beneficiaries.
The Court of Appeals also held that the Deferred Compensation Plan was a pension plan subject to regulation under ERISA, but that the Extended Earnings Plan was not. 922 F. 2d, at 208. We denied Darden’s cross-petition for certiorari, which sought review of that conclusion. 502 U. S. 906 (1991).
As in Reid, we construe the term to incorporate “the general common law of agency, rather than ... the law of any particular State.” Community for Creative Non-Violence v. Reid, 490 U. S. 730, 740 (1989).
The National Labor Relations Act simply defined “employee” to mean (in relevant part) “any employee.” 49 Stat. 450 (1935). The Social Security Act defined the term to “include,” among other, unspecified occupations, “an officer of a corporation.” 49 Stat. 647.
While both Darden and the United States cite a Department of Labor “Opinion Letter” as support for their separate positions, see Brief for Respondent 34-36, Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 16-18, neither suggests that we owe that letter’s legal conclusions any deference under Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837, 844 (1984).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | H | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Brennan
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Payton v. New York, 445 U. S. 573 (1980), held that, absent probable cause and exigent circumstances, warrantless arrests in the home are prohibited by the Fourth Amendment. But the Court in that case explicitly refused “to consider the sort of emergency or dangerous situation, described in our cases as ‘exigent circumstances,’ that would justify a warrantless entry into a home for the purpose of either arrest or search.” Id., at 583. Certiorari was granted in this case to decide at least one aspect of the unresolved question: whether, and if so under what circumstances, the Fourth Amendment prohibits the police from making a warrantless night entry of a person’s home in order to arrest him for a nonjailable traffic offense.
h — <
A
Shortly before 9 o’clock on the rainy night of April 24,1978, a lone witness, Randy Jablonic, observed a car being driven erratically. After changing speeds and veering from side to side, the car eventually swerved off the road and came to a stop in an open field. No damage to any person or property occurred. Concerned about the driver and fearing that the car would get back on the highway, Jablonic drove his truck up behind the car so as to block it from returning to the road. Another passerby also stopped at the scene, and Jablonic asked her to call the police. Before the police arrived, however, the driver of the car emerged from his vehicle, approached Jablonic’s truck, and asked Jablonic for a ride home. Jablonic instead suggested that they wait for assistance in removing or repairing the car. Ignoring Jablonic’s suggestion, the driver walked away from the scene.
A few minutes later, the police arrived and questioned Jablonic. He told one officer what he had seen, specifically noting that the driver was either very inebriated or very sick. The officer checked the motor vehicle registration of the abandoned car and learned that it was registered to the petitioner, Edward G. Welsh. In addition, the officer noted that the petitioner’s residence was a short distance from the scene, and therefore easily within walking distance.
Without securing any type of warrant, the police proceeded to the petitioner’s home, arriving about 9 p. m. When the petitioner’s stepdaughter answered the door, the police gained entry into the house. Proceeding upstairs to the petitioner’s bedroom, they found him lying naked in bed. At this point, the petitioner was placed under arrest for driving or operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of an intoxicant, in violation of Wis. Stat. §346.63(1) (1977). The petitioner was taken to the police station, where he refused to submit to a breath-analysis test.
B
As a result of these events, the petitioner was subjected to two separate but related proceedings: one concerning his refusal to submit to a breath test and the other involving the alleged code violation for driving while intoxicated. Under the Wisconsin Vehicle Code in effect in April 1978, one arrested for driving while intoxicated under §346.63(1) could be requested by a law enforcement officer to provide breath, blood, or urine samples for the purpose of determining the presence or quantity of alcohol. Wis. Stat. §343.305(1) (1975). If such a request was made, the arrestee was required to submit to the appropriate testing or risk a revocation of operating privileges. Cf. South Dakota v. Neville, 459 U. S. 553 (1983) (admission into evidence of a defendant’s refusal to submit to a blood-alcohol test does not offend constitutional right against self-incrimination). The arrestee could challenge the officer’s request, however, by refusing to undergo testing and then asking for a hearing to determine whether the refusal was justified. If, after the hearing, it was determined that the refusal was not justified, the arrest-ee’s operating privileges would be revoked for 60 days.
The statute also set forth specific criteria to be applied by a court when determining whether an arrestee’s refusal to take a breath test was justified. Included among these criteria was a requirement that, before revoking the arrestee’s operating privileges, the court determine that “the refusal. . . to submit to a test was unreasonable.” § 343.305(2)(b)(5) (1975). It is not disputed by the parties that an arrestee’s refusal to take a breath test would be reasonable, and therefore operating privileges could not be revoked, if the underlying arrest was not lawful. Indeed, state law has consistently provided that a valid arrest is a necessary prerequisite to the imposition of a breath test. See Scales v. State, 64 Wis. 2d 485, 494, 219 N. W. 2d 286, 292 (1974). Although the statute in effect in April 1978 referred to reasonableness, the current version of §343.305 explicitly recognizes that one of the issues that an arrestee may raise at a refusal hearing is “whether [he] was lawfully placed under arrest for violation of s.346.63(l).» §§343.306(3)(b)(5)(a), (8)(b) (1981-1982). See also 67 Op. Wis. Atty. Gen. No. 93-78 (1978) (“statutory scheme . . . contemplates that a lawful arrest be made prior to a request for submission to a test”).
Separate statutory provisions control the penalty that might be imposed for the substantive offense of driving while intoxicated. At the time in question, the Vehicle Code provided that a first offense for driving while intoxicated was a noncriminal violation subject to a civil forfeiture proceeding for a maximum fine of $200; a second or subsequent offense in the previous five years was a potential misdemeanor that could be punished by imprisonment for up to one year and a maximum fine of $500. Wis. Stat. §346.65(2) (1975). Since that time, the State has made only minor amendments to these penalty provisions. Indeed, the statute continues to categorize a first offense as a civil violation that allows for only a monetary forfeiture of no more than $300. §346.65(2)(a) (Supp. 1983-1984). See State v. Albright, 98 Wis. 2d 663, 672-673, 298 N. W. 2d 196, 202 (App. 1980).
C
As noted, in this case the petitioner refused to submit to a breath test; he subsequently filed a timely request for a refusal hearing. Before that hearing was held, however, the State filed a criminal complaint against the petitioner for driving while intoxicated. The petitioner responded by filing a motion to dismiss the complaint, relying on his contention that the underlying arrest was invalid. After receiving evidence at a hearing on this motion in July 1980, the trial court concluded that the criminal complaint would not be dismissed because the existence of both probable cause and exigent circumstances justified the warrantless arrest. The decision at the refusal hearing, which was not held until September 1980, was therefore preordained. In fact, the primary issue at the refusal hearing — whether the petitioner acted reasonably in refusing to submit to a breath test because he was unlawfully placed under arrest, see supra, at 744-746 — had already been determined two months earlier by the same trial court.
As expected, after the refusal hearing, the trial court concluded that the arrest of the petitioner was lawful and that the petitioner’s refusal to take the breath test was therefore unreasonable. Accordingly, the court issued an order suspending the petitioner’s operating license for 60 days. On appeal, the suspension order was vacated by the Wisconsin Court of Appeals. See State v. Welsh, No. 80-1686 (May 26, 1981), App. 114-125. Contrary to the trial court, the appellate court concluded that the warrantless arrest of the petitioner in his home violated the Fourth Amendment because the State, although demonstrating probable cause to arrest, had not established the existence of exigent circumstances. The petitioner’s refusal to submit to a breath test was therefore reasonable. The Supreme Court of Wisconsin in turn reversed the Court of Appeals, relying on the existence of three factors that it believed constituted exigent circumstances: the need for “hot pursuit” of a suspect, the need to prevent physical harm to the offender and the public, and the need to prevent destruction of evidence. See 108 Wis. 2d 319, 336-338, 321 N. W. 2d 245, 254-255 (1982). Because of the important Fourth Amendment implications of the decision below, we granted certiorari. 459 U. S. 1200 (1983).
II
It is axiomatic that the “physical entry of the home is the chief evil against which the wording of the Fourth Amendment is directed.” United States v. United States District Court, 407 U. S. 297, 313 (1972). And a principal protection against unnecessary intrusions into private dwellings is the warrant requirement imposed by the Fourth Amendment on agents of the government who seek to enter the home for purposes of search or arrest. See Johnson v. United States, 333 U. S. 10, 13-14 (1948). It is not surprising, therefore, that the Court has recognized, as “a ‘basic principle of Fourth Amendment law[,]’ that searches and seizures inside a home without a warrant are presumptively unreasonable. ” Payton v. New York, 445 U. S., at 586. See Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U. S. 443, 474-475 (1971) (“a search or seizure carried out on a suspect’s premises without a warrant is per se unreasonable, unless the police can show. . . the presence of ‘exigent circumstances’ ”). See also Michigan v. Clifford, 464 U. S. 287, 296-297 (1984) (plurality opinion); Steagald v. United States, 451 U. S. 204, 211-212 (1981); McDonald v. United States, 335 U. S. 451, 456 (1948); Johnson v. United States, supra, at 13-15; Boyd v. United States, 116 U. S. 616, 630 (1886).
Consistently with these long-recognized principles, the Court decided in Payton v. New York, supra, that warrant-less felony arrests in the home are prohibited by the Fourth Amendment, absent probable cause and exigent circumstances. Id., at 583-590. At the same time, the Court declined to consider the scope of any exception for exigent circumstances that might justify warrantless home arrests, id., at 583, thereby leaving to the lower courts the initial application of the exigent-circumstances exception. Prior decisions of this Court, however, have emphasized that exceptions to the warrant requirement are “few in number and carefully delineated,” United States v. United States District Court, supra, at 318, and that the police bear a heavy burden when attempting to demonstrate an urgent need that might justify warrantless searches or arrests. Indeed, the Court has recognized only a few such emergency conditions, see, e. g., United States v. Santana, 427 U. S. 38, 42-43 (1976) (hot pursuit of a fleeing felon); Warden v. Hayden, 387 U. S. 294, 298-299 (1967) (same); Schmerber v. California, 384 U. S. 757, 770-771 (1966) (destruction of evidence); Michigan v. Tyler, 436 U. S. 499, 509 (1978) (ongoing fire), and has actually applied only the “hot pursuit” doctrine to arrests in the home, see Santana, supra.
Our hesitation in finding exigent circumstances, especially when warrantless arrests in the home are at issue, is particularly appropriate when the underlying offense for which there is probable cause to arrest is relatively minor. Before agents of the government may invade the sanctity of the home, the burden is on the government to demonstrate exigent circumstances that overcome the presumption of unreasonableness that attaches to all warrantless home entries. See Payton v. New York, supra, at 586. When the government’s interest is only to arrest for a minor offense, that presumption of unreasonableness is difficult to rebut, and the government usually should be allowed to make such arrests only with a warrant issued upon probable cause by a neutral and detached magistrate.
This is not a novel idea. Writing in concurrence in McDonald v. United States, 335 U. S. 451 (1948), Justice Jackson explained why a finding of exigent circumstances to justify a warrantless home entry should be severely restricted when only a minor offense has been committed:
“Even if one were to conclude that urgent circumstances might justify a forced entry without a warrant, no such emergency was present in this case. This method of law enforcement displays a shocking lack of all sense of proportion. Whether there is reasonable necessity for a search without waiting to obtain a warrant certainly depends somewhat upon the gravity of the offense thought to be in progress as well as the hazards of the method of attempting to reach it.. . . It is to me a shocking proposition that private homes, even quarters in a tenement, may be indiscriminately invaded at the discretion of any suspicious police officer engaged in following up offenses that involve no violence or threats of it. While I should be human enough to apply the letter of the law with some indulgence to officers acting to deal with threats or crimes of violence which endanger life or security, it is notable that few of the searches found by this Court to be unlawful dealt with that category of crime. . . . While the enterprise of parting fools from their money by the ‘numbers’ lottery is one that ought to be suppressed, I do not think its suppression is more important to society than the security of the people against unreasonable searches and seizures. When an officer undertakes to act as his own magistrate, he ought to be in a position to justify it by pointing to some real immediate and serious consequences if he postponed action to get a warrant.” Id., at 459-460 (footnote omitted).
Consistently with this approach, the lower courts have looked to the nature of the underlying offense as an important factor to be considered in the exigent-circumstances calculus. In a leading federal case defining exigent circumstances, for example, the en banc United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit recognized that the gravity of the underlying offense was a principal factor to be weighed. Dorman v. United States, 140 U. S. App. D. C. 313, 320, 435 F. 2d 385, 392 (1970). Without approving all of the factors included in the standard adopted by that court, it is sufficient to note that many other lower courts have also considered the gravity of the offense an important part of their constitutional analysis.
For example, courts have permitted warrantless home arrests for major felonies if identifiable exigencies, independent of the gravity of the offense, existed at the time of the arrest. Compare United States v. Campbell, 581 F. 2d 22 (CA2 1978) (allowing warrantless home arrest for armed robbery when exigent circumstances existed), with Commonwealth v. Williams, 483 Pa. 293, 396 A. 2d 1177 (1978) (disallowing war-rantless home arrest for murder due to absence of exigent circumstances). But of those courts addressing the issue, most have refused to permit warrantless home arrests for nonfelonious crimes. See, e. g., State v. Guertin, 190 Conn. 440, 453, 461 A. 2d 963, 970 (1983) (“The [exigent-circumstances] exception is narrowly drawn to cover cases of real and not contrived emergencies. The exception is limited to the investigation of serious crimes; misdemeanors are excluded”); People v. Strelow, 96 Mich. App. 182, 190-193, 292 N. W. 2d 517, 521-522 (1980). See also People v. Sanders, 59 Ill. App. 3d 6, 374 N. E. 2d 1315 (1978) (burglary without weapons not grave offense of violence for this purpose); State v. Bennett, 295 N. W. 2d 5 (S. D. 1980) (distribution of controlled substances not a grave offense for these purposes). But cf. State v. Penas, 200 Neb. 387, 263 N. W. 2d 835 (1978) (allowing warrantless home arrest upon hot pursuit from commission of misdemeanor in the officer’s presence; decided before Payton); State v. Niedermeyer, 48 Ore. App. 665, 617 P. 2d 911 (1980) (allowing warrantless home arrest upon hot pursuit from commission of misdemeanor in the officer’s presence). The approach taken in these cases should not be surprising. Indeed, without necessarily approving any of these particular holdings or considering every possible factual situation, we note that it is difficult to conceive of a warrantless home arrest that would not be unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment when the underlying offense is extremely minor.
We therefore conclude that the common-sense approach utilized by most lower courts is required by the Fourth Amendment prohibition on “unreasonable searches and seizures,” and hold that an important factor to be considered when determining whether any exigency exists is the gravity of the underlying offense for which the arrest is being made. Moreover, although no exigency is created simply because there is probable cause to believe that a serious crime has been committed, see Payton, application of the exigent-circumstances exception in the context of a home entry should rarely be sanctioned when there is probable cause to believe that only a minor offense, such as the kind at issue in this case, has been committed.
Application of this principle to the facts of the present case is relatively straightforward. The petitioner was arrested in the privacy of his own bedroom for a noncriminal, traffic offense. The State attempts to justify the arrest by relying on the hot-pursuit doctrine, on the threat to public safety, and on the need to preserve evidence of the petitioner’s blood-alcohol level. On the facts of this case, however, the claim of hot pursuit is unconvincing because there was no immediate or continuous pursuit of the petitioner from the scene of a crime. Moreover, because the petitioner had already arrived home, and had abandoned his car at the scene of the accident, there was little remaining threat to the public safety. Hence, the only potential emergency claimed by the State was the need to ascertain the petitioner’s blood-alcohol level.
Even assuming, however, that the underlying facts would support a finding of this exigent circumstance, mere similarity to other cases involving the imminent destruction of evidence is not sufficient. The State of Wisconsin has chosen to classify the first offense for driving while intoxicated as a noncriminal, civil forfeiture offense for which no imprisonment is possible. See Wis. Stat. §346.65(2) (1975); §346.65(2)(a) (Supp. 1983-1984); supra, at 746. This is the best indication of the State’s interest in precipitating an arrest, and is one that can be easily identified both by the courts and by officers faced with a decision to arrest. See n. 6, supra. Given this expression of the State’s interest, a warrantless home arrest cannot be upheld simply because evidence of the petitioner’s blood-alcohol level might have dissipated while the police obtained a warrant. To allow a warrantless home entry on these facts would be to approve unreasonable police behavior that the principles of the Fourth Amendment will not sanction.
hH I — I 1 — I
The Supreme Court of Wisconsin let stand a warrant-less, nighttime entry into the petitioner’s home to arrest him for a civil traffic offense. Such an arrest, however, is clearly prohibited by the special protection afforded the individual in his home by the Fourth Amendment. The petitioner’s arrest was therefore invalid, the judgment of the Supreme Court of Wisconsin is vacated, and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
The Chief Justice would dismiss the writ as having been improvidently granted and defer resolution of the question presented to a more appropriate case.
The state trial court never decided whether there was consent to the entry because it deemed decision of that issue unnecessary in light of its finding that exigent circumstances justified the warrantless arrest. After reversing the lower court’s finding of exigent circumstances, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals remanded for full consideration of the consent issue. See State v. Welsh, No. 80-1686 (May 26, 1981), App. 114-126. That remand never occurred, however, because the Supreme Court of Wisconsin reversed the Court of Appeals and reinstated the trial court’s judgment. See 108 Wis. 2d 319, 321 N. W. 2d 245 (1982). For purposes of this decision, therefore, we assume that there was no valid consent to enter the petitioner’s home.
Since the petitioner’s arrest, §346.63 has been amended to provide that it is a code violation to drive or operate a motor vehicle while under the influence of an intoxicant or while evidencing certain blood- or breath-alcohol levels. See Wis. Stat. §§346.63(1)(a), (b) (1981-1982). Thisamendment, however, has no bearing on the issues raised by the present case.
Since the petitioner’s arrest, this statute also has been amended, with the current version found at Wis. Stat. § 343.305 (1981-1982). Although the procedures to be followed by the law enforcement officer and the ar-restee have remained essentially unchanged, §§ 343.305(3), (8), the potential length of any revocation of operating privileges has been increased, depending on the arrestee’s prior driving record, §§ 343.305(9)(a), (b). An arrestee who improperly refuses to submit to a required test may also be required to comply with an assessment order and a driver safety plan, §§343.305(9)(c)-(e). These amendments, however, also have no direct bearing on the issues raised by the present case.
“The implied consent law does not limit the right to take a blood sample as an incident to a lawful arrest. It should be emphasized, however, that the arrest, and therefore probable cause for making it, must precede the taking of the blood sample. We conclude that the sample was constitutionally taken incident to the lawful arrest.” 64 Wis. 2d, at 494, 219 N. W. 2d, at 292 (emphasis added).
Nor is there any doubt that the Supreme Court of Wisconsin applies federal constitutional standards when determining whether an arrest, even for a nonjailable traffic offense, is lawful. The court, for example, explained the basis for its holding in this case as follows:
“The trial court revoked the defendant’s motor vehicle operator’s license for sixty days pursuant to his unreasonable refusal to submit to a breathalyzer test, as required by [state statute].
“The defendant challenges the officer’s warrantless arrest in his residence as violating the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution and Article I, section 11 of the Wisconsin Constitution. The [trial court] upheld this warrantless arrest concluding that probable cause to believe that the defendant had been operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of an intoxicant, coupled with the existence of exigent circumstances, justified the officers’ entry into the defendant’s residence. . . . [T]he court of appeals reversed the trial court, holding that, although the officers’ warrantless arrest was unreasonable, thereby violating the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments, the absence of a finding regarding the consensual entry necessitated remanding the case on that issue. We affirm the findings of the [trial court], holding that the co-existence of probable cause and exigent circumstances in this case justifies the warrantless arrest....
“To prevail in this case, the state must prove the co-existence of probable cause and exigent circumstances, justifying the officer’s conduct at the defendant’s residence. We hold that there was ample evidence supporting the trial court’s ruling that the officer’s entry was justified on the basis of both probable cause and exigent circumstances. Entry to effect a war-rantless arrest in a residence is subject to the limitations imposed by both the United States and the Wisconsin Constitutions. U. S. Const. amend. IV; Wis. Const. art. I, sec. 11.” 108 Wis. 2d, at 320-321, 326-327, 321 N. W. 2d, at 246-247, 249-250 (emphasis added) (citations and footnotes omitted).
Because state law provides that evidence of the petitioner’s refusal to submit to a breath test is inadmissible if the underlying arrest was unlawful, this case does not implicate the exclusionary rule under the Federal Constitution.
The petitioner was charged with a criminal misdemeanor because this was his second such citation in the previous five years. See § 346.65(2) (1975). Although the petitioner was subject to a criminal charge, the police conducting the warrantless entry of his home did not know that the petitioner had ever been charged with, or much less convicted of, a prior violation for driving while intoxicated. It must be assumed, therefore, that at the time of the arrest the police were acting as if they were investigating and eventually arresting for a nonjailable traffic offense that constituted only a civil violation under the applicable state law. See Beck v. Ohio, 379 U. S. 89, 91, 96 (1964).
When ruling from the bench after the refusal hearing, the trial judge specifically indicated:
“[T]he Court is bound by its earlier ruling that that was a valid arrest. And, I think [counsel for the petitioner] certainly will have the right to challenge that on appeal if he appeals this matter, as well as the previous ruling should there be a conviction on the underlying charge.” App. 111. See also id., at 112-113.
The court remanded the case for further findings as to whether the police had entered the petitioner’s home with consent. See n. 1, supra.
Although the state courts differed in their respective conclusions concerning exigent circumstances, they each found that the facts known to the police at the time of the warrantless home entry were sufficient to establish probable cause to arrest. The petitioner has not challenged that finding before this Court.
The parallel criminal proceedings against the petitioner, see supra, at 746-747, and n. 6, resulted in a misdemeanor conviction for driving while intoxicated. During the jury trial, held in early 1982, the State introduced evidence of the petitioner's refusal to submit to a breath test. His appeal from that conviction, now before the Wisconsin Court of Appeals, has been stayed pending our decision in this case. See Brief for Petitioner 17, n. 5.
In Johnson, Justice Jackson eloquently explained the warrant requirement in the context of a home search:
“The point of the Fourth Amendment, which often is not grasped by zealous officers, is not that it denies law enforcement the support of the usual inferences which reasonable men draw from evidence. Its protection consists in requiring that those inferences be drawn by a neutral and detached magistrate instead of being judged by the officer engaged in the often competitive enterprise of ferreting out crime. . . . The right of officers to thrust themselves into a home is ... a grave concern, not only to the individual but to a society which chooses to dwell in reasonable security and freedom from surveillance. When the right of privacy must reasonably yield to the right of search is, as a rule, to be decided by a judicial officer, not by a policeman or government enforcement agent.” 333 U. S., at 13-14 (footnote omitted).
Our decision in Payton, allowing warrantless home arrests upon a showing of probable cause and exigent circumstances, was also expressly limited to felony arrests. See, e. g., 445 U. S., at 574, 602. Because we conclude that, in the circumstances presented by this case, there were no exigent circumstances sufficient to justify a warrantless home entry, we have no occasion to consider whether the Fourth Amendment may impose an absolute ban on warrantless home arrests for certain minor offenses.
Even the dissenters in Payton, although believing that warrantless home arrests are not prohibited by the Fourth Amendment, recognized the importance of the felony limitation on such arrests. See id., at 616-617 (White, J., joined by Burgee, C. J., and Rehnquist, J., dissenting) (“The felony requirement guards against abusive or arbitrary enforcement and ensures that invasions of the home occur only in case of the most serious crimes”).
See generally Donnino & Girese, Exigent Circumstances for a Warrantless Home Arrest, 45 Albany L. Rev. 90 (1980); Harbaugh & Faust, “Knock on Any Door” — Home Arrests After Payton and Steagald, 86 Dick. L. Rev. 191, 220-233 (1982); Note, Exigent Circumstances for Warrantless Home Arrests, 23 Ariz. L. Rev. 1171 (1981).
Nor do we mean to suggest that the prevention of drunken driving is not properly of maj or concern to the States. The State of Wisconsin, however, along with several other States, see, e. g., Minn. Stat. §169.121 subd. 4 (1982); Neb. Rev. Stat. §39-669.07(1) (Supp. 1983); S. D. Codified Laws § 32-23-2 (Supp. 1983), has chosen to limit severely the penalties that may be imposed after a first conviction for driving while intoxicated. Given that the classification of state crimes differs widely among the States, the penalty that may attach to any particular offense seems to provide the clearest and most consistent indication of the State’s interest in arresting individuals suspected of committing that offense.
On remand, the state courts may consider whether the petitioner’s arrest was justified because the police had validly obtained consent to enter his home. See n. 1, supra.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Clark
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case involves the authority of the Federal Power Commission after hearing to order an interim rate reduction as well as a refund of amounts collected in excess thereof where a portion of a previously filed increased rate is found unjustified but the remainder of the proceeding is deferred. Respondent Tennessee Gas Transmission Company, a natural gas company, included within its filed increased rate schedule a 7% over-all return on its net investment. In considering this item along with others involved in the filing, including the allocation of the over-all cost of service among its rate zones, the Commission concluded, after a full hearing, that 6% % rather than the filed 7% would be a just and reasonable return. It accordingly required Tennessee Gas to file reduced rates, based on the lower return figure, retroactive to the end of a five-month suspension period, and ordered a refund of the excessive amounts collected since that date. 24 F. P. C. 204. The Court of Appeals, 293 F. 2d 761, found that the 6%% return was just and reasonable. It held, however, by a divided vote, that the Commission erred in ordering an immediate reduction and refund since it had not determined other issues in the proceeding, particularly that of the proper allocation of the over-all costs of the company’s services among its six zones. The latter, the court reasoned, might be determinative of the ultimate question of whether the over-all filed rates in each zone were just and reasonable; therefore, the interim order might result in irretrievable loss to the company. The importance of the question in the administration of the Natural Gas Act led us to grant certiorari, 368 U. S. 974. We have concluded that the issuance of the order was an appropriate exercise of the power granted the Commission by the Act.
I.
Tennessee Gas does not have a system-wide rate applicable to all services regardless of where performed. It has since the early 1950’s, with Commission approval, divided its extensive pipeline system into six rate zones with rate differentials. The appropriate allocation of its costs of service among these zones and types of customers was not then decided by the Commission nor agreed upon between the parties, but was left for future decision. It was in this posture that in 1959 Tennessee Gas, pursuant to § 4 (d) of the Natural Gas Act, filed with the Commission proposed increased rates for its six rate zones. The rates were predicated upon a cost of service which included a claim to a 7 % rate of return on net investment. At the inception of hearings on the reasonableness of the filed rates the Commission, under its § 4 (e) authority, imposed a five-month suspension period on the proposed increase after which the rates became effective subject to refund of any portion not ultimately justified by Tennessee Gas in the proceedings.
Hearings commenced on February 2, 1960, and Tennessee Gas presented its evidence on cost of service and rate of return. The Commission staff presented evidence on the latter alone and then proposed that the rate of return issue be treated separately from cost of service and allocation of rates among.zones. At the time of this proposal to the Commission the zone allocation issue was also pending in another docket in a proceeding involving Tennessee Gas. By motion Tennessee Gas requested that the allocation issue be decided simultaneously with that involving the rate of return. On August 5, 1960, this motion was denied, and four days later the Commission issued the interim order under attack here. It found that a 7 Jo return was excessive and that a 6% % rate of return was just and reasonable. This finding was based on the Commission’s determination that Tennessee Gas had failed to justify a rate of return greater than 6%%. Accordingly, the Commission issued an interim order which disallowed the 7% return, required Tennessee Gas to file appropriate lower rates retroactively to the effective date of the increased rates and ordered refunds of the differences collected since that time. Tennessee Gas does not contest the Commission’s determination that a 6%% return on its net investment is just and reasonable. It does contend that to require the refunds prior to a determination of cost allocation among its zones of operation might result in its being unable to realize this return during the refund period. In this connection it points out that the rates as finally determined might, in some of its zones, be above the rates collected less the refund ordered. This would result in Tennessee Gas not being able to recoup a return of 6%% since it would be unable to collect retroactively the higher rates found appropriate in those zones while it would be required to make full refunds in the remaining lower rate zones.
The Court of Appeals, in setting aside the Commission’s order of immediate reduction and refund, found that it was unreasonable and an abuse of discretion to thus splinter the issues, especially since the cost allocation among zones issue was deemed “ripe for decision,” and a ruling on it was an “essential element in determining whether the filed rates are excessive.” The court also questioned whether a hearing confined to the issue of rate of return was such a “full hearing” as § 4 (e) demands prerequisite to a rate-change and refund order.
The Federal Power Commission and the City of Pittsburgh, which is acting in behalf of resident consumers of natural gas, are here in separate cases. Since they raise identical factual and legal issues, we consider the two cases together.
II.
As all of the respondents admit, there is “no question” as to the Commission's authority to issue interim rate orders. Indeed, such general authority is well established by cases in this Court, Federal Power Comm’n v. Natural Gas Pipeline Co., 315 U. S. 575 (1942); New England Divisions Case, 261 U. S. 184 (1923), as well as in the Courts of Appeals. Panhandle Eastern Pipe Line Co. v. Federal Power Comm’n, 236 F. 2d 606 (C. A. 3d Cir. 1956); State Corporation Comm’n of Kansas v. Federal Power Comm’n, 206 F. 2d 690 (C. A. 8th Cir. 1953). It is true that none of these cases involved an undecided cost allocation issue applicable retroactively. However, in Natural Gas Pipeline Co. this Court took pains to point out the fact that “establishment of a rate for a regulated industry often involves two steps of different character, one of which may appropriately precede the other.” 315 U. S., at p. 584. Significantly, that case also involved the issue of a fair rate of return and “the adjustment of a rate schedule . . . so as to eliminate discriminations and unfairness from its details.” Ibid. And the Court specifically found power to order a decrease in rates “without establishing a specific schedule.” It declared that the proviso of § 5 authorized the Commission to “order a decrease where existing rates are unjust ... or are not the lowest reasonable rates.” Finally, the Court concluded that § 16 placed discretion in the Commission to “issue . . . such orders ... as it may find necessary or appropriate to carry out the provisions of this chapter.” Here the Commission took similar action directing Tennessee Gas to file a new schedule which would reflect the prescribed %% reduction in the rate of return and, in addition, to refund under § 4 (e) the amounts collected in excess of the lower, substituted charges reflecting the lawful rate of return. The fact that the Natural Gas Pipeline Co. case was initiated under § 5 of the Act and the refund provisions of § 4 (e) were not available was, in our opinion, of no consequence since the hazard of not making a profit remains on the company in each instance. “Discriminations and unfairness” if later found present in Natural Gas Pipeline’s schedule might have caused it losses just as the refunds might here. In addition, an analysis of the policy of the Act clearly indicates that a natural gas company initiating an increase in rates under § 4 (d) assumes the hazards involved in that procedure. It bears the burden of establishing its rate schedule as being “just and reasonable.” In addition, the company can never recoup the income lost when the five-month suspension power of the Commission is exercised under §4(e). The company is also required to refund any sums thereafter collected should it not sustain its burden of proving the reasonableness of an increased rate, and it may suffer further loss when the Commission upon a finding of excessiveness makes adjustments in the rate detail of the company’s filing. In this latter respect a rate for one class or zone of customers may be found by the Commission to be too low, but the company cannot recoup its losses by making retroactive the higher rate subsequently allowed; on the other hand, when another class or zone of customers is found to be subjected to excessive rates and a lower rate is ordered, the company must make refunds to them. The company’s losses in the first instance do not justify its illegal gain in the latter. Such situations are entirely consistent with the policy of the Act and, we are told, occur with frequency. The company having initially filed the rates and either collected an illegal return or failed to collect a sufficient one must, under the theory of the Act, shoulder the hazards incident to its action including not only the refund of any illegal gain but also its losses where its filed rate is found to be inadequate.
Nor do we share the doubts of the Court of Appeals concerning the practicalities of the two-step procedure invoked by the Commission. We cannot see how the severance of the two issues left Tennessee Gas without guidance as to “the extent to which individual rates should be reduced, or to whom refunds are due.” 293 F. 2d, at p. 767. The Commission has found that the revised over-all rate schedule should have been calculated on a rate of return of 6%% rather than 7%. As a result the over-all rate was to that extent unlawful and refunds were due across the board to all customers in the Tennessee Gas system. The interim order directed their payment. True, the old and undecided zone rate structure under attack as discriminatory was left in effect by this order and survives a bit longer. But the probabilities present in that situation are more than offset by the certainty of the Commission’s actions in finding the 7% rate unlawful, fixing the 6% % lawful return and giving timely effectiveness, including refunds, to the latter. Perhaps discrimination may later be found in the allocation of cost between some zones, but it would affect only the customers in those zones while the postponement of the interim order here would be of continuing detriment to all customers in all zones. Moreover, if decreased rates and resultant refunds are later found to be necessary in those isolated instances the Commission has the power to so order upon such finding and the individual lawful rates could at that time be fixed.
Moreover, the use of the interim order technique is in keeping with the purposes of the Act “to protect consumers against exploitation at the hands of natural gas companies . . . ,” Federal Power Comm’n v. Hope Natural Gas Co., 320 U. S. 591, 610 (1944), and “to underwrite just and reasonable rates to the consumers of natural gas . . . .” Atlantic Refining Co. v. Public Service Comm’n of New York, 360 U. S. 378, 388 (1959). Faced with the finding that the rate of return was excessive, the Commission acted properly within its statutory power in issuing the interim order of reduction and refund, since the purpose of the Act is “to afford consumers a complete, permanent and effective bond of protection from excessive rates and charges. . . Id., at p. 388. To do otherwise would have permitted Tennessee Gas to collect the illegal rate for an additional 18 months at a cost of over $16,500,000 to consumers. True, the exaction would have been subject to refund, but experience has shown this to be somewhat illusory in view of the trickling down process necessary to be followed, the incidental cost of which is often borne by the consumer, and in view of the transient nature of our society which often prevents refunds from reaching those to whom they are due. It is, therefore, the duty of the Commission to look at “the backdrop of the practical consequences [resulting] . . . and the purposes of the Act,” Sunray Mid-Continent Oil Co. v. Federal Power Comm’n, 364 U. S. 137, 147 (1960), in exercising its discretion under § 16 to issue interim orders and, where refunds are found due, to direct their payment at the earliest possible moment consistent with due process. In so doing under the circumstances here the Commission’s ultimate action in directing the severance and in entering the interim order was not only entirely appropriate but in the best tradition of effective administrative practice.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed insofar as it set aside the interim order; otherwise it is affirmed.
Reversed in part.
On motion of the Commission’s staff counsel, the proceeding was divided into two phases: (1) determination of rate of return; (2) determination of other factors, including allocation of rates among zones.
15 U. S. C. § 717c (d) :
“Unless the Commission otherwise órders, no change shall be made by any natural-gas company in any such rate, charge, classification, or service, or in any rule, regulation, or contract relating thereto, except after thirty days’ notice to the Commission and to the public. Such notice shall be given by filing with the Commission and keeping open for public inspection new schedules stating plainly the change or changes to be made in the schedule or schedules then in force and the time when the change or changes will go into effect. The Commission, for good cause shown, may allow changes to take effect without requiring the thirty days’ notice herein provided for by an order specifying the changes so to be made and the time when they shall take effect and the manner in which they shall be filed and published.”
15 U. S. C. § 717c (e):
“Whenever any such new schedule is filed the Commission shall have authority ... to enter upon a hearing concerning the lawfulness of such rate, charge, classification, or service; and, pending such hearing and the decision thereon, the Commission, upon filing with such schedules and delivering to the natural-gas company affected thereby a statement in writing of its reasons for such suspension, may suspend the operation of such schedule and defer the use of such rate, charge, classification, or service, but not for a longer period than five months beyond the time when it would otherwise go into effect. . . .”
In this connection we note the Commission found:
“Hearings on the cost allocation issue, severed from the other issues in Docket No. G-11980 by Commission order, were concluded on December 17, 1959, and briefing thereon was concluded on April 11, 1960. Tennessee’s motion for omission of the intermediate decision on that issue is neither timely nor concurred in by the other parties to the proceeding. Further, while we recognize that an early decision on that issue is desirable, the nature and considerable size of the record, indicates that it would be more practicable in the interests of an early decision and in the interest of effective administration of the Natural Gas Act, that the Presiding Examiner, who has available knowledge of that record, should proceed with consideration of the evidence and render decision thereon.” Unreported order of the Commission issued Aug. 5, 1960.
Respondents Columbia Gas Companies raise a separate point as to their not being permitted to offer evidence in this case as to cost allocation. We note that they had a full opportunity to do so in another proceeding involving the same parties. This contention, therefore, has no merit. This hearing, insofar as it determined that the rate of return was unreasonable, was to that extent and for the purpose of the interim order the “full hearing” contemplated by the statute, even though it did not at that time dispose of the entire case.
15 U. S. C. § 717d (a):
“. . . Provided, however, That the Commission shall have no power to order any increase in any rate contained in the currently effective schedule of such natural gas company on file with the Commission, unless such increase is in accordance with a new schedule filed by such natural gas company; but the Commission may order a decrease where existing rates are unjust, unduly discriminatory, preferential, otherwise unlawful, or are not the lowest reasonable rates.”
15 U. S. C. § 717o:
“The Commission shall have power to perform any and all acts, and to prescribe, issue, make, amend, and rescind such orders, rules, and regulations as it may find necessary or appropriate to carry out the provisions of this chapter. Among other things, such rules and regulations may define accounting, technical,.and trade terms used in this chapter; and may prescribe the form or forms of all statements, declarations, applications, and reports to be filed with the Commission, the information which they shall contain, and the time within which they shall be filed. Unless a different date is specified therein, rules and regulations of the Commission shall be effective thirty days after publication in the manner which the Commission shall prescribe. Orders of the Commission shall be effective on the date and in the manner which the Commission shall prescribe. For the purposes of its rules and regulations, the Commission may classify persons and matters within its jurisdiction and prescribe different requirements for different classes of persons or matters. All rules and regulations of the Commission shall be filed with its secretary and shall be kept open in convenient form for public inspection and examination during reasonable business hours. (June 21, 1938, ch. 556, § 16, 52 Stat. 830,)”
The cost allocation issue was decided 18 months following the Commission’s decision on rate of return, and substantial issues on the cost-of-service question are still unresolved. If the interim order had not been entered the illegal rate would have been in effect 22 months, with an excessive return of some $20,000,000.
In some of the States refunds due unfound former customers remain with the company in separate accounts subject to future order; a larger group escheats such amounts to the State; others permit them to be used in defraying the cost of the refund; a fourth group has no problem regarding transients since refunds are prorated among company customers and credited on future bills; and one State includes all refunds in future rate reductions. While refunds are permissible in cash, most of the States approve plans whereby credits are permitted on future gas bills in proportion to average consumption.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | H | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Per Curiam.
The petition for a writ of certiorari is granted and the judgment is reversed, Redrup v. New York, 386 U. S. 767.
The Chief Justice and Mr. Justice Harlan are of the opinion that certiorari should be denied. However, the case having been taken for review, they would affirm the judgment of the state court upon the premises stated in Mr. Justice Harlan’s separate opinion in Roth v. United States, 354 U. S. 476, 496 (1957), and in his dissenting opinion in Memoirs v. Massachusetts, 383 U. S. 413, 455 (1966).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | C | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Scalia
delivered the opinion of the Court.
We consider in these cases whether the Republic of Iraq remains subject to suit in American courts pursuant to the terrorism exception to foreign sovereign immunity, now repealed, that had been codified at 28 U. S. C. § 1605(a)(7).
I
A
Under the venerable principle of foreign sovereign immunity, foreign states are ordinarily “immune from the jurisdiction of the courts of the United States and of the States,” § 1604. See generally Schooner Exchange v. McFaddon, 7 Cranch 116 (1812). But the statute embodying that principle — the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976 (FSIA), 28 U. S. C. § 1602 et seq. — recognizes a number of exceptions; if any of these is applicable, the state is subject to suit, and federal district courts have jurisdiction to adjudicate the claim. § 1330(a); Verlinden B. V. v. Central Bank of Nigeria, 461 U. S. 480, 489 (1983).
In 1996, Congress added to the list of statutory exceptions one for state sponsors of terrorism, which was codified at 28 U. S. C. § 1605(a)(7). Subject to limitations not relevant here, that exception stripped immunity in any suit for money damages
“against a foreign state for personal injury or death that was caused by an act of torture, extrajudicial killing, aircraft sabotage, hostage taking, or the provision of material support or resources ... for such an act... except that the court shall decline to hear a claim under this paragraph—
“(A) if the foreign state was not designated as a state sponsor of terrorism under section 6(j) of the Export Administration Act of 1979 (50 U. S. C. App. 2405(j)) or section 620A of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 (22 U. S. C. 2371) at the time the act occurred ....”
In brief, § 1605(a)(7) stripped immunity from a foreign state for claims arising from particular acts, if those acts were taken at a time when the state was designated as a sponsor of terrorism.
B
In September 1990, Acting Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger formally designated Iraq, pursuant to § 6(j) of the Export Administration Act of 1979, as redesignated and amended, 99 Stat. 135, 50 U. S. C. App. § 2405(j), as “a country which has repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism,” 55 Fed. Reg. 37793. Over a decade later, in March 2003, the United States and a coalition of allies initiated military action against that country. In a matter of weeks, the regime of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein collapsed and coalition forces occupied Baghdad. American attention soon shifted from combat operations to the longer term project of rebuilding Iraq, with the ultimate goal of creating a stable ally in the region.
Toward that end, Congress enacted in April 2003 the Emergency Wartime Supplemental Appropriations Act (EWSAA), 117 Stat. 559. Section 1503 of that Act authorized the President to “make inapplicable with respect to Iraq section 620A of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 or any other provision of law that applies to countries that have supported terrorism.” Id., at 579. President George W. Bush exercised that authority to its fullest extent in May 2003, declaring “inapplicable with respect to Iraq section 620A of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961... and any other provision of law that applies to countries that have supported terrorism.” 68 Fed. Reg. 26459.
Shortly thereafter, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit had occasion to consider whether that Presidential action had the effect of rendering inapplicable to Iraq the terrorism exception to foreign sovereign immunity. The court concluded in a divided panel decision that the President’s EWSAA authority did not permit him to waive § 1605(a)(7), and thereby restore sovereign immunity to Iraq, for claims arising from acts it had taken while designated as a sponsor of terror. Acree v. Republic of Iraq, 370 F. 3d 41, 48 (2004). Because Iraq succeeded in having the claims against it dismissed on other grounds, id., at 59-60, it could not seek certiorari to challenge the D. C. Circuit’s interpretation of the EWSAA.
C
There is yet another legislative enactment, and yet another corresponding executive waiver, that bear on the question presented. The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008 (NDAA), 122 Stat. 3, was passed in January 2008. That Act (1) repealed the FSIA’s terrorism exception, § 1083(b)(l)(A)(iii); (2) replaced it with a new, roughly similar exception, § 1083(a); (3) declared that nothing in § 1503 of the EWSAA had “ever authorized, directly or indirectly, the making inapplicable of any provision of chapter 97 of title 28, United States Code, or the removal of the jurisdiction of any court of the United States” (thus purporting to ratify the Court of Appeals’ Aeree decision), § 1083(c)(4), 122 Stat. 343; and (4) authorized the President to waive “any provision of this section with respect to Iraq” so long as he made certain findings and so notified Congress within 30 days, § 1083(d), id., at 343-344.
The last provision was added to the NDAA after the President vetoed an earlier version of the bill, which did not include the waiver authority. The President’s veto message said that the bill “would imperil billions of dollars of Iraqi assets at a crucial juncture in that nation’s reconstruction efforts.” Memorandum to the House of Representatives Returning Without Approval the “National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008,” 43 Weekly Comp, of Pres. Doc. 1641 (2007). Only when Congress added the waiver authority to the NDAA did the President agree to approve it; and on the same day he signed it into law he also officially waived “all provisions of section 1083 of the Act with respect to Iraq,” 73 Fed. Reg. 6571 (2008).
II
We consider today two cases that have been navigating their way through the lower courts against the backdrop of the above-described congressional, military, Presidential, and judicial actions. Respondents in the Simon case are American nationals (and relatives of those nationals) who allege that they were captured and cruelly mistreated by Iraqi officials during the 1991 Gulf War. The Beaty respondents are the children of two other Americans, Kenneth Beaty and William Barloon, who are alleged to have been similarly abused by the regime of Saddam Hussein in the aftermath of that war. Each set of respondents filed suit in early 2003 against Iraq in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, alleging violations of local, federal, and international law.
Respondents invoked the terrorism exception to foreign sovereign immunity, and given Aeree’s holding that the President had not rendered that statutory provision inapplicable to Iraq, the District Court refused to dismiss either case on jurisdictional grounds. In Beaty, after the District Court denied Iraq’s motion to dismiss, 480 F. Supp. 2d 60, 70 (2007), Iraq invoked the collateral order doctrine to support an interlocutory appeal. See Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U. S. 511, 524-529 (1985). In Simon, the District Court determined that the claims were time barred and dismissed on that alternative basis, Vine v. Republic of Iraq, 459 F. Supp. 2d 10, 25 (2006), after which the Simon respondents appealed.
In the Beaty appeal, Iraq (supported by the United States as amicus) requested that the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit reconsider Aeree's holding en banc. The court denied that request over the dissent of Judges Brown and Kavanaugh, and a panel then summarily affirmed in an unpublished order the District Court’s denial of Iraq’s motion to dismiss. No. 07-7057 (Nov. 21, 2007) (per curiam), App. to Pet. for Cert. in No. 07-1090, pp. 1a-2a.
While the Simon appeal was still pending, Congress enacted the NDAA, and the Court of Appeals requested supplemental briefing addressing the impact of that legislation on the court’s jurisdiction. Iraq contended, as an alternative argument to its position that Aeree was wrongly decided, that even if 28 U. S. C. § 1605(a)(7)’s application to Iraq survived the President’s EWSAA waiver, the provision was repealed by § 1083(b)(l)(A)(iii) of the NDAA, 122 Stat. 341; and that the new terrorism exception to sovereign immunity — which was created by the NDAA and codified at 28 U. S. C. § 1605A (2006 ed., Supp. Ill) — was waived by the President with respect to Iraq pursuant to his NDAA authority.
The Court of Appeals rejected that argument, holding instead, based on a close reading of the statutory text, that “the NDAA leaves intact our jurisdiction over cases ... that were pending against Iraq when the Congress enacted the NDAA.” 529 F. 3d 1187, 1194 (2008). The panel then reversed the District Court’s determination that the Simon respondents’ claims were untimely, id., at 1195-1196, and rebuffed Iraq’s request for dismissal under the political question doctrine, id., at 1196-1198.
Iraq sought this Court’s review of both cases, asking us to determine whether under current law it remains subject to suit in the federal courts. We granted certiorari, 555 U. S. 1092 (2009), and consolidated the cases.
III
A
Section 1503 of the EWSAA consists of a principal clause, followed by eight separate proviso clauses. The dispute in these cases concerns the second of the provisos. The principal clause and that proviso read:
“The President may suspend the application of any provision of the Iraq Sanctions Act of 1990: . . . Provided further, That the President may make inapplicable with respect to Iraq section 620A of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 or any other provision of law that applies to countries that have supported terrorism . . . .” 117 Stat. 579.
Iraq and the United States both read the quoted proviso’s residual clause as sweeping in the terrorism exception to foreign sovereign immunity. Certainly that reading is, as even the Aeree Court acknowledged, “straightforward.” 370 F. 3d, at 52.
Title 28 U. S. C. § 1605(a)(7)’s exception to sovereign immunity for state sponsors of terrorism stripped jurisdictional immunity from a country unless “the foreign state was not designated as a state sponsor of terrorism.” This is a “provision of law” (indisputably) that “applies to” (strips immunity from) “countries that have supported terrorism” (as designated pursuant to certain statutory provisions). Of course the word “any” (in the phrase “any other provision of law”) has an “expansive meaning,” United States v. Gonzales, 520 U. S. 1, 5 (1997), giving us no warrant to limit the class of provisions of law that the President may waive. Because the President exercised his authority with respect to “all” provisions of law encompassed by the second proviso, his actions made § 1605(a)(7) “inapplicable” to Iraq.
To a layperson, the notion of the President’s suspending the operation of a valid law might seem strange. But the practice is well established, at least in the sphere of foreign affairs. See United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp., 299 U. S. 304, 322-324 (1936) (canvassing precedents from as early as the “inception of the national government”). The granting of Presidential waiver authority is particularly apt with respect to congressional elimination of foreign sovereign immunity, since the granting or denial of that immunity was historically the case-by-case prerogative of the Executive Branch. See, e. g., Ex parte Peru, 318 U. S. 578, 586-590 (1943). It is entirely unremarkable that Congress, having taken upon itself in the FSIA to “free the Government” from the diplomatic pressures engendered by the case-by-case approach, Verlinden, 461 U. S., at 488, would nonetheless think it prudent to afford the President some flexibility in unique circumstances such as these.
B
The Court of Appeals in Aeree resisted the above construction, primarily on the ground that the relevant text is found in a proviso. We have said that, at least presumptively, the “grammatical and logical scope [of a proviso] is confined to the subject-matter of the principal clause.” United States v. Morrow, 266 U.S. 531, 534-535 (1925). Using that proposition as a guide, the Aeree panel strove mightily to construe the proviso as somehow restricting the principal clause of EWSAA §1503, which authorized the President to suspend “any provision of the Iraq Sanctions Act of 1990,” 117 Stat. 579.
In the Court of Appeals’ view, the second proviso related to that subsection of the Iraq Sanctions Act (referred to in the principal provision) which dictated that certain enumerated statutory provisions, including §62QA of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and “all other provisions of law that impose sanctions against a country which has repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism,” shall be fully enforced against Iraq. § 586F(e), 104 Stat. 2051 (emphasis added). The panel understood the second EWSAA proviso as doing nothing more than clarifying that the authority granted by the principal clause (to suspend any part of the Iraq Sanctions Act) included the power to make inapplicable to Iraq the various independent provisions of law that § 586F(c) of the Iraq Sanctions Act instructed to be enforced against Iraq — which might otherwise continue to apply of their own force even without the Iraq Sanctions Act. However, the residual clause of §586F(c) encompasses only provisions that “impose sanctions”; and, in the Court of Appeals’ view, that excludes § 1605(a)(7), which is a rule going instead to the jurisdiction of the federal courts. Thus, the EWSAA proviso swept only as broadly as §586F(e), and therefore did not permit the President to waive the FSIA terrorism exception.
This is a highly sophisticated effort to construe the proviso as a limitation upon the principal clause. Ultimately, however, we think that effort neither necessary nor successful. It is true that the “general office of a proviso is to except something from the enacting clause, or to qualify and restrain its generality.” Morrow, supra, at 534. But its general (and perhaps appropriate) office is not, alas, its exclusive use. Use of a proviso “to state a general, independent rule,” Alaska v. United States, 545 U. S. 75, 106 (2005), may be lazy drafting, but is hardly a novelty. See, e. g., McDonald v. United States, 279 U. S. 12, 21 (1929). Morrow itself came with the caveat that a proviso is sometimes used “to introduce independent legislation.” 266 U. S., at 535. We think that was its office here. The principal clause granted the President a power; the second proviso purported to grant him an additional power. It was not, on any fair reading, an exception to, qualification of, or restraint on the principal power.
Contrasting the second EWSAA proviso to some of the other provisos illustrates the point. For example, the first proviso cautioned that “nothing in this section shall affect the applicability of the Iran-Iraq Arms Non-Proliferation Act of 1992,” 117 Stat. 579, and the third forbade the export of certain military equipment “under the authority of this section,” ibid. Both of these plainly sought to define and limit the authority granted by the principal clause. The fourth proviso, however, mandated that “section 307 of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 shall not apply with respect to programs of international organizations for Iraq,” ibid., and it is impossible to see how that self-executing suspension of a distinct statute in any way cabined or clarified the principal clause’s authorization to suspend the Iraq Sanctions Act.
There are other indications that the second proviso’s waiver authority was not limited to the statutory provisions embraced by § 586F(c) of the Iraq Sanctions Act. If that is all it was meant to accomplish, why would Congress not simply have tracked § 586F(c)’s residual clause? Instead of restricting the President’s authority to statutes that “impose sanctions” on sponsors of terror, the EWSAA extended it to any statute that “applies” to such states. That is undoubtedly a broader class.
Even if the best reading of the EWSAA proviso were that it encompassed only statutes that impose sanctions or prohibit assistance to state sponsors of terrorism, see Acree, 370 F. 3d, at 54, we would disagree with the Court of Appeals’ conclusion that the FSIA exception is not such a law. Allowing lawsuits to proceed certainly has the extra benefit of facilitating the compensation of injured victims, but the fact that § 1605(a)(7) targeted only foreign states designated as sponsors of terrorism suggests that the law was intended as a sanction, to punish and deter undesirable conduct. Stripping the immunity that foreign sovereigns ordinarily enjoy is as much a sanction as eliminating bilateral assistance or prohibiting export of munitions (both of which are explicitly mandated by § 586F(c) of the Iraq Sanctions Act). The application of this sanction affects the jurisdiction of the federal courts, but that fact alone does not deprive it of its character as a sanction.
It may well be that when Congress enacted the EWSAA it did not have specifically in mind the terrorism exception to sovereign immunity. The Court of Appeals evidently found that to be of some importance. Id., at 56 (noting there is “no reference in the legislative history to the FSIA”). But the whole value of a generally phrased residual clause, like the one used in the second proviso, is that it serves as a catchall for matters not specifically contemplated — known unknowns, in the happy phrase coined by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Pieces of Intelligence: The Existential Poetry of Donald H. Rumsfeld 2 (H. Seely comp. 2003). If Congress wanted to limit the waiver authority to particular statutes that it had in mind, it could have enumerated them individually.
We cannot say with any certainty (for those who think this matters) whether the Congress that passed the EWSAA would have wanted the President to be permitted to waive § 1605(a)(7). Certainly the exposure of Iraq to billions of dollars in damages could be thought to jeopardize the statute’s goal of speedy reconstruction of that country. At least the President thought so. And in the “vast external realm, with its important, complicated, delicate and manifold problems,” Curtiss-Wright Export Corp., 299 U. S., at 319, courts ought to be especially wary of overriding apparent statutory text supported by executive interpretation in favor of speculation about a law’s true purpose.
c
Respondents advance two other objections to the straightforward interpretation of the EWSAA proviso. First, in a less compelling variant of the D. C. Circuit’s approach, the Simon respondents argue that “section 620A of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 or any other provision of law that applies to countries that have supported terrorism” means § 620A of the Foreign Assistance Act or any other provision of law cited therein. The provision would thus allow the President to make inapplicable to Iraq the statutes that §620A precludes from being used to provide support to terror-sponsoring nations. Not to put too fine a point upon it, that is an absurd reading, not only textually but in the result it produces: It would mean that the effect of the EWSAA was to permit the President to exclude Iraq from, rather than include it within, such beneficent legislation as the Food for Peace Act of 1966, 7 U. S. C. § 1691 et seq.
Both respondents also invoke the canon against implied repeals, TVA v. Hill, 437 U. S. 153, 190 (1978), but that canon has no force here. Iraq’s construction of the statute neither rests on implication nor effects a repeal. The EWSAA proviso expressly allowed the President to render certain statutes inapplicable; the only question is its scope. And it did not repeal anything, but merely granted the President authority to waive the application of particular statutes to a single foreign nation. Cf. Clinton v. City of New York, 524 U. S. 417, 443-445 (1998).
D
We must consider whether anything in the subsequent NDAA legislation changes the above analysis. In particular, § 1083(c)(4) of that statute specifically says that “[n]othing in section 1503 of the [EWSAA] has ever authorized, directly or indirectly, the making inapplicable of any provision of chapter 97 of title 28, United States Code, or the removal of the jurisdiction of any court of the United States.” 122 Stat. 343. This looks like a ratification by Congress of the conclusion reached in the Aeree decision.
Is such a ratification effective? The NDAA is not subsequent legislative history, as Iraq claims, cf. Sullivan v. Finkelstein, 496 U. S. 617, 632 (1990) (Scalia, J., concurring in part); rather, it is binding law, approved by the Legislature and signed by the President. Subsequent legislation can of course alter the meaning of an existing law for the future; and it can even alter the past operation of an existing law (constitutional objections aside) if it makes that retroactive operation clear. Landgraf v. USI Film Products, 511 U. S. 244, 267-268 (1994). To tell the truth, however, we are unaware of any case dealing with the retroactive amendment of a law that had already expired, as the EWSAA had here. And it is doubtful whether Congress can retroactively claw back power it has given to the Executive, invalidating Presidential action that was valid when it was taken. Thankfully, however, we need not explore these difficulties here.
In § 1083(d)(1) of the NDAA, the President was given authority to “waive any provision of this section with respect to Iraq.” 122 Stat. 343. The President proceeded to waive “all” provisions of that section as to Iraq, including (presumably) § 1083(c)(4). 73 Fed. Reg. 6571. The Act can therefore add nothing to our analysis of the EWSAA. Respondent Beaty objects that the President cannot waive a fact. But neither can Congress legislate a fact. Section 1083(e)(4) could change our interpretation of the disputed EWSAA language only if it has some substantive effect, changing what would otherwise be the law. And if the President’s waiver does anything, it eliminates any substantive effect that the NDAA would otherwise have on cases to which Iraq is a party.
IV
Having concluded that the President did render 28 U. S. C. § 1605(a)(7) “inapplicable with respect to Iraq,” and that such action was within his assigned powers, we consider respondents’ argument that the inapplicability of the provision does not bar their claims, since they arise from Iraq’s conduct prior to the President’s waiver. Any other interpretation, they say, would cause the law to operate in a disfavored retroactive fashion.
This argument proceeds as follows: The FSIA exception becomes “applicable” to a foreign state when that foreign state is designated as a sponsor of terrorism. In parallel fashion, rendering the exception “inapplicable” should be equivalent to removing the state’s designation. And under § 1605(a)(7), jurisdiction turned on the foreign state’s designation “at the time the act [giving rise to the claim] occurred.” On this reading, the President’s waiver meant only that Iraq could not be sued pursuant to § 1605(a)(7) for any future conduct, even though it technically remained designated as a state sponsor of terrorism.
Respondents support this interpretation with a policy argument and a canon of construction. First, why would Congress have sought to give Iraq better treatment than any other state that saw the error of its ways, reformed its behavior, and was accordingly removed from the list of terror-sponsoring regimes? See Acree, 370 F. 3d, at 56 (calling such a result “perplexing”). Providing immunity for future acts is one thing, but wiping the slate clean is quite another. Second, this Court has often applied a presumption that, absent clear indication to the contrary, statutory amendments do not apply to pending cases. Landgraf, supra, at 280. A narrow reading of “inapplicable” would better comport with that presumption.
As a textual matter, the proffered definition of “inapplicable” is unpersuasive. If a provision of law is “inapplicable” then it cannot be applied; to “apply” a statute is “[t]o put [it] to use.” Webster’s New International Dictionary 131 (2d ed. 1954). When the District Court exercised jurisdiction over these cases against Iraq, it surely was putting § 1605(a)(7) to use with respect to that country. Without the application of that provision, there was no basis for subject-matter jurisdiction. 28 U. S. C. §§ 1604, 1330(a). If Congress had wanted to authorize the President merely to cancel Iraq’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism, then Congress could have done so.
As a policy matter, moreover, we do not find that result particularly “perplexing.” As then-Judge Roberts explained in his separate opinion in Aeree, Congress in 2003 11 for the first time confronted the prospect that a friendly successor government would, in its infancy, be vulnerable under Section 1605(a)(7) to crushing liability for the actions of its renounced predecessor.” 370 F. 3d, at 61 (opinion concurring in part and concurring in judgment) (emphasis in original). The Government was at the time spending considerable sums of money to rebuild Iraq, see Rogers, Congress Gives Initial Approval for War Funding, Airline Aid, Wall Street Journal, Apr. 4,2003, p. A10. What would seem perplexing is converting a billion-dollar reconstruction project into a compensation scheme for a few of Saddam’s victims.
As for the judicial presumption against retroactivity, that does not induce us to read the EWSAA proviso more narrowly. Laws that merely alter the rules of foreign sovereign immunity, rather than modify substantive rights, are not operating retroactively when applied to pending cases. Foreign sovereign immunity “reflects current political realities and relationships,” and its availability (or lack thereof) generally is not something on which parties can rely “in shaping their primary conduct.” Republic of Austria v. Altmann, 541 U. S. 677, 696 (2004); see also id., at 703 (Scalia, J., concurring).
In any event, the primary conduct by Iraq that forms the basis for these suits actually occurred prior to the enactment of the FSIA terrorism exception in 1996. See Saudi Arabia v. Nelson, 507 U. S. 349, 351 (1993). That is, Iraq was immune from suit at the time it is alleged to have harmed respondents. The President’s elimination of Iraq’s later subjection to suit could hardly have deprived respondents of any expectation they held at the time of their injury that they would be able to sue Iraq in United States courts.
V
Accordingly, the District Court lost jurisdiction over both suits in May 2003, when the President exercised his authority to make § 1605(a)(7) inapplicable with respect to Iraq. At that point, immunity kicked back in and the cases ought to have been dismissed, “the only function remaining to the court [being] that of announcing the fact and dismissing the cause.” Ex parte McCardle, 7 Wall. 506, 514 (1869).
In respondents’ view, that is not fatal to their claims. They point to the eighth proviso in § 1503 of the EWSAA:
“Provided further, That the authorities contained in this section shall expire on September 30, 2004, or on the date of enactment of a subsequent Act authorizing assistance for Iraq and that specifically amends, repeals or otherwise makes inapplicable the authorities of this section, whichever occurs first.” 117 Stat. 579.
The effect of this provision, they contend, is that the EWSAA waiver expired in 2005, and that when it did so § 1605(a)(7) was revived, immunity was again stripped, and jurisdiction was restored. If that is true, then at the very least they ought to be permitted to refile their suits and claim equitable tolling for the period between 2005 and the present, during which time they understandably relied on Aereés holding.
The premise, however, is flawed. It is true that the “authorities contained in” §1503 of the EWSAA expired, but expiration of the authorities (viz., the President’s powers to suspend and make inapplicable certain laws) is not the same as cancellation of the effect of the President’s prior valid exercise of those authorities (viz., the restoration of sovereign immunity). As Iraq points out, Congress has in other statutes provided explicitly that both the authorities granted and the effects of their exercise sunset on a particular date. E.g., 19 U. S. C. § 2432(c)(3) (“A waiver with respect to any country shall terminate on the day after the waiver authority granted by this subsection ceases to be effective with respect to such country”). The EWSAA contains no such language.
We think the better reading of the eighth EWSAA proviso (the sunset clause) is that the powers granted by the section could be exercised only for a limited time, but that actions taken by the President pursuant to those powers (e. g., suspension of the Iraq Sanctions Act) would not lapse on the sunset date. If it were otherwise, then the Iraq Sanctions Act — which has never been repealed, and which imposes a whole host of restrictions on relations with Iraq — would have returned to force in September 2005. Nobody believes that is so.
* * *
When the President exercised his authority to make inapplicable with respect to Iraq all provisions of law that apply to countries that have supported terrorism, the exception to foreign sovereign immunity for state sponsors of terrorism became inoperative as against Iraq. As a result, the courts below lacked jurisdiction; we therefore need not reach Iraq’s alternative argument that the NDAA subsequently stripped jurisdiction over the cases. The judgments of the Court of Appeals are reversed.
It is so ordered.
The eighth proviso of EWSAA §1503 says that absent further congressional action, “the authorities contained in this section shall expire on September 30, 2004.” 117 Stat. 579. The Court of Appeals expressed doubt that Congress would have wanted federal-court jurisdiction to disappear for a year and then suddenly return. Acree v. Republic of Iraq, 370 F. 3d 41, 56-57 (CADC 2004). Our analysis of the sunset provision, see Part Y, infra, disposes of that concern.
Respondents contend that the NDAA waiver is irrelevant because the President’s veto of the initial version of the hill — which did not include the waiver authority — was defective. We need not inquire into that point, since Congress (evidently thinking the veto effective) enacted a new bill that was identical in all material respects but for the addition of Presidential waiver authority. Since that authority would be nugatory, and the rest of the new law utterly redundant, if a law resulting from the former bill remained in effect, that law would have been effectively repealed.
The sunset date was extended by one year in a later bill. §2204(2), 117 Stat. 1230.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | I | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Powell
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case brings before us a claim that pretrial publicity so infected a state criminal trial as to deny the defendant his Sixth Amendment right to an “impartial jury.”
On April 28, 1966, the body of Pamela Rimer, an 18-year-old high school student, was found in a wooded area near her home in Luthersburg, Clearfield County, Pa. There were numerous wounds about her head and cuts on her throat and neck. An autopsy revealed that she died of strangulation when blood from her wounds was drawn into her lungs. The autopsy showed no indication that she had been sexually assaulted.
At about 5:45 the following morning, respondent Yount appeared at the State Police Substation in nearby DuBois. Yount, who had been the victim’s high school mathematics teacher, proceeded to give the police oral and written confessions to the murder. The police refused to release the confession to the press, and it was not published until after it was read at Yount’s arraignment three days later. Record, Ex. P-l-a, P-l-d. At his trial in 1966, the confessions were admitted into evidence. Yount took the stand and claimed temporary insanity. The jury convicted him of first-degree murder and rape, and he was sentenced to life imprisonment. On direct appeal the Pennsylvania Supreme Court determined that under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436 (1966), police had given Yount inadequate notice of his right to an attorney prior to his confession. The court remanded for a new trial. Commonwealth v. Yount, 435 Pa. 276, 256 A. 2d 464 (1969), cert. denied, 397 U. S. 925 (1970).
Prior to the second trial in 1970, the trial court ordered suppression of Yount’s written confessions and that portion of the oral confession that was obtained after he was legally in custody. The prosecution dismissed the rape charge. There followed an extensive voir dire that is now at the heart of this case. Jury selection began on November 4, 1970, and took 10 days, 7 jury panels, 292 veniremen, and 1,186 pages of testimony. Yount moved for a change of venue before, and several times during, the voir dire. He argued that the widespread dissemination of prejudicial information could not be eradicated from the minds of potential jurors, and cited in support the difficulty of the voir dire and numerous newspaper and other articles about the case. The motions were denied. The trial court noted that the articles merely reported events without editorial comment; that the length of the voir dire resulted in part from the court’s leniency in allowing examinations and challenges of the jurors; that “almost all, if not all,” the jurors seated had “no prior or present fixed opinion”; and that there had been “little, if any, talk in public” between the two trials. The court also observed that the voir dire of the second trial had been sparsely attended.
Ultimately, 12 jurors and 2 alternates were seated. At the second trial, Yount did not take the stand and did not claim temporary insanity. Instead he relied upon cross-examination and character witnesses in an attempt to undermine the State’s proof of his intent. The jury convicted him again of first-degree murder, and he was resentenced to life imprisonment. The trial court denied a motion for a new trial, finding that practically no publicity had been given to the case between the two trials, and that little public interest was shown during the second trial. App. 268a. In addition, the court concluded that the jury was without bias. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court affirmed the conviction and the trial court’s findings. Commonwealth v. Yount, 455 Pa. 303, 311-314, 314 A. 2d 242, 247-248 (1974).
In January 1981, Yount filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in United States District Court. He claimed, inter alia, that his conviction had been obtained in violation of his Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment right to a fair trial by an impartial jury. The case was assigned to a Magistrate, who conducted a hearing and recommended that the petition be granted. The District Court rejected the Magistrate’s recommendation. 537 F. Supp. 873 (WD Pa. 1982). It held that the pretrial publicity was not vicious, excessive, nor officially sponsored, and that the jurors were able to set aside any preconceived notions of guilt. It noted that the percentage of jurors excused for cause was “not remarkable to anyone familiar with the difficulty in selecting a homicide jury in Pennsylvania.” Id., at 882. In addition, the court reviewed the instances in which the state trial court had denied a challenge for cause, and upheld the trial court’s view that the jury was impartial.
The Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit reversed. 710 F. 2d 956 (1988). The court relied primarily on the analysis set out in Irvin v. Dowd, 366 U. S. 717 (1961), and found that pretrial publicity had made a fair trial impossible in Clear-field County. It independently examined the nature of the publicity surrounding the second trial, the testimony at voir dire of the venire as a whole, and the voir dire testimony of the jurors eventually seated. The publicity revealed Yount’s prior conviction for murder, his confession, and his prior plea of temporary insanity, information not admitted into evidence at trial. The voir dire showed that all but 2 of 163 veniremen questioned about the case had heard of it, and that, 126, or 77%, admitted they would carry an opinion into the jury box. This was a higher percentage than in Irvin, where 62% of the 430 veniremen were dismissed for cause because they had fixed opinions concerning the petitioner’s guilt. Finally, the Court of Appeals found that 8 of the 14 jurors and alternates actually seated admitted that at some time they had formed an opinion as to Yount’s guilt. The court thought that many of the jurors had given equivocal responses when asked whether they could set aside these opinions, and that one juror, a Mr. Hrin, and both alternates would have required evidence to overcome their beliefs. The court concluded that “despite their assurances of impartiality, the jurors could not set aside their opinions and render a verdict based solely on the evidence presented.” 710 F. 2d, at 972.
Judge Garth concurred in the judgment. He declined to join the court’s view that actual prejudice on the part of the jury might be inferred from pretrial publicity and the answers at voir dire of veniremen not selected for the jury. He wrote that “[a] thorough and skillfully conducted voir dire should be adequate to identify juror bias, even in a community saturated with publicity adverse to the defendant.” Id., at 979. Judge Garth nevertheless concurred because in his view juror Hrin stated at voir dire that he would have required evidence to change his mind about Yount’s guilt. This stripped the defendant of the presumption of innocence.
We granted certiorari, 464 U. S. 913 (1983), to consider, in the context of this case, the problem of pervasive media publicity that now arises so frequently in the trial of sensational criminal cases. We reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
II
As noted, the Court of Appeals rested its decision that the jury was not impartial on this Court’s decision in Irvin v. Dowd, supra. That decision, a leading one at the time, held that adverse pretrial publicity can create such a presumption of prejudice in a community that the jurors’ claims that they can be impartial should not be believed. The Court in Irvin reviewed a number of factors in determining whether the totality of the circumstances raised such a presumption. The Court noted, however, that the trial court’s findings of impartiality might be overturned only for “manifest error.” 366 U. S., at 723. The Court of Appeals in this case did not address this aspect of the Irvin decision. Moreover, the court below, in concentrating on the factors discussed at length in Irvin, failed to give adequate weight to other significant circumstances in this case. In Irvin, the Court observed that it was during the six or seven months immediately preceding trial that “a barrage of newspaper headlines, articles, cartoons and pictures was unleashed against [the defendant].” Id., at 725. In this case, the extensive adverse publicity and the community’s sense of outrage were at their height prior to Yount’s first trial in 1966. The jury selection for Yount’s second trial, at issue here, did not occur until four years later, at a time when prejudicial publicity was greatly diminished and community sentiment had softened. In these circumstances, we hold that the trial court did not commit manifest error in finding that the jury as a whole was impartial.
The record reveals that in the year and a half from the reversal of the first conviction to the start of the second voir dire each of the two Clearfield County daily newspapers published an average of less than one article per month. App. 642a-657a; Record, Ex. P-l-v to P-l-kk, P-2. More important, many of these were extremely brief announcements of the trial dates and scheduling such as are common in rural newspapers. E. g., App. 653a-656a; Record, Ex. P-l-ff, P-l-ii, P-l-jj. The transcript of the voir dire contains numerous references to the sparse publicity and minimal public interest prior to the second trial. E. g., App. 43a, 98a, 100a; Tr. (Nov. 4, 1970) 27-28, 90, 191, 384, 771, 829, 1142. It is true that during the voir dire the newspapers published articles on an almost daily basis, but these too were purely factual articles generally discussing not the crime or prior prosecution, but the prolonged process of jury selection. App. 658a-671a. In short, the record of publicity in the months preceding, and at the time of, the second trial does not reveal the “barrage of inflammatory publicity immediately prior to trial,” Murphy v. Florida, 421 U. S. 794, 798 (1975), amounting to a “huge . . . wave of public passion,” Irvin, 366 U. S., at 728, that the Court found in Irvin.
The voir dire testimony revealed that this lapse in time had a profound effect on the community and, more important, on the jury, in softening or effacing opinion. Many veniremen, of course, simply had let the details of the case slip from their minds. E. g., App. 194a; Tr. 33, 284, 541-544, 991. In addition, while it is true that a number of jurors and veniremen testified that at one time they had held opinions, for many, time had weakened or eliminated any conviction they had had. See, e. g., App. 98a-100a (juror number 7), 128a (juror number 8); Tr. 384-385, 398-399, 831, 897 (semble), 1075-1076, 1144; see also App. 164a-166a (juror number 10). The same is true of the testimony of the jurors and veniremen who were seated late in the process and therefore were subjected to some of the articles and broadcasts disseminated daily during the voir dire: the record suggests that their passions had not been inflamed nor their thoughts biased by the publicity. E. g., id., at 176a-177a, 150a-151a; Tr. 771, 959, 1027.
That time soothes and erases is a perfectly natural phenomenon, familiar to all. See Irvin v. Dowd, 271 F. 2d 552, 561 (CA7 1959) (Duffy, J., dissenting) (A continuance should have been granted because “[t]he passage of time is a great healer,” and public prejudice might have “subsid[ed]”), rev’d, 366 U. S. 717 (1961); see also Murphy, supra, at 802; Beck v. Washington, 369 U. S. 541, 556 (1962). Not all members of the venire had put aside earlier prejudice, as the voir dire disclosed. They retained their fixed opinions, and were disqualified. But the testimony suggests that the voir dire resulted in selecting those who had forgotten or would need to be persuaded again.
The Court of Appeals below thought that the fact that the great majority of veniremen “remembered the case” showed that time had not served “to erase highly unfavorable publicity from the memory of [the] community.” 710 F. 2d, at 969. This conclusion, without more, is essentially irrelevant. The relevant question is not whether the community remembered the case, but whether the jurors at Yount’s trial had such fixed opinions that they could not judge impartially the guilt of the defendant. Irvin, 366 U. S., at 723. It is not unusual that one’s recollection of the fact that a notorious crime was committed lingers long after the feelings of revulsion that create prejudice have passed. It would be fruitless to attempt to identify any particular lapse of time that in itself would distinguish the situation that existed in Irvin. But it is clear that the passage of time between a first and a second trial can be a highly relevant fact. In the circumstances of this case, we hold that it clearly rebuts any presumption of partiality or prejudice that existed at the time of the initial trial. There was fair, even abundant, support for the trial court’s findings that between the two trials of this case there had been “practically no publicity given to this matter through the news media,” and that there had not been “any great effect created by any publicity.” App. 268a, 265a.
HH 1 — H
Yount briefly argues here that juror Hrin, as well as the two alternates, were erroneously seated over his challenges for cause. Brief for Respondent 32. There is substantial doubt whether Yount properly raised in his petition for ha-beas corpus the claim that the trial court erroneously denied his challenge for cause to juror Hrin. Compare 710 F. 2d, at 966, n. 18, with id., at 977, and n. 4 (Garth, J., concurring). And there is no evidence that the alternate jurors, who did not sit in judgment, actually talked with the other jurors during the 4-day trial. But Judge Garth in the court below based his concurrence on the view that Hrin would have required Yount to produce evidence to overcome his inclination to think the accused was guilty, and the majority of the panel thought that the 4-day association between the alternates and the other jurors “operate[d] to subvert the requirement that the jury’s verdict be based on evidence developed from the witness stand,” id., at 971, n. 25. Therefore, we will consider briefly the claims as to all three jurors.
It was the view of all three Court of Appeals judges that the question whether jurors have opinions that disqualify them is a mixed question of law and fact. See id., at 968, n. 20, 981. Thus, they concluded that the presumption of correctness due a state court’s factual findings under 28 U. S. C. § 2254(d) does not apply. The opinions below relied for this proposition on Irvin v. Dowd, 366 U. S., at 723. Irvin addressed the partiality of the trial jury as a whole, a question we discuss in Part II, supra. We do not think its analysis can be extended to a federal habeas corpus case in which the partiality of an individual juror is placed in issue. That question is not one of mixed law and fact. Rather it is plainly one of historical fact: did a juror swear that he could set aside any opinion he might hold and decide the case on the evidence, and should the juror’s protestation of impartiality have been believed. Cf. Rushen v. Spain, 464 U. S. 114, 120 (1983) (state-court determination that juror’s deliberations were not biased by ex parte communications is a finding of fact).
There are good reasons to apply the statutory presumption of correctness to the trial court’s resolution of these questions. First, the determination has been made only after an often extended voir dire proceeding designed specifically to identify biased veniremen. It is fair to assume that the method we have relied on since the beginning, e. g., United States v. Burr, 25 F. Cas. 49, 51 (No. 14,692g) (CC Va. 1807) (Marshall, C. J.), usually identifies bias. Second, the determination is essentially one of credibility, and therefore largely one of demeanor. As we have said on numerous occasions, the trial court’s resolution of such questions is entitled, even on direct appeal, to “special deference.” E. g., Bose Corp. v. Consumers Union of U. S., Inc., 466 U. S. 485, 500 (1984). The respect paid such findings in a habeas proceeding certainly should be no less. See Marshall v. Lonberger, 459 U. S. 422, 434-435 (1983).
Thus the question is whether there is fair support in the record for the state courts’ conclusion that the jurors here would be impartial. See 28 U. S. C. § 2254(d)(8). Thetesti-mony of each of the three challenged jurors is ambiguous and at times contradictory. This is not unusual on voir dire examination, particularly in a highly publicized criminal case. It is well to remember that the lay persons on the panel may never have been subjected to the type of leading questions and cross-examination tactics that frequently are employed, and that were evident in this case. Prospective jurors represent a cross section of the community, and their education and experience vary widely. Also, unlike witnesses, prospective jurors have had no briefing by lawyers prior to taking the stand. Jurors thus cannot be expected invariably to express themselves carefully or even consistently. Every trial judge understands this, and under our system it is that judge who is best situated to determine competency to serve impartially. The trial judge properly may choose to believe those statements that were the most fully articulated or that appeared to have been least influenced by leading.
The voir dire examination of juror Hrin was carefully scrutinized by the state courts and the Federal District Court, as he was challenged for cause and was a member of the jury that convicted the defendant. We think that the trial judge’s decision to seat Hrin, despite early ambiguity in his testimony, was confirmed after he initially denied the challenge. Defense counsel sought and obtained permission to resume cross-examination. In response to a question whether Hrin could set his opinion aside before entering the jury box or would need evidence to change his mind, the juror clearly and forthrightly stated: “I think I could enter it [the jury box] with a very open mind. I think I could . . . very easily. To say this is a requirement for some of the things you have to do every day.” App. 89a. After this categorical answer, defense counsel did not renew their challenge for cause. Similarly, in the case of alternate juror Pyott, we cannot fault the trial judge for crediting her earliest testimony, in which she said that she could put her opinion aside “[i]f [she] had to,” rather than the later testimony in which defense counsel persuaded her that logically she would need evidence to discard any opinion she might have. Id., at 246a, 250a-252a. Alternate juror Chincharick’s testimony is the most ambiguous, as he appears simply to have answered “yes” to almost any question put to him. It is here that the federal court’s deference must operate, for while the cold record arouses some concern, only the trial judge could tell which of these answers was said with the greatest comprehension and certainty.
IV
We conclude that the voir dire testimony and the record of publicity do not reveal the kind of “wave of public passion” that would have made a fair trial unlikely by the jury that was empaneled as a whole. We also conclude that the ambiguity in the testimony of the cited jurors who were challenged for cause is insufficient to overcome the presumption of correctness owed to the trial court’s findings. We therefore reverse.
It is so ordered.
Justice Marshall took no part in the decision of this case.
The Court of Appeals rejected as without fair support in the record the trial court’s conclusion that there was practically no publicity given to the ease between the first and second trials. See 710 F. 2d 956, 969, n. 21 (1983). The federal court suggested that the record on habeas of the publicity after the first trial and during the second was more complete than the record considered by the trial court. Ibid.
The Court of Appeals also suggested that the trial court’s view that there was little talk in public concerning the second trial was undermined by the voir dire testimony that there had been public discussion of the case, particularly in the last weeks before retrial. Id., at 969, n. 22. The court discounted, as of limited significance, the trial court’s point that few spectators had attended the trial, since Yount did not allege prejudice arising from the “ ‘circus atmosphere’ ” in the courtroom. Ibid.
One hundred twenty-five of the original 292 veniremen were excused because they had not been chosen properly. Four others were dismissed for cause before they were questioned on the case.
The Court of Appeals noted that in Irvin 8 of 12 jurors had formed opinions of guilt.
Judge Stern wrote a separate concurring opinion in which he suggested that the “constitutional standard which for 175 years has guided the lower courts” in this area be rejected. 710 F. 2d, at 972. Rather than hinge disqualification of a juror on whether he has a fixed opinion of guilt that he cannot lay aside, Judge Stern would bar any juror who admitted any opinion as to guilt. Moreover, no jury could be empaneled where more than 25% of the veniremen state that they held an opinion concerning the defendant’s guilt. This would raise such doubts as to the sincerity of those who claimed no opinion as to suggest concealed bias, Judge Stern wrote.
Judge Garth thought Irvin was distinguishable, because there “the trial court (which itself questioned the jurors challenged for cause) did not engage in a searching and thorough voir dire.” 710 F. 2d, at 979. Rather, it merely credited the jurors’ subjective opinions that each could render an impartial verdict notwithstanding his or her opinion. Judge Garth also noted that Yount challenged for cause only three of the actual jurors. In Irvin, the defendant challenged each of his 12 jurors for cause. Irvin v. Dowd, 359 U. S. 394, 398 (1959).
Judge Garth stated that whether juror Hrin was unconstitutionally biased was a mixed question of law and fact under Irvin. 710 F. 2d, at 981. He therefore did not apply the presumption of correctness that is applicable to the factual findings of a state court in a federal habeas corpus proceeding, 28 U. S. C. § 2254(d).
The Court of Appeals appears to have thought that two statements in Irvin — that a federal court must “independently evaluate” the voir dire testimony, and that the question of juror partiality is a mixed question of law and fact, 366 U. S., at 723 — meant that there is no presumption of correctness owed to the trial court’s finding that a jury as a whole is impartial. We note that Irvin was decided five years before Congress added to the habeas corpus statute an explicit presumption of correctness for state-court factual findings, see Pub. L. 89-711, 80 Stat. 1105-1106, and two years before this Court’s opinion in Townsend v. Sain, 372 U. S. 293 (1963), provided the guidelines that were later codified. It may be that there is little practical difference between the Irvin “manifest error” standard and the “fairly supported by the record” standard of the amended ha-beas statute. See 28 U. S. C. § 2254(d). In any case, we do not think the habeas standard is any less stringent. Since we uphold the state court’s findings in this case under Irvin’s “manifest error” standard, we do not need to determine whether the subsequent development of the law of ha-beas corpus might have required a different analysis or result in that case.
The testimony of juror number 7, Martin Karetski, during examination by defense counsel is illustrative:
“Q. You have heard the matter discussed over the years?
“A. In the past few years I haven’t heard too much about it.
“Q. In 1966 when the matter came up before you knew about it then? “A. Yes sir.
“Q. And just recently when this matter was coming up again, I presume?
“A. What I have read in the paper again.'
“Q. And you have heard other people discuss it?
“A. Not too many so far.
“Q. You have heard other people express opinions about it?
“A. Not too many of those so far too.
“Q. Back around ’66, did you?
“A. Yes in’66.
“Q. ... I assume you had an opinion as to [Mr. Yount’s] guilt or innocence [in 1966]?
“A. I had an opinion yes.
“Q. Do you have a opinion today as to his guilt or innocence?
“A. It’s been a long time ago and I’m not sure now. It was in the paper he plead [sic] not guilty. “Q. Let me ask you this then. In case you do have an opinion, could you wipe it out of your mind — erase it out of your mind before you would take a seat in the jury box and hear whatever evidence you might hear? “A. As it is right now I have no opinion now — four or five years ago I probably did but right now I don’t. “Q. What happened Mr. Karetski, between then and now to eliminate that opinion if you can tell me? “A. Well, as far as I’m concerned there wasn’t much in the paper about it and it sort of slipped away from thought.” App. 98a-100a.
Jurors were sequestered as they were chosen.
As noted, the voir dire in this case was particularly extensive. It took 10 days to pick 14 jurors from 292 veniremen. In Irvin it took 8 days to pick 14 jurors from 430 veniremen.
Contrary to Judge Garth’s surmise, 710 F. 2d, at 979, however, the voir dire interviews quoted in the petitioner’s brief in Irvin do not appear to be significantly less probing than those here. See Brief for Petitioner in Irvin v. Dowd, O. T. 1960, No. 41, pp. 18-59. It should also be noted that the voir dire in Irvin, like that here, was conducted largely by counsel for each side, rather than the judge. The only significant difference in the procedures followed here and in Irvin is that the veniremen here were brought into the courtroom alone for questioning, while it appears that those in Irvin were questioned in front of all those remaining in the panel. This is not an insubstantial distinction, as the Court suggested in Irvin, 366 U. S., at 728, but we do not find it controlling.
In Murphy v. Florida, 421 U. S. 794 (1975), the defendant — widely known as “Murph the Surf” — relied heavily on Irvin. The record of damaging publicity preceding his trial was at least as extreme as that in this case. Nevertheless, we found the record there distinguishable from Irvin. We noted that the extensive publication of news articles about Murphy largely had ceased some seven months before the jury was selected. 421 U. S., at 802. Murphy involved a lapse in publicity prior to the defendant’s first trial; there was no second trial in that case.
There are, of course, factual and legal questions to be considered in deciding whether a juror is qualified. The constitutional standard that a juror is impartial only if he can lay aside his opinion and render a verdict based on the evidence presented in court is a question of federal law, see Irvin, 366 U. S., at 723; whether a juror can in fact do that is a determination to which habeas courts owe special deference, see Rushen, 464 U. S., at 120. Cf. Marshall v. Lonberger, 459 U. S. 422, 431-432 (1983) (similar analysis as to whether a guilty plea was voluntary). See also Reynolds v. United States, 98 U. S. 145,156 (1879) (whether a juror should be disqualified is a question involving both a legal standard and findings of fact; the latter may be set aside only for manifest error).
The dissent misreads the Court’s opinion in Reynolds v. United States. Post, at 1050-1052, and nn. 6 and 7. Reynolds was decided some 87 years before the presumption of correctness for factual findings was added to 28 U. S. C. § 2254. The Court clearly did not attach the same significance to the phrase “a question of mixed law and fact” that we do today under modern habeas law. It recognized that juror-disqualification questions may raise both a question of law — whether the correct standard was applied — and a question of fact. Whether an opinion expressed by a juror was such as to meet the legal standard for disqualification was viewed as a question of fact as to which deference was due to the trial court’s determination. This is apparent from the language quoted by the dissent, which notes that while the question is one of “mixed law and fact,” it is “to be tried, as far as the facts are concerned, like any other issue of that character, upon the evidence. The finding of the trial court upon that issue ought not to be set aside by a reviewing court, unless the error is manifest.” 98 U. S., at 156. Plainly, factual findings were to be considered separately from the legal standard applied, and deference was due to those findings. This is also apparent from the following passage:
“[T]he manner of the juror while testifying is oftentimes more indicative of the real character of his opinion than his words. That is seen below, but cannot always be spread upon the record. Care should, therefore, be taken in the reviewing court not to reverse the ruling below upon such a question of fact, except in a clear case.” Id., at 156-157 (emphasis added). Taken together, these passages plainly show that the “character of [a juror’s] opinion” was considered a question of fact. Contrary to the suggestion of the dissent, post, at 1050, n. 6, the factual question was not limited to whether the juror was telling the truth, but included discovering the “real character” of any opinion held. Deference was due to the trial court’s conclusions on that question.
Accord, In re Application of National Broadcasting Co., 209 U. S. App. D. C. 354, 362, 653 F. 2d 609, 617 (1981) (“[V]oir dire has long been recognized as an effective method of rooting out such bias, especially when conducted in a careful and thoroughgoing manner”); United States v. Duncan, 598 F. 2d 839, 865 (CA4), cert. denied, 444 U. S. 871 (1979); Calley v. Callaway, 519 F. 2d 184, 209, n. 45 (CA5 1975) (en banc) (citing cases), cert, denied sub nom. Calley v. Hoffman, 425 U. S. 911 (1976). But cf. Smith v. Phillips, 455 U. S. 209, 222, and n. (1982) (O’CONNOR, J., concurring) (describing situations in which state procedures are inadequate to uncover bias); Rideau v. Louisiana, 373 U. S. 723 (1963) (same).
Demeanor plays a fundamental role not only in determining juror credibility, but also in simply understanding what a potential juror is saying. Any complicated voir dire calls upon lay persons to think and express themselves in unfamiliar terms, as a reading of any transcript of such a proceeding will reveal. Demeanor, inflection, the flow of the questions and answers can make confused and conflicting utterances comprehensible.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Per Curiam.
Gregory Hess appeals from his conviction in the Indiana courts for violating the State's disorderly conduct statute. Appellant contends that his conviction should be reversed because the statute is unconstitutionally vague, Connally v. General Construction Co., 269 U. S. 385 (1926), because the statute is overbroad in that it forbids activity that is protected under the First and Fourteenth Amendments, Gooding v. Wilson, 405 U. S. 518 (1972), and because the statute, as applied here, abridged his constitutionally protected freedom of speech, Terminiello v. Chicago, 337 U. S. 1 (1949). These contentions were rejected in the City Court, where Hess was convicted, and in the Superior Court, which reviewed his conviction. The Supreme Court of Indiana, with one dissent, considered and rejected each of Hess’ constitutional contentions, and accordingly affirmed his conviction.
The events leading to Hess’ conviction began with an antiwar demonstration on the campus of Indiana University. In the course of the demonstration, approximately 100 to 150 of the demonstrators moved onto a public street and blocked the passage of vehicles. When the demonstrators did not respond to verbal directions from the sheriff to clear the street, the sheriff and his deputies began walking up the street, and the demonstrators in their path moved to the curbs on either side, joining a large number of spectators who had gathered. Hess was standing off the street as the sheriff passed him. The sheriff heard Hess utter the word “fuck” in what he later described as a loud voice and immediately arrested him on the disorderly conduct charge. It was later stipulated that what appellant had said was “We’ll take the fucking street later,” or “We’ll take the fucking street again.” Two witnesses who were in the immediate vicinity testified, apparently without contradiction, that they heard Hess’ words and witnessed his arrest. They indicated that Hess did not appear to be exhorting the crowd to go back into the street, that he was facing the crowd and not the street when he uttered the statement, that his statement did not appear to be addressed to any particular person or group, and that his tone, although loud, was no louder than that of the other people in the area.
Indiana’s disorderly conduct statute was applied in this case to punish only spoken words. It hardly needs repeating that “[t]he constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech forbid the States to punish the use of words or language not within 'narrowly limited classes of speech.’ ” Gooding v. Wilson, supra, at 521-522. The words here did not fall within any of these “limited classes.” In the first place, it is clear that the Indiana court specifically abjured any suggestion that Hess’ words could be punished as obscene under Roth v. United States, 354 U. S. 476 (1957), and its progeny. Indeed, after Cohen v. California, 403 U. S. 15 (1971), such a contention with regard to the language at issue would not be tenable. By the same token, any suggestion that Hess’ speech amounted to “fighting words,” Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U. S. 568 (1942), could not withstand scrutiny. Even if under other circumstances this language could be regarded as a personal insult, the evidence is undisputed that Hess’ statement was not directed to any person or group in particular. Although the sheriff testified that he was offended by the language, he also stated that he did not interpret the expression as being directed personally at him, and the evidence is clear that appellant had his back to the sheriff at the time. Thus, under our decisions, the State could not punish this speech as “fighting words.” Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296, 309 (1940); Cohen v. California, supra, at 20.
In addition, there was no evidence to indicate that Hess’ speech amounted to a public nuisance in that privacy interests were being invaded. “The ability of government, consonant with the Constitution, to shut off discourse solely to protect others from hearing it is . . . dependent upon a showing that substantial privacy interests are being invaded in an essentially intolerable manner.” Cohen v. California, supra, at 21. The prosecution made no such showing in this case.
The Indiana Supreme Court placed primary reliance on the trial court’s finding that Hess’ statement “was intended to incite further lawless action on the part of the crowd in the vicinity of appellant and was likely to produce such action.” — Ind. -, -, 297 N. E. 2d 413, 415 (1973). At best, however, the statement could be taken as counsel for present moderation; at worst, it amounted to nothing more than advocacy of illegal action at some indefinite future time. This is not sufficient to permit the State to punish Hess’ speech. Under our decisions, “the constitutional guarantees of free speech and free press do not permit a State to forbid or proscribe advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.” Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U. S. 444, 447 (1969). (Emphasis added.) See also Terminiello v. Chicago, 337 U. S., at 4. Since the uncontroverted evidence showed that Hess’ statement was not directed to any person or group of persons, it cannot be said that he was advocating, in the normal sense, any action. And since there was no evidence, or rational inference from the import of the language, that his words were intended to produce, and likely to produce, imminent disorder, those words could not be punished by the State on the ground that they had “a 'tendency to lead to violence.’ ” - Ind., at -, 297 N. E. 2d, at 415.
Accordingly, the motion to proceed in forma pauperis is granted and the judgment of the Supreme Court of Indiana is reversed.
“Whoever shall act in a loud, boisterous or disorderly manner so as to disturb the peace and quiet of any neighborhood or family, by loud or unusual noise, or by tumultuous or offensive behavior, threatening, traducing, quarreling, challenging to fight or fighting, shall be deemed guilty of disorderly conduct, and upon conviction, shall be fined in any sum not exceeding five hundred dollars [$500] to which may be added imprisonment for not to exceed one hundred eighty [180] days.” Ind. Code 35-27-2-1 (1971), Ind. Ann. Stat. §10-1510 (Supp. 1972).
The State contends that Hess failed to preserve his constitutional contentions in the state courts. But the record demonstrates that Hess moved to quash the affidavit for disorderly conduct in the City Court on the constitutional grounds that he is asserting in this Court. The State points out that, on appeal to the Superior Court, appellant received a trial de novo and did not again move to quash the affidavit in that court. But the refusal of the City Court to quash the affidavit was asserted as error by Hess on his appeal to the Superior Court, and his memorandum in support of his appeal pressed the constitutional contentions. Since the Supreme Court of Indiana considered and resolved each of Hess’ constitutional contentions, it is apparent that it regarded Hess’ actions in the state courts as sufficient under state law to preserve his constitutional arguments on appeal.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | C | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice ALITO delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) requires plaintiffs with "actual knowledge" of an alleged fiduciary breach to file suit within three years of gaining that knowledge rather than within the 6-year period that would otherwise apply. § 413(a)(2)(A), 88 Stat. 889, as amended, 29 U.S.C. § 1113. The question here is whether a plaintiff necessarily has "actual knowledge" of the information contained in disclosures that he receives but does not read or cannot recall reading. We hold that he does not and therefore affirm.
I
A
Retirement plans governed by ERISA must have at least one named fiduciary, § 1102(a)(1), who must manage the plan prudently and solely in the interests of participants and their beneficiaries, § 1104(a). Fiduciaries who breach these duties are personally liable to the plan for any resulting losses. § 1109(a). ERISA authorizes participants and their beneficiaries, as well as co-fiduciaries and the Secretary of Labor, to sue for that relief. § 1132(a)(2).
Such suits must be filed within one of three time periods, each with different triggering events. The first begins when the breach occurs. Specifically, under § 1113(1), suit must be filed within six years of "the date of the last action which constituted a part of the breach or violation" or, in cases of breach by omission, "the latest date on which the fiduciary could have cured the breach or violation." We have referred to § 1113(1) as a statute of repose, which "effect[s] a legislative judgment that a defendant should be free from liability after the legislatively determined period of time." California Public Employees' Retirement System v. ANZ Securities, Inc. , 582 U.S. ----, ----, 137 S.Ct. 2042, 2049, 198 L.Ed.2d 584 (2017) (internal quotation marks omitted).
The second period, which accelerates the filing deadline, begins when the plaintiff gains "actual knowledge" of the breach. Under § 1113(2), suit must be filed within three years of "the earliest date on which the plaintiff had actual knowledge of the breach or violation." Section 1113(2) is a statute of limitations, which "encourage[s] plaintiffs to pursue diligent prosecution of known claims." Id. , at ----, 137 S.Ct., at 2049 (internal quotation marks omitted).
The third period, which applies "in the case of fraud or concealment," begins when the plaintiff discovers the alleged breach. § 1113. In such cases, suit must be filed within six years of "the date of discovery." Ibid.
B
Respondent Sulyma worked at Intel Corporation from 2010 to 2012. He participated in two Intel retirement plans, the Intel Retirement Contribution Plan and the Intel 401(k) Savings Plan. Payments into these plans were in turn invested in two funds managed by the Intel Investment Policy Committee. These funds mostly comprised stocks and bonds. After the stock market decline in 2008, however, the committee increased the funds' shares of alternative assets, such as hedge funds, private equity, and commodities. These assets carried relatively high fees. And as the stock market rebounded, Sulyma's funds lagged behind others such as index funds.
Sulyma filed this suit on behalf of a putative class in October 2015, alleging primarily that the committee and other plan administrators (petitioners here) had breached their fiduciary duties by overinvesting in alternative assets. Petitioners countered that the suit was untimely under § 1113(2). Although Sulyma filed it within six years of the alleged breaches, he filed it more than three years after petitioners had disclosed their investment decisions to him.
ERISA and its implementing regulations mandate various disclosures to plan participants. See generally 29 U.S.C. §§ 1021 - 1031 ; see also Gobeille v. Liberty Mut. Ins. Co. , 577 U.S. ----, ---- - ----, 136 S.Ct. 936, 944, 194 L.Ed.2d 20 (2016). Sulyma received numerous disclosures while working at Intel, some explaining the extent to which his retirement plans were invested in alternative assets. In November 2011, for example, he received an e-mail informing him that a Qualified Default Investment Alternative (QDIA) notice was available on a website called NetBenefits, where many of his disclosures were hosted. See App. 149-151; see also 29 CFR §§ 2550.404c-5(b) - (d) (2019) (QDIA
notices); § 2520.104b-1(c) (regulating electronic disclosure). This notice broke down the percentages at which his 401(k) fund was invested in stocks, bonds, hedge funds, and commodities. See App. 236. In 2012, he received a summary plan description explaining that the funds were invested in stocks and alternative assets, id ., at 227, and referring him to other documents-called fund fact sheets-with the percentages in graphical form. See 29 U.S.C. §§ 1022, 1024(b) (summary plan descriptions); see also App. 307 (June 2012 fact sheet for his 401(k) plan fund); id ., at 338 (June 2012 fact sheet for his retirement contribution plan fund); id ., at 277-340 (other fact sheets provided during his tenure at Intel). Also in 2012, he received e-mails directing him to annual disclosures that petitioners provided for both his plans, which showed the underlying funds' return rates and again directed him to the NetBenefits site for further information. See 29 CFR § 2550.404a-5 ; see also App. 242-243 (retirement contribution plan annual disclosure); id ., at 250-251 (401(k) plan annual disclosure).
Petitioners submitted records showing that Sulyma visited the NetBenefits site repeatedly during his employment. Id ., at 258-276. But he testified in his deposition that he did not "remember reviewing" the above disclosures during his tenure. Id ., at 175; see also id ., at 183, 193, 196-197. He also stated in a declaration that he was "unaware" while working at Intel "that the monies that [he] had invested through the Intel retirement plans had been invested in hedge funds or private equity." Id ., at 212. He recalled reviewing only account statements sent to him by mail, which directed him to the NetBenefits site and noted that his plans were invested in "short-term/other" assets but did not specify which. See, e.g. , id ., at 375.
The District Court granted summary judgment to petitioners under § 1113(2), reasoning that "[i]t would be improper to allow Sulyma's claims to survive merely because he did not look further into the disclosures made to him." 2017 WL 1217185, *9 (N.D. Cal., Mar. 31, 2017). The Ninth Circuit reversed. As relevant here, the court construed "actual knowledge" to mean "what it says: knowledge that is actual, not merely a possible inference from ambiguous circumstances." 909 F.3d 1069, 1076 (2018) (internal quotation marks omitted). Although Sulyma "had sufficient information available to him to know about the allegedly imprudent investments" more than three years before filing suit, the court held that his testimony created a dispute as to when he actually gained that knowledge. Id. , at 1077.
Several Circuits have likewise construed § 1113(2) to require "knowledge that is actual," id. , at 1076, but one has construed it to require only proof of sufficient disclosure. We granted certiorari, 587 U.S. ----, 139 S.Ct. 2692, 204 L.Ed.2d 1089 (2019), to resolve whether the phrase "actual knowledge" does in fact mean "what it says," 909 F.3d at 1076, and hold that it does.
II
A
"We must enforce plain and unambiguous statutory language" in ERISA, as in any statute, "according to its terms." Hardt v. Reliance Standard Life Ins. Co. , 560 U.S. 242, 251, 130 S.Ct. 2149, 176 L.Ed.2d 998 (2010). Although ERISA does not define the phrase "actual knowledge," its meaning is plain. Dictionaries are hardly necessary to confirm the point, but they do. When Congress passed ERISA, the word "actual" meant what it means today: "existing in fact or reality." Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary 10 (1967); accord, Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary 13 (11th ed. 2005) (same); see also American Heritage Dictionary 14 (1973) ("In existence; real; factual"); id ., at 18 (5th ed. 2011) ("Existing in reality and not potential, possible, simulated, or false"). So did the word "knowledge," which meant and still means "the fact or condition of being aware of something." Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary 469 (1967); accord, Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary 691 (2005) (same); see also American Heritage Dictionary 725 (1973) ("Familiarity, awareness, or understanding gained through experience or study"); id ., at 973 (2011) (same). Thus, to have "actual knowledge" of a piece of information, one must in fact be aware of it.
Legal dictionaries give "actual knowledge" the same meaning: "[r]eal knowledge as distinguished from presumed knowledge or knowledge imputed to one." Ballentine's Law Dictionary 24 (3d ed. 1969); accord, Black's Law Dictionary 1043 (11th ed. 2019) (defining "actual knowledge" as "[d]irect and clear knowledge, as distinguished from constructive knowledge"). The qualifier "actual" creates that distinction. In everyday speech, "actual knowledge" might seem redundant; one who claims "knowledge" of a topic likely means to suggest that he actually knows a thing or two about it. But the law will sometimes impute knowledge-often called "constructive" knowledge-to a person who fails to learn something that a reasonably diligent person would have learned. See id ., at 1043. Similarly, we held in Merck & Co. v. Reynolds , 559 U.S. 633, 130 S.Ct. 1784, 176 L.Ed.2d 582 (2010), that the word "discovery," when used in a statute of limitations without qualification, "encompasses not only those facts the plaintiff actually knew, but also those facts a reasonably diligent plaintiff would have known." Id ., at 648, 130 S.Ct. 1784. The addition of "actual" in § 1113(2) signals that the plaintiff 's knowledge must be more than "potential, possible, virtual, conceivable, theoretical, hypothetical, or nominal." Black's Law Dictionary 53 (4th ed. 1951). Indeed, in Merck , we cited § 1113(2) as evidence of the "linguistic distinction" between " 'actual knowledge ' " and the "hypothetical" knowledge that a reasonably diligent plaintiff would have.
559 U.S. at 646-647, 130 S.Ct. 1784 (quoting § 1113(2) ; emphasis in original).
Congress has drawn the same distinction elsewhere in ERISA. Multiple provisions contain alternate 6-year and 3-year limitations periods, with the 6-year period beginning at "the date on which the cause of action arose" and the 3-year period starting at "the earliest date on which the plaintiff acquired or should have acquired actual knowledge of the existence of such cause of action." §§ 1303(e)(6), (f)(5) (emphasis added); accord, §§ 1370(f)(1)-(2), 1451(f)(1)-(2). ERISA also requires plaintiffs challenging the suspension of benefits under § 1085 to do so within "one year after the earliest date on which the plaintiff acquired or should have acquired actual knowledge of the existence of such cause of action." § 1085(e)(9)(I)(iv). Thus, Congress has repeatedly drawn a "linguistic distinction" between what an ERISA plaintiff actually knows and what he should actually know. Merck , 559 U.S. at 647, 130 S.Ct. 1784. And when Congress has included both forms of knowledge in a provision limiting ERISA actions, it has done so explicitly. We cannot assume that it meant to do so by implication in § 1113(2). Instead we "generally presum[e] that Congress acts intentionally and purposely when it includes particular language in one section of a statute but omits it in another." BFP v. Resolution Trust Corporation , 511 U.S. 531, 537, 114 S.Ct. 1757, 128 L.Ed.2d 556 (1994) (internal quotation marks omitted).
Petitioners dispute the characterization of anything less than actual knowledge as constructive knowledge, arguing that the latter term usually refers to information that a plaintiff must seek out rather than information that is sent to him. But if a plaintiff is not aware of a fact, he does not have "actual knowledge" of that fact however close at hand the fact might be. § 1113(2). And Congress has never added to § 1113(2) the language it has used in other ERISA limitations provisions to encompass both what a plaintiff actually knows and what he reasonably could know.
As presently written, therefore, § 1113(2) requires more than evidence of disclosure alone. That all relevant information was disclosed to the plaintiff is no doubt relevant in judging whether he gained knowledge of that information. See Part III, infra . To meet § 1113(2)'s "actual knowledge" requirement, however, the plaintiff must in fact have become aware of that information.
B
Petitioners offer arguments for a broader reading of § 1113(2) based on text, context, purpose, and statutory history. All founder on Congress's choice of the word "actual."
As for text, petitioners do not dispute the normal definitions of "actual," "knowledge," or "actual knowledge." They focus instead on the least conspicuous part of the phrase "had actual knowledge": the word "had." § 1113(2). Once a plaintiff receives a disclosure, they argue, he "ha[s]" the knowledge that § 1113(2) requires because he effectively holds it in his hand. Ibid. In other words, he has the requisite knowledge because he could acquire it with reasonable effort. That turns § 1113(2) into what it is plainly not: a constructive-knowledge requirement.
Petitioners' contextual argument fails for the same reason. As they point out, ERISA's disclosure regime is meant to "ensur[e] that 'the individual participant knows exactly where he stands with respect to the plan.' " Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. v. Bruch , 489 U.S. 101, 118, 109 S.Ct. 948, 103 L.Ed.2d 80 (1989) (quoting H.R. Rep. No. 93-533, p. 11 (1973)).
This is the reason for ERISA's requirements that disclosures be written for a lay audience. See, e.g. , 29 U.S.C. § 1022(a). Once plan administrators satisfy their obligations to impart knowledge, petitioners say, § 1113(2)'s knowledge requirement is satisfied too. But that is simply not what § 1113(2) says. Unlike other ERISA limitations periods-which also form § 1113(2)'s context- § 1113(2) begins only when a plaintiff actually is aware of the relevant facts, not when he should be. And a given plaintiff will not necessarily be aware of all facts disclosed to him; even a reasonably diligent plaintiff would not know those facts immediately upon receiving the disclosure. Although "the words of a statute must be read in their context," Davis v. Michigan Dept. of Treasury , 489 U.S. 803, 809, 109 S.Ct. 1500, 103 L.Ed.2d 891 (1989), petitioners' argument again gives the word "actual" little meaning at all.
Petitioners also argue that § 1113(2)'s plain meaning undermines its purpose of protecting plan administrators from suits over bygone investment decisions. If a plan participant can simply deny knowledge, they say, administrators will rarely get the benefit of § 1113(2). But even if this is true, as it may well be, we cannot say that heeding the clear meaning of the word "actual" renders the statute so " '[in]coherent' " that it must be disregarded. Kingdomware Technologies, Inc. v. United States , 579 U.S. ----, ----, 136 S.Ct. 1969, 1976, 195 L.Ed.2d 334 (2016).
For one thing, plan participants are not the only potential plaintiffs subject to § 1113. The Secretary of Labor, for example, may also sue imprudent fiduciaries for the benefit of plan participants. See § 1132(a)(2). And the United States represents that the Secretary will have a hard time doing so within § 1113(2)'s timeframe if deemed to have actual knowledge of the facts contained in the many reports that the Department receives from ERISA plans each year. See Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 27-28. Moreover, the statute's repose period will still protect defendants from suits filed more than six years after the alleged breach. See § 1113(1).
Petitioners may well be correct that heeding the plain meaning of § 1113(2) substantially diminishes the protection that it provides for ERISA fiduciaries, but by the same token, petitioners' interpretation would greatly reduce § 1113(1)'s value for beneficiaries, given the disclosure regime that petitioners themselves emphasize. Choosing between these alternatives is a task for Congress, and we must assume that the language of § 1113(2) reflects Congress's choice. If policy considerations suggest that the current scheme should be altered, Congress must be the one to do it. See, e.g. , Azar v. Allina Health Services , 587 U.S. ----, ----, 139 S.Ct. 1804, 1813, 204 L.Ed.2d 139 (2019).
Finally, petitioners argue that the plain meaning of "actual knowledge" renders an earlier version of § 1113(2) incoherent. As originally enacted, the § 1113(2) limitations period began either when the plaintiff gained actual knowledge of the alleged breach or when "a report from which [the plaintiff] could reasonably be expected to have obtained knowledge ... was filed with" the Secretary of Labor. 29 U.S.C. § 1113(2) (1976 ed.). That latter, constructive-knowledge clause was later repealed. See Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1987, § 9342(b), 101 Stat. 1330-371. According to petitioners, if "actual knowledge" means what it says, then the original version of § 1113(2) charged plan participants with learning what was sent to the Secretary but not what was sent to them.
The version at issue here, however, is the current one-from which Congress removed any mention of constructive knowledge. "When Congress acts to amend a statute, we presume it intends its amendment to have real and substantial effect." Intel Corp. v. Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. , 542 U.S. 241, 258-259, 124 S.Ct. 2466, 159 L.Ed.2d 355 (2004) (internal quotation marks omitted). Section 1113(2)'s history thus more readily suggests that the current version does in fact require actual knowledge.
III
Nothing in this opinion forecloses any of the "usual ways" to prove actual knowledge at any stage in the litigation. Farmer v. Brennan , 511 U.S. 825, 842, 114 S.Ct. 1970, 128 L.Ed.2d 811 (1994). Plaintiffs who recall reading particular disclosures will of course be bound by oath to say so in their depositions. On top of that, actual knowledge can be proved through "inference from circumstantial evidence." Ibid. ; see also Staples v. United States , 511 U.S. 600, 615-616, n. 11, 114 S.Ct. 1793, 128 L.Ed.2d 608 (1994) ("[K]nowledge can be inferred from circumstantial evidence"). Evidence of disclosure would no doubt be relevant, as would electronic records showing that a plaintiff viewed the relevant disclosures and evidence suggesting that the plaintiff took action in response to the information contained in them. And though, "[a]t the summary judgment stage, facts must be viewed in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party," that is true "only if there is a 'genuine' dispute as to those facts." Scott v. Harris , 550 U.S. 372, 380, 127 S.Ct. 1769, 167 L.Ed.2d 686 (2007) (quoting Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 56(c) ). If a plaintiff 's denial of knowledge is "blatantly contradicted by the record," "a court should not adopt that version of the facts for purposes of ruling on a motion for summary judgment." 550 U.S. at 380, 127 S.Ct. 1769.
Today's opinion also does not preclude defendants from contending that evidence of "willful blindness" supports a finding of "actual knowledge." Cf. Global-Tech Appliances, Inc. v. SEB S. A. , 563 U.S. 754, 769, 131 S.Ct. 2060, 179 L.Ed.2d 1167 (2011).
In the case before us, however, petitioners do not argue that "actual knowledge" is established in any of these ways, only that they need not offer any such proof. And that is incorrect.
* * *
For these reasons, we affirm.
It is so ordered.
Specifically the Intel Global Diversified Fund, in which his retirement contribution plan was automatically invested, and the Intel Target Date 2045 Fund, which he chose for his 401(k) plan.
The court also addressed the separate question of what exactly a plaintiff must actually know about a defendant's conduct and the relevant law in order for § 1113(2) to apply. That question is not before us and we do not address it.
Compare Caputo v. Pfizer, Inc. , 267 F.3d 181, 194 (CA2 2001) ; Reich v. Lancaster , 55 F.3d 1034, 1056-1057 (CA5 1995) ; Gluck v. Unisys Corp. , 960 F.2d 1168, 1176 (CA3 1992) ; Radiology Center, S. C., v. Stifel, Nicolaus & Co. , 919 F.2d 1216, 1222 (CA7 1990) ; Brock v. Nellis , 809 F.2d 753, 754-755 (CA11 1987), with Brown v. Owens Corning Investment Review Comm. , 622 F.3d 564, 571 (CA6 2010) ("Actual knowledge does not require proof that the individual Plaintiffs actually saw or read the documents that disclosed the allegedly harmful investments" (internal quotation marks omitted)).
Petitioners cite this dictionary's somewhat puzzling second definition of "actual knowledge," which it dubs "implied actual knowledge": "[k]nowledge of information that would lead a reasonable person to inquire further." Black's Law Dictionary 1043 (11th ed. 2019). Not even this entry, however, appears to equate "implied actual knowledge" with "actual knowledge" as normally understood. It instead proceeds to reference the common-law "discovery rule," ibid. , under which a limitations period begins when "the plaintiff discovers (or reasonably should have discovered) the injury giving rise to the claim," id. , at 585 (emphasis added); see also Merck & Co. v. Reynolds , 559 U.S. 633, 646, 130 S.Ct. 1784, 176 L.Ed.2d 582 (2010). As we noted in Merck , that rule is broader than "actual knowledge ." Id., at 647, 130 S.Ct. 1784.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | H | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Chief Justice Kehnquist
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question presented in this ease is whether Washington’s prohibition against “caus[ing]” or “aid[ing]” a suicide offends the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. We hold that it does not.
It has always been a crime to assist a suicide in the State of Washington. In 1854, Washington’s first Territorial Legislature outlawed “assisting another in the commission of self-murder.” Today, Washington law provides: “A person is guilty of promoting a suicide attempt when he knowingly causes or aids another person to attempt suicide.” Wash. Rev. Code § 9A.36.060(1) (1994). “Promoting a suicide attempt” is a felony, punishable by up to five years’ imprisonment and up to a $10,000 fine. §§ 9A.36.060(2) and 9A.20.021(1)(c). At the same time, Washington’s Natural Death Act, enacted in 1979, states that the “withholding or withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment” at a patient’s direction “shall not, for any purpose, constitute a suicide.” Wash. Rev. Code §70.122.070(1).
Petitioners in this case are the State of Washington and its Attorney General. Respondents Harold Glucksberg, M. D., Abigail Halperin, M. D., Thomas A. Preston, M. D., and Peter Shalit, M. D., are physicians who practice in Washington. These doctors occasionally treat terminally ill, suffering patients, and declare that they would assist these patients in ending their lives if not for Washington’s assisted-suicide ban. In January 1994, respondents, along with three gravely ill, pseudonymous plaintiffs who have since died and Compassion in Dying, a nonprofit organization that counsels people considering physician-assisted suicide, sued in the United States District Court, seeking a declaration that Wash. Rev. Code § 9A.36.060(1) (1994) is, on its face, unconstitutional. Compassion in Dying v. Washington, 850 F. Supp. 1454, 1459 (WD Wash. 1994).
The plaintiffs asserted “the existence of a liberty interest protected by the Fourteenth Amendment which extends to a personal choice by a mentally competent, terminally ill adult to commit physician-assisted suicide.” Ibid. Relying primarily on Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U. S. 833 (1992), and Cruzan v. Director, Mo. Dept. of Health, 497 U. S. 261 (1990), the District Court agreed, 850 F. Supp., at 1459-1462, and concluded that Washington’s assisted-suicide ban is unconstitutional because it “places an undue burden on the exercise of [that] constitutionally protected liberty interest.” Id., at 1465. The District Court also decided that the Washington statute violated the Equal Protection Clause’s requirement that “ ‘all persons similarly situated... be treated alike.’” Id., at 1466 (quoting Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Center, Inc., 473 U. S. 432, 439 (1985)).
A panel of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed, emphasizing that “[i]n the two hundred and five years of our existence no constitutional right to aid in killing oneself has ever been asserted and upheld by a court of final jurisdiction.” Compassion in Dying v. Washington, 49 F. 3d 586, 591 (1995). The Ninth Circuit reheard the case en banc, reversed the panel’s decision, and affirmed the District Court. Compassion in Dying v. Washington, 79 E 3d 790, 798 (1996). Like the District Court, the en banc Court of Appeals emphasized our Casey and Cruzan decisions. 79 F. 3d, at 813-816. The court also discussed what it described as “historical” and “current societal attitudes” toward suicide and assisted suicide, id., at 806-812, and concluded that “the Constitution encompasses a due process liberty interest in controlling the time and manner of one’s death — that there is, in short, a constitutionally-recognized ‘right to die.’ ” Id., at 816. After “[wjeighing and then balancing” this interest against Washington’s various interests, the court held that the State’s assisted-suicide ban was unconstitutional “as applied to terminally ill competent adults who wish to hasten their deaths with medication prescribed by their physicians.” Id., at 836, 837. The court did not reach the District Court’s equal protection holding. Id., at 838. We granted certiorari, 518 U. S. 1057 (1996), and now reverse.
We begin, as we do in all due process cases, by examining our Nation’s history, legal traditions, and practices. See, e. g., Casey, supra, at 849-850; Cruzan, supra, at 269-279; Moore v. East Cleveland, 431 U. S. 494, 503 (1977) (plurality opinion) (noting importance of “careful'respect for the teachings of history’ ”). In almost every State — indeed, in almost every western democracy — it is a crime to assist a suicide. The States’ assisted-suicide bans are not innovations. Rather, they are longstanding expressions of the States’ commitment to the protection and preservation of all human life. Cruzan, supra, at 280 (“[T]he States — indeed, all civilized nations — demonstrate their commitment to life by treating homicide as a serious crime. Moreover, the majority of States in this country have laws imposing criminal penalties on one who assists another to commit suicide”); see Stanford v. Kentucky, 492 U. S. 361, 373 (1989) (“[T]he primary and most reliable indication of [a national] consensus is... the pattern of enacted laws”). Indeed, opposition to and condemnation of suicide — and, therefore, of assisting suicide — are consistent and enduring themes of our philosophical, legal, and cultural heritages. See generally Marzen 17-56; New York State Task Force on Life and the Law, When Death is Sought: Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia in the Medical Context 77-82 (May 1994) (hereinafter New York Task Force).
More specifically, for over 700 years, the Anglo-American common-law tradition has punished or otherwise disapproved of both suicide and assisting suicide. Cruzan, 497 U. S., at 294-295 (Scalia, J., concurring). In the 13th century, Henry de Bracton, one of the first legal-treatise writers, observed that “[j]ust as a man may commit felony by slaying another so may he do so by slaying himself.” 2 Bracton on Laws and Customs of England 423 (f. 150) (G. Woodbine ed., S. Thorne transí., 1968). The real and personal property of one who killed himself to avoid conviction and punishment for a crime were forfeit to the King; however, thought Brac-ton, “if a man slays himself in weariness of life or because he is unwilling to endure further bodily pain... [only] his movable goods [were] confiscated.” Id., at 423-424 (f. 150). Thus, “[t]he principle that suicide of a sane person, for whatever reason, was a punishable felony was... introduced into English common law.” Centuries later, Sir William Blackstone, whose Commentaries on the Laws of England not only provided a definitive summary of the common law but was also a primary legal authority for 18th- and 19th-century American lawyers, referred to suicide as “self-murder” and “the pretended heroism, but real cowardice, of the Stoic philosophers, who destroyed themselves to avoid those ills which they had not the fortitude to endure... 4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries *189. Blackstone emphasized that “the law has... ranked [suicide] among the highest crimes,” ibid., although, anticipating later developments, he conceded that the harsh and shameful punishments imposed for suicide “borde[r] a little upon severity.” Id., at *190.
For the most part, the early American Colonies adopted the common-law approach. For example, the legislators of the Providence Plantations, which would later become Rhode Island, declared, in 1647, that “[sjelf-murder is by all agreed to be the most unnatural, and it is by this present Assembly declared, to be that, wherein he that doth it, kills himself out of a premeditated hatred against his own life or other humor:... his goods and chattels are the king’s custom, but not his debts nor lands; but in case he be an infant, a lunatic, mad or distracted man, he forfeits nothing.” The Earliest Acts and Laws of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations 1647-1719, p. 19 (J. Cushing ed. 1977). Virginia also required ignominious burial for suicides, and their estates were forfeit to the Crown. A. Scott, Criminal Law in Colonial Virginia 108, and n. 93, 198, and n. 15 (1930).
Over time, however, the American Colonies abolished these harsh common-law penalties. William Penn abandoned the criminal-forfeiture sanction in Pennsylvania in 1701, and the other Colonies (and later, the other States) eventually followed this example. Cruzan, supra, at 294 (Scalia, J., concurring). Zephaniah Swift, who would later become Chief Justice of Connecticut, wrote in 1796:
“There can be no act more contemptible, than to attempt to punish an offender for a crime, by exercising a mean act of revenge upon lifeless clay, that is insensible of the punishment. There can be no greater cruelty, than the inflicting [of] a punishment, as the forfeiture of goods, which must fall solely on the innocent offspring of the offender.... [Suicide] is so abhorrent to the feelings of mankind, and that strong love of life which is implanted in the human heart, that it cannot be so frequently committed, as to become dangerous to society. There can of course be no necessity of any punishment.” 2 Z. Swift, A System of the Laws of the State of Connecticut 304 (1796).
This statement makes it clear, however, that the movement away from the common law’s harsh sanctions did not represent an acceptance of suicide; rather, as Chief Justice Swift observed, this change reflected the growing consensus that it was unfair to punish the suicide’s family for his wrongdoing. Cruzan, supra, at 294 (Scalia, J., concurring). Nonetheless, although States moved away from Blackstone’s treatment of suicide, courts continued to condemn it as a grave public wrong. See, e. g., Bigelow v. Berkshire Life Ins. Co., 93 U. S. 284, 286 (1876) (suicide is “an act of criminal self-destruction”); Von Holden v. Chapman, 87 App. Div. 2d 66, 70-71, 450 N. Y. S. 2d 623, 626-627 (1982); Blackwood v. Jones, 111 Fla. 528, 532, 149 So. 600, 601 (1933) (“No sophistry is tolerated... which seek[s] to justify self-destruction as commendable or even a matter of personal right”).
That suicide remained a grievous, though nonfelonious, wrong is confirmed by the fact that colonial and early state legislatures and courts did not retreat from prohibiting assisting suicide. Swift, in his early 19th-century treatise on the laws of Connecticut, stated that “[i]f one counsels another to commit suicide, and the other by reason of the advice kills himself, the advisor is guilty of murder as principal.” 2 Z. Swift, A Digest of the Laws of the State of Connecticut 270 (1823). This was the well-established common-law view, see In re Joseph G., 34 Cal. 3d 429, 434-435, 667 P. 2d 1176, 1179 (1983); Commonwealth v. Mink, 123 Mass. 422, 428 (1877) (“ ‘Now if the murder of one’s self is felony, the accessory is equally guilty as if he had aided and abetted in the murder’ ”) (quoting Chief Justice Parker’s charge to the jury in Commonwealth v. Bowen, 13 Mass. 356 (1816)), as was the similar principle that the consent of a homicide victim is “wholly immaterial to the guilt of the person who cause[d] [his death],” 3 J. Stephen, A History of the Criminal Law of England 16 (1883); see 1 F. Wharton, Criminal Law §§ 451-452 (9th ed. 1885); Martin v. Commonwealth, 184 Va. 1009, 1018-1019, 37 S. E. 2d 43, 47 (1946) (‘“The right to life and to personal security is not only sacred in the estimation of the common law, but it is inalienable’ ”). And the prohibitions against assisting suicide never contained exceptions for those who were near death. Rather, “[t]he life of those to whom life ha[d] become a burden — of those who [were] hopelessly diseased or fatally wounded — nay, even the lives of criminals condemned to death, [were] under the protection of the law, equally as the lives of those who [were] in the full tide of life’s enjoyment, and anxious to continue to live.” Blackburn v. State, 23 Ohio St. 146, 163 (1872); see Bowen, supra, at 360 (prisoner who persuaded another to commit suicide could be tried for murder, even though victim was scheduled shortly to be executed).
The earliest American statute explicitly to outlaw assisting suicide was enacted in New York in 1828, Act of Dec. 10, 1828, ch. 20, § 4, 1828 N. Y. Laws 19 (codified at 2 N. Y. Rev. Stat. pt. 4, ch. 1, Tit. 2, Art. 1, § 7, p. 661 (1829)), and many of the new States and Territories followed New York’s example. Marzen 73-74. Between 1857 and 1865, a New York commission led by Dudley Field drafted a criminal code that prohibited “aiding” a suicide and, specifically, “furnishing] another person with any deadly weapon or poisonous drug, knowing that such person intends to use such weapon or drug in taking his own life.” Id., at 76-77. By the time the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified, it was a crime in most States to assist a suicide. See Cruzan, 497 U. S., at 294-295 (Scalia, J., concurring). The Field Penal Code was adopted in the Dakota Territory in 1877 and in New York in 1881, and its language served as a model for several other western States’ statutes in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Marzen 76-77, 205-206, 212-213. California, for example, codified its assisted-suicide prohibition in 1874, using language similar to the Field Code’s. In this century, the Model Penal Code also prohibited “aiding” suicide, prompting many States to enact or revise their assisted-suicide bans. The code’s drafters observed that “the interests in the sanctity of life that are represented by the criminal homicide laws are threatened by one who expresses a willingness to participate in taking the life of another, even though the act may be accomplished with the consent, or at the request, of the suicide victim.” American Law Institute, Model Penal Code § 210.5, Comment 5, p. 100 (Official Draft and Revised Comments 1980).
Though deeply rooted, the States’ assisted-suicide bans have in recent years been reexamined and, generally, reaffirmed. Because of advances in medicine and technology, Americans today are increasingly likely to die in institutions, from chronic illnesses. President’s Comm’n for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research, Deciding to Forego Life-Sustaining Treatment 16-18 (1983). Public concern and democratic action are. therefore sharply focused on how best to protect dignity and independence at the end of life, with the result that there have been many significant changes in state laws and in the attitudes these laws reflect. Many States, for example, now permit “living wills,” surrogate health-care decisionmaking, and the withdrawal or refusal of life-sustaining medical treatment. See Vacco v. Quill, post, at 804-806; 79 F. 3d, at 818-820; People v. Kevorkian, 447 Mich. 436, 478-480, and nn. 53-56, 527 N. W. 2d 714, 731-732, and nn. 53-56 (1994). At the same time, however, voters and legislators continue for the most part to reaffirm their States’ prohibitions on assisting suicide.
The Washington statute at issue in this case, Wash. Rev. Code § 9A.36.060 (1994), was enacted in 1975 as part of a revision of that State’s criminal code. Four years later, Washington passed its Natural Death Act, which specifically stated that the “withholding or withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment... shall not, for any purpose, constitute a suicide” and that “[n]othing in this chapter shall be construed to condone, authorize, or approve mercy killing... Natural Death Act, 1979 Wash. Laws, ch. 112, § 8(1), p. 11 (codified at Wash. Rev. Code §§ 70.122.070(1), 70.122.100 (1994)). In 1991, Washington voters rejected a ballot initiative which, had it passed, would have permitted a form of physician-assisted suicide. Washington then added a provision to the Natural Death Act expressly excluding physician-assisted suicide. 1992 Wash. Laws, ch. 98, § 10; Wash. Rev. Code § 70.122.100 (1994).
California voters rejected an assisted-suicide initiative similar to Washington’s in 1993. On the other hand, in 1994, voters in Oregon enacted, also through ballot initiative, that State’s “Death With Dignity Act,” which legalized physician-assisted suicide for competent, terminally ill adults. Since the Oregon vote, many proposals to legalize assisted-suicide have been and continue to be introduced in the States’ legislatures, but none has been enacted. And just last year, Iowa and Rhode Island joined the overwhelming majority of States explicitly prohibiting assisted suicide. See Iowa Code Ann. §§ 707A.2, 707A.3 (Supp. 1997); R. I. Gen. Laws §§ 11-60-1, 11-60-3 (Supp. 1996). Also, on April 30, 1997, President Clinton signed the Federal Assisted Suicide Funding Restriction Act of 1997, which prohibits the use of federal funds in support of physician-assisted suicide. Pub. L. 105-12, 111 Stat. 23 (codified at 42 U. S. C. § 14401 et seq.).
Thus, the States are currently engaged in serious, thoughtful examinations of physician-assisted suicide and other similar issues. For example, New York State’s Task Force on Life and the Law — an ongoing, blue-ribbon commission composed of doctors, ethicists, lawyers, religious leaders, and interested laymen — was convened in 1984 and commissioned with “a broad mandate to recommend public policy on issues raised by medical advances.” New York Task Force vii. Over the past decade, the Task Force has recommended laws relating to end-of-life decisions, surrogate pregnancy, and organ donation. Id., at 118-119. After studying physician-assisted suicide, however, the Task Force unanimously concluded that “[legalizing assisted suicide and euthanasia would pose profound risks to many individuals who are ill and vulnerable.... [T]he potential dangers of this dramatic change in public policy would outweigh any benefit that might be achieved.” Id., at 120.
Attitudes toward suicide itself have changed since Brac-ton, but our laws have consistently condemned, and continue to prohibit, assisting suicide. Despite changes in medical technology and notwithstanding an increased emphasis on the importance of end-of-life decisionmaking, we have not retreated from this prohibition. Against this backdrop of history, tradition, and practice, we now turn to respondents’ constitutional claim.
II
The Due Process Clause guarantees more than fair process, and the “liberty” it protects includes more than the absence of physical restraint. Collins v. Harker Heights, 503 U. S. 115, 125 (1992) (Due Process Clause “protects individual liberty against ‘certain government actions regardless of the fairness of the procedures used to implement them’ ”) (quoting Daniels v. Williams, 474 U. S. 327, 331 (1986)). The Clause also provides heightened protection against government interference with certain fundamental rights and liberty interests. Reno v. Flores, 507 U. S. 292, 301-302 (1993); Casey, 505 U. S., at 851. In a long line of cases, we have held that, in addition to the specific freedoms protected by the Bill of Rights, the “liberty” specially protected by the Due Process Clause includes the rights to marry, Loving v. Virginia, 388 U. S. 1 (1967); to have children, Skinner v. Oklahoma ex rel. Williamson, 316 U. S. 535 (1942); to direct the education and upbringing of one's children, Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U. S. 390 (1923); Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U. S. 510 (1925); to marital privacy, Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U. S. 479 (1965); to use contraception, ibid.; Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U. S. 438 (1972); to bodily integrity, Rochin v. California, 342 U. S. 165 (1952), and to abortion, Casey, supra. We have also assumed, and strongly suggested, that the Due Process Clause protects the traditional right to refuse unwanted lifesaving medical treatment. Cruzan, 497 U. S., at 278-279.
But we “ha[ve] always been reluctant to expand the concept of substantive due process because guideposts for responsible decisionmaking in this unchartered area are scarce and open-ended.” Collins, 503 U. S., at 125. By extending constitutional protection to an asserted right or liberty interest, we, to a great extent, place the matter outside the arena of public debate and legislative action. We must therefore “exercise the utmost care whenever we are asked to break new ground in this field,” ibid., lest the liberty protected by the Due Process Clause be subtly transformed into the policy preferences of the Members of this Court, Moore, 431 U. S., at 502 (plurality opinion).
Our established method of substantive-due-process analysis has two primary features: First, we have regularly observed that the Due Process Clause specially protects those fundamental rights and liberties which are, objectively, “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition,” id., at 503 (plurality opinion); Snyder v. Massachusetts, 291 U. S. 97, 105 (1934) (“so rooted in the traditions and conscience of our people as to be ranked as fundamental”), and “implicit in the concept of ordered liberty,” such that “neither liberty nor justice would exist if they were sacrificed,” Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U. S. 319, 325, 326 (1937). Second, we have required in substantive-due-process cases a “careful description” of the asserted fundamental liberty interest. Flores, supra, at 302; Collins, supra, at 125; Cruzan, supra, at 277-278. Our Nation’s history, legal traditions, and practices thus provide the crucial “guideposts for responsible decision-making,” Collins, supra, at 125, that direct and restrain our exposition of the Due Process Clause. As we stated recently in Flores, the Fourteenth Amendment “forbids the government to infringe... ‘fundamental’ liberty interests at all, no matter what process is provided, unless the infringement is narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest.” 507 U. S., at 302.
Justice Souter, relying on Justice Harlan’s dissenting opinion in Poe v. Ullman, 367 U. S. 497 (1961), would largely abandon this restrained methodology, and instead ask “whether [Washington’s] statute sets up one of those ‘arbitrary impositions’ or ‘purposeless restraints’ at odds with the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment,” post, at 752 (quoting Poe, supra, at 543 (Harlan, J., dissenting)). In our view, however, the development of this Court’s substantive-due-process jurisprudence, described briefly supra, at 719-720, has been a process whereby the outlines of the “liberty” specially protected by the Fourteenth Amendment — never fully clarified, to be sure, and perhaps not capable of being fully clarified — have at least been carefully refined by concrete examples involving fundamental rights found to be deeply rooted in our legal tradition. This approach tends to rein in the subjective elements that are necessarily present in.due process judicial review. In addition, by establishing a threshold requirement — that a challenged state action implicate a fundamental right — before requiring m'ore than a reasonable relation to a legitimate state interest to justify the action, it avoids the need for complex balancing of competing interests in every case.
Turning to the claim at issue here, the Court of Appeals stated that “ [p]roperly analyzed, the first issue to be resolved is whether there is a liberty interest in determining the time and manner of one’s death,” 79 F. 3d, at 801, or, in other words, “[i]s there a right to die?,” id., at 799. Similarly, respondents assert a “liberty to choose how to die” and a right to “control of one’s final days,” Brief for Respondents 7, and describe the asserted liberty as “the right to choose a humane, dignified death,” id., at 15, and “the liberty to shape death,” id., at 18. As noted above, we have a tradition of carefully formulating the interest at stake in substantive-due-process cases. For example, although Cruzan is often described as a “right to die” case, see 79 F. 3d, at 799; post, at 745 (Stevens, J., concurring in judgments) (Cruzan recognized “the more specific interest in making decisions about how to confront an imminent death”), we were, in fact, more precise: We assumed that the Constitution granted competent persons a “constitutionally protected right to refuse lifesaving hydration and nutrition.” Cruzan, 497 U. S., at 279; id., at 287 (O’Connor, J., concurring) (“[A] liberty interest in refusing unwanted medical treatment may be inferred from our prior decisions”). The Washington statute at issue in this case prohibits “aid[ing] another person to attempt suicide,” Wash. Rev. Code § 9A.36.060(1) (1994), and, thus, the question before us is whether the “liberty” specially protected by the Due Process Clause includes a right to commit suicide which itself includes a right to assistance in doing so.
We now inquire whether this asserted right has any place in our Nation’s traditions. Here, as discussed supra, at 710-719, we are confronted with a consistent and almost universal tradition that has long rejected the asserted right, and continues explicitly to reject it today, even for terminally ill, mentally competent adults. To hold for respondents, we would have to reverse centuries of legal doctrine and practice, and strike down the considered policy choice of almost every State. See Jackman v. Rosenbaum Co., 260 U. S. 22, 31 (1922) (“If a thing has been practised for two hundred years by common consent, it will need a strong case for the Fourteenth Amendment to affect it”); Flores, 507 U. S., at 303 (“The mere novelty of such a claim is reason enough to doubt that ‘substantive due process’ sustains it”).
Respondents contend, however, that the liberty interest they assert is consistent with this Court’s substantive-due-process line of cases, if not with this Nation’s history and practice. Pointing to Casey and Cruzan, respondents read our jurisprudence in this area as reflecting a general tradition of “self-sovereignty,” Brief for Respondents 12, and as teaching that the “liberty” protected by the Due Process Clause includes “basic and intimate exercises of personal autonomy,” id., at 10; see Casey, 505 U. S., at 847 (“It is a promise of the Constitution that there is a realm of personal liberty which the government may not enter”). According to respondents, our liberty jurisprudence, and the broad, individualistic principles it reflects, protects the “liberty of competent, terminally ill adults to make end-of-life decisions free of undue government interference.” Brief for Respondents 10. The question presented in this case, however, is whether the protections of the Due Process Clause include a right to commit suicide with another’s assistance. With this “careful description” of respondents’ claim in mind, we turn to Casey and Cruzan.
In Cruzan, we considered whether Nancy Beth Cruzan, who had been severely injured in an automobile accident and was in a persistive vegetative state, “ha[d] a right under the United States Constitution which would require the hospital to withdraw life-sustaining treatment” at her parents’ request. 497 U. S., at 269. We began with the observation that “[a]t common law, even the touching of one person by another without consent and without legal justification was a battery.” Ibid. We then discussed the related rule that “informed consent is generally required for medical treatment.” Ibid. After reviewing a long line of relevant state cases, we concluded that “the common-law doctrine of informed consent is viewed as generally encompassing the right of a competent individual to refuse medical treatment.” Id., at 277. Next, we reviewed our own cases on the subject, and stated that “[t]he principle that a competent person has a constitutionally protected liberty interest in refusing unwanted medical treatment may be inferred from our prior decisions.” Id., at 278. Therefore, “for purposes of [that] case, we assumefd] that the United States Constitution would grant a competent person a constitutionally protected right to refuse lifesaving hydration and nutrition.” Id., at 279; see id., at 287 (O’Connor, J., concurring). We concluded that, notwithstanding this right, the Constitution permitted Missouri to require clear and convincing evidence of an incompetent patient’s wishes concerning the withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment. Id., at 280-281.
Respondents contend that in Cruzan we “acknowledged that competent, dying persons have the right to direct the removal of life-sustaining medical treatment and thus hasten death,” Brief for Respondents 23, and that “the constitutional principle behind recognizing the patient’s liberty to direct the withdrawal of artificial life support applies at least as strongly to the choice to hasten impending death by consuming lethal medication,” id., at 26. Similarly, the Court of Appeals concluded that “Cruzan, by recognizing a liberty interest that includes the refusal of artificial provision of life-sustaining food and water, necessarily recognize[d] a liberty interest in hastening one’s own death.” 79 F. 3d, at 816.
The right assumed in Cruzan, however, was not simply deduced from abstract concepts of personal autonomy. Given the common-law rule that forced medication was a battery, and the long legal tradition protecting the decision to refuse unwanted medical treatment, our assumption was entirely consistent with this Nation’s history and constitutional traditions. The decision to commit suicide with the assistance of another may be just as personal and profound as the decision to refuse unwanted medical treatment, but it has never enjoyed similar legal protection. Indeed, the two acts are widely and reasonably regarded as quite distinct. See Quill v. Vacco, post, at 800-808. In Cruzan itself, we recognized that most States outlawed assisted suicide — and even more do today — and we certainly gave no intimation that the right to refuse unwanted medical treatment could be somehow transmuted into a right to assistance in committing suicide. 497 U. S., at 280.
Respondents also rely on Casey. There, the Court’s opinion concluded that “the essential holding of Roe v. Wade[, 410 U. S. 113 (1973),] should be retained and once again reaffirmed.” 505 U. S., at 846. We held, first, that a woman has a right, before her fetus is viable, to an abortion “without undue interference from the State”; second, that States may restrict postviability abortions, so long as exceptions are made to protect a woman’s life and health; and third, that the State has legitimate interests throughout a pregnancy in protecting the health of the woman and the life of the unborn child. Ibid. In reaching this conclusion, the opinion discussed in some detail this Court’s substantive-due-process tradition of interpreting the Due Process Clause to protect certain fundamental rights and “personal decisions relating to marriage, procreation, contraception, family relationships, child rearing, and education,” and noted that many of those rights and liberties “involv[e] the most intimate and personal choices a person may make in a lifetime.” Id., at 851.
The Court of Appeals, like the District Court, found Casey “ ‘highly instructive’ ” and “ ‘almost prescriptive’ ” for determining “ ‘what liberty interest may inhere in a terminally ill person’s choice to commit suicide’
“Like the decision of whether or not to have an abortion, the decision how and when to die is one of ‘the most intimate and personal choices a person may make in a lifetime,’ a choice ‘central to personal dignity and autonomy.’” 79 F. 3d, at 813-814.
Similarly, respondents emphasize the statement in Casey that:
“At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life. Beliefs about these matters could not define the attributes of personhood were they formed under compulsion of the State.” 505 U. S., at 851.
Brief for Respondents 12. By choosing this language, the Court’s opinion in Casey described, in a general way and in light of our prior eases, those personal activities and decisions that this Court has identified as so deeply rooted in our history and traditions, or so fundamental to our concept of constitutionally ordered liberty, that they are protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. The opinion moved from the recognition that liberty necessarily includes
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | E | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Burton
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The most significant issue raised by this case is whether the Federal Water Power Act of 1920 has abolished private proprietary rights, existing under state law, to use waters of a navigable stream for power purposes. We agree with the Court of Appeals that it has not. We agree also that in computing a federal licensee’s amortization reserve, required by § 10 (d) of that Act, as amended, the Federal Power Commission was not justified in disallowing the expenses paid or incurred by the licensee in this ease for the use of such rights.
March 2, 1921, Niagara Falls Power Company, a New York corporation, predecessor in interest of Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation, a New York corporation, respondent herein, secured from the Federal Power Commission the federal license with which we are concerned. It was the first such license issued under the Federal Water Power Act of 1920. Its term was 50 years. It authorized the diversion of water for power purposes from the Niagara River, above the Falls, and the return of it below the Falls, all in New York. The daily diversion, in the aggregate, could not exceed 19,500 cubic feet per second (c.f. s.).
Section 10 (d) of the Act requires each licensee, after 20 years of operation under such a license, to establish and maintain amortization reserves out of any surplus thereafter earned and accumulated in excess of a reasonable return upon the licensee’s net investment. Section 14 makes such net investment, plus severance damages, a principal measure of the price the Government is to pay when and if it takes over all or part of the property. In 1942, the Commission expressly held that § 14 applied to this licensee.
In 1947, Article 11 of the license was amended so as to specify a 6% rate of return and to require 50% of the licensee’s surplus earnings to be paid into its amortization reserves. As so amended, the article read:
“After the first twenty (20) years of operation of the project under this license, namely after March 1, 1941, six (6) per cent per annum shall be the specified rate of return on the net investment in the project for determining surplus earnings in accordance with the provisions of Section 10 (d) of the Act for the establishment and maintenance of amortization reserves to be held until termination of the license, or in the discretion of the Commission, to be applied from time to time in reduction of the net investment in the project, and one-half of all surplus earnings in excess of six (6) per cent per annum received in any calendar year shall be paid into and held in such amortization reserves.”
In 1948, the Commission began this proceeding to determine the licensee’s amortization reserve liability. It was the Commission’s first such effort under § 10 (d). In 1949, pursuant to a revised staff report, the Commission directed the holder of this license to show cause why one-half of its surplus earnings from March 2, 1941, through December 31, 1946, in the amount of $994,521.33, should not be set aside in an amortization reserve, and why a like proportion of its subsequent surplus earnings should not be set aside annually upon a comparable basis. In 1950, the Commission’s presiding examiner recommended that the licensee’s initial reserve be $914,432.04, and the Commission approved that figure in preference to $515,432.04 proposed by the licensee. One Commissioner filed a concurring statement and one dissented. 9 F. P. C. 228. However, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, one judge dissenting, upheld the licensee and remanded the case to the Commission with instructions to modify its order accordingly. 91 U. S. App. D. C. 395, 202 F. 2d 190. The decision turned primarily upon the court’s conclusion that neither the Federal Water Power Act nor the issuance of a license thereunder had abolished the licensee’s private proprietary rights to use the waters of Niagara River for power purposes. That issue was inescapable because the Commission, in computing the licensee’s required amortization reserve, had found that certain annual payments and discounts made by the licensee for its use of private water rights, existing under state law, along the Niagara River, were not allowable expenses for the reason that the Commission considered those rights no longer existent. The Court of Appeals held precisely the contrary and we granted certiorari because of the important bearing of the. decision upon the Federal Water Power Act. 345 U. S. 955.
The immediate issue thus presented is whether the licensee’s amortization reserve under § 10 (d), for the period from March 2, 1941, through December 31, 1946, should be $914,432.04 or $515,432.04. That difference of $399,000 is one-half of the $798,000 which the Commission believes should be included in the surplus earnings of the licensee for the period. It consists of—
1. $577,500 paid by the licensee, at the rate of $99,000 a year, for its use, for power purposes, of 730 c. f. s. of the “International Paper water rights,” and
2. $220,500 allowed by the licensee as a discount, at the rate of $37,800 a year, on certain sales of electric power in consideration of permission to use, for power purposes, 262.6 c. f. s. of the “Pettebone-Cataract water rights.”
The Court of Appeals held that although respondent’s predecessor, in 1921, had received a federal license for this project, it nevertheless was justified in continuing to meet the financial obligations which it had assumed in return for permission to use water rights originally granted and still existing under the law of New York. That court, accordingly, approved each of the foregoing items of expense and fixed the licensee’s initial amortization reserve at $515,432.04.
It was not questioned in the Court of Appeals or here that the licensee originally had acquired, in return for the above-stated payments and discounts, some kind or degree of private proprietary rights under the law of New York to use water from the Niagara River for power purposes. Accordingly, we do not consider it necessary to review here the intricate transactions which resulted in the above-described payments and discounts. We accept the conclusion of the Court of Appeals “that the International Paper and Pettebone-Cataract water rights are valid under the law of New York.” 91 U. S. App. D. C., at 406, 202 F. 2d, at 202. For further recognition of these water rights under state law, see Water Power & Control Commission v. Niagara Falls Power Co., 262 App. Div. 460, 30 N. Y. S. 2d 371, aff’d, 289 N. Y. 353, 45 N. E. 2d 907; Niagara Falls Power Co. v. Duryea, 185 Misc. 696, 57 N. Y. S. 2d 777.
Neither is it necessary for us to discuss the licensee’s expenses in 1947 or thereafter. They must be treated in the same way as those above mentioned, except to note that the discounts allowed in return for the Pettebone-Cataract water rights ceased with the licensee’s purchase of those rights in 1947. See 91 U. S. App. D. C., at 400-401, 202 F. 2d, at 196.
We are not required to determine the nature of the rights claimed by respondent except to recognize that they are usufructuary rights to use the water for the generation of power, as distinguished from claims to the legal ownership of the running water itself. They are rights to use the force of the fall of the water, coupled with an obligation to return the water to the river under specified conditions. The rights under consideration originally were attached to riparian lands above and below the Falls. However, they long have been separated from such lands and, thus separated, they have been transferred or leased to respondent. Under the law of New York, they constitute a form of real estate known as corporeal heredita-ments. The Commission does not now contest the purchase prices which have been paid for any of these rights. The Commission’s present objection is limited to respondent’s deduction, in the computation of its amortization reserves, of the annual payments and discounts it has made and which it proposes to make for the use of such rights. The Commission contends (1) that Congress not only may constitutionally abolish such local water rights without compensation but that it already has done so, and (2) that, although the licensee’s contested expenditures may be lawful, or even obligatory, between the parties, they must be disallowed in computing the licensee’s amortization reserve under § 10 (d).
We conclude, as did the Court of Appeals, that, even though respondent’s water rights are of a kind that is within the scope of the Government’s dominant servitude, the Government has not exercised its power to abolish them.
While we recognize the dominant servitude, in favor of the United States, under which private persons hold physical properties obstructing navigable waters of the United States and all rights to use the waters of those streams, we recognize also that the exercise of that servitude, without making allowances for preexisting rights under state law, requires clear authorization. A classic example of such a clear authorization appears in United States v. Chandler-Dunbar Co., 229 U. S. 53. The Act of March 3, 1909, there authorized the exercise of the dominant right of the United States to take all of a navigable river’s flow for purposes of interstate commerce. It did so in explicit terms. It said:
“Sec. 11.... the ownership in fee simple absolute by the United States of all lands and property of every kind and description north of the present Saint Marys Falls Ship Canal throughout its entire length and lying between said ship canal and the international boundary line at Sault Sainte Marie, in the State of Michigan, is necessary for the purposes of navigation of said waters and the waters connected therewith.
“The Secretary of War is hereby directed to take proceedings immediately for the acquisition by condemnation or otherwise of all of said lands and property of every kind and description, in fee simple absolute....
“Every permit, license, or authority of every kind, nature, and description heretofore issued or granted by the United States, or any official thereof, to the Chandler-Dunbar Water Power Company... shall cease and determine and become null and void on January first, nineteen hundred and eleven... 35 Stat. 820, 821.
In that case the Government took the entire flow of the stream exclusively for purposes of interstate commerce. The Court accordingly recognized the Government’s absolute right, within the bed of the stream, to use all of the waters flowing in the stream, for purposes of interstate commerce, without compensating anyone for the use of those waters.
That decision is not applicable here. The issue here is whether the much more general and regulatory language of the Federal Water Power Act shall be given the same drastic effect as was required there by the language of the Act of March 3, 1909. We find nothing in the Federal Water Power Act justifying such an interpretation. Neither it, nor the license issued under it, expressly abolishes any existing proprietary rights to use waters of the Niagara River. Unlike the statute in the Chandler-Dunbar case, the Federal Water Power Act mentions no specific properties. It makes no express assertion of the paramount right of the Government to use the flow of the Niagara or of any other navigable stream to the exclusion of existing users. On the contrary, the plan of the Act is one of reasonable regulation of the use of navigable waters, coupled with encouragement of their development as power projects by private parties.
The Act—
“discloses both a vigorous determination of Congress to make progress with the development of the long idle water power resources of the Nation and a determination to avoid unconstitutional invasion of the jurisdiction of the States....
“The Act leaves to the States their traditional jurisdiction subject to the admittedly superior right of the Federal Government, through Congress, to regulate interstate and foreign commerce....” First Iowa Cooperative v. Federal Power Commission, 328 U. S. 152, 171.
The Act treats usufructuary water rights like other property rights. While leaving the way open for the exercise of the federal servitude and of federal rights of purchase or condemnation, there is no purpose expressed to seize, abolish or eliminate water rights without compensation merely by force of the Act itself.
The references in the Act to preexisting water rights carry a natural implication that those rights are to survive, at least until taken over by purchase or otherwise. Riparian water rights, like other real property rights, are determined by state law. Title to them is acquired in conformity with that law. The Federal Water Power Act merely imposes upon their owners the additional obligation of using them in compliance with that Act.
The legislative history of the Act discloses no substantial support for the drastic policy which the Commission seeks to read into it. To convert this Act from a regulatory Act to one automatically abolishing preexisting water rights on a nationwide scale calls for a convincing explanation of that purpose. We find none. In fact, the legislative history points the other way. Representative William L. La Follette, of Washington, a member of the House Special Committee on Water Power which reported substantially the same bill as that which in 1920 became the Federal Water Power Act, said of it in 1918:
“This bill is not based on either the Government’s ownership or its sovereign authority, but on the hypothesis that we as representatives of the States have authority to act for the States in matters of this character and pass laws for the general good, by the establishment of a limited trusteeship or commission composed of officials of the Government, to carry out and administer this law in such a way as not to infringe any of the rights of the States nor to impede or restrict navigation, but rather to benefit it.... Under this bill we only allow the commission a supervisory power over those functions entirely within the State’s jurisdiction for the period covered by any license, the State having exercised its rights in advance of issue.” 56 Cong. Rec. 9110.
Shortly thereafter he added:
“If we put in this language [of §9 (b)], which is practically taken from that Supreme Court decision [United States v. Cress, 243 U. S. 316], as to the property rights of the States as to the bed and the banks and to the diversion of the water, then it is sure that we have not infringed any of the rights of the States in that respect, or any of their rules of property.... We are earnestly trying not to infringe the rights of the States.” Id., at 9810.
In 1930, this Court passed upon the basic question now before us when it came here in a different connection. In Ford & Son v. Little Falls Co., 280 U. S. 369, Mr. Justice Stone, writing for a unanimous Court, held that a riparian owner of a right to use water for power purposes in the navigable Mohawk River, in New York State, was entitled to an injunction against the uncompensated destruction of that right by a subsequent licensee under the Federal Water Power Act. The New York Supreme Court had granted such an injunction and awarded damages. This Court affirmed that decision, although the federal license then before the Court had authorized the licensee to raise the navigable waters of the Hudson River to such an extent that they would destroy the value of the riparian owner’s right, under state law, to use the fall of tributary waters of the Mohawk for power purposes. It was thus held that the Federal Water Power Act had not abolished the complainant’s private proprietary water rights, existing under New York law, to use navigable waters for power purposes.
“[E]ven though the rights which the respondents [the riparian owners] here assert be deemed subordinate to the power of the national government to control navigation, the present legislation does not purport to authorize a licensee of the Commission to impair such rights recognized by state law without compensation.” Id., at 377.
After quoting from §§10 (c) (liability for damages caused by the licensed project), 27 (saving clause as to proprietary rights under state law), 21 (condemnation rights) and 6 (licensee’s acceptance of the conditions of the Act), the Court added:
“While these sections are consistent with the recognition that state laws affecting the distribution or use of water in navigable waters and the rights derived from those laws may be subordinate to the power of the national government to regulate commerce upon them, they nevertheless so restrict the operation of the entire act that the powers conferred by it on the Commission do not extend to the impairment of the operation of those laws or to the extinguishment of rights acquired under them without remuneration. We think the interest here asserted by the respondents, so far as the laws of the state are concerned, is a vested right acquired under those laws and so is one expressly saved by § 27 from destruction or appropriation by licensees without compensation, and that it is one which petitioner [the licensee], by acceptance of the license under the provisions of § 6, must be deemed to have agreed to recognize and protect.” Id., at 378-379.
Parallel reasoning has been applied in a case involving a conflict between a licensee and the holder of state-recognized rights to use water from a navigable stream for irrigation purposes. United States v. Gerlach Live Stock Co., 339 U. S. 725, 734. See also, as to state-created water rights for power purposes, Grand River Dam Authority v. Grand-Hydro, 335 U. S. 359, 372; Pike Rapids Power Co. v. Minneapolis, St. P. & S. S. M. R. Co., 99 F. 2d 902; United States v. Central Stockholders’ Corp., 52 F. 2d 322; Rank v. Krug, 90 F. Supp. 773, 793; Great Northern R. Co. v. Washington Electric Co., 197 Wash. 627, 86 P. 2d 208.
In First Iowa Cooperative v. Federal Power Commission, 328 U. S. 152, at 175-176, § 27 of the Act was discussed in relation to conditions controlling the approval of projects. The language there used is applicable to proprietary water rights for power purposes as well as those for other proprietary uses. To any extent that statements in Alabama Power Co. v. Gulf Power Co., 283 F. 606, cited in the First Iowa case, indicate a different interpretation, they are not controlling.
Respondent’s private property rights are rooted in state law, subject to the paramount rights of the State and Nation. In the instant case, both the State and the Nation have made limited assertions of their superior rights. New York has done so through its rental charges and the Nation through its license. Neither, however, has laid claim to such an exclusive right to the waters as eliminates the limited use which respondent here seeks to make of them.
The findings of the Commission and the action of the Court of Appeals disclose no sufficient additional circumstances demonstrating the unreasonableness of the expenses in question.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals, accordingly, is
Affirmed.
Me. Justice Reed withdrew from the consideration and decision of this case.
Mr. Justice Jackson took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
[For dissenting opinion, see p. 258.]
The Federal Water Power Act of 1920, 41 Stat. 1063, as amended, is now Part I of the Federal Power Act, 49 Stat. 838, 16 U. S. C. §§ 791a-825r.
“Sec. 10. All licenses issued under this Part shall be on the following conditions:
“(d) That after the first twenty years of operation, out of surplus earned thereafter, if any, accumulated in excess of a specified reasonable rate of return upon the net investment of a licensee in any project or projects under license, the licensee shall establish and maintain amortization reserves, which reserves shall, in the discretion of the Commission, be held until the termination of the license or be applied from time to time in reduction of the net investment. Such specified rate of return and the proportion of such surplus earnings to be paid into and held in such reserves shall be set forth in the license....” 49 Stat. 842, 843, 16 U. S. C. § 803 (d).
This limit soon was increased to 19, 725 e. f. s., 6 F. P. C. 184, 185, and later to 20,000 c. f. s., see 9 F. P. C. 228, 244, n. 28. The Treaty between the United States and Great Britain relating to boundary waters between the United States and Canada, proclaimed May 13, 1910, limited the diversion from the United States side to 20,000 and from the Canadian side to 36,000 c. f. s. 36 Stat. 2448, 2450. As to additional emergency and temporary diversions, see 55 Stat. 1276, 1380; 1 U. S. Treaties and Other International Agreements 694.
49 Stat. 844-845, 16 U. S. C. § 807. See also, § 16 as to compensation to be paid for temporary use of the property by the Government, 41 Stat. 1072, 16 U. S. C. § 809; § 20 as to rate fixing, 41 Stat. 1073-1074, 16 U. S. C. § 813; and § 26 as to a purchase by the Government at a judicial sale, 41 Stat. 1076, 16 U. S. C. § 820. “Net investment” is defined in § 3 as follows:
"(13) 'net investment’ in a project means the actual legitimate original cost thereof as defined and interpreted in the 'classification of investment in road and equipment of steam roads, issue of 1914, Interstate Commerce Commission,’ plus similar costs of additions thereto and betterments thereof, minus the sum of the following items properly allocated thereto, if and to the extent that such items have been accumulated during the period of the license from earnings in excess of a fair return on such investment: (a) Unappropriated surplus, (b) aggregate credit balances of current depreciation accounts, and (c) aggregate appropriations of surplus or income held in amortization, sinking fund, or similar reserves, or expended for additions or betterments or used for the purposes for which such reserves were created....” 49 Stat. 839, 16 U. S. C. §796 (13).
In the instant case the Commission explains that—
“Section 10 (d) is part of a larger pattern of fairness set up by the act to induce water-power development. Licensees are assured a 'fair return,’ but the public is safeguarded against profiteering by a licensee through profits beyond a fair return. At the end of the license period and upon'recapture’ by the Federal Government, earnings throughout the license period are to be tested against a fair return standard set up in section 3 (13).” 9 F. P. C., at 248.
This resulted from the decision that the “fair value” provisions of §23 (a), 49 Stat. 846, 16 U. S. C. §816, applied to licenses to use water rights previously held under permits from the Federal Government, whereas this licensee’s prior water rights, if any, arise under the law of New York. In re Niagara Falls Power Co., 3 F. P. C. 206, aff’d by the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Niagara Falls Power Co. v. Federal Power Commission, 137 F. 2d 787.
A proceeding seeking the Commission’s approval of a further amendment to Article 11 was consolidated with the show-cause proceedings in the instant case. In response, the Commission, in 1950, ordered that article amended to read:
“After the first 20 years of operation of the project under this license, 6 percent per annum shall be the specified rate of return on the net investment in the project for determining surplus earnings and for the establishment and maintenance of amortization reserves, pursuant to section 10 (d) of the act; one-half of all earnings in excess of 6 percent per annum shall be paid into such amortization reserves and such amortization reserves shall be established, maintained and disposed of in accordance with the terms of the act and such rules, regulations and orders of the Commission as may be adopted pursuant thereto.” 9 F. P. C., at 259.
Under the above amendment, the method of setting aside the amortization reserves may be prescribed by the Commission. 9 F. P. C., at 232-233, 239.
Per curiam. Kimbrough Stone, Circuit Judge, retired, from the Eighth Circuit, sitting by designation; Wilbur K. Miller, Circuit Judge. Dissenting, Bazelon, Circuit Judge.
For computations, see Appendix, infra, p. 257.
Respondent’s corporate history and the devolution of the title to the International Paper and the Pettebone-Cataract water rights are described by the Court of Appeals in 91 U. S. App. D. C. 395, at 398-402, 402-407, 202 F. 2d 190, at 194-197, 198-202. See also, Niagara Falls Power Co. v. Federal Power Commission, 137 F. 2d 787. For a detailed examination of the facts and issues of the instant case, see Schwartz, Niagara Mohawk v. FPC: Have Private Water Rights Been Destroyed by the Federal Power Act?, 102 U. of Pa. L. Rev. 31.
“... While the right to its use, as it flows along in a body, may become a property right, yet the water itself, the corpus of the stream, never becomes or, in the nature of things, can become, the subject of fixed appropriation or exclusive dominion, in the sense that property in the water itself can be acquired, or become the subject of transmission from one to another. Neither sovereign nor subject can acquire anything more than a mere usufructuary right therein, and in this case the state never acquired, or could acquire, the ownership of the aggregated drops that comprised the mass of flowing water in the lake and outlet, though it could and did acquire the right to its use.” Sweet v. Syracuse, 129 N. Y. 316, 335, 27 N. E. 1081, 1084.
A riparian owner in New York has a right to use the waters of an abutting stream as part of his estate. United Paper Board Co. v. Iroquois Pulp & Paper Co., 226 N. Y. 38, 123 N. E. 200; Waterford Electric Light Co. v. New York, 208 App. Div. 273, 203 N. Y. S. 858, aff’d without opinion, 239 N. Y. 629, 147 N. E. 225.
Recovery by the International Paper Company for the deprivation of its use of the instant water rights in 1917 was authorized by this Court in 1931. Referring to the 730 c. f. s. now before us, Mr. Justice Holmes said for the Court: “From this canal the petitioner, the International Paper Company, was entitled, by conveyance and lease, to draw and was drawing 730 cubic feet per second, — a right that by the law of New York was a corporeal hereditament and real estate.” International Paper Co. v. United States, 282 U. S. 399, 405. The Government was obliged to pay for taking those diversionary rights by condemnation and they are the ones for which respondent is now paying an annual rental of $99,000. The deprivation, therefore, was not an exercise of the Government’s dominant servitude, but was a compensable taking by condemnation of the paper company’s recognized right to use the water. “[T]he Government took the property that the petitioner owned as fully as the Power Company owned the residue of the water power in the canal.” Id,., at 408. See also, Van Etten v. City of New York, 226 N. Y. 483, 124 N. E. 201, and People ex rel. Niagara Falls Hydraulic Power Co. v. Smith, 70 App. Div. 543, 546, 75 N. Y. S. 1100, 1101, aff’d without opinion, 175 N. Y. 469, 67 N. E. 1088.
The existence of the Pettebone-Cataract water rights, under the law of New York prior to the Federal Water Power Act, is recognized by the courts of that state. Hydraulic Power Co. v. Pettibone Cataract Paper Co., 112 Misc. 528, 183 N. Y. Supp. 373, aff’d, 198 App. Div. 644, 191 N. Y. Supp. 12.
Furthermore, Article 13 of the license recognizes at least the possibility of the survival of these rights after the issuance of the license. It provides that in the event the United States or a new licensee shall take over the project “Such taking over of the project shall also be subject to the rights, if any, of Pettebone-Cataract Paper Company and Cataract City Milling Company to withdraw water at a rate not exceeding 265 cubic feet per second from the Hydraulic Canal or Basin of Licensee, and to the rights, if any, of International Paper Company. (Italics supplied.)” 6 F. P. C. 184, 185.
In 1947, the licensee secured the approval of the New York Public Service Commission, and of the Securities & Exchange Commission.(under § 12 (d) of the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935, 49 Stat. 824, 15 U. S. C. § 791 (d)), of its purchase of the Pettebone-Cataract rights from the licensee’s parent corporation for $728,415.48. Having thus completed their purchase, the licensee petitioned the Commission to amend Article 13 by striking from it the above italicized reference to these rights. The Commission declined and, accordingly, the original reference to the Pettebone-Cataract rights, as well as that to the rights of the International Paper Company, remains in the license.
The Commission’s denial of the requested amendment was on the ground that its consent to the omission of the original equivocal reference to the rights “might be construed as recognizing other alleged water rights claimed by another company.” 6 F. P. C., at 188. The Commission took the position that the rights in question had no existence after the enactment of the Federal Water Power Act and it now regards itself as controlled by that reasoning. 9 F. P. C., at 252, 258-259. Its action, however, was not considered by the Court of Appeals to be dispositive of the issue and it is not binding upon us.
United States v. Willow River Power Co., 324 U. S. 499; United States v. Chicago, M., St. P. & P. R. Co., 312 U. S. 592; United States v. Appalachian Power Co., 311 U. S. 377. See also, United States v. Kansas City Ins. Co., 339 U. S. 799.
It was in this connection that the Court pointed out the inconceivability of private ownership in the running water of navigable streams as distinguished from private proprietary rights to the use of such water for power and other purposes. United States v. Chandler-Dunbar Co., 229 U. S., at 69-70.
Chapman v. Federal Power Commission, 345 U. S. 153, 167-168; First Iowa Cooperative v. Federal Power Commission, 328 U. S. 152, 180-181. The Act was dedicated to “encouraging private enterprise and the investment of private capital” in power projects on a basis consistent with the public interest. H. R. Rep. No. 61, 66th Cong., 1st Sess. 3. The bill was to provide “a method by which the water powers of the country, wherever located, can be developed by public or private agencies under conditions which will give the necessary security to the capital invested and at the same time protect and preserve every legitimate public interest.” Statement of David F. Houston, Secretary of Agriculture. Id., at 5.
Section 14 even provides: “nor shall the values allowed for water rights, rights-of-way, lands, or interest in lands [used in computing a licensee’s net investment] be in excess of the actual reasonable cost thereof at the time of acquisition by the licensee:....” (Emphasis supplied.) 49 Stat. 844-845, 16 U. S. C. § 807.
In §3 (11) “project” is said to include “all water-rights... necessary or appropriate in the maintenance and operation of such unit,” 49 Stat. 838, 839; §4 (b) empowers the Commission, in determining the original cost of a project and the net investment in it, to require licensees to show “the price paid for water rights” as well as for lands, 49 Stat. 839; § 9 (b) requires an applicant for a license to submit evidence of whatever compliance he has made with the requirements of state law with respect to “the appropriation, diversion, and use of water for power purposes,” 41 Stat. 1068; § 14 requires, when taking over a licensed project, that the “values allowed for water rights” shall not be “in excess of the actual reasonable cost thereof at the time of acquisition by the licensee” (Commissioner Smith emphasized the significance of this clause, 9 F. P. C., at 261), 49 Stat. 844-845; § 23 (b) recognizes the application of state laws to projects where interstate or foreign commerce, public lands and reservations are not affected, 49 Stat. 846; § 27 provides that “nothing herein contained shall be construed as affecting or intending to affect or in any way to interfere with the laws of the respective States relating to the control, appropriation, use, or distribution of water used in irrigation or for municipal or other uses, or any vested right acquired therein,” 41 Stat. 1077. See 16 U. S. C. §§ 796-821.
In 1917, the Senate Committee on Commerce said:
“[T]he bill is so framed as to protect and maintain the constitutional power and control of the Federal Government over navigable streams, as well as the sovereignty of the States and the rights of riparian proprietors over and in the beds and waters of those streams, and allow the full exercise and enjoyment of the latter, subject to the paramount authority of Congress to regulate the same for navigation purposes.” S. Sep. No. 179, 65th Cong., 2d Sess. 4, as to S. 1419.
For a history of the congressional debates and hearings, see Kerwin, Federal Water-Power Legislation (1926).
The Court refrained from determining whether § 21 of the Act, as to eminent domain, gave the licensee a further right to condemn and thus pay for the preexisting rights
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | H | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Jackson
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioner, a Massachusetts corporation, manufactures and sells abrasive machines and supplies. Under consent from the State of Illinois to do business therein, it operates a branch office and warehouse in Chicago from which it makes local sales at retail. These sales admittedly subject it to an Illinois Occupation Tax “upon persons engaged in the business of selling tangible personal property at retail in this State.” The base for computation of the tax is gross receipts. Ill. Rev. Stat., 1949, c. 120, §441.
Not all of petitioner’s sales to Illinois customers are over-the-counter, but the State has collected, under protest, the tax on the entire gross income of this company from sales to its inhabitants. The statute specifically exempts “business in interstate commerce” as required by the Constitution, and the question is whether the State has exceeded the constitutional range of its taxing power by taxing all of petitioner’s Illinois derived income.
In Worcester, Massachusetts, petitioner manufactures some 225,000 items, 18,000 of which it usually carries in stock. There are its general management, accounting, and credit offices, where it accepts or rejects all direct mail orders and orders forwarded by its Chicago office. If an order calls for specially built machines, it is there studied and accepted or rejected. Orders are filled by shipment f. o. b. Worcester either directly to the customer or via the Chicago office.
The Chicago place of business performs several functions. It carries an inventory of about 3,000 most frequently purchased items. From these it serves cash customers and those whose credit the home office has approved, by consummating direct sales. Income from these sales petitioner admits to be constitutionally taxable. But this office also performs useful functions for other classes of customers. For those of no established credit, those who order items not in local stock, and those who want special equipment, it receives their order and forwards it to the home office for action there. For many of these Illinois customers it also acts as an intermediary to reduce freight charges. Worcester packages and marks each customer’s goods but accumulates them until a carload lot can be consigned to the Chicago office. Chicago breaks the carload and reconsigns the separate orders in their original package to customers. The Chicago office thus intervenes between vendor and Illinois vendees and performs service helpful to petitioner’s competition for that trade in all Illinois sales except when the buyer orders directly from Worcester, and the goods are shipped from there directly to the buyer.
The Illinois Supreme Court recognized that it was dealing with interstate commerce. It reiterated its former holdings “that there could be no tax on solicitation of orders only” in the State. But no solicitors work the territory out of either the home office or the Chicago branch, although petitioner will supply engineering and technical advice. The Illinois court held that the presence of petitioner’s local retail outlet, in the circumstances of this case, was sufficient to attribute all income derived from Illinois sales to that outlet and render it all taxable.
Where a corporation chooses to stay at home in all respects except to send abroad advertising or drummers to solicit orders which are sent directly to the home office for acceptance, filling, and delivery back to the buyer, it is obvious that the State of the buyer has no local grip on the seller. Unless some local incident occurs sufficient to bring the transaction within its taxing power, the vendor is not taxable. McLeod v. Dilworth Co., 322 U. S. 327. Of course, a state imposing a sales or use tax can more easily meet this burden, because the impact of those taxes is on the local buyer or user. Cases involving them are not controlling here, for this tax falls on the vendor.
But when, as here, the corporation has gone into the State to do local business by state permission and has submitted itself to the taxing power of the State, it can avoid taxation on some Illinois sales only by showing that particular transactions are dissociated from the local business and interstate in nature. The general rule, applicable here, is that a taxpayer claiming immunity from a tax has the burden of establishing his exemption.
This burden is never met merely by showing a fair difference of opinion which as an original matter might be decided differently. This corporation, by submitting itself to the taxing power of Illinois, likewise submitted itself to its judicial power to construe and apply its taxing statute insofar as it keeps within constitutional bounds. Of course, in constitutional cases, we have power to examine the whole record to arrive at an independent judgment as to whether constitutional rights have been invaded, but that does not mean that we will re-examine, as a court of first instance, findings of fact supported by substantial evidence.
This corporation has so mingled taxable business with that which it contends is not taxable that it requires administrative and judicial judgment to separate the two. We conclude that, in the light of all the evidence, the judgment attributing to the Chicago branch income from all sales that utilized it either in receiving the orders or distributing the goods was within the realm of permissible judgment. Petitioner has not established that such services as were rendered by the Chicago office were not decisive factors in establishing and holding this market. On this record, no other source of the customer relationship is shown.
This corporation could, have approached the Illinois market through solicitors only and it would have been entitled to the immunity of interstate commerce as set out in the Dilworth case. But, from a competitive point of view, that system has disadvantages. The trade may view the seller as remote and inaccessible. He cannot be reached with process of local courts for breach of contract, or for service if the goods are defective or in need of replacement. Petitioner elected to localize itself in the Illinois market with the advantages of a retail outlet in the State, to keep close to the trade, to supply locally many items and take orders for others, and to reduce freight costs to local consumers. Although the concern does not, by engaging in business within the State, lose its right to do interstate business with tax immunity, Cooney v. Mountain States Telegraph Co., 294 U. S. 384, it cannot channel business through a local outlet to gain the advantage of a local business and also hold the immunities of an interstate business.
The only items that are so clearly interstate in character that the State could not reasonably attribute their proceeds to the local business are orders sent directly to Worcester by the customer and shipped directly to the customer from Worcester. Income from those we think was not subject to this tax.
The judgment below is vacated and the cause remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent herewith.
It is so ordered.
405 Ill. 314, 320, 90 N. E. 2d 737, 741.
Cf. Nelson v. Montgomery Ward & Co., 312 U. S. 373; Nelson v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 312 U. S. 359; McGoldrick v. Berwind-White Co., 309 U. S. 33; McLeod v. Dilworth Co., supra.
Compañia General v. Collector, 279 U. S. 306, 310; New York ex rel. Cohn v. Graves, 300 U. S. 308, 316.
Merchants’ National Bank v. Richmond, 256 U. S. 635, 638; Carlson v. Curtiss, 234 U. S. 103, 106.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | H | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Frankfurter
delivered the opinion of the Court.
On December 29, 1945, petitioner Joy Oil Company, Ltd., a Canadian corporation, purchased 1,500,000 gal-Ions of gasoline from Mid-West Refineries, Inc., of Grand Rapids, Michigan. The bills of lading issued by the railroad to which the gasoline was delivered were marked “For Export to Canada,” but the gasoline was consigned to petitioner at Detroit. In order to secure the benefits of lower export freight rates and exemption from the federal transportation and manufacturers’ excise taxes, petitioner furnished Mid-West Refineries and the railroad with prescribed forms certifying that the gasoline was purchased for export. Rail shipments' were begun in January and completed in February of 1946. As the gasoline reached Detroit it was accumulated in storage tanks leased by petitioner at Dearborn.
On April 1, 1947, the city of Dearborn assessed an ad valorem property tax on the gasoline, all of which, except 60,000 gallons, shipped to Canada by truck over the Ambassador Bridge, had then been in the Dearborn tanks for fifteen months. Shipment by truck was halted by a federal regulation prohibiting the transportation of inflammables over any international bridge, and petitioner apparently chose not to ship the gasoline by rail across the Detroit River. Iru July of 1947 petitioner began to ship it to Canada by water; the last tanker load departed on August 22, 1947. Petitioner explains the delay as due to inability to obtain shipping space at any earlier date.
Petitioner resisted payment of the tax on the ground that it infringed Art. I, § 10, cl. 2, of the Constitution. The Tax Commission of Michigan sustained Dearborn’s assessment of the tax, and the Supreme Court of Michigan affirmed. 321 Mich. 335, 32 N. W. 2d 472." We granted certiorari because the case presented a sufficiently important question in the accommodation of State and Federal interests under the Constitution. 335 U. S. 812.
The circumstances which tended, at the time when the tax was assessed, to establish petitioner’s intent to export the gasoline and the fact that the gasoline was eventually exported are not enough, by themselves, to confer immunity from local taxation. See, e. g., Cornell v. Coyne, 192 U. S. 418; Empresa Siderurgica v. County of Merced, 337 U. S. 154. Nor is it enough that by the rail shipment to Detroit one step in the process of exportation had been taken or that a part of the total bulk had already departed for its foreign destination. It is of course true that commodities destined for shipment by water must be transshipped at the water’s edge and so may require a brief period of storage at that point which will not be deemed a delay sufficient to interrupt the continuity of the export process. Carson Petroleum Co. v. Vial, 279 U. S. 95; see Southern Pacific Terminal Co. v. Interstate Commerce Comm’n, 219 U. S. 498; Texas & N. O. R. Co. v. Sabine Tram Co., 227 U. S. Ill. But here the period of storage at Dearborn was so long ,as to preclude holding that the first step toward exportation would inevitably be followed by others. See, by way of contrast, Hughes Bros. Timber Co. v. Minnesota, 272 U. S. 469. While in storage, the gasoline might have been diverted to domestic markets without disruption of any existing arrangement for its transshipment and without even breach of any contractual commitment to a foreign purchaser. Neither the character of the property nor any event equivalent to its redelivery to a common carrier made export certain for all practical purposes. See Richfield Oil Corp. v. State Board, 329 U. S. 69, 82.
The Export-Import Clause was meant to confer immunity from local taxation upon property being exported, not to relieve property eventually to be exported from its share of the cost of local services. See Coe v. Errol, 116 U. S. 517, 527-28. The fifteen-month delay at Dear-born barred immunity of petitioner’s gasoline from the taxing power of the municipality.
Affirmed.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | H | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Scalia
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case presents the question whether the use of a thermal-imaging device aimed at a private home from a public street to detect relative amounts of heat within the home constitutes a “search” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment.
I
In 1991 Agent William Elliott of the United States Department of the Interior came to suspect that marijuana was being grown in the home belonging to petitioner Danny Kyllo, part of a triplex on Rhododendron Drive in Florence, Oregon. Indoor marijuana growth typically requires high-intensity lamps. In order to determine whether an amount of heat was emanating from petitioner’s home consistent with the use of such lamps, at 3:20 a.m. on January 16,1992, Agent Elliott and Dan Haas used an Agema Thermovision 210 thermal imager to scan the triplex. Thermal imagers detect infrared radiation, which virtually all objects emit but which is not visible to the naked eye. The imager converts radiation into images based on relative warmth — black is cool, white is hot, shades of gray connote relative differences; in that respect, it operates somewhat like a video camera showing heat images. The scan of Kyllo’s home took only a few minutes and was performed from the passenger seat of Agent Elliott’s vehicle across the street from the front of the house and also from the street in back of the house. The scan showed that the roof over the garage and a. side wall of petitioner’s home were relatively hot compared to the rest of the home and substantially warmer than neighboring homes in the triplex. Agent Elliott concluded that petitioner was using halide lights to grow marijuana in his house, which indeed he was. Based on tips from informants, utility bills, and the thermal imaging, a Federal Magistrate Judge issued a warrant authorizing a search of petitioner’s home, and the agents found an indoor growing operation involving more than 100 plants. Petitioner was indicted on one count of manufacturing marijuana, in violation of 21 U. S. C. § 841(a)(1). He unsuccessfully moved to suppress the evidence seized from his home and then entered a conditional guilty plea.
The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit remanded the case for an evidentiary hearing regarding the intrusiveness of thermal imaging. On remand the District Court found that the Agema 210 “is a non-intrusive device which emits no rays or beams and shows a crude visual image of the heat being radiated from the outside of the house”; it “did not show any people or activity within the walls of the structure”; “[t]he device used cannot penetrate walls or windows to reveal conversations or human activities”; and “[n]o intimate details of the home were observed.” Supp. App. to Pet. for Cert. 89-40. Based on these findings, the District Court upheld the validity of the warrant that relied in part upon the thermal imaging, and reaffirmed its denial of the motion to suppress. A divided Court of Appeals initially reversed, 140 F. 3d 1249 (1998), but that opinion was withdrawn and the panel (after a change in composition) affirmed, 190 F. 3d 1041 (1999), with Judge Noonan dissenting. The court held that petitioner had shown no subjective expectation of privacy because he had made no attempt to conceal the heat escaping from his home, id., at 1046, and even if he had, there was no objectively reasonable expectation of privacy because the imager “did not expose any intimate details of Kyllo’s life,” only “amorphous ‘hot spots’ on the roof and exterior wall,” id., at 1047. We granted certiorari. 530 U. S. 1305 (2000).
II
The Fourth Amendment provides that [t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.” “At the very core” of the Fourth Amendment “stands the right of a man to retreat into his own home and there be free from unreasonable governmental intrusion.” Silverman v. United States, 365 U. S. 505, 511 (1961). With few exceptions, the question whether a warrantless search of a home is reasonable and hence constitutional must be answered no. See Illinois v. Rodriguez, 497 U. S. 177, 181 (1990); Payton v. New York, 445 U. S. 573, 586 (1980).
On the other hand, the antecedent question whether or not a Fourth Amendment “search” has occurred is not so simple under our precedent. The permissibility of ordinary visual surveillance of a home used to be clear because, well into the 20th century, our Fourth Amendment jurisprudence was tied to common-law trespass. See, e.g., Goldman v. United States, 316 U. S. 129, 134-136 (1942); Olmstead v. United States, 277 U. S. 438, 464-466 (1928). Cf. Silverman v. United States, supra, at 510-512 (technical trespass not necessary for Fourth Amendment violation; it suffices if there is “actual intrusion into a constitutionally protected area”). Visual surveillance was unquestionably lawful because “‘the eye cannot by the laws of England be guilty of a trespass.’ ” Boyd v. United States, 116 U. S. 616, 628 (1886) (quoting Entick v. Carrington, 19 How. St. Tr. 1029, 95 Eng. Rep. 807 (K. B. 1765)). We have since decoupled violation of a person’s Fourth Amendment rights from trespassory violation of his property, see Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U. S. 128, 143 (1978), but the lawfulness of warrantless visual surveillance of a home has still been preserved. As we observed in California v. Ciraolo, 476 U. S. 207, 213 (1986), “[t]he Fourth Amendment protection of the home has never been extended to require law enforcement officers to shield their eyes when passing by a home on public thoroughfares.”
One might think that the new validating rationale would be that examining the portion of a house that is in plain public view, while it is a “search” despite the absence of trespass, is not an “unreasonable” one under the Fourth Amendment. See Minnesota v. Carter, 525 U. S. 83, 104 (1998) (Breyer, J., concurring in judgment). But in fact we have held that visual observation is no “search” at all— perhaps in order to preserve somewhat more intact our doctrine that warrantless searches are presumptively unconstitutional. See Dow Chemical Co. v. United States, 476 U. S. 227, 234-235, 239 (1986). In assessing when a search is not a search, we have applied somewhat in reverse the principle first enunciated in Katz v. United States, 389 U. S. 347 (1967). Katz involved eavesdropping by means of an electronic listening device placed on the outside of a telephone booth — a location not within the catalog (“persons, houses, papers, and effects”) that the Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable searches. We held that the Fourth Amendment nonetheless protected Katz from the warrantless eavesdropping because he “justifiably relied” upon the privacy of the telephone booth. Id., at 353. As Justice Harlan’s oft-quoted concurrence described it, a Fourth Amendment search occurs when the government violates a subjective expectation of privacy that society recognizes as reasonable. See id., at 361. We have subsequently applied this principle to hold that a Fourth Amendment search does not occur — even when the explicitly protected location of a house is concerned — unless “the individual manifested a subjective expectation of privacy in the object of the challenged search,” and “society [is] willing to recognize that expectation as reasonable.” Ciraolo, supra, at 211. We have applied this test in holding that it is not a search for the police to use a pen register at the phone company to determine what numbers were dialed in a private home, Smith v. Maryland, 442 U. S. 735, 743-744 (1979), and we have applied the test on two different occasions in holding that aerial surveillance of private homes and surrounding areas does not constitute a search, Ciraolo, supra; Florida, v. Riley, 488 U. S. 445 (1989).
The present case involves officers on a public street engaged in more than naked-eye surveillance of a home. We have previously reserved judgment as to how much technological enhancement of ordinary perception from such a vantage point, if any, is too much. While we upheld enhanced aerial photography of an industrial complex in Dow Chemical, we noted that we found “it important that this is not an area immediately adjacent to a private home, where privacy expectations are most heightened,” 476 U. S., at 237, n. 4 (emphasis in original).
III
It would be foolish to contend that the degree of privacy secured to citizens by the Fourth Amendment has been entirely unaffected by the advance of technology. For example, as the cases discussed above make clear, the technology enabling human flight has exposed to public view (and hence, we have said, to official observation) uncovered portions of the house and its curtilage that once were private. See Ciraolo, supra, at 215. The question we confront today is what limits there are upon this power of technology to shrink the realm of guaranteed privacy.
The Katz test — whether the individual has an expectation of privacy that society is prepared to recognize as reasonable — has often been criticized as circular, and hence subjective and unpredictable. See 1 W. LaFave, Search and Seizure § 2.1(d), pp. 393-394 (3d ed. 1996); Posner, The Uncertain Protection of Privacy by the Supreme Court, 1979 S. Ct. Rev. 173, 188; Carter, supra, at 97 (Scalia, J., concurring). But see Rakas, supra, at 143-144, n. 12. While it may be difficult to refine Katz when the search of areas such as telephone booths, automobiles, or even the eurtilage and uncovered portions of residences is at issue, in the case of the search of the interior of homes — the prototypical and hence most commonly litigated area of protected privacy— there is a ready criterion, with roots deep in the common law, of the minimal expectation of privacy that exists, and that is acknowledged to be reasonable. To withdraw protection of this minimum expectation would be to permit police technology to erode the privacy guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment. We think that obtaining by sense-enhancing technology any information regarding the interior of the home that could not otherwise have been obtained without physical “intrusion into a constitutionally protected area,” Silverman, 365 U. S., at 512, constitutes a search— at least where (as here) the technology in question is not in general public use. This assures preservation of that degree of privacy against government that existed when the Fourth Amendment was adopted. On the basis of this criterion, the information obtained by the thermal imager in this ease was the product of a search.
The Government maintains, however, that the thermal imaging must be upheld because it detected “only heat radiating from the external surface of the house,” Brief for United States 26. The dissent makes this its leading point, see post, at 41, contending that there is a fundamental difference between what it calls “off-the-wall” observations and “through-the-wall surveillance.” But just as a thermal imager captures only heat emanating from a house, so also a powerful directional microphone picks up only sound emanating from a house — and a satellite capable of scanning from many miles away would pick up only visible light emanating from a house. We rejected such a mechanical interpretation of the Fourth Amendment in Katz, where the eavesdropping device picked up only sound waves that reached the exterior of the phone booth. Reversing that approach would leave the homeowner at the mercy of advancing technology— including imaging technology that could discern all human activity in the home. While the technology used in the present case was relatively crude, the rule we adopt must take account of more sophisticated systems that are already in use or in development. The dissent’s reliance on the distinction between “off-the-wall” and “through-the-wall” observation is entirely incompatible with the dissent’s belief, which we discuss below, that thermal-imaging observations of the intimate details of a home are impermissible. The most sophisticated thermal-imaging devices continue to measure heat “off-the-wall” rather than “through-the-wall”; the dissent’s disapproval of those more sophisticated thermal-imaging devices, see post, at 49, is an acknowledgment that there is no substance to this distinction. As for the dissent’s extraordinary assertion that anything learned through “an inference” cannot be a search, see post, at 44, that would validate even the “through-the-wall” technologies that the dissent purports to disapprove. Surely the dissent does not believe that the through-the-wall radar or ultrasound technology produces an 8-by-10 Kodak glossy that needs no analysis (i. e., the making of inferences). And, of course, the novel proposition that inference insulates a search is blatantly contrary to United States v. Karo, 468 U. S. 705 (1984), where the police “inferred” from the activation of a beeper that a certain can of ether was in the home. The police activity was held to be a search, and the search was held unlawful.
The Government also contends that the thermal imaging was constitutional because it did not “detect private activities occurring in private areas,” Brief for United States 22. It points out that in Dow Chemical we observed that the enhanced aerial photography did not reveal any “intimate details.” 476 U. S., at 238. Dow Chemical, however, involved enhanced aerial photography of an industrial complex, which does not share the Fourth Amendment sanctity of the home. The Fourth Amendment’s protection of the home has never been tied to measurement of the quality or quantity of information obtained. In Silverman, for example, we made clear that any physical invasion of the structure of the home, “by even a fraction of an inch,” was too much, 365 U. S., at 512, and there is certainly no exception to the warrant requirement for the officer who barely cracks open the front door and sees nothing but the non-intimate rug on the vestibule floor. In the home, our cases show, all details are intimate details, because the entire area is held safe from prying government eyes. Thus, in Karo, supra, the only thing detected was a can of ether in the home; and in Arizona v. Hicks, 480 U. S. 321 (1987), the only thing detected by a physical search that went beyond what officers lawfully present could observe in “plain view” was; the registration number of a phonograph turntable. These were intimate details because they were details of the home, just as was the detail of how warm — or even how relatively warm — Kyllo was heating his residence.
Limiting the prohibition of thermal imaging to “intimate details” would not only be wrong in principle; it would be impractical in application, failing to provide “a workable accommodation between the needs of law enforcement and the interests protected by the Fourth Amendment,” Oliver v. United States, 466 U. S. 170, 181 (1984). To begin with, there is no necessary connection between the sophistication of the surveillance equipment and the “intimacy” of the details that it observes — which means that one cannot say (and the police cannot be assured) that use of the relatively crude equipment at issue here will always be lawful. The Agema Thermovision 210 might disclose, for example, at what hour each night the lady of the house takes her daily sauna and bath — a detáil that many would consider “intimate”; and a much more sophisticated system might detect nothing more intimate than the fact that someone left a closet light on. We could not, in other words, develop a rule approving only that through-the-wall surveillance which identifies objects no smaller than 36 by 36 inches, but would have to develop a jurisprudence specifying which home activities are “intimate” and which are not. And even when (if ever) that jurisprudence were fully developed, no police officer would be able to know in advance whether his through-the-wall surveillance picks up “intimate” details— and thus would be unable to know in advance whether it is constitutional.
The dissent’s proposed standard — whether the technology offers the “functional equivalent of actual presence in the area being searched,” post, at 47 — would seem quite similar to our own at first blush. The dissent concludes that Katz was such a case, but then inexplicably asserts that if the same listening device only revealed the volume of the conversation, the surveillance would be permissible, post, at 49-50. Yet if, without technology, the police could not discern volume without being actually present in the phone booth, Justice Stevens should conclude a search has occurred. Cf. Karo, 468 U. S., at 735 (Stevens, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (“I find little comfort in the Court’s notion that no invasion of privacy occurs until a listener obtains some significant information by use of the device. ... A bathtub is a less private area when the plumber is present even if his back is turned”). The same should hold for the interior heat of the home if only a person present in the home could discern the heat. Thus the driving force of the dissent, despite its recitation of the above standard, appears to be a distinction among different types of information — whether the “homeowner would even care if anybody noticed,” post, at 50. The dissent offers no practical guidance for the application of this standard, and for reasons already discussed, we believe there can be none. The people in their houses, as well as the police, deserve more precision.
We have said that the Fourth Amendment draws “a firm line at the entrance to the house,” Payton, 445 U. S., at 590. That line, we think, must be not only firm but also bright— which requires clear specification of those methods of surveillance that require a warrant. While it is certainly possible to conclude from the videotape of the thermal imaging that occurred in this case that no “significant” compromise of the homeowner’s privacy has occurred, we must take the long view, from the original meaning of the Fourth Amendment forward.
“The Fourth Amendment is to be construed in the light of what was deemed an unreasonable search and seizure when it was adopted, and in a manner which will conserve public interests as well as the interests and rights of individual citizens.” Carroll v. United States, 267 U. S. 132, 149 (1925).
Where, as here, the Government uses a device that is not in general public use, to explore details of the home that would previously have been unknowable without physical intrusion, the surveillance is a “search” and is presumptively unreasonable without a warrant.
Since we hold the Thermovision imaging to have been an unlawful search, it will remain for the District Court to determine whether, without the evidence it provided, the search warrant issued in this case was supported by probable cause — and if not, whether there is any other basis for supporting admission of the evidence that the search pursuant to the warrant produced.
* * *
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed; the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
When the Fourth Amendment was adopted, as now, to “search” meant “[t]o look over or through for the purpose of finding something; to explore; to examine by inspection; as, to search the house for a book; to search the wood for a thief.” N. Webster, An American Dictionary of the English Language 66 (1828) (reprint 6th ed. 1989).
The dissent’s repeated assertion that the thermal imaging did not obtain information regarding the interior of the home, post, at 43,44 (opinion of Stevens, J.), is simply inaccurate. A thermal imager reveals the relative heat of various rooms in the home. The dissent may not find that information particularly private or important, see post, at 43-44, 45, 49-50, but there is no basis for saying it is not information regarding the interior of the home. The dissent’s comparison of the thermal imaging to various circumstances in which outside observers might be able to perceive, without technology, the heat of the home — for example, by observing snowmelt on the roof, post, at 43 — is quite irrelevant. The fact that equivalent information could sometimes be obtained by other means does not make lawful the use of means that violate the Fourth Amendment. The police might, for example, learn how many people are in a particular house by setting up year-round surveillance; but that does not make breaking and entering to find out the same information lawful. In any event, on the night of January 16, 1992, no outside observer could have discerned the relative heat of Kyllo’s home without thermal imaging.
The ability to “see” through walls and other opaque barriers is a clear, and scientifically feasible, goal of law enforcement research and development. The National Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology Center, a program within the United States Department of Justice, features on its Internet Website projects that include a “Radar-Based Through-the-Wall Surveillance System,” “Handheld Ultrasound Through the Wall Surveillance,” and a “Radar Flashlight” that “will enable law enforcement officers to detect individuals through interior building walls.” www.nlectc.org/techproj/ (visited May 3, 2001). Some devices may emit low levels of radiation that travel “through-the-wall,” but others, such as more sophisticated thermal-imaging devices, are entirely passive, or “off-the-wall” as the dissent puts it.
The dissent asserts, post, at 44-45, n. 3, that we have misunderstood its point, which is not that inference insulates a search, but that inference alone is not a search. If we misunderstood the point, it was only in a good-faith effort to render the point germane to the case at hand. The issue in this case is not the police’s allegedly unlawful inferencing, but their allegedly unlawful thermal-imaging measurement of the emanations from a house. We say such measurement is a search; the dissent says it is not, because an inference is not a search. We took that to mean that, since the technologically enhanced emanations had to be the basis of inferences before anything inside the house could be known, the use of the emanations could not be a search. But the dissent certainly knows better than we what it intends. And if it means only that an inference is not a search, we certainly agree. That has no bearing, however, upon whether hi-tech measurement of emanations from a house is a search.
The Government cites our statement in California v. Ciraolo, 476 U. S. 207 (1986), noting apparent agreement with the State of California that aerial surveillance of a house’s curtilage could become ‘“invasive”’ if ‘“modern technology’” revealed “‘those intimate associations, objects or activities otherwise imperceptible to police or fellow citizens.’” Id., at 215, n. 3 (quoting Brief for State of California 14-15). We think the Court’s focus in this secondhand dictum was not upon intimacy but upon otherwise-imperceptibility, which is precisely the principle we vindicate today.
The dissent argues that we have injected potential uncertainty into the constitutional analysis by noting that whether or not the technology is in general public use may be a factor. See post, at 47. That quarrel, however, is not with us but with this Court’s precedent. See Ciraolo, supra, at 215 (“In an age where private and commercial flight in the public airways is routine, it is unreasonable for respondent to expect that his marijuana plants were constitutionally protected from being observed with the naked eye from an altitude of 1,000 feet”). Given that we can quite confidently say that thermal imaging is not “routine,” we decline in this case to reexamine that factor.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice White
delivered the opinion of the Court.
We must decide whether in the circumstances of this case the Secretary of the Interior has exceeded the authority Congress delegated to him by the Flood Control Act of 1944.
I
The dispute centers on Lake Oahe, an enormous reservoir located on the Missouri River in South Dakota, with a capacity of more than 23 million acre-feet of water. In 1982, ETSI Pipeline Project entered into a contract with the Secretary of the Interior to withdraw up to 20,000 acre-feet of water from Lake Oahe per year for 40 years. South Dakota already had granted ETSI a state permit to use this water in a coal slurry pipeline that would transport coal from Wyoming to the southeastern United States. Soon after the contract was signed, the States of Missouri, Iowa, and Nebraska brought suit in District Court to enjoin performance of the contract, alleging that the manner in which the contract was approved violated several federal statutes. In particular, the plaintiffs contended that the Interior Secretary lacks statutory authority under the Flood Control Act of 1944 (Act), 58 Stat. 887, to execute a contract to provide water from Lake Oahe for industrial uses without obtaining the approval of the Secretary of the Army.
The District Court ruled for the plaintiffs. Missouri v. Andrews, 586 F. Supp. 1268 (Neb. 1984). It concluded that the Oahe Dam was not a reclamation or power development that was undertaken by the Interior Secretary, pursuant to clear statutory authority. Instead, the dam was built by the Corps of Engineers, now part of the Department of the Army (formerly the Department of War, but renamed by Act of July 26,1947, 61 Stat. 495), which has always maintained and operated the reservoir. No block of water in Lake Oahe has been specifically set aside for use by the Interior Department, and the Interior Secretary has not constructed any works at Lake Oahe. On these facts, the District Court held that the Act does not empower the Interior Secretary to furnish water from Lake Oahe for industrial use.
The Court of Appeals affirmed, with one judge dissenting. Missouri v. Andrews, 787 F. 2d 270 (CA8 1986). It upheld the District Court’s conclusion that Lake Oahe is not a reclamation development undertaken by the Interior Secretary, primarily because the Army built the reservoir and controls its operation. Accordingly, the Interior Secretary cannot contract on his own to withdraw water from the reservoir for industrial use. Neither the language nor the legislative history of the Act was thought to support the claim that the Interior Secretary was ceded broad authority over water in this reservoir, even water that it claims has been designated as available for future irrigation purposes. Indeed, the language of the Act and its legislative history were found to be convincing enough on this point that the Court of Appeals refused to defer to the Interior Secretary’s contrary interpretation.
The Court of Appeals denied a petition for rehearing en banc by an equally divided vote of the judges. We granted certiorari, 480 U. S. 905 (1987), and we now affirm.
II
A
The Missouri River Basin is a watershed that covers a vast area in the midwestern United States. The topography of this area, however, reveals two distinct regions that experience very different water problems. The upper part of the Basin, which includes large sections of Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, and South Dakota, is mostly arid or semiarid; there, the Missouri River and its tributaries are important because they represent a major resource for developing the agricultural and industrial potential of the area. The lower part of the Basin, which includes territory in Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, and Missouri, is more humid, and there the rivers are used chiefly for navigation, though the critical problem in this region is to control flooding. See generally M. Ridge-way, The Missouri Basin’s Pick-Sloan Plan 47-55 (1955). In the early 1940’s, Congress focused its attention on the water problems of the Missouri River Basin, prompted especially by severe floods that had devastated the lower Basin in 1943 and 1944.
At the behest of Congress, the Army Corps of Engineers prepared a report that described a comprehensive plan to develop the entire Basin, known as the Pick Plan for its author, a colonel in the Corps. The Pick Plan proposed the construction of 12 multiple-purpose reservoirs and related works, including 5 reservoirs on the main stem of the Missouri River, at an approximate initial cost of $480 million, though it was estimated that to carry out the entire proposal might cost close to $1 billion. The Pick Plan stressed flood control as its primary objective, but noted that its comprehensive list of projects “would also provide for the most efficient utilization of the waters of the Missouri River Basin for all purposes, including irrigation, navigation, power, domestic and sanitary purposes, wildlife, and recreation,” as well as other intangible benefits. H. R. Doc. No. 475, 78th Cong., 2d Sess., 29 (1944) (H. R. Doc.). The report estimated the gross storage capacity of the Oahe Reservoir at about 6 million acre-feet of water.
At almost the same time, the Interior Department’s Bureau of Reclamation independently completed its own plan to develop the Basin, which it had begun earlier, known as the Sloan Plan after the Montana engineer who prepared much of its analysis. The Sloan Plan proposed a total of 90 reservoirs, many of them on the smaller tributary streams, and included 3 reservoirs on the main stem of the Missouri River, at a projected cost of $1.2 billion, with much of that figure to be repayable. The Sloan Plan was also a comprehensive proposal, though it emphasized use of the water for irrigating land, especially in the upper part of the Basin. It estimated that the Oahe Reservoir would hold 19,600,000 acre-feet of water. The Sloan Plan also contained a section comparing its provisions to those in the Pick Plan and suggesting modifications to the Pick Plan “which appear necessary to satisfy water-use requirements throughout the Missouri River Basin.” S. Doc. No. 191, 78th Cong., 2d Sess., 120 (1944) (S. Doc.). This section concluded that though “the capacity of individual reservoirs, as well as aggregate capacities, remain to be determined in greater detail,” the “Army and Reclamation plans on storage needs for all purposes can be composed.” Id., at 122-123.
The Pick and Sloan Plans differed with one another not only in their primary objectives, but also in several other important respects, such as the amount of expenditures and the number of projects. The engineering features of the two plans also were dissimilar. On the main stem of the Missouri River, the two plans called for different numbers of reservoirs of divergent sizes, and thus for inconsistent amounts of total water storage. Even where the two plans agreed on the need for a particular reservoir at a particular location, which they did at Oahe and at Fort Randall, they envisioned those projects very differently; as noted above, for example, the Sloan Plan proposed that Lake Oahe would hold more than three times as much water as called for in the Pick Plan, at an additional cost of more than $20 million.
Obviously Congress could not proceed with both plans at once. In order to arrive at a single set of projects for development of the Basin, a Committee composed of two representatives each from the Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation was appointed to review the engineering features of the two plans. This Committee essentially combined the determinations made by the Corps about the projects that would be needed for flood control and navigation and the determinations made by the Bureau about the additional projects that would be needed for irrigation. After meeting for two days, the Committee produced an engineering report that recommended most of the specific developments that had been set out in the Sloan Plan, but provided for six main-stem reservoirs on the Missouri River. The Oahe Reservoir was to be created by construction of a high dam and to have a gross storage capacity of 19 million acre-feet of water. The stated purposes of Lake Oahe were to allow “the irrigation of 750,000 acres of land in the James River Basin as well as to provide useful storage for flood control, navigation, the development of hydroelectric power, and other purposes.” S. Doc. No. 247, 78th Cong., 2d Sess., 3 (1944). As had been proposed in the Sloan Plan, the irrigation of the James River Basin was to be made possible by construction of a system of long canals, including one canal approximately 125 miles long. See S. Doc., at 115-116. With a single set of projects before it at last, Congress enacted the Flood Control Act of 1944 less than two months later.
B
In the Act, Congress accomplished three distinct tasks. First, it authorized certain specific projects to be undertaken by approving the “general comprehensive plans set forth in [the Pick and Sloan Plans] as revised and coordinated by Senate Document 247.” §9(a), 58 Stat. 891. It directed that “the initial stages recommended are hereby authorized and shall be prosecuted by the War Department and the Department of the Interior as speedily as may be consistent with budgetary requirements.” Ibid. Second, Congress appropriated funds to pay for the initial work done on those projects. Two separate allotments were authorized: $200 million “for the partial accomplishment of the works to be undertaken under said expanded plan by the Corps of Engineers,” § 9(d), and another $200 million “for the partial accomplishment of the works to be undertaken under said plans by the Secretary of the Interior.” § 9(e).
Third, Congress adopted an administrative framework within which these projects were to go forward. This task involved several areas of potential controversy. The Act evoked federalism concerns because the States were anxious to keep control over the development of their lands and the use of valuable water resources. In response, Congress declared a policy of “recognizing] the interests and rights of the States in determining the development of the watersheds within their borders and likewise their interests and rights in water utilization and control.” §1, as set forth in 33 U. S. C. § 701-1 (1952 ed.). The Act also implicated the tensions between the Upper Basin States and the Lower Basin States, whose interests in the use and control of the water were markedly different. Congress addressed this problem by providing that when the Department of War undertook additional works not authorized by the Act it would be required to consult and share information with the affected States and the Secretary of the Interior, depending on whether the works were located west of the 97th and 98th meridians. §§ 1(a) and (b). All projects proposed by the Interior Secretary that would involve construction of “works for irrigation” were made subject to a similar requirement, without regard to geographical location. § 1(c).
Finally, and most directly relevant to this case, the Act required Congress to deal with the administrative jurisdictions of several agencies of the Federal Government. Among the interested agencies were not only the Departments of War and Interior, but also the Department of Agriculture and the Federal Power Commission, both of whom joined the Interior Department in submitting comments on the Pick Plan, and both of whose interests were also touched on by the Act. H. R. Doc., at 1-3, 10-13; Act, §§2, 5, 11-15, 58 Stat. 889, 890, 903-907. The crucial provisions here, however, were the sections that set forth the specific authority allotted to War and Interior, the two key Departments affected by the Act. In relevant part, those five central sections of the Act state as follows:
(1) “The Chief of Engineers, under the supervision of the Secretary of War, is authorized to construct, maintain, and operate public park and recreational facilities in reservoir areas under the control of the War Department, and to permit the construction, maintenance, and operation of such facilities. The Secretary of War is authorized to grant leases of lands, including structure or facilities thereon, in reservoir areas for such periods and upon such terms as he shall deem reasonable.” §4, 16 U. S. C. §460d (1946 ed.).
(2) “Electric power and energy generated at reservoir projects under the control of the War Department and in the opinion of the Secretary of War not required in the operation of such projects shall be delivered to the Secretary of the Interior, who shall transmit and dispose of such power and energy.” §5, 16 U. S. C. §825s (1946 ed.).
(3) “That the Secretary of War is authorized to make contracts with States, municipalities, private concerns, or individuals, at such prices and on such terms as he may deem reasonable, for domestic and industrial uses for surplus water that may be available at any reservoir under the control of the War Department.” §6, 33 U. S. C. §708 (1946 ed.).
(4) “Hereafter, it shall be the duty of the Secretary of War to prescribe regulations for the use of storage allocated for flood control or navigation at all reservoirs constructed wholly or in part with Federal funds provided on the basis of such purposes, and the operation of any such project shall be in accordance with such regulations.” §7. See 33 U. S. C. §709 (1946 ed.).
(5) “Hereafter, whenever the Secretary of War determines, upon recommendation by the Secretary of the Interior that any dam or reservoir project operated under the direction of the Secretary of War may be utilized for irrigation purposes, the Secretary of the Interior is authorized to construct, operate, and maintain, under the provisions of [the Federal reclamation laws,]... such additional works in connection therewith as he may deem necessary for irrigation purposes.... Dams and reservoirs operated under the direction of the Secretary of War may be utilized hereafter for irrigation purposes only in conformity with the provisions of this section.” §8. See 43 U. S. C. §390 (1946 ed.).
Ill
A
In light of these specific provisions, as well as the general background to the Act, it is beyond question that the Interior Secretary does not possess the authority that is claimed in this case: to execute a contract to provide water from an Army reservoir for industrial uses without obtaining the approval of the Secretary of the Army. Nobody has disputed that Lake Oahe, one of the six main-stem reservoirs on the Missouri River, was constructed by, and has been operated and maintained by, the Army Secretary, and the District Court found this to be true as a matter of fact. 586 F. Supp., at 1273-1274. The Act says explicitly that such reservoirs are “under the control of” or “under the direction of” the Army Secretary. §§ 4-6, 8. Only two provisions of the Act provide for the Interior Secretary to exercise any authority whatsoever at Army reservoirs, and in both instances the Act clearly states that the Interior Secretary’s authority is subordinate to that of the Army Secretary, who does after all “control” those reservoirs. The Interior Secretary is authorized to “transmit and dispose of” electric power and energy generated at Army reservoirs, but only when that energy is “in the opinion of the Secretary of [the Army] not required in the operation of such projects.” §5. The Interior Secretary is also authorized to recommend to the Army Secretary that an Army reservoir “be utilized for irrigation purposes,” and to “construct, operate, and maintain... such additional works in connection therewith as he may deem necessary for irrigation purposes.” § 8. But this authority only comes into play if the Army Secretary “determines” that “any dam or reservoir project operated under [the Secretary’s] direction” may be used for such purposes. Ibid. The language of the Act is plain in every respect, and the conclusion is unavoidable that if the Interior Secretary wishes to remove water from an Army reservoir for any purpose, the approval of the Army Secretary must be secured.
The precise authority claimed by the Interior Secretary in this case is to enter into a contract, without the approval of the Army, to remove from Lake Oahe water that is claimed to be available for irrigation, and to allow that water to be devoted to industrial use. Nowhere does the Act provide any support for this claimed authority, and in fact it is directly inconsistent with §§6 and 8 of the Act, which show that only the Army Secretary has that independent authority in this instance. Section 6 gives the Army Secretary the authority “to make contracts with States, municipalities, private concerns, or individuals... for domestic and industrial uses for surplus water that may be available at any reservoir” under the Secretary’s control, “Provided, That no contracts for such water shall adversely affect then existing lawful uses of such water.” The language of the Act is plain enough: “surplus water” is all water that can be made available from the reservoir without adversely affecting other lawful uses of the water. As long as ample water remains in Lake Oahe for the purposes embodied in the Act, and absent any allocation for irrigation pursuant to § 8, the Army Secretary has exclusive authority to contract to remove water for industrial uses. In this light, two of the District Court’s factual findings take on special significance. First, the District Court found no evidence “which would show that specific storage space in Oahe Reservoir was assigned to irrigation,” and “there is no evidence that separate allocations were made at Oahe.” 586 F. Supp., at 1277. Second, “there is no evidence that any Oahe water ever has been used for irrigation or will be in the near future.” Id., at 1274. In light of these facts, and the plain provisions of § 8, the Interior Secretary had no authority to dispose of Lake Oahe water. The Army Secretary might have but has not done so.
Section 8 details the procedures for utilizing water from Lake Oahe for irrigation, and only when these procedures are followed does the Interior Secretary have any authority to deal with Lake Oahe water. The Interior Secretary may recommend to the Army Secretary that an Army reservoir be utilized at least in part for irrigation purposes. If the Army Secretary determines that the reservoir may be used for this purpose, then the Interior Secretary “is authorized to construct, operate, and maintain, under the provisions of [the Federal reclamation laws,]... such additional works in connection therewith as he may deem necessary for irrigation purposes.” Congress must grant “specific authorization” for the construction of any such additional works. Water from Army reservoirs “may be utilized hereafter for irrigation purposes only in conformity with the provisions of this section.” §8. It may be recalled at this point that the Sloan Plan, which had envisioned the use of a substantial amount of water from Lake Oahe for irrigation of the James River Basin, was consistent with this approach; the Sloan Plan provided for the construction of massive additional works for irrigation comprising a system of long canals. S. Doc., at 115-116. By this means, Interior would be permitted to withdraw water from Army reservoirs through these additional works for use in irrigation, which would then bring that water under its control, and under the federal reclamation laws the Interior Secretary may reallocate irrigation water from irrigation projects to other purposes when he sees fit, as long as “it will not impair the efficiency of the project for irrigation purposes.” 43 U. S. C. §485h(c) (1946 ed.). In this case, the District Court found that the Interior Department did begin initial construction on irrigation works at Lake Oahe, but Congress later authorized the Department to cancel construction, which it did. 586 P. Supp., at 1274. As already stated, the District Court found that no water from Lake Oahe has ever been used for irrigation, ibid., and we are unaware of any such plans in the near future. Under these circumstances, the Interior Secretary is not “in conformity with the provisions of” § 8, and therefore has no authority under the Act to withdraw water from Lake Oahe, whether for irrigation or otherwise. It is likely that Lake Oahe contains surplus water, but that water is subject to disposal by the Army, not by Interior.
B
The petitioners seek to avert this conclusion by pointing to §§ 9(a) and (c) of the Act. Section 9(a) approves the “general comprehensive plans” set out in the Pick Plan and the Sloan Plan, as revised and coordinated by the final Senate Document, and authorizes the initial stages of those projects to be “prosecuted by the War Department and the Department of the Interior as speedily as may be consistent with budgetary requirements.” The petitioners contend that this statement represents congressional approval of various aspects of the functional division of authority between the Army and Interior Departments that had been suggested in those plans; in particular, the petitioners suggest that this provision allows the Interior Secretary unilaterally to remove water from Army reservoirs for irrigation purposes and for other related uses.
This contention is both wide of the mark and grounded on a misuse of the legislative history. To begin with, it would be surprising if Congress had followed up the five sections of the Act in which it explicitly established the jurisdiction of Army and Interior over specific uses of Army reservoirs, the last section of which established jurisdiction over the use of those reservoirs for irrigation, with a provision in which it indirectly made further refinements in how water could be used for irrigation, and yet did not offer the slightest indication that it was doing so. In any event, there is no reason to think that § 9(a) incorporates into the Act any additional indications about the proper division of authority between Army and Interior. On the contrary, its location in § 9 of the Act indicates that this provision was not intended as anything more than authorization for the two Departments to begin working on the projects listed in the final Senate Document. The other parts of § 9 merely harmonize the Act with existing laws and set out separate appropriations for Army and Interior to begin “the partial accomplishment of the works to be undertaken under said expanded plans,” § § 9(d) and (e), which indicates that this entire section of the Act encompasses only the necessary ministerial details to allow action to begin on the specified projects.
If there were any room for believing that § 9(a) implicitly modified the jurisdictional provisions that were plainly set forth in the preceding sections of the Act, or for doubting that it instead approved a different division of authority from that suggested in the Pick Plan and the Sloan Plan, one item in the legislative history puts this supposition entirely to rest. The original House version of the Act included language almost identical to the suggestions made in the two plans, see infra, at 511-512, which obliged the Interior Secretary “to prescribe regulations” for the use of water stored in Army reservoirs for irrigation. Hearings on H. R. 4485 before a Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Commerce, 78th Cong., 2d Sess., 2 (1944). Secretary Ickes testified at the Senate Hearings on the proposed bill that this approach did not relate very well to the reclamation laws because it “disregards the problem of allocating costs for multiple-purpose facilities serving other uses in addition to irrigation.” Id., at 458. He proposed replacing that approach instead with the language currently contained in § 8 of the Act, which was eventually enacted by Congress. Id., at 313. As noted above, §8 now provides that Army controls the main-stem reservoir projects and Interior controls all such additional irrigation works as it may “construct, operate, and maintain” at the site of those main-stem projects. One need not draw all the inferences that may be justified by this piece of legislative history in order to make it decisive here, for at the very least it directly refutes the notion that the other sections of the Act were intended to effect no changes in the division of authority between Army and Interior that had been suggested in the Pick Plan and the Sloan Plan.
Moreover, even if § 9(a) had been intended to adopt every aspect of the functional division of authority between the two Departments that had been proposed in the Pick and Sloan Plans, this section would not provide Interior with the authority to withdraw water unilaterally from Lake Oahe for irrigation and other uses in flat contradiction of § 8 of the Act. Contrary to the petitioners’ argument in this case, nothing in those two plans indicates that control over individual reservoirs was to be divided among various departments of the Federal Government. The Pick Plan, for example, emphasized that although the Department of War was willing to coordinate its activities with Interior in order to serve “the broad and important interests and responsibilities” of both agencies, “[i]t is essential, however, that the main-stem projects be built, operated, and maintained by the Corps of Engineers.” H. R. Doc., at 3-4. The War Department noted that although it would retain control of those reservoir projects, it accepted that “utilization of storage reserved for irrigation” in those reservoirs “should be in accordance with [Interior] regulations.” Id., at 4. But this accession is not at all the same as dividing control between the two agencies over the reservoir projects or the water stored in those projects, which was not contemplated in the Pick Plan. The Sloan Plan basically agreed with the approach set out in the Pick Plan, recognizing that the agency “with primary interest in the dominant function of any feature proposed in the plan should construct and operate that feature, giving full recognition, in the design, construction, and operation, to the needs of other agencies with minor interests.” S. Doc., at 11. The Sloan Plan recognized that the “dominant function” of Lake Oahe and the other main-stem reservoir projects would be flood control and navigation, and therefore these projects would come under the jurisdiction of the Army and its Corps of Engineers. Id., at 4. Even if Congress had intended to write the jurisdictional structure suggested in the Pick Plan and the Sloan Plan directly into law, therefore, it would not have extended to Interior the unilateral authority that has been claimed in this case.
The petitioners also point to §9(c) of the Act as lending support to its argument. That section states that “the reclamation and power developments to be undertaken by the Secretary of the Interior under said plans shall be governed by the Federal Reclamation Laws.” As noted already, under the reclamation laws the Interior Secretary is authorized to reallocate water under his control for industrial use as he sees fit. See n. 4, supra. By its terms, however, § 9(c) applies only to “the reclamation and power developments” undertaken by the Interior Secretary under the Act: that is, to the “transmission lines and related facilities” that §5 authorizes the Interior Secretary “to construct or acquire” for transmitting and disposing of electric power, and to the “irrigation works” that § 8 authorizes the Interior Secretary “to construct, operate, and maintain” under the reclamation laws. This provision merely stipulates that the reclamation laws, which typically apply to other Interior projects, see 43 U. S. C. §371 et seq. (1946 ed.), also apply to all the projects that Interior may undertake under the Flood Control Act. But as the District Court found, and as is readily apparent, the reservoir project engineered by the Army at Oahe is neither a “power development” nor a “reclamation development” that has been undertaken by the Interior Secretary. 586 F. Supp., at 1273-1278. On the facts of this case, § 9(c) clearly does not extend any authority to Interior to withdraw water from Lake Oahe by other means than those stated in the Act.
Not only do the language, structure, and legislative history of the Act fail to support the petitioners in this case, but the substance of their position is also difficult to fathom. The petitioners claim that the administrative structure established in the Act divides authority over Lake Oahe between Army and Interior in a novel fashion that is considerably different from what appears on the face of the Act. One possibility, which the petitioners disavow, is that Interior has the ultimate authority to use water from the reservoir for irrigation purposes and Army has the ultimate authority to use water from the reservoir for flood control and navigational purposes. This approach obviously would founder, and could give rise to endless squabbles, unless the water in the reservoir has been allocated between these uses, yet the District Court explicitly found “no evidence that separate allocations were made at Oahe,” and “one wonders how the Interior Department is to control what cannot be identified.” 586 F. Supp., at 1277. The position actually urged by the petitioners is even less straightforward than the foregoing: they argue that the Act requires Interior to consult with Army before withdrawing any water for industrial use from Lake Oahe, and does not allow Interior to withdraw water if Army objects, and yet the Act does not require Interior to obtain the approval of Army in order to withdraw water for industrial use. Tr. of Oral Arg. 14-15. The Army’s authority over Lake Oahe is thus to be understood as most closely analogous to an executive veto over legislation: Interior must offer its proposal to the Army, and cannot proceed on its own if the Army objects, but can proceed even without Army approval as long as Army does not object. This would be, to say the least, a most unusual approach to administrative jurisdiction, one that gains no support from the text of the Act, and one that we are unwilling to read into the Act as an implicit modification of its otherwise sensible and intelligible provisions.
C
The petitioners finally contend that this Court should defer to the Interior Secretary’s interpretation of the authority granted to him under the Act, which the Army apparently has acquiesced in at least for the purposes of this litigation. The petitioners also point to what they describe as a tradition of cooperation between these two Departments in the Missouri River Basin, including a period between 1975 and 1978 when they entered into a joint agreement that allowed the Interior Secretary, “both on his own behalf and as agent for the Secretary of the Army, [to] contract for the marketing of water for industrial uses” from the six main-stem reservoirs. The District Court disagreed with this historical account of the relations between Interior and the Army on this subject, and concluded that when “the chief attorneys for the two departments affected by a statute disagree, neither enjoys any deference.” 586 F. Supp., at 1280. The Court of Appeals discussed this issue very briefly, but the gist of its holding was simply that Interior’s interpretation did not even constitute a reasonable reading of the Act. 787 F. 2d, at 287.
It is unnecessary to consider the petitioners’ contention that deference to the Interior Secretary is appropriate in this case and their related arguments about the history of relations between Army and Interior under the Act, for even if Interior’s interpretation of the Act would be entitled to any deference in these circumstances, the Executive Branch is not permitted to administer the Act in a manner that is inconsistent with the administrative structure that Congress enacted into law. As this Court has stated in a recent opinion on the proper limits of deference to an agency’s construction of the statute which it administers: “If the intent of Congress is clear, that is the end of the matter; for the court, as well as the agency, must give effect to the unambiguously expressed intent of Congress.” Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837, 842-843 (1984). The Flood Control Act speaks directly to the dispute in this case, and congressional intent as expressed in the Act indicates clearly that the Interior Secretary may not enter into a contract to withdraw water from an Army reservoir for industrial use without the approval of the Department of the Army. That is “the end of the matter.” Id., at 842.
The decision of the Court of Appeals is therefore affirmed.
It is so ordered.
Justice Kennedy took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
Although the contract states that the Interior Secretary entered into it “after consultation with the Secretary of the Army,” App. 226, no party has disputed the fact that the Secretary of the Army did not expressly approve or sign the contract, which was signed on behalf of the United States by a regional director for the Interior Department’s Bureau of Reclamation. Id., at 234.
This case also has involved several procedural issues, as well as ancillary issues about the validity of the contract. Those other issues are not before this Court. Neither is there any issue presented here as to the relative interests of the United States and South Dakota in Lake Oahe water.
At one time, the Army took the view that the only “surplus water” in the main-stem reservoirs was the water that neither was held in the reservoirs nor was run through the generators to produce hydroelectric power — in other words, that no “surplus water” existed in the reservoirs themselves — apparently because it assumed that all water contained in the reservoirs “is otherwise being used” for specified purposes. Army Memorandum, Marketing of Missouri River Water for Coal Gasification, AR900407 (Dec. 16, 1974), App. 183. More recently, however, the Army has abandoned this assumption and recognized that “this interpretation of what constitutes surplus water is unnecessarily narrow.” Memorandum from Susan Crawford, General Counsel of Army, to Assistant Secretary of Army, Proposed Contracts for Municipal and Industrial Water Withdrawals from Main Stem Missouri Reservoirs 2 (March 13, 1986), App. to Brief for Respondent States 14a. Its current position is that § 6 of the Act gives the Army Secretary the same authority over “water he determines is not needed to fulfill a project purpose in Army reservoirs” that the Interior Department possesses over water contained in its own reservoir projects, namely, the authority to withdraw water for industrial use if to do so would not impair the efficiency of the project for its other stated purposes. Memorandum of Crawford 4, App. to Brief for Respondent 16a. See also Army Circular EC 1105-2-181, pp. 3-4 (Oct. 30,1987). This view is consistent with the language of the Act, for if the term “surplus water” could never include any of the water stored in the reservoirs themselves, then the caveat Congress enacted in § 6 — that this grant of authority shall not “adversely affect then existing lawful uses of such water” — would have been irrelevant because this grant of authority could never adversely affect any existing or projected uses of such water.
See also 43 U. S. C. § 521 (1946 ed.). Under that section the Interior Secretary “in connection with the operations under the reclamation law is hereby authorized to enter into contract to supply water from any project irrigation system for other purposes than irrigation... : Provided..., That no water shall be furnished for the uses aforesaid if the delivery of such water shall be detrimental to the water service for such irrigation project.” The Interior Secretary’s determination that the sale of water does not impair the irrigation purpose of a project under his control has been accorded broad deference. See, e. g., Environmental Defense Fund v. Morton, 420 F. Supp. 1037 (Mont. 1976), aff’d in part and rev’d in part, Environmental Defense Fund v. Andrus, 596 F. 2d 848 (CA9 1979).
Nothing in today’s decision, it should be emphasized, prevents the water in Lake Oahe from being put to beneficial use for industrial or other purposes. Of the 23 million acre-feet of water stored in this reservoir, by far the most part was projected for potential use in irrigation. As the District Court found, however, none of this water has been allotted for irrigation, no works have been constructed to make use of this water for irrigation, and none of this water has ever
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | I | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Stevens
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Pursuant to the Clean Water Act, 86 Stat. 816, as amended, 33 U. S. C. § 1251 et seq., the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA or Agency) issued a discharge permit to a new point source in Arkansas, about 39 miles upstream from the Oklahoma state line. The question presented in this litigation is whether the EPA’s finding that discharges from the new source would not cause a detectable violation of Oklahoma’s water quality standards satisfied the EPA’s duty to protect the interests of the downstream State. Disagreeing with the Court of Appeals, we hold that the Agency’s action was authorized by the statute.
I
In 1985, the city of Fayetteville, Arkansas, applied to the EPA, seeking a permit for the city’s new sewage treatment plant under the National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES). After the appropriate procedures, the EPA, pursuant to § 402(a)(1) of the Act, 33 U. S. C. § 1342(a)(1), issued a permit authorizing the plant to discharge up to half of its effluent (to a limit of 6.1 million gallons per day) into an unnamed stream in northwestern Arkansas. That flow passes through a series of three creeks for about 17 miles, and then enters the Illinois River at a point 22 miles upstream from the Arkansas-Oklahoma border.
The permit imposed specific limitations on the quantity, content, and character of the discharge and also included a number of special conditions, including a provision that if a study then underway indicated that more stringent limitations were necessary to ensure compliance with Oklahoma’s water quality standards, the permit would be modified to incorporate those limits. App. 84.
Respondents challenged this permit before the EPA, alleging, inter alia, that the discharge violated the Oklahoma water quality standards. Those standards provide that “no degradation [of water quality] shall be allowed” in the upper Illinois River, including the portion of the river immediately downstream from the state line.
Following a hearing, the Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) concluded that the Oklahoma standards would not be implicated unless the contested discharge had “something more than a mere de minimis impact” on the State’s waters. He found that the discharge would not have an “undue impact” on Oklahoma’s waters and, accordingly, affirmed the issuance of the permit. App. to Pet. for Cert, in No. 90-1262, pp. 101a-103a (emphasis deleted).
On a petition for review, the EPA’s Chief Judicial Officer first ruled that § 301(b)(1)(C) of the Clean Water Act “requires an NPDES permit to impose any effluent limitations necessary to comply with applicable state water quality standards.” Id., at 116a-117a. He then held that the Act and EPA regulations offered greater protection for the downstream State than the ALJ’s “undue impact” standard suggested. He explained the proper standard as follows:
“[A] mere theoretical impairment of Oklahoma’s water quality standards — i. e., an infinitesimal impairment predicted through modeling but not expected to be actually detectable or measurable — should not by itself block the issuance of the permit. In this case, the permit should be upheld if the record shows by a preponderance of the evidence that the authorized discharges would not cause an actual detectable violation of Oklahoma’s water quality standards.” Id., at 117a (emphasis in original).
On remand, the ALJ made detailed findings of fact and concluded that the city had satisfied the standard set forth by the Chief Judicial Officer. Specifically, the ALJ found that there would be no detectable violation of any of the components of Oklahoma’s water quality standards. Id., at 127a-143a. The Chief Judicial Officer sustained the issuance of the permit. Id., at 145a-153a.
Both the petitioners in No. 90-1262 (collectively Arkansas) and the respondents in this litigation sought judicial review. Arkansas argued that the Clean Water Act did not require an Arkansas point source to comply with Oklahoma’s water quality standards. Oklahoma challenged the EPA’s determination that the Fayetteville discharge would not produce a detectable violation of the Oklahoma standards.
The Court of Appeals did not accept either of these arguments. The court agreed with the EPA that the statute required compliance with Oklahoma’s water quality standards, see 908 F. 2d 595, 602-615 (CA10 1990), and did not disagree with the Agency’s determination that the discharges from the Fayetteville plant would not produce a detectable violation of those standards. Id., at 631-633. Nevertheless, relying on a theory that neither party had advanced, the Court of Appeals reversed the Agency’s issuance of the Fayette-ville permit. The court first ruled that the statute requires that “where a proposed source would discharge effluents that would contribute to conditions currently constituting a violation of applicable water quality standards, such [a] proposed source may not be permitted.” Id., at 620. Then the court found that the Illinois River in Oklahoma was “already degraded,” that the Fayetteville effluent would reach the Illinois River in Oklahoma, and that that effluent could “be expected to contribute to the ongoing deterioration of the scenic [Illinois R]iver” in Oklahoma even though it would not detectably affect the river’s water quality. Id., at 621-629.
The importance and the novelty of the Court of Appeals’ decision persuaded us to grant certiorari. 499 U. S. 946 (1991). We now reverse.
II
Interstate waters have been a font of controversy since the founding of the Nation. E. g., Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1 (1824). This Court has frequently resolved disputes between States that are separated by a common river, see, e. g., Ohio v. Kentucky, 444 U. S. 335 (1980), that border the same body of water, see, e. g., New York v. New Jersey, 256 U. S. 296 (1921), or that are fed by the same river basin, see, e. g., New Jersey v. New York, 283 U. S. 336 (1931).
Among these cases are controversies between a State that introduces pollutants to a waterway and a downstream State that objects. See, e. g., Missouri v. Illinois, 200 U. S. 496 (1906). In such cases, this Court has applied principles of common law tempered by a respect for the sovereignty of the States. Compare id., at 521, with Georgia v. Tennessee Copper Co., 206 U. S. 230, 237 (1907). In forging what “may not improperly be called interstate common law,” Illinois v. Milwaukee, 406 U. S. 91, 105-106 (1972) (Milwaukee I), however, we remained aware “that new federal laws and new federal regulations may in time pre-empt the field of federal common law of nuisance.” Id., at 107.
In Milwaukee v. Illinois, 451 U. S. 304 (1981) (Milwaukee II), we held that the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972 did just that. In addressing Illinois’ claim that Milwaukee’s discharges into Lake Michigan constituted a nuisance, we held that the comprehensive regulatory regime created by the 1972 amendments pre-empted Illinois’ federal common law remedy. We observed that Congress had addressed many of the problems we had identified in Milwaukee I by providing a downstream State with an opportunity for a hearing before the source State’s permitting agency, by requiring the latter to explain its failure to accept any recommendations offered by the downstream State, and by authorizing the EPA, in its discretion, to veto a source State’s issuance of any permit if the waters of another State may be affected. Milwaukee II, 451 U. S., at 325-326.
In Milwaukee II, the Court did not address whether the 1972 amendments had supplanted state common law remedies as well as the federal common law remedy. See id., at 310, n. 4. On remand, Illinois argued that § 510 of the Clean Water Act, 33 U. S. C. § 1370, expressly preserved the State’s right to adopt and enforce rules that are more stringent than federal standards. The Court of Appeals accepted Illinois’ reading of § 510, but held that that section did “no more than to save the right and jurisdiction of a state to regulate activity occurring within the confines of its boundary waters.” Illinois v. Milwaukee, 731 F. 2d 403, 413 (CA7 1984), cert. denied, 469 U. S. 1196 (1985).
This Court subsequently endorsed that analysis in International Paper Co. v. Ouellette, 479 U. S. 481 (1987), in which Vermont property owners claimed that the pollution discharged into Lake Champlain by a paper company located in New York constituted a nuisance under Vermont law. The Court held the Clean Water Act taken “as a whole, its purposes and its history” pre-empted an action based on the law of the affected State and that the only state law applicable to an interstate discharge is “the law of the State in which the point source is located.” Id., at 493, 487. Moreover, in reviewing § 402(b) of the Act, the Court pointed out that when a new permit is being issued by the source State’s permit-granting agency, the downstream State
“does not have the authority to block the issuance of the permit if it is dissatisfied with the proposed standards. An affected State’s only recourse is to apply to the EPA Administrator, who then has the discretion to disapprove the permit if he concludes that the discharges will have an undue impact on interstate waters. § 1342(d)(2).... Thus the Act makes it clear that affected States occupy a subordinate position to source States in the federal regulatory program.” Id., at 490-491.
Unlike the foregoing cases, this litigation involves not a state-issued permit, but a federally issued permit. To explain the significance of this distinction, we comment further on the statutory scheme before addressing the specific issues raised by the parties.
Ill
The Clean Water Act anticipates a partnership between the States and the Federal Government, animated by a shared objective: “to restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the Nation’s waters.” 33 U. S. C. § 1251(a). Toward this end, the Act provides for two sets of water quality measures. “Effluent limitations” are promulgated by the EPA and restrict the quantities, rates, and concentrations of specified substances which are discharged from point sources. See §§1311, 1314. “[W]ater quality standards” are, in general, promulgated by the States and establish the desired condition of a waterway. See §1313. These standards supplement effluent limitations “so that numerous point sources, despite individual compliance with effluent limitations, may be further regulated to prevent water quality from falling below acceptable levels.” EPA v. California ex rel. State Water Resources Control Bd., 426 U. S. 200, 205, n. 12 (1976).
The EPA provides States with substantial guidance in the drafting of water quality standards. See generally 40 CFR pt. 131 (1991) (setting forth model water quality standards). Moreover, §303 of the Act requires, inter alia, that state authorities periodically review water quality standards and secure the EPA’s approval of any revisions in the standards. If the EPA recommends changes to the standards and the State fails to comply with that recommendation, the Act authorizes the EPA to promulgate water quality standards for the State. 33 U. S. C. § 1313(c).
The primary means for enforcing these limitations and standards is the NPDES, enacted in 1972 as a critical part of Congress’ “complete rewriting” of federal water pollution law. Milwaukee II, 451 U. S., at 317. Section 301(a) of the Act, 33 U. S. C. § 1311(a), generally prohibits the discharge of any effluent into a navigable body of water unless the point source has obtained an NPDES permit. Section 402 establishes the NPDES permitting regime, and describes two types of permitting systems: state permit programs that must satisfy federal requirements and be approved by the EPA, and a federal program administered by the EPA.
Section 402(b) authorizes each State to establish “its own permit program for discharges into navigable waters within its jurisdiction.” 33 U. S. C. § 1342(b). Among the requirements the state program must satisfy are the procedural protections for downstream States discussed in Ouellette and Milwaukee II. See §§ 1342(b)(3), (5). Although these provisions do not authorize the downstream State to veto the issuance of a permit for a new point source in another State, the Administrator retains authority to block the issuance of any state-issued permit that is “outside the guidelines and requirements” of the Act. § 1342(d)(2).
In the absence of an approved state program, the EPA may issue an NPDES permit under § 402(a) of the Act. (In these cases, for example, because Arkansas had not been authorized to issue NPDES permits when the Fayetteville plant was completed, the permit was issued by the EPA itself.) The EPA’s permit program is subject to the “same terms, conditions, and requirements” as a state permit program. 33 U. S. C. § 1342(a)(3). Notwithstanding this general symmetry, the EPA has construed the Act as requiring that EPA-issued NPDES permits also comply with § 401(a). That section, which predates § 402 and the NPDES, applies to a broad category of federal licenses, and sets forth requirements for “[a]ny applicant for a Federal license or permit to conduct any activity including, but not limited to, the construction or operation of facilities, which may result in any discharge into the navigable waters.” 33 U. S. C. § 1341(a). Section 401(a)(2) appears to prohibit the issuance of any federal license or permit over the objection of an affected State unless compliance with the affected State’s water quality requirements can be ensured.
) — I <!
The parties have argued three analytically distinct questions concerning the interpretation of the Clean Water Act. First, does the Act require the EPA, in crafting and issuing a permit to a point source in one State, to apply the water quality standards of downstream States? Second, even if the Act does not require as much, does the Agency have the statutory authority to mandate such compliance? Third, does the Act provide, as the Court of Appeals held, that once a body of water fails to meet water quality standards no discharge that yields effluent that reach the degraded waters will be permitted?
In these cases, it is neither necessary nor prudent for us to resolve the first of these questions. In issuing the Fay-etteville permit, the EPA assumed it was obligated by both the Act and its own regulations to ensure that the Fayette-ville discharge would not violate Oklahoma’s standards. See App. to Pet. for Cert, in No. 90-1262, pp. 116a-117a, and n. 14. As we discuss below, this assumption was permissible and reasonable and therefore there is no need for us to address whether the Act requires as much. Moreover, much of the analysis and argument in the briefs of the parties relies on statutory provisions that govern not only federal permits issued pursuant to §§ 401(a) and 402(a), but also state permits issued under § 402(b). It seems unwise to evaluate those arguments in a case such as these, which only involve a federal permit.
Our decision not to determine at this time the scope of the Agency’s statutory obligations does not affect our resolution of the second question, which concerns the Agency’s statutory authority. Even if the Clean Water Act itself does not require the Fayetteville discharge to comply with Oklahoma’s water quality standards, the statute clearly does not limit the EPA’s authority to mandate such compliance.
Since 1973, EPA regulations have provided that an NPDES permit shall not be issued “[w]hen the imposition of conditions cannot ensure compliance with the applicable water quality requirements of all affected States.” 40 CFR § 122.4(d) (1991); see also 38 Fed. Reg. 13533 (1973); 40 CFR § 122.44(d) (1991). Those regulations — relied upon by the EPA in the issuance of the Fayetteville permit— constitute a reasonable exercise of the Agency’s statutory authority.
Congress has vested in the Administrator broad discretion to establish conditions for NPDES permits. Section 402(a) (2) provides that for EPA-issued permits “[t]he Administrator shall prescribe conditions... to assure compliance with the requirements of [§ 402(a)(1)] and such other requirements as he deems appropriate.” 33 U. S. C. § 1342(a)(2) (emphasis added). Similarly, Congress preserved for the Administrator broad authority to oversee state permit programs:
“No permit shall issue... if the Administrator... objects in writing to the issuance of such permit as being outside the guidelines and requirements of this chapter.” § 1342(d)(2).
The regulations relied on by the EPA were a perfectly reasonable exercise of the Agency’s statutory discretion. The application of state water quality standards in the interstate context is wholly consistent with the Act’s broad purpose “to restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the Nation’s waters.” 33 U. S. C. § 1251(a). Moreover, as noted above, § 301(b)(1)(C) expressly identifies the achievement of state water quality standards as one of the Act’s central objectives. The Agency’s regulations conditioning NPDES permits are a well-tailored means of achieving this goal.
Notwithstanding this apparent reasonableness, Arkansas argues that our description in Ouellette of the role of affected States in the permit process and our characterization of the affected States’ position as “subordinate,” see 479 U. S., at 490-491, indicates that the EPA’s application of the Oklahoma standards was error. We disagree. Our statement in Ouellette concerned only an affected State’s input into the permit process; that input is clearly limited by the plain language of § 402(b). Limits on an affected State’s direct participation in permitting decisions, however, do not in any way constrain the EPA’s authority to require a point source to comply with downstream water quality standards.
Arkansas also argues that regulations requiring compliance with downstream standards are at odds with the legislative history of the Act and with the statutory scheme established by the Act. Although we agree with Arkansas that the Act’s legislative history indicates that Congress intended to grant the Administrator discretion in his oversight of the issuance of NPDES permits, we find nothing in that history to indicate that Congress intended to preclude the EPA from establishing a general requirement that such permits be conditioned to ensure compliance with downstream water quality standards.
Similarly, we agree with Arkansas that in the Clean Water Act Congress struck a careful balance among competing policies and interests, but do not find the EPA regulations concerning the application of downstream water quality standards at all incompatible with that balance. Congress, in crafting the Act, protected certain sovereign interests of the States; for example, §510 allows States to adopt more demanding pollution-control standards than those established under the Act. Arkansas emphasizes that §510 preserves such state authority only as it is applied to the waters of the regulating State. Even assuming Arkansas’ construction of § 510 is correct, cf. id., at 493, that section only concerns state authority and does not constrain the EPA’s authority to promulgate reasonable regulations requiring point sources in one State to comply with water quality standards in downstream States.
For these reasons, we find the EPA’s requirement that the Fayetteville discharge comply with Oklahoma’s water quality standards to be a reasonable exercise of the Agency’s substantial statutory discretion. Cf. Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837, 842-845 (1984).
V
The Court of Appeals construed the Clean Water Act to prohibit any discharge of effluent that would reach waters already in violation of existing water quality standards. We find nothing in the Act to support this reading.
The interpretation of the statute adopted by the court had not been advanced by any party during the Agency or court proceedings. Moreover, the Court of Appeals candidly acknowledged that its theory “has apparently never before been addressed by a federal court.” 908 F. 2d, at 620, n. 39. The only statutory provision the court cited to support its legal analysis was § 402(h), see id., at 633, which merely authorizes the EPA (or a state permit program) to prohibit a publicly owned treatment plant that is violating a condition of its NPDES permit from accepting any additional pollutants for treatment until the ongoing violation has been corrected. See 33 U. S. C. § 1342(h).
Although the Act contains several provisions directing compliance with state water quality standards, see, e. g., § 1311(b)(1)(C), the parties have pointed to nothing that mandates a complete ban on discharges into a waterway that is in violation of those standards. The statute does, however, contain provisions designed to remedy existing water quality violations and to allocate the burden of reducing undesirable discharges between existing sources and new sources. See, e. g., § 1313(d). Thus, rather than establishing the categorical ban announced by the Court of Appeals — which might frustrate the construction of new plants that would improve existing conditions — the Clean Water Act vests in the EPA and the States broad authority to develop long-range, area-wide programs to alleviate and eliminate existing pollution. See, e. g., § 1288(b)(2).
To the extent that the Court of Appeals relied on its interpretation of the Act to reverse the EPA’s permitting decision, that reliance was misplaced.
>
The Court of Appeals also concluded that the EPAs issuance of the Fayetteville permit was arbitrary and capricious because the Agency misinterpreted Oklahoma’s water quality standards. The primary difference between the court’s and the Agency’s interpretation of the standards derives from the court’s construction of the Act. Contrary to the EPA’s interpretation of the Oklahoma standards, the Court of Appeals read those standards as containing the same categorical ban on new discharges that the court had found in the Clean Water Act itself. Although we do not believe the text of the Oklahoma standards supports the court’s reading (indeed, we note that Oklahoma itself had not advanced that interpretation in its briefs in the Court of Appeals), we reject it for a more fundamental reason — namely, that the Court of Appeals exceeded the legitimate scope of judicial review of an agency adjudication. To emphasize the importance of this point, we shall first briefly assess the soundness of the EPA’s interpretation and application of the Oklahoma standards and then comment more specifically on the Court of Appeals’ approach.
As discussed above, an EPA regulation requires an NPDES permit to comply “with the applicable water quality requirements of all affected States.” 40 CFR § 122.4(d) (1991). This regulation effectively incorporates into federal law those state-law standards the Agency reasonably determines to be “applicable.” In such a situation, then, state water quality standards — promulgated by the States with substantial guidance from the EPA and approved by the Agency — are part of the federal law of water pollution control.
Two features of the body of law governing water pollution support this conclusion. First, as discussed more thoroughly above, we have long recognized that interstate water pollution is controlled by federal law. See supra, at 98-100. Recognizing that the system of federally approved state standards as applied in the interstate context constitutes federal law is wholly consistent with this principle. Second, treating state standards in interstate controversies as federal law accords with the Act’s purpose of authorizing the EPA to create and manage a uniform system of interstate water pollution regulation.
Because we recognize that, at least insofar as they affect the issuance of a permit in another State, the Oklahoma standards have a federal character, the EPA’s reasonable, consistently held interpretation of those standards is entitled to substantial deference. Cf. INS v. National Center for Immigrants’ Rights, 502 U. S. 183, 189-190 (1991); Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837 (1984). In these cases, the Chief Judicial Officer ruled that the Oklahoma standards — which require that there be “no degradation” of the upper Illinois River — would only be violated if the discharge effected an “actually detectable or measurable” change in water quality. App. to Pet. for Cert, in No. 90-1262, p. 117a.
This interpretation of the Oklahoma standards is certainly reasonable and consistent with the purposes and principles of the Clean Water Act. As the Chief Judicial Officer noted, “unless there is some method for measuring compliance, there is no way to ensure compliance.” Id., at 118a, n. 16 (internal quotation marks omitted; citation omitted). Moreover, this interpretation of the Oklahoma standards makes eminent sense in the interstate context: If every discharge that had some theoretical impact on a downstream State were interpreted as “degrading” the downstream waters, downstream States might wield an effective veto over upstream discharges.
The EPA’s application of those standards in these cases was also sound. On remand, the ALJ scrutinized the record and made explicit factual findings regarding four primary measures of water quality under the Oklahoma standards: eutrophication, esthetics, dissolved oxygen, and metals. In each case, the ALJ found that the Fayetteville discharge would not lead to a detectable change in water quality. He therefore concluded that the Fayetteville discharge would not violate the Oklahoma water quality standards. Because we agree with the Agency’s Chief Judicial Officer that these findings are supported by substantial evidence, we conclude that the Court of Appeals should have affirmed both the EPA’s construction of the regulations and the issuance of the Fayetteville permit.
In its review of the EPA’s interpretation and application of the Oklahoma standards, the Court of Appeals committed three mutually compounding errors.
First, the court failed to give due regard to the EPA’s interpretation of its own regulations, as those regulations incorporate the Oklahoma standards. Instead the court voiced its own interpretation of the governing law and concluded that “where a proposed source would discharge effluents that would contribute to conditions currently constituting a violation of applicable water quality standards, such [a] proposed source may not be permitted.” 908 F. 2d, at 620. As we have already pointed out, that reading of the law is not supported by the statute or by any EPA regulation. The Court of Appeals sat in review of an agency action and should have afforded the EPA’s interpretation of the governing law an appropriate level of deference. See generally Chevron, supra, at 842-844.
Second, the court disregarded well-established standards for reviewing the factual findings of agencies and instead made its own factual findings. The troubling nature of the court’s analysis appears on the face of the opinion itself: At least four times, the court concluded that “there was substantial evidence before the ALJ to support” particular findings which the court thought appropriate, but which were contrary to those actually made by the ALJ. 908 F. 2d, at 620, 625, 627, 629. Although we have long recognized the “substantial evidence” standard in administrative law, the court below turned that analysis on its head. A court reviewing an agency’s adjudicative action should accept the agency’s factual findings if those findings are supported by substantial evidence on the record as a whole. See generally Universal Camera Corp. v. NLRB, 340 U. S. 474 (1951). The court should not supplant the agency’s findings merely by identifying alternative findings that could be supported by substantial evidence.
Third, the court incorrectly concluded that the EPA’s decision was arbitrary and capricious. This error is derivative of the court’s first two errors. Having substituted its reading of the governing law for the Agency’s, and having made its own factual findings, the Court of Appeals concluded that the EPA erred in not considering an important and relevant fact — namely, that the upper Illinois River was (by the court’s assessment) already degraded.
As we have often recognized, an agency ruling is “arbitrary and capricious if the agency has... entirely failed to consider an important aspect of the problem.” Motor Vehicle Mfrs. Assn. of United States, Inc. v. State Farm Mut. Automobile Ins. Co., 463 U. S. 29, 43 (1983). However, in these cases, the degraded status of the river is only an “important aspect” because of the Court of Appeals’ novel and erroneous interpretation of the controlling law. Under the EPA’s interpretation of that law, what matters is not the river’s current status, but rather whether the proposed discharge will have a “detectable effect” on that status. If the Court of Appeals had been properly respectful of the Agency’s permissible reading of the Act and the Oklahoma standards, the court would not have adjudged the Agency’s decision arbitrary and capricious for this reason.
In sum, the Court of Appeals made a policy choice that it was not authorized to make. Arguably, as that court suggested, it might be wise to prohibit any discharge into the Illinois River, even if that discharge would have no adverse impact on water quality. But it was surely not arbitrary for the EPA to conclude — given the benefits to the river from the increased flow of relatively clean water and the benefits achieved in Arkansas by allowing the new plant to operate as designed — that allowing the discharge would be even wiser. It is not our role, or that of the Court of Appeals, to decide which policy choice is the better one, for it is clear that Congress has entrusted such decisions to the Environmental Protection Agency.
Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Reversed.
The permit also authorized the plant to discharge the remainder of its effluent into the White River, a river that does not flow into Oklahoma; this aspect of the permit is not at issue in this litigation.
Section 5 of the Oklahoma water quality standards provides:
“All streams and bodies of water designated as (a) are protected by prohibition of any new point source discharge of wastes or increased load from an existing point source except under conditions described in Section 3.
“All streams designated by the State as ‘scenic river areas,’ and such tributaries of those streams as may be appropriate will be so designated. Best management practices for control of nonpoint source discharge should be initiated when feasible.” App. 46-47.
Oklahoma has designated the portion of the Illinois River immediately downstream from the state line as a “scenic river.” Okla. Stat., Tit. 82, § 1462(b)(1) (Supp. 1989); see also App. 54.
Section 3 of the Oklahoma water quality standards provides, in relevant part:
“The intent of the Anti-degradation Policy is to protect all waters of the State from quality degradation. Existing instream water uses shall be maintained and protected. No further water quality degradation which would interfere with or become injurious to existing instream water uses shall be allowed. Oklahoma’s waters constitute a valuable State resource and shall be protected, maintained and improved for the benefit of all the citizens.
“No degradation shall be allowed in high quality waters which constitute an outstanding resource or in waters of exceptional recreational or ecological significance. These include water bodies located in national and State parks, Wildlife Refuges, and those designated ‘Scenic Rivers’ in Appendix A.” App. 27-28.
Section 301(b)(1)(C) provides, in relevant part, that
“there shall be achieved—
“(C) not later than July 1,1977, any more stringent limitation, including those necessary to meet water quality standards... established pursuant to any State law or regulations... or required to implement any applicable water quality standard established pursuant to this chapter.” 33 U. S. C. § 1311(b)(1)(C) (emphasis added).
The Arkansas petition was filed in the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit and transferred to the Tenth Circuit where it was consolidated with the petition filed by the respondents.
Section 510 provides in relevant part:
“Except as expressly provided in this [Act], nothing in this [Act] shall (1) preclude or deny the right of any State or political subdivision thereof or interstate agency to adopt or enforce (A) any standard or limitation respecting discharges of pollutants, or (B) any requirement respecting control or abatement of pollution [with exceptions]; or (2) be construed as impairing or in any manner affecting any right or jurisdiction of the States with respect to the waters (including boundary waters) of such States.” 33 U. S. C. § 1370 (emphasis added).
This description of the downstream State’s role in the issuance of a new permit by a source State was apparently consistent with the EPA’s interpretation of the Act at the time. The Government’s amicus curiae brief in Ouelletie stated that “the affected neighboring state [has] only an advisory role in the formulation of applicable effluent standards or limitations. The affected state may try to persuade the federal government or the source state to increase effluent requirements, but ultimately possesses no statutory authority to compel that result, even when its waters are adversely affected by out-of-state pollution. See 33 U. S. C. § 1341(a)(2), 1342(b)(3) and (5)....” Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae, O. T. 1986, No. 85-1233, p. 19 (emphasis added; footnote omitted).
Section 402(b) requires state permit programs
“(3) [t]o insure that... any other State the waters of which may be affected... receive notice of each application for a permit and to provide an opportunity for public hearing before a ruling on each such application;
“(5) [t]o insure that any State (other than the permitting State), whose waters may be affected by the issuance of a permit may submit written recommendations to the permitting State (and the Administrator) with respect to any permit application and, if any part of such written recommendations are not accepted by the permitting State, that the permitting State will notify such affected State (and the Administrator) in writing of its failure to so accept such recommendations together with its reasons for so doing.” 33 U. S. C. § 1342(b).
Although § 402(b) focuses on state-issued permits, § 402(a)(3) requires that, in issuing an NPDES permit, the Administrator follow the same procedures required of state permit programs. See 33 U. S. C. § 1342(a)(3); see also § 1341(a)(2).
Section 402(d)(2) provides:
“(2) No permit shall issue (A) if the Administrator within ninety days of the date of his notification under subsection (b)(5) of this section objects in writing to the issuance of such permit, or (B) if the Administrator within ninety days of the date of transmittal of the proposed permit by the State objects in writing to the issuance of such permit as being outside the guidelines and requirements of this chapter. Whenever the Administrator objects to the issuance of a permit under this paragraph such written objection shall contain a statement of the reasons for such objection and the effluent limitations and conditions which such permit would include if it were issued by the Administrator.” 33 U. S. C. §'1342(d)(2).
Section 401(a)(2) provides, in relevant part:
“Whenever such a discharge may affect, as determined by the Administrator, the quality of the waters of any other State, the Administrator... shall so notify such other State, the licensing or permitting agency, and the applicant. If, within sixty days after receipt of such notification, such other State determines that such discharge will affect the quality of its waters so as to violate any water quality requirements in such State, and
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | H | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Chief Justice Rehnquist
delivered the opinion of the Court.
In Choctaw Nation v. Oklahoma, 397 U. S. 620 (1970), the Court determined that certain treaties between the Cherokee, Chickasaw, and Choctaw Tribes and the United States granted to the Tribes fee simple title to the riverbed underlying specified portions of the Arkansas River in Oklahoma. The Court found the circumstances sufficient to overcome the “strong presumption against conveyance by the United States” of title to the bed of a navigable water. Montana v. United States, 450 U. S. 544, 552 (1981). See United States v. Holt State Bank, 270 U. S. 49 (1926). The question presented in this case is whether the United States must pay the Cherokee Nation compensation for damage to these riverbed interests caused by navigational improvements which it has made on the Arkansas River. The damage to sand and gravel deposits resulted from the McClellan-Kerr Project, approved by Congress in 1946, Act of July 24, 1946, ch. 595, 60 Stat. 634, 635-636, and designed to improve navigation by construction of a channel in the Arkansas River from its mouth at the Mississippi to Catoosa, Oklahoma. The project was completed in 1971.
After our decision in Choctaw Nation, the Cherokee Nation sought compensation from the Government. Congress refused to fund the claim after the Department of the Interior and the Army Corps of Engineers concluded that the United States’ navigational servitude rendered it meritless. See Department of the Interior and Related Agencies Appropriations for 1980: Hearings Before a Subcommittee of the House Committee on Appropriations, 96th Cong., 1st Sess., pt. 7, pp. 379-892 (1979). Congress did, however, provide respondent with the opportunity to seek judicial relief, conferring jurisdiction on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma to determine “any claim which the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma may have against the United States for any and all damages to Cherokee tribal assets related to and arising from the construction of the [McClellan-Kerr Project].” H. R. 2329, 97th Cong., 1st Sess. (1981).
The Cherokee Nation filed a complaint contending that the construction of the McClellan-Kerr Project resulted in a taking under the Fifth Amendment of the Tribe’s riverbed interests without just compensation. The United States in response claimed that its navigational servitude precluded liability for the alleged taking. The District Court granted the Tribe’s motion for summary judgment, finding that the decision in Choctaw Nation created a “unique situation by which a portion of the navigable Arkansas River is, essentially, a private waterway belonging exclusively to the Cherokee Nation.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 26a. Because the United States did not reserve its navigational servitude in the relevant treaties, the court held, it owed the Tribe just compensation, id., at 27a.
A divided panel of the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit affirmed, adopting a different analysis. 782 F. 2d 871 (1986). The court rejected the District Court’s conclusion that the United States’ failure to reserve its navigational servitude defeated that interest. It found it “certain [that] the United States retained a navigational servitude in the Arkansas River.” Id., at 876. Nevertheless, the court held that the servitude was insufficient to protect the United States from liability. Finding that “the assertion of a navigational servitude on particular waters acknowledges only that the property owner’s right to use these waters is shared with the public at large,” id., at 877, the court believed that the effect of the navigational servitude varied with the owner’s intended use: “When the exercise of that public power affects private ownership rights not connected to a navigational use, the court must balance the public and private interests to decide whether just compensation is due.” Ibid. Applying this test, the court concluded that though the Cherokee Nation could not interfere with the United States’ exercise of the navigational servitude, it had a right to compensation for any consequent loss of property or diminution in value.
We think the Court of Appeals erred in formulating a balancing test to evaluate this assertion of the navigational servitude. No such “balancing” is required where, as here, the interference with in-stream interests results from an exercise of the Government’s power to regulate navigational uses of “the deep streams which penetrate our country in every direction.” Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 195 (1824). Though “this Court has never held that the navigational servitude creates a blanket exception to the Takings Clause whenever Congress exercises its Commerce Clause authority to promote navigation,” Kaiser Aetna v. United States, 444 U. S. 164, 172 (1979), there can be no doubt that “[t]he Commerce Clause confers a unique position upon the Government in connection with navigable waters.” United States v. Rands, 389 U. S. 121, 122 (1967). It gives to the Federal Government “a ‘dominant servitude/ FPC v. Niagara Mohawk Power Corp., 347 U. S. 239, 249 (1954), which extends to the entire stream and the stream bed below ordinary high-water mark. The proper exercise of this power is not an invasion of any private property rights in the stream or the lands underlying it, for the damage sustained does not result from taking property from riparian owners within the meaning of the Fifth Amendment but from the lawful exercise of a power to which the interests of riparian owners have always been subject.” Rands, supra, at 123. See also United States v. Kansas City Life Ins. Co., 339 U. S. 799, 808 (1950); Scranton v. Wheeler, 179 U. S. 141, 163 (1900).
The application of these principles to interference with streambed interests has not depended on balancing this valid public purpose in light of the intended use of those interests by the owner. Thus, in Lewis Blue Point Oyster Cultivation Co. v. Briggs, 229 U. S. 82 (1913), the Court held that no taking occurred where dredging carried out under the direction of the United States destroyed oysters that had been cultivated on privately held lands under the waters of the Great South Bay in New York. The decision rested on the view that the dominant right of navigation “must include the right to use the bed of the water for every purpose which is in aid of navigation.” Id., at 87. The Court did not rely on the particular use to which the private owners put the bed, but rather observed that their very title to the submerged lands “is acquired and held subject to the power of Congress to deepen the water over such lands or to use them for any structure which the interest of navigation, in its judgment, may require.” Id., at 88. See also United States v. Commodore Park, 324 U. S. 386, 390 (1945); United States v. Chicago, M., St. P. & P. R. Co., 312 U. S. 592, 596-597 (1941).
These well-established principles concerning the exercise of the United States’ dominant servitude would, in the usual case, dictate that we reject respondent’s “takings” claim. We do not understand respondent to argue otherwise. See e. g., Brief in Opposition 11 — 12; Tr. of Oral Arg. 16, 28-29. Instead, the Cherokee Nation asserts that its title to the Arkansas River bed is unique in scope and that interference with that interest requires just compensation. Respondent does not rely explicitly on any language of the relevant treaties, but rather on its reading of Choctaw Nation v. Oklahoma, 397 U. S. 620 (1970). We have noted that Choctaw Nation involved “very peculiar circumstances,” Montana v. United States, 450 U. S., at 555, n. 5, in that “the Indians were promised virtually complete sovereignty over their new lands.” Choctaw Nation, swpra, at 635. These circumstances allowed the claimants to overcome the strong presumption against conveyance of riverbed interests by the United States, designed to protect the interests of the States under the equal-footing doctrine. See Montana v. United States, supra, at 551-553; Shively v. Bowlby, 152 U. S. 1, 48-50 (1894). Respondent urges that these circumstances further indicate that the United States abandoned its navigational servitude in the area. Thus, in respondent’s view, the treaties by which it gained fee simple title to the bed of the Arkansas River were such as to make the Arkansas River a “private stream,” Brief for Respondent 28, “not intended as a public highway or artery of commerce.” Id., at 23.
We think that the decision in Choctaw Nation was quite generous to respondent, and we refuse to give a still more expansive and novel reading of respondent’s property interests. There is certainly nothing in Choctaw Nation itself that suggests such a broad reading of the conveyance. To the contrary, the Court expressly noted that the United States had no interest in retaining title to the submerged lands because “it had all it was concerned with in its navigational easement via the constitutional power over commerce.” Choctaw Nation, supra, at 635 (emphasis added). The parties, including respondent here, clearly understood that the navigational servitude was dominant no matter how the question of riverbed ownership was resolved. See, e. g., Brief for Petitioner in Cherokee Nation v. Oklahoma, O. T. 1969, No. 59, p. 19 (“[T]here is nothing in the conveyance of title to the land beneath the navigable waters which conflicts with the power of the Government to hold such lands for navigation”).
Any other conclusion would be wholly extraordinary, for we have repeatedly held that the navigational servitude applies to all holders of riparian and riverbed interests. See Montana v. United States, supra, at 555; United States v. Grand River Dam Authority, 363 U. S. 229, 233 (1960); United States v. Chandler-Dunbar Water Power Co., 229 U. S. 53, 63 (1913), citing Gibson v. United States, 166 U. S. 269, 271 (1897). Indeed, even when the sovereign States gain “the absolute right to all their navigable waters and the soils under them for their own common use” by operation of the equal-footing doctrine, Martin v. Waddell, 16 Pet. 367, 410 (1842), this “absolute right” is unquestionably subject to “the paramount power of the United States to ensure that such waters remain free to interstate and foreign commerce.” Montana v. United States, supra, at 551. If the States themselves are subject to this servitude, we cannot conclude that respondent — though granted a degree of sovereignty over tribal lands — gained an exemption from the servitude simply because it received title to the riverbed interests. Such a waiver of sovereign authority will not be implied, but instead must be “‘surrendered in unmistakable terms.’” Bowen v. Public Agencies Opposed to Social Security Entrapment, 477 U. S. 41, 52 (1986), quoting Merrion v. Jicarilla Apache Tribe, 455 U. S. 130, 148 (1982). Respondent can point to no such terms.
We also reject respondent’s suggestion that the fiduciary obligations of the United States elevate the Government’s actions into a taking. It is, of course, well established that the Government in its dealings with Indian tribal property acts in a fiduciary capacity. See Seminole Nation v. United States, 316 U. S. 286, 296-297 (1942). When it holds lands in trust on behalf of the tribes, the United States may not “give the tribal lands to others, or . . . appropriate them to its own purposes, without rendering, or assuming an obligation to render, just compensation for them.” United States v. Creek Nation, 295 U. S. 103, 110 (1935). These principles, however, do little to aid respondent’s cause, for they do not create property rights where none would otherwise exist but rather presuppose that the United States has interfered with existing tribal property interests. As we have explained, the tribal interests at issue here simply do not include the right to be free from the navigational servitude, for exercise of the servitude is “not an invasion of any private property rights in the stream or the lands underlying it. ...” United States v. Rands, 389 U. S., at 123.
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.
The Cherokee Nation also claimed that, whether or not the United States’ actions resulted in a taking, the failure to pay compensation violated the Government’s duty to engage in fair and honorable dealings with the Tribe. The District Court did not address this claim, and certified the takings claim for interlocutory appeal under 28 U. S. C. § 1292(b). The Court of Appeals accordingly did not consider the issue, and it is not before us here.
The dissenting judge found no support for the balancing of public and private interests, noting that “instead the issue is whether the segment or interest is within the definition and scope of the [navigational servitude] doctrine geographically . . . .” 782 F. 2d, at 882. Relying on United States v. Rands, 389 U. S. 121 (1967), the dissent observed that privately owned riverbed interests are subject to the navigational servitude, and found “no authority and no basis for an exception to the public nature of the navigable river to create a ‘private river’ as plaintiff urges nor to create an exception to the application of the navigational servitude because plaintiff is an Indian tribe.” 782 F. 2d, at 883.
Though Rands spoke in terms of riparian owners, rather than those holding fee simple title to riverbed interests, our eases make clear that the navigational servitude is dominant to riverbed interests no matter how acquired. See, e. g., United States v. Chicago, M., St. P. & P. R. Co., 312 U. S. 592, 596 (1941) (“Whether, under local law, the title to the bed of the stream is retained by the State or the title of the riparian owner extends to the thread of the stream, or ... to low-water mark, the rights of the title holder are subject to the dominant power of the federal Government in respect of navigation”) (footnotes omitted).
See also Reply Brief for Petitioner in Cherokee Nation v. Oklahoma, O. T. 1969, No. 59, pp. 13-14 (“Throughout their brief respondents imply that if title to the river were vested in the petitioner and not in the state (under the equal footing-implied trust doctrine) the authority and power of the United States would somehow be compromised. Such an inference is absurd; no matter who holds title to the riverbed, the petitioner or the state, the rights and power of the United States are precisely the same”). Respondent now argues that these statements merely admitted the power of the United States to exercise the servitude, but did not waive its right to compensation when this exercise damaged its interests. See Brief for Respondent 34. We find no support for the existence of such a “hybrid” navigational servitude in these circumstances.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | D | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Opinion of the Court by
Mr. Justice Powell,
announced by Mr. Justice Blackmun.
This appeal requires the Court to determine the extent to which the regulatory authority conferred upon the Securities and Exchange Commission by the Maloney Act, 52 Stat. 1070, as amended, 15 U. S. C. § 78o-3, and the Investment Company Act of 1940, 54 Stat. 789, as amended, 15 U. S. C. § 80a-l et seq., displaces the strong antitrust policy embodied in § 1 of the Sherman Act, 26 Stat. 209, as amended, 15 U. S. C. § 1. At issue is whether certain sales and distribution practices employed in marketing securities of open-end management companies, popularly referred to as “mutual funds,” are immune from antitrust liability. We conclude that they are, and accordingly affirm the judgment of the District Court.
I
An “investment company” invests in the securities of other corporations and issues securities of its own. Shares in an investment company thus represent proportionate interests in its investment portfolio, and their value fluctuates in relation to the changes in the value of the securities it owns. The most common form of investment company, the “open end” company or mutual fund, is required by law to redeem its securities on demand at a price approximating their proportionate share of the fund’s net asset value at the time of redemption. In order to avoid liquidation through redemption, mutual funds continuously issue and sell new shares. These features — continuous and unlimited distribution and compulsory redemption — are, as the Court recently recognized, “unique characteristic [s]” of this form of investment. United States v. Cartwright, 411 U. S. 546, 547 (1973).
The initial distribution of mutual-fund shares is conducted by a principal underwriter, often an affiliate of the fund, and by broker-dealers who contract with that underwriter to sell the securities to the public. The sales price commonly consists of two components, a sum calculated from the net asset value of the fund at the time of purchase, and a “load,” a sales charge representing a fixed percentage of the net asset value. The load is divided between the principal underwriter and the broker-dealers, compensating them for their sales efforts.
The distribution-redemption system constitutes the primary market in mutual-fund shares, the operation of which is not questioned in this litigation. The parties agree that § 22 (d) of the Investment Company Act requires broker-dealers to maintain a uniform price in sales in this primary market to all purchasers except the fund, its underwriters, and other dealers. And in view of this express requirement no question exists that antitrust immunity must be afforded these sales. This case focuses, rather, on the potential secondary market in mutual-fund shares.
Although a significant secondary market existed prior to enactment of the Investment Company Act, little presently remains. The United States agrees that the Act was designed to restrict most of secondary market trading, but nonetheless contends that certain industry practices have extended the statutory limitation beyond its proper boundaries. The complaint in this action alleges that the defendants, appellees herein, combined and agreed to restrict the sale and fix the resale prices of mutual-fund shares in secondary market transactions between dealers, from an investor to a dealer, and between investors through brokered transactions. Named as defendants are the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD), and certain mutual funds, mutual-fund underwriters, and securities broker-dealers.
The United States charges that these agreements violate § 1 of the Sherman Act, 15 U. S. C. § l, and prays that they be enjoined under § 4 of that Act.
Count I charges a horizontal combination and conspiracy among the members of appellee NASD to prevent the growth of a secondary dealer market in the purchase and sale of mutual-fund shares. See n. 42, infra. Counts II-VIII, by contrast, allege various vertical restrictions on secondary market activities. In Counts II, IV, and VI the United States charges that the principal underwriters and broker-dealers entered into agreements that compel the maintenance of the public offering price in brokerage transactions of specified mutual-fund shares, and that prohibit interdealer transactions by allowing each broker-dealer to sell and purchase shares only to or from investors. Count VIII alleges that the broker-dealers entered into other, similar contracts and combinations with numerous principal underwriters. Counts III, V, and VII allege violations on the part of the principal underwriters and the funds themselves. In Counts III and VII the various defendants are charged with entering into contracts requiring the restrictive underwriter-dealer agreements challenged in Counts II and VI. Count V charges that the agreement between one fund and its underwriter restricted the latter to serving as a principal for its own account in all transactions with the public, thereby prohibiting brokerage transactions in the fund’s shares. App. 14.
After carefully examining the structure, purpose, and history of the Investment Company Act, 15 U. S. C. § 80a-l et seq., and the Maloney Act, 15 U. S. C. § 78o-3, the District Court held that this statutory scheme was “ ‘incompatible with the maintenance of (an) antitrust action,’ ” 374 F. Supp. 95, 109 (DC 1973), quoting Silver v. New York Stock Exchange, 373 U. S. 341, 358 (1963). The court concluded that §§22 (d) and (f) of the Investment Company Act, when read in conjunction with the Maloney Act, afford antitrust immunity for all of the practices here challenged. The court further held that apart from this explicit statutory immunity, the pervasive regulatory scheme established by these statutes confers an implied immunity from antitrust sanction in the “narrow area of distribution and sale of mutual fund shares.” 374 F. Supp., at 114. The court accordingly dismissed the complaint, and the United States appealed to this Court.
The position of the United States in this appeal can be summarized briefly. Noting that implied repeals of the antitrust laws are not favored, see, e. g., United States v. Philadelphia National Bank, 374 U. S. 321, 348 (1963), the United States urges that the antitrust immunity conferred by § 22 of the Investment Company Act should not extend beyond its precise terms, none of which, it maintains, requires or authorizes the practices here challenged. The United States maintains, moreover, that the District Court expanded the limits of the implied-immunity doctrine beyond those recognized by decisions of this Court. In response, appellees advance all of the positions relied on by the District Court. They are joined by the Securities and Exchange Commission (hereinafter SEC or Commission), which asserts as amicus curiae that the regulatory authority conferred upon it by § 22 (f) of the Investment Company Act displaces § 1 of the Sherman Act. The SEC contends, therefore, that the District Court properly dismissed Counts II-VIII but takes no position with respect to Count I.
II
A
The Investment Company Act of 1940 originated in congressional concern that the Securities Act of 1933, 48 Stat. 74, 15 U. S. C. § 77a et seq., and tne Securities Exchange Act of 1934, 48 Stat. 881, 15 U. S. C. § 78a et seq., were inadequate to protect the purchasers of investment company securities. Thus, in § 30 of the Public Utility Holding Company Act, 49 Stat. 837, 15 U. S. C. § 79z-4, Congress directed the SEC to study the structures, practices, and problems of investment companies with a view toward proposing further legislation. Four years of intensive scrutiny of the industry culminated in the publication of the Investment Trust Study and the recommendation of legislation to rectify the problems and abuses it identified. After extensive congressional consideration, the Investment Company Act of 1940 was adopted.
The Act vests in the SEC broad regulatory authority over the business practices of investment companies. We are concerned on this appeal with § 22 of the Act, 15 U. S. C. § 80a-22, which controls the sales and distribution of mutual-fund shares. The questions presented require us to determine whether § 22 (d) obligates appellees to engage in the practices challenged in Counts II-VIII and thus necessarily confers antitrust immunity on them. If not, we must determine whether such practices are authorized by § 22 (f) and, if so, whether they are immune from antitrust sanction. Resolution of these issues will be facilitated by examining the nature of the problems and abuses to which § 22 is addressed, a matter to which we now turn.
B
The most thorough description of the sales and distribution practices of mutual funds prior to passage of the Investment Company Act may be found in Part III of the Investment Trust Study. That Study, as Congress has recognized, see 15 U. S. C. § 80a-l, forms the initial basis for any evaluation of the Act.
Prior to 1940 the basic framework for the primary distribution of mutual-fund shares was similar to that existing today. The fund normally retained a principal underwriter to serve as a wholesaler of its shares. The principal underwriter in turn contracted with a number of broker-dealers to sell the fund’s shares to the investing public. The price of the shares was based on the fund’s net asset value at the approximate time of sale, and a sales commission or load was added to that price.
Although prior to 1940 the primary distribution system for mutual-fund shares was similar to the present one, a number of conditions then existed that largely disappeared following passage of the Act. The most prominently discussed characteristic was the “two-price system,” which encouraged an active secondary market under conditions that tolerated disruptive and discriminatory trading practices. The two-price system reflected the relationship between the commonly used method of computing the daily net asset value of mutual-fund shares and the manner in which the price for the following day was established. The net asset value of mutual funds, which depends on the market quotations of the stocks in their investment portfolios, fluctuates constantly. Most funds computed their net asset values daily on the basis of the fund’s portfolio value at the close of exchange trading, and that figure established the sales price that would go into effect at a specified hour on the following day. During this interim period two prices were known: the present day’s trading price based on the portfolio value established the previous day; and the following day’s price, which was based on the net asset value computed at the close of exchange trading on the present day. One aware of both prices could engage in “riskless trading” during this interim period. See Investment Trust Study pt. Ill, pp. 851-852.
The two-price system did not benefit the investing public generally. Some of the mutual funds did not explain the system thoroughly, and unsophisticated investors probably were unaware of its existence. See id., at 867. Even investors who knew of the two-price system and understood its operation were rarely in a position to exploit it fully. It was possible, however, for a knowledgeable investor to purchase shares in a rising market at the current price with the advance information that the next day’s price would be higher. He thus could be guaranteed an immediate appreciation in the market value of his investment, although this advantage was obtained at the expense of the existing shareholders, whose equity interests were diluted by a corresponding amount. The load fee that was charged in the sale of mutual funds to the investing public made it difficult for these investors to realize the “paper gain” obtained in such trading. Because the daily fluctuation in net asset value rarely exceeded the load, public investors generally were unable to realize immediate profits from the two-price system by engaging in rapid in-and-out trading. But insiders, who often were able to purchase shares without paying the load, did not operate under this constraint. Thus insiders could, and sometimes did, purchase shares for immediate redemption at the appreciated value. See n. 24, infra, and sources cited therein.
The two-price system often afforded other advantages to underwriters and broker-dealers. In a falling market they could enhance profits by waiting to fill orders with shares purchased from the fund at the next day’s anticipated lower price. In a similar fashion, in a rising market they could take a “long position” in mutual-fund shares by establishing an inventory in order to satisfy anticipated purchases with securities previously obtained at a lower price. Investment Trust Study pt. Ill, pp. 854-855. In each case the investment company would receive the lower of the two prevailing prices for its shares, id., at 854, and the equity interests of shareholders would suffer a corresponding dilution.
As a result, an active secondary market in mutual-fund shares existed. Id., at 865-867. Principal underwriters and contract broker-dealers often maintained inventory positions established by purchasing shares through the primary distribution system and by buying from other dealers and retiring shareholders. Additionally, a “bootleg market” sprang up, consisting of broker-dealers having no contractual relationship with the fund or its principal underwriter. These bootleg dealers purchased shares at a discount from contract dealers or bought them from retiring shareholders at a price slightly higher than the redemption price. Bootleg dealers would then offer the shares at a price slightly lower than that required in the primary distribution system, thus “initiating a small scale price war between retailers and tend[ing] generally to disrupt the established offering price.” Id., at 865.
Section 22 of the Investment Company Act of 1940 was enacted with these abuses in mind. Sections 22 (a) and (c) were designed to “eliminat[e] or reduc[e] so far as reasonably practicable any dilution of the value of other outstanding securities... or any other result of [the] purchase, redemption or sale [of mutual fund securities] which is unfair to holders of such other outstanding securities,” 15 U. S. C. § 80a-22 (a). They authorize the NASD and the SEC to regulate certain pricing and trading practices in order to effectuate that goal. Section 22 (b) authorizes registered securities associations and the SEC to prescribe the maximum sales commissions or loads that can be charged in connection with a primary distribution; and § 22 (e) protects the right of redemption by restricting mutual funds’ power to suspend redemption or postpone the date of payment.
The issues presented in this litigation revolve around subsections (d) and (f) of § 22. Bearing in mind the history and purposes of the Investment Company Act, we now consider the effect of these subsections on the question of potential antitrust liability for the practices here challenged.
Ill
Section 22 (d) prohibits mutual funds from selling shares at other than the current public offering price to any person except either to or through a principal underwriter for distribution. It further commands that “no dealer shall sell [mutual-fund shares] to any person except a dealer, a principal underwriter, or the issuer, except at a current public offering price described in the prospectus.” 15 U. S. C. § 80a-22 (d). By its terms, § 22 (d) excepts inter dealer sales from its price maintenance requirement. Accordingly, this section cannot be relied upon by appellees as justification for the restrictions imposed upon interdealer transactions. At issue, rather, is the narrower question whether the § 22 (d) price maintenance mandate for sales by “dealers” applies to transactions in which a broker-dealer acts as a statutory “broker” rather than a statutory “dealer.” The District Court concluded that it does, and thus that § 22 (d) governs transactions in which the broker-dealer acts as an agent for an investor as well as those in which he acts as a principal selling shares for his own account.
A
The District Court’s decision reflects an expansive view of § 22(d). The Investment Company Act specifically defines "broker” and “dealer” and uses the terms distinctively throughout. Appellees maintain, however, that the definition of “dealer” is sufficiently broad to require price maintenance in brokerage transactions. In support of this position appellees assert that the critical elements of the dealer definition are that the term relates to a “person” rather than to a transaction and that the person must engage “regularly” in the sale and purchase of securities to qualify as a dealer. It is argued, therefore, that any person who purchases and sells securities with sufficient regularity to qualify as a statutory dealer is thereafter bound by all dealer restrictions, regardless of the nature of the particular transaction in question. We do not find this argument persuasive.
Appellees’ reliance on the statutory reference to “person” in defining dealer adds little to the analysis, for the Act defines “broker,” “investment banker,” “issuer,” “underwriter,” and others to be “persons” as well. See 15 U. S. C. §§ 80a-2 (a)(6), (21), (22), and (40). In each instance, the critical distinction relates to their transactional capacity. Moreover, wre think that appellees’ reliance on the regularity requirement in the dealer definition places undue emphasis on that element at the expense of the remainder of the provision. On the face of the statute the most apparent distinction between a broker and a dealer is that the former effects transactions for the account of others and the latter buys and sells securities for his own account. We therefore cannot agree that the terms of the Act compel the conclusion that a broker-dealer acting in a brokerage capacity would be bound by the § 22 (d) dealer mandate. Indeed, the language of the Act suggests the opposite result.
Even if we assume, arguendo, that the statutory definition is ambiguous, we find nothing in the contemporaneous legislative history of the Investment Company Act to justify interpreting § 22 (d) to encompass brokered transactions. That history is sparse, and suggests only that § 22 (d) was considered necessary to curb abuses that had arisen in the sales of securities to insiders.
The prohibition against insider trading would seem adequately served by the first clause of § 22 (d), which prevents mutual funds from selling shares at other than the public offering price to any person except a principal underwriter or dealer. See n. 20, supra The further restriction on dealer sales bears little relation to insider trading, however, and logically would be thought to serve some other purpose. The obvious effect of the dealer prohibition is to shield the primary distribution system from the competitive impact of unrestricted dealer trading in the secondary markets, a concern that was reflected in the Study, see Investment Trust Study pt. Ill, p. 865. The SEC perceives this to be one of the purposes of this provision.
But concluding that protection of the primary distribution system is a purpose of § 22 (d) does little to resolve the question whether Congress intended to require strict price maintenance in all broker-dealer transactions with the investing public. By its terms, § 22 (d) protects only against the possibly disruptive effects of secondary dealer sales which, as statutorily defined, constituted the most active secondary market existing prior to the Act’s passage. Nothing in the contemporary history suggests that Congress was equally concerned with possible disruption from investor transactions in outstanding shares conducted through statutory brokers.
Nor do we think that the history attending subsequent congressional consideration of the Act provides adequate support for appellees’ contention that § 22 (d) requires strict price maintenance in all broker-dealer transactions in mutual-fund shares. To be sure, portions of the testimony of SEC Chairman Cohen before the House Subcommittee on Commerce and Finance in 1967 suggested that the price maintenance requirement of § 22 (d) encompassed all broker-dealers, irrespective of how they obtained the traded shares, and on other occasions the Chairman referred to sales by brokers when discussing mutual-fund transactions. Appellees also can point to congressional characterizations of § 22 (d) that suggest that some members of Congress understood the reach of that provision to be as broad as the District Court thought.
Appellees maintain that this history indicates that Congress always intended § 22 (d) to control broker as well as dealer transactions, and that it re-enacted the amended § 22 with that purpose in mind. The District Court accepted this position, and it is not without some support in this historical record. But impressive evidence to the contrary is found in the position consistently maintained by the SEC. Responding to an inquiry in 1941, the SEC General Counsel stated that § 22 (d) did not bar brokerage transactions in mutual-fund shares:
“In my opinion the term 'dealer/ as used in section 22 (d), refers to the capacity in which a broker-dealer is acting in a particular transaction. It follows, therefore, that if a broker-dealer in a particular transaction is acting solely in the capacity of agent for a selling investor, or for both a selling investor and a purchasing investor, the sale may be made at a price other than the current offering price described in the prospectus....
“On the other hand, if a broker-dealer is acting for his own account in a transaction and as principal sells a redeemable security to an investor, the public offering price must be maintained, even though the sale is made through another broker who acts as agent for the seller, the investor, or both.
“As section 22 (d) itself states, the offering price is not required to be maintained in the case of sales in which both the buyer and the seller are dealers acting as principals in the transaction.” Investment Company Act, Rel. No. 78, Mar. 4, 1941, 11 Fed. Reg. 10992 (1941).
This substantially contemporaneous interpretation of the Act has consistently been maintained in subsequent SEC opinions, see Oxford Co., Inc., 21 S. E. C. 681, 690 (1946); Mutual Funds Advisory, Inc., Investment Company Act Rel. No. 6932, p. 3 (1972). The same position was asserted in a recent staff report, see 1974 Staff Report 105 n. 2, 107 n. 2, and 109, was relied on by the SEC in its subsequent decision to encourage limited price competition in brokered transactions, and is advanced by it as amicus curiae in this Court. This consistent and longstanding interpretation by the agency charged with administration of the Act, while not controlling, is entitled to considerable weight. See, e. g., Saxbe v. Bustos, 419 U. S. 65 (1974); Investment Co. Institute v. Camp, 401 U. S. 617, 626-627 (1971); Udall v. Tallman, 380 U. S. 1, 16 (1965).
Jl>
The substance of appellees’ position is that the dealer prohibition of § 22 (d) should be interpreted in generic rather than statutory terms. The price maintenance requirement of that section accordingly would encompass all broker-dealer transactions with the investing public and would shelter them from antitrust sanction. But such an expansion of § 22 (d) beyond its terms would not only displace the antitrust laws by implication, it also would impinge seriously on the SEC’s more flexible regulatory authority under § 22 (f).
Implied antitrust immunity is not favored, and can be justified only by a convincing showing of clear repugnancy between the antitrust laws and the regulatory system. See, e. g., United States v. Philadelphia National Bank, 374 U. S., at 348; United States v. Borden Co., 308 U. S. 188, 197-206 (1939). We think no such showing has been made. Moreover, in addition to satisfying our responsibility to reconcile the antitrust and regulatory statutes where feasible, Silver v. New York Stock Exchange, 373 U. S., at 356-357, we must interpret the Investment Company Act in a manner most conducive to the effectuation of its goals. We conclude that appellees’ interpretation of § 22 (d) serves neither purpose, and cannot be justified by the language or history of that section.
We therefore hold that the price maintenance mandate of § 22 (d) cannot be stretched beyond its literal terms to encompass transactions by broker-dealers acting as statutory “brokers.” Congress defined the limitations for the mandatory price maintenance requirement of the Investment Company Act. “We are not only bound by those limitations but we are bound to construe them strictly, since resale price maintenance is a privilege restrictive of a free economy.” United States v. McKesson & Bobbins, 351 U. S. 305, 316 (1956). Accordingly, we hold that the District Court erred in relying on § 22 (d) in determining that the activities here questioned are immune from antitrust liability.
IV
Our determination that the restrictions on the secondary market are not immunized by § 22 (d) does not end the inquiry, for the District Court also found them sheltered from antitrust liability by § 22 (f). Appellees, joined by the SEC, defend this ruling and urge that it requires dismissal of the challenge to the vertical restrictions sought to be enjoined in Counts II-VIII.
Section 22 (f) authorizes mutual funds to impose restrictions on the negotiability and transferability of their shares, provided they conform with the fund’s registration statement and do not contravene any rules and regulations the Commission may prescribe in the interests of the holders of all of the outstanding securities. The Government does not contend that the vertical restrictions are not disclosed in the registration statements of the funds in question. Nor does it assert that the agreements imposing such restrictions violate Commission rules and regulations. Indeed, it could not do so, because to date the SEC has prescribed no such standards. Instead the Government maintains that the contractual restrictions do not come within the meaning of the Act, asserting that § 22 (f) does not authorize the imposition of restraints on the distribution system rather than on the shares themselves. The Government thus apparently urges that the only limitations contemplated by this section are those that appear on the face of the certificate itself. The Government also urges that the SEC’s unexercised power to prescribe rules and regulations is insufficient to create repugnancy between its regulatory authority and the antitrust laws.
Our examination of the language and history of § 22 (f) persuades us,, however, that the agreements challenged in Counts II-VIII are among the kinds of restrictions Congress contemplated when it enacted that section. And this conclusion necessarily leads to a determination that they are immune from liability under the Sherman Act, for we see no way to reconcile the Commission’s power to authorize these restrictions with the competing mandate of the antitrust laws.
A
Unlike § 22 (d), § 22 (f) originated in the Commission-sponsored bill considered in the Senate subcommittee hearings that preceded introduction of the compromise proposal later enacted into law. The Commission-sponsored provision authorized the SEC to promulgate rules, regulations, or orders prohibiting restrictions on the transferability or negotiability of mutual-fund shares, S. 3580, § 22 (d) (2), 76th Cong., 3d Sess. (1940). Commission testimony indicates that it considered this authority necessary to allow regulatory control of industry measures designed to deal with the disruptive effects of “bootleg market” trading and with other detrimental trading practices identified in the Investment Trust Study.
The Study indicates, moreover, that a number of funds had begun to deal with these problems prior to passage of the Act. And while their methods may have included the imposition of restrictive legends on the face of the certificate, see n. 35, supra, they were by no means confined to such narrow limits. A number of funds imposed controls on the activities of their principal underwriters, see Investment Trust Study pt. Ill, pp. 868-869; and in some instances the funds required the underwriters to impose similar restrictions on the dealers, see id., at 869, or entered into these restrictive agreements with the dealers themselves, id., at 870-871.
In view of the history of the Investment Company Act, we find no justification for limiting the range of possible transfer restrictions to those that appear on the face of the certificate. The bootleg market was primarily a problem of the distribution system, and bootleg dealers found a source of supply in the contract dealers as well as in retiring shareholders. See id., at 865. Moreover, the Study indicates that part of the bootleg distribution system consisted of “trading firms” that served as wholesalers of mutual-fund securities in much the same fashion as the principal underwriters. These trading firms primarily purchased and sold shares to and from other dealers, Investment Trust Study pt. II, p. 327, frequently offering them at a price slightly lower than the discounted rate charged to dealers in the primary-distribution system. Id., at 327-328. Thus trading firms not only helped supply the bootleg dealers whose sales undercut those of the contract dealers, they competed with the principal underwriters by offering a source for lower cost shares that inevitably discouraged participation in the primary distribution system. See id., at 328 n. 85.
The bootleg market was a complex phenomenon whose principal origins lay in the distribution system itself. In view of this history, limitation of the industry’s ability, subject of course to SEC regulation, to reach these problems at their source would constitute an inappropriate contraction of the remedial function of the statute. Indeed, in view of the role of trading firms and interdealer transactions in the maintenance of the bootleg market, the narrow interpretation of § 22 (f) urged by the Government would seem to afford inadequate authority to deal with the problem.
Together, §§22 (d) and 22 (f) protect the primary distribution system for mutual-fund securities. Section 22 (d), by eliminating price competition in dealer sales, inhibits the most disruptive factor in the pre-1940’s mutual market and thus assures the maintenance of a viable sales system. Section 22 (f) complements this protection by authorizing the funds and the SEC to deal more flexibly with other detrimental trading practices by imposing SEC-approved restrictions on transferability and negotiability. The Government’s limiting interpretation of § 22 (f) compromises this flexible mandate, and cannot be accepted.
We find support for our interpretation of § 22 (f) in the views expressed by the SEC shortly after the passage of the Act. Rule 26 (j) (2), proposed by the NASD to curb abuses identified in the Study and the congressional hearings, provided limitations on underwriter sales and redemptions to or from dealers who are not parties to sales agreements. In commenting on this proposed rule, the SEC characterized it as a “restriction on the transferability of securities,” and specifically adverted to its power to regulate such restrictions under § 22 (f). National Association of Securities Dealers, Inc., 9 S. E. C. 38, 44-45 and n. 10 (1941). As indicated above, see supra, at 719, and sources there cited, this contemporaneous interpretation by the responsible agency is entitled to considerable weight. We therefore conclude that the restrictions on transferability and negotiability contemplated by § 22 (f) include restrictions on the distribution system for mutual-fund shares as well as limitations on the face of the shares themselves. The narrower interpretation of this provision advanced by the Government would disserve the broad remedial function of the statute.
The Government’s additional contention that the SEC’s exercise of regulatory authority has been insufficient to give rise to an implied immunity for agreements conforming with § 22 (f) misconceives the intended operation of the statute. By its terms, § 22 (f) authorizes properly disclosed restrictions unless they are inconsistent with SEC rules or regulations. The provision thus authorizes funds to impose transferability or negotiability restrictions, subject to Commission disapproval. In view of the evolution of this provision, there can be no doubt that this is precisely what Congress intended.
Section 22 (f) as originally introduced would have authorized the SEC to promulgate rules, regulations, or orders prohibiting restrictions on the redeemability or transferability of mutual-fund shares. Congressional consideration of that provision raised some question whether existing restrictions on transferability and negotiability would remain valid unless specifically disapproved by the SEC. The compromise provision, which subsequently was enacted into law, eliminated this uncertainty, however, and manifested a more positive attitude toward self-regulation.
Thus § 22 (f) specifically recognizes that mutual funds can impose such restrictions on the distribution system provided they are disclosed in the registration statement and conform to any rules and regulations that the SEC might adopt. In addition, § 22 (f) alters the focus of Commission scrutiny. Whereas the original provision allowed the SEC to make rules that serve “the public interest or... the' protection of investors,” S. 3580, §22 (d)(2), supra, § 22 (f) as enacted limits the Commission’s rulemaking authority to the protection of the “interests of the holders of all of the outstanding securities of such investment company.” 15 U. S. C. §80a-22(f). Viewed in this historical context, the statute reflects a clear congressional determination that, subject to Commission oversight, mutual funds should be allowed to retain the initiative in dealing with the potentially adverse effects of disruptive trading practices.
The Commission repeatedly has recognized the role of private agreements in the control of trading practices in the mutual-fund industry. For example, in First Multifund of America, Inc., Investment Company Act Rel. No. 6700 (1971), [1970-1971 Transfer Binder] CCH Fed. Sec. L. Rep. ¶ 78,209, p. 80,602, it looked to restrictive agreements similar to those challenged in this litigation to ascertain an investment advisor’s capacity in a particular transaction. At no point did it intimate that those agreements were not legitimate. Likewise, Commission reports repeatedly have acknowledged the significant role that private agreements have played in restricting the growth of a secondary market in mutual-fund shares. Until recently the Commission has allowed the industry to control the secondary market through contractual restrictions duly filed and publicly disclosed. Even the SEC’s recently expressed intention to introduce an element of competition in brokered transactions reflects measured caution as to the possibly adverse impact of a totally unregulated and restrained brokerage market on the primary distribution system. See n. 31, supra. The Commission’s acceptance of fund-initiated restrictions for more than three decades hardly represents abdication of its regulatory responsibilities. Rather, we think it manifests an informed administrative judgment that the contractual restrictions employed by the funds to protect their shareholders were appropriate means for combating the problems of the industry. The SEC’s election not to initiate restrictive rules or regulations is precisely the kind of administrative oversight of private practices that Congress contemplated when it enacted §22 (f).
We conclude, therefore, that the vertical restrictions sought to be enjoined in Counts II-VIII are among the kinds of agreements authorized by § 22 (f) of the Investment Company Act.
B
The agreements questioned by the United States restrict the terms under which the appellee underwriters and broker-dealers may trade in shares of mutual funds. Such restrictions, effecting resale price maintenance and concerted refusals to deal, normally would constitute per se violations of § 1 of the Sherman Act. See, e. g., Klor’s, Inc. v. Broadway-Hale Stores, Inc., 359 U. S. 207, 211-213 (1959); Fashion Originators’ Guild of America, Inc. v. FTC, 312 U. S. 457, 465-468 (1941). Here, however, Congress has made a judgment that these restrictions on competition might be necessitated by the unique problems of the mutual-fund industry, and has vested in the SEC final authority to determine whether and to what extent they should be tolerated “in the interests of the holders of all the outstanding securities” of mutual funds. 15 U. S. C. § 80a-22 (f).
The SEC, the federal agency responsible for regulating the conduct of the mutual-fund industry, urges that its authority will be compromised seriously if these agreements are deemed actionable under the Sherman Act. We agree. There can be no reconciliation of its authority under § 22 (f) to permit these and similar restrictive agreements
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | H | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Per Curiam.
The certificate is dismissed. Labor Board v. White Swan Co., 313 U. S. 23 (1941); Lowden v. Northwestern National Bank & Trust Co., 298 U. S. 160 (1936); White v. Johnson, 282 U. S. 367 (1931); United States v. Union Pacific R. Co., 168 U. S. 505 (1897).
The Civil Aeronautics Board has applied to this Court for an order requiring the Court of Appeals to send up the entire record. To grant such an application would bring “the entire matter in controversy” before the Court for decision. 28 U. S. C. § 1254 (3).
Since the certificate must be dismissed, the Court should not exercise its discretionary power to bring up “the entire matter in controversy” for review. See Cleveland-Cliffs Iron Co. v. Arctic Iron Co., 248 U. S. 178 (1918). Perhaps the Court of Appeals may now wish to hear this case en banc to resolve the deadlock indicated in the certificate and give full review to the entire case. This Court does not normally review orders of administrative agencies in the first instance; and the Court does not desire to take any action at this time which might foreclose the possibility of such review in the Court of Appeals.
For these reasons the Board’s application is denied.
Mr. Justice Douglas dissents.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | I | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Brennan
delivered the opinion of the Court.
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.” 798 F. 2d 1051, 1056-1057 (CA7 1986); 822 F. 2d 1544, 1551, n. 7 (CA Fed. 1987). 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.
HH
Respondent Colt Industries Operating Corp. is the leading manufacturer, seller, and marketer of M16 rifles and their parts and accessories. Colt’s dominant market position dates back to 1959, when it acquired a license for 16 patents to manufacture the M16’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 also maintained a shroud of secrecy around certain specifications essential to the mass production of interchangeable M16 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 M16 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 M16 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 M16’s to El Salvador. Evidence suggested that petitioners supplied the companies with certain M16 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 Section 16 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. § 112), 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-16 and M-16 parts and accessories thereof at the present time.” Id., at 9.
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 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 M16 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. § 112. 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 § 112 theory articulated above. In the process, the District Court invalidated nine of Colt’s patents, declared all trade secrets relating to the M16 unenforceable, enjoined Colt from enforcing “any form of trade secret right in any technical information relating to the M16,” and ordered Colt to disgorge to petitioners all such information. 613 P. Supp. 330, 332 (CD Ill. 1985).
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. § 1631. The Seventh Circuit, however, raising the jurisdictional issue sna sponte, concluded that the Federal Circuit was “clearly wrong” and transferred the case back. 798 F. 2d, at 1056-1057. 1062. 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,” 822 F. 2d, at 1547, and was “clearly wrong,” id., at 1551, n. 7. Nevertheless, the Federal Circuit proceeded to address the merits in the “interest of justice,” id., at 1559-1560, and reversed the District Court. We granted certiorari, 484 U. S. 985 (1987), and now vacate the judgment of the Federal Circuit.
hH
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...,” 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, or sustained by the opposite construction of these laws.” Pratt v. Paris Gas Light & Coke Co., 168 U. S. 255, 259 (1897). See Henry v. A. B. Dick Co., 224 U. S. 1, 16 (1912). 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. See Gully v. First National Bank in Meridian, 299 U. S. 109, 112 (1936) (the claim alleged in the complaint “must be such that it will be supported if the Constitution or laws of the United States are given one construction or effect, and defeated if they receive another”) (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 depends on resolution of a substantial question of federal law,” Franchise Tax Board of California v. Construction Laborers Vacation Trust, 463 U. S. 1, 27-28 (1983), in that “federal law is a necessary element of one of the well-pleaded... claims,” id., at 13. Linguistic consistency, to which we have historically adhered, demands that § 1338(a) jurisdiction likewise extend 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 822 F. 2d, at 1553-1556; 798 F. 2d, at 1059-1061.
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 Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc. v. Thompson, 478 U. S. 804, 813 (1986). 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 Board, supra, at 10 (quoting Taylor v. Anderson, 234 U. S. 74, 75-76 (1914)). See Louisville & Nashville R. Co. v. Mottley, 211 U. S. 149 (1908). 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 Board, supra, at 14. See also Merrell Dow, supra, at 808.
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 Board, 463 U. S., at 26 (footnote omitted), then the claim does not “arise under” those laws. See id., at 26, n. 29. 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 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-16.” 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 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 States v. Grinnell Corp., 384 U. S. 563, 570-571 (1966). 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, at 1061; 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 § 112. 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 822 F. 2d, at 1547. The well-pleaded complaint rule, however, focuses on claims, not theories, see Franchise Tax Board, supra, at 26, and n. 29; Gully, 299 U. S., at 117, 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 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 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-16”). 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 also (1) contained “copies of inapplicable court orders” and “suggested] 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.’” Id., at 10. 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.” Id., at 10-11. 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 Board, supra, at 26 (footnote omitted), 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-16 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’ invalidity under § 112, 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 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, non-patent theory compels the conclusion that the group-boycott claim does not “arise under” patent law.
h — I I — I
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. 97-312, p. 23 (1981). 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 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. 97-312, supra, at 41 (cases fall within the Federal Circuit’s patent jurisdiction “in the same sense that cases are said to ‘arise under’ federal law for purposes of federal question jurisdiction”). 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 Pratt, 168 U. S., at 259.
B
Colt suggests alternatively that under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15(b) we should deem the complaint amended to encompass a new and independent cause of action — “an implied cause of action under section 112 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 822 F. 2d, at 1566 (Nichols, J., concurring and dissenting).
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 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 “[bjasic and fundamental to the subject lawsuit.” Id., at 57. 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.” Id., at 58. Thus, the patent-law focus of the summary judgment papers hardly heralded the assertion of a new patent-law claim. See, e. g., Quillen v. International Playtex, Inc., 789 F. 2d 1041, 1044 (CA4 1986); 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. 609 F. Supp. 1174, 1185 (CD Ill. 1985) See also 613 F. Supp., at 332.
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 also 822 F. 2d, at 1565 (Nichols, J., concurring and dissenting). “As most commonly defined, the doctrine [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.” Arizona v. California, 460 U. S. 605, 618 (1983) (dictum). This rule of practice promotes the finality and efficiency of the judicial process by “protecting against the agitation of settled issues.” IB J. Moore, J. Lucas, & T. Currier, Moore’s Federal Practice ¶0.404[1], p. 118 (1984) (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 Corp. v. Wilco Marsh Buggies & Draglines, Inc., 761 F. 2d 649, 657 (CA Fed.), cert. denied, 474 U. S. 902 (1985); Perkin-Elmer Corp. v. Computervision Corp., 732 F. 2d 888, 900-901 (CA Fed.), cert. denied, 469 U. S. 857 (1984). Federal courts routinely apply law-of-the-case principles to transfer decisions of coordinate courts. See, e. g., Hayman Cash Register Co. v. Sarokin, 669 F. 2d 162, 164-170 (CA3 1982) (transfer under 28 U. S. C. § 1406(a)); Skil Corp. v. Millers Falls Co., 541 F. 2d 554, 558-559 (CA6) (alternative holding) (transfer under 28 U. S. C. § 1404(a)), cert. denied, 429 U. S. 1029 (1976); IB Moore’s ¶¶0.404[4.-5], 0.404[8]. Cf. Hoffman v. Blaski, 363 U. S. 335, 340-341, n. 9 (1960) (res judicata principles did not limit power of Court of Appeals to reconsider transfer decision not upset by coordinate court). 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 Hayman, supra, at 169; Chicago & N. W. Transp. Co. v. United States, 574 F. 2d 926, 930 (CA7 1978). Cf. Blaski, supra, at 348-349 (Frankfurter, J., dissenting).
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.” Messenger v. Anderson, 225 U. S. 436, 444 (1912) (Holmes, J.) (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.” Arizona v. California, supra, at 618, n. 8 (citation omitted). 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. Co. v. Napier Shipping Co., 166 U. S. 280, 283-284 (1897). 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 Mes senger, supra, at 444; Hamilton-Brown Shoe Co. v. Wolf Brothers & Co., 240 U. S. 251, 257-259 (1916).
HH <1
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.” 822 F. 2d, at 1559. “Courts created by statute can have no jurisdiction but such as the statute confers.” Sheldon v. Sill, 8 How. 441, 449 (1850). See also Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. v. Risjord, 449 U. S. 368, 379-380 (1981). 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. § 1631.
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 Corp. v. Cartier, Inc., 485 U. S. 176 (1988); United States v. Hohri, 482 U. S. 64 (1987).
That does not mean, however, that every borderline ease 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 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... Blaski, 363 U. S., at 349 (Frankfurter, J., dissenting). The courts of appeals should achieve this end by adhering strictly to principles of law of the case. See supra, at 816. Situations might arise, of course, in which the transferee court considers the transfer “clearly erroneous.” Arizona v. California, 460 U. S., at 618, n. 8. But as “[t]he doctrine of the law of the case is... a heavy deterrent to vacillation on arguable issues,” IB 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, never have clearly correct answers. Under law-of-the-case principles, if the transferee court can find the transfer decision plausible, its jurisdictional inquiry is at an end. See Fogel v. Chestnutt, 668 F. 2d 100, 109 (CA2 1981) (“The law of the case will be disregarded only when the court has ‘a clear conviction of error’ ”) (citation omitted), cert. denied, 459 U. S. 828 (1982). While adherence to the law of the case will not shield an incorrect jurisdictional decision should this Court choose to grant review, see supra, at 817-818, it will obviate the necessity for us to resolve every marginal jurisdictional dispute.
We vacate the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and remand with instructions to transfer the case to the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. See 28 U. S. C. § 1631.
It is so ordered.
Colt’s appeal to the Federal Circuit actually invoked 28 U. S. C. §§ 1292(a)(1) and (c)(1), which together grant the Federal Circuit exclusive jurisdiction over appeals from interlocutory orders “granting, continuing, modifying, refusing or dissolving [an] injunctio[n],” § 1292(a)(1), “in any case over which the court would have jurisdiction over an appeal under section 1295,” § 1292(c)(1).
Colt correctly points out that in this case our interpretation of § 1338(a)’s “arising under” language will merely determine which of two federal appellate courts will decide the appeal, and suggests that our “arising under” jurisprudence might therefore be inapposite. Since, however, § 1338(a) delineates the jurisdiction of the federal and state courts over cases involving patent issues, the phrase (like the identical phrase in § 1331) “masks a welter of issues regarding the interrelation of federal and state authority and the proper management of the federal judicial system.” See Franchise Tax Board of California v. Construction Laborers Vacation Trust, 463 U. S. 1, 8 (1983) (footnote omitted). See also Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc. v. Thompson, 478 U. S. 804, 810 (1986) (“[Djeter-minations about federal jurisdiction require sensitive judgments about congressional intent, judicial power, and the federal system”).
On the other hand, merely because a claim makes no reference to federal patent law does not necessarily mean the claim does not “arise under” patent law. Just as “a plaintiff may not defeat removal by omitting to plead necessary federal questions in a complaint,” Franchise Tax Board, supra, at 22 (citations omitted); see Federated Department Stores, Inc. v. Moitie, 452 U. S. 394, 397, n. 2 (1981); id., at 408, n. 3 (Brennan, J., dissenting), so a plaintiff may not defeat § 1338(a) jurisdiction by omitting to plead necessary federal patent-law questions.
Rule 15(b) provides in relevant part:
“When issues not raised by the pleadings are tried by express or implied consent of the parties, they shall be treated in all respects as if they had been raised in the pleadings. Such amendment of the pleadings as may be necessary to cause them to conform to the evidence and to raise these issues may be made upon motion of any party at any time, even after judgment; but failure to so amend does not affect the result of the trial of these issues.”
There is no reason to apply law-of-the-case principles less rigorously to transfer decisions that implicate the transferee’s jurisdiction. Perpetual
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | I | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Scalia
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The issue presented in this case is whether the Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority’s trespass policy is facially invalid under the First Amendment’s overbreadth doctrine.
H-l
The Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority (RRHA) owns and operates a housing development for low-income residents called Whitcomb Court. Until June 23, 1997, the city of Richmond owned the streets within Whit-comb Court. The city council decided, however, to “privatize” these streets in an effort to combat rampant crime and drug dealing in Whitcomb Court — much of it committed and conducted by nonresidents. The council enacted Ordinance No. 97-181-197, which provided, in part:
“‘§1. That Carmine Street, Bethel Street, Ambrose Street, Deforrest Street, the 2100-2300 Block of Sussex Street and the 2700-2800 Block of Magnolia Street, in Whitcomb Court... be and are hereby closed to public use and travel and abandoned as streets of the City of Richmond.’ ” App. to Pet. for Cert. 93-94.
The city then conveyed these streets by a recorded deed to the RRHA (which is a political subdivision of the Commonwealth of Virginia). This deed required the RRHA to “ ‘give the appearance that the closed street, particularly at the entrances, are no longer public streets and that they are in fact private streets.’” Id., at 95. To this end, the RRHA posted red-and-white signs on each apartment building — and every 100 feet along the streets — of Whitcomb Court, which state: ‘“NO TRESPASSING^ PRIVATE PROPERTY[.] YOU ARE NOW ENTERING PRIVATE PROPERTY AND STREETS OWNED BY RRHA. UNAUTHORIZED PERSONS WILL BE SUBJECT TO ARREST AND PROSECUTION. UNAUTHORIZED VEHICLES WILL BE TOWED AT OWNERS EXPENSE.’” Pet. for Cert. 5. The RRHA also enacted a policy authorizing the Richmond police
“‘to serve notice, either orally or in writing, to any person who is found on Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority property when such person is not a resident, employee, or such person cannot demonstrate a legitimate business or social purpose for being on the premises. Such notice shall forbid the person from returning to the property. Finally, Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority authorizes Richmond Police Department officers to arrest any person for trespassing after such person, having been duly notified, either stays upon or returns to Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority property.’” App. to Pet. for Cert. 98-99 (emphasis added).
Persons who trespass after being notified not to return are subject to prosecution under Va. Code Ann. § 18.2-119 (1996):
“If any person without authority of law goes upon or remains upon the lands, buildings or premises of another, or any portion or area thereof, after having been forbidden to do so, either orally or in writing, by the owner, lessee, custodian or other person lawfully in charge thereof ... he shall be guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor.”
B
Respondent Kevin Hicks, a nonresident of Whitcomb Court, has been convicted on two prior occasions of trespassing there and once of damaging property there. Those convictions are not at issue in this case. While the property-damage charge was pending, the RRHA gave Hicks written notice barring him from Whitcomb Court, and Hicks signed this notice in the presence of a police officer. Twice after receiving this notice Hicks asked for permission to return; twice the Whitcomb Court housing manager said “no.” That did not stop Hicks; in January 1999 he again trespassed at Whitcomb Court and was arrested and convicted under §18.2-119.
At trial, Hicks maintained that the RRHA’s policy limiting access to Whitcomb Court was both unconstitutionally over-broad and void for vagueness. On appeal of his conviction, a three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals of Virginia initially rejected Hicks’ contentions, but the en banc Court of Appeals reversed. That court held that the streets of Whit-comb Court were a “traditional public forum,” notwithstanding the city ordinance declaring them closed, and vacated Hicks’ conviction on the ground that RRHA’s policy violated the First Amendment. 36 Va. App. 49, 56, 548 S. E. 2d 249, 253 (2001). The Virginia Supreme Court affirmed the en banc Court of Appeals, but for different reasons. Without deciding whether the streets of Whitcomb Court were a public forum, the Virginia Supreme Court concluded that the RRHA policy was unconstitutionally overbroad. While acknowledging that the policy was “designed to punish activities that are not protected by the First Amendment,” 264 Va. 48, 58, 568 S. E. 2d 674, 680 (2002), the court held that “the policy also prohibits speech and conduct that are clearly protected by the First Amendment,” ibid. The court found the policy defective because it vested too much discretion in Whitcomb Court’s manager to determine whether an individual’s presence at Whitcomb Court is “authorized,” allowing her to “prohibit speech that she finds personally distasteful or offensive even though such speech may be protected by the First Amendment.” Id., at 60, 563 S. E. 2d, at 680-681. We granted the Commonwealth’s petition for certiorari. 537 U. S. 1169 (2003).
II
A
Hicks does not contend that he was engaged in constitutionally protected conduct when arrested; nor does he challenge the validity of the trespass statute under which he was convicted. Instead he claims that the RRHA policy barring him from Whitcomb Court is overbroad under the First Amendment, and cannot be applied to him — or anyone else. The First Amendment doctrine of overbreadth is an exception to our normal rule regarding the standards for facial challenges. See Members of City Council of Los Angeles v. Taxpayers for Vincent, 466 U. S. 789, 796 (1984). The showing that a law punishes a “substantial” amount of protected free speech, “judged in relation to the statute’s plainly legitimate sweep,” Broadrick v. Oklahoma, 413 U. S. 601, 615 (1973), suffices to invalidate all enforcement of that law, “until and unless a limiting construction or partial invalidation so narrows it as to remove the seeming threat or deterrence to constitutionally protected expression,” id., at 613. See also Virginia v. Black, 538 U. S. 343, 367 (2003); New York v. Ferber, 458 U. S. 747, 769, n. 24 (1982); Dombrowski v. Pfister, 380 U. S. 479, 491, and n. 7, 497 (1965).
We have provided this expansive remedy out of concern that the threat of enforcement of an overbroad law may deter or “chill” constitutionally protected speech — especially when the overbroad statute imposes criminal sanctions. See Schaumburg v. Citizens for a Better Environment, 444 U. S. 620, 634 (1980); Bates v. State Bar of Ariz., 433 U. S. 350, 380 (1977); NAACP v. Button, 371 U. S. 415, 433 (1963). Many persons, rather than undertake the considerable burden (and sometimes risk) of vindicating their rights through case-by-case litigation, will choose simply to abstain from protected speech, Dombrowski, supra, at 486-487—harming not only themselves but society as a whole, which is deprived of an uninhibited marketplace of ideas. Overbreadth adjudication, by suspending all enforcement of an overinclusive law, reduces these social costs caused by the withholding of protected speech.
As we noted in Broadrick, however, there comes a point at which the chilling effect of an overbroad law, significant though it may be, cannot justify prohibiting all enforcement of that law — particularly a law that reflects “legitimate state interests in maintaining comprehensive controls over harmful, constitutionally unprotected conduct.” 413 U. S., at 615. For there are substantial social costs created by the over-breadth doctrine when it blocks application of a law to constitutionally unprotected speech, or especially to constitutionally unprotected conduct. To ensure that these costs do not swallow the social benefits of declaring a law “overbroad,” we have insisted that a law’s application to protected speech be “substantial,” not only in an absolute sense, but also relative to the scope of the law’s plainly legitimate applications, ibid., before applying the “strong medicine” of overbreadth invalidation, id., at 613.
B
Petitioner asks this Court to impose restrictions on “the use of overbreadth standing,” limiting the availability of facial overbreadth challenges to those whose own conduct involved some sort of expressive activity. Brief for Petitioner 13, 24-31. The United States as amicus curiae makes the same proposal, Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 14-17, and urges that Hicks’ facial challenge to the RRHA trespass policy “should not have been entertained,” id., at 10. The problem with these proposals is that we are reviewing here the decision of a State Supreme Court; our standing rules limit only the federal courts’ jurisdiction over certain claims. “[S]tate courts are not bound by the limitations of a case or controversy or other federal rules of justiciability even when they address issues of federal law.” ASARCO Inc. v. Radish, 490 U. S. 605, 617 (1989). Whether Virginia’s courts should have entertained this overbreadth challenge is entirely a matter of state law.
This Court may, however, review the Virginia Supreme Court’s holding that the RRHA policy violates the First Amendment. We may examine, in particular, whether the claimed overbreadth in the RRHA policy is sufficiently “substantial” to produce facial invalidity These questions involve not standing, but “the determination of [a] First Amendment challenge on the merits.” Secretary of State of Md. v. Joseph H. Munson Co., 467 U. S. 947, 958-959 (1984). Because it is the Commonwealth of Virginia, not Hicks, that has invoked the authority of the federal courts by petitioning for a writ of certiorari, our jurisdiction to review the First Amendment merits question is clear under ASARCO, 490 U. S., at 617-618. The Commonwealth has suffered, as a consequence of the Virginia Supreme Court’s “final judgment altering tangible legal rights,” id., at 619, an actual injury in fact — inability to prosecute Hicks for trespass — that is sufficiently “distinct and palpable” to confer standing under Article III, Warth v. Seldin, 422 U. S. 490, 501 (1975). We accordingly proceed to that merits inquiry, leaving for another day the question whether our ordinary rule that a litigant may not rest a claim to relief on the legal rights or interests of third parties, see Valley Forge Christian College v. Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Inc., 454 U. S. 464, 474 (1982), would exclude a case such as this from initiation in federal court.
C
The Virginia Supreme Court found that the RRHA policy allowed Gloria S. Rogers, the manager of Whitcomb Court, to exercise “unfettered discretion” in determining who may use the RRHA’s property. 264 Va., at 59, 563 S. E. 2d, at 680. Specifically, the court faulted an “unwritten” rule that persons wishing to hand out flyers on the sidewalks of Whit-comb Court need to obtain Rogers’ permission. Ibid. This unwritten portion of the RRHA policy, the court concluded, unconstitutionally allows Rogers to “prohibit speech that she finds personally distasteful or offensive.” Id., at 60, 563 S. E. 2d, at 681.
Hicks, of course, was not arrested for leafleting or demonstrating without permission. He violated the RRHA’s written rule that persons who receive a barment notice must not return to RRHA property. The Virginia Supreme Court, based on its objection to the “unwritten” requirement that demonstrators and leafleters obtain advance permission, declared the entire RRHA trespass policy overbroad and void — including the written rule that those who return after receiving a barment notice are subject to arrest. Whether these provisions are severable is of course a matter of state law, see Leavitt v. Jane L., 518 U. S. 137, 139 (1996) (per curiam), and the Virginia Supreme Court has implicitly decided that they are not — that all components of the RRHA trespass policy must stand or fall together. It could not properly decree that they fall by reason of the overbreadth doctrine, however, unless the trespass policy, taken as a whole, is substantially overbroad judged in relation to its plainly legitimate sweep. See Broadrick, 413 U. S., at 615. The overbreadth claimant bears the burden of demonstrating, “from the text of [the law] and from actual fact,” that substantial overbreadth exists. New York State Club Assn., Inc. v. City of New York, 487 U. S. 1, 14 (1988).
Hicks has not made such a showing with regard to the RRHA policy taken as a whole — even assuming, arguendo, the unlawfulness of the policy’s, “unwritten” rule that demonstrating and leafleting at Whitcomb Court require permission from Gloria Rogers. Consider the “no-return” notice served on nonresidents who have no “legitimate business or social purpose” in Whitcomb Court: Hicks has failed to demonstrate that this notice would even be given to anyone engaged in constitutionally protected speech. Gloria Rogers testified that leafleting and demonstrations are permitted at Whitcomb Court, so long as permission is obtained in advance. App. to Pet. for Cert. 100-102. Thus, “legitimate business or social purpose” evidently includes leafleting and demonstrating; otherwise, Rogers would lack authority to permit those activities on RRHA property. Hicks has failed to demonstrate that any First Amendment activity falls outside the “legitimate business or social purpose[s]” that permit entry. As far as appears, until one receives a barment notice, entering for a First Amendment purpose is not a trespass.
As for the written provision authorizing the police to arrest those who return to Whitcomb Court after receiving a barment notice: That certainly does not violate the First Amendment as applied to persons whose postnotice entry is not for the purpose of engaging in constitutionally protected speech. And Hicks has not even established that it would violate the First Amendment as applied to persons whose postnotice entry is for that purpose. Even assuming the streets of Whitcomb Court are a public forum, the notice-barment rule subjects to arrest those who reenter after trespassing and after being warned not to return — regardless of whether, upon their return, they seek to engage in speech. Neither the basis for the barment sanction (the prior trespass) nor its purpose (preventing future trespasses) has anything to do with the First Amendment. Punishing its violation by a person who wishes to engage in free speech no more implicates the First Amendment than would the punishment of a person who has (pursuant to lawful regulation) been banned from a public park after vandalizing it, and who ignores the ban in order to take part in a political demonstration. Here, as there, it is Hicks’ nonexpressive conduct— his entry in violation of the notice-barment rule — not his speech, for which he is punished as a trespasser.
Most importantly, both the notice-barment rule and the “legitimate business or social purpose” rule apply to all persons who enter the streets of Whitcomb Court, not just to those who seek to engage in expression. The rules apply to strollers, loiterers, drug dealers, roller skaters, bird watchers, soccer playérs, and others not engaged in constitutionally protected conduct — a group that would seemingly far outnumber First Amendment speakers. Even assuming invalidity of the “unwritten” rule that requires leafleters and demonstrators to obtain advance permission from Gloria Rogers, Hicks has not shown, based on the record in this ease, that the RRHA trespass policy as a whole prohibits a “substantial” amount of protected speech in relation to its many legitimate applications. That is not surprising, since the overbreadth doctrine’s concern with “chilling” protected speech “attenuates as the otherwise unprotected behavior that it forbids the State to sanction moves from ‘pure speech’ toward conduct.” Broadrick, supra, at 615. Rarely, if ever, will an overbreadth challenge succeed against a law or regulation that is not specifically addressed to speech or to conduct necessarily associated with speech (such as picketing or demonstrating). Applications of the RRHA policy that violate the First Amendment can still be remedied through as-applied litigation, but the Virginia Supreme Court should not have used the “strong medicine” of overbreadth to invalidate the entire RRHA trespass policy. Whether respondent may challenge his conviction on other grounds — and whether those claims have been properly preserved — are issues we leave open on remand.
* * *
For these reasons, we reverse the judgment of the Virginia Supreme Court and remand the case for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
The letter stated, in part: ‘“This letter serves to inform you that effective immediately you are not welcome on Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority’s Whitcomb Court or any Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority property. This letter is an official notice informing you that you are not to trespass on RRHA property. If you are seen or caught on the premises, you will be subject to arrest by the police.’ ” 264 Va. 48, 53, 563 S. E. 2d 674, 677 (2002).
As noted, the Virginia Supreme Court held that invalidity of the RRHA policy entitled Hicks to vacatur of his conviction under the unquestionably valid trespass statute, which Hicks unquestionably violated. We do not reach the question whether federal law compels this result.
Contrary to Justice Souter's suggestion, post, at 124 (concurring opinion), the Supreme Court of Virginia did not focus solely on the “unwritten” element of the RRHA trespass policy “[i]n comparing invalid applications against valid ones for purposes of the First Amendment over-breadth doctrine.” The fact is that its opinion contains no “comparing” of valid and invalid applications whatever; the proportionality aspect of our overbreadth doctrine is simply ignored. Since, however, the Virginia Supreme Court struck down the entire RRHA trespass policy, the question presented here is whether the entire policy is substantially overbroad.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | C | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Thomas
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Respondent Hosep Bajakajian attempted to leave the United States without reporting, as required by federal law, that he was transporting more than $10,000 in currency. Federal law also provides that a person convicted of willfully violating this reporting requirement shall forfeit to the Government “any property... involved in such offense.” 18 U. S. C. § 982(a)(1). The question in this case is whether forfeiture of the entire $857,144 that respondent failed to declare would violate the Excessive Fines Clause of the Eighth Amendment. We hold that it would, because full forfeiture of respondent’s currency would be grossly disproportional to the gravity of his offense.
I
On June 9,1994, respondent, his wife, and his two daughters were waiting at Los Angeles International Airport to board a flight to Italy; their final destination was Cyprus. Using dogs trained to detect currency by its smell, customs inspectors discovered some $230,000 in cash in the Bajakaji-ans’ checked baggage. A customs inspector approached respondent and his wife and told them that they were required to report all money in excess of $10,000 in their possession or in their baggage. Respondent said that he had $8,000 and that his wife had another $7,000, but that the family had no additional currency to declare. A search of their carry-on bags, purse, and wallet revealed more cash; in all, customs inspectors found $357,144. The currency was seized and respondent was taken into custody.
A federal grand jury indicted respondent on three counts. Count One charged him with failing to report, as required by 31U. S. C. § 5316(a)(1)(A), that he was transporting more than $10,000 outside the United States, and with doing so “willfully,” in violation of § 5322(a). Count Two charged him with making a false material statement to the United States Customs Service, in violation of 18 U. S. C. § 1001. Count Three sought forfeiture of the $357,144 pursuant to 18 U. S. C. § 982(a)(1), which provides:
“The court, in imposing sentence on a person convicted of an offense in violation of section... 5316,... shall order that the person forfeit to the United States any property, real or personal, involved in such offense, or any property traceable to such property.” 18 U. S. C. § 982(a)(1).
Respondent pleaded guilty to the failure to report in Count One; the Government agreed to dismiss the false statement charge in Count Two; and respondent elected to have a bench trial on the forfeiture in Count Three. After the bench trial, the District Court found that the entire $357,144 was subject to forfeiture because it was “involved in” the offense. Ibid. The court also found that the funds were not connected to any other crime and that respondent was transporting the money to repay a lawful debt. Tr. 61-62 (Jan. 19,1995). The District Court further found that respondent had failed to report that he was taking the currency out of the United States because of fear stemming from “cultural differences”: Respondent, who had grown up as a member of the Armenian minority in Syria, had a “distrust for the Government.” Id., at 63; see Tr. of Oral Arg. 30.
Although § 982(a)(1) directs sentencing courts to impose full forfeiture, the District Court concluded that such forfeiture would be “extraordinarily harsh” and “grossly disproportionate to the offense in question,” and that it would therefore violate the Excessive Fines Clause. Tr. 63. The court instead ordered forfeiture of $15,000, in addition to a sentence of three years of probation and a fine of $5,000 — the maximum fine under the Sentencing Guidelines — because the court believed that the maximum Guidelines fine was “too little” and that a $15,000 forfeiture would “make up for what I think a reasonable fine should be.” Ibid.
The United States appealed, seeking full forfeiture of respondent’s currency as provided in § 982(a)(1). The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed. 84 F. 3d 334 (1996). Applying Circuit precedent, the court held that, to satisfy the Excessive Fines Clause, a forfeiture must fulfill two conditions: The property forfeited must be an “instrumentality” of the crime committed, and the value of the property must be proportional to the culpability of the owner. Id., at 336 (citing United States v. Real Property Located in El Dorado County, 59 F. 3d 974, 982 (CA9 1995)). A majority of the panel determined that the currency was not an “instrumentality” of the crime of failure to report because “ ‘[t]he crime [in a currency reporting offense] is the withholding of information,... not the possession or the transportation of the money.’ ” 84 F. 3d, at 337 (quoting United States v. $69,292 in United States Currency, 62 F. 3d 1161, 1167 (CA9 1995)). The majority therefore held that § 982(a)(1) could never satisfy the Excessive Fines Clause in cases involving forfeitures of currency and that it was unnecessary to apply the “proportionality” prong of the test. Although the panel majority concluded that the Excessive Fines Clause did not permit forfeiture of any of the unreported currency, it held that it lacked jurisdiction to set the $15,000 forfeiture aside because respondent had not cross-appealed to challenge that forfeiture. 84 F. 3d, at 338.
Judge Wallace concurred in the result. He viewed respondent’s currency as an instrumentality of the crime because “without the currency, there can be no offense,” id., at 339, and he criticized the majority for “striking] down a portion of” the statute, id., at 338. He nonetheless agreed that full forfeiture would violate the Excessive Fines Clause in respondent’s case, based upon the “proportionality” prong of the Ninth Circuit test. Finding no clear error in the District Court’s factual findings, he concluded that the reduced forfeiture of $15,000 was proportional to respondent’s culpability. Id., at 339-340.
Because the Court of Appeals’ holding — that the forfeiture ordered by § 982(a)(1) was per se unconstitutional in cases of currency forfeiture — invalidated a portion of an Act of Congress, we granted certiorari. 520 U. S. 1239 (1997).
hH h-4
The Eighth Amendment provides: “Excessive hail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.” U. S. Const., Arndt. 8. This Court has had little occasion to interpret, and has never actually applied, the Excessive Fines Clause. We have, however, explained that at the time the Constitution was adopted, “the word ‘fine’ was understood to mean a payment to a sovereign as punishment for some offense.” Browning-Ferris Industries of Vt., Inc. v. Kelco Disposal, Inc., 492 U. S. 257, 265 (1989). The Excessive Fines Clause thus “limits the government’s power to extract payments, whether in cash or in kind, ‘as punishment for some offense.’ ” Austin v. United States, 509 U. S. 602, 609-610 (1998) (emphasis deleted). Forfeitures — payments in kind— are thus “fines” if they constitute punishment for an offense.
We have little trouble concluding that the forfeiture of currency ordered by § 982(a)(1) constitutes punishment. The statute directs a court to order forfeiture as an additional sanction when “imposing sentence on a person convicted of” a willful violation of §5316’s reporting requirement. The forfeiture is thus imposed at the culmination of a criminal proceeding and requires conviction of an underlying felony, and it cannot be imposed upon an innocent owner of unreported currency, but only upon a person who has himself been convicted of a §5316 reporting violation. Cf. id., at 619 (holding forfeiture to be a “fine” in part because the forfeiture statute “expressly provide[d] an ‘innocent owner’ defense” and thus “look[ed]... like punishment”).
The United States argues, however, that the forfeiture of currency under § 982(a)(1) “also serves important remedial purposes.” Brief for United States 20. The Government asserts that it has “an overriding sovereign interest in controlling what property leaves and enters the country.” Ibid. It claims that full forfeiture of unreported currency supports that interest by serving to “dete[r] illicit movements of cash” and aiding in providing the Government with “valuable information to investigate and detect criminal activities associated with that cash.” Id., at 21. Deterrence, however, has traditionally been viewed as a goal of punishment, and forfeiture of the currency here does not serve the remedial purpose of compensating the Government for a loss. See Black’s Law Dictionary 1293 (6th ed. 1990) (“[R]emedial action” is one “brought to obtain compensation or indemnity”); One Lot Emerald Cut Stones v. United States, 409 U. S. 232 (1972) (per curiam) (monetary penalty provides “a reasonable form of liquidated damages,” id., at 237, to the Government and is thus a “remedial” sanction because it compensates Government for lost revenues). Although the Government has asserted a loss of information regarding the amount of currency leaving the country, that loss would not be remedied by the Government’s confiscation of respondent’s $357,144.
The United States also argues that the forfeiture mandated by § 982(a)(1) is constitutional because it falls within a class of historic forfeitures of property tainted by crime. See Brief for United States 16 (citing, inter alia, The Pal myra, 12 Wheat. 1, 13 (1827) (forfeiture of ship); Dobbins’s Distillery v. United States, 96 U. S. 395, 400-401 (1878) (forfeiture of distillery)). In so doing, the Government relies upon a series of cases involving traditional civil in rem forfeitures that are inapposite because such forfeitures were historically considered nonpunitive.
The theory behind such forfeitures was the fiction that the action was directed against “guilty property,” rather than against the offender himself. See, e. g., Various Items of Personal Property v. United States, 282 U. S. 577, 581 (1931) (“[I]t is the property which is proceeded against, and, by resort to a legal fiction, held guilty and condemned as though it were conscious instead of inanimate and insentient”); see also R. Waples, Proceedings In Rem 13, 205-209 (1882). Historically, the conduct of the property owner was irrelevant; indeed, the owner of forfeited property could be entirely innocent of any crime. See, e. g., Origet v. United States, 125 U. S. 240, 246 (1888) (“[T]he merchandise is to be forfeited irrespective of any criminal prosecution.... The person punished for the offence may be an entirely different person from the owner of the merchandise, or any person interested in it. The forfeiture of the goods of the principal can form no part of the personal punishment of his agent”). As Justice Story explained:
“The thing is here primarily considered as the offender, or rather the offence is attached primarily to the thing; and this, whether the offence be malum prohibitum, or malum, in se.... [T]he practice has been, and so this Court understand the law to be, that the proceeding in rem stands independent of, and wholly unaffected by any criminal proceeding in personam” The Palmyra, 12 Wheat., at 14-15.
Traditional in rem forfeitures were thus not considered punishment against the individual for an offense. See id., at 14; Dobbins’s Distillery v. United States, supra, at 401; Van Oster v. Kansas, 272 U. S. 465, 467-468 (1926); Calero-Toledo v. Pearson Yacht Leasing Co., 416 U. S. 663, 683-684 (1974); Taylor v. United States, 3 How. 197, 210 (1845) (opinion of Story, J.) (laws providing for in rem forfeiture of goods imported in violation of customs laws, although in one sense “imposing a penalty or forfeiture[,]... truly deserve to be called, remedial”); see also United States v. Ursery, 518 U. S. 267, 293 (1996) (Kennedy, J., concurring) (“[Cjivil in rem forfeiture is not punishment of the wrongdoer for his criminal offense”). Because they were viewed as nonpunitive, such forfeitures traditionally were considered to occupy a place outside the domain of the Excessive Fines Clause. Recognizing the nonpunitive character of such proceedings, we have held that the Double Jeopardy Clause does not bar the institution of a civil, in rem forfeiture action after the criminal conviction of the defendant. See id., at 278.
The forfeiture in this case does not bear any of the hallmarks of traditional civil in rem forfeitures. The Government has not proceeded against the currency itself, but has instead sought and obtained a criminal conviction of respondent personally. The forfeiture serves no remedial purpose, is designed to punish the offender, and cannot be imposed upon innocent owners.
Section 982(a)(1) thus descends not from historic in rem forfeitures of guilty property, but from a different historical tradition: that of in personam, criminal forfeitures. Such forfeitures have historically been treated as punitive, being part of the punishment imposed for felonies and treason in the Middle Ages and at common law. See W. McKeehnie, Magna Carta 337-339 (2d ed. 1958); 2 F. Pollock & F. Mait-land, The History of English Law 460-466 (2d ed. 1909). Although in personam criminal forfeitures were well established in England at the time of the founding, they were rejected altogether in the laws of this country until very recently.
The Government specifically contends that the forfeiture of respondent’s currency is constitutional because it involves an “instrumentality” of respondent’s crime. According to the Government, the unreported cash is an instrumentality because it “does not merely facilitate a violation of law,” but is “ ‘the very sine qua non of the crime.’ ” Brief for United States 20 (quoting United States v. United States Currency in the Amount of One Hundred Forty-Five Thousand, One Hundred Thirty-Nine Dollars, 18 F. 3d 73, 75 (CA2), cert. denied sub nom. Etim v. United States, 513 U. S. 815 (1994)). The Government reasons that “there would be no violation at all without the exportation (or attempted exportation) of the cash.” Brief for United States 20.
Acceptance of the Government’s argument would require us to expand the traditional understanding of instrumentality forfeitures. This we decline to do. Instrumentalities historically have been treated as a form of “guilty property” that can be forfeited in civil in rem proceedings. In this ease, however, the Government has sought to punish respondent by proceeding against him criminally, in personam, rather than proceeding in rem against the currency. It is therefore irrelevant whether respondent’s currency is an instrumentality; the forfeiture is punitive, and the test for the excessiveness of a punitive forfeiture involves solely a proportionality determination. See infra this page and 335-337.
Ill
Because the forfeiture of respondent’s currency constitutes punishment and is thus a “fine” within the meaning of the Excessive Fines Clause, we now turn to the question whether it is “excessive.”
A
The touchstone of the constitutional inquiry under the Excessive Fines Clause is the principle of proportionality: The amount of the forfeiture must bear some relationship to the gravity of the offense that it is designed to punish. See Austin v. United States, 509 U. S., at 622-623 (noting Court of Appeals’ statement that “ ‘the government is exacting too high a penalty in relation to the offense committed’ ”); Alexander v. United States, 509 U. S. 544, 559 (1993) (“It is in the light of the extensive criminal activities which petitioner apparently conducted... that the question whether the forfeiture was ‘excessive’ must be considered”). Until today, however, we have not articulated a standard for determining whether a punitive forfeiture is constitutionally excessive. We now hold that a punitive forfeiture violates the Excessive Fines Clause if it is grossly disproportional to the gravity of a defendant’s offense.
The text and history of the Excessive Fines Clause demonstrate the centrality of proportionality to the excessiveness inquiry; nonetheless, they provide little guidance as to how disproportional a punitive forfeiture must be to the gravity of an offense in order to be “excessive.” Excessive means surpassing the usual, the proper, or a normal measure of proportion. See 1 N. Webster, American Dictionary of the English Language (1828) (defining excessive as “beyond the common measure or proportion”); S. Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language 680 (4th ed. 1778) (“[bjeyond the common proportion”). The constitutional question that we address, however, is just how proportional to a criminal offense a fine must be, and the text of the Excessive Fines Clause does not answer it.
Nor does its history. The Clause was little discussed in the First Congress and the debates over the ratification of the Bill of Rights. As we have previously noted, the Clause was taken verbatim from the English Bill of Rights of 1689. See Browning-Ferris Industries of Vt., Inc. v. Kelco Disposal, Inc., 492 U. S., at 266-267. That document’s prohibition against excessive fines was a reaction to the abuses of the Ring’s judges during the reigns of the Stuarts, id., at 267, but the fines that those judges imposed were described contemporaneously only in the most general terms. See Earl of Devonshire’s Case, 11 State Tr. 1367, 1372 (H. L. 1689) (fine of £30,000 “excessive and exorbitant, against Magna Charta, the common right of the subject, and the law of the land”). Similarly, Magna Charta — which the Stuart judges were accused of subverting — required only that amercements (the medieval predecessors of fines) should be proportioned to the offense and that they should not deprive a wrongdoer of his livelihood:
“A Free-man shall not be amerced for a small fault, but after the manner of the fault; and for a great fault after the greatness thereof, saving to him his contenement; (2) and a Merchant likewise, saving to him his merchandise; (3) and any other’s villain than ours shall be likewise amerced, saving his wainage.” Magna Charta, 9 Hen. Ill, ch. 14 (1225), 1 Stat. at Large 6-7 (1762 ed.).
None of these sources suggests how disproportional to the gravity of an offense a fine must be in order to be deemed constitutionally excessive.
We must therefore rely on other considerations in deriving a constitutional exeessiveness standard, and there are two that we find particularly relevant. The first, which we have emphasized in our cases interpreting the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause, is that judgments about the appropriate punishment for an offense belong in the first instance to the legislature. See, e. g., Solem v. Helm, 463 U. S. 277, 290 (1983) (“Reviewing courts... should grant substantial deference to the broad authority that legislatures necessarily possess in determining the types and limits of punishments for crimes”); see also Gore v. United States, 357 U. S. 386, 393 (1958) (“Whatever views may be entertained regarding severity of punishment,... these are peculiarly questions of legislative policy”). The second is that any judicial determination regarding the gravity of a particular criminal offense will be inherently imprecise. Both of these principles counsel against requiring strict proportionality between the amount of a punitive forfeiture and the gravity of a criminal offense, and we therefore adopt the standard of gross dispro-portionality articulated in our Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause precedents. See, e. g., Solem v. Helm, supra, at 288; Rummel v. Estelle, 445 U. S. 263, 271 (1980).
In applying this standard, the district courts in the first instance, and the courts of appeals, reviewing the proportionality determination de novo, must compare the amount of the forfeiture to the gravity of the defendant’s offense. If the amount of the forfeiture is grossly disproportional to the gravity of the defendant’s offense, it is unconstitutional.
B
Under this standard, the forfeiture of respondent’s entire $357,144 would violate the Excessive Pines Clause. Respondent’s crime was solely a reporting offense. It was permissible to transport the currency out of the country so long as he reported it. Section 982(a)(1) orders currency to be forfeited for a “willful” violation of the reporting requirement. Thus, the essence of respondent’s crime is a willful failure to report the removal of currency from the United States. Furthermore, as the District Court found, respondent’s violation was unrelated to any other illegal activities. The money was the proceeds of legal activity and was to be used to repay a lawful debt. Whatever his other vices, respondent does not fit into the class of persons for whom the statute was principally designed: He is not a money launderer, a drug trafficker, or a tax evader. See Brief for United States 2-3. And under the Sentencing Guidelines, the maximum sentence that could have been imposed on respondent was six months, while the maximum fine was $5,000. App. to Pet. for Cert. 17a (transcript of District Court sentencing hearing); United States Sentencing Commission, Guidelines Manual §5(e)1.2, Sentencing Table (Nov. 1994). Such penalties confirm a minimal level of culpability.
The harm that respondent caused was also minimal. Failure to report his currency affected only one party, the Government, and in a relatively minor way. There was no fraud on the United States, and respondent caused no loss to the public fisc. Had his crime gone undetected, the Government would have been deprived only of the information that $357,144 had left the country. The Government and the dissent contend that there is a correlation between the amount forfeited and the harm that the Government would have suffered had the crime gone undetected. See Brief for United States 30 (forfeiture is “perfectly calibrated”); post, at 344 (“a fine calibrated with this accuracy”). We disagree. There is no inherent proportionality in such a forfeiture. It is impossible to conclude, for example, that the harm respondent caused is anywhere near 30 times greater than that caused by a hypothetical drug dealer who willfully fails to report taking $12,000 out of the country in order to purchase drugs.
Comparing the gravity of respondent’s crime with the $357,144 forfeiture the Government seeks, we conclude that such a forfeiture would be grossly disproportional to the gravity of his offense. It is larger than the $5,000 fine imposed by the District Court by many orders of magnitude, and it bears no articulable correlation to any injury suffered by the Government.
C
Finally, we must reject the contention that the proportionality of full forfeiture is demonstrated by the fact that the First Congress enacted statutes requiring full forfeiture of goods involved in customs offenses or the payment of monetary penalties proportioned to the goods’ value. It is argued that the enactment of these statutes at roughly the same time that the Eighth Amendment was ratified suggests that full forfeiture, in the customs context at least, is a proportional punishment. The early customs statutes, however, do not support such a conclusion because, unlike § 982(a)(1), the type of forfeiture that they imposed was not considered punishment for a criminal offense.
Certain of the early customs statutes required the forfeiture of goods imported in violation of the customs laws, and, in some instances, the vessels carrying them as well. See, e. g., Act of Aug. 4, 1790, § 27, 1 Stat. 163 (goods unladen without a permit from the collector). These forfeitures, however, were civil in rent, forfeitures, in which the Government proceeded against the property itself on the theory that it was guilty, not against a criminal defendant. See, e. g., Harford v. United States, 8 Cranch 109 (1814) (goods unladen without a permit); Locke v. United States, 7 Cranch 339, 340 (1813) (same). Such forfeitures sought to vindicate the Government’s underlying property right in customs duties, and like other traditional in rem forfeitures, they were not considered at the founding to be punishment for an offense. See supra, at 330-331. They therefore indicate nothing about the proportionality of the punitive forfeiture at issue here. See supra, at 330-332.
Other statutes, however, imposed monetary "forfeitures” proportioned to the value of the goods involved. See, e, g., Act of July 31, 1789, §22, 1 Stat. 42 (if an importer, “with design to defraud the revenue,” did not invoice his goods at their actual cost at the place of export, “all such goods, wares or merchandise, or the value thereof... shall be forfeited”); §25, id., at 43 (any person concealing or purchasing goods, knowing they were liable to seizure for violation of the customs laws, was liable to “forfeit and pay a sum double the value of the goods so concealed or purchased”); see also Act of Aug. 4, 1790, §§10, 14, 22, id., at 156, 158, 161. Similar statutes were passed in later Congresses. See, e. g., Act of Mar. 2,1799, §§24, 28, 45, 46, 66, 69, 79, 84, id., at 646, 648, 661, 662, 677, 678, 687, 694; Act of Mar. 3,1823, ch. 58, §1, 3 Stat. 781.
These “forfeitures” were similarly not considered punishments for criminal offenses. This Court so recognized in Stockwell v. United States, 13 Wall. 531 (1871), a ease interpreting a statute that, like the Act of July 31,1789, provided that a person who had concealed goods liable to seizure for customs violations should “forfeit and pay a sum double the amount or value of the goods.” Act of Mar. 3, 1823, eh. 58, §2, 3 Stat. 781-782. The Stockwell Court rejected the defendant’s contention that this provision was “penal,” stating instead that it was “fully as remedial in its character, designed as plainly to secure [the] rights [of the Government], as are the statutes rendering importers liable to duties.” 13 Wall., at 546. The Court reasoned:
“When foreign merchandise, subject to duties, is imported into the country, the act of importation imposes on the importer the obligation to pay the legal charges. Besides this the goods themselves, if the duties be not paid, are subject to seizure.... Every act, therefore, which interferes with the right of the government to seize and appropriate the property which has been forfeited to it... is a wrong to property rights, and is a fit subject for indemnity.” Ibid.
Significantly, the fact that the forfeiture was a multiple of the value of the goods did not alter the Court’s conclusion:
“The act of abstracting goods illegally imported, receiving, concealing, or buying them, interposes difficulties in the way of a government seizure, and impairs, therefore, the value of the government right. It is, then, hardly accurate to say that the only loss the government can sustain from concealing the goods liable to seizure is their single value.... Double the value may not be more than complete indemnity.” Id., at 546-547.
The early monetary forfeitures, therefore, were considered not as punishment for an offense, but rather as serving the remedial purpose of reimbursing the Government for the losses accruing from the evasion of customs duties. They were thus no different in purpose and effect than the in rem forfeitures of the goods to whose value they were proportioned. Cf. One Lot Emerald Cut Stones v. United States, 409 U. S., at 237 (customs statute requiring the forfeiture of undeclared goods concealed in baggage and imposing a monetary penalty equal to the value of the goods imposed a “remedial, rather than [a] punitive sanctio[n]”). By contrast, the full forfeiture mandated by § 982(a)(1) in this case serves no remedial purpose; it is clearly punishment. The customs statutes enacted by the First Congress, therefore, in no way suggest that § 982(a)(l)’s currency forfeiture is constitutionally proportional.
* * *
For the foregoing reasons, the full forfeiture of respondent’s currency would violate the Excessive Fines Clause. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Affirmed.
The statutory reporting requirement provides:
“[A] person or an agent or bailee of the person shall file a report... when the person, agent, or bailee knowingly—
“(1) transports, is about to transport, or has transported, monetary instruments of more than $10,000 at one time—
“(A) from a place in the United States to or through a place outside the United States....” 31 U. S. C. § 5316(a).
Section 5322(a) provides: “A person willfully violating this subchapter... shall be fined not more than $250,000, or imprisoned for not more than five years, or both.”
Although the currency reporting statute provides that “a person or an agent or bailee of the person shall file a report,” 31 U. S. C. § 5316(a), the statute ordering the criminal forfeiture of unreported currency provides that “[t]he court, in imposing sentence on a person convicted of” failure to file the required report, “shall order that the person forfeit to the United States” any property “involved in” or “traceable to” the offense, 18 U. S. G. § 982(a)(1). The combined effect of these two statutes is that an owner of unreported currency is not subject to criminal forfeiture if his agent or bailee is the one who fails to file the required report, because such an owner could not be convicted of the reporting offense. The United States endorsed this interpretation at oral argument in tins case. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 24-25.
For this reason, the dissent's speculation about the effect of today’s holding on “kingpins” and “cash couriers” is misplaced. See post, at 352, 354. Section 982(a)(l)’s criminal in personam forfeiture reaches only currency owned by someone who himself commits a reporting crime. It is unlikely that the Government, in the course of criminally indicting and prosecuting a cash courier, would not bother to investigate the source and true ownership of unreported funds.
We do not suggest that merely because the forfeiture of respondent’s currency in this case would not serve a remedial purpose, other forfeitures may be classified as lionpunitive (and thus not “fines”) if they serve some remedial purpose as well as being punishment for an offense. Even if the Government were correct in claiming that the forfeiture of respondent’s currency is remedial in some way, the forfeiture would still be punitive in part. (The Government concedes ás much.) This is sufficient to bring the forfeiture within the purview of the Excessive Fines Glause. See Austin v. United States, 509 U. S. 602, 621-622 (1993).
The “guilty property” theory behind in rem forfeiture can be traced to the Bible, which describes property being sacrificed to God as a means of atoning for an offense. See Exodus 21:28. In medieval Europe and at common law, this concept evolved into the law of deodand, in which offending property was condemned and confiscated by the church or the Crown in remediation for the harm it had caused. See 1 M. Hale, Pleas of the Crown 420-424 (1st Am. ed. 1847); 1 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 290-292 (1765); O. Holmes, The Common Law 10-13, 23-27 (M. Howe ed. 1963).
It does not follow, of course, that all modem civil in rem forfeitures are nonpunitive and thus beyond the coverage of the Excessive Fines Clause. Because some recent federal forfeiture laws have blurred the traditional distinction between civil in rem and criminal in -personam forfeiture, we have held that a modern statutory forfeiture is a “fine” for Eighth Amendment purposes if it constitutes punishment even in part, regardless of whether the proceeding is styled in rem or in personam. See Austin v. United States, supra, at 621-622 (although labeled in rem, civil forfeiture of real property used “to facilitate” the commission of drug crimes was punitive in part and thus subject to review under the Excessive Fines Clause).
The First Congress explicitly rejected in personam forfeitures as punishments for federal crimes, see Act of Apr. 30, 1790, ch. 9, §24, 1 Stat. 117 (“[NJo conviction or judgment... shall work corruption of blood, or any forfeiture of estate”), and Congress reenacted this ban several times over the course of two centuries. See Rev. Stat. § 5326 (1875); Act of Mar. 4, 1909, ch. 321, §341, 35 Stat. 1159; Act of June 25,1948, ch. 645, §3563, 62 Stat. 837, codified at 18 U. S. C. § 3563 (1982 ed.); repealed effective Nov. 1,1987, Pub. L. 98-473, 98 Stat. 1987.
It was only in 1970 that Congress resurrected the English common law of punitive forfeiture to combat organized crime and major drug trafficking. See Organized Crime Control Act of 1970, 18 U. S. C. § 1963, and Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970, 21 U. S. C. § 848(a). In providing for this mode of punishment, which had long been unused in this country, the Senate Judiciary Committee acknowledged that “criminal forfeiture... represents an innovative attempt to call on our common law heritage to meet an essentially modern problem.” S. Rep. No. 91-617, p. 79 (1969). Indeed, it was not until 1992 that Congress provided for the
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Marshall
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case requires that we reconsider the holding of Kentucky v. Dennison, 24 How. 66 (1861), that federal courts have no power to order the Governor of a State to fulfill the State’s obligation under the Extradition Clause of the Constitution, Art. IV, § 2, to deliver up fugitives from justice.
I
On January 25, 1981, respondent Ronald Calder, then a civilian air traffic controller employed by the Federal Aviation Administration in San Juan, Puerto Rico, struck two people with his automobile. One of the victims, Antonio de Jesus Gonzalez, was injured; his wife, Army Villalba, was killed. Villalba was eight months pregnant; her unborn child did not survive. App. 3a. The incident occurred in the parking lot of a grocery store in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, after what was apparently an altercation between Calder and De Jesus Gonzalez. According to two sworn statements taken by police, one from De Jesus Gonzalez and one from a witness to the incident, after striking the couple Calder backed his car two or three times over the prostrate body of Villalba. App. to Pet for Cert. A34-A41.
On the basis of these statements, Calder was arrested, charged with homicide, arraigned before a municipal judge, and released on $5,000 bail. On February 4, 1981, Calder was arraigned before a District Court of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, charged with first-degree murder and attempted murder. Calder failed to appear at a preliminary hearing'on March 4, 1981, and bail was increased to $50,000. Despite representations by counsel that Calder would appear at a preliminary hearing on April 13, 1981, he did not do so. At that time Calder was declared a fugitive from justice, and bail was increased to $300,000. The Puerto Rican police, having reason to believe that Calder had left Puerto Rico and returned to his family’s home in Iowa, notified local authorities in Iowa that Calder was a fugitive wanted in Puerto Rico on murder charges. On April 24, 1981, Calder surrendered to local authorities in Polk County, Iowa, posted the $20,000 bond set by an Iowa Magistrate, and was released. Id., at A18-A19.
On May 15, 1981, the Governor of Puerto Rico submitted to the Governor of Iowa a request for Calder’s extradition. The requesting papers included the arrest warrant, the fugitive resolution, the charging documents, and three sworn statements of witnesses, including one in which the affiant identified a photograph of Calder as depicting the driver of the car. Counsel for Calder requested that the Governor of Iowa hold an extradition hearing, which was conducted by the Governor’s counsel on June 17, 1981. Id., at A19. This hearing was only partially transcribed, but the record does show that one of Calder’s counsel was permitted to testify to his belief that “a white American man . . . could not receive a fair trial in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico,” App. 32a, while Calder himself testified to his understanding that “on numerous occasions” witnesses in Puerto Rican courts had been “bought.” Id., at 47a.
After the extradition hearing in Iowa, discussions between and among Calder’s counsel, the Governors of Iowa and Puerto Rico, and the prosecutorial authorities in Puerto Rico were held, apparently with a view to negotiating a reduction of the charges lodged against Calder. These discussions were unavailing, and on December 28, 1981, Iowa’s Governor, Robert Ray, formally notified the Governor of Puerto Rico that in the absence of a “change to a more realistic charge,” the request for extradition was denied. App. to Pet. for Cert. A44. A subsequent extradition request made to Governor Ray’s successor in office, respondent Terry Branstad, was also denied. Id., at A21.
On February 15, 1984, petitioner Commonwealth of Puerto Rico filed a complaint in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Iowa against respondents Governor Branstad and the State of Iowa, seeking a declaration that failure to deliver Calder upon presentation of proper extradition papers violated the Extradition Clause and the Extradition Act, 18 U. S. C. §3182 (Act). The complaint further requested the issuance of a writ of mandamus directing respondent Branstad to perform the “ministerial duty” of extradition. App. 7a-8a. Respondents stipulated before the District Court that the extradition papers fully complied with the requirements of the Act. App. to Pet. for Cert. A20. The District Court dismissed the complaint, agreeing with respondents that this Court’s holding in Kentucky v. Dennison, 24 How. 66 (1861), absolutely barred any attempt to invoke federal judicial authority to compel compliance with the Clause or the Act. Civil No. 84-126-E (SD Iowa, May 22, 1985), App. to Pet. for Cert. A10. The Court of Appeals “[r]eluctantly” affirmed. 787 F. 2d 423, 424 (CA8 1986). We granted certiorari, 479 U. S. 811 (1986), to consider whether the propositions concerning the limitation of federal judicial power stated in Kentucky v. Dennison in 1861 retain their validity today. We reverse.
II
A
Kentucky v. Dennison was an action brought under this Court’s original jurisdiction to compel by writ of mandamus the extradition of a fugitive fejon. The grand jury of Wood-ford County, Kentucky, returned an indictment in October 1859 charging Willis Lago, a “free man of color,” with the crime of assisting the escape’ of a slave. 24 How., at 67. The defendant was a resident pf Ohio, and papers requesting his extradition were served upon William Dennison, the Governor of that State. Dennipon secured an opinion from Ohio’s Attorney General, who took the view that the Extradition Clause covered only those acts which were crimes under the law of the asylum State, or which were “regarded as malum in se by the general judgment and conscience of civilized nations.” Id., at 69. On this basis Dennison refused extradition, and Kentucky brought its mandamus action in this Court.
The case was heard in February 1861, and decided on March 14. On that date secession was a fact, and civil war a threatening possibility. The Representatives of the States of the Deep South had withdrawn from the Congress. Justice Campbell was reputedly engaged in mediation efforts between the seceding States and the Lincoln administration, but his resignation from the Court and departure from Washington were imminent; he resigned on April 30, 1861. See 5 C. Swisher, History of the Supreme Court of the United States: The Taney Period 688-689 (1974). It was in these circumstances, with the practical power of the Federal Government at its lowest ebb since the adoption of the Constitution, that Chief Justice Taney delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Court firmly rejected the position taken by Dennison and the Governors of other free States that the Extradition Clause required only the delivery of fugitives charged with acts which would be criminal by the law of the asylum State. “Under such a vague and indefinite construction,” the Court said, “the article would not be a bond of peace and union, but a constant source of controversy and irritating discussion.” 24 How., at 102. Interpreting for the first time the language of the Clause, the Court looked to the fundamental role of the right to request extradition in binding the individual States into a nation:
“Looking, therefore, to the words of the Constitution — to the obvious policy and necessity of this provision to preserve harmony between States, and order and law within their respective borders . . . —the conclusion is irresistible, that this compact engrafted in the Constitution included, and was intended to include, every of-fence made punishable by the law of the State in which it was committed, and that it gives the right to the Executive authority of the State to demand the fugitive from the Executive authority of the State in which he is found; that the right given to ‘demand’ implies that it is an absolute right; and it follows that there must be a correlative obligation to deliver, without any reference to the character of the crime charged, or to the policy or laws of the State to which the fugitive has fled.” Id., at 103.
The Court then turned to the Extradition Act of 1793, 1 Stat. 302. In the procedures for the regulation of extradition established by that Act, the Court found the same absolute right to demand and correlative obligation to deliver. As to the Governor of the asylum State under the Act, the Court determined that “[t]he duty which he is to perform is . . . merely ministerial — that is, to cause the party to be arrested, and delivered to the agent or authority of the State where the crime was committed.” 24 How., at 106. But the Court concluded that “the words ‘it shall be the duty’ were not used as mandatory and compulsory, but as declaratory of the moral duty” created by the Constitution. Id., at 107. Such a construction was necessary, in the Court’s view, to avoid constitutional infirmity.
“The act does not provide any means to compel the execution of this duty, nor inflict any punishment for neglect or refusal on the part of the Executive of the State; nor is there any clause or provision in the Constitution which arms the Government of the United States with this power. Indeed, such a power would place every State under the control and dominion of the General Government, even in the administration of its internal concerns and reserved rights. And we think it clear, that the Federal Government, under the Constitution, has no power to impose on a State officer, as such, any duty whatever, and compel him to perform it.” Ibid.
B
Thus, for over 125 years, Kentucky v. Dennison has stood for two propositions: first, that the Extradition Clause creates a mandatory duty to deliver up fugitives upon proper demand; and second, that the federal courts have no authority under the Constitution to compel performance of this ministerial duty of delivery. As to the first of these conclusions, the passage of time has revealed no occasion for doubt. The language of the Clause is “clear and explicit.” Michigan v. Doran, 439 U. S. 282, 286 (1978). Its mandatory language furthers its intended purposes: “to enable each state to bring offenders to trial as swiftly as possible in the state where the alleged offense was committed,” and “to preclude any state from becoming a sanctuary for fugitives from justice of another state.” Id., at 287; see Biddinger v. Commissioner of Police, 245 U. S. 128, 132-133 (1917); Appleyard v. Massachusetts, 203 U. S. 222, 227 (1906). The Framers of the Constitution perceived that the frustration of these objectives would create a serious impediment to national unity, and the Extradition Clause responds to that perception. “It would have been far better to omit it altogether, and to have left it to the comity of the States, and their own sense of their respective interests, than to have inserted it as conferring a right, and yet defining that right so loosely as to make it a never-failing subject of dispute and ill-will.” Kentucky v. Dennison, 24 How., at 102. We reaffirm the conclusion that the commands of the Extradition Clause are mandatory, and afford no discretion to the executive officers or courts of the asylum State. See California v. Superior Court of California, 482 U. S. 400, 405-406 (1987).
The second, and dispositive, holding of Kentucky v. Dennison rests upon a foundation with which time and the currents of constitutional change have dealt much less favorably. If it seemed clear to the Court in 1861, facing the looming shadow of a Civil War, that “the Federal Government, under the Constitution, has no power to impose on a State officer, as such, any duty whatever, and compel him to perform it,” 24 How., at 107, basic constitutional principles now point as clearly the other way. Within 15 years of the decision in Dennison it was said that “when a plain official duty, requiring no exercise of discretion, is to be performed, and performance is refused, any person who will sustain personal injury by such refusal may have a mandamus to compel its performance,” and it was no objection that such an order might be sought in the federal courts against a state officer. Board of Liquidation v. McComb, 92 U. S. 531, 541 (1876). It has long been a settled principle that federal courts may enjoin unconstitutional action by state officials. See Ex parte Young, 209 U. S. 123, 155-156 (1908). It would be superfluous to restate all the occasions on which this Court has imposed upon state officials a duty to obey the requirements of the Constitution, or compelled the performance of such duties; it may suffice to refer to Brown v. Board of Education, 349 U. S. 294 (1955), and Cooper v. Aaron, 358 U. S. 1 (1958). The fundamental premise of the holding in Dennison — “that the States and the Federal Government in all circumstances must be viewed as coequal sovereigns — is not representative of the law today.” FERC v. Mississippi, 456 U. S. 742, 761 (1982).
Yet, with respect to extradition, the law has remained as it was more than a century ago. Considered de novo, there is no justification for distinguishing the duty to deliver fugitives from the many other species of constitutional duty enforceable in the federal courts. Indeed the nature of the obligation here is such as to avoid many of the problems with which federal courts must cope in other circumstances. That this is a ministerial duty precludes conflict with essentially discretionary elements of state governance, and eliminates the need for continuing federal supervision of state furictions. The explicit and long-settled nature of the command, contained in a constitutional provision and a statute substantially unchanged for 200 years, eliminates the possibility that state officers will be subjected to inconsistent direction. Because the duty is directly imposed upon the States by the Constitution itself, there can be no need to weigh the performance of the federal obligation against the powers reserved to the States under the Tenth Amendment.
Respondents contend, however, that an “executive common law” of extradition has developed through the efforts of Governors to employ the discretion accorded them under Dennison, and that this “common law” provides a superior alternative to the “ministerial duty” to extradite provided for by the Constitution. Tr. of Oral Arg. 21. Even assuming the existence of this tradition of “executive common law,” no weight can be accorded io it. Long continuation of decisional law or administrative practice incompatible with the requirements of the Constitution cannot overcome our responsibility to enforce thos'e requirements. See, e. g., Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U. S. 483 (1954); Green v. New Kent County School Board, 391 U. S. 430 (1968). Though not articulated in theise terms, respondents’ argument is in essence a request thkt we reconsider our construction of the Extradition Clause to establish as a matter of constitutional interpretation a discretion which has hitherto been exercised solely because the Constitution’s explicit command has gone unenforced. This, for the reasons previously stated, we decline to do.
C
Respondents further contend that even if the holding in Kentucky v. Dennison cannot Withstand contemporary scrutiny, petitioner would not prbfit from its demise because Puerto Rico is not a State, and has no right to demand rendition of fugitives under the Extradition Clause. It is true that the words of the Clause apply only to “States,” and we have never held that the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico is entitled to all the benefits confer]'ed upon the States under the Constitution. We need not decide today what applicability the Extradition Clause may have to the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, however, for the Extradition Act clearly applies. The Act requires rendition of fugitives at the request of a demanding “Territory,” as 'well as State. It was decided long ago that Puerto Rico, ais a Territory of the United States, could invoke the Act to'reclaim fugitives from its justice, see New York ex rel. Kopel v. Bingham, 211 U. S. 468 (1909), and respondents do nob challenge the correctness of that holding. The subsequent change to Commonwealth status through legislation, see 64 Stat. 319, 48 U. S. C. §§ 731b-731d, did not remove from the Government of the Commonwealth any power to demand extradition which it had possessed as a Territory, for the intention of that legislation was “to accord to Puerto Rico the degree of autonomy and independence normally associated with States of the Union.” Examining Board of Engineers, Architects and Surveyors v. Flores de Otero, 426 U. S. 572, 594 (1976). Since the Act applies to Puerto Rico, the Commonwealth may invoke the power of federal courts to enforce against state officers rights created by federal statutes, including equitable relief to compel performance of federal statutory duties. See Maine v. Thiboutot, 448 U. S. 1 (1980). Accordingly, Puerto Rico may predicate its mandamus action on the Act, without regard to the direct applicability of the Extradition Clause.
Ill
Kentucky v. Dennison is the product of another time. The conception of the relation between the States and the Federal Government there announced is fundamentally incompatible with more than a century of constitutional development. Yet this decision has stood while the world of which it was a part has passed away. We conclude that it may stand no longer. The decision of the Court of Appeals is
Reversed.
Petitioner had previously sought to file a bill of complaint in this Court, under our original jurisdiction. Motion for leave to file the bill was denied. Puerto Rico v. Iowa, 464 U. S. 1034 (1984).
Section 3182 provides:
“Whenever the executive authority of any State or Territory demands any person as a fugitive from justice, of the executive authority of any State, District or Territory to which such person has fled, and produces a copy of an indictment found or an affidavit made before a magistrate of any State or Territory, charging the person demanded with having committed treason, felony, or other crime, certified as authentic by the governor or chief magistrate of the State or Territory from whence the person so charged has fled, the executive authority of the State, District or Territory to which such person has fled shall cause him to be arrested and secured, and notify the executive authority making such demand, or the agent of such authority appointed to receive the fugitive, and shall cause the fugitive to be delivered to such agent when he shall appear. If no such agent appears within thirty days from the time of the arrest, the prisoner may be discharged.”
The statute has remained substantially unchanged since its original enactment in the Extradition Act of 1793, 1 Stat. 302. See also 18 U. S. C. § 662 (1940 ed.); Rev. Stat. § 5278.
“A Person charged in any State with Treason, Felony, or other Crime, who shall flee from Justice, and be foupd in another State, shall on Demand of the executive Authority of the State from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the State having Jurisdiction of the Crime.” Art. IV, § 2, cl. 2.
This interpretation of the Extradjtion Clause was frequently invoked in the antebellum period by Governors of free States requested to extradite those who had assisted the escape of slaves. It was initially stated by Governor Seward of New York in 1841. See 2 Works of William H. Seward 502-509 (G. Baker ed. 1853); see generally 5 C. Swisher, History of the Supreme Court of the United States: The Taney Period 677-685 (1974).
Respondents contend: “Puerto Rico seeks to force the states to honor its rendition requests even though Congressional representatives of the states have not had an opportunity to consider the admission of Puerto Rico as a state into the Union.... Puerto Rico’s argument. . . serves to eviscerate the significance of the statehood admissions process.” Brief for Respondents 22. Leaving aside the fact that Congress enacted the legislation which made Puerto Rico first a Territory and then a Commonwealth, this curious logic would suggest that Iowa is not required to extradite felons to States, such as New York and Massachusetts, whose presence in the Union is not attributable to votes cast in Congress.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Per Curiam.
The motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis and the petition for writ of certiorari are granted. The judgment is vacated and the case is remanded to the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington for further consideration in light of Sanders v. United States, ante, p. l.
Mr. Justice Clark and Mr. Justice Harlan would deny certiorari on the basis of their dissent in Sanders v. United States, ante, p. 23.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice O’Connor
delivered the opinion of the Court.
We granted certiorari to decide whether the Double Jeopardy Clause bars retrial after a state appellate court sets aside a conviction on the ground that the verdict was against “the weight of the evidence.” After examining the policies supporting the Double Jeopardy Clause, we hold that a reversal based on the weight, rather than the sufficiency, of the evidence permits the State to initiate a new prosecution.
H-4
In 1974, Florida indicted petitioner Delbert Tibbs for the first-degree murder of Terry Milroy, the felony murder of Milroy, and the rape of Cynthia Nadeau. Nadeau, the State’s chief trial witness, testified that she and Milroy were hitchhiking from St. Petersburg to Marathon, Fla., on February 3, 1974. A man in a green truck picked them up near Fort Myers and, after driving a short way, turned off the highway into a field. He asked Milroy to help him siphon gas from some farm machinery, and Milroy agreed. When Nadeau stepped out of the truck a few minutes later, she discovered the driver holding a gun on Milroy. The driver told Milroy that he wished to have sex with Nadeau, and ordered her to strip. After forcing Nadeau to engage in sodomy, the driver agreed that Milroy could leave. As Milroy started to walk away, however, the assailant shot him in the shoulder. When Milroy fell to the ground, pleading for his life, the gunman walked over and taunted, “Does it hurt, boy? You in pain? Does it hurt, boy?” Tr. 508. Then, with a shot to the head, he killed Milroy.
This deed finished, the killer raped Nadeau. Fearing for her life, she suggested that they should leave together and that she “would be his old lady.” Id., at 510. The killer seemed to agree and they returned to the highway in the truck. After driving a short distance, he stopped the truck and ordered Nadeau to walk directly in front of it. As soon as her feet hit the ground, however, she ran in the opposite direction. The killer fled with the truck, frightened perhaps by an approaching car. When Nadeau reached a nearby house, the occupants let her in and called the police.
That night, Nadeau gave the police a detailed description of the assailant and his truck. Several days later a patrolman stopped Tibbs, who was hitchhiking near. Ocala, Fla., because his appearance matched Nadeau’s description. The Ocala Police Department photographed Tibbs and relayed the pictures to the Fort Myers police. When Nadeau examined these photos, she identified Tibbs as the assailant. Nadeau subsequently picked Tibbs out of a lineup and positively identified him at trial as the man who murdered Milroy and raped her.
Tibbs’ attorney attempted to show that Nadeau was an unreliable witness. She admitted during cross-examination that she had tried “just about all” types of drugs and that she had smoked marihuana shortly before the crimes occurred. Id., at 526, 545-546. She also evidenced some confusion about the time of day that the assailant had offered her and Milroy a ride. Finally, counsel suggested through questions and closing argument that Nadeau’s former boyfriend had killed Milroy and that Nadeau was lying to protect her boyfriend. Nadeau flatly denied these suggestions.
In addition to these attempts to discredit Nadeau, Tibbs testified in his own defense. He explained that he was college educated, that he had published a story and a few poems, and that he was hitchhiking through Florida to learn more about how people live. He claimed that he was in Day-tona Beach, across the State from Fort Myers, from the evening of February 1, 1974, through the morning of February 6. He also testified that he did not own a green truck, and that he had not driven any vehicle while in Florida. Finally, he denied committing any of the crimes charged against him.
Two Salvation Army officers partially corroborated Tibbs’ story. These officers produced a card signed by Tibbs, indicating that he had slept at the Daytona Beach Salvation Army Transit Lodge on the evening of February 1, 1974. Neither witness, however, had seen Tibbs after the morning of February 2. Tibbs’ other witnesses testified to his good reputation as a law-abiding citizen and to his good reputation for veracity.
On rebuttal, the State produced a card, similar to the one introduced by Tibbs, showing that Tibbs had spent the night of February 4 at the Orlando Salvation Army Transit Lodge. This evidence contradicted Tibbs’ claim that he had remained in Daytona Beach until February 6, as well as his sworn statements that he had been in Orlando only once, during the early part of January 1974, and that he had not stayed in any Salvation Army lodge after February 1. After the State presented this rebuttal evidence, Tibbs took the stand to deny both that he had been in Orlando on February 4 and that the signature on the Orlando Salvation Army card was his.
The jury convicted Tibbs of first-degree murder and rape. Pursuant to the jury’s recommendation, the judge sentenced Tibbs to death. On appeal, the Florida Supreme Court reversed. Tibbs v. State, 337 So. 2d 788 (1976) (Tibbs I). A plurality of three justices, while acknowledging that “the resolution of factual issues in a criminal trial is peculiarly within the province of a jury,” id., at 791, identified six weaknesses in the State’s case. First, except for Nadeau’s testimony, the State introduced no evidence placing Tibbs in or near Fort Myers on the day of the crimes. Second, although Nadeau gave a detailed description of the assailant’s truck, police never found the vehicle. Third, police discovered neither a gun nor car keys in Tibbs’ possession. Fourth, Tibbs cooperated fully with the police when he was stopped and arrested. Fifth, the State introduced no evidence casting doubt on Tibbs’ veracity. Tibbs, on the other hand, produced witnesses who attested to his good reputation. Finally, several factors undermined Nadeau’s believability. Although she asserted at trial that the crimes occurred during daylight, other evidence suggested that the events occurred after nightfall when reliable identification would have been more difficult. Nadeau, furthermore, had smoked marihuana shortly before the crimes and had identified Tibbs during a suggestive photograph session. These weaknesses left the plurality in “considerable doubt that Delbert Tibbs [was] the man who committed the crimes for which he ha[d] been convicted.” Id., at 790. Therefore, the plurality concluded that the “interests of justice” required a new trial. Ibid.
Justice Boyd concurred specially, noting that “ ‘[t]he test to be applied in determining the adequacy of a verdict is whether a jury of reasonable men could have returned that verdict.’ ” Id., at 792 (quoting Griffis v. Hill, 230 So. 2d 143, 145 (Fla. 1969)). Apparently applying that standard, Justice Boyd found the State’s evidence deficient. He concluded that “the weakness of the evidence presented in the trial court might well require that [Tibbs] be released from incarceration without further litigation,” but “reluctantly concur[red]” in the plurality’s decision to order a new trial because he understood Florida law to permit retrial. 337 So. 2d, at 792.
On remand, the trial court dismissed the indictment, concluding that retrial would violate the double jeopardy principles articulated in Burks v. United States, 437 U. S. 1 (1978), and Greene v. Massey, 437 U. S. 19 (1978). An intermediate appellate court disagreed and remanded the case for trial. 370 So. 2d 386 (Fla. App. 1979). The Florida Supreme Court affirmed the latter decision, carefully elaborating the difference between a reversal stemming from insufficient evidence and one prompted by the weight of the evidence. 397 So. 2d 1120 (1981) (per curiam) (Tibbs II). As the court explained, a conviction rests upon insufficient evidence when, even after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, no rational factfinder could have found the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. A reversal based on the weight of the evidence, on the other hand, draws the appellate court into questions of credibility. The “weight of the evidence” refers to “a determination [by] the trier of fact that a greater amount of credible evidence supports one side of an issue or cause than the other.” Id., at 1123.
The Florida Supreme Court then classified Tibbs I as a reversal resting on the weight of the evidence. Nadeau’s testimony, if believed by the jury, was itself “legally sufficient to support Tibbs’ conviction under Florida law.” 397 So. 2d, at 1126. In deciding to upset Tibbs’ conviction, the court in Tibbs I had stressed those “aspects of Nadeau’s testimony which cast serious doubt on her believability,” 397 So. 2d, at 1126, an approach that bespoke a reweighing of the evidence. “Only by stretching the point...,” the court concluded in Tibbs II, “could we possibly use an ‘insufficiency’ analysis to characterize our previous reversal of Tibbs’ convictions.” Ibid.
Having found that it could not “fairly conclude... that Tibbs’ convictions were reversed on the grounds of eviden-tiary insufficiency,” id., at 1127, the Florida Supreme Court held that Greene and Burks do not bar retrial. Those decisions, the court believed, as well as United States v. DiFrancesco, 449 U. S. 117 (1980), interpret the Double Jeopardy Clause to preclude retrial after reversal of a conviction only when the appellate court has set the conviction aside on the ground that the evidence was legally insufficient to support conviction. Other reversals, including those based on the weight of the evidence or made in the “interests of justice, ” do not implicate double jeopardy principles. We granted certiorari to review this interpretation of the Double Jeopardy Clause. 454 U. S. 963 (1981).
II
In 1896, this Court ruled that a criminal defendant who successfully appeals a judgment against him “may be tried anew... for the same offence of which he had been convicted.” United States v. Ball, 163 U. S. 662, 672. This principle, that the Double Jeopardy Clause “imposes no limitations whatever upon the power to retry a defendant who has succeeded in getting his first conviction set aside,” North Carolina v. Pearce, 395 U. S. 711, 720 (1969), has persevered to the present. See United States v. DiFrancesco, supra, at 131; United States v. Scott, 437 U. S. 82, 89-92 (1978). Two considerations support the rule. First, the Court has recognized that society would pay too high a price “were every accused granted immunity from punishment because of any defect sufficient to constitute reversible error in the proceedings leading to conviction.” United States v. Toteo, 377 U. S. 463, 466 (1964). Second, the Court has concluded that retrial after reversal of a conviction is not the type of governmental oppression targeted by the Double Jeopardy Clause. United States v. Scott, supra, at 91. See generally United States v. DiFrancesco, supra, at 131.
Burks v. United States and Greene v. Massey carved a narrow exception from the understanding that a defendant who successfully appeals a conviction is subject to retrial. In those cases, we held that the Double Jeopardy Clause precludes retrial “once the reviewing court has found the evidence legally insufficient” to support conviction. Burks, 437 U. S., at 18; Greene, 437 U. S., at 24. This standard, we explained, “means that the government’s case was so lacking that it should not have even been submitted to the jury.” Burks, 437 U. S., at 16 (emphasis in original). A conviction will survive review, we suggested, whenever “the evidence and inferences therefrom most favorable to the prosecution would warrant the jury’s finding the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.” Ibid. See also Greene, supra, at 25. In sum, we noted that the rule barring retrial would be “confined to cases where the prosecution’s failure is clear.” Burks, supra, at 17.
So defined, the exception recognized in Burks and Greene rests upon two closely related policies. First, the Double Jeopardy Clause attaches special weight to judgments of acquittal. A verdict of not guilty, whether rendered by the jury or directed by the trial judge, absolutely shields the defendant from retrial. A reversal based on the insufficiency of the evidence has the same effect because it means that no rational factfinder could have voted to convict the defendant.
Second, Burks and Greene implement the principle that “[t]he Double Jeopardy Clause forbids a second trial for the purpose of affording the prosecution another opportunity to supply evidence which it failed to muster in the first proceeding.” Burks, supra, at 11. This prohibition, lying at the core of the Clause’s protections, prevents the State from honing its trial strategies and perfecting its evidence through successive attempts at conviction. Repeated prosecutorial sallies would unfairly burden the defendant and create a risk of conviction through sheer governmental perseverance. See Green v. United States, 355 U. S. 184, 187-188 (1957); United States v. DiFrancesco, 449 U. S., at 130. For this reason, when a reversal rests upon the ground that the prosecution has failed to produce sufficient evidence to prove its case, the Double Jeopardy Clause bars the prosecutor from making a second attempt at conviction.
As we suggested just last Term, these policies do not have the same force when a judge disagrees with a jury’s resolution of conflicting evidence and concludes that a guilty verdict is against the weight of the evidence. See Hudson v. Louisiana, 450 U. S. 40, 44-45, n. 5 (1981). A reversal on this ground, unlike a reversal based on insufficient evidence, does not mean that acquittal was the only proper verdict. Instead, the appellate court sits as a “thirteenth juror” and disagrees with the jury’s resolution of the conflicting testimony. This difference of opinion no more signifies acquittal than does a disagreement among the jurors themselves. A deadlocked jury, we consistently have recognized, does not result in an acquittal barring retrial under the Double Jeopardy Clause. Similarly, an appellate court’s disagreement with the jurors’ weighing of the evidence does not require the special deference accorded verdicts of acquittal.
A reversal based on the weight of the evidence, moreover, can occur only after the State both has presented sufficient evidence to support conviction and has persuaded the jury to convict. The reversal simply affords the defendant a second opportunity to seek a favorable judgment. An appellate court’s decision to give the defendant this second chance does not create “an unacceptably high risk that the Government, with its superior resources, [will] wear down [the] defendant” and obtain conviction solely through its persistence. United States v. DiFrancesco, supra, at 130.
While an appellate ruling based on the weight of the evidence thus fails to implicate the policies supporting Burks and Greene, it does involve the usual principles permitting retrial after a defendant's successful appeal. Just as the Double Jeopardy Clause does not require society to pay the high price of freeing every defendant whose first trial was tainted by prosecutorial error, it should not exact the price of immunity for every defendant who persuades an appellate panel to overturn an error-free conviction and give him a second chance at acquittal. Giving the defendant this second opportunity, when the evidence is sufficient to support the first verdict, hardly amounts to “governmental oppression of the sort against which the Double Jeopardy Clause was intended to protect.” United States v. Scott, 437 U. S., at 91.
Petitioner Tibbs resists these arguments on the grounds that a distinction between the weight and the sufficiency of the evidence is unworkable and that such a distinction will undermine the Burks rule by encouraging appellate judges to base reversals on the weight, rather than the sufficiency, of the evidence. We find these arguments unpersuasive for two reasons. First, trial and appellate judges commonly distinguish between the weight and the sufficiency of the evidence. We have no reason to believe that today’s decision will erode the demonstrated ability of judges to distinguish legally insufficient evidence from evidence that rationally supports a verdict.
Second, our decision in Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U. S. 307 (1979), places some restraints on the power of appellate courts to mask reversals based on legally insufficient evidence as reversals grounded on the weight of the evidence. We held in Jackson that the Due Process Clause forbids any conviction based on evidence insufficient to persuade a rational factfinder of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. The Due Process Clause, in other words, sets a lower limit on an appellate court’s definition of evidentiary sufficiency. This limit, together with our belief that state appellate judges faithfully honor their obligations to enforce applicable state and federal laws, persuades us that today’s ruling will not undermine Burks. In sum, we conclude that the Double Jeopardy Clause does not prevent an appellate court from granting a convicted defendant an opportunity to seek acquittal through a new trial.
III
We turn, finally, to apply the above principles to the present case. A close reading of Tibbs I suggests that the Florida Supreme Court overturned Tibbs’ conviction because the evidence, although sufficient to support the jury’s verdict, did not fully persuade the court of Tibbs’ guilt. The plurality based its review on a Florida rule directing the court in capital cases to “review the evidence to determine if the interests of justice require a new trial, whether the insufficiency of the evidence is a ground of appeal or not.” See n. 8, supra. References to the “interests of justice” and the justices’ own “considerable doubt” of Tibbs’ guilt mark the plurality’s conclusions. Those conclusions, moreover, stem from the justices’ determination that Tibbs’ testimony was more reliable than that of Nadeau. This resolution of conflicting testimony in a manner contrary to the jury’s verdict is a hallmark of review based on evidentiary weight, not evi-dentiary sufficiency.
Any ambiguity in Tibbs I, finally, was resolved by the Florida Supreme Court in Tibbs II. Absent a conflict with the Due Process Clause, see n. 21, supra, that court’s construction of its prior opinion binds this Court. In Tibbs II, of course, the court unequivocally held that Tibbs I was "one of those rare instances in which reversal was based on evi-dentiary weight.” 397 So. 2d, at 1126 (per curiam). Thus, we conclude that Tibbs’ successful appeal of his conviction rested upon a finding that the conviction was against the weight of the evidence, not upon a holding that the evidence was legally insufficient to support the verdict. Under these circumstances, the Double Jeopardy Clause does not bar retrial. Accordingly, the judgment of the Florida Supreme Court is
Affirmed.
“[N]or shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb... U. S. Const., Arndt. 5. The Clause applies to the States through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Benton v. Maryland, 395 U. S. 784 (1969).
The State’s witnesses conceded that, at the time of this identification, Nadeau saw only photographs of Tibbs; she did not have the opportunity to pick his picture out of a photographic array. An officer explained, however, that Nadeau had viewed photographs of single suspects on three or four other occasions and had not identified the killer on any of those occasions. Nadeau also had examined several books of photographs without making an identification. We do not pass upon any possible due process questions raised by the State’s identification procedures, see generally Neil v. Biggers, 409 U. S. 188 (1972); Simmons v. United States, 390 U. S. 377 (1968), because Tibbs’ challenge to retrial rests solely upon double jeopardy grounds.
The State’s remaining witnesses included law enforcement agents, a man who had driven Milroy and Nadeau to Fort Myers, the houseowner who had called the police for Nadeau, acquaintances of Milroy, a doctor who had examined Nadeau shortly after the crimes, and the doctor who had performed the autopsy on Milroy. The doctors confirmed that Nadeau had had intercourse on the evening of February 3 and that Milroy had died that evening from a bullet wound in the head. The other witnesses confirmed that Nadeau and Milroy had been hitchhiking through Fort Myers on February 3 and that Nadeau had arrived at a house, in a hysterical condition, that evening.
A Florida prisoner, sentenced to life imprisonment for rape, also testified for the State. This prisoner claimed that he had met Tibbs while Tibbs was in jail awaiting trial and that Tibbs had confessed the crime to him. The defense substantially discredited this witness on cross-examination, revealing inconsistencies in his testimony and suggesting that he had testified in the hope of obtaining leniency from the State.
The results of two polygraph examinations, described in a report read to the jury, indicated that Nadeau was “truthful as to the fact that a black male driving a green pickup truck had picked them up and that this black male had murdered Terry Milroy,” Tr. 302. The polygraphs also suggested that Nadeau was truthful when she identified Tibbs as the assailant. Id., at 303. Tibbs challenged the admissibility of these polygraphs during his first appeal. See Tibbs v. State, 337 So. 2d 788, 796 (Fla. 1976) (Roberts, J., dissenting). The justices who voted to reverse Tibbs’ conviction, however, did not reach the issue and we express no opinion on this matter of state law.
The plurality completely discounted the testimony of the convicted rapist who recounted Tibbs’ alleged confession. See n. 3, supra. This testimony, the justices concluded, appeared “to be the product of purely selfish considerations.” 337 So. 2d, at 790.
The plurality opinion summarily dismissed the effect of the rebuttal evidence showing that Tibbs was in Orlando on February 4. A “superficial comparison” of the signature on the Orlando transit card with Tibbs’ own signature, the plurality found, supported Tibbs’ claim that he had not signed the card. Moreover, evidence that Tibbs was in Orlando on February 4 still did not place him in Fort Myers on February 3. Id., at 790, n. 1.
See n. 2, supra.
At the time of Tibbs’ first appeal, Florida Appellate Rule 6.16(b) (1962) provided in part:
“Upon an appeal from the judgment by a defendant who has been sentenced to death the appellate court shall review the evidence to determine if the interests of justice require a new trial, whether the insufficiency of the evidence is a ground of appeal or not.”
The substance of this Rule has been recodified as Florida Appellate Rule 9.140(f).
At two points, Justice Boyd stated that he “concurred] in the majority opinion.” 337 So. 2d, at 792. However, because we are uncertain what weight Florida attaches to special concurrences of this sort and because Justice Boyd’s views differed from those of the other justices voting to reverse, we have chosen to designate the lead opinion a “plurality” opinion.
Three justices dissented from the court’s disposition of Tibbs’ appeal. They declared that “the evidence in the record before us does not reveal that the ends of justice require that a new trial be awarded,” id., at 796-797, and rejected Tibbs’ other assignments of error.
We decided Burks and Greene after the Florida Supreme Court reversed Tibbs’ conviction, but before he could be retried. We have applied Burks to prosecutions that were not yet final on the date of that decision. See Hudson v. Louisiana, 450 U. S. 40 (1981).
Other courts similarly have explained the difference between eviden-tiary weight and evidentiary sufficiency. In United States v. Lincoln, 630 F. 2d 1313 (CA8 1980), for example, the court declared:
“The court reviewing the sufficiency of the evidence, whether it be the trial or appellate court, must apply familiar principles. It is required to view the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict, giving the prosecution the benefit of all inferences reasonably to be drawn in its favor from the evidence. The verdict may be based in whole or in part on circumstantial evidence. The evidence need not exclude every reasonable hypothesis except that of guilt....” Id., at 1316.
“When a motion for new trial is made on the ground that the verdict is contrary to the weight of the evidence, the issues are far different.... The district court need not view the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict; it may weigh the evidence and in so doing evaluate for itself the credibility of the witnesses. If the court concludes that, despite the abstract sufficiency of the evidence to sustain the verdict, the evidence preponderates sufficiently heavily against the verdict that a serious miscarriage of Justice may have occurred, it may set aside the verdict, grant a new trial, and submit the issues for determination by another jury.” Id., at 1319.
See generally 2 C. Wright, Federal Practice and Procedure § 553 (1969).
Elsewhere in its opinion, the Florida Supreme Court ruled that Florida appellate courts no longer may reverse convictions on the ground that the verdict was against the weight of the evidence. 397 So. 2d, at 1125. This ruling does not diminish the importance of the issue before us. Courts in other jurisdictions sometimes rely upon the weight of the evidence to overturn convictions. For example, some federal courts have interpreted Rule 33 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, which authorizes a new trial “if required in the interest of justice,” to permit the trial judge to set aside a conviction that is against the weight of the evidence. E. g., United Stales v. Lincoln, supra, at 1319; United States v. Indelicato, 611 F. 2d 376, 387 (CA1 1979); United States v. Turner, 490 F. Supp. 583, 593 (ED Mich. 1979), affirmance order, 633 F. 2d 219 (CA6 1980), cert. denied, 450 U. S. 912 (1981); United States v. Felice, 481 F. Supp. 79, 90-91 (ND Ohio 1978).
Three justices dissented from the court’s decision to permit Tibbs’ retrial. Chief Justice Sundberg suggested that the reversal in Tibbs 1 must have rested upon a finding of evidentiary insufficiency, because the Florida Supreme Court lacked authority to reweigh the evidence. He also rejected the majority’s distinction between evidentiary weight and eviden-tiary sufficiency, proposing that the Double Jeopardy Clause should bar retrial whenever an appellate court reverses “for a substantive lack of evidence to support the verdict.” 397 So. 2d, at 1128. Justice England merely stated that he would discharge Tibbs “in the interest of justice.” Id., at 1130. Justice Boyd concluded that Tibbs I had rested on a finding of evidentiary insufficiency and, accordingly, that Tibbs “should be forever discharged from the accusations made against him.” 397 So. 2d, at 1131.
The rule also appears to coincide with the intent of the Fifth Amendment’s drafters. James Madison’s proposed version of the Double Jeopardy Clause provided that “[n]o person shall be subject, except in cases of impeachment, to more than one punishment or one trial for the same of-fence.” 1 Annals of Cong. 434 (1789). Several Representatives objected that this language might prevent a defendant from seeking a new trial after conviction. Representative Sherman, for example, observed that “[i]f the [defendant] was acquitted on the first trial, he ought not to be tried a second time; but if he was convicted on the first, and any thing should appear to set the judgment aside, he was entitled to a second, which was certainly favorable to him.” Id., at 753. Madison’s supporters explained that the language would not prevent a convicted defendant from seeking a new trial, and the House approved Madison’s proposal. Ibid. The Senate later substituted the language appearing in the present Clause. S. Jour., 1st Cong., 1st Sess., 71, 77 (1820 ed.). See generally United States v. Wilson, 420 U. S. 332, 340-342 (1975); Sigler, A History of Double Jeopardy, 7 Am. J. Legal Hist. 283, 304-306 (1963).
See United States v. DiFrancesco, 449 U. S. 117, 129 (1980); United States v. Scott, 437 U. S. 82, 91 (1978); Arizona v. Washington, 434 U. S. 497, 503 (1978); United States v. Martin Linen Supply Co., 430 U. S. 564, 571 (1977); Fong Foo v. United States, 369 U. S. 141, 143 (1962) (per curiam).
See, e. g., United States v. Martin Linen Supply Co., supra; United States v. Ball, 163 U. S. 662, 666-671 (1896).
See, e. g., Arizona v. Washington, supra, at 509; United States v. Sanford, 429 U. S. 14, 16 (1976) (per curiam); Johnson v. Louisiana, 406 U. S. 356, 401-402 (1972) (Marshall, J., dissenting); Downum v. United States, 372 U. S. 734, 735-736 (1963); Wade v. Hunter, 336 U. S. 684, 689 (1949); Keerl v. Montana, 213 U. S. 135 (1909); Dreyer v. Illinois, 187 U. S. 71, 84-86 (1902); Logan v. United States, 144 U. S. 263, 298 (1892); United States v. Perez, 9 Wheat. 579 (1824).
Our decisions also make clear that disagreements among jurors or judges do not themselves create a reasonable doubt of guilt. As Justice White, writing for the Court in Johnson v. Louisiana, supra, explained, “[t]hat rational men disagree is not in itself equivalent to a failure of proof by the State, nor does it indicate infidelity to the reasonable-doubt standard.” 406 U. S., at 362.
The dissent suggests that a reversal based on the weight of the evidence necessarily requires the prosecution to introduce new evidence on retrial. Once an appellate court rules that a conviction is against the weight of the evidence, the dissent reasons, it must reverse any subsequent conviction resting upon the same evidence. We do not believe, however, that jurisdictions endorsing the “weight of the evidence” standard apply that standard equally to successive convictions. In Florida, for example, the highest state court once observed that, although “[t]here is in this State no limit to the number of new trials that may be granted in any case,... it takes a strong case to require an appellate court to grant a new trial in a case upon the ground of insufficiency of conflicting evidence to support a verdict when the finding has been made by two juries.” Blocker v. State, 92 Fla. 878, 893, 110 So. 547, 552 (1926) (en banc). The weight of the evidence rule, moreover, often derives from a mandate to act in the interests of justice. See nn. 8 and 12, supra. Although reversal of a first conviction based on sharply conflicting testimony may serve the interests of justice, reversal of a second conviction based on the same evidence may not. See United States v. Weinstein, 452 F. 2d 704, 714, n. 14 (CA2 1971) (“We do not join in the... forecast that the granting of a new trial would doom the defendant and the Government to an infinite regression.... [I]f a third jury were to find [the defendant] guilty, we should suppose any judge would hesitate a long time before concluding that the interests of justice required still another trial”), cert. denied sub nom. Grunberger v. United States, 406 U. S. 917 (1972). While the interests of justice may require an appellate court to sit once as a thirteenth juror, that standard does not compel the court to repeat the role.
A second chance for the defendant, of course, inevitably affords the prosecutor a second try as well. It is possible that new evidence or advance understanding of the defendant’s trial strategy will make the State’s case even stronger during a second trial than it was at the first. It is also possible, however, that the passage of time and experience of defense counsel will weaken the prosecutor’s presentation. In this case, for example, more than eight years have elapsed since the crimes. Nadeau’s ability to recall the events of February 3,1974, may have diminished significantly, and a jury may be less willing to credit her identification of a man she saw almost a decade ago. When the State has secured one conviction based on legally sufficient evidence, it has everything to lose and little to gain by retrial. Thus, the type of “second chance” that the State receives when a court rests reversal on evidentiary weight does not involve the overreaching prohibited by the Double Jeopardy Clause.
See, e. g., United States v. Lincoln, 630 F. 2d, at 1319; United States v. Weinstein, supra, at 714-716; United States v. Shipp, 409 F. 2d 33, 36-37 (CA4), cert. denied, 396 U. S. 864 (1969); Dorman v. State, 622 P. 2d 448, 453-454 (Alaska 1981); Ridley v. State, 236 Ga. 147, 149, 223 S. E. 2d 131, 132 (1976); State v. McGranahan, — R. I. —, —, 415 A. 2d 1298, 1301-1303 (1980); Tyacke v. State, 65 Wis. 2d 513, 521, 223 N. W. 2d 595, 599 (1974).
The evidence in this case clearly satisfied the
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Stevens
announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion, in which Mr. Justice Stewart joined.
Having lawfully acquired possession of a dozen cartons of motion pictures, law enforcement officers viewed several reels of 8-millimeter film on a Government projector. Labels on the individual film boxes indicated that they contained obscene pictures. The question is whether the Fourth Amendment required the agents to obtain a warrant before they screened the films.
Only a few of the bizarre facts need be recounted. On September 25, 1975, 12 large, securely sealed packages containing 871 boxes of 8-millimeter film depicting homosexual activities were shipped by private carrier from St. Petersburg, Fla., to Atlanta, Ga. The shipment was addressed to “Leggs, Inc.,” but was mistakenly delivered to a substation in the suburbs of Atlanta, where “L’Eggs Products, Inc.,” regularly received deliveries. Employees of the latter company opened each of the packages, finding the individual boxes of film. They examined the boxes, on one side of which were suggestive drawings, and on the other were explicit descriptions of the contents. One employee opened one or two of the boxes, and attempted without success to view portions of the film by holding it up to the light. Shortly thereafter, they called a Federal Bureau of Investigation agent who picked up the packages on October 1,1975.
Thereafter, without making any effort to obtain a warrant or to communicate with the consignor or the consignee of the shipment, FBI agents viewed the films with a projector. The record does not indicate exactly when they viewed the films, but at least one of them was not screened until more than two months after the FBI had taken possession of the shipment.
On April 6, 1977, petitioners were indicted on obscenity charges relating to the interstate transportation of 5 of the 871 films in the shipment. A motion to suppress and return the films was denied, and petitioners were convicted on multiple counts of violating 18 U. S. C. §§ 371, 1462, and 1465. Over Judge Wisdom’s dissent, the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed, 592 F. 2d 788, and rehearing was denied, 597 F. 2d 63 (1979). We granted certiorari, 444 U. S. 914, and now reverse.
In his concurrence in Stanley v. Georgia, 394 U. S. 557, 569, Mr. Justice Stewart expressed the opinion that the war-rantless projection of motion picture films was an unconstitutional invasion of the privacy of the owner of the films. After noting that the agents in that case were lawfully present in the defendant’s home pursuant to a warrant to search for wagering paraphernalia, Mr. Justice Stewart wrote:
“This is not a case where agents in the course of a lawful search came upon contraband, criminal activity, or criminal evidence in plain view. For the record makes clear that the contents of the films could not be determined by mere inspection. . . . After finding them, the agents spent some 50 minutes exhibiting them by means of the appellant’s projector in another upstairs room. Only then did the agents return downstairs and arrest the appellant.
“Even in the much-criticized case of United States v. Rabinowitz, 339 U. S. 56, the Court emphasized that 'exploratory searches . . . cannot be undertaken by officers with or without a warrant.’ Id., at 62. This record presents a bald violation of that basic constitutional rule. To condone what happened here is to invite a government official to use a seemingly precise and legal warrant only as a ticket to get into a man’s home, and, once inside, to launch forth upon unconfined searches and indiscriminate seizures as if armed with all the unbridled and illegal power of a general warrant.
“Because the films were seized in violation of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments, they were inadmissible in evidence at the appellant’s trial.” Id., at 571-572 (footnote omitted).
Even though the cases before us involve no invasion of the privacy of the home, and notwithstanding that the nature of the contents of these films was indicated by descriptive material on their individual containers, we are nevertheless persuaded that the unauthorized exhibition of the films constituted an unreasonable invasion of their owner’s constitutionally protected interest in privacy. It was a search; there was no warrant; the owner had not consented; and there were no exigent circumstances.
It is perfectly obvious that the agents’ reason for viewing the films was to determine whether their owner was guilty of a federal offense. To be sure, the labels on the film boxes gave them probable cause to believe that the films were obscene and that their shipment in interstate commerce had offended the federal criminal code. But the labels were not sufficient to support a conviction and were not mentioned in the indictment. Further investigation — that is to say, a search of the contents of the films — was necessary in order to obtain the evidence which was to be used at trial.
The fact that FBI agents were lawfully in possession of the boxes of film did not give them authority to search their contents. Ever since 1878 when Mr. Justice Field’s opinion for the Court in Ex parte Jackson, 96 U. S. 727, established that sealed packages in the mail cannot be opened without a warrant, it has been settled that an officer’s authority to possess a package is distinct from his authority to examine its contents. See Arkansas v. Sanders, 442 U. S. 753, 758; United States v. Chadwick, 433 U. S. 1, 10. When the contents of the package are books or other materials arguably protected by the First Amendment, and when the basis for the seizure is disapproval of the message contained therein, it is especially important that this requirement be scrupulously observed.
Nor does the fact that the packages and one or more of the boxes had been opened by a private party before they were acquired by the FBI excuse the failure to obtain a search warrant. It has, of course, been settled since Burdeau v. McDowell, 256 U. S. 465, that a wrongful search or seizure conducted by a private party does not violate the Fourth Amendment and that such private wrongdoing does not deprive the government of the right to use evidence that it has acquired lawfully. See Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U. S. 443, 487-490. In these cases there was nothing wrongful about the Government’s acquisition of the packages or its examination of their contents to the extent that they had already been examined by third parties. Since that examination had uncovered the labels, and since the labels established probable cause to believe the films were obscene, the Government argues that the limited private search justified an unlimited official search. That argument must fail, whether we view the official search as an expansion of the private search or as an independent search supported by its own probable cause.
When an official search is properly authorized — whether by consent or by the issuance of a valid warrant — the scope of the search is limited by the terms of its authorization. Consent to search a garage would not implicitly authorize a search of an adjoining house; a warrant to search for a stolen refrigerator would not authorize the opening of desk drawers. Because “indiscriminate searches and seizures conducted under the authority of ‘general warrants’ were the immediate evils that motivated the framing and adoption of the Fourth Amendment,” Payton v. New York, 445 U. S. 573, 583, that Amendment requires that the scope of every authorized search be particularly described.
If a properly authorized official search is limited by the particular terms of its authorization, at least the same kind of strict limitation must be applied to any official use of a private party’s invasion of another person’s privacy. Even though some circumstances — for example, if the results of the private search are in plain view when materials are turned over to the Government — may justify the Government’s reexamination of the materials, surely the Government may not exceed the scope of the private search unless it has the right to make an independent search. In these cases, the private party had not actually viewed the films. Prior to the Government screening, one could only draw inferences about what was on the films. The projection of the films was a significant expansion of the search that had been conducted previously by a private party and therefore must be characterized as a separate search. That separate search was not supported by any exigency, or by a warrant even though one could have easily been obtained.
The Government claims, however, that because the packages had been opened by a private party, thereby exposing the descriptive labels on the boxes, petitioners no longer had any reasonable expectation of privacy in the films, and that the warrantless screening therefore did not invade any privacy interest protected by the Fourth Amendment. But petitioners expected no one except the intended recipient either to open the 12 packages or to project the films. The 12 cartons were securely wrapped and sealed, with no labels or markings to indicate the character of their contents. There is no reason why the consignor of such a shipment would have any lesser expectation of privacy than the consignor of an ordinary locked suitcase. The fact that the cartons were unexpectedly opened by a third party before the shipment was delivered to its intended consignee does not alter the consignor’s legitimate expectation of privacy. The private search merely frustrated that expectation in part. It did not simply strip the remaining unfrustrated portion of that expectation of all Fourth Amendment protection. Since the additional search conducted by the FBI — the screening of the films — was not supported by any justification, it violated that Amendment.
We therefore conclude that the rationale of Mr. Justice Stewart’s concurrence in Stanley v. Georgia, 394 U. S. 557, is applicable to these cases and that it requires that the judgments of the Court of Appeals be reversed.
It is so ordered.
Mr. Justice Marshall concurs in the judgment.
There was no “Leggs, Inc.” “Leggs” was the nickname of a woman employed by one of petitioners’ companies. The packages indicated that the intended recipient would pick them up and pay for them at the carrier’s terminal in Atlanta.
Each reel was eight millimeters in width. Petitioner Walter informs us that, excluding three millimeters for sprocketing and one millimeter for the border, the film itself is only four millimeters wide. Brief for Petitioner in No. 79-67, p. 30, n. 8. Since the scenes depicted within the frame are necessarily even more minute, it is easy to understand why such films cannot be examined successfully with the naked eye.
The FBI had meanwhile received no request from the consignee or the consignor of the films for their return, but the agents had been told by employees of L’Eggs Products, Inc., that inquiries had been made as to their whereabouts.
The petition for certiorari in No. 79-67 presented 10 separate questions, and the petition in No. 79-148 presented 5 separate questions. Except with respect to the issues discussed in the text, we have determined that certiorari was improvidently granted. We therefore dismiss as to the other questions that have been briefed and argued. For purposes of decision, we accept the Government’s argument that the delivery of the films to the FBI by a third party was not a “seizure” subject to the warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment.
“In th[e] enforcement [of regulations as to what may be transported in the mails], a distinction is to be made between different kinds of mail matter, — between what is intended to be kept free from inspection, such as letters, and sealed packages subject to letter postage; and what is open to inspection, such as newspapers, magazines, pamphlets, and other printed matter, purposely left in a condition to be examined. Letters and sealed packages of this kind in the mail are as fully guarded from examination and inspection, except as to their outward form and weight, as if they were retained by the parties forwarding them in their own domiciles. The constitutional guaranty of the right of the people to be secure in their papers against unreasonable searches and seizures extends to their papers, thus closed against inspection, wherever they may be. Whilst in the mail, they can only be opened and examined under like warrant, issued upon similar oath or affirmation, particularly describing the thing to be seized, as is required when papers are subjected to search in one’s own household. No law of Congress can place in the hands of officials connected with the postal service any authority to invade the secrecy of letters and such sealed packages in the mail; and all regulations adopted as to mail matter of this kind must be in subordination to the great principle embodied in the fourth amendment of the Constitution.” 96 U. S., at 732-733.
And later in his opinion, Mr. Justice Field again noted that “regulations excluding matter from the mail cannot be enforced in a way which would require or permit an examination into letters, or sealed packages subject to letter postage, without warrant, issued upon oath or affirmation, in the search for prohibited matter. . . .” Id., at 735.
“This is the history which prompted the Court less than four years ago to remark that ‘[t]he use by government of the power of search and seizure as an adjunct to a system for the suppression of objectionable publications is not new.’ Marcus v. Search Warrant, 367 U. S. 717, at 724. ‘This history was, of course, part of the intellectual matrix within which our constitutional fabric was shaped. The Bill of Rights was fashioned against the background of knowledge that unrestricted power of search and seizure could also be an instrument for stifling liberty of expression.’ Id., at 729. As MR. Justice Douglas has put it, ‘The commands of our First Amendment (as well as the prohibitions of the Fourth and the Fifth) reflect the teachings of Entick v. Carrington, [19 How. St. Tr. 1029 (1765)]. These three amendments are indeed closely related, safeguarding not only privacy and protection against self-incrimination but "conscience and human dignity and freedom of expression as well.”’ Frank v. Maryland, 359 U. S. 360, 376 (dissenting opinion).
“In short, what this history indispensably teaches is that the constitutional requirement that warrants must particularly describe the ‘things to be seized’ is to be accorded the most scrupulous exactitude when the ‘things’ are books, and the basis for their seizure is the ideas which they contain.” Stanford v. Texas, 379 U. S. 476, 484-485.
See also Roaden v. Kentucky, 413 U. S. 496, 501. Although there were 871 reels of film in the shipment, there were only 25 different titles. Since only five of the titles were used as a basis for prosecution, it may be presumed that the other films were not obscene.
“The requirement that warrants shall particularly describe the things to be seized makes general searches under them impossible and prevents the seizure of one thing under a warrant describing another.” Manon v. United States, 275 U. S. 192, 196.
The Warrant Clause of the Fourth Amendment expressly provides that no warrant may issue except those “particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
Since the viewing was first done by the Government when it screened the films with a projector, we have no occasion to decide whether the Government would have been required to obtain a warrant had the private party been the first to view them.
The fact that the labels on the boxes established probable cause to believe the films were obscene clearly cannot excuse the failure to obtain a warrant; for if probable cause dispensed with the necessity of a warrant, one would never be needed.
Contrary to the dissent, post, at 665-666, n. 3, there were no impracticalities in these cases that would vitiate the warrant requirement. The inability to serve a warrant on the owner of property to be searched does not make execution of the warrant unlawful. See ALI, Model Code of Pre-Arraignment Procedure §220.3 (4) (Prop. Off. Draft 1975). Obviously, such inability does not render a warrant unnecessary under the Fourth Amendment. Nor is it clear in these cases that it would have been impossible to serve petitioners with a search warrant had the FBI made any effort to find them prior to screening the films. See n. 3, supra.
For the same reason, one may not deem petitioners to have consented to the screening merely because the labels on the unexposed boxes were explicit.
Nor can petitioners’ failure to make a more prompt claim to the Gov- ■ emment for return of the films be fairly regarded as an abandonment of their interest in preserving the privacy of the shipment. As subsequent events have demonstrated, such a request could reasonably be expected to precipitate criminal proceedings. We cannot equate an unwillingness to invite a criminal prosecution with a voluntary abandonment of any interest in the contents of the cartons. In any event, the record in these cases does indicate that the defendants made a number of attempts to locate the films before they were examined by the FBI agents.
The consignor’s expectation of privacy in the contents of a carton delivered to a private carrier must be measured by the condition of the package at the time it was shipped unless there is reason to assume that it would be opened before it arrived at its destination. Thus, for example, if a gun case is delivered to a carrier, there could then be no expectation that the contents would remain private, cf. Arkansas v. Sanders, 442 U. S. 753, 764-765, n. 13; but if the gun case were enclosed in a locked suitcase, the shipper would surely expect that the privacy of its contents would be respected.
The dissent asserts, post, at 665, that “[a]ny subjective expectation of privacy on the part of petitioners was undone ... by their own actions and the private search.” But it is difficult to understand how petitioners’ subjective expectation of privacy could have been altered in any way by subsequent events of which they were obviously unaware.
A partial invasion of privacy cannot automatically justify a total invasion. As Learned Hand noted in a somewhat different context: “It is true that when one has been arrested in his home or his office, his privacy has already been invaded; but that interest, though lost, is altogether separate from the interest in protecting his papers from indiscriminate rummage, even though both are customarily grouped together as parts of the 'right of privacy.’ ” United States v. Rabinowitz, 176 F. 2d 732, 735 (CA2 1949), rev’d, 339 U. S. 56. Judge Hand’s view was ultimately vindicated in Chimel v. California, 395 U. S. 752, 768, which specifically disapproved this Court’s decision in Rabinowitz. See also Mr. Justice Stewart’s opinion concurring in the result in Stanley v. Georgia, 394 U. S. 557, 571-572, quoted supra, at 653-654.
It is arguable that a third party’s inspection of the contents of “private books, papers, memoranda, etc.” could be so complete that there would be no additional search by the FBI when it re-examines the materials. Cf. Burdeau v. McDowell, 256 U. S. 465, 470. But this is not such a case, because it was clearly necessary for the FBI to screen the films, which the private party had not done, in order to obtain the evidence needed to accomplish its law enforcement objectives.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Murphy
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Our concern here is with the period of limitations applicable to the filing of claims for refund of federal income taxes. Must such claims be filed within two years after payment of the tax, as provided by § 322 (b) (1) of the Internal Revenue Code, or within four years after payment of the tax, as provided by § 3313 of the Code?
The corporate taxpayer, respondent herein, filed its income and excess-profits tax return for 1938, a return which indicated a tax liability of $1,193.25. This sum, plus a small additional assessment, was paid in 1939. A revenue agent later investigated the taxpayer’s liability again, resulting in an additional assessment of $6,640.81. Payment of this amount was made on March 8, 1941. Over three years later, on March 30, 1944, the taxpayer filed a claim for refund of $1,053.49. It was stated that the revenue agent erroneously had failed to allow certain credits for sums used by the taxpayer in 1938 to reduce its indebtedness. Reliance was placed by the taxpayer on the four-year limitation period specified in § 3313. The Commissioner of Internal Revenue rejected this claim, pointing out that § 3313 specifically exempts from its application income, war-profits, excess-profits, estate and gift taxes.
This suit was then brought by the taxpayer in the District Court to recover the amount alleged by the refund claim to be due. That court held that § 3313 was applicable and gave judgment for the taxpayer. 66 F. Supp. 254. The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, one judge dissenting, affirmed the judgment. 159 F. 2d 316. The problem being one of importance in the administration of the revenue laws, we granted certiorari.
Section 322 (b) (1) is to be found in Subtitle A of the Internal Revenue Code, a subtitle dealing with those taxes over which the Tax Court has jurisdiction. Such jurisdiction includes income, excess-profits, estate and gift taxes. More specifically, § 322 (b) (1) appears under Chapter 1 of the Code, pertaining to income taxes. It is concerned with overpayments of income taxes and provides quite simply that no refund shall be allowed unless a claim for refund “is filed by the taxpayer within three years from the time the return was filed by the taxpayer or within two years from the time the tax was paid . ...”
Section 3313, on the other hand, is located under Subtitle B of the Code, a subtitle devoted to miscellaneous taxes. It is in Chapter 28, which contains various provisions common to such taxes. And it is among those provisions dealing with the assessment, collection and refund of the taxes. It reads as follows: “All claims for the refunding or crediting of any internal revenue tax alleged to have been erroneously or illegally assessed or collected, or of any penalty alleged to have been collected without authority, or of any sum alleged to have been excessive or in any manner wrongfully collected must, except as otherwise provided by law in the case of income, war-profits, excess-profits, estate, and gift taxes, be presented to the Commissioner within four years next after the payment of such tax, penalty, or sum. The amount of the refund (in the case of taxes other than income, war-profits, excess-profits, estate, and gift taxes) shall not exceed the portion of the tax, penalty, or sum paid during the four years immediately preceding the filing of the claim, or if no claim was filed, then during the four years immediately preceding the allowance of the refund.”
The substance of § 3313 of the Code has long been a part of federal statutory law. Its ancestry can be traced back to 1872, when § 3228 of the Revised Statutes was enacted. Section 3228 established a procedure for filing claims for refund of any internal revenue tax alleged to have been “erroneously or illegally assessed or collected” and created a limitation period of two years from the time the cause of action accrued, later extended in 1921 to four years from the date of payment of the tax. But soon after the entry of the income tax into the federal scene in 1913, separate provision was made for the filing of claims for refund of income taxes “paid in excess of those properly due.” Section 14 (a) of the Revenue Act of 1916 was the first such provision and it made clear that § 3228 was inapplicable to claims of this nature. Section 252 of the Revenue Act of 1918, followed by § 252 of the 1921 Act, continued this scheme of separate treatment. These later provisions were written so as to include refund claims relating to war-profits and excess-profits taxes as well as those involving income taxes; and a limitation of five years from the date the return was due was placed on the filing of such claims. It was further specified that the procedure therein detailed was to be followed “notwithstanding the provisions” of § 3228.
Section 252, as it appeared in the 1921 Act, was then changed in 1923 so as to permit claims for refund of income and profits taxes “paid in excess of that properly due” to be filed within two years after the tax was paid, in addition to the five-year period after the due date of the return. This change was made “so that the taxpayer who has, by agreement with the Treasury, permitted the time for the final assessment of the taxes due from him to be made after the expiration of the five-year period, will not be barred from making a claim for a refund when such assessment is made and the taxpayer alleges that the assessment is illegal.” Amending § 252 rather than § 3228 of the Revised Statutes to accomplish this purpose was significant. It was an unequivocal indication that § 252, in speaking of claims for refund of “excess” payments of income and profits taxes, was designed by its framers to include not only those payments growing out of errors in the preparation of returns but also those payments resulting from illegal or erroneous assessments. See Graham v. duPont, 262 U. S. 234, 258.
The Revenue Act of 1924 transferred the substance of the former § 252 to a new § 281. A four-year period of limitations from the date of the payment of the tax was established, a period coinciding in length with that prescribed by § 3228. The reference to the type of payments involved was recast; in place of speaking of payments “in excess of that properly due,” § 281 used the simple term “overpayment.” And instead of stating in § 281 that its provisions should apply “notwithstanding the provisions” of § 3228 of the Revised Statutes, § 3228 itself was amended to make it applicable to all claims for the refunding or crediting of any internal revenue tax “except as provided in section 281 of the Revenue Act of 1924.” This placing of an exceptive clause in § 3228 was done “to remove the doubt which now exists as to whether or not the provisions of section 3228, Revised Statutes, apply in any event to income taxes.” In other words, the statutory drafters intended to make certain that § 3228 was in no event to apply to income tax refund claims. Such claims were to be governed exclusively by § 281.
The essence of § 281 of the 1924 Act has been carried through to the present § 322 of the Internal Revenue Code. The only significant change in the interval, for our purposes, was a reduction in the period of limitations, as measured from the payment of the tax, from four years to three years and finally to two years. And § 3228 of the Revised Statutes, as amended to state that it applies “except as otherwise provided by law in the case of income, war-profits, excess-profits, estate, and gift taxes,” has become the current § 3313 of the Code.
With this background in mind, we find the pattern of limitation periods for tax refund claims to be clear. Section 3313 of the Code establishes a four-year period for all internal revenue taxes, except as otherwise provided by law in the case of specified taxes. Among the latter is the income tax, as to which § 322 (b) (1) makes provision “otherwise” by requiring that refund claims be presented within two years of payment or within three years from the filing of the return. Provisions are also made “otherwise” in the case of the estate tax (§ 910 of the Code) and the gift tax (§ 1027 of the Code).
The argument is made, however, that § 322 (b) (1) deals only with income tax “overpayments” and not with income taxes “erroneously or illegally assessed or collected.” Overpayments are said to refer solely to excess payments resulting from errors by taxpayers in the preparation of their returns or in related activities, while erroneous or illegal assessments and collections are claimed to relate to various kinds of errors on the part of revenue agents. Since there is no provision “otherwise” for income tax refund claims involving the latter type of errors, the conclusion is reached that the four-year limitation period of § 3313 remains applicable. We cannot agree.
In the absence of some contrary indication, we must assume that the framers of these statutory provisions intended to convey the ordinary meaning which is attached to the language they used. See Rosenman v. United States, 323 U. S. 658, 661. Hence we read the word “overpayment” in its usual sense, as meaning any payment in excess of that which is properly due. Such an excess payment may be traced to an error in mathematics or in judgment or in interpretation of facts or law. And the error may be committed by the taxpayer or by the revenue agents. Whatever the reason, the payment of more than is rightfully due is what characterizes an overpayment.
That this ordinary meaning is the one intended by the authors of § 322 (b) (1) is quite evident from the legislative history which we have detailed. The word “overpayment” first appeared in § 281 of the 1924 Revenue Act, one of the direct ancestors of § 322 (b) (1). The word was there used as a substitute for the previous reference to payments “in excess of that properly due,” a phrase that is a perfect definition of an overpayment and that is not necessarily confined to overpayments occasioned by errors made by taxpayers. The immediate predecessor of § 281 had employed that phrase and had been enacted in 1923 with the expressed intention of including claims growing out of illegal assessments. There was not the slightest indication that the substitution of the word “overpayment” was designed to narrow the scope of § 281. It apparently was a mere simplification in phraseology. But it does make clear the sense in which the word was first used in this context. The generic character of the word was emphasized from the start. And we see no basis for making it over into a word of art at this late date.
The legislative history further reveals a consistent intention to make a separate and complete limitation provision for income tax refund claims, whatever might be the underlying basis of the claims. Section 322 and its predecessors were devised in order to provide such an exclusive scheme. Claims relating to the income tax have at all times been explicitly excluded from § 3313. This arrangement is but part of the general plan evident in the Internal Revenue Code of providing separate treatment for the income, profits, estate and gift taxes, as distinct from the miscellaneous taxes and the excise, import and temporary taxes. We would be doing unwarranted violence to this clear demarcation were we to read the word “overpayment” so as to place certain types of income tax refund claims within the scope of § 3313, a section that has always been divorced from the income tax portion of the revenue laws.
It is pointed out, however, that various lower federal courts, beginning in 1939, have reached a contrary result. They have held that § 3313 rather than § 322 (b) (1) governs refund claims for income taxes alleged to have been “erroneously or illegally assessed or collected.” Since Congress has subsequently convened from time to time and has amended § 322 in other respects without expressly disapproving this interpretation, the contention is advanced that legislative acquiescence in the interpretation must be assumed. But the doctrine of legislative acquiescence is at best only an auxiliary tool for use in interpreting ambiguous statutory provisions. See Helvering v. Reynolds, 313 U. S. 428, 432. Here the language and the purpose of Congress seem clear to us. The arrangement whereby all income tax refund claims are to be governed by what is now § 322 (b) (1) was established in an unmistakable manner nearly a quarter of a century ago, an arrangement that has been continued through various reenactments and changes in the revenue laws. And that arrangement has been consistently recognized and followed by the Treasury Department. Under those circumstances, it would take more than legislative silence in the face of rather recent contrary decisions by lower federal courts to overcome the factors upon which we have placed reliance. Cf. Electric Battery Co. v. Shimadzu, 307 U. S. 5, 14; Missouri v. Ross, 299 U. S. 72, 75; United States v. Elgin, J. & E. R. Co., 298 U. S. 492, 500. We do not expect Congress to make an affirmative move every time a lower court indulges in an erroneous interpretation. In short, the original legislative language speaks louder than such judicial action.
We accordingly conclude that all income tax refund claims, whatever the reasons giving rise to the claims, must be filed within three years from the time the return was filed or within two years from the time the tax was paid, as provided in § 322 (b) (1). The four-year period prescribed by § 3313 is inapplicable to such claims. Since respondent filed its income tax refund claim more than three years after filing the return and more than two years after payment of the tax, its claim was out of time. That is true even though the claim arose out of an income tax alleged to have been “erroneously or illegally assessed or collected.”
Reversed.
Mr. Justice Douglas dissents.
The return in this case was filed in June, 1939. Since the claim was filed on March 30, 1944, no contention could be made that it was within the three-year period from the date the return was filed.
Section 3228 was in the nature of a revision of § 44 of the Act of June 6, 1872, 17 Stat. 230, 257.
Revenue Act of 1921, § 1316, 42 Stat. 227, 314.
39 Stat. 756, 772. This provided that the claim for refund might be presented “notwithstanding the provisions of section thirty-two hundred and twenty-eight of the Revised Statutes.”
40 Stat. 1057,1085.
42 Stat. 227,268.
Act of March 4, 1923, 42 Stat. 1504, 1505. In amending § 252, the Act of March 4, 1923, made mention of refunds of income taxes to withholding agents which might be made under the provisions of “section 3228 of the Revised Statutes.” This was an obvious reference to the practice of the Treasury Department, admitted to be of “very doubtful legality,” H. R. Rep. No. 1424, 67th Cong., 4th Sess., p. 2, of allowing a taxpayer who had permitted an additional assessment after the five-year period from the due date of the return (specified by § 252 of the 1921 Act) to file a claim for refund within four years after payment of the tax (pursuant to § 3228), even though the five-year period had elapsed. The Treasury had instituted this practice to prevent inequities which might otherwise ensue to such taxpayers, but it was without legislative sanction. It was to take care of the taxpayers who had taken advantage of the Treasury practice that the reference in question in the Act of March 4, 1923, was made. As to claims pending on March 4, 1923, which were timely filed under § 3228, but not timely under § 252, refunds to withholding agents were necessarily to be made under § 3228. This provision was not repeated in subsequent legislation and it was not indicative of a legislative intent to permit income tax refund claims to be governed by § 3228 in the future.
Emphasis added. H. R. Rep. No. 1424, 67th Cong., 4th Sess., p. 2; S. Rep. No. 1137, 67th Cong., 4th Sess., p. 2.
43 Stat. 253, 301.
The Revenue Act of 1924, 43 Stat. 253, 296, also created a new § 272, dealing with “overpayments” of income tax installments. This spoke of overpayments in the sense of payments of “more than the amount determined to be the correct amount of such installment.” This provision now exists as § 321 of the Internal Revenue Code.
43 Stat. 253,342.
H. R. Rep. No. 179, 68th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 71; S. Rep. No. 398, 68th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 44. This quotation was taken verbatim by the congressional committees from the statement of A. W. Gregg of the Treasury Department, Statement of the Changes Made in the Revenue Act of 1921 by H. R. 6715 and the Reasons Therefor, Senate Committee Print, 68th Cong., 1st Sess., March 6, 1924, p. 37.
See Revenue Act of 1926, § 284, 44 Stat. 9, 66; Revenue Act of 1928, §322, 45 Stat. 791, 861; Revenue Act of 1932, §322, 47 Stat. 169, 242; Revenue Act of 1934, § 322, 48 Stat. 680, 750.
Section 272 of the 1924 Act (now § 321 of the Code) referred to “overpayments” of income tax installments as payments of “more than the amount determined to be the correct amount of such installment.” See note 10, supra. Such a definition admits of no distinction between errors by the taxpayer and errors by the revenue agents.
Reference should also be made to the second sentence of § 3313, providing that the amount of refund may not exceed the amount of tax paid during the four-year period. There is a parenthetical phrase in this sentence which specifically excludes income, war-profits, excess-profits, estate and gift taxes. If the first sentence of § 3313, establishing the four-year limitation period, applied to income tax refund claims arising out of illegal assessments, there would be no limit on the amount of refund by reason of this second sentence. Such a result is without support in the purpose or history of the provisions dealing with these refund claims.
Huntley v. Southern Oregon Sales, 102 F. 2d 538, was the first case so holding. Subsequent decisions of the same tenor have relied in large part upon the Huntley case. Olsen v. United States, 32 F. Supp. 276; United States v. Lederer Terminal W. Co., 139 F. 2d 679; In re Tindle’s Estate, 59 F. Supp. 667, affirmed per curiam sub nom. Pennsylvania Co. for Insurances on Lives v. United States, 152 F. 2d 757; Godfrey v. United States, 61 F. Supp. 240; Noble v. Kavanagh, 66 F. Supp. 258, affirmed per curiam, 160 F. 2d 104; Sbarbaro v. United States, 73 F. Supp. 213. See also Fawcett v. United States, 70 F. Supp. 742. Compare Central Hanover Bank & Trust Co. v. United States, 67 F. Supp. 920. In many cases, however, the applicability of § 322 (b) (1) to claims of the type here involved was assumed without question and without an explicit holding on the point. See, for example, United States v. Garbutt Oil Co., 302 U. S. 528.
See I. T. 1447, I-2 Cum. Bull. 220 (1922); T. D. 3457, II-1 Cum. Bull. 177 (1923) and T. D. 3462, amending Regulations 62, II—1 Cum. Bull. 180 (1923); S. M. 1712, III-1 Cum. Bull. 345 (1924); S. M. 2293, III—2 Cum. Bull. 310 (1924); G. C. M. 3152, VII-1 Cum. Bull. 153 (1928); G. C. M. 13759, XIII-2 Cum. Bull. 102 (1934); Mim. 4814, 1938-2 Cum. Bull. 96; I. T. 3483, 1941-1 Cum. Bull. 397.
The present Treasury viewpoint is codified in Treasury Regulations 111, promulgated under the Internal Revenue Code, §29.322-3 and § 29.322-7. See also Treasury Regulations 103, promulgated under the Code, § 19.322-3 and § 19.322-7, as amended by T. D. 5256, 1943 Cum.-Bull. 550; and Treasury Regulations 101, promulgated under the Revenue Act of 1938, Articles 322-3 and 322-7.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | L | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Me. Justice Harlan
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Mrs. Auguste Schaeche was adjudged incompetent in 1953 and committed to a California state mental institution operated by petitioner. California Welfare and Institutions Code § 6650 provides in pertinent part:
“The husband, wife, father, mother, or children of a mentally ill person or inebriate, and the administrators of their estates, and the estate of such mentally ill person or inebriate, shall be liable for his care, support, and maintenance in a state institution of which he is an inmate. The liability of such persons and estates shall be a joint and several liability . . . .”
Ellinor Vance, the daughter of Mrs. Schaeche, died in 1960 and respondent was appointed administratrix of her estate. Petitioner filed a claim for $7,554.22 with respondent, that being the cost of support furnished to the incompetent from 1956 to 1960, which was rejected by respondent. Petitioner then filed suit for that amount and obtained judgment on the pleadings. The District Court of Appeal affirmed, 29 Cal. Rptr. 312, but the Supreme Court of California reversed, finding that § 6650 “violates the basic constitutional guaranty of equal protection of the law . . . 60 Cal. 2d 716, 717, 388 P. 2d 720. We granted certiorari to consider the important questions involved, 379 U. S. 811. After plenary briefing and argument, however, we are unable to say with requisite assurance that this Court has jurisdiction in the premises.
The California Supreme Court did not state whether its holding was based on the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States or the equivalent provisions of the California Constitution, or both. While we might speculate from the choice of words used in the opinion, and the authorities cited by the court, which provision was the basis for the judgment of the state court, we are unable to say with any degree of certainty that the judgment of the California Supreme Court was not based on an adequate and independent nonfederal ground. This Court is always wary of assuming jurisdiction of a case from a state court unless it is plain that a federal question is necessarily presented, and the party seeking review here must show that we have jurisdiction of the case. Were we to assume that the federal question was the basis for the decision below, it is clear that the California Supreme Cpurt, either on remand or in another case presenting the same issues, could inform us that its opinion was in fact based, at least in part, on the California Constitution, thus leaving the result untouched by whatever conclusions this Court might have reached on the merits of the federal question. For reasons that follow we conclude that further clarifying proceedings in the California Supreme Court are called for under the principles stated in Minnesota v. National Tea Co., 309 U. S. 551.
The first mention of any specific constitutional provision in this case appears to have been made in respondent’s reply brief in the State District Court of Appeal, and it related solely to the State Constitution. That court disposed of the constitutional claim in one paragraph, citing Department of Mental Hygiene v. McGilvery, 50 Cal. 2d 742, 754-761, 329 P. 2d 689, 695-699. In McGilvery rehearing was granted by the California Supreme Court to consider the claim that “an absolute liability on a mother to pay for the care, support and maintenance of her mentally ill daughter in a state institution, is a deprivation of property without equal protection of law and without just compensation in violation of the state and federal Constitutions.” 50 Cal. 2d, at 747, 329 P. 2d, at 691. On the pages cited by the District Court of Appeal, the California Supreme Court in McGilvery had concluded:
“Article I, section 11 of the California Constitution requires that all laws of a general nature have a uniform operation. This has been held generally to require a reasonable classification of persons upon whom the law is to operate. The classification must be one that is founded upon some natural or intrinsic or constitutional distinction. [Citations.] Likewise, those within the class, that is those persons similarly situated with respect to that law, must be subjected to equal burdens. [Citation.] The clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the federal Constitution which prohibits a state from denying to 'any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws’ has been similarly construed.”
An examination of the opinion of the California Supreme Court in the case before us does not indicate whether that court relied on the State Constitution alone, the Federal Constitution alone, or both; and we would have jurisdiction to review only if the federal ground had been the sole basis for the decision, or the State Constitution was interpreted under what the state court deemed the compulsion of the Federal Constitution.
The court first discussed Department of Mental Hygiene v. Hawley, 59 Cal. 2d 247, 379 P. 2d 22, a case decided under the Fourteenth Amendment, and then stated, “This holding is dispositive of the issue before us.” 60 Cal. 2d, at 720, 388 P. 2d, at 722.
The court went on, however, to discuss other cases. After noting that in Department of Mental Hygiene v. Shane, 142 Cal. App. 2d 881, 299 P. 2d 747 (relied on in McGilvery), there was no “mention of either the United States or the California Constitutions,” the court distinguished both Shane and McGilvery as cases in which the constitutional claims were not presented. 60 Cal. 2d, at 721, 388 P. 2d, at 723. It then discussed Hoeper v. Tax Comm’n, 284 U. S. 206, which dealt with reasonable classification, and compared a similar treatment in Estate of Tetsubumi Yano, 188 Cal. 645, 656-657 [14], 206 P. 995. In Yano the California Supreme Court found an alien land law in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Privileges and Immunities Clause, and of the California Constitution. The court’s discussion of the Equal Protection Clause, however, was confined to pp. 654-656 of the opinion, and in headnote [14] on page 656 (cited by the court in the present case) the court dealt principally with the state constitutional ground.
After examining the statutory framework of the support statutes, the court in this case finally concluded with the following statement:
“A statute obviously violates the equal protection clause if it selects one particular class of persons for a species of taxation and no rational basis supports such classification. (See Blumenthal v. Board of Medical Examiners (1962) 57 Cal. 2d 228, 237 [13] [18 Cal. Rptr. 501, 368 P. 2d 101]; Bilyeu v. State Employees’ Retirement System (1962) 58 Cal. 2d 618, 623 [2] [25 Cal. Rptr. 562, 375 P. 2d 442].) Such a concept for the state’s taking of a free man’s property manifestly denies him equal protection of the law.” 60 Cal. 2d, at 722-723, 388 P. 2d, at 724.
Blumenthal v. Board of Medical Examiners, 57 Cal. 2d 228, 368 P. 2d 101, involved an attack on a licensing statute under both the Eourteenth Amendment-and §§11 and 21 of Article I of the California Constitution. See 57 Cal. 2d, at 232, 368 P. 2d, at 103. The court did not specifically rely on one constitutional provision, but merely held the statute unconstitutional. Bilyeu v. State Employees’ Retirement System, 58 Cal. 2d 618, 375 P. 2d 442, involved an attack on a classification of state employees subject to retirement benefits. At headnote [2] of the opinion, cited by the court in Kirchner, appears the following language:
“There is no constitutional requirement of uniform treatment, but only that there be a reasonable basis for each classification.”
The use of such language suggests that the court may have been adverting to the California constitutional provision that “[a] 11 laws of a general nature shall have a uniform operation.” Calif. Const., Art. I, § 11.
On the basis of the foregoing, it is clear that we cannot say with the requisite certainty that the California judgment rested solely on the Fourteenth Amendment, or, amounting to the same thing, that in striking the statute down under the State Constitution the court below acted under what it conceived to be the compulsion of the Federal Constitution (cf. Jankovich v. Indiana Toll Road Comm’n, 379 U. S. 487, 492); one or the other determination would be necessary to our exercising jurisdiction. While the ambiguity of the opinion might normally lead us to dismiss the writ of certiorari as improvidently granted, we think the preferable course is to leave the way open for obtaining clarification from the California Supreme Court (Minnesota v. National Tea Co., supra), in view of the importance of and widespread interest in the case. Unfortunately, because of California law, we cannot hold the case on our calendar until the parties submit a clarifying certificate from the California Supreme Court, see Dixon v. Duffy, 344 U. S. 143, 145, but we can obviate undue delay by vacating the judgment of the California Supreme Court, directing that our mandate issue forthwith, and giving leave to the parties to file a new petition for certiorari incorporating by reference the record and briefs now on file in this Court, supplemented by such additional papers as may be necessary or appropriate, if on further proceedings the California Supreme Court holds that its judgment does not rest on an adequate independent nonfederal ground.
The judgment of the Supreme Court of California is vacated and the cause remanded to that court for such further proceedings as may be appropriate under state law. The judgment and mandate of this Court shall issue forthwith.
Vacated and remanded.
Mr. Justice Douglas, believing it clear that the Supreme Court of California did not rest solely on the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, would dismiss the writ.
California Constitution, Art. I, §§ 11, 21, provides in pertinent part:
“Sec. 11. All laws of a general nature shall have a uniform operation.
“Sec. 21. No special privileges or immunities shall ever be granted which may not be altered, revoked, or repealed by the Legislature; nor shall any citizen, or class of citizens, be granted privileges or immunities which, upon the same terms, shall not be granted to all citizens.”
These provisions have been interpreted by the California courts as being the equivalent of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. See Department of Mental Hygiene v. McGilvery, 50 Cal. 2d 742, 754, 329 P. 2d 689, 695, quoted infra, p. 198; Lelande v. Lowery, 26 Cal. 2d 224, 157 P. 2d 639; San Bernardino v. Way, 18 Cal. 2d 647, 117 P. 2d 354; People v. Sullivan, 60 Cal. App. 2d 539, 141 P. 2d 230; People v. England, 140 Cal. App. 310, 35 P. 2d 565; 11 Cal. Jur. 2d §272, and cases cited therein. See also Los Angeles v. Southern Cal. Tel. Co., 32 Cal. 2d 378, 196 P. 2d 773, appeal dismissed, 336 U. S. 929.
See Note, Supreme Court Treatment of State Court Cases Exhibiting Ambiguous Grounds of Decision, 62 Col. L. Rev. 822 (1962).
Appellant’s Reply Brief, p. 2, presented the rhetorical question: “Is not the taking of money from a daughter, or her estate, for the support of a mother who has an estate of her own violative of the Constitution of the State of California?” (Emphasis added.)
29 Cal. Rptr. 312, 317.
50 Cal. 2d 742, 754, 329 P. 2d 689, 695.
State Tax Comm’n v. Van Cott, 306 U. S. 511; Fox Film Corp. v. Muller, 296 U. S. 207.
58 Cal. 2d, at 623, 375 P. 2d, at 445.
Forty-two States, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia have similar statutes on their books, and eight States have filed amicus briefs in this Court, either supporting the petition for certiorari or the petitioner’s position on the merits.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | I | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Stewart
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Section 241 (a) (4) of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 provides that “Any alien in the United States . . . shall, upon the order of the Attorney General, be deported who ... at any time after entry is convicted of two crimes involving moral turpitude . ...” The single question to be decided in the present case is whether this provision applies to a person who was a naturalized citizen at the time he was convicted of the crimes, but was later denaturalized.
The petitioner, born in Italy in 1891, was brought to the United States when he was four years old and has lived here ever since. He became a naturalized citizen in 1925. In 1954 he was convicted of two separate offenses of income tax evasion, and the convictions were ultimately affirmed by this Court. Costello v. United States, 350 U. S. 359. In 1959 his citizenship was revoked and his certificate of naturalization canceled on the ground that his citizenship had been acquired by willful misrepresentation. This Court affirmed the judgment of denat-uralization. Costello v. United States, 365 U. S. 265.
In 1961 the Immigration and Naturalization Service commenced proceedings to deport the petitioner under § 241 (a) (4), and it is those proceedings which have culminated in the case now before us. The Special Inquiry Officer found the petitioner deportable; the Board of Immigration Appéals affirmed; and the Court of Appeals dismissed the petition for review, holding that the petitioner was subject to deportation under § 241 (a) (4) even though the two convictions relied upon to support deportation both occurred at a time when he was a naturalized citizen. 311 F. 2d 343. We granted certiorari to consider an important question of federal law. For the reasons which follow, we reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
At a semantic level, the controversy centers around the use of the present tense “is” in the clause “[[a]ny alien] who at any time after entry is convicted . . . .” The petitioner argues that this language permits deportation only of one who was an alien at the time of his convictions. The Court of Appeals totally rejected such a contention, holding that this statutory language, considered along with the phrase “at any time after entry” and with the broad legislative history, clearly permits deportation of a person now an alien who was convicted of the two crimes in question while he was a naturalized citizen. “There is no ambiguity,” the court wrote, and “no room for interpretation or construction.” 311 F. 2d, at 345. The court found additional support for its conclusion in Eichenlaub v. Shaughnessy, 338 U. S. 521, a case which held that under a 1920 deportation law aliens who had been convicted of specified offenses were deport-able even though the convictions had occurred at a time when the aliens held certificates of naturalization.
We take a different view. The statute construed in Eichenlaub differs from § 241 (a) (4) in several important respects. The law there involved was the Act of May 10, 1920, which provided that “All aliens who since August 1, 1914, have been or may hereafter be convicted” of violations of the Espionage Act of 1917, as amended, were to be deported, provided the Secretary of Labor after a hearing found them to be undesirable residents of the United States. The Court read this language as unambiguously authorizing deportation; regardless of the aliens’ status at the time they were convicted. It is evident from what was said in the opinion that the Court was aided considerably in its search for the proper construction of the statute by Congress’ use of the past tense in the phrase “have been or may hereafter be,” and the fact that the only limitation which Congress placed upon the time of conviction was that it be “since August 1, 1914.” The Court also found specific legislative history to support its conclusion. As the Congressional Committee Reports demonstrated, the 1920 law was a special statute dealing with sabotage and espionage, originally enacted in order to deport “some or all of about 500 aliens who were then interned as dangerous enemy aliens and who might be found, after hearings, to be undesirable residents, and also to deport some or all of about 150 other aliens who, during World War I, had been convicted of violations of the Espionage Act or other national security measures, and who might be found, after hearings, to be undesirable residents.” 338 U. S., at 532. The Court therefore concluded that Congress, when it enacted the statute, had expressed a clear intent to group together denaturalized citizens along with aliens who had never acquired citizenship and to deport them for specific crimes involving national security occurring after a specific date at the beginning of World War I.
Neither the language nor the history of § 241 (a) (4) lends itself so easily to a similar construction. The subsection employs neither a past tense verb nor a single specific time limitation. The petitioner’s construction— that the language permits deportation only of a person who was an alien at the time of his convictions, and the Court of Appeals’ construction — that the language permits deportation of a person now an alien who at any time after entry has been convicted of two crimes, regardless of his status at the time of the convictions — are both possible readings of the statute, as the respondent has conceded in brief and oral argument.
We agree with the Court of Appeals that the tense of the verb “be” is not, considered alone, dispositive. On the other hand, we disagree with that court’s reliance on the phrase “at any time after entry” in § 241 (a) (4) to support the conclusion that an alien is deportable for post-entry conduct whether or not he was an alien at the time of conviction. Since § 212 (a)(9) provides for the exclusion of aliens convicted of crimes of moral turpitude, and any excludable alien who nevertheless enters the country is deportable under § 241 (a)(1), it seems just as logical to conclude that the purpose of the phrase “at any time after entry” in § 241 (a) (4) was simply to make clear that § 241 (a) (4) authorizes the deportation of aliens who were not originally excludable, but were convicted after entry.
There is nothing in the legislative history of § 241 (a) (4) of so specific a nature as to resolve the ambiguity of the statutory language. The general legislative purpose underlying enactment of § 241 (a) (4) was to broaden the provisions governing deportation, “particularly those referring to criminal and subversive aliens.” But reference to such a generalized purpose does little to promote resolution of the specific problem before us, of which there was absolutely no mention in the Committee Reports or other legislative materials concerning §241 (a)(4).
Although no legislative history illumines our problem, considerable light is forthcoming from another provision of the statute itself. Section 241 (b)(2), made specifically applicable to § 241 (a)(4), provides that deportation shall not take place “if the court sentencing such alien for such crime shall make, at the time of first imposing judgment or passing sentence, or within thirty days thereafter, a recommendation . . . that such alien not be deported.” As another court has correctly observed, “It seems plain that the qualifying provisions of subsection (b) are an important part of the legislative scheme expressed in subsection (a) (4). While that section makes a conviction there referred to ground for deportation, it is qualified in an important manner by the provision of subsection (b) (2) that if the court sentencing the alien makes the recommendation mentioned, then the provisions of subsection (a) (4) do not apply.” Gubbels v. Hoy, 261 F. 2d 952, 954.
Yet if § 241 (a)(4) were construed to apply to those convicted when they were naturalized citizens, the protective provisions of § 241 (b) (2) would, as to them, become a dead letter. A naturalized citizen would not “at the time of first imposing judgment or passing sentence,” or presumably “within thirty days thereafter,” be an “alien” who could seek to invoke the protections of this section of the law. Until denaturalized, he would still be a citizen for all purposes, and a sentencing court would lack jurisdiction to make the recommendation provided by § 241 (b)(2). We would hesitate long before adopting a construction of § 241 (a) (4) which would, with respect to an entire class of aliens, completely nullify a procedure so intrinsic a part of the legislative scheme.
If, however, despite the impact of §241 (b)(2), it should still be thought that the language of § 241 (a)(4) itself and the absence of legislative history continued to leave the matter in some doubt, we would nonetheless be constrained by accepted principles of statutory construction in this area of the law to resolve that doubt in favor of the petitioner. As the Court has emphasized, “deportation is a drastic measure and at times the equivalent of banishment or exile, Delgadillo v. Carmichael, 332 U. S. 388. It is the forfeiture for misconduct of a residence in this country. Such a forfeiture is a penalty. To construe this statutory provision less generously to the alien might find support in logic. But since the stakes are considerable for the individual, we will not assume that Congress meant to trench on his freedom beyond that which is required by the narrowest of several possible meanings of the words used.” Fong Haw Tan v. Phelan, 333 U. S. 6, 10.
Adoption of the petitioner’s construction of § 241 (a) (4) does not end our inquiry, however, for the respondent urges affirmance of the finding of deportability on an alternative ground, not reached by the Court of Appeals. The argument is that the petitioner is deportable because § 340 (a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, under which the petitioner’s citizenship was canceled, provides that an order of denaturalization “shall be effective as of the original date” of the naturalization order. Under this so-called “relation-back” theory, it is said that cancellation of the petitioner’s certificate of naturalization was “effective” as of 1925, the year of his original naturalization, that he was therefore an alien as a matter of law at the time of his convictions in 1954, and that he is accordingly deportable under § 241 (a) (4) even if that provision requires alienage at the time of the convictions.
We reject this theory for much the same reasons which have prompted our construction of § 241 (a)(4). There is nothing in the language of § 340 (a), and not a single indication in the copious legislative history of the 1952 Act, to suggest that Congress intended the relation-back language of § 340 (a) to apply to the general deportation provisions of the Act. In view of the complete absence of any indication to the contrary, it would appear that in adopting the relation-back language of § 340 (a) Congress intended to do no more than to codify existing case law. Several cases before 1952 had held that an order of denaturalization made the original naturalization a nullity, Johannessen v. United States, 225 U. S. 227, and that, for the purpose of determining rights of derivative citizenship, denaturalization related back to the date of naturalization. Battaglino v. Marshall, 172 F. 2d 979, 981; Rosenberg v. United States, 60 F. 2d 475.
The Second Circuit was alone among the federal courts in thinking that this nunc pro tunc concept which had been judicially developed in the denaturalization cases could properly be related to the task of construing a deportation statute. Eichenlaub v. Watkins, 167 F. 2d 659; Willumeit v. Watkins, 171 F. 2d 773. And when those cases came here, this Court pointedly declined to adopt the Second Circuit’s reasoning. Eichenlaub v. Shaugh-nessy, 338 U. S. 521, 529-530. Following this Court’s decision in Eichenlaub, the Sixth Circuit expressly refused to apply to a general deportation statute the relation-back principle of the denaturalization cases, in determining when there had been an “entry” for purposes of the predecessor of § 241 (a) (4) in the 1917 Act. Bran-cato v. Lehmann, 239 F. 2d 663.
The relation-back concept is a legal fiction at best, and even the respondent concedes that it cannot be “mechanically applied.” With respect to denaturalization itself, Congress clearly adopted the concept in enacting § 340 (a). But in the absence of specific legislative history to the contrary, we are unwilling to attribute to Congress a purpose to extend this fiction to the deportation provisions of § 241 (a) (4). This Court declined to apply the fiction in a deportation context in the Eichenlaub case, and we decline to do so now.
The argument is made that it is anomalous to hold that a person found to have procured his naturalization by willful misrepresentation is not subject to deportation, although he would be deportable if he had never been naturalized at all. But it is not at all certain that this petitioner would be deportable today if he had never acquired naturalized citizenship. The petitioner points out that if he had held alienage status at the time of his trial for income tax evasion, he could have offered to plead guilty to one count of the indictment in return for a nolle prosequi of the other counts, and that conviction on but one count would not have made him subject to deportation under § 241 (a) (4). Even more important, had petitioner been an alien at the time of his convictions, he could have availed himself of the supplementary relief procedure provided for in § 241 (b)(2). In other words, to hold that under the relation-back language of § 340 (a) the petitioner was an “alien” at the time of his convictions would go much further than merely preventing him from benefiting from his invalid naturalization; it would put him in a much more disadvantageous position than he would have occupied if he had never acquired a naturalization certificate at all.
Moreover, if the relation-back doctrine were applicable in this case, it would be applicable as well, as the respondent’s counsel conceded in oral argument, in the case of one whose original naturalization was not fraudulent, but simply legally invalid upon some technical ground. In this area of the law, involving as it may the equivalent of banishment or exile, we do well to eschew technicalities and fictions and to deal instead with realities. The reality is that the petitioner’s convictions occurred when he was a naturalized citizen, as he had been for almost 30 years.
If Congress had wanted the relation-back doctrine of § 340 (a) to apply to the deportation provisions of § 241 (a)(4), and thus to render nugatory and meaningless for an entire class of aliens the protections of §241 (b)(2), Congress could easily have said so. But there is no evidence whatever that the question was even considered. If and when Congress gives thought to the matter, it might well draw distinctions based upon the ground for denaturalization, the nature of the criminal convictions, and the time interval between naturalization and conviction, or between conviction and denaturalization. But such differentiations are not for this Court to make.
Reversed.
Mr. Justice Harlan took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
“(a) Any alien in the United States (including an alien crewman) shall, upon the order of the Attorney General, be deported who—
“(4) is convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude committed within five years after entry and either sentenced to confinement or confined therefor in a prison or corrective institution, for a year or more, or who at any time after entry is convicted of 'two crimes involving moral turpitude, not arising out of a single scheme of criminal misconduct, regardless of whether confined therefor and regardless of whether the convictions were in a single trial;” 66 Stat. 204, as amended, 8 U. S. C. § 1251 (a) (4).
The grant of certiorari was “limited to Question 1 presented by the petition which reads as follows:
“ ‘Whether the provision of § 241 (a) (4) of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 for deportation of an “alien . . . who at any time after entry is convicted of two crimes” applies to an individual who was a naturalized citizen when convicted.’ ” 372 U. S. 975.
The relevant paragraphs of the Act of May 10, 1920, read as follows:
“. . . That aliens of the following classes, in addition to those for whose expulsion from the United States provision is made in the existing law, shall, upon the warrant of the Secretary of Labor, be taken into his custody and deported ... if the Secretary of Labor, after hearing, finds that such aliens are undesirable residents of the United States, to wit:
“(1) All aliens who are now interned under section 4067 of the Revised Statutes ....
“(2) All aliens who since August 1, 1914, have been or may hereafter be convicted of any violation or conspiracy to violate any of the following Acts . . . namely:
“ (a) An Act entitled ‘An Act to punish acts of interference with the foreign relations, the neutrality, and the foreign commerce of the United States, to punish espionage, and better to enforce the criminal laws ....’” 41 Stat. 593-594. See 8 U. S. C. § 157 (1926 ed.).
“The proper scope of the Act of 1920 as applied to these cases is found in the ordinary meaning of its words.” 338 U. S., at 527u. “The statutory language which says that ‘aliens who since August 1, 1914, have been or may hereafter be convicted . . .’ (emphasis supplied) refers to the requirement that the deportations be applicable to all persons who had been convicted of certain enumerated offenses since about the beginning of World War I (August 1, 1914), whether those convictions were had before or after May 10, 1920.” 338 U. S., at 530.
Comparing the “is” of § 241 (a) (4) with the various forms of “be” employed in other subsections of § 241 (a) is hardly helpful. It is as likely that the differences in wording found in these subsections reflect differences in style attributable to the various antecedents of the several provisions, as it is that the use of the present tense in § 241 (a) (4) reflects a specific congressional intent that that particular subsection, in contrast to the others, was not to be applied to people in the petitioner’s position.
8 U. S. C. §1182 (a)(9).
8 U. S. C. §1251 (a)(1).
See Commentary on the Immigration and Nationality Act, Walter M. Besterman, Legislative Assistant to the House Committee on the Judiciary, 8 U. S. C. A., pt. I, p. 61. This commentator makes no reference to the problem before us, although he does refer to several innovations in the Act broadening its scope: “Many of the grounds for deportation specified in the new law are retroactive in effect. They apply to the alien notwithstanding the fact that he may have entered the United States prior to the enactment of the 1952 law. Also, he may be found now to be deportable by reason of facts which occurred prior to the enactment of this Act [June 27, 1952].” Besterman, ibid.
See H. R. Rep. No. 1365, 82d Cong., 2d Sess., 60 (1952); S. Rep. No. 1515, 81st Cong., 2d Sess., 390-392 (1950); S. Rep. No. 1137, 82d Cong., 2d Sess., 21 (1952); H. R. Rep. No. 2096 (Conference Report), 82d Cong., 2d Sess., 127 (1952). See also Immigration and Naturalization Service, Analysis of S. 3455, 81st Cong., 2d Sess. (1950), Vol. 5, pp. 241-3 through 241-6; and Analysis of S. 716, 82d Cong., 1st Sess. (1951), Yol. 4, pp. 241-2 through 241-4. See generally, Besterman, note 8, supra, pp. 1-91.
“The provisions of subsection (a) (4) of this section respecting the deportation of an alien convicted of a crime or crimes shall not apply ... (2) if the court sentencing such alien for such crime shall make, at the time of first imposing judgment or passing sentence, or within thirty days thereafter, a recommendation to the Attorney General that such alien not be deported, due notice having been given prior to making such recommendation to representatives of the interested State, the Service, and prosecution authorities, who shall be granted an opportunity to make representations in the matter.” 8 U. S. C. §1251 (b).
In Gubbels the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that court-martial convictions could not provide a basis for deportation under § 241 (a) (4) because a military court is not so constituted as to make the privilege accorded by § 241 (b) (2) available to a convicted alien.
It has been suggested that the petitioner, or one similarly situated, was at the time of the conviction chargeable with knowledge that he had procured his naturalization illegally, and that he could have therefore proceeded to seek a recommendation from the sentencing judge under §241 (b)(2). This suggestion seems not only practically unrealistic, but technically untenable. It has been held that only a competent court in appropriate proceedings can nullify a status of naturalized citizenship. United States v. Stephan, 50 F. Supp. 445.
The Eichenlaub statute carried with it no such qualifying provision, which reinforces the conclusion that the decision in Eichenlaub is of no basic relevance to the issue here. See note 3, supra. Section 19 of the Immigration Act of 1917, 39 Stat. 874, the predecessor of §241 (a)(4), on the other hand, did contain a relief provision similar to § 241 (b) (2). See 39 Stat. 889-890.
“It shall be the duty of the United States district attorneys for the respective districts ... to institute proceedings ... for the purpose of revoking and setting aside the order admitting such person to citizenship and canceling the certificate of naturalization . . ., and such revocation and setting aside of the order admitting such person to citizenship and such canceling of certificate of naturalization shall be effective as of the original date of the order and certificate, respectively . . . .” 66 Stat. 260, 8 U. S. C. § 1451 (a).
The companion case, Willumeit v. Shaughnessy, was decided in the same opinion. 338 U. S. 521.
Brancato first entered the United States in 1914; he was naturalized in 1929; he then left the United States and returned in 1930; he was convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude in 1932; he was denaturalized in 1939. The question was whether his conviction in 1932 was within five years after an “entry,” as defined by the statute. The Court of Appeals held that the cancellation of his citizenship in 1939 related back to 1929 for purposes of denaturalization, but not for purposes of the deportation statute, and that his return to the United States in 1930 was therefore not an “entry” in that year.
Section 340 (a) was amended in 1961 to provide for cancellation of citizenship on the ground that it was “illegally procured.” Act of September 26, 1961, § 18, 75 Stat. 656. In Brancato v. Lehmann, 239 F. 2d 663, the appellant’s citizenship had been canceled because his original petition for naturalization “was not verified by the affidavits of two credible witnesses,” as required by the 1906 Act.
See Mr. Justice Frankfurter’s dissenting opinion in Eichenlaub v. Shaughnessy, 338 U. S., at 533, 536-537.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | B | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Douglas
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question in the case is whether the Securities and Exchange Commission has jurisdiction to pass on a fee to be paid by Electric Bond & Share Co. to Drexel & Co. in connection with a reorganization plan filed by its subsidiary, Electric Power & Light Corp., under § 11 (e) of the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935, 49 Stat. 803, 15 U. S. C. § 79a et seq. We hold that the Commission does have jurisdiction.
The problem arises out of the unraveling and reorganization of the vast empire of Bond & Share, pursuant to the command of the Act. The present case is one of several phases of the various reorganization plans adopted to bring the system into compliance. The instant phase of this system’s reorganization grew out of the filing of a voluntary plan of reorganization under § 11 (e) by Electric.
Electric owned operating subsidiaries in several States and in Mexico. The plan provided that (1) Electric would transfer to a new holding company, Middle South Utilities, Inc., its holdings in those operating subsidiaries, as well as certain other assets; (2) preferred stocks of Electric would be retired by distributing to those security holders shares of Middle South and shares of another subsidiary of Electric; (3) the remaining shares of Middle South and the other subsidiary would be distributed to the holders of the common stock and of the warrants of Electric; and (4) Bond & Share would pay Electric $2,200,000 in settlement of intrasystem claims.
The plan filed by Electric under § 11 (e) required Bond & Share to do three things: first, sell or exchange its holdings of Electric stock; second, acquire in exchange the shares of Middle South and the other subsidiary; and third, pay the cash amount in settlement of the intrasys-tem claims. It was not sufficient for Bond & Share that Electric get approval for its plan under § 11 (e). It was also necessary by the terms of the Act that Bond & Share also get the Commission’s approval of the steps required of it.
Bond & Share’s exchange of its securities for the new securities was a “sale” under the Act, for “sale” includes “exchange.” § 2 (a) (23). Bond & Share is a registered holding company. No “sale” of securities can be made by a registered holding company without Commission approval. That is the command of § 12 of the Act. That approval is obtained, as § 12 shows, by a procedure which submits the fees in connection with the sale to the scrutiny and approval of the Commission.
Bond & Share’s receipt of the new securities was an “acquisition” within the meaning of the Act. § 2 (a) (22). That “acquisition” was made subject to the jurisdiction of the Commission by § 9 (a). That approval could be had only by submitting the “acquisition” to the Commission’s scrutiny pursuant to § 10 of the Act, a scrutiny that includes supervision of the fees paid by the holding company in connection with the “acquisition.”
Bond & Share’s cash payment in settlement of the intra-system claim was incident to the “sale” under § 12 and the “acquisition” under § 10. And, as noted, all three transactions by Bond & Share were parts of the plan filed by Electric under § 11 (e).
Bond & Share, therefore, filed an application pursuant to §§ 10, 11, and 12 of the Act, asking for the Commission’s approval of the transactions which the plan required of it.
The Commission consolidated the proceedings involving Electric’s plan and Bond & Share’s application and heard them together, and on March 7, 1949, entered one order in the consolidated proceedings, approving both. As respects Bond & Share the order said, “It Is Further Ordered that the application-declaration of Bond and Share referred to above be and it is hereby granted and permitted to become effective.” As respects the plan of Electric, the Commission in the same order gave its approval, subject to additional terms and conditions, the second of which reads:
“That jurisdiction be and hereby is specifically reserved to determine the reasonableness and appropriate allocation of all fees and expenses and other remuneration incurred or to be incurred in connection with the said Plan, as amended, and the transactions incident thereto, other than the fairness and reasonableness of the fees and expenses incident to the stockholders’ actions enumerated in Part II of the Plan, as amended.”
It is said, however, that that reservation was “the reservation regarding . . . the fees in connection with Electric’s plan under §11, and cannot be made to supply the failure to fix or to reserve the matter of fees in the proceedings under §§10 and 12 in relation to which they were incurred.”
There are two answers to that argument. First, the reservation was made in the § 10 and § 12 proceedings, for they were consolidated with the § 11 proceedings and one order entered in all three. Second, the order in the consolidated proceedings reserved jurisdiction over the fees and expenses incurred not only “in connection with the said Plan” but also in connection with “the transactions incident thereto.” The latter obviously included the matters under § 10 and § 12, for they were the chief collateral ones before the Commission at the time. The parties so understood it, for Bond & Share and Drexel filed petitions for approval of the Drexel fee, invoking the reserved jurisdiction of the Commission. The Commission held hearings and fixed a fee for Drexel which neither Drexel nor Bond & Share thought adequate. The Commission applied to the District Court for approval of this and other fee and expense orders. The District Court approved. The Court of Appeals affirmed, except for the order as to Drexel; and. as to that it reversed “for lack of jurisdiction in the Commission.” 210 F. 2d 585, 592.
We see no such infirmity in the Commission’s order. The Commission plainly has power under § 10 and under § 12 to fix the fees payable by Bond & Share. To be sure, the Commission did not fix any fee, when on March 7, 1949, it entered the consolidated order approving the applications under §§ 10, 11, and 12. That order merely reserved jurisdiction to determine the reasonableness of the fees. There is a suggestion that no reservation of jurisdiction over the fees is possible, at least so far as § 10 is concerned, since § 10 directs the Commission to approve the plan unless it finds the fees unreasonable. But the reservation by the Commission of jurisdiction over the fees is merely a means of assuring that they will not be unreasonable. Certainly, the Commission need not hold an entire plan in abeyance until it completes hearings on the fees to be paid in connection with one phase of it. We see no reason why the Commission, in the interest of orderly administration, cannot defer consideration of all the fees, until it has time to view the entire matter in perspective and evaluate the worth of each contribution. We would have to read the Act with an extremely hostile eye to deny the Commission that administrative leeway.
The error of the Court of Appeals was in overlooking the essential and critical role that §§10 and 12 play in the case and in relying on § 11 (e) alone.
The contrast between §§ 11 (e) and 11 (f) is plain, so far as jurisdiction over fees is concerned. Section 11 (f) contains an express provision concerning fees. The subsection, applicable to court proceedings where a receiver or trustee has been appointed, makes all fees “to whomsoever paid” subject to the approval of the Commission. Cf. Leiman v. Guttman, 336 U. S. 1. Section 11 (e) contains no such provision. It merely directs the Commission to approve the plan, if it finds the plan “fair and equitable to the persons affected.” The amount of fees to be paid by Electric plainly would be relevant to the question whether the plan was fair and equitable. See In re Public Service Corp. of New Jersey, 211 F. 2d 231, 232. Payment of excessive fees was one of the historic abuses of the reorganization procedure whereby utility companies were milked, an abuse the Public Utility Holding Company Act sought to correct. 79 Cong. Rec. 4607; S. Rep. No. 621, 74th Cong., 1st Sess. 33. Questions of fees payable by and to protective committees present special considerations irrelevant here and we put them aside. Cf. Leiman v. Guttman, supra. Different considerations come into play when fees payable by individual security holders to their own counsel are involved. It would seem, for example, that the amount which a stockholder, say, agreed to pay hi's lawyer for representing him in a § 11 (e) proceeding would be no business of the Commission. The amount of that fee would seem to have no direct bearing on the fairness of the plan.
But the fees payable by the registered holding company in connection with the reorganization of its subsidiary or affiliate are, or may be, different. At least Congress thought so, for Congress was explicit in making the fees payable by them, in connection with the transactions covered by § 10 and by § 12, subject to Commission approval. Congress had before it the detailed record of holding company activities and knew that many of them had a proclivity for predatory practices. The fees were not only large; they were often loaded on affiliated companies and concealed in intrasystem accounts. Congress decided to put an end to the worst of these practices and control the critical ones. When it came to the intricacies of holding company finance, Congress expressed the desire to have the amount of the fees paid brought to light and to have the Commission decide who pays them and what amounts are reasonable. We cannot be faithful to that statutory design without granting the Commission the jurisdiction asserted here.
Reversed.
For various phases of the reorganization of this holding company system, see: (1) Electric Bond & Share Co., 9 S. E. C. 978; id., 12 S. E. C. 392; id., 20 S. E. C. 615; id., 21 S. E. C. 143; id., 22 S. E. C. 866; (2) Electric Bond & Share Co., 11 S. E. C. 1146, aff’d sub nom. American Power & Light Co. v. Securities and Exchange Commission, 141 F. 2d-606, 329 U. S. 90; American Power & Light Co., 21 S. E. C. 191; (3) United Gas Corp., 16 S. E. C. 531, aff'd sub nom. In re United Gas Corp., 58 F. Supp. 501, 162 F. 2d 409; and (4) Electric Bond & Share Co., 20 S. E. C. 786.
Section 12 (d) provides:
“It shall be unlawful for any registered holding company, by use of the mails or any means or instrumentality of interstate commerce, or otherwise, to sell any security which it owns of any public-utility company, or any utility assets, in contravention of such rules and regulations or orders regarding the consideration to be received for such sale, maintenance of competitive conditions, fees and commissions, accounts, disclosure of interest, and similar matters as the Commission deems necessary or appropriate in the public interest or for the protection of investors or consumers or to prevent the circumvention of the provisions of this title or the rules, regulations, or orders thereunder.”
Supra, note 2.
Section 9 (a) provides in relevant part:
“Unless the acquisition has been approved by the Commission under section 10, it shall be unlawful—
“(1) for any registered holding company or any subsidiary company thereof, by use of the mails or any means or instrumentality of interstate commerce, or otherwise, to acquire, directly or indirectly, any securities or utility assets or any other interest in any business.”
Section 10 (b) provides in relevant part:
“If the requirements of subsection (f) are satisfied, the Commission shall approve the acquisition unless the Commission finds that—
“(2) in case of the acquisition of securities or utility assets, the consideration, including all fees, commissions, and other remuneration, to whomsoever paid, to be given, directly or indirectly, in connection with such acquisition is not reasonable or does not bear a fair relation to the sums invested in or the earning capacity of the utility assets to be acquired or the utility assets underlying the securities to be acquired; . . . .”
A petition for rehearing states that Electric is not a “public utility company” within the meaning of the Act and therefore § 12 (d) is inapplicable. We do not prejudice that position by this opinion, for whether or not Electric is a “public utility company," § 12 of the Act is concededly applicable. Section 12 (c) provides:
“It shall be unlawful for any registered holding company or any subsidiary company thereof, by use of the mails or any means or instrumentality of interstate commerce, or otherwise, to declare or pay any dividend on any security of such company or to acquire, retire, or redeem any security of such company, in contravention of such rules and regulations or orders as the Commission deems necessary or appropriate to protect the financial integrity of companies in holding-company systems, to safeguard the working capital of public-utility companies, to prevent the payment of dividends out of capital or unearned surplus, or to prevent the circumvention of the provisions of this title or the rules, regulations, or orders thereunder.”
Section 12 (f) provides:
“It shall be unlawful for any registered holding company or subsidiary company thereof, by use of the mails or any means or instrumentality of interstate commerce, or otherwise, to negotiate, enter into, or take any step in the performance of any transaction not otherwise unlawful under this title, with any company in the same holding-company system or with any affiliate of a company in such holding-company system in contravention of such rules and regulations or orders regarding reports, accounts, costs, maintenance of competitive conditions, disclosure of interest, duration of contracts, and similar matters as the Commission deems necessary or appropriate in the public interest or for the protection of investors or consumers or to prevent the circumvention of the provisions of this title or the rules and regulations thereunder.”
The broad powers granted the Commission under these provisions are plainly adequate to give it the control it reserved in this case over the fees incident to the exchange of the old securities.
Bond & Share asked that it be reimbursed by Electric for this fee. The Commission denied reimbursement, saying that Bond & Share’s services in the proceedings “were not services merely designated to bring Electric into compliance with the Commission’s order but were additionally, if not primarily, steps designed to simplify the Bond and Share system and Bond and Share itself at the apex of that system. . . . Any plan for the compliance of the subholding companies must necessarily have been as a step toward the ultimate resolution of Bond and Share’s overall Section 11 problems which were its primary concern.” Bond & Share took no step to contest that action.
Bond & Share asked $100,000 for Drexel. The Commission awarded $50,000.
When Bond & Share asked that Electric reimburse it for the fees paid Drexel (see note 7, supra), it was following a traditional holding company practice of using the affiliated companies as convenient pocketbooks of the system.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | H | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Per Curiam.
The petitioner, Evco, is a New Mexico corporation that employs writers, artists, and draftsmen to create and design instructional programs. It develops an educational idea into a finished product that generally consists of reproducible originals of books, films, and magnetic audio tapes. Typical of its contracts is Evco’s agreement with the Department of Agriculture to develop camera-ready copies of programmed textbooks, notebooks, and manuals to be used in an orientation course for forest engineers. Evco’s contracts are negotiated and entered into outside New Mexico; it creates the reproducible originals in New Mexico, and then delivers them to its out-of-state clients. The customers in turn use the originals to publish however many books and manuals are needed to implement the instructional program.
The Commissioner of Revenue for New Mexico levied the State's Emergency School Tax and its Gross Receipts Tax on the total proceeds Evco received from these contracts. The company appealed this assessment to the Court of Appeals of New Mexico, arguing that these taxes on out-of-state sales imposed an unconstitutional burden on interstate commerce in violation of Art. I, § 8, of the Constitution. That court found that though the taxes were imposed on the proceeds of out-of-state sales of tangible personal property, rather than on the receipts from sales of services, such taxes were not an unconstitutional burden on commerce. 81 N. M. 724, 472 P. 2d 987. The Supreme Court of New Mexico declined to review the judgment.
In his brief in opposition to the petition for certiorari, which sought our review of that judgment, the Attorney General of New Mexico conceded that the State could not tax the receipts from sales of tangible personal property outside the State. We granted certiorari, vacated the judgment, and remanded the case to the Court of Appeals for reconsideration in light of the position taken by the Attorney General. 402 U. S. 969.
On remand, the Court of Appeals adhered to its prior findings that these taxes were imposed on out-of-state sales of tangible personal property, not services, but it concluded that the constitutionality of the taxes should not depend on that distinction. It reinstated and reaffirmed its prior opinion finding the taxes constitutional. 83 N. M. 110, 488 P. 2d 1214. The Supreme Coürt of New Mexico again declined to review the case, and we granted certiorari. 405 U. S. 953.
Our prior cases indicate that a State may tax the proceeds from services performed in the taxing State, even though they are sold to purchasers in another State. Hence, in Department of Treasury v. Ingram-Richardson Mfg. Co., 313 U. S. 252, the Court upheld a state gross income tax imposed on a taxpayer engaged in the process of enameling metal parts for its customers. We accepted the finding of the court below that this was a tax on income derived from services, not from the sales of finished products, and we found irrelevant the fact that the sales were made to out-of-state customers. The tax was validly imposed on the service performed in the taxing State. See also Western Live Stock v. Bureau of Revenue, 303 U. S. 250.
But a tax levied on the gross receipts from the sales of tangible personal property in another State is an impermissible burden on commerce. In J. D. Adams Mfg. Co. v. Storen, 304 U. S. 307, we rejected as unconstitutional a State’s attempt to impose a gross receipts tax on a taxpayer’s sales of road machinery to out-of-state customers.
“The vice of the statute as applied to receipts from interstate sales is that the tax includes in its measure, without apportionment, receipts derived from activities in interstate commerce; and that the exaction is of such a character that if lawful it may in substance be laid to the fullest extent by States in which the goods are sold as well as those in which they are manufactured. Interstate commerce would thus be subjected to the risk of a double tax burden to which intrastate commerce is not exposed, and which the commerce clause forbids.” Id., at 311.
See also Gwin, White & Prince, Inc. v. Henneford, 305 U. S. 434.
As on the previous petition for certiorari, both parties accept these propositions, and both agree that if the findings of the Court of Appeals of New Mexico are accepted, its judgment must be reversed.
The only real dispute between the parties centers on the factual question of the nature and effect of the taxes. The State contends that these taxes were actually imposed on the receipts from services performed in the State, not on the income from the sale of property outside the State. It argues that the out-of-state purchasers actually paid for the educational programs developed in New Mexico, not for the camera-ready copies that were only incidental to the services purchased. But the Court of Appeals rejected this interpretation of the facts. It found in effect that the reproducible originals were the sine qua non of the contract and that it was the sale of that tangible personal property in another State that New Mexico had taxed. “There are no exceptional circumstances of any kind that would justify us in rejecting the . . . Court’s findings; they are not without factual foundation, and we accept them.” Lloyd A. Fry Roofing Co. v. Wood, 344 U. S. 157, 160. See also Grayson v. Harris, 267 U. S. 352, 357-358; Portland Railway, Light & Power Co. v. Railroad Comm’n, 229 U. S. 397, 411-412.
Accordingly, since the Court of Appeals approved the imposition of a tax on the proceeds of the out-of-state sales of tangible personal property, its judgment is
Reversed.
Taxes were assessed for the period January 1, 1966, through December 31, 1968. From January 1, 1966, through June 30, 1967, the petitioner’s receipts were subject to the Emergency School Tax Act. N. M. Stat. Ann. §§ 72-16-2 to 72-16-19, 1953 Compilation, repealed by N. M. Laws 1966, c. 47, § 22. From July 1, 1967, through December 31, 1968, the remainder of the taxable period, Evco’s receipts were taxed under the Gross Receipts and Compensating Tax Act. N. M. Stat. Ann. §§ 72-16A-1 to 72-16A-19, 1953 Compilation (Supp. 1971).
The court did find, however, that the receipts from sales of tangible personal property to government agencies and certain specified organizations were statutorily exempted from taxation. Those specific exemptions are not at issue here.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | H | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Chief Justice Vinson
delivered the opinion of the Court.
These cases present for decision the constitutionality of § 9 (h) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended by the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947. This section, commonly referred to as the non-Communist affidavit provision, reads as follows: “No investigation shall be made by the [National Labor Relations] Board of any question affecting commerce concerning the representation of employees, raised by a labor organization under subsection (c) of this section, no petition under section 9 (e) (1) shall be entertained, and no complaint shall be issued pursuant to a charge made by a labor organization under subsection (b) of section 10, unless there is on file with the Board an affidavit executed contemporaneously or within the preceding twelve-month period by each officer of such labor organization and the officers of any national or international labor organization of which it is an affiliate or constituent unit that he is not a member of the Communist Party or affiliated with such party, and that he does not believe in, and is not a member of or supports any organization that believes in or teaches, the overthrow of the United States Government by force or by any illegal or unconstitutional methods. The provisions of section 35 A of the Criminal Code shall be applicable in respect to such affidavits.”
In No. 10, the constitutional issue was raised by a suit to restrain the Board from holding a representation election in a bargaining unit in which appellant union was the employee representative, without permitting its name to appear on the ballot, and, should the election be held, to restrain the Board from announcing the results or certifying the victor, until a hearing was granted to appellant. A hearing had been denied because of the noncompliance with § 9 (h). The complaint alleged that this requirement was unconstitutional. Appellee’s motion to dismiss the complaint was granted by the statutory three-judge court, 79 F. Supp. 563 (1948), with one judge dissenting. Since the constitutional issues were properly raised and substantial, we noted probable jurisdiction.
No. 13 is the outcome of an unfair labor practice complaint filed with the Board by petitioner unions. The Board found that Inland Steel Company had violated the Labor Relations Act in refusing to bargain on the subject of pensions. 77 N. L. R. B. 1 (1948). But the Board postponed the effective date of its order compelling the company to bargain, pending the unions’ compliance with § 9 (h). Both sides appealed: the company urged that the Act had been misinterpreted; the unions contended that § 9 (h) was unconstitutional and therefore an invalid condition of a Board order. When the court below upheld the Board on both counts, 170 F. 2d 247 (1948), with one judge dissenting as to § 9 (h), both sides filed petitions for certiorari. We denied the petition pertaining to the pension issue, 336 U. S. 960 (1949), but granted the petition directed at the affidavit requirement, 335 U. S. 910 (1949), because of the manifest importance of the constitutional issues involved.
I.
The constitutional justification for the National Labor Relations Act was the power of Congress to protect interstate commerce by removing obstructions to the free flow of commerce. National Labor Relations Board v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U. S. 1 (1937). That Act was designed to remove obstructions caused by strikes and other forms of industrial unrest, which Congress found were attributable to the inequality of bargaining power between unorganized employees and their employers. It did so by strengthening employee groups, by restraining certain employer practices, and by encouraging the processes of collective bargaining.
When the Labor Management Relations Act was passed twelve years later, it was the view of Congress that additional impediments to the free flow of commerce made amendment of the original Act desirable. It was stated in the findings and declaration of policy that:
“Experience has further demonstrated that certain practices by some labor organizations, their officers, and members have the intent or the necessary effect of burdening or obstructing commerce by preventing the free flow of goods in such commerce through strikes and other forms of industrial unrest or through concerted activities which impair the interest of the public in the free flow of such commerce. The elimination of such practices is a necessary condition to the assurance of the rights herein guaranteed.”
One such obstruction, which it was the purpose of § 9 (h) of the Act to remove, was the so-called “political strike.” Substantial amounts of evidence were presented to various committees of Congress, including the committees immediately concerned with labor legislation, that Communist leaders of labor unions had in the past and would continue in the future to subordinate legitimate trade union objectives to obstructive strikes when dictated by Party leaders, often in support of the policies of a foreign government. And other evidence supports the view that some union leaders who hold to a belief in violent overthrow of the Government for reasons other than loyalty to the Communist Party likewise regard strikes and other forms of direct action designed to serve ultimate revolutionary goals as the primary objectives of labor unions which they control. At the committee hearings, the incident most fully developed was a strike at the Milwaukee plant of the Allis-Chalmers Manufacturing Company in 1941, when that plant was producing vital materials for the national defense program. A full hearing was given not only to company officials, but also to leaders of the international and local unions involved. Congress heard testimony that the strike had been called solely in obedience to Party orders for the purpose of starting the “snowballing of strikes” in defense plants.
No useful purpose would be served by setting out at length the evidence before Congress relating to the problem of political strikes, nor can we attempt to assess the validity of each item of evidence. It is sufficient to say that Congress had a great mass of material before it which tended to show that Communists and others proscribed by the statute had infiltrated union organizations not to support and further trade union objectives, including the advocacy of change by democratic methods, but to make them a device by which commerce and industry might be disrupted when the dictates of political policy required such action.
II.
The unions contend that the necessary effect of § 9 (h) is to make it impossible for persons who cannot sign the oath to be officers of labor unions. They urge that such a statute violates fundamental rights guaranteed by the First Amendment: the right of union officers to hold what political views they choose and to associate with what political groups they will, and the right of unions to choose their officers without interference from government. The Board has argued, on the other hand, that § 9 (h) presents no First Amendment problem because its sole sanction is the withdrawal from noncomplying unions of the “privilege” of using its facilities.
Neither contention states the problem with complete accuracy. It cannot be denied that the practical effect of denial of access to the Board and the denial of a place on the ballot in representation proceedings is not merely to withhold benefits granted by the Government but to impose upon noncomplying unions a number of restrictions which would not exist if the Board had not been established. The statute does not, however, specifically forbid persons who do not sign the affidavit from holding positions of union leadership nor require their discharge from office. The fact is that § 9 (h) may well make it difficult for unions to remain effective if their officers do not sign the affidavits. How difficult depends upon the circumstances of the industry, the strength of the union and its organizational discipline. We are, therefore, neither free to treat § 9 (h) as if it merely withdraws a privilege gratuitously granted by the Government, nor able to consider it a licensing statute prohibiting those persons who do not sign the affidavit from holding union office. The practicalities of the situation place the proscriptions of § 9 (h) somewhere between those two extremes. The difficult question that emerges is whether, consistently with the First Amendment, Congress, by statute, may exert these pressures upon labor unions to deny positions of leadership to certain persons who are identified by particular beliefs and political affiliations.
III.
There can be no doubt that Congress may, under its constitutional power to regulate commerce among the several States, attempt to prevent political strikes and other kinds of direct action designed to burden and interrupt the free flow of commerce. We think it is clear, in addition, that the remedy provided by § 9 (h) bears reasonable relation to the evil which the statute was designed to reach. Congress could rationally find that the Communist Party is not like other political parties in its utilization of positions of union leadership as means by which to bring about strikes and other obstructions of commerce for purposes of political advantage, and that many persons who believe in overthrow of the Government by force and violence are also likely to resort to such tactics when, as officers, they formulate union policy.
The fact that the statute identifies persons by their political affiliations and beliefs, which are circumstances ordinarily irrelevant to permissible subjects of government action, does not lead to the conclusion that such circumstances are never relevant. In re Summers, 325 U. S. 561 (1945); Hamilton v. Regents, 293 U. S. 245 (1934). We have held that aliens may be barred from certain occupations because of a reasonable relation between that classification and the apprehended evil, Clarke v. Deckebach, 274 U. S. 392 (1927); Pearl Assurance Co. v. Harrington, 313 U. S. 549 (1941), even though the Constitution forbids arbitrary banning of aliens from the pursuit of lawful occupations. Truax v. Raich, 239 U. S. 33 (1915); Takahashi v. Fish and Game Commission, 334 U. S. 410 (1948). Even distinctions based solely on ancestry, which we declared “are by their very nature odious to a free people,” have been upheld under the unusual circumstances of wartime. Hirabayashi v. United States, 320 U. S. 81 (1943). If accidents of birth and ancestry under some circumstances justify an inference concerning future conduct, it can hardly be doubted that voluntary affiliations and beliefs justify a similar inference when drawn by the legislature on the basis of its investigations.
This principle may be illustrated by reference to statutes denying positions of public importance to groups of persons identified by their business affiliations. One federal statute, for example, provides that no partner or employee of a firm primarily engaged in underwriting securities may be a director of a national bank. This Court noted that the statute is directed “to the probability or likelihood, based on the experience of the 1920’s, that a bank director interested in the underwriting business may use his influence in the bank to involve it or its customers in securities which his underwriting house has in its portfolio or has committed itself to take.” Board of Governors v. Agnew, 329 U. S. 441, 447 (1947). It was designed “to remove tempting opportunities from the management and personnel of member banks.” Id. at p. 449. There was no showing, nor was one required, that all employees of underwriting firms would engage in such conduct. Because of their business connections, carrying as they do certain loyalties, interests and disciplines, those persons were thought to pose a continuing threat of participation in the harmful activities described above. Political affiliations of the kind here involved, no less than business affiliations, provide rational ground for the legislative judgment that those persons proscribed by § 9 (h) would be subject to “tempting opportunities” to commit acts deemed harmful to the national economy. In this respect, § 9 (h) is not unlike a host of other statutes which prohibit specified groups of persons from holding positions of power and public interest because, in the legislative judgment, they threaten to abuse the trust that is a necessary concomitant of the power of office.
If no more were involved than possible loss of position, the foregoing would dispose of the case. But the more difficult problem here arises because, in drawing lines on the basis of beliefs and political affiliations, though it may be granted that the proscriptions of the statute bear a reasonable relation to the apprehended evil, Congress has undeniably discouraged the lawful exercise of political freedoms as well. Stated otherwise, the problem is this: Communists, we may assume, carry on legitimate political activities. Beliefs are inviolate. Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296, 303 (1940). Congress might reasonably find, however, that Communists, unlike members of other political parties, and persons who believe in overthrow of the Government by force, unlike persons of other beliefs, represent a continuing danger of disruptive political strikes when they hold positions of union leadership. By exerting pressures on unions to deny office to Communists and others identified therein, § 9 (h) undoubtedly lessens the threat to interstate commerce, but it has the further necessary effect of discouraging the exercise of political rights protected by the First Amendment. Men who hold union offices often have little choice but to renounce Communism or give up their offices. Unions which wish to do so are discouraged from electing Communists to office. To the grave and difficult problem thus presented we must now turn our attention.
IV.
The unions contend that once it is determined that this is a free speech case, the “clear and present danger” test must apply. See Schenck v. United States, 249 U. S. 47 (1919). But they disagree as to how it should be applied. Appellant in No. 10 would require that joining the Communist Party or the expression of belief in overthrow of the Government by force be shown to be a clear and present danger of some substantive evil, since those are the doctrines affected by the statute. Petitioner in No. 13, on the other hand, would require a showing that political strikes, the substantive evil involved, are a clear and present danger to the security of the Nation or threaten widespread industrial unrest.
This confusion suggests that the attempt to apply the term, “clear and present danger,” as a mechanical test in every case touching First Amendment freedoms, without regard to the context of its application, mistakes the form in which an idea was cast for the substance of the idea. The provisions of the Constitution, said Mr. Justice Holmes, “are not mathematical formulas having their essence in their form; they are organic living institutions transplanted from English soil. Their significance is vital not formal; it is to be gathered not simply by taking the words and a dictionary, but by considering their origin and the line of their growth.” Gompers v. United States, 233 U. S. 604, 610 (1914). Still less should this Court’s interpretations of the Constitution be reduced to the status of mathematical formulas. It is the considerations that gave birth to the phrase, “clear and present danger,” not the phrase itself, that are vital in our decision of questions involving liberties protected by the First Amendment.
Although the First Amendment provides that Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, press or assembly, it has long been established that those freedoms themselves are dependent upon the power of constitutional government to survive. If it is to survive it must have power to protect itself against unlawful conduct and, under some circumstances, against incitements to commit unlawful acts. Freedom of speech thus does not comprehend the right to speak on any subject at any time. The important question that came to this Court immediately after the First World War was not whether, but how far, the First Amendment permits the suppression of speech which advocates conduct inimical to the public welfare. Some thought speech having a reasonable tendency to lead to such conduct might be punished. Justices Holmes and Brandéis took a different view. They thought that the greater danger to a democracy lies in the suppression of public discussion; that ideas and doctrines thought harmful or dangerous are best fought with words. Only, therefore, when force is very likely to follow an utterance before there is a chance for counter-argument to have effect may that utterance be punished or prevented. Thus, “the necessity which is essential to a valid restriction does not exist unless speech would produce, or is intended to produce, a clear and imminent danger of some substantive evil which the State [or Congress] constitutionally may seek to prevent... Mr. Justice Brandeis, concurring in Whitney v. California, 274 U. S. 357, 373. By this means they sought to convey the philosophy that, under the First Amendment, the public has a right to every man’s views and every man the right to speak them. Government may cut him off only when his views are no longer merely views but threaten, clearly and imminently, to ripen into conduct against which the public has a right to protect itself.
But the question with which we are here faced is not the same one that Justices Holmes and Brandéis found convenient to consider in terms of clear and present danger. Government’s interest here is not in preventing the dissemination of Communist doctrine or the holding of particular beliefs because it is feared that unlawful action will result therefrom if free speech is practiced. Its interest is in protecting the free flow of commerce from what Congress considers to be substantial evils of conduct that are not the products of speech at all. Section 9 (h), in other words, does not interfere with speech because Congress fears the consequences of speech; it regulates harmful conduct which Congress has determined is carried on by persons who may be identified by their political affiliations and beliefs. The Board does not contend that political strikes, the substantive evil at which § 9 (h) is aimed, are the present or impending products of advocacy of the doctrines of Communism or the expression of belief in overthrow of the Government by force. On the contrary, it points out that such strikes are called by persons who, so Congress has found, have the will and power to do so without advocacy or persuasion that seeks acceptance in the competition of the market. Speech may be fought with speech. Falsehoods and fallacies must be exposed, not suppressed, unless there is not sufficient time to avert the evil consequences of noxious doctrine by argument and education. That is the command of the First Amendment. But force may and must be met with force. Section 9 (h) is designed to protect the public not against what Communists and others identified therein advocate or believe, but against what Congress has concluded they have done and are likely to do again.
The contention of petitioner in No. 13 that this Court must find that political strikes create a clear and present danger to the security of the Nation or of widespread industrial strife in order to sustain § 9 (h) similarly misconceives the purpose that phrase was intended to serve. In that view, not the relative certainty that evil conduct will result from speech in the immediate future, but the extent and gravity of the substantive evil must be measured by the “test” laid down in the Schenck case. But there the Court said that: “The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent.” Schenck v. United States, supra at 52. (Emphasis supplied.)
So far as the Schenck case itself is concerned, imminent danger of any substantive evil that Congress may prevent justifies the restriction of speech. Since that time this Court has decided that however great the likelihood that a substantive evil will result, restrictions on speech and press cannot be sustained unless the evil itself is “substantial” and “relatively serious,” Brandéis, J., concurring in Whitney v. California, supra at 374, 377, or sometimes “extremely serious,” Bridges v. California, 314 U. S. 252, 263 (1941). And it follows therefrom that even harmful conduct cannot justify restrictions upon speech unless substantial interests of society are at stake. But in suggesting that the substantive evil must be serious and substantial, it was never the intention of this Court to lay down an absolutist test measured in terms of danger to the Nation. When the effect of a statute or ordinance upon the exercise of First Amendment freedoms is relatively small and the public interest to be protected is substantial, it is obvious that a rigid test requiring a showing of imminent danger to the security of the Nation is an absurdity. We recently dismissed for want of substantiality an appeal in which a church group contended that its First Amendment rights were violated by a municipal zoning ordinance preventing the building of churches in certain residential areas. Corporation of the Presiding Bishop of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints v. Porterville, 338 U. S. 805 (1949). And recent cases in this Court involving contempt by publication likewise have no meaning if imminent danger of national peril is the criterion.
On the contrary, however, the right of the public to be protected from evils of conduct, even though First Amendment rights of persons or groups are thereby in some manner infringed, has received frequent and consistent recognition by this Court. We have noted that the blaring sound truck invades the privacy of the home and may drown out others who wish to be heard. Kovacs v. Cooper, 336 U. S. 77 (1949). The unauthorized parade through city streets by a religious or political group disrupts traffic and may prevent the discharge of the most essential obligations of local government. Cox v. New Hampshire, 312 U. S. 569, 574 (1941). The exercise of particular First Amendment rights may fly in the face of the public interest in the health of children, Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U. S. 158 (1944), or of the whole community, Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U. S. 11 (1905), and it may be offensive to the moral standards of the community, Reynolds v. United States, 98 U. S. 145 (1878); Davis v. Beason, 133 U. S. 333 (1890). And Government’s obligation to provide an efficient public service, United Public Workers v. Mitchell, 330 U. S. 75 (1947), and its interest in the character of members of the bar, In re Summers, 325 U. S. 561 (1945), sometimes admit of limitations upon rights set out in the First Amendment. And see Giboney v. Empire Storage Co., 336 U. S. 490, 499-501 (1949). We have never held that such freedoms are absolute. The reason is plain. As Mr. Chief Justice Hughes put it, “Civil liberties, as guaranteed by the Constitution, imply the existence of an organized society maintaining public order without which liberty itself would be lost in the excesses of unrestrained abuses.” Cox v. New Hampshire, supra at 574.
When particular conduct is regulated in the interest of public order, and the regulation results in an indirect, conditional, partial abridgment of speech, the duty of the courts is to determine which of these two.conflicting interests demands the greater protection under the particular circumstances presented. The high place in which the right to speak, think, and assemble as you will was held by the Framers of the Bill of Rights and is held today by those who value liberty both as a means and an end indicates the solicitude with which we must view any assertion of personal freedoms. We must recognize, moreover, that regulation of “conduct” has all too frequently been employed by public authority as a cloak to hide censorship of unpopular ideas. We have been reminded that “It is not often in this country that we now meet with direct and candid efforts to stop speaking or publication as such. Modern inroads on these rights come from associating the speaking with some other factor which the state may regulate so as to bring the whole within official control.”
On the other hand, legitimate attempts to protect the public, not from the remote possible effects of noxious ideologies, but from present excesses of direct, active conduct, are not presumptively bad because they interfere with and, in some of its manifestations, restrain the exercise of First Amendment rights. Reynolds v. United States, supra; Prince v. Massachusetts, supra; Cox v. New Hampshire, supra; Giboney v. Empire Storage Co., supra. In essence, the problem is one of weighing the probable effects of the statute upon the free exercise of the right of speech and assembly against the congressional determination that political strikes are evils of conduct which cause substantial harm to interstate commerce and that Communists and others identified by § 9 (h) pose continuing threats to that public interest when in positions of union leadership. We must, therefore, undertake the “delicate and difficult task... to weigh the circumstances and to appraise the substantiality of the reasons advanced in support of the regulation of the free enjoyment of the rights.” Schneider v. State, 308 U. S. 147, 161 (1939).
V.
The “reasons advanced in support of the regulation” are of considerable weight, as even the opponents of § 9 (h) agreed. They are far from being “[m]ere legislative preferences or beliefs respecting matters of public convenience [which] may well support regulation directed at other personal activities, but be insufficient to justify such as diminishes the exercise of rights so vital to the maintenance of democratic institutions.” It should be emphasized that Congress, not the courts, is primarily charged with determination of the need for regulation of activities affecting interstate commerce. This Court must, if such regulation unduly infringes personal freedoms, declare the statute invalid under the First Amendment’s command that the opportunities for free public discussion be maintained. But insofar as the problem is one of drawing inferences concerning the need for regulation of particular forms of conduct from conflicting evidence, this Court is in no position to substitute its judgment as to the necessity or desirability of the statute for that of Congress. Cf. United Public Workers v. Mitchell, supra at 95, 102. In Bridges v. California, supra, we said that even restrictions on particular kinds of utterances, if enacted by a legislature after appraisal of the need, come to this Court “encased in the armor wrought by prior legislative deliberation.” 314 U. S. at 261. Compare Gitlow v. New York, 268 U. S. 652 (1925). The deference due legislative determination of the need for restriction upon particular forms of conduct has found repeated expression in this Court’s opinions.
When compared with ordinances and regulations dealing with littering of the streets or disturbance of householders by itinerant preachers, the relative significance and complexity of the problem of political strikes and how to deal with their leaders becomes at once apparent. It must be remembered that § 9 (h) is not an isolated statute dealing with a subject divorced from the problems of labor peace generally. It is a part of some very complex machinery set up by the Federal Government for the purpose of encouraging the peaceful settlement of labor disputes. Under the statutory scheme, unions which become collective bargaining representatives for groups of employees often represent not only members of the union but nonunion workers or members of other unions as well. Because of the necessity to have strong unions to bargain on equal terms with strong employers, individual employees are required by law to sacrifice rights which, in some cases, are valuable to them. See J. I. Case Co. v. Labor Board, 321 U. S. 332 (1944). The loss of individual rights for the greater benefit of the group results in a tremendous increase in the power of the representative of the group — the union. But power is never without responsibility. And when authority derives in part from Government’s thumb on the scales, the exercise of that power by private persons becomes closely akin, in some respects, to its exercise by Government itself. See Graham v. Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen, 338 U. S. 232 (1949); Steele v. Louisville & N. R. Co., 323 U. S. 192 (1944); Tunstall v. Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen, 323 U. S. 210 (1944); Wallace Corp. v. Labor Board, 323 U. S. 248, 255 (1944); Railway Mail Association v. Corsi, 326 U. S. 88, 94 (1945).
We do not suggest that labor unions which utilize the facilities of the National Labor Relations Board become Government agencies or may be regulated as such. But it is plain that when Congress clothes the bargaining representative “with powers comparable to those possessed by a legislative body both to create and restrict the rights of those whom it represents,” the public interest in the good faith exercise of that power is very great.
What of the effects of § 9 (h) upon the rights of speech and assembly of those proscribed by its terms? The statute does not prevent or punish by criminal sanctions the making of a speech, the affiliation with any organization, or the holding of any belief. But as we have noted, the fact that no direct restraint or punishment is imposed upon speech or assembly does not determine the free speech question. Under some circumstances, indirect “discouragements” undoubtedly have the same coercive effect upon the exercise of First Amendment rights as imprisonment, fines, injunctions or taxes. A requirement that adherents of particular religious faiths or political parties wear identifying arm-bands, for example, is obviously of this nature.
But we have here no statute which is either frankly aimed at the suppression of dangerous ideas nor one which, although ostensibly aimed at the regulation of conduct, may actually “be made the instrument of arbitrary suppression of free expression of views.” Hague v. Committee for Industrial Organization, 307 U. S. 496, 516 (1939). There are here involved none of the elements of censorship or prohibition of the dissemination of information that were present in the cases mainly relied upon by those attacking the statute. The “discouragements” of § 9 (h) proceed, not against the groups or beliefs identified therein, but only against the combination of those affiliations or beliefs with occupancy of a position of great power over the economy of the country. Congress has concluded that substantial harm, in the form of direct, positive action, may be expected from that combination. In this legislation, Congress did not restrain the activities of the Communist Party as a political organization; nor did it attempt to stifle beliefs. Compare West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U. S. 624 (1943). Section 9 (h) touches only a relative handful of persons, leaving the great majority of persons of the identified affiliations and beliefs completely free from restraint. And it leaves those few who are affected free to maintain their affiliations and beliefs subject only to possible loss of positions which Congress has concluded are being abused to the injury of the public by members of the described groups.
We have previously had occasion to consider other statutes and regulations in which the interests involved were, in large measure, like those now being considered. In United Public Workers v. Mitchell, supra, we upheld a statute which provided that employees of the Federal Government could not participate in partisan political activities, concededly a First Amendment right, if they would retain their positions. The decision was not put upon the ground that government employment is a privilege to be conferred or withheld at will. For it was recognized that Congress may not "enact a regulation providing that no Republican, Jew or Negro shall be appointed to federal office, or that no federal employee shall attend Mass or take any active part in missionary work.” 330 U. S. at 100. But the rational connection between the prohibitions of the statute and its objects, the limited scope of the abridgment of First Amendment rights, and the large public interest in the efficiency of government service, which Congress had found necessitated the statute, led us to the conclusion that the statute may stand consistently with the First Amendment.
Similarly, in In re Summers, supra, we upheld the refusal of a state supreme court to admit to membership of its bar an otherwise qualified person on the sole ground that he had conscientious scruples against war and would not use force to prevent wrong under any circumstances. Since he could not, so the justices of the state court found, swear in good faith to uphold the state constitution, which requires service in the militia in time of war, we held that refusal to permit him to practice law did not violate the First Amendment, as its commands are incorporated in the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Again, the relation between the obligations of membership in the bar and service required by the state in time of war, the limited effect of the state’s holding upon speech and assembly, and the strong interest which every state court has in the persons who become officers of the court were thought sufficient to justify the state action. See also Hamilton v. Regents, supra.
It is contended that the principle that statutes touching First Amendment freedoms must be narrowly drawn dictates that a statute aimed at political strikes should make the calling of such strikes unlawful but should not attempt to bring about the removal of union officers, with its attendant effect upon First Amendment rights. We think, however, that the legislative judgment that interstate commerce must be protected from a continuing threat of such strikes is a permissible one in this case. The fact that the injury to interstate commerce would be an accomplished fact before any sanctions could be applied, the possibility that a large number of such strikes might be called at a time of external or internal crisis, and the practical difficulties which would be encountered in detecting illegal activities of this kind are factors which are persuasive that Congress should not be powerless to remove the threat, not limited to punishing the act. We recently said that “nothing in the Constitution prevents Congress from acting in time to prevent potential injury to the national economy from becoming a reality.” North American Co. v. Securities & Exchange Commission, 327 U. S. 686, 711 (1946). While this statement may be subject to some qualification, it indicates the wide scope of congressional power to keep from the channels of commerce that which would hinder and obstruct such commerce.
VI.
Previous discussion has considered the constitutional questions raised by § 9 (h) as they apply alike to members of the Communist Party and affiliated organizations and to persons who believe in overthrow of the Government by force. The breadth of the provision concerning belief in overthrow of the Government by force would raise additional questions, however, if it were read very literally to include all persons who might, under any conceivable circumstances, subscribe to that belief.
But we see no reason to construe the statute so broadly. It is within the power and is the duty of this Court to construe a statute so as to avoid the danger of unconstitutionality if it may be done in consonance with the legislative purpose. United States v. Congress of Industrial Organizations, 335 U. S. 106, 120-121 (1948); United States v. Delaware & Hudson Co., 213 U. S. 366, 407-408 (1909). In enacting § 9 (h), Congress had as its objective the protection of interstate commerce from direct interference, not any intent to disturb or proscribe beliefs as such. Its manifest purpose was to bring within the terms of the statute only those persons whose beliefs strongly indicate a will to engage in political strikes and other forms of direct action when, as officers, they direct union activities. The congressional purpose is therefore served if we construe the clause, “that he does not believe in, and is not a member of or supports any organization that believes in or teaches, the overthrow of the United States Government by force or by any illegal or unconstitutional methods,” to apply to persons and organizations who believe in violent overthrow of the Government as it presently exists under the Constitution as an objective, not merely a prophecy. Congress might well find that such persons — those who believe that the present form of the Government of the United States should be changed by force or other illegal methods — would carry that objective into their conduct of union affairs by calling political strikes designed to weaken and divide the American people, whether they consider actual overthrow of the Government to be near or distant. It is to those persons that § 9 (h) is intended to apply, and only to them. We hold, therefore, that the belief identified in § 9 (h) is a belief in the objective of overthrow by force or by any illegal or unconstitutional methods of the Government of the United States as it now exists under the Constitution and laws thereof.
As thus construed, we think that the “belief” provision of the oath presents no different problem from that present in that part of the section having to do with membership in the Communist Party. Of course we agree that one may not be imprisoned
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | C | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Clark
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Section 4 (1) of the Securities Act of 1933 exempts “transactions by an issuer not involving any public offering” from the registration requirements of § 5. We must decide whether Ralston Purina’s offerings of treasury stock to its “key employees” are within this exemption. On a complaint brought by the Commission under § 20 (b) of the Act seeking to enjoin respondent’s unregistered offerings, the District Court held the exemption applicable and dismissed the suit. The Court of Appeals affirmed. The question has arisen .many times since the Act was passed; an apparent need to define the scope of the private offering exemption prompted certiorari. 345 U. S. 903.
Ralston Purina manufactures and distributes various feed and cereal products. Its processing and distribution facilities are scattered throughout the United States and Canada, staffed by some 7,000 employees. At least since 1911 the company has had a policy of encouraging stock ownership among its employees; more particularly, since 1942 it has made authorized but unissued common shares available to some of them. Between 1947 and 1951, the period covered by the record in this case, Ralston Purina sold nearly $2,000,000 of stock to employees without registration and in so doing made use of the mails.
In each of these years, a corporate resolution authorized the sale of common stock “to employees . . . who shall, without any solicitation by the Company or its officers or employees, inquire of any of them as to how to purchase common stock of Ralston Purina Company.” A memorandum sent to branch and store managers after the resolution was adopted advised that “The only employees to whom this stock will be available will be those who take the initiative and are interested in buying stock at present market prices.” Among those responding to these offers were employees with the duties of artist, bakeshop foreman, chow loading foreman, clerical assistant, copywriter, electrician, stock clerk, mill office clerk, order credit trainee, production trainee, stenographer, and veterinarian. The buyers lived in over fifty widely separated communities scattered from Garland, Texas, to Nashua, New Hampshire, and Visalia, California. The lowest salary bracket of those purchasing was $2,700 in 1949, $2,435 in 1950 and $3,107 in 1951. The record shows that in 1947, 243 employees bought stock, 20 in 1948, 414 in 1949, 411 in 1950, and the 1951 offer, interrupted by this litigation, produced 165 applications to purchase. No records were kept of those to whom the offers were made; the estimated number in 1951 was 500.
The company bottoms its exemption claim on the classification of all offerees as “key employees” in its organization. Its position on trial was that “A key employee . .. is not confined to an organization chart. It would include an individual who is eligible for promotion, an individual who especially influences others or who advises others, a person whom the employees look to in some special way, an individual, of course, who carries some special responsibility, who is sympathetic to management and who is ambitious and who the management feels is likely to be promoted to a greater responsibility.” That an offering to all of its employees would be public is conceded.
The Securities Act nowhere defines the scope of § 4 (l)’s private offering exemption. Nor is the legislative history of much help in staking out its boundaries. The problem was first dealt with in § 4 (1) of the House Bill, H. R. 5480, 73d Cong., 1st Sess., which exempted “transactions by an issuer not with or through an underwriter; The bill, as reported by the House Committee, added “and not involving any public offering.” H. R. Rep. No. 85, 73d Cong., 1st Sess. 1. This was thought to be one of those transactions “where there is no practical need for [the bill’s] application or where the public benefits are too remote.” Id., at 5. The exemption as thus delimited became law. It assumed its present shape with the deletion of “not with or through an underwriter” by § 203 (a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, 48 Stat. 906, a change regarded as the elimination of superfluous language. H. R. Rep. No. 1838, 73d Cong., 2d Sess. 41.
Decisions under comparable exemptions in the English Companies Acts and state “blue sky” laws, the statutory antecedents of federal securities legislation, have made one thing clear — to be public an offer need not be open to the whole world. In Securities and Exchange Comm’n v. Sunbeam, Gold Mines Co., 95 F. 2d 699 (C. A. 9th Cir. 1938), this point was made in dealing with an offering to the stockholders of two corporations about to be merged. Judge Denman observed that:
“In its broadest meaning the term ‘public’ distinguishes the populace at large from groups of individual members of the public segregated because of some common interest or characteristic. Yet such a distinction is inadequate for practical purposes; manifestly, an offering of securities to all red-headed men, to all residents of Chicago or San Francisco, to all existing stockholders of the General Motors Corporation or the American Telephone & Telegraph Company, is no less ‘public’, in every realistic sense of the word, than an unrestricted offering to the world at large. Such an offering, though not open to everyone who may choose to apply, is none the less ‘public’ in character, for the means used to select the particular individuals to whom the offering is to be made bear no sensible relation to the purposes for which the selection is made. ... To determine the distinction between 'public’ and ‘private’ in any particular context, it is essential to examine the circumstances under which the distinction is sought to be established and to consider the purposes sought to be achieved by such distinction.” 95 F. 2d, at 701.
The courts below purported to apply this test. The District Court held, in the language of the Sunbeam decision, that “The purpose of the selection bears a ‘sensible relation’ to the class chosen,” finding that “The sole purpose of the ‘selection’ is to keep part stock ownership of the business within the operating personnel of the business and to spread ownership throughout all departments and activities of the business.” The Court of Appeals treated the case as involving “an offering, without solicitation, of common stock to a selected group of key employees of the issuer, most of whom are already stockholders when the offering is made, with the sole purpose of enabling them to secure a proprietary interest in the company or to increase the interest already held by them.”
Exemption from the registration requirements of the Securities Act is the question. The design of the statute is to protect investors by promoting full disclosure of information thought necessary to informed investment decisions. The natural way to interpret the private offering exemption is in light of the statutory purpose. Since exempt transactions are those as to which “there is no practical need for [the bill's] application/' the applicability of § 4 (1) should turn on whether the particular class of persons affected needs the protection of the Act. An offering to those who are shown to be able to fend for themselves is a transaction “not involving any public offering.”
The Commission would have us go one step further and hold that “an offering to a substantial number of the public” is not exempt under § 4 (1). We are advised that “whatever the special circumstances, the Commission has consistently interpreted the exemption as being inapplicable when a large number of offerees is involved.” But the statute would seem to apply to a “public offering” whether to few or many. It may well be that offerings to a substantial number of persons would rarely be exempt. Indeed nothing prevents the commission, in enforcing the statute, from using some kind of numerical test in deciding when to investigate particular exemption claims. But there is no warrant for superimposing a quantity limit on private offerings as a matter of statutory interpretation.
The exemption, as we construe it, does not deprive corporate employees, as a class, of the safeguards of the Act. We agree that some employee offerings may come within § 4 (1), e. g., one made to executive personnel who because of their position have access to the same kind of information that the Act would make available in the form of a registration statement. Absent such a showing of special circumstances, employees are just as much members of the investing “public” as any of their neighbors in the community. Although we do not rely on it, the rejection in 1934 of an amendment which would have specifically exempted employee stock offerings supports this conclusion. The House Managers, commenting on the Conference Report, said that “the participants in employees’ stock-investment plans may be in as great need of the protection afforded by availability of information concerning the issuer for which they work as are most other members of the public.” H. R. Rep. No. 1838, 73d Cong., 2d Sess. 41.
Keeping in mind the broadly remedial purposes of federal securities legislation, imposition of the burden of proof on an issuer who would plead the exemption seems to us fair and reasonable. Schlemmer v. Buffalo, R. & P. R. Co., 205 U. S. 1, 10 (1907). Agreeing, the court below thought the burden met primarily because of the respondent’s purpose in singling out its key employees for stock offerings. But once it is seen that the exemption question turns on the knowledge of the offerees, the issuer’s motives, laudable though they may be, fade into irrelevance. The focus of inquiry should be on the need of the offerees for the protections afforded by registration. The employees here were not shown to have access to the kind of information which registration would disclose. The obvious opportunities for pressure and imposition make it advisable that they be entitled to compliance with § 5.
Reversed.
The Chief Justice and Mr. Justice Burton dissent.
Mr. Justice Jackson took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
48 Stat. 77, as amended, 48 Stat. 906, 15 U. S. C. § 77d.
“Sec. 5. (a) Unless a registration statement is in effect as to a security, it shall be unlawful for any person, directly or indirectly—
“(1) to make use of any means or instruments of transportation or communication in interstate commerce or of the mails to sell or offer to buy such security through the use or medium of any prospectus or otherwise; or
“ (2) to carry or cause to be carried through the mails or in interstate commerce, by any means or instruments of transportation, any such security for the purpose of sale or for delivery after sale. . . .” 48 Stat. 77,15 U. S. C. § 77e.
102 F. Supp. 964 (D. C. E. D. Mo. 1952).
200 F. 2d 85 (C. A. 8th Cir. 1952).
“. . . the bill does not affect transactions beyond the need of-public protection in order to prevent recurrences of demonstrated abuses.” Id., at 7. In a somewhat different tenor, the report spoke of this .as an exemption of “transactions by an issuer unless made by or through an underwriter so as to permit an issuer to make a specific or an isolated sale of its securities to a particular person, but insisting that if a sale of the issuer’s securities should be made generally to the public that that transaction shall come within the purview of the Act.” Id., at 15, 16.
The only subsequent reference was an oblique one in the statement of the House Managers on the Conference Report: “Sales of stock to stockholders become subject to the act unless the stockholders are so small in number that the sale to them does not constitute a public offering.” H. R. Rep. No. 152, 73d Cong., 1st Sess. 25.
Nash v. Lynde, [1929] A. C. 158; In re South of England Natural Gas and Petroleum Co., Ltd., [1911] 1 Ch. 573; cf. Sherwell v. Combined Incandescent Mantles Syndicate, Ltd., 23 T. L. R. 482 (1907). See 80 Sol. J. 785 (1936).
People v. Montague, 280 Mich. 610, 274 N. W. 347 (1937); In re Leach, 215 Cal. 536, 12 P. 2d 3 (1932); Mary Pickford Co. v. Bayly Bros., 68 P. 2d 239 (1937), modified, 12 Cal. 2d 501, 86 P. 2d 102 (1939).
102 F. Supp., at 968, 969.
200 F. 2d, at 91.
A. C. Frost & Co. v. Coeur D’Alene Mines Corp., 312 U. S. 38, 40 (1941). The words of the preamble are helpful: “An Act To provide full and fair disclosure of the character of securities sold in interstate and foreign commerce and through the mails, and to prevent frauds in the sale thereof, and for other purposes.” 48 Stat. 74.
See Viscount Sumner’s frequently quoted dictum in Nash v. Lynde: “ 'The public’ . . . is of course a general word. No particular numbers are prescribed. Anything from two to infinity may serve: perhaps even one, if he is intended to be the first of a series of subscribers, but makes further proceedings needless by himself subscribing the whole.” [1929] A. C. 158, 169.
This was one of the factors stressed in an advisory opinion rendered by the Commission’s General Counsel in 1935. “I also regard as significant the relationship between the issuer and the offerees. Thus, an offering to the members of a class who should have special knowledge of the issuer is less likely to be a public offering than is an offering to the members of a class of the same size who do not have this advantage. This factor would be particularly important in offerings to employees, where a class of high executive officers would have a special relationship to the issuer which subordinate employees would not enjoy.” 11 Fed. Reg. 10952.
A statement entitled to more weight than different views expressed by one of the conferees in Senate debate. See 78 Cong. Rec. 10181, 10182.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | H | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Harlan
delivered the opinion of the Court.
On September 24, 1944, the barge Peter B, carrying a cargo of molasses, sank in 30 feet of water at dockside in Texas City, Texas. Although the barge was eventually raised, the cargo, allegedly valued at some $26,000, was largely or totally lost.
Petitioner, Southwestern Sugar & Molasses Co., charterer of the barge and owner of the cargo, filed a libel against respondent, River Terminals Corporation, a water carrier certificated under Part III of the Interstate Commerce Act, 49 U. S. C. § 901 et seq., seeking recovery of damages for the loss of cargo and for-expenses occasioned in the raising and repair of the barge, which had been towed by respondent from Reserve, Louisiana, to Texas City and there berthed. The District Court first tried ■the issue of liability, separating the question of damages for subsequent determination, and held that the barge had sunk and the cargo had been lost as a result of respondent’s negligence in the navigation or management of the tow and that respondent was liable for all damage to the cargo and for the cost of raising and repairing the barge. 153 F. Supp. 923.
Respondent, appealed from the interlocutory decree adjudging liability, 28 U. S. C. § 1292 (3), urging that the trial court had erred in holding (1) that petitioner had an interest in the Peter B sufficient to entitle it to maintain a libel for damage thereto, (2) that thd" sinking of the barge and loss of cargo were due to respondent’s negligence, (3) that § 3 of the Harter Act did not establish respondent’s freedom from liability as a matter of law, and (4) that certain provisions in tariffs filed by respondent with thé Interstate Commerce Commission, which purported to release respondent from liability for its negligence, .and which were assumed by the District Court to have been applicable to the transportation here involved, were invalid as a piatter of law and constituted no defense to the libel.
The Court of Appeals did not consider any of the first three' claims-of error, although if sustained they would wholly have disposed of 'the case. Instead, the court directed its attention to respondent’s contention that the exculpatory clause in respondent’s tariff, incorporated by reference in the bill of lading issued in connection with the transportation, must be given effect. The court concluded that because the clause was embodied in a tariff filed with' the I. C. C. it could not in the first instance declare it invalid, but was bound to give it effect unless and until the Commission, after appropriate investigation, reached a contrary conclusion. Accordingly, it reversed the judgment of the District Court “in order to afford . . . [petitioner] reasonable opportunity to seek administrative action before the Commission to test the validity of the challenged provision, otherwise to give full effect to the exculpatory clause . . . .” 253 F. 2d 922.
Petitioner sought certiorari, contending that the refusal of the. Court of Appeals to strike down the exculpatory clause as a matter of law was contrary to the decision of this Court in Bisso v. Inland Waterways Corporation, 349 U. S. 85, where it was. held that a clause in a private contract of towage purporting altogether to exculpate the tug-from liability'for its own negligence was void as against public policy. We granted the writ. 358 U. S. 811.
At the outset, we hold that the Court of Appeals erred in ordering what was in substance a referral of the issue of the validity of the exculpatory clause to-the Commission without first passing on the other claims of error tendered by respondent below. As we have noted, those other claims, if accepted, would have required a reversal of the judgment of the District Court and the entry of judgment for respondent. The case had been fully argued before the Court of Appeals, and those claims were plainly ripe for decision.
Under these circumstances, we think that sound and expeditious judicial administration should have led the Court of Appeals not to leave these issues undecided while a course was charted requiring the institution and litigation of an altogether separate proceeding before the I. C. C. — a proceeding which might well assume substantial dimensions — to test the sufficiency of only one of respondent’s several defenses. If in consequence of findings made by the Commission in such a proceeding it should b_e determined that the exculpatory clause cannot be given effect,' the Court of Appeals would theri have to decide the very questions which it can now decide without the necessity for any collateral proceeding. Conversely, a present ruling on those other questions might entirely obviate the necessity for proceedings in the Commission which would further delay the final disposition of this already protracted litigation. We conclude, therefore, that the Court of Appeals should have passed upon those issues as to which the expert assistance of the I. C. C. is concededly not appropriate, before invoking the processes of the Commission.
Despite the fact that disposition of respondent’s other claims by the Court of Appeals may ultimately render moot the question of the validity of the exculpatory clause as a defense in the circumstances of this case, we deem it appropriate now to review the holding of that court that the exculpatory clause was not void as a matter of law. Were the Court of Appeals on remand to decide the other questions tendered by respondent adversely to it, it would otherwise then be necessary for petitioner once more to seek reviéw here on this very question. The issue is one of importance in the developinent of the law mari-. time, as to which we have large responsibilities, constitutionally Conferred; it is squarely presented on the record before us;' and the exigencies of this litigation clearly call for its resolution at this stage. Accordingly, to this question we now turn.
In Bisso this Court held that a towboat owner might not, as a defense to a suit alleging loss due to negligent towage, rely on a contractual provision which purported to exempt the towboat altogether from liability for negligent injury to its tow. There a barge, while being towed on the. Mississippi. River by a steam towboat under a private towage contract, was caused by the negligence of those operating the towboat to collide with a' bridge pier and sink. The Court reviewed prior cases in the field, and concluded that the conflict of decision found in those cases should be resolved by declaring private' contractual provisions of the kind there involved altogether void as contrary to “public policy.” The Court relied on “two main reasons” for its conclusion, (1) that such a rule was necessary “to- discourage negligence,” and (2) that the owner of the tow required protection from “others who have power to drive hard bargains.” As was pointed out explicitly in a concurring opinion, the Court’s decision was perforce ■ reached without consideration of particularized economic and other factors relevant to the' organization and operation of the tugboat industry.
Petitioner argues that Bisso is dispositive of this case, on the theory that an inherently illegal condition gains nothing from being filed as part of a tariff with the Commission.' We think that this reasoning begs the true question here presented, which is whether considerations of pnoiic policy which may be called upon by courts to strike down private contractual arrangements between tug and tow are necessarily applicable to provisions of a tariff filed with, and subject to the pervasive regulatory authority of, an expert administrative body. In Bisso the clause struck down was part of a contract over the terms of which the I. C. C., the body primarily charged by Congress with the regulation of. the terms, and conditions upon which water carriers subject to its jurisdiction shall offer their services, had no control. In the present case the courts below have assumed, and petitioner does not challenge, the applicability to the transportation which resulted in loss to petitioner of a duly filed tariff containing this exculpatory clause.
In these circumstances we would be moving too fast were we automatically to extend the rule of Bisso to govern the present case. For all we know, it may be that the rate specified in the relevant tariff is computed on the understanding that the exculpatory clause shall apply to relieve the towboat owner of the expense of insuring itself against liability for damage caused tows by the negligence of its servants, and is a reasonable rate so computed. If that were so, it might be hard to say that public policy demands that the tow should at once have the benefit of a rate so computed and be able to repudiate the correlative obligation of procuring its own insurance with knowledge that the towboat may be required to respond in damages for any injury caused by its negligence despite agreement to the contrary. Eor so long as the towboat’s rates are at all times subject to regulatory control, prospectively and by way of reparation, the possibility of an overreaching whereby the towboat is at once able to exact high rates-, and deny the liabilities which transportation at such rates might be found fairly to impose upon it can be aborted by the action of the I. C. C. The rule of Bisso, however applicable where the towboat owner has “the power to drive hard bargains,” may well call for modification when that power is effectively controlled by a pervasiye regulatory scheme.
Further, it may be noted that the clause relied on in this case is by its terms restricted to the situation where shipments are transported in barges furnished by others than the towboat owner. Whatever may be the considerations involved in forbidding a towboat to contract for exemption from liability for negligence in other circumstances, it may be that different considerations apply when the towboat moves barges which are delivered to it loaded, so that it never has an opportunity adequately to inspect them below the waterline, and which, if defective, may create emergency situations where a small degree of negligence can readily lead to very substantial monetary loss. If the peculiar hazards involved in towing a barge supplied by the shipper are great, and the methods of guarding against those hazards uncertain, it may be that in an area where Congress has not, expressly or by fair implication, declared for a particular result, the federal courts should creatively exercise their responsibility for the development of the law maritime to fashion a particularized rule to deal with particularized circumstances.
We may assume that the question whether a clause of this kind offends against public policy is one appropriate ultimately for judicial rather than administrative resolution. But that does not mean that the courts must therefore deny themselves the enlightenment which may be had from a consideration'of the relevant economic and other facts which the. administrative agency charged with regulation of the transaction here involved is peculiarly well equipped, to, marshal and initially to evaluate. As was said in Far East Conference v. United States, 342 U. S. 570, 574-575, this Court has frequently recognized and. applied
a principle, now firmly established, that in cases raising issues of;fact not within the conventional experience of jUdges or cases requiring the exercise of administrative discretion, agencies created by Congress for regulating the subject matter should not be passed over. This is so even though the facts after they have been appraised by specialized competerice serve as a premise for legal consequences to be judicially defined. Uniformity and consistency in the regulation of business entrusted to a particular agency are secured, and the limited. functions of review by the judiciary are more rationally exercised, by preliminary resort for ascertaining arid interpreting the circumstances underlying legal issues to agencies that are better equipped than courts by specialization, by insight gained through experience, and by more flexible procedure.”
We hold that the Court of Appeals correctly ruled that the exculpatory clause here at issue should not be struck down as a matter of law, and that the parties should be afforded a reasonable opportunity to obtain from the I. C. C., in an appropriate form of proceeding, a determination as to the particular circumstances of the tugboat industry which lend justification to this form of clause, if any there be, or which militate toward a rule wholly invalidating such provisions-regardless of the fact that the carrier which seeks to invoke them is subject to prospective and retrospective rate regulation. “Cases are not decided, nor the law appropriately understood, apart from an inforrhed and particularized insight into the factual ■ circumstances of the controversy under litigation.” Federal Maritime Board v. Isbrandtsen Co., 356 U. S. 481, 498. This principle has particular force when the courts are asked to strike down on grounds of public policy a contractual arrangement on its face consensual.
The case is remanded to the Court of Appeals with instructions to pass upon the first three assignments of error specified by respondent in its appeal from the judgment of the District Court. Should resolution of-those, issues not dispose of-the case, the Court of Appeals is directed to remand the case to the District Court with instructions to hold it in abeyance while the parties seek the views of the I. C. C., in any form of proceeding which that body may deem appropriate, as. to the circumstances bearing on the validity of respondent’s exculpatory clause in the context of this litigation, and for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so. ordered.
The Chief Justice, Mr. Justice Black and Mr. Justice Douglas believe that the rule of law announced in Bisso should not be changed by the Interstate Commerce Commission, and would therefore reverse this judgment.
The District Court found that the sinking of the Peter B was occasioned by the shipping of water through a crack in the starboard shell plate of one of its cargo tanks which had been discovered by petitioner’s local manager while the -barge was being loaded with molasses under his supervision, and that respondent’s employees were negligent in various respects in failing to take proper precautions to avoid the sinking after it should have become evident that the barge was shipping water.
46 U. S. C. § 192: “If the owner of any vessel transporting merchandise or property to or from any port in the United States of America shall exercise due diligence to make the said vessel in all 'respects seaworthy and properly manned, equipped, and supplied, neither the vessel, her owner or owners, agent, or charterers, shall become or be held responsible for damage or loss resulting from faults or errors in navigation or in the management of said vessel . . . .”
The pertinent provisions of the tariff provided:'
“When shipments are transported in barges furnished by owners, shippers, consignees or .parties other than the Carriers parties to this Tariff, such barges and (or) cargoes will be handled at owner’s risk only, whether loss or damage is caused by negligence or otherwise..
“Presentation of a shipment in barge furnished by shipper, consignee or owner for movement on rates named herein shall constitute a ' guarantee to the Carriers parties to this Tariff that' such barge is seaworthy and barge and cargo are in suitable condition for voyage in prospect. -. . .”
In reaching this conclusion the court relied on “the rule frequently stated by the Supreme Court that ‘Until changed, tariffs bind both carriers and shippers with the force of law.’ Lowden v. Simonds-Shields-Lonsdale Grain Co., 306 U. S. 516, 520 . . . ; Crancer v. Lowden, 315 U. S. 631, 635 ....’’ 253 F. 2d 922, 925.
Compare Boston & Maine R. Co. v. Piper, 246 U. S. 439, 445, where this Court held a limitation of liability clause void although filed as part of a tariff with the I. C. C. by a rail carrier, saying that: “While this provision was in the bill of lading, the form of which was filed with the-Railroad Company’s tariffs with the Interstate Commerce Commission, it, gains nothing from that fact. The legal conditions and limitations in the' carrier’s bill of lading duly filed with the Cpmmission are binding .until changed by that body [citation] . . . but not so of conditions and limitations which are, as is this one, illegal, and consequently void.” The decisive difference between Piper and this case is that there the exculpatory clause was specifically declared illegal by the Interstate Commerce Act itself. See 49 U. S. C. §20 (11).
It may be noted that the tug-tow relationship has not been assimilated by the law to that between a common carrier and shipper so far as liability is concerned. See, e. g., The Steamer Syracuse, 12 Wall. 167. Thus although at common law a common carrier was liable, without proof of negligence, for all damage to the goods transported by it, unless it affirmatively showed that the damage was occasioned by the shipper, acts of God, the public enemy, public authority, or the inherent vice or nature of the commodity, Secretary of Agriculture v. United States, 350 U. S. 162, 165, n. 9, and cases cited, the District Court in the present case held that respondent could not be held liable in the absence of its negligence and petitioner did not assail that determination on appeal. '
Part III of the Interstate Commerce Act has made tugboats common carriers for regulatory purposes under certain circumstances. See Cornell Steamboat Co. v. United States, 321 U. S. 634. Section 320 (d) of that Act, 49 U. S. C. § 920 (d), explicitly provides, however, that the statute is not to'be construed to affect “liabilities of vessels and their owners for loss or damage . . .The settled common- . law rule that common carriers may not “by any form of agreement secure exemption from liability for loss or damage caused by their own. negligence,” Sun Oil Co. v. Dalzell Towing Co., 287 U. S. 291, 294; Railroad Co. v. Lockwood, 17 Wall. 357; Liverpool & G. W. Steam Co. v. Phenix Ins. Co., 129 U. S. 397, thus has no application here.
Under Part III of the Interstate Commerce Act all “common carriers by water” as therein defined (see 49 U. S. C. § 902 (d)) are required to file with the. Commission and keep open to public inspection “tariffs showing all rates, fares, charges, classifications, rules, regulations, and practices for the transportation . . . of . . . property!’ and stating “any rules or regulations which in. any wise change, affect, or determine any part of the aggregate of such rates, fares, or charges, or the value of the service rendered to the passenger, shipper, or consignee.” 49 U. S. C. §906 (a). Contract carriers are subject to similar requirements. 49 U. S. C. §906 (e). The Commission may suspend newly filed tariffs while it investigates them, 49 U. S. C. § 907 (g), (i), and may at any time initiate an investigation, upon complaint or on its own initiative, into the reasonableness of filed tariffs. 49 U. S. C. §907 (b), (h).
It is of course open to the I. C. C. to consider any other factors which it may deem relevant to the question of the propriety of ■exculpatory clauses in regulated towage tariffs, such as the availability to shippers of arrangements whereby use of the tower’s barge, or payment of a higher alternative rate, results in an assumption by the tower of liability for its negligence, and the relative practicality and- cost of the securing of insurance against the kind of risk here involved by shipper and by tower. We do not intimate any view as to the relative weight of the factors herein mentioned.
Congress has in some.instances declared by statute the circumstances under which carriers may contract for release from or limitation of liability, or rules governing the liability or exemption from liability of carriers irrespective of contract. See 46 U. S. C. §§ 181-196, 1300-1315 (water carriers); 49 U. S. C. §§ 20 (11), 319 (rail and motor carriers). .Where such statutes apply of course no agreement in derogation of them, even-if embodied in a tariff, is valid. See, e. g., Adams Express Co. v. Croninger, 226 U. S. 491; Boston & Maine R. Co. v. Piper, supra.
As we have noted above, respondent claims that § 3 of the Harter Act, 46 U. S. C. § 192, applies to exempt it from liability in this case irrespective of the effect given its tariff exculpatory clause. Be that as it may, the cited provision is ample demonstration that there is no general congressional policy requiring water carriers to be held liable for damage caused by the negligence of their servants in all cases.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | H | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Douglas
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Missouri has a statute which limits the life of a judgment to ten years.after its original rendition or Wn years after its revival. Missouri also provides that no judgment can be revived after ten years from its rendition. These provisions are applicable to all judgments whether rendered by a Missouri court or by any other court.
Petitioner has a Colorado judgment against respondent; It was obtained in 1927 and revived in Colorado in 1945 on personal service upon respondent in Missouri. Suit was then brought in Missouri on the revived Colorado judgment. The Supreme Court of Missouri, though assuming that the judgment was valid in Colorado, refused to enforce it because the original judgment under. Missouri’s law could not have been revived in 1945. It held that the lex fori governs the limitations of actions and that the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the Constitution, Art. IV, § 1, did not require Missouri to recognize Colorado’s more lenient policy as respects revival of judgments. 358 Mo. 65, 213 S. W. 2d 416.
1. Petitioner sought to bring the case here by appeal. But we postponed the question of jurisdiction *to the merits. Certiorari, not appeal, is the route by which the question whether or not full faith and credit has been given a foreign judgment is brought here. Roche v. McDonald, 275 U. S. 449; Morris v. Jones, 329 U. S. 545. Hence we treat the papers as a petition for certiorari, 28 U. S. C. § 2103, and grant it.
2. The opinion of the Supreme Court of Missouri was handed down July 12, 1948, and the motion for rehearing or for transfer to the court en banc was denied September 13, 1948. The appeal was allowed by the Missouri court on December 13,1948. That was within three months and therefore timely prior to the revision of the Judicial Code. But 28 U. S. C. § 2101 (c), effective September 1, 1948, reduced that period to ninety days. The ninetieth day was December 12, 1948, which was a Sunday. There is a contrariety of views whether an act which by statute is required to be done within a stated period may be done a day later when the last day of the period falls on Sunday. Thus Street v. United States, 133 U. S. 299, treating Sunday as a dies non under a statute which authorized the President to transfer army officers from active duty and to fill vacancies in the active list on or before January 1, 1871, allowed the action to be taken on the following day. We think the policy of that decision is applicable to 28 U. S. C. §2101 (c). Rule 6 (a) of the Rules of Civil Procedure provides that where the last day for performance of an act falls on a Sunday or a legal holiday, performance on the next day which is not a Sunday or legal holiday is timely; That rule provides the method for computation of time prescribed or allowed not only by the rules or by order of court but by “any applicable statute.” Since the rule, had the concurrence of Congress, and since no contrary policy is expressed in the statute governing this review, we think that the considerations of liberality and leniency which find expression in Rule 6 (a) are equally applicable to 28 U, S. C. § 2101 (c). The appeal therefore did not fail for lack of timeliness.
3. Roche v. McDonald is dispositive of the merits. Roche had a Washington judgment against McDonald. He brought suit on that judgment in Oregon. He obtained a judgment in Oregon at a time when the original judgment had by Washington law expired and could not be revived. Roche then sued in Washington on the Oregon judgment. The Court reversed the Supreme Court of Washington which had. held that full faith and credit need not be given the Oregon judgment since it would have been void and of no effect if rendered in Washington. The Court held that once the court of the sister State had jurisdiction over the parties and of the subject matter its judgment was valid and could not be impeached in the State of the forum, even though it could not have been obtained there. That decision was in line with Fauntleroy v. Lum, 210 U. S. 230 and Christmas v. Russell, 5 Wall. 290. For in those cases the Court had held that the State of the forum could not defeat the foreign judgment because it was obtained by a procedure hostile to or inconsistent with that of the forum or because it was based on a cause of action which the forum itself would not have recognized.
Any other result would defeat the aim of the Full Faith and Credit Clause and the statute enacted pursuant to it. It is when a. clash of policies between two states "emerges that the need of the Clause is the greatest. It and the statute which implements it are indeed designed to. resolve such controversies. Morris v. Jones, supra. There is no room for an exception, as Roche v. McDonald makes plain, where the clash of policies relates to revived judgments rather than to the nature of the underlying claim as in Fauntleroy v. Lum, supra. . It is the judgment that must be given full faith and credit. In neither case can its integrity be impaired, save for attacks on the jurisdiction of the court that rendered it.
Cases of statute of limitations against a cause of action on a judgment (M’Elmoyle v. Cohen, 13 Pet. 312) involve different considerations - as Christmas v. Russell, supra, p. 300, long ago pointed out. They do not undermine the integrity of the judgment on which suit is brought. In this case it is the 1945 Colorado judgment that claims full faith and credit in Missouri. No Missouri statute of limitations is tendered to cut off a cause of action based on judgments of that vintage.
It is argued, however, that under Colorado law the 1945 Colorado judgment is not a new judgment and that the revivor did no more than extend the statutory period in which to enforce the old judgment. It is said that those were the assumptions on which the Missouri court proceeded. But we would have to add to and subtract from its Opinion to give it that meaning. For when it placed revived judgments on the same basis as original judgments, it did so because of Missouri not Colorado law.
This is not a situation where Colorado law also makes that conclusion plain. The Colorado authorities which have been cited to us indeed seem to hold just the opposite. Thus La Fitte v. Salisbury, 43 Colo. 248, 95 P. 1065, holds that a revived judgment has the effect of a new one. We are referred to "no Colorado authorities to the contrary.
But since the status of the 1945 judgment under Colorado law was not passed upon by the Missouri court, we do not determine the question. For the same reason we do not consider whether the service on which the Colorado judgment was revived satisfied due process. See Owens v. Henry, 161 U. S. 642. Both of those questions will be open on remand of the cause.
The suggestion that we follow the course taken in Minnesota v. National Tea Co., 309 U. S. 551, and vacate the judgment and remand the cause to the Missouri court so that it may- first pass on these questions would be appropriate only if it were uncertain whether that court adjudicated a federal question. That course is singularly inappropriate here since it is plain that the Missouri court held that, whatever, the effect of revivor under Colorado law, the Colorado judgment was not entitled to full faith. and credit in Missouri. That holding is a ruling on a federal question and it cannot stand if, as assumed, the Colorado judgment had the force and effect of a new one.
Reversed.
Mr. Justice Black and Mr. Justice Rutledge dissent.
1 Rev. Stat. Mo. 1939, § 1038.
1 Rev. Stat. Mo. 1939, § 1271.
1 Colo. Stat. Ann. 1935, c. 6, Rule 54 (h); 3 id.,' c. 93, § 2.
See Gorman v. Washington University, 316 U. S. 98.
Pro: Street v. United States, 133 U. S. 299; Sherwood Bros. v. District of Columbia, 72 App. D. C. 155, 113 F. 2d 162; Wilson v. Southern R. Co., 147 F. 2d 165. Contra: Johnson v. Meyers, 54 F. 417; Meyer v. Hot Springs Imp. Co., 169 F. 628; Siegelschiffer v. Penn. Mut. Life Ins. Co., 248 F. 226; Larkin Packer Co. v. Hinderliter Tool Co., 60 F. 2d 491; Walters v. Baltimore & O. R. Co., 76 F. 2d 599.
Rule'6 (a) provides: “In computing any period of time prescribed or allowed by these rules, by order of court, or by any applicable statute, the day of the act, event, or default áfter which the. designated period of time begins to run is not to be included. The last day of the period so computed is to be included, unless it is a Sunday or a legal holiday, in which event the period runs until the end of the next day which is neither a Sunday nor a holiday. When the period of time prescribed or allowed is less than 7 days, intermediate Sundays and holidays shall be excluded in the computation. A half holiday shall be considered as other days and not as a holiday.”
See Act of June 19, 1934, 48 Stat. 1064, 28 U. S. C. § 723c, now § 2072; Rule 86, Rules of Civil Procedure; Sibbach v. Wilson & Co., 312 U.S.1.
Article IV, § 1 of the Constitution provides: “Full Faith and-Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records •and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof.”
The Act of Congress enacted pursuant to the Clause (28 U. S. C. § 1738), in part reads as follows:
“The records and judicial proceedings of any court of any such State, Territory,or Possession, or copies thereof, shall be proved or admitted jn either courts within the United States and its Territories and Possessions by the attestation of the clerk and seal of the court annexed, if a seal exists, together with a certificate of a judge of the court that the’ said attestation is in proper form.
' “Such Acts, records and judicial proceedings or copies thereof, so •authenticated, shall have the same full faith and credit in every court within the United States and its Territories and Possessions, as they have by law or usage in the courts of such State, Territory or Possession from which they are taken.”
There is no concession that under Colorado law revival does not make a new judgment. Petitioner merely argues that the requirements of due process are less exacting in case of a revived, as distinguished from an original, judgment.
The Missouri court stated, 358 Mo. p. 70; 213 S. W. 2d p. 419.: “Definitely, it is the law of this state that a foreign judgment, absent revival, or a payment thereon as provided in Sec. 1038, is barred in 10 years from the date of its original rendition regardless of what the limitation period may be under the law of the státe where the judgment was rendered. Northwestern Brewers Supply Co. v. Vorhees [356 Mo. 699, 203 S. W. 2d 422]. And the only reasonable conclusion to draw is that a revived judgment, domestic, or foreign, absent a payment as provided in Sec. 1038, is barred under said section unless the revival was within 10 years from the date of original rendition or, if such is the case, within 10 years from the last revival. In other words, a foreign judgment, original or revived, has the same standing in Missouri, no better, no worse, than a domestic judgment. This does not run counter to the full faith and credit provision of the federal Constitution, because, as we have seen, the enforcement of a foreign judgment goes to the remedy only and that-is ¿'-matter for the law of the forum.”
Northwestern Brewers Supply Co. v. Vorhees, which the court cites, did not involve a revived judgment. It merely held that a Wisconsin judgment sued on in Missouri was subject to Missouri’s statute of limitations. The fact that the Missouri- court in the present case held that the revived Colorado judgment was governed by that rule throws no light on the status of the revived judgment under Colorado law.
1 Colo. Stat. Ann. 1935, c. 6, Rule 54 (h) provides in part:
“A^ revived judgment must be entered within 20 years after the entry of the judgment which it revives, and may be enforced and. made a lien in the same manner and for like period as an original judgment.”
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | K | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
CHIEF Justice Rehnquist
delivered the opinion of the Court.
In Montana v. United States, 450 U.S. 544 (1981), we held that, with limited exceptions, Indian tribes lack eivü authority over the conduct of nonmembers on non-Indian fee land within a reservation. The question with which we are presented is whether this general rule applies to tribal attempts to tax nonmember activity occurring on non-Indian fee land. We hold that it does and that neither of Montana’s exceptions obtains here.
In 1916, Hubert Richardson, lured by the possibility of trading with wealthy Gray Mountain Navajo cattlemen, built the Cameron Trading Post just south of the Little Colorado River near Cameron, Arizona. G. Richardson, Navajo Trader 136-137 (1986). Richardson purchased the land directly from the United States, but the Navajo Nation Reservation, which had been established in 1868, see 15 Stat. 667, was later extended eight miles south so that the Cameron Trading Post fell within its exterior boundaries. See Act of June 14, 1934, ch. 521, 48 Stat. 960-962. This 1934 enlargement of the Navajo Reservation — which today stretches across northeast Arizona, northwest New Mexico, and southeast Utah — did not alter the status of the property: It is, like millions of acres throughout the United States, non-Indian fee land within a tribal reservation.
Richardson’s “drafty, wooden store building and four small, one-room-shack cabins overlooking the bare river canyon,” Richardson, supra, at 135, have since evolved into a business complex consisting of a hotel, restaurant, cafeteria, gallery, curio shop, retail store, and recreational vehicle facility. The current owner, petitioner Atkinson Trading Company, Inc., benefits from the Cameron Trading Post’s location near the intersection of Arizona Highway 64 (which leads west to the Grand Canyon) and United States Highway 89 (which connects Flagstaff on the south with Glen Canyon Dam to the north). A significant portion of petitioner’s hotel business stems from tourists on their way to or from the Grand Canyon National Park.
In 1992, the Navajo Nation enacted a hotel occupancy tax, which imposes an 8 percent tax upon any hotel room located within the exterior boundaries of the Navajo Nation Reservation. See 24 Navajo Nation Code §§ 101-142 (1995), App. to Pet. for Cert. 102a-124a. Although the legal incidence of the tax falls directly upon the guests, the owner or operator of the hotel must collect and remit it to respondents, members of the Navajo Tax Commission. §§ 104,107. The nonmember guests at the Cameron Trading Post pay approximately $84,000 in taxes to respondents annually.
Petitioner’s challenge under Montana to the Navajo Nation’s authority to impose the hotel occupancy tax was rejected by both the Navajo Tax Commission and the Navajo Supreme Court. Petitioner then sought relief in the United States District Court for the District of New Mexico, which also upheld the tax. A divided panel of the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit affirmed. See 210 F. 3d 1247 (2000).
Although the Court of Appeals agreed with petitioner that our cases in this area "did make an issue of the fee status of the land in question,” id., at 1256, it nonetheless concluded that the status of the land as “fee land or tribal land is simply one of the factors a court should consider” when determining whether civil jurisdiction exists, id., at 1258 (citing 18 U. S. C. § 1151). Relying in part upon our decision in Merrion v. Jicarilla Apache Tribe, 455 U.S. 130 (1982), the court “complemented]” Montana’s framework with a “case-by-case approach” that balanced the non-Indian fee status of the land with “the nature of the inherent sovereign powers the tribe is attempting to exercise, its interests, and the impact that the exercise of the tribe’s powers has upon the nonmember interests involved.” 210 F. 3d, at 1255, 1257, 1261. The Court of Appeals then likened the Navajo hotel occupancy tax to similar taxes imposed by New Mexico and Arizona, concluding that the tax fell under Montana’s first exception because a “consensual relationship exists in that the nonmember guests could refrain from the privilege of lodging within the confines of the Navajo Reservation and therefore remain free from liability for the [tax].” 210 F. 3d, at 1263 (citing Buster v. Wright, 135 F. 947, 949 (CA8 1905)). The dissenting judge would have applied Montana without “any language or ‘factors’ derived from Merrion” and concluded that, based upon her view of the record, none of the Montana exceptions applied. 210 F. 3d, at 1269 (Briscoe, J., dissenting).
We granted certiorari, 531 U.S. 1009 (2000), and now reverse.
Tribal jurisdiction is limited: For powers not expressly conferred upon them by federal statute or treaty, Indian tribes must rely upon their retained or inherent sovereignty. In Montana, the most exhaustively reasoned of our modern cases addressing this latter authority, we observed that Indian tribe power over nonmembers on non-Indian fee land is sharply circumscribed. At issue in Montana was the Crow Tribe’s attempt to regulate nonmember fishing and hunting on non-Indian fee land within the reservation. Although we “readily agree[d]” that the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty authorized the Crow Tribe to prohibit nonmembers from hunting or fishing on tribal land, 450 U.S., at 557, we held that such “power cannot apply to lands held in fee by non-Indians.” Id., at 559. This delineation of members and nonmembers, tribal land and non-Indian fee land, stemmed from the dependent nature of tribal sovereignty. Surveying our cases in this area dating back to 1810, see Fletcher v. Peck, 6 Cranch 87, 147 (1810) (Johnson, J., concurring) (stating that Indian tribes have lost any “right of governing every person within their limits except themselves”), we noted that “through their original incorporation into the United States as well as through specific treaties and statutes, Indian tribes have lost many of the attributes of sovereignty.” 450 U. S., at 563. We concluded that the inherent sovereignty of Indian tribes was limited to “their members and their territory”: “[Ejxereise of tribal power beyond what is necessary to protect tribal self-government or to control internal relations is inconsistent with the dependent status of the tribes.” Id., at 564 (citing United States v. Wheeler, 435 U.S. 313, 326 (1978) (“[T]he dependent status of Indian tribes ... is necessarily inconsistent with their freedom to determine their external relations” (emphasis deleted))).
Although we extracted from our precedents “the general proposition that the inherent sovereign powers of an Indian tribe do not extehd to the activities of nonmembers of the tribe,” 450 U. S., at 565, we nonetheless noted in Montana two possible bases for tribal jurisdiction over non-Indian fee land. First, “[a] tribe may regulate, through taxation, licensing, or other means, the activities of nonmembers who enter consensual relationships with the tribe or its members, through commercial dealings, contracts, leases, or other arrangements.” Ibid. Second, “[a] tribe may . . . exercise civil authority over the conduct of non-Indians on fee lands within its reservation when that conduct threatens or has some direct effect on the political integrity, the economic security, or the health or welfare of the tribe.” Id., at 566. Applying these precepts, we found that the nonmembers at issue there had not subjected themselves to “tribal civil jurisdiction” through any agreements or dealings with the Tribe and that hunting and fishing on non-Indian fee land did not “imperil the subsistence or welfare of the Tribe.” Ibid. We therefore held that the Crow Tribe’s regulations could not be enforced.
The framework set forth in Montana “broadly addressed the concept of ‘inherent sovereignty.’ ” Strate v. A-l Contractors, 520 U. S. 438, 453 (1997) (quoting Montana, sufra, at 563). In Strate, we dealt with the Three Affiliated Tribes’ assertion of judicial jurisdiction over an automobile accident involving two nonmembers traveling on a state highway within the reservation. Although we did not question the ability of tribal police to patrol the highway, see 520 U. S., at 456, n. 11, we likened the public right-of-way to non-Indian fee land because the Tribes lacked the power to “assert a landowner’s right to occupy and exclude,” id., at 456. Recognizing that Montana “immediately involved regulatory authority,” we nonetheless concluded that its reasoning had “delineated — in a main rule and exceptions — the bounds of the power tribes retain to exercise ‘forms of civil jurisdiction over non-Indians.’” 520 U.S., at 453 (quoting Montana, supra, at 565). We accordingly held that Montana governed tribal assertions of adjudicatory authority over non-Indian fee land within a reservation. See 520 U. S., at 453 (“Subject to controlling provisions in treaties and statutes, and the two exceptions identified in Montana, the civil authority of Indian tribes and their courts with respect to non-Indian fee lands generally ‘do[es] not extend to the activities of nonmembers of the tribe’” (emphasis added) (quoting Montana, supra, at 565)).
Citing our decision in Merrion, respondents submit that Montana and Strate do not restrict an Indian tribe’s power to impose revenue-raising taxes. In Merrion, just one year after our decision in Montana, we upheld a severance tax imposed by the Jiearilla Apache Tribe upon non-Indian lessees authorized to extract oil and gas from tribal land. In so doing, we noted that the power to tax derives not solely from an Indian tribe’s power to exclude non-Indians from tribal land, but also from an Indian tribe’s “general authority, as sovereign, to control economic activity within its jurisdiction.” 455 U. S., at 137. Such authority, we held, was incident to the benefits conferred upon nonmembers: “They benefit from the provision of police protection and other governmental services, as well as from ‘“the advantages of a civilized society” ’ that are assured by the existence of tribal government.” Id., at 137-138 (quoting Exxon Corp. v. Department of Revenue of Wis., 447 U.S. 207, 228 (1980)).
Merrion, however, was careful to note that an Indian tribe’s inherent power to tax only extended to '“transactions occurring on trust lands and significantly involving a tribe or its members.’” 455 U.S., at 137 (emphasis added) (quoting Washington v. Confederated Tribes of Colville Reservation, 447 U.S. 134, 152 (1980)). There are undoubtedly parts of the Merrion opinion that suggest a broader scope for tribal taxing authority than the quoted language above. But Merrion involved a tax that only applied to activity occurring on the reservation, and its holding is therefore easily reconcilable with the MontanaStrate line of authority, which we deem to be controlling. See Merrion, supra, at 142 (“[A] tribe has no authority over a nonmember until the nonmember enters tribal lands or conducts business with the tribe”). An Indian tribe’s sovereign power to tax — whatever its derivation — reaches no further than tribal land.
We therefore do not read Merrion to exempt taxation from Montana’s general rule that Indian tribes lack civil authority over nonmembers on non-Indian fee land. Accordingly, as in Strate, we apply Montana straight up. Because Congress has not authorized the Navajo Nation’s hotel occupancy tax through treaty or statute, and because the incidence of the tax falls upon nonmembers on non-Indian fee land, it is incumbent upon the Navajo Nation to establish the existence of one of Montana?s exceptions.
Respondents argue that both petitioner and its hotel guests have entered into a consensual relationship with the Navajo Nation justifying the imposition of the hotel occupancy tax. Echoing the reasoning of the Court of Appeals, respondents note that the Cameron Trading Post benefits from the numerous services provided by the Navajo Nation. The record reflects that the Arizona State Police and the Navajo Tribal Police patrol the portions of United States Highway 89 and Arizona Highway 64 traversing the reservation; that the Navajo Tribal Police and the Navajo Tribal Emergency Medical Services Department will respond to an emergency call from the Cameron Trading Post; and that local Arizona Fire Departments and the Navajo Tribal Fire Department provide fire protection to the area. Although we do not question the Navajo Nation’s ability to charge an appropriate fee for a particular service actually rendered, we think the generalized availability of tribal services patently insufficient to sustain the Tribe’s civil authority over nonmembers on non-Indian fee land.
The consensual relationship must stem from “commercial dealing, contracts, leases, or other arrangements,” Montana, 450 U. S., at 565, and a nonmember’s actual or potential receipt of tribal police, fire, and medical services does not create the requisite connection. If it did, the exception would swallow the rule: All non-Indian fee lands within a reservation benefit, to some extent, from the “advantages of a civilized society” offered by the Indian tribe. Merrion, supra, at 187-138 (internal quotation marte and citation omitted). Such a result does not square with our precedents; indeed, we implicitly rejected this argument in Strata, where we held that the nonmembers had not consented to the Tribes’ adjudicatory authority by availing themselves of the benefit of tribal police protection while traveling within the reservation. See 520 U. S., at 456-457, and n. 11. We therefore reject respondents’ broad reading of Montana’s first exception, which ignores the dependent status of Indian tribes and subverts the territorial restriction upon tribal power.
Respondents and their principal amicus, the United States, also argue that petitioner consented to the tax by becoming an “Indian trader.” Congress has authorized the Commissioner of Indian Affairs “to appoint traders to the Indian tribes and to make such rules and regulations as he may deem just and proper specifying the kind and quantity of goods and the prices at which such goods shall be sold to the Indians.” 25 U. S. C. § 261. Petitioner has acquired the requisite license to transact business with the Navajo Nation and therefore is subject to the regulatory strictures promulgated by the Indian Affairs Commissioner. See 25 CFR pt. 141 (2000). But whether or not the Navajo Nation could impose a tax on activities arising out of this relationship, an issue not before us, it is clear that petitioner’s “Indian trader” status by itself cannot support the imposition of the hotel occupancy tax.
Montana’s consensual relationship exception requires that the tax or regulation imposed by the Indian tribe have a nexus to the consensual relationship itself. In Strate, for example, even though respondent A-l Contractors was on the reservation to perform landscaping work for the Three Affiliated Tribes at the time of the accident, we nonetheless held that the Tribes lacked adjudicatory authority because the other nonmember “was not a party to the subcontract, and the [Tjribes were strangers to the accident.” 520 U. S., at 457 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). A nonmember’s consensual relationship in one area thus does not trigger tribal civil authority in another — it is not “in for a penny, in for a Pound.” E. Ravenseroft, The Canterbury Guests; Or A Bargain Broken, act v, sc. 1. The hotel occupancy tax at issue here is grounded in petitioner’s relationship with its nonmember hotel guests, who can reach the Cameron Trading Post on United States Highway 89 and Arizona Highway 64, non-Indian public rights-of-way. Petitioner cannot be said to have consented to such a tax by virtue of its status as an “Indian trader.”
Although the Court of Appeals did not reach Montana's second exception, both respondents and the United States argue that the hotel occupancy tax is warranted in light of the direet effects the Cameron Trading Post has upon the Navajo Nation. Again noting the Navajo Nation’s provision of tribal services and petitioner’s status as an “Indian trader,” respondents emphasize that petitioner employs almost 100 Navajo Indians; that the Cameron Trading Post derives business from tourists visiting the reservation; and that large amounts of tribal land surround petitioner’s isolated property. Although we have no cause to doubt respondents’ assertion that the Cameron Chapter of the Navajo Nation possesses an “overwhelming Indian character,” Brief for Respondents 18-14, we fail to see how petitioner’s operation of a hotel on non-Indian fee land “threatens or has some direet effect on the political integrity, the economic security, or the health or welfare of the tribe.” Montana, supra, at 566.
We find unpersuasive respondents’ attempt to augment this claim by reference to Brendale v. Confederated Tribes and Bands of Yakima Nation, 492 U.S. 408, 440 (1989) (opinion of Stevens, J.). In this portion of Brendale, per the reasoning of two Justices, we held that the Yakima Nation had the authority to zone a small, non-Indian parcel located “in the heart” of over 800,000 acres of closed and largely uninhabited tribal land. Ibid. Respondents extrapolate from this holding that Indian tribes enjoy broad authority over nonmembers wherever the acreage of non-Indian fee land is minuscule in relation to the surrounding tribal land. But we think it plain that the judgment in Brendale turned on both the closed nature of the non-Indian fee land and the fact that its development would place the entire area “in jeopardy.” Id., at 443 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). Irrespective of the percentage of non-Indian fee land within a reservation, Montana’s second exception grants Indian tribes nothing ‘“beyond what is necessary to protect tribal self-government or to control internal relations.’ ” Strate, 520 U.S., at 459 (quoting Montana, 450 U.S., at 564). Whatever effect petitioner’s operation of the Cameron Trading Post might have upon surrounding Navajo land, it does not endanger the Navajo Nation’s political integrity. See Brendale, supra, at 431 (opinion of White, J.) (holding that the impact of the nonmember’s conduct “must be demonstrably serious and must imperil the political integrity, the economic security, or the health and welfare of the tribe”).
Indian tribes are “unique aggregations possessing attributes of sovereignty over both their members and their territory,” but their dependent status generally precludes extension of tribal eivil authority beyond these limits. United States v. Mazurie, 419 U.S. 544, 557 (1975). The Navajo Nation’s imposition of a tax upon nonmembers on non-Indian fee land within the reservation is, therefore, presumptively invalid. . Because respondents have failed to establish that the hotel occupancy tax is commensurately related to any consensual relationship with petitioner or is necessary to vindicate the Navajo Nation’s political integrity, the presumption ripens into a holding. The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit is accordingly
Reversed.
We also noted that nearly 90 million acres of non-Indian fee land had been acquired as part of the Indian General Allotment Act, 24 Stat. 388, as amended, 25 U. S. C. §331 et seq., which authorized the issuance of patents in fee to individual Indian allottees who, after holding the patent for 25 years, could then transfer the land to non-Indians. Although Congress repudiated the practice of allotment in the Indian Reorganization Act, 48 Stat. 984, 25 U. S. C. §461 et seq., we nonetheless found significant that Congress equated alienation “with the dissolution of tribal affairs and jurisdiction.” Montana, 450 U. S., at 559, n. 9. We thus concluded that it “defie[d] common sense to suppose that Congress would intend that non-Indians purchasing allotted lands would become subject to tribal jurisdiction.” Ibid.
See also South Dakota v. Bourland, 508 U.S. 679 (1993); Brendale v. Confederated Tribes and Bands of Yakima Nation, 492 U.S. 408 (1989).
Respondents concede that regulatory taxes fall under the Montana framework. See 450 U.S., at 565 (“A tribe may regulate, through taxation, ... the activities of nonmembers”).
Merrion v. Jicarilla Apache Tribe, 455 U.S. 130 (1982), for example, referenced the decision of the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in Buster v. Wright, 135 F. 947 (1905). But we have never endorsed Buster’s statement that an Indian tribe’s “jurisdiction to govern the inhabitants of a country is not conditioned or limited by the title to the land which they occupy in it.” Id., at 951. Accordingly, beyond any guidance it might provide as to the type of consensual relationship contemplated by the first exception of Montana v. United States, 450 U.S. 544, 566 (1981), Buster is not an authoritative precedent.
We find misplaced the Court of Appeals’ reliance upon 18 U. S. C. §1151, a statute conferring upon Indian tribes jurisdiction over certain criminal acts occurring in “Indian country,” or “all land within the limits of any Indian reservation under the jurisdiction of the United States Government, notwithstanding the issuance of any patent, and, including rights-of-way running through the reservation.” See also Duro v. Reina, 495 U.S. 676, 680, n. 1 (1990). Although § 1151 has been relied upon to demarcate state, federal, and tribal jurisdiction over criminal and civil matters, see DeCoteau v. District County Court for Tenth Judicial Dist., 420 U.S. 425, 427, n. 2 (1975) ("While §1151 is concerned, on its face, only with criminal jurisdiction, the Court has recognized that it generally applies as well to questions of civil jurisdiction [citing cases]”), we do not here deal with a claim of statutorily conferred power. Section 1151 simply does not address an Indian tribe’s inherent or retained sovereignty over nonmembers on non-Indian fee land.
At least in the context of non-Indian fee land, we also find inapt the Court of Appeals’ analogy to state taxing authority. Our reference in Merrion to a State’s ability to tax activities with which it has a substantial nexus was made in the context of describing an Indian tribe’s authority over tribal land. See 455 U.S., at 137-138 (citing Exxon Corp. v. Department of Revenue of Wis., 447 U.S. 207, 228 (1980); Japan Line, Ltd. v. County of Los Arpeles, 441 U.S. 434, 445 (1979)). Only full territorial sovereigns enjoy the “power to enforce laws against all who come within the sovereign's territory, whether citizens or aliens,” and Indian tribes “can no longer be described as sovereigns in this sense.” Duro v. Reina, supra, at 685.
Because the legal incidence of the tax falls directly upon the guests, not petitioner!, it is unclear whether the Tribe’s relationship with petitioner is at all relevant. We need not, however, decide this issue since the hotel occupancy tax exceeds the Tribe’s authority even considering petitioner’s contacts with the Navajo Nation.
The Navajo Tribal Fire Department has responded to a fire at the Cameron Trading Post. See App. to Pet. for Cert. 57a.
The Navajo Nation charges for its emergency medical services (a flat call-out fee of $800 and a mileage fee of $6.25 per mile). See App. 127-129.
See Reply Brief for Petitioners 13-14 and Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 29 in Strate v. A-l Contractors, O. T. 1996, No. 95-1872.
Although the regulations do not “predude” the Navajo Nation from imposing upon “Indian traders” such “fees or taxes [it] may deem appropriate,” the regulations do not contemplate or authorize the hotel occupancy tax at issue here. 25 GFR § 141.11 (2000).
The record does not reflect the amount of non-Indian fee land within the Navajo Nation. A 1995 study commissioned by the United States Department of Commerce states that 96.3 percent of the Navajo Nation’s 16,224,896 acres is tribally owned, with allotted land comprising 762,749 acres, or 4,7 percent, of the reservation. See Economic Development Administration, V. Tiller, American Indian Reservations and Indian Trust Areas 214 (1995). The 1990 Census reports that that 96.6 percent of residents on the Navajo Nation are Indian. Joint Lodging 182. The Cameron Chapter of the Navajo Nation, in which petitioner’s land lies, has a non-Indian population of 2.3 percent. See id., at 181.
Although language in Merrion referred to taxation as “necessary to tribal self-government and territorial management,” 455 U.S., at 141, it did not address assertions of tribal jurisdiction over non-Indian fee land. Just as with Montana’s first exception, incorporating Merrion’s reasoning here would be tantamount to rejecting Montana’s general rule. In Strate v. A-1 Contractors, 520 U.S. 438, 459 (1997), we stated that Montana’s second exception “can be misperceived.” The exception is only triggered by nonmember conduct that threatens the Indian tribe; it does not broadly permit the exercise of dvil authority wherever it might be considered “necessary” to self-government. Thus, unless the drain of the nonmember's conduct upon tribal services and resources is so severe that it actually “imperil[s]” the political integrity of the Indian tribe, there can be no assertion of dvil authority beyond tribal lands. Montana, 450 U.S., at 566. Petitioner's hotel has no such adverse effect upon the Navajo Nation.
Justice Stevens’ opinion in Brendale sets out in some detail the restrictive nature of “dosed area” surrounding the non-Indian fee land. See 492 U. S., at 438-441. Pursuant to the powers reserved it in an 1855 trealy with the United States, the Yakima Nation dosed this forested area to the public and severely limited the activities of those who entered the land through a “courtesy permit system.” Id., at 439 (internal quotation marks and dtation omitted). The record here establishes that, save a few natural areas and parks not at issue, the Navajo Reservation is open to the general public. App. 61.
See Strate v. A-1 Contractors, supra, at 447, n. 6 (noting that the Yakima Nation ‘detained zoning authority .. . only in the dosed area”); Duro v. Reina, 495 U.S., at 688 (noting that zoning “is vital to the maintenance of tribal integrity and self-determination”).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | B | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Ginsburg
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioner Dale G. Becker, an Ohio prisoner, instituted a pro se civil rights action in a Federal District Court, contesting conditions of his confinement. Upon dismissal of his complaint for failure to state a claim for relief, Becker sought to appeal. Using a Government-printed form, Becker timely filed a notice of appeal that contained all of the requested information. On the line tagged “(Counsel for Appellant),” Becker typed, but did not hand sign, his own name. For want of a handwritten signature on the notice as originally filed, the Court of Appeals dismissed Becker’s appeal. The appellate court deemed the defect “jurisdictional,” and therefore not curable outside the time allowed to file the notice.
We granted review to address this question: “When a party files a timely notice of appeal in district court, does the failure to sign the notice of appeal require the court of appeals to dismiss the appeal?” 531 U.S. 1110 (2001). Our answer is no. For want of a signature on a timely notice, the appeal is not automatically lost. The governing Federal Rules direct that the notice of appeal, like other papers filed in district court, shall be signed by counsel or, if the party is unrepresented, by the party himself. But if the notice is timely filed and adequate in other respects, jurisdiction will vest in the court of appeals, where the ease may proceed so long as the appellant promptly supplies the signature once the omission is called to his attention.
I
This ease originated from a civil rights complaint under 42 U. S. G. § 1983 filed pro se by Ohio prison inmate Dale G. Becker in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio. Becker challenged the conditions of his incarceration at the Chillicothe Correctional Institution, specifically, his exposure to second-hand cigarette smoke. The District Court dismissed Becker’s complaint for failure to exhaust prison administrative remedies and failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. App. 5-8.
Within the 30 days allowed for appeal from a district court’s judgment, see 28 U. S. C. § 2107(a); Fed. Rule App. Proc. 4(a)(1), Becker, still pro se, filed a notice of appeal. Using a notice of appeal form printed by the Government Printing Office, Becker filled in the blanks, specifying himself as sole appellant, designating the judgment from which he appealed, and naming the court to which he appealed. See Fed. Rule App. Proe. 3(c)(1). He typed his own name in the space above “(Counsel for Appellant),” and also typed, in the spaces provided on the form, his address and the date of the notice. The form Becker completed contained no statement or other indication of a signature requirement and Becker did not hand sign the notice.
The District Court docketed the notice, sent a copy to the Court of Appeals, and subsequently granted Becker leave to proceed in forma pauperis on appeal. Becker received a letter from the Sixth Circuit Clerk’s Office telling him that his appeal had been docketed and setting a briefing schedule. The letter stated: “The court is aware that you are not an attorney and it will not hold you to the same standards it requires of them in stating your case.” App. 14.
Becker filed his brief more than two weeks in advance of the scheduled deadline. He signed it both on the cover and on the last page. Some six months later, on its own motion, the Sixth Circuit dismissed the appeal in a spare order relying on that court’s prior, published decision in Mattingly v. Farmers State Bank, 153 F. 3d 336 (1998) (per curiam). In Becker’s case, the Court of Appeals said, summarily:
“This court lacks jurisdiction over this appeal. The notice of appeal is defective because it was not signed by the pro se appellant or by a qualified attorney.” App. 16-17.
No court officer had earlier called Becker’s attention to the need for a signature, and the dismissal order, issued long after the 30-day time to appeal expired, accorded Becker no opportunity to cure the defect.
Becker filed a timely but unsuccessful motion for reconsideration, to which he appended a new, signed notice of appeal. Thereafter, he petitioned for this Court’s review. The Attorney General of Ohio, in response, urged us “to summarily reverse the judgment below,” Brief in Response to Pet. for Cert. 1, stating:
“We cannot honestly claim any uncertain[t]y about petitioner Becker’s intention to pursue an appeal once he filed his timely, though unsigned, notice of appeal in the district court. We never objected to the lack of a signature on his notice of appeal, and fully expected the court of appeals to address his appellate arguments on the merits.” Id., at 5.
We granted certiorari, 531 U. S. 1069; 531 U.S. 1110 (2001), to assure the uniform interpretation of the governing Federal Rules, and now address the question whether Becker’s failure to sign his timely filed notice of appeal requires the Court of Appeals to dismiss his appeal.
II
In Mattingly v. Farmers State Bank, 153 F. 3d 336 (1998) (per curiam), the Sixth Circuit determined that a notice of appeal must be signed, and that a signature’s omission cannot be cured by giving the appellant an opportunity to sign after the time to appeal has expired. For this determination, that court relied on the complementary operation of two Federal Rules: Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure (Appellate Rule) 4(a)(1), which provides that “the notice of appeal required by Rule 3 [to commence an appeal] must be filed with the district clerk within 30 days after the judgment or order appealed from is entered”; and Federal Rule of Civil Procedure (Civil Rule) 11(a), which provides that “[ejvery... paper [filed in a district court] shall be signed.” We agree with the Sixth Circuit that the governing Federal Rules call for a signature on notices of appeal. We disagree, however, with that court’s dispositive ruling that the signature requirement cannot be met after the appeal period expires.
Civil Rule 11(a), the source of the signature requirement, comes into play on appeal this way. An appeal can be initiated, Appellate Rule 3(a)(1) instructs, “only by filing a notice of appeal with the district clerk within the time allowed by [Appellate] Rule 4.” Whenever the Appellate Rules provide for a filing in the district court, Appellate Rule 1(a)(2) directs, “the procedure must comply with the practice of the district court.” The district court practice relevant here is Civil Rule 11(a).
Rule ll(a)’s first sentence states the signature requirement:
“Every pleading, written motion, and other paper shall be signed by at least one attorney of record in the attorney’s individual name, or, if the party is not represented by an attorney, shall be signed by the party.”
Notices of appeal unquestionably qualify as “other paper[s],” so they “shall be signed.”
Becker maintains that typing one’s name satisfies the signature requirement and that his original notice of appeal, containing his name typed above “(Counsel of Record),” met Civil Rule ll(a)’s instruction. We do not doubt that the signature requirement can be adjusted to keep pace with technological advances. A 1996 amendment to Civil Rule 5 provides in this regard:
“A court may by local rule permit papers to be filed, signed, or verified by electronic means that are consistent with technical standards, if any, that the Judicial Conference of the United States establishes. A paper filed by electronic means in compliance with a local rule constitutes a written paper for the purpose of applying these rules.” Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 5(e).
See, e. g., Rule 5.1 (ND Ohio 2000) (permitting “papers filed, signed, or verified by electronic means”). The local rules on electronic filing provide some assurance, as does a handwritten signature, that the submission is authentic. See, e. g., United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, Electronic Filing Policies and Procedures Manual 4 (Apr. 2, 2001) (available at http://www.ohnd.uscourts.gov/ Electronic_Filing/user.pdf) (allowing only registered attorneys assigned identification names and passwords to file papers electronically). Without any rule change so ordering, however, we are not disposed to extend the meaning of the word “signed,” as that word appears in Civil Rule 11(a), to permit typed names. As Rule 11(a) is now framed, we read the requirement of a signature to indicate, as a signature requirement commonly does, and as it did in John Hancock’s day, a name handwritten (or a mark handplaced).
As plainly as Civil Rule 11(a) requires a signature on filed papers, however, so the rule goes on to provide in its final sentence that “omission of the signature” may be “corrected promptly after being called to the attention of the attorney or party.” “Correction can be made,” the Rules Advisory Committee noted, “by signing the paper on file or by submitting a duplicate that contains the signature.” Advisory Committee’s Notes on Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 11, 28 U. S. C. App., p. 666.
Amicus urges that only the first sentence of Civil Rule 11(a), containing the signature requirement — not Rule ll(a)’s final sentence, providing for correction of a signature omission — applies to appeal notices. Appellate Rule l(a)(2)’s direction to “comply with the practice of the district court” ceases to hold sway, amicus maintains, once the notice of appeal is transmitted from the district court, in which it is filed, to the court of appeals, in which the case will proceed. Brief for Amicus Curiae in Support of the Judgment Below 15-18, and nn. 18-20.
Civil Rule 11(a), in our view, cannot be sliced as amicus proposes. The rule was formulated and should be applied as a cohesive whole. So understood, the signature requirement and the cure for an initial failure to meet the requirement go hand in hand. The remedy for a signature omission, in other words, is part and parcel of the requirement itself. Becker proffered a correction of the defect in his notice in the manner Rule 11(a) permits — he attempted to submit a duplicate containing his signature, see swpra, at 761 — and therefore should not have suffered dismissal of his appeal for nonobservance of that rule.
The Sixth Circuit in Mattingly correctly observed that we have described Appellate Rules 3 and 4 as “jurisdictional in nature.” 153 F. 3d, at 337 (citing Torres v. Oakland Scavenger Co., 487 U.S. 312, 315 (1988), and Smith v. Barry, 502 U.S. 244, 248 (1992)). We do not today hold otherwise. We rule simply and only that Becker’s lapse was curable as Civil Rule 11(a) prescribes; his initial omission was not a “jurisdictional” impediment to pursuit of his appeal.
Appellate Rules 3 and 4, we clarify, are indeed linked jurisdictional provisions. Rule 3(a)(1) directs that a notice of appeal be filed “within the time allowed by Rule 4,” i. e., ordinarily, within 30 days after the judgment appealed from is entered, see supra, at 762-763, and n. 2. Rule 3(c)(1) details what the notice of appeal must contain: The notice, within Rule 4’s timeframe, must (1) specify the party or parties taking the appeal; (2) designate the judgment from which the appeal is taken; and (3) name the court to which the appeal is taken. Notably, a signature requirement is not among Rule 3(e)(l)’s specifications, for Civil Rule 11(a) alone calls for and controls that requirement and renders it nonjurisdictional.
Amicus ultimately urges that even if there is no jurisdictional notice of appeal signature requirement for parties represented by attorneys, pro se parties, like Becker, must sign within Rule 4’s time line to avoid automatic dismissal. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 34-86. Appellate Rule 3(c)(2) is the foundation for this argument. That provision reads: “A pro se notice of appeal is considered filed on behalf of the signer and the signer’s spouse and minor children (if they are parties), unless the notice clearly indicates otherwise.”
We do not agree that Rule 3(c)(2)’s prescription, added in 1993 to a then unsubdivided Rule 3(e), see Advisory Committee’s Notes on Fed. Rule App. Proe. 3,28 U. S. C. App., p. 590, places pro se litigants in a singularly exacting time bind. The provision, as we read it, does not dislodge the signature requirement from its Civil Rule 11(a) moorings and make of it an Appellate Rule 3 jurisdictional specification. The current Rule 3(e)(2), like other changes made in 1993, the Advisory Committee Notes explain, was designed "to prevent the loss of a right to appeal through inadvertent omission of a party’s name” when "it is objectively clear that [the] party intended to appeal.” Advisory Committee’s Notes on Fed. Rule App. Proc. 3,28 U. S. C. App., p. 590. Seen in this light, the Rule is entirely ameliorative; it assumes and assures that the pro se litigant’s spouse and minor children, if they were parties below, will remain parties on appeal, “unless the notice clearly indicates a contrary intent.” Ibid.
If we had any doubt that Appellate Rule 3(c)(2) was meant only to facilitate, not to impede, access to an appeal, we would find corroboration in a related ameliorative rule, Appellate Rule 3(c)(4), which provides: “An appeal must not be dismissed for informality of form or title of the notice of appeal, or for failure to name a party whose intent to appeal is otherwise clear from the notice.” Cf. this Court’s Rule 14.5 (“If the Clerk determines that a petition submitted timely and in good faith is in a form that does not comply with this Rule' [governing the content of ipetitions for certiorari] or with Rule 33 or Rule 34 [governing document preparation], the Clerk will return it with a letter indicating the deficiency. A corrected petition received no more than 60 days after the date of the Clerk’s letter will be deemed timely.”).
In Torres v. Oakland Scavenger Co., 487 U.S. 312 (1988), it is true, we held, that a notice of appeal that omitted the name of a particular appellant, through a clerical error, was ineffective to take an appeal for that party. Id., at 318 (construing Rule 3(c) prior to the ameliorative changes made in 1993). Becker’s notice, however, did not suffer from any failure to “specify the party or parties taking the appeal.” Fed. Rule App. Proe. 3(c)(1)(A). Other opinions of this Court are in full harmony with the view that imperfections in noticing an appeal should not be fatal where no genuine doubt exists about who is appealing, from what judgment, to which appellate court. See Smith v. Barry, 502 U.S., at 245, 248-249 (holding that “a document intended to serve as an appellate brief [filed within the time specified by Appellate Rule 4 and containing the information required by Appellate Rule 3] may qualify as the notice of appeal”); Foman v. Davis, 371 U.S. 178, 181 (1962) (holding that an appeal was improperly dismissed when the record as a whole — including a timely hut incomplete notice of appeal and a premature but complete notice — revealed the orders petitioner sought to appeal).
* * *
In sum, the Federal Rules require a notice of appeal to be signed. That requirement derives from Civil Rule 11(a), and so does the remedy for a signature’s omission on the notice originally filed. On the facts here presented, the Sixth Circuit should have accepted Becker’s corrected notice as perfecting his appeal. We therefore reverse the judgment dismissing Becker’s appeal and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
"Without any party to defend the Sixth Circuit's position, we invited Stewart A. Baker to brief and argue this case, as amicus curiae, in support of the judgment below. 531 U.S. 1110 (2001). Has able representation, and that of Jeffrey S. Sutton, whom we appointed to represent Becker, 531 U.S. 1123 (2001), permit us to decide this case satisfied that the relevant issues have been felly aired.
On motion filed no later than 30 days after expiration of the original appeal time, the appeal period may be extended upon a showing of “excusable neglect or good cause,” but the extension “may [not] exceed 30 days after the [originally] prescribed time or 10 days after the date when the order granting the motion is entered, whichever is later.” Fed. Rule App. Proc. 4(a)(5).
Appellate Rule 3(c)(1), as currently framed, provides in full:
“(1) The notice of appeal must:
“(A) specify the party or parties taking the appeal by naming each one in the caption or body of the notice, but an attorney representing more than one party may describe those parties with such terms as ‘all plaintiffs,’ ‘the defendants,’ ‘the plaintiffs A, B, et al.,’ or ‘all defendants except X’;
"(B) designate the judgment, order, or part thereof being appealed; and
"(G) name the court to which the appeal is taken.”
The Advisory Committee intended the elaborate 1993 amendment of Appellate Rule 3(e) “to reduce the amount of satellite litigation spawned by [Torres].” Advisory Committee’s Notes on Fed. Rule App. Rroe. 3,28 U. S. C. App., p. 590.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Opinion of the Court by
Mr. Justice Douglas,
announced by Mr. Justice Black.
This case, which involves an alleged discrimination against a Negro family in the use of certain community facilities, has been here before. The Virginia trial court dismissed petitioners’ complaints and the Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia denied the appeals saying that they were not perfected “in the manner provided by law in that opposing counsel was not given reasonable written notice of the time and place of tendering the transcript and a reasonable opportunity to examine the original or a true copy of it” under that court’s Rule 5:1, § 3(f).
The case came here and we granted the petition for certiorari and vacated the judgments and remanded the case to the Supreme Court of Appeals for further consideration in light of Jones v. Mayer Co., 392 U. S. 409. 392 U. S. 657. On the remand, the Supreme Court of Appeals restated its prior position stating, “We had no jurisdiction in the cases when they were here before, and we have no jurisdiction now. We adhere to our orders refusing the appeals in these cases.” 209 Va. 279, 163 S. E. 2d 588. We brought the case here the second time on a petition for certiorari. 394 U. S. 942.
I
When the ease was first here respondents opposed the petition, claiming that Rule 5:1, § 3 (f), was not complied with. Petitioners filed a reply brief addressing themselves to that question. Thus the point now tendered was fully exposed when the case was here before, though we ruled on it sub silentio.
In this case counsel for petitioners on June 9, 1967, gave oral notice to counsel for respondents that he was submitting the transcripts to the trial judge. He wrote counsel for respondents on the same day to the same effect, saying he was submitting the transcripts to the trial judge that day, filing motions to correct them, and asking the trial court to defer signing them for a ten-day period to allow counsel for respondents time to consent to the motions or have them otherwise disposed of by the court. The judge, being absent from his chambers on June 9, ruled that he had not received the transcripts until June 12. The motions to correct came on for a hearing June 16, at which time the judge ruled that he would not act on the motions until counsel for respondents had agreed or disagreed with the changes requested. After examining the transcripts between June 16 and June 19, counsel for respondents told counsel for petitioners that he had no objections to the corrections or to entry of orders granting the motions to correct. Counsel for respondents then signed the proposed orders which counsel for petitioners had prepared. The proposed orders were submitted to the trial judge on June 20; and on the same day he signed the transcripts, after they had been corrected.
As we read its cases, the Supreme Court of Appeals stated the controlling principle in the following language:
“The requirement that opposing counsel have a reasonable opportunity to examine the transcript sets out the purpose of reasonable notice. If, after receipt of notice, opposing counsel be afforded reasonable opportunity to examine the transcript, and to make objections thereto, if any he has, before it is signed by the trial judge, the object of reasonable notice will have been attained.” Bacigalupo v. Fleming, 199 Va. 827, 835, 102 S. E. 2d 321, 326.
In that case opposing counsel had seven days to examine the record and make any objections. In the present case he had three days. But so far as the record shows he did not at the time complain that he was not given that “reasonable opportunity” he needed to examine and correct the transcripts.
Petitioners’ counsel does not urge — nor do we suggest — that the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals has fashioned a novel procedural requirement for the first time in this case; cf. NAACP v. Alabama, 357 U. S. 449, 457-A58; past decisions of the state court refute any such notion. See Bacigalupo v. Fleming, supra; Bolin v. Laderberg, 207 Va. 795, 153 S. E. 2d 251; Cook v. Virginia Holsum Bakeries, 207 Va. 815, 153 S. E. 2d 209. But those same decisions do not enable us to say that the Virginia court has so consistently applied its notice requirement as to amount to a self-denial of the power to entertain the federal claim here presented if the Supreme Court of Appeals desires to do so. See Henry v. Mississippi, 379 U. S. 443, 455-457 (Black, J., dissenting). Such a rule, more properly deemed discretionary than jurisdictional, does not bar review here by certiorari.
II
Little Hunting Park, Inc., is a Virginia nonstock corporation organized to operate a community park and playground facilities for the benefit of residents in an area of Fairfax County, Virginia. A membership share entitles all persons in the immediate family of the shareholder to use the corporation’s recreation facilities. Under the bylaws a person owning a membership share is entitled when he rents his home to assign the share to his tenant, subject to approval of the board of directors. Paul E. Sullivan and his family owned a house in this area and lived in it. Later he bought another house in the area and leased the first one to T. R. Freeman, Jr., an employee of the U. S. Department of Agriculture; and assigned his membership share to Freeman. The board refused to approve the assignment because Freeman was a Negro. Sullivan protested that action and was notified that he would be expelled from the corporation by the board. A hearing was accorded him and he was expelled, the board tendering him cash for his two shares.
Sullivan and Freeman sued under 42 LT. S. C. §§ 1981, 1982 for injunctions and monetary damages. Since Freeman no longer resides in the area served by Little Hunting Park, Inc., his claim is limited solely to damages.
The trial court denied relief to each petitioner. We reverse those judgments.
In Jones v. Mayer Co., 392 U. S. 409, we reviewed at length the legislative history of 42 U. S. C. § 1982. We concluded that it reaches beyond state action and operates upon the unofficial acts of private individuals and that it is authorized by the Enabling Clause of the Thirteenth Amendment. We said:
“Negro citizens, North and South, who saw in the Thirteenth Amendment a promise of freedom— freedom to 'go and come at pleasure’ and to ‘buy and sell when they please’ — would be left with ‘a mere paper guarantee’ if Congress were powerless to assure that a dollar in the hands of a Negro will purchase the same thing as a dollar in the hands of a white man. At the very least, the freedom that Congress is empowered to secure under the Thirteenth Amendment includes the freedom to buy whatever a white man can buy, the right to live wherever a white man can live. If Congress cannot say that being a free man means at least this much, then the Thirteenth Amendment made a promise the Nation cannot keep.” 392 U. S., at 443.
The Virginia trial court rested on its conclusion that Little Hunting Park was a private social club. But we find nothing of the kind on this record. There was no plan or purpose of exclusiveness. It is open to every white person within the geographic area, there being no selective element other than race. See Daniel v. Paul, 395 U. S. 298, 301-302. What we have here is a device functionally comparable to a racially restrictive covenant, the judicial enforcement of which was struck down in Shelley v. Kraemer, 334 U. S. 1, by reason of the Fourteenth Amendment.
In Jones v. Mayer Co., the complaint charged a refusal to sell petitioner a home because he was black. In the instant case the interest conveyed was a leasehold of realty coupled with a membership share in a nonprofit company organized to offer recreational facilities to owners and lessees of real property in that residential area. It is not material whether the membership share be considered realty or personal property, as § 1982 covers both. Section 1982 covers the right “to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property.” There is a suggestion that transfer on the books of the corporation of Freeman’s share is not covered by any of those verbs. The suggestion is without merit. There has never been any doubt but that Freeman paid part of his $129 monthly rental for the assignment of the membership share in Little Hunting Park. The transaction clearly fell within the “lease.” The right to “lease” is protected by § 1982 against the actions of third parties, as well as against the actions of the immediate lessor. Respondents’ actions in refusing to approve the assignment of the membership share in this case was clearly an interference with Freeman’s right to “lease.” A narrow construction of the language of § 1982 would be quite inconsistent with the broad and sweeping nature of the protection meant to be afforded by § 1 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, 14 Stat. 27, from which § 1982 was derived. See 392 U. S., at 422-437.
We turn to Sullivan’s expulsion for the advocacy of Freeman’s cause. If that sanction, backed by a state court judgment, can be imposed, then Sullivan is punished for trying to vindicate the rights of minorities protected by § 1982. Such a sanction would give impetus to the perpetuation of racial restrictions on property. That is why we said in Barrows v. Jackson, 346 U. S. 249, 259, that the white owner is at times “the only effective adversary” of the unlawful restrictive covenant. Under the terms of our decision in Barrows, there can be no question but that Sullivan has standing to maintain this action.
We noted in Jones v. Mayer Co., that the Fair Housing Title of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, 82 Stat. 81, in no way impaired the sanction of § 1982. 392 U. S., at 413-417. What we said there is adequate to dispose of the suggestion that the public accommodations provision of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 78 Stat. 243, in some wTay supersedes the provisions of the 1866 Act. Fo,r the hierarchy of administrative machinery provided by the 1964 Act is not at war with survival of the principles embodied in § 1982. There is, moreover, a saving clause in the 1964 Act as respects “any right based on any other Federal . . . law not inconsistent” with that Act.
Section 1982 derived from the 1866 Act is plainly “not inconsistent” with the 1964 Act, which has been construed as not “pre-empting every other mode of protecting a federal ‘right’ or as granting immunity” to those who had long been subject to federal law. United States v. Johnson, 390 U. S. 563, 566.
We held in Jones v. Mayer Co. that although § 1982 is couched in declaratory terms and provides no explicit method of enforcement, a federal court has power to fashion an effective equitable remedy. 392 U. S., at 414, n. 13. That federal remedy for the protection of a federal right is available in the state court, if that court is empowered to grant injunctive relief generally, as is the Virginia court. Va. Code Ann. § 8-610 (1957 Repl. Vol.).
Finally, as to damages, Congress, by 28 U. S. C. § 1343 (4), created federal jurisdiction for “damages or ... equitable or other relief under any Act of Congress providing for the protection of civil rights . . . .” We reserved in Jones v. Mayer Co., 392 U. S., at 414-415, n. 14, the question of what damages, if any, might be appropriately recovered for a violation of § 1982.
We had a like problem in Bell v. Hood, 327 U. S. 678, where suit was brought against federal officers for alleged violations of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments. The federal statute did not in terms at least provide any remedy. We said:
“[W]here federally protected rights have been invaded, it has been the rule from the beginning that courts will be alert to adjust their remedies so as to grant the necessary relief. And it is also well settled that where legal rights have been invaded, and a federal statute provides for a general right to sue for such invasion, federal courts may use any available remedy to make good the wrong done.” Id., at 684.
The existence of a statutory right implies the existence of all necessary and appropriate remedies. See Texas & N. O. R. Co. v. Railway Clerks, 281 U. S. 548, 569-570. As stated in Texas & Pacific R. Co. v. Rigsby, 241 U. S. 33, 39:
“A disregard of the command of the statute is a wrongful act, and where it results in damage to one of the class for whose especial benefit the statute was enacted, the right to recover the damages from the party in default is implied . . . .”
Compensatory damages for deprivation of a federal right are governed by federal standards, as provided by Congress in 42 U. S. C. § 1988, which states:
“The jurisdiction in civil . . . matters conferred on the district courts by the provisions of this chapter and Title 18, for the protection of all persons in the United States in their civil rights, and for their vindication, shall be exercised and enforced in conformity with the laws of the United States, so far as such laws are suitable to carry the same into effect; but in all cases where they are not adapted to the object, or are deficient in the provisions necessary to furnish suitable remedies and punish offenses against law, the common law, as modified and changed by the constitution and statutes of the State wherein the court having jurisdiction of such civil or criminal cause is held, so far as the same is not inconsistent with the Constitution and laws of the United States, shall be extended to and govern the said courts in the trial and disposition of the cause . . .
This means, as we read § 1988, that both federal and state rules on damages may be utilized, whichever better serves the policies expressed in the federal statutes. Cf. Brazier v. Cherry, 293 F. 2d 401. The rule of damages, whether drawn from federal or state sources, is a federal rule responsive to the need whenever a federal right is impaired. We do not explore the problem further, as the issue of damages was not litigated below.
It is suggested, not by any party, but by the dissent, that any relief should await proceedings under the fair housing provisions of Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968. 82 Stat. 81, 42 U. S. C. § 3601 et seq. (1964 ed., Supp. IV). But petitioners’ suits were commenced on March 16, 1966, two years before that Act was passed. It would be irresponsible judicial administration to dismiss a suit because of an intervening Act which has no possible application to events long preceding its enactment.
Reversed.
Rule 5:1 which is entitled “The Record on Appeal” states the following in § 3 (f):
“Such a transcript or statement not signed by counsel for all parties becomes part of the record when delivered to the clerk, if it is tendered to the judge within 60 days and signed at the end by him within 70 days after final judgment. It shall be forthwith delivered to the clerk who shall certify on it the date he receives it. Counsel tendering the transcript or statement shall give opposing counsel reasonable written notice of the time and place of tendering it and a reasonable opportunity to examine the original or a true copy of it. The signature of the judge, without more, will be deemed to be his certification that counsel had the required notice and opportunity, and that the transcript or statement is authentic. He shall note on it the date it was tendered to him and the date it was signed by him.”
In Bolin v. Laderberg, 207 Va. 795, 153 S. E. 2d 251, appellants’ counsel had delivered the transcript to appellees’ counsel on November 24, 1965. The transcript was tendered to the trial judge on November 26, and was signed by him on December 3. Appellees moved to dismiss the appeal on the ground that they had not been given “reasonable notice and opportunity” under Rule 5:1. The court stated that the motion should be overruled on the ground that Rule 5:1 provides that “[t]he signature of the judge, without more, will be deemed to be his certification that counsel had the required notice and opportunity, and that the transcript ... is authentic.” The court noted that the judge’s “signature appears on the transcript without more and is, therefore, his certification that counsel for [appellees] had the required notice of tendering the transcript and the required opportunity to examine it.” Id., at 797, 153 S. E. 2d, at 253.
In Cook v. Virginia Holsum Bakeries, 207 Va. 815, 153 S. E. 2d 209, notice that the transcript would be tendered to the trial judge on October 20, 1965, was given to counsel for the appellee on October 15. Appellant’s counsel, however, did not obtain a copy of the transcript until October 19. At a conference held on that same date, counsel for both parties went over the transcript and agreed on certain corrections and additions. At the hearing on October 20, appellee’s counsel claimed he had not been given the reasonable notice and opportunity required by Rule 5:1. He then suggested numerous changes, and the trial judge ordered the transcript altered to reflect those changes. The revised transcript was tendered to the trial judge the next day, October 21, and signed by him that same day. On appeal, appellee moved to dismiss on the ground that the Rule 5:1 requirements had not been satisfied. The Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals overruled the motion, stating: “The narrative was amended to meet the suggested changes of counsel for [appellee], and he conceded in oral argument before us that the statement signed by the trial judge was correct.” Id., at 817, 153 S. E. 2d, at 210.
42 U. S. C. § 1982 provides:
“All citizens of the United States shall have the same right, in every State and Territory, as is enjoyed by white citizens thereof to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property.”
Section 207 (b) of the Act of July 2, 1964, 78 Stat. 246, provides:
“The remedies provided in this title shall be the exclusive means of enforcing the rights based on this title, but nothing in this title shall preclude any individual or any State or local agency from asserting any right based on any other Federal or State law not inconsistent with this title, including any statute or ordinance requiring nondiscrimination in public establishments or accommodations, or from pursuing any remedy, civil or criminal, which may be available for the vindication or enforcement of such right.”
The Act is not fully effective until December 31, 1969. 42 O'. S. C. § 3603 (b) (1964 ed., Supp. IV). Even at that time it will not apply to a “single-family house” if the house is sold without the services of a real estate broker and without the notice described in § 3604 (c) (1964 ed., Supp. IV). See § 3603 (b) (1964 ed., Supp. IV). So no one knows whether the new Act would apply to these ancient transactions, even if they arose after December 31, 1969.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | B | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Clark
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The petitioner is charged with the violation of a regulation promulgated by the Interstate Commerce Commission under 18 U. S. C. § 835. The. Regulation provides:
“Drivers of motor vehicles transporting any explosive, inflammable liquid, inflammable compressed gas, or poisonous gas shall avoid, so far as practicable, and, where feasible, by prearrangement of routes, driving into or through congested thoroughfares, places where crowds are assembled, street car tracks, tunnels, viaducts, and dangerous crossings.”
The statute directs that “[w]hoever knowingly violates” the Regulation shall be subject to fine or imprisonment or both.
The indictment, in counts 1, 3, and 5, charges that petitioner on three separate occasions sent one of its trucks carrying carbon bisulphide, a dangerous and inflammable liquid, through the Holland Tunnel; a congested thoroughfare. In each instance, the truck was en route from Cascade Mills, New York, to Brooklyn, New York. On the third of these trips the load of carbon bisulphide éxploded in the tunnel and about sixty persons were injured. The indictment further states that “there were other available and more practicable routes for the transportation of said shipment, and . . . the [petitioner] well knew that tlm transportation of the shipment of carbon bisulphide . . . into the . . . Holland Tunnel was in violation of the regulations promulgated ... by the Interstate Commerce Commission . . ." There is no allegation as to the feasibility of prearrangement of routes, and petitioner is not charged with any omission in that respect.
The District Court dismissed those counts of the indictment which were based upon the Regulation in question, holding it to be invalid on the ground that the words “so far as practicable, and, where feasible” are “so vague and indefinite as to make the standard of guilt conjectural.” 90 F. Supp. 996, 998. The Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit reversed, holding that the Regulation, interpreted in conjunction with the statute, establishes a reasonably certain standard of conduct. 188 F. 2d 889. We granted certiorari. 342 U. S. 846.
A criminal statute must be sufficiently definite to give notice of the required conduct to one who would avoid its penalties, and to guide the judge in its application and the lawyer in defending one charged with its violation. But few words possess the precision of mathematical symbols, most statutes must deal with untold and unforeseen variations in factual situations, and the practical necessities of discharging the business of government inevitably limit the specificity with-which legislators can spell out prohibitions. Consequently, no more than a reasonable degree of certainty can be demanded. Nor is it unfair to require that one who deliberately goes perilously close to an area of proscribed conduct shall take the risk that he may cross the line.
In Sproles v. Binford, 286 U. S. 374 (1932), these principles were applied in upholding words in a criminal statute similar to those now before us. Chief Justice Hughes, speaking for a unanimous court, there said:
“ ‘Shortest practicable route’ is not an expression too vague to be understood. The requirement of reasonable certainty does not preclude the use of ordinary, terms to express ideas which find adequate interpretation in common usage and understanding. . . . The use of common experience as a glossary is necessary to meet the practical demands of legislation.”
The Regulation challenged here is the product of a long history of regulation of the transportation of explosives and inflammables.. Congress recognized the need for protecting the public against the hazards involved in transporting explosives as early as 1866. The inadequacy of the legislation then enacted led to the .passage, in 1908, of the Transportation of Explosives Act, which was later extended to cover inflammables. In accordance with that Act, the Commission in the same year issued regulations applicable to railroads. In 1934 the Commission exercised its authority under the Act to promulgate regulations governing motor trucks, including the Regulation here in question. In 1940 this Regulation was amended to substantially its present terminology. That terminology was adopted only after more than three years of study and a number of drafts. The trucking industry participated extensively in this process, making suggestions relating to drafts submitted to carriers and their organizations, and taking part in several hearings. The Regulation’s history indicates the careful consideration which was given to the difficulties involved in framing a regulation which would deal practically with this aspect of the problem presented by the necessary transportation of dangerous explosives on the highways.
The statute punishes only those who knowingly violate the Regulation. This requirement of the presence of culpable intent as a necessary element of the offense does miich to destroy any force in the argument that application of the Regulation, would be so unfair- that it must be held invalid. That is evident from a consideration of the effect of the requirement in this case. To sustain a conviction, the Government not only must prove that petitioner could have taken another route which was both commercially practicable and appreciably safer (in its avoidance of crowded thoroughfares, etc.) than the one it did follow. It must also be shown that petitioner knew that there was such a practicable, safer route and yet deliberately took the more dangerous route through the tunnel, or that petitioner willfully neglected to exercise its duty under the Regulation to .inquire into the availability of such an alternative route.
In an effort to give point to its argument, petitioner asserts that there was no practicable route its trucks might have followed which did not pass through places they were required to avoid. If it is true that in the congestion surrounding the lower Hudson there was no practicable way of crossing the River which would have avoided such points of danger to a substantially greater extent than the route taken, then petitioner has not violated the Regulation. But that is plainly a matter for proof at the trial. We are not so conversant with all the routes in that area that we may, with no. facts in the record before us, assume the allegations of the indictment to be false. We will not thus distort the judicial notice concept to strike down a regulation adopted only after much consultation with those affected and penalizing only those who knowingly violate its prohibition.
We therefore affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals remanding the cause to the District Court with directions to reinstate counts 1, 3, and 5 of the indictment.
Affirmed.
18 U.S.C. § 835:
'“The Interstate Commerce Commission shall formulate regulations for the safe transportation within the limits of the jurisdiction of the United States of explosives and other dangerous articles, including flammable liquids, flammable' solids, oxidizing materials, corrosive liquids, compressed gases, and poisonous substances, which shall be binding upon all common carriers engaged in interstate or foreign commerce which transport' explosives or other dangerous articles by land, and upon all shippers making shipments of explosives or other dangerous articles via any common carrier engaged in interstate or foreign commerce by land or water.
“Such regulations Shall be in accord with the best-known practicable .means for securing safety in transit, covering the packing, marking, •loading, handling while in transit, and the precautions necessary to determine whether the material when offered is in proper condition to transport.”.
49 CFR § 197.1 (b).
“Whoever knowingly violates any such regulation shall be fined not more than $1,000 or imprisoned not more than one year, or both; and, if the death or bodily injury of any person results from such violation, shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.” 18 U. S. C. § 835 (sixth paragraph).
R. 2.
Lanzetta v. New Jersey, 306 U. S. 451 (1939).
Nash v. United States, 229 U. S. 373, 377 (1913); Hygrade Provision Co. v. Sherman, 266 U. S. 497, 502-503 (1925); United States v. Petrillo, 332 U.S. 1, 7-8 (1947).
Sproles v. Binford, 286 U. S. 374, 393 (1932). The provision which was there challenged and upheld was concerned basically with a requirement as to distance, a requirement applying within necessary limits of practicability, just as the Regulation here challenged is concerned basically with avoidance of designated points of. danger, within like limits of practicability.
14 Stat. 81.
35 Stat. 554, as amended, 35 Stat. 1134.
41 Stat. 1444.
49 CFR, 1938, § 85.34 (b); see Regulations for Transportation of Explosives, 2111. C. C. 351, 354 (1935).
49 CFR, 1940 Supp., § 197-7.3082: “Drivers of motor vehicles transporting inflammable liquids shall-avoid, so far as practicable, driving into or through congested thoroughfares, places where crowds are assembled, street car tracks, tunnels, viaducts and dangerous crossings. So far as practicable, this shall be accomplished by prearrangement of routes.” The section was amended to its present form in 1942. 7 Fed. Reg. 2869.
Compare United States v. Petrillo, 332 U. S. 1, 7 (1947); Miller v. Strahl, 239 U. S. 426, 434 (1915); Baltimore & Ohio R. Co. v. (Interstate Commerce Comm’n, 221 U. S. 612, 620 (1911).
Screws v. United States, 325 U. S. 91, 101-103 (1945); United States v. Ragen, 314 U. S. 513, 524 (1942); Gorin v. United States, 312 U. S. 19, 27-28 (1941); Omaechevarria v. Idaho, 246 U. S. 343, 348 (1918).
The officers, agents, and employees of every motor carrier concerned with the transportation Of explosives and other dangerous articles are required to “become conversant” with this and other regulations applying to such transportation. 49 CFR § 197.02.
This case is here to review the granting of a motion to dismiss the indictment. It should not be necessary to mention the familiar rule that, at this stage of the case, the allegations of the, indictment must be taken as true.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | H | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
CHIEF Justice Rehnquist
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Most States prohibit multiple-party, or “fusion,” candidacies for elected office. The Minnesota laws challenged in this case prohibit a candidate from appearing on the ballot as the candidate of more than one party. Minn. Stat. §§204B.06, subd. 1(b), and 204B.04, subd. 2 (1994). We hold that such a prohibition does not violate the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.
Respondent is a chartered chapter of the national New Party. Petitioners are Minnesota election officials. In April 1994, Minnesota State Representative Andy Dawkins was running unopposed in the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party’s (DFL) primary. That same month, New Party members chose Dawkins as their candidate for the same office in the November 1994 general election. Neither Dawkins nor the DFL objected, and Dawkins signed the required affidavit of candidacy for the New Party. Minn. Stat. § 204B.06 (1994). Minnesota, however, prohibits fusion candidacies. Because Dawkins had already filed as a candidate for the DFL’s nomination, local election officials refused to accept the New Party’s nominating petition.
The New Party filed suit in United States District Court, contending that Minnesota’s antifusion laws violated the party’s associational rights under the First -and Fourteenth Amendments. The District Court granted summary judgment for the state defendants, concluding that Minnesota’s fusion ban was “a valid and non-discriminatory regulation of the election process,” and noting that “issues concerning the mechanics of choosing candidates... are, in large part, matters of policy best left to the deliberative bodies themselves.” Twin Cities Area New Party v. McKenna, 863 F. Supp. 988, 994 (D. Minn. 1994).
The Court of Appeals reversed. Twin Cities Area New Party v. McKenna, 73 F. 3d 196, 198 (CA8 1996). First, the court determined that Minnesota’s fusion ban “unquestionably” and “severe[ly]” burdened the New Party’s “freedom to select a standard bearer who best represents the party’s ideologies and preferences” and its right to “broaden the base of public participation in and support for [its] activities.” Ibid, (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). The court then decided that Minnesota’s absolute ban on multiple-party nominations was “broader than necessary to serve the State’s asserted interests” in avoiding intra-party discord and party splintering, maintaining a stable political system, and avoiding voter confusion, and that the State’s remaining concerns about multiple-party nomination were “simply unjustified in this case.” Id., at 199-200. The court noted, however, that the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit had upheld Wisconsin’s similar fusion ban in Swamp v. Kennedy, 960 F. 2d 383, 386 (1991) (fusion ban did not burden associational rights and, even if it did, the State’s interests justified the burden), cert. denied, 505 U. S. 1204 (1992). Nonetheless, the court concluded that Minnesota’s fusion-ban provisions, Minn. Stat. §§204B.06, subd. 1(b), and 204B.04, subd. 2 (1994), were unconstitutional because they severely burdened the New Party’s associational rights and were not narrowly tailored to advance Minnesota’s valid interests. We granted certiorari, 517 U. S. 1219 (1996), and now reverse.
Fusion was a regular feature of Gilded Age American politics. Particularly in the West and Midwest, candidates of issue-oriented parties like the Grangers, Independents, Greenbackers, and Populists often succeeded through fusion with the Democrats, and vice versa. Republicans, for their part, sometimes arranged fusion candidacies in the South, as part of a general strategy of encouraging and exploiting divisions within the dominant Democratic Party. See generally Argersinger, “A Place on the Ballot”: Fusion Politics and Antifusion Laws, 85 Am. Hist. Rev. 287, 288-290 (1980).
Fusion was common in part because political parties, rather than local or state governments, printed and distributed their own ballots. These ballots contained only the names of a particular party’s candidates, and so a voter could drop his party’s ticket in the ballot box without even knowing that his party’s candidates were supported by other parties as well. But after the 1888 presidential election, which was widely regarded as having been plagued by fraud, many States moved to the “Australian ballot system.” Under that system, an official ballot, containing the names of all the candidates legally nominated by all the parties, was printed at public expense and distributed by public officials at polling places. Id., at 290-292; Burdick v. Takushi, 504 U. S. 428, 446-447 (1992) (Kennedy, J., dissenting) (States’ move to the Australian ballot system was a “progressive reform to reduce fraudulent election practices”). By 1896, use of the Australian ballot was widespread. During the same period, many States enacted other election-related reforms, including bans on fusion candidacies. See Argersinger, supra, at 288, 295-298. Minnesota banned fusion in 1901. This trend has continued and, in this century, fusion has become the exception, not the rule. Today, multiple-party candidacies are permitted in just a few States, and fusion plays a significant role only in New York.
The First Amendment protects the right of citizens to associate and to form political parties for the advancement of common political goals and ideas. Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Comm. v. Federal Election Comm’n, 518 U. S. 604, 616 (1996) (“The independent expression of a political party’s views is ‘core’ First Amendment activity no less than is the independent expression of individuals, candidates, or other political committees”); Norman v. Reed, 502 U. S. 279, 288 (1992) (“constitutional right of citizens to create and develop new political parties... advances the constitutional interest of like-minded voters to gather in pursuit of common political ends”); Tashjian v. Republican Party of Conn., 479 U. S. 208, 214 (1986). As a result, political parties’ government, structure, and activities enjoy constitutional protection. Eu v. San Francisco County Democratic Central Comm., 489 U. S. 214, 230 (1989) (noting political party’s “discretion in how to organize itself, conduct its affairs, and select its leaders”); Tashjian, supra, at 224 (Constitution protects a party’s “determination... of the structure which best allows it to pursue its political goals”).
On the other hand, it is also clear that States may, and inevitably must, enact reasonable regulations of parties, elections, and ballots to reduce election- and campaign-related disorder. Burdick, supra, at 433 (“ ‘[A]s a practical matter, there must be a substantial regulation of elections if they are to be fair and honest and if some sort of order, rather than chaos, is to accompany the democratic process’ ”) (quoting Storer v. Brown, 415 U. S. 724, 730 (1974)); Tashjian, supra, at 217 (The Constitution grants States “broad power to prescribe the ‘Time, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives,’ Art. I, §4, cl. 1,-which power is matched by state control over the election process for state offices”).
When deciding whether a state election law violates First and Fourteenth Amendment associational rights, we weigh the “‘character and magnitude’” of the burden the State’s rule imposes on those rights against the interests the State contends justify that burden, and consider the extent to which the State’s concerns make the burden necessary. Burdick, supra, at 434 (quoting Anderson v. Celebrezze, 460 U. S. 780, 789 (1983)). Regulations imposing severe burdens on plaintiffs' rights must be narrowly tailored and advance a compelling state interest. Lesser burdens, however, trigger less exacting review, and a State’s “‘important regulatory interests’” will usually be enough to justify “‘reasonable, nondiscriminatory restrictions.’” Burdick, supra, at 434 (quoting Anderson, supra, at 788); Norman, supra, at 288-289 (requiring “corresponding interest sufficiently weighty to justify the limitation”). No bright line separates permissible election-related regulation from unconstitutional infringements on First Amendment freedoms. Storer, supra, at 730 (“[N]o litmus-paper test... separates] those restrictions that are valid from those that are invidious.... The rule is not self-executing and is no substitute for the hard judgments that must be made”).
The New Party’s claim that it has a right to select its own candidate is uncontroversial, so far as it goes. See, e. g., Cousins v. Wigoda, 419 U. S. 477 (1975) (party, not State, has right to decide who will be State’s delegates at party convention). That is, the New Party, and not someone else, has the right to select the New Party’s “standard bearer.” It does not follow, though, that a party is absolutely entitled to have its nominee appear on the ballot as that party’s candidate. A particular candidate might be ineligible for office, unwilling to serve, or, as here, another party’s candidate. That a particular individual may not appear on the ballot as a particular party’s candidate does not severely burden that party’s associational rights. See Burdick, 504 U. S., at 440, n. 10 (“It seems to us that limiting the choice of candidates to those who have complied with state election law requirements is the prototypical example of a regulation that, while it affects the right to vote, is eminently reasonable”); Anderson, 460 U. S., at 792, n. 12 (“Although a disaffiliation provision may preclude... voters from supporting a particular ineligible candidate, they remain free to support and promote other candidates who satisfy the State’s disaffiliation requirements”); id., at 793, n. 15.
The New Party relies on Eu v. San Francisco County Democratic Central Comm., supra, and Tashjian v. Republican Party of Conn., supra. In Eu, we struck down California election provisions that prohibited political parties from endorsing candidates in party primaries and regulated parties’ internal affairs and structure. And in Tashjian, we held that Connecticut’s closed-primary statute, which required voters in a party primary to be registered party members, interfered with a party’s associational rights by limiting “the group of registered voters whom the Party may invite to participate in the basic function of selecting the Party’s candidates.” 479 U. S., at 215-216 (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). But while Tashjian and Eu involved regulation of political parties’ internal affairs and core associational activities, Minnesota’s fusion ban does not. The ban, which applies to major and minor parties alike, simply precludes one party’s candidate from appearing on the ballot, as that party’s candidate, if already nominated by another party. Respondent is free to try to convince Representative Dawkins to be the New Party’s, not the DFL’s, candidate. See Swamp, 950 F. 2d, at 385 (“[A] party may nominate any candidate that the party can convince to be its candidate”). Whether the party still wants to endorse a candidate who, because of the fusion ban, will not appear on the ballot as the party’s candidate, is up to the party.
The Court of Appeals also held that Minnesota’s laws “keep the New Party from developing consensual political alliances and thus broadening the base of public participation in and support for its activities.” McKenna, 73 F. 3d, at 199. The burden on the party was, the court held, severe because “[h]istory shows that minor parties have played a significant role in the electoral system where multiple party nomination is legal, but have no meaningful influence where multiple party nomination is banned.” Ibid. In the view of the Court of Appeals, Minnesota’s fusion ban forces members of the New Party to make a “no-win choice” between voting for “candidates with no realistic chance of winning, defecting] from their party and vot[ing] for a major party candidate who does, or deelin[ing] to vote at all.” Ibid.
But Minnesota has not directly precluded minor political parties from developing and organizing. Cf. Norman, 502 U. S., at 289 (statute “foreclose^] the development of any political party lacking the resources to run a statewide campaign”). Nor has Minnesota excluded a particular group of citizens, or a political party, from participation in the election process. Cf. Anderson, supra, at 792-793 (filing deadline “places a particular burden on an identifiable segment of Ohio’s independent-minded voters”); Bullock v. Carter, 405 U. S. 134 (1972) (striking down Texas statute requiring candidates to pay filing fees as a condition to having their names placed on primary-election ballots). The New Party remains free to endorse whom it likes, to ally itself with others, to nominate candidates for office, and to spread its message to all who will listen. Cf. Eu, 489 U. S., at 223 (California law curtailed right to “[f]ree discussion about candidates for public office”); Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Comm’n, 518 U. S., at 615 (restrictions on party’s spending impair its ability to “engage in direct political advocacy”).
The Court of Appeals emphasized its belief that, without fusion-based alliances, minor parties cannot thrive. This is a predictive judgment which is by no means self-evident. But, more importantly, the supposed benefits of fusion to minor parties do not require that Minnesota permit it. See Tashjian, supra, at 222 (refusing to weigh merits of closed and open primaries). Many features of our political system — e. g., single-member districts, “first past the post” elections, and the high costs of campaigning — make it difficult for third parties to succeed in American politics. Burnham Declaration, App. 12-13. But the Constitution does not require States to permit fusion any more than it requires them to move to proportional-representation elections or public financing of campaigns. See Mobile v. Bolden, 446 U. S. 55, 75 (1980) (plurality opinion) (“Whatever appeal the dissenting opinion’s view may have as a matter of political theory, it is not the law”).
The New Party contends that the fusion ban burdens its “right... to communicate its choice of nominees on the ballot on terms equal to those offered other parties, and the right of the party’s supporters and other voters to receive that information,” and insists that communication on the ballot of a party’s candidate choice is a “critical source of information for the great majority of voters... who... rely upon party ‘labels’ as a voting guide.” Brief for Respondent 22-23.
It is true that Minnesota’s fusion ban prevents the New Party from using the ballot to communicate to the public that it supports a particular candidate who is already another party’s candidate. In addition, the ban shuts off one possible avenue a party might use to send a message to its preferred candidate because, with fusion, a candidate who wins an election on the basis of two parties’ votes will likely know more — if the parties’ votes are counted separately — about the particular wishes and ideals of his constituency. We are unpersuaded, however, by the party’s contention that it has a right to use the ballot itself to send a particularized message, to its candidate and to the voters, about the nature of its support for the candidate. Ballots serve primarily to elect candidates, not as forums for political expression. See Burdick, 504 U. S., at 438; id., at 445 (Kennedy, J., dissenting). Like all parties in Minnesota, the New Party is able to use the ballot to communicate information about itself and its candidate to the voters, so long as that candidate is not already someone else’s candidate. The party retains great latitude in its ability to communicate ideas to voters and candidates through its participation in the campaign, and party members may campaign for, endorse, and vote for their preferred candidate' even if he is listed on the ballot as another party’s candidate. See Anderson, 460 U. S., at 788 (“[A]n election campaign is an effective platform for the expression of views on the issues of the day”); Illinois Bd. of Elections v. Socialist Workers Party, 440 U. S. 173, 186 (1979) (“[A]n election campaign is a means of disseminating ideas”).
In sum, Minnesota’s laws do not restrict the ability of the New Party and its members to endorse, support, or vote for anyone they like. The laws do not directly limit the party’s access to the ballot. They are silent on parties’ internal structure, governance, and policymaking. Instead, these provisions reduce the universe of potential candidates who may appear on the ballot as the party’s nominee only by ruling out those few individuals who both have already agreed to be another party’s candidate and also, if forced to choose, themselves prefer that other party. They also limit, slightly, the party’s ability to send a message to the voters and to its preferred candidates. We conclude that the burdens Minnesota imposes on the party’s First and Fourteenth Amendment associational rights — though not trivial — are not severe.
The Court of Appeals determined that Minnesota’s fusion ban imposed “severe” burdens on the New Party’s associational rights, and so it required the State to show that the ban was narrowly tailored to serve compelling state interests. McKenna, 73 F. 3d, at 198. We disagree; given the burdens imposed, the bar is not so high. Instead, the State’s asserted regulatory interests need only be “sufficiently weighty to justify the limitation” imposed on the party’s rights. Norman, 502 U. S., at 288-289; Burdick, supra, at 434 (quoting Anderson, supra, at 788). Nor do we require elaborate, empirical verification of the weightiness of the State’s asserted justifications. See Munro v. Socialist Workers Party, 479 U. S. 189, 195-196 (1986) (“Legislatures... should be permitted to respond to potential deficiencies in the electoral process with foresight rather than reactively, provided that the response is reasonable and does not significantly impinge on constitutionally protected rights”).
The Court of Appeals acknowledged Minnesota’s interests in avoiding voter confusion and overcrowded ballots, preventing party splintering and disruptions of the two-party system, and being able to clearly identify the election winner. McKenna, supra, at 199-200. Similarly, the Seventh Circuit, in Swamp, noted Wisconsin’s “compelling” interests in avoiding voter confusion, preserving the integrity of the election process, and maintaining a stable political system. 950 F. 2d, at 386; cf. id., at 387-388 (Fairchild, J., concurring) (State has a compelling interest in “maintaining the distinct identity of parties”). Minnesota argues here that its fusion ban is justified by its interests in avoiding voter confusion, promoting candidate competition (by reserving limited ballot space for opposing candidates), preventing electoral distortions and ballot manipulations, and discouraging party splintering and “unrestrained factionalism.” Brief for Petitioners 41-50.
States certainly have an interest in protecting the integrity, fairness, and efficiency of their ballots and election processes as means for electing public officials. Bullock, 405 U. S., at 145 (State may prevent “frivolous or fraudulent candidacies”) (citing Jenness v. Fortson, 403 U. S. 431, 442 (1971)); Eu, 489 U. S., at 231; Norman, supra, at 290 (States have an interest in preventing “misrepresentation”); Rosario v. Rockefeller, 410 U. S. 752, 761 (1973). Petitioners contend that a candidate or party could easily exploit fusion as a way of associating his or its name with popular slogans and catchphrases. For example, members of a major party could decide that a powerful way of “sending a message” via the ballot would be for various factions of that party to nominate the major party’s candidate as the candidate for the newly formed “No New Taxes,” “Conserve Our Environment,” and “Stop Crime Now” parties. In response, an opposing major party would likely instruct its factions to nominate that party’s candidate as the “Fiscal Responsibility,” “Healthy Planet,” and “Safe Streets” parties’ candidate.
Whether or not the putative “fusion” candidates’ names appeared on one or four ballot lines, such maneuvering would undermine the ballot’s purpose by transforming it from a means of choosing candidates to a billboard for political advertising. The New Party responds to this concern, ironically enough, by insisting that the State could avoid such manipulation by adopting more demanding ballot-access standards rather than prohibiting multiple-party nomination. Brief for Respondent 38. However, as we stated above, because the burdens the fusion ban imposes on the party’s associational rights are not severe, the State need not narrowly tailor the means it chooses to promote ballot integrity. The Constitution does not require that Minnesota compromise the policy choices embodied in its ballot-access requirements to accommodate the New Party’s fusion strategy. See Minn. Stat. §204B.08, subd. 3 (1994) (signature requirements for nominating petitions); Rosario, supra, at 761-762 (New York’s time limitation for enrollment in a political party was part of an overall scheme aimed at the preservation of the integrity of the State’s electoral process).
Relatedly, petitioners urge that permitting fusion would undercut Minnesota’s ballot-access regime by allowing minor parties to capitalize on the popularity of another party’s candidate, rather than on their own appeal to the voters, in order to secure access to the ballot. Brief for Petitioners 45-46. That is, voters who might not sign a minor party’s nominating petition based on the party’s own views and candidates might do so if they viewed the minor party as just another way of nominating the same person nominated by one of the major parties. Thus, Minnesota fears that fusion would enable minor parties, by nominating a major party’s candidate, to bootstrap their way to major-party status in the next election and circumvent the State’s nominating-petition requirement for minor parties. See Minn. Stat. §§ 200.02, subd. 7 (defining “major party”), and 204D.13 (1994) (describing ballot order for major and other parties). The State surely has a valid interest in making sure that minor and third parties who are granted access to the ballot are bona fide and actually supported, on their own merits, by those who have provided the statutorily required petition or ballot support. Anderson, 460 U. S., at 788, n. 9; Storer, 415 U. S., at 733, 746.
States also have a strong interest in the stability of their political systems. Eu, supra, at 226; Storer, supra, at 736. This interest does not permit a State to completely insulate the two-party system from minor parties’ or independent candidates’ competition and influence, Anderson, supra, at 802; Williams v. Rhodes, 393 U. S. 23 (1968), nor is it a paternalistic license for States to protect political parties from the consequences of their own internal disagreements. Eu, supra, at 227; Tashjian, 479 U. S., at 224. That said, the States’ interest permits them to enact reasonable election regulations that may, in practice, favor the traditional two-party system, see Burnham Declaration, App. 12 (American politics has been, for the most part, organized around two parties since the time of Andrew Jackson), and that temper the destabilizing effects of party splintering and excessive factionalism. The Constitution permits the Minnesota Legislature to decide that political stability is best served through a healthy two-party system. See Rutan v. Republican Party of Ill., 497 U. S. 62, 107 (1990) (Scalia, J., dissenting) (“The stabilizing effects of such a [two-party] system are obvious”); Davis v. Bandemer, 478 U. S. 109, 144-145 (1986) (O’Connor, J., concurring) (“There can be little doubt that the emergence of a strong and stable two-party system in this country has contributed enormously to sound and effective government”); Branti v. Finkel, 445 U. S. 507, 532 (1980) (Powell, J., dissenting) (“Broad-based political parties supply an essential coherence and flexibility to the American political scene”). And while an interest in securing the perceived benefits of a stable two-party system will not justify unreasonably exclusionary restrictions, see Williams, supra, at 31-32, States need not remove all of the many hurdles third parties face in the American political arena today.
In Storer, we upheld a California statute that denied ballot positions to independent candidates who had voted in the immediately preceding primary elections or had a registered party affiliation at any time during the year before the same primary elections. 415 U. S., at 728. After surveying the relevant case law, we “ha[d] no hesitation in sustaining” the party-disaffiliation provisions. Id., at 733. We recognized that the provisions were part of a “general state policy aimed at maintaining the integrity of... the ballot,” and noted that the provision did not discriminate against independent candidates. Ibid. We concluded that while a “State need not take the course California has,... California apparently believes with the Founding Fathers that splintered parties and unrestrained factionalism may do significant damage to the fabric of government. See The Federalist No. 10 (Madison). It appears obvious to us that the one-year disaffiliation provision furthers the State’s interest in the stability of its political system.” 415 U. S., at 736; see also Lippitt v. Cipollone, 404 U. S. 1032 (1972) (affirming, without opinion, district-court decision upholding statute banning party-primary candidacies of those who had voted in another party’s primary within last four years).
Our decision in Burdick v. Takushi, supra, is also relevant. There, we upheld Hawaii’s ban on write-in voting against a claim that the ban unreasonably infringed on citizens’ First and Fourteenth Amendment rights. In so holding, we rejected the petitioner’s argument that the ban “deprive[d] him of the opportunity to cast a meaningful ballot,” emphasizing that the function of elections is to elect candidates and that “we have repeatedly upheld reasonable, politically neutral regulations that have the effect of channeling expressive activities] at the polls.” 504 U. S., at 437-438.
Minnesota’s fusion ban is far less burdensome than the disaffiliation rule upheld in Storer, and is justified by similarly weighty state interests. By reading Storer as dealing only with “sore-loser candidates,” Justice Stevens, in our view, fails to appreciate the case’s teaching. Post, at 377 (dissenting opinion). Under the California disaffiliation statute at issue in Storer, any person affiliated with a party at any time during the year leading up to the primary election was absolutely precluded from appearing on the ballot as an independent or as the candidate of another party. Minnesota’s fusion ban is not nearly so restrictive; the challenged provisions say nothing about the previous party affiliation of would-be candidates but only require that, in order to appear on the ballot, a candidate not be the nominee of more than one party. California’s disaffiliation rule limited the field of candidates by thousands; Minnesota’s precludes only a handful who freely choose to be so limited. It is also worth noting that while California’s disaffiliation statute absolutely banned many candidacies, Minnesota’s fusion ban only prohibits a candidate from being named twice.
We conclude that the burdens Minnesota’s fusion ban imposes on the New Party’s associational rights are justified by “correspondingly weighty” valid state interests in ballot integrity and political stability. In deciding that Minnesota’s fusion ban does not unconstitutionally burden the New Party’s First and Fourteenth Amendment rights, we express no views on the New Party’s policy-based arguments concerning the wisdom of fusion. It may well be that, as support for new political parties increases, these arguments will carry the day in some States’ legislatures. But the Constitution does not require Minnesota, and the approximately 40 other States that do not permit fusion, to allow it. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed.
It is so ordered.
“Fusion,” also called “cross-filing” or “multiple-party nomination,” is “the electoral support of a single set of candidates by two or more parties.” Argersinger, “A Place on the Ballot”: Fusion Polities and Anti-fusion Laws, 85 Am. Hist. Rev. 287, 288 (1980); see also Twin Cities Area New Party v. McKenna, 73 F. 3d 196, 197-198 (CA8 1996) (Fusion is “the nomination by more than one political party of the same candidate for the same office in the same general election”).
The DEL is the product of a 1944 merger between Minnesota’s Farmer-Labor Party and the Democratic Party, and is a “major party” under Minnesota law. Minn. Stat. § 200.02, subd. 7(a) (1994) (major parties are parties that have won five percent of a statewide vote and therefore participate in the state primary elections).
State law provides: “No individual who seeks nomination for any partisan or nonpartisan office at a primary shall be nominated for the same office by nominating petition....” §204B.04, subd. 2. Minnesota law further requires that “[a]n affidavit of candidacy shall state the name of the office sought and shall state that the candidate:... (b) Has no other affidavit on file as a candidate for any office at the same primary or next ensuing general election.” §204B.06, subd. 1(b).
Because the New Party is a “minor party” under Minnesota law, it does not hold a primary election but must instead file a nominating petition with the signatures of 500 eligible voters, or 10 percent of the total number of voters in the preceding state or county general election, whichever is less. §§204B.03, 204B.07-204B.08.
See Act of Apr. 13,1901, eh. 312,1902 Minn. Laws 524. The Minnesota Supreme Court struck down the ban in In re Day, 93 Minn. 178, 182, 102 N. W. 209, 211 (1904), because the title of the enacting bill did not reflect the bill’s content. The ban was reenacted in 1905. 1905 Minn. Rev. Laws, eh. 6, § 176, pp. 27, 31. Minnesota enacted a revised election code, which includes the ñisi on-related provisions involved in this case, in 1981. Act of Apr. 14,1981, eh. 29, Art. 4, § 6,1981 Minn. Laws 73.
Burnham Declaration, App. 15 (“Practice of [multiple-party nomination] in the 20th century has, of course, been much more limited. This owes chiefly to the fact that most state legislatures... outlawed the practice”); McKenna, 73 F. 3d, at 198 (“[MJultiple party nomination is prohibited today, either directly or indirectly, in about forty states and the District of Columbia...”); S. Cobble & S. Siskind, Fusion: Multiple Party Nomination in the United States 8 (1993) (summarizing States’ fusion laws).
See N. Y. Elec. Law §§6-120,6-146(1) (McKinney 1978 and Supp. 1996). Since 1936, when fusion was last relegalized in New York, several minor parties, including the Liberal, Conservative, American Labor, and Right to Life Parties, have been active and influential in New York polities. See Burnham Declaration, App. 15-16; Cobble & Siskind, supra n. 6, at 3-4.
See, e.g., Minn. Stat. §204B.06, subd. 1(c) (1994) (candidates must be 21 years of age or more upon assuming office and must have maintained residence in the district from which they seek election for 30 days before the general election).
Between the First and Second World Wars, for example, various radical, agrarian, and labor-oriented parties thrived, without fusion, in the Midwest. See generally R. Valelly, Radicalism in the States (1989). One of these parties, Minnesota’s Farmer-Labor Party, displaced the Democratic Party as the Republicans’ primary opponent in Minnesota during the 1930’s. As one historian has noted: “The Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party elected its candidates to the governorship on four occasions, to the U. S. Senate in five elections, and to the U. S. House in twenty-five campaigns.... Never less than Minnesota’s second strongest party, in 1936 Farmer-Laborites dominated state politics.... The Farmer-Labor Party was a success despite its independence of America’s two dominant national parties and despite the sometimes bold antieapitalist rhetoric of its platforms.” J. Haynes, Dubious Alliance 9 (1984). It appears that factionalism within the Farmer-Labor Party, the popular successes of New Deal programs and ideology, and the gradual movement of political power from the States to the National Government contributed to the party’s de-eline. See generally Haynes, supra; Valelly, supra; M. Gieske, Minnesota Farmer-Laborism: The Third-Party Alternative (1979). Eventually, a much-weakened Farmer-Labor Party merged with the Democrats, forming what is now Minnesota’s Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, in 1944. Valelly, supra, at 156.
The dissents state that we may not consider “what appears to be the true basis for [our] holding — the interest in preserving the two-party system,” post, at 377 (opinion of Stevens, J.), because Minnesota did not defend this interest in its briefs and “expressly rejected” it at oral argument, post, at 378; see also post, at 382-383 (opinion of Souter, J.). In fact, at oral argument, the State contended that it has an interest in the stability of its political system and that, even if certain election-related regulations, such as those requiring single-member districts, tend to work to the advantage of the traditional two-party system, the “States do have a permissible choice... there, as long as they don’t go so far as to close the door to minor partfies].” Tr. of Oral Arg. 27; see also Brief for Petitioners 46-47
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | B | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Chief Justice Burger
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This appeal presents the question whether a Connecticut statute, which provides that in paternity actions the cost of blood grouping tests is to be borne by the party requesting them, violates the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment when applied to deny such tests to indigent defendants.
I
On May 21, 1975, appellee Gloria Streater, while unmarried, gave birth to a female child, Kenyatta Chantel Streater. As a requirement stemming from her child’s receipt of public assistance, appellee identified appellant Walter Little as the child’s father to the Connecticut Department of Social Services. See Conn. Gen. Stat. § 46b-169 (1981). The Department then provided an attorney for appellee to bring a paternity suit against appellant in the Court of Common Pleas at New Haven to establish his liability for the child’s support.
At the time the paternity action was commenced, appellant was incarcerated in the Connecticut Correctional Institution at Enfield. Through his counsel, who was provided by a legal aid organization, appellant moved the trial court to order blood grouping tests on appellee and her child pursuant to Conn. Gen. Stat. § 52-184 (1977), which later became Conn. Gen. Stat. § 46b-168 (1981) and includes the provision that “[t]he costs of making such tests shall be chargeable against the party making the motion.” Appellant asserted th^t he was indigent and asked that the State be ordered to pay for the tests. The trial court granted the motion insofar as it sought blood grouping tests but denied the request that they be furnished at the State’s expense. App. 8.
For “financial reasons,” no blood grouping tests were performed even though they had been authorized. Id., at 12. The paternity action was tried to the court on September 28, 1978. Both appellee and appellant, who was still a state prisoner, testified at trial. Id., at 14-19. After listening to the testimony, the court found that appellant was the child’s father. Id., at 2, 20. Following a subsequent hearing on damages, the court entered judgment against appellant in the amount of $6,974.48, which included the “lying-in” expenses of appellee and the child, “accrued maintenance” through October 31, 1978, and the “costs of suit plus reasonable attorney’s fees.” Ibid. In addition, appellant was ordered to pay child support at the rate of $2 per month — $1 toward the arrearage amount of $6,974.48 and $1 toward a current monthly award of $163.58 — directly to Connecticut’s Department of Finance and Control. Id., at 20-21.
The Appellate Session of the Connecticut Superior Court affirmed the trial court’s judgment in a per curiam opinion that is not officially reported. Relying on its prior decision in Ferro v. Morgan, 35 Conn. Supp. 679, 406 A. 2d 873, cert. denied, 177 Conn. 753, 399 A. 2d 526 (1979), the Appellate Session held that Conn. Gen. Stat. § 46b-168 (1981) does not violate the due process and equal protection rights of an indigent defendant in a paternity proceeding. The Appellate Session thus found no error in the trial court’s denial of appellant’s motion that the cost of blood grouping tests be paid by the State. App. 25-26.
Thereafter, appellant’s petition for certification was denied by the Connecticut Supreme Court, 180 Conn. 756, 414 A. 2d 199 (1980); and we noted probable jurisdiction, 449 U. S. 817 (1980).
The Fourteenth Amendment provides in part: “No State shall .. . deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law . .. .” Appellant argues that his right to due process was abridged by the refusal, under Conn. Gen. Stat. §46b-168 (1981), to grant his request based on in-digency for state-subsidized blood grouping tests.
Due process, “unlike some legal rules, is not a technical conception with a fixed content unrelated to time, place and circumstances.” Joint Anti-Facist Refugee Committee v. McGrath, 341 U. S. 123, 162 (1951) (concurring opinion). Rather, it is “flexible and calls for such procedural protections as the particular situation demands.” Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U. S. 471, 481 (1972). In Boddie v. Connecticut, 401 U. S. 371, 377 (1971), the Court held that “due process requires, at a minimum, that absent a countervailing state interest of overriding significance, persons forced to settle their claims of right and duty through the judicial process must be given a meaningful opportunity to be heard.” Accord, Armstrong v. Manso, 380 U. S. 545, 552 (1965); Mullane v. Central Hanover Bank & Trust Co., 339 U. S. 306, 313 (1950). And in Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U. S. 319, 335 (1976), we explained:
“ [Identification of the specific dictates of due process generally requires consideration of three distinct factors: First, the private interest that will be affected by the official action; second, the risk of an erroneous deprivation of such interest through the procedures used, and the probable value, if any, of additional or substitute procedural safeguards; and finally, the Government’s interest, including the function involved and the fiscal and administrative burdens that the additional or substitute procedural requirement would entail.”
These standards govern appellant’s due process claim, which is premised on the unique quality of blood grouping tests as a source of exculpatory evidence, the State’s prominent role in the litigation, and the character of paternity actions under Connecticut law.
A
The discovery of human blood groups by Dr. Karl Landsteiner in Vienna at the beginning of this century, and subsequent understanding of their hereditary aspects, made possible the eventual use of blood tests to scientifically evaluate allegations of paternity. P. Speiser & F. Smekal, Karl Landsteiner 89-93 (1975). Like their European counterparts, American courts gradually recognized the evidentiary value of blood grouping tests in paternity cases, and the modern status of such tests has been described by one commentator as follows:
“As far as the accuracy, reliability, dependability— even infallibility — of the test are concerned, there is no longer any controversy. The result of the test is universally accepted by distinguished scientific and medical authority. There is, in fact, no living authority of repute, medical or legal, who may be cited adversely. . . . [T]here is now . . . practically universal and unanimous judicial willingness to give decisive and controlling evidentiary weight to a blood test exclusion of paternity.” S. Schatkin, Disputed Paternity Proceedings §9.13 (1975).
The application of blood tests to the issue of paternity results from certain properties of the human blood groups and types: (a) the blood group and type of any individual can be determined at birth or shortly thereafter; (b) the blood group and type of every individual remain constant throughout life; and (c) the blood groups and types are inherited in accordance with Mendel’s laws. Id., § 5.03. If the blood groups and types of the mother and child are known, the possible and impossible blood groups and types of the true father can be determined under the rules of inheritance. For example, a group AB child cannot have a group O parent, but can have a group A, B, or AB parent. Similarly, a child cannot be type M unless one or both parents are type M, and the factor rh' cannot appear in the blood of a child unless present in the blood of one or both parents. Id., §§ 5.03 and 6.02. Since millions of men belong to the possible groups and types, a blood grouping test cannot conclusively establish paternity. However, it can demonstrate nonpaternity, such as where the alleged father belongs to group 0 and the child is group AB. It is a negative rather than an affirmative test with the potential to scientifically exclude the paternity of a falsely accused putative father.
The ability of blood grouping tests to exonerate innocent putative fathers was confirmed by a 1976 report developed jointly by the American Bar Association and the American Medical Association. Miale, Jennings, Rettberg, Sell, & Krause, Joint AMA-ABA Guidelines: Present Status of Serologic Testing in Problems of Disputed Parentage, 10 Family L. Q. 247 (Fall 1976). The joint report recommended the use of seven blood test “systems” — ABO, Rh, MNSs, Kell, Duffy, Kidd, and HLA — when investigating questions of paternity. Id., at 257-258. These systems were found to be “reasonable” in cost and to provide a 91% cumulative probability of negating paternity for erroneously accused Negro men and 93% for white men. Id., at 254, 257-258.
The effectiveness of the seven systems attests the probative value of blood test evidence in paternity cases. The importance of that scientific evidence is heightened because “[tjhere are seldom accurate or reliable eyewitnesses since the sexual activities usually take place in intimate and private surroundings, and the self-serving testimony of a party is of questionable reliability.” Larson, Blood Test Exclusion Procedures in Paternity Litigation: The Uniform Acts and Beyond, 13 J. Fam. L. 713 (1973-1974). As Justice Brennan wrote while a member of the Appellate Division of the New Jersey Superior Court:
“[I]n the field of contested paternity . . . the truth is so often obscured because social pressures create a conspiracy of silence or, worse, induce deliberate falsity.
“The value of blood tests as a wholesome aid in the quest for truth in the administration of justice in these matters cannot be gainsaid in this day. Their reliability as an indicator of the truth has been fully established. The substantial weight of medical and legal authority attests their accuracy, not to prove paternity, and not always to disprove it, but ‘they can disprove it conclusively in a great many cases provided they are administered by specially qualified experts’ . . . .” Cortese v. Cortese, 10 N. J. Super. 152, 156, 76 A. 2d 717, 719 (1950).
B
Appellant emphasizes that, unlike a common dispute between private parties, the State’s involvement in this paternity proceeding was considerable and manifest, giving rise to a constitutional duty. Because appellee’s child was a recipient of public assistance, Connecticut law compelled her, upon penalty of fine and imprisonment for contempt, “to disclose the name of the putative father under oath and to institute an action to establish the paternity of said child.” Conn. Gen. Stat. § 46b-169 (1981). See Maher v. Doe, 432 U. S. 526 (1977); Roe v. Norton, 422 U. S. 391 (1975). The State’s Attorney General automatically became a party to the action, and any settlement agreement required his approval or that of the Commissioner of Human Resources or Commissioner of Income Maintenance. See Conn. Gen. Stat. §§46b-160 and 46b-170 (1981). The State referred this mandatory paternity suit to appellee’s lawyer “for prosecution” and paid his fee as well as all costs of the litigation. App. 10, 20; Tr. of Oral Arg. 30, 34, 40. In addition, the State will be the recipient of the monthly support payments to be made by appellant pursuant to the trial court’s judgment. App. 21. “State action” has undeniably pervaded this case. Accordingly, appellant need not, and does not, contend that Connecticut has a constitutional obligation to fund blood tests for an indigent’s defense in ordinary civil litigation between private parties.
The nature of paternity proceedings in Connecticut also bears heavily on appellant’s due process claim. Although the State characterizes such proceedings as “civil,” see Robertson v. Apuzzo, 170 Conn. 367, 372-373, 365 A. 2d 824, 827-828, cert. denied, 429 U. S. 852 (1976), they have “quasi-criminal” overtones. Connecticut Gen. Stat. § 46b-171 (1981) provides that if a putative father “is found guilty, the court shall order him to stand charged with the support and maintenance of such child” (emphasis added); and his subsequent failure to comply with the court’s support order is punishable by imprisonment under Conn. Gen. Stat. §§ 46b-171, 46b-215, and 53-304 (1981). Cf. Walker v. Stokes, 45 Ohio App. 2d 275, 278, 344 N. E. 2d 159, 161 (1975); People v. Doherty, 261 App. Div. 86, 87, 24 N. Y. S. 2d 821, 823 (1941).
Moreover, the defendant in a Connecticut paternity action faces an unusual evidentiary obstacle. Connecticut’s original “bastardy” statute was enacted in 1672, see The Book of the General Laws for the People Within the Jurisdiction of Connecticut 6 (1673), and from 1702 until 1902 it stated in pertinent part: “And if such woman shall continue constant in her accusation, being put to the discovery in the time of her travail, and also examined on the trial of the cause, it shall be prima facie evidence that such accused person is the father of such child.” Mosher v. Bennett, 108 Conn. 671, 672, 144 A. 297 (1929). In Booth v. Hart, 43 Conn. 480 (1876), the Connecticut Supreme Court construed this statutory language as follows:
“[For 146 years], parties to suits with but one exception could not testify in their own behalf. But in cases of illegitimate children, ... an exception was made of suits brought by [a mother] for the maintenance of [her] child, and she was allowed to testify who was its father under certain safeguards provided by the statute. And the statute went on to provide that if she should continue constant in her accusation, being examined on oath and put to the discovery in the time of her travail, the person whom she declared to be the father of her child should be adjudged to be so, unless from the evidence introduced by him the triers should be of the opinion that he was innocent of the charge. The existence of these few facts were all that was necessary to maintain the suit in the first instance, and the burden of proof then changed to the defendant, and he was required to prove himself innocent of the accusation by other evidence than his own.” Id., at 485.
In 1848, the Connecticut Legislature enacted a statute providing that “[n]o person shall be disqualified as a witness in any action by reason of his interest in the event of the same, as a party or otherwise.” Id., at 486. Since the defendant in a paternity action was no longer precluded from testifying in his own behalf, the 1848 statute removed the need for the safeguard of putting the complainant “to the discovery in the time of her travail.” Ibid. In its modern form, Conn. Gen. Stat. § 46b-160 (1981) simply states that “if such mother or expectant mother continues constant in her accusation, it shall be evidence that the respondent is the father of such child.” Nevertheless, in Mosher v. Bennett, supra, at 674, 144 A., at 298, the Connecticut Supreme Court held:
“The mother still has the right to rely upon the prima facie case made out by constancy in her accusation. She is no longer required under oath to make such discovery at the time of her travail. The prima facie case so made out places upon the reputed father the burden of showing his innocence of the charge, and under our practice he must do this by other evidence than his own.” (Emphasis added.)
Accord, Kelsaw v. Green, 6 Conn. Cir. 516, 519-520, 276 A. 2d 909, 911-912 (1971).
Under Connecticut law, therefore, the defendant in a paternity suit is placed at a distinct disadvantage in that his testimony valone is insufficient to overcome the plaintiff’s prima facie case. Among the most probative additional evidence the defendant might offer are the results of blood grouping tests, but if he is indigent, the State essentially denies him that reliable scientific proof by requiring that he bear its cost. See Conn. Gen. Stat. §46b-168 (1981). In substance, the State has created an adverse presumption regarding the defendant’s testimony by elevating the weight to be accorded the mother’s imputation of him. If the plaintiff has been “constant” in her accusation of paternity, the defendant carries the burden of proof and faces severe penalties if he does not meet that burden and fails to comply with the judgment entered against him. Yet not only is the State inextricably involved in paternity litigation such as this and responsible for an imbalance between the parties, it in effect forecloses what is potentially a conclusive means for an indigent defendant to surmount that disparity and exonerate himself. Such a practice is irreconcilable with the command of the Due Process Clause.
c
Our holding in Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U. S., at 335, set forth three elements to be evaluated in determining what process is constitutionally due: the private interests at stake; the risk that the procedures used will lead to erroneous results and the probable value of the suggested procedural safeguard; and the governmental interests affected. Analysis of those considerations weighs in appellant’s favor.
The private interests implicated here are substantial. Apart from the putative father’s pecuniary interest in avoiding a substantial support obligation and liberty interest threatened by the possible sanctions for noncompliance, at issue is the creation of a parent-child relationship. This Court frequently has stressed the importance of familial bonds, whether or not legitimized by marriage, and accorded them constitutional protection. See Stanley v. Illinois, 405 U. S. 645, 651-652 (1972). Just as the termination of such bonds demands procedural fairness, see Lassiter v. Department of Social Services, post, p. 18, so too does their imposition. Through the judicial process, the State properly endeavors to identify the father of a child bom out of wedlock and to make him responsible for the child’s maintenance. Obviously, both the child and the defendant in a paternity action have a compelling interest in the accuracy of such a determination.
Given the usual absence of witnesses, the self-interest coloring the testimony of the litigants, and the State’s onerous evidentiary rule and refusal to pay for blood grouping tests, the risk is not inconsiderable that an indigent defendant in a Connecticut paternity proceeding will be erroneously adjudged the father of the child in question. See generally H. Krause, Illegitimacy: Law and Social Policy 106-108 (1971). Further, because of its recognized capacity to definitively exclude a high percentage of falsely accused putative fathers, the availability of scientific blood test evidence clearly would be a valuable procedural safeguard in such cases. See id., at 123-137; Part II-A, supra. Connecticut has acknowledged as much in § 46b-168 of its statutes by providing for the ordering of blood tests and the admissibility of negative findings. See n. 2, supra. Unlike other evidence that may be susceptible to varying interpretation or disparagement, blood test results, if obtained under proper conditions by qualified experts, are difficult to refute. Thus, access to blood grouping tests for indigent defendants such as appellant would help to insure the correctness of paternity decisions in Connecticut.
The State admittedly has a legitimate interest in the welfare of a child bom out of wedlock who is receiving public assistance, as well as in securing support for the child from those legally responsible. In addition, it shares the interest of the child and the defendant in an accurate and just determination of paternity. See Regulations of Connecticut State Agencies § 17-82e-4 (1979). Nevertheless, the State also has financial concerns; it wishes to have the paternity actions in which it is involved proceed as economically as possible and, hence, seeks to avoid the expense of blood grouping tests. Pursuant to 42 U. S. C. § 655 (a)(1) (1976 ed. and Supp. Ill), however, the states are entitled to reimbursement of 75% of the funds they expend on operation of their approved child support plans, and regulations promulgated under authority of 42 U. S. C. § 1302 make clear that such federal financial participation is available for the development of evidence regarding paternity, “including the use of . . . blood tests.” 45 CFR § 304.20 (b) (2) (i) (B) (1980). Moreover, following the example of other states, the expense of blood grouping tests for an indigent defendant in a Connecticut paternity suit could be advanced by the State and then taxed as costs to the parties. See Ark. Stat. Ann. § 34.705.1 (1962); Kan. Stat. Ann. § 23-132 (1974); La. Rev. Stat. §9:397.1 (West Supp. 1981); N. H. Rev. Stat. Ann. §522:3 (1974); Ore. Rev. Stat. § 109.256 (1) (1979); 42 Pa. Cons. Stat. Ann. § 6135 (Purdon Supp. 1981); Tex. Fam. Code Ann. § 13.03 (b) (Vernon Supp. 1980-1981). We must con-elude that the State’s monetary interest “is hardly significant enough to overcome private interests as important as those here.” Lassiter v. Department of Social Services, post, at 28.
Assessment of the Mathews v. Eldridge factors indicates that appellant did not receive the process he was constitutionally due. Without aid in obtaining blood test evidence in a paternity case, an indigent defendant, who faces the State as an adversary when the child is a recipient of public assistance and who must overcome the evidentiary burden Connecticut imposes, lacks “a meaningful opportunity to be heard.” Boddie v. Connecticut, 401 U. S., at 377. Therefore, “the requirement of ‘fundamental fairness’ ” expressed by the Due Process Clause was not satisfied here. Lassiter v. Department of Social Services, post, at 24.
Ill
“[A] statute . . . may be held constitutionally invalid as applied when it operates to deprive an individual of a protected right although its general validity as a measure enacted in the legitimate exercise of state power is beyond question.” Boddie v. Connecticut, 401 U. S., at 379. Thus, “a cost requirement, valid on its face, may offend due process because it operates to foreclose a particular party’s opportunity to be heard.” Id., at 380. We hold that, in these specific circumstances, the application of Conn. Gen. Stat. §46b-168 (1981) to deny appellant blood grouping tests because of his lack of financial resources violated the due process guarantee of the Fourteenth Amendment. Accordingly, the judgment of the Appellate Session of the Connecticut Superior Court is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
So ordered.
While the case was pending, the Court of Common Pleas was merged with the Superior Court of Connecticut. See Conn. Gen. Stat. § 51~164s (1981).
In its entirety, Conn. Gen. Stat. §46b-168 (1981) states:
“In any proceeding in which a question of paternity is an issue, the court, on motion of any party, may order the mother, her child and the putative father or the husband of the mother to submit to one or more blood grouping tests, to be made by a qualified physician or other qualified person, designated by the court, to determine whether or not the putative father or the husband of the mother can be excluded as being the father of the child. The results of such tests shall be admissible in evidence only in cases where such results establish definite exclusion of the putative father or such husband as such father. The costs of making such tests shall be chargeable against the party making the motion.”
Appellant’s financial affidavit, which was filed with the motion, showed that he had weekly income of $5, expenses of $5, and no assets. App. 7. The trial court later specifically found that, at the time of the motion, appellant “was indigent and could not afford to pay the costs for blood grouping tests.” Id., at 23.
Although appellant admitted intimacy with appellee, he expressed doubt that he was the child’s father because of appellee’s alleged relationship with another man and because she had not allowed him to see the child. Id., at 17-18.
The minimal sum of $2 was ordered presumably because appellant was indigent and incarcerated. However, his payments to the State are subject to future increase pursuant to Conn. Gen. Stat. §46b-171 (1981), which provides that “[a]ny order for the payment of [child] support . . . may at any time thereafter be set aside or altered by any court issuing such order.”
In response to an interrogatory, appellee, through her attorney, stated that her “continuing eligibility for [public] assistance required her to disclose [the] father’s identity.” App. 10.
Connecticut’s disclosure requirement is fostered by 42 U. S. C. § 654 (4), which directs that, as to any child bom out of wedlock for whom benefits under the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program are claimed, the states must undertake “to establish . . . paternity . . . unless ... it is against the best interests of the child to do so” and “to secure support for such child from his parent.” See also 45 CFR §232.12 (1980).
At oral argument, the Assistant Attorney General of Connecticut acknowledged that the cost of any witnesses for the plaintiff in a proceeding such as this also would be paid by the State. Tr. of Oral Arg. 45.
At oral argument, the State’s Assistant Attorney General represented that “[c]urrently th[is] is the law of Connecticut,” id., at 46; and, when presented with a hypothetical situation, his response illustrated the practical operation of the evidentiary rule:
“QUESTION: [D]oes that mean . . . that [if] she takes the stand [and says], he’s the father, he’s the father, he’s the father, he’s the father. She never deviates. ... He takes the stand and says, I am not, I am not, I am not, I am not. And the factfinder believes him and doesn’t believe her, you’re saying—
“[COUNSEL’S ANSWER]: If that was the testimony, she would win.” Id., at 44.
In its Report on the 1974 Social Services Amendments to the Social Security Act, 42 U. S. C. §§ 654, 655, et al., the Senate Finance Committee stated:
“In taking the position that a child bom out of wedlock has a right to have its paternity ascertained in a fair and efficient manner, the [C]om-mittee acknowledges that legislation must recognize the interest primarily at stake in the paternity action to be that of the child. . . . The Committee is convinced that . . . paternity can be ascertained with reasonable assurance, particularly through the use of scientifically conducted blood typing.” S. Rep. No. 93-1356, p. 52 (1974).
See n. 6, supra.
Laboratories surveyed in a 1977 study sponsored by the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (now in part the Department of Health and Human Services) charged an average of approximately $245 for a battery of test systems that led to a minimum exclusion rate of 80%. HEW Office of Child Support Enforcement, Blood Testing to Establish Paternity 35-37 (1977 Condensed Report). According to appellant, blood grouping tests were available at the Hartford Hospital for $250 at the time this paternity action was pending trial, but the cost has since been increased to $460. Brief for Appellant 4, and n. 5.
Other jurisdictions also have statutes by which blood grouping tests can be made available to indigents. See, e. g., Ala. Code § 26-12-5 (1977); D. C. Code § 16-2343 (Supp. V 1978); Haw. Rev. Stat. § 584r-16 (1976); Md. Ann. Code § 16-66G (Supp. 1980); Mich. Comp. Laws § 722.716 (e) (1970); Minn. Stat. § 257.69 (2) (1980); N. D. Cent. Code § 14-17-15 (Supp. 1977); Utah Code Ann. § 78-25-23 (1977); Wis. Stat. Ann. § 767.48 (5) (West Supp. 1980). In addition, the highest courts of Colorado, Massachusetts, and West Virginia have held that putative fathers may not constitutionally be denied access to blood grouping tests on the basis of indigency. See Franklin v. District Court, 194 Colo. 189, 571 P. 2d 1072 (1977); Commonwealth v. Possehl, 355 Mass. 575, 246 N. E. 2d 667 (1969); State ex rel. Craves v. Daugherty, 266 S. E. 2d 142 (W. Va. 1980).
Apart from Connecticut, it also appears that North Carolina requires all defendants requesting blood tests in paternity proceedings, irrespective of means, “to initially be responsible for any of the expenses thereof” or do without them. N. C. Gen. Stat. § 8-50.1 (b) (2) (Supp. 1979).
In Boddie, we held that due process prohibits a state from denying an indigent access to its divorce courts because of inability to pay filing fees and costs. However, in United States v. Kras, 409 U. S. 434 (1973), and Ortwein v. Schwab, 410 U. S. 656 (1973), the Court concluded that due process does not require waiver of filing fees for an indigent seeking a discharge in bankruptcy or appellate review of an agency determination resulting in reduced welfare benefits. Our decisions in Kras and Ortwein emphasized the availability' of other relief and the less “fundamental” character of the private interests at stake than those implicated in Boddie. Because appellant has no choice of an alternative forum and his interests, as well as those of the child, are constitutionally significant, this case is comparable to Boddie rather than to Kras and Ortwein.
Because of our disposition of appellant’s due process claim, we need not consider whether the statute, as applied, also violated the Equal Protection Clause.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | B | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice KENNEDY delivered the opinion of the Court.
In 2012 a same-sex couple visited Masterpiece Cakeshop, a bakery in Colorado, to make inquiries about ordering a cake for their wedding reception. The shop's owner told the couple that he would not create a cake for their wedding because of his religious opposition to same-sex marriages-marriages the State of Colorado itself did not recognize at that time. The couple filed a charge with the Colorado Civil Rights Commission alleging discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in violation of the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act.
The Commission determined that the shop's actions violated the Act and ruled in the couple's favor. The Colorado state courts affirmed the ruling and its enforcement order, and this Court now must decide whether the Commission's order violated the Constitution.
The case presents difficult questions as to the proper reconciliation of at least two principles. The first is the authority of a State and its governmental entities to protect the rights and dignity of gay persons who are, or wish to be, married but who face discrimination when they seek goods or services. The second is the right of all persons to exercise fundamental freedoms under the First Amendment, as applied to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment.
The freedoms asserted here are both the freedom of speech and the free exercise of religion. The free speech aspect of this case is difficult, for few persons who have seen a beautiful wedding cake might have thought of its creation as an exercise of protected speech. This is an instructive example, however, of the proposition that the application of constitutional freedoms in new contexts can deepen our understanding of their meaning.
One of the difficulties in this case is that the parties disagree as to the extent of the baker's refusal to provide service. If a baker refused to design a special cake with words or images celebrating the marriage-for instance, a cake showing words with religious meaning-that might be different from a refusal to sell any cake at all. In defining whether a baker's creation can be protected, these details might make a difference.
The same difficulties arise in determining whether a baker has a valid free exercise claim. A baker's refusal to attend the wedding to ensure that the cake is cut the right way, or a refusal to put certain religious words or decorations on the cake, or even a refusal to sell a cake that has been baked for the public generally but includes certain religious words or symbols on it are just three examples of possibilities that seem all but endless.
Whatever the confluence of speech and free exercise principles might be in some cases, the Colorado Civil Rights Commission's consideration of this case was inconsistent with the State's obligation of religious neutrality. The reason and motive for the baker's refusal were based on his sincere religious beliefs and convictions. The Court's precedents make clear that the baker, in his capacity as the owner of a business serving the public, might have his right to the free exercise of religion limited by generally applicable laws. Still, the delicate question of when the free exercise of his religion must yield to an otherwise valid exercise of state power needed to be determined in an adjudication in which religious hostility on the part of the State itself would not be a factor in the balance the State sought to reach. That requirement, however, was not met here. When the Colorado Civil Rights Commission considered this case, it did not do so with the religious neutrality that the Constitution requires.
Given all these considerations, it is proper to hold that whatever the outcome of some future controversy involving facts similar to these, the Commission's actions here violated the Free Exercise Clause; and its order must be set aside.
I
A
Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd., is a bakery in Lakewood, Colorado, a suburb of Denver. The shop offers a variety of baked goods, ranging from everyday cookies and brownies to elaborate custom-designed cakes for birthday parties, weddings, and other events.
Jack Phillips is an expert baker who has owned and operated the shop for 24 years. Phillips is a devout Christian. He has explained that his "main goal in life is to be obedient to" Jesus Christ and Christ's "teachings in all aspects of his life." App. 148. And he seeks to "honor God through his work at Masterpiece Cakeshop." Ibid. One of Phillips' religious beliefs is that "God's intention for marriage from the beginning of history is that it is and should be the union of one man and one woman." Id., at 149. To Phillips, creating a wedding cake for a same-sex wedding would be equivalent to participating in a celebration that is contrary to his own most deeply held beliefs.
Phillips met Charlie Craig and Dave Mullins when they entered his shop in the summer of 2012. Craig and Mullins were planning to marry. At that time, Colorado did not recognize same-sex marriages, so the couple planned to wed legally in Massachusetts and afterwards to host a reception for their family and friends in Denver. To prepare for their celebration, Craig and Mullins visited the shop and told Phillips that they were interested in ordering a cake for "our wedding." Id., at 152 (emphasis deleted). They did not mention the design of the cake they envisioned.
Phillips informed the couple that he does not "create" wedding cakes for same-sex weddings. Ibid. He explained, "I'll make your birthday cakes, shower cakes, sell you cookies and brownies, I just don't make cakes for same sex weddings." Ibid. The couple left the shop without further discussion.
The following day, Craig's mother, who had accompanied the couple to the cakeshop and been present for their interaction with Phillips, telephoned to ask Phillips why he had declined to serve her son. Phillips explained that he does not create wedding cakes for same-sex weddings because of his religious opposition to same-sex marriage, and also because Colorado (at that time) did not recognize same-sex marriages. Id., at 153. He later explained his belief that "to create a wedding cake for an event that celebrates something that directly goes against the teachings of the Bible, would have been a personal endorsement and participation in the ceremony and relationship that they were entering into." Ibid. (emphasis deleted).
B
For most of its history, Colorado has prohibited discrimination in places of public accommodation. In 1885, less than a decade after Colorado achieved statehood, the General Assembly passed "An Act to Protect All Citizens in Their Civil Rights," which guaranteed "full and equal enjoyment" of certain public facilities to "all citizens," "regardless of race, color or previous condition of servitude." 1885 Colo. Sess. Laws pp. 132-133. A decade later, the General Assembly expanded the requirement to apply to "all other places of public accommodation." 1895 Colo. Sess. Laws ch. 61, p. 139.
Today, the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act (CADA) carries forward the state's tradition of prohibiting discrimination in places of public accommodation. Amended in 2007 and 2008 to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation as well as other protected characteristics, CADA in relevant part provides as follows:
"It is a discriminatory practice and unlawful for a person, directly or indirectly, to refuse, withhold from, or deny to an individual or a group, because of disability, race, creed, color, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, national origin, or ancestry, the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations of a place of public accommodation." Colo. Rev. Stat. § 24-34-601(2)(a) (2017).
The Act defines "public accommodation" broadly to include any "place of business engaged in any sales to the public and any place offering services... to the public," but excludes "a church, synagogue, mosque, or other place that is principally used for religious purposes." § 24-34-601(1).
CADA establishes an administrative system for the resolution of discrimination claims. Complaints of discrimination in violation of CADA are addressed in the first instance by the Colorado Civil Rights Division. The Division investigates each claim; and if it finds probable cause that CADA has been violated, it will refer the matter to the Colorado Civil Rights Commission. The Commission, in turn, decides whether to initiate a formal hearing before a state Administrative Law Judge (ALJ), who will hear evidence and argument before issuing a written decision. See §§ 24-34-306, 24-4-105(14). The decision of the ALJ may be appealed to the full Commission, a seven-member appointed body. The Commission holds a public hearing and deliberative session before voting on the case. If the Commission determines that the evidence proves a CADA violation, it may impose remedial measures as provided by statute. See § 24-34-306(9). Available remedies include, among other things, orders to cease-and-desist a discriminatory policy, to file regular compliance reports with the Commission, and "to take affirmative action, including the posting of notices setting forth the substantive rights of the public." § 24-34-605. Colorado law does not permit the Commission to assess money damages or fines. §§ 24-34-306(9), 24-34-605.
C
Craig and Mullins filed a discrimination complaint against Masterpiece Cakeshop and Phillips in September 2012, shortly after the couple's visit to the shop. App. 31. The complaint alleged that Craig and Mullins had been denied "full and equal service" at the bakery because of their sexual orientation, id., at 35, 48, and that it was Phillips' "standard business practice" not to provide cakes for same-sex weddings, id., at 43.
The Civil Rights Division opened an investigation. The investigator found that "on multiple occasions," Phillips "turned away potential customers on the basis of their sexual orientation, stating that he could not create a cake for a same-sex wedding ceremony or reception" because his religious beliefs prohibited it and because the potential customers "were doing something illegal" at that time. Id., at 76. The investigation found that Phillips had declined to sell custom wedding cakes to about six other same-sex couples on this basis. Id., at 72. The investigator also recounted that, according to affidavits submitted by Craig and Mullins, Phillips' shop had refused to sell cupcakes to a lesbian couple for their commitment celebration because the shop "had a policy of not selling baked goods to same-sex couples for this type of event." Id., at 73. Based on these findings, the Division found probable cause that Phillips violated CADA and referred the case to the Civil Rights Commission. Id., at 69.
The Commission found it proper to conduct a formal hearing, and it sent the case to a State ALJ. Finding no dispute as to material facts, the ALJ entertained cross-motions for summary judgment and ruled in the couple's favor. The ALJ first rejected Phillips' argument that declining to make or create a wedding cake for Craig and Mullins did not violate Colorado law. It was undisputed that the shop is subject to state public accommodations laws. And the ALJ determined that Phillips' actions constituted prohibited discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, not simply opposition to same-sex marriage as Phillips contended. App. to Pet. for Cert. 68a-72a.
Phillips raised two constitutional claims before the ALJ. He first asserted that applying CADA in a way that would require him to create a cake for a same-sex wedding would violate his First Amendment right to free speech by compelling him to exercise his artistic talents to express a message with which he disagreed. The ALJ rejected the contention that preparing a wedding cake is a form of protected speech and did not agree that creating Craig and Mullins' cake would force Phillips to adhere to "an ideological point of view." Id., at 75a. Applying CADA to the facts at hand, in the ALJ's view, did not interfere with Phillips' freedom of speech.
Phillips also contended that requiring him to create cakes for same-sex weddings would violate his right to the free exercise of religion, also protected by the First Amendment. Citing this Court's precedent in Employment Div., Dept. of Human Resources of Ore. v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872, 110 S.Ct. 1595, 108 L.Ed.2d 876 (1990), the ALJ determined that CADA is a "valid and neutral law of general applicability" and therefore that applying it to Phillips in this case did not violate the Free Exercise Clause. Id., at 879, 110 S.Ct. 1595 ; App. to Pet. for Cert. 82a-83a. The ALJ thus ruled against Phillips and the cakeshop and in favor of Craig and Mullins on both constitutional claims.
The Commission affirmed the ALJ's decision in full. Id., at 57a. The Commission ordered Phillips to "cease and desist from discriminating against... same-sex couples by refusing to sell them wedding cakes or any product [they] would sell to heterosexual couples." Ibid. It also ordered additional remedial measures, including "comprehensive staff training on the Public Accommodations section" of CADA "and changes to any and all company policies to comply with... this Order." Id., at 58a. The Commission additionally required Phillips to prepare "quarterly compliance reports" for a period of two years documenting "the number of patrons denied service" and why, along with "a statement describing the remedial actions taken." Ibid.
Phillips appealed to the Colorado Court of Appeals, which affirmed the Commission's legal determinations and remedial order. The court rejected the argument that the "Commission's order unconstitutionally compels" Phillips and the shop "to convey a celebratory message about same sex marriage." Craig v. Masterpiece Cakeshop, Inc., 370 P.3d 272, 283 (2015). The court also rejected the argument that the Commission's order violated the Free Exercise Clause. Relying on this Court's precedent in Smith, supra, at 879, 110 S.Ct. 1595, the court stated that the Free Exercise Clause "does not relieve an individual of the obligation to comply with a valid and neutral law of general applicability" on the ground that following the law would interfere with religious practice or belief. 370 P.3d, at 289. The court concluded that requiring Phillips to comply with the statute did not violate his free exercise rights. The Colorado Supreme Court declined to hear the case.
Phillips sought review here, and this Court granted certiorari. 582 U.S. ----, 137 S.Ct. 2290, 198 L.Ed.2d 723 (2017). He now renews his claims under the Free Speech and Free Exercise Clauses of the First Amendment.
II
A
Our society has come to the recognition that gay persons and gay couples cannot be treated as social outcasts or as inferior in dignity and worth. For that reason the laws and the Constitution can, and in some instances must, protect them in the exercise of their civil rights. The exercise of their freedom on terms equal to others must be given great weight and respect by the courts. At the same time, the religious and philosophical objections to gay marriage are protected views and in some instances protected forms of expression. As this Court observed in Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 U.S. ----, 135 S.Ct. 2584, 192 L.Ed.2d 609 (2015), "[t]he First Amendment ensures that religious organizations and persons are given proper protection as they seek to teach the principles that are so fulfilling and so central to their lives and faiths." Id., at ----, 135 S.Ct., at 2607. Nevertheless, while those religious and philosophical objections are protected, it is a general rule that such objections do not allow business owners and other actors in the economy and in society to deny protected persons equal access to goods and services under a neutral and generally applicable public accommodations law. See Newman v. Piggie Park Enterprises, Inc., 390 U.S. 400, 402, n. 5, 88 S.Ct. 964, 19 L.Ed.2d 1263 (1968) (per curiam ); see also Hurley v. Irish-American Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Group of Boston, Inc., 515 U.S. 557, 572, 115 S.Ct. 2338, 132 L.Ed.2d 487 (1995) ("Provisions like these are well within the State's usual power to enact when a legislature has reason to believe that a given group is the target of discrimination, and they do not, as a general matter, violate the First or Fourteenth Amendments").
When it comes to weddings, it can be assumed that a member of the clergy who objects to gay marriage on moral and religious grounds could not be compelled to perform the ceremony without denial of his or her right to the free exercise of religion. This refusal would be well understood in our constitutional order as an exercise of religion, an exercise that gay persons could recognize and accept without serious diminishment to their own dignity and worth. Yet if that exception were not confined, then a long list of persons who provide goods and services for marriages and weddings might refuse to do so for gay persons, thus resulting in a community-wide stigma inconsistent with the history and dynamics of civil rights laws that ensure equal access to goods, services, and public accommodations.
It is unexceptional that Colorado law can protect gay persons, just as it can protect other classes of individuals, in acquiring whatever products and services they choose on the same terms and conditions as are offered to other members of the public. And there are no doubt innumerable goods and services that no one could argue implicate the First Amendment. Petitioners conceded, moreover, that if a baker refused to sell any goods or any cakes for gay weddings, that would be a different matter and the State would have a strong case under this Court's precedents that this would be a denial of goods and services that went beyond any protected rights of a baker who offers goods and services to the general public and is subject to a neutrally applied and generally applicable public accommodations law. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 4-7, 10.
Phillips claims, however, that a narrower issue is presented. He argues that he had to use his artistic skills to make an expressive statement, a wedding endorsement in his own voice and of his own creation. As Phillips would see the case, this contention has a significant First Amendment speech component and implicates his deep and sincere religious beliefs. In this context the baker likely found it difficult to find a line where the customers' rights to goods and services became a demand for him to exercise the right of his own personal expression for their message, a message he could not express in a way consistent with his religious beliefs.
Phillips' dilemma was particularly understandable given the background of legal principles and administration of the law in Colorado at that time. His decision and his actions leading to the refusal of service all occurred in the year 2012. At that point, Colorado did not recognize the validity of gay marriages performed in its own State. See Colo. Const., Art. II, § 31 (2012); 370 P.3d, at 277. At the time of the events in question, this Court had not issued its decisions either in United States v. Windsor, 570 U.S. 744, 133 S.Ct. 2675, 186 L.Ed.2d 808 (2013), or Obergefell. Since the State itself did not allow those marriages to be performed in Colorado, there is some force to the argument that the baker was not unreasonable in deeming it lawful to decline to take an action that he understood to be an expression of support for their validity when that expression was contrary to his sincerely held religious beliefs, at least insofar as his refusal was limited to refusing to create and express a message in support of gay marriage, even one planned to take place in another State.
At the time, state law also afforded storekeepers some latitude to decline to create specific messages the storekeeper considered offensive. Indeed, while enforcement proceedings against Phillips were ongoing, the Colorado Civil Rights Division itself endorsed this proposition in cases involving other bakers' creation of cakes, concluding on at least three occasions that a baker acted lawfully in declining to create cakes with decorations that demeaned gay persons or gay marriages. See Jack v. Gateaux, Ltd., Charge No. P20140071X (Mar. 24, 2015); Jack v. Le Bakery Sensual, Inc., Charge No. P20140070X (Mar. 24, 2015); Jack v. Azucar Bakery, Charge No. P20140069X (Mar. 24, 2015).
There were, to be sure, responses to these arguments that the State could make when it contended for a different result in seeking the enforcement of its generally applicable state regulations of businesses that serve the public. And any decision in favor of the baker would have to be sufficiently constrained, lest all purveyors of goods and services who object to gay marriages for moral and religious reasons in effect be allowed to put up signs saying "no goods or services will be sold if they will be used for gay marriages," something that would impose a serious stigma on gay persons. But, nonetheless, Phillips was entitled to the neutral and respectful consideration of his claims in all the circumstances of the case.
B
The neutral and respectful consideration to which Phillips was entitled was compromised here, however. The Civil Rights Commission's treatment of his case has some elements of a clear and impermissible hostility toward the sincere religious beliefs that motivated his objection.
That hostility surfaced at the Commission's formal, public hearings, as shown by the record. On May 30, 2014, the seven-member Commission convened publicly to consider Phillips' case. At several points during its meeting, commissioners endorsed the view that religious beliefs cannot legitimately be carried into the public sphere or commercial domain, implying that religious beliefs and persons are less than fully welcome in Colorado's business community. One commissioner suggested that Phillips can believe "what he wants to believe," but cannot act on his religious beliefs "if he decides to do business in the state." Tr. 23. A few moments later, the commissioner restated the same position: "[I]f a businessman wants to do business in the state and he's got an issue with the-the law's impacting his personal belief system, he needs to look at being able to compromise." Id., at 30. Standing alone, these statements are susceptible of different interpretations. On the one hand, they might mean simply that a business cannot refuse to provide services based on sexual orientation, regardless of the proprietor's personal views. On the other hand, they might be seen as inappropriate and dismissive comments showing lack of due consideration for Phillips' free exercise rights and the dilemma he faced. In view of the comments that followed, the latter seems the more likely.
On July 25, 2014, the Commission met again. This meeting, too, was conducted in public and on the record. On this occasion another commissioner made specific reference to the previous meeting's discussion but said far more to disparage Phillips' beliefs. The commissioner stated:
"I would also like to reiterate what we said in the hearing or the last meeting. Freedom of religion and religion has been used to justify all kinds of discrimination throughout history, whether it be slavery, whether it be the holocaust, whether it be-I mean, we-we can list hundreds of situations where freedom of religion has been used to justify discrimination. And to me it is one of the most despicable pieces of rhetoric that people can use to-to use their religion to hurt others." Tr. 11-12.
To describe a man's faith as "one of the most despicable pieces of rhetoric that people can use" is to disparage his religion in at least two distinct ways: by describing it as despicable, and also by characterizing it as merely rhetorical-something insubstantial and even insincere. The commissioner even went so far as to compare Phillips' invocation of his sincerely held religious beliefs to defenses of slavery and the Holocaust. This sentiment is inappropriate for a Commission charged with the solemn responsibility of fair and neutral enforcement of Colorado's antidiscrimination law-a law that protects against discrimination on the basis of religion as well as sexual orientation.
The record shows no objection to these comments from other commissioners. And the later state-court ruling reviewing the Commission's decision did not mention those comments, much less express concern with their content. Nor were the comments by the commissioners disavowed in the briefs filed in this Court. For these reasons, the Court cannot avoid the conclusion that these statements cast doubt on the fairness and impartiality of the Commission's adjudication of Phillips' case. Members of the Court have disagreed on the question whether statements made by lawmakers may properly be taken into account in determining whether a law intentionally discriminates on the basis of religion. See Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. Hialeah, 508 U.S. 520, 540-542, 113 S.Ct. 2217, 124 L.Ed.2d 472 (1993) ; id., at 558, 113 S.Ct. 2217 (Scalia, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). In this case, however, the remarks were made in a very different context-by an adjudicatory body deciding a particular case.
Another indication of hostility is the difference in treatment between Phillips' case and the cases of other bakers who objected to a requested cake on the basis of conscience and prevailed before the Commission.
As noted above, on at least three other occasions the Civil Rights Division considered the refusal of bakers to create cakes with images that conveyed disapproval of same-sex marriage, along with religious text. Each time, the Division found that the baker acted lawfully in refusing service. It made these determinations because, in the words of the Division, the requested cake included "wording and images [the baker] deemed derogatory," Jack v. Gateaux, Ltd., Charge No. P20140071X, at 4; featured "language and images [the baker] deemed hateful," Jack v. Le Bakery Sensual, Inc., Charge No. P20140070X, at 4; or displayed a message the baker "deemed as discriminatory, Jack v. Azucar Bakery, Charge No. P20140069X, at 4.
The treatment of the conscience-based objections at issue in these three cases contrasts with the Commission's treatment of Phillips' objection. The Commission ruled against Phillips in part on the theory that any message the requested wedding cake would carry would be attributed to the customer, not to the baker. Yet the Division did not address this point in any of the other cases with respect to the cakes depicting anti-gay marriage symbolism. Additionally, the Division found no violation of CADA in the other cases in part because each bakery was willing to sell other products, including those depicting Christian themes, to the prospective customers. But the Commission dismissed Phillips' willingness to sell "birthday cakes, shower cakes, [and] cookies and brownies," App. 152, to gay and lesbian customers as irrelevant. The treatment of the other cases and Phillips' case could reasonably be interpreted as being inconsistent as to the question of whether speech is involved, quite apart from whether the cases should ultimately be distinguished. In short, the Commission's consideration of Phillips' religious objection did not accord with its treatment of these other objections.
Before the Colorado Court of Appeals, Phillips protested that this disparity in treatment reflected hostility on the part of the Commission toward his beliefs. He argued that the Commission had treated the other bakers' conscience-based objections as legitimate, but treated his as illegitimate-thus sitting in judgment of his religious beliefs themselves. The Court of Appeals addressed the disparity only in passing and relegated its complete analysis of the issue to a footnote. There, the court stated that "[t]his case is distinguishable from the Colorado Civil Rights Division's recent findings that [the other bakeries] in Denver did not discriminate against a Christian patron on the basis of his creed" when they refused to create the requested cakes. 370 P.3d, at 282, n. 8. In those cases, the court continued, there was no impermissible discrimination because "the Division found that the bakeries... refuse[d] the patron's request... because of the offensive nature of the requested message." Ibid.
A principled rationale for the difference in treatment of these two instances cannot be based on the government's own assessment of offensiveness. Just as "no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion," West Virginia Bd. of Ed. v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, 642, 63 S.Ct. 1178, 87 L.Ed. 1628 (1943), it is not, as the Court has repeatedly held, the role of the State or its officials to prescribe what shall be offensive. See Matal v. Tam, 582 U.S. ----, ---- - ----, 137 S.Ct. 1744, 1762-1764, 198 L.Ed.2d 366 (2017) (opinion of ALITO, J.). The Colorado court's attempt to account for the difference in treatment elevates one view of what is offensive over another and itself sends a signal of official disapproval of Phillips' religious beliefs. The court's footnote does not, therefore, answer the baker's concern that the State's practice was to disfavor the religious basis of his objection.
C
For the reasons just described, the Commission's treatment of Phillips' case violated the State's duty under the First Amendment not to base laws or regulations on hostility to a religion or religious viewpoint.
In Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye, supra, the Court made clear that the government, if it is to respect the Constitution's guarantee of free exercise, cannot impose regulations that are hostile to the religious beliefs of affected citizens and cannot act in a manner that passes judgment upon or presupposes the illegitimacy of religious beliefs and practices. The Free Exercise Clause bars even "subtle departures from neutrality" on matters of religion. Id., at 534, 113 S.Ct. 2217. Here, that means the Commission was obliged under the Free Exercise Clause to proceed in a manner neutral toward and tolerant of Phillips' religious beliefs. The Constitution "commits government itself to religious tolerance, and upon even slight suspicion that proposals for state intervention stem from animosity to religion or distrust of its practices, all officials must pause to remember their own high duty to the Constitution and to the rights it secures." Id., at 547, 113 S.Ct. 2217.
Factors relevant to the assessment of governmental neutrality include "the historical background of the decision under challenge, the specific series of events leading to the enactment or official policy in question, and the legislative or administrative history, including contemporaneous statements made by members of the decisionmaking body." Id., at 540, 113 S.Ct. 2217. In view of these factors the record here demonstrates that the Commission's consideration of Phillips' case was neither tolerant nor respectful of Phillips' religious beliefs. The Commission gave "every appearance," id., at 545, 113 S.Ct. 2217, of adjudicating Phillips' religious objection based on a negative normative "evaluation of the particular justification" for his objection and the religious grounds for it. Id., at 537, 113 S.Ct. 2217. It hardly requires restating that government has no role in deciding or even suggesting whether the religious ground for Phillips' conscience-based objection is legitimate or illegitimate. On these facts, the Court must draw the inference that Phillips' religious objection was not considered with the neutrality that the Free Exercise Clause requires.
While the issues here are difficult to resolve, it must be concluded that the State's interest could have been weighed against Phillips' sincere religious objections in a way consistent with the requisite religious neutrality that must be strictly observed. The official expressions of hostility to religion in some of the commissioners' comments-comments that were not disavowed at the Commission or by the State at any point in the proceedings that led to affirmance of the order-were inconsistent with what the Free Exercise Clause requires. The Commission's disparate consideration of Phillips' case compared to the cases of the other bakers suggests the same. For these reasons, the order must be set aside.
III
The Commission's hostility was inconsistent with the First Amendment's guarantee that our laws be applied in a manner that is neutral toward religion. Phillips was entitled to a neutral decisionmaker who would give full and fair consideration to his religious objection as he sought to assert it in all of the circumstances in which this case was presented, considered, and decided. In this case the adjudication concerned a context that may well be different going forward in the respects noted above. However later cases raising these or similar concerns are resolved in the future, for these reasons the rulings of the Commission and of the state court that enforced the Commission's order must be invalidated.
The outcome of cases like this in other circumstances must await further elaboration in the courts, all in the context of recognizing that these disputes must be resolved with tolerance, without undue disrespect to sincere religious beliefs, and without subjecting gay persons to indignities when they seek goods and services in an open market.
The judgment of the Colorado Court of Appeals is reversed.
It is so ordered.
"[I]t is a general rule that [religious and philosophical] objections do not allow business owners and other actors in the economy and in society to deny protected persons equal access to goods and services under a neutral and generally applicable public accommodations law." Ante, at 1727. But in upholding that principle, state actors cannot show hostility to religious views; rather, they must give those views "neutral and respectful consideration." Ante, at 1729. I join the Court's opinion in full because I believe the Colorado Civil Rights Commission did not satisfy that obligation. I write separately to elaborate on one of the bases for the Court's holding.
The Court partly relies on the "disparate consideration of Phillips' case compared to the cases of [three] other bakers" who "objected to a requested cake on the basis of conscience." Ante, at 1730, 1732. In the latter cases, a customer named William Jack sought "cakes with images that conveyed disapproval of same-sex marriage, along with religious text"; the bakers whom he approached refused to make them. Ante, at 1730; see post, at 1749 (GINSBURG, J., dissenting) (further describing the requested cakes). Those bakers prevailed before the Colorado Civil Rights Division and Commission, while Phillips-who objected for religious reasons to baking a wedding cake for a same-sex couple-did not. The Court finds that the legal reasoning of the state agencies differed in significant ways as between the Jack cases and the Phillips case. See ante, at 1730. And the Court takes especial note of the suggestion made by the Colorado Court of Appeals, in comparing those cases, that the state agencies found the message Jack requested "offensive [in] nature." Ante, at 1731 (internal quotation marks omitted). As the Court states, a "principled rationale for the difference in treatment" cannot be "based on the government's own assessment of offensiveness." Ibid.
What makes the state agencies' consideration yet more disquieting is that a proper basis for distinguishing the cases was available-in fact, was obvious. The Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act (CADA) makes it unlawful for a place of public accommodation to deny "the full and equal enjoyment" of goods and services to individuals based on certain characteristics, including sexual orientation and creed. Colo. Rev. Stat. § 24-34-601(2)(a) (2017). The three bakers in the Jack cases did not violate that law. Jack requested them to make a cake (one denigrating gay people and same-sex marriage) that they would not have made for any customer. In refusing that request, the bakers did not single out Jack because of his religion, but instead treated him in the same way they would have treated anyone else-just as CADA requires. By contrast, the same-sex couple in this case requested a wedding cake that Phillips would have made for an opposite-sex couple. In refusing that request, Phillips contravened CADA's demand that customers receive "the full and equal enjoyment" of public accommodations irrespective of their sexual orientation. Ibid. The different outcomes in the Jack cases and the Phillips case could
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | B | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Me. Justice Minton
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This is an appeal from the affirmance of an order of the Michigan Public Service Commission requiring appellant to obtain a certificate of public convenience and necessity before selling natural gas direct to industrial consumers in a municipality already served by a public utility.
Appellant is engaged in the transportation of natural gas by pipe line from fields in Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas into areas which include the State of Michigan. Appellant is a “natural-gas company” within the coverage of the Natural Gas Act, 52 Stat. 821, 15 U. S. C. §§ 717 et seg., and subject thereunder to regulation by the Federal Power Commission. Appellee Michigan Consolidated Gas Company is a public utility of Michigan which under appropriate authorization distributes gas to domestic, commercial and industrial consumers in and around Detroit. Consolidated obtains its entire supply of natural gas for distribution in the Detroit district from appellant.
In 1945 appellant publicly announced a program of securing large industrial customers for the direct sale of natural gas in Michigan. In Detroit it offered to pay the City for the right to lay and operate its pipe line along the streets and alleys directly to large industrial customers. In October of that year appellant succeeded in securing a large direct-sale contract with the Ford Motor Company for gas at its Dearborn plant, located in the Detroit district. Ford was already purchasing substantial quantities of gas for industrial use at the Dearborn plant from Consolidated.
Believing its interests and those of its customers were prejudiced by appellant’s program, particularly the Ford contract, Consolidated filed a complaint with the Michigan Public Service Commission. Appellant appeared to contest the jurisdiction of the Commission over such sales. After hearing, the Commission ordered appellant to—
“cease and desist from making direct sales and deliveries of natural gas to industries within the State of Michigan, located within municipalities already being served by a public utility, until such time as it shall have first obtained a certificate of public convenience and necessity from this Commission to perform such services.”
Appellant obtained an injunction against the order of the Commission in the Circuit Court of Ingham County, Michigan. The Circuit Court held that the order was a prohibition of interstate commerce and therefore invalid. The Supreme Court of Michigan, three judges dissenting, reversed the Circuit Court and affirmed the Commission’s order. 328 Mich. 650, 44 N. W. 2d 324. That court rejected the argument that the order of the Commission was an absolute denial of the right of appellant to sell natural gas in Michigan direct to consumers. Since appellant was free to make application to the Michigan Commission for a certificate of public convenience and necessity as to such sales, the order was construed as denying the right of appellant to sell direct without first obtaining such certificate. The court held this requirement to be within the State’s regulatory authority despite the interstate character of the sales. This appeal challenges the correctness of that decision.
The sale to industrial consumers as proposed by appellant is clearly interstate commerce. Panhandle Pipe Line Co. v. Public Service Comm’n of Indiana, 332 U. S. 507, 513; Pennsylvania Gas Co. v. Commission, 252 U. S. 23, 28. But the sale and distribution of gas to local consumers made by one engaged in interstate commerce is “essentially local” in aspect and is subject to state regulation without infringement of the Commerce Clause of the Federal Constitution. In the absence of federal regulation, state regulation is required in the public interest. Pennsylvania Gas Co. v. Commission, supra, at 31. See also opinion of Cardozo, J., in Pennsylvania Gas Co. v. Commission, 225 N. Y. 397, 122 N. E. 260. These principles apply to direct sales for industrial consumption as well as to sales for domestic and commercial uses. Panhandle-Indiana, supra, at 514, 519-520.
The facts in the instant case show that the proposed sales are primarily of local interest. They emphasize the need for local regulation and the wisdom of the principles just discussed. To accommodate its operations, appellant proposes to use the streets and alleys of Detroit and environs. A local utility already operating in the same area, Consolidated, receives its entire supply of natural gas from appellant. A substantial portion of Consolidated’s revenues is derived from sales to large industrial consumers. Appellant ignored requests of Consolidated for additional gas to meet the increased wants of its industrial customers. Instead of attempting to meet increased needs through Consolidated, appellant launched a program to secure for itself large industrial accounts from customers, some of whom were already being served by Consolidated. In connection with the Ford Motor Company, it is noteworthy that the tap line by which appellant proposed to serve Ford directly would be substantially parallel to and only a short distance from the existing tap line by which Consolidated now serves Ford.
Thus, not only would there be two utilities using local facilities to accommodate their distribution systems, but they would be seeking to serve the same industrial consumers. Appellant asserts a right to compete for the cream of the volume business without regard to the local public convenience or necessity. Were appellant successful in this venture, it would no doubt be reflected adversely in Consolidated’s over-all' costs of service and its rates to customers whose only source of supply is Consolidated. This clearly presents a situation of “essentially local” concern and of vital interest to the State of Michigan.
Of course, when Congress acts in this field it is supreme. It has acted. Section 1 (b) of the Natural Gas Act, supra, provides as follows:
“The provisions of this Act shall apply to the transportation of natural gas in interstate commerce, to the sale in interstate commerce of natural gas for resale for ultimate public consumption for domestic, commercial, industrial, or any other use, and to natural-gas companies engaged in such transportation or sale, but shall not apply to any other transportation or sale of natural gas or to the local distribution of natural gas or to the facilities used for such distribution or to the production or gathering of natural gas.”
By this Act Congress occupied only a part of the field. As to sales, only the sale of gas in interstate commerce for resale was covered. Direct sales for consumptive use were designedly left to state regulation. Panhandle-Indiana, 332 U. S. at 516-518. Speaking further of the division of regulatory authority over interstate commerce in natural gas, this Court said in the same case:
“It would be an exceedingly incongruous result if a statute so motivated, designed and shaped to bring about more effective regulation, and particularly more effective state regulation, were construed in the teeth of those objects, and the import of its wording as well, to cut down regulatory power and to do so in a manner making the states less capable of regulation than before the statute’s adoption. Yet this, in effect, is what appellant asks us to do. For the essence of its position, apart from standing directly on the commerce clause, is that Congress by enacting the Natural Gas Act has ‘occupied the field,’ i e., the entire field open to federal regulation, and thus has relieved its direct industrial sales of any subordination to state control.
“The exact opposite is the fact. Congress, it is true, occupied a field. But it was meticulous to take in only territory which this Court had held the states could not reach. That area did not include direct consumer sales, whether for industrial or other uses. Those sales had been regulated by the states and the regulation had been repeatedly sustained. In no instance reaching this Court had it been stricken down.
“The Natural Gas Act created an articulate legislative program based on a clear recognition of the respective responsibilities of the federal and state regulatory agencies. It does not contemplate ineffective regulation at either level. We have emphasized repeatedly that Congress meant to create a comprehensive and effective regulatory scheme, complementary in its operation to those of the states and in no manner usurping their authority. . . . And, as was pointed out in Power Comm’n v. Hope Gas Co., [320 U. S. 591] at 610, ‘the primary aim of this legislation was to protect consumers against exploitation at the hands of natural gas companies.’ The scheme was one of cooperative action between federal and state agencies. It could accomplish neither that protective aim nor the comprehensive and effective dual regulation Congress had in mind, if those companies could divert at will all or the cream of their business to unregulated industrial uses.” 332 U. S. at 519, 520-521.
The statutory scheme of “dual regulation” might have some overlaps or conflicts but no such exigencies appear here. There are no opposing directives and hence no necessity for us to resolve any conflicting claims as between state and federal regulation.
Appellant concedes, as it must, that direct sales by it to industrial consumers are subject to state rate regulation under the Panhandle-Indiana decision. It contends, however, that that decision does not comprehend its problem, reasoning that the jurisdiction here asserted by the Michigan Commission is the power to prohibit interstate commerce in natural gas.
Although the end result might be prohibition of particular direct sales, to require appellant to secure a certificate of public convenience and necessity before it may enter a municipality already served by a public utility is regulation, not absolute prohibition. There is no intimation that appellant cannot deliver and sell available gas to Consolidated for resale to customers who have additional gas requirements. It is no discrimination against interstate commerce for Michigan to require appellant to route its sales of gas through the existing certificated utility where the public convenience and necessity would not be served by direct sales. That there is neither discrimination nor prohibition here saves this regulation from the rule of such cases as Hood & Sons v. Du Mond, 336 U. S. 525, relied on by appellant, where a state was said to have discriminated against interstate commerce by prohibiting it because it would subject local business to competition. And the statute under which the Michigan Commission acted does not distinguish between an interstate or intrastate agency desiring to operate in a locality already served by a utility. See Cities Service Co. v. Peerless Co., 340 U. S. 179, 188.
It does not follow that because appellant is engaged in interstate commerce it is free from state regulation or free to manage essentially local aspects of its business as it pleases. The course of this Court’s decisions recognizes no such license. See Cities Service case, supra; Panhandle-Indiana case, supra; Pennsylvania Gas Co. v. Commission, 252 U. S. 23. Such a course would not accomplish the effective dual regulation Congress intended, and would permit appellant to prejudice substantial local interests. This is not compelled by the Natural Gas Act or the Commerce Clause of the Constitution.
Judgment affirmed.
The Commission acted under authority of Mich. Comp. Laws, 1948, § 460.502, which provides:
“Sec. 2. No public utility shall hereafter begin the construction or operation of any public utility plant or system thereof nor shall it render any service for the purpose of transacting or carrying on a local business either directly, or indirectly, by serving any other utility or agency so engaged in such local business, in any municipality in this state where any other utility or agency is then engaged in such local business and rendering the same sort of service, or where such municipality is receiving service of the same sort, until such public utility shall first obtain from the commission a certificate that public convenience and necessity requires or will require such construction, operation, service, or extension.”
Other relevant sections of the Michigan statute provide:
“Sec. 3. Before any such certificate of convenience and necessity shall issue, the applicant therefor shall file a petition with the commission stating the name of the municipality or municipalities which it desires to serve and the kind of service which it proposes to render, and that the applicant has secured the necessary consent or franchise from such municipality or municipalities authorizing it to transact a local business.” § 460.503.
“Sec. 5. In determining the question of public convenience and necessity the commission shall take into consideration the service being rendered by the utility then serving such territory, the investment in such utility, the benefit, if any, to the public in the matter of rates and such other matters as shall be proper and equitable in determining whether or not public convenience and necessity requires the applying utility to serve the territory. ...” § 460.505.
See note 1, supra.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | J | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
MR. Justice Powell delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question before us, on writ of certiorari to the Supreme Court of Louisiana, concerns the right of dependent unacknowledged, illegitimate children to recover under Louisiana workmen's compensation laws benefits for the death of their natural father on an equal footing with his dependent legitimate children. We hold that Louisiana’s denial of equal recovery rights to dependent unacknowledged illegitimates violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Levy v. Louisiana, 391 U. S. 68 (1968); Glona v. American Guarantee & Liability Insurance Co., 391 U. S. 73 (1968).
On June 22, 1967, Henry Clyde Stokes died in Louisiana of injuries received during the course of his employment the previous day. At the time of his death Stokes resided and maintained a household with one Willie Mae Weber, to whom he was not married. Living in the household were four legitimate minor children, born of the marriage between Stokes and Adlay Jones Stokes who was at the time committed to a mental hospital. Also living in the home was one unacknowledged illegitimate child born of the relationship between Stokes and Willie Mae Weber. A second illegitimate child of Stokes and Weber was born posthumously.
On June 29, 1967, Stokes’ four legitimate children, through their maternal grandmother as guardian, filed a claim for their father’s death under Louisiana’s workmen’s compensation law. The defendant employer and its insurer impleaded Willie Mae Weber who appeared and claimed compensation benefits for the two illegitimate children.
Meanwhile, the four legitimate children had brought another suit for their father’s death against a third-party tortfeasor, which was settled for an amount in excess of the maximum benefits allowable under workmen’s compensation. The illegitimate children did not share in this settlement. Subsequently, the employer in the initial action requested the extinguishment of all parties’ workmen’s compensation claims by reason of the tort settlement.
The trial judge awarded the four legitimate children the maximum allowable amount of compensation and declared their entitlement had been satisfied from the tort suit settlement. Consequently, the four legitimate children dismissed their workmen’s compensation claim. Judgment was also awarded to Stokes’ two illegitimate offspring to the extent that maximum compensation benefits were not exhausted by the four legitimate children. Since such benefits had been entirely exhausted by the amount of the tort settlement, in which only the four dependent legitimate offspring participated, the two dependent illegitimate children received nothing.
I
For purposes of recovery under workmen’s compensation, Louisiana law defines children to include “only legitimate children, stepchildren, posthumous children, adopted children, and illegitimate children acknowledged under the provisions of Civil Code Articles 203, 204, and 205.” Thus, legitimate children and acknowledged ille-gitimates may recover on an equal basis. Unacknowledged illegitimate children, however, are relegated to the lesser status of “other dependents” under § 1232 (8) of the workmen’s compensation statute and may recover only if there are not enough surviving dependents in the preceding classifications to exhaust the maximum allowable benefits. Both the Louisiana Court of Appeal and a divided Louisiana Supreme Court sustained these statutes over petitioner’s constitutional objections, holding that our decision in Levy, supra, was not controlling.
We disagree. In Levy, the Court held invalid as denying equal protection of the laws, a Louisiana statute which barred an illegitimate child from recovering for the wrongful death of its mother when such recoveries by legitimate children were authorized. The Court there decided that the fact of a child’s birth out of wedlock bore no reasonable relation to the purpose of wrongful-death statutes which compensate children for the death of a mother. As the Court said in Levy:
“Legitimacy or illegitimacy of birth has no relation to the nature of the wrong allegedly inflicted on the mother. These children, though illegitimate, were dependent on her; she cared for them and nurtured them; they were indeed hers in the biological and in the spiritual sense; in her death they suffered wrong in the sense that any dependent would.” Levy v. Louisiana, 391 U. S., at 72.
The court below sought to distinguish Levy as involving a statute which absolutely excluded all illegitimates from recovery, whereas in the compensation statute in the instant case acknowledged illegitimates may recover equally with legitimate children and “the unacknowledged illegitimate child is not denied a right to recover compensation, he being merely relegated to a less favorable position as are other dependent relatives such as parents . . . Stokes v. Aetna Casualty & Surety Co., 257 La. 424, 433-434, 242 So. 2d 567, 570 (1970). The Louisiana Supreme Court likewise characterized Levy as a tort action where the tortfeasor escaped liability on the fortuity of the potential claimant’s illegitimacy, whereas in the present action full compensation was rendered, and “no tort feasor goes free because of the law.” Id., at 434, 242 So. 2d, at 570.
We do not think Levy can be disposed of by such finely carved distinctions. The Court in Levy was not so much concerned with the tortfeasor going free as with the equality of treatment under the statutory recovery scheme. Here, as in Levy, there is impermissible discrimination. An unacknowledged illegitimate child may suffer as much from the loss of a parent as a child born within wedlock or an illegitimate later acknowledged. So far as this record shows, the dependency and natural affinity of the unacknowledged illegitimate children for their father were as great as those of the four legitimate children whom Louisiana law has allowed to recover. The legitimate children and the illegitimate children all lived in the home of the deceased and were equally dependent upon him for maintenance and support. It is inappropriate, therefore, for the court below to talk of relegating the unacknowledged illegitimates “to a less favorable position as are other dependent relatives such as parents.” The unacknowledged illegitimates are not a parent or some “other dependent relative”; in this case they are dependent children, and as such are entitled to rights granted other dependent children.
Respondents contend that our recent ruling in Labine v. Vincent, 401 U. S. 532 (1971), controls this case. In Labine, the Court upheld, against constitutional objections, Louisiana intestacy laws which had barred an acknowledged illegitimate child from sharing equally with legitimate children in her father’s estate. That decision reflected, in major part, the traditional deference to a State’s prerogative to regulate the disposition at death of property within its borders. Id., at 538. The Court has long afforded broad scope to state discretion in this area. Yet the substantial state interest in providing for “the stability of . . . land titles and in the prompt and definitive determination of the valid ownership of property left by decedents,” Labine v. Vincent, 229 So. 2d 449, 452 (La. App. 1969), is absent in the case at hand.
Moreover, in Labine the intestate, unlike deceased in the present action, might easily have modified his daughter’s disfavored position. As the Court there remarked:
“Ezra Vincent could have left one-third of his property to his illegitimate daughter had he bothered to follow the simple formalities of executing a will. He could, of course, have legitimated the child by marrying her mother in which case the child could have inherited his property either by intestate succession or by will as any other legitimate child.” Labine, supra, at 539.
Such options, however, were not realistically open to Henry Stokes. Under Louisiana law he could not have acknowledged his illegitimate children even had he desired to do so. The burdens of illegitimacy, already weighty, become doubly so when neither parent nor child can legally lighten them.
Both the statute in Levy and the statute in the present case involve state-created compensation schemes, designed to provide close relatives and dependents of a deceased a means of recovery for his often abrupt and accidental death. Both wrongful-death statutes and workmen’s compensation codes represent outgrowths and modifications of our basic tort law. The former alleviated the harsh common-law rule under which “no person could inherit the personal right of another to recover for tortious injuries to his body”; the latter removed difficult obstacles to recovery in work-related injuries by offering a more certain, though generally less remunerative, compensation. In the instant case, the recovery sought under the workmen’s compensation statute was in lieu of an action under the identical death statute which was at issue in Levy. Given the similarities in the origins and purposes of these two statutes, and the similarity of Louisiana’s pattern of discrimination in recovery rights, it would require a disregard of precedent and the principles of stare decisis to hold that Levy did not control the facts of the case before us. It makes no difference that illegitimates are not so absolutely or broadly barred here as in Levy; the discrimination remains apparent.
II
Having determined that Levy is the applicable precedent, we briefly reaffirm here the reasoning which produced that result. The tests to determine the validity of state statutes under the Equal Protection Clause have been variously expressed, but this Court requires, at a minimum, that a statutory classification bear some rational relationship to a legitimate state purpose. Morey v. Doud, 354 U. S. 457 (1957); Williamson v. Lee Optical Co., 348 U. S. 483 (1955); Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fé R. Co. v. Ellis, 165 U. S. 150 (1897); Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U. S. 356 (1886). Though the latitude given state economic and social regulation is necessarily broad, when state statutory classifications approach sensitive and fundamental personal rights, this Court exercises a stricter scrutiny, Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U. S. 483 (1954); Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections, 383 U. S. 663 (1966). The essential inquiry in all the foregoing cases is, however, inevitably a dual one: What legitimate state interest does the classification promote? What fundamental personal rights might the classification endanger?
The Louisiana Supreme Court emphasized strongly the State’s interest in protecting “legitimate family relationships,” 257 La., at 433, 242 So. 2d, at 570, and the regulation and protection of the family unit have indeed been a venerable state concern. We do not question the importance of that interest; what we do question is how the challenged statute will promote it. As was said in Glona:
“[W]e see no possible rational basis ... for assuming that if the natural mother is allowed recovery for the wrongful death of her illegitimate child, the cause of illegitimacy will be served. It would, indeed, be farfetched to assume that women have illegitimate children so that they can be compensated in damages for their death.” Glona v. American Guarantee & Liability Insurance Co., supra, at 75.
Nor can it be thought here that persons will shun illicit relations because the offspring may not one day reap the benefits of workmen’s compensation.
It may perhaps be said that statutory distinctions between the legitimate and illegitimate reflect closer family relationships in that the illegitimate is more often not under care in the home of the father nor even supported by him. The illegitimate, so this argument runs, may thus be made less eligible for the statutory recoveries and inheritances reserved for those more likely to be within the ambit of familial care and affection. Whatever the merits elsewhere of this contention, it is not compelling in a statutory compensation scheme where dependency on the deceased is a prerequisite to anyone’s recovery, and where the acknowledgment so necessary to equal recovery rights may be unlikely to occur or legally impossible to effectuate even where the illegitimate child may be nourished and loved.
Finally, we are mindful that States have frequently drawn arbitrary lines .in workmen’s compensation and wrongful-death statutes to facilitate potentially difficult problems of proof. Nothing in our decision would impose on state court systems a greater burden in this regard. By limiting recovery to dependents of the deceased, Louisiana substantially lessens the possible problems of locating illegitimate children and of determining uncertain claims of parenthood. Our decision fully respects Louisiana’s choice on this matter. It will not expand claimants for workmen’s compensation beyond those in a direct blood and dependency relationship with the deceased and it avoids altogether diffuse questions of affection and affinity which pose difficult probative problems. Our ruling requires equality of treatment between two classes of persons the genuineness of whose claims the State might in any event be required to determine.
The state interest in legitimate family relationships is not served by the statute; the state interest in minimizing problems of proof is not significantly disturbed by our decision. The inferior classification of dependent unacknowledged illegitimates bears, in this instance, no significant relationship to those recognized purposes of recovery which workmen’s compensation statutes commendably serve.
The status of illegitimacy has expressed through the ages society’s condemnation of irresponsible liaisons beyond the bonds of marriage. But visiting this condemnation on the head of an infant is illogical and unjust. Moreover, imposing disabilities on the illegitimate child is contrary to the basic concept of our system that legal burdens should bear some relationship to individual responsibility or wrongdoing. Obviously, no child is responsible for his birth and penalizing the illegitimate child is an ineffectual — as well as an unjust — way of deterring the parent. Courts are powerless to prevent the social opprobrium suffered by these hapless children, but the Equal Protection Clause does enable us to strike down discriminatory laws relating to status of birth where — as in this case — the classification is justified by no legitimate state interest, compelling or otherwise.
Reversed and remanded.
Stokes v. Aetna Casualty & Surety Co., 257 La. 424, 242 So. 2d 567 (1970).
La. Rev. Stat. §23:1232 (1967) establishes the schedule of payment of workmen’s compensation benefits to various classifications of dependents as follows:
“Payment to dependents shall be computed and divided among them on the following basis:
“(1) If the widow or widower alone, thirty-two and one-half per centum of wages.
“(2) If the widow or widower and one child, forty-six and one-quarter per centum of wages.
“(3) If the widow or widower and two or more children, sixty-five per centum of wages.
“(4) If one child alone, thirty-two and one-half per centum of wages of deceased.
“(5) If two children, forty-six and one-quarter per centum of wages.
“(6) If three or more children, sixty-five per centum of wages.
“(7) If there are neither widow, widower, nor child, then to the father or mother, thirty-two and one-half per centum of wages of the deceased. If there are both father and mother, sixty-five per centum of wages.
“(8) If there are neither widow, widower, nor child, nor dependent parent entitled to compensation, then to one brother or sister, thirty-two and one-half per centum of wages with eleven per centum additional for each brother or sister in excess of one. If other dependents than those enumerated, thirty-two and one-half per centum of wages for one, and eleven per centum additional for each such dependent in excess of one, subject to a maximum of sixty-five per centum of wages for all, regardless of the number of dependents.”
La. Rev. Stat. §23:1021 (3). The relevant provisions for acknowledgment of an illegitimate child are as follows:
La. Civ. Code, Art. 202 (1967):
“Illegitimate children who have been acknowledged by their father, are called natural children; those who have not been acknowledged by their father, or whose father and mother were incapable of contracting marriage at the time of conception, or whose father is unknown, are contradistinguished by the appellation of bastards.”
La. Civ. Code, Art. 203:
“The acknowledgment of an illegitimate child shall be made by a declaration executed before a notary public, in presence of two witnesses, by the father and mother or either of them, whenever it shall not have been made in the registering of the birth or baptism of such child.”
La. Civ. Code, Art. 204:
“Such acknowledgment shall not be made in favor of children whose parents were incapable of contracting marriage at the time of conception; however, such acknowledgment may be made if the parents should contract a legal marriage with each other.”
See-n. 2, supra.
232 So. 2d 328 (La. App. 1969).
Stokes v. Aetna Casualty & Surety Co., see n. 1, supra.
The affinity and dependency on the father of the posthumously bom illegitimate child are, of course, not cotnparable to those of offspring living at the time of their father’s death. This fact, however, does not alter our view of the case. We think a posthumously born illegitimate child should be treated the same as a posthumously born legitimate child, which the Louisiana statutes fail to do.
The Court over a century ago voiced strong support for state powers over inheritance: “Now the law in question is nothing more than an exercise of the power which every state and sovereignty possesses, of regulating the manner and term upon which property real or personal within its dominion may be transmitted by last will and testament, or by inheritance; and of prescribing who shall and who shall not be capable of taking it.” Mager v. Grima, 8 How. 490, 493 (1850). See Lyeth v. Hoey, 305 U. S. 188, 193 (1938).
La. Civ. Code, Art. 204, see n. 3, supra, prohibits acknowledgment of children whose parents were incapable of contracting marriage at the time of conception. Acknowledgment may only be made if the parents could contract a legal marriage with each other. Decedent in the instant case remained married to his first wife— the mother of his four legitimate children — until his death. Thus, at all times he was legally barred from marrying Willie Mae Weber, the mother of the two illegitimate children. It therefore was impossible for him to acknowledge legally his illegitimate children and thereby qualify them for protection under the Louisiana Workmen’s Compensation Act. See also Williams v. American Emp. Ins. Co., 237 La. 101, 110 So. 2d 541 (1959), where the Louisiana Supreme Court held that a posthumously born illegitimate child cannot be classified as a child entitled to workmen’s compensation benefits, as defined under La. Rev. Stat. §-23:1021 (3).
See 391 U. S. 73, 76 (1968) (Harlan, J., dissenting in Glona v. American Guarantee & Liability Insurance Co., and Levy v. Louisiana).
La. Civ. Code, Art. 2315.
The most relevant sections of the Louisiana statutes defining dependency for purposes of workmen’s compensation recovery read as follows:
La. Rev. Stat. § 23:1231:
“For injury causing death within two years after the accident there shall be paid to the legal dependent of the employee, actually and wholly dependent upon his earnings for support at the time of the accident and death, a weekly sum as hereinafter provided, for a period of four hundred weeks. . . .”
La. Rev. Stat. § 23:1251:
“The following persons shall be conclusively presumed to be wholly and actually dependent upon the deceased employee:
“(3) A child under the age of eighteen years . . . upon the parent with whom he is living at the time of the injury of the parent.”
The above section thus qualifies the illegitimate children in this case as dependents.
La. Rev. Stat. §23:1252:
“In all other cases, the question of legal and actual dependency in whole or in part, shall be determined in accordance with the facts as they may be at the time of the accident and death . . . .”
Naturally, the variations of dependency claims coming to Louisiana courts under these sections are many, but Louisiana has consistently required valid evidence of dependency for recovery. See, e. g., Sandidge v. Aetna Casualty & Surety Co., 29 So. 2d 522 (La. App. 1947), where children, living with their mother who was separated from the father, in order to receive the maximum compensation for the father’s death, must establish that they were wholly dependent upon the father for their support.
See, e. g., Gray & Rudovsky, The Court Acknowledges the Illegitimate: Levy v. Louisiana and Glona v. American Guarantee & Liability Insurance Co., 118 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1 (1969). A comprehensive study of the legal status of illegitimacy and the effects thereof is H. Krause, Illegitimacy: Law and Social Policy (1971) ; reviewed by Wadlington, 58 Ya. L. Rev. 188 (1972).
See Graham v. Richardson, 403 U. S. 365 (1971); Hunter v. Erickson, 393 U. S. 385 (1969); Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U. S. 483 (1954); and see also Hirabayashi v. United States, 320 U. S. 81 (1943).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | B | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Per Curiam.
Petitioner Leona Benten wants to use RU-486, a drug not approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), in order to induce a nonsurgieal abortion. She tried to import a single dosage of the drug for that purpose, but respondent federal officials confiscated her supply at airport customs. Petitioners filed suit in the District Court for the Eastern District of New York in order to compel the immediate return of the drug to Benten. The District Court entered a preliminary injunction granting this remedy. Respondents appealed, and the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit stayed the injunction pending the appeal. Petitioners have filed an application to vacate the Court of Appeals’ stay. We deny the application.
Petitioners contend that Benten is entitled to the return of her RU-486 because an administrative document instructing enforcement officials to seize that drug was promulgated without notice-and-comment procedures assertedly required under both the Administrative Procedure Act and FDA regulations. We conclude that petitioners have failed to demonstrate a substantial likelihood of success on the merits of these claims. Justice Stevens contends that the Government’s holding the drug would constitute an undue burden upon Benten’s constitutionally protected abortion rights. See post this page and 1086. We express no view on the merits of this assertion. The claim under which Justice Stevens would grant relief was addressed neither by the District Court nor by the Court of Appeals nor by petitioners’ filings in this Court. Accordingly, we conclude that it is not properly before us.
Petitioners’ application- to vacate the Court of Appeals’ July 15, 1992, stay pending respondents’ appeal, presented to Justice Thomas and by him referred to the Court, is denied.
It is so ordered.
Justice Blackmun dissents and would grant the application to vacate the stay.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | E | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Rehnquist
delivered the opinion of the Court.
We must here decide whether declaration of a mistrial over the defendant’s objection, because the trial court concluded that the indictment was insufficient to charge a crime, necessarily prevents a State from subsequently trying the defendant under a valid indictment. We hold that the mistrial met the “manifest necessity” requirement of our cases, since the trial court could reasonably have concluded that the “ends of public justice” would be defeated by having allowed the trial to continue. Therefore, the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment, made applicable to the States through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, Benton v. Maryland, 395 U. S. 784 (1969), did not bar retrial under a valid indictment.
I
On March 19, 1964, respondent was indicted by an Illinois grand jury for the crime of theft. The case was called for trial and a jury impaneled and sworn on November 1, 1965. The following day, before any evidence had been presented, the prosecuting attorney realized that the indictment was fatally deficient under Illinois law because it did not allege that respondent intended to permanently deprive the owner of his property. Under the applicable Illinois criminal statute, such intent is a necessary element of the crime of theft, and failure to allege intent renders the indictment insufficient to charge a crime. But under the Illinois Constitution at that time, an indictment was the sole means by which a criminal proceeding such as this might be commenced against a defendant. Illinois further provides that only formal defects, of which this was not one, may be cured by amendment. The combined operation of these rules of Illinois procedure and substantive law meant that the defect in the indictment was “jurisdictional”; it could not be waived by the defendant’s failure to object, and could be asserted on appeal or in a post-conviction proceeding to overturn a final judgment of conviction.
Faced with this situation, the Illinois trial court concluded that further proceedings under this defective indictment would be useless and granted the State’s motion for a mistrial. On November 3, the grand jury handed down a second indictment alleging the requisite intent. Respondent was arraigned two weeks after the first trial was aborted, raised a claim of double jeopardy which was overruled, and the second trial commenced shortly thereafter. The jury returned a verdict of guilty, sentence was imposed, and the Illinois courts upheld the conviction. Respondent then sought federal habeas corpus, alleging that the conviction constituted double jeopardy contrary to the prohibition of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. The Seventh Circuit affirmed the denial of habeas corpus prior to our decision in United States v. Jorn, 400 U. S. 470 (1971). The respondent’s petition for certiorari was granted, and the case remanded for reconsideration in light of Jorn and Downum v. United States, 372 U. S. 734 (1963). On remand, the Seventh Circuit held that respondent’s petition for habeas corpus should have been granted because, although he had not been tried and acquitted as in United States v. Ball, 163 U. S. 662 (1896), and Benton v. Maryland,, 395 U. S. 784 (1969), jeopardy had attached when the jury was impaneled and sworn, and a declaration of mistrial over respondent’s objection precluded a retrial under a valid indictment. 447 F. 2d 733 (1971). For the reasons stated below, we reverse that judgment.
II
The fountainhead decision construing the Double Jeopardy Clause in the context of a declaration of a mistrial over a defendant’s objection is United States v. Perez, 9 Wheat. 579 (1824). Mr. Justice Story, writing for a unanimous Court, set forth the standards for determining whether a retrial, following a declaration of a mistrial over a defendant’s objection, constitutes double jeopardy within the meaning of the Fifth Amendment. In holding that the failure of the jury to agree on a verdict of either acquittal or conviction did not bar retrial of the defendant, Mr. Justice Story wrote:
“We think, that in all cases of this nature, the law has invested Courts of justice with the authority to discharge a jury from giving any verdict, whenever, in their opinion, taking all the circumstances into consideration, there is a manifest necessity for the act, or the ends of public justice would otherwise be defeated. They are to exercise a sound discretion on the subject; and it is impossible to define all the circumstances, which would render it proper to interfere. To be sure, the power ought to be used with the greatest caution, under urgent circumstances, and for very plain and obvious causes; and, in capital cases especially, Courts should be extremely careful how they interfere with any of the chances of life, in favour of the prisoner. But, after all, they have the right to order the discharge; and the security which the public have for the faithful, sound, and conscientious exercise of this discretion, rests, in this, as in other cases, upon the responsibility of the Judges, under their oaths of office.” Id., at 580.
This formulation, consistently adhered to by this Court in subsequent decisions, abjures the application of any mechanical formula by which to judge the propriety of declaring a mistrial in the varying and often unique situations arising during the course of a criminal trial. The broad discretion reserved to the trial judge in such circumstances has been consistently reiterated in decisions of this Court. In Wade v. Hunter, 336 U. S. 684 (1949), the Court, in reaffirming this flexible standard, wrote:
“We are asked to adopt the Cornero [v. United States, 48 F. 2d 69,] rule under which petitioner contends the absence of witnesses can never justify discontinuance of a trial. Such a rigid formula is inconsistent with the guiding principles of the Perez decision to which we adhere. Those principles command courts in considering whether a trial should be terminated without judgment to take 'all circumstances into account’ and thereby forbid the mechanical application of an abstract formula. The value of the Perez principles thus lies in their capacity for informed application under widely different circumstances without injury to defendants or to the public interest.” Id., at 691.
Similarly, in Gori v. United States, 367 U. S. 364 (1961), the Court again underscored the breadth of a trial judge’s discretion, and the reasons therefor, to declare a mistrial.
“Where, for reasons deemed compelling by the trial judge, who is best situated intelligently to make such a decision, the ends of substantial justice cannot be attained without discontinuing the trial, a mistrial may be declared without the defendant’s consent and even over his objection, and he may be retried consistently with the Fifth Amendment.” Id., at 368.
In reviewing the propriety of the trial judge’s exercise of his discretion, this Court, following the counsel of Mr. Justice Story, has scrutinized the action to determine whether, in the context of that particular trial, the declaration of a mistrial was dictated by “manifest necessity” or the “ends of public justice.” The interests of the public in seeing that a criminal prosecution proceed to verdict, either of acquittal or conviction, need not be forsaken by the formulation or application of rigid rules that necessarily preclude the vindication of that interest. This consideration, whether termed the “ends of public justice,” United States v. Perez, supra, at 580, or, more precisely, “the public’s interest in fair trials designed to end in just judgments,” Wade v. Hunter, supra, at 689, has not been disregarded by this Court.
In United States v. Perez, supra, and Logan v. United States, 144 U. S. 263 (1892), this Court held that “manifest necessity” justified the discharge of juries unable to reach verdicts, and, therefore, the Double Jeopardy Clause did not bar retrial. Cf. Keerl v. Montana, 213 U. S. 135 (1909); Dreyer v. Illinois, 187 U. S. 71 (1902). In Simmons v. United States, 142 U. S. 148 (1891), a trial judge dismissed the jury, over defendant’s objection, because one of the jurors had been acquainted with the defendant, and, therefore, was probably prejudiced against the Government; this Court held that the trial judge properly exercised his power “to prevent the defeat of the ends of public justice.” Id., at 154. In Thompson v. United States, 155 U. S. 271 (1894), a mistrial was declared after the trial judge learned that one of the jurors was disqualified, he having been a member of the grand jury that indicted the defendant. Similarly, in Lovato v. New Mexico, 242 U. S. 199 (1916), the defendant demurred to the indictment, his demurrer was overruled, and a jury sworn. The district attorney, realizing that the defendant had not pleaded to the indictment after the demurrer had been overruled, moved for the discharge of the jury and arraignment of the defendant for pleading; the jury was discharged, the defendant pleaded not guilty, the same jury was again impaneled, and a verdict of guilty rendered. In both of those cases this Court held that the Double Jeopardy Clause did not bar reprosecution.
While virtually all of the cases turn on the particular facts and thus escape meaningful categorization, see Gori v. United States, supra; Wade v. Hunter, supra, it is possible to distill from them a general approach, premised on the “public justice” policy enunciated in United States v. Perez, to situations such as that presented by this case. A trial judge properly exercises his discretion to declare a mistrial if an impartial verdict cannot be reached, or if a verdict of conviction could be reached but would have to be reversed on appeal due to an obvious procedural error in the trial. If an error would make reversal on appeal a certainty, it would not serve “the ends of public justice” to require that the Government proceed with its proof when, if it succeeded before the jury, it would automatically be stripped of that success by an appellate court. This was substantially the situation in both Thompson v. United States, supra, and Lovato v. New Mexico, supra. While the declaration of a mistrial on the basis of a rule or a defective procedure that would lend itself to prosecutorial manipulation would involve an entirely different question, cf. Downum v. United States, supra, such was not the situation in the above cases or in the instant case.
In Downum v. United States, the defendant was charged with six counts of mail theft, and forging and uttering stolen checks. A jury was selected and sworn in the morning, and instructed to return that afternoon. When the jury returned, the Government moved for the discharge of the jury on the ground that a key prosecution witness, for two of the six counts against defendant, was not present. The prosecution knew, prior to the selection and swearing of the jury, that this witness could not be found and had not been served with a subpoena. The trial judge discharged the jury over the defendant’s motions to dismiss two counts for failure to prosecute and to continue the other four. This Court, in reversing the convictions on the ground of double jeopardy, emphasized that “[e]ach case must turn on its facts,” 372 U. S., at 737, and held that the second prosecution constituted double jeopardy, because the absence of the witness and the reason therefor did not there justify, in terms of “manifest necessity,” the declaration of a mistrial.
In United States v. Jorn, supra, the Government called a taxpayer witness in a prosecution for willfully assisting in the preparation of fraudulent income tax returns. Prior to his testimony, defense counsel suggested he be warned of his constitutional right against compulsory self-incrimination. The trial judge warned him of his rights, and the witness stated that he was willing to testify and that the Internal Revenue Service agent who first contacted him warned him of his rights. The trial judge, however, did not believe the witness’ declaration that the IRS had so warned him, and refused to allow him to testify until after he had consulted with an attorney. After learning from the Government that the remaining four witnesses were “similarly situated,” and after surmising that they, too, had not been properly informed of their rights, the trial judge declared a mistrial to give the witnesses the opportunity to consult with attorneys. In sustaining a plea in bar of double jeopardy to an attempted second trial of the defendant, the plurality opinion of the Court, emphasizing the importance to the defendant of proceeding before the first jury sworn, concluded:
“It is apparent from the record that no consideration was given to the possibility of a trial continuance; indeed, the trial judge acted so abruptly in discharging the jury that, had the prosecutor been disposed to suggest a continuance, or the defendant to object to the discharge of the jury, there would have been no opportunity to do so. When one examines the circumstances surrounding the discharge of this jury, it seems abundantly apparent that the trial judge made no effort to exercise a sound discretion to assure that, taking all the circumstances into account, there was a manifest necessity for the sua sponte declaration of this mistrial. United States v. Perez, 9 Wheat., at 580. Therefore, we must conclude that in the circumstances of this case, appellee’s reprosecution would violate the double jeopardy provision of the Fifth Amendment.” 400 U. S., at 487.
III
Respondent advances two arguments to support the conclusion that the Double Jeopardy Clause precluded the second trial in the instant case. The first is that since United States v. Ball, 163 U. S. 662 (1896), held that jeopardy obtained even though the indictment upon which the defendant was first acquitted had been defective, and since Downurn v. United States, supra, held that jeopardy “attaches” when a jury has been selected and sworn, the Double Jeopardy Clause precluded the State from instituting the second proceeding that resulted in respondent’s conviction. Alternatively, respondent argues that our decision in United States v. Jorn, supra, which respondent interprets as narrowly limiting the circumstances in which a mistrial is manifestly necessary, requires affirmance. Emphasizing the “ ‘valued right to have his trial completed by a particular tribunal,’ ” United States v. Jorn, supra, at 484, quoting Wade v. Hunter, 336 U. S., at 689, respondent contends that the circumstances did not justify depriving him of that right.
Respondent’s first contention is precisely the type of rigid, mechanical rule which the Court had eschewed since the seminal decision in Perez. The major premise of the syllogism — that trial on a defective indictment precludes retrial — is not applicable to the instant case because it overlooks a crucial element of the Court’s reasoning in United States v. Ball, supra. There, three men were indicted and tried for murder; two were convicted by a jury and one acquitted. This Court reversed the convictions on the ground that the indictment was fatally deficient in failing to allege that the victim died within a year and a day of the assault. Ball v. United States, 140 U. S. 118 (1891). A proper indictment was returned and the Government retried all three of the original defendants; that trial resulted in the conviction of all. This Court reversed the conviction of the one defendant who originally had been acquitted, sustaining his plea of double jeopardy. But the Court was obviously and properly influenced by the fact that the first trial had proceeded to verdict. This focus of the Court is reflected in the opinion:
“[W]e are unable to resist the conclusion that a general verdict of acquittal upon the issue of not guilty to an indictment undertaking to charge murder, and not objected to before the verdict as insufficient in that respect, is a bar to a second indictment for the same killing.
“. . . [T]he accused, whether convicted or acquitted, is equally put in jeopardy at the first trial. . . .” 163 U. S., at 669 (emphasis added).
In Downum, the Court held, as respondent argues, that jeopardy “attached” when the first jury was selected and sworn. But in cases in which a mistrial has been declared prior to verdict, the conclusion that jeopardy has attached begins, rather than ends, the inquiry as to whether the Double Jeopardy Clause bars retrial. That, indeed, was precisely the rationale of Perez and subsequent cases. Only if jeopardy has attached is a court called upon to determine whether the declaration of a mistrial was required by “manifest necessity” or the “ends of public justice.”
We believe that in light of the State’s established rules of criminal procedure, the trial judge’s declaration of a mistrial was not an abuse of discretion. Since this Court’s decision in Benton v. Maryland, supra, federal courts will be confronted with such claims that arise in large measure from the often diverse procedural rules existing in the 50 States. Federal courts should not be quick to conclude that simply because a state procedure does not conform to the corresponding federal statute or rule, it does not serve a legitimate state policy. Last Term, recognizing this fact, we dismissed a writ of certiorari as improvidently granted in a case involving a claim of double jeopardy stemming from the dismissal of an indictment under the “rules of criminal pleading peculiar to” an individual State followed by a retrial under a proper indictment. Duncan v. Tennessee, 405 U. S. 127 (1972).
In the instant case, the trial judge terminated the proceeding because a defect was found to exist in the indictment that was, as a matter of Illinois law, not curable by amendment. The Illinois courts have held that even after a judgment of conviction has become final, the defendant may be released on habeas corpus, because the defect in the indictment deprives the trial court of “jurisdiction.” The rule prohibiting the amendment of all but formal defects in indictments is designed to implement the State’s policy of preserving the right of each defendant to insist that a criminal prosecution against him be commenced by the action of a grand jury. The trial judge was faced with a situation similar to those in Simmons, Lovato, and Thompson, in which a procedural defect might or would preclude the public from either obtaining an impartial verdict or keeping a verdict of conviction if its evidence persuaded the jury. If a mistrial were constitutionally unavailable in situations such as this, the State’s policy could only be implemented by conducting a second trial after verdict and reversal on appeal, thus wasting time, energy, and money for all concerned. Here, the trial judge’s action was a rational determination designed to implement a legitimate state policy, with no suggestion that the implementation of that policy in this manner could be manipulated so as to prejudice the defendant. This situation is thus unlike Downum, where the mistrial entailed not only a delay for the defendant, but also operated as a post-jeopardy continuance to allow the prosecution an opportunity to strengthen its case. Here, the delay was minimal, and' the mistrial was, under Illinois law, the only way in which a defect in the indictment could be corrected. Given the established standard of discretion set forth in. Perez, Gori, and Hunter, we cannot say that the declaration of a mistrial was not required by “manifest necessity” or the “ends of public justice.”
Our decision in Jorn, relied upon by the court below and respondent, does not support the opposite conclusion. While it is possible to excise various portions of the plurality opinion to support the result reached below, divorcing the language from the facts of the case serves only to distort its holdings. That opinion dealt with action by a trial judge that can fairly be described as erratic. The Court held that the lack of apparent harm to the defendant from the declaration of a mistrial did not itself justify the mistrial, and concluded that there was no “manifest necessity” for the mistrial, as opposed to less drastic alternatives. The Court emphasized that the absence of any manifest need for the mistrial had deprived the defendant of his right to proceed before the first jury, but it did not hold that that right may never be forced to yield, as in this case, to “the public's interest in fair trials designed to end in just judgments.” The Court’s opinion in Jorn is replete with approving references to Wade v. Hunter, supra, which latter case stated:
“The double-jeopardy provision of the Fifth Amendment, however, does not mean that every time a defendant is put to trial before a competent tribunal he is entitled to go free if the trial fails to end in a final judgment. Such a rule would create an insuperable obstacle to the administration of justice in many cases in which there is no semblance of the type of oppressive practices at which the double-jeopardy prohibition is aimed. There may be unforeseeable circumstances that arise during a trial making its completion impossible, such as the failure of a jury to agree on a verdict. In such event the purpose of law to protect society from those guilty of crimes frequently would be frustrated by denying courts power to put the defendant to trial again. And there have been instances where a trial judge has discovered facts during a trial which indicated that one or more members of the jury might be biased against the Government or the defendant. It is settled that the duty of the judge in this event is to discharge the jury and direct a retrial. What has been said is enough to show that a defendant’s valued right to have his trial completed by a particular tribunal must in some instances be subordinated to the public’s interest in fair trials designed to end in just judgments.” Wade v. Hunter, 336 U. S., at 688-689 (footnote omitted; emphasis added).
The determination by the trial court to abort a criminal proceeding where jeopardy has attached is not one to be lightly undertaken, since the interest of the defendant in having his fate determined by the jury first impaneled is itself a weighty one. United States v. Jorn, supra. Nor will the lack of demonstrable additional prejudice preclude the defendant’s invocation of the double jeopardy bar in the absence of some important countervailing interest of proper judicial administration. Ibid. But where the declaration of a mistrial implements a reasonable state policy and aborts a proceeding that at best would have produced a verdict that could have been upset at will by one of the parties, the defendant’s interest in proceeding to verdict is outweighed by the competing and equally legitimate demand for public justice. Wade v. Hunter, supra.
Reversed.
Ill. Rev. Stat., c. 38, §16-1 (d)(1) (1963).
See Constitution of Illinois, Art. II, § 8 (1967). When the State Constitution was amended in 1970, this provision was retained as the first paragraph of Art. I, § 7.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Marshall
delivered the opinion of the
This is the companion case to Woodward v. Commissioner, ante, p. 572, and presents a similar question involving the tax treatment of appraisal litigation expenses.
In 1953 taxpayer Hilton Hotels Corporation, which owned close to 90% of the common shares of the Hotel Waldorf-Astoria Corporation, determined to merge the two companies. Hilton retained a consulting firm to prepare a merger study to determine a fair rate of exchange between Hilton stock and Waldorf stock. After this study was completed, on November 12, 1953, Hilton and Waldorf entered into a merger agreement under which Hilton would be the surviving corporation, and 1.25 shares of Hilton stock would be offered for each outstanding Waldorf share not already held by Hilton. On December 28, Hilton voted its Waldorf stock to approve the merger by the requisite majority. Prior to the vote, the holders of about 6% of the Waldorf shares had filed with Waldorf their written objections to the merger, and demanded payment for their stock, pursuant to § 91 of the New York Stock Corporation Law.
On December 31, 1953, Hilton filed the merger agreement and the certificate of consolidation with the Secretary. of State of New York, thus consummating the merger under New York law. On January 7, 1954, Hilton, made a cash offer to the dissenting Waldorf shareholders, which they rejected. The dissenters then began appraisal proceedings in the New York courts, pursuant to § 21 of the New York Stock Corporation Law.
Between January and May 1954, Hilton asked its consulting firm to value the Waldorf stock as of December 27, 1953, the day prior to the Waldorf shareholders’ vote approving the merger. Hilton also obtained the services of lawyers, and other professional services, in connection with the appraisal litigation. The appraisal proceeding was finally terminated in June 1955, when the state court approved a settlement agreed to by the parties.
Hilton deducted the fees paid to the consulting firm, and the cost of legal and other professional services arising out of the appraisal proceeding, as ordinary and necessary business expenses under § 162 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954, 26 U. S. C. § 162. The Commissioner of Internal Revenue disallowed the deduction on the ground that the payments were capital expenditures. Hilton paid the tax and sued for a refund in the District Court. In the course of that suit, Hilton conceded, and the court held, that the payments to the consulting firm for the pre-merger determination of fair value were a nondeductible capital outlay. But the District Court held that the fees and costs related to the post-merger appraisal proceeding itself were deductible. 285 F. Supp. 617 (D. C. N. D. Ill. 1968). The Court of Appeals affirmed, 410 F. 2d 194 (C. A. 7th Cir.), and we granted certiorari, 396 U. S. 954 (1969). We reverse.
The Court of Appeals recognized that expenses of acquiring capital assets are capital expenditures for tax purposes. However, the court believed that the "primary purpose” test of Rassenfoss v. Commissioner, 158 F. 2d 764 (C. A. 7th Cir. 1946), should be applied to determine whether the appraisal proceeding was sufficiently related to the merger or the stock acquisition. Noting that “the proceeding was not necessary to the consummation of the merger nor did it function primarily to permit the acquisition of the objecting holders' shares,” the court found that “the paramount purpose of the appraisal proceeding was to determine the fair value of the dissenting stockholders’ shares in Waldorf.” 410 F. 2d, at 197.
As we held in Woodward, supra, the expenses of litigation that arise out of the acquisition of a capital asset are capital expenses, quite apart from whether the taxpayer’s purpose in incurring them is the defense or perfection of title to property. The chief distinction between this case and Woodward is that under New York law title to the dissenters’ stock passed to Waldorf as soon as they formally registered their dissent, placing them in the relationship of creditors of the company for the fair value of the stock, whereas under Iowa law passage of title was delayed until after the price was settled in the appraisal proceeding.
This is a distinction without a difference. The functional nature of the appraisal remedy as a forced purchase of the dissenters’ stock is the same, whether title passes before or after the price is determined. Determination and payment of a price is no less an element of an acquisition by purchase than is the passage of title to the property. In both Woodward and this case, the expenses were incurred in determining what that price should be, by litigation rather than by negotiation. The whole process of acquisition required both legal operations — fixing the price, and conveying title to the property — and we cannot see why the order in which those operations occurred under applicable state law should make any difference in the characterization of the expenses incurred for the particular federal tax purposes involved here.
Hilton also argues that the appraisal costs cannot be considered as its own capital expenditures, since Waldorf acquired the shares (on December 28) before the merger (on December 31). This argument would carry too far. It is true that title to the dissenters’ stock passed to Waldorf before that corporation was merged into the surviving corporation, Hilton. But the stock was never paid for by Waldorf; rather Hilton assumed all of Waldorf’s debts under the merger agreement, and finally paid for the stock after the appraisal proceeding was settled. If Waldorf’s acquisition of the minority stock interest was not a capital transaction of Hilton’s, then Hilton’s payment for the stock itself, as well as the expenditures made in fixing that price, would lose its character as a capital expenditure of Hilton’s. But Hilton concedes that the payment for the stock was a capital expenditure on its part. The debts that Hilton inherited from Waldorf retained their capital or ordinary character through the merger, and so did the expenditures for fixing the amount of those debts.
In short, the distinctions urged between this case and Woodward are not availing. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded to the District Court with directions to dismiss the complaint.
It is so ordered.
Section 91, subd. 9, of the New York Stock Corporation Law provides that a corporate consolidation becomes effective upon the filing of the requisite certificate. Section 21, subd. 6, of the same law provides that as of the time of a merger vote, a dissenting shareholder loses all rights as such, except the right to receive payment for the value of his shares.
Iowa Code §491.25 (1966) provides that majority shareholders voting for renewal "shall have three years from the date such action for renewal was taken in which to purchase and pay for the stock voting against such renewal ...” There is no intimation in the statute itself, nor in Iowa cases construing it cited by petitioners in Woodward, supra, that dissenters lose any of their rights as shareholders, or that title passes to the majority shareholders, prior to the actual purchase of the dissenters’ shares.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | L | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Chief Justice Burger
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Richard Lynn Reed, a minor, died intestate in Ada County, Idaho, on March 29, 1967. His adoptive parents, who had separated sometime prior to his death, are the parties to this appeal. Approximately seven months after Richard’s death, his mother, appellant Sally Reed, filed a petition in the Probate Court of Ada County, seeking appointment as administratrix of her son’s estate. Prior to the date set for a hearing on the mother’s petition, appellee Cecil Reed, the father of the decedent, filed a competing petition seeking to have himself appointed administrator of the son’s estate. The probate court held a joint hearing on the two petitions and thereafter ordered that letters of administration be issued to appellee Cecil Reed upon his taking the oath and filing the bond required by law. The court treated §§ 15-312 and 15-314 of the Idaho Code as the controlling statutes and read those sections as compelling a preference for Cecil Reed because he was a male.
Section 15-312 designates the persons who are entitled to administer the estate of one who dies intestate. In making these designations, that section lists 11 classes of persons who are so entitled and provides, in substance, that the order in which those classes are listed in the section shall be determinative of the relative rights of competing applicants for letters of administration. One of the 11 classes so enumerated is “[t]he father or mother” of the person dying intestate. Under this section, then, appellant and appellee, being members of the same entitlement class, would seem to have been equally entitled to administer their son’s estate. Section 15-314 provides, however, that
“[o]f several persons claiming and equally entitled [under § 15-312] to administer, males must be preferred to females, and relatives of the whole to those of the half blood.”
In issuing its order, the probate court implicitly recognized the equality of entitlement of the two applicants under § 15-312 and noted that neither of the applicants was under any legal disability; the court ruled, however, that appellee, being a male, was to be preferred to the female appellant “by reason of Section 15-314 of the Idaho Code.” In stating this conclusion, the probate judge gave no indication that he had attempted to determine the relative capabilities of the competing applicants to perform the functions incident to the administration of an estate. It seems clear the probate judge considered himself bound by statute to give preference to the male candidate over the female, each being otherwise “equally entitled.”
Sally Reed appealed from the probate court order, and her appeal was treated by the District Court of the Fourth Judicial District of Idaho as a constitutional attack on § 15-314. In dealing with the attack, that court held that the challenged section violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and was, therefore, void; the matter was ordered “returned to the Probate Court for its determination of which of the two parties” was better qualified to administer the estate.
This order was never carried out, however, for Cecil Reed took a further appeal to the Idaho Supreme Court, which reversed the District Court and reinstated the original order naming the father administrator of the estate. In reaching this result, the Idaho Supreme Court first dealt with the governing statutory law and held that under § 15-312 “a father and mother are 'equally entitled’ to letters of administration,” but the preference given to males by § 15-314 is “mandatory” and leaves no room for the exercise of a probate court’s discretion in the appointment of administrators. Having thus definitively and authoritatively interpreted the statutory provisions involved, the Idaho Supreme Court then proceeded to examine, and reject, Sally Reed’s contention that § 15-314 violates the Equal Protection Clause by giving a mandatory preference to males over females, without regard to their individual qualifications as potential estate administrators. 93 Idaho 511, 465 P. 2d 635.
Sally Reed thereupon appealed for review by this Court pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 1257 (2), and we noted probable jurisdiction. 401 U. S. 934. Having examined the record and considered the briefs and oral arguments of the parties, we have concluded that the arbitrary preference established in favor of males by § 15-314 of the Idaho Code cannot stand in the face of the Fourteenth Amendment’s command that no State deny the equal protection of the laws to any person within its jurisdiction.
Idaho does not, of course, deny letters of administration to women altogether. Indeed, under § 15-312, a woman whose spouse dies intestate has a preference over a son, father, brother, or any other male relative of the decedent. Moreover, we can judicially notice that in this country, presumably due to the greater longevity of women, a large proportion of estates, both intestate and under wills of decedents, are administered by surviving widows.
Section 15-314 is restricted in its operation to those situations where competing applications for letters of administration have been filed by both male and female members of the same entitlement class established by § 15-312. In such situations, § 15-314 provides that different treatment be accorded to the applicants on the basis of their sex; it thus establishes a classification subject to scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause.
In applying that clause, this Court has consistently recognized that the Fourteenth Amendment does not deny to States the power to treat different classes of persons in different ways. Barbier v. Connolly, 113 U. S. 27 (1885); Lindsley v. Natural Carbonic Gas Co., 220 U. S. 61 (1911); Railway Express Agency v. New York, 336 U. S. 106 (1949); McDonald v. Board of Election Commissioners, 394 U. S. 802 (1969). The Equal Protection Clause of that amendment does, however, deny to States the power to legislate that different treatment be accorded to persons placed by a statute into different classes on the basis of criteria wholly unrelated to the objective of that statute. A classification “must be reasonable, not arbitrary, and must rest upon some ground of difference having a fair and substantial relation to the object of the legislation, so that all persons similarly circumstanced shall be treated alike.” Royster Guano Co. v. Virginia, 253 U. S. 412, 415 (1920). The question presented by this case, then, is whether a difference in the sex of competing applicants for letters of administration bears a rational relationship to a state objective that is sought to be advanced by the operation of §§ 15-312 and 15-314.
In upholding the latter section, the Idaho Supreme Court concluded that its objective was to eliminate one area of controversy when two or more persons, equally entitled under § 15-312, seek letters of administration and thereby present the probate court “with the issue of which one should be named.” The court also concluded that where such persons are not of the same sex, the elimination of females from consideration “is neither an illogical nor arbitrary method devised by the legislature to resolve an issue that would otherwise require a hearing as to the relative merits ... of the two or more petitioning relatives . . . .” 93 Idaho, at 514, 465 P. 2d, at 638.
Clearly the objective of reducing the workload on probate courts by eliminating one class of contests is not without some legitimacy. The crucial question, however, is whether § 15-314 advances that objective in a manner consistent with the command of the Equal Protection Clause. We hold that it does not. To give a mandatory ¡preference to members of either sex over members of the other, merely to accomplish the elimination of hearings on the merits, is to make the very kind of arbitrary legislative choice forbidden by the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment; and whatever may be said as to the positive values of avoiding intrafamily controversy, the choice in this context may not lawfully be mandated solely on the basis of sex.
We note finally that if § 15-314 is viewed merely as a modifying appendage to § 15-312 and as aimed at the same objective, its constitutionality is not thereby saved. The objective of § 15-312 clearly is to establish degrees of entitlement of various classes of persons in accordance with their varying degrees and kinds of relationship to the intestate. Regardless of their sex, persons within any one of the enumerated classes of that section are similarly situated with respect to that objective. By providing dissimilar treatment for men and women who are thus similarly situated, the challenged section violates the Equal Protection Clause. Royster Guano Co. v. Virginia, supra.
The judgment of the Idaho Supreme Court is reversed and the case remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
Reversed and remanded.
In her petition, Sally Reed alleged that her son’s estate, consisting of a few items of personal property and a small savings account, had an aggregate value of less than $1,000.
Section 15-312 provides as follows:
“Administration of the estate of a person dying intestate must be granted to some one or more of the persons hereinafter mentioned, and they are respectively entitled thereto in the following order:
“1. The surviving husband or wife or some competent person whom he or she may request to have appointed.
“2. The children.
“3. The father or mother.
“4. The brothers.
“5. The sisters.
“6. The grandchildren.
“7. The next of kin entitled to share in the distribution of the estate.
“8. Any of the kindred.
"9. The public administrator.
“10. The creditors of such person at the time of death.
“11. Any person legally competent.
“If the decedent was a member of a partnership at the time of his decease, the surviving partner must in no case be appointed administrator of his estate.”
The court also held that the statute violated Art. I, § 1, of the Idaho Constitution.
We note that § 15-312, set out in n. 2, supra, appears to give a superior entitlement to brothers of an intestate (class 4) than is given to sisters (class 5). The parties now before the Court are not affected by the operation of § 15-312 in this respect, however, and appellant has made no challenge to that section.
We further note that on March 12, 1971, the Idaho Legislature adopted the Uniform Probate Code, effective July 1, 1972. Idaho Laws 1971, c. 111, p. 233. On that date, §§15-312 and 15-314 of the present code will, then, be effectively repealed, and there is in the new legislation no mandatory preference for males over females as administrators of estates.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | B | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
PER CURIAM.
Jane Doe, a minor, was eight weeks pregnant when she unlawfully crossed the border into the United States. She was detained and placed into the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), part of the Department of Health and Human Services. ORR placed her in a federally funded shelter in Texas. After an initial medical examination, Doe requested an abortion. But ORR did not allow Doe to go to an abortion clinic. Absent "emergency medical situations," ORR policy prohibits shelter personnel from "taking any action that facilitates an abortion without direction and approval from the Director of ORR." Plaintiff's Application for TRO and Motion for Preliminary Injunction in Garza v. Hargan, No. 17-cv-2122 (D DC), Dkt. No. 3-5, p. 2 (decl. of Brigitte Amiri, Exh. A). According to the Government, a minor may "le[ave] government custody by seeking voluntary departure, or by working with the government to identify a suitable sponsor who could take custody of her in the United States." Pet. for Cert. 18; see also 8 U.S.C. § 1229c ; 8 CFR §§ 236.3, 1240.26 (2018).
Respondent Rochelle Garza, Doe's guardian ad litem, filed a putative class action on behalf of Doe and "all other pregnant unaccompanied minors in ORR custody" challenging the constitutionality of ORR's policy. Complaint in Garza v. Hargan, No. 17-cv-2122 (D DC), Dkt. No. 1, p. 11. On October 18, 2017, the District Court issued a temporary restraining order allowing Doe to obtain an abortion immediately. On October 19, Doe attended preabortion counseling, required by Texas law to occur at least 24 hours in advance with the same doctor who performs the abortion. The clinic she visited typically rotated physicians on a weekly basis.
The next day, a panel of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit vacated the relevant portions of the temporary restraining order. Noting that the Government had assumed for purposes of this case that Doe had a constitutional right to an abortion, the panel concluded that ORR's policy was not an "undue burden," Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833, 876, 112 S.Ct. 2791, 120 L.Ed.2d 674 (1992) (plurality opinion).
Four days later, on October 24, the Court of Appeals, sitting en banc, vacated the panel order and remanded the case to the District Court. Garza v. Hargan, 874 F.3d 735, 735-736 (C.A.D.C.2017). The same day, Garza sought an amended restraining order. Garza's lawyers asked the District Court to order the Government to make Doe available "in order to obtain the counseling required by state law and to obtain the abortion procedure." Pet. for Cert. 12 (emphasis deleted). The District Court agreed and ordered the Government to act accordingly. Doe's representatives scheduled an appointment for the next morning and arranged for Doe to be transported to the clinic on October 25 at 7:30 a.m.
The Government planned to ask this Court for emergency review of the en banc order. Believing the abortion would not take place until October 26 after Doe had repeated the state-required counseling with a new doctor, the Government informed opposing counsel and this Court that it would file a stay application early on the morning of October 25. The details are disputed, but sometime over the course of the night both the time and nature of the appointment were changed. The doctor who had performed Doe's earlier counseling was available to perform the abortion after all and the 7:30 a.m. appointment was moved to 4:15 a.m. At 10 a.m., Garza's lawyers informed the Government that Doe "had the abortion this morning." Id ., at 15 (internal quotation marks omitted). The abortion rendered the relevant claim moot, so the Government did not file its emergency stay application. Instead, the Government filed this petition for certiorari.
When "a civil case from a court in the federal system ... has become moot while on its way here," this Court's "established practice" is "to reverse or vacate the judgment below and remand with a direction to dismiss." United States v. Munsingwear, Inc., 340 U.S. 36, 39, 71 S.Ct. 104, 95 L.Ed. 36 (1950). Because this practice is rooted in equity, the decision whether to vacate turns on "the conditions and circumstances of the particular case." United States v. Hamburg-Amerikanische Packetfahrt-Actien Gesellschaft, 239 U.S. 466, 478, 36 S.Ct. 212, 60 L.Ed. 387 (1916). One clear example where "[v]acatur is in order" is "when mootness occurs through ... the 'unilateral action of the party who prevailed in the lower court.' " Arizonans for Official English v. Arizona, 520 U.S. 43, 71-72, 117 S.Ct. 1055, 137 L.Ed.2d 170 (1997) (quoting U.S. Bancorp Mortgage Co. v. Bonner Mall Partnership, 513 U.S. 18, 23, 115 S.Ct. 386, 130 L.Ed.2d 233 (1994) ). " 'It would certainly be a strange doctrine that would permit a plaintiff to obtain a favorable judgment, take voluntary action that moots the dispute, and then retain the benefit of the judgment.' " 520 U.S., at 75, 117 S.Ct. 1055 (alterations omitted).
The litigation over Doe's temporary restraining order falls squarely within the Court's established practice. Doe's individual claim for injunctive relief-the only claim addressed by the D.C. Circuit-became moot after the abortion. It is undisputed that Garza and her lawyers prevailed in the D.C. Circuit, took voluntary, unilateral action to have Doe undergo an abortion sooner than initially expected, and thus retained the benefit of that favorable judgment. And although not every moot case will warrant vacatur, the fact that the relevant claim here became moot before certiorari does not limit this Court's discretion. See, e.g., LG Electronics, Inc. v. InterDigital Communications, LLC, 572 U.S. ----, 134 S.Ct. 1876, 188 L.Ed.2d 905 (2014) (after the certiorari petition was filed, respondents withdrew the complaint they filed with the International Trade Commission); United States v. Samish Indian Nation, 568 U.S. 936, 133 S.Ct. 423, 184 L.Ed.2d 253 (2012) (after the certiorari petition was filed, respondent voluntarily dismissed its claim in the Court of Federal Claims); Eisai Co. v. Teva Pharmaceuticals USA, Inc., 564 U.S. 1001, 131 S.Ct. 2991, 180 L.Ed.2d 818 (2011) (before the certiorari petition was filed, respondent's competitor began selling the drug at issue, which was the relief that respondent had sought); Indiana State Police Pension Trust v. Chrysler LLC, 558 U.S. 1087, 130 S.Ct. 1015, 175 L.Ed.2d 614 (2009) (before the certiorari petition was filed, respondent completed a court-approved sale of assets, which mooted the appeal). The unique circumstances of this case and the balance of equities weigh in favor of vacatur.
The Government also suggests that opposing counsel made "what appear to be material misrepresentations and omissions" that were "designed to thwart this Court's review." Pet. for Cert. 26. Respondent says this suggestion is "baseless." Brief in Opposition 23. The Court takes allegations like those the Government makes here seriously, for ethical rules are necessary to the maintenance of a culture of civility and mutual trust within the legal profession. On the one hand, all attorneys must remain aware of the principle that zealous advocacy does not displace their obligations as officers of the court. Especially in fast-paced, emergency proceedings like those at issue here, it is critical that lawyers and courts alike be able to rely on one another's representations. On the other hand, lawyers also have ethical obligations to their clients and not all communication breakdowns constitute misconduct. The Court need not delve into the factual disputes raised by the parties in order to answer the Munsingwear question here.
The petition for a writ of certiorari is granted. The Court vacates the en banc order and remands the case to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit with instructions to direct the District Court to dismiss the relevant individual claim for injunctive relief as moot. See Munsingwear, supra .
It is so ordered.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | I | sc_issuearea |
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