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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 SCALIA delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Bankruptcy Code provides that a debtor may exempt certain assets from the bankruptcy estate. It further provides that exempt assets generally are not liable for any expenses associated with administering the estate. In this case, we consider whether a bankruptcy court nonetheless may order that a debtor's exempt assets be used to pay administrative expenses incurred as a result of the debtor's misconduct.
I. Background
A
Chapter 7 of the Bankruptcy Code gives an insolvent debtor the opportunity to discharge his debts by liquidating his assets to pay his creditors. 11 U.S.C. §§ 704(a)(1), 726, 727. The filing of a bankruptcy petition under Chapter 7 creates a bankruptcy "estate" generally comprising all of the debtor's property. § 541(a)(1). The estate is placed under the control of a trustee, who is responsible for managing liquidation of the estate's assets and distribution of the proceeds. § 704(a)(1). The Code authorizes the debtor to "exempt," however, certain kinds of property from the estate, enabling him to retain those assets post-bankruptcy. § 522(b)(1). Except in particular situations specified in the Code, exempt property "is not liable" for the payment of "any [prepetition] debt" or "any administrative expense." § 522(c), (k).
Section 522(d) of the Code provides a number of exemptions unless they are specifically prohibited by state law. § 522(b)(2), (d). One, commonly known as the "homestead exemption," protects up to $22,975 in equity in the debtor's residence. § 522(d)(1) and note following § 522 ; see Owen v. Owen, 500 U.S. 305, 310, 111 S.Ct. 1833, 114 L.Ed.2d 350 (1991). The debtor may elect, however, to forgo the § 522(d) exemptions and instead claim whatever exemptions are available under applicable state or local law. § 522(b)(3)(A). Some States provide homestead exemptions that are more generous than the federal exemption; some provide less generous versions; but nearly every State provides some type of homestead exemption. See López, State Homestead Exemptions and Bankruptcy Law: Is It Time for Congress To Close the Loophole? 7 Rutgers Bus. L.J. 143, 149-165 (2010) (listing state exemptions).
B
Petitioner, Stephen Law, filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2004, and respondent, Alfred H. Siegel, was appointed to serve as trustee. The estate's only significant asset was Law's house in Hacienda Heights, California. On a schedule filed with the Bankruptcy Court, Law valued the house at $363,348 and claimed that $75,000 of its value was covered by California's homestead exemption. See Cal. Civ. Proc. Code Ann. § 704.730(a)(1) (West Supp. 2014). He also reported that the house was subject to two voluntary liens: a note and deed of trust for $147,156.52 in favor of Washington Mutual Bank, and a second note and deed of trust for $156,929.04 in favor of "Lin's Mortgage & Associates." Law thus represented that there was no equity in the house that could be recovered for his other creditors, because the sum of the two liens exceeded the house's nonexempt value.
If Law's representations had been accurate, he presumably would have been able to retain the house, since Siegel would have had no reason to pursue its sale. Instead, a few months after Law's petition was filed, Siegel initiated an adversary proceeding alleging that the lien in favor of "Lin's Mortgage & Associates" was fraudulent. The deed of trust supporting that lien had been recorded by Law in 1999 and reflected a debt to someone named "Lili Lin." Not one but two individuals claiming to be Lili Lin ultimately responded to Siegel's complaint. One, Lili Lin of Artesia, California, was a former acquaintance of Law's who denied ever having loaned him money and described his repeated efforts to involve her in various sham transactions relating to the disputed deed of trust. That Lili Lin promptly entered into a stipulated judgment disclaiming any interest in the house. But that was not the end of the matter, because the second "Lili Lin" claimed to be the true beneficiary of the disputed deed of trust. Over the next five years, this "Lili Lin" managed-despite supposedly living in China and speaking no English-to engage in extensive and costly litigation, including several appeals, contesting the avoidance of the deed of trust and Siegel's subsequent sale of the house.
Finally, in 2009, the Bankruptcy Court entered an order concluding that "no person named Lili Lin ever made a loan to [Law] in exchange for the disputed deed of trust." In re Law, 401 B.R. 447, 453 (Bkrtcy.Ct.C.D.Cal.). The court found that "the loan was a fiction, meant to preserve [Law's] equity in his residence beyond what he was entitled to exempt" by perpetrating "a fraud on his creditors and the court." Ibid. With regard to the second "Lili Lin," the court declared itself "unpersuaded that Lili Lin of China signed or approved any declaration or pleading purporting to come from her." Ibid. Rather, it said, the "most plausible conclusion" was that Law himself had "authored, signed, and filed some or all of these papers." Ibid. It also found that Law had submitted false evidence "in an effort to persuade the court that Lili Lin of China-rather than Lili Lin of Artesia-was the true holder of the lien on his residence."
Id., at 452. The court determined that Siegel had incurred more than $500,000 in attorney's fees overcoming Law's fraudulent misrepresentations. It therefore granted Siegel's motion to " surcharge" the entirety of Law's $75,000 homestead exemption, making those funds available to defray Siegel's attorney's fees.
The Ninth Circuit Bankruptcy Appellate Panel affirmed.
BAP No. CC-09-1077-PaMkH, 2009 WL 7751415 (Oct. 22, 2009) (per curiam ). It held that the Bankruptcy Court's factual findings regarding Law's fraud were not clearly erroneous and that the court had not abused its discretion by surcharging Law's exempt assets. It explained that in Latman v. Burdette, 366 F.3d 774 (2004), the Ninth Circuit had recognized a bankruptcy court's power to "equitably surcharge a debtor's statutory exemptions" in exceptional circumstances, such as "when a debtor engages in inequitable or fraudulent conduct." 2009 WL 7751415, at *5, *7. The Bankruptcy Appellate Panel acknowledged that the Tenth Circuit had disagreed with Latman, see In re Scrivner, 535 F.3d 1258, 1263-1265 (2008), but the panel affirmed that Latman was correct. 2009 WL 7751415, at *7, n. 10. Judge Markell filed a concurring opinion agreeing with the panel's application of Latman but questioning "whether Latman remains good policy." 2009 WL 7751415, at *10.
The Ninth Circuit affirmed. In re Law, 435 Fed.Appx. 697 (2011) (per curiam ). It held that the surcharge was proper because it was "calculated to compensate the estate for the actual monetary costs imposed by the debtor's misconduct, and was warranted to protect the integrity of the bankruptcy process." Id., at 698. We granted certiorari. 570 U.S. ----, 133 S.Ct. 2824, 186 L.Ed.2d 883 (2013).
II. Analysis
A
A bankruptcy court has statutory authority to "issue any order, process, or judgment that is necessary or appropriate to carry out the provisions of" the Bankruptcy Code.
11 U.S.C. § 105(a). And it may also possess "inherent power ... to sanction 'abusive litigation practices.' " Marrama v. Citizens Bank of Mass., 549 U.S. 365, 375-376, 127 S.Ct. 1105, 166 L.Ed.2d 956 (2007). But in exercising those statutory and inherent powers, a bankruptcy court may not contravene specific statutory provisions.
It is hornbook law that § 105(a)"does not allow the bankruptcy court to override explicit mandates of other sections of the Bankruptcy Code." 2 Collier on Bankruptcy ¶ 105.01[2], p. 105-6 (16th ed. 2013). Section 105(a) confers authority to "carry out" the provisions of the Code, but it is quite impossible to do that by taking action that the Code prohibits. That is simply an application of the axiom that a statute's general permission to take actions of a certain type must yield to a specific prohibition found elsewhere. See Morton v. Mancari, 417 U.S. 535, 550-551, 94 S.Ct. 2474, 41 L.Ed.2d 290 (1974) ; D. Ginsberg & Sons, Inc. v. Popkin, 285 U.S. 204, 206-208, 52 S.Ct. 322, 76 L.Ed. 704 (1932). Courts' inherent sanctioning powers are likewise subordinate to valid statutory directives and prohibitions. Degen v. United States, 517 U.S. 820, 823, 116 S.Ct. 1777, 135 L.Ed.2d 102 (1996) ; Chambers v. NASCO, Inc., 501 U.S. 32, 47, 111 S.Ct. 2123, 115 L.Ed.2d 27 (1991). We have long held that "whatever equitable powers remain in the bankruptcy courts must and can only be exercised within the confines of" the Bankruptcy Code.
Norwest Bank Worthington v. Ahlers, 485 U.S. 197, 206, 108 S.Ct. 963, 99 L.Ed.2d 169 (1988) ; see, e.g., Raleigh v. Illinois Dept. of Revenue, 530 U.S. 15, 24-25, 120 S.Ct. 1951, 147 L.Ed.2d 13 (2000) ; United States v. Noland, 517 U.S. 535, 543, 116 S.Ct. 1524, 134 L.Ed.2d 748 (1996) ; SEC v. United States Realty & Improvement Co., 310 U.S. 434, 455, 60 S.Ct. 1044, 84 L.Ed. 1293 (1940).
Thus, the Bankruptcy Court's "surcharge" was unauthorized if it contravened a specific provision of the Code. We conclude that it did. Section 522 (by reference to California law) entitled Law to exempt $75,000 of equity in his home from the bankruptcy estate. § 522(b) (3)(A). And it made that $75,000 "not liable for payment of any administrative expense." § 522(k). The reasonable attorney's fees Siegel incurred defeating the "Lili Lin" lien were indubitably an administrative expense, as a short march through a few statutory cross-references makes plain: Section 503(b)(2) provides that administrative expenses include "compensation ... awarded under" § 330(a) ; § 330(a)(1) authorizes "reasonable compensation for actual, necessary services rendered" by a "professional person employed under" § 327 ; and § 327(a) authorizes the trustee to "employ one or more attorneys ... to represent or assist the trustee in carrying out the trustee's duties under this title." Siegel argues that even though attorney's fees incurred responding to a debtor's fraud qualify as " administrative expenses" for purposes of determining the trustee's right to reimbursement under § 503(b), they do not so qualify for purposes of § 522(k) ; but he gives us no reason to depart from the " 'normal rule of statutory construction' " that words repeated in different parts of the same statute generally have the same meaning. See Department of Revenue of Ore. v. ACF Industries, Inc., 510 U.S. 332, 342, 114 S.Ct. 843, 127 L.Ed.2d 165 (1994) (quoting Sorenson v. Secretary of Treasury, 475 U.S. 851, 860, 106 S.Ct. 1600, 89 L.Ed.2d 855 (1986) ).
The Bankruptcy Court thus violated § 522's express terms when it ordered that the $75,000 protected by Law's homestead exemption be made available to pay Siegel's attorney's fees, an administrative expense. In doing so, the court exceeded the limits of its authority under § 105(a) and its inherent powers.
B
Siegel does not dispute the premise that a bankruptcy court's § 105(a) and inherent powers may not be exercised in contravention of the Code. Instead, his main argument is that the Bankruptcy Court's surcharge did not contravene § 522. That statute, Siegel contends, "establish[es] the procedure by which a debtor may seek to claim exemptions" but "contains no directive requiring [courts] to allow [an exemption] regardless of the circumstances." Brief for Respondent 35. Thus, he says, recognition of an equitable power in the Bankruptcy Court to deny an exemption by "surcharging" the exempt property in response to the debtor's misconduct can coexist comfortably with § 522. The United States, appearing in support of Siegel, agrees, arguing that § 522"neither gives debtors an absolute right to retain exempt property nor limits a court's authority to impose an equitable surcharge on such property." Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 23.
Insofar as Siegel and the United States equate the Bankruptcy Court's surcharge with an outright denial of Law's homestead exemption, their arguments founder upon this case's procedural history. The Bankruptcy Appellate Panel stated that because no one "timely oppose[d] [Law]'s homestead exemption claim," the exemption "became final" before the Bankruptcy Court imposed the surcharge. 2009 WL 7751415, at *2. We have held that a trustee's failure to make a timely objection prevents him from challenging an exemption. Taylor v. Freeland & Kronz, 503 U.S. 638, 643-644, 112 S.Ct. 1644, 118 L.Ed.2d 280 (1992).
But even assuming the Bankruptcy Court could have revisited Law's entitlement to the exemption, § 522 does not give courts discretion to grant or withhold exemptions based on whatever considerations they deem appropriate. Rather, the statute exhaustively specifies the criteria that will render property exempt. See § 522(b), (d). Siegel insists that because § 522(b) says that the debtor "may exempt" certain property, rather than that he "shall be entitled" to do so, the court retains discretion to grant or deny exemptions even when the statutory criteria are met. But the subject of "may exempt" in § 522(b) is the debtor, not the court, so it is the debtor in whom the statute vests discretion. A debtor need not invoke an exemption to which the statute entitles him; but if he does, the court may not refuse to honor the exemption absent a valid statutory basis for doing so.
Moreover, § 522 sets forth a number of carefully calibrated exceptions and limitations, some of which relate to the debtor's misconduct. For example, § 522(c) makes exempt property liable for certain kinds of prepetition debts, including debts arising from tax fraud, fraud in connection with student loans, and other specified types of wrongdoing. Section 522(o ) prevents a debtor from claiming a homestead exemption to the extent he acquired the homestead with nonexempt property in the previous 10 years "with the intent to hinder, delay, or defraud a creditor." And § 522(q) caps a debtor's homestead exemption at approximately $150,000 (but does not eliminate it entirely) where the debtor has been convicted of a felony that shows "that the filing of the case was an abuse of the provisions of" the Code, or where the debtor owes a debt arising from specified wrongful acts-such as securities fraud, civil violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or "any criminal act, intentional tort, or willful or reckless misconduct that caused serious physical injury or death to another individual in the preceding 5 years." § 522(q) and note following § 522. The Code's meticulous-not to say mind-numbingly detailed-enumeration of exemptions and exceptions to those exemptions confirms that courts are not authorized to create additional exceptions. See Hillman v. Maretta, 569 U.S. ----, ----, 133 S.Ct. 1943, 1953, 186 L.Ed.2d 43 (2013); TRW Inc. v. Andrews, 534 U.S. 19, 28-29, 122 S.Ct. 441, 151 L.Ed.2d 339 (2001).
Siegel points out that a handful of courts have claimed authority to disallow an exemption (or to bar a debtor from amending his schedules to claim an exemption, which is much the same thing) based on the debtor's fraudulent concealment of the asset alleged to be exempt. See, e.g., In re Yonikus, 996 F.2d 866, 872-873 (C.A.7 1993) ; In re Doan, 672 F.2d 831, 833 (C.A.11 1982) (per curiam ); Stewart v. Ganey, 116 F.2d 1010, 1011 (C.A.5 1940). He suggests that those decisions reflect a general, equitable power in bankruptcy courts to deny exemptions based on a debtor's bad-faith conduct. For the reasons we have given, the Bankruptcy Code admits no such power. It is of course true that when a debtor claims a state-created exemption, the exemption's scope is determined by state law, which may provide that certain types of debtor misconduct warrant denial of the exemption. E.g., In re Sholdan, 217 F.3d 1006, 1008 (C.A.8 2000) ; see 4 Collier on Bankruptcy ¶ 522.08[1]-[2], at 522-45 to 522-47. Some of the early decisions on which Siegel relies, and which the Fifth Circuit cited in Stewart, are instances in which federal courts applied state law to disallow state-created exemptions. See In re Denson, 195 F. 857, 858 (N.D.Ala.1912) ; Cowan v. Burchfield, 180 F. 614, 619 (N.D.Ala.1910) ; In re Ansley Bros., 153 F. 983, 984 (E.D.N.C.1907). But federal law provides no authority for bankruptcy courts to deny an exemption on a ground not specified in the Code.
C
Our decision in Marrama v. Citizens Bank, on which Siegel and the United States heavily rely, does not point toward a different result. The question there was whether a debtor's bad-faith conduct was a valid basis for a bankruptcy court to refuse to convert the debtor's bankruptcy from a liquidation under Chapter 7 to a reorganization under Chapter 13. Although § 706(a) of the Code gave the debtor a right to convert the case, § 706(d) "expressly conditioned" that right on the debtor's "ability to qualify as a 'debtor' under Chapter 13." 549 U.S., at 372, 127 S.Ct. 1105. And § 1307(c) provided that a proceeding under Chapter 13 could be dismissed or converted to a Chapter 7 proceeding "for cause," which the Court interpreted to authorize dismissal or conversion for bad-faith conduct. In light of § 1307(c), the Court held that the debtor's bad faith could stop him from qualifying as a debtor under Chapter 13, thus preventing him from satisfying § 706(d)'s express condition on conversion. Id., at 372-373, 127 S.Ct. 1105. That holding has no relevance here, since no one suggests that Law failed to satisfy any express statutory condition on his claiming of the homestead exemption.
True, the Court in Marrama also opined that the Bankruptcy Court's refusal to convert the case was authorized under § 105(a) and might have been authorized under the court's inherent powers. Id., at 375-376, 127 S.Ct. 1105. But even that dictum does not support Siegel's position. In Marrama, the Court reasoned that if the case had been converted to Chapter 13, § 1307(c) would have required it to be either dismissed or reconverted to Chapter 7 in light of the debtor's bad faith. Therefore, the Court suggested, even if the Bankruptcy Court's refusal to convert the case had not been expressly authorized by § 706(d), that action could have been justified as a way of providing a "prompt, rather than a delayed, ruling on [the debtor's] unmeritorious attempt to qualify" under § 1307(c). Id., at 376, 127 S.Ct. 1105. At most, Marrama 's dictum suggests that in some circumstances a bankruptcy court may be authorized to dispense with futile procedural niceties in order to reach more expeditiously an end result required by the Code. Marrama most certainly did not endorse, even in dictum, the view that equitable considerations permit a bankruptcy court to contravene express provisions of the Code.
D
We acknowledge that our ruling forces Siegel to shoulder a heavy financial burden resulting from Law's egregious misconduct, and that it may produce inequitable results for trustees and creditors in other cases. We have recognized, however, that in crafting the provisions of § 522, " Congress balanced the difficult choices that exemption limits impose on debtors with the economic harm that exemptions visit on creditors." Schwab v. Reilly, 560 U.S. 770, 791, 130 S.Ct. 2652, 177 L.Ed.2d 234 (2010). The same can be said of the limits imposed on recovery of administrative expenses by trustees. For the reasons we have explained, it is not for courts to alter the balance struck by the statute. Cf. Guidry v. Sheet Metal Workers Nat. Pension Fund, 493 U.S. 365, 376-377, 110 S.Ct. 680, 107 L.Ed.2d 782 (1990).
* * *
Our decision today does not denude bankruptcy courts of the essential "authority to respond to debtor misconduct with meaningful sanctions." Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 17. There is ample authority to deny the dishonest debtor a discharge. See § 727(a)(2)-(6). (That sanction lacks bite here, since by reason of a postpetition settlement between Siegel and Law's major creditor, Law has no debts left to discharge; but that will not often be the case.) In addition, Federal Rule of Bankruptcy Procedure 9011 -bankruptcy's analogue to Civil Rule 11-authorizes the court to impose sanctions for bad-faith litigation conduct, which may include "an order directing payment ... of some or all of the reasonable attorneys' fees and other expenses incurred as a direct result of the violation." Fed. Rule Bkrtcy. Proc. 9011(c)(2). The court may also possess further sanctioning authority under either § 105(a) or its inherent powers. Cf. Chambers, 501 U.S., at 45-49, 111 S.Ct. 2123. And because it arises postpetition, a bankruptcy court's monetary sanction survives the bankruptcy case and is thereafter enforceable through the normal procedures for collecting money judgments. See § 727(b). Fraudulent conduct in a bankruptcy case may also subject a debtor to criminal prosecution under 18 U.S.C. § 152, which carries a maximum penalty of five years' imprisonment.
But whatever other sanctions a bankruptcy court may impose on a dishonest debtor, it may not contravene express provisions of the Bankruptcy Code by ordering that the debtor's exempt property be used to pay debts and expenses for which that property is not liable under the Code.
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 second sentence of § 105(a) adds little to the analysis. It states: "No provision of this title providing for the raising of an issue by a party in interest shall be construed to preclude the court from, sua sponte, taking any action or making any determination necessary or appropriate to enforce or implement court orders or rules, or to prevent an abuse of process." Even if the "abuse of process" language were deemed to confer additional authority beyond that conferred by the first sentence (which is doubtful), that general authority would also be limited by more specific provisions of the Code.
The statute's general rule that exempt assets are not liable for administrative expenses is subject to two narrow exceptions, both pertaining to the use of exempt assets to pay expenses associated with the avoidance of certain voidable transfers of exempt property. § 522(k)(1)-(2). Neither of those exceptions is relevant 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.
Per Curiam.
The motions to affirm are granted and the judgment is 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: | 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 United States Constitution provides that “[a] person charged in any State with Treason, Felony or other Crime, who shall flee from Justice, and be found 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.
In this case, there is no dispute as to the facts necessary to resolve the legal question presented. In 1975, respondent James Dean Walker escaped from the Arkansas Department of Corrections and remained at large until he was apprehended in California in 1979. In December 1979, the Governor of Arkansas requested the arrest and rendition of respondent, alleging that respondent was a fugitive from justice. In February 1980, the Governor of California honored the request of the Governor of Arkansas and duly issued a warrant of arrest and rendition. This warrant was then served upon respondent by the Sheriff of El Dorado County, Cal. Respondent thereafter challenged the Governor’s issuance of the warrant in both state and federal courts. He was unsuccessful until he reached the Supreme Court of California, which, on April 9, 1980, issued a writ of habeas corpus directing the Superior Court of El Dorado County to “conduct hearings to determine if the penitentiary in which Arkansas seeks to confine petitioner is presently operated in conformance with the Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution and thereafter to decide the petition on its merits.”
Petitioner Sheriff contends that Art. IV, § 2, cl. 2, and its implementing statute, 18 U. S. C. § 3182, do not give the courts of the “asylum” or “sending” State authority to inquire into the prison conditions of the “demanding” State. We agree. In Michigan v. Doran, 439 U. S. 282 (1978), our most recent pronouncement on the subject, we stated that “[interstate extradition was intended to be a summary and mandatory executive proceeding derived from the language of Art. IV, § 2, cl. 2, of the Constitution.” Id., at 288. We further stated:
“A governor’s grant of extradition is prima facie evidence that the constitutional and statutory requirements have been met. . . . Once the governor has granted extradition, a court considering release on habeas corpus can do no more than decide (a) whether the extradition documents on their face are in order; (b) whether the petitioner has been charged with a crime in the demanding state; (c) whether the petitioner is the person named in the request for extradition; and (d) whether the petitioner is a fugitive. These are historic facts readily verifiable.” Id., at '289.
In Sweeney v. Woodall, 344 U. S. 86 (1952), this Court held that a fugitive from Alabama could not raise in the federal courts of Ohio, the asylum State, the constitutionality of his confinement in Alabama. We stated:
“Considerations fundamental to our federal system require that the prisoner test the claimed unconstitutionality of his treatment by Alabama in the courts of that State. Respondent should be required to initiate his suit in the courts of Alabama, where all parties may be heard, where all pertinent testimony will be readily available, and where suitable relief, if any is necessary, may be fashioned.” Id., at 90.
We think that the Supreme Court of California ignored the teachings of these cases when it directed one of its own trial courts of general jurisdiction to conduct an inquiry into the present conditions of the Arkansas penal system. Once the Governor of California issued the warrant for arrest and rendition in response to the request of the Governor of Arkansas, claims as to constitutional defects in the Arkansas penal system should be heard in the courts of Arkansas, not those of California. “To allow plenary review in the asylum state of issues that can be fully litigated in the charging state would defeat the plain purposes of the summary and mandatory procedures authorized by Art. IV, § 2.” Michigan v. Doran, supra, at 290.
The petition for certiorari is granted, the judgment of the Supreme Court of California is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
Reversed and remanded.
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.
In November 1961, the United States Commission on Civil Rights issued the fifth volume of its Report for that year, a document entitled Justice. A part of Justice was devoted to a study of “police brutality and related private violence,” and contained the following paragraph:
“Search, seizure, and violence: Chicago, 1958.— The Supreme Court of the United States decided the case of Monroe v. Pape on February 20, 1961. Although this decision did not finally dispose of the case, it did permit the plaintiff to sue several Chicago police officers for violation of the Federal Civil Rights Acts on the basis of a complaint which alleged that:
. . [0]n October 29, 1958, at 5:45 a. m., thirteen Chicago police officers led by Deputy Chief of Detectives Pape, broke through two doors of the Monroe apartment, woke the Monroe couple with flashlights, and forced them at gunpoint to leave their bed and stand naked in the center of the living room; that the officers roused the six Monroe children and herded them into the living room; that Detective Pape struck Mr. Monroe several times with his flashlight, calling him 'nigger' and 'black boy’; that another officer pushed Mrs. Monroe; that other officers hit and kicked several of the children and pushed them to the floor; that the police ransacked every room, throwing clothing from closets to the floor, dumping drawers, ripping mattress covers; that Mr. Monroe was then taken to the police station and detained on 'open’ charges for ten hours, during which time he was interrogated about a murder and exhibited in lineups; that he was not brought before a magistrate, although numerous magistrate’s courts were accessible; that he was not advised of his procedural rights; that he was not permitted to call his family or an attorney; that he was subsequently released without criminal charges having been filed against him.” Justice 20-21.
A week later, Time, a weekly news magazine, carried a report of the Commission’s new publication. The Time article began:
“The new paperback book has 307 pages and the simple title Justice. It is the last of five volumes in the second report of the U. S. Commission on Civil Rights, first created by Congress in 1957. Justice carries a chilling text about police brutality in both the South and the North — and it stands as a grave indictment, since its facts were carefully investigated by field agents and it was signed by all six of the noted educators who comprise the commission.”
There followed a description, with numerous direct quotations, of one of the incidents described in Justice, and then the following account of the Monroe incident:
“Shifting to the North, the report cites Chicago police treatment of Negro James Monroe and his family, who were awakened in their West Side apartment at 5:45 a. m. by 13 police officers, ostensibly investigating a murder. The police, says Justice, 'broke through two doors, woke the Monroe couple with flashlights ....’”
The Time article went on to quote at length from the summary of the Monroe complaint, without indicating in any way that the charges were those made by Monroe rather than independent findings of the Commission.
Pape sued Time for libel in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, there being diversity of citizenship. Time moved to dismiss the suit on the ground that the article was fair comment on a government report and therefore privileged under Illinois law; the District Court granted the motion, but the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit reversed. 318 F. 2d 652. After remand, this Court decided New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U. S. 254, and on the basis of that decision the District Court granted Time’s motion for summary judgment. On appeal, the Court of Appeals again reversed, holding that there must be a trial on the question of whether Time’s failure to make clear that it was reporting no more than allegations showed “actual malice.” 354 F. 2d 558.
At the trial, Pape called the policemen who had participated in the Monroe raid. They all testified that nothing resembling the events described in the Time article as findings of the Commission had occurred. There was also extensive testimony from the Time staff member who had written the article and from the “researcher” who had been responsible for checking its factual accuracy. The author testified that he had written the article on the basis of the Justice report itself, a Commission press release accompanying the report, and a New York Times news story describing Justice. He conceded that he knew the meanings of the words “alleged” and “complaint,” but denied that the Time article was false, given the full context of the Justice report. The researcher testified that she had consulted several newspaper articles describing Monroe’s claims about the raid, and several articles describing Pape’s previous career. She said that she had also read two dispatches from Time’s Chicago correspondent, one of them describing Monroe’s charges without comment as to their truth and the other asserting as fact that the events had actually occurred. She conceded that she was aware of the omission of the word “alleged” in the Time article, but said that she believed the article to have been true as written.
At the close of the evidence, the District Court granted Time’s motion for a directed verdict, 294 F. Supp. 1087, and Pape appealed for a third time. The Court of Appeals again reversed the District Court, holding that it was for the jury to determine whether Time’s omission of the word “alleged” showed “actual malice.” 419 F. 2d 980. We granted certiorari in order to decide the constitutional issue presented under the First and Fourteenth Amendments. 397 U. S. 1062.
The District Court and the Court of Appeals were in agreement that the plaintiff Pape was a “public official” by virtue of his position as Deputy Chief of Detectives of the Chicago Police Department, and that the charges contained in the Monroe complaint, the Justice report, and the Time story concerned his “official conduct.” The two courts differed only in their application of the rule of New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U. S. 254, which “prohibits a public official from recovering damages for a defamatory falsehood relating to his official conduct unless he proves that the statement was made with ‘actual malice’ — that is, with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.” Id., at 279-280.
The only question before us, therefore, is whether the Court of Appeals correctly applied this constitutional rule to the facts of this case in reversing the directed verdict for the defendant. Inquiries of this kind are familiar under the settled principle that “[i]n cases in which there is a claim of denial of rights under the Federal Constitution, this Court is not bound by the conclusions of lower courts, but will re-examine the eviden-tiary basis on which those conclusions are founded.” Niemotko v. Maryland, 340 U. S. 268, 271. Cf. Napue v. Illinois, 360 U. S. 264, 271-272. And in cases involving the area of tension between the First and Fourteenth Amendments on the one hand and state defamation laws on the other, we have frequently had occasion to review “the evidence in the . . . record to determine whether it could constitutionally support a judgment” for the plaintiff. New York Times, supra, at 284-285; Beckley Newspapers v. Hanks, 389 U. S. 81, 83; St. Amant v. Thompson, 390 U. S. 727; Greenbelt Cooperative Publishing Assn. v. Bresler, 398 U. S. 6, 11.
The Time news article reported as a charge by the Commission what was, in its literal terms, a description by the Commission of the allegations in a complaint filed by a plaintiff in a civil rights action. This situation differs in a number of respects from the conventional libel case. First, the publication sued on was not Time's independent report of the Monroe episode, but its report of what the Civil Rights Commission had said about that episode. Second, the alleged damage to reputation was not that arising from mere publication, but rather that resulting from attribution of the Monroe accusations to an authoritative official source. Finally, Time made no claim of good-faith error or mere negligence. Both the author of the article and the researcher admitted an awareness at the time of publication that the wording of the Commission Report had been significantly altered, but insisted that its real meaning had not been changed.
The Court of Appeals concluded that it was obvious that the omission of the word “allegation” or some equivalent was a “falsification” of the Report. Since the omission was admittedly conscious and deliberate, the only remaining question in the court’s view was whether there had been “malice” in the sense of an “intent to inflict harm through falsehood.” Such an intent, the court thought, might reasonably be inferred from the very act of deliberate omission, and the issue of malice was consequently one for the jury.
Analysis of this kind may be adequate when the alleged libel purports to be an eyewitness or other direct account of events that speak for themselves. For example, in St. Amant, supra, it made good sense to separate the question of the truth of St. Amant’s charges of corruption and official misbehavior from the question of whether he had an adequate basis to believe them true. But a vast amount of what is published in the daily and periodical press purports to be descriptive of what somebody said rather than of what anybody did. Indeed, perhaps the largest share of news concerning the doings of government appears in the form of accounts of reports, speeches, press conferences, and the like. The question of the “truth” of such an indirect newspaper report presents rather complicated problems.
A press report of what someone has said about an underlying event of news value can contain an almost infinite variety of shadings. Where the source of the news makes bald assertions of fact — such as that a policeman has arrested a certain man on a criminal charge— there may be no difficulty. But where the source itself has engaged in qualifying the information released, complexities ramify. Any departure from full direct quotation of the words of the source, with all its qualifying language, inevitably confronts the publisher with a set of choices.
The Civil Rights Commission’s Justice report is a typical example of these problems. The underlying story that gave the report newsworthiness was the picture of police violence against citizens. Many of the incidents included were quite clearly designed to shock, anger, and alarm the reader, indeed to move him into a position of support for specific legislative recommendations of the Commission. Yet the attitude of the Commission toward the factual verity of the episodes recounted was anything but straightforward.
First, the episodes were presented in the context of a report which from the first page purported to be dealing with a problem of unquestionable reality and seriousness:
“In 1931 President Hoover’s Wickersham Committee found extensive evidence of police lawlessness, including unjustified violence. Sixteen years later another Presidential Committee, this one appointed by President Truman, concluded that police brutality, especially against the unpopular, the weak, and the defenseless, was a distressing problem. And now in 1961 this Commission must report that police brutality is still a serious problem throughout the United States.” Justice 1.
Two pages later, the report said that
“The Commission is particularly impressed by the fact that most police officers never resort to brutal practices. Because of this fact, instances of brutality or discrimination in law enforcement stand out in bold relief. It is hoped that by focusing the attention of the President, the Congress, and the public on these remaining incongruities, this Report may contribute to their correction.”
This process of focusing attention began on the next page with the chapter heading, in large type: “UNLAWFUL POLICE VIOLENCE.” There followed the crucial description of the foundations on which the ensuing reports were based:
“In the text of this chapter the Commission briefly describes the alleged facts in 11 typical cases of police brutality. They are presented in the belief that they contribute to an understanding of the problem. The allegations of misconduct are supported in several cases by criminal convictions or findings by impartial agencies; in others, by sworn testimony, affidavits from eye witnesses, or by staff field investigations. In no case has the Commission determined conclusively whether the complainants or the officers were correct in their statements. This is the function of a court. The Commission is of the opinion, however, that the allegations appeared substantial enough to justify discussion in this study.”
This statement may fairly be characterized as extravagantly ambiguous. On the one hand, what was to follow was “11 typical cases of police brutality,” each of which “contribute [s] to an understanding of the problem,” and was “substantial enough to justify discussion” in the study. A range of sources was described, each of a nature to inspire confidence in the reader. But, the reader was nonetheless told that these were “alleged facts,” “allegations of misconduct,” which had not been “determined conclusively” to be “correct.” The suggestion that such a conclusive determination could be made only by a court capped the confusion: in context it was impossible to know whether the Commission was seeking to encourage belief or skepticism regarding the incidents about to be described.
Turning the page, the reader was confronted with another heading in capitals, “PATTERNS OF POLICE BRUTALITY,” and then the descriptions of the various incidents began. Each had an italicized heading (e. g., “The killing of a Negro in Georgia: 1943”) followed by an account giving both sides of the story and carefully describing all facts as “alleged” or using direct quotations. The tone of total neutrality as to the truth or falsity of the claims of brutality was frequently marred, however, by remarks that appeared to indicate the Commission’s unexpressed views. At the end of a description entitled “The killing of a Negro in Georgia: 1958,” for example, the report said, “[n]o local disciplinary or criminal action was taken against any of the officers involved. The attitude of local authorities toward police was protective in this and several other cases of alleged brutality that occurred within a brief period . . . .” Id., at 11.
The description of the Monroe incident bore the italicized title: “Search, seizure, and violence: Chicago, 1958.” Unlike the reports of the other incidents, however, this report limited itself to the summary of a plaintiff’s complaint in a lawsuit, as indicated at the outset of this opinion. No attempt was made to give any other version of the story, and the next report (‘‘The killing of a Negro in Cleveland: 1959”) followed immediately after the end of the quotation.
In a chapter entitled “Conclusions,” the Commission set forth its findings and recommendations. These included a finding that “police brutality by some State and local officers presents a serious and continuing problem in many parts of the United States. Both whites and Negroes are the victims, but Negroes are the victims of such brutality far more, proportionately, than any other group in American society.” The recommendations included proposals for a grant-in-aid program to improve the quality of state and local police forces and for passage of a federal statute outlawing illegal police violence. Id., at 109-112. Since the series of incidents described earlier in the report was the only evidence the Commission presented in support of its findings and recommendations, there was a logically inevitable implication that the Commission must have believed that the incidents described had in truth occurred.
In light of the totality of what was said in Justice, we cannot agree that, when Time failed to state that the Commission in reporting the Monroe incident had technically confined itself to the allegations of a complaint, Time engaged in a “falsification” sufficient in itself to sustain a jury finding of “actual malice.” The author of the Time article testified, in substance, that the context of the report of the Monroe incident indicated to him that the Commission believed that the incident had occurred as described. He therefore denied that he had falsified the report when he omitted the word “alleged.” The Time researcher, who had read newspaper stories about the incident and two reports from a Time reporter in Chicago, as well as the accounts of Pape’s earlier career, had even more reason to suppose that the Commission took the charges to be true.
Time’s omission of the word “alleged” amounted to the adoption of one of a number of possible rational interpretations of a document that bristled with ambiguities. The deliberate choice of such an interpretation, though arguably reflecting a misconception, was not enough to create a jury issue of “malice” under New York Times. To permit the malice issue to go to the jury because of the omission of a word like “alleged,” despite the context of that word in the Commission Report and the external evidence of the Report’s overall meaning, would be to impose a much stricter standard of liability on errors of interpretation or judgment than on errors of historic fact.
New York Times was premised on a recognition that, as Madison put it, “Some degree of abuse is inseparable from the proper use of every thing; and in no instance is this more true than in that of the press.” 4 J. Elliot’s Debates on the Federal Constitution 571 (1876). With respect to errors of fact in reporting events, we said in New York Times:
“A rule compelling the critic of official conduct to guarantee the truth of all his factual assertions— and to do so on pain of libel judgments virtually unlimited in amount — leads to . . . 'self-censorship.’ Allowance of the defense of truth, with the burden of proving it on the defendant, does not mean that only false speech will be deterred. Even courts accepting this defense as an adequate safeguard have recognized the difficulties of adducing legal proofs that the alleged libel was true in all its factual particulars. . . . Under such a rule, would-be critics of official conduct may be deterred from voicing their criticism, even though it is believed to be true and even though it is in fact true, because of doubt whether it can be proved in court or fear of the expense of having to do so.” 376 U. S., at 279.
These considerations apply with even greater force to the situation where the alleged libel consists in the claimed misinterpretation of the gist of a lengthy government document. Where the document reported on is so ambiguous as this one was, it is hard to imagine a test of “truth” that would not put the publisher virtually at the mercy of the unguided discretion of a jury.
In certain areas of the law of defamation, New York Times added to the tort law of the individual States a constitutional zone of protection for errors of fact caused by negligence. The publisher who maintains a standard of care such as to avoid knowing falsehood or reckless disregard of the truth is thereby given assurance that those errors that nonetheless occur will not lay him open to an indeterminable financial liability. This protection would not exist for errors of interpretation were the analysis of the Court of Appeals to be adopted, for once a jury was satisfied that the interpretation was “wrong,” the error itself would be sufficient to justify a verdict for the plaintiff.
In St. Amant v. Thompson, supra, at 731, we said:
“Our cases . . . have furnished meaningful guidance for the further definition of a reckless publication. In New York Times, supra, the plaintiff did not satisfy his burden because the record failed to show that the publisher was aware of the likelihood that he was circulating false information. In Garrison v. Louisiana, 379 U. S. 64 (1964) . . . the opinion emphasized the necessity for a showing that a false publication was made with a ‘high degree of awareness of . . . probable falsity.’ 379 U. S., at 74. . . . These cases are clear that reckless conduct is not measured by whether a reasonably prudent man would have published, or would have investigated before publishing. There must be sufficient evidence to permit the conclusion that the defendant in fact entertained serious doubts as to the truth of his publication. Publishing with such doubts shows reckless disregard for truth or falsity and demonstrates actual malice.”
Applying this standard to Time’s interpretation of the Commission Report, it can hardly be said that Time acted in reckless disregard of the truth. Given the ambiguities of the Commission Report as a whole, and the testimony of the Time author and researcher, Time’s conduct reflected at most an error of judgment. We have held that if “the freedoms of expression are to have the ‘breathing space’ that they ‘need ... to survive,’ ” misstatements of this kind must have the protection of the First and Fourteenth Amendments. New York Times, supra, at 271-272.
We would add, however, a final cautionary note. Nothing in this opinion is to be understood as making the word “alleged” a superfluity in published reports of information damaging to reputation. Our decision today is based on the specific facts of this case, involving as they do a news report of a particular government publication that purported to describe the specific grounds for perceiving in 1961 “a serious problem throughout the United States.” “Neither lies nor false communications serve the ends of the First Amendment, and no one suggests their desirability or further proliferation. But to insure the ascertainment and publication of the truth about public affairs, it is essential that the First Amendment protect some erroneous publications as well as true ones.” St. Amant v. Thompson, supra, at 732.
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.
[For separate opinion of Mr. Justice Black, see ante, p. 277.]
On January 24, 1963, after a jury finding of liability, judgment was entered against Pape in the civil rights suit brought against him by Monroe. The jury awarded Monroe damages of $8,000. Pape did not appeal, and the judgment was satisfied.
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.
Per Curiam.
Respondent was arrested at 1:30 p. m. by Amarillo, Tex., police officers while attempting to pass fraudulent checks at a drive-in window of the First National Bank of Amarillo. Only 10 minutes earlier, the officers had been informed by another bank that a man answering respondent’s description and driving an automobile exactly matching that of respondent had tried to negotiate four checks drawn on a nonexistent account. Upon arrival at the First National Bank pursuant to a telephone call from that bank, the officers obtained from the drive-in teller other checks that respondent had attempted to pass there. The officers directed respondent to park his automobile at the curb. While parking the car, respondent was observed by a bank employee and one of the officers attempting to “stuff” something between the seats. Respondent was arrested and one officer drove him to the station house while the other drove respondent’s car there. At the station house, the officers questioned respondent for 30 to 45 minutes and, pursuant to their normal procedure, requested consent to search the automobile. Respondent refused to consent to the search. The officers then proceeded to search the automobile anyway. During the search, an officer discovered four wrinkled checks that corresponded to those respondent had attempted to pass at the first bank. The trial judge, relying on Chambers v. Maroney, 399 U. S. 42 (1970), admitted over respondent’s objection the four checks seized during the search of respondent’s automobile at the station house. The judge expressly found probable cause both for the arrest and for the search of the vehicle, either at the scene or at the station house. Respondent was convicted after a jury trial of knowingly attempting to pass a forged instrument. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, in a 3-2 decision, reversed respondent’s conviction on the ground that the four wrinkled checks used in evidence were obtained without a warrant in violation of respondent’s Fourth Amendment rights. 521 S. W. 2d 255 (1975). We reverse.
In Chambers v. Maroney we held that police officers with probable cause to search an automobile at the scene where it was stopped could constitutionally do so later at the station house without first obtaining a warrant. There, as here, “[t]he probable-cause factor” that developed at the scene “still obtained at the station house.” 399 U. S., at 52. The Court of Criminal Appeals erroneously excluded the evidence seized from the search at the station house in fight of the trial judge’s finding, undisturbed by the appellate court, that there was probable cause to search respondent’s car.
The petition for certiorari and the motion of respondent to proceed in forma pauperis are granted, the judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded to that court for further proceedings not inconsistent 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 Blackmun
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case concerns the constitutionality of two Florida statutes regulating the conduct of-investment advisory and trust services within that State. A three-judge United States District Court, convened pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 2281 (1970 ed.), held that the statutes violate the Commerce Clause, U. S. Const., Art. 1, § 8, cl. 3, because in combination they discriminate against bank holding companies that operate principally outside Florida. It also held that such discrimination is not authorized by federal legislation regulating the interstate operations of bank holding companies. The case was brought here on direct appeal, see 28 U. S. C. § 1253, and we noted probable jurisdiction to resolve the substantial constitutional and statutory issues presented. 444 U. S. 822 (1979).
I
Appellee Bankers Trust New York Corporation (Bankers Trust) is a corporation organized under the laws of the State of New York. It maintains its principal place of business in that State. It is a bank holding company within the meaning of § 2 (a) of the Bank Holding Company Act of 1956, 70 Stat. 133, as amended, 12 U. S. C. § 1841 (a) (1976 ed. and Supp. II) (Act). Accordingly, it is subject to federal restrictions on the kinds of subsidiaries it may own or control. Upon authorization from the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, however, it is permitted to own or control shares of any company the business of which is “so closely related to banking or managing or controlling banks as to be a proper incident thereto.” § 4 (c) (8) of the Act, 12 U. S. C. § 1843 (c)(8). By regulation, the Board has designated both the provision of investment or financial advice and the performance of certain trust functions as “closely related” business within the meaning of this statute. See 12 CFR §§ 225.4 (a)(4) and (5) (1979).
In 1972, the management of Bankers Trust decided to seek tijie Board’s approval for an investment management subsidiary to operate in Florida. On October 3 of that year, Bankers Trust filed a formal proposal for such a subsidiary, which it planned to operate from offices in Palm Beach. Appellee BT Investment Managers, Inc. (BTIM), was Bankers Trust’s intended vehicle for entry into the Florida market. It was incorporated under the laws of the State of Delaware as a wholly owned subsidiary on November 24, 1972. Three days later it qualified to do business in Florida. The application to the Board proposed that BTIM would provide “portfolio investment advice,” as well as “general economic information and advice, general economic statistical forecasting services and industry studies” to persons other than banks. See Complaint ¶ 7, App. 9-10, and appellant’s Answer ¶ 7, App. 19.
When. Bankers Trust filed its application with.the Board, certain Florida statutes restricted the ability of out-of-state bank holding companies to compete in the State’s financial market. At that time Fla. Stat. § 659.141 (1), added by 1972 Fla. Laws, ch. 72-96, § 1, and effective March 28, 1972, prohibited Bankers Trust from owning or controlling a bank or trust company located within the State; the same statute also prohibited it from owning businesses furnishing investment advisory services to local banks or trust companies. In addition, Fla. Stat. § 660.10 prohibited any corporation, other than a state-chartered bank and trust company or a national banking association located in Florida, from performing certain trust and fiduciary functions. Neither statute, however, directly prohibited an out-of-state bank holding company from owning or controlling a business furnishing investment advisory services to the general public. Thus, at the time Bankers Trust filed its application with the Board, it appeared that ownership of BTIM would not violate Florida law, although BTIM would be restricted in the types of financial services it could perform and the customers it could serve.
The reaction of the Florida financial community to Bankers Trust’s proposed investment subsidiary was decidedly negative. The State Comptroller, the Florida Bankers Association, and the Palm Beach County Bankers Association, Inc., all filed comments with the Board objecting to the Bankers Trust proposal. More importantly for present purposes, the state legislature was persuaded to take action. On November 30, 1972, shortly after BTIM had qualified to do business in the State, a special session of the legislature amended Fla. Stat. § 659.141 (1). That statute, which had been on the books only since March 28 of that year, was expanded to prohibit an out-of-state bank holding company from owning or controlling a business within the State that sells investment advisory services to any customer, rather than just to “trust companies or banks” in Florida, as the statute theretofore had read. This amendment took effect, without the Governor’s approval, on December 21, 1972. There is evidence that the amendment was a direct response to Bankers Trust’s pending application, and that it had the strong backing of the local financial community.
On April 26, 1973, the Board rejected Bankers Trust’s proposal on the ground that it would conflict with state law. Bankers Trust New York Corp., 59 Fed. Res. Bull. 364. The Board observed that the proposal contemplated de novo entry into the Florida investment management market rather than acquisition of an existing concern, and it noted that de novo entry ordinarily has a desirable procompetitive impact. Absent evidence of a contrary effect in this case, the Board intimated that it would have been favorably inclined toward the proposal. But it found that the December amendment to Fla. Stat. § 659.141 (1) "was intended to, and does, prohibit the performance of investment advisory services in Florida by non-Florida bank holding companies.” 59 Fed. Res. Bull., at 365. In view of its obligation to respect the dictates of state law, the Board found itself constrained to reject the proposal. See 12 U. S. C. § 1846; Whitney Nat. Bank v. Bank of New Orleans, 379 U. S. 411, 424-425 (1965).
Within six months of the Board’s decision, the two appellees filed this action seeking declaratory and injunctive relief. Count I of their complaint alleged that Fla. Stat. § 659.141 (1) “is not designed to promote lawful regulatory objectives, but is intended to shelter those organizations presently conducting an investment advisory business in Florida from competition by [BTIM].” Complaint ¶ 11, App. 11. The complaint alleged violations of the due process and equal protection guarantees of the Fourteenth Amendment, as well as violation of the Commerce Clause. Count II alleged similar constitutional defects as the result of the joint operation of §§ 659.141 (1) and 660.10. Appellees alleged that “[b]ut for the exist-énce of the challenged statutes,” Bankers Trust would seek authority from the Board to establish “a subsidiary trust company having a national bank charter or a Florida state charter” that would engage exclusively in one or more of the functions regulated by § 660.10. Complaint ¶ 21, App. 14-15. A three-judge court was convened pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 2281 (1970 ed.), and the case was submitted for summary judgment on a stipulated set of facts.
The District Court, by a divided vote, initially dismissed the complaint without prejudice on the ground that it should abstain from decision under either Railroad Comm’n v. Pullman Co., 312 U. S. 496 (1941), or Burford v. Sun Oil Co., 319 U. S. 315 (1943). BT Investment Managers, Inc. v. Dickinson, 379 F. Supp. 792 (ND Fla. 1974). The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, however, reversed and remanded for consideration of the merits. 559 F. 2d 950 (1977).
On remand, the District Court held that the challenged portions of the two statutes violate the Commerce Clause. 461 F. Supp. 1187 (1978). Without reaching appellees’ due process and equal protection arguments, it found that the statutes under attack discriminate against interstate commerce. The court reasoned that § 659.141 (1) “erects an insuperable barrier to the entry of foreign-based bank holding companies, through their subsidiaries, into the Florida investment advisory market,” and that § 660.10 “similarly cordons off Florida trust companies from competition by out-of-state concerns.” 461 F. Supp., at 1196. It ruled that the statutes are “parochial legislation” that “must be deemed per se unconstitutional.” Ibid. Moreover, it held that the legislative purposes proffered by appellant, including a purported desire to curb anticompetitive abuses arising from agglomeration of financial power, failed to justify the discriminatory impact of the statutes.
Finally, the District Court held that the federal Bank Holding Company Act does not foster or permit the types of discrimination against out-of-state bank holding companies reflected in the Florida statutes. The court eschewed the argument that either § 3 (d) of the Act, 12 U. S. C. § 1842 (d), or § 7 of the Act, 12 U. S. C. § 1846, authorized the statutes in question. It recognized that § 3 (d) prohibits bank holding companies from acquiring banking subsidiaries in other States without local authorization. But it rejected the contention that this prohibition implicitly extends as well to related businesses, such as the providing of investment advice.
The court issued an order granting declaratory relief against both statutes but enjoining the enforcement of only § 659.141 (1) against appellees.
II
This appeal presents two distinct but related questions with respect to the validity of the challenged' Florida statutes. The first is whether the statutes, viewed independently of federal legislation regulating the banking industry, burden interstate commerce in a manner contrary to the Commerce Clause. The second is whether Congress, by its own legislation in this area, has created an area in which the States may regulate free from Commerce Clause restraints. Since there is no contention that federal legislation pre-empts the state laws in question, federal law becomes important only if it appears that the Florida statutes cannot survive without federal authorization. Thus, the second question becomes pertinent only if we reach an affirmative answer to the first.
These questions arise against a backdrop of familiar principles. The Commerce Clause grants to Congress the power “[t]o regulate Commerce... among the several States.” U. S. Const., Art. 1, § 8, cl. 3. Although the Clause thus speaks in terms of powers bestowed upon Congress, the Court long has recognized that it also limits the power of the States to erect barriers against interstate trade. See, e. g., Hughes v. Oklahoma, 441 U. S. 322, 326 (1979); Philadelphia v. New Jersey, 437 U. S. 617, 623 (1978); H. P. Hood & Sons, Inc. v. Du Mond, 336 U. S. 525, 534-538 (1949); Cooley v. Board of Wardens, 12 How. 299 (1852). This limitation upon state power, of course, is by no means absolute. In the absence of conflicting federal legislation, the States retain authority under their general police powers to regulate matters of “legitimate local concern,” even though interstate commerce may be affected. See, e. g., Raymond Motor Transportation, Inc. v. Rice, 434 U. S. 429, 440 (1978); Great A&P Tea Co. v. Cottrell, 424 U. S. 366, 371 (1976). Where such legitimate local interests are implicated, defining the appropriate scope for state regulation is often a matter of “delicate adjustment.” Ibid., quoting H. P. Hood & Sons, Inc. v. Du Mond, 336 U. S., at 553 (Black, J., dissenting). Yet even in regulating to protect local interests, the States generally must act in a manner consistent with the “ultimate... principle that one state in its dealings with another may not place itself in a position of economic isolation.” Baldwin v. G. A. F. Seelig, Inc., 294 U. S. 511, 527 (1935). However important the state interest at hand, “it may not be accomplished by discriminating against articles of commerce coming from outside the State unless there is some reason, apart from their origin, to treat them differently.” Philadelphia v. New Jersey, 437 U. S., at 626-627.
Over the years, the Court has used a variety of formulations for the Commerce Clause limitation upon the States, but it consistently has distinguished between outright protectionism and more indirect burdens on the free flow of trade. The Court has observed that “where simple economic protectionism is effected by state legislation, a virtually per se rule of invalidity has been erected.” Id., at 624. In contrast, legislation that visits its effects equally upon both interstate and local business may survive constitutional scrutiny if it is narrowly drawn. The Court stated in Pike v. Bruce Church, Inc., 397 U. S. 137 (1970):
“Where the statute regulates evenhandedly to effectuate a legitimate local public interest, and its effects on interstate commerce are only incidental, it will be upheld unless the burden imposed on such commerce is clearly excessive in relation to the putative local benefits.... If a legitimate local purpose is found, then the question becomes one of degree. And the extent of the burden that will be tolerated will of course depend on the nature of the local interest involved, and on whether it could be promoted as well with a lesser impact on interstate activities.” Id., at 142.
See also Hughes v. Oklahoma, 441 U. S., at 336; Hunt v. Washington Apple Advertising Comm’n, 432 U. S. 333, 353 (1977); Great A&P Tea Co. v. Cottrell, 424 U. S., at 371-372; Huron Portland Cement Co. v. Detroit, 362 U. S. 440, 443 (1960). The principal focus of inquiry must be the practical operation of the statute, since the validity of state laws must be judged chiefly in terms of their probable effects. See Hughes v. Oklahoma. 441 U. S., at 336; Best & Co. v. Maxwell, 311 U. S. 454, 455-456 (1940).
Ill
With these principles in mind, we first turn to § 659.141 (1). This statute has been the chief object of controversy, since it is the statute that prevents appellees from setting up their projected investment advisory business within Florida. The statute prohibits ownership of local investment or trust businesses by firms possessing two characteristics: a certain kind of business organization and purpose, whether it be as a bank, trust company, or a bank holding company; and location of principal operations outside Florida.
Appellant and the amici supporting his position argue that the District Court's analysis of § 659.141 (1) is flawed in three respects: First, the statute assertedly affects only matters of local character that have insufficient interstate attributes to bring federal constitutional limitations into play. Second, the District Court erroneously labeled the statute protectionist legislation and thus incorrectly relied upon the “per se rule of invalidity” identified in Philadelphia v. New Jersey, 437 U. S., at 624. Appellant argues that the statute should be treated as neutral legislation subject to the less stringent standards of Pike v. Bruce Church, Inc., supra, and he argues that it meets this test. Third, the District Court failed to accord proper significance, in appellant’s view, to the Bank Holding Company Act of 1956. Appellant argues that the Act grants authority to the States to prohibit out-of-state bank holding companies from owning local subsidiaries that provide bank-related services.
A
The first of these arguments needs only brief mention. We readily accept the submission that, both as a matter of history and as a matter of present commercial reality, banking and related financial activities are of profound local concern. As appellees freely concede, Brief for Appellees 17, n. 10, sound financial institutions and honest financial practices are essential to the health of any State’s economy and to the well-being of its people. Thus, it is not surprising that ever since the early days of our Republic, the States have chartered banks and have actively regulated their activities.
Nonetheless, it does not follow that these same activities lack important interstate attributes. An impressive array of federal statutes regulating not only the provision of banking services but also the formation of banking organizations, the rendering of investment advice, and the conduct of national investment markets, is substantial evidence to the contrary. We do not understand appellant to dispute the validity of these enactments, all of which rest primarily on Congress’ powers under the Commerce Clause. Indeed, appellant’s arguments under the Bank Holding Company Act assume the validity of federal regulation in this sphere. This Court has observed that the same interstate attributes that establish Congress’ power to regulate commerce also support constitutional limitations on the powers of the States. Philadelphia v. New Jersey, 437 U. S., at 622-623. For present purposes, it is clear that those limitations apply.
B
The contentions that the District Court erred by applying too stringent a standard in defining the limits of Florida’s regulatory authority, and that § 659.141 (1) is evenhanded local regulation, are more substantial. We nonetheless agree with the District Court’s conclusion that this statute is “parochial” in the sense that it overtly prevents foreign enterprises from competing in local markets.
The statute makes the out-of-state location of a bank holding company’s principal operations an explicit barrier to the presence of an investment subsidiary within the State. As Bankers Trust’s application before the Board itself indicates, it thus prevents competition in local markets by out-of-state firms with the kinds of resources and business interests that make them likely to attempt de novo entry. Appellant virtually concedes this effect, Brief for Appellant 59, and the circumstances of enactment suggest that it was the legislature’s principal objective.
Appellant argues, however, that the statute ought not to be declared per se invalid because it does not prevent all out-of-state investment enterprises from entering local markets. Investment enterprises that are not bank holding companies, banks, or trust companies either may own investment subsidiaries in Florida or may enter the state investment market directly by obtaining a license to do business. Furthermore, locally incorporated bank holding companies are subject to the same restrictions as their foreign counterparts if they maintain their principal operations elsewhere. Appellant thus analogizes § 659.141 (1) to the Maryland statute prohibiting local retail operations by vertically integrated petroleum companies that the Court upheld in Exxon Corp. v. Governor of Maryland, 437 U. S. 117 (1978). The statute, it is said, discriminates against a particular kind of corporate organizational structure more than it does against the origin or citizenship of a particular business enterprise.
The statute involved in Exxon flatly prohibited producers and refiners of petroleum products from opening or operating retail services within Maryland under a variety of corporate or contractual arrangements. Id., at 120, n. 1. It was enacted in response to perceived inequities in the allocation of petroleum products to retail outlets during the fuel shortage of 1973. Various oil companies, all of which engaged in production and refining as well as in sale of petroleum products, challenged the statute on a number of grounds. Among other arguments, they claimed that the statute violated the Commerce Clause because it discriminated against producers and refiners, all of which were interstate concerns, in favor of independent retailers, most of which were local businesses.
The Court rejected this contention. After holding that the statute served the legitimate state purpose of “controlling the gasoline retail market/’ id., at 125, the Court separately analyzed its effect on interstate commerce in the producing-refining and retailing ends of the petroleum industry. The Court concluded that the statute could not discriminate against interstate petroleum producers and refiners in favor of locally based competitors because, as a matter of fact, there were no such local producers or refiners to be favored. Ibid. For the same reason, it concluded that the flow of petroleum products in interstate commerce would not be reduced. Id., at 127. It also rejected a claim of discrimination at the retail level because the statute placed “no barriers whatsoever” on competition in local markets by “interstate independent dealers” that did not own production or refining facilities. Id., at 126. Despite the fact that the number of stations operated by independent dealers was small relative to the number operated by producer-refiners, the Court concluded that neither the placing of a disparate burden on some interstate competitors nor the shifting of business from one part of the interstate market to another was enough, under the circumstances, to establish a Commerce Clause violation. Id., at 126-127.
There are some points of similarity between Exxon and the present case. In the former, the statute in issue discriminated against vertical organization in the petroleum industry. Section 659.141 (1) similarly discriminates against a particular kind of conglomerate organization in the investment and financial industries. And the Maryland statute permitted some kinds of interstate competitors free entry into the local market, as does the Florida statute at issue here.
We disagree, however, with the suggestion that Exxon should be treated as controlling precedent for this case. Section 659.141 (1) engages in an additional form of discrimination that is highly significant for purposes of Commerce Clause analysis. Under the Florida statute, discrimination against affected business organizations is not evenhanded because only banks, bank holding companies, and trust companies with principal operations outside Florida are prohibited from operating investment subsidiaries or giving investment advice within the State. It follows that § 659.141 (1) discriminates among affected business entities according to the extent of their contacts with the local economy. The absence of a similar discrimination between interstate and local producer-refiners was a most critical factor in Exxon. Both on its face and in actual effect, § 659.141 (1) thus displays a local favoritism or protectionism that significantly alters its Commerce Clause status. See Philadelphia v. New Jersey, 437 U. S., at 626-627; Baldwin v. G. A. F. Seelig, Inc., 294 U. S., at 527.
We need not decide whether this difference is sufficient to render the Florida legislation per se invalid, for we are convinced that the disparate treatment of out-of-state bank holding companies cannot be justified as an incidental burden necessitated by legitimate local concerns. In the District Court and to some extent on this appeal, appellant and supporting amici have argued that the Florida legislation advances several important state policies. Among those that have been specifically identified are an interest in discouraging undue economic concentration in the arena of high finance; an interest in regulating financial practices, presumably to protect local residents from fraud; and an interest in mn.-yTmW™;r local control over locally based financial activities. We think that these alleged purposes fail to justify the extent of the burden placed upon out-of-state bank holding companies.
Discouraging economic concentration and protecting the citizenry against fraud are undoubtedly legitimate state interests. But we are not persuaded that these interests justify the heavily disproportionate burden this statute places on bank holding companies that operate principally outside the State. Appellant has demonstrated no basis for an inference that all out-of-state bank holding companies are likely to possess the evils of monopoly power, that they are more likely to do so than their homegrown counterparts, or that they are any more inclined to engage in sharp practices than bank holding companies that are locally based. Nor is there any reason to conclude that outright prohibition of entry, rather than some intermediate form of regulation, is the only effective method of protecting against the presumed evils, particularly when other out-of-state businesses that may be just as large or far-flung are permitted to compete in the local market. We conclude that these asserted state interests simply do not suffice to eliminate § 659.141 (l)’s apparent constitutional defect. Cf. Hunt v. Washington Apple Advertising Comm’n, 432 U. S., at 353-354; Great A&P Tea Co. v. Cottrell, 424 U. S., at 375-376.
With regard to the asserted interest in promoting local control over financial institutions, we doubt that the interest itself is entirely clear of any tinge of local parochialism. In almost any Commerce Clause case it would be possible for a State to argue that it has an interest in bolstering local ownership, or wealth, or control of business enterprise. Yet these arguments are at odds with the general principle that the Commerce Clause prohibits a State from using its regulatory power to protect its own citizens from outside competition. See H. P. Hood & Sons, Inc. v. Du Mond, 336 U. S., at 638; Buck v. Kuykendall, 267 U. S. 307, 315-316 (1925); cf. Toomer v. Witsell, 334 U. S. 385, 403-404 (1948). In any event, the interest is not well served by the present legislation. The statute, for example, does not restrict out-of-state ownership of local bank holding companies. Nor, as appellant concedes, does it prevent entry by out-of-state entities other than those having the prohibited organizational forms. There is thus no reason to believe that the State's interest in local control, to the extent it legitimately exists, has been significantly or evenhandedly advanced by the statutory means that have been employed.
For these reasons, we conclude that the District Court did not err in holding that § 659.141 (1) directly burdens interstate commerce in a manner that contravenes the Commerce Clause’s implicit limitation on state power.
C
Ordinarily, at this point we would have reached the end of our inquiry. But in this instance appellant has another string to his bow: the contention that by Act of Congress the State has been given additional authority to regulate entry by bank holding companies into the local investment advisory market. Congress, of course, has power to regulate the flow of interstate commerce in ways that the States, acting independently, may not. And Congress, if it chooses, may exercise this power indirectly by conferring upon the States an ability to restrict the flow of interstate commerce that they would not otherwiseenjoy. See H. P. Hood & Sons, Inc. v. Du Mond, 336 U. S., at 542-543; Prudential Insurance Co. v. Benjamin, 328 U. S. 408, 423-424 (1946); International Shoe Co. v. Washington, 326 U. S. 310, 315 (1945). It is appellant’s view that the Bank Holding Company Act of 1956, as amended, is enabling legislation of this very kind, and that it authorizes the restrictions on bank holding companies embodied in § 659.141 (1).
This argument rests on two provisions in the federal legislation. Section 3 (d) of the Act, 12 U. S. C. § 1842 (d), prohibits the Board from approving an application by a bank holding company to acquire “any additional bank” located outside the State in which the holding company has its principal operations, unless that acquisition is specifically authorized by the statutory law of the State in which the proposed acquisition is located. Section 7 of the Act, 12 U. S. C. § 1846, reserves to the States a continuing role in the regulation of bank holding companies. Appellant argues that either or both of these provisions authorize the State to prohibit out-of-state bank holding companies from acquiring local investment subsidiaries.
:i The Bank Holding Company Act of 1956 was enacted to accomplish two primary objectives. First, it was designed to prevent the concentration of banking resources in the hands of a few financial giants. Second, it was intended to implement a congressional policy against control of banking and nonbanking enterprises by a single.business entity., See S. Rep. No. 1095, 84th Cong., 1st Sess., 2 (195.5); Board of Governors v. First Lincolnwood Corp., 439 U. S. 234, 242-243 (1978). Underlying both objectives was a desire to prevent anticom-petitive tendencies in national credit markets. See S. Rep. No. 91-1084, pp. 2-3 (1970).
Congress sought to accomplish these twin goals through separate statutory provisions. Section 3 of the Act placed limitations on the creation of bank holding companies and their expansion within the banking field. Section 3 (a) required Board approval for such activities as formation of bank holding companies, acquisition of bank stock or assets by such holding companies or their subsidiaries, and merger of bank holding companies. Section 3 (c) specified criteria to be considered by the Board in determining whether to grant approval. Section 4 sharply curtailed acquisition of nonbanking enterprises. Section 4 (a) generally forbade future acquisition of nonbanking enterprises. What was then § 4 (c) (6), however, carved out an exception for companies “of a financial, fiduciary, or insurance nature” if the Board determined that they are “so closely related to the business of banking or of managing or controlling banks as to be a proper incident thereto.” 70 Stat. 137.
When this legislation was first proposed to the Senate, neither § 3 nor § 4 contained explicit limitations on interstate expansion by bank holding companies. See S. 2577, 84th Cong., 1st Sess., §§ 3, 4 (1955). But Senator Douglas introduced an amendment to § 3 prohibiting bank holding companies from expanding into banking across state lines. He argued that such an amendment was desirable in order to ensure that national banks would not use bank holding companies as mechanisms to evade state-law restrictions on branching of banks recognized and made applicable to national banks by the McFadden Act, 12 U. S. C. § 36. See 102 Cong. Rec. 6860 (1956) (remarks of Sen. Douglas). The Senate agreed to the amendment. A similar provision had been included in the companion bill introduced in the House of Representatives. See H. R. Rep. No. 609, 84th Cong., 1st Sess., 2-5, 15, 24 (1955). The “Douglas Amendment” emerged as § 3 (d) of the Act, the first of the two provisions on which appellant relies.
We conclude that § 3 (d) offers scant support for the portions of § 659.141 (1) subject to challenge in this proceeding. Preliminarily, it is doubtful that § 3 (d) authorizes state restrictions of any nature on bank holding company activities. The language of the statute establishes a general federal prohibition on the acquisition or expansion of banking subsidiaries across state lines. The only authority granted to the States is the authority to create exceptions to this general prohibition, that is, to permit expansion of banking across state lines where it otherwise would be federally prohibited. Furthermore, the structure of the Act reveals that § 3 (d) applies only to holding company acquisitions of banks. Non-banking activities are regulated separately in § 4, which does not contain a parallel provision. Even if § 3 (d) could be interpreted to authorize additional state regulation, ordinary canons of interpretation thus would lead to the inference that restraints so authorized could apply only to a holding company’s banking activities.
In contrast to § 3 (d), §7 of the Act does reserve to the States a general power to enact regulations applicable to bank holding companies. This section was intended to preserve existing state regulations of bank holding companies, even if they were more restrictive than federal law. See S. Rep. No. 1095, 84th Cong., 1st Sess., 22 (1955). But we find nothing in its language or legislative history to support the contention that it also was intended to extend to the States new powers to regulate banking that they would not have possessed absent the federal legislation. Rather, it appears that Congress’ concern was to define the extent of the federal legislation’s pre-emptive effect on state law. In response to criticisms of the provision on the ground that it might be interpreted to expand state authority, one Committee Report stated that it was intended “to preserve to the States those powers which they now have in our dual banking system,” yet “to make it clear that a State could not enact legislation inconsistent with the [Act] and therefore nullify its effect.” S. Rep. No. 1095, 84th Cong., 2d Sess., pt. 2, p. 5 (1956). Par from creating a new state power to discriminate between foreign and local bank holding companies, the legislative history evinces an intent to forestall such a broad interpretation. We therefore conclude that § 7 applies only to state legislation that operates within the boundaries marked by the Commerce Clause.
Since neither of these provisions authorizes state legislation of the variety contained in the challenged portions of § 659.141 (1), we agree with the District Court that appellant’s reliance on the Bank Holding Company Act is misplaced. The effects of the Florida statute on interstate commerce have not been permitted by Congress, and its Commerce Clause defects have not been removed. Therefore, the District Court’s injunction against enforcement of the statute must be sustained.
IY
This brings us, finally, to § 660.10. That statute prohibits all corporations except state-chartered banks and national banks having their operations in Florida from performing specified fiduciary functions. It does not purport to regulate the ownership of such institutions by bank holding companies. For the reasons stated below, we conclude that its constitutionality has been neither fully placed in issue nor fully determined by the District Court’s decision. We therefore vacate the judgment with respect to § 660.10 and remand for such further proceedings as may be necessary in light of this opinion.
As we have already noted, appellees’ complaint challenged the constitutionality of § 660.10 only insofar as it operated in conjunction with § 659.141 (1). The District Court followed the same approach, and it granted declaratory relief against § 660.10 on that basis. Jointly, of course, the statutes not only limit the kinds of corporations that may perform fiduciary functions within Florida, but also prevent out-of-state bank holding companies from owning such corporations as their subsidiaries. It was this joint effect that led the District Court to find that § 660.10 “cordons off Florida trust companies from competition by out-of-state concerns.” 461 F. Supp., at 1196. Having so found, the District Court did not address the constitutionality of § 660.10 standing alone. It did not consider, for example, which of the many functions regulated by § 660.10 were in issue, or whether any of the exceptions created by that statute might apply. Indeed, it refused to grant injunctive relief against that statute and ruled that any challenge to its enforcement was premature. 461 F. Supp., at 1201.
On this appeal the argument over the constitutionality of § 66Ó.10 has focused not on the concatenation of the two statutes, but on the power of a State under the Commerce Clause to require local incorporation as a condition of doing business in local markets. Cf. Railway Express Agency, Inc. v. Virginia, 282 U. S. 440 (1931). Because of the approach taken in the District Court, however, there has been no definitive ruling on this issue. The court may have touched obliquely on the question when it declared, on a motion for clarification, that a State may not wholly exclude foreign corporations from doing business in the State. See App
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 GORSUCH delivered the opinion of the Court.
Russell Bucklew concedes that the State of Missouri lawfully convicted him of murder and a variety of other crimes. He acknowledges that the U.S. Constitution permits a sentence of execution for his crimes. He accepts, too, that the State's lethal injection protocol is constitutional in most applications. But because of his unusual medical condition, he contends the protocol is unconstitutional as applied to him. Mr. Bucklew raised this claim for the first time less than two weeks before his scheduled execution. He received a stay of execution and five years to pursue the argument, but in the end neither the district court nor the Eighth Circuit found it supported by the law or evidence. Now, Mr. Bucklew asks us to overturn those judgments. We can discern no lawful basis for doing so.
I
A
In 1996, when Stephanie Ray announced that she wanted to end their relationship, Mr. Bucklew grew violent. He cut her jaw, punched her in the face, and threatened her with a knife. Frightened to remain in the home they had shared, Ms. Ray sought refuge with her children in Michael Sanders' nearby residence. But then one night Mr. Bucklew invaded that home. Bearing a pistol in each hand, he shot Mr. Sanders in the chest; fired at Mr. Sanders' 6-year-old son (thankfully, he missed); and pistol-whipped Ms. Ray, this time breaking her jaw. Then Mr. Bucklew handcuffed Ms. Ray, drove her to a secluded spot, and raped her at gunpoint. After a trooper spotted Mr. Bucklew, a shootout followed and he was finally arrested. While all this played out, Mr. Sanders bled to death. As a coda, Mr. Bucklew escaped from jail while awaiting trial and attacked Ms. Ray's mother with a hammer before he could be recaptured.
After a decade of litigation, Mr. Bucklew was seemingly out of legal options. A jury had convicted him of murder and other crimes and recommended a death sentence, which the court had imposed. His direct appeal had proved unsuccessful. State v. Bucklew, 973 S.W.2d 83 (Mo. 1998), cert. denied, 525 U.S. 1082, 119 S.Ct. 826, 142 L.Ed.2d 683 (1999). Separate rounds of state and federal post-conviction proceedings also had failed to yield relief. Bucklew v. State, 38 S.W.3d 395 (Mo.), cert. denied, 534 U.S. 964, 122 S.Ct. 374, 151 L.Ed.2d 284 (2001) ; Bucklew v. Luebbers, 436 F.3d 1010 (CA8), cert. denied, 549 U.S. 1079, 127 S.Ct. 725, 166 L.Ed.2d 565 (2006).
B
As it turned out, though, Mr. Bucklew's case soon became caught up in a wave of litigation over lethal injection procedures. Like many States, Missouri has periodically sought to improve its administration of the death penalty. Early in the 20th century, the State replaced hanging with the gas chamber. Later in the century, it authorized the use of lethal injection as an alternative to lethal gas. By the time Mr. Bucklew's post-conviction proceedings ended, Missouri's protocol called for lethal injections to be carried out using three drugs: sodium thiopental, pancuronium bromide, and potassium chloride. And by that time, too, various inmates were in the process of challenging the constitutionality of the State's protocol and others like it around the country. See Taylor v. Crawford, 457 F.3d 902 (CA8 2006) ; Note, A New Test for Evaluating Eighth Amendment Challenges to Lethal Injections, 120 Harv. L. Rev. 1301, 1304 (2007) (describing flood of lethal injection lawsuits around 2006 that "severely constrained states' ability to carry out executions"); Denno, The Lethal Injection Quandary: How Medicine Has Dismantled the Death Penalty, 76 Ford. L. Rev. 49, 102-116 (2007).
Ultimately, this Court answered these legal challenges in Baze v. Rees, 553 U.S. 35, 128 S.Ct. 1520, 170 L.Ed.2d 420 (2008). Addressing Kentucky's similar three-drug protocol, THE CHIEF JUSTICE, joined by Justice ALITO and Justice Kennedy, concluded that a State's refusal to alter its lethal injection protocol could violate the Eighth Amendment only if an inmate first identified a "feasible, readily implemented" alternative procedure that would "significantly reduce a substantial risk of severe pain." Id., at 52, 128 S.Ct. 1520. Justice THOMAS, joined by Justice Scalia, thought the protocol passed muster because it was not intended "to add elements of terror, pain, or disgrace to the death penalty." Id., at 107, 128 S.Ct. 1520. Justice BREYER reached the same result because he saw no evidence that the protocol created "a significant risk of unnecessary suffering." Id., at 113, 128 S.Ct. 1520. And though Justice Stevens objected to the continued use of the death penalty, he agreed that petitioners' evidence was insufficient. Id., at 87, 128 S.Ct. 1520. After this Court decided Baze, it denied review in a case seeking to challenge Missouri's similar lethal injection protocol. Taylor v. Crawford, 487 F.3d 1072 (CA8 2007), cert. denied, 553 U.S. 1004, 128 S.Ct. 2047, 170 L.Ed.2d 793 (2008).
But that still was not the end of it. Next, Mr. Bucklew and other inmates unsuccessfully challenged Missouri's protocol in state court, alleging that it had been adopted in contravention of Missouri's Administrative Procedure Act. Middleton v. Missouri Dept. of Corrections, 278 S.W.3d 193 (Mo.), cert. denied, 556 U.S. 1255, 129 S.Ct. 2430, 173 L.Ed.2d 1331 (2009). They also unsuccessfully challenged the protocol in federal court, this time alleging it was pre-empted by various federal statutes. Ringo v. Lombardi, 677 F.3d 793 (CA8 2012). And Mr. Bucklew sought to intervene in yet another lawsuit alleging that Missouri's protocol violated the Eighth Amendment because unqualified personnel might botch its administration. That lawsuit failed too. Clemons v. Crawford, 585 F.3d 1119 (CA8 2009), cert. denied, 561 U.S. 1026, 130 S.Ct. 3507, 177 L.Ed.2d 1092 (2010).
While all this played out, pressure from anti-death-penalty advocates induced the company that manufactured sodium thiopental to stop supplying it for use in executions. As a result, the State was unable to proceed with executions until it could change its lethal injection protocol again. This it did in 2012, prescribing the use of a single drug, the sedative propofol. Soon after that, Mr. Bucklew and other inmates sued to invalidate this new protocol as well, alleging that it would produce excruciating pain and violate the Eighth Amendment on its face. After the State revised the protocol in 2013 to use the sedative pentobarbital instead of propofol, the inmates amended their complaint to allege that pentobarbital would likewise violate the Constitution.
C
Things came to a head in 2014. With its new protocol in place and the necessary drugs now available, the State scheduled Mr. Bucklew's execution for May 21. But 12 days before the execution Mr. Bucklew filed yet another lawsuit, the one now before us. In this case, he presented an as-applied Eighth Amendment challenge to the State's new protocol. Whether or not it would cause excruciating pain for all prisoners, as his previous lawsuit alleged, Mr. Bucklew now contended that the State's protocol would cause him severe pain because of his particular medical condition. Mr. Bucklew suffers from a disease called cavernous hemangioma, which causes vascular tumors-clumps of blood vessels-to grow in his head, neck, and throat. His complaint alleged that this condition could prevent the pentobarbital from circulating properly in his body; that the use of a chemical dye to flush the intravenous line could cause his blood pressure to spike and his tumors to rupture; and that pentobarbital could interact adversely with his other medications.
These latest protocol challenges yielded mixed results. The district court dismissed both the inmates' facial challenge and Mr. Bucklew's as-applied challenge. But, at Mr. Bucklew's request, this Court agreed to stay his execution until the Eighth Circuit could hear his appeal. Bucklew v. Lombardi, 572 U.S. 1131, 134 S.Ct. 2333, 189 L.Ed.2d 206 (2014). Ultimately, the Eighth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of the facial challenge. Zink v. Lombardi, 783 F.3d 1089 (en banc) (per curiam ), cert. denied, 576 U.S. ----, 135 S.Ct. 2941, 192 L.Ed.2d 976 (2015). Then, turning to the as-applied challenge and seeking to apply the test set forth by the Baze plurality, the court held that Mr. Bucklew's complaint failed as a matter of law to identify an alternative procedure that would significantly reduce the risks he alleged would flow from the State's lethal injection protocol. Yet, despite this dispositive shortcoming, the court of appeals decided to give Mr. Bucklew another chance to plead his case. The court stressed that, on remand before the district court, Mr. Bucklew had to identify "at the earliest possible time" a feasible, readily implemented alternative procedure that would address those risks. Bucklew v. Lombardi, 783 F.3d 1120, 1127-1128 (2015) (en banc).
Shortly after the Eighth Circuit issued its judgment, this Court decided Glossip v. Gross, 576 U.S. ----, 135 S.Ct. 2726, 192 L.Ed.2d 761 (2015), rejecting a challenge to Oklahoma's lethal injection protocol. There, the Court clarified that THE CHIEF JUSTICE's plurality opinion in Baze was controlling under Marks v. United States, 430 U.S. 188, 97 S.Ct. 990, 51 L.Ed.2d 260 (1977). In doing so, it reaffirmed that an inmate cannot successfully challenge a method of execution under the Eighth Amendment unless he identifies "an alternative that is 'feasible, readily implemented, and in fact significantly reduces a substantial risk of severe pain.' " 576 U.S., at ---- - ----, 135 S.Ct., at 2737. Justice THOMAS, joined by Justice Scalia, reiterated his view that the Eighth Amendment "prohibits only those methods of execution that are deliberately designed to inflict pain," but he joined the Court's opinion because it correctly explained why petitioners' claim failed even under the controlling opinion in Baze. Glossip, 576 U.S., at ----, 135 S.Ct., at 2750 (internal quotation marks and alterations omitted).
D
Despite the Eighth Circuit's express instructions, when Mr. Bucklew returned to the district court in 2015 he still refused to identify an alternative procedure that would significantly reduce his alleged risk of pain. Instead, he insisted that inmates should have to carry this burden only in facial, not as-applied, challenges. Finally, after the district court gave him "one last opportunity," App. 30, Mr. Bucklew filed a fourth amended complaint in which he claimed that execution by "lethal gas" was a feasible and available alternative method that would significantly reduce his risk of pain. Id., at 42. Mr. Bucklew later clarified that the lethal gas he had in mind was nitrogen, which neither Missouri nor any other State had ever used to carry out an execution.
The district court allowed Mr. Bucklew "extensive discovery" on his new proposal. 883 F.3d 1087, 1094 (CA8 2018). But even at the close of discovery in 2017, the district court still found the proposal lacking and granted the State's motion for summary judgment. By this point in the proceedings, Mr. Bucklew's contentions about the pain he might suffer had evolved considerably. He no longer complained about circulation of the drug, the use of dye, or adverse drug interactions. Instead, his main claim now was that he would experience pain during the period after the pentobarbital started to take effect but before it rendered him fully unconscious. According to his expert, Dr. Joel Zivot, while in this semiconscious "twilight stage" Mr. Bucklew would be unable to prevent his tumors from obstructing his breathing, which would make him feel like he was suffocating. Dr. Zivot declined to say how long this twilight stage would last. When pressed, however, he referenced a study on euthanasia in horses. He claimed that the horses in the study had displayed some amount of brain activity, as measured with an electroencephalogram (or EEG), for up to four minutes after they were given a large dose of pentobarbital. Based on Dr. Zivot's testimony, the district court found a triable issue as to whether there was a "substantial risk" that Mr. Bucklew would "experience choking and an inability to breathe for up to four minutes" if he were executed by lethal injection. App. 827. Even so, the court held, Mr. Bucklew's claim failed because he had produced no evidence that his proposed alternative, execution by nitrogen hypoxia, would significantly reduce that risk.
This time, a panel of the Eighth Circuit affirmed. The panel held that Mr. Bucklew had produced no evidence that the risk of pain he alleged "would be substantially reduced by use of nitrogen hypoxia instead of lethal injection as the method of execution." 883 F.3d at 1096. Judge Colloton dissented, arguing that the evidence raised a triable issue as to whether nitrogen gas would "render Bucklew insensate more quickly than pentobarbital." Id., at 1099. The full court denied rehearing en banc over a dissent by Judge Kelly, who maintained that, while prisoners pursuing facial challenges to a state execution protocol must plead and prove an alternative method of execution under Baze and Glossip, prisoners like Mr. Bucklew who pursue as-applied challenges should not have to bear that burden. 885 F.3d 527, 528 (2018).
On the same day Mr. Bucklew was scheduled to be executed, this Court granted him a second stay of execution. 583 U.S. ----, 138 S.Ct. 1323, 200 L.Ed.2d 510 (2018). We then agreed to hear his case to clarify the legal standards that govern an as-applied Eighth Amendment challenge to a State's method of carrying out a death sentence. 584 U.S. ---- (2018).
II
We begin with Mr. Bucklew's suggestion that the test for lethal injection protocol challenges announced in Baze and Glossip should govern only facial challenges, not as-applied challenges like his. In evaluating this argument, we first examine the original and historical understanding of the Eighth Amendment and our precedent in Baze and Glossip. We then address whether, in light of those authorities, it would be appropriate to adopt a different constitutional test for as-applied claims.
A
The Constitution allows capital punishment. See Glossip, 576 U.S., at ---- - ----, 135 S.Ct., at 2731-2733 ; Baze, 553 U.S. at 47, 128 S.Ct. 1520. In fact, death was "the standard penalty for all serious crimes" at the time of the founding. S. Banner, The Death Penalty: An American History 23 (2002) (Banner). Nor did the later addition of the Eighth Amendment outlaw the practice. On the contrary-the Fifth Amendment, added to the Constitution at the same time as the Eighth, expressly contemplates that a defendant may be tried for a "capital" crime and "deprived of life" as a penalty, so long as proper procedures are followed. And the First Congress, which proposed both Amendments, made a number of crimes punishable by death. See Act of Apr. 30, 1790, 1 Stat. 112. Of course, that doesn't mean the American people must continue to use the death penalty. The same Constitution that permits States to authorize capital punishment also allows them to outlaw it. But it does mean that the judiciary bears no license to end a debate reserved for the people and their representatives.
While the Eighth Amendment doesn't forbid capital punishment, it does speak to how States may carry out that punishment, prohibiting methods that are "cruel and unusual." What does this term mean? At the time of the framing, English law still formally tolerated certain punishments even though they had largely fallen into disuse-punishments in which "terror, pain, or disgrace [were] superadded" to the penalty of death. 4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 370 (1769). These included such "[d]isgusting" practices as dragging the prisoner to the place of execution, disemboweling, quartering, public dissection, and burning alive, all of which Blackstone observed "savor[ed] of torture or cruelty." Ibid.
Methods of execution like these readily qualified as "cruel and unusual," as a reader at the time of the Eighth Amendment's adoption would have understood those words. They were undoubtedly "cruel," a term often defined to mean "[p]leased with hurting others; inhuman; hard-hearted; void of pity; wanting compassion; savage; barbarous; unrelenting," 1 S. Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed. 1773), or "[d]isposed to give pain to others, in body or mind; willing or pleased to torment, vex or afflict; inhuman; destitute of pity, compassion or kindness," 1 N. Webster, An American Dictionary of the English Language (1828). And by the time of the founding, these methods had long fallen out of use and so had become "unusual." 4 Blackstone, supra, at 370; Banner 76; Baze, 553 U.S. at 97, 128 S.Ct. 1520 (THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment); see also Stinneford, The Original Meaning of "Unusual": The Eighth Amendment as a Bar to Cruel Innovation, 102 Nw. U. L. Rev. 1739, 1770-1771, 1814 (2008) (observing that Americans in the late 18th and early 19th centuries described as "unusual" governmental actions that had "fall[en] completely out of usage for a long period of time").
Contemporary evidence confirms that the people who ratified the Eighth Amendment would have understood it in just this way. Patrick Henry, for one, warned that unless the Constitution was amended to prohibit "cruel and unusual punishments," Congress would be free to inflict "tortures" and "barbarous" punishments. 3 Debates on the Federal Constitution 447-448 (J. Elliot 2d ed. 1891). Many early commentators likewise described the Eighth Amendment as ruling out "the use of the rack or the stake, or any of those horrid modes of torture devised by human ingenuity for the gratification of fiendish passion." J. Bayard, A Brief Exposition of the Constitution of the United States 140 (1833); see B. Oliver, The Rights of an American Citizen 186 (1832) (the Eighth Amendment prohibits such "barbarous and cruel punishments" as "[b]reaking on the wheel, flaying alive, rending asunder with horses,... maiming, mutilating and scourging to death"). Justice Story even remarked that he thought the prohibition of cruel and unusual punishments likely "unnecessary" because no "free government" would ever authorize "atrocious" methods of execution like these. 3 J. Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States § 1896, p. 750 (1833).
Consistent with the Constitution's original understanding, this Court in Wilkerson v. Utah, 99 U.S. 130, 25 L.Ed. 345 (1879), permitted an execution by firing squad while observing that the Eighth Amendment forbade the gruesome methods of execution described by Blackstone "and all others in the same line of unnecessary cruelty." Id., at 135-136. A few years later, the Court upheld a sentence of death by electrocution while observing that, though electrocution was a new mode of punishment and therefore perhaps could be considered "unusual," it was not "cruel" in the constitutional sense: "[T]he punishment of death is not cruel, within the meaning of that word as used in the Constitution. [Cruelty] implies... something inhuman and barbarous, something more than the mere extinguishment of life." In re Kemmler, 136 U.S. 436, 447, 10 S.Ct. 930, 34 L.Ed. 519 (1890).
It's instructive, too, to contrast the modes of execution the Eighth Amendment was understood to forbid with those it was understood to permit. At the time of the Amendment's adoption, the predominant method of execution in this country was hanging. Glossip, 576 U.S., at ----, 135 S.Ct., at 2731-2732. While hanging was considered more humane than some of the punishments of the Old World, it was no guarantee of a quick and painless death. "Many and perhaps most hangings were evidently painful for the condemned person because they caused death slowly," and "[w]hether a hanging was painless or painful seems to have been largely a matter of chance." Banner 48, 170. The force of the drop could break the neck and sever the spinal cord, making death almost instantaneous. But that was hardly assured given the techniques that prevailed at the time. More often it seems the prisoner would die from loss of blood flow to the brain, which could produce unconsciousness usually within seconds, or suffocation, which could take several minutes. Id., at 46-47; J. Laurence, The History of Capital Punishment 44-46 (1960); Gardner, Executions and Indignities: An Eighth Amendment Assessment of Methods of Inflicting Capital Punishment, 39 Ohio St. L.J. 96, 120 (1978). But while hanging could and often did result in significant pain, its use "was virtually never questioned." Banner 170. Presumably that was because, in contrast to punishments like burning and disemboweling, hanging wasn't "intended to be painful" and the risk of pain involved was considered "unfortunate but inevitable." Ibid. ; see also id., at 48.
What does all this tell us about how the Eighth Amendment applies to methods of execution? For one thing, it tells us that the Eighth Amendment does not guarantee a prisoner a painless death-something that, of course, isn't guaranteed to many people, including most victims of capital crimes. Glossip, 576 U.S., at ----, 135 S.Ct., at 2732-2733 Instead, what unites the punishments the Eighth Amendment was understood to forbid, and distinguishes them from those it was understood to allow, is that the former were long disused (unusual) forms of punishment that intensified the sentence of death with a (cruel) "'superadd[ition]' " of " 'terror, pain, or disgrace.' " Baze, 553 U.S. at 48, 128 S.Ct. 1520 ; accord, id., at 96, 128 S.Ct. 1520 (THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment).
This Court has yet to hold that a State's method of execution qualifies as cruel and unusual, and perhaps understandably so. Far from seeking to superadd terror, pain, or disgrace to their executions, the States have often sought more nearly the opposite, exactly as Justice Story predicted. Through much of the 19th century, States experimented with technological innovations aimed at making hanging less painful. See Banner 170-177. In the 1880s, following the recommendation of a commission tasked with finding " 'the most humane and practical method known to modern science of carrying into effect the sentence of death,' " the State of New York replaced hanging with electrocution. Glossip, 576 U.S., at ----, 135 S.Ct., at 2731. Several States followed suit in the "'"belief that electrocution is less painful and more humane than hanging."'" Ibid. Other States adopted lethal gas after concluding it was " 'the most humane [method of execution] known to modern science.' " Ibid. And beginning in the 1970s, the search for less painful modes of execution led many States to switch to lethal injection. Id., at ----, 135 S.Ct., at 2732 ; Baze, 553 U.S. at 42, 62, 128 S.Ct. 1520 ; see also Banner 178-181, 196-197, 297. Notably, all of these innovations occurred not through this Court's intervention, but through the initiative of the people and their representatives.
Still, accepting the possibility that a State might try to carry out an execution in an impermissibly cruel and unusual manner, how can a court determine when a State has crossed the line? THE CHIEF JUSTICE's opinion in Baze, which a majority of the Court held to be controlling in Glossip, supplies critical guidance. It teaches that where (as here) the question in dispute is whether the State's chosen method of execution cruelly superadds pain to the death sentence, a prisoner must show a feasible and readily implemented alternative method of execution that would significantly reduce a substantial risk of severe pain and that the State has refused to adopt without a legitimate penological reason. See Glossip, 576 U.S., at ---- - ----, 135 S.Ct., 2732-2738 ; Baze, 553 U.S. at 52, 128 S.Ct. 1520. Glossip left no doubt that this standard governs "all Eighth Amendment method-of-execution claims." 576 U.S., at ----, 135 S.Ct., at 2731.
In reaching this conclusion, Baze and Glossip recognized that the Eighth Amendment "does not demand the avoidance of all risk of pain in carrying out executions." Baze, 553 U.S. at 47, 128 S.Ct. 1520. To the contrary, the Constitution affords a "measure of deference to a State's choice of execution procedures" and does not authorize courts to serve as "boards of inquiry charged with determining 'best practices' for executions." Id., at 51-52, and nn. 2-3, 128 S.Ct. 1520. The Eighth Amendment does not come into play unless the risk of pain associated with the State's method is "substantial when compared to a known and available alternative." Glossip, 576 U.S., at ----, 135 S.Ct., at 2738 ; see Baze, 553 U.S. at 61, 128 S.Ct. 1520. Nor do Baze and Glossip suggest that traditionally accepted methods of execution-such as hanging, the firing squad, electrocution, and lethal injection-are necessarily rendered unconstitutional as soon as an arguably more humane method like lethal injection becomes available. There are, the Court recognized, many legitimate reasons why a State might choose, consistent with the Eighth Amendment, not to adopt a prisoner's preferred method of execution. See, e.g., Glossip, 576 U.S., at ---- - ----, 135 S.Ct., at 2737-2738 (a State can't be faulted for failing to use lethal injection drugs that it's unable to procure through good-faith efforts); Baze, 553 U.S. at 57, 128 S.Ct. 1520 (a State has a legitimate interest in selecting a method it regards as "preserving the dignity of the procedure"); id., at 66, 128 S.Ct. 1520 (ALITO, J., concurring) (a State isn't required to modify its protocol in ways that would require the involvement of "persons whose professional ethics rules or traditions impede their participation").
As we've seen, two Members of the Court whose votes were essential to the judgment in Glossip argued that establishing cruelty consistent with the Eighth Amendment's original meaning demands slightly more than the majority opinion there (or the Baze plurality opinion it followed) suggested. Instead of requiring an inmate to establish that a State has unreasonably refused to alter its method of execution to avoid a risk of unnecessary pain, Justice THOMAS and Justice Scalia contended that an inmate must show that the State intended its method to inflict such pain. See Glossip, 576 U.S., at ----, 135 S.Ct., at 2750 (THOMAS, J., concurring); Baze, 553 U.S. at 94-107, 128 S.Ct. 1520 (THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment). But revisiting that debate isn't necessary here because, as we'll see, the State was entitled to summary judgment in this case even under the more forgiving Baze - Glossip test. See Part III, infra.
B
Before turning to the application of Baze and Glossip, however, we must confront Mr. Bucklew's argument that a different standard entirely should govern as-applied challenges like his. He admits that Baze and Glossip supply the controlling test in facial challenges to a State's chosen method of execution. But he suggests that he should not have to prove an alternative method of execution in his as-applied challenge because "certain categories" of punishment are "manifestly cruel... without reference to any alternative methods." Brief for Petitioner 41-42 (internal quotation marks omitted). He points to " 'burning at the stake, crucifixion, [and] breaking on the wheel' " as examples of "categorically" cruel methods. Ibid. And, he says, we should use this case to add to the list of "categorically" cruel methods any method that, as applied to a particular inmate, will pose a "substantial and particular risk of grave suffering" due to the inmate's "unique medical condition." Id., at 44.
The first problem with this argument is that it's foreclosed by precedent. Glossip expressly held that identifying an available alternative is "a requirement of all Eighth Amendment method-of-execution claims" alleging cruel pain. 576 U.S., at ----, 135 S.Ct., at 2731 (emphasis added). And just as binding as this holding is the reasoning underlying it. Distinguishing between constitutionally permissible and impermissible degrees of pain, Baze and Glossip explained, is a necessarily comparative exercise. To decide whether the State has cruelly "superadded" pain to the punishment of death isn't something that can be accomplished by examining the State's proposed method in a vacuum, but only by "compar[ing]" that method with a viable alternative. Glossip, 576 U.S., at ----, 135 S.Ct., at 2737-2738 ; see Baze, 553 U.S. at 61, 128 S.Ct. 1520. As Mr. Bucklew acknowledges when speaking of facial challenges, this comparison "provides the needed metric" to measure whether the State is lawfully carrying out an execution or inflicting "gratuitous" pain. Brief for Petitioner 42-43. Yet it is that very comparison and needed metric Mr. Bucklew would now have us discard. Nor does he offer some persuasive reason for overturning our precedent. To the contrary, Mr. Bucklew simply repeats the same argument the principal dissent offered and the Court expressly and thoughtfully rejected in Glossip. Just as Mr. Bucklew argues here, the dissent there argued that "certain methods of execution" like "burning at the stake" should be declared "categorically off-limits." And just as Mr. Bucklew submits here, the dissent there argued that any other "intolerably painful" method of execution should be added to this list. 576 U.S., at ---- - ----, 135 S.Ct., at 2792-2793 (SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting). Mr. Bucklew's submission, thus, amounts to no more than a headlong attack on precedent.
Mr. Bucklew's argument fails for another independent reason: It is inconsistent with the original and historical understanding of the Eighth Amendment on which Baze and Glossip rest. As we've seen, when it comes to determining whether a punishment is unconstitutionally cruel because of the pain involved, the law has always asked whether the punishment "superadds" pain well beyond what's needed to effectuate a death sentence. And answering that question has always involved a comparison with available alternatives, not some abstract exercise in "categorical" classification. At common law, the ancient and barbaric methods of execution Mr. Bucklew cites were understood to be cruel precisely because-by comparison to other available methods-they went so far beyond what was needed to carry out a death sentence that they could only be explained as reflecting the infliction of pain for pain's sake. Meanwhile, hanging carried with it an acknowledged and substantial risk of pain but was not considered cruel because that risk was thought-by comparison to other known methods-to involve no more pain than was reasonably necessary to impose a lawful death sentence. See supra, at 1122 - 1125.
What does the principal dissent have to say about all this? It acknowledges that Glossip's comparative requirement helps prevent facial method-of-execution claims from becoming a "backdoor means to abolish" the death penalty. Post, at 1140 (opinion of BREYER, J.). But, the dissent assures us, there's no reason to worry that as-applied method-of-execution challenges might be used that way. This assurance misses the point. As we've explained, the alternative-method requirement is compelled by our understanding of the Constitution, not by mere policy concerns.
With that, the dissent is left only to rehash the same argument that Mr. Bucklew offers. The dissent insists that some forms of execution are just categorically cruel. Post, at 1141 - 1142. At first and like others who have made this argument, the dissent offers little more than intuition to support its conclusion. Ultimately, though, even it bows to the necessity of something firmer. If a "comparator is needed" to assess whether an execution is cruel, the dissent tells us, we should compare the pain likely to follow from the use of a lethal injection in this case with the pain-free use of lethal injections in mine-run cases. Post, at 1141. But that's just another way of saying executions must always be carried out painlessly because they can be carried out painlessly most of the time, a standard the Constitution has never required and this Court has rejected time and time again. Supra, at 1124 - 1125. To determine whether the State is cruelly superadding pain, our precedents and history require asking whether the State had some other feasible and readily available method to
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 Stevens,
delivered the opinion of the Court.
In Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon, 260 U. S. 393 (1922), the Court reviewed the constitutionality of a Pennsylvania statute that admittedly destroyed “previously existing rights of property and contract.” Id., at 413. Writing for the Court, Justice Holmes explained:
“Government hardly could go on if to some extent values incident to property could not be diminished without paying for every such change in the general law. As long recognized, some values are enjoyed under an implied limitation and must yield to the police power. But obviously the implied limitation must have its limits, or the contract and due process clauses are gone. One fact for consideration in determining such limits is the extent of the diminution. When it reaches a certain magnitude, in most if not in all cases there must be an exercise of eminent domain and compensation to sustain the act.
So the question depends upon the particular facts.” Ibid.
In that case the “particular facts” led the Court to hold that the Pennsylvania Legislature had gone beyond its constitutional powers when it enacted a statute prohibiting the mining of anthracite coal in a manner that would cause the subsidence of land on which certain structures were located.
Now, 65 years later, we address a different set of “particular facts,” involving the Pennsylvania Legislature’s 1966 conclusion that the Commonwealth’s existing mine subsidence legislation had failed to protect the public interest in safety, land conservation, preservation of affected municipalities’ tax bases, and land development in the Commonwealth. Based on detailed findings, the legislature enacted the Bituminous Mine Subsidence and Land Conservation Act (Subsidence Act or Act), Pa. Stat. Ann., Tit. 52, §1406.1 et seq. (Purdon Supp. 1986). Petitioners contend, relying heavily on our decision in Pennsylvania Coal, that §§4 and 6 of the Subsidence Act and certain implementing regulations violate the Takings Clause, and that § 6 of the Act violates the Contracts Clause of the Federal Constitution. The District Court and the Court of Appeals concluded that Pennsylvania Coal does not control for several reasons and that our subsequent cases make it clear that neither § 4 nor § 6 is unconstitutional on its face. We agree.
I
Coal mine subsidence is the lowering of strata overlying a coal mine, including the land surface, caused by the extraction of underground coal. This lowering of the strata can have devastating effects. It often causes substantial damage to foundations, walls, other structural members, and the integrity of houses and buildings. Subsidence frequently causes sinkholes or troughs in land which make the land difficult or impossible to develop. Its effect on farming has been well documented — many subsided areas cannot be plowed or properly prepared. Subsidence can also cause the loss of groundwater and surface ponds. In short, it presents the type of environmental concern that has been the focus of so much federal, state, and local regulation in recent decades.
Despite what their name may suggest, neither of the “full extraction” mining methods currently used in western Pennsylvania enables miners to extract all subsurface coal; considerable amounts need to be left in the ground to provide access, support, and ventilation to the mines. Additionally, mining companies have long been required by various Pennsylvania laws and regulations, the legitimacy of which is not challenged here, to leave coal in certain areas for public safety reasons. Since 1966, Pennsylvania has placed an additional set of restrictions on the amount of coal that may be extracted; these restrictions are designed to diminish subsidence and subsidence damage in the vicinity of certain structures and areas.
Pennsylvania’s Subsidence Act authorizes the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Resources (DER) to implement and enforce a comprehensive program to prevent or minimize subsidence and to regulate its consequences. Section 4 of the Subsidence Act, Pa. Stat. Ann., Tit. 52, § 1406.4 (Purdon Supp. 1986), prohibits mining that causes subsidence damage to three categories of structures that were in place on April 17, 1966: public buildings and noncommercial buildings generally used by the public; dwellings used for human habitation; and cemeteries. Since 1966 the DER has applied a formula that generally requires 50% of the coal beneath structures protected by §4 to be kept in place as a means of providing surface support. Section 6 of the Subsidence Act, Pa. Stat. Ann., Tit. 52, §1406.6 (Purdon Supp. 1986), authorizes the DER to revoke a mining permit if the removal of coal causes damage to a structure or area protected by §4 and the operator has not within six months either repaired the damage, satisfied any claim arising therefrom, or deposited a sum equal to the reasonable cost of repair with the DER as security.
II
In 1982, petitioners filed a civil rights action in the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania seeking to enjoin officials of the DER from enforcing the Subsidence Act and its implementing regulations. Petitioners are an association of coal mine operators, and four corporations that are engaged, either directly or through affiliates, in underground mining of bituminous coal in western Pennsylvania. The members of the association and the corporate petitioners own, lease, or otherwise control substantial coal reserves beneath the surface of property affected by the Subsidence Act. The defendants in the action, respondents here, are the Secretary of the DER, the Chief of the DER’s Division of Mine Subsidence, and the Chief of the DER’s Section on Mine Subsidence Regulation.
The complaint alleges that Pennsylvania recognizes three separate estates in land: The mineral estate; the surface estate; and the “support estate.” Beginning well over 100 years ago, landowners began severing title to underground coal and the right of surface support while retaining or conveying away ownership of the surface estate. It is stipulated that approximately 90% of the coal that is or will be mined by petitioners in western Pennsylvania was severed from the surface in the period between 1890 and 1920. When acquiring or retaining the mineral estate, petitioners or their predecessors typically acquired or retained certain additional rights that would enable them to extract and remove the coal. Thus, they acquired the right to deposit wastes, to provide for drainage and ventilation, and to erect facilities such as tipples, roads, or railroads, on the surface. Additionally, they typically acquired a waiver of any claims for damages that might result from the removal of the coal.
In the portions of the complaint that are relevant to us, petitioners alleged that both § 4 of the Subsidence Act, as implemented by the 50% rule, and § 6 of the Subsidence Act, constitute a taking of their private property without compensation in violation of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. They also alleged that § 6 impairs their contractual agreements in violation of Article I, § 10, of the Constitution. The parties entered into a stipulation of facts pertaining to petitioners’ facial challenge, and filed cross-motions for summary judgment on the facial challenge. The District Court granted respondents’ motion.
In rejecting petitioners’ Takings Clause claim, the District Court first distinguished Pennsylvania Coal, primarily on the ground that the Subsidence Act served valid public purposes that the Court had found lacking in the earlier case. 581 F. Supp. 511, 516 (1984). The District Court found that the restriction on the use of petitioners’ property was an exercise of the Commonwealth’s police power, justified by Pennsylvania’s interest in the health, safety, and general welfare of the public. In answer to petitioners’ argument that the Subsidence Act effectuated a taking because a separate, recognized interest in realty — the support estate — had been entirely destroyed, the District Court concluded that under Pennsylvania law the support estate consists of a bundle of rights, including some that were not affected by the Act. That the right to cause damage to the surface may constitute the most valuable “strand” in the bundle of rights possessed by the owner of a support estate was not considered controlling under our decision in Andrus v. Allard, 444 U. S. 51 (1979).
In rejecting petitioners’ Contracts Clause claim, the District Court noted that there was no contention that the Subsidence Act or the DER regulations had impaired any contract to which the Commonwealth was a party. Since only private contractual obligations had been impaired, the court considered it appropriate to defer to the legislature’s determinations concerning the public purposes served by the legislation. The court found that the adjustment of the rights of the contracting parties was tailored to those “significant and legitimate” public purposes. 581 F. Supp., at 514. At the parties’ request, the District Court certified the facial challenge for appeal.
The Court of Appeals affirmed, agreeing that Pennsylvania Coal does not control because the Subsidence Act is a legitimate means of “protecting] the environment of the Commonwealth, its economic future, and its well-being.” 771 F. 2d 707, 715 (1985). The Court of Appeals’ analysis of the Subsidence Act’s effect on petitioners’ property differed somewhat from the District Court’s, however. In rejecting the argument that the support estate had been entirely destroyed, the Court of Appeals did not rely on the fact that the support estate itself constitutes a bundle of many rights, but rather considered the support estate as just one segment of a larger bundle of rights that invariably includes either the surface estate or the mineral estate. As Judge Adams explained:
“To focus upon the support estate separately when assessing the diminution of the value of plaintiffs’ property caused by the Subsidence Act therefore would serve little purpose. The support estate is more properly viewed as only one ‘strand’ in the plaintiff’s ‘bundle’ of property rights, which also includes the mineral estate. As the Court stated in Andrus, ‘[t]he destruction of one “strand” of the bundle is not a taking because the aggregate must be viewed in its entirety.’ 444 U. S. at 65.
... The use to which the mine operators wish to put the support estate is forbidden. However, because the plaintiffs still possess valuable mineral rights that enable them profitably to mine coal, subject only to the Subsidence Act’s requirement that they prevent subsidence, their entire ‘bundle’ of property rights has not been destroyed.” Id., at 716.
With respect to the Contracts Clause claim, the Court of Appeals agreed with the District Court that a higher degree of deference should be afforded to legislative determinations respecting economic and social legislation affecting wholly private contracts than when the State impairs its own agreements. The court held that the impairment of private agreements effectuated by the Subsidence Act was justified by the legislative finding “that subsidence damage devastated many surface structures and thus endangered the health, safety, and economic welfare of the Commonwealth and its people.” Id., at 718. We granted certiorari, 475 U. S. 1080 (1986), and now affirm.
Ill
Petitioners assert that disposition of their takings claim calls for no more than a straightforward application of the Court’s decision in Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon. Although there are some obvious similarities between the cases, we agree with the Court of Appeals and the District Court that the similarities are far less significant than the differences, and that Pennsylvania Coal does not control this case.
In Pennsylvania Coal, the Pennsylvania Coal Company had served notice on Mr. and Mrs. Mahon that the company’s mining operations beneath their premises would soon reach a point that would cause subsidence to the surface. The Ma-hons filed a bill in equity seeking to enjoin the coal company from removing any coal that would cause “the caving in, collapse or subsidence” of their dwelling. The bill acknowledged that the Mahons owned only “the surface or right of soil” in the lot, and that the coal company had reserved the right to remove the coal without any liability to the owner of the surface estate. Nonetheless, the Mahons asserted that Pennsylvania’s then recently enacted Kohler Act of 1921, P. L. 1198, Pa. Stat. Ann., Tit. 52, §661 et seq. (Purdon 1966), which prohibited mining that caused subsidence under certain structures, entitled them to an injunction.
After initially having entered a preliminary injunction pending a hearing on the merits, the Chancellor soon dissolved it, observing:
“[T]he plaintiffs’ bill contains no averment on which to base by implication or otherwise any finding of fact that any interest public or private is involved in the defendant’s proposal to mine the coal except the private interest of the plaintiffs in the prevention of private injury.” Tr. of Record in Pennsylvania Coal v. Mahon, O. T. 1922, No. 549, p. 23.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court reversed, concluding that the Kohler Act was a proper exercise of the police power. 274 Pa. 489, 118 A. 491 (1922). One Justice dissented. He concluded that the Kohler Act was not actually intended to protect lives and safety, but rather was special legislation enacted for the sole benefit of the surface owners who had released their right to support. Id., at 512-518,118 A., at 499-501.
The company promptly appealed to this Court, asserting that the impact of the statute was so severe that “a serious shortage of domestic fuel is threatened. ” Motion to Advance for Argument in Pennsylvania Coal v. Mahon, O. T. 1922, No. 549, p. 3. The company explained that until the Court ruled, “no anthracite coal which is likely to cause surface subsidence can be mined,” and that strikes were threatened throughout the anthracite coal fields. In its argument in this Court, the company contended that the Kohler Act was not a bona fide exercise of the police power, but in reality was nothing more than “‘robbery under the forms of law’” because its purpose was “not to protect the lives or safety of the public generally but merely to augment the property rights of a favored few.” See 260 U. S., at 396-398, quoting Loan Assn. v. Topeka, 20 Wall. 655, 664 (1875).
Over Justice Brandéis’ dissent, this Court accepted the company’s argument. In his opinion for the Court, Justice Holmes first characteristically decided the specific case at hand in a single, terse paragraph:
“This is the case of a single private house. No doubt there is a public interest even in this, as there is in every purchase and sale and in all that happens within the commonwealth. Some existing rights may be modified even in such a case. Rideout v. Knox, 148 Mass. 368. But usually in ordinary private affairs the public interest does not warrant much of this kind of interference. A source of damage to such a house is not a public nuisance even if similar damage is inflicted on others in different places. The damage is not common or public. Wesson v. Washburn Iron Co., 13 Allen, 95, 103. The extent of the public interest is shown by the statute to be limited, since the statute ordinarily does not apply to land when the surface is owned by the owner of the coal. Furthermore, it is not justified as a protection of personal safety. That could be provided for by notice. Indeed the very foundation of this bill is that the defendant gave timely notice of its intent to mine under the house. On the other hand the extent of the taking is great. It purports to abolish what is recognized in Pennsylvania as an estate in land — a very valuable estate — and what is declared by the Court below to be a contract hitherto binding the plaintiffs. If we were called upon to deal with the plaintiffs’ position alone, we should think it clear that the statute does not disclose a public interest sufficient to warrant so extensive a destruction of the defendant’s constitutionally protected rights.” 260 U. S., at 413-414.
Then — uncharacteristically—Justice Holmes provided the parties with an advisory opinion discussing “the general validity of the Act.” In the advisory portion of the Court’s opinion, Justice Holmes rested on two propositions, both critical to the Court’s decision. First, because it served only private interests, not health or safety, the Kohler Act could not be “sustained as an exercise of the police power.” Id., at 414. Second, the statute made it “commercially impracticable” to mine “certain coal” in the areas affected by the Kohler Act.
The holdings and assumptions of the Court in Pennsylvania Coal provide obvious and necessary reasons for distinguishing Pennsylvania Coal from the case before us today. The two factors that the Court considered relevant, have become integral parts of our takings analysis. We have held that land use regulation can effect a taking if it “does not substantially advance legitimate state interests,... or denies an owner economically viable use of his land.” Agins v. Tiburon, 447 U. S. 255, 260 (1980) (citations omitted); see also Penn Central Transportation Co. v. New York City, 438 U. S. 104, 124 (1978). Application of these tests to petitioners’ challenge demonstrates that they have not satisfied their burden of showing that the Subsidence Act constitutes a taking. First, unlike the Kohler Act, the character of the governmental action involved here leans heavily against finding a taking; the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has acted to arrest what it perceives to be a significant threat to the common welfare. Second, there is no record- in this case to support a finding, similar to the one the Court made in Pennsylvania Coal, that the Subsidence Act makes it impossible for petitioners to profitably engage in their business, or that there has been undue interference with their investment-backed expectations.
The Public Purpose
Unlike the Kohler Act, which was passed upon in Pennsylvania Coal, the Subsidence Act does not merely involve a balancing of the private economic interests of coal companies against the private interests of the surface owners. The Pennsylvania Legislature specifically found that important public interests are served by enforcing a policy that is designed to minimize subsidence in certain areas. Section 2 of the Subsidence Act provides:
“This act shall be deemed to be an exercise of the police powers of the Commonwealth for the protection of the health, safety and general welfare of the people of the Commonwealth, by providing for the conservation of surface land areas which may be affected in the mining of bituminous coal by methods other than ‘open pit’ or ‘strip’ mining, to aid in the protection of the safety of the public, to enhance the value of such lands for taxation, to aid in the preservation of surface water drainage and public water supplies and generally to improve the use and enjoyment of such lands and to maintain primary jurisdiction over surface coal mining in Pennsylvania.” Pa. Stat. Ann., Tit. 52, §1406.2 (Purdon Supp. 1986).
The District Court and the Court of Appeals were both convinced that the legislative purposes set forth in the statute were genuine, substantial, and legitimate, and we have no reason to conclude otherwise.
None of the indicia of a statute enacted solely for the benefit of private parties identified in Justice Holmes’ opinion are present here. First, Justice Holmes explained that the Koh-ler Act was a “private benefit” statute since it “ordinarily does not apply to land when the surface is owned by the owner of the coal.” 260 U. S., at 414. The Subsidence Act, by contrast, has no such exception. The current surface owner may only waive the protection of the Act if the DER consents. See 25 Pa. Code §89.145(b) (1983). Moreover, the Court was forced to reject the Commonwealth’s safety justification for the Kohler Act because it found that the Commonwealth’s interest in safety could as easily have been accomplished through a notice requirement to landowners. The Subsidence Act, by contrast, is designed to accomplish a number of widely varying interests, with reference to which petitioners have not suggested alternative methods through which the Commonwealth could proceed.
Petitioners argue that at least § 6, which requires coal companies to repair subsidence damage or pay damages to those who suffer subsidence damage, is unnecessary because the Commonwealth administers an insurance program that adequately reimburses surface owners for the cost of repairing their property. But this argument rests on the mistaken premise that the statute was motivated by a desire to protect private parties. In fact, however, the public purpose that motivated the enactment of the legislation is served by preventing the damage from occurring in the first place — in the words of the statute — “by providing for the conservation of surface land areas.” Pa. Stat. Ann., Tit. 52, §1406.2 (Purdon Supp. 1986). The requirement that the mine operator assume the financial responsibility for the repair of damaged structures deters the operator from causing the damage at all — the Commonwealth’s main goal — whereas an insurance program would merely reimburse the surface owner after the damage occurs.
Thus, the Subsidence Act differs from the Kohler Act in critical and dispositive respects. With regard to the Kohler Act, the Court believed that the Commonwealth had acted only to ensure against damage to some private landowners’ homes. Justice Holmes stated that if the private individuals needed support for their structures, they should not have “take[n] the risk of acquiring only surface rights.” 260 U. S., at 416. Here, by contrast, the Commonwealth is acting to protect the public interest in health, the environment, and the fiscal integrity of the area. That private individuals erred in taking a risk cannot estop the Commonwealth from exercising its police power to abate activity akin to a public nuisance. The Subsidence Act is a prime example that “circumstances may so change in time... as to clothe with such a [public] interest what at other times... would be a matter of purely private concern.” Block v. Hirsh, 256 U. S. 135, 155 (1921).
In Pennsylvania Coal the Court recognized that the nature of the State’s interest in the regulation is a critical factor in determining whether a taking has occurred, and thus whether compensation is required. The Court distinguished the case before it from a case it had decided eight years earlier, Plymouth Coal Co. v. Pennsylvania, 232 U. S. 531 (1914). There, “it was held competent for the legislature to require a pillar of coal to be left along the line of adjoining property.” Pennsylvania Coal, 260 U. S., at 415. Justice Holmes explained that unlike the Kohler Act, the statute challenged in Plymouth Coal dealt with “a requirement for the safety of employees invited into the mine, and secured an average reciprocity of advantage that has been recognized as a justification of various laws.” 260 U. S., at 415.
Many cases before and since Pennsylvania Coal have recognized that the nature of the State’s action is critical in takings analysis. In Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U. S. 623 (1887), for example, a Kansas distiller who had built a brewery while it was legal to do so challenged a Kansas constitutional amendment which prohibited the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors. Although the Court recognized that the “buildings and machinery constituting these breweries are of little value” because of the Amendment, id., at 657, Justice Harlan explained that a
“prohibition simply upon the use of property for purposes that are declared, by valid legislation, to be injurious to the health, morals, or safety of the community, cannot, in any just sense, be deemed a taking or appropriation of property.... The power which the States have of prohibiting such use by individuals of their property as will be prejudicial to the health, the morals, or the safety of the public, is not — and, consistently with the existence and safety of organized society cannot be— burdened with the condition that the State must compensate such individual owners for pecuniary losses they may sustain, by reason of their not being permitted, by a noxious use of their property, to inflict injury upon the community.” Id., at 668-669.
See also Plymouth Coal Co., supra; Hadacheck v. Sebastian, 239 U. S. 394 (1915); Reinman v. Little Rock, 237 U. S. 171 (1915); Powell v. Pennsylvania, 127 U. S. 678 (1888).
We reject petitioners’ implicit assertion that Pennsylvania Coal overruled these cases which focused so heavily on the nature of the State’s interest in the regulation. Just five years after the Pennsylvania Coal decision, Justice Holmes joined the Court’s unanimous decision in Miller v. Schoene, 276 U. S. 272 (1928), holding that the Takings Clause did not require the State of Virginia to compensate the owners of cedar trees for the value of the trees that the State had ordered destroyed. The trees needed to be destroyed to prevent a disease from spreading to nearby apple orchards, which represented a far more valuable resource. In upholding the state action, the Court did not consider it necessary to “weigh with nicety the question whether the infected cedars constitute a nuisance according to common law; or whether they may be so declared by statute.” Id., at 280. Rather, it was clear that the State’s exercise of its police power to prevent the impending danger was justified, and did not require compensation. See also Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co., 272 U. S. 365 (1926); Omnia Commercial Co. v. United States, 261 U. S. 502, 509 (1923). Other subsequent cases reaffirm the important role that the nature of the state action plays in our takings analysis. See Goldblatt v. Hempstead, 369 U. S. 590 (1962); Consolidated Rock Products Co. v. Los Angeles, 57 Cal. 2d 515, 370 P. 2d 342, appeal dism’d, 371 U. S. 36 (1962). As the Court explained in Goldblatt: “Although a comparison of values before and after” a regulatory action “is relevant,... it is by no means conclusive....” 369 U. S., at 594.
The Court’s hesitance to find a taking when the State merely restrains uses of property that are tantamount to public nuisances is consistent with the notion of “reciprocity of advantage” that Justice Holmes referred to in Pennsylvania Coal. Under our system of government, one of the State’s primary ways of preserving the public weal is restricting the uses individuals can make of their property. While each of us is burdened somewhat by such restrictions, we, in turn, benefit greatly from the restrictions that are placed on others. See Penn Central Transportation Co. v. New York City, 438 U. S., at 144-150 (Rehnquist, J., dissenting); cf. California Reduction Co. v. Sanitary Reduction Works, 199 U. S. 306, 322 (1905). These restrictions are “properly treated as part of the burden of common citizenship.” Kimball Laundry Co. v. United States, 338 U. S. 1, 5 (1949). Long ago it was recognized that “all property in this country is held under the implied obligation that the owner’s use of it shall not be injurious to the community,” Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U. S., at 665; see also Beer Co. v. Massachusetts, 97 U. S. 25, 32 (1878), and the Takings Clause did not transform that principle to one that requires compensation whenever the State asserts its power to enforce it. See Mugler, 123 U. S., at 664.
In Agins v. Tiburon, we explained that the “determination that governmental action constitutes a taking, is, in essence, a determination that the public at large, rather than a single owner, must bear the burden of an exercise of state power in the public interest,” and we recognized that this question “necessarily requires a weighing of private and public interests.” 447 U. S., at 260-261. As the cases discussed above demonstrate, the public interest in preventing activities similar to public nuisances is a substantial one, which in many instances has not required compensation. The Subsidence Act, unlike the Kohler Act, plainly seeks to further such an interest. Nonetheless, we need not rest our decision on this factor alone, because petitioners have also failed to make a showing of diminution of value sufficient to satisfy the test set forth in Pennsylvania Coal and our other regulatory takings cases.
Diminution of Value and Investment-Backed Expectations
The second factor that distinguishes this case from Pennsylvania Coal is the finding in that case that the Kohler Act made mining of “certain coal” commercially impracticable. In this case, by contrast, petitioners have not shown any deprivation significant enough to satisfy the heavy burden placed upon one alleging a regulatory taking. For this reason, their takings claim must fail.
In addressing petitioners’ claim we must not disregard the posture in which this case comes before us. The District Court granted summary judgment to respondents only on the facial challenge to the Subsidence Act. The court explained that “[bjecause plaintiffs have not alleged any injury due to the enforcement of the statute, there is as yet no concrete controversy regarding the application of the specific provisions and regulations. Thus, the only question before this court is whether the mere enactment of the statutes and regulations constitutes a taking.” 581 F. Supp., at 513 (emphasis added). The next phase of the case was to be petitioners’ presentation of evidence about the actual effects the Subsidence Act had and would have on them. Instead of proceeding in this manner, however, the parties filed a joint motion asking the court to certify the facial challenge for appeal. The parties explained that an assessment of the actual impact that the Act has on petitioners’ operations “will involve complex and voluminous proofs,” which neither party was currently in a position to present, App. 15-17, and stressed that if an appellate court were to reverse the District Court on the facial challenge, then all of their expenditures in adjudicating the as-applied challenge would be wasted. Based on these considerations, the District Court certified three questions relating to the facial challenge.
The posture of the case is critical because we have recognized an important distinction between a claim that the mere enactment of a statute constitutes a taking and a claim that the particular impact of government action on a specific piece of property requires the payment of just compensation. This point is illustrated by our decision in Hodel v. Virginia Surface Mining & Reclamation Assn., Inc., 452 U. S. 264 (1981), in which we rejected a preenforcement challenge to the constitutionality of the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977. We concluded that the District Court had been mistaken in its reliance on Pennsylvania Coal as support for a holding that two statutory provisions were unconstitutional because they deprived coal mine operators of the use of their land. The Court explained:
“[T]he court below ignored this Court’s oft-repeated admonition that the constitutionality of statutes ought not be decided except in an actual factual setting that makes such a decision necessary. See Socialist Labor Party v. Gilligan, 406 U. S. 583, 588 (1972); Rescue Army v. Municipal Court, 331 U. S. 549, 568-575, 584 (1947); Alabama State Federation of Labor v. McAdory, 325 U. S. 450, 461 (1945). Adherence to this rule is particularly important in cases raising allegations of an unconstitutional taking of private property. Just last Term, we reaffirmed:
“ ‘[T]his Court has generally “been unable to develop any ‘set formula’ for determining when ‘justice and fairness’ require that economic injuries caused by public action be compensated by the government, rather than remain disproportionately concentrated on a few persons.” Rather, it has examined the “taking” question by engaging in essentially ad hoc, factual inquiries that have identified several factors — such as the economic impact of the regulation, its interference with reasonable investment backed expectations, and the character of the government action — that have particular significance.’ Kaiser Aetna v. United States, 444 U. S. 164, 175 (1979) (citations omitted).
“These ‘ad hoc, factual inquiries’ must be conducted with respect to specific property, and the particular estimates of economic impact and ultimate valuation relevant in the unique circumstances.
“Because appellees’ taking claim arose in the context of a facial challenge, it presented no concrete controversy concerning either application of the Act to particular surface mining operations or its effect on specific parcels of land. Thus, the only issue properly before the District Court and, in turn, this Court, is whether the ‘mere enactment’ of the Surface Mining Act constitutes a taking. See Agins v. Tiburon, 447 U. S. 255, 260 (1980). The test to be applied in considering this facial challenge is fairly straightforward. A statute regulating the uses that can be made of property effects a taking if it ‘denies an owner economically viable use of his land....’ Agins v. Tiburon, supra, at 260; see also Penn Central Transp. Co. v. New York City, 438 U. S. 104 (1978).” 452 U. S., at 295-296.
Petitioners thus face an uphill battle in making a facial attack on the Act as a taking.
The hill is made especially steep because petitioners have not claimed, at this stage, that the Act makes it commercially impracticable for them to continue mining their bituminous coal interests in western Pennsylvania. Indeed, petitioners have not even pointed to a single mine that can no longer be mined for profit. The only evidence available on the effect that the Subsidence Act has had on petitioners’ mining operations comes from petitioners’ answers to respondents’ interrogatories. Petitioners described the effect that the Subsidence Act had from 1966-1982 on 13 mines that the various companies operate, and claimed that they have been required to leave a bit less than 27 million tons of coal in place to support §4 areas. The total coal in those 13 mines amounts to over 1.46 billion tons. See App. 284. Thus §4 requires them to leave less than 2% of their coal in place. But, as we have indicated, nowhere near all of the underground coal is extractable even aside from the Subsidence Act. The categories of coal that must be left for § 4 purposes and other purposes are not necessarily distinct sets, and there is no information in the record as to how much coal is actually left in the ground solely because of §4. We do know, however, that petitioners have never claimed that their mining operations, or even any specific mines, have been unprofitable since the Subsidence Act was passed. Nor is there evidence that mining in any specific location affected by the 50% rule has been unprofitable.
Instead, petitioners have sought to narrowly define certain segments of their property and assert that, when so defined, the Subsidence Act denies them economically viable use. They advance two alternative ways of carving their property in order to reach this conclusion. First, they focus on the specific tons of coal that they must leave in the ground under the Subsidence Act, and argue that the Commonwealth has effectively appropriated this coal since it has no other useful purpose if not mined. Second, they contend that the Commonwealth has taken their separate legal interest in property — the “support estate.”
Because our test for regulatory taking requires us to compare the value that has been taken from the property with the value that remains in the property, one of the critical questions is determining how to define the unit of property “whose value is to furnish the denominator of the fraction.” Michelman, Property, Utility, and Fairness: Comments on the Ethical Foundations of “Just Compensation” Law, 80 Harv. L. Rev. 1165, 1192 (1967).
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.
Mr. Justice Stewart
delivered the opinion of the Court.
When at the behest of the defendant a criminal conviction has been set aside and a new trial ordered, to what extent does the Constitution limit the imposition of a harsher sentence after conviction upon retrial? That is the question presented by these two cases.
In No. 413 the respondent Pearce was convicted in a North Carolina court upon a charge of assault with intent to commit rape. The trial judge sentenced him to prison for a term of 12 to 15 years. Several years later he initiated a state post-conviction proceeding which culminated in the reversal of his conviction by the Supreme Court of North Carolina, upon the ground that an involuntary confession had unconstitutionally been admitted in evidence against him, 266 N. C. 234, 145 S. E. 2d 918. He was retried, convicted, and sentenced by the trial judge to an eight-year prison term, which, when added to the time Pearce had already spent in prison, the parties agree amounted to a longer total sentence than that originally imposed. The conviction and sentence were affirmed on appeal. 268 N. C. 707, 151 S. E. 2d 571. Pearce then began this habeas corpus proceeding in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina. That court held, upon the authority of a then very recent Fourth Circuit decision, Patton v. North Carolina, 381 F. 2d 636, cert. denied, 390 U. S. 905, that the longer sentence imposed upon retrial was “unconstitutional and void.” Upon the failure of the state court to resentence Pearce within 60 days, the federal court ordered his release. This order was affirmed by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, 397 F. 2d 253, in a brief per curiam judgment citing its Patton decision, and we granted certiorari. 393 U. S. 922.
In No. 418 the respondent Rice pleaded guilty in an Alabama trial court to four separate charges of second-degree burglary. He was sentenced to prison terms aggregating 10 years. Two and one-half years later the judgments were set aside in a state coram nobis proceeding, upon the ground that Rice had not been accorded his constitutional right to counsel. See Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U. S. 335. He was retried upon three of the charges, convicted, and sentenced to prison terms aggregating 25 years. No credit was given for the time he had spent in prison on the original judgments. He then brought this habeas corpus proceeding in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama, alleging that the state trial court had acted unconstitutionally in failing to give him credit for the time he had already served in prison, and in imposing grossly harsher sentences upon retrial. United States District Judge Frank M. Johnson, Jr., agreed with both contentions. While stating that he did “not believe that it is constitutionally impermissible to impose a harsher sentence upon retrial if there is recorded in the court record some legal justification for it,” Judge Johnson found that Rice had been denied due process of law, because “[ujnder the evidence in this case, the conclusion is inescapable that the State of Alabama is punishing petitioner Rice for his having exercised his post-conviction right of review and for having the original sentences declared unconstitutional.” 274 F. Supp. 116, 121, 122. The judgment of the District Court was affirmed by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, “on the basis of Judge Johnson’s opinion,” 396 F. 2d 499, 500, and we granted certiorari. 393 U. S. 932.
The problem before us involves two related but analytically separate issues. One concerns the constitutional limitations upon the imposition of a more severe punishment after conviction for the same offense upon retrial. The other is the more limited question whether, in computing the new sentence, the Constitution requires that credit must be given for that part of the original sentence already served. The second question is not presented in Pearce, for in North Carolina it appears to be the law that a defendant must be given full credit for all time served under the previous sentence. State v. Stafford, 274 N. C. 519, 164 S. E. 2d 371; State v. Paige, 272 N. C. 417, 158 S. E. 2d 522; State v. Weaver, 264 N. C. 681, 142 S. E. 2d 633. In any event, Pearce was given such credit. Alabama law, however, seems to reflect a different view. Aaron v. State, 43 Ala. App. 450, 192 So. 2d 456; Ex parte Merkes, 43 Ala. App. 640, 198 So. 2d 789. And respondent Rice, upon being re-sentenced, was given no credit at all for the two and one-half years he had already spent in prison.
We turn first to the more limited aspect of the question before us — whether the Constitution requires that, in computing the sentence imposed after conviction upon retrial, credit must be given for time served under the original sentence. We then consider the broader question of what constitutional limitations there may be upon the imposition of a more severe sentence after reconviction.
I.
The Court has held today, in Benton v. Maryland, post, p. 784, that the Fifth Amendment guarantee against double jeopardy is enforceable against the States through the Fourteenth Amendment. That guarantee has been said to consist of three separate constitutional protections. It protects against a second prosecution for the same offense after acquittal. It protects against a second prosecution for the same offense after conviction. And it protects against multiple punishments for the same offense. This last protection is what is necessarily implicated in any consideration of the question whether, in the imposition of sentence for the same offense after retrial, the Constitution requires that credit must be given for punishment already endured. The Court stated the controlling constitutional principle almost 100 years ago, in the landmark case of Ex parte Lange, 18 Wall. 163, 168:
“If there is anything settled in the jurisprudence of England and America, it is that no man can be twice lawfully punished for the same offence. And . . . there has never been any doubt of [this rule’s] entire and complete protection of the party when a second punishment is proposed in the same court, on the same facts, for the same statutory-offence.
. . [T]he Constitution was designed as much to prevent the criminal from being twice punished for the same offence as from being twice tried for it.” Id., at 173.
We think it is clear that this basic constitutional guarantee is violated when punishment already exacted for an offense is not fully “credited” in imposing sentence upon a new conviction for the same offense. The constitutional violation is flagrantly apparent in a case involving the imposition of a maximum sentence after reconviction. Suppose, for example, in a jurisdiction where the maximum allowable sentence for larceny is 10 years’ imprisonment, a man succeeds in getting his larceny conviction set aside after serving three years in prison. If, upon reconvietion, he is given a 10-year sentence, then, quite clearly, he will have received multiple punishments for the same offense. For he will have been compelled to serve separate prison terms of three years and 10 years, although the maximum single punishment for the offense is 10 years’ imprisonment. Though not so dramatically evident, the same principle obviously holds true whenever punishment already endured is not fully subtracted from any new sentence imposed.
We hold that the constitutional guarantee against multiple punishments for the same offense absolutely requires that punishment already exacted must be fully “credited” in imposing sentence upon a new conviction for the same offense. If, upon a new trial, the defendant is acquitted, there is no way the years he spent in prison can be returned to him. But if he is reconvicted, those years can and must be returned — by subtracting them from whatever new sentence is imposed.
II.
To hold that the second sentence must be reduced by the time served under the first is, however, to give but a partial answer to the question before us. We turn, therefore, to consideration of the broader problem of what constitutional limitations there may be upon the general power of a judge to impose upon reconviction a longer prison sentence than the defendant originally received.
A.
Long-established constitutional doctrine makes clear that, beyond the requirement already discussed, the guarantee against double jeopardy imposes no restrictions upon the length of a sentence imposed upon recon-viction. At least since 1896, when United States v. Ball, 163 U. S. 662, was decided, it has been settled that this constitutional guarantee imposes no limitations whatever upon the power to retry a defendant who has succeeded in getting his first conviction set aside. “The principle that this provision does not preclude the Government’s retrying a defendant whose conviction is set aside because of an error in the proceedings leading to conviction is a well-established part of our constitutional jurisprudence.” United States v. Tateo, 377 U. S. 463, 465. And at least since 1919, when Stroud v. United States, 251 U. S. 15, was decided, it has been settled that a corollary of the power to retry a defendant is the power, upon the defendant’s reconviction, to impose whatever sentence may be legally authorized, whether or not it is greater than the sentence imposed after the first conviction. “That a defendant’s conviction is overturned on collateral rather than direct attack is irrelevant for these purposes, see Robinson v. United States, 144 F. 2d 392, 396, 397, aff’d on another ground, 324 U. S. 282.” United States v. Tateo, supra, at 466.
Although the rationale for this “well-established part of our constitutional jurisprudence” has been variously verbalized, it rests ultimately upon the premise that the original conviction has, at the defendant’s behest, been wholly nullified and the slate wiped clean. As to whatever punishment has actually been suffered under the first conviction, that premise is, of course, an unmitigated fiction, as we have recognized in Part I of this opinion. But, so far as the conviction itself goes, and that part of the sentence that has not yet been served, it is no more than a simple statement of fact to say that the slate has been wiped clean. The conviction has been set aside, and the unexpired portion of the original sentence will never be served. A new trial may result in an acquittal. But if it does result in a conviction, we cannot say that the constitutional guarantee against double jeopardy of its own weight restricts the imposition of an otherwise lawful single punishment for the offense in question. To hold to the contrary would be to cast doubt upon the whole validity of the basic principle enunciated in United States v. Ball, supra, and upon the unbroken line of decisions that have followed that principle for almost 75 years. We think those decisions are entirely sound, and we decline to depart from the concept they reflect.
B.
The other argument advanced in support of the proposition that the Constitution absolutely forbids the imposition of a more severe sentence upon retrial is grounded upon the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The theory advanced is that, since convicts who do not seek new trials cannot have their sentences increased, it creates an invidious classification to impose that risk only upon those who succeed in getting their original convictions set aside. The argument, while not lacking in ingenuity, cannot withstand close examination. In the first place, we deal here, not with increases in existing sentences, but with the imposition of wholly new sentences after wholly new trials. Putting that conceptual nicety to one side, however, the problem before us simply cannot be rationally dealt with in terms of “classifications.” A man who is retried after his first conviction has been set aside may be acquitted. If convicted, he may receive a shorter sentence, he may receive the same sentence, or he may receive a longer sentence than the one originally imposed. The result may depend upon a particular combination of infinite variables peculiar to each individual trial. It simply cannot be said that a State has invidiously “classified” those who successfully seek new trials, any more than that the State has invidiously “classified” those prisoners whose convictions are not set aside by denying the members of that group the opportunity to be acquitted. To fit the problem of this case into an equal protection framework is a task too Procrustean to be rationally accomplished.
C.
We hold, therefore, that neither the double jeopardy provision nor the Equal Protection Clause imposes an absolute bar to a more severe sentence upon recon-viction. A trial judge is not constitutionally precluded, in other words, from imposing a new sentence, whether greater or less than the original sentence, in the light of events subsequent to the first trial that may have thrown new light upon the defendant’s “life, health, habits, conduct, and mental and moral propensities.” Williams v. New York, 337 U. S. 241, 245. Such information may come to the judge’s attention from evidence adduced at the second trial itself, from a new presentence investigation, from the defendant’s prison record, or possibly from other sources. The freedom of a sentencing judge to consider the defendant’s conduct subsequent to the first conviction in imposing a new sentence is no more than consonant with the principle, fully approved in Williams v. New York, supra, that a State may adopt the “prevalent modern philosophy of penology that the punishment should fit the offender and not merely the crime.” Id., at 247.
To say that there exists no absolute constitutional bar to the imposition of a more severe sentence upon retrial is not, however, to end the inquiry. There remains for consideration the impact of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
It can hardly be doubted that it would be a flagrant violation of the Fourteenth Amendment for a state trial court to follow an announced practice of imposing a heavier sentence upon every reconvicted defendant for the explicit purpose of punishing the defendant for his having succeeded in getting his original conviction set aside. Where, as in each of the cases before us, the original conviction has been set aside because of a constitutional error, the imposition of such a punishment, “penalizing those who choose to exercise” constitutional rights, “would be patently unconstitutional.” United States v. Jackson, 390 U. S. 570, 581. And the very threat inherent in the existence of such a punitive policy would, with respect to those still in prison, serve to “chill the exercise of basic constitutional rights.” Id., at 582. See also Griffin v. California, 380 U. S. 609; cf. Johnson v. Avery, 393 U. S. 483. But even if the first conviction has been set aside for nonconstitutional error, the imposition of a penalty upon the defendant for having successfully pursued a statutory right of appeal or collateral remedy would be no less a violation of due process of law. “A new sentence, with enhanced punishment, based upon such a reason, would be a flagrant violation of the rights of the defendant.” Nichols v. United States, 106 F. 672, 679. A court is “without right to . . . put a price on an appeal. A defendant’s exercise of a right of appeal must be free and unfettered. . . . [I]t is unfair to use the great power given to the court to determine sentence to place a defendant in the dilemma of making an unfree choice.” Worcester v. Commissioner, 370 F. 2d 713, 718. See Short v. United States, 120 U. S. App. D. C. 165, 167, 344 F. 2d 550, 552. “This Court has never held that the States are required to establish avenues of appellate review, but it is now fundamental that, once established, these avenues must be kept free of unreasoned distinctions that can only impede open and equal access to the courts. Griffin v. Illinois, 351 U. S. 12; Douglas v. California, 372 U. S. 353; Lane v. Brown, 372 U. S. 477; Draper v. Washington, 372 U. S. 487.” Rinaldi v. Yeager, 384 U. S. 305, 310-311.
Due process of law, then, requires that vindictiveness against a defendant for having successfully attacked his first conviction must play no part in the sentence he receives after a new trial. And since the fear of such vindictiveness may unconstitutionally deter a defendant's exercise of the right to appeal or collaterally attack his first conviction, due process also requires that a defendant be freed of apprehension of such a retaliatory motivation on the part of the sentencing judge.
In order to assure the absence of such a motivation, we have concluded that whenever a judge imposes a more severe sentence upon a defendant after a new trial, the reasons for his doing so must affirmatively appear. Those reasons must be based upon objective information concerning identifiable conduct on the part of the defendant occurring after the time of the original sentencing proceeding. And the factual data upon which the increased sentence is based must be made part of the record, so that the constitutional legitimacy of the increased sentence may be fully reviewed on appeal.
We dispose of the two cases before us in the light of these conclusions. In No. 418 Judge Johnson noted that “the State of Alabama offers no evidence attempting to justify the increase in Rice’s original sentences . . . .” 274 F. Supp., at 121. He found it “shocking that the State of Alabama has not attempted to explain or justify the increase in Rice’s punishment — in these three cases, over threefold.” Id., at 121-122. And he found that “the conclusion is inescapable that the State of Alabama is punishing petitioner Rice for his having exercised his post-conviction right of review . . . .” Id., at 122. In No. 413 the situation is not so dramatically clear. Nonetheless, the fact remains that neither at the time the increased sentence was imposed upon Pearce, nor at any stage in this habeas corpus proceeding, has the State offered any reason or justification for that sentence beyond the naked power to impose it. We conclude that in each of the cases before us, the judgment should be affirmed.
It is so ordered.
The approximate expiration date of the original sentence, assuming all allowances of time for good behavior, was November 13,1969. The approximate expiration date of the new sentence, assuming all allowances of time for good behavior, was October 10, 1972.
In Patton, the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit had held that “increasing Patton’s punishment after the reversal of his initial conviction constitutes a violation of his Fourteenth Amendment rights in that it exacted an unconstitutional condition to the exercise of his right to a fair trial, arbitrarily denied him the equal protection of the law, and placed him twice in jeopardy of punishment for the same offense.” 381 F. 2d, at 646.
He was sentenced to four years in prison upon the first count, and two years upon each of the other three counts, the sentences to be served consecutively.
He was sentenced to a prison term of 10 years on the first count, 10 years on the second count, and five years on the fourth count, the sentences to be served consecutively. The third count was dropped upon motion of the prosecution, apparently because the chief witness for the prosecution had left the State.
The United States Courts of Appeals have reached conflicting results in dealing with the basic problem here presented. In addition to the Fourth and Fifth Circuit decisions here under review, see Marano v. United States, 374 F. 2d 583 (C. A. 1st Cir.); United States v. Coke, 404 F. 2d 836 (C. A. 2d Cir.); Starner v. Russell, 378 F. 2d 808 (C. A. 3d Cir.); United States v. White, 382 F. 2d 445 (C. A. 7th Cir.); Walsh v. United States, 374 F. 2d 421 (C. A. 9th Cir.); Newman v. Rodriguez, 375 F. 2d 712 (C. A. 10th Cir.). The state courts have also been far from unanimous. Although most of the States seem either not to have considered the problem, or to have imposed only the generally applicable statutory' limits upon sentences after retrial, a few States have prohibited more severe sentences upon retrial than were imposed at the original trial. See People v. Henderson, 60 Cal. 2d 482, 386 P. 2d 677; People v. Ali, 66 Cal. 2d 277, 424 P. 2d 932; State v. Turner, 247 Ore. 301, 429 P. 2d 565; State v. Wolf, 46 N. J. 301, 216 A. 2d 586; State v. Leonard, 39 Wis. 2d 461, 159 N. W. 2d 577.
“THE COURT: It is the intention of this Court to give the defendant a sentence of fifteen years in the State Prison; however, it appears to the Court from the records available from the Prison Department that the defendant has served 6 years, 6 months and 17 days flat and gain time combined, and the Court in passing sentence in this case is taking into consideration the time already served by the defendant. IT IS THE JUDGMENT of this Court that the defendant be confined to the State’s Prison for a period of eight years.”
A recent opinion of the Supreme Court of Alabama indicates that state law does require credit for time served under the original sentence at least to the extent that the total period of imprisonment would otherwise exceed the absolute statutory maximum that could be imposed for the offense in question. “Without such credit defendant would be serving time beyond the maximum fixed by law for the offense . . . charged in the indictment.” Goolsby v. State, 283 Ala. 269, 215 So. 2d 602.
See Note, Twice in Jeopardy, 75 Yale L. J. 262, 265-266 (1965).
United States v. Ball, 163 U. S. 662; Green v. United States, 355 U. S. 184.
In re Nielsen, 131 U. S. 176.
Ex parte Lange, 18 Wall. 163; United States v. Benz, 282 U. S. 304, 307; United States v. Sacco, 367 F. 2d 368; United States v. Adams, 362 F. 2d 210; Kennedy v. United States, 330 F. 2d 26.
We have spoken in terms of imprisonment, but the same rule would be equally applicable where a fine had been actually paid upon the first conviction. Any new fine imposed upon reconviction would have to be decreased by the amount previously paid.
Such credit must, of course, include the time credited during service of the first prison sentence for good behavior, etc.
In most situations, even when time served under the original sentence is fully taken into account, a judge can still sentence a defendant to a longer term in prison than was originally imposed. That is true with respect to both cases before us. In the Pearce case, credit for time previously served was given. See n. 6, supra. In the Rice case credit for the two and one-half years served was not given, but even if it had been, the sentencing judge could have reached the same result that he did reach simply by sentencing Rice to 27% years in prison. That would have been permissible under Alabama law, since Rice was convicted of three counts of second-degree burglary, and on each count a maximum sentence of 10 years’ imprisonment could have been imposed. Ala. Code, Tit. 14, § 86 (1958).
See, e. g., Stroud v. United States, 251 U. S. 15; Bryan v. United States, 338 U. S. 552; Forman v. United States, 361 U. S. 416; United States v. Tateo, 377 U. S. 463.
In Stroud the defendant was convicted of. first-degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. After reversal of this conviction, the defendant was retried, reconvicted of the same offense, and sentenced to death. This Court upheld the conviction against the defendant’s claim that his constitutional right not to be twice put in jeopardy had been violated. See also Murphy v. Massachusetts, 177 U. S. 155; Robinson v. United States, 324 U. S. 282, affirming 144 F. 2d 392. The Court’s decision in Green v. United States, 355 U. S. 184, is of no applicability to the present problem. The Green decision was based upon the double jeopardy provision’s guarantee against retrial for an offense of which the defendant was acquitted.
Cf. King v. United States, 69 App. D. C. 10, 12-13, 98 F. 2d 291, 293-294: “The Government’s brief suggests, in the vein of The Mikado, that because the first sentence was void appellant 'has served no sentence but has merely spent time in the penitentiary;’ that since he should not have been imprisoned as he was, he was not imprisoned at all.”
“While different theories have been advanced to support the permissibility of retrial, of greater importance than the conceptual abstractions employed to explain the Ball principle are the implications of that principle for the sound administration of justice. Corresponding to the right of an accused to be given a fair trial is the societal interest in punishing one whose guilt is clear after he has obtained such a trial. It would be a high price indeed for society to pay were every accused granted immunity from punishment because of any defect sufficient to constitute reversible error in the proceedings leading to conviction. From the standpoint of a defendant, it is at least doubtful that appellate courts would be as zealous as they now are in protecting against the effects of improprieties at the trial or pretrial stage if they knew that reversal of a conviction would put the accused irrevocably beyond the reach of further prosecution. In reality, therefore, the practice of retrial serves defendants' rights as well as society’s interest.” United States v. Tateo, 377 U. S. 463, 466.
See Van Alstyne, In Gideon’s Wake: Harsher Penalties and the “Successful” Criminal Appellant, 74 Yale L. J. 606 (1965); Note, Unconstitutional Conditions, 73 Harv. L. Rev. 1595 (1960).
The existence of a retaliatory motivation would, of course, be extremely difficult to prove in any individual case. But data have been collected to show that increased sentences on reconviction are far from rare. See Note, Constitutional Law: Increased Sentence and Denial of Credit on Retrial Sustained Under Traditional Waiver Theory, 1965 Duke L. J. 395. A touching bit of evidence showing the fear of such a vindictive policy was noted by the trial judge in Patton v. North Carolina, 256 F. Supp. 225, who quoted a letter he had recently received from a prisoner:
“Dear Sir:
“I am in the Mecklenburg County jail. Mr. - chose to re-try me as I knew he would.
“Sir the other defendant in this case was set free after serving 15 months of his sentence, I have served 34 months and now I am to be tried again and with all probility I will receive a heavier sentence then before as you know sir my sentence at the first trile was 20 to 30 years. I know it is usuelly the courts prosedure to give a larger sentence when a new trile is granted I guess this is to discourage Petitioners.
“Your Honor, I don’t want a new trile I am afraid of more time ....
“Your Honor, I know you have tried to help me and God knows I apreeeate this but please sir don’t let the state re-try me if there is any way you can prevent it.”
“Very truly yours”
Id,., at 231, n. 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.
Per Curiam.
We brought this case here upon the understanding that the question it presented was whether the District Court should have accorded petitioner a hearing under 28 U. S. C. § 2255 when it appeared that no appeal had been perfected from the original judgment of conviction. After a thorough review of the full record, made possible after the case was briefed and argued on the merits, we have concluded that the petition for certiorari was improvidently granted. The record shows that the District Court did in fact conduct a hearing upon the petitioner’s § 2255 motion, 156 F. Supp. 313, but that, the minutes of such hearing have been lost. Whether or not that hearing was adequate need not, however, be determined, for we are satisfied from the record, which includes the trial transcript, that in any event this was a case where no hearing was required under the statute, because “the files and records of the case conclusively show” that the petitioner was entitled to no relief. Therefore, and necessarily without approving or disapproving the view of the Court of Appeals on what now appears an extraneous issue, 108 U. S. App. D. C. 375, 282 F. 2d 858, we dismiss the writ 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: | 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.
Two employees in respondent’s plant, Davis and Harmon, undertook to organize the employees who worked there. The Superintendent was advised by another employee, one Pate, that Davis and Harmon, while soliciting him for membership in the union, had told him the union would use dynamite to get in if the union did not acquire the authorizations. Respondent thereafter discharged Davis and Harmon because of these alleged statements. An unfair labor practice proceeding was brought. The Board held that the discharges violated §§' 8 (a)(1) and 8 (a) (3) of the Act,61 Stat. 136,140-141,29 U. S. C. §§ 158 (a)(1) and (a)(3). It found that Pate’s charges against Davis and Harmon were untrue and that they had actually made no threats against the company’s property; and it concluded that respondent’s honest belief in the truth of the statement was not a defense. 137 N. L. R. B. 766, 772-773.
The Court of Appeals refused reinstatement of Davis and Harmon, holding that since the employer acted in good faith, the discharges-were not unlawful. 322 F. 2d 57. We granted the petition for certiorari because of a conflict among the. Circuits. Cf. with the opinion below Labor Board v. Industrial Cotton Mills, 208 F. 2d 87; Labor Board v. Cambria Clay Products Co., 215 F. 2d 48; Cusano v. Labor Board, 190 F. 2d 898.
We find it unnecessary to reach the questions raised under § 8 (a)(3) for we are of the view that in thé context of this record § 8 (a)(1) was plainly violated, whatever the employer’s motive. Section 7 grants employees, inter alia, “the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations.” Defeat of those rights by employer action does not necessarily depend on the existence of an anti-union bias. Over and again the Board has ruled that §8 (a)(1) is violated if an employee is discharged for misconduct arising out of a protected activity, despite the employer’s good faith, when it is shown that the misconduct never occurred. See, e. g., Mid-Continent Petroleum Corp., 54 N. L. R. B. 912, 932-934; Standard Oil Co., 91 N. L. R. B. 783, 790-791; Rubin Bros. Footwear, Inc., 99 N. L. R. B. 610, 611. In sum, § 8 (a) (1). is violated if it is shown that the discharged employee was at the time engaged in a protected activity, that the employer knew it was such, that the basis of the discharge was an alleged act of misconduct in the course of that activity, and that the employee was not, in fact, guilty of that misconduct.
That rule seems to us to be in conformity with the policy behind §8 (a)(1). Otherwise the protected activity would lose some of its immunity, since the example of employees who are discharged on false charges would or might have a deterrent effect on other employees. Union activity often engenders strong emotions and gives rise to active rumors. A protected activity acquires a precarious status if innocent employees can be discharged while engaging in it, even though the employer acts in good faith. It is the tendency of those discharges to weaken or destroy the § 8 (a)(1) right that is controlling. We are not in the realm of managerial prerogatives. Rather we are concerned with the manner of soliciting union membership over which the Board has been entrusted with powers of surveillance. See Garment Workers v. Labor Board, 366 U. S. 731, 738-739; Labor Board v. Erie Resistor Corp., 373 U. S. 221, 228-229. Had the alleged dynamiting threats been wholly disassociated from § 7 activities quite different considerations might apply.
Reversed.
Sections 8 (a)(1) and (3) .read as follows:
“It shall be an unfair labor practice for an employer—
“(1) to interfere with, restrain, or coerce employees in the exercise of the rights guaranteed in section 7;
“(3) by discrimination in regard to hire or tenure of employment or any term or condition of employment to encourage or discourage membership in any labor organization . . . .”
As an alternative ground for its finding that the Act had been violated) the Board held that Pate’s allegation was merely “seized up [on]” by the respondent as an “excuse” for the discharges of Davis and Harmon. 137 N. L. R. B. 766, 772-773. The Court of Appeals, however, rejected without discussion this suggestion of the existence of anti-union bias. 322 F. 2d 57, 59, 61. In its petition for writ of certiorari the Board expressly stated that “The propriety of this action [by the Court of Appeals] is not questioned here.” In fight of this concession it is unnecessary for us to determine whether the Board’s alternative finding of a discriminatory motivation is supported by substantial evidence.
The Rubin Bros, case made a qualification as to burden of proof. Prior thereto the burden was on the employer to prove that the discharged employee was in fact guilty of the misconduct. Rubin Bros, said that “once such an honest belief is established', the General Counsel must go forward with evidence to prove that the employees did not, in fact, engage in such misconduct.” 99 N. L. R. B., at 611.
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: | G | 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.
On June 10, 1969, a bomb sent through the mail exploded in the residence of Ralph Burdick in Clark County, Washington. The explosion killed Burdick and the petitioner’s infant son, Mark Allen Harris, and seriously injured the petitioner’s estranged wife, Laila Violet Harris. The petitioner was tried in a state court for the murder of Ralph Burdick and was acquitted by a jury. He was immediately rearrested on informations charging the murder of Mark Allen Harris and the assault upon Laila Violet Harris. To these informations the petitioner entered pleas of former jeopardy and collateral estoppel, and moved to dismiss. The trial court denied the motion and struck the defenses.
The state Court of Appeals granted a writ of prohibition on the grounds of collateral estoppel, finding that “the record demonstrates without question that the retrial of petitioner for assault and murder will require relitigation of the same ultimate fact” determined adversely to the State in the previous trial — i. e., whether it was the petitioner who had mailed the bomb. 2 Wash. App. 272, 291-292, 469 P. 2d 937, 948. The Supreme Court of Washington agreed that the same ultimate issue was involved in both prosecutions, but nevertheless reversed the Court of Appeals and denied the writ of prohibition. The court noted that a ruling on the admissibility of evidence during the murder trial had resulted in the exclusion, on grounds having “no bearing on the quality of the evidence,” of a letter allegedly written by the petitioner and containing threats against the lives of Mr. Burdick and Mrs. Harris. 78 Wash. 2d 894, 901, 480 P. 2d 484, 487-488. Because of its view that this evidence would clearly be admissible in the second trial, the court held that the issue of identity had not been “fully litigated” in the previous trial, and that the doctrine of collateral estoppel did not bar a subsequent trial in which litigation of the issue will be “complete.”
Since the state courts have finally rejected a claim that the Constitution forbids a second trial of the petitioner, a claim separate and apart from the question whether the petitioner may constitutionally be convicted of the crimes with which he is charged, our jurisdiction is properly invoked under 28 U. S. C. § 1257. See Mercantile National Bank v. Langdeau, 371 U. S. 555, 558.
In Ashe v. Swenson, 397 U. S. 436, we held that collateral estoppel in criminal trials is an integral part of the protection against double jeopardy guaranteed by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. See Benton v. Maryland, 395 U. S. 784. We said that collateral estop-pel “means simply that when an issue of ultimate fact has once been determined by a valid and final judgment, that issue cannot again be litigated between the same parties in any future lawsuit.” 397 U. S., at 443. The State concedes that the ultimate issue of identity was decided by the jury in the first trial. That being so, the constitutional guarantee applies, irrespective of whether the jury considered all relevant evidence, and irrespective of the good faith of the State in bringing successive prosecutions.
Since Ashe v. Swenson, supra, squarely controls this case, the motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis is granted, the petition for a writ of certiorari is granted, and the judgment is
Reversed.
Mr. Justice Douglas, Mr. Justice Brennan, and Mr. Justice Marshall would grant the petition and reverse the judgment both for the reasons stated in the per curiam opinion and for the reasons stated in Mr. Justice Brennan’s concurring opinion in Ashe v. Swenson, 397 U. S. 436, 448.
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 involves the application of the rules articulated today in United States v. Leon, ante, p. 897, to a situation in which police officers seize items pursuant to a warrant subsequently invalidated because of a technical error on the part of the issuing judge.
I
The badly burned body of Sandra Boulware was discovered in a vacant lot in the Roxbury section of Boston at approximately 5 a. m., Saturday, May 5,1979. An autopsy revealed that Boulware had died of multiple compound skull fractures caused by blows to the head. After a brief investigation, the police decided to question one of the victim’s boyfriends, Osborne Sheppard. Sheppard told the police that he had last seen the victim on Tuesday night and that he had been at a local gaming house (where card games were played) from 9 p. m. Friday until 5 a. m. Saturday. He identified several people who would be willing to substantiate the latter claim.
By interviewing the people Sheppard had said were at the gaming house on Friday night, the police learned that although Sheppard was at the gaming house that night, he had borrowed an automobile at about 3 o’clock Saturday morning in order to give two men a ride home. Even though the trip normally took only 15 minutes, Sheppard did not return with the car until nearly 5 a. m.
On Sunday morning, police officers visited the owner of the car Sheppard had borrowed. He consented to an inspection of the vehicle. Bloodstains and pieces of hair were found on the rear bumper and within the trunk compartment. In addition, the officers noticed strands of wire in the trunk similar to wire strands found on and near the body of the victim. The owner of the car told the officers that when he last used the car on Friday night, shortly before Sheppard borrowed it, he had placed articles in the trunk and had not noticed any stains on the bumper or in the trunk.
On the basis of the evidence gathered thus far in the investigation, Detective Peter O’Malley drafted an affidavit designed to support an application for an arrest warrant and a search warrant authorizing a search of Sheppard’s residence. The affidavit set forth the results of the investigation and stated that the police wished to search for
“[a] fifth bottle of amaretto liquor, 2 nickel bags of marijuana, a woman’s jacket that has been described as black-grey (charcoal) possessions of Sandra D. Boulware, similar type wire and rope that match those on the body of Sandra D. Boulware, or in the above [TJhunderbird. Blunt instrument that might have been used on the victim. Men’s or women’s clothing that may have blood, gasoline, burns on them. Items that may have fingerprints of the victim.”
Detective O’Malley showed the affidavit to the District Attorney, the District Attorney’s first assistant, and a sergeant, who all concluded that it set forth probable cause for the search and the arrest. 387 Mass. 488, 492, 441 N. E. 2d 725, 727 (1982).
Because it was Sunday, the local court was closed, and the police had a difficult time finding a warrant application form. Detective O’Malley finally found a warrant form previously in use in the Dorchester District. The form was entitled “Search Warrant — Controlled Substance G. L. c. 276 §§1 through 3A.” Realizing that some changes had to be made before the form could be used to authorize the search requested in the affidavit, Detective O’Malley deleted the subtitle “controlled substance” with a typewriter. He also substituted “Roxbury” for the printed “Dorchester” and typed Sheppard’s name and address into blank spaces provided for that information. However, the reference to “controlled substance” was not deleted in the portion of the form that constituted the warrant application and that, when signed, would constitute the warrant itself.
Detective O’Malley then took the affidavit and the warrant form to the residence of a judge who had consented to consider the warrant application. The judge examined the affidavit and stated that he would authorize the search as requested. Detective O’Malley offered the warrant form and stated that he knew the form as presented dealt with controlled substances. He showed the judge where he had crossed out the subtitles. After unsuccessfully searching for a more suitable form, the judge informed O’Malley that he would make the necessary changes so as to provide a proper search warrant. The judge then took the form, made some changes on it, and dated and signed the warrant. However, he did not change the substantive portion of the warrant, which continued to authorize a search for controlled substances; nor did he alter the form so as to incorporate the affidavit. The judge returned the affidavit and the warrant to O’Malley, informing him that the warrant was sufficient authority in form and content to carry out the search as requested. O’Malley took the two documents and, accompanied by other officers, proceeded to Sheppard’s residence. The scope of the ensuing search was limited to the items listed in the affidavit, and several incriminating pieces of evidence were discovered. Sheppard was then charged with first-degree murder.
At a pretrial suppression hearing, the trial judge concluded that the warrant failed to conform to the commands of the Fourth Amendment because it did not particularly describe the items to be seized. The judge ruled, however, that the evidence could be admitted notwithstanding the defect in the warrant because the police had acted in good faith in executing what they reasonably thought was a valid warrant. App. 35a. At the subsequent trial, Sheppard was convicted.
On appeal, Sheppard argued that the evidence obtained pursuant to the defective warrant should have been suppressed. The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts agreed. A plurality of the justices concluded that although “the police conducted the search in a good faith belief, reasonably held, that the search was lawful and authorized by the warrant issued by the judge,” 387 Mass., at 503, 441 N. E. 2d, at 733, the evidence had to be excluded because this Court had not recognized a good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule. Two justices combined in a separate concurrence to stress their rejection of the good-faith exception, and one justice dissented, contending that since exclusion of the evidence in this case would not serve to deter any police misconduct, the evidence should be admitted. We granted certiorari and set the case for argument in conjunction with United States v. Leon, ante, p. 897. 463 U. S. 1205 (1983).
II
Having already decided that the exclusionary rule should not be applied when the officer conducting the search acted in objectively reasonable reliance on a warrant issued by a detached and neutral magistrate that subsequently is determined to be invalid, ante, at 922-923, the sole issue before us in this case is whether the officers reasonably believed that the search they conducted was authorized by a valid warrant. There is no dispute that the officers believed that the warrant authorized the search that they conducted. Thus, the only question is whether there was an objectively reasonable basis for the officers’ mistaken belief. Both the trial court, App. 35a, and a majority of the Supreme Judicial Court, 387 Mass., at 503, 441 N. E. 2d, at 733; id., at 524-525, 441 N. E. 2d, at 745 (Lynch, J., dissenting), concluded that there was. We agree.
The officers in this case took every step that could reasonably be expected of them. Detective O’Malley prepared an affidavit which was reviewed and approved by the District Attorney. He presented that affidavit to a neutral judge. The judge concluded that the affidavit established probable cause to search Sheppard’s residence, App. 26a, and informed O’Malley that he would authorize the search as requested. O’Malley then produced the warrant form and informed the judge that it might need to be changed. He was told by the judge that the necessary changes would be made. He then observed the judge make some changes and received the warrant and the affidavit. At this point, a reasonable police officer would have concluded, as O’Malley did, that the warrant authorized a search for the materials outlined in the affidavit.
Sheppard contends that since O’Malley knew the warrant form was defective, he should have examined it to make sure that the necessary changes had been made. However, that argument is based on the premise that O’Malley had a duty to disregard the judge’s assurances that the requested search would be authorized and the necessary changes would be made. Whatever an officer may be required to do when he executes a warrant without knowing beforehand what items are to be seized, we refuse to rule that an officer is required to disbelieve a judge who has just advised him, by word and by action, that the warrant he possesses authorizes him to conduct the search he has requested. In Massachusetts, as in most jurisdictions, the determinations of a judge acting within his jurisdiction, even if erroneous, are valid and binding until they are set aside under some recognized procedure. Streeter v. City of Worcester, 336 Mass. 469, 472, 146 N. E. 2d 514, 517 (1957); Moll v. Township of Wakefield, 274 Mass. 505, 507, 175 N. E. 81, 82 (1931). If an officer is required to accept at face value the judge’s conclusion that a warrant form is invalid, there is little reason why he should be expected to disregard assurances that everything is all right, especially when he has alerted the judge to the potential problems.
In sum, the police conduct in this case clearly was objectively reasonable and largely error-free. An error of constitutional dimensions may have been committed with respect to the issuance of the warrant, but it was the judge, not the police officers, who made the critical mistake. “[T]he exclusionary rule was adopted to deter unlawful searches by police, not to punish the errors of magistrates and judges.” Illinois v. Gates, 462 U. S. 213, 263 (1983) (White, J., concurring in judgment). Suppressing evidence because the judge failed to make all the necessary clerical corrections despite his assurances that such changes would be made will not serve the deterrent function that the exclusionary rule was designed to achieve. Accordingly, federal law does not require the exclusion of the disputed evidence in this case. The judgment of the Supreme Judicial Court is therefore reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
[For opinion of Justice Stevens concurring in the judgment, see ante, p. 960.]
[For dissenting opinion of Justice Brennan, see ante, p. 928.]
The liquor and marihuana were included in the request because Sheppard had told the officers that when he was last with the victim, the two had purchased two bags of marihuana and a fifth of amaretto before going to his residence.
The warrant directed the officers to “search for any controlled substance, article, implement or other paraphernalia used in, for, or in connection with the unlawful possession or use of any controlled substance, and to seize and securely keep the same until final action . . . .”
Sheppard contends that there is no evidence in the record that the judge spoke to O’Malley after he made the changes. Brief for Respondent 11, n. 4. However, the trial judge expressly found that the judge “informed Detective O’Malley that the warrant as delivered over was sufficient authority in form and content to carry out the search as requested,” App. 27a, and a plurality of the Supreme Judicial Court noted that finding without any apparent disapproval. 387 Mass. 488, 497, 441 N. E. 2d 725, 730 (1982). Since it would have been reasonable for O’Malley to infer that the warrant was valid when the judge made some changes after assuring him that the form would be corrected, an express assurance that the warrant was adequate would add little to the reasonableness of O’Malley’s belief that the necessary changes had been made. Therefore, nothing would be served by combing the record to determine whether there is sufficient evidence to support the trial court’s finding that the judge spoke to O'Malley after signing the warrant.
The police found a pair of bloodstained boots, bloodstains on the concrete floor, a woman’s earring with bloodstains on it, a bloodstained envelope, a pair of men’s jockey shorts and women’s leotards with blood on them, three types of wire, and a woman’s hairpiece, subsequently identified as the victim’s.
Both the trial court, App. 32a, and a majority of the Supreme Judicial Court, 387 Mass., at 500-501, 441 N. E. 2d, at 731-732; id., at 510, 441 N. E. 2d, at 737 (Liacos, J., joined by Abrams, J., concurring), concluded that the warrant was constitutionally defective because the description in the warrant was completely inaccurate and the warrant did not incorporate the description contained in the affidavit. Petitioner does not dispute this conclusion.
Petitioner does argue, however, that even though the warrant was invalid, the search was constitutional because it was reasonable within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. Brief for Petitioner 28-32. The uniformly applied rule is that a search conducted pursuant to a warrant that fails to conform to the particularity requirement of the Fourth Amendment is unconstitutional. Stanford v. Texas, 379 U. S. 476 (1965); United States v. Cardwell, 680 F. 2d 75, 77-78 (CA9 1982); United States v. Crozier, 674 F. 2d 1293, 1299 (CA9 1982); United States v. Klein, 565 F. 2d 183, 185 (CA1 1977); United States v. Gardner, 537 F. 2d 861, 862 (CA6 1976); United States v. Marti, 421 F. 2d 1263, 1268-1269 (CA2 1970). That rule is in keeping with the well-established principle that “except in certain carefully defined classes of cases, a search of private property without proper consent is ‘unreasonable’ unless it has been authorized by a valid search warrant.” Camara v. Municipal Court, 387 U. S. 523, 528-529 (1967). See Steagald v. United States, 451 U. S. 204, 211-212 (1981); Jones v. United States, 357 U. S. 493, 499 (1958). Whether the present case fits into one of those carefully defined classes is a fact-bound issue of little importance since similar situations are unlikely to arise with any regularity.
Normally, when an officer who has not been involved in the application stage receives a warrant, he will read it in order to determine the object of the search. In this case, Detective O’Malley, the officer who directed the search, knew what items were listed in the affidavit presented to the judge, and he had good reason to believe that the warrant authorized the seizure of those items. Whether an officer who is less familiar with the warrant application or who has unalleviated concerns about the proper scope of the search would be justified in failing to notice a defect like the one in the warrant in this case is an issue we need not decide. We hold only that it was not unreasonable for the police in this case to rely on the judge’s assurances that the warrant authorized the search they had requested.
This is not an instance in which “it is plainly evident that a magistrate or judge had no business issuing a warrant.” Illinois v. Gates, 462 U. S., at 264 (White, J., concurring in judgment). The judge’s error was not in concluding that a warrant should issue but in failing to make the necessary changes on the form. Indeed, Sheppard admits that if the judge had crossed out the reference to controlled substances, written “see attached affidavit” on the form, and attached the affidavit to the warrant, the warrant would have been valid. Tr. of Oral Arg. 27, 50. See United States v. Johnson, 690 F. 2d 60, 64-65 (CA3 1982), cert. denied, 459 U. S. 1214 (1983); In re Property Belonging to Talk of the Town Bookstore, Inc., 644 F. 2d 1317, 1318-1319 (CA9 1981); United States v. Johnson, 541 F. 2d 1311, 1315-1316 (CA8 1976); United States v. Womack, 166 U. S. App. D. C. 35, 49, 509 F. 2d 368, 382 (1974); Commonwealth v. Todisco, 363 Mass. 445, 450, 294 N. E. 2d 860, 864 (1973).
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.
This matter comes to the Court on the application of the State of North Carolina to vacate an order of a single Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, granting, at 12:05 a. m. today, respondent’s application for a stay of execution. Circuit Judge Phillips had jurisdiction to consider respondent’s application pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 1651; accordingly, this Court has jurisdiction to consider the State’s application. A transcript of Judge Phillips’ opinion is before the Court. The application to vacate the stay of execution entered today, January 13, 1984, by Circuit Judge Phillips, was presented to the Chief Justice and by him referred to the Court.
The application to vacate said stay is 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: | 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 White
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Both •§ 1331 and § 1362 of Title 28 of the United States Code confer jurisdiction on the district courts to hear cases “aris[ing] under the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States.” Section 1331 requires that the amount in controversy exceed $10,000. Under § 1362, Indian tribes may bring such suits without regard to the amount in controversy. The question now before us is whether the District Court had jurisdiction over this case under either of these sections.
I
The complaint was filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York by the Oneida Indian Nation of New York State and the Oneida Indian Nation of Wisconsin against the Counties of Oneida and Madison in the State of New York. The complaint alleged that from time immemorial down to the time of the American Revolution the Oneidas had owned and occupied some six million acres of land in the State of New York. The complaint also alleged that in the 1780’s and 1790’s various treaties had been entered into between the Oneidas and the United States confirming the Indians’ right to possession of their lands until purchased by the United States and that in 1790 the treaties had been implemented by federal statute, the Nonintercourse Act, 1 Stat. 137, forbidding the conveyance of Indian lands without the consent of the United States. It was then alleged that in 1788 the Oneidas had ceded five million acres to the State of New York, 300,000 acres being withheld as a reservation, and that in 1795 a portion of these reserved lands was also ceded to the State. Assertedly, the 1795 cession was without the consent of the United States and hence ineffective to terminate the Indians’ right to possession under the federal treaties and the applicable federal statutes. Also alleging that the 1795 cession was for an unconscionable and inadequate price and that portions of the premises were now in possession of and being used by the defendant counties, the complaint prayed for damages representing the fair rental value of the land for the period January 1, 1968, through December 31, 1969.
The District Court ruled that the cause of action, regardless of the label given it, was created under state law and required only allegations of the plaintiffs’ pos-sessory rights and the defendants’ interference therewith. The possible necessity of interpreting a federal statute or treaties to resolve a potential defense was deemed insufficient to sustain federal-question jurisdiction. The complaint was accordingly dismissed for want of subject matter jurisdiction for failure of the complaint to raise a question arising under the laws of the United States within the meaning of either § 1331 or § 1362.
The Court of Appeals affirmed, with one judge dissenting, ruling that the jurisdictional claim “shatters on the rock of the 'well-pleaded complaint’ rule for determining federal question jurisdiction.” 464 F. 2d 916, 918 (CA2 1972). Although “[d]ecision would ultimately turn on whether the deed of 1795 complied with what is now 25 U. S. C. § 177 and what the consequences would be if it did not,” id., at 919, this alone did not establish “arising under” jurisdiction because the federal issue was not one of the necessary elements of the complaint, which was read as essentially seeking relief based on the right to possession of real property. The Court of Appeals thought Taylor v. Anderson, 234 U. S. 74 (1914), directly in point. There, a complaint in ejectment did not state a claim arising under the laws of the United States even though it alleged that the defendants were claiming under a deed that was void under acts of Congress restraining the alienation of lands allotted to Choctaw and Chickasaw Indians. The Court applied the principle that whether a case arises under federal law for purposes of the jurisdictional statute “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 of avoidance of defenses which it is thought the defendant may interpose.” Id., at 75-76. Because the only essential allegations were plaintiffs’ rights to possession, defendants’ wrongful holding and the damage claim, the complaint did not properly assert a federal issue, however likely it might be that it would be relevant to or determinative of a defense. In the present case, noting that the District Judge was correct in holding that under New York law these allegations would suffice to state a cause of action in ejectment, the Court of Appeals considered Taylor to be dispositive.
Both the District Court and the Court of Appeals were in error, and we reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
II
Accepting the premise of the Court of Appeals that the case was essentially a possessory action, we are of the view that the complaint asserted a current right to possession conferred by federal law, wholly independent of state law. The threshold allegation required of such a well-pleaded complaint — the right to possession — was plainly enough alleged to be based on federal law. The federal law issue, therefore, did not arise solely in anticipation of a defense. Moreover, we think that the basis for petitioners’ assertion that they had a federal right to possession governed wholly by federal law cannot be said to be so insubstantial, implausible, foreclosed by prior decisions of this Court, or otherwise completely devoid of merit as not to involve a federal controversy within the jurisdiction of the District Court, whatever may be the ultimate resolution of the federal issues on the merits. See, e. g., The Fair v. Kohler Die & Specialty Co., 228 U. S. 22, 25 (1913); Montana Catholic Missions v. Missoula County, 200 U. S. 118, 130 (1906); Levering & Garrigues Co. v. Morrin, 289 U. S. 103, 105-106 (1933); Montana-Dakota Utilities Co. v. Northwestern Public Service Co., 341 U. S. 246, 249 (1951). Given the nature and source of the possessory rights of Indian tribes to their aboriginal lands, particularly when confirmed by treaty, it is plain that the complaint asserted a controversy arising under the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States within the meaning of both § 1331 and § 1362.
It very early became accepted doctrine in this Court that although fee title to the lands occupied by Indians when the colonists arrived became vested in the sovereign — first the discovering European nation and later the original States and the United States — a right of occupancy in the Indian tribes was nevertheless recognized. That right, sometimes called Indian title and good against all but the sovereign, could be terminated only by sovereign act. Once the United States was organized and the Constitution adopted, these tribal rights to Indian lands became the exclusive province of the federal law. Indian title, recognized to be only a right of occupancy, was extinguishable only by the United States. The Federal Government took early steps to deal with the Indians through treaty, the principal purpose often being to recognize and guarantee the rights of Indians to specified areas of land. This the United States did with respect to the various New York Indian tribes, including the Oneidas. The United States also asserted the primacy of federal law in the first Nonintercourse Act passed in 1790, 1 Stat. 137, 138, which provided that “no sale of lands made by any Indians... within the United States, shall be valid to any person... or to any state... unless the same shall be made and duly executed at some public treaty, held under the authority of the United States.” This has remained the policy of the United States to this day. See 25 U. S. C. § 177.
In United States v. Santa Fe Pacific B. Co., 314 U. S. 339, 345 (1941), a unanimous Court succinctly summarized the essence of past cases in relevant respects:
“ 'Unquestionably it has been the policy of the Federal Government from the beginning to respect the Indian right of occupancy, which could only be interfered with or determined by the United States. Cramer v. United States, 261 U. S. 219, 227. This policy was first recognized in Johnson v. M’Intosh, 8 Wheat. 543, and has been repeatedly reaffirmed. Worcester v. Georgia, 6 Pet. 515; Mitchel v. United States, 9 Pet. 711; Chouteau v. Molony, 16 How. 203; Holden v. Joy, 17 Wall. 211; Buttz v. Northern Pacific Railroad[, 119 U. S. 55]; United States v. Shoshone Tribe, 304 U. S. 111. As stated in Mitchel v. United States, supra, p. 746, Indian ‘right of occupancy is considered as sacred as the fee simple of the whites.’ ”
The Santa Fe case also reaffirmed prior decisions to the effect that a tribal right of occupancy, to be protected, need not be “based upon a treaty, statute, or other formal government action.” Id., at 347. Tribal rights were nevertheless entitled to the protection of federal law, and with respect to Indian title based on aboriginal possession, the “power of Congress... is supreme.” Ibid.
As indicated in Santa Fe, the fundamental propositions which it restated were firmly rooted in earlier cases. In Johnson v. M’Intosh, 8 Wheat. 543 (1823), the Court refused to recognize land titles originating in grants by Indians to private parties in 1773 and 1775; those grants were contrary to the accepted principle that Indian title could be extinguished only by or with the consent of the general government. The land in question, when ceded to the United States by the State of Virginia, was “occupied by numerous and warlike tribes of Indians; but the exclusive right of the United States to extinguish their title, and to grant the soil, has never, we believe, been doubted.” Id., at 586. See also id., at 591-597, 603. The possessory and treaty rights of Indian tribes to their lands have been the recurring theme of many other cases.
The rudimentary propositions that Indian title is a matter of federal law and can be extinguished only with federal consent apply in all of the States, including the original 13. It is true that the United States never held fee title to the Indian lands in the original States as it did to almost all the rest of the continental United States and that fee title to Indian lands in these States; or the pre-emptive right to purchase from the Indians, was in the State, Fletcher v. Peck, 6 Cranch 87 (1810). But this reality did not alter the doctrine that federal law, treaties, and statutes protected Indian occupancy and that its termination was exclusively the province of federal law.
For example, in Worcester v. Georgia, 6 Pet. 515 (1832), the State of Georgia sought to prosecute a white man for residing in Indian country contrary to the laws of the State. This Court held the prosecution a nullity, the Chief Justice referring to the treaties with the Cherokees and to the
“universal conviction that the Indian nations possessed a full right to the lands they occcupied, until that right should be extinguished by the United States, with their consent: that their territory was separated from that of any state within whose chartered limits they might reside, by a boundary line, established by treaties: that, within their boundary, they possessed rights with which no state could interfere: and that the whole power of regulating the intercourse with them, was vested in the United States.” Id., at 560.
The Cherokee Nation was said to be occupying its own territory “in which the laws of Georgia can have no force....” The Georgia law was declared unconstitutional because it interfered with the relations “between the United States and the Cherokee nation, the regulation of which, according to the settled principles of our constitution, are committed exclusively to the government of the union.” Id., at 561.
There are cases of similar import with respect to the New York Indians. These cases lend substance to petitioners’ assertion that the possessory right claimed is a federal right to the lands at issue in this case. Fellows v. Blacksmith, 19 How. 366, 372 (1857), which concerned the Seneca Indians, held that the “forcible removal [of Indians] must be made, if made at all, under the direction of the United States [and] that this interpretation is in accordance with the usages and practice of the Government in providing for the removal of Indian tribes from their ancient possessions.” In The New York Indians, 5 Wall. 761 (1867), the State sought to tax the reservation lands of the Senecas. The Court held the tax void. The Court referred to the Indian right of occupancy as creating “an indefeasible title to the reservations that may extend from generation to generation, and will cease only by the dissolution of the tribe, or their consent to sell to the party possessed of the right of pre-emption,” id., at 771, and noted that New York “possessed no power to deal with Indian rights or title,” id., at 769. Of major importance, however, was the treaty of 1794 in which the United States acknowledged certain territory to be the property of the Seneca Nation and promised that “it shall remain theirs until they choose to sell the same to the people of the United States... Id., at 766-767. The rights of the Indians to occupy those lands “do not depend on... any... statutes of the State, but upon treaties, which are the supreme law of the land; it is to these treaties we must look to ascertain the nature of these rights, and the extent of them.” Id., at 768. The State’s attempt to tax reservation lands was invalidated as an interference with Indian possessory rights guaranteed by the Federal Government.
Much later, in United States v. Forness, 125 F. 2d 928 (CA2), cert. denied, sub nom. City of Salamanca v. United States, 316 U. S. 694 (1942), the Government sued to set aside certain leases granted by the Seneca tribe on certain reservation lands. It was argued in opposition that the suit was merely an action for ejectment which under state law could be defeated by a tender; but the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held that the Indian rights were federal and that “state law cannot be invoked to limit the rights in lands granted by the United States to the Indians, because, as the court below recognized, state law does not apply to the Indians except so far as the United States has given its consent.” Id., at 932. There being no federal statute making the statutory or decisional law of the State of New York applicable to the reservations, the controlling law remained federal law; and, absent federal statutory guidance, the governing rule of decision would be fashioned by the federal court in the mode of the common law.
III
Enough has been said, we think, to indicate that the complaint in this case asserts a present right to possession under federal law. The claim may fail at a later stage for a variety of reasons; but for jurisdictional purposes, this is not a case where the underlying right or obligation arises only under state law and federal law is merely alleged as a barrier to its effectuation, as was the case in Gully v. First National Bank, 299 U. S. 109 (1936). There, the suit was on a contract having its genesis in state law, and the tax that the defendant had promised to pay was imposed by a state statute. The possibility that a federal statute might bar its collection was insufficient to make the case one arising under the laws of the United States.
Nor in sustaining the jurisdiction of the District Court do we disturb the well-pleaded complaint rule of Taylor v. Anderson, supra, and like cases. Here, the right to possession itself is claimed to arise under federal law in the first instance. Allegedly, aboriginal title of an Indian tribe guaranteed by treaty and protected by statute has never been extinguished. In Taylor, the plaintiffs were individual Indians, not an Indian tribe; and the suit concerned lands allocated to individual Indians, not tribal rights to lands. See 32 Stat. 641. Individual patents had been issued with only the right to alienation being restricted for a period of time. Cf. Minnesota v. United States, 305 U. S. 382, 386 n. 1 (1939); McKay v. Kalyton, 204 U. S. 458 (1907). Insofar as the underlying right to possession is concerned, Taylor is more like those cases indicating that “a controversy in respect of lands has never been regarded as presenting a Federal question merely because one of the parties to it has derived his title under an act of Congress.” Shulthis v. McDougal, 225 U. S. 561, 570 (1912). Once patent issues, the incidents of ownership are, for the most part, matters of local property law to be vindicated in local courts, and in such situations it is normally insufficient for “arising under” jurisdiction merely to allege that ownership or possession is claimed under a United States patent. Joy v. City of St. Louis, 201 U. S. 332, 342-343 (1906). As the Court stated in Packer v. Bird, 137 U. S. 661, 669 (1891):
“The courts of the United States will construe the grants of the general government without reference to the rules of construction adopted by the States for their grants; but whatever incidents or rights attach to the ownership of property, conveyed by the government will be determined by the States, subject to the condition that their rules do not impair the efficacy of the grants or the use and enjoyment of the property by the grantee.”
In the present case, however, the assertion of a federal controversy does not rest solely on the claim of a right to possession derived from a federal grant of title whose scope will be governed by state law. Rather, it rests on the not insubstantial claim that federal law now protects, and has continuously protected from the time of the formation of the United States, possessory right to tribal lands, wholly apart from the application of state law principles which normally and separately protect a valid right of possession.
For the same reasons, we think the complaint before us satisfies the additional requirement formulated in some cases that the complaint reveal a “dispute or controversy respecting the validity, construction or effect of such a law, upon the determination of which the result depends.” Shulthis v. McDougal, supra, at 569; Gold-Washing Water Co. v. Keyes, 96 U. S. 199, 203 (1878). Here, the Oneidas assert a present right to possession based in part on their aboriginal right of occupancy which was not terminable except by act of the United States. Their claim is also asserted to arise from treaties guaranteeing their possessory right until terminated by the United States, and “it is to these treaties [that] we must look to ascertain the nature of these [Indian] rights, and the extent of them.” The New York Indians, 5 Wall., at 768. Finally, the complaint asserts a claim under the Nonintercourse Acts which put in statutory form what was or came to be the accepted rule — that the extinguishment of Indian title required the consent of the United States. To us, it is sufficiently clear that the controversy stated in the complaint arises under the federal law within the meaning of the jurisdictional statutes and our decided cases.
IV
This is not to ignore the obvious fact that New York had legitimate and far-reaching connections with its Indian tribes antedating the Constitution and that the State has continued to play a substantial role with respect to the Indians in that State. There has been recurring tension between federal and state law; state authorities have not easily accepted the notion that federal law and federal courts must be deemed the controlling considerations in dealing with the Indians. Fellows v. Blacksmith, The New York Indians, United States v. Forness, and the Tuscarora litigation are sufficient evidence that the reach and exclusivity of federal law with respect to reservation lands and reservation Indians did not go unchallenged; and it may be that they are to some extent challenged here. But this only underlines the legal reality that the controversy alleged in the complaint may well depend on what the reach and impact of the federal law will prove to be in this case.
We are also aware that New York and federal authorities eventually reached partial agreement in 1948 when criminal jurisdiction over New York Indian reservations was ceded to the State. 62 Stat. 1224, 25 U. S. C. § 232. In addition, in 1950 civil disputes between Indians or between Indians and others were placed within the jurisdiction of the state courts “to the same extent as the courts of the State shall have jurisdiction in other civil actions and proceedings, as now or hereafter defined by the laws of such State.” 64 Stat. 845, 25 U. S. C. § 233. The latter statute, however, provided for the preservation of tribal laws and customs and saved Indian reservation lands from taxation and, with certain exceptions, from execution to satisfy state court judgments. Furthermore, it provided that nothing in the statute “shall be construed as authorizing the alienation from any Indian nation, tribe, or band of Indians of any lands within any Indian reservation in the State of New York” or as “conferring jurisdiction on the courts of the State of New York or making applicable the laws of the State of New York in civil actions involving Indian lands or claims with respect thereto which relate to transactions or events transpiring prior to September 13, 1952.” The Senate report on the bill disclaimed any intention of “impairing any of their property or rights under existing treaties with the United States.” S. Rep. No. 1836, 81st Cong., 2d Sess., 2 (1950). Under the penultimate proviso the matter of alienating tribal reservation lands would appear to have been left precisely where it was prior to the Act. Moreover, the final proviso of the statute negativing the application of state law with respect to transactions prior to the adoption of the Act was added by amendment on the floor of the Senate, and its purpose was explained by the gentleman who offered it to be as follows:
“Mr. Chairman, I do not think there will be any objection from any source with regard to this particular amendment. This just assures the Indians of an absolutely fair and impartial determination of any claims they might have had growing out of any.relationship they have had with the great State of New York in regard to their lands.
“I think there will be no objection to that; they certainly ought to have a right to have those claims properly adjudicated....
“In addition thereto, of course, they may go into the Federal courts and adjudicate any differences they have had between themselves and the great State of New York relative to their lands, or claims in regard thereto, and I am sure that the State of New York should have and no doubt will have, ho objection to such provision.” 96 Cong. Rec. 12460 (1950) (remarks of Congressman Morris).
Our conclusion that this case arises under the laws of the United States is, therefore, wholly consistent with and in furtherance of the intent of Congress as expressed by its grant of civil jurisdiction to the State of New York with the indicated exceptions.
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.
Section 1331 (a) provides:
“The district courts shall have original jurisdiction of all civil actions wherein the matter in controversy exceeds the sum or value of $10,000, exclusive of interest and costs, and arises under the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States.”
Under §1362:
“The district courts shall have original jurisdiction of all civil actions, brought by any Indian tribe or band with a governing body duly recognized by the Secretary of the Interior, wherein the matter in controversy arises under the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States.”
Initially, only diversity jurisdiction under 28 U. S. C. § 1332 was alleged in the complaint. The necessary jurisdictional amount was averred. Federal-question jurisdiction was asserted by an amendment to the complaint. Jurisdiction under § 1332 was rejected by the District Court and the Court of Appeals and is not at issue here.
Three treaties with the Six Indian Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy in New York were alleged: the Treaty of Fort Stanwix of 1784, which provides in part that “[t]he Oneida and Tuscarora nations shall be secured in the possession of the lands on which they are settled”; The Treaty of Fort Harmar of 1789 where the Oneida and the Tuscarora nations were “again secured and confirmed in the possession of their respective lands”; and the Treaty of Canandaigua of 1794, Art. II of which provides: "The United States acknowledge the lands reserved to the Oneida, Onondaga and Cayuga Nations, in their respective treaties with the state of New-York, and called their reservations, to be their property; and the United States will never claim the same, nor disturb them... in the free use and enjoyment thereof: but the said reservations shall remain theirs, until they choose to sell the same to the people of the United States, who have the right to purchase.” The treaties referred to are found at 7 Stat. 15, 7 Stat. 33, and 7 Stat. 44, respectively.
Section 4 of the Act provided that “no sale of lands made by any Indians, or any nation or tribe of Indians within the United States, shall be valid to any person or persons, or to any state, whether having the right of pre-emption to such lands or not, unless the same shall be made and duly executed at some public treaty, held under the authority of the United States.” The second Nonintercourse Act passed in 1793 made it a misdemeanor to negotiate for Indian lands without federal authority, but it was made lawful for state agents who were present at any treaty held with the Indians under the authority of the United States, in the presence and with the approbation of the United States Commissioner, “to propose to, and adjust with the Indians, the compensation to be made for their claims to lands within such state, which shall be extinguished by the treaty.” 1 Stat. 329, 330-331, § 8. This statutory policy, without major change, was carried forward in § 12 of the 1796 Act, 1 Stat. 469, 472; § 12 of the 1799 Act, 1 Stat. 743, 746; § 12 of the 1802 Act, 2 Stat. 139, 143; §12 of the Act of 1834, 4 Stat. 729, 730-731; and in Rev. Stat. § 2116, now 25 U. S. C. § 177.
Representative of almost countless eases are Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, 5 Pet. 1 (1831); United States v. Rogers, 4 How. 567 (1846); The Kansas Indians, 5 Wall. 737 (1866); The New York Indians, 5 Wall. 761 (1867); Holden v. Joy, 17 Wall. 211 (1872); Beecher v. Wetherby, 95 U. S. 517 (1877); United States v. Kagama, 118 U. S. 375 (1886); Spalding v. Chandler, 160 U. S. 394 (1896); United States v. Sandoval, 231 U. S. 28 (1913); Nadeau v. Union Pacific R. Co., 253 U. S. 442 (1920); Minnesota v. United States, 305 U. S. 382 (1939); United States v. Tillamooks, 329 U. S. 40 (1946); Tee-Hit-Ton Indians v. United States, 348 U. S. 272 (1955). U. S. Dept. of Interior, Federal Indian Law 32-43, 583-645, 675-687 (1958) (hereinafter Federal Indian Law), sets out some of the fundamentals of the law dealing with Indian possessory rights to real property stemming from aboriginal title, treaty, and statute.
See also Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, supra, at 38; Clark v. Smith, 13 Pet. 195 (1839); Lattimer v. Poteet, 14 Pet. 4 (1840); Seneca Nation v. Christy, 162 U. S. 283 (1896). “Outside of the territory of the original colonies, the ultimate fee is located in the United States and may be granted to individuals subject to the Indian right of occupancy.” Federal Indian Law 599; Missouri v. Iowa, 7 How. 660 (1849).
In an earlier case, New York ex rel. Cutler v. Dibble, 21 How. 366 (1859), the Court had upheld New York statutes which protected the Indians from intrusion by others on their tribal lands, and had asserted that “ [n] otwithstanding the peculiar relation which these Indian nations hold to the Government of the United States, the State of New York had the power of a sovereign over their persons and property, so far as it was necessary to preserve the peace of the Commonwealth, and protect' these feeble and helpless bands from imposition and intrusion.” Id., at 370. It is apparent that by the later decision in The New York Indians, supra, the Court did not consider the potential implications of the dictum expressed in Dibble applicable in situations where the State’s power was exercised other than for the protection of the Indians on their tribal lands. In any event, whatever Dibble may have held with respect to state power to protect Indian possession, it does not question the Indians’ right to possession under federal law.
The question of the application of federal law to Indian tribal property in New York was litigated in the state courts in the intervening years as well. In 1870, an unreported decision of the New York Supreme Court held that tribal leases of Seneca reservation lands, ratified by the New York Legislature, were invalid in the absence of approval from the United States. See United States v. Forness, supra, at 930-931; H. R. Rep. Misc. Doc. No. 75, 43d Cong., 2d Sess. (1875); Brief for the Warden and the State of New York 26-27, New York ex rel. Bay v. Martin, No. 158, O. T. 1945, 326 U. S. 496 (1946). In the mid-1890’s in Buffalo, R. & P. B. Co. V. Lavery, 75 Hun. 396, 27 N. Y. S. 443 (5th Dept., App. Div. 1894), affirmed on opinion below, 149 N. Y. 576, 43 N. E. 986 (1896), a private non-Indian lessee of Indian land under a lease first granted by the Senecas in 1866, which was concededly not legally effective until an 1875 Act of Congress validated such leases, was nonetheless held to have priority over a railroad claiming under an 1872 lease from the Senecas and a state statute purportedly validating the lease as one to a railroad which had been ratified by a state court, because the state statute which would have given the railroad a superior right to possession was incapable of confirming possessory rights to Indian tribal lands without federal authority. The New York courts held that it was "not within the legislative power of the State to enable the Indian nation to make, or others to take from the Indians, grants or leases of lands within their reservations. In that matter the Federal government, having the power under the Constitution to do so, has assumed to control it by... act of Congress [referring to the Indian Nonintercourse Act],... As respects their lands, subject only to the pre-emptive title, the Indians are treated as the wards of the 'United States, and it is only pursuant to the Federal authority that their lands can be granted or demised by or acquired by conveyance or leased from them.” 75 Hun., at 399-400, 27 N. Y. S., at 445.
Still later, in People ex rel. Cusick v. Daly, 212 N. Y. 183, 105 N. E. 1048 (1914), the New York Court of Appeals held that without the consent of Congress New York could not prosecute Indian crimes on reservations. Relying on the classic federal cases, the court held that federal power was pre-eminent and that the Federal Government had made treaties with the Indians which confirmed their territorial possession, although the Federal Government never owned the fee of the land within the State’s confines. Id., at 192, 105 N. E., at 1050. Within the reservation federal power, when exercised, foreclosed the exercise of power by the State. “It is said that there is a difference between the Indians whose reservations are the direct gift of the Federal Government and those whose reservations have been derived from the state or from other sources. We find no such distinction in the statute, and we can think of none that logically differentiates one from the other. Even if we assume that, in the absence of Federal legislation, the state has the most ample power to legislate for the Indians within its borders, there seems to be no escape from the conclusion that when Congress does act the power of the state must yield to the paramount authority of the Federal government.” Id., at 196-197, 105 N. E., at 1052.
Still later, federal authority over Indian lands was again challenged. In Tuscarora Nation of Indians v. Power Authority, 257 F. 2d 885 (1958), the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit rejected New York’s claim that the Nonintercourse Act did not apply to the State of New York and that, as one of the original 13 States, it never surrendered to the United States its power to condemn Indian lands. The Court of Appeals also held that the Act of Sept. 13, 1950, 64 Stat. 845, 25 U. S. C. § 233, whereby the United States ceded civil jurisdiction over Indian reservations to the State of New York, expressly and effectively excepted from its coverage the alienation of reservation lands, a matter over which the United States had reaffirmed its paramount authority. Nonetheless, the Court of Appeals held that the Niagara River Power Project Act, 71 Stat. 401 (1957), 16 U. S. C. §§ 836, 836a, by which Congress directed the Federal Power Commission to issue a license to the New York Power Authority for the construction and operation of a power project to utilize water made available to the United States by a 1950 treaty with Canada, constituted federal authorization for the Power Authority to exercise the right of eminent domain, but only in accordance with § 21 of the Federal Power Act, 41 Stat. 1074, 16 U. S. C. § 814, which permits the acquisition of sites for the purpose of developing waterways by the exercise of the right of eminent domain in the federal district court in which the land is located or in the state courts. Because the Power Authority had proceeded to appropriate a portion of the Tuscaroras’ reservation lands by filing a map and other documents pursuant to procedures established by the State’s Highway Law and Public Authorities Law, those proceedings were vacated and ann
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 White
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Under the applicable statutes existing in Texas-in 1910, the year in which the contracts in this case were made, the State Land Board was authorized to sell the public lands allocated to the Permanent Free School Fund on long-term contracts calling for a down payment of one-fortieth of the principal and annual payment of interest and principal. The time for payment of principal was extended periodically and the principal was never called due. In the event of nonpayment of interest, however, the statutes authorized the termination of the contract and the forfeiture of the lands to the State without the necessity of re-entry or judicial proceedings, the land again to become a part of the public domain and to be resold for the account of the school fund. The provision chiefly in issue in this case provided:
“In any cases where lands have been forfeited to the State for the non-payment of interest, the purchasers or their vendees may have their claims reinstated on their written request, by paying into the treasury the full amount of interest due on such claim up to the date of reinstatement; provided, that no rights of third persons may have intervened. In all such cases the original obligations and penalties shall thereby become as binding as if no forfeiture had ever occurred.” Tex. Gen. Laws 1897, ch. 129, art. 4218f.
In 1941, the foregoing, provisions were amended. Among other things, the offering of forfeited land for sale on a subsequent sale date was made permissive instead of mandatory and a provision was added stating that the right to reinstate lands forfeited thereafter “must be exercised within five (5) years from the date of the forfeiture.” Tex Gen. & Spec. Laws 1941, ch. 191, § 3, Vernon’s Ann. Civ. Stat., art. 5326. In 1951, the right of reinstatement was limited to the last purchaser from the State and his vendees or heirs. Tex. Gen. & Spec. Laws 1951, ch. 59, § 2, Vernon’s Ann. Ciy. Stat., art. 5326.
In 1910, certain predecessors in title of Simmons, the appellee, executed their installment contracts to purchase school lands from the State of Texas. The original purchasers made a down payment of one-fortieth of the principal and made annual interest payments. The purchase contracts were assigned several times and interest payments fell into arrears during the forties. On July 21, 1947, after a notice of arrears and request for payment, the land was forfeited for* nonpayment of interest. A notice of forfeiture and a copy of the 1941 Act allowing reinstatement within five years were sent to the last purchaser of record, but were returned unclaimed. Appellee Simmons, a citizen of Kentucky, thereafter took quitclaim deeds to the land in question and filed his applications for reinstatement, tendering the required payments. The applications were denied because they had not been made.within five years of the forfeiture as required by the 1941 statute. In 1955, pursuant to special legislation, the land was sold by the State to the City of El Paso. Simmons then filed this suit in the Federal District Court to determine title to the land in question. In its answer the City relied upon the 1941 statute as barring Simmons’ claim and also pleaded adverse possession and laches as additional defenses. The District Court granted the City’s motion for summary judgment on the ground of the 1941 statute. The Court of Appeals reversed, 320 F. 2d 541 (C. A. 5th Cir.), ruling that the right to reinstate was a vested contractual right and that the prohibition against impairment of contracts contained in Art. I, § 10, of the Constitution of thé United States prohibited the application of the 1941 statute to the contrast here in question. We noted probable jurisdiction. 377 U. S. 902. We reverse.
I.
Although neither party has raised the issue, we deal at the outset with a jurisdictional matter. The appeal in this case is here under 28 U. S. C. § 1254 (2) (1958 ed.). The.Court of Appeals, after holding the Texas statute unconstitutional, remanded the case to the District Court to determine the' City’s defenses of laches and,adverse possession. Under a prior interpretation of § 240 (b) of the Judicial Code, the predecessor provision of § 1254 (2), a final judgment or decree of the Court of Appeals is necessary to the exercise of our jurisdiction over the case byway of appeal, Slaker v. O’Connor, 278 U. S. 188, which was followed without comment in South Carolina Electric & Gas Co. v. Flemming, 351 U. S. 901, and questioned. but not put to rest in Chicago v. Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe R. Co., 357 U. S. 77, the judgment in that case being deemed a final one. These questions under § 1254 (2) were neither briefed nor argued in this case and it is not appropriate to resolve them here.
In 1962 Congress expanded the scope of 28 U. S. C. § 2103 to apply to appeals from the United States courts of appeals. That section now provides that an appeal improvideritly taken from a court of appeals as well as from a state court shall not be dismissed for that reason alone, but that the appeal papers shall be regardéd and acted on as a petition for a writ of certiorari. The restriction in 28 U. S. C. § 1254 (2) (1958 ed.) providing that an appeal from the court of appeals “shall preclude review by writ of certiorari at the instance of such appellant” is no bar to our treating this case as here on a petition for certiorari. For this provision means only that if an appeal is proper and has been taken, certiorari will not thereafter be available; where the appeal is not proper, this Court will still consider a timely application for certiorari. Bradford Electric Light Co. v. Clapper, 284 U. S. 221. No timely application for certiorari has been filed in the instant case. But 28 U. S. C. § 2103 (1958 ed., Supp. V) now requires that we treat the papers whereon the appeal was taken as a petition for certiorari. Accordingly we dismiss the appeal and grant the writ of certiorari.
II.
We turn to the merits. The. City seeks to bring this case within the long line of cases recognizing a distinction between contract obligation and remedy and permitting a modification of the remedy as long as there is no substantial impairment of the value of the obligation. Sturges v. Crowninshield, 4 Wheat. 122, 200; Von Hoffman v. City of Quincy, 4 Wall. 535, 553-554; Honeyman v. Jacobs, 306 U. S. 539. More specifically, it invokes three cases in this Court, two from Texas, that held it constitutionally permissible to apply state statutes allowing forfeiture of land purchase rights to land contracts between private persons and the State made when the law did not provide for forfeiture or permitted it only upon court order. Wilson v. Standefer, 184 U. S. 399; Wagoner v. Flack, 188 U. S. 595; Aikins v. Kingsbury, 247 U. S. 484. In those cases the. Court reasoned that the state statutes existing'when the contracts were made were not to be. considered the exclusive remedies available in the event of the purchaser’s default since there was no promise, express or implied, on the part of the State not to enlarge the remedy or grant another in case of breach.
The Court' of Appeals rejected the City’s contention. The Texas cases, according to the Court of Appeals, hold that the reinstatement provision confers a vested right which is not subject to legislative alteration. From this it concluded that under state law the five-year limitation on reinstatement was not a mere modification of remedy but a change in the obligation of a contract. Relying on the theory that it is state law that determines the obligations of the parties, the Court of Appeals found that the 1941 statute abrogated an obligation of the contract and thus violated the Contract Clause of the Constitution.
We do not pause to consider further whether the Court of Appeals correctly ascertained the Texas law at the time these contracts were made, or to chart again the dividing line under federal law between “remedy” and “obligation,” or to determine the extent to which this line is controlled by state court decisions, decisions often rendered in contexts not involving Contract Clause considerations. For it is not every modification of a contractual promise that impairs the obligation of contract under federal law, any more than it is every alteration of existing remedies that violates the Contract Clause. Stephenson v. Binford, 287 U. S. 251, 276; Stone v. Mississippi, 101 U. S. 814, 819; Manigault v. Springs, 199 U. S. 473. Assuming the provision for reinstatement after default to be part of the State’s obligation, we do not think its modification by a five-year statute of repose contravenes the Contract Clause.
The decisions “put it beyond question that the prohibition is not an absolute one and is not to be read with literal exactness like a mathematical formula,” as Chief Justice Hughes said in Home Building & Loan Assn. v. Blaisdell, 290 U. S. 398, 428. The Blaisdell opinion, which amounted to a comprehensive restatement of the principles underlying the application of the Contract Clause, makes it quite clear that “[n]ot only is the constitutional provision qualified by the measure of control.which the State retains over remedial processes, but the State also continues to possess authority to safeguard the-vital interests of its people. It does not matter that legislation appropriate to that end ‘has the result of modifying or abrogating contracts already in effect.’ Stephenson v. Binjord, 287 Ú. S. 251, 276. Not otily are existing laws read into contracts in order to fix obligations as between the parties, but the reservation of essential at-. tributes of sovereign power is also read into contracts as a postulate of the legal order.... This principle of harmonizing the constitutional prohibition with the necessary residuum of state power has- had progressive recognition in the decisions of this Court.” 290 U. S., at 434-435. Moreover, the “economic interests of the. State may justify the exercise of its continuing and dominant protective power notwithstanding interference with-contracts.” Id., at 437. The State has the “sovereign right... to protect the... general welfare of the people.... Once we are in this -domain of the reserve power of a State we must respect the- ‘wide discretion on the part of the legislature in determining what is and what is not necessary.' ” East New York Savings Bank v. Hahn, 326 U. S. 230, 232-233. As Mr. Justice Johnson said in Ogden v. Saunders, “[i]t is the motive, the policy, the object, that must characterize the legislative act, to affect it with the imputation of violating the obligation of contracts.” 12 Wheat. 213, 291.
Of course, the power of a State to modify or affect the obligation of contract is not without limit. “[WJhatever is reserved of state power must be consistent with the fair intent of the constitutional limitation of that power. The reserved power cannot be construed so as to destroy the limitation, nor is the limitation to be construed to destroy the reserved power in its essential aspects. They must be construed in harmony with each other. This principle precludes a construction whieh would permit the State to adopt as its policy the repudiation of debts or. the destruction of contracts or the denial of means to enforce them.” Blaisdell, supra, at 439. But we think the objects of the Texas statute make abundantly clear that it impairs no protected right under the Contract Clause.
III.
Texas, upon entering the Union, reserved its entire public domain, one-half of which was set aside under the 1876 Constitution to finance a universal system of free public education. These lands, over 42,000,000 acres, were to be sold as quickly as practicable in order to provide revenues for the public school system and to encourage the settlement of the vast public domain. The terms of sale were undemanding and designed to accomplish the widespread sale and development of the public domain. The State required a down payment of one-fortieth of the purchase price, an annual payment of one-fortieth of principal and an annual payment of interest. The terms were frequently modified in favor of purchasers. Periodically, during the course of almost a century, the time for payment of the nominal principal amount was extended. In 1919, the requirement that the purchaser settle on the land or-adjoining land was lifted,, provisions allowing forfeiting purchasers a first opportunity to repurchase forfeited land at a newly appraised value were thrice added, interest in arrears was forgiven under one of these acts, and reclassification of lands was held not to deprive forfeiting purchasers, upon reinstatement, of their mineral rights in.the land. But eventually the evolution of a frontier society to a modern State, attended by the discovery of oil and gas deposits which led to speculation and exploitation of the changes.in the use and value of the lands, called forth amendments to the Texas land laws modifying the conditions of sale in favor of the State. Beside increasing the required down payment from one-fortieth to one-fifth of the purchase price, the State restricted the right of reinstatement to the last purchaser from the State or his assigns and required that this right be exercised within five years from the date of forfeiture.
The circumstances behind the 1941 amendment are well described in the Reports of the Commissioner of the General Land Office. The general purpose of the legislation enacted in 1941 was to restore confidence 'in the stability and integrity of land titles and to enable the State to protect and administer its property, in a businesslike manner. 1938-1940 Rep. 5. “[T]he records [of the land office] show that through the years many thousands of purchase contracts, covering, in the aggregate, millions of acres of school land, have been forfeited by failure of the purchasers to meet the small annual interest payments requisite to the maintenance of the contracts.” Id., at 11-12. In 1939, 15,000 sales contracts were found delinquent and subject to forfeiture and there were about 600,000 acres of unsold surveyed school lands, the major portion of which had produced no revenue for a decade. Ibid. This state of affairs was principally attributable to the opportunity for speculation to which unlimited reinstatement rights gave rise. Forfeited purchase contracts which had remained dormant for years could be reinstated if and when the land became potentially productive of gas and oil. Where forfeited- lands were purchased without reservation of minerals to the State, as was the case in respect to early purchases before discovery of the extensive mineral wealth in the State, all of the mineral rights reverted to the owner of the reinstated claims, regardless of the State’s later attempts in forfeited sales to share in the mineral interest. Gulf Production Co. v. State, 231 S. W. 124 (Tex. Civ. App.). Hence the Land Commissioner noted that, the majority of sales and resales under the laws requiring sale to the highest bidder were to purchasers buying a “speculative option,” “taken for possible profits ;on the rights of the surface owners to lease the land for oil and gas.” “Under such conditions lands were bid in at highly inflated prices such as no one who expected to keep the land could afford to offer.” 1940-1942 Rep. 5. The attempts to assure some stability in land sales through repurchase acts, allowing delinquent owners a preferential right to buy forfeited land at a reappraised value, and, under one act, without 'payment of accumulated interest in arrears, proved unsuccessful, and expensive. In regard to one of the State’s attempts to quiet titles through a repurchase act, the Land Commissioner in 1925 expressed the belief that the “owners can realize such returns from [the lands] as will enable them to pay interest thereon instead of continuing the recurring annual forfeiture and resale and so on indefinitely.” 1924-1926 Rep. 5. In 1939, a new Commissioner noted that 1,872,326 acres had been forfeited and- 1,195,993 acres repurchased under the three repurchase acts. The-, net loss to the School Fund froin repurchases was said to be $1,661,980 plus the loss in interest arrears of $418,000. 1938-1940 Rep. 12.
No less significant was the imbroglio over land titles in Texas. The long shadow cast by -perpetual reinstate-'ment gave rise to a spate of litigation between forfeiting purchasers and the State or between one or more forfeiting purchasers and other forfeiting purchasers. See, e. g., Weaver v. Robison, 114 Tex. 272, 268 S. W. 133; Anderson v. Neighbors, 94 Tex. 236, 59 S. W. 543; Mound Oil Co. v. Terrell, 99 Tex. 625, 92 S. W. 451. Where the same land had been sold and contracts forfeited several times, as was frequently the case, the right to reinstate could be exercised by any one of the forfeiting purchasers or his vendees. Hoefer v. Robison, 104 Tex. 159, 135 S. W. 371. Cf. Faulkner v. Lear, 258 S. W. 2d 147 (Tex. Civ. App.). It was this situation to which the Texas Legislature addressed itself in 1941 and it is in light of. this.situation that we judge the validity of the amendment.
The Contract Clause of the Constitution does ■ not render Texas powerless to take effective and necessary measures to deal with the above. We note at the outset that the promise of reinstatement, whether deemed remedial or substantive, was not the central undertaking of the seller nor the primary consideration for the buyer’s undertaking. See Wilson v. Standefer, 184 U. S. 399; Waggoner v. Flack, 188 U. S. 595; Aikins v. Kingsbury, 247 U. S. 484. Under this agreement the State promised to transfer title to the buyer upon his payment of the purchase price; in turn the buyer was obliged to make a nominal down payment of one-fortieth of the purchase price and to maintain annual interest payments. Where the buyer breached what was practically his only obligation under the contract, the land reverted back to the school fund, Boykin v. Southwest Texas Oil & Gas Co., 256 S. W. 581, and a right of reinstatement arose, conditioned on the State’s refusal or failure to dispose of the land by sale or lease. Hoefer v. Robison, 104 Tex. 159, 135 S. W. 371. We do. not believe that it can seriously be contended that the buyer was substantially induced to enter into these contracts on the basis of a defeasible right to reinstatement in case of his failure to perform, or that he interpreted that right to be of everlasting effect. At the time the contract was entered into the State’s policy was to sell the land as quickly as possible, and the State took many steps to induce sales. See Becton v. Dublin, 163 S. W. 2d 907, 910 (Tex. Civ. App.). Thus, for example, the Land Commissioner was required to reclassify forfeited lands by the next sale day and to publicize widely the forfeiture and sale. Weaver v. Robison, 114 Tex. 272, 268 S. W. 133. This policy clearly indicates that the right of reinstatement was not conceived to be an endless privilege conferred on a defaulting buyer. A contrary construction would render the buyer’s obligations under the (contract quite illusory while obliging the State to transfer the land whenever the purchaser decided to comply with the contract, all this'for a nominal down payment. We, like the Court in Faitoute Iron & Steel Co. v. City of Asbury Park, 316 U. S. 502, 514, believe that “[t]he Constitution is ‘intended to preserve practical and substantial rights, not to maintain theories.’ Davis v. Mills, 194 U. S. 451, 457.”
The State’s policy of quick resale of forfeited lands did not prove entirely successful; forfeiting purchasers who repurchased the lands again defaulted and other purchasers bought without any intention of complying with their contracts unless mineral wealth was discovered. The market for land contracted during the depression. 1938-1940 Rep. 12. These developments hardly to be expected or foreseen, operated to confer considerable advantages on the purchaser and his successors and a costly and difficult burden on the State. This Court’s decisions have never given a law which imposes unforeseen advantages or burdens on a contracting party constitutional immunity against change. Honeyman v. Jacobs, 306 U. S. 539; Gelfert v. National City Bank, 313 U. S. 221; East New York Savings Bank v. Hahn, 326 U. S. 230. Laws which restrict a party to those gains reasonably to be expected from the contract are not subject to attack under the Contract Clause, notwithstanding that they technically alter an obligation of a contract. Thé five-year limitation allows defaulting purchasers with a bona fide interest in their lands a reasonable time to reinstate. It does not and need not allow defaulting purchasers with a speculative interest in the discoyery of minerals to remain in endless default while retaining a cloud on title.
The clouds on title arising from reinstatement rights were not without significance to the State’s vital interest in administering its school lands to produce maximum revenue and in utilizing its properties in ways best suited to the needs -of a growing population. The uncertainty of land titles, the massive litigation to which this gave rise, and the pattern of sale and forfeiture were quite costly to the school fund and to the development of land use. Timeless reinstatement rights prevented the State from maintaining an orderly system of land sales and the resultant confusion impeded the effective disposition of lands and utilization of mineral wealth within them. Where sales by the State were not feasible or desirable, the State was prevented from utilizing the.lands or permitting its subdivisions to utilize them by the possibility that some one of several purchasers might at some unknowable future date assert the right to reinstatement. In this very case, the legislature authorized by special act the transfer of this land to the City of El Paso, reserving the minerals to the State, in recognition of “[t]he fact that the City of El Paso is in urgent need of expanding its sources of water and of protecting water wells previously drilled,” Tex. Gen. & Spec. Laws 1955, ch. 278. This transfer would have been invalid absent the 1941 Act.
The program adopted at the turn of the century for the sale, settlement, forfeiture, and reinstatement of land was not wholly effectual to serve the objectives of the State’s land program many decades later. Settlement was no longer the objective, but revenues for the school fund, efficient utilization of public lands, and compliance with contracts of sale remained viable and important goals, as did the. policy of relieving purchasers from the hardships of temporary ádversity. Given these objectives and the impediments posed to their fulfillment by timeless reinstatement rights,. a statute of repose was quite clearly necessary. The measure taken to induce defaulting purchasers to comply with their contracts, requiring payment of interest in arrears within five years, was a mild one indeed, hardly burdensome to the purchaser who wanted to adhere to his contract of purchase, but nonetheless an important one to the State’s interest. The Contract Clause does not forbid such a measure.
The judgment is
Reversed.
The Act of 1895 provided in pertinent part:
“See. 11. If upon the first day of November of any year the interest due on any obligation remains unpaid, the Commissioner of the General Land Office shall endorse on such obligation 'Land Forfeited,’ and shall cause an entry to that effect to be made on the account kept with the purchaser, and thereupon said land shall thereby be forfeited to the State without the necessity of re-entry or judicial ascertainment, and shall revert to the particular fund to which it originally belonged, and be resold under the provisions of this act or any future law:... Provided, further, that nothing in this section contained shall be construed to inhibit the State from instituting such legal proceedings as may be necessary to enforce such forfeiture, or to recover the full amount of the interest and such penalties as may be due the State at the time such forfeiture occurred, or to protect any other right to such land, which suits may be instituted by the Attorney General or under his direction, in the proper, court of the county in which the land lies or of the county to which such county is-attached for judicial purposes: Provided, this section shall be printed on the back of receipt.” Tex. Gen. Laws 1895, ch. 47.
Art. 5326 now reads:
“If any portion of the interest on any sale should not be paid when due, the land shall be subject to forfeiture by the Commissioner entering on the wrapper containing the papers ‘Land Forfeited,’ or words of similar import, with the date of such action and sign it officially, and thereupon the land and all payments shall be forfeited to the State, and the lands may be offered for sale on a subsequent sale date. In any case where lands have heretofore been forfeited" or may hereafter be forfeited to the State for non-payment of interest, the purchasers, or their vendees, heirs or legal representatives, may have their claims re-instated on their written request by paying into the Treasury the full amount of interest due on such claim up to the date of re-instatement, provided that no. rights of ■ third persons may have intervened. The right to re-instate shall be limited to the last purchaser from the State or his vendees or their heirs or legal representatives. Such right must be exercised within five (5) years from the date of the forfeiture.... In all cases the original obligations and penalties shall thereby become as binding as if no forfeiture had ever occurred. If any purchaser shall die, his heirs or legal representatives shall have one (1) year in which to make payment after the first day of November next after such death, before the Commissioner shall forfeit the land belonging to such deceased purchaser; and should such forfeiture be made by the Commissioner within said time, upon proper proof of such death being made, such forfeiture shall be set aside, provided that no rights of third persons may have intervened. Nothing in this Artiele shall inhibit the State from instituting such legal proceedings as may be necessary to enforce such forfeiture, or to recover the full amount of the interest and such penalties as may be due the State at the time such forfeiture occurred, or to protect any other right to such land.”
The District Court’s judgment does not explicitly refer to the 1941 statute, but the Court of Appeals interpreted that Act to be the basis of the -judgment. We accept this interpretation.
“Cases in the courts of appeals may be reviewed by the Supreme; Court by the following methods:...
“(2) By appeal by a party relying on a State statute held by a court of appeals to be invalid as repugnant to the Constitution, treaties or laws of the Unitéd States, but such appeal shall preclude review by writ of certiorari at the instance of such appellant, and the review on appeal shall be restricted to the Federal questions presented....”
28 U. S. C. §2103 (1958 ed., Supp. V) reads:
“If an appeal to the Supreme Court is improvidently taken from the decision of the highest court of a State, or of a United States court of appeals, in a case where the proper mode of a review is by petition for certiorari, this alone shall not be ground for dismissal; but the papers whereon the appeal was taken shall be regarded and acted on as a petition for writ of certiorari and as if duly presented to the Supreme Court at the time the appeal was taken. Where in such a case there appears to be no reasonable ground for granting a petition for writ of certiorari it shall be competent for the Supreme Court to adjudge to the respondent reasonable damages for his delay, and single or double costs.”
The predecessor of § 1254 (1), §240 (a) of the Act of February 13, 1925 (the Judges Act), was amended on the floor of the Senate to state that review by certiorari from the courts of appeals would carry the same scope of review “as if the cause had been brought there by unrestricted writ of error or appeal.” The word “unrestricted” was added immediately before § 240 (b) (now § 1254 (2)) was introduced, and the sponsor of both amendments, Senator Cum-mins, explained that review by appeal as provided in that section would be limited “to the Federal question, and that it.ought not to extend to the entire controversy that may be in the case,” as he envisaged would be the case with certiorari review. See 66 Cong. Rec. 2919 (remarks of Senator Cummins).
In Wilson v. Standefer, 184 U. S. 399, Texas sold land pursuant to the Act of 1879, which made it the duty of the State in case of default to proceed to enforce its rights by court action. The Texas courts allowed the State to proceed with forfeiture under the 1897 statute providing for forfeiture by endorsement on official documents rather than by court decree. Neither the Texas courts nor this Court read the 1879 statute as providing an exclusive remedy or as a promise iby the State not to modify the remedy or provide another one. in the event of default. Waggoner v. Flack, 188 U. S. 595, involved a contract for the sale of state school lands at a time when the existing statutes gave the State no remedy at all upon default in annual,payments. This Court found no violation of the Contract Clause in the'state proceeding to declare a forfeiture under 'the 1897 statute. Here again “[t]here was no promise or contract expressed in the statute that the State would not enlarge the remedy or grant another on account of the purchaser’s violation of his contract, and we think no such contract is to be implied.” 188 U. S., at 603. The principle of Wilson v. Standefer was held'controlling, the Court-seeing no.difference in principle between the case where the State altered an existing remedy after the contract was entered into and the case where the State supplied the remedy where' none' existed when, the contract was made. The third ease came here from the California courts, Aikins v. Kingsbury, 247 U. S. 484. There the Court found no violation of the Contract Clause in the state proceeding declaring a forfeiture by nonjudicial action as permitted by a statute passed after the contract was made, the prior law requiring the State to proceed with judicial action with a right in the purchaser to redeem within 20 days after decree. Wilson and Waggoner were considered controlling authority.
The state cases on this issue are unclear. In Fristoe v. Blum, 92 Tex. 76, 45 S. W. 998, the Texas Supreme Court held that the 1887 Act providing for forfeiture upon default in making payment of “any obligation” applied to contracts made before as well as after the enactment of the Act. Such a construction was not deemed to impair the obligation of contract, for the State had by common law.the right as vendor, upon the purchaser’s failure to perform his part of the contract, a right to rescind the contract of sale and resume control of the land. The statute, giving the Commissioner authority to declare a forfeiture merely supplied a more effective way of enforcing the State’s common-law right of rescission.
In-regard to the right of reinstatement, Anderson v. Neighbors, 94 Tex. 236, 59 S. W. 543, and Davis v. Yates, 63 Tex. Civ. App. 6, 133 S. W. 281, held that intervening third-party rights must be so far perfected as to be vested in order to defeat reinstatement rights. Cruzan v. Walker, 119 Tex. 189, 26 S. W. 2d 908, and Freels v. Walker, 120 Tex. 291, 26 S. W. 2d 627, are of similar import. Hooks v. Kirby, 58 Tex. Civ. App. 335, 124 S. W. 156, dealt with the right of the purchaser of timber to purchase the land itself; it did not deal with reinstatement under the section here involved. Gulf Production Co. v. State, 231 S. W. 124 (Tex. Civ. App.), the principal support for the Court of Appeals decision, held that the. legislature had not intended to defeat the right to reinstatement by reclassifying the land as mineral land, the sale of which then involved retention of mineral rights by the State. The Court in Gulf did indicate that it considered the right to reinstatement a vested right with which the State could not arbitrarily interfere. But it was not faced with a statute which actually attempted to modify this right, much less one which put a reasonable time limit upon that right. In Faulkner v. Lear, 258 S. W. 2d 147 (Tex. Civ. App.), a case involving a forfeiture under the 1941 statute, the Texas court said that the land contract, which whs made prior to 1941, “could have been reinstated only in compliance with the statute.. as amended in 1941.” Id., at 149. No constitutional or state law difficulties were noted.
In addition to the State’s common-law right of rescission, Fristoe v. Blum, supra, the forfeiture statute states that nothing in the forfeiture provision “shall be construed'to inhibit the State from insti-futing such legal proceedings as may be necessary to enforce such forfeiture, or to recover the full amount of the interest and such penalties as may be due the State at the time such forfeiture occurred, or to protect any other right to such land.” Tex. Gen. Laws 1895, ch. 47, § 11. This statutory language seems sufficiently broad to preserve, with notice to purchasers, the common-law right of rescission, which, unlike statutory forfeiture, was not subject to reinstatement.
The provisions dealing with forfeiture, which is one of the State’s remedies in case of breach, and reinstatement, which is the purchaser’s remedy to curé his breach, both operate on the rights of a party after breach and thus concern the enforcement of the contract. In this sense they are remedial and the statute of repose challenged here is an alteration of remedy rather than obligation.
But decisions dating from Home Building & Loan Assn. v. Blaisdell, 290 U. S. 398, have not placed critical reliance on the distinction between obligation and remedy. At issue in Blaisdell was a statute enlarging the mortgagor’s right by extending the time of redemption, a measure that the state court characterized as an impairment of the obligation of the mortgage contract. Id., at 420. Thus the question before this Court was whether this
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 Marshall
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The issue in this case is whether a clerical employee in a county Constable’s office was properly discharged for remarking, after hearing of an attempt on the life of the President, “If they go for him again, I hope they get him.”
I
On January 12, 1981, respondent Ardith McPherson was appointed a deputy in the office of the Constable of Harris County, Texas. The Constable is an elected official who functions as a law enforcement officer. At the time of her appointment, McPherson, a black woman, was 19 years old and had attended college for a year, studying secretarial science. Her appointment was conditional for a 90-day probationary period.
Although McPherson’s title was “deputy constable,” this was the case only because all employees of the Constable’s office, regardless of job function, were deputy constables. Tr. of Oral Arg. 5. She was not a commissioned peace officer, did not wear a uniform, and was not authorized to make arrests or permitted to carry a gun. McPherson’s duties were purely clerical. Her work station was a desk at which there was no telephone, in a room to which the public did not have ready access. Her job was to type data from court papers into a computer that maintained an automated record of the status of civil process in the county. Her training consisted of two days of instruction in the operation of her computer terminal.
On March 30, 1981, McPherson and some fellow employees heard on an office radio that there had been an attempt to assassinate the President of the United States. Upon hearing that report, McPherson engaged a co-worker, Lawrence Jackson, who was apparently her boyfriend, in a brief conversation, which according to McPherson’s uncontroverted testimony went as follows:
“Q: What did you say?
“A: I said I felt that that would happen sooner or later.
“Q: Okay. And what did Lawrence say?
“A: Lawrence said, yeah, agreeing with me.
“Q: Okay. Now, when you — after Lawrence spoke, then what was your next comment?
“A: Well, we were talking — it’s a wonder why they did that. I felt like it would be a black person that did that, because I feel like most of my kind is on welfare and CETA, and they use medicaid, and at the time, I was thinking that’s what it was.
“. . . But then after I said that, and then Lawrence said, yeah, he’s cutting back medicaid and food stamps. And I said, yeah, welfare and CETA. I said, shoot, if they go for him again, I hope they get him.”
McPherson’s last remark was overheard by another Deputy Constable, who, unbeknownst to McPherson, was in the room at the time. The remark was reported to Constable Rankin, who summoned McPherson. McPherson readily admitted that she had made the statement, but testified that she told Rankin, upon being asked if she made the statement, “Yes, but I didn’t mean anything by it.” App. 38. After their discussion, Rankin fired McPherson.
McPherson brought suit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas under 42 U. S. C. § 1983, alleging that petitioner Rankin, in discharging her, had violated her constitutional rights under color of state law. She sought reinstatement, backpay, costs and fees, and other equitable relief. The District Court held a hearing, and then granted summary judgment to Constable Rankin, holding that McPherson’s speech had been unprotected and that her discharge had therefore been proper. Civ. Action No. H-81-1442 (Apr. 15, 1983). The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit vacated and remanded for trial, 736 F. 2d 175 (1984), on the ground that substantial issues of material fact regarding the context in which the statement had been made precluded the entry of summary judgment. Id., at 180.
On remand, the District Court held another hearing and ruled once again, this time from the bench, that the statements were not protected speech. App. 120. Again, the Court of Appeals reversed. 786 F. 2d 1233 (1986). It held that McPherson’s remark had addressed a matter of public concern, requiring that society’s interest in McPherson’s freedom of speech be weighed against her employer’s interest in maintaining efficiency and discipline in the workplace. Id., at 1236. Performing that balancing, the Court of Appeals concluded that the Government’s interest did not outweigh the First Amendment interest in protecting McPherson’s speech. Given the nature of McPherson’s job and the fact that she was not a law enforcement officer, was not brought by virtue of her job into contact with the public, and did not have access to sensitive information, the Court of Appeals deemed her “duties ... so utterly ministerial and her potential for undermining the office’s mission so trivial” as to forbid her dismissal for expression of her political opinions. Id., at 1239. “However ill-considered Ardith McPherson’s opinion was,” the Court of Appeals concluded, “it did not make her unfit” for the job she held in Constable Rankin’s office. Ibid. The Court of Appeals remanded the case for determination of an appropriate remedy.
We granted certiorari, 479 U. S. 913 (1986), and now affirm.
II
It is clearly established that a State may not discharge an employee on a basis that infringes that employee’s constitutionally protected interest in freedom of speech. Perry v. Sindermann, 408 U. S. 593, 597 (1972). Even though McPherson was merely a probationary employee, and even if she could have been discharged for any reason or for no reason at all, she may nonetheless be entitled to reinstatement if she was discharged for exercising her constitutional right to freedom of expression. See Mt. Healthy City Board of Education v. Doyle, 429 U. S. 274, 284-285 (1977); Perry v. Sindermann, supra, at 597-598.
The determination whether a public employer has properly discharged an employee for engaging in speech requires “a balance between the interests of the [employee], as a citizen, in commenting upon matters of public concern and the interest of the State, as an employer, in promoting the efficiency of the public services it performs through its employees.” Pickering v. Board of Education, 391 U. S. 563, 568 (1968); Connick v. Myers, 461 U. S. 138, 140 (1983). This balancing is necessary in order to accommodate the dual role of the public employer as a provider of public services and as a government entity operating under the constraints of the First Amendment. On the one hand, public employers are employers, concerned with the efficient function of their operations; review of every personnel decision made by a public employer could, in the long run, hamper the performance of public functions. On the other hand, “the threat of dismissal from public employment is ... a potent means of inhibiting speech.” Pickering, supra, at 574. Vigilance is necessary to ensure that public employers do not use authority over employees to silence discourse, not because it hampers public functions but simply because superiors disagree with the content of employees’ speech.
A
The threshold question in applying this balancing test is whether McPherson’s speech may be “fairly characterized as constituting speech on a matter of public concern.” Connick, 461 U. S., at 146. “Whether an employee’s speech addresses a matter of public concern must be determined by the content, form, and context of a given statement, as revealed by the whole record.” Id., at 147-148. The District Court apparently found that McPherson’s speech did not address a matter of public concern. The Court of Appeals rejected this conclusion, finding that “the life and death of the President are obviously matters of public concern.” 786 F. 2d, at 1236. Our view of these determinations of the courts below is limited in this context by our constitutional obligation to assure that the record supports this conclusion: “ ‘[W]e are compelled to examine for ourselves the statements in issue and the circumstances under which they [were] made to see whether or not they . . . are of a character which the principles of the First Amendment, as adopted by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, protect.’” Connick, supra, at 150, n. 10, quoting Pennekamp v. Florida, 328 U. S. 331, 335 (1946) (footnote omitted).
Considering the statement in context, as Connick requires, discloses that it plainly dealt with a matter of public concern. The statement was made in the course of a conversation addressing the policies of the President’s administration. It came on the heels of a news bulletin regarding what is certainly a matter of heightened public attention: an attempt on the life of the President. . While a statement that amounted to a threat to kill the President would not be protected by the First Amendment, the District Court concluded, and we agree, that McPherson’s statement did not amount to a threat punishable under 18 U. S. C. § 871(a) or 18 U. S. C. § 2385, or, indeed, that could properly be criminalized at all. See 786 F. 2d, at 1235 (“A state would . . . face considerable constitutional obstacles if it sought to criminalize the words that were uttered by McPherson on the day the President was shot”); see also Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 8 (“[W]e do not think that respondent’s remark could be criminalized”); cf. Watts v. United States, 394 U. S. 705 (1969) (per curiam). The inappropriate or controversial character of a statement is irrelevant to the question whether it deals with a matter of public concern. “[DJebate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open, and . . . may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials.” New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U. S. 254, 270 (1964); see also Bond v. Floyd, 385 U. S. 116, 136 (1966): “Just as erroneous statements must be protected to give freedom of expression the breathing space it needs to survive, so statements criticizing public policy and the implementation of it must be similarly protected.”
B
Because McPherson’s statement addressed a matter of public concern, Pickering next requires that we balance McPherson’s interest in making her statement against “the interest of the State, as an employer, in promoting the efficiency of the public services it performs through its employees.” 391 U. S., at 568. The State bears a burden of justifying the discharge on legitimate grounds. Connick, 461 U. S., at 150.
In performing the balancing, the statement will not be considered in a vacuum; the manner, time, and place of the employee’s expression are relevant, as is the context in which the dispute arose. See id., at 152-153; Givhan v. Western Line Consolidated School Dist., 439 U. S. 410, 415, n. 4 (1979). We have previously recognized as pertinent considerations whether the statement impairs discipline by superiors or harmony among co-workers, has a detrimental impact on close working relationships for which personal loyalty and confidence are necessary, or impedes the performance of the speaker’s duties or interferes with the regular operation of the enterprise. Pickering, 391 U. S., at 570-573.
These considerations, and indeed the very nature of the balancing test, make apparent that the state interest element of the test focuses on the effective functioning of the public employer’s enterprise. Interference with work, personnel relationships, or the speaker’s job performance can detract from the public employer’s function; avoiding such interference can be a strong state interest. From this perspective, however, petitioners fail to demonstrate a state interest that outweighs McPherson’s First Amendment rights. While McPherson’s statement was made at the workplace, there is no evidence that it interfered with the efficient functioning of the office. The Constable was evidently not afraid that McPherson had disturbed or interrupted other employees — he did not inquire to whom respondent had made the remark and testified that he “was not concerned who she had made it to,” Tr. 42. In fact, Constable Rankin testified that the possibility of interference with the functions of the -Constable’s office had not been a consideration in his discharge of respondent and that he did not even inquire whether the remark had disrupted the work of the office.
Nor was there any danger that McPherson had discredited the office by making her statement in public. McPherson’s speech took place in an area to which there was ordinarily no public access; her remark was evidently made in a private conversation with another employee. There is no suggestion that any member of the general public was present or heard McPherson’s statement. Nor is there any evidence that employees other than Jackson who worked in the room even heard the remark. Not only was McPherson’s discharge unrelated to the functioning of the office, it was not based on any assessment by the Constable that the remark demonstrated a character trait that made respondent unfit to perform her work.
While the facts underlying Rankin’s discharge of McPherson are, despite extensive proceedings in the District Court, still somewhat unclear, it is undisputed that he fired McPherson based on the content of her speech. Evidently because McPherson had made the statement, and because the Constable believed that she “meant it,” he decided that she was not a suitable employee to have in a law enforcement agency. But in weighing the State’s interest in discharging an employee based on any claim that the content of a statement made by the employee somehow undermines the mission of the public employer, some attention must be paid to the responsibilities of the employee within the agency. The burden of caution employees bear with respect to the words they speak will vary with the extent of authority and public accountability the employee’s role entails. Where, as here, an employee serves no confidential, policymaking, or public contact role, the danger to the agency’s successful functioning from that employee’s private speech is minimal. We cannot believe that every employee in Constable Rankin’s office, whether computer operator, electrician, or file clerk, is equally required, on pain of discharge, to avoid any statement susceptible of being interpreted by the Constable as an indication that the employee may be unworthy of employment in his law enforcement agency. At some point, such concerns are so removed from the effective functioning of the public employer that they cannot prevail over the free speech rights of the public employee.
This is such a case. McPherson’s employment-related interaction with the Constable was apparently negligible. Her duties were purely clerical and were limited solely to the civil process function of the Constable’s office. There is no indication that she would ever be in a position to further— or indeed to have any involvement with — the minimal law enforcement activity engaged in by the Constable’s office. Given the function of the agency, McPherson’s position in the office, and the nature of her statement, we are not persuaded that Rankin’s interest in discharging her outweighed her rights under the First Amendment.
Because we agree with the Court of Appeals that McPherson’s discharge was improper, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Affirmed.
While the Constable’s office is a law enforcement agency, Constable Rankin testified that other law enforcement departments were charged with the day-to-day enforcement of criminal laws in the county, Tr. (Jan. 21, 1985), pp. 11, 27 (hereinafter Tr.), and that more than 80% of the budget of his office was devoted to service of civil process, service of process in juvenile delinquency cases, and execution of mental health warrants. Id., at 15-17. The involvement of his office in criminal cases, he testified, was in large part limited to warrants in bad check cases. Id., at 24 (“Most of our percentage is with civil papers and hot check warrants”).
In order to serve as a commissioned peace officer, as the Court of Appeals noted, a deputy would have to undergo a background cheek, a psychological examination, and over 300 hours of training in law enforcement. 786 F. 2d 1233, 1237 (CA5 1986). Constable Rankin testified that while his office had on occasion been asked to guard various dignitaries visiting Houston, Tr. 24, a deputy who was not a commissioned peace officer would never be assigned to such duty, id., at 30. Nor would such a deputy even be assigned to serve process. Id., at 32.
Tr. 73. In its first order in this case, the District Court found that McPherson’s statement had been, “ ‘I hope if they go for him again, they get him.’” Civ. Action No. H-81-1442 (Apr. 15, 1983). In its second decision, the District Court made no explicit finding as to what was said. McPherson’s testimony, as reproduced in the text, is only slightly different from the District Court’s version, and the distinction is not significant.
Rankin testified that, when he asked McPherson whether she meant the remark, she replied, “I sure do.” App. 38. In neither of its opinions in this ease did the District Court make an explicit finding regarding which version of this conflicting testimony it found credible. See also 736 F. 2d 175, 177, and n. 3 (CA5 1984).
We note that the question whether McPherson “meant” the statement is ambiguous. Assuming that McPherson told Rankin she “meant it,” McPherson might think she had said that she “meant” that she disliked the President and would not mind if he were dead, while Rankin might believe that McPherson “meant” to indicate approval of, or in any event hope for, political assassination. This ambiguity makes evident the need for carefully conducted hearings and precise and complete findings of fact.
McPherson evidently returned to the office the next day seeking an interview with the Constable, but Rankin refused to see her.
Because the District Court entered summary judgment after the first hearing, we must conclude that it did not, in its April 15 ruling, resolve any disputed issues of material fact. We have considered the District Court’s findings of fact made after this hearing only to the extent they address what appear to be undisputed factual issues.
Even where a public employee’s speech does not touch upon a matter of public concern, that speech is not “totally beyond the protection of the First Amendment,” Connick v. Myers, 461 U. S., at 147, but “absent the most unusual circumstances a federal court is not the appropriate forum in which to review the wisdom of a personnel decision taken by a public agency allegedly in reaction to the employee’s behavior.” Ibid.
The District Court, after its second hearing in this case, delivered its opinion from the bench and did not explicitly address the elements of the required balancing test. It did, however, state that the ease was “not like the Myers case where Ms. Myers was trying to comment upon the internal affairs of the office, or matters upon public concern. I don’t think it is a matter of public concern to approve even more to [sic] the second attempt at assassination.” App. 119.
The dissent accuses us of distorting and beclouding the record, evidently because we have failed to accord adequate deference to the purported “findings” of the District Court. Post, at 396. We find the District Court’s “findings” from the bench significantly more ambiguous than does the dissent:
“Then I suppose we get down to the serious question, what did she ‘mean.’ I don’t believe she meant nothing, as she said here today, and I don’t believe that those words were mere political hyperbole. They were something more than political hyperbole. They expressed such dislike of a high public government official as to be violent words, in context. This is not the situation where one makes an idle threat to kill someone for not picking them up on time, or not picking up their clothes. It was more than that.
“It’s not like the Myers case where Ms. Myers was trying to comment upon the internal affairs of the office, or matters upon public concern. I don’t think it is a matter of public concern to [sic] approve even more to the second attempt at assassination.” App. 119.
The District Court’s sole affirmative “finding” here, that McPherson’s statement constituted “violent words, in context,” is unintelligible in First Amendment terms. Even assuming that the District Court can be viewed to have made any findings of fact on the public concern issue, it is unclear to what extent that issue presents a question of fact at all. In addition, the dissent fails to acknowledge that any factual findings subsumed in the “public concern” determination are subject to constitutional fact review. See also 786 F. 2d, at 1237.
See also Bose Corp. v. Consumers Union of United States, Inc., 466 U. S. 485, 499 (1984) (“[I]n eases raising First Amendment issues we have repeatedly held that an appellate court has an obligation to ‘make an independent examination of the whole record’ in order to make sure that ‘the judgment does not constitute a forbidden intrusion on the field of free expression,’” quoting New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U. S. 254, 284-286 (1964)). The ultimate issue — whether the speech is protected — is a question of law. Connick, supra, at 148, n. 7.
McPherson actually made the statement at issue not once, but twice, and only in the first instance did she make the statement in the context of a discussion of the President’s policies. McPherson repeated the statement to Constable Rankin at his request. We do not consider the second statement independently of the first, however. Having been required by the Constable to repeat her statement, McPherson might well have been deemed insubordinate had she refused. A public employer may not divorce a statement made by an employee from its context by requiring the employee to repeat the statement, and use that statement standing alone as the basis for a discharge. Such a tactic could in some cases merely give the employee the choice of being fired for failing to follow orders or for making a statement which, out of context, may not warrant the same level of First Amendment protection it merited when originally made.
The private nature of the statement does not, contrary to the suggestion of the United States, Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 18, vitiate the status of the statement as addressing a matter of public concern. See Givhan v. Western Line Consolidated School Dist., 439 U. S. 410, 414-416 (1979).
Constable Rankin was evidently unsure of this; he testified that he called the Secret Service to report the incident and suggest that they investigate McPherson. Tr. 44. McPherson testified that the Secret Service did, in fact, come to her home:
“Oh, they told me that they thought it was a prank call, but. . . they have to investigate any call that they get.
“. . . When they left, they told my mama and me that they were sorry. They said that they knew it was a prank call, they just have to come out and investigate. They said that’s the procedure.” Id., at 81-82.
We agree with Justice Powell that a purely private statement on a matter of public concern will rarely, if ever, justify discharge of a public employee. Post, at 393. To the extent petitioners’ claim that McPherson’s speech rendered her an unsuitable employee for a law enforcement agency implicates a serious state interest and necessitates the application of the balancing element of the Pickering analysis, we proceed to that task.
He testified: “I did not base my action on whether the work was interrupted or not. I based my action on a statement that was made to me direct.” Tr. 45.
In response to a question from the bench, counsel at oral argument before this Court expressly denied that this was the motive for the Constable’s discharge of McPherson:
“QUESTION: . . . [Sluppose when she was called in by the constable and asked whether she had said that, she said, ‘Yes, I said it.’
“MR. LEE [counsel for petitioners]: She was, Your Honor. She was called in by the constable.
“QUESTION: I know. Now, suppose she had said, ‘Yeah, I said it, but, you know, I didn’t really mean anything by it.’
“MR. LEE: Yes, sir.
“QUESTION: Do we know whether she would have been fired? I mean, conceivably you might fire her anyway. I mean, he might have said, “Well, you know, you shouldn’t talk like that, whether you mean it or not. I don’t want that kind of talk in my law enforcement agency, whether you mean it or not. It shows poor judgment, and you’re fired.’
“Was that the basis for his dismissal?
“MR. LEE: Your Honor, I would say not, based upon two trials that we have been through in the District Court.” Tr. of Oral Arg. 10-11.
Rankin’s assertion, as evidently credited by the District Court after its first hearing, was that he discharged respondent because her statement undermined his “confidence” in her. App. 42-43. After its second hearing, the District Court did not state clearly what it concluded the motive for respondent’s discharge to be. Petitioners’ counsel, at oral argument, suggested that McPherson was discharged because she hoped that the President would be assassinated. Tr. of Oral Arg. 11-13. The Court of Appeals similarly classified the District Court’s finding. See 786 F. 2d, at 1237 (“For the purpose of applying the Pickering/Connick balancing test, we accept the district court’s conclusion that McPherson actually hoped that the President would be assassinated”). We are not persuaded that the Court of Appeals has properly divined the meaning of the District Court’s findings, but, even accepting the Court of Appeals’ view, we agree with the Court of Appeals that the speech was protected.
We therefore reject the notion, expressed by petitioners’ counsel at oral argument, that the fact that an employee was deputized meant, regardless of that employee’s job responsibility, that the Constable could discharge the employee for any expression inconsistent with the goals of a law enforcement agency.
“MR. LEE [counsel for petitioners]: The man who sweeps the floor in the constable’s office is not employed by the constable. He’s employed by commissioners’ court who takes care of all of the courthouses.” Tr. of Oral Arg. 6.
“QUESTION: I guess it’s a lucky thing then that the constable is not himself responsible for keeping the courthouse clean, which could have been the case. I mean, you—
“MR. LEE: Which could have been the case, yes, sir. That is right, because he would then—
“QUESTION: Then your argument would indeed extend to the man who swept the floor; right?
“QUESTION: And you would be making the same argument here—
“MR. LEE: Yes, sir.
“QUESTION: —because that man had the name of deputy?
“MR. LEE: That’s right.” Id., at 8.
This is not to say that clerical employees are insulated from discharge where their speech, taking the acknowledged factors into account, truly injures the public interest in the effective functioning of the public employer. Cf. McMullen v. Carson, 754 F. 2d 936 (CA11 1985) (clerical employee in sheriff’s office properly discharged for stating on television news that he was an employee for the sheriff’s office and a recruiter for the Ku Klux Klan).
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 Murphy
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The decision here turns upon the power of the Court of Claims, in light of § 177 (a) of the Judicial Code, to include interest in its award of “just compensation” to a lessee for the construction of a hotel and other buildings pursuant to the provisions of the Act of March 30,1920.
The Act of March 30, 1920, authorizes the Secretary of War to lease land on the United States Military Reservation at West Point, N. Y., to any person for a term not exceeding 50 years upon which to erect a hotel and other necessary buildings in connection therewith. The lease is to contain such conditions, terms, reservations and covenants as may be agreed upon and is to provide “for just compensation to the lessees for the construction of said hotel, appurtenances, and equipments, to be paid to said lessees at the termination of said lease.”
On October 17, 1924, the Secretary of War duly made a lease under this Act to one Williams for a period of 50 years. The lease provided, among other things, that it might be canceled at any time by the Secretary if the lessee should fail to observe all the covenants and conditions in the lease. One of the covenants was that the lessee was to “keep the said hotel open for business every day during the continuance of this lease, except at such times as permission to close may be given in writing by the Superintendent, U. S. M. A.” Upon a cancellation of the lease, “just compensation” was to be paid to the lessee for the construction of the hotel, appurtenances and equipment, and title thereto was to pass at once to the United States. Similar provisions were made in connection with the termination of the lease on the expiration of the 50-year term. The lease also set forth numerous restrictions and requirements as to the operation of the hotel — such restrictions and requirements being primarily for the benefit of the Military Academy.
The lease was assigned to a corporation and a hotel and other buildings were subsequently erected. Through a series of events which need not be detailed here, the respondent took over the leasehold and the hotel properties in 1930 with the approval of the Superintendent of the Military Academy. Respondent began operating the hotel on January 1, 1931, and continued under the terms of the lease until March 10,1943.
On January 5, 1943, respondent wrote to the Secretary of War that conditions then existing made continued operation of the hotel impossible and that to avoid a curtailment of operations or a closing down of the hotel “the properties should be owned and operated by the Government.” It was accordingly suggested that the Secretary declare the lease forfeited upon the closing of the hotel by respondent, a default contemplated by the lease. The Secretary agreed to this proposal. The respondent then gave notice of its intention to close the hotel on the morning of March 10,1943. The agents of the Secretary immediately took over the possession, management and operation of the hotel on March 10 and shortly thereafter the Secretary declared the lease annulled.
The parties were unable to agree on the amount of “just compensation” due under the lease. Respondent then brought this suit in the Court of Claims, praying for a judgment in the sum of $1,932,000. That court found that the “total of just compensation to the plaintiff for construction of the hotel, its appurtenances, and equipments, is therefore $867,682, as of March 10, 1943.” 106 Ct. Cl. 60, 80, 64 F. Supp. 565, 568. The court then added interest at the rate of 4% per annum from March 10,1943, to the date of payment as “additional allowance to make compensation a just one as of the date of payment.” The sole question before us concerns the propriety of adding the 4% interest from March 10,1943.
The pertinent part of § 177 (a) of the Judicial Code provides that “No interest shall be allowed on any claim up to the time of the rendition of judgment by the Court of Claims, unless upon a contract expressly stipulating for the payment of interest, . . .” Section 177 (a) thus embodies the traditional rule that interest cannot be recovered against the United States upon unpaid accounts or claims in the absence of an express provision to the contrary in a relevant statute or contract. Tillson v. United States, 100 U. S. 43, 47; United States v. North American Co., 253 U. S. 330, 336; United States v. Goltra, 312 U. S. 203, 207. This rule is inapplicable, however, where the United States takes property under its power of eminent domain; in such cases it has consistently béen held that the Fifth Amendment’s reference to “just compensation” entitles the property owner to receive interest from the date of the taking to the date of payment as a part of his just compensation. Seaboard Air Line Ry. v. United States, 261 U. S. 299, 306; Brooks-Scanlon Corp. v. United States, 265 U. S. 106, 123; Phelps v. United States, 274 U. S. 341, 344.
Since it is clear in the instant case that the United States did not exercise its power of eminent domain and that there was no taking of the hotel properties in the legal sense, we can put to one side the eminent domain situation. There is nothing more here than an ordinary contractual relationship between the United States and the respondent. That relationship was voluntarily entered into by respondent’s predecessor and was severed at respondent’s suggestion. The Government’s liability to pay for the construction of the hotel properties was fixed by the Act of March 30, 1920, and by the lease, not by the Constitution. The sole issue thus becomes whether there is any express provision in the Act or in the lease permitting the recovery of interest under the circumstances. Only if there is such a provision can respondent avoid the traditional rule set forth in § 177 (a).
Respondent’s claim in this respect rests upon the references in the Act and in the lease to the payment of “just compensation” for the construction of the hotel, appurtenances and equipment. “Just compensation,” it is said, is to be given the same meaning here as in the case of a taking under the power of eminent domain, thereby entitling respondent to the full value of the properties down to the date of payment. From this viewpoint, the Court of Claims could use interest at the rate of 4% as the measure of the value of the use of the hotel properties from the time when the Government took possession on March 10, 1943, to the time of payment and include such interest as a component part of just compensation. The conclusion is reached that the term “just compensation,” as used in the Act and in the lease, constitutes an express provision for interest so that the bar of § 177 (a) is removed. We cannot agree.
The fact that “just compensation” includes interest in the eminent domain setting does not necessarily mean that the term must be given the same scope in other situations. United States v. Goltra, supra. It may or it may not imply an obligation to pay interest. For example, interest conceivably may not be contemplated where the term refers to compensatory damages for a tort or a breach of contract, or where it has reference to the price to be paid for the exchange or sale of property at a future date. Hence, in the absence of constitutional connotations, “just compensation” is not a term of art so far as interest is concerned. The inclusion or exclusion of interest depends upon other contractual provisions, the intention of the parties and the circumstances surrounding the use of the term.
But in order to override the historical rule codified in § 177 (a), something more is necessary than an equivocal use of the term “just compensation.” It is not enough that the term might be construed to include the payment of interest. As § 177 (a) itself indicates, there must be a provision in the contract “expressly stipulating for the payment of interest.” That provision must be affirmative, clear-cut, unambiguous; and an unexpressed intention by the parties that the term “just compensation” be construed to include interest is insufficient. Likewise, where a statute is relied upon to overcome the force of § 177 (a), the intention of Congress to permit the recovery of interest must be expressly and specifically set forth in the statute. Tillson v. United States, supra, 46; United States ex rel. Angarica v. Bayard, 127 U. S. 251, 260. Mere use of the term “just compensation,” without more, is no substitute for an express provision for interest.
Here neither the Act of March 30, 1920, nor the lease under which respondent operated contains an express provision for the payment of interest, either in addition to or as a part of the “just compensation” to be paid to respondent. If the United States had desired to provide by statute or to contract in the lease for the payment of interest, it would have been easy to have said so in express terms. Because it did not say so, we are led irresistibly to the conclusion that it did not intend to negative the effect of § 177 (a) in this instance. Tillson v. United States, supra.
We therefore reverse the judgment of the Court of Claims to the extent that it includes an allowance for interest.
28 U. S. C. §284 (a).
41 Stat. 538, 548.
Congress has expressly provided for the payment of interest in other instances. See Judicial Code, § 177 (b), 28 U. S. C. § 284 (b); Contract Settlement Act of 1944, 58 Stat. 649, 654, § 6 (f), 41 U. S. C., Supp. V,§ 106 (f).
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 Marshall
delivered the opinion of the Court.
We granted certiorari in this case to consider the circumstances in which the Constitution requires that an indictment be dismissed because of delay between the commission of an offense and the initiation of prosecution.
I
On March 6, 1975, respondent was indicted for possessing eight firearms stolen from the United States mails, and for dealing in firearms without a license. The offenses were alleged to have occurred between July 25 and August 31,1973, more than 18 months before the indictment was filed. Respondent moved to dismiss the indictment due to the delay.
The District Court conducted a hearing on respondent’s motion at which the respondent sought to prove that the delay was unnecessary and that it had prejudiced his defense. In an effort to establish the former proposition, respondent presented a Postal Inspector’s report on his investigation that was prepared one month after the crimes were committed, and a stipulation concerning the post-report progress of the probe. The report stated, in brief, that within the first month of the investigation respondent had admitted to Government agents that he had possessed and then sold five of the stolen guns, and that the agents had developed strong evidence linking respondent to the remaining three weapons. The report also stated, however, that the agents had been unable to confirm or refute respondent’s claim that he had found the guns in his car when he returned to it after visiting his son, a mail handler, at work. The stipulation into which the Assistant United States Attorney entered indicated that little additional information concerning the crimes was uncovered in the 17 months following the preparation of the Inspector’s report.
To establish prejudice to the defense, respondent testified that he had lost the testimony of two material witnesses due to the delay. The first witness, Tom Stewart, died more than a year after the alleged crimes occurred. At the hearing respondent claimed that Stewart had been his source for two or three of the guns. The second witness, respondent’s brother, died in April 1974, eight months after the crimes were completed. Respondent testified that his brother was present when respondent called Stewart to secure the guns, and witnessed all of respondent’s sales. Respondent did not state how the witnesses would have aided the defense had they been willing to testify.
The Government made no systematic effort in the District Court to explain its long delay. The Assistant United States Attorney did expressly disagree, however, with defense counsel’s suggestion that the investigation had ended after the Postal Inspector’s report was prepared. App. 9-10. The prosecutor also stated that it was the Government’s theory that respondent’s son, who had access to the mail at the railroad terminal from which the guns were “possibly stolen,” id., at 17, was responsible for the thefts, id., at 13. Finally, the prosecutor elicited somewhat cryptic testimony from the Postal Inspector indicating that the case “as to these particular weapons involves other individuals”; that information had been presented to a grand jury “in regard to this case other than . . . [on] the day of the indictment itself”; and that he had spoken to the prosecutors about the case on four or five occasions. Id., at 20.
Following the hearing, the District Court filed a brief opinion and order. The court found that by October 2, 1973, the date of the Postal Inspector’s report, “the Government had all the information relating to defendant’s alleged commission of the offenses charged against him,” and that the 17-month delay before the case was presented to the grand jury “had not been explained or justified” and was “unnecessary and unreasonable.” The court also found that “[a]s a result of the delay defendant has been prejudiced by reason of the death of Tom Stewart, a material witness on his behalf.” Pet. for Cert. 14a. Accordingly, the court dismissed the indictment.
The Government appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. In its brief the Government explained the months of inaction by stating:
“[T]here was a legitimate Government interest in keeping the investigation open in the instant case. The defendant’s son worked for the Terminal Railroad and had access to mail. It was the Government’s position that the son was responsible for the theft and therefore further investigation to establish this fact was important.
“. . . Although the investigation did not continue on a full time basis, there was contact between the United States Attorney’s office and the Postal Inspector’s office throughout . . . and certain matters were brought before a Federal Grand Jury prior to the determination that the case should be presented for indictment . . . .” Brief for United States in No. 75-1852 (CA8), pp. 5-6.
The Court of Appeals accepted the Government’s representation as to the motivation for the delay, but a majority of the court nevertheless affirmed the District Court’s finding that the Government’s actions were “unjustified, unnecessary, and unreasonable.” 532 E. 2d 59, 61 (1976). The majority also found that respondent had established that his defense had been impaired by the loss of Stewart’s testimony because it understood respondent to contend that “were Stewart’s testimony available it would support [respondent’s] claim that he did not know that the guns were stolen from the United States mails.” Ibid. The court therefore affirmed the District Court’s dismissal of the three possession counts by a divided vote.
We granted certiorari, 429 U. S. 884, and now reverse.
II
In United States v. Marion, 404 U. S. 307 (1971), this Court considered the significance, for constitutional purposes, of a lengthy preindictment delay. We held that as far as the Speedy Trial Clause of the Sixth Amendment is concerned, such delay is wholly irrelevant, since our analysis of the language, history, and purposes of the Clause persuaded us that only “a formal indictment or information or else the actual restraints imposed by arrest and holding to answer a criminal charge . . . engage the particular protections” of that provision. Id., at 320. We went on to note that statutes of limitations, which provide predictable, legislatively enacted limits on prosecutorial delay, provide “ 'the primary guarantee against bringing overly stale criminal charges.’ ” Id., at 322, quoting United States v. Ewell, 383 U. S. 116, 122 (1966). But we did acknowledge that the "statute of limitations does not fully define [defendants’] rights with respect to the events occurring prior to indictment,” 404 U. S., at 324, and that the Due Process Clause has a limited role to play in protecting against oppressive delay.
Respondent seems to argue that due process bars prosecution whenever a defendant suffers prejudice as a result of preindictment delay. To support that proposition respondent relies on the concluding sentence of the Court’s opinion in Manon where, in remanding the case, we stated that “[e] vents of the trial may demonstrate actual prejudice, but at the present time appellees’ due process claims are speculative and premature.” Id., at 326. But the quoted sentence establishes only that proof of actual prejudice makes a due process claim concrete and ripe for adjudication, not that it makes the claim automatically valid. Indeed, two pages earlier in the opinion we expressly rejected the argument respondent advances here:
“[W]e need not. . . determine when and in what circumstances actual prejudice resulting from preaccusation delays requires the dismissal of the prosecution. Actual prejudice to the defense of a criminal case may result from the shortest and most necessary delay; and no one suggests that every delay-caused detriment to a defendant’s case should abort a criminal prosecution.” Id., at 324-325. (Footnotes omitted.)
Thus Marion makes clear that proof of prejudice is generally a necessary but not sufficient element of a due process claim, and that the due process inquiry must consider the reasons for the delay as well as the prejudice to the accused.
The Court of Appeals found that the sole reason for the delay here was “a hope on the part of the Government that others might be discovered who may have participated in the theft . . . .” 532 F. 2d, at 61. It concluded that this hope did not justify the delay, and therefore affirmed the dismissal of the indictment. But the Due Process Clause does not permit courts to abort criminal prosecutions simply because they disagree with a prosecutor’s judgment as to when to seek an indictment. Judges are not free, in defining “due process,” to impose on law enforcement officials our “personal and private notions” of fairness and to “disregard the limits that bind judges in their judicial function.” Rochin v. California, 342 U. S. 165, 170 (1952). Our task is more circumscribed. We are to determine only whether the action complained of — here, compelling respondent to stand trial after the Government delayed indictment to investigate further — violates those “fundamental conceptions of justice which lie at the base of our civil and political institutions,” Mooney v. Holohan, 294 U. S. 103, 112 (1935), and which define “the community’s sense of fair play and decency,” Rochin v. California, supra, at 173. See also Ham v. South Carolina, 409 U. S. 524, 526 (1973); Lisenba v. California, 314 U. S. 219, 236 (1941); Hebert v. Louisiana, 272 U. S. 312, 316 (1926); Hurtado v. California, 110 U. S. 516, 535 (1884).
It requires no extended argument to establish that prosecutors do not deviate from “fundamental conceptions of justice” when they defer seeking indictments until they have probable cause to believe an accused is guilty; indeed it is unprofessional conduct for a prosecutor to recommend an indictment on less than probable cause. It should be equally obvious that prosecutors are under no duty to file charges as soon as probable cause exists but before they are satisfied they will be able to establish the suspect’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. To impose such a duty “would have a deleterious effect both upon the rights of the accused and upon the ability of society to protect itself,” United States v. Ewell, supra, at 120. From the perspective of potential defendants, requiring prosecutions to commence when probable cause is established is undesirable because it would increase the likelihood of unwarranted charges being filed, and would add to the time during which defendants stand accused but untried. These costs are by no means insubstantial since, as we recognized in Marion, a formal accusation may “interfere with the defendant’s liberty, . . . disrupt his employment, drain his financial resources, curtail his associations, subject him to public obloquy, and create anxiety in him, his family and his friends.” 404 U. S., at 320. From the perspective of law enforcement officials, a requirement of immediate prosecution upon probable cause is equally unacceptable because it could make obtaining proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt impossible by causing potentially fruitful sources of information to evaporate before they are fully exploited. And from the standpoint of the courts, such a requirement is unwise because it would cause scarce resources to be consumed on cases that prove to be insubstantial, or that involve only some of the responsible parties or some of the criminal acts. Thus, no one’s interests would be well served by compelling prosecutors to initiate prosecutions as soon as they are legally entitled to do so.
It might be argued that once the Government has assembled sufficient evidence to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, it should be constitutionally required to file charges promptly, even if its investigation of the entire criminal transaction is not complete. Adopting such a rule, however, would have many of the same consequences as adopting a rule requiring immediate prosecution upon probable cause.
First, compelling a prosecutor to file public charges as soon as the requisite proof has been developed against one participant on one charge would cause numerous problems in those cases in which a criminal transaction involves more than one person or more than one illegal act. In some instances, an immediate arrest or indictment would impair the prosecutor’s ability to continue his investigation, thereby preventing society from bringing lawbreakers to justice. In other cases, the prosecutor would be able to obtain additional indictments despite an early prosecution, but the necessary result would be multiple trials involving a single set of facts. Such trials place needless burdens on defendants, law enforcement officials, and courts.
Second, insisting on immediate prosecution once sufficient evidence is developed to obtain a conviction would pressure prosecutors into resolving doubtful cases in favor of early— and possibly unwarranted — prosecutions. The determination of when the evidence available to the prosecution is sufficient to obtain a conviction is seldom clear-cut, and reasonable persons often will reach conflicting conclusions. In the instant case, for example, since respondent admitted possessing at least five of the firearms, the primary factual issue in dispute was whether respondent knew the guns were stolen as required by 18 U. S. C. § 1708. Not surprisingly, the Postal Inspector’s report contained no direct evidence bearing on this issue. The decision whether to prosecute, therefore, required a necessarily subjective evaluation of the strength of the circumstantial evidence available and the credibility of respondent’s denial. Even if a prosecutor concluded that the case was weak and further investigation appropriate, he would have no assurance that a reviewing court would agree. To avoid the risk that a subsequent indictment would be dismissed for preindictment delay, the prosecutor might feel constrained to file premature charges, with all the disadvantages that would entail.
Finally, requiring the Government to make charging decisions immediately upon assembling evidence sufficient to establish guilt would preclude the Government from giving full consideration to the desirability of not prosecuting in particular cases. The decision to file criminal charges, with the awesome consequences it entails, requires consideration of a wide range of factors in addition to the strength of the Government’s case, in order to determine whether prosecution would be in the public interest. Prosecutors often need more information than proof of a suspect’s guilt, therefore, before deciding whether to seek an indictment. Again the instant case provides a useful illustration. Although proof of the identity of the mail thieves was not necessary to convict respondent of the possessory crimes with which he was charged, it might have been crucial in assessing respondent’s culpability, as distinguished from his legal guilt. If, for example, further investigation were to show that respondent had no role in or advance knowledge of the theft and simply agreed, out of paternal loyalty, to help his son dispose of the guns once respondent discovered his son had stolen them, the United States Attorney might have decided not to prosecute, especially since at the time of the crime respondent was over 60 years old and had no prior criminal record. Requiring prosecution once the evidence of guilt is clear, however, could prevent a prosecutor from awaiting the information necessary for such a decision.
“The prosecutor is not obliged to present all charges which the evidence might support. The prosecutor may in some circumstances and for good cause consistent with the public interest decline to prosecute, notwithstanding that evidence may exist which would support a conviction. Illustrative of the factors which the prosecutor may properly consider in exercising his discretion are:
“(i) the prosecutor’s reasonable doubt that the accused is in fact guilty; “(ii) the extent of the harm caused by the offense;
“(iii) the disproportion of the authorized punishment in relation to the particular offense or the offender;
“(iv) possible improper motives of a complainant;
“(v) reluctance of the victim to testify;
“(vi) cooperation of the accused in the apprehension or conviction of others;
“(vii) availability and likelihood of prosecution by another jurisdiction.”
We would be most reluctant to adopt a rule which would have these consequences absent a clear constitutional command to do so. We can find no such command in the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. In our view, investigative delay is fundamentally unlike delay undertaken by the Government solely “to gain tactical advantage over the accused,” United States v. Marion, 404 U. S., at 324, precisely because investigative delay is not so one-sided. Rather than deviating from elementary standards of “fair play and decency,” a prosecutor abides by them if he refuses to seek indictments until he is completely satisfied that he should prosecute and will be able promptly to establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Penalizing prosecutors who defer action for these reasons would subordinate the goal of “orderly expedition” to that of “mere speed,” Smith v. United States, 360 U. S. 1, 10 (1959). This the Due Process Clause does not require. We therefore hold that to prosecute a defendant following investigative delay does not deprive him of due process, even if his defense might have been somewhat prejudiced by the lapse of time.
In the present case, the Court of Appeals stated that the only reason the Government postponed action was to await the results of additional investigation. Although there is, unfortunately, no evidence concerning the reasons for the delay in the record, the court’s “finding” is supported by the prosecutor’s implicit representation to the District Court, and explicit representation to the Court of Appeals, that the investigation continued during the time that the Government deferred taking action against respondent. The finding is, moreover, buttressed by the Government’s repeated assertions in its petition for certiorari, its brief, and its oral argument in this Court, “that the delay was caused by the government’s, efforts to identify persons in addition to respondent who may have participated in the offenses.” Pet. for Cert. 14. mUst assume that these statements by counsel have been made in good faith. In light of this explanation, it follows that compelling respondent to stand trial would not be fundamentally unfair. The Court of Appeals therefore erred in affirming the District Court’s decision dismissing the indictment.
Ill
In Marion we conceded that we could not determine in the abstract the circumstances in which preaccusation delay would require dismissing prosecutions. 404 U. S., at 324. More than five years later, that statement remains true. Indeed, in the intervening years so few defendants have established that they were prejudiced by delay that neither this Court nor any lower court has had a sustained opportunity to consider the constitutional significance of various reasons for delay. We therefore leave to the lower courts, in the first instance, the task of applying the settled principles of due process that we have discussed to the particular circumstances of individual cases. We simply hold that in this case the lower courts erred in dismissing the indictment.
Reversed.
The report indicated that the person to whom respondent admitted selling five guns had told Government agents that respondent had actually-sold him eight guns which he, in turn, had sold to one Martin Koehnken. The report also indicated that Koehnken had sold three of these guns to undercover federal agents and that a search of his house had uncovered four others. Finally the report stated that the eighth gun was sold by one David Northdruft (or Northdurft) to Government agents, and that Northdruft claimed Koehnken had sold him the gun.
At the hearing on the motion to dismiss, respondent for the first time admitted that he had possessed and sold eight guns..
The only contrary evidence came from respondent’s purchaser who told the Government investigators that he knew the guns were “hot.”
In March 1975, the Inspector learned of another person who claimed to have purchased a gun from respondent. App. 18. At the hearing the parties disagreed as to whether this evidence would have been admissible since it did not involve any of the guns to which the indictment related. Id., at 9-10. In any event, the Assistant United States Attorney stated that the decision to prosecute was made before this additional piece of evidence was received. Id., at 19.
Respondent admitted that he had not mentioned Stewart to the Postal Inspector when he was questioned about his source of the guns. He explained that this was because Stewart “was a bad tomato” and “was liable to take a shot at me if I told [on] him.” Id.., at 13. Respondent also conceded that he did not mention either his brother’s or Stewart’s illness or death to the Postal Inspector on the several occasions in which respondent called the Inspector to inquire about the status of the probe.
The Inspector’s report had stated that there was no evidence establishing the son’s responsibility for the thefts.
The court unanimously reversed the dismissal of a fourth count of the indictment charging respondent with dealing in firearms without a license since respondent had not alleged that the missing witnesses could have provided exculpatory evidence on this charge.
In addition to challenging the Court of Appeals’ holding on the constitutional issue, the United States argues that the District Court should have deferred action on the motion to dismiss until after trial, at which time it could have assessed any prejudice to the respondent in light of the events at trial. This argument, however, was not raised in the District Court or in the Court of Appeals. Absent exceptional circumstances, we will not review it here. See, e. g., Duignan v. United States, 274 U. S. 195, 200 (1927); Neely v. Martin K. Eby Constr. Co., 386 U. S. 317, 330 (1967).
At oral argument, the Government seemed to suggest that its failure to raise the procedural question in its brief in the Court of Appeals should be excused because the proceedings in that court were “skewed” by the fact that the District Court had based its dismissal solely on Fed. Rule Crim. Proc. 48 (b), and because the issue was raised by the Government in its petition for rehearing. Tr. of Oral Arg. 7-8, 51. But even assuming that the basis for the District Court’s dismissal could have “skewed” appellate proceedings regarding the procedural question, the fact is that the opening paragraph of the argument in the Government’s brief below recognized that the only issue before the court was a due process question, and the remainder of the brief treated that question on the merits. And even after the Court of Appeals issued its decision based solely on the Due Process Clause, the Government’s petition for rehearing did not squarely raise the procedural issue as an alternative ground for rehearing the case en banc.
Marion also holds that Fed. Rule Crim. Proe. 48 (b), which permits district courts to dismiss indictments due to preindictment or postindictment delay, is “limited to post-arrest situations.” 404 U. S., at 319. Since respondent was not arrested until after he was indicted, the District Court plainly erred in basing its decision on this Rule.
ABA Code of Professional Responsibility DR 7-103 (A) (1969); ABA Project on Standards for Criminal Justice, The Prosecution Function § 3.9 (App. Draft 1971).
To the extent that the period between accusation and trial has been strictly limited by legislative action, see, e. g., Speedy Trial Act of 1974, 88 Stat. 2076, 18 U. S. C. §3161 et seq. (1970 ed., Supp. V), compelling immediate prosecutions upon probable cause would not add to the time during which defendants stand accused, but would create a risk of guilty persons escaping punishment simply because the Government was unable to move from probable cause to guilt beyond a reasonable doubt in the short time available to it. Even absent a statute, of course, the Speedy Trial Clause of the Sixth Amendment imposes restraints on the length of post-accusation delay.
Cf. United States v. Watson, 423 U. S. 411, 431 (1976) (Powell, J., concurring) (“Good police practice often requires postponing an arrest, even after probable cause has been established, in order to place the suspect under surveillance or otherwise develop further evidence necessary to prove guilt to a jury”).
Defendants also would be adversely affected by trials involving less than all of the criminal acts for which they are responsible, since they likely would be subjected to multiple trials growing out of the same transaction or occurrence.
See also Hoffa v. United States, 385 U. S. 293, 310 (1966), quoted in United States v. Marion, 404 U. S., at 325 n. 18:
“There is no constitutional right to be arrested. The police are not required to guess at their peril the precise moment at which they have probable cause to arrest a suspect, risking a violation of the Fourth Amendment if they act too soon, and a violation of the Sixth Amendment if they wait too long. Law enforcement officers are under no constitutional duty to call a halt to a criminal investigation the moment they have the minimum evidence to establish probable cause, a quantum of evidence which may fall far short of the amount necessary to support a criminal conviction.”
In addition, if courts were required to decide in every case when the prosecution should have commenced, it would be necessary for them to trace the day-by-day progress of each investigation. Maintaining daily records would impose an administrative burden on .prosecutors, and reviewing them would place an even greater burden on the courts. See also United States v. Marion, supra, at 321 n. 13.
See, e. g., The Prosecution Function, supra, n. 9, at § 3.9 (b):
Of course, in this case further investigation proved unavailing and the United States Attorney ultimately decided to prosecute based solely on the Inspector’s report. But this fortuity cannot transform an otherwise permissible delay into an impermissible one.
In Marion we noted with approval that the Government conceded that a “tactical” delay would violate the Due Process Clause. The Government renews that concession here, Brief for United States 32, and expands it somewhat by stating: “A due process violation might also be made out upon a showing of prosecutorial delay incurred in reckless disregard of circumstances, known to the prosecution,- suggesting that there existed an appreciable risk that delay would impair the ability to mount an effective defense,” id., at 32-33, n. 25. As the Government notes, however, there is no evidence of recklessness here.
See also Pet. for Cert. 4, 8; Brief for United States 3, 8, 38; Tr. of Oral Arg. 4, 7, 10, 47.
Professor Amsterdam has catalogued some of the noninvestigative reasons for delay:
“[P]roof of the offense may depend upon the testimony of an undercover informer who maintains his ‘cover’ for a period of time before surfacing to file charges against one or more persons with whom he has dealt while disguised. ... [I]f there is more than one possible charge _ against a suspect, some of them may be held back pending the disposition of others, in order to avoid the burden upon the prosecutor’s office of handling charges that may turn out to be unnecessary to obtain the degree of punishment that the prosecutor seeks. There are many other motives for delay, of course, including some sinister ones, such as a desire to postpone the beginning of defense investigation, or the wish to hold a ‘club’ over the defendant.
“Additional reasons for delay may be partly or completely beyond the control of the prosecuting authorities. Offenses may not be immediately reported; investigation may not immediately identify the offender; an identified offender may not be immediately apprehendable. . . . [A]n indictment may be delayed for weeks or even months until the impaneling of the next grand jury. It is customary to think of these delays as natural and inevitable . . . but various prosecutorial decisions — such as the assignment of manpower and priorities among investigations of known offenses — may also affect the length of such delays.” Speedy Criminal Trial: Rights and Remedies, 27 Stan. L. Rev. 525, 527-728 (1975).
See also Dickey v. Florida, 398 U. S. 30, 45-46, n. 9 (1970) (Brennan, J., concurring).
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 |
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Mr. Justice Stewart
delivered the opinion of the Court.
In these three cases we review a single judgment of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, to determine whether thermal-electric power generating plants that draw cooling water from navigable streams are subject to the licensing jurisdiction of the Federal Power Commission under Part I of the Federal Power Act, c. 285, 41 Stat. 1063, as amended, 16 U. S. C. §§ 791a^823.
I
On September 20, 1971, two Indian tribes, five individual Indians, and two environmental groups (hereinafter the complainants) filed a complaint with the' Commission requesting it to require 10 public utility companies located in the Southwestern United States to obtain licenses for six fossil-fueled thermal-electric generating plants being constructed by the companies along the Colorado River and its tributaries. The plants are part of a projected vast electric power complex, and the energy generated within this new Southwestern ¡sower pool will be transmitted in interstate commerce to load centers as far as 600 miles from the sites of the plants.
The six plants involved in these cases, like all thermal-electric power plants, will require large amounts of water to cool and condense the steam utilized in the process of generating electricity. See generally 1 FPC, The 1970 National Power Survey 1-10-1 to 1-10-20. The water needed for cooling purposes will be obtained by withdrawing substantial quantities of water from the Colorado River system. The complaint filed with the Commission asserted that it had licensing jurisdiction over the plants pursuant to § 4 (e) of Part I of the Federal Power Act, 16 U. S. C. § 797 (e), because all six plants are “project works” for the development, transmission, and utilization of power across and along navigable waters, and because two of the plants will use “surplus water” impounded by a Government dam.
The Commission on November 4, 1971, issued an order dismissing the complaint for lack of jurisdiction. The Commission stated that “the legislative history [of the original Federal Water Power Act] shows that it was not intended that the licensing of thermal stations be included. This construction of the Commission’s licensing jurisdiction under Part I of the Federal Power Act has been the long-standing interpretation of the Commission [and] has been recognized favorably by the Supreme Court.” 46 F. P. C. 1126, 1127 (citations omitted).
Following denial by the Commission of an application for a rehearing, 46 F. P. C. 1307, the complainants filed a petition in the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to review the Commission’s order. The Court of Appeals undertook a scholarly and comprehensive review of the executive and legislative antecedents of the Federal Water Power Act of 1920, and traced in detail the Act’s legislative history and the administrative and judicial interpretations of the Act since its passage. 160 U. S. App. D. C. 83, 489 F. 2d 1207. Based on this voluminous material, the Court of Appeals affirmed the Commission’s conclusion that thermal-electric plants are not “project works” under § 4 (e) and that the Commission’s licensing jurisdiction under the clause extends only to hydroelectric generating plants. “Steam plants,” the court held, “were purposely omitted from the congressional scheme.” 160 U. S. App. D. C., at 107,489 F. 2d, at 1231. The Court of Appeals also held, however, that the Commission’s licensing authority under the “surplus water” clause of § 4 (e) is not similarly limited. The use of “surplus water” for cooling purposes by thermal-electric generating plants is sufficient, the court concluded, to bring those plants within the Commission’s licensing jurisdiction. 160 U. S. App.D. C., at 111-117, 489 F. 2d, at 1235-1241. Accordingly, the court remanded the case to the Commission to determine in the first instance whether any of the six plants involved in this case fall under that branch of its licensing authority. Id., at 118, 489 F. 2d, at 1242. We granted the parties’ petitions for writs of certiorari to consider the important questions of statutory construction presented by this litigation. 417 U. S. 944.
II
The question whether thermal-electric generating plants are subject to the licensing jurisdiction of the Commission involves no issue as to the extent of congressional power under the Commerce Clause. It is well established that the interstate transmission of electric energy is fully subject to the commerce power of Congress. FPC v. Union Electric Co., 381 U. S. 90, 94; Public Utilities Comm’n v. Attleboro Steam & Elec. Co., 273 U. S. 83, 86; Electric Bond & Share Co. v. SEC, 303 U. S. 419, 432-433. And it is equally clear that projects generating energy for interstate transmission, such as the six plants involved in this case, affect commerce among the States and are therefore within the purview of the federal commerce power, regardless of whether the plants generate electricity by steam or hydroelectric power. FPC v. Union Electric Co., supra, at 94-95; see NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U. S. 1, 40-41; Katzenbach v. McClung, 379 U. S. 294, 301-304. The only question before us is whether Congress has exercised that power in Part I of the Federal Power Act by requiring a license for the construction and operation of thermal-electric power generating plants that withdraw large quantities of water from navigable waters for cooling and other plant purposes.
A
Consideration of the Commission’s statutory licensing authority under Part I of the Federal Power Act must, of course, begin with the language of the Act itself. Section 4 (e), 16 U. S. C. § 797 (e), authorizes the Commission to issue licenses to individuals, corporations, or governmental units organized for the purpose of constructing “project works necessary or convenient... for the development, transmission, and utilization of power across, along, from, or in any of the streams or other bodies of water over which Congress has jurisdiction... or for the purpose of utilizing the surplus water or water power from any Government dam....” Section 23 (b) of the Act, 16 U. S. C. § 817, in turn, prohibits the unlicensed construction of such works on any navigable stream as well as the unlicensed utilization of the surplus water from a Government dam for the purpose of developing electric power. “Project” is defined as the complete unit of development of a power plant, 16 IT. S. C. §796 (11); and “project works” means the physical structure of a project. § 796 (12).
Emphasizing that these provisions do not require that the project works be used to generate “hydroelectric power,” but rather merely “power,” the complainants assert that the six thermal-electric power plants in this case fall squarely within the statutory language defining the Commission's licensing jurisdiction. Each of the thermal-electric facilities undoubtedly qualifies as a “complete unit of development of a power plant.” The physical structure of each “project” therefore must be “project works.” All concede that the plants are located on navigable waters and are engaged in the development of electric power. Furthermore, water is an integral part of the generation of electricity at the plants, being used to condense the steam which turns the turbines. The complainants assert that it is “equally indisputable” that the six plants are using “surplus water... from [a] Government dam” for the purpose of developing electric power.
So long as adherence to the literal terms of a statute does not bring about a result completely at variance with the purpose of the statute, the complainants argue, there is no justification for resorting to extrinsic aids such as legislative history to determine congressional intent. And since modern methods of operating thermal-electric power generating plants present an even greater threat to the conservation and orderly development of the power potential in navigable streams than do the operations of hydroelectric projects, they argue that recognition of the Commission's licensing jurisdiction over thermal-electric plants will actually advance the principal purposes of the Act.
The complainants' reliance on the literal language of § 4 (e) and on the so-called “plain meaning” rule of statutory construction is not entirely unpersuasive. But their assertion that thermal-electric power plants drawing cooling water from navigable streams are unambiguously included within the Commission’s licensing jurisdiction is refuted when § 4 (e) is read together with the rest of the Act, as, of course, it must be. See, e. g., Chemical Workers v. Pittsburgh Glass, 404 U. S. 157, 185; United States v. Boisdoré’s Heirs, 8 How. 113, 122.
Section 4 (e) itself refers to “dams, water conduits, reservoirs, power houses, transmission lines, or other project works.” The terms that precede “other project works,” and which therefore indicate a congressional intent to limit the breadth of that general phrase, see Gooch v. United States, 297 U. S. 124, 128, refer to features ordinarily associated with hydroelectric facilities. The definition of “project” in 16 U. S. C. § 796 (11) similiarly refers to structures normally found in hydroelectric power complexes: a “project” is the “complete unit of improvement or development, consisting of a power house, all water conduits, all dams and appurtenant works and structures (including navigation structures) which are a part of said unit, and all storage, diverting, or forebay reservoirs directly connected therewith....” Although the complainants note that a power development utilizing steam as a generating force could have many of the same structures, that possibility only serves to emphasize the ambiguity latent in the seemingly clear language chosen by Congress to define the extent of the Commission’s licensing authority.
Other provisions of the Act make more apparent the limitations intended by Congress upon the reach of §4(e). The Act itself was originally entitled the Federal Water Power Act, 41 Stat. 1077 (emphasis added); and the preamble to the Act specified that one of its primary purposes was the development of water power. Id., at 1063. In addition, § 4 (a) of the Act, 16 U. S. C. § 797 (a), authorizes the Commission to conduct investigations concerning “the water-power industry and its relation to other industries and to interstate or foreign commerce” (emphasis added); §4(g), 16 U. S. C. § 797 (g), authorizes the Commission to investigate the proposed occupancy of public lands for the development of electric power and to issue such orders as are necessary “to conserve and utilize the navigation and water-power resources of the region” (emphasis added). Similarly, § 10 (a) of the Act, 16 U. S. C. § 803 (a), provides that all licenses issued under the Act shall be on the condition that the project adopted will be best adapted to a comprehensive plan “for the improvement and utilization of water-power development” (emphasis added).
In none of these statutory provisions is there any reference to the development or conservation of steam power, despite the fact that in 1920, as today, thermal-electric generating plants produced the greatest portion of this Nation’s electric energy. The explicit references to hydroelectric power, and the absence of any such references to steam power, manifest the limited scope of the Act’s underlying purpose: “the comprehensive development of water power.” FPC v. Union Electric Co., 381 U. S., at 101.
B
Although the language of § 4 (e) itself could nonetheless be interpreted as extending the Commission’s licensing jurisdiction to include thermal-electric power plants located on navigable streams, the legislative history of the Act conclusively demonstrates that Congress intended to subject to regulation only the construction and operation of hydroelectric generating facilities.
In 1918 an administration bill prepared by the Secretaries of War, Interior, and Agriculture, containing most of the provisions eventually included in the Federal Water Power Act of 1920, was introduced in Congress. H. R. 8716, 65th Cong., 2d Sess. In a letter to Representative T. W. Sims, Chairman of the special House Committee on Water Power, which had held hearings on the bill, the Secretaries made it plain that only hydroelectric projects were intended to be covered by the legislation:
“It is understood your committee will take action at an early date upon various proposals which have been made concerning water-power legislation. On account of the conditions now affecting the power industry and the need of maintaining our entire industrial machinery at its highest efficiency, a satisfactory solution of the water-power problem is, in our judgment, one of the most important steps for the consideration of this Congress and one which should receive attention at the earliest practicable date.
“While the form of bill which has been presented for your consideration is directly concerned with water-power development only, an adequate solution of this problem will have a favorable and stabilizing effect upon the whole power industry. Probably no considerable increase in new waterpower development can be expected immediately, but legislation is urgently needed in order to put existing water-power developments, which have been made under inadequate law, into a position of security which will enable them to make extensions and to meet maturing obligations upon favorable terms.
“Water power legislation should have in view not only the maintenance of the rights of the public in the national resources, but also the adequate protection of private capital by which such resources are developed. The bill before you aims to do both.” H. R. Rep. No. 715, 65th Cong., 2d Sess., 29.
The committee report on H. R. 8716 reflected the administration’s theory that the legislation was designed “to provide for the development of hydroelectric power by private capital.” H. R. Rep. No. 715, supra, at 15. Despite the committee’s recommendation, the bill failed to pass the 65th Congress because of a Senate filibuster. See FPC v. Union Electric Co., 381 U. S., at 102 n. 18.
The administration bill was reintroduced in the 66th Congress. The House Committee on Water' Power again recommended approval to meet “the need for legislation for the development of hydroelectric power....” H. R. Rep. No. 61, 66th Cong., 1st Sess., 4. The Senate Committee on Commerce also recommended adoption of the bill in view of “the need for or the beneficent results to come from water power development.” S. Rep. No. 180, 66th Cong., 1st Sess., 2. After compromise between the House and Senate on matters unrelated to the issue before us, see H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 910, 66th Cong., 2d Sess., this bill was enacted as the Federal Water Power Act of 1920.
Although the legislative history of the Act reveals an ambitious attempt by Congress to provide for comprehensive control over a large number of uses of the Nation’s water resources, there is simply no suggestion in any of the legislative materials that the bill would authorize the new Commission to license the construction or maintenance of thermal-electric power plants. “The principal use to be developed and regulated in the Act,” this Court explained in FPC v. Union Electric Co., supra, at 99, “was that of hydroelectric power to meet the needs of an expanding economy.” (Emphasis added; footnote omitted.) See also 381 U. S., at 115 (Goldberg, J., dissenting).
C
The limited scope of the § 4 (e) licensing authority, reflected in both the text of the Act and its legislative history, is reinforced by the Commission’s consistent interpretation of that authority as not including jurisdiction over the construction and operation of thermal-electric power plants. In its First Annual Report to Congress, the Commission concluded that Congress intended only to give it licensing authority with respect to hydroelectric projects:
“On neither the public lands and reservations nor on the waters of the United States is the jurisdiction of the Federal Power Commission as broad as the jurisdiction of Congress. The latter has authority over all forms of use; the Commission is limited to the consideration of projects designed to produce water power. Structures or diversions having any other purpose, unless incidental to works constructed for power purposes or a necessary part of a comprehensive scheme of development, are not within the jurisdiction of the Commission.” FPC, First Annual Report 51-52 (emphasis added).
Ever since that first report in 1921, the Commission has consistently maintained the position that its licensing authority extends only to hydroelectric projects. Such a longstanding, uniform construction by the agency charged with administration of the Federal Power Act, particularly when it involves a contemporaneous construction of the Act by the officials charged with the responsibility of setting its machinery in motion, is entitled to great respect. Trafficante v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co., 409 U. S. 205, 210; Udall v. Tallman, 380 U. S. 1, 16; Power Reactor Development Co. v. Electrical Workers, 367 U. S. 396, 408.
The deference due this longstanding administrative construction is enhanced by the fact that Congress gave no indication of its dissatisfaction with the agency’s interpretation of the scope of its licensing jurisdiction when it amended the Act in 1930, c. 572, 46 Stat. 797, or when it re-enacted the Federal Water Power Act as Part I of the Federal Power Act in 1935. See Saxbe v. Bustos, 419 U. S. 65; Cammarano v. United States, 358 U. S. 498, 510-511; Massachusetts Mutual Life Ins. Co. v. United States, 288 U. S. 269, 273. Indeed, on several occasions the Commission has supported legislative proposals to expand its jurisdiction to encompass licensing authority over the construction and operation of thermal-electric generating plants but has been unable to persuade Congress to act favorably on these proposed amendments to the Act. See 1962 Annual Report 12-13; 1964 Annual Report 10-11; 1966 Annual Report 8-9.
D
The conclusion that Congress did not intend to give the Commission licensing jurisdiction with respect to thermal-electric power plants is also supported by this Court’s decision in FPC v. Union Electric Co., 381 U. S. 90. The Court there sustained the Commission’s position that a license was required under the Act to construct a pumped-storage hydroelectric plant to be located on a nonnavigable stream. Although the plant did not affect commerce on navigable waters, its generation of electricity for interstate transmission would affect “the interests of interstate or foreign commerce” within the meaning of § 23 (b) of the Act, 16 U. S. C. § 817, the Court held, and therefore a license was required. The Union Electric Co., arguing that the Commission lacked licensing authority, asserted that there was no difference between the generation of energy by a thermal-electric power plant and by a hydroelectric project in terms of impact on interstate commerce that could justify a distinction in jurisdictional treatment. Accordingly, if impact on commerce in general, rather than on commerce on navigable waters, was the criterion for Commission jurisdiction, argued Union Electric, steam plants, as well as its pumped-storage hydroelectric plant, should be subject to licensing under Part I of the Federal Power Act.
The Court found the answer to this argument in the fact that, even though not located on a navigable stream, Union Electric’s generating plant produced electricity by harnessing water power: Unlike Parts II and III of the Federal Power Act, “under which the Commission regulates various aspects of the sale and transmission of energy in interstate commerce, Part I, the original Federal Water Power Act, is concerned with the utilization of water resources and particularly the power potential in water. In relation to this central concern of the Act, the distinction between a hydroelectric project and a steam plant is obvious, and meaningful, although both produce energy for interstate transmission.” 381 U. S., at 110 (footnotes omitted). See also id., at 115 (Goldberg, J., dissenting): “The legislative history here, however, establishes to my satisfaction that [Congress] has required licenses of neither steam plants nor the type of hydroelectric plant here involved, and in light of this legislative history I agree with the Court of Appeals that Congress intended that a license be required only where the interests of commerce on navigable waters are affected.” (Footnote omitted.)
Ill
For the above reasons we agree with the conclusion of the Court of Appeals that the structures composing thermal-electric power plants are not “project works” required to be licensed by the Commission. The Court of Appeals went on to hold, however, that the surplus water clause of § 4 (e) authorizes the Commission to license the use of such water not only for the development of hydroelectric energy but also for cooling purposes in thermal-electric power plants, finding that the surplus water provision was intended to serve broader interests than the project works clause of the same subsection of the Act. “It reflects an explicit concern with utilizing water resources to defray the cost of waterway improvements as well as a concern with comprehensive water resource management. It empowers the FPC to license the use of either ‘surplus water' or ‘water power’ from any Government dam, and thus is not limited to the mere leasing of excess Government water power.... [T]he addition of the words ‘surplus water’ in [§ 4 (e)] was intended to afford the FPC a broad licensing authority over federally controlled waters.... The FPC could license either the use of 'water power'' — i. e., electricity actually generated by the Government — or the use of'surplus water’ for the private generation of water power or other purposes.” 160 U. S. App. D. C., at 116— 117, 489 F. 2d, at 1240-1241. We cannot agree with this conclusion of the Court of Appeals with respect to the “surplus water” clause of § 4 (e), because we can find no support for it in the text, in the legislative history, or in the administrative interpretation of Part I of the Federal Power Act.
The original title, preamble, and text of Part I of the Federal Power Act provide strong evidence that Congress intended to restrict the Commission's licensing jurisdiction with respect to the power industry to the construction and maintenance of hydroelectric facilities. See supra, at 403-404. Nothing in the language of the Act suggests that the surplus water clause was designed to be an exception to the Act's limited scope and purpose. Similarly, from 1921 to the present the Commission has consistently interpreted its licensing authority as being “limited to the consideration of projects designed to produce water power.” FPC, First Annual Report 51. See supra, at 408-409. No exception has ever been recognized by the Commission for thermal-electric power plants using surplus water from Government dams.
The Court of Appeals’ own extensive analysis of the general background and legislative history of the Federal Water Power Act conclusively demonstrates that Congress intended the Act as a whole, not merely the project works clause, to subject to regulation only that segment of the power industry involving the construction and operation of hydroelectric generating facilities. See 160 U. S. App. D. C., at 91-109, 489 F. 2d, at 1215-1233; cf. supra, at 405-408. More importantly, the legislative history pertaining to the surplus water clause itself indicates that that clause, like the rest of the Act, relates to the conservation and development of only hydroelectric power.
The phrase “surplus water or water power from any Government dam” had its origins in legislation enacted during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, conferring on the Secretary of War the authority to lease at individual dam sites excess water for power development. The term “surplus water” in those statutes always referred to its use for the development of water power.
In 1914 the Adamson bill, H. R. 16053, 63d Cong., 2d Sess., was introduced to amend the Dam Act, 34 Stat. 386, by providing for the comprehensive regulation of water power development on navigable streams. Section 14 of the bill, the antecedent of §4(e);s surplus water clause, authorized the Secretary of War to lease “the right to develop power from the surplus water over and above that required for navigation at any navigation dam now or hereafter constructed... and owned by the United States... /’ 51 Cong. Rec. 11415. The report of the House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce and congressional debate on § 14 plainly indicate that only water power uses of surplus water were to be regulated. Steam power was mentioned only as a corn-peting source of electric energy, with no consideration given to its regulation.
Section 14 was amended on the floor of the House to limit the duration of the leases authorized to 50 years. The amendment also changed the surplus water language of the section so that it closely resembled the language later adopted in the Federal Water Power Act: amended § 14 authorized “leases for the use of surplus water and water power generated at dams and works constructed wholly or in part by the United States in the interest of navigation... 51 Cong. Rec. 13255 (emphasis added). The change in language was not intended to broaden the scope of the surplus water clause. See id., at 13257.
The Senate Commerce Committee reported out a substitute bill, S. 6413, 63d Cong., 2d Sess., rather than the amended Adamson bill. Like the House bill, S. 6413, containing another version of a surplus water clause, was directed only to “[t]he question of water-power development by the construction of dams across navigable streams and the improvement of navigation in connection with water-power development.” S. Rep. No. 846, 63d Cong., 3d Sess., 1 (emphasis added). Neither bill, however, was enacted during the 63d Congress.
Similar bills were introduced in the 64th and 65th Congresses. Again, nothing in the language or reports on any of that proposed legislation indicated that the licensing authority to be created would extend to the use of “surplus water” by steam plants. Section 10 of the Shields bill, S. 3331, 64th Cong., 1st Sess., for example, authorized the Secretary of War to lease “the right to utilize the surplus water power over and above that required for navigation at any navigation dam now or hereafter constructed....” 53 Cong. Rec. 2198. The House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce struck S. 3331 in its entirety and substituted a new bill. Section 19 of that bill, identical to § 14 of the amended Adamson bill that had been passed by the House in 1914, authorized the Secretary of War “to enter into leases for the use of surplus water and water power generated at dams and works constructed wholly or in part by the United States in the interests of navigation....” H. R. Rep. No. 404, 64th Cong., 1st Sess., 6. The committee report explained that “[s]ection 19 regulates the method to be pursued by the War Department in leasing the power at dams erected in whole or in part by the Government itself.” Id., at 11. The section, stated the committee, “continues the method existing as to Government dams for many years, under which the War Department has satisfactorily regulated and leased surplus water at a number of such structures.” Ibid. The “method existing,” of course, provided for the lease of surplus water at individual dams for the purpose of water power development.
The administration bill considered initially by the 65th Congress, H. R. 8716, 65th Cong., 2d Sess., which as amended by that Congress and the 66th Congress became the Federal Water Power Act of 1920, contained a surplus water clause that paralleled the provisions of the earlier bills. Section 4 (d) of that bill, now § 4 (e) of the Federal Power Act, authorized the Federal Power Commission to issue licenses “for the purpose of utilizing the surplus water or water power over and above that required for navigation at any navigation dam now or hereafter constructed... and owned by the United States... H. R. Rep. No. 715, 65th Cong., 2d Sess., 23. No explanation was given for substitution of the disjunctive “or” for the conjunctive “and” in the phrase “surplus water or water power,” but there is nothing to indicate that the change was designed to expand the scope of surplus water licensing authority beyond that contemplated by the earlier proposed legislation. To the contrary, testimony given during the extensive hearings conducted by the special House Committee on Water Power reflected the general understanding that the Commission’s licensing jurisdiction would be limited to hydroelectric facilities.
The administration bill, as already noted, see supra, at 407, was reintroduced in the 66th Congress and was enacted without any material changes in the surplus water clause as the Federal Water Power Act of 1920. As the Court of Appeals observed, see 160 U. S. App. D. C., at 112-113, 489 F. 2d, at 1236-1237, little relevant legislative history concerning the meaning of the surplus water clause was generated during the 66th Congress. Nevertheless, the general history of the Act demonstrates that the legislators viewed the bill as primarily regulating the development of hydroelectric power. Nothing in the record of the debates indicates that Congress intended the surplus water clause to create an exception to the limited scope and purpose of the Act or that it viewed that clause as embodying a meaning different from that of the virtually identical surplus water provisions contained in earlier legislative proposals.
The Court of Appeals based its contrary conclusion in large part on the fact that the Federal Water Power Act repealed the statutory authority for the Waterways Commission, created by the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1917. 40 Stat. 269. The court stated that “the newly created Federal Power Commission took over the planning and coordinating responsibilities of the Waterways Commission, which included consideration of a spectrum of water uses not related to water power.” 160 U. S. App. D. C., at 115-116, 489 F. 2d, at 1239-1240 (footnote omitted). The court concluded from this transfer of responsibilities that the Federal Water Power Act reflected a concern with comprehensive water resource management and that the surplus water clause was intended to provide a basis for expanding governmental supervision of general water resource development and use. Id., at 116-117, 489 F. 2d, at 1240-1241.
Although it is true that § 29 of the Federal Water Power Act, 41 Stat. 1077, did expressly repeal the statutory authority for the Waterways Commission, it seems evident that that repeal was not intended to transfer all of that Commission’s functions to the new Federal Power Commission. The House debates clearly indicate that the Waterways Commission authority was repealed largely because that Commission was not in fact a functioning agency, and in order to prevent any possible conflict between it and the new FPC. There is no indication of any purpose to transfer the Waterways Commission’s jurisdiction to the FPC. E. g., 58 Cong. Rec. 2250-2251 (remarks of Rep. Anderson). In fact, a proposed amendment that would have provided for such a transfer of authority was never actually introduced in the Senate. See 59 Cong. Rec. 1173-1176 (remarks of Sens. Ashurst, Fletcher, and Ransdell). Those functions of the Waterways Commission not expressly given to the new FPC or transferred to other agencies were thus simply eliminated by § 29.
Moreover, the responsibilities which the Waterways Commission did possess from 1917 to 1920, although quite broad, were investigatory, not regulatory. The Commission was authorized “to secure the necessary data, and to formulate and report to Congress... a comprehensive plan or plans for the development of waterways and the water resources of the United States for the purposes of navigation and for every useful purpose, and recommendations for the modification or discontinuance of any project herein or heretofore adopted.” Rivers and Harbors Act of 1917, § 18, 40 Stat. 269. Accordingly, even if it could be concluded that the Waterways Commission’s powers had been inherited by the FPC, that conclusion would not support recognition of Commission licensing jurisdiction over thermal-electric power plants using “surplus water” for cooling purposes.
Contrary to the suggestion of the complainants, a reading of the surplus water provision as referring only to hydroelectric plants utilizing surplus water or water power from Government dams does not render that clause nugatory. First, a license to construct and operate project works does not automatically authorize use of surplus water from a Government dam. Where a project will use surplus water, the Commission may properly require a second license, which may impose additional charges or operational conditions on the licensee. Cf. Alabama Power Co., 34 F. P. C. 1108; California Oregon Power Co., 13 F. P. C. 1, 12-13, supplemental opinion, 15 F. P. C. 14, 18-21, petition for review dismissed, 99 U. S. App. D. C. 263, 239 F. 2d 426. Second, facilities constructed under a congressional grant issued prior to enactment of the Federal Water Power Act are exempted by § 23 (b) of the Act, 16 U. S. C. § 817, from the requirement of securing a “project works” license from the Commission during the life of the original works. See Northwest Paper Co. v. FPC, 344 F. 2d 47. However, if such a project should seek to utilize surplus water from a Government dam built subsequent to June 10, 1920, a surplus water clause license would be required. Finally, it is by no means irrational for Congress to provide the Commission with alternative, albeit sometimes coextensive, bases of jurisdiction, so that it can proceed on the strength of one where the existence of the other may be unclear.
IV
The complainants finally argue that even though it may have been proper 50 years ago to construe the Commission’s licensing jurisdiction as limited to hydroelectric projects, such a construction does great violence to the policies central to the Federal Power Act in the light of modern conditions. Although in 1920 steam plants supplied the bulk of the Nation’s electric power and, as today, those plants were water-cooled, the complainants point to the tremendous growth in size and efficiency of the modern thermal-electric power complex and the concomitant increase during the past half century in the quantity of water used by steam plants and change in the nature of that usage. Because the cooling water used by the six plants involved in this case will be evaporated rather than returned to the river system, those plants will withdraw permanently up to 250,000 acre feet of water annually from the Colorado River system — more water than was used by all the steam plants in the United States in 1920. Unless such uses are regulated by subjecting them to the licensing jurisdiction of the Commission, the complainants argue, private power interests will succeed in appropriating the power potential in public waters, the very evil the Federal Water Power Act was designed to eliminate
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 Black
announced the judgment of the Court and an opinion in which Mr. Justice Douglas and Mr. Justice Burton join.
In Smith v. Allwright, 321 U. S. 649, we held that rules of the Democratic Party of Texas excluding Negroes from voting in the party’s primaries violated the Fifteenth Amendment. While no state law directed such exclusion, our decision pointed out that many party activities were subject to considerable statutory control. This case raises questions concerning the constitutional power of a Texas county political organization called the Jaybird Democratic Association or Jaybird Party to exclude Negroes from its primaries on racial grounds. The Jaybirds deny that their racial exclusions violate the Fifteenth Amendment. They contend that the Amendment applies only to elections or primaries held under state regulation, that their association is not regulated by the state at all, and that it is not a political party but a self-governing voluntary club. The District Court held the Jaybird racial discriminations invalid and entered judgment accordingly. 90 F. Supp. 595. The Court of Appeals reversed, holding that there was no constitutional or congressional bar to the admitted discriminatory exclusion of Negroes because Jaybird’s primaries were not to any extent state controlled. 193 F. 2d 600. We granted certiorari. 344 U. S. 883.
There was evidence that:
The Jaybird Association or Party was organized in 1889. Its membership was then and always has been limited to white people; they are automatically members if their names appear on the official list of county voters. It has been run like other political parties with an executive committee named from the county’s voting precincts. Expenses of the party are paid by the assessment of candidates for office in its primaries. Candidates for county offices submit their names to the Jaybird Committee in accordance with the normal practice followed by regular political parties all over the country. Advertisements and posters proclaim that these candidates are running subject to the action of the Jaybird primary. While there is no legal compulsion on successful Jaybird candidates to enter Democratic primaries, they have nearly always done so and with few exceptions since 1889 have run and won without opposition in the Democratic primaries and the general elections that followed. Thus the party has been the dominant political group in the county since organization, having endorsed every county-wide official elected since 1889.
It is apparent that Jaybird activities follow a plan purposefully designed to exclude Negroes from voting and at the same time to escape the Fifteenth Amendment’s command that the right of citizens to vote shall neither be denied nor abridged on account of race. These were the admitted party purposes according to the following testimony of the Jaybird’s president:
Q. . . . Now Mr. Adams, will you tell me specifically what is the specific purpose of holding these elections and carrying on this organization like you do?
A. Good government.
Q. Now I will ask you to state whether or not it is the opinion and policy of the Association that to carry on good government they must exclude negro citizens?
A. Well, when we started it was and it is still that way, I think.
Q. And then one of the purposes of your organization is for the specific purpose of excluding negroes from voting, isn’t it?
A. Yes.
Q. And that is your policy?
A. Yes.
Q. I will ask you, that is the reason you hold your election in May rather than in June or July, isn’t it?
A. Yes.
Q. Because if you held it in July you would have to abide by the statutes and the law by letting them vote?
A. They do vote in July.
Q. And if you held yours at that time they would have to vote too, wouldn’t they?
A. Why sure.
Q. And you hold it in May so they won’t have to?
A. Well, they don’t vote in ours but they can vote on anybody in the July election they want to.
Q. But you are not answering my question. My question is that you hold yours in May so you won’t have to let them vote, don’t you?
A. Yes.
Q. And that is your purpose?
A. Yes.
Q. And your intention?
A. Yes.
Q. And to have a vote of the white population at a time when the negroes can’t vote, isn’t that right?
A. That’s right.
Q. That is the whole policy of your Association?
A. Yes.
Q. And that is its purpose?
A. Yes.
The District Court found that the Jaybird Association was a political organization or party; that the majority of white voters generally abide by the results of its primaries and support in the Democratic primaries the persons endorsed by the Jaybird primaries; and that the chief object of the Association has always been to deny Negroes any voice or part in the election of Fort Bend County officials.
The facts and findings bring this case squarely within the reasoning and holding of the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in its two recent decisions about excluding Negroes from Democratic primaries in South Carolina. Rice v. Elmore, 165 F. 2d 387, and Baskin v. Brown, 174 F. 2d 391. South Carolina had repealed every trace of statutory or constitutional control of the Democratic primaries. It did this in the hope that thereafter the Democratic Party or Democratic “Clubs” of South Carolina would be free to continue discriminatory practices against Negroes as voters. The contention there was that the Democratic “Clubs” were mere private groups; the contention here is that the Jaybird Association is a mere private group. The Court of Appeals in invalidating the South Carolina practices answered these formalistic arguments by holding that no election machinery could be sustained if its purpose or effect was to deny Negroes on account of their race an effective voice in the governmental affairs of their country, state, or community. In doing so the Court relied on the principle announced in Smith v. Allwright, supra, at 664, that the constitutional right to be free from racial discrimination in voting “. . . is not to be nullified by a State through casting its electoral process in a form which permits a private organization to practice racial discrimination in the election.”
The South Carolina cases are in accord with the commands of the Fifteenth Amendment and the laws passed pursuant to it. That Amendment provides as follows:
“The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”
The Amendment bans racial discrimination in voting by both state and nation. It thus establishes a national policy, obviously applicable to the right of Negroes not to be discriminated against as voters in elections to determine public governmental policies or to select public officials, national, state, or local. Shortly after its adoption Mr. Chief Justice Waite speaking for this Court said:
“It follows that the amendment has invested the citizens of the United States with a new constitutional right which is within the protecting power of Congress. That right is exemption from discrimination in the exercise of the elective franchise on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” United States v. Reese, 92 U. S. 214, 218.
Other cases have reemphasized the Fifteenth Amendment's specific grant of this new constitutional right. Not content to rest congressional power to protect this new constitutional right on the necessary and proper clause of the Constitution, the Fifteenth Amendment’s framers added § 2, reading:
“The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”
And Mr. Justice Miller speaking for this Court declared that the Amendment’s granted right to be free from racial discrimination . . should be kept free and pure by congressional enactments whenever that is necessary.” Ex parte Yarbrough, 110 U. S. 651, 665. See also United States v. Reese, supra, at 218. And see Mr. Justice Bradley’s opinion on circuit in United States v. Cruikshank, 1 Woods 308, 314-316, 320-323. Acting pursuant to the power granted by the second section of the Fifteenth Amendment, Congress in 1870 provided as follows:
“All citizens of the United States who are otherwise qualified by law to vote at any election by the people in any State, Territory, district, county, city, parish, township, school district, municipality, or other territorial subdivision, shall be entitled and allowed to vote at all such elections, without distinction of race, color, or previous condition of servitude; any constitution, law, custom, usage, or regulation of any State or Territory, or by or under its authority, to the contrary notwithstanding.” 8 U. S. C. § 31.
The Amendment, the congressional enactment and the cases make explicit the rule against racial discrimination in the conduct of elections. Together they show the meaning of “elections.” Clearly the Amendment includes any election in which public issues are decided or public officials selected. Just as clearly the Amendment excludes social or business clubs. And the statute shows the congressional mandate against discrimination whether the voting on public issues and officials is conducted in community, state or nation. Size is not a standard.
It is significant that precisely the same qualifications as those prescribed by Texas entitling electors to vote at county-operated primaries are adopted as the sole qualifications entitling electors to vote at the county-wide Jaybird primaries with a single proviso — Negroes are excluded. Everyone concedes that such a proviso in the county-operated primaries would be unconstitutional. The Jaybird Party thus brings into being and holds precisely the kind of election that the Fifteenth Amendment seeks to prevent. When it produces the equivalent of the prohibited election, the damage has been done.
For a state to permit such a duplication of its election processes is to permit a flagrant abuse of those processes to defeat the purposes of the Fifteenth Amendment. The use of the county-operated primary to ratify the result of the prohibited election merely compounds the offense. It violates the Fifteenth Amendment for a state, by such circumvention, to permit within its borders the use of any device that produces an equivalent of the prohibited election.
The only election that has counted in this Texas county for more than fifty years has been that held by the Jaybirds from which Negroes were excluded. The Democratic primary and the general election have become no more than the perfunctory ratifiers of the choice that has already been made in Jaybird elections from which Negroes have been excluded. It is immaterial that the state does not control that part of this elective process which it leaves for the Jaybirds to manage. The Jaybird primary has become an integral part, indeed the only effective part, of the elective process that determines who shall rule and govern in the county. The effect of the whole procedure, Jaybird primary plus Democratic primary plus general election, is to do precisely that which the Fifteenth Amendment forbids — strip Negroes of every vestige of influence in selecting the officials who control the local county matters that-intimately touch the daily lives of citizens.
We reverse the Court of Appeals’ judgment reversing that of the District Court. We affirm the District Court’s holding that the combined Jaybird-Democratic-general election machinery has deprived these petitioners of their right to vote on account of their race and color. The case is remanded to the District Court to enter such orders and decrees as are necessary and proper under the jurisdiction it has retained under 28 U. S. C. § 2202. In exercising this jurisdiction, the Court is left free to hold hearings to consider and determine what provisions are essential to afford Negro citizens of Fort Bend County full protection from future discriminatory Jaybird-Democratic-general election practices which deprive citizens of voting rights because of their color.
Reversed and remanded.
Mk. Justice Frankfurter.
Petitioners are Negroes who claim that they and all Negroes similarly situated in Fort Bend County, Texas, are denied all voice in the primary elections for county offices by the activities of respondent association, the Jaybird Democratic Association. The Jaybird Association was organized in 1889 and from that time until the present has selected, first in mass meetings but for some time by ballot of its members, persons whom the organization indorses for election in the Democratic primary for county office. The Association has never permitted Negroes to participate in its selection of the candidates to be indorsed; balloting is open only to all white citizens of the county qualified under State law to vote. The District Court granted a declaratory judgment that Negroes in the county be allowed to participate in the balloting of the Association. The Court of Appeals reversed, saying that although the white voters in the county are “vainly holding” to “outworn and outmoded” practices, the action of the Association was not “action under color of state law” and therefore not in violation of federal law.
The evidence, summarized by formal stipulation, shows that all rules of the Association are made by its members themselves or by its Executive Committee. Membership, defined by the rules of the Association, consists of the entire white voting population as shown in poll lists prepared by the county. The time of balloting, in what are called the Jaybird primaries, is set by the Executive Committee of the Association for a day early in May of each election year. The expenses of these primaries, the officiating personnel, the balloting places, the determination of the winner — all aspects of these primaries are exclusively controlled by the Association. The balloting rules in general follow those prescribed by the State laws regulating primaries. See Vernon’s Tex. Stat., 1948 (Rev. Civ. Stat.), Tit. 50, c. 13, now revised, 9 Vernon’s Tex. Civ. Stat., 1952, c. 13. But formal State action, either by way of legislative recognition or official authorization, is wholly wanting.
The successful candidates in the Jaybird primaries, in formal compliance with State rules in that regard, file individually as candidates in the Democratic primary held on the fourth Saturday in July. No mention is made in the filing or in the listing of the candidates on the Democratic primary ballot that they are the Jaybird indorsees. That fact is conveyed to the public by word of mouth, through newspapers, and by other private means. There is no restriction on filing by anyone else as a candidate in the Democratic primary, nor on voting by Negroes in that official primary.
For the sixty years of the Association’s existence, the candidate ultimately successful in the Democratic primary for every county-wide office was the man indorsed by the Jaybird Association. Indeed, other candidates almost never file in the Democratic primary. This continuous success over such a period of time has been the result of action by practically the entire qualified electorate of the county, barring Negroes.
This case is for me by no means free of difficulty. Whenever the law draws a line between permissive and forbidden conduct cases are bound to arise which are not obviously on one side or thé other. These dubious situations disclose the limited utility of the figure of speech, a “line,” in the law. Drawing a “line” is necessarily exercising a judgment, however confined the conscientious judgment may be within the bounds of constitutional and statutory provisions, the course of decisions, and the presuppositions of the judicial process. If “line” is in the main a fruitful tool for dividing the sheep from the goats, it must not be forgotten that since the “line” is figurative the place of this or that case in relation to it cannot be ascertained externally but is a matter of the mind.
Close analysis of what it is that the Fifteenth Amendment prohibits must be made before it can be determined what the relevant line is in the situation presented by this case. The Fifteenth Amendment, not the Fourteenth, outlawed discrimination on the basis of race or color with respect to the right to vote. Concretely, of course, it was directed against attempts to bar Negroes from having the same political franchise as white folk. “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” U. S. Const., Amend. XV, § 1. The command against such denial or abridgment is directed to the United States and to the individual States. Therefore, violation of this Amendment and the enactments passed in enforcement of it must involve the United States or a State. In this case the conduct that is assailed pertains to the election of local Texas officials. To find a denial or abridgment of the guaranteed voting right to colored citizens of Texas solely because they are colored, one must find that the State has had a hand in it.
The State, in these situations, must mean not private citizens but those clothed with the authority and the influence which official position affords. The application of the prohibition of the Fifteenth Amendment to “any State” is translated by legal jargon to read “State action.” This phrase gives rise to a false direction in that it implies some impressive machinery or deliberative conduct normally associated with what orators call a sovereign state. The vital requirement is State responsibility — that somewhere, somehow, to some extent, there be an infusion of conduct by officials, panoplied with State power, into any scheme by which colored citizens are denied voting rights merely because they are colored.
As the action of the entire white voting community, the Jaybird primary is as a practical matter the instrument of those few in this small county who are politically active — the officials of the local Democratic party and, we may assume, the elected officials of the county. As a matter of practical politics, those charged by State law with the duty of assuring all eligible voters an opportunity to participate in the selection of candidates at the primary — the county election officials who are normally leaders in their communities — participate by voting in the Jaybird primary. They join the white voting community in proceeding with elaborate formality, in almost all respects parallel to the procedures dictated by Texas law for the primary itself, to express their preferences in a wholly successful effort to withdraw significance from the State-prescribed primary, to subvert the operation of what is formally the law of the State for primaries in this county.
The legal significance of the Jaybird primary must be tested against the cases which, in an endeavor to screen what is effectively an exertion of State authority in preventing Negroes from exercising their constitutional right of franchise, have pierced the various manifestations of astuteness. In the last of the series, Smith v. Allwright, 321 U. S. 649, we held that the State regulation there of primaries conducted by a political party made the party “required to follow these legislative directions an agency of the State in so far as it determines the participants in a primary election.” Id., at 663. Alternative routes have been suggested for concluding that the Jaybird primary is “so slight a change in form,” id., at 661, that the result should not differ in substance from that of Smith v. Allwright. The District Court found that the Jaybird Association is a political party within the meaning of the Texas legislation regulating the administration of primaries by political parties; it said that the Association could not avoid that result by holding its primary on a different date and by utilizing different methods than those prescribed by the statutes.
Whether the Association is a political party regulated by Texas and thus subject to a duty of nondiscrimination, or is, as it claims, clearly not a party within the meaning of that legislation, failing as it does to attempt to comply with a number of the State requirements, particularly as to the date of the “primary,” is a question of State law not to be answered in the first instance by a federal court. We do not know what the Texas Supreme Court would say. An operation such as the Jaybird primary may be found by the Texas court to satisfy Texas law although it does not come within the formal definition; it may so be found because long-accepted customs and the habits of a people may generate “law” as surely as a formal legislative declaration, and indeed, sometimes even in the face of it. See, e. g., Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis R. Co. v. Browning, 310 U. S. 362, 369. But even if the Jaybird Association is a political party, a federal court cannot say that a political party in Texas is to hold a primary open to all on a day other than that fixed by Texas statute. This would be an inadmissible intervention of the federal judiciary into the political process of a State. If such a remedy is to be derived from a finding that the Jaybird Association is a political party, it is one that must be devised by the Texas courts. For the same reason, we cannot say that the Jaybird primary is a “primary” within the meaning of Texas law and so regulated by Texas law that Smith v. Allwright would apply.
But assuming, as I think we must, that the Jaybird Association is not a political party holding a State-regulated primary, we should nonetheless decide this case against respondents on the ground that in the precise situation before us the State authority has come into play.
The State of Texas has entered into a comprehensive scheme of regulation of political primaries, including procedures by which election officials shall be chosen. The county election officials are thus clothed with the authority of the State to secure observance of the State’s interest in “fair methods and a fair expression” of preferences in the selection of nominees. Cf. Waples v. Marrast, 108 Tex. 5, 12, 184 S. W. 180, 183. If the Jaybird Association, although not a political party, is a device to defeat the law of Texas regulating primaries, and if the electoral officials, clothed with State power in the county, share in that subversion, they cannot divest themselves of the State authority and help as participants in the scheme. Unlawful administration of a State statute fair on its face may be shown “by extrinsic evidence showing a discriminatory design to favor one individual or class over another not to be inferred from the action itself,” Snowden v. Hughes, 321 U. S. 1, 8; here, the county election officials aid in this subversion of the State’s official scheme of which they are trustees, by helping as participants in the scheme.
This is not a case of occasional efforts to mass voting strength. Nor is this a case of boss-control, whether crudely or subtly exercised. Nor is this a case of spontaneous efforts by citizens to influence votes or even continued efforts by a fraction of the electorate in support of good government. This is a case in which county election officials have participated in and condoned a continued effort effectively to exclude Negroes from voting. Though the action of the Association as such may not be proscribed by the Fifteenth Amendment, its role in the entire scheme to subvert the operation of the official primary brings it “within reach of the law. . . . [T]hey are bound together as the parts of a single plan. The plan may make the parts unlawful.” Mr. Justice Holmes, speaking for the Court, in Swift and Company v. United States, 196 U. S. 375, 396.
The State here devised a process for primary elections. The right of all citizens to share in it, and not to be excluded by unconstitutional bars, is emphasized by the fact that in Texas nomination in the Democratic primary is tantamount to election. The exclusion of the Negroes from meaningful participation in the only primary scheme set up by the State was not an accidental, unsought consequence of the exercise of civic rights by voters to make their common viewpoint count. It was the design, the very purpose of this arrangement that the Jaybird primary in May exclude Negro participation in July. That it was the action in part of the election officials charged by Texas law with the fair administration of the primaries, brings it within the reach of the law. The officials made themselves party to means whereby the machinery with which they are entrusted does not discharge the functions for which it was designed.-
It does not follow, however, that the relief granted below was proper. Since the vice of this situation is not that the Jaybird primary itself is the primary dis-criminatorily conducted under State law but is that the determination there made becomes, in fact, the determination in the Democratic primary by virtue of the participation and acquiescence of State authorities, a federal court cannot require that petitioners be allowed to vote in the Jaybird primary. The evil here is that the State, through the action and abdication of those whom it has clothed with authority, has permitted white voters to go through a procedure which predetermines the legally devised primary. To say that Negroes should be allowed to vote in the Jaybird primary would be to say that the State is under a duty to see to it that Negroes may vote in that primary. We cannot tell the State that it must participate in and regulate this primary; we cannot tell the State what machinery it will use. But a court of equity can free the lawful political agency from the combination that subverts its capacity to function. What must be done is that this county be rid of the means by which the unlawful “usage,” R. S. § 2004, 8 U. S. C. § 31, in this case asserts itself.
Ithas been suggested that there is a crucial distinction between this case and the South Carolina primary cases. There, it is said, the names of Democratic nominees were placed on the state’s general election ballots as Democratic nominees. Here Jaybird nominees are not put on any ballot as Jaybird nominees; they enter their own names as candidates in the Democratic primary. This distinction is not one of substance but of form, and a statement of this Court in Smith v. Allwright, supra, at 661, seems appropriate: “Such a variation in the result from so slight a change in form influences us to consider anew the legal validity of the distinction which has resulted in barring Negroes from participating in the nominations of candidates of the Democratic party in Texas.” (Emphasis supplied.) The same may be said about the attempted distinction between the “two-step” exclusion process in South Carolina and the “three-step” exclusion process in Texas.
"In United States v. Reese et al., supra, p. 214, we hold that the fifteenth amendment has invested the citizens of the United States with a new constitutional right, which is, exemption from discrimination in the exercise of the elective franchise on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. From this it appears that the right of suffrage is not a necessary attribute of national citizenship; but that exemption from discrimination in the exercise of that right on account of race, &c., is. The right to vote in the States comes from the States; but the right of exemption from the prohibited discrimination comes from the United States. The first has not been granted or secured by the Constitution of the United States; but the last has been.” United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U. S. 542, 555-556. To the same effect, see Ex parte Yarbrough, 110 U. S. 651, 664-665; Logan v. United States, 144 U. S. 263, 286. The Amendment has been held “self-executing.” See Guinn v. United States, 238 U. S. 347, 362-363.
“We may mystify any thing. But if we take a plain view of the words of the Constitution, and give to them a fair and obvious interpretation, we cannot fail in most cases of coming to a clear understanding of its meaning. We shall not have far to seek. We shall find it on the surface, and not in the profound depths of speculation.” Ex parte Siebold, 100 U. S. 371, 393.
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.
In December 1982, Arkansas State Trooper William Rose was killed in the line of duty. His widow, petitioner in this action, received a $50,000 benefit from the Federal Government pursuant to the Public Safety Officers’ Death Benefits Act, 93 Stat. 1219, 42 U. S. C. § 3796 et seq. The Benefits Act provides for a $50,000 payment to the survivors of a state law enforcement officer who dies as a result of job-related injuries. The federal statute also provides that “[t]he benefit payable under this subchapter shall be in addition to any other benefit that may be due from any other source,” with two exceptions not relevant here. § 3796(e).
Petitioner also applied for death benefits under the Arkansas Workers’ Compensation Act. See Ark. Stat. Ann. § 12-3601 et seq. (1979). Respondent Public Employee Claims Division of the Arkansas Insurance Department acknowledged that the claim was compensable, but insisted on reducing the amount owed to Rose by the amount she had received under the federal Benefits Act. In support of its position, respondent relied on a state statute that provides:
“In the event that any public employee who is entitled to receive workers’ compensation ... as a result of injury, disability or death, and such injuries, disabilities, or death gives rise to an entitlement of benefits under . . . an Act of Congress providing benefits for public safety officers . . . the state workers’ compensation fun[d] shall be entitled to a credit against its liability ... to the extent of the [federal] benefits received . . . .” Ark. Stat. Ann. § 12-3605(G) (Supp. 1985).
Rose filed a complaint with the Arkansas Workers’ Compensation Commission, claiming that her state benefits should not be offset by the federal payment. An Administrative Law Judge ordered respondent to compensate petitioner in full, noting that the Benefits Act plainly states that the federal money is intended to supplement all other benefits. The ALJ ruled that the state statute was in direct conflict with the Benefits Act, and that under the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution, the Arkansas provision must give way. The full Commission reversed the ALJ and allowed the offset, finding no inconsistency between the state and federal laws.
The Arkansas Court of Appeals affirmed the Commission’s decision. 16 Ark. App. 96, 697 S. W. 2d 927 (1985). The court first cited Richardson v. Belcher, 404 U. S. 78 (1971), for the proposition that there is nothing inherently unconstitutional about offsetting state and federal benefits. The state court then concluded that the offset in this case was proper, because the Benefits Act does not show a congressional intent to intrude on the States’ right to set workers’ compensation benefits. Therefore, said the court, “[w]e fail to see a supremacy clause argument.” 16 Ark. App., at 99, 697 S. W. 2d, at 928. The Arkansas Supreme Court denied petitioner’s request for review.
There can be no dispute that the Supremacy Clause invalidates all state laws that conflict or interfere with an Act of Congress. Hayfield Northern R. Co. v. Chicago & North Western Transportation Co., 467 U. S. 622, 627, and n. 4 (1984) (citing Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 211 (1824)). In this case, the conflict between the Arkansas law and the Benefits Act is clear from the language of the statutes. The Benefits Act unambiguously provides that the $50,000 payment “shall be in addition to any other benefit that may be due from any other source.” 42 U. S. C. § 3796(e) (emphasis added). Congress plainly intended to give supplemental benefits to the survivors, not to assist the States by subsidizing their benefit programs. The Arkansas statute, however, passed three years after the Benefits Act was enacted, provides that the state award shall be reduced by the full amount of the federal payment. The state statute authorizes the precise conduct that Congress sought to prohibit and consequently is repugnant to the Supremacy Clause.
The state court nevertheless failed to perceive a tension between the two statutes, concluding that the federal law did not alter the States’ traditional right to set the level of workers’ compensation benefits. This reasoning misses the point. The Benefits Act does not require a State to set a particular benefit level for its citizens; it simply prohibits a State from reducing the compensation it otherwise would provide to account for the federal payment. This reading of the Benefits Act is consistent with the legislative history, that shows that Congress was concerned about the inadequacy of death benefits paid to police officers by some States. See H. R. Rep. No. 94-1032, p. 3 (1976); see also 122 Cong. Rec. 12005 (1976) (remarks of Rep. Biaggi). Congress intended that the $50,000 would be a “gratuity,” and would provide payment “over and above all other benefits.” See S. Rep. No. 96-142, p. 58 (1979) (“gratuity”); 122 Cong. Rec. 12002 (remarks of Rep. Eilberg).
The Arkansas court’s reliance on Richardson v. Belcher, supra, is misplaced. In that case the Court upheld a law allowing the reduction of federal benefits to account for state awards of workers’ compensation. See id., at 78-79, and n. 1. Belcher did not present a Supremacy Clause issue.
Because the Benefits Act prohibits States from offsetting their death benefits against the federal payment, § 12-3605(G) of the Ark. Stat. Ann. (Supp. 1985) is invalid. We therefore grant the petition for certiorari, reverse the decision of the Arkansas Court of Appeals, and remand for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
“This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof. . . shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby; any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.” U. S. Const., Art. VI, cl. 2.
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''Harlan
delivered the opinion of the Court.
■ Petitioners are interstate motor common carriers, certificated by the Interstate Commerce Commission (I. C. C.) under the Motor Carrier Act of 1935. Section 217 of that Act, 49 U. S. C. § 317, requires such carriers to file their transportation charges as tariffs with the I.’C. C. These tariffs remain effective until suspended or changed in accordance with specified procedures, and so long as they are effective carriers ape forbidden to charge or collect any rate other than that provided in the applicable tariff.
These cases present in common a single question under the Motor Carrier Act: Can a shipper of goods by a certificated motor carrier, challenge in post-shipment litigation the reasonableness of the carrier’s'charges which were made in accordance with the tariff governing the shipment?
In No. 68, T. I. M. E. transported several shipments of scientific instruments for the United States from Oklahoma to California. One of the shipments, illustrative of all involved in this litigation, originated at Marion, Oklahoma, and was carried over the lines of petitioner and a connecting carrier to Planehaven, California. At the time, the petitioning carrier had on file with the’ I. C. C. a tariff relating to such shipments which specified \a through rate from Marion to Planehaven of 110.74 per hundredweight. Petitioner was also subject to tariffs which provided a rate of $2.56 per hundredweight from Marion to El Paso, Texas, and of $4.35 per hundredweight from El Paso to Planehaven. The through rate thus exceeded the combination rate by $3.83. T. I. M. E. charged and collected on the basis of the through rate. On postpayment audit by the General Accounting Office under § 322 o'Kthe Transportation Act of 1940, 54 Stat. 955, 49 II S. C. § 66, that office concluded, that the combination rather than the through rate was applicable to this shipment and required T. I. M. E. to refund the difference between the sum collected under the through tariff and that which would have been due under the' combination. tariffs. This T. I. M. E. did under protest.
Thereafter T. I. M. E. brought suit under the Tucker Act, 28 U. S. C. § 1346 (a) (2), claiming that the through tariff was applicable to the shipment and that it was thus entitled to recover the difference between the through and combination rates. The Government defended on the ground that the combination rate was applicable, and alternatively contended that if the through tariff were applicable the rate specified therein was unreasonably high insofar as it exceeded the combination rate. It asked that T. I. M. E.’s suit be stayed to permit the Government to bring a proceeding before the I. C. C. to determine the reasonableness of the through rate. The District Court in an unreported opinion held that the through rate was applicable; and that neither it nor . the I. C. C. had power to pass upon the Government’s contention that such rate was as to the past unreasonable. Accordingly, the'District Court entered summary judment for T. I. M. E.
The Government appealed, accepting the District Court’s determination as to the applicability of the through rate, but contending that the District Court had erred in refusing to refer to the I. C. C. the issue of the reasonableness of that .rate as to past shipments. The Court of Appeals reversed, holding that the Government was entitled to an I. C. C. determination upon the question of reasonableness, and' that the fact that the Motor Carrier Act gives the I. C. C. no power to award reparations as to admittedly governing past rates • does not prevent that body from passing on the question of past reasonableness when that issue arises in litigation in the courts. 252 P. 2d 178.
In No. 96, petitioner Davidson transported four shipments of goods for the United States from Poughkeepsie, N. Y., to Bellbluff, Va., and billed the United States on the basis of concededly applicable filed tariffs. On post-payment audit the General Accounting Office concluded that a part of these.charges was unreasonable and should be refunded to the United States. Davidson refunded under protest the sum demanded, which amounted to $18.34, and then brought suit under the Tucker Act to recover the refund. The Government defended on the sole ground that the applicable rate had been unreasonable. The District Court, without opinion, granted Davidson summary judgment, but on the Government’s appeal the judgment was reversed, the Court of Appeals holding that the Government could defend on “unreasonableness” grounds, and directing a referral to the I. C. C. of the issue as to the reasonableness of the rate in question. 104 U. S. App. D. C. 72, 259 F. 2d 802.
We granted certiorari in both cases because of the suggestion that the result reached by the Courts of Appeals conflicted with* this Court’s decision in Montana-Dakota Utilities Co. v. Northwestern Pub. Serv. Co., 341 U. S. 246, and in order to settle thé questions of statutory interpretation involved. 358 U. S. 810.
The courts below held that the right of the United States to resist on the ground of unreasonableness the payment of the charges incurred by it was one deriving from the common law and preserved by § 216 (j) of the Motor Carrier' Act. In this Court the Government, although defending this ground of decision, relies primarily on the proposition that the Motor Carrier Act itself creates a judicially enforceable right in a shipper to be free from the exaction of hnreasonable charges as to. past shipments even though such charges reflect applicable rates duly filed with the I. C. C. The Government concedes that whatever the source of the asserted right may be, the question of the reasonableness of past rates cannot itself be decided in the courts, but takes the position that when such question arises in court litigation it may properly be referred to the I. C. C. for decision, and the results of that adjudication used to determine the respective rights of the litigants.
I.
The contention that the Motor Carrier Act itself creates a cause of action or affords a defense with respect to the recovery of unreasonable rates rests on the provisions of §§ 216 (b) and (d) of the Act, 49 U. S. C. §§ 316 (b), (d>, which provide as to interstate motor carriers:
“(b) It shall be the duty of every [such], common carrier ... to establish, observe, and enforce just and reasonable rates, charges, and classifications, and just and reasonable regulations and practices relating thereto ....
“(d) All charges made for any service rendered or to be rendered by any [such] common carrier . . . shall be just and reasonable, and every unjust and unreasonable charge for such service or any part thereof, is prohibited and declared to be unlawful. . . .”
The Government urges that this language imposes a statutory duty on motor carriers not to charge or collect other than “reasonable” rates, and asks us to imply a cause of action under the Motor Carrier Act for any shipper injured by violation of that duty. We cannot agree.
As this Court recognized in Montana-Dakota Utilities Co. v. Northwestern Pub. Serv. Co., 341 U. S. 246, 251, language of this sort in a statute which entrusts rate regulation to an administrative agency in itself creates only a “criterion for administrative application in determining a lawful rate” rather than a “justiciable legal right.” In Montana-Dakota it was held that the Federal Power Act, which like the Motor Carrier Act expressly declares unreasonable rates to be “unlawful,” does not create a cause of action for the recovery of allegedly unreasonable past rates. In the absence of any indication, that Congress intended that despite the absence of any reparations power in the Federal Power Commission the féderal courts should entertain suits for reparation of unreasonable rates, and refer to the'Commission the controlling issue of past unreasonableness, the Court declined to permit the Commission to accomplish indirectly through such a proceeding that which Congress did not allow it to accomplish-directly.
It is true that under Parts I and III of the Interstate Commerce Act, relating respectively to rail and water carriers, a shipper may litigate as to the reasonableness of .past charges even if those charges were based on the applicable and effective filed, rates. The structure and history of Part II (the Motor’Carrier Act), however, lead to the conclusion that here, as in the Federal Power Act, Congress did not intend, to give shippers a statutory.cause of action for, the recovery of allegedly unreasonable past rates, or to enable them to assert “unreasonableness” as a defense in carrier suits to recover applicable tariff rates.
The very provisions of Part I, and their counterparts in Part III, which give a right of action to shippers against carriers for damages incurred by carrier violations of the Act and provide the mechanics for the enforcement of that right are conspicuously absent in the Motor Carrier Act. -Thus, whereas § 8 of Part 1 provides that “any common carrier subject to the provisions of this -chapter [who] shall do . . . any act ... in this chapter . .. . declared to be unlawful . . . shall be liable to the person or persons injured thereby for the full amount of the damages sustained ... . ,” Part II has no comparable provision. Again, whereas § 9 of Part 1 gives an injured shipper the right to sue in the I. C. C. or in the Federal District Court, Part II contains no comparable provision. In addition, §§ 13 (1) and 16 of Part 1 give a stopper claiming reparation the right to proceed in the Commission and to enforce his reparation award in the courts, and Part II contains no comparable provisions.
To hold that the Motor Carrier Act nevertheless gives shippers a right of reparation with respect to allegedly unreasonable past filed tariff rates would require a complete disregard of these significant omissions, in Part II of the very provisions which, establish and implement a similar right as against rail carriers in Part I. We find it impossible to impute to Congress an intention to .give such a right to shippers under the Motor Carrier Act when the very sections which established that right in Part I were wholly omitted in the Motor Carrier Act.
Further, the I. C. C. itself has consistently recognized that nothing in Part II creates a statutory liability on the part of the carrier for past allegedly unreasonable filed rates. In the hearings which preceded the passage of legislation in 1949 adding to the Motor Carrier Act a statute of limitations on suits to recover amounts paid to carriers in excess of applicable filed rates, proposals were also made to amend the statute by-adding to it provisions similar to those already found in §§ 8, 9, 13, and 16 of Part I. The Commission noted that the proposal “would add to-the Interstate Commerce Act a number of new sections which- would make common carriers by motor vehicle . . . hable for the payment of damages to persons injured by them through violations of the act. At present this liability exists only in respect of carriers subject to parts I and .III . . . .” The suggested changes were not adopted. And in 1957 thé Commission again recommended amendment of the Motor Carrier Act to provide a remedy for violation of the statute to persons injured thereby, and once more the measure failed of adoption.
In light of the statute and its history, it is plain that if a shipper has a “justiciable legal right” to recover or resist past motor carrier charges alleged to have been unreasonable-, it is necessary to look beyond the Motor Carrier Act for the source of that right.
Í — I H-I
The Government urges that even if the Motor Carrier Act does not grant the right which is claimed here, the Act must at least be read to preserve a pre-existing common-law right of that kind. It relies on § 216 (j.) of the statute, 49 U. S. C, § 316 (j), as showing a congressional intention to confirm such a right in its statement that nothing in § 216 “shall be held to extinguish any remedy or right of action not inconsistent herewith.” ' The contention is that the common law recognized the right of a shipper by common carrier to recover exorbitant rates paid-under protest, and that although the doctrine of primary ■jurisdiction requires that the issue of whether rates which are retrospectively challenged’were in fact “unreasonable” be determined by the I. C. C., the common-law right may be vindicated in a suit in the courts through referral of the issue of “unreasonableness” to the Commission.
The saving clause of § 216 (j) must be read in light of the judicial decisions interpreting Part I of the Interstate Commerce Act before 1935, for the course of those decisions illuminates the significance of the striking differences which Congress saw fit to make between the provisions of Part I and those of the Motor Carrier Act.. The landmark case is Texas & Pacific R. Co. v. Abilene Cotton Oil Co., 204 U. S. 426. There a shipper sued in a state court to recover the difference between an allegedly unreasonable charge exacted from it by a rail carrier pursuant to tariffs filed by the carrier with the I. C. C. and what was ..claimed. would have been a just and reasonable charge. One of the issues before this Court was whether any common-law right to recover an exorbitant common carrier freight charge paid under protest survived the passage of the Interstate Commerce Act. The Court held, despite the existence in Part I of a saving clause much broader in scope than that here involved, .that because under the statutory scheme only the I. C. C. could decide in the first instance whether.any filed rate was “unreasonable” either as to the past or future, any common-law right was necessarily extinguished as “absolutely inconsistent” with recognition of the Commission’s primary jurisdiction. It is important to note that this conclusion did not rest upon the fact that under Part I the I. C. C. had reparations authority with respect to unreasonable charges paid by shippers, but instead was evidently dictated by the broader conclusion that the crucial question of reasonableness could not be decided by the courts.
Since the Government concedes that under Part II, as under Part I, the issue of the unreasonableness of rates cannot be adjudicated in the courts, it would seem to follow that the common-law right which the Government urges as surviving under § 216 (j). cannot in fact survive, since that clause preserves only “any remedy or right of action not inconsistent” with the statutory scheme. The Government urges, however, that there is nothing actually inconsistent with the Commission's primary jurisdiction in recognizing the survival of a common-law right, because the demands of primary jurisdiction can be satisfied by referral of the question of the reasonableness of the assailed rate to the I. C. C., and that although the Commission concededly has no independent authority to .entertain and adjudicate a claim for reparations, it nevertheless should be permitted in-effect to exercise such an authority as an adjunct to a judicial proceeding.
The question is, of course, one of statutory intent. We do not think that Congress, which we cannot assume was. unaware of the holding of the Apilene case that a common-law right of action to recover unreasonable common carrier charges is incompatible with a statutory scheme in which the courts have no authority to adjudicate the primary question- in issue, intended by the saving clause of § 216 (j) to sanction a procedure such as that here proposed. It would be anomalous to hold that Congress intended that the sole effect of the omission of reparations provisions in the Motor Carrier Act would be to require the shipper in effect to bring two lawsuits instead of one, with the parties required to file their complaint and answer in a court of competent jurisdiction and then immediately proceed to the I. C. C. to litigate what would ordinarily be the sole controverted issue in the suit, No convincing reason has been suggested to us why Congress would have wished to omit ia direct reparations procedure, as it has concededly here doné, and yet leave open to the shipper the circuitous route contended for.
To permit a utilization of the procedure here sought by the Government would be to engage in the very “improvisation” against which this Court cautioned in Montana-Dakota, supra, in order to permit the I. C. C. to accomplish indirectly what Congress has not chosen to give it the authority to accomplish directly. In the absence of the clearest indication that Congress intended that the Motor Carrier Act should preserve rights which could be vindicated only by such an improvisation, we must decline to consider a defense which “involves only issues which a federal court cannot decide and can only refer to a body which also would have no independent jurisdiction to decide . . . .” Montana-Dakota, supra, at p. 255. The Government’s reliance upon United States v. Western Pacific R. Co., 352 U. S. 59, is misplaced, for in that case, involving Part I of the Interstate Commerce Act, the authority of the I. C. C. to determine the reasonableness of past filed rates in aid of court litigation was undoubted. The case decided no more than that referral to the I. C. C. of the issue of “unreasonableness” involved in the shipper’s defense to the carrier’s timely Tucker Act suit was not foreclosed by the fact that affirmative reparations relief before the Commission would have been barred by limitations. It has no bearing on the question- whether. -!— a judicial remedy in respect of allegedly unreasonable past rates survived the passage of the Motor Carrier Act.
It is pointed out that the I. C. C. has long claimed the authority to make findings as to the reasonableness of past motor carrier rates embodied in tariffs duly filed with the Commission. It is true that in a series of cases beginning with Barrows Porcelain Enamel Co. v. Cushman Motor Delivery Co., 11 M. C. C. 365, decided in 1939, divisions of the Commission, and eventually the Commission itself, Bell Potato Chip Co. v. Aberdeen Truck Line, 43 M. C. C. 337, announced that the I. C. C. possessed such authority. But in these cases the anterior question now before us, whether a shipper has a right, derived from outside the statute, to put the question of the reasonableness of past rates in issue in judicial proceedings,- was given only cursory consideration or else wholly ignored. The cases devoted themselves to searching out authorization in the Act for I. C. C. participation, by adjudication as to past unreasonableness, in the vindication of whatever reparation rights might exist. The Government is able to point to only two cases in addition to. the present ones, in the 24 years since passage of the Motor Carrier Act, in which courts have appeared to assume that the issue of reasonableness of past motor carrier rates was litigable, and in neither of these cases was the question given other .than the most cursory attention. Under these circumstances the issue before us cannot fairly be said to be foreclosed by long-standing interpretation and understanding.
We are told that Congress has long been aware that the Commission was of the view that a common-law action for recovery of unreasonable rates paid to a motor carrier, with referral to the Commission of the issue of unreasonableness, would lie, and that its failure to legislate in derogation of this view implies an approval and acceptance of it. But it appears that each time the Commission’s views in this regard were communicated to. committees of Congress, it was in connection with a request by the Commission for legislation which would have given to shippers a cause of action under the statute and granted to the Commission the authority to award reparations, and each time that request was rejected. Had Congress been asked legislatively to overrule the doctrines enunciated in Bell Potato Chip, supra, and declined to do so, that fact would no doubt have been entitled to some weight in our interpretation of the Act. But we do not think that from the failure of Congress to grant a new authority any reliable inference can permissibly be drawn to the effect that any authority previously claimed was recognized and confirmed.
Finally, it is contended that denial of a remedy to the shipper who has paid unreasonable rates is to sanction injustice. The fact that during the 24-year history of the Motor Carrier Act shippers have sought to secure adjudications in the I. C. C. as to the reasonableness of past rates on only a handful of occasions, despite the Commission’s invitation to shippers to pursue that course in the line of cases culminating in Bell Potato Chip, supra, strongly suggests that few occasions have arisen where the application of filed 'rates has aggrieved shippers by motor carrier. Furthermore, this contention overlooks the fact that Congress has in the Motor Carrier Act apparently sought to strike a balance between the interests of the shipper and those of the carrier, and that the statute cut significantly into pre-existing rights of the carrier to set his own rates and put them into immediate effect, at least so long as they were within the “zone of reasonableness.” ' Under the Act a trucker can raise its rates only on 30 days’ prior notice, and the I. C. C. may, on its own initiative or on complaint, suspend the effectiveness of the proposed rate for an additional seven months while its reasonableness is scrutinized. Even if the new rate is eventually determined to be reasonable, the carrier con-cededly has no avenue whereby to collect the increment of that rate over the previous one for the notice or suspension period. Thus although under the statutory scheme it is possible that a shipper will for a time be forced to pay a rate which he has challenged and which is eventually determined to be unreasonable as to the future, as when the suspension period expires before the I. C. C. has acted on the challenge, it is ordinarily the carrier, rather than the shipper, which is made to suffer by any period of administrative “lag.”
For the foregoing reasons the judgment of the Court of Appeals in each of these cases must fall.
Reversed.
Interstate Commerce Act, Patt II, 49 Stat. 543, as amended, 49 U. S. C. § 301 et seq.
See Motor Carrier Act §§ 216 (e),' (g), 217 (b), (c), 49 U. S, C. §§316 (e), (g), 317(b), (c).-.
This part of the charges was that represented by a “New York State Surcharge,” included by Davidson in its rate to recoup the cost of a New York ton-mile truck tax. The tariff including the surcharge had been filed to become effective October 8, 1951. The I. C. C. had suspended the tariff for the maximum period permitted by the Act, but since the inquiry as to its reasonableness was not completed within the suspension period it went into effect on May 8, 1952, and was in effect at the time of shipment. The I. C. C. subsequently found the surcharge to be unreasonable and ordered its excision from Davidson’s rates, 62 M. C. C. 117. This order was purely prospective and did not affect the shipments involved here.
In our view of these cases it becomes unnecessary to consider Davidson’s alternative contention that in any event the General Accounting Office- had no right under § 322 of the Transportation Act of 1940 to deduct from the carrier’s charges the amount claimed by the United States to have been unreasonable.
Section 216. (j), 49 U. S. C. §316 (j), provides that “Nothing in this section shall be held to extinguish any remedy or right of"action not inconsistent herewith.”
Section 205 (a) of. the Power Act, 49 Stat. 851, 16 U. S. C. § 824d (a), provides that “All rates and charges . . . and all rules and regulations affecting or .pertaining to such rates or charges shall be just and reasonable, and any such rate or charge that is not .just and reasonable is hereby declared to be unlawful.”
CC f pC F
CO a 02 O
49 U. S.C.§§ 13 (1), 16.
Hearings before Senate Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce on S. 1194, 80th Cong., 2d Sess., pp. 1, 5, 11-12.
See Hearings before Senate Committee on Interstate and .Foreign Commerce on S. 378, 85th Cong., 2d Sess., pp. 3, 12.
Such a right was assumed by this Court to have existed at common law in Texas & Pacific R. Co. v. Abilene Cotton Oil Co., 204 U. S. 426, 436, and Arizona Grocery Co. v. Atchison, T. & S. F. R. Co., 284 U. S. 370. But see Aitchison, Fair Reward and Just Compensation, Common Carrier Service, p. 10, suggesting that the common-law .right is one to be free from undue- discrimination, rather than from mere exorbitance.
Section 22 of the Interstate Commerce Act provided at the time of the Abilene case, and continues in substance to provide', that: “Nothing in this act contained shall in any way abridge or alter the remedies now existing at common law or by statute, but the provisions of this act are in addition to such remedies.”
It is noteworthy that in 1949, when Congress added to the Motor Carrier Act a statute of limitations provision governing suits by and against carriers involving charges, such provision was made applicable only to suits for" “overcharges,” defined to mean “charges for transportation services in excess of those applicable thereto under the tariffs lawfully on file with the Commission.” 49 U. S. C. § 304a. It would be surprising, given the policy of uniformity reflected in this provision, for Congress- not to have also added a statute of limitations provision applicable to suits on account of unreasonable rates, had a cause of'action with respect to such rates been deemed to exist. Compare 49 U. S. C. § 16 (3) (b), providing a limitations provision for complaints for the recovery of_ damages “not based on overcharges” from rail carriers.
See, e. g., United States v. Davidson Transfer & Storage Co., Inc., 302 I. C. C. 87, 90A)1, involving the same parties as those now before us in No. 96. Barrows, relied on heavily in the dissenting opinion because it w|s decided by a Division of the I. C. C. of which Commissioner Eastrhan, previously Federal Coordinator of Transportation and a principal architect of the Motor Carrier Act, was a member,- does not even suggest that a common-law action to recover unreasonable rates might be maintainable. Rather it referred to findings as to the reasonableness of past rates only as “valuable future guides to shippers and carriers.” 11 M. C. C., at 367.
The Bell case purported to find such authorization in §§ 216 (e) and 204 (c) (49 U. S. C. §§ 316 (e), 304 (c)), although both these provisions appear in terms directed only to the authorization of findings and orders operating solely prospectiyely. It relied also on the provisions of the statute which impose on the carrier the duty of maintaining reasonable and nondiscriminatory rates. 49 U. S. C. § 316(b), (d). But see Montana-Dakota Utilities Co. v. Northwestern Pub. Serv. Co., supra.
New York & New Brunswick Auto Express Co. v. United States, 130 Ct. Cl. 339, 126 F. Supp. 215; United States v. Garner, 134 F. Supp. 16 (D. C. E. D. N. C.).
See notes 10,11, supra.
It is suggested that Congress was fully informed at the time of passage of the Transportation Act of 1940-of “an existing interpretation” of the Motor Carrier Act which would allow common-law actions for the recovery of unreasonable rates. We do not so read the legislative history relied upon. On the contrary, Commissioner Eastman, testifying before the Senate Committee, appeared to distinguish between the availability of a judicial remedy in respect of inapplicable tariff rates and the unavailability of such a remedy in respect of rates claimed to be “unreasonable” though embodied in a filed tariff. The Commissioner said:
“So far as reparation is concerned, there is no reason why these provisions should not be applied to motor carriers as well as to railroads. They were omitted from the Motor Carrier Act only because of the desire to lighten the burdens of the motor carriers in the early stages of regulation, in the absence of any strong indication of public, need. Motor carriers have practically no traffic which is noncompetitive, and there is little danger that they will exact exorbitant charges. Since the Motor Carrier Act became effective in 1935, the. Commission has not once had occasion to condemn- motor-carrier rates as unreasonably high. I don’t think we have had any complaints to that effect. It follows that there is nothing to indicate that shippers need provisions to enable the Commission to award reparation for damages suffered because of unreasonable charges.
“The occasion for reparation from motor carriers would chiefly 'arise, therefore, in the event of - overcharges above published tariff rates. Shippers can recover such overcharges in court as the law now stands.” (Emphasis added.) Hearings before Senate' Interstate Commerce Committee on S. 1310, S. 2016, S. 1S69, and S. 2009, 76th Cong., 1st Sess., pp. 791-792.
See also Hearings at p. 132, where Senator Reed asked a truckers,’ representative opposing the addition of reparations provisions to the Motor Carrier Act “[I]f a shipper by railroad, which is one form of common carrier, now has. a remedy at law in the way of damages which he may have suffered through a collection of an unreasonable . rate, -and if we are trying to make Uniform regulations, why should a common carrier by truck be exempted from the right or remedy of the shipper against an unreasonable charge any more than any other form of common carrier?” The reparations provision was subsequently stricken from the bill.
But see Jaffe, Primary Jurisdiction Reconsidered, 102 U. of Pa. L. Rev. 577, 589, commenting on Bell Potato Chip, supra: ‘’It is, to be sure, doubtful that reparations in such a case serve a useful function. Rates are under continuous scrutiny. Administrative condemnation implies new circumstances or new understanding rather than serious past injustice. And, as Mr. Justice Jackson observes in the Montana-Dakota case, the overcharge has usually been passed along by the one who paid it to some undiseoverable and unreim-bursable consumer.”
It was recognized at the time of passage of the Motor Carrier Act that competitive conditions in the trucking industry were such that the possibility of unreasonably high rates presented no problem. Commissioner Eastman, who had conducted an inquiry into the motor carrier'industry, stated during the hearings preceding passage of the Act that "I do not recall that there were any complaints based upon excessive charges.” Hearings before a Subcommittee of the House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce on H. R. 5262, 6016, 74th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 32. See also his 1939 statement before the Interstate Commerce Committee of the Senate, quoted at note 18, supra.
See Motor Carrier Act, §§ 217 (c), 216 (g), 49 U. S. C. §§ 317 (c), 316 (g).
Counsel for the Government stated on oral argument that the situation presented in No. 96, where the suspension period expired before the adjudication of the reasonableness of the challenged rate had been completed, arises very infrequently, since the suspension period is ordinarily ample to permit such adjudication.
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.
This case brings back to us a question resolved by a closely divided Court in Brown v. United States, 359 U. S. 41, concerning the respective scope of Rule 42 (a) and of Rule 42 (b) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. Petitioner was a witness before a grand jury and refused to answer certain questions on the ground of self-incrimination. He and the grand jury were brought before the District Court which directed him to answer the questions propounded before the grand jury, stating that petitioner would receive immunity from prosecution. He refused again to give any answers to the grand jury. He was thereupon brought before the District Court and sworn. The District Court repeated the questions and directed petitioner to answer, but he refused on the ground of privilege. The prosecution at once requested that petitioner be found in contempt of court “under Rule 42 (a).” Counsel for petitioner protested and requested an adjournment and a public hearing where he would be permitted to call witnesses. The District Court denied the motion and thereupon adjudged petitioner guilty of criminal contempt, imposing a sentence of one year’s imprisonment. The Court of Appeals affirmed, 334 F. 2d 460. We granted certiorari, 379 U. S. 944.
Rule 42 (a) is entitled “Summary Disposition” and reads as follows:
“A criminal contempt may be punished summarily if the judge certifies that he saw or heard the conduct constituting the contempt and that it was committed in the actual presence of the court. The order of contempt shall recite the facts and shall be signed by the judge and entered of record.”
Rule 42 (a) was reserved “for exceptional circumstances,” Brown v. United States, 359 U. S. 41, 54 (dissenting opinion), such as acts threatening the judge or disrupting a hearing or obstructing court proceedings. Ibid. We reach that conclusion in light of “the concern long demonstrated by both Congress and this Court over the possible abuse of the contempt power,” ibid., and in light of the wording of the Rule. Summary contempt is for “misbehavior” (Ex parte Terry, 128 U. S. 289, 314) in the “actual presence of the court.” Then speedy punishment may be necessary in order to achieve “summary vindication of the court’s dignity and authority.” Cooke v. United States, 267 U. S. 517, 534. But swiftness was not a prerequisite of justice here. Delay necessary for a hearing would not imperil the grand jury proceedings.
Cases of the kind involved here are foreign to Rule 42 (a). The real contempt, if such there was, was contempt before the grand jury — the refusal to answer to it when directed by the court. Swearing the witness and repeating the questions before the judge was an effort to have the refusal to testify “committed in the actual presence of the court” for the purposes of Rule 42 (a). It served no other purpose, for the witness had been adamant and had made his position known. The appearance before the District Court was not a new and different proceeding, unrelated to the other. It was ancillary to the grand jury hearing and designed as an aid to it. Even though we assume arguendo that Rule 42 (a) may at times reach testimonial episodes, nothing in this case indicates that petitioner’s refusal was such an open, serious threat to orderly procedure that instant and summary punishment, as distinguished from due and deliberate procedures (Cooke v. United States, supra, at 536), was necessary. Summary procedure, to use the words of Chief Justice Taft, was designed to fill “the need for immediate penal vindication of the dignity of the court.” Ibid. We start from the premise long ago stated in Anderson v. Dunn, 6 Wheat. 204, 231, that the limits of the power to punish for contempt are “[t]he least possible power adequate to the end proposed.” In the instant case, the dignity of the court was not being affronted: no disturbance had to be quelled; no insolent tactics had to be stopped. The contempt here committed was far outside the narrow category envisioned by Rule 42 (a).
Rule 42 (b) provides the normal procedure. It reads:
“A criminal contempt except as provided in subdivision (a) of this rule shall be prosecuted on notice. The notice shall state the time and place of hearing, allowing a reasonable time for the preparation of the defense, and shall state the essential facts constituting the criminal contempt charged and describe it as such. The notice shall be given orally by the judge in open court in the presence of the defendant or, on application of the United States attorney or of an attorney appointed by the court for that purpose, by an order to show cause or an order of arrest. The defendant is entitled to a trial by jury in any case in which an act of Congress so provides. He is entitled to admission to bail as provided in these rules. If the contempt charged involves disrespect to or criticism of a judge, that judge is disqualified from presiding at the trial or hearing except with the defendant’s consent. Upon a verdict or finding of guilt the court shall enter an order fixing the punishment.”
Such notice and hearing serve important ends. What appears to be a brazen refusal to cooperate with the grand jury may indeed be a case of frightened'silence. Refusal to answer may be due to fear — fear of reprisals on the witness or his family. Other extenuating circumstances may be present. We do not suggest that there were circumstances of that nature here. We are wholly ignorant of the episode except for what the record shows and it reveals only the barebones of demand and refusal. If justice is to be done, a sentencing judge should know all the facts. We can imagine situations where the questions are so inconsequential to the grand jury but the fear of reprisal so great that only nominal punishment, if any, is indicated. Our point is that a hearing and only a hearing will elucidate all the facts and assure a fair administration of justice. Then courts will not act on surmise or suspicion but will come to the sentencing stage of the proceeding with insight and understanding.
We are concerned solely with “procedural regularity” which, as Mr. Justice Brandéis said in Burdeau v. McDowell, 256 U. S. 465, 477 (dissenting), has been “a large factor” in the development of our liberty. Rule 42 (b) prescribes the “procedural regularity” for all con-tempts in the federal regime except those unusual situations envisioned by Rule 42 (a) where instant action is necessary to protect the judicial institution itself.
We overrule Brown v. United States, supra, and reverse and remand this case for proceedings under Rule 42 (b).
Reversed and remanded.
Mr. Justice Stewart, with whom Mr. Justice Clark, Mr. Justice Harlan, and Mr. Justice White join, dissenting.
The issue in this case is the procedure to be followed when a witness has refused to answer questions before a grand jury after he has been ordered to do so by a district court. This issue, involving Rule 42 (a) and Rule 42 (b) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, was, as the Court says, resolved in Brown v. United States, 359 U. S. 41. That was six years ago. Since then this Court has made no changes in Rule 42 (a) or 42 (b). But today Brown is overturned, and the question it “resolved” is now answered in the opposite way.
The particular question at issue here is of limited importance. But in this area the Court’s duty is important, involving as it does the responsibility for clear and consistent guidance to the federal judiciary in the application of ground rules of our own making. We are not faithful to that duty, I think, when we overturn a settled construction of those rules for no better reasons than those the Court has offered in this case.
The limited scope of the question at issue is made clear by the present record. A grand jury in the Southern District of New York was investigating alleged violations of the Communications Act of 1934. The petitioner appeared before this grand jury pursuant to a subpoena. He refused to answer a number of questions about an interstate telephone call upon the ground of possible self-incrimination. .The petitioner was then granted immunity from any possible self-incrimination under § 409 (1) of the Communications Act. Only after giving the petitioner and his lawyer full opportunity to be heard did the District Judge rule that the petitioner was clothed with complete constitutional immunity from self-incrimination, and only then did he direct the petitioner to answer the grand jury’s questions. The petitioner returned to the grand jury room and again refused to answer the questions, this time in direct and deliberate disobedience of the District Judge’s order.
It is common ground, I suppose, that the petitioner was then and there in contempt of court. Since the petitioner’s refusal to obey the judge’s order did not occur within the sight and hearing of the judge, a contempt proceeding could then have been initiated only under Rule 42 (b). Such a proceeding would have been fully consonant with our decision in Brown, and a judge “more intent upon punishing the witness than aiding the grand jury in its investigation might well have taken just such a course.” 359 U. S., at 50. In such a proceeding all that would have been required to prove the contempt would have been the testimony of the grand jury stenographer, and the judge could then have imposed sentence. Such a procedure is often followed.
Instead, however, the District Judge in this case followed the alternative procedure approved in Brown. He made one last effort to aid the grand jury in its investigation and gave the petitioner a final chance to purge himself of contempt. The petitioner and his lawyer appeared before the judge in open court. After the petitioner was sworn as a witness, the judge propounded the same questions which the petitioner had refused to answer before the grand jury. The petitioner again refused to answer. At the conclusion of the questioning the judge asked, “Does anybody want to say anything further?” The only response from the petitioner’s counsel, then or later, was a brief renewal of his attack upon the purpose of the grand jury investigation and the scope of the immunity which had been conferred upon the petitioner — legal questions which the judge had, after a complete hearing, fully determined before he had ordered the petitioner to answer the grand jury’s questions in the first place.
The procedure followed by the District Court in this case was in precise conformity with Rule 42 (a) and with long-settled and consistently followed practice. It is a procedure which, in this context, is at least as fair as a Rule 42 (b) proceeding. The petitioner, represented by counsel, was accorded an additional chance to purge himself of contempt; he and his counsel were accorded full opportunity to offer any explanation they might have had in extenuation of the contempt — to inform the “sentencing judge of all the facts.” And finally, there is no reason to assume that a sentence imposed for obduracy before a grand jury is likely to be more severe in a Rule 42 (a) proceeding than one imposed after a proceeding under Rule 42 (b). Indeed, the recent Rule 42 (b) cases in the Southern District of New York referred to by the Court indicate the contrary. A sentence for contempt is reviewable on appeal in either case, and there is nothing to suggest that in the exercise of this reviewing power an appellate court will have any more information to go on in the one case than in the other.
For these reasons I would affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
“The Court: Anything further ?
“Mr. Maloney: No, your Honor.
“I think the record speaks for itself, and I would ask your Honor to find this witness in contempt of court under Rule 42 (a) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure.
“Mr. Polakoff: Your Honor, if this is a contempt proceeding I respectfully request an adjournment. I want to have the minutes and I want to have an opportunity to discuss them and consider them with my client and to look up the law.
“I further request, your Honor, a hearing where I will be permitted to call witnesses, perhaps a grand juror or two or more; perhaps the places the phone calls allegedly were made as indicated by the assistant, to prove to your Honor that there could be no possible violation of the Communications Act.
“I have not been told what tariff has been violated; no law has been cited or rule or regulation to your Honor or to me, and that requires research.
“I also would request that the contempt hearing be held in public.
“The Court: Your request is denied. This is a contempt committed in open court, and I adjudge the defendant guilt}' of a criminal contempt rule under Rule 42 (a).”
And See Nye v. United States, 313 U. S. 33, 52-53; In re Michael, 326 U. S. 224, 227; Cammer v. United States, 350 U. S. 399, 404.
Rule 42 (a) was described by the Advisory Committee as “substantially a restatement of existing law. Ex parte Terry, 128 U. S. 289; Cooke v. United States . . . .” We have confirmed this on more than one occasion, e. g., Offutt v. United States, 348 U. S. 11, 13-14; Brown v. United States, supra, at 51.
Chief Justice Taft said in Cooke v. United States, supra, at 537:
“Due process of law, therefore, in the prosecution of contempt, except of that committed in open court, requires that the accused should be advised of the charges and have a reasonable opportunity to meet them by way of defense or explanation. We think this includes the assistance of counsel, if requested, and the right to call witnesses to give testimony, relevant either to the issue of complete exculpation or in extenuation of the offense and in mitigation of the penalty to be imposed.”
In more than one instance in the Southern District of New York, from which this case comes, witnesses cited for testimonial contempt before the grand jury were given hearings under Rule 42 (b). E. g., United States v. Castaldi, 338 F. 2d 883; United States v. Tramunti, 343 F. 2d 548; United States v. Shillitani, 345 F. 2d 290; United States v. Pappadio, 346 F. 2d 5. There is no indication that this procedure impeded the functioning of the grand jury.
Brown v. United States was reaffirmed and followed in Levine v. United States, 362 U. S. 610.
The proposed amendments to Rules of Criminal Procedure for the United States District Courts, approved on September 22-23, 1965, by the Judicial Conference of the United States, make no changes in Rule 42 (a) or Rule 42 (b).
No argumentation or factual data are contained in the Court’s opinion today which were not fully revealed in the dissenting opinion in Brown, 359 U. S., at 53-63, passim, and considered by the Court there. Nor is it suggested that the Brown rule has proved to be unclear or difficult of application. The considerations attending the overruling of Brown are quite unlike those involved in the overruling that occurred in Swift & Co., Inc. v. Wickham, ante, p. 111, where the Court changed a procedural rule which it found unworkable in actual practice.
48 Stat. 1070 and 1100, 47 U. S. C. §§ 203 (c) and 501 (1964 ed.), and 18 U. S. C. § 1952 (1964 ed.).
48 Stat. 1096, 47 U. S. C. §409 (l) (1964 ed.).
The prevailing opinion today says, “The real contempt, if such there was, was contempt before the grand jury . . . .” But a grand jury is without power itself to compel the testimony of witnesses. It is the court’s process which summons the witness to attend and give testimony, and it is the court which must compel a witness to testify, if, after appearing, he refuses to do so.
“When upon his return to the grand jury room the petitioner again refused to answer the grand jury’s questions, now in direct disobedience of the court’s order, he was for the first time guilty of contempt. At that point a contempt proceeding could unquestionably and quite properly have been initiated. Since this disobedience of the order did not take place in the actual presence of the court, and thus could be made known to the court only by the taking of evidence, the proceeding would have been conducted upon notice and hearing in conformity with Rule 42 (b). See Carlson v. United States, 209 F. 2d 209, 216 (C. A. 1st Cir.).” 359 U. S., at 50.
See cases cited in note 5 of the Court’s opinion, ante, p. 167.
The record shows that the court was “opened by proclamation.”
Before imposing sentence, the judge gave petitioner and his counsel still another opportunity to offer any explanation they might have of the petitioner’s obduracy:
“The Court: I have already made my position perfectly clear, but I will say it again: I have directed you to answer these questions before the grand jury, and I have directed you to answer them here. It is my ruling that you cannot be prosecuted for any answer that you give under the circumstances of this case. Do you still refuse, Mr. Harris?
“The Witness: I respectfully refuse to answer on the grounds it would tend to incriminate me.
“The Court: Anything further?”
. See, in addition to Brown v. United States, 359 U. S. 41, and Levine v. United States, 362 U. S. 610: Rogers v. United States, 340 U. S. 367; Wilson v. United States, 221 U. S. 361, 369; Hale v. Henkel, 201 U. S. 43, 46; United States v. Curcio, 234 F. 2d 470, 473 (C. A. 2d Cir.), rev'd on other grounds, 354 U. S. 118 (1957); Lopiparo v. United States, 216 F. 2d 87 (C. A. 8th Cir.); United States v. Weinberg, 65 F. 2d 394, 396 (C. A. 2d Cir.). For the earlier practice at common law, see People ex rel. Phelps v. Fancher, 4 Thompson & Cook 467 (N. Y. 1874); People ex rel. Hackley v. Kelly, 24 N.Y. 74, 79-80 (1861); In re Harris, 4 Utah. 5, 8-9, 5 P. 129, 130-132 (1884); Heard v. Pierce, 8 Cush. 338, 342-345 (Mass. 1851).
. See note 5 of the Court's opinion, ante, p. 167. United States v. Castaldi, 338 F. 2d 883 (two years); United States v. Tramunti, 343 F. 2d 548 (one year); United States v. Shillitani, 345 F. 2d 290 (two years); United States v. Pappadio, 346 F. 2d 5 (two years).
. See Green v. United States, 356 U. S. 165, 188; Yates v. United States, 356 U. S. 363; Nilva v. United States, 352 U. S. 385, 396; Brown v. United States, 359 U. S. 41, 52.
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 Rooker-Feldman doctrine prevents the lower federal courts from exercising jurisdiction over cases brought by “state-court losers” challenging “state-court judgments rendered before the district court proceedings commenced.” Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Saudi Basic Industries Corp., 544 U. S. 280, 284 (2005). In this case, the District Court dismissed the plaintiffs’ suit on the ground that they were in privity with a state-court loser. We hold that the Rooker-Feldman doctrine does not bar the plaintiffs from proceeding, and vacate the District Court’s judgment.
I
This is the latest of several rounds of litigation involving the State of Colorado’s congressional redistricting after the 2000 census, under which the State gained a seat in the House of Representatives. Lance v. Davidson, 379 F. Supp. 2d 1117, 1121 (2005). The first round began in May 2001. When the Colorado General Assembly failed to pass a redistricting plan for the 2002 congressional elections by the close of its regular session, a group of Colorado voters asked the state courts to create a plan. The courts agreed, drawing a new map reflecting the additional district. See Beauprez v. Avalos, 42 P. 3d 642 (Colo. 2002) (en banc). The 2002 elections were held using this court-ordered plan.
The General Assembly passed its own redistricting plan in the spring of 2003, prompting further litigation — this time about which electoral map was to govern, the legislature’s or the courts’. Two suits were filed seeking to enjoin the legislature’s plan: an original action in the Colorado Supreme Court by the state attorney general seeking to require the secretary of state to use the court-ordered plan, and a similar action brought in a lower state court by several proponents of the court-ordered plan. 379 F. Supp. 2d, at 1121. After the Colorado General Assembly intervened to defend its plan in the first case, the Colorado Supreme Court held that the plan violated Article V, §44, of the State Constitution, which the court construed to limit congressional redistricting to “once per decade.” People ex rel. Salazar v. Davidson, 79 P. 3d 1221, 1231 (2003) (en banc). It therefore ordered the secretary of state to use the court-created plan. We denied certiorari. 541 U. S. 1093 (2004).
The second suit Was removed to federal court by the defendants on the basis of the plaintiffs’ federal-law claims. See Keller v. Davidson, 299 F. Supp. 2d 1171, 1175 (Colo. 2004). Once Salazar was decided by the Colorado Supreme Court, the viability of the defendants’ coimterclaims was the only remaining issue. A three-judge District Court held that the defendants were barred by the Rooker-Feldman doctrine from amending their counterclaims to assert additional challenges to the decision in Salazar. It also held that the defendants’ original coimterclaims, while not barred by the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, were precluded under Colorado law. by the judgment in Salazar. Accordingly, the court dismissed the case.
Finally, this suit: Before the dismissal in Keller, several Colorado citizens unhappy with Salazar filed an action in the District Court seeking to require the secretary of state to use the legislature’s plan. The plaintiffs argued that Article V, §44, of the Colorado Constitution, as interpreted by the Colorado Supreme Court, violated the Elections Clause of Article I, §4, of the U. S. Constitution (“The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof”), and the First Amendment’s Petition Clause (“Congress shall make no law ... abridging . .. the right of the people ... to petition the Government for a redress of grievances”). The defendants filed a motion to dismiss, arguing that the Rooker-Feldman doctrine and Colorado preclusion law barred any attack on the Colorado Supreme Court’s judgment in Salazar and that the plaintiffs had failed to state a valid Petition Clause claim.
The three-judge District Court ruled that under the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, it had no jurisdiction to hear the Elections Clause claim. 379 F. Supp. 2d, at 1127. The Rooker-Feldman doctrine, the court explained, includes three requirements: (1) “[T]he party against whom the doctrine is invoked must have actually been a party to the prior state-court judgment or have been in privity with such a party”; (2) “the claim raised in the federal suit must have been actually raised or inextricably intertwined with the state-court judgment”; and (3) “the federal claim must not be parallel to the state-court claim.” 379 F. Supp. 2d, at 1124. The District Court found the first requirement satisfied on the ground that the citizen-plaintiffs were in privity with the Colorado General Assembly — a losing party in Salazar. Relying on our decisions in Washington v. Washington State Commercial Passenger Fishing Vessel Assn., 443 U. S. 658 (1979), and Tacoma v. Taxpayers of Tacoma, 357 U. S. 320 (1958), the court stated that “when a state government litigates a matter of public concern, that state’s citizens will be deemed to be in privity with the government for preclusion purposes.” 379 F. Supp. 2d, at 1125. This principle, the court reasoned, applies “with equal force in the Rooker-Feldman context.” Ibid. The court went on to conclude that the Elections Clause claim was actually raised in Salazar, or inextricably intertwined with that decision, and was not parallel to the claims presented in Salazar. As to the Petition Clause claim, the court ruled that neither Rooker-Feldman nor Colorado preclusion law prevented the court from proceeding to the merits, but that the plaintiffs failed to state a claim. 379 F. Supp. 2d, at 1132; see Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 12(b)(6).
The plaintiffs appealed. See 28 U. S. C. § 1253. We now note jurisdiction, and address whether the Rooker-Feldman doctrine bars the plaintiffs from proceeding because they were in privity with a party in Salazar. We conclude it does not, and vacate the judgment of the District Court.
II
This Court is vested, under 28 U. S. C. § 1257, with jurisdiction over appeals from final state-court judgments. We have held that this grant of jurisdiction is exclusive: “Review of such judgments may be had only in this Court.” District of Columbia Court of Appeals v. Feldman, 460 U. S. 462, 482 (1988) (emphasis added); see also Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. Locomotive Engineers, 398 U. S. 281, 286 (1970); Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co., 263 U. S. 413, 416 (1923). Accordingly, under what has come to be known as the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, lower federal courts are precluded from exercising appellate jurisdiction over final state-court judgments.
The Rooker-Feldman doctrine takes its name from the only two cases in which we have applied this rule to find that a Federal District Court lacked jurisdiction. In Rooker, a party who had lost in the Indiana Supreme Court, and failed to obtain review in this Court, filed an action in Federal District Court challenging the constitutionality of the state-court judgment. We viewed the action as tantamount to an appeal of the Indiana Supreme Court decision, over which only this Court had jurisdiction, and said that the “aggrieved litigant cannot be permitted to do indirectly what he no longer can do directly.” 263 U. S., at 416. Feldman, decided 60 years later, concerned slightly different circumstances, with similar results. The plaintiffs there had been refused admission to the District of Columbia bar by the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, and sought review of these decisions in Federal District Court. Our decision held that to the extent plaintiffs challenged the Court of Appeals decisions themselves — as opposed to the bar admission rules promulgated nonjudicially by the Court of Appeals — their sole avenue of review was with this Court. 460 U. S., at 476.
Neither Rooker nor Feldman elaborated a rationale for a wide-reaching bar on the jurisdiction of lower federal courts, and our cases since Feldman have tended to emphasize the narrowness of the Rooker-Feldman rule. See Exxon Mobil, 544 U. S., at 292 (Rooker-Feldman does not apply to parallel state and federal litigation); Verizon Md. Inc. v. Public Serv. Comm’n of Md., 535 U. S. 635, 644, n. 3 (2002) (Rooker-Feldman “has no application to judicial review of executive action, including determinations made by a state administrative agency”); Johnson v. De Grandy, 512 U. S. 997, 1005-1006 (1994) (Rooker-Feldman does not bar actions by a nonparty to the earlier state suit). Indeed, during that period, “this Court has never applied Rooker-Feldman to dismiss an action for want of jurisdiction.” Exxon Mobil, supra, at 287.
In Exxon Mobil, decided last Term, we warned that the lower courts have at times extended Rooker-Feldman “far beyond the contours of the Rooker and Feldman cases, overriding Congress’ conferral of federal-court jurisdiction concurrent with jurisdiction exercised by state courts, and superseding the ordinary application of preclusion law pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 1738.” 544 U. S., at 283. Rooker-Feldman, we explained, is a narrow doctrine, confined to “cases brought by state-court losers complaining of injuries caused by state-court judgments rendered before the district court proceedings commenced and inviting district court review and rejection of those judgments.” 544 U. S., at 284.
Although we have never addressed the precise question before us, we have held Rooker-Feldman inapplicable where the party against whom the doctrine is invoked was not a party to the underlying state-court proceeding. See De Grandy, supra, at 1006. In De Grandy, the State of Florida sought, using Rooker-Feldman, to prevent the United States from bringing a challenge under §2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to the reapportionment of state electoral districts. The Florida Supreme Court, in an action initiated by the state attorney general, had already declared the law valid under state and federal law. We held that Rooker-Feldman did not bar the United States from bringing its own action in federal court because the United States “was not a party in the state court,” and “was in no position to ask this Court to review the state court’s judgment and has not directly attacked it in this proceeding.” 512 U. S., at 1006.
In the case before us, the plaintiffs were plainly not parties to the underlying state-court proceeding in Salazar. Salazar was an action brought by the state attorney general against the secretary of state, in which the Colorado General Assembly intervened. 79 P. 3d, at 1227. The four citizen-plaintiffs here did not participate in Salazar, and were not in a “position to ask this Court to review the state court’s judgment.” De Grandy, supra, at 1006; see Karcher v. May, 484 U. S. 72, 77 (1987) (“[T]he general rule [is] that one who is not a party or has not been treated as a party to a judgment has no right to appeal therefrom”).
Although the District Court recognized the “general rule” that “Rooker-Feldman may not be invoked against a federal-court plaintiff who was not actually a party to the prior state-court judgment,” 379 P. Supp. 2d, at 1123, it nevertheless followed Tenth Circuit precedent in allowing application of Rooker-Feldman against parties who were in privity with a party to the earlier state-court action, 379 F. Supp. 2d, at 1123 (citing Kenmen Eng. v. Union, 314 F. 3d 468, 481 (2002)). In determining whether privity existed, the court looked to cases concerning the preclusive effect that state courts are required to give federal-court judgments. 379 F. Supp. 2d, at 1125 (citing Washington, 443 U. S., at 693, n. 32; Taxpayers of Tacoma, 357 U. S., at 340-341). It concluded that — for Rooker-Feldman as well as preclusion purposes — “the outcome of the government’s litigation over a matter of public concern binds its citizens.” 379 F. Supp. 2d, at 1125.
The District Court erroneously conflated preclusion law with Rooker-Feldman. Whatever the impact of privity principles on preclusion rules, Rooker-Feldman is not simply preclusion by another name. The doctrine applies only in “limited circumstances,” Exxon Mobil, supra, at 291, where a party in effect seeks to take an appeal of an unfavorable state-court decision to a lower federal court. The Rooker-Feldman doctrine does not bar actions by nonparties to the earlier state-court judgment simply because, for purposes of preclusion law, they could be considered in privity with a party to the judgment.
A more expansive Rooker-Feldman rule would tend to supplant Congress’ mandate, under the Full Faith and Credit Act, 28 U. S. C. § 1738, that federal courts “ ‘give the same preclusive effect to state court judgments that those judgments would be given in the courts of the State from which the judgments emerged.’” Baker v. General Motors Corp., 522 U. S. 222,246 (1998) (quoting Kremer v. Chemical Constr. Corp., 456 U. S. 461, 466 (1982)); see Exxon Mobil, supra, at 293. Congress has directed federal courts to look principally to state law in deciding what effect to give state-court judgments. Incorporation of preclusion principles into Rooker-Feldman risks turning that limited doctrine into a uniform federal rule governing the preclusive effect of state-court judgments, contrary to the Full Faith and Credit Act.
* * *
The judgment of the District Court is vacated, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Although the secretary of state defended the legislature’s plan in Salazar, following that decision she agreed to defend the court-ordered plan in this litigation and to allow the state attorney general to represent her. 379 F. Supp. 2d 1117, 1122, n. 3 (Colo. 2005).
In holding that Rooker-Feldman does not bar the plaintiffs here from proceeding, we need not address whether there are any circumstances, however limited, in which Rooker-Feldman may be applied against a party not named in an earlier state proceeding — e. g., where an estate takes a de facto appeal in a district court of an earlier state decision involving the decedent.
Our holding also disposes of the claim, which the District Court did not reach, that plaintiffs were barred by Rooker-Feldman because they were in privity with the secretary of state, the other losing party in People ex rel. Salazar v. Davidson, 79 P. 3d 1221 (Colo. 2003) (en banc). We do not pass on the District Court’s resolution of the merits of the plaintiffs’ Petition Clause claim.
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.
Under the Federal Employees’ Compensation Act, a federal employee may not bring a tort suit against the Government on the basis of a work-related injury, but may seek recovery from a third party. The issue here is whether such a third party may seek indemnity from the Government for its tort liability to the employee.
On April 4, 1975, a C-5A aircraft operated by the United States Air Force and manufactured by petitioner Lockheed Aircraft Corp. crashed near Saigon, South Vietnam. Almost 150 people died in the crash, including Ann Nash Bottorff, a civilian employee of the United States Navy. The United States paid death benefits to Bottorff’s survivors under the Federal Employees’ Compensation Act (FECA), 5 U. S. C. §8101 et seq.
Thereafter Bottorff’s administrator filed suit against Lockheed, as the manufacturer of a “defective product,” in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. He sought damages for Bottorff’s wrongful death and for the injuries she suffered prior to her death. Lockheed, asserting a right to indemnification under the Federal Tort Claims Act, 28 U. S. C. §§ 1346(b), 2671-2680, impleaded the United States as a third-party defendant.
Lockheed settled the administrator’s claim and moved for summary judgment in the third-party action. The Government did not dispute that it was primarily responsible for the fatal crash, nor did it challenge the terms of the settlement. Rather the Government moved to dismiss the third-party claim on the ground that it was barred by 5 U. S. C. § 8116(c), FECA’s exclusive-liability provision:
“The liability of the United States . . . under [FECA] with respect to the injury or death of an employee is exclusive and instead of all other liability of the United States ... to the employee, his legal representative, spouse, dependents, next of kin, and any other person otherwise entitled to recover damages from the United States . . . because of the injury or death . . . .”
The District Court, concluding that § 8116(c) did not bar the indemnity claim, granted summary judgment for Lockheed.
On appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit reversed. Thomas v. Lockheed Aircraft Corp., 215 U. S. App. D. C. 27, 665 F. 2d 1330 (1981). It concluded that § 8116(c) barred Lockheed’s third-party claim against the United States. In reaching this conclusion, the Court of Appeals relied primarily on several decisions by other Courts of Appeals. See, e. g., Kudelka v. American Hoist & Derrick Co., 541 F. 2d 651, 658-660 (CA7 1976); Galimi v. Jetco, Inc., 514 F. 2d 949 (CA2 1975). The court recognized, however, that its holding was contrary to that reached in Wallenius Bremen G. m. b. H. v. United States, 409 F. 2d 994 (CA4 1969), cert. denied, 398 U. S. 958 (1970).
We granted certiorari to resolve the conflict. 456 U. S. 913 (1982). We now reverse.
M I — l
Section 8116(c) is specific and detailed. It prohibits actions against the United States by an “employee, his legal representative, spouse, dependents, next of kin, [or] any other person otherwise entitled to recover damages from the United States . . . because of the [employee’s] injury or death.” Lockheed is not within any of the specified categories. If § 8116(c) applies, therefore, it can only be because Lockheed is an “other person otherwise entitled to recover damages from the United States.” The Government argues that the language is broad enough to include Lockheed. We must decide if Congress intended that result.
A
FECA’s exclusive-liability provision was enacted in substantially its present form in 1949. FECA Amendments of 1949, §201, 63 Stat. 861 (enacting FECA § 7(b)) (currently codified at 5 U. S. C. § 8116(c)). It was designed to protect the Government from suits under statutes, such as the Federal Tort Claims Act, that had been enacted to waive the Government’s sovereign immunity. In enacting this provision, Congress adopted the principal compromise — the “quid pro quo” — commonly found in workers’ compensation legislation: employees are guaranteed the right to receive immediate, fixed benefits, regardless of fault and without need for litigation, but in return they lose the right to sue the Government. See H. R. Rep. No. 729, 81st Cong., 1st Sess., 14-15 (1949); S. Rep. No. 836, 81st Cong., 1st Sess., 23 (1949). This compromise is essentially the same as that found, for example, in the Longshoremen’s and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act (LHWCA). See 33 U. S. C. § 905(a).
In Weyerhaeuser S.S. Co. v. United States, 372 U. S. 597 (1963), the Court considered FECA’s exclusive-liability provision and carefully reviewed its legislative history. That case arose out of the collision between an Army dredge and a vessel owned by Weyerhaeuser. A federal employee injured in the collision recovered FECA compensation from the Government and tort damages from Weyerhaeuser. Weyer-haeuser brought suit against the United States under the Public Vessels Act, 43 Stat. 1112, 46 U. S. C. §781 et seq., seeking the damages that it could have recovered from another private shipowner. Included in its claim, under the admiralty divided damages rule, was the Government’s share of the employee’s tort recovery.
The Government challenged the inclusion of any part of the tort damages paid to the employee on the ground that FECA’s exclusive-liability provision protected the United States from such claims. In particular, the Government argued — much as it does in this case — that third parties plainly were included within the general phrase “anyone otherwise entitled to recover damages.” Brief for United States in Weyerhaeuser S.S. Co. v. United States, O. T. 1962, No. 65, pp. 5, 8-11. See 372 U. S., at 600. The Court, however, rejected this argument. It first pointed out that the statute was ambiguous. “[T]he general language upon which the Government relies follows explicit enumeration of specific categories: employees, their representatives, and their dependents. Under the traditional rule of statutory construction which counsels against giving to general words a meaning totally unrelated to the more specific terms of a statute, we think the meaning of the statutory language is far from ‘plain.’ ” Id., at 600-601. The Court then reviewed the legislative history of the exclusive-liability provision, and concluded that it had been intended to govern only the relationship “between the Government on the one hand and its employees and their representatives or dependents on the other.” Id., at 601. The Court summarized its review of the legislative history as follows: “There is no evidence whatever that Congress was concerned with the rights of unrelated third parties, much less of any purpose to disturb settled doctrines of admiralty law affecting the mutual rights and liabilities of private shipowners in collision cases.” Ibid. (footnote omitted).
The Weyerhaeuser Court reinforced its conclusion with a discussion of the “nearly identical” LHWCA provision. Id., at 602. The Court observed that under Ryan Stevedoring Co. v. Pan-Atlantic S.S. Corp., 350 U. S. 124 (1956), a shipowner was entitled to obtain indemnification from an injured longshoreman’s employer for damages that were recovered against the shipowner but were based on the employer’s negligence. Although Ryan relied on the existence of a contractual relationship between the shipowner and the employer, the same result was reached in a series of later cases where “the contractual relationship was considerably more attenuated.” 372 U. S., at 603. In Weyerhaeuser there was no contractual relationship, but there was a well-established admiralty rule that had “governed with at least equal clarity the correlative rights and duties” at issue in the case. Ibid.
B
The Court’s reasoning in Weyerhaeuser applies with equal force in the present case. The Government advances the same arguments before us now that it unsuccessfully advanced in Weyerhaeuser. To paraphrase the Weyerhaeuser Court’s conclusion, “[t]here is no evidence whatever that Congress was concerned with the rights of unrelated third parties, much less of any purpose to disturb settled doctrines of [tort] law affecting the mutual rights and liabilities of private [parties] in [indemnity] cases.” Id., at 601. Section 8116(c) was intended to govern only the rights of employees, their relatives, and people claiming through or on behalf of them. These are the only categories of parties who benefit from the “quid pro quo” compromise that FECA adopts. See Wallenius Bremen, 409 F. 2d, at 995.
The Government seeks to distinguish Weyerhaeuser, but the present situation is nearly identical. Here, as in Weyer-haeuser, a third party has been forced to pay tort damages for the death or injury of a federal employee covered by FECA, and the third party seeks to recover a portion of its payment. Here the basis for the suit against the United States is the Federal Tort Claims Act rather than the Public Vessels Act, but that difference is irrelevant. Congress intended § 8116(c) to apply to suits under both Acts without distinction. See H. R. Rep. No. 729, 81st Cong., 1st Sess., 14 (1949); S. Rep. No. 836, 81st Cong., 1st Sess., 23 (1949). Here Lockheed relies on substantive indemnity law, while the private shipowner in Weyerhaeuser relied on the admiralty divided damages rule, but this is the same irrelevant distinction. The Federal Tort Claims Act permits an indemnity action against the United States “in the same manner and to the same extent” that the action would lie against “a private individual under like circumstances.” 28 U. S. C. §2674; see Stencel Aero Engineering Corp. v. United States, 431 U. S. 666, 669-670 (1977) (citing United States v. Yellow Cab Co., 340 U. S. 543 (1951)). The Public Vessels Act permits an action to recover collision damages on essentially the same terms. To the extent that the basis for the underlying cause of action could make any difference, the indemnity theories on which Lockheed relies are as well established as the divided damages rule was in Weyerhaeuser.
C
The most relevant changes since Weyerhaeuser have been in the LHWCA Amendments of 1972, 86 Stat. 1251. While these changes are illuminating, they do not help the Government’s position. Under the amended LHWCA, an injured longshoreman’s employer is no longer liable to a shipowner for tort damages that the shipowner has paid the employee. See 33 U. S. C. § 905(b). Congress thus overruled the result in Ryan, supra, and abolished the shipowner’s indemnity action. But in so doing, Congress also abolished the injured employee’s seaworthiness remedy against the shipowner — a strict-liability action that the Court had recognized in Seas Shipping Co. v. Sieracki, 328 U. S. 85 (1946). In other words, Congress abolished the third-party indemnity action only in conjunction with a “quid pro quo” to benefit the third parties. Here there has been no FECA amendment to abolish the third-party indemnity action recognized in Weyer-haeuser. The Government nevertheless invites us to abolish the action without the benefit of an amendment. We are requested to do this- even though Congress has provided no “quid pro quo” as it thought appropriate in the LHWCA context. We decline the invitation.
rH 1 — i
The District Court held that Lockheed had a right to indemnity under the governing substantive law, but the Court of Appeals did not rule on that question. Accordingly, we do not consider it. We adhere to the decision in Weyerhaeuser, and hold only that FECA’s exclusive-liability provision, 5 U. S. C. § 8116(c), does not directly bar a third-party indemnity action against the United States. We reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand the case for further consideration consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
The crash occurred during a mission to evacuate over 250 orphans from Vietnam shortly before the fall of Saigon. The incident is discussed in greater detail in Schneider v. Lockheed Aircraft Corp., 212 U. S. App. D. C. 87, 90-91, 658 F. 2d 835, 838-839 (1981) (per curiam), cert. denied, 455 U. S. 994 (1982).
Lockheed also asserted other claims against the United States that are not currently before the Court.
In United Air Lines, Inc. v. Wiener, 335 F. 2d 379, 402-404 (CA9), cert. dism’d sub nom. United Air Lines, Inc. v. United States, 379 U. S. 951 (1964), the court concluded that FECA’s exclusive-liability provision does not bar a third-party indemnification action against the United States. The court held, however, that the Government nevertheless was not liable to the third party. Since there was no underlying tort liability on the Government’s part toward the employee, there was no basis for indemnification.
We note that the decision whether or not to allow third-party indemnity actions is a problem common to all workers’ compensation systems. Professor Larson has described this issue as “[plerhaps the most evenly-balanced controversy in all of workers’ compensation law.” Larson, Third-Party Action Over Against Workers’ Compensation Employer, 1982 Duke L. J. 483, 484.
The FECA exclusive-liability provision was modeled on the analogous provisions of LHWCA and the New York Workmen’s Compensation Law. By 1949 the New York courts already had construed the New York law to permit third-party indemnity actions against the employer. See, e. g., Westchester Lighting Co. v. Westchester County Small Estates Corp., 278 N. Y. 175, 15 N. E. 2d 567 (1938); Gorham v. Arons, 76 N. Y. S. 2d 850 (Sup. Ct. N. Y. Cty. 1947); Clements v. Rockefeller, 189 Misc. 885, 70 N. Y. S. 2d 146 (Sup. Ct. N. Y. Cty. 1947).
Contrary to suggestions in the dissent, post, at 199, 200, 201, there is no indication that the Weyerhaeuser Court balanced FECA’s exclusive-liability provision against the divided damages rule. On the contrary, the holding in Weyerhaeuser relates simply to congressional intent. Whatever Congress might have done, it did not intend FECA’s exclusive-liability provision to override the rights of unrelated third parties — including rights asserted under the Public Vessels Act on the basis of the divided damages rule.
We reject the Government’s suggestion that Weyerhaeuser was wrongly decided. See Brief for United States 22. We note that in the 20 years since Weyerhaeuser was decided, Congress has not modified FECA’s exclusive-liability provision to include third parties. This is particularly significant in view of the 1966 codification of FECA, which included amendments to the new § 8116(c). See Pub. L. 89-554, 80 Stat. 542.
As counsel for Lockheed suggested at oral argument, a guardian ad litem for an employee’s minor dependent could be an “other person” under § 8116(c). Tr. of Oral Arg. 7-8.
The validity of Lockheed’s underlying substantive claim is not before us. The District Court ruled that, as a matter of substantive law, indemnity is available to Lockheed against the United States. The Court of Appeals did not find it necessary to rule on this issue.
Since the validity of the substantive indemnity claim is not before us, the LHWCA cases on which the dissent relies, post, at 200-202, are entirely irrelevant. In Halcyon Lines v. Haenn Ship Ceiling & Refitting Corp., 842 U. S. 282 (1952), decided 4 years before Ryan and 11 years before Weyerhaeuser, the Court merely held that a substantive right of contribution did not exist in the circumstances of that case. The Court explicitly left open the issue whether such a right to contribution, if it were to exist, would be subject to LHWCA’s exclusive-liability provision. 342 U. S., at 286, and n. 12. Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. Erie Lackawanna R. Co., 406 U. S. 340 (1972) (per curiam), is nothing more than a three-sentence reaffirmation of Halcyon.
Stencel Aero Engineering Corp. v. United States, 431 U. S. 666 (1977), which the dissent finds “similar,” post, at 202, also offers no support to the Government’s position on this point. The issue in Stencel, again relating to the underlying substantive claim, was whether the Government’s waiver of sovereign immunity in the Federal Tort Claims Act applied to an indemnity action based on an injury to a serviceman. Relying primarily on the military nature of the action, we held that the doctrine of Feres v. United States, 340 U. S. 135 (1950), precluded the substantive claim without regard to any exclusive-liability provision. It is clear that the Government has waived its sovereign immunity 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. Justice Brennan
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This federal habeas corpus proceeding attacks collaterally a state criminal conviction for the same alleged constitutional errors in the admission of allegedly tainted identification evidence that were before us on direct review of the convictions involved in United States v. Wade, ante, p. 218, and Gilbert v. California, ante, p. 263. This case therefore provides a vehicle for deciding the extent to which the rules announced in Wade and Gilbert— requiring the exclusion of identification evidence which is tainted by exhibiting the accused to identifying witnesses before trial in the absence of his counsel — are to be applied retroactively. See Linkletter v. Walker, 381 U. S. 618; Tehan v. Shott, 382 U. S. 406; Johnson v. New Jersey, 384 U. S. 719. A further question is whether in any event, on the facts of the particular confrontation involved in this case, petitioner was denied due process of law in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. Cf. Davis v. North Carolina, 384 U. S. 737.
Dr. Paul Behrendt was stabbed to death in the kitchen of his home in Garden City, Long Island, about midnight August 23, 1961. Dr. Behrendt’s wife, also a physician, had followed her husband to the kitchen and jumped at the assailant. He knocked her to the floor and stabbed her 11 times. The police found a shirt on the kitchen floor and keys in a pocket which they traced to petitioner. They arrested him on the afternoon of August 24. An arraignment was promptly held but was postponed until petitioner could retain counsel.
Mrs. Behrendt was hospitalized for major surgery to save her life. The police, without affording petitioner time to retain counsel, arranged with her surgeon to permit them to bring petitioner to her hospital room about noon of August 25, the day after the surgery. Petitioner was handcuffed to one of five police officers who, with two members of the staff of the District Attorney, brought him to the hospital room. Petitioner was the only Negro in the room. Mrs. Behrendt identified him from her hospital bed after being asked by an officer whether he "was the man” and after petitioner repeated at the direction of an officer a “few words for voice identification.” None of the witnesses could recall the words that were used. Mrs. Behrendt and the officers testified at the trial to her identification of the petitioner in the hospital room, and she also made an in-court identification of petitioner in the courtroom.
Petitioner was convicted and sentenced to death. The New York Court of Appeals affirmed without opinion. 13 N. Y. 2d 1094, 196 N. E. 2d 65. Petitioner pro se sought federal ^habeas corpus in the District Court for the Southern District of New York. He claimed that among other constitutional rights allegedly denied him at his trial, the admission of Mrs. Behrendt’s identification testimony violated his rights under the Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments because he had been compelled to submit to the hospital room confrontation without the help of counsel and under circumstances which unfairly focused the witness’ attention on him as the man believed by the police to be the guilty person. The District Court dismissed the petition after hearing argument on an unrelated claim of an alleged invalid search and seizure. On appeal to the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit a panel of that court initially reversed the dismissal after reaching the issue of the admissibility of Mrs. Behrendt’s identification evidence and holding it inadmissible on the ground that the hospital room identification violated petitioner’s constitutional right to the assistance of counsel. The Court of Appeals thereafter heard the case en banc, vacated the panel decision, and affirmed the District Court. 355 F. 2d 731. We granted certiorari, 384 U. S. 1000, and set the case for argument with Wade and Gilbert. We hold that Wade and Gilbert affect only those cases and all future cases which involve confrontations for identification purposes conducted in the absence of counsel after this date. The rulings of Wade and Gilbert are therefore inapplicable in the present case. We think also that on the facts of this ease petitioner was not deprived of due process of law in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is, therefore, affirmed.
I.
Our recent discussions of the retroactivity of other constitutional rules of criminal procedure make unnecessary any detailed treatment of that question here. Linkletter v. Walker, supra; Tehan v. Shott, supra; Johnson v. Neto Jersey, supra. “These cases establish the principle that in criminal litigation concerning constitutional claims, ‘the Court may in the interest of justice make the rule prospective . . . where the exigencies of the situation require such an application’. . . .” Johnson, supra, 384 U. S., at 726-727. The criteria guiding resolution of the question implicate (a) the purpose to be served by the new standards, (b) the extent of the reliance by law enforcement authorities on the old standards, and (c) the effect on the administration of justice of a retroactive application of the new standards. “[T'Jhe retroactivity or nonretroactivity of a rule is not automatically determined by the provision of the Constitution on which the dictate is based. Each constitutional rule of criminal procedure has its own distinct functions, its own background of precedent, and its own impact on the administration of justice, and the way in which these factors combine must inevitably vary with the dictate involved.” Johnson, supra, at 728.
Wade and Gilbert fashion exclusionary rules to deter law enforcement authorities from exhibiting an accused to witnesses before trial for identification purposes without notice to and in the absence of counsel. A conviction which rests on a mistaken identification is a gross miscarriage of justice. The Wade and Gilbert rules are aimed at minimizing that possibility by preventing the unfairness at the pretrial confrontation that experience has proved can occur and assuring meaningful examination of the identification witness’ testimony at trial. Does it follow that the rules should be applied retroactively? We do not think so.
It is true that the right to the assistance of counsel has been applied retroactively at stages of the prosecution where denial of the right must almost invariably deny a fair trial, for example, at the trial itself, Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U. S. 335, or at some forms of arraignment, Hamilton v. Alabama, 368 U. S. 52, or on appeal, Douglas v. California, 372 U. S. 353. “The basic purpose of a trial is the determination of truth, and it is self-evident that to deny a lawyer’s help through the technical intricacies of a criminal trial or to deny a full opportunity to appeal a conviction because the accused is poor is to impede that purpose and to infect a criminal proceeding with the clear danger of convicting the innocent.” Tehan v. Shott, supra, at 416. We have also retroactively applied rules of criminal procedure fashioned to correct serious flaws in the fact-finding process at trial. See for example Jackson v. Denno, 378 U. S. 368. Although the Wade and Gilbert rules also are aimed at avoiding unfairness at the trial by enhancing the reliability of the fact-finding process in the area of identification, evidence, “the question whether a constitutional rule of criminal procedure does or does not enhance the reliability of the fact-finding process at trial is necessarily a matter of degree.” Johnson v. New Jersey, supra, at 728-729. The extent to which a condemned practice infects the integrity of the truth-determining process at trial is a “question of probabilities.” 384 U. S., at 729. Such probabilities must in turn be weighed against the prior justified reliance upon the old standard and the impact of retroactivity upon the administration of justice.
We have outlined in Wade the dangers and unfairness inherent in confrontations for identification. The possibility of unfairness at that point is great, both because of the manner in which confrontations are frequently conducted, and because of the likelihood that the accused will often be precluded from reconstructing what occurred and thereby from obtaining a full hearing on the identification issue at trial. The presence of counsel will significantly promote fairness at the confrontation and a full hearing at trial on the issue of identification. We have, therefore, concluded that the confrontation is a “critical stage,” and that counsel is required at all confrontations. It must be recognized, however, that, unlike cases in which counsel is absent at trial or on appeal, it may confidently be assumed that confrontations for identification can be and often have been conducted in the absence of counsel with scrupulous fairness and without prejudice to the accused at trial. Therefore, while we feel that the exclusionary rules set forth in Wade and Gilbert are justified by the need to assure the integrity and reliability of our system of justice, they undoubtedly will affect cases in which no unfairness will be present. Of course, we should also assume there have been injustices in the past which could have been averted by having counsel present at the confrontation for identification, just as there are injustices when counsel is absent at trial. But the certainty and frequency with which we can say in the confrontation cases that no injustice occurred differs greatly enough from the cases involving absence of counsel at trial or on appeal to justify treating the situations as different in kind for the purpose of retroactive application, especially in light of the strong countervailing interests outlined below, and because it remains open to all persons to allege and prove, as Stovall attempts to do in this case, that the confrontation resulted in such unfairness that it infringed his right to due process of law. See Palmer v. Peyton, 359 F. 2d 199 (C. A. 4th Cir. 1966).
The unusual force of the countervailing considerations strengthens our conclusion in favor of prospective application. The law enforcement officials of the Federal Government and of all 50 States have heretofore proceeded on the premise that the Constitution did not require the presence of counsel at pretrial confrontations for identification. Today’s rulings were not foreshadowed in our cases; no court announced such a requirement until Wade was decided by the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, 358 F. 2d 557. The overwhelming majority of American courts have always treated the evidence question not as one of admissibility but as one of credibility for the jury. Wall, Eye-Witness Identification in Criminal Cases 38. Law enforcement authorities fairly relied on this virtually unanimous weight of authority, now no longer valid, in conducting pretrial confrontations in the absence of counsel. It is, therefore, very clear that retroactive application of Wade and Gilbert “would seriously disrupt the administration of our criminal laws.” Johnson v. New Jersey, supra, at 731. In Tehan v. Shott, supra, we thought it persuasive against retroactive application of the no-comment rule of Griffin v. California, 380 U. S. 609, that such application would have a serious impact on the six States that allowed comment on an accused’s failure to take the stand. We said, “To require all of those States now to void the conviction of every person who did not testify at his trial would have an impact upon the administration of their criminal law so devastating as to need no elaboration.” 382 U. S., at 419. That impact is insignificant compared to the impact to be expected from retroactivity of the Wade and Gilbert rules. At the very least, the processing of current criminal calendars would be disrupted while hearings were conducted to determine taint, if any, in identification evidence, and whether in any event the admission of the evidence was harmless error. Doubtless, too, inquiry would be handicapped by the unavailability of witnesses and dim memories. We conclude, therefore, that the Wade and Gilbert rules should not be made retroactive.
We also conclude that, for these purposes, no distinction is justified between convictions now final, as in the instant case, and convictions at various stages of trial and direct review. We regard the factors of reliance and burden on the administration of justice as entitled to such overriding significance as to make that distinction unsupportable. We recognize that Wade and Gilbert are, therefore, the only victims of pretrial confrontations in the absence of their counsel to have the benefit of the rules established in their cases. That they must be given that benefit is, however, an unavoidable consequence of the necessity that constitutional adjudications not stand as mere dictum. Sound policies of decision-making, rooted in the command of Article III of the Constitution that we resolve issues solely in concrete cases or controversies, and in the possible effect upon the incentive of counsel to advance contentions requiring a change in the law, militate against denying Wade and Gilbert the benefit of today’s decisions. Inequity arguably results from according the benefit of a new rule to the parties in the case in which it is announced but not to other litigants similarly situated in the trial or appellate process who have raised the same issue. But we regard the fact that the parties involved are chance beneficiaries as an insignificant cost for adherence to sound principles of decision-making.
II.
We turn now to the question whether petitioner, although not entitled to the application of Wade and Gilbert to his case, is entitled to relief on his claim that in any event the confrontation conducted in this case was so unnecessarily suggestive and conducive to irreparable mistaken identification that he was denied due process of law. This is a recognized ground of attack upon a conviction independent of any right to counsel claim. Palmer v. Peyton, 369 F. 2d 199 (C. A. 4th Cir. 1966). The practice of showing suspects singly to persons for the purpose of identification, and not as part of a lineup, has been widely condemned. However, a claimed violation of due process of law in the conduct of a confrontation depends on the totality of the circumstances surrounding it, and the record in the present case reveals that the showing of Stovall to Mrs. Behrendt in an immediate hospital confrontation was imperative. The Court of Appeals, en banc, stated, 355 F. 2d, at 735,
“Here was the only person in the world who could possibly exonerate Stovall. Her words, and only her words, ‘He is not the man’ could have resulted in freedom for Stovall. The hospital was not far distant from the courthouse and jail. No one knew how long Mrs. Behrendt might live. Faced with the responsibility of identifying the attacker, with the need for immediate action and with the knowledge that Mrs. Behrendt could not visit the jail, the police followed the only feasible procedure and took Stovall to the hospital room. Under these circumstances, the usual police station line-up, which Stovall now argues he should have had, was out of the question.”
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
Mr. Justice Douglas is of the view that the deprivation of the right to counsel in the setting of this case should be given retroactive effect as it was in Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U. S. 335, and in Douglas v. California, 372 U. S. 353. And see Linkletter v. Walker, 381 U. S. 618, 640 (dissenting opinion); Johnson v. New Jersey, 384 U. S. 719, 736 (dissenting opinion).
MR. Justice Fortas would reverse and remand for a new trial on the ground that the State’s reference at trial to the improper hospital identification violated petitioner’s Fourteenth Amendment rights and was prejudicial. He would not reach the question of retroactivity of. Wade and Gilbert.
Mr. Justice White,
whom Mr. Justice Harlan and Mr. Justice Stewart join.
For the reasons stated in my separate opinion in United States v. Wade, ante, p. 250, I perceive no constitutional error in the identification procedure to which the petitioner was subjected. I concur in the result and in that portion of the Court’s opinion which limits application of the new Sixth Amendment rule.
Although respondent did not raise the bar of retroactivity, the Attorney General of the State of New York, as amicus curiae, extensively briefed the issue of retroactivity and petitioner, in his reply brief, addressed himself to this question. Compare Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U. S. 643, 646, n. 3.
Schaefer, The Control of “Sunbursts”: Techniques of Prospective Overruling, 22 Record of N. Y. C. B. A. 394, 408-411 (1967).
Note, Prospective Overruling and Retroactive Application in the Federal Courts, 71 Yale L. J. 907, 930-933 (1962).
See Mishkin, Foreword, The Supreme Court 1964 Term, 79 Harv. L. Rev. 56, 60-61 (1965).
See Mishkin, n. 4, supra, at 61, n. 23; Bender, The Retroactive Effect of an Overruling Constitutional Decision: Mapp v. Ohio, 110 U. Pa. L. Rev. 650, 675-678 (1962); Schwartz, Retro-activity, Reliability, and Due Process: A Reply to Professor Mishkin, 33 U. Chi. L. Rev. 719, 764 (1966).
See Wall, Eye-Witness Identification in Criminal Cases 26-40; Paul, Identification of Accused Persons, 12 Austl. L. J. 42, 44 (1938); Williams & Hammelmann, Identification Parades, Part I, [1963] Crim. L. Rev. 479, 480-481; Frankfurter, The Case of Sacco and Vanzetti 31-32.
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 Jackson
announced the judgment of the Court and an opinion in which The Chief Justice, Mr. Justice Reed and Mr. Justice Minton join.
This case involves constitutional questions growing out of methods employed to convict petitioner on charges of horse-race bookmaking and related offenses against the antigambling laws of California. Petitioner exhausted all avenues to relief under state procedures and then sought review here of duly raised federal issues.
We granted certiorari on a petition which tendered four questions. However, petitioner’s counsel has now presented two additional questions, one concerning the application of an immunity statute of California and another attacking certain instructions given to the jury by the trial court. Neither of these was mentioned in the petition. We disapprove the practice of smuggling additional questions into a case after we grant certiorari. The issues here are fixed by the petition unless we limit the grant, as frequently we do to avoid settled, frivolous or state law questions. We do not take up the questions numbered 3 and' 6 of petitioner’s brief because they are improperly presented.
Upon his arrest, petitioner had on his person a federal wagering tax stamp bearing his name, home address and the date, November 5, 1951. Against objection, it and other documentary evidence from the office of the United States Collector of Internal Revenue was received to show petitioner’s application for the wagering tax stamp and his return to the Collector under the federal law. These documents were made pursuant to the Federal Act imposing wagering taxes, 65 Stat. 529, 26 U. S. C. (Supp. V) § 3285 et seq., held constitutional by this Court in United States v. Kahriger, 345 U. S. 22. The claim is made that it was error as a matter of federal law to admit this evidence and also that payment of the federal tax resulted in a federal license to conduct the wagering business. This statute does not make such records or stamps confidential or privileged but, on the contrary, expressly requires the name and place of business of each such taxpayer to be made public. 53 Stat. 395, 26 U. S. C. § 3275. Petitioner’s contentions are without substance or merit in view of the express provision of the statute that payment of the tax does not exempt any person from penalty or punishment by state law and does not authorize commencement or continuance of such business. 53 Stat. 395, 26 U. S. C. § 3276; 65 Stat. 531, 26 U. S. C. (Supp. V) § 3292.
But the questions raised by the officers’ conduct while investigating this case are serious. The police strongly suspected petitioner of illegal bookmaking but were without proof of it. On December 1, 1951, while Irvine and his wife were absent from their home, an officer arranged to have a locksmith go there and make a door key. Two days later, again in the absence of occupants, officers and a technician made entry into the home by the use of this key and installed a concealed microphone in the hall. A hole was bored in the roof of the house and wires were strung to transmit to a neighboring garage whatever sounds the microphone might pick up. Officers were posted in the garage to listen. On December 8, police again made surreptitious entry and moved the microphone, this time hiding it in the bedroom. Twenty days later, they again entered and placed the microphone in a closet, where the device remained until its purpose of enabling the officers to overhear incriminating statements was accomplished.
We should note that this is not a conventional instance of “wire tapping.” Here the apparatus of the officers was not in any way connected with the telephone facilities, there was no interference with the communications system, there was no interception of any message. All that was heard through the microphone was what an eavesdropper, hidden in the hall, the bedroom, or the closet, might have heard. We do not suppose it is illegal to testify to what another person is heard to say merely because he is saying it into a telephone. We cannot sustain the contention that the conduct or reception of the evidence violated the Federal Communications Act. 48 Stat. 1103, 47 U. S. C. § 605. Cf. Nardone v. United States, 308 U. S. 338; Goldman v. United States, 316 U. S. 129; Schwartz v. Texas, 344 U. S. 199.
At the trial, officers were allowed to testify to conversations heard through their listening installations. The snatches of conversation which the prosecution thought useful were received in evidence. They were in the lingo of the race track and need not be recited, but the jury might well have regarded them as incriminating. The testimony was received under objection, properly raising the question that it was constitutionally inadmissible since obtained by methods which violate the Fourteenth Amendment.
Each of these repeated entries of petitioner’s home without a search warrant or other process was a trespass, and probably a burglary, for which any unofficial person should be, and probably would be, severely punished. Science has perfected amplifying and recording devices to become frightening instruments of surveillance and invasion of privacy, whether by the policeman, the blackmailer, or the busybody. That officers of the law would break and enter a home, secrete such a device, even in a bedroom, and listen to the conversation of the occupants for over a month would be almost incredible if it were not admitted. Few police measures have come to our attention that more flagrantly, deliberately, and persistently violated the fundamental principle declared by the Fourth Amendment as a restriction on the Federal Government that “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” The decision in Wolf v. Colorado, 338 U. S. 25, 27, for the first time established that “[t]he security of one’s privacy against arbitrary intrusion by the police” is embodied in the concept of due process found in the Fourteenth Amendment.
But Wolf, for reasons set forth therein, declined to make the subsidiary procedural and evidentiary doctrines developed by the federal courts limitations on the states. On the contrary, it declared, “We hold, therefore, that in a prosecution in a State court for a State crime the Fourteenth Amendment does not forbid the admission of evidence obtained by an unreasonable search and seizure.” 338 U. S. 25, 33. See Stefanelli v. Minard, 342 U. S. 117, 119, 122. That holding would seem to control here.
An effort is made, however, to bring this case under the sway of Rochin v. California, 342 U. S. 165. That case involved, among other things, an illegal search of the defendant’s person. But it also presented an element totally lacking here — coercion (as the Court noted, p. 173), applied by a physical assault upon his person to compel submission to the use of a stomach pump. This was the feature which led to a result in Rochin contrary to that in Wolf. Although Rochin raised the search-and-seizure question, this Court studiously avoided it and never once mentioned the Wolf case. Obviously, it thought that illegal search and seizure alone did not call for reversal. However obnoxious are the facts in the case before us, they do not involve coercion, violence or brutality to the person, but rather a trespass to property, plus eavesdropping.
It is suggested, however, that although we affirmed the conviction in Wolf, we should reverse here because this invasion of privacy is more shocking, more offensive, than the one involved there. The opinions in Wolf were written entirely in the abstract and did not disclose the details of the constitutional violation. Actually, the search was offensive to the law in the same respect, if not the same degree, as here. A deputy sheriff and others went to a doctor’s office without a warrant and seized his appointment book, searched through it to learn the names of all his patients, looked up and interrogated certain of them, and filed an information against the doctor on the information that the District Attorney had obtained from the books. The books also were introduced in evidence against the doctor at his trial.
We are urged to make inroads upon Wolf by holding that it applies only to searches and seizures which produce on our minds a mild shock, while if the shock is more serious, the states must exclude the evidence or we will reverse the conviction. We think that the Wolf decision should not be overruled, for the reasons so persuasively stated therein. We think, too, that a distinction of the kind urged would leave the rule so indefinite that no state court could know what it should rule in order to keep its processes on solid constitutional ground.
Even as to the substantive rule governing federal searches in violation of the Fourth Amendment, both the Court and individual Justices have wavered considerably. Compare Harris v. United States, 331 U. S. 145; Trupiano v. United States, 334 U. S. 699; United States v. Rabinowitz, 339 U. S. 56; Brinegar v. United States, 338 U. S. 160; Goldman v. United States, 316 U. S. 129; On Lee v. United States, 343 U. S. 747. Never until June of 1949 did this Court hold the basic search-and-seizure prohibition in any way applicable to the states under the Fourteenth Amendment. At that time, as we pointed out, thirty-one states were not following the federal rule excluding illegally obtained evidence, while sixteen were in agreement with it. Now that the Wolf doctrine is known to them, state courts may wish further to reconsider their evidentiary rules. But to upset state convictions even before the states have had adequate opportunity to adopt or reject the rule would be an unwarranted use of federal power. The chief burden of administering criminal justice rests upon state courts. To impose upon them the hazard of federal reversal for noncompliance with standards as to which this Court and its members have been so inconstant and inconsistent would not be justified. We adhere to Wolf as stating the law of search-and-seizure cases and decline to introduce vague and subjective distinctions.
Whether to exclude illegally obtained evidence in federal trials is left largely to our discretion, for admissibility of evidence is governed “by the principles of the common law as they may be interpreted by the courts of the United States in the light of reason and experience.” Fed. Rules Crim. Proc., 26. As we have pointed out, reason has led state courts to differing conclusions, but about two-thirds of them to acceptance of the illegally obtained evidence. What actual experience teaches we really do not know. Our cases evidence the fact that the federal rule of exclusion and our reversal of conviction for its violation are not sanctions which put an end to illegal search and seizure by federal officers. The rule was announced in 1914 in Weeks v. United States, 232 U. S. 383. The extent to which the practice was curtailed, if at all, is doubtful. The lower federal courts, and even this Court, have repeatedly been constrained to enforce the rule after its violation. There is no reliable evidence known to us that inhabitants of those states which exclude the evidence suffer less from lawless searches and seizures than those of states that admit it. Even this Court has not seen fit to exclude illegally seized evidence in federal cases unless a federal officer perpretrated the wrong. Private detectives may use methods to obtain evidence not open to officers of the law. Burdeau v. McDowell, 256 U. S. 465; see McGuire v. United States, 273 U. S. 95, 99; cf. Feldman v. United States, 322 U. S. 487; Lustig v. United States, 338 U. S. 74. And the lower federal courts, treating the Fourth Amendment right as personal to the one asserting it, have held that he who objects must claim some proprietary or possessory interest in that which was unlawfully searched or seized. E. g., Connolly v. Medalie, 58 F. 2d 629; Steeber v. United States, 198 E. 2d 615, 617. See Goldstein v. United States, 316 U. S. 114, 121; Wolf v. Colorado, supra, at 30-31. Cf. United States v. Jeffers, 342 U. S. 48.
It must be remembered that petitioner is not invoking the Constitution to prevent or punish a violation of his federal right recognized in Wolf or to recover reparations for the violation. He is invoking it only to set aside his own conviction of crime. That the rule of exclusion and reversal results in the escape of guilty persons is more capable of demonstration than that it deters invasions of right by the police. The case is made, so far as the police are concerned, when they announce that they have arrested their man. Rejection of the evidence does nothing to punish the wrong-doing official, while it may, and likely will, release the wrong-doing defendant. It deprives society of its remedy against one lawbreaker because he has been pursued by another. It protects one against whom incriminating evidence is discovered, but does nothing to protect innocent persons who are the victims of illegal but fruitless searches. The disciplinary or educational effect of the court’s releasing the defendant for police misbehavior is so indirect as to be no more than a mild deterrent at best. Some discretion is still left to the states in criminal cases, for which they are largely responsible, and we think it is for them to determine which rule best serves them.
But admission of the evidence does not exonerate the officers and their aides if they have violated defendant’s constitutional rights. It was pointed out in Wolf v. Colorado, supra, that other remedies are available for official lawlessness, although too often those remedies are of no practical avail. The difficulty with them is in part due to the failure of interested parties to inform of the offense. No matter what an illegal raid turns up, police are unlikely to inform on themselves or each other. If it turns up nothing incriminating, the innocent victim usually does not care to take steps which will air the fact that he has been under suspicion. And the prospect that the guilty may capitalize on the official wrongdoing in his defense, or to obtain reversal from a higher court, removes any motive he might have to inform.
It appears to the writer, in which view he is supported by The Chief Justice, that there is no lack of remedy if an unconstitutional wrong has been done in this instance without upsetting a justifiable conviction of this common gambler. If the officials have willfully deprived a citizen of the United States of a right or privilege secured to him by the Fourteenth Amendment, that being the right to be secure in his home against unreasonable searches, as defined in Wolf v. Colorado, supra, their conduct may constitute a federal crime under 62 Stat. 696, 18 U. S. C. (Supp. III) § 242. This section provides that whoever, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation or custom, willfully subjects any inhabitant of any state to the deprivation of any rights, privileges or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution of the United States shall be fined or imprisoned. See Williams v. United States, 341 U. S. 97; Screws v. United States, 325 U. S. 91. It does not appear that the statute of limitations yet bars prosecutions. 45 Stat. 51, 18 U. S. C. § 582. We believe the Clerk of this Court should be directed to forward a copy of the record in this ease, together with a copy of this opinion, for attention of the Attorney General of the United States. However, Mr. Justice Reed and Mr. Justice Minton do not join in this paragraph.
Judgment affirmed.
Keeping premises with paraphernalia for the purpose of recording and registering bets on horse racing, receiving money and the equivalent thereof which had been or was to be wagered on horse races, and recording and registering bets on horse races.
Deering’s Cal. Penal Code, 1949, §§ 337a (1), (2), (3), and (4).
345 U. S. 903.
Petitioner’s question number 2, which challenges the State’s use of “compelled evidence” obtained under the federal wagering statute, is answered in United States v. Kahriger, supra, at 32.
E. g., Silverthorne Lumber Co. v. United States, 251 U. S. 385; Gouled v. United States, 255 U. S. 298; Amos v. United States, 255 U. S. 313; Agnello v. United States, 269 U. S. 20; Byars v. United States, 273 U. S. 28; Gambino v. United States, 275 U. S. 310; Go-Bart Importing Co. v. United States, 282 U. S. 344; United States v. Lefkowitz, 285 U. S. 452; Taylor v. United States, 286 U. S. 1; Grau v. United States, 287 U. S. 124; Nathanson v. United States, 290 U. S. 41; United States v. Di Re, 332 U. S. 581; Johnson v. United States, 333 U. S. 10; Trupiano v. United States, 334 U. S. 699; McDonald v. United States, 335 U. S. 451; Lustig v. United States, 338 U. S. 74; United States v. Jeffers, 342 U. S. 48. The Court has also cited the doctrine with approval in many related cases. E. g., Perlman v. United States, 247 U. S. 7; Burdeau v. McDowell, 256 U. S. 465; Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132; McGuire v. United States, 273 U. S. 95; Marron v. United States, 275 U. S. 192; Olmstead v. United States, 277 U. S. 438; Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U. S. 319; Goldstein v. United States, 316 U. S. 114; McNabb v. United States, 318 U. S. 332; Feldman v. United States, 322 U. S. 487; Davis v. United States, 328 U. S. 582; Zap v. United States, 328 U. S. 624; Harris v. United States, 331 U. S. 145; United States v. Wallace & Tiernan Co,, 336 U. S. 793; United States v. Rabinowitz, 339 U. S. 56; On Lee v. United States, 343 U. S. 747. See Appendix to dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice Frankfurter in Harris v. United States, supra, at 175.
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 Souter
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Under § 172(b)(l)(I) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954, a taxpayer may carry bach its “product liability loss” up to 10 years in order to offset prior years’ income. The issue here is the method for calculating the product liability loss of an affiliated group of corporations electing to file a consolidated federal income tax return. We hold that the group’s product liability loss must be figured on a consolidated basis in the first instance, and not by aggregating product liability losses separately determined company by company.
I
A “net operating loss” results from deductions in excess of gross income for a given year. 26 U. S. C. § 172(e). Under § 172(b)(1)(A), a taxpayer may carry its net operating loss either backward to past tax years or forward to Mure tax years in order to “set off its lean years against its lush years, and to strike something like an average taxable income computed over a period longer than one year,” Libson Shops, Inc. v. Koehler, 353 U.S. 382, 386 (1957).
Although the normal carryback period was at the time three years, in 1978, Congress authorized a special 10-year carryback for “product liability loss[es],” 26 U. S. C. § 172(b)(l)(I), since, it understood, losses of this sort tend to be particularly “large and sporadic.” Joint Committee on Taxation, General Explanation of the Revenue Act of 1978,95th Cong., 232 (Comm. Print 1979). The Code defines “product liability loss,” for a given tax year, as the lesser of (1) the taxpayer’s “net operating loss for such year” and (2) its allowable deductions attributable to product liability “expenses.” 26 U. S. C. § 172(j)(l). In other words, a taxpayer’s product liability loss (PLL) is the total of its product liability expenses (PLEs), limited to the amount of its net operating loss (NOL). By definition, then, a taxpayer with positive annual income, and thus no NOL, may have PLEs but can have no PLL.
Instead of requiring each member company of “[a]n affiliated group of corporations” to file a separate tax return, the Code permits the group to file a single consolidated return, 26 U. S. C. § 1501, and leaves it to the Secretary of the Treasury to work out the details by promulgating regulations governing such returns, § 1502. Under Treas. Regs. §§ 1.1502-ll(a) and 1.1502 — 21(f), an affiliated group’s “consolidated taxable income” (CTI), or, alternatively, its “consolidated net operating loss” (CNOL), is determined by “taking into account” several items. The first is the “separate taxable income” (STI) of each group member. A member’s STI (whether positive or negative) is computed as though the member were a separate corporation (i e., by netting income and expenses), but subject to several important “modifications.” Treas. Reg. §1.1502-12. These modifications require a group member calculating its STI to disregard, among other items, its capital gains and losses, charitable-contribution deductions, and dividends-reeeived deductions. Ibid. These excluded items are accounted for on a consolidated basis, that is, they are combined at the level of the group filing the single return, where deductions otherwise attributable to one member (say, for a charitable contribution) can offset income received by another (from a capital gain, for example). Treas. Regs. §§ 1.1502-ll(a)(3) to (8); 1.1502-21(f)(2) to (6). A consolidated group’s CTI or CNOL, therefore, is the sum of each member’s STI, plus or minus a handful of items considered on a consolidated basis.
II
Petitioner United Dominion’s predecessor in interest, AMGA International Corporation, was the parent of an affiliated group of corporations that properly elected to file consolidated tax returns for the years 1983 through 1986. In each of these years, AMCA reported CNOL (the lowest being $85 million and the highest, $140 million) that exceeded the aggregate of its 26 individual members’ PLEs ($3.5 million to $6.5 million). This case focuses on the PLEs of five of AMCA’s member companies, which, together, generated roughly $205,000 in PLEs in 1983, $1.6 million in 1984, $1.3 million in 1985, and $250,000 in 1986. No one disputes these amounts or their characterization as PLEs. See 208 F. 3d 452,453 (CA4 2000) (“The parties agree” with respect to the amount of “the product liability expenses incurred by the five group members in the relevant years”). Rather, the sole question here is whether the AMCA affiliated group may include these amounts on its consolidated return, in determining its PLL for 10-year carryback. The question arises because of the further undisputed fact that in each of the relevant tax years, each of the five companies in question (with minor exceptions not relevant here), reported a positive STI.
AMCA answered this question by following what commentators have called a “single-entity” approach to calculating its “consolidated” PLL. For each tax year, AMCA (1) calculated its CNOL pursuant to Treas. Reg. § 1.1502-11(a), and (2) aggregated its individual members’ PLEs. Because, as noted above, for each tax year AMCA’s CNOL was greater than the sum of its members’ PLEs, AMCA treated the full amount of the PLEs as consolidated PLL eligible for 10-year carryback. In AMCA’s view, the fact that several member companies throwing off large PLEs also, when considered separately, generated positive taxable income was of no significance.
From the Government’s perspective, however, the fact that the several affiliated members with PLEs also generated positive separate taxable income is of critical significance. According to the Government’s methodology, which we will call the “separate-member” approach, PLEs incurred by an affiliate with positive separate taxable income cannot contribute to a PLL eligible for 10-year carryback. Whereas AMCA compares the group’s total income (or loss) and total PLEs in an effort to determine the group’s total PLL, the Government compares each affiliate’s STI and PLEs in order to determine whether each affiliate suffers a PLL, and only then combines any PLLs of the individual affiliates to determine a consolidated PLL amount.
In 1986 and 1987, AMCA petitioned the Internal Revenue Service for refunds of taxes based on its PLL calculations. The IRS first ruled in AMCA’s favor but was reversed by the Joint Committee on Internal Revenue Taxation of the United States Congress, which controls refunds exceeding a certain threshold, 26 U. S. C. § 6405(a). AMCA then filed this refund action in the United States District Court for the Western District of North Carolina. The District Court agreed with AMCA that an affiliated group’s PLL is determined on a single-entity basis, and held that, so long as the group’s consolidated return reflects CNOL in excess of the group’s aggregate PLEs, the total of those expenses (including those incurred by members with positive separate taxable income) is a PLL that “may be carried back the full ten years.” No. 8:9S-CV-341-MU (June 19, 1998), App. to Pet. for Cert. 39a. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit reversed, and held that “determining ‘product liability loss’ separately for each group member is correct and consistent with [Treasury] regulations.” 208 F. 3d, at 458.
Because the Fourth Circuit’s separate-member approach to calculating PLL conflicted with the Sixth Circuit’s adoption of the single-entity approach in Intermet Corf. v. Com missioner, 209 F. 3d 901 (2000), we granted certiorari, 531 U. S. 1009 (2000). We now reverse.
III
The ease for the single-entity approach to calculating an affiliated group’s PLL is straightforward. Section 172(j)(l) defines a taxpayer’s “product liability loss” for a given tax year as the lesser of its “net operating loss for such year” and its product liability “expenses.” In order to apply this definition, the taxpayer first determines whether it has taxable income or NOL, and in making that calculation it subtracts PLEs. If the result is NOL, the taxpayer then makes a simple comparison between the NOL figure and the total PLEs. The PLE total becomes the PLL to the extent it does not exceed NOL. That is, until NOL has been determined, there is no PLL.
The first step in applying the definition and methodology of PLL to a taxpayer filing a consolidated return thus requires the calculation of NOL. As United Dominion correctly points out, the Code and regulations governing affiliated groups of corporations filing consolidated returns provide only one definition of NOL: “consolidated” NOL, see Treas. Reg. § 1.1502-21(f). There is no definition of separate NOL for a member of an affiliated group. Indeed, the fact that Treasury Regulations do provide a measure of separate NOL in a different context, for an affiliated corporation as to any year in which it filed a separate return, infra, at 832-834, underscores the absence of such a measure for an affiliated corporation filing as a group member. Given this apparently exclusive definition of NOL as CNOL in the instance of affiliated entities with a consolidated return (and for reasons developed below, infra, at 884-838) we think it is fair to say, as United Dominion says, that the concept of separate NOL “simply does not exist.” Brief for Petitioner 15. The exclusiveness of NOL at the consolidated level as CNOL is important here for the following reasons. The Code’s authorization of consolidated group treatment contains no indication that for a consolidated group the essential relationship between NOL and PLL will differ from their relationship for a conventional corporate taxpayer. Nor does any Treasury Regulation purport to change the relationship in the cpnsolidated context. If, then, the relationship is to remain essentially the same, the key to understanding it lies in the regulations’ definition of net operating loss exclusively at the consolidated level. Working back from that, PLEs should be considered first in calculating CNOL, and they are: because any PLE of an affiliate affects the calculation of its STI, that same PLE necessarily affects the CTI or CNOL in exactly the same way, dollar for dollar. And because, by definition, there is no NOL measure for a consolidated return group or any affiliate except CNOL, PLEs cannot be compared with any NOL to produce PLL until CNOL has been calculated. Then, and only then in the case of the consolidated filer, can total PLEs be compared •with a net operating loss. In sum, comparable treatment of PLL in the instances of the usual corporate taxpayer and group filing a consolidated return can be achieved only if the comparison of PLEs with a limiting loss amount occurs at the consolidated level after CNOL has been determined. This approach resting on comparable treatment has a further virtue entitled to some weight in case of doubt: it is (relatively) easy to understand and to apply.
The case for the separate-member approach, advanced (in one variant) by the Government and adopted (on a different rationale) by the Court of Appeals, is not so easily made. In the analysis of comparable treatment just set out, of course, there is no NOL below the consolidated level and hence nothing for comparison with PLEs to produce PLL at any stage before the CNOL calculation. At the least, then, a proponent of the separate-member approach must identify some figure in the consolidated return scheme that could have a plausible analogy to NOL at the level of the affiliated corporations. See A. Dubroff, J. Blanchard, J. Broadbent, & K Duvall, Federal Income Taxation of Corporations Filing Consolidated Returns §41.04[06], p. 41-75 (2d ed. 2000) (hereinafter Dubroff) (“Even if separate entity treatment was appropriate, it is unclear how a member with [PLEs] would compute its separate NOL”). The Government and the Court of Appeals have suggested different substitute measures. Neither one works.
The Government has argued that an individual group member’s STI, as determined under Treas. Reg. § 1.1502-12, is analogous to a “separate” NOL, so that an affiliate’s STI may be compared with its PLEs in order to determine any separate PLL. An individual member’s PLL would be the amount of its separate PLEs up to the amount of its negative STI; a member having positive STI could have no PLL.
The Government claims that an STI-based comparison places the group member closest to the position it would have occupied if it had filed a separate return. But that is simply not so. We have seen already that the calculation of a group member's STI by definition excludes several items that an individual taxpayer would normally account for in computing income or loss, but which an affiliated group may tally only at the consolidated level, such as capital gains and losses, charitable-contribution deductions, and dividends-received deductions. Treas. Regs. §§ 1.1502-12(j) to (n). Owing to these exclusions, an affiliate’s STI will tend to be inflated by eliminating deductions it would have taken if it had filed separately, or deflated by eliminating an income item like capital gain.
When pushed, the Government concedes that STI is “not necessarily equivalent to the income or [NOL] figure that the corporation would have computed if it had filed a separate return.” Brief for United States 21, n. 14. But, the Government claims, “[t]here has never been a taxpayer with [PLEs] who had a positive [STI] but a negative separate [NOL].” Tr. of Oral Arg. 27. In other words, the Government says that the deductions excluded from STI have never once made a difference and, therefore, that STI is, in fact, a decent enough proxy for a group member’s “separate” NOL. But whether or not the excluded items have made a difference in the past, or make a difference here, they certainly could make a difference and, given the potential importance of some of the deductions involved (a large charitable contribution, for example), it is not hard to see how the difference could favor the Government.
The Court of Appeals was therefore right to reject the Government’s reliance on STI as a functional surrogate for an affiliate’s “separate” NOL. 208 F. 3d, at 459-460. But what the Court of Appeals used in place of STI fares no better. The court relied on Treas. Reg. § 1.1502-79, which contains a definition of “separate net operating loss” that the court believed to be “analogous to an individual’s ‘net operating loss’ on a separate return.” 208 F. 3d, at 460. Section 1.1502-79(a)(3) provides that, “[f]or purposes of this subparagraph,” the “separate net operating loss of a member of the group shall be determined under §1.1502-12 . . . , adjusted for the . . . items taken into account in the computation of” the CNOL. As the Court of Appeals said, the directive of § 1.1502-79(a)(3) (unlike the definition of STI) “takes into account, for example, [a] member’s charitable contributions” and other consolidated deductions. 208 P. 3d, at 460-461.
But this sounds too good. It is true that, insofar as § 1.1502-79(a)(3) accounts for gains and losses that STI does not, it gets closer to a commonsense notion of a group member’s “separate” NOL than STI does. But the fact that § 1.1502-79(a)(3) improves on STI simply by undoing what §1.1502-12 requires in defining STI is suspicious, and the suspicion turns out to be justified. Section 1.1502-79(a)(3) unbakes the cake for only one reason, and that reason has no application here. The definition on which the Court of Appeals relied applies, by its terms, only “for purposes of” § 1.1502-79(a)(3), and context makes clear that the purpose is to provide a way to allocate CNOL to an affiliate member that seeks to carry back a loss to a “separate return year,” that is, to a year in which the member was not part of the consolidated group. See Treas. Reg. §1.1502-79 (titled “Separate return years”); § 1.1502-79(a) (titled “Carryover and carryback of [CNOL] to separate return years”); § 1.1502-79(a)(l) (“[i]f a [CNOL] can be carried... to a separate return year . . .”). No separate return years are at issue before us; all NOL carrybacks relevant here apply to years in which the five corporations were affiliated in the group. The Court of Appeals thus applied concepts addressing separate return years to a determination for a consolidated return year, without any statutory or regulatory basis for doing so. Cf. 49 Fed. Reg.. 30530 (1984) (“[AJlthough the consolidated net operating loss is apportioned to individual members for purposes of carry backs to separate return years [under § 1.1502-79(a)], the apportioned amounts are not separate NOLs of each member”). Hence, while § 1.1502-79 might not distort an affiliate’s separate NOL in the same way that STI does, the facial inapplicability of that regulation only underscores the exclusive concern of § 1.1502-ll(a) with consolidated NOL.
In sum, neither method for computing PLL on a separate-member basis squares with the notion of comparability as applied to consolidated return regulations. On the contrary, by expressly and exclusively defining NOL as CNOL, the regulations support the position that group members’ PLEs should be aggregated and the affiliated group’s PLL determined on a consolidated, single-entity basis.
IV
Several objections have been raised to a single-entity approach to calculating PLL that we have not considered yet. First, the Government insists that a single-entity rule allows affiliated groups a “double deduction.” . The Government argues that because PLEs are not included among the specific items (charitable-contribution deductions, etc.) for which consolidated, single-entity treatment is required under Treas. Reg. § 1.1502-12, PLEs are “consumed” or “used up” in computing members’ STIs, which, pursuant to Treas. Regs. §§ 1.1502-ll(a) and 1.15Q2-21(f), are then used to calculate the group’s CTI or CNOL. According to the Government, to permit the use of PLEs first to reduce an individual member’s STI and then to contribute to an aggregate PLL for carryback purposes would be tantamount to a double deduction.
The double-deduction argument may have superficial appeal, but any appeal it has rests on a fundamental misconception of the function of STI in computing an affiliated group’s tax liability. Calculation of a group member’s STI is not in and of itself the basis for any tax event, and there is no separate tax saving when STI is calculated; that occurs only when deductions on the consolidated return equal income and (if they exceed income and produce a CNOL) are carried back against prior income. STI is merely an accounting construct devised as an interim step in computing a group’s CTI or CNOL; it “has no other purpose.” Inter-met, 209 F. 3d, at 906 (“A member’s STI is simply a step along the way to calculating the group’s taxable income or CNOL”). The fact that a group member’s PLEs reduce its STI, which in turn either reduces the group’s CTI or contributes to its CNOL “dollar for dollar,” ibid., is of no other moment. If there were anything wrong in what United Dominion proposes to do, it would be wrong in relation to CNOL and its use for any carryback. Yet, as noted above, no one here disputes that the group members had PLEs in the total amount claimed or that the AMCA group is entitled to carry back the full amount of its CNOL to offset income in prior years. The only question is what portion, if any, of AMCA’s CNOL is PLL and, as such, eligible for 10-year, as opposed to 3-year, carryback treatment. There is no more of a double deduction with a 10-year carryback than one for three years.
A second objection was the reason that the Court of Appeals rejected the single-entity approach. That court attached dispositive significance to the fact that, while the Treasury Regulation we have discussed, § 1.1502-12, specifically provides that several items (capital gains and losses, charitable-contribution deductions, etc.) shall be accounted for on a consolidated basis, it does not similarly provide for accounting for PLEs on a consolidated basis: “The regulations provide for blending the group members’ [NOLs], and they explicitly define [CNOL] without an accompanying reference to consolidated [PLEs]. This omission ... makes clear that blending those expenses is not permitted . . . 208 P. 3d, at 458.
We think the omission of PLEs from the series of items that §1.1502-12 requires to be tallied at the consolidated level has no such elear lesson, however. The logic that invests the omission with significance is familiar: the mention of some implies the exclusion of others not mentioned. Leatherman v. Tarrant County Narcotics Intelligence and Coordination Unit, 507 U.S. 168, 168 (1993) (“Expressio unius est exclusio alterius”). But here, as always, the soundness of that premise is a function of timing: if there was a good reason to consider the treatment of consolidated PLL at the time the regulation was drawn, then omitting PLL from the list of items for consolidated treatment may well have meant something. But if there was no reason to consider PLL then, its omission would mean nothing at all. And in fact there was no reason. When the consolidated return regulations were first promulgated in 1966, there was no carryback provision pegged to PLEs or PLLs; those notions did not become separate carryback items until 1978, when the 10-year rule was devised. See Revenue Act of 1978, §371, 92 Stat. 2859; see also Leatherman, Current Developments 393, n. 5. Omission of PLEs or PLLs from the series set out for consolidated treatment in the 1966 regulation therefore meant absolutely nothing in 1966. The issue, then, is the significance, not of omission, but of failure to include later: has the significance of the earlier regulation changed solely because the Treasury has never amended it, even though PLL is now a separate carryback? We think that is unlikely. The Treasury’s relaxed approach to amending its regulations to track Code changes is well documented. See e. g., Dubroff 41-72, n. 193; Axelrod & Blank 1391; Leath-erman, Separate Liability Losses 708-709. The absence of any amendment to § 1.1502-12 that might have added PLEs or PLLs to the list of items for mandatory single-entity treatment therefore is more likely a reflection of the Treasury’s inattention than any affirmative intention on its part to say anything at all.
Last, the Government warns that “[t]he rule that petitioner advocates would permit significant tax avoidance abuses.” Brief for United States 40. Specifically:
"Under petitioner’s approach, a corporation that is currently unprofitable but that had substantial income in prior years could (i) acquire a profitable corporation with product liability expense deductions in the year of acquisition, (ii) file a consolidated return and (iii) thereby create an otherwise nonexistent 'product liability loss’ for the new affiliated group that would allow the acquiring corporation to claim refunds of the tax it paid in prior years.” Ibid.
The Government suggests, for example, that “a manufacturing company (with prior profits and current losses) that has no product liability exposure could purchase a tobacco company (with both prior and current profits) that has significant product liability expenses” and that “[t]he combined entity could... assert a ten-year carryback of 'product liability losses’ even though the tobacco company has always made a profit and never incurred a 'loss’ of any type.” Id., at 40-41, n. 27.
There are several answers. First, on the score of tax avoidance, the separate-member approach is no better (and is perhaps worse) than the single-entity treatment; both entail some risk of tax-motivated behavior. See Leatherman, Separate Liability Losses 681 (Under the separate-member approach, "[djespite sound non-tax business reasons, a group may be disinclined to form a new member or transfer assets between members, because it may worry that it would lose the benefit of a ten-year carryback,” and "may be encouraged to transfer assets between members to increase its consolidated [PLL], even when those transfers would otherwise he ill-advised”)- Second, the Government may, as always, address tax-motivated behavior under Internal Revenue Code §269, which gives the Secretary ample authority to ‘‘disallow [any] deduction, credit, or other allowance” that results from a transaction “the principal purpose [of] which... is evasion or avoidance of Federal income tax.” 26 U. S. C. § 269(a). And finally, if the Government were to conclude that §269 provided too little protection and that it simply could not live with the single-entity approach, the Treasury could exercise the authority provided by the Code, 26 U. S. C. § 1502, and amend the consolidated return regulations.
* * *
Thus, it is true, as the Government has argued, that “[t]he Internal Revenue Code vests ample authority in the Treasury to adopt consolidated return regulations to effect a binding resolution of the question presented in this case.” Brief for United States 19-20. To the extent that the Government has exercised that authority, its actions point to the single-entity approach as the better answer. To the extent the Government disagrees, it may amend its regulations to provide for a different one.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Unless otherwise noted, all statutory references are to the Internal Revenue Code of 1954,26 U. S. C. § 1 et seq. (1982 ed. and Supp. V), as in effect between 1983 and 1986, the tax years here in question.
If, for example, a company had $100 in taxable income, $50 in deductible PLEs, and $75 in additional deductions, its NOL would be $25 (i e., $100 — $50—$75= —$25); it could count only $25 of its $50 in PLEs as PLL. If the company had $100 in income] $50 in PLEs, and $125 in additional deductions, its NOL would he $75, and it could count its entire $50 in PLEs as PLL. And, finally, if the company had $100 in income, $50 in PLEs, and $40 in additional deductions, it would have positive income and, thus, no NOL and no PLL. ¡.
Unless otherwise noted, Treasury Regulation references are to the regulations in effect between 1983 and 1986, 26 CFR § 1.1502-11 et seq. (1982-1986).
Axelrod & Blank, The Supreme Court, Consolidated Returns, and 10-Year Carrybacks, 90 Tax Notes, No. 10, p. 1383 (Mar. 5,2001) (hereinafter Axelrod & Blank).
Ibid.
Intermet involved “specified liability losses” (SLLs), not PLLs. The difference, however, does not matter. The PLL was a statutory predecessor to the SLL, and PLLs were folded into the SLL provision in § 11811(b)(1) of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1990, 104 Stat. 1388-532. Thus, “[i]n all relevant respects, the provisions on [PLLs] and SLLs are the same.” Leatherman, Current Developments for Consolidated Groups, 486 PLI/Tax 389,393, n. 5 (2000) (hereinafter Leatherman, Current Developments).
In addition to Treas. Reg. § 1.1502-79(a)(3), discussed infra, at 832-834, two other provisions, 26 U. S.C. § 1508(f)(2) and the current version (though not the version applicable between 1983 and 1986) of Treas. Reg. § 1502-21(b) (2000), refer to separate group members’ NOLs. The parties here have not emphasized those provisions, and with good reason. Not only are they inapplicable to the question before us (either substantively, temporally, or both), but, as one commentator has observed, their references to separate NOLs “ste[m] more from careless drafting than meaningful design.” Leatherman, Are Separate Liability Losses Separate for Consolidated Groups?, 52 Tax. Law. 663, 705 (1999) (hereinafter Leather-man, Separate Liability Losses).
It makes no difference whatsoever whether the affiliate’s PLEs are (1) first netted against each member's income and then aggregated or (2) first aggregated and then netted against the group’s combined income: under either method, AMCA’s CNOL is the same. See Axelrod & Blank 1394 (noting that this conclusion follows from "the associative principle of arithmetic (which holds that the groupings of items in the case of addition and subtraction have no effect on the result)”).
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 Powell
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question in this case is whether respondent, a college professor, timely complained under the civil rights laws that he had been denied academic tenure because of his national origin.
I
Columbus Ricks is a black Liberian. In 1970, Ricks joined the faculty at Delaware State College, a state institution attended predominantly by blacks. In February 1973, the Faculty Committee on Promotions and Tenure (the tenure committee) recommended that Ricks not receive a tenured position in the education department. The tenure committee, however, agreed to reconsider its decision the following year. Upon reconsideration, in February 1974, the committee adhered to its earlier recommendation. The following month, the Faculty Senate voted to support the tenure committee’s negative recommendation. On March 13, 1974, the College Board of Trustees formally voted to deny tenure to Ricks.
Dissatisfied with the decision, Ricks immediately filed a grievance with the Board’s Educational Policy Committee (the grievance committee), which in May 1974 held a hearing and took the matter under submission. During the pendency of the grievance, the College administration continued to plan for Ricks’ eventual termination. Like many colleges and universities, Delaware State has a policy of not discharging immediately a junior faculty member who does not receive tenure. Rather, such a person is offered a “terminal” contract to teach one additional year. When that contract expires, the employment relationship ends. Adhering to this policy, the Trustees on June 26, 1974, told Ricks that he would be offered a 1-year “terminal” contract that would expire June 30, 1975. Ricks signed the contract without ob-jeetion or reservation on September 4, 1974. Shortly thereafter, on September 12, 1974, the Board of Trustees notified Ricks that it had denied his grievance.
Ricks attempted to file an employment discrimination charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) on April 4, 1975. Under Title YII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 78 Stat. 253, as amended, however, state fair employment practices agencies have primary jurisdiction over employment discrimination complaints. See 42 U. S. C. § 2000e-5 (c). The EEOC therefore referred Ricks’ charge to the appropriate Delaware agency. On April 28, 1975, the state agency waived its jurisdiction, and the EEOC accepted Ricks’ complaint for filing. More than two years later, the EEOC issued a “right to sue” letter.
Ricks filed this lawsuit in the District Court on September 9, 1977. The complaint alleged, inter alia, that the College had discriminated against him on the basis of his national origin in violation of Title VII and 42 U. S. C. § 1981. The District Court sustained the College’s motion to dismiss both claims as untimely. It concluded that the only unlawful employment practice alleged was the College’s decision to deny Ricks tenure, and that the limitations periods for both claims had commenced to run by June 26, 1974, when the President of the Board of Trustees officially notified Ricks that he would be offered a 1-year “terminal” contract. See n. 2, supra. The Title YII claim was not timely because Ricks had not filed his charge with the EEOC within 180 days after that date. Similarly, the § 1981 claim was not timely because the lawsuit had not been filed in the District Court within the applicable 3-year statute of limitations.
The Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit reversed. 605 F. 2d 710 (1979). It agreed with the District Court that Ricks’ essential allegation was that he. had been denied tenure illegally. Id., at 711. According to the Court of Appeals, however, the Title YII filing requirement, and the statute of limitations for the § 1981 claim, did not commence to run until Ricks’ “terminal” contract expired on June 30, .1975. The court reasoned:
“ ‘ [A] terminated employee who is still working should not be required to consult a lawyer or file charges of discrimination against his employer as long as he is still working, even though he has been told of the employer’s present intention to terminate him in the future.’ ” Id., at 712, quoting Bonham v. Dresser Industries, Inc., 569 F. 2d 187, 192 (CA3 1977), cert. denied, 439 U. S. 821 (1978).
See Egelston v. State University College at Geneseo, 535 F. 2d 752 (CA2 1976); cf. Noble v. University of Rochester, 535 F. 2d 756 (CA2 1976).
The Court of Appeals believed that the initial decision to terminate an employee sometimes might be reversed. The aggrieved employee therefore should not be expected to resort to litigation until termination actually has occurred. Prior resort to judicial or administrative remedies would be “likely to have the negative side effect of reducing that employee’s effectiveness during the balance of his or her term. Working relationships will be injured, if not sundered, and the litigation process will divert attention from the proper fulfillment of job responsibilities.” 605 F. 2d, at 712. Finally, the Court of Appeals thought that a rule focusing on the last day of employment would provide a “bright line guide both for the courts and for the victims of discrimination.” Id., at 712-713. It therefore reversed and remanded the case to the District Court for trial on the merits of Ricks’ discrimination claims. We granted certiorari. 444 U. S. 1070 (1980).
For the reasons that follow, we think that the Court of Appeals erred in holding that the filing limitations periods did not commence to run until June 30, 1975. We agree instead with the District Court that both the Title YII and § 1981 claims were untimely. Accordingly, we reverse.
II
Title VII requires aggrieved persons to file a complaint with the EEOC “within one hundred and eighty days after the alleged unlawful employment practice occurred.” 42 U. S. C. § 2000e-5 (e). Similarly, § 1981 plaintiffs in Delaware must file suit within three years of the unfavorable employment decision. See n. 5, supra. The limitations periods, while guaranteeing the protection of the civil rights laws to those who promptly assert their rights, also protect employers from the burden of defending claims arising from employment decisions that are long past. Johnson v. Railway Express Agency, Inc., 421 U. S. 454, 463-464 (1975); see United Air Lines, Inc. v. Evans, 431 U. S. 553, 558 (1977).
Determining the timeliness of Ricks’ EEOC complaint, and this ensuing lawsuit, requires us to identify precisely the “unlawful employment practice” of which he complains. Ricks now insists that discrimination motivated the College not only in denying him tenure, but also in terminating his employment on June 30, 1975. Tr. of Oral Arg. 25, 26, 31-32. In effect, he is claiming a “continuing violation” of the civil rights laws with the result that the limitations periods did not commence to run until his 1-year “terminal” contract expired. This argument cannot be squared with the allegations of the complaint. Mere continuity of employment, without more, is insufficient to prolong the life of a cause of action for employment discrimination. United Air Lines, Inc. v. Evans, supra, at 558. If Ricks intended to complain of a discriminatory discharge, he should have identified the alleged discriminatory acts that continued until, or occurred at the time of, the actual termination of his employment. But the complaint alleges no such facts.
Indeed, the contrary is true. It appears that termination of employment at Delaware State is a delayed, but inevitable, consequence of the denial of tenure. In order for the limitations periods to commence with the date of discharge, Ricks would have had to allege and prove that the manner in which his employment was terminated differed discriminatorily from the manner in which the College terminated other professors who also had been denied tenure. But no suggestion has been made that Ricks was treated differently from other unsuccessful tenure aspirants. Rather, in accord with the College’s practice, Ricks was offered a 1-year “terminal” contract, with explicit notice that his employment would end upon its expiration.
In sum, the only alleged discrimination occurred — and the filing limitations periods therefore commenced — at the time the tenure decision was made and communicated to Ricks. That is so even though one of the effects of the denial of tenure — the eventual loss of a teaching position — did not occur until later. The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit correctly held, in a similar tenure case, that “[t]he proper focus is upon the time of the discriminatory acts, not upon the time at which the consequences of the acts became most painful.” Abramson v. University of Hawaii, 594 F. 2d 202, 209 (1979) (emphasis added); see United Air Lines, Inc. v. Evans, 431 U. S., at 558. It is simply insufficient for Ricks to allege that his termination “gives present effect to the past illegal act and therefore perpetuates the consequences of forbidden discrimination.” Id., at 557. The emphasis is not upon the effects of earlier employment decisions; rather, it “is [upon] whether any present violation exists.” Id., at 558 (emphasis in original).
III
We conclude for the foregoing reasons that the limitations periods commenced to run when the tenure decision was made and Ricks was notified. The remaining inquiry is the identification of this date.
A
Three dates have been advanced and argued by the parties. As indicated above, Ricks contended for June 30, 1975, the final date of his “terminal” contract, relying on a continuing-violation theory. This contention fails, as we have shown, because of the absence of any allegations of facts to support it. The Court of Appeals agreed with Ricks that the relevant date was June 30, 1975, but it did so on a different theory. It found that the only alleged discriminatory act was the denial of tenure, 605 F. 2d, at 711, but nevertheless adopted the “final date of employment” rule primarily for policy reasons. Supra, at 255-256. Although this view has the virtue of simplicity, the discussion in Part II of this opinion demonstrates its fallacy as a rule of general application. Congress has decided that time limitations periods commence with the date of the “alleged unlawful employment practice.” See 42 U. S. C. § 2000e-5 (e). Where, as here, the only challenged employment practice occurs before the termination date, the limitations periods necessarily commence to run before that date. It should not be forgotten that time-limitations provisions themselves promote important interests; “the period allowed for instituting suit inevitably reflects a value judgment concerning the point at which the interests in favor of protecting valid claims are outweighed by the interests in prohibiting the prosecution of stale ones.” Johnson v. Railway Express Agency, Inc., 421 U. S., at 463-464. See Mohasco Corp. v. Silver, 447 U. S. 807, 820, 825 (1980).
B
The EEOC, in its amicus brief, contends in the alternative for a different date. It was not until September 12, 1974, that the Board notifiéd Ricks that his grievance had been denied. The EEOC therefore asserts that, for purposes of computing limitations periods, this was the date of the unfavorable tenure decision. Two possible lines of reasoning underlie this argument. First, it could be contended that the Trustees’ initial decision was only an expression of intent that did not become final until the grievance was denied. In support of this argument, the EEOC notes that the June 26 letter explicitly held out to Ricks the possibility that he would receive tenure if the Board sustained his grievance. See n. 2, supra. Second, even if the Board’s first decision expressed its official position, it could be argued that the pendency of the grievance should toll the running of the limitations periods.
We do not find either argument to be persuasive. As to the former, we think that the Board of Trustees had made clear well before September 12 that it had formally rejected Ricks’ tenure bid. The June 26 letter itself characterized that as the Board’s "official position.” Ibid. It is apparent, of course, that the Board in the June 26 letter indicated a willingness to change its prior decision if Ricks’ grievance were found to be meritorious. But entertaining a grievance complaining of the tenure decision does not suggest that the earlier decision was in any respect tentative. The grievance procedure, by its nature, is a remedy for a prior decision, not an opportunity to influence that decision before it is made.
As to the latter argument, we already have held that the pendency of a grievance, or some other method of collateral review of an employment decision, does not toll the running of the limitations periods. Electrical Workers v. Robbins & Myers, Inc., 429 U. S. 229 (1976). The existence of careful procedures to assure fairness in the tenure decision should not obscure the principle that limitations periods normally commence when the employer’s decision is made. Of. id., at 234-235.
C
The District Court rejected both the June 30, 1975, date and the September 12, 1974, date, and concluded that the limitations periods had commenced to run by June 26, 1974, when the President of the Board notified Ricks that he would be offered a "terminal” contract for the 1974-1975 school year. We cannot say that this decision was erroneous. By June 26, the tenure committee had twice recommended that Ricks not receive tenure; the Faculty Senate had voted to support the tenure committee’s recommendation; and the Board of Trustees formally had voted to deny Ricks tenure. In light of this unbroken array of negative decisions, the District Court was justified in concluding that the College had established its official position — and made that position apparent to Ricks — ho later than June 26, 1974.
We therefore reverse the decision of the Court of Appeals and remand to that court so that it may reinstate the District Court’s order dismissing the complaint.
Reversed and remanded.
According to the Court of Appeals, the grievance committee almost immediately recommended to the Board that Ricks’ grievance be denied. 605 F. 2d 710, 711 (CA3 1979). Nothing in the record, however, reveals the date on which the grievance committee rendered its decision.
The June 26 letter stated:
June 26, 1974
Dr. Columbus Ricks
Delaware State College
Dover, Delaware
Dear Dr. Ricks:
On March 13, 1974, the Board of Trustees of Delaware State College officially endorsed the recommendations of the Faculty Senate at its March 11, 1974 meeting, at which time the Faculty Senate recommended that the Board not grant you tenure.
As we are both aware, the Educational Policy Committee of the Board of Trustees has heard your grievance and it is now in the process of coming to a decision. The Chairman of the Educational Policy Committee has indicated to me that a decision may not be forthcoming until sometime in July. In order to comply with the 1971 Trustee Policy Manual and AAUP requirements with regard to the amount of time needed in proper notification of non-reappointment for non-tenured faculty members, the Board has no choice but to follow actions according to its official position prior to the grievance process, and thus, notify you of its intent not to renew your contract at the end of the 1974-75 school year.
Please understand that we have no way of knowing what the outcome of the grievance process may be, and that this action is being taken at this time in order to be consistent with the present formal position of the Board and AAUP time requirements in matters of this kind. Should the Educational Policy Committee decide to recommend that you be granted tenure, and should the Board of Trustees concur with their recommendation, then of course, it will supersede any previous action taken by the Board.
Sincerely yours,
/s/ Walton H. Simpson, President
Board of Trustees of Delaware State College
In addition to the College itself, other defendants (petitioners in this Court) are Trustees Walton H. Simpson, William H. Davis, William G. Dix, Edward W. Hagemeyer, James C. Hardcastle, Delma Lafferty, James H. Williams, William S. Young, Burt C. Pratt, Luna I. Mishoe, and Pierre S. duPont IV (ex officio); the academic dean, M. Milford Caldwell (now deceased); the education department chairman, George W. McLaughlin; and tenure committee members Romeo C. Henderson, Harriet R. Williams, Arthur E. Bragg, Ora Bunch, Ehsan Helmy, Vera Powell, John R. Price, Herbert Thompson, W. Richard Wynder, Ulysses Washington, and Jane Laskaris.
Section 1981 provides:
“All persons within the jurisdiction of the United States shall have the same right in every State and Territory to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, give evidence, and to the full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of persons and property as is enjoyed by white citizens, and shall be subject to like punishment, pains, penalties, taxes, licenses, and exactions of every kind, and to no other.”
The statute of limitations in § 1981 cases is that applicable to similar claims under state law. Johnson v. Railway Express Agency, Inc., 421 U. S. 454, 462 (1975). The parties in this case agree that the applicable limitations period under Delaware law is three years.
Because the claims were not timely filed, we do not decide whether a claim of national origin discrimination is cognizable under § 1981.
Under certain circumstances, the filing period is extended to 300 days. 42 U. S. C. § 2000e-5 (e); see Mohasco Corp. v. Silver, 447 U. S. 807 (1980).
Sixteen paragraphs in the complaint describe in detail the sequence of events surrounding the tenure denial. Only one paragraph even mentions Ricks’ eventual departure from Delaware State, and nothing in that paragraph alleges any fact suggesting discrimination in the termination of Ricks’ employment.
The complaint does allege that a variety of unusual incidents occurred during the 1974-1975 school year, including one in which the education department chairman, George W. McLaughlin, physically attacked Ricks. This incident allegedly resulted in McLaughlin’s conviction for assault. Counsel for Ricks conceded at oral argument that incidents such as this were not independent acts of discrimination, Tr. of Oral Arg. 29-30, but at most evidence that could be used at a trial.
Complaints that employment termination resulted from discrimination can present widely varying circumstances. In this case the only alleged discriminatory act is the denial of tenure sought by a college professor, with the termination of employment not occurring until a later date. The application of the general principles discussed herein necessarily must be made on a case-by-case basis.
Brief for EEOC as Amicus Curiae 19-22; 605 F. 2d, at 712-713.
The Court of Appeals also thought it was significant that a final-date-of-employment rule would permit the teacher to conclude his affairs at a school without the acrimony engendered by the filing of an administrative complaint or lawsuit. Id., at 712. It is true that “the filing of a lawsuit might tend to deter efforts at conciliation.” Johnson v. Railway Express Agency, Inc., 421 U. S., at 461. But this is the “natural effec[t] of the choice Congress has made,” ibid., in explicitly requiring that the limitations period commence with the date of the “alleged unlawful employment practice,” 42 U. S. C. § 2000e-5 (c).
It is conceivable that the Court of Appeals’ "final day of employment” rule might discourage colleges even from offering a “grace period,” such as Delaware State’s practice of 1-year “terminal” contracts, during which the junior faculty member not offered tenure may seek a teaching position elsewhere.
If September 12 were the critical date, the § 1981 claim would be timely. Counting from September 12, the Title VII claim also would be timely if Ricks is entitled to 300 days, rather than 180 days, in which to file with the EEOC. In its brief before this Court, the EEOC as amicus curiae noted that Delaware is a State with its own fair employment practices agency. According to the EEOC, therefore, Ricks was entitled to 300 days to file his complaint. See n. 7, supra. Because we hold that the time-limitations periods commenced to run no later than June 26, 1974, we need not decide whether Ricks was entitled to 300 days to file under Title VII. Counting from the June 26 date, Ricks’ filing with the EEOC was not timely even with the benefit of the 300-day period.
See also B. Schlei & P. Grossman, Employment Discrimination Law 235 (1979 Supp.), and cases cited therein.
We do not suggest that aspirants for academic tenure should ignore available opportunities to request reconsideration. Mere requests to reconsider, however, cannot extend the limitations periods applicable to the civil rights laws.
We recognize, of course, that the limitations periods should not commence to run so soon that it becomes difficult for a layman to invoke the protection of the civil rights statutes. See Oscar Mayer & Co. v. Evans, 441 U. S. 750, 761 (1979); Love v. Pullman Co., 404 U. S. 522, 526-527 (1972). But, for the reasons we have stated, there can be no claim here that Ricks was not abundantly forewarned. In NLRB v. Yeshiva University, 444 U. S. 672, 677 (1980), we noted that university boards of trustees customarily rely on the professional expertise of the tenured faculty, particularly with respect to decisions about hiring, tenure, termination, and promotion. Thus, the action of the Board of Trustees on March 13, 1974, affirming the faculty recommendation, was entirely predictable. The Board’s letter of June 26, 1974, simply repeated to Ricks the Board’s official position and acknowledged the pendency of the grievance through which Ricks hoped to persuade the Board to change that position.
We need not decide whether the District Court correctly focused on the June 26 date, rather than the date the Board communicated to Ricks its unfavorable tenure decision made at the March 13, 1974, meeting. As we have stated, see n. 13, supra, both the Title VII and § 1981 complaints were not timely filed even counting from the June 26 date.
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.
Under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, a state prisoner seeking a writ of habeas corpus from a federal court “must show that the state court’s ruling on the claim being presented in federal court was so lacking in justification that there was an error well understood and comprehended in existing law beyond any possibility for fair-minded disagreement.” Harrington v. Richter, 562 U. S. 86, 103 (2011). The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit purported to identify three such grievous errors in the Ohio Supreme Court’s affirmance of respondent Archie Dixon’s murder conviction. Because it is not clear that the Ohio Supreme Court erred at all, much less erred so transparently that no fairminded jurist could agree with that court’s decision, the Sixth Circuit’s judgment must be reversed.
* * *
Archie Dixon and Tim Hoffner murdered Chris Hammer in order to steal his car. Dixon and Hoffner beat Hammer, tied him up, and buried him alive, pushing the struggling Hammer down into his grave while they shoveled dirt on top of him. Dixon then used Hammer’s birth certificate and Social Security card to obtain a state identification card in Hammer’s name. After using that identification card to establish ownership of Hammer’s car, Dixon sold the vehicle for $2,800.
Hammer’s mother reported her son missing the day after his murder. While investigating Hammer’s disappearance, police had various encounters with Dixon, three of which are relevant here. On November 4, 1993, a police detective spoke with Dixon at a local police station. It is undisputed that this was a chance encounter — Dixon was apparently visiting the police station to retrieve his own car, which had been impounded for a traffic violation. The detective issued Miranda warnings to Dixon and then asked to talk to him about Hammer’s disappearance. See Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436 (1966). Dixon declined to answer questions without his lawyer present and left the station.
As their investigation continued, police determined that Dixon had sold Hammer’s car and forged Hammer’s signature when cashing the check he received in that sale. Police arrested Dixon for forgery on the morning of November 9. Beginning at 11:30 a.m. detectives intermittently interrogated Dixon over several hours, speaking with him for about 45 minutes total. Prior to the interrogation, the detectives had decided not to provide Dixon with Miranda warnings for fear that Dixon would again refuse to speak with them.
Dixon readily admitted to obtaining the identification card in Hammer’s name and signing Hammer’s name on the check, but said that Hammer had given him permission to sell the car. Dixon claimed not to know where Hammer was, although he said he thought Hammer might have left for Tennessee. The detectives challenged the plausibility of Dixon’s tale and told Dixon that Tim Hoffner was providing them more useful information. At one point a detective told Dixon that “now is the time to say” whether he had any involvement in Hammer’s disappearance because “if Tim starts cutting a deal over there, this is kinda like, a bus leaving. The first one that gets on it is the only one that’s gonna get on.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 183a. Dixon responded that, if Hoffner knew anything about Hammer’s disappearance, Hoffner had not told him. Dixon insisted that he had told police everything he knew and that he had “[n]othing whatsoever” to do with Hammer’s disappearance. Id., at 186a. At approximately 3:30 p.m. the interrogation concluded, and the detectives brought Dixon to a correctional facility where he was booked on a forgery charge.
The same afternoon, Hoffner led police to Hammer’s grave. Hoffner claimed that Dixon had told him that Hammer was buried there. After concluding their interview with Hoffner and releasing him, the police had Dixon transported back to the police station.
Dixon arrived at the police station at about 7:30 p.m. Prior to any police questioning, Dixon stated that he had heard the police had found a body and asked whether Hoffner was in custody. The police told Dixon that Hoffner was not, at which point Dixon said, “I talked to my attorney, and I want to tell you what happened.” State v. Dixon, 101 Ohio St. 3d 328, 331,2004-0hio-1585, 805 N. E. 2d 1042,1050. The police read Dixon his Miranda rights, obtained a signed waiver of those rights, and spoke with Dixon for about half an hour. At 8 p.m. the police, now using a tape recorder, again advised Dixon of his Miranda rights. In a detailed confession, Dixon admitted to murdering Hammer but attempted to pin the lion’s share of the blame on Hoffner.
At Dixon’s trial, the Ohio trial court excluded both Dixon’s initial confession to forgery and his later confession to murder. The State took an interlocutory appeal. The State did not dispute that Dixon’s forgery confession was properly suppressed, but argued that the murder confession was admissible because Dixon had received Miranda warnings prior to that confession. The Ohio Court of Appeals agreed and allowed Dixon’s murder confession to be admitted as evidence. Dixon was convicted of murder, kidnaping, robbery, and forgery, and sentenced to death.
The Ohio Supreme Court affirmed Dixon’s convictions and sentence. To analyze the admissibility of Dixon’s murder confession, the court applied Oregon v. Elstad, 470 U. S. 298 (1985). The Ohio Supreme Court found that Dixon’s confession to murder after receiving Miranda warnings was admissible because that confession and his prior, unwarned confession to forgery were both voluntary. State v. Dixon, supra, at 332-334, 805 N. E. 2d, at 1050-1052; see Elstad, supra, at 318 (“We hold today that a suspect who has once responded to unwarned yet uncoercive questioning is not thereby disabled from waiving his rights and confessing after he has been given the requisite Miranda warnings”).
Dixon then filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U. S. C. § 2254 in the U. S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio. Dixon claimed, inter alia, that the state court decisions allowing the admission of his murder confession contravened clearly established federal law. The District Court denied relief, but a divided panel of the Sixth Circuit reversed. Dixon v. Houk, 627 F. 3d 553 (2010).
The Sixth Circuit had authority to issue the writ of habeas corpus only if the Ohio Supreme Court’s decision “was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law,” as set forth in this Court’s holdings, or was “based on an unreasonable determination of the facts” in light of the state court record. § 2254(d); see Harrington, 562 U. S., at 100. The Sixth Circuit believed that the Ohio Supreme Court’s decision contained three such egregious errors.
First, according to the Sixth Circuit, the Miranda decision itself clearly established that police could not speak to Dixon on November 9, because on November 4 Dixon had refused to speak to police without his lawyer. That is plainly wrong. It is undisputed that Dixon was not in custody during his chance encounter with police on November 4. And this Court has “never held that a person can invoke his Miranda rights anticipatorily, in a context other than ‘custodial interrogation.’ ” McNeil v. Wisconsin, 501 U. S. 171, 182, n. 3 (1991); see also Montejo v. Louisiana, 556 U. S. 778, 795 (2009) (“If the defendant is not in custody then [Miranda and its progeny] do not apply”).
Second, the Sixth Circuit held that police violated the Fifth Amendment by urging Dixon to “cut a deal” before his accomplice Hoffner did so. The Sixth Circuit cited no precedent of this Court — or any court — holding that this common police tactic is unconstitutional. Cf., e. g., Elstad, supra, at 317 (“[T]he Court has refused to find that a defendant who confesses, after being falsely told that his codefend-ant has turned State’s evidence, does so involuntarily”). Because no holding of this Court suggests, much less clearly establishes, that police may not urge a suspect to confess before another suspect does so, the Sixth Circuit had no authority to issue the writ on this ground.
Third, the Sixth Circuit held that the Ohio Supreme Court unreasonably applied this Court’s precedent in El-stad. In that case, a suspect who had not received Miranda warnings confessed to burglary as police took him into custody. Approximately an hour later, after he had received Miranda warnings, the suspect again confessed to the same burglary. This Court held that the later, warned confession was admissible because “there is no warrant for presuming coercive effect where the suspect’s initial inculpatory statement, though technically in violation of Miranda, was voluntary. The relevant inquiry is whether, in fact, the second [warned] statement was also voluntarily made.” 470 U. S., at 318 (footnote omitted).
As the Ohio Supreme Court’s opinion explained, the circumstances surrounding Dixon’s interrogations demonstrate that his statements were voluntary. During Dixon’s first interrogation, he received several breaks, was given water and offered food, and was not abused or threatened. He freely acknowledged that he had forged Hammer’s name, even stating that the police were “welcome” to that information, and he had no difficulty denying that he had anything to do with Hammer’s disappearance. State v. Dixon, 101 Ohio St. 3d, at 331, 805 N. E. 2d, at 1049. Prior to his second interrogation, Dixon made an unsolicited declaration that he had spoken with his attorney and wanted to tell the police what had happened to Hammer. Then, before giving his taped confession, Dixon twice received Miranda warnings and signed a waiver-of-rights form which stated that he was acting of his own free will.
The Ohio Supreme Court recognized that Dixon’s first interrogation involved “an intentional Miranda violation.” 101 Ohio St. 3d, at 334, 805 N. E. 2d, at 1052. The court concluded, however, that “as in Elstad, the breach of the Mi randa procedures here involved no actual compulsion” and thus there was no reason to suppress Dixon’s later, warned confession. Ibid, (citing Elstad, 470 U. S., at 318).
The Sixth Circuit disagreed, believing that Dixon’s confession was inadmissible under Elstad because it was the product of a “deliberate question-first, warn-later strategy.” 627 F. 3d, at 557. In so holding, the Sixth Circuit relied heavily on this Court’s decision in Missouri v. Seibert, 542 U. S. 600 (2004). In Seibert, police employed a two-step strategy to reduce the effect of Miranda warnings: A detective exhaustively questioned Seibert until she confessed to murder and then, after a 15- to 20-minute break, gave Seibert Miranda warnings and led her to repeat her prior confession. 542 U. S., at 604-606, 616 (plurality opinion). The Court held that Seibert’s second confession was inadmissible as evidence against her even though it was preceded by a Miranda warning. A plurality of the Court reasoned that “[u]pon hearing warnings only in the aftermath of interrogation and just after making a confession, a suspect would hardly think he had a genuine right to remain silent, let alone persist in so believing once the police began to lead him over the same ground again.” 542 U. S., at 613; see also id., at 615 (detailing a “series of relevant facts that bear on whether Miranda warnings delivered midstream could be effective enough to accomplish their object”). Justice Kennedy concurred in the judgment, noting he “would apply a narrower test applicable only in the infrequent case ... in which the two-step interrogation technique was used in a calculated way to undermine the Miranda warning.” Id., at 622.
In this case, no two-step interrogation technique of the type that concerned the Court in Seibert undermined the Miranda warnings Dixon received. In Seibert, the suspect’s first, unwarned interrogation left “little, if anything, of incriminating potential left unsaid,” making it “unnatural” not to “repeat at the second stage what had been said before.” 542 U. S., at 616-617 (plurality opinion). But in this case Dixon steadfastly maintained during his first, unwarned interrogation that he had “[njothing whatsoever” to do with Hammer’s disappearance. App. to Pet. for Cert. 186a. Thus, unlike in Seibert, there is no concern here that police gave Dixon Miranda warnings and then led him to repeat an earlier murder confession, because there was no earlier confession to repeat. Indeed, Dixon contradicted his prior unwarned statements when he confessed to Hammer’s murder. Nor is there any evidence that police used Dixon’s earlier admission to forgery to induce him to waive his right to silence later: Dixon declared his desire to tell police what happened to Hammer before the second interrogation session even began. As the Ohio Supreme Court reasonably concluded, there was simply “no nexus” between Dixon’s unwarned admission to forgery and his later, warned confession to murder. 101 Ohio St. 3d, at 333, 805 N. E. 2d, at 1051.
Moreover, in Seibert the Court was concerned that the Miranda warnings did not “effectively advise the suspect that he had a real choice about giving an admissible statement” because the unwarned and warned interrogations blended into one “continuum.” 542 U. S., at 612, 617. Given all the circumstances of this case, that is not so here. Four hours passed between Dixon’s unwarned interrogation and his receipt of Miranda rights, during which time he traveled from the police station to a separate jail and back again; claimed to have spoken to his lawyer; and learned that police were talking to his accomplice and had found Hammer’s body. Things had changed. Under Seibert, this significant break in time and dramatic change in circumstances created “a new and distinct experience,” ensuring that Dixon’s prior, unwarned interrogation did not undermine the effectiveness of the Miranda warnings he received before confessing to Hammer’s murder. 542 U. S., at 615; see also id., at 622 (Kennedy, J., concurring in judgment) (“For example, a substantial break in time and circumstances between the pre-warning statement and the Miranda warning may suffice in most circumstances, as it allows the accused to distinguish the two contexts and appreciate that the interrogation has taken a new turn”).
The admission of Dixon’s murder confession was consistent with this Court’s precedents: Dixon received Miranda warnings before confessing to Hammer’s murder; the effectiveness of those warnings was not impaired by the sort of “two-step interrogation technique” condemned in Seibert; and there is no evidence that any of Dixon’s statements was the product of actual coercion. That does not excuse the detectives’ decision not to give Dixon Miranda warnings before his first interrogation. But the Ohio courts recognized that failure and imposed the appropriate remedy: exclusion of Dixon’s forgery confession and the attendant statements given without the benefit of Miranda warnings. Because no precedent of this Court required Ohio to do more, the Sixth Circuit was without authority to overturn the reasoned judgment of the State’s highest court.
The petition for a writ of certiorari and respondent’s motion to proceed in forma pauperis are granted. The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
In the Sixth Circuit’s view, the Ohio Supreme Court’s contrary conclusion that Dixon’s confession was voluntary “was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding.” § 2264(d)(2). The Sixth Circuit did not, however, purport to identify any mistaken factual finding. It differed with the Ohio Supreme Court only on the ultimate characterization of Dixon’s confession as voluntary, and this Court’s cases make clear that “the ultimate issue of ‘voluntariness’ is a legal question.” Miller v. Fenton, 474 U. S. 104, 110 (1986); see also Arizona v. Fulminante, 499 U. S. 279, 287 (1991). This Court therefore addresses the question the Sixth Circuit should have addressed: whether the Ohio Supreme Court’s decision “was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States.” §2254(d)(1).
The only case the Sixth Circuit cited on this issue was Mincey v. Arizona, 437 U. S. 385 (1978). Mincey involved the “virtually continuous questioning of a seriously and painfully wounded man on the edge of consciousness” who was in a hospital’s intensive care unit and who “clearly expressed his wish not to be interrogated” while in a “debilitated and helpless condition.” Id., at 399-401. There is simply nothing in the facts or reasoning of Mincey suggesting that any of Dixon’s statements were involuntary.
Seibert was not decided until after the Ohio Supreme Court’s opinion in this case, but was issued before this Court denied Dixon’s petition for certiorari seeking review of the Ohio Supreme Court’s decision. It is thus an open question whether Seibert was “clearly established Federal law” for purposes of § 2254(d). See Smith v. Spisak, 558 U. S. 139, 143 (2010). It is not necessary to decide that question here because Seibert is entirely consistent with the Ohio Supreme Court’s decision. Thus, if Seibert was clearly established law, the Ohio Supreme Court’s decision was not “contrary to” or “an unreasonable application of” Seibert. § 2254(d). And if Seibert was not clearly established law, Seiberts, explication of Elstad further demonstrates that the Ohio Supreme Court’s decision was not contrary to or an unreasonable application of Elstad.
The Sixth Circuit also concluded that “the Ohio Supreme Court erroneously placed the burden of proof on Dixon to prove that his confession was coerced.” Dixon v. Honk, 627 F. 3d 553, 558 (2010). But the Ohio Supreme Court clearly said that “the state carries the burden of proving voluntariness.” State v. Dixon, 101 Ohio St. 3d 328, 332, 2004-0hio-1585, 805 N. E. 2d 1042, 1050. That the court’s opinion discusses the absence of evidence of coerciveness alongside the affirmative evidence of voluntariness in no way indicates that the court shifted the burden onto Dixon.
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 judgment is vacated and the case is remanded to the Supreme Court of North Carolina for consideration in the light of Peterson v. City of Greenville, ante, p. 244. Patterson v. Alabama, 294 U. S. 600.
[For opinion of Mr. Justice Harlan, see ante, p. 248.]
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.
The Communist Party of the United States of America failed to register with the Attorney General as required by the order of the Subversive Activities Control Board sustained in Communist Party of the United States v. SACB, 367 U. S. I. Accordingly, no list of Party members was filed as required by § 7 (d) (4) of the Subversive Activities Control Act of 1950, 64 Stat. 993-994, 50 U. S. C. § 786 (d)(4) (1964 ed.). Sections 8(a) and (c) of the Act provide that, in that circumstance, each member of the organization must register and file a registration statement; in default thereof, § 13 (a) authorizes the Attorney General to petition the Board for an order requiring the member to register. The Attorney General invoked § 13 (a) against petitioners, and the Board, after evidentiary hearings, determined that petitioners were Party members and ordered each of them to register pursuant to §§ 8 (a) and (c). Review of the orders was sought by petitioners in the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit under § 14 (a). The Court of Appeals affirmed the orders, 118 U. S. App. D. C. 117, 332 F. 2d 317. We granted certiorari, 381 U. S. 910. We reverse.
I.
Petitioners address several constitutional challenges to the validity of the orders, but we consider only the contention that the orders violate their Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination.
The Court of Appeals affirmed the orders without deciding the privilege issue, expressing the view that under our decision in Communist Party, 367 U. S., at 105-110, the issue was not ripe for adjudication and would be ripe only in a prosecution for failure to register if the petitioners did not register. 118 U. S. App. D. C., at 121-123, 332 F. 2d, at 321-323. We disagree. In Communist Party the Party asserted the privilege on behalf of unnamed officers — those obliged to register the Party and those obliged “to register for” the Party if it failed to do so. The self-incrimination claim asserted on behalf of the latter officers was held premature because the Party might choose to register and thus the duty of those officers might never arise. Here, in contrast, the contingencies upon which the members’ duty to register arises have already matured; the Party did not register within 30 days after the order to register became final and the requisite 60 days since the order became final have elapsed. As to the officers obliged to register the Party, Communist Party held that the self-incrimination claim asserted on their behalf was not ripe for adjudication because it was not known whether they would ever claim the privilege or whether the claim, if asserted, would be honored by the Attorney General. But with respect to the orders in this case, addressed to named individuals, both these contingencies are foreclosed. Petitioners asserted the privilege in their answers to the Attorney General’s petitions; they did not testify at the Board hearings; they again asserted the privilege in the review proceedings in the Court of Appeals. In each instance the "Attorney General rejected their claims. Thus, the considerations which led the Court -in Communist Party to hold that the claims on behalf of unnamed officers were premature are not present in this case.
There are other reasons for holding that petitioners’ self-incrimination claims are ripe for decision. Specific orders requiring petitioners to register have been issued. The Attorney General has promulgated regulations requiring that registration shall be accomplished on Form IS-52a and that the accompanying registration statement shall be a completed Form IS-52, 28 CFR §§ 11.206, 11.207, and petitioners risk very heavy penalties if they fail to register by completing and filing these forms. Under § 15 (a)(2) of the Act, 64 Stat. 1002, 50 U. S. C. §794(a)(2), for example, each day of failure to register constitutes a separate offense punishable by a fine of up to $10,000 or imprisonment of up to five years, or both. Petitioners must either register without a decision on the merits of their privilege claims, or fail to register and risk onerous and rapidly mounting penalties while awaiting the Government’s pleasure whether to initiate a prosecution against them. To ask, in these circumstances, that petitioners await such a prosecution for an adjudication of their self-incrimination claims is, in effect, to contend that they should be denied the protection of the Fifth Amendment privilege intended to relieve claimants of the necessity of making a choice between incriminating themselves and risking serious punishments for refusing to do so.
Indeed the Government concedes in its brief in this Court that the Court of Appeals’ holding of prematurity was erroneous insofar as petitioners’ claims of privilege relate to the Board’s power to compel the act of registration and the submission of an accompanying registration statement. The brief candidly acknowledges that, since § 14 (b) provides for judicial review of a Board order to register, petitioners’ claims in that regard, like any other contention that an order is invalid, may be heard and determined by the reviewing court — thus distinguishing orders that are not similarly reviewable, see Alexander v. United States, 201 U. S. 117; Cobbledick v. United States, 309 U. S. 323. Nevertheless, the Government argues that petitioners’ claims are premature insofar as they relate to “any particular inquiry” on Forms IS-52a and IS-52. Two contingencies are hypothesized in support of this contention: (1) that the Attorney General might alter the present forms or (2) that he might accept less than fully completed forms.
The distinction upon which this argument is predicated is illusory. Neither the statute nor the regulations draw any distinction between the act of registering and the submission of a registration statement, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the answering of the inquiries demanded by the forms; the statute and regulations contemplate rather that the questions asked on the forms are to be fully and completely answered. Morever, the contingencies hypothesized are irrelevant. Petitioners are obliged to register and to submit registration forms in accordance with presently existing regulations; the mere contingency that the Attorney General might revise the regulations at some future time does not render premature their challenge to the existing requirements. Nor can these requirements be viewed as requiring that petitioners answer — at the risk of criminal prosecution for error — only those items which will not incriminate petitioners; full compliance is required. Finally, the Government’s argument would do violence to the congressional scheme. The penalties are incurred only upon failure to register as required by final orders and, under § 14 (b), orders become final upon completion of judicial review. In so providing, Congress plainly manifested an intention to afford alleged members, prior to criminal prosecution for failure to register, an adjudication of all, not just some, of the claims addressed to the validity of the Board’s registration orders. We therefore proceed to a determination of the merits of petitioners’ self-incrimination claims.
II.
The risks of incrimination which the petitioners take in registering are obvious. Form IS-52a requires an admission of membership in the Communist Party. Such an admission of membership may be used to prosecute the registrant under the membership clause of the Smith Act, 18 U. S. C. § 2385 (1964 ed.), or under § 4 (a) of the Subversive Activities Control Act, 64 Stat. 991, 50 U. S. C. § 783 (a) (1964 ed.), to mention only two federal criminal statutes. Scales v. United States, 367 U. S. 203, 211. Accordingly, we have held that mere association with the Communist Party presents sufficient threat of prosecution to support a claim of privilege. Patricia Blau v. United States, 340 U. S. 159; Irving Blau v. United States, 340 U. S. 332; Brunner v. United States, 343 U. S. 918; Quinn v. United States, 349 U. S. 155. These cases involved questions to witnesses on the witness stand, but if the admission cannot be compelled in oral testimony, we do not see how compulsion in writing makes a difference for constitutional purposes. Cf. New York ex rel. Ferguson v. Reardon, 197 N. Y. 236, 243-244, 90 N. E. 829, 832. It follows that the requirement to accomplish registration by completing and filing Form IS-52a is inconsistent with the protection of the Self-Incrimination Clause.
The statutory scheme, in providing that registration “shall be accompanied” by a registration statement, clearly implies that there is a duty to file Form IS-52, the registration statement, only if there is an enforceable obligation to accomplish registration by completing and filing Form IS-52a. Yet, even if the statute and regulations required petitioners to complete and file Form IS-52 without regard to the validity of the order to register on Form IS-52a, the requirement to complete and file Form IS-52 would also invade the privilege. Like the admission of Party membership demanded by Form IS-52a, the information called for by Form IS-52— the organization of which the registrant is a member, his aliases, place and date of birth, a list of offices held in the organization and duties thereof — might be used as evidence in or at least supply investigatory leads to a criminal prosecution. The Government, relying on United States v. Sullivan, 274 U. S. 259, argues that petitioners might answer some questions and appropriately claim the privilege on the form as to others, but cannot fail to submit a registration statement altogether. Apart from our conclusion that nothing in the Act or regulations permits less than literal and full compliance with the requirements of the form, the reliance on Sulli van is misplaced. Sullivan upheld a conviction for failure to file an income tax return on the theory that “[i]f the form of return provided called for answers that the defendant was privileged from making he could have raised the objection in the return, but could not on that account refuse to make any return at all.” 274 U. S., at 263. That declaration was based on the view, first, that a self-incrimination claim against every question on the tax return, or based on the mere submission of the return, would be virtually frivolous, and second, that to honor the claim of privilege not asserted at the time the return was due would make the taxpayer rather than a tribunal the final arbiter of the merits of the claim. But neither reason applies here. A tribunal, the Board, had an opportunity to pass upon the petitioners’ self-incrimination claims; and since, unlike a tax return, the pervasive effect of the information called for by Form IS-52 is incriminatory, their claims are substantial and far from frivolous. In Sullivan the questions in the income tax return were neutral on their face and directed at the public at large, but here they are directed at a highly selective group inherently suspect of criminal activities. Petitioners’ claims are not asserted in an essentially noncriminal and regulatory area of inquiry, but against an inquiry in an area permeated with criminal statutes, where response to any of the form’s questions in context might involve the petitioners in the admission of a crucial element of a crime.
III.
Section 4 (f) of the Act, the purported immunity provision, does not save the registration orders from petitioners’ Fifth Amendment challenge. In Counselman v. Hitchcock, 142 U. S. 547, decided in 1892, the Court held “that no [immunity] statute which leaves the party or witness subject to prosecution after he answers the criminating question put to him, can have'the effect of supplanting the privilege . . . ,” and that such a statute is valid only if it supplies “a complete protection from all the perils against which the constitutional prohibition was designed to guard . . .” by affording “absolute immunity against future prosecution for the offence to which the question relates.” Id., at 585-586. Measured by these standards, the immunity granted by § 4 (f) is not complete. See Scales v. United States, 367 U. S., at 206-219. It does not preclude any use of the information called for by Form IS-52, either as evidence or as an investigatory lead. With regard to the act of registering on Form IS-52a, § 4 (f) provides only that the admission of Party membership thus required shall not per se constitute a violation of §§ 4 (a) and (c) or any other criminal statute, or “be received in evidence” against a registrant in any criminal prosecution; it does not preclude the use of the admission as an investigatory lead, a usé which is barred by the privilege. Counselman v. Hitchcock, 142 U. S., at 564-565, 585.
The Government does not contend that the shortcoming of § 4 (f) is remedied in regard to information called for on the registration statement, Form IS-52. With respect to Form IS-52a, however, the argument is made that, since an order to register is preceded by a Board finding of Party membership, the admission of membership required on that form would be of no investigatory value and thus is not “incriminatory” within the meaning of the Fifth Amendment privilege. On this view the incompleteness of the § 4 (f) grant of immunity would be rendered immaterial and the admission of Party membership could be compelled without violating the privilege. We disagree. The judgment as to whether a disclosure would be “incriminatory” has never been made dependent on an assessment of the information possessed by the Government at the time of interrogation; the protection of the privilege would be seriously impaired if the right to invoke it was dependent on such an assessment, with all its uncertainties. The threat to the privilege is no less present where it is proposed that this assessment be made in order to remedy a shortcoming in a statutory grant of immunity. The representation that the information demanded is of no utility is belied by the fact that the failure to make the disclosure is so severely sanctioned; and permitting the incompleteness of § 4 (f) to be cured by such a representation would render illusory the Counselman requirement that a statute, in order to supplant the privilege, must provide “complete protection from all the perils against which the constitutional prohibition was designed to guard.”
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed and the Board’s orders are set aside.
It is so ordered.
The judgment of conviction of the Party for failure to register was reversed by the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and the case remanded for a new trial. Communist Party of the United States v. United States, 118 U. S. App. D. C. 61, 331 F. 2d 807.
Under this section the registration statement which accompanies the registration of a Communist-action organization is required to include "the name and last-known address of each individual who was a member of the organization at any time during the period of twelve full calendar months preceding the filing of such statement.”
Sections 8(a) and (c), 64 Stat. 995, 50 U. S. C. §§ 787 (a) and (c) (1964 ed.), provide:
“(a) Any individual who is or becomes a member of any organization concerning which (1) there is in effect a final order of the Board requiring such organization to register under section 786 (a) of this title as a Communist-action organization, (2) more than thirty days have elapsed since such order has become final, and (3) such organization is not registered under section 786 of this title as a Communist-action organization, shall within sixty days after said order has become final, or within thirty days after becoming a member of such organization, whichever is later, register with the Attorney General as a member of such organization.
“(c) The registration made by any individual under subsection (a) or (b) of this section shall be accompanied by a registration statement to be prepared and filed in such manner and form, and containing such information, as the Attorney General shall by regulations prescribe.”
Section 13 (a), 64 Stat. 998, 50 U. S. C. § 792 (a) (1964 ed.), provides:
“Whenever the Attorney General shall have reason to believe that . . . any individual who has not registered under section 787 of this title is in fact required to register under such section, he shall file with the Board and serve upon such . . . individual a petition for an order requiring such . . . individual to register pursuant to such subsection or section, as the case may be. Each such petition shall be verified under oath, and shall contain a statement of the facts upon which the Attorney General relies in support of his prayer for the issuance of such order.”
Section 14 (a), 64 Stat. 1001, 50 U. S. C. §793 (a) (1964 ed.), provides:
“The party aggrieved by any order entered by the Board . . . may obtain a review of such order by filing in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, within sixty days from the date of service upon it of such order, a written petition praying that the order of the Board be set aside. . . . Upon the filing of such petition the court shall have jurisdiction of the proceeding and shall have power to affirm or set aside the order of the Board .... The findings of the Board as to the facts, if supported by the preponderance of the evidence, shall be conclusive. . . . The judgment and decree of the court shall be final, except that the same shall be subject to review by the Supreme Court upon certiorari . . . .”
The Government’s opposition to the petition for certiorari suggested that the case is moot as to petitioner Albertson by reason of his alleged expulsion from the Party. Albertson, however, challenges the suggestion of mootness. There is no occasion to decide the question since, in any event, we must reach the merits of the issues in respect of an identical order issued against petitioner Proctor.
Petitioners’ other challenges assailed the Act and registration orders as denying substantive due process (because they allegedly serve no governmental purpose), as abridging First Amendment freedoms, as violating procedural due process and constituting bills of attainder (because they made the Board’s 1953 determination that the Communist Party was a Communist-action organization conclusive upon petitioners), and finally, as denying petitioners the safeguards of grand jury indictment, judicial trial and trial by jury.
The regulations governing Party registration pursuant, to § 7 (d), 50 U. S. C. § 786 (d), are 28 CFR §§ 11.200 and 11.201, and the forms are IS-51a. and IS — 51. The regulation governing officers obliged by §7 (h), 50 U. S. C. §786 (h) “to register for” the Party if it failed to register is 28 CFR § 11.205. See Communist Party, 367 U. S., at 105-110.
Copies of Form IS-52a and Form IS-52 are reproduced in the Appendix to this opinion.
The case was argued orally by both sides on the premise that the penalty for failure to complete arid file Form IS-52 constituted a separate offense punishable by fine of up to $10,000 or imprisonment of up to five years, or both, but that each day of failure to file the form did not constitute a separate offense. We have no occasion, however, to decide the question, and intimate no view upon it. See § 15 (b), 50 U. S. C. § 794 (b).
Section 4 (f), 64 Stat. 992, 50 U. S. C. §783 (f) provides:
“Neither the holding of office nor membership in any Communist organization by any person shall constitute per se a violation of subsection (a) or subsection (c) of this section or of any other criminal statute. The fact of the registration of any person under section 787 or section 788 of this title as an officer or member of any Communist organization shall not be received in evidence against such person in any prosecution for any alleged violation of subsection (a) or subsection (c) of this section or for any alleged violation of any other criminal statute.”
The legislative history includes several expressions of doubt that the immunity granted was coextensive with the privilege. See S. Rep. No. 2369, 81st Cong., 2d Sess., Pt. 2, pp. 12-13 (Sen. Kilgore) (Minority Report); 96 Cong. Rec. 14479 (Sen. Humphrey); 96 Cong. Rec. 15199 and 15554 (Sen. Kefauver); see also 96 Cong. Rec. 13739-13740 (Rep. Celler), dealing with a more modified immunity grant in H. R. 9400. See generally Scales v. United States, 307 U. S., at 212-219 (Court opinion), 282-287 (dissenting opinion).
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.
We are here concerned with the extent of the duty of a court-appointed appellate counsel to prosecute a first appeal from a criminal conviction, after that attorney has conscientiously determined that there is no merit to the indigent’s appeal.
After he was convicted of the felony of possession of marijuana, petitioner sought to appeal and moved that the California District Court of Appeal appoint counsel for him. Such motion was granted; however, after a study of the record and consultation with petitioner, the appointed counsel concluded that there was no merit to the appeal. He so advised the court by letter and, at the same time, informed the court that petitioner wished to file a brief in his own behalf. At this juncture, petitioner requested the appointment of another attorney. This request was denied and petitioner proceeded to file his own brief pro se. The State responded and petitioner filed a reply brief. On January 9, 1959, the District Court of Appeal unanimously affirmed the conviction, People v. Anders, 167 Cal. App. 2d 65, 333 P. 2d 854.
On January 21, 1965, petitioner filed an application for a writ of habeas corpus in the District Court of Appeal in which he sought to have his case reopened. • In that application he raised the issue of deprivation of the right to counsel in his original appeal because of the court’s refusal to appoint counsel at the appellate stage of the proceedings. The court denied the application on the same day, in a brief unreported memorandum opinion. The court stated that it “ha[dj again reviewed the record and [had] determined the appeal [to be] without merit.” The court also stated that “the procedure prescribed by In re Nash, 61 A. C. 538, was followed in this case . ...” On June 25, 1965, petitioner submitted a petition for a writ of habeas corpus to the Supreme Court of California, and the petition was denied without opinion by that court on July 14, 1965. Among other trial errors, petitioner claimed that both the judge and the prosecutor had commented. on his failure to testify contrary to the holding of this Court in Griffin v. California, 380 U. S. 609 (1965). We have concluded that California’s action does not comport with fair procedure and lacks that equality that is required by the Fourteenth Amendment.
I.
For a decade or more, a continuing line of cases has reached this Court concerning discrimination against the indigent defendant on his first appeal. Beginning with Griffin v. Illinois, 351 U. S. 12 (1956) where it was held that equal justice was not afforded an indigent appellant where the nature of the review “depends on the amount of money he has,” at 19, and continuing through Douglas v. California, 372 U. S. 353 (1963), this Court has consistently held invalid those procedures “where the rich man, who appeals as of right, enjoys the benefit of counsel’s examination into the record, research of the law, and marshalling of arguments on his behalf, while the indigent, already burdened by a preliminary determination that his case is without merit, is forced to shift Lrr himself.” At 358. Indeed, in the federal courts, the advice of counsel has long been required whenever a defendant challenges a certification that an appeal is not taken in good faith, Johnson v. United States, 352 U. S. 565 (1957), and such representation must be in the role of an advocate, Ellis v. United States, 356 U. S. 674, 675 (1958), rather than as amicus curiae. In Ellis, supra, we concluded:
“If c®unsel- is convinced, after conscientious investigation, that the appeal is frivolous, of course, he may ask to withdraw on that account. If the court is satisfied that co.unsel has diligently investigated the possible grounds of appeal, and agrees with counsel’s evaluation of the.case, then leave to with-, draw may be allowed and leave to appeal may be denied.” At 675.
In Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U. S. 335 (1963), the Sixth Amendment’s requirement that “the accused shall enjoy the right . : ..to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence” was made obligatory on the States by the Fourteenth Amendment; the Court holding that “in our adversary system of criminal justice, any person haled into court, who is too. poor to hire a lawyer, cannot be assured a fair trial unless counsel is provided for him.” At 344. We continue to adhere to these principles.
II.
In petitioner’s case, his appointed counsel wrote the .District Court of Appeal, stating:
“I will not file a brief on appeal as I am of the opinion that there is no merit to the appeal. I have visited and communicated with Mr. Anders and have explained my views and opinions to him .... [H]e- wishes to file a brief in this matter on his own behalf.”
The District Court of Appeal, after having examined the record, affirmed the conviction. We believe that counsel’s bare conclusion, as evidenced by his letter, was not enough. It smacks of the treatment that Eskridge received, which this Court cofademned. that permitted a trial judge to withhold a transcript if he found'that a defendant “has been accorded a fair and impartial trial, and in the Court’s opinion no grave or prejudicial errors occurred therein.” Eskridge v. Washington State Board, 357 U. S. 214, 215 (1958). Such a procedure, this Court said, “cannot be an adequate substitute for the right to full appellate review available to all defendants” who may not be able to afford such an expense. At 216. And in still another case in which “a state officer outside the judicial system” was given the power to deprive an indigent of his appeal by refusing to order a transcript merely because he thought the “appeal would be unsuccessful,” we reversed, finding that such a procedure did not meet constitutional standards. Lane v. Brown, 372 U. S. 477 (1963). Here the court-appointed counsel had-the transcript but refused to proceed with the appeal because he found no merit-in it. He filed a no-merit letter with the District Court of Appeal whereupon the court examined the record itself and affirmed the judgment. On a petition for a writ of habeas corpus some six years later it found the appeal had no merit. . It failed, however,, to say whether it was frivolous or not, but, after consideration, simply found the petition to be “without merit.” The Supreme Court, in dismissing this habeas corpus application, gave no reason at all for its decision and so we do not know the basis for its action. We cannot say that there was a finding of frivolity by either of the California courts or that counsel acted in any greater capacity than merely as amicus curiae which was condemned in Ellis, supra. Hence California’s procedure did not- furnish petitioner with counsel acting-in the role of an advocate nor did it provide that full consideration and resolution of the matter as is obtained when counsel is acting in that capacity. The necessity for counsel so acting is highlighted by the possible disadvantage the petitioner suffered here. In his pro se brief, which was filed in 1969, he urged several trial errors but failed to raise the point that both the judge and the prosecutor had commented to the jury regarding petitioner’s failure to testify. In 1965, this Court in Griffin v. California, supra, outlawed California’s comment rule, as embodied in Art. I, § 13, of the California Constitution.
III.
The constitutional requirement of substantial equality and fair process can only be attained where counsel acts in the role of an active advocate in behalf of his client, as opposed to that of amicus curiae. The no-merit letter and the procedure it triggers do not reach that dignity. Counsel should, and can with honor and without conflict, be of more assistance to his client and to the court. His role as advocate requires that he support his client’s appeal to the best of his ability. Of course, if counsel finds his case to be wholly frivolous, after a conscientious examination of it, he should so advise the court and request permission to withdraw. That request mush however, be accompanied by a brief referring to anything in the record .that might arguably support the appeal. A copy of counsel’s brief should be furnished the indigent and time allowed him to raise any points that he chooses; the court — not counsel — then proceeds, after a full examination of all the proceedings, to decide whether the ease is wholly frivolous. If it so finds it may grant counsel’s request to withdraw and dismiss the appeal, insofar as federal requirements are concerned, or. proceed to a decision on the merits, if state, law so requires. On the other hand, if it finds any of the legal points arguable on their merits (and therefore not frivolous) it must, prior to decision, afford the indigent the assistance of counsel to argue the appeal.
This requirement would not force appointed counsel to brief his case against his client but would merely afford the latter that advocacy which a nonindigent defendant is able to obtain. It would also induce the court to pursue all the more vigorously its own review because of the ready references not only to the record, but also to the legal authorities as furnished it by counsel. The no-merit letter, on the other hand, affords neither the client nor the court any aid. The former must shift entirely for himself while the court has only the cold record which it must review without the help of an advocate. Moreover, such handling would tend to protect counsel from the constantly increasing charge that he was ineffective and had not handled the case with that diligence. to which an indigent defendant is entitled. ' This procedure will assure penniless defendants the same rights and opportunities on appeal — as nearly as is practicable — as are enjoyed by those persons who are in a similar situation but who are able to afford the retention of private counsel.
The judgment is reversed and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Previously, on January 24, 1964, petitioner, while on parole, had been arrested and convicted of the felony of burglary which was affirmed on appeal. We granted certiorari, ante, p. 264, vacated the judgment below and remanded for further consideration in light of Chapman v. California, ante, p. 18.
In re Nash, 61 Cal. 2d 491, 393 P. 2d 405 (1964), held that the requirements of Douglas v. California, 372 U. S. 353 (1963), are met in the event appointed counsel thoroughly studies the record, consults with the defendant and trial counsel and conscientiously concludes, and so advises the appellate court, that there are no meritorious grounds of appeal; and provided that the appellate court is satisfied from its own review of the record, in light of any points" personally raised by the defendant, that appointed counsel’s conclusion is correct. The appeal then proceeds without the appointment of other counsel and decision is reached without argument.
For comparative purposes see Tate v. United States, 123 U. S. App. D. C. 261, 359 F. 2d 245, and Johnson v. United States, 124 U. S. App. D. C. 29, 360 F. 2d 844, which outline the practice followed in the District of Columbia. These guidelines are elaborated in more detail in a “Statement to be Handed by the Clerk to Appointed Counsel” which has been prepared by the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. We indicate no approval of the requirements set out in the statement or in the 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: | 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 Scalia
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Upon joining a criminal conspiracy, a defendant’s membership in the ongoing unlawful scheme continues until he withdraws. A defendant who withdraws outside the relevant statute-of-limitations period has a complete defense to prosecution. We consider whether, when the defendant produces some evidence supporting such a defense, the Government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he did not withdraw outside the statute-of-limitations period.
I—I
Petitioner Calvin Smith was indicted for crimes connected to his role in an organization that distributed cocaine, crack cocaine, heroin, and marijuana in Washington, D. C., for about a. decade. The 158-count indictment charged Smith and 16 alleged co-conspirators with conspiring to run, and actually running, an illegal drug business, as well as with committing acts of violence, including 31 murders, to further their goals. Smith was tried alongside five codefendants. A jury of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia convicted him of (1) conspiracy to distribute narcotics and to possess narcotics with the intent to distribute them, in violation of 21 U. S. C. § 846; (2) Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) conspiracy, in violation of 18 U. S. C. § 1962(d); (3) murder in connection with a continuing criminal enterprise, in violation of 21 U. S. C. § 848(e)(1)(A); and (4) four counts of murder while armed, in violation of D. C. Code §§22-2401 and 22-3202 (1996).
At issue here are Smith’s conspiracy convictions. Before trial, Smith moved to dismiss the conspiracy counts as barred by the applicable 5-year statute of limitations, 18 U. S. C. § 3282, because he had spent the last six years of the charged conspiracies in prison for a felony conviction. The court denied his motion, and Smith renewed his statute-of-limitations defense at trial. In the final jury charge, the court instructed the jury to convict Smith of each conspiracy count if the Government had proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the conspiracies existed, that Smith was a member of those conspiracies, and that the conspiracies “continued in existence within five years” before the indictment. App. 289a, 300a.
After it began deliberations, the jury asked the court what to do in the event that a defendant withdrew from the conspiracies outside the relevant limitations period. Smith had not yet raised an affirmative defense of withdrawal, so the court for the first time instructed the jury on the defense. The court explained that “[t]he relevant date for purposes of determining the statute of limitations is the date, if any, on which a conspiracy concludes or a date on which that defendant withdrew from that conspiracy.” Id., at 328a. It defined withdrawal as “affirmative acts inconsistent with the goals of the conspiracy” that “were communicated to the defendant’s coconspirators in a manner reasonably calculated to reach those coconspirators.” “Withdrawal,” the court instructed, “must be unequivocal.” Ibid. Over the defense’s objection, the court told the jury that “[ojnce the government has proven that a defendant was a member of a conspiracy, the burden is on the defendant to prove withdrawal from a conspiracy by a preponderance of the evidence.” Ibid. The jury then convicted Smith of the conspiracy crimes.
As relevant here, the Court of Appeals affirmed Smith’s conspiracy convictions. Recognizing that the Circuits are divided on which party bears the burden of proving or disproving a defense of withdrawal prior to the limitations period, the court concluded that the defendant bears the burden of proof and that such a disposition does not violate the Due Process Clause. United States v. Moore, 651 F. 3d 30, 89-90 (CADC 2011) (per curiam). We granted certiorari. 567 U. S. 916 (2012).
II
Petitioner’s claim lies at the intersection of a withdrawal defense and a statute-of-limitations defense. He asserts that once he presented evidence that he ended his membership in the conspiracy prior to the statute-of-limitations period, it became the Government’s burden to prove that his individual participation in the conspiracy persisted within the applicable 5-year window. This position draws support neither from the Constitution (as discussed in this Part II), nor from the conspiracy and limitations statutes at issue (as discussed in Part III, infra). Establishing individual withdrawal was a burden that rested firmly on the defendant regardless of when the purported withdrawal took place.
Allocating to a defendant the burden of proving withdrawal does not violate the Due Process Clause. While the Government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt “every fact necessary to constitute the crime with which [the defendant] is charged,” In re Winship, 397 U. S. 358, 364 (1970), “[p]roof of the nonexistence of all affirmative defenses has never been constitutionally required,” Patterson v. New York, 432 U. S. 197, 210 (1977). The State is foreclosed from shifting the burden of proof to the defendant only “when an affirmative defense does negate an element of the crime.” Martin v. Ohio, 480 U. S. 228, 237 (1987) (Powell, J., dissenting). Where instead it “excuse[s] conduct that would otherwise be punishable,” but “does not controvert any of the elements of the offense itself,” the Government has no constitutional duty to overcome the defense beyond a reasonable doubt. Dixon v. United States, 548 U. S. 1, 6 (2006).
Withdrawal does not negate an element of the conspiracy crimes charged here. The essence of conspiracy is “the combination of minds in an unlawful purpose.” United States v. Hirsch, 100 U. S. 33, 34 (1879). To convict a defendant of narcotics or RICO conspiracy, the Government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that two or more people agreed to commit a crime covered by the specific conspiracy statute (that a conspiracy existed) and that the defendant knowingly and willfully participated in the agreement (that he was a member of the conspiracy). Far from contradicting an element of the offense, withdrawal presupposes that the defendant committed the offense. Withdrawal achieves more modest ends than exoneration. Since conspiracy is a continuing offense, United States v. Kissel, 218 U. S. 601, 610 (1910), a defendant who has joined a conspiracy continues to violate the law “through every moment of [the conspiracy’s] existence,” Hyde v. United States, 225 U. S. 347, 369 (1912), and he becomes responsible for the acts of his co-conspirators in pursuit of their common plot, Pinkerton v. United States, 328 U. S. 640, 646 (1946). Withdrawal terminates the defendant’s liability for postwithdrawal acts of his co-conspirators, but he remains guilty of conspiracy.
Withdrawal also starts the clock running on the time within which the defendant may be prosecuted, and provides a complete defense when the withdrawal occurs beyond the applicable statute-of-limitations period. A complete defense, however, is not necessarily one that establishes the defendant’s innocence. For example, we have held that although self-defense may entirely excuse or justify aggravated murder, “the elements of aggravated murder and self-defense [do not] overlap in the sense that evidence to prove the latter will often tend to negate the former.” Martin, supra, at 234; see Leland v. Oregon, 343 U. S. 790, 794-796 (1952) (same for insanity defense). Likewise, although the statute of limitations may inhibit prosecution, it does not render the underlying conduct noncriminal. Commission of the crime within the statute-of-limitations period is not an element of the conspiracy offense. See United States v. Cook, 17 Wall. 168, 180 (1872). The Government need not allege the time of the offense in the indictment, id., at 179-180, and it is up to the defendant to raise the limitations defense, Biddinger v. Commissioner of Police of City of New York, 245 U. S. 128, 135 (1917). A statute-of-limitations defense does not call the criminality of the defendant’s conduct into question, but rather reflects a policy judgment by the legislature that the lapse of time may render criminal acts ill suited for prosecution. See, e. g., Toussie v. United States, 397 U. S. 112, 114-115 (1970). Thus, although union of withdrawal with a statute-of-limitations defense can free the defendant of criminal liability, it does not place upon the prosecution a constitutional responsibility to prove that he did not withdraw. As with other affirmative defenses, the burden is on him.
Ill
Of course, Congress may choose to assign the Government the burden of proving the nonexistence of withdrawal, even if that is not constitutionally required. It did not do so here. “[T]he common-law rule was that affirmative defenses . . . were matters for the defendant to prove.” Martin, supra, at 235; see 4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 201 (1769). Because Congress did not address in 21 U. S. C. § 846 or 18 U. S. C. § 1962(d) the burden of proof for withdrawal, we presume that Congress intended to preserve the common-law rule. Dixon, 548 U. S., at 13-14.
That Congress left the traditional burden of proof undisturbed is both practical and fair. ‘“[W]here the facts with regard to an issue lie peculiarly in the knowledge of a party,”’ that party is best situated to bear the burden of proof. Id., at 9. On the matter of withdrawal, the informational asymmetry heavily favors the defendant. Passive nonparticipation in the continuing scheme is not enough to sever the meeting of minds that constitutes the conspiracy. “[T]o avert a continuing criminality” there must be “affirmative action ... to disavow or defeat the purpose” of the conspiracy. Hyde, supra, at 369. The defendant knows what steps, if any, he took to dissociate from his confederates. He can testify to his act of withdrawal or direct the court to other evidence substantiating his claim. It would be nearly impossible for the Government to prove the negative that an act of withdrawal never happened. See 9 J. Wigmore, Evidence § 2486, p. 288 (J. Chadbourn rev. 1981) (“It is .often said that the burden is upon the party having in form the affirmative allegation”). Witnesses with the primary power to refute a withdrawal defense will often be beyond the Government’s reach: The defendant’s co-conspirators are likely to invoke their right against self-incrimination rather than explain their unlawful association with him.
Here again, the analysis does not change when withdrawal is the basis for a statute-of-limitations defense. To be sure, we have held that the Government must prove the time of the conspiracy offense if a statute-of-limitations defense is raised. Grunewald v. United States, 353 U. S. 391, 396 (1957). But the Government satisfied that burden here when it proved that the conspiracy continued past the statute-of-limitations period. For the offense in these conspiracy prosecutions was not the initial act of agreement, but the banding together against the law effected by that act, which continues until termination of the conspiracy or, as to a particular defendant, until that defendant’s withdrawal. And as we have discussed, the burden of establishing that withdrawal rests upon the defendant.
Petitioner’s claim that assertion of a statute-of-limitations defense shifts that burden is incompatible with the established proposition that a defendant’s membership in the conspiracy, and his responsibility for its acts, endures even if he is entirely inactive after joining it. (“As he has started evil forces he must withdraw his support from them or incur the guilt of their continuance.” Hyde, 225 U. S., at 369-370.) For as a practical matter, the only way the Government would be able to establish a failure to withdraw would be to show active participation in the conspiracy during the limitations period.
* * *
Having joined forces to achieve collectively more evil than he could accomplish alone, Smith tied his fate to that of the group. His individual change of heart (assuming it occurred) could not put the conspiracy genie back in the bottle. We punish him for the havoc wreaked by the unlawful scheme, whether or not he remained actively involved. It is his withdrawal that must be active, and it was his burden to show that.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
On appeal, the D. C. Circuit remanded two of the murder counts for the District Court to conduct an evidentiary hearing regarding whether Smith received ineffective assistance of counsel as to those convictions. United States v. Moore, 651 F. 3d 30, 89 (2011) (per curiam).
The note to the judge inquired: “ ‘If we find that the Narcotics or RICO conspiracies continued after the relevant date under the statute of limitations, but that a particular defendant left the conspiracy before the relevant date under the statute of limitations, must we find that defendant not guilty?’ ” App. 174a.
Narcotics conspiracy under 21 U. S. C. § 846 criminalizes .“conspir[ing] to commit any offense” under the Controlled Substances Act, including the knowing distribution of, or possession with intent to' distribute, controlled substances, § 841(a)(1). Section 1962(d) of Title 18 makes it unlawful to “conspire to violate” RICO, which makes it unlawful, among other things, “for any person employed by or associated with any enterprise engaged in, or the activities of which affect, interstate or foreign commerce, to conduct or participate, directly or indirectly, in the conduct of such enterprise’s affairs through a pattern of racketeering activity,” § 1962(c).
The conspiracy statutes at issue here do not contain their own limitations periods, but are governed by § 3282(a), which provides: “Except as otherwise expressly provided by law, no person shall be prosecuted, tried, or punished for any offense, not capital, unless the indictment is found or the information is instituted within five years next after such offense shall have been committed.” At the time petitioner was indicted, §3282 contained no subsections; what was the full text of the section is now subsection (a).
Here, Smith introduced a stipulation of his dates spent incarcerated, as well as “testimonial evidence showing that he was no longer a member of the charged conspiracies during his incarceration.” Brief for Petitioner 3. The jury found that this did not establish by a preponderance of the evidence an affirmative act of withdrawal.
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 Brennan
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Section 16A of Chapter 278 of the Massachusetts General Laws, as construed by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, requires trial judges, at trials for specified sexual offenses involving a victim under the age of 18, to exclude the press and general public from the courtroom during the testimony of that victim. The question presented is whether the statute thus construed violates the First Amendment as applied to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment.
HH
The case began when appellant, Globe Newspaper Co. (Globe), unsuccessfully attempted to gain access to a rape trial conducted in the Superior Court for the County of Norfolk, Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The criminal defendant in that trial had been charged with the forcible rape and forced unnatural rape of three girls who were minors at the time of trial — two 16 years of age and one 17. In April 1979, during hearings on several preliminary motions, the trial judge ordered the courtroom closed. Before the trial began, Globe moved that the court revoke this closure order, hold hearings on any future such orders, and permit appellant to intervene “for the limited purpose of asserting its rights to access to the trial and hearings on related preliminary motions.” App. 12a-14a. The trial court denied Globe’s motions, relying on Mass. Gen. Laws Ann., ch. 278, § 16A (West 1981), and ordered the exclusion of the press and general public from the courtroom during the trial. The defendant immediately objected to that exclusion order, and the prosecution stated for purposes of the record that the order was issued on the court’s “own motion and not at the request of the Commonwealth.” App. 18a.
Within hours after the court had issued its exclusion order, Globe sought injunctive relief from a justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts. The next day the justice conducted a hearing, at which the Commonwealth, “on behalf of the victims,” waived “whatever rights it [might] have [had] to exclude the press.” Id., at 28a. Nevertheless, Globe’s request.for relief was denied. Before Globe appealed to the full court, the rape trial proceeded and the defendant was acquitted.
Nine months after the conclusion of the criminal trial, the Supreme Judicial Court issued its judgment, dismissing Globe’s appeal. . Although the court held that the case was rendered moot by completion of the trial, it nevertheless stated that it would proceed to the merits, because the issues raised by Globe were “significant and troublesome, and . . . ‘capable of repetition yet evading review.’” Globe Newspaper Co. v. Superior Court, 379 Mass. 846, 848, 401 N. E. 2d 360, 362 (1980), quoting Southern Pacific Terminal Co. v. ICC, 219 U. S. 498, 515 (1911). As a statutory matter, the court agreed with Globe that § 16A did not require the exclusion of the press from the entire criminal trial. The provision was designed, the court determined, “to encourage young victims of sexual offenses to come forward; once they have come forward, the statute is designed to preserve their ability to testify by protecting them from undue psychological harm at trial.” 379 Mass., at 860, 401 N. E. 2d, at 369. Relying on these twin purposes, the court concluded that § 16A required the closure of sex-offense trials only during the testimony of minor victims; during other portions of such trials, closure was “a matter within the judge’s sound discretion.” Id., at 864, 401 N. E. 2d, at 371. The court did not pass on Globe’s contentions that it had a right to attend the entire criminal trial under the First and Sixth Amendments, noting that it would await this Court’s decision — then pending— in Richmond Newspapers, Inc. v. Virginia, 448 U. S. 555 (1980).
Globe then appealed to this Court. Following our decision in Richmond Newspapers, we vacated the judgment of the Supreme Judicial Court, and remanded the case for further consideration in light of that decision. Globe Newspaper Co. v. Superior Court, 449 U. S. 894 (1980).
On remand, the Supreme Judicial Court, adhering to its earlier construction of § 16A, considered whether our decision in Richmond Newspapers required the invalidation of the mandatory closure rule of §16A. 383 Mass. 838, 423 N. E. 2d 773 (1981). In analyzing the First Amendment issue, the court recognized that there is “an unbroken tradition of openness” in criminal trials. Id., at 845, 423 N. E. 2d, at 778. But the court discerned “at least one notable exception” to this tradition: “In cases involving sexual assaults, portions of trials have been closed to some segments of the public, even when the victim was an adult.” Id., at 846, 423 N. E. 2d, at 778. The court also emphasized that § 16A’s mandatory closure rule furthered “genuine State interests,” which the court had identified in its earlier decision as underlying the statutory provision. These interests, the court stated, “would be defeated if a case-by-case determination were used.” Id., at 848, 423 N. E. 2d, at 779. While acknowledging that the mandatory closure requirement results in a “temporary diminution” of “the public’s knowledge about these trials,” the court did not think “that Richmond Newspapers require[d] the invalidation of the requirement, given the statute’s narrow scope in an area of traditional sensitivity to the needs of victims.” Id., at 851, 423 N. E. 2d, at 781. The court accordingly dismissed Globe’s appeal.
Globe again sought review in this Court. We noted probable jurisdiction. 454 U. S. 1051 (1981). For the reasons that follow, we reverse, and hold that the mandatory closure rule contained in § 16A violates the First Amendment.
r — H HH
In this Court, Globe challenges that portion of the trial court’s order, approved by the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, that holds that § 16A requires, under all circumstances, the exclusion of the press and general public during the testimony of a minor victim in a sex-offense trial. Because the entire order expired with the completion of the rape trial at which the defendant was acquitted, we must consider at the outset whether a live controversy remains. Under Art. Ill, § 2, of the Constitution, our jurisdiction extends only to actual cases or controversies. Nebraska Press Assn. v. Stuart, 427 U. S. 539, 546 (1976). “The Court has recognized, however, that jurisdiction is not necessarily defeated simply because the order attacked has expired, if the underlying dispute between the parties is one ‘capable of repetition, yet evading review.’” Ibid., quoting Southern Pacific Terminal Co. v. ICC, 219 U. S., at 515.
The controversy between the parties in this case is indeed “capable of repetition, yet evading review.” It can reasonably be assumed that Globe, as the publisher of a newspaper serving the Boston metropolitan area, will someday be subjected to another order relying on §16A’s mandatory closure rule. See Gannett Co. v. DePasquale, 443 U. S. 368, 377-378 (1979); Richmond Newspapers, Inc. v. Virginia, 448 U. S., at 563 (plurality opinion). And because criminal trials are typically of “short duration,” ibid., such an order will likely “evade review, or at least considered plenary review in this Court.” Nebraska Press Assn. v. Stuart, supra, at 547. We therefore conclude that the controversy before us is not moot within the meaning of Art. Ill, and turn to the merits.
HH
A
The Court’s recent decision in Richmond Newspapers firmly established for the first time that the press and general public have a constitutional right of access to criminal trials. Although there was no opinion of the Court in that case, seven Justices recognized that this right of access is embodied in the First Amendment, and applied to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment. 448 U. S., at 558-581 (plurality opinion); id., at 584-598 (Brennan, J., concurring in judgment); id., at 598-601 (Stewart, J., concurring in judgment); id., at 601-604 (Blackmun, J., concurring in judgment).
Of course, this right of access to criminal trials is not explicitly mentioned in terms in the First Amendment. But we have long eschewed any “narrow, literal conception” of the Amendment’s terms, NAACP v. Button, 371 U. S. 415, 430 (1963), for the Framers were concerned with broad principles, and wrote against a background of shared values and practices. The First Amendment is thus broad enough to encompass those rights that, while not unambiguously enumerated in the very terms of the Amendment, are nonetheless necessary to the enjoyment of other First Amendment rights. Richmond Newspapers, Inc. v. Virginia, 448 U. S., at 579-580, and n. 16 (plurality opinion) (citing cases); id., at 587-588, and n. 4 (Brennan, J., concurring in judgment). Underlying the First Amendment right of access to criminal trials is the common understanding that “a major purpose of that Amendment was to protect the free discussion of governmental affairs,” Mills v. Alabama, 384 U. S. 214, 218 (1966). By offering such protection, the First Amendment serves to ensure that the individual citizen can effectively participate in and contribute to our republican system of self-government. See Thornhill v. Alabama, 310 U. S. 88, 95 (1940); Richmond Newspapers, Inc. v. Virginia, 448 U. S., at 587-588 (Brennan, J., concurring in judgment). See also id., at 575 (plurality opinion) (the “expressly guaranteed freedoms” of the First Amendment “share a common core purpose of assuring freedom of communication on matters relating to the functioning of government”). Thus to the extent that the First Amendment embraces a right of access to criminal trials, it is to ensure that this constitutionally protected “discussion of governmental affairs” is an informed one.
Two features of the criminal justice system, emphasized in the various opinions in Richmond Newspapers, together serve to explain why a right of access to criminal trials in particular is properly afforded protection by the First Amendment. First, the criminal trial historically has been open to the press and general public. “[A]t the time when our organic laws were adopted, criminal trials both here and in England had long been presumptively open.” Richmond Newspapers, Inc. v. Virginia, supra, at 569 (plurality opinion). And since that time, the presumption of openness has remained secure. Indeed, at the time of this Court’s decision in In re Oliver, 333 U. S. 257 (1948), the presumption was so solidly grounded that the Court was “unable to find a single instance of a criminal trial conducted in camera in any federal, state, or municipal court during the history of this country.” Id., at 266 (footnote omitted). This uniform rule of openness has been viewed as significant in constitutional terms not only “because the Constitution carries the gloss of history,” but also because “a tradition of accessibility implies the favorable judgment of experience.” Richmond Newspapers, Inc. v. Virginia, supra, at 589 (Brennan, J., concurring in judgment).
Second, the right of access to criminal trials plays a particularly significant role in the functioning of the judicial process and the government as a whole. Public scrutiny of a criminal trial enhances the quality and safeguards the integrity of the factfinding process, with benefits to both the defendant and to society as a whole. Moreover, public access to the criminal trial fosters an appearance of fairness, thereby heightening public respect for the judicial process. And in the broadest terms, public access to criminal trials permits the public to participate in and serve as a check upon the judicial process — an essential component in our structure of self-government. In sum, the institutional value of the open criminal trial is recognized in both logic and experience.
B
Although the right of access to criminal trials is of constitutional stature, it is not absolute. See Richmond Newspapers, Inc. v. Virginia, supra, at 581, n. 18 (plurality opinion); Nebraska Press Assn. v. Stuart, 427 U. S., at 570. But the circumstances under which the press and public can be barred from a criminal trial are limited; the State’s justification in denying access must be a weighty one. Where, as in the present case, the State attempts to deny the right of access in order to inhibit the disclosure of sensitive information, it must be shown that the denial is necessitated by a compelling governmental interest, and is narrowly tailored to serve that interest. See, e. g., Brown v. Hartlage, 456 U. S. 45, 53-54 (1982); Smith v. Daily Mail Publishing Co., 443 U. S. 97, 101-103 (1979); NAACP v. Button, 371 U. S., at 438. We now consider the state interests advanced to support Massachusetts’ mandatory rule barring press and public access to criminal sex-offense trials during the testimony of minor victims.
IV
The state interests asserted to support § 16A, though articulated in various ways, are reducible to two: the protection of minor victims of sex crimes from further trauma and embarrassment; and the encouragement of such victims to come forward and testify in a truthful and credible manner. We consider these interests in turn.
We agree with appellee that the first interest — safeguarding the physical and psychological well-being of a minor — is a compelling one. But as compelling as that interest is, it does not justify a mandatory closure rule, for it is clear that the circumstances of the particular case may affect the significance of the interest. A trial court can determine on a case-by-case basis whether closure is necessary to protect the welfare of a minor victim. Among the factors to be weighed are the minor victim’s age, psychological maturity and understanding, the nature of the crime, the desires of the victim, and the interests of parents and relatives. Section 16A, in contrast, requires closure even if the victim does not seek the exclusion of the press and general public, and would not suffer injury by their presence. In the case before us, for example, the names of the minor victims were already in the public record, and the record indicates that the victims may have been willing to testify despite the presence of the press. If the trial court had been permitted to exercise its discretion, closure might well have been deemed unnecessary. In short, § 16A cannot be viewed as a narrowly tailored means of accommodating the State’s asserted interest: That interest could be served just as well by requiring the trial court to determine on a case-by-case basis whether the State’s legitimate concern for the well-being of the minor victim necessitates closure. Such an approach ensures that the constitutional right of the press and public to gain access to criminal trials will not be restricted except where necessary to protect the State’s interest.
Nor can § 16A be justified on the basis of the Commonwealth’s second asserted interest — the encouragement of minor victims of sex crimes to come forward and provide accurate testimony. The Commonwealth has offered no empirical support for the claim that the rule of automatic closure contained in § 16A will lead to an increase in the number of minor sex victims coming forward and cooperating with state authorities. Not only is the claim speculative in empirical terms, but it is also open to serious question as a matter of logic and common sense. Although § 16A bars the press and general public from the courtroom during the testimony of minor sex victims, the press is not denied access to the transcript, court personnel, or any other possible source that could provide an account of the minor victim’s testimony. Thus §16A cannot prevent the press from publicizing the substance of a minor victim’s testimony, as well as his or her identity. If the Commonwealth’s interest in encouraging minor victims to come forward depends on keeping such matters secret, §16A hardly advances that interest in an effective manner. And even if § 16A effectively advanced the State’s interest, it is doubtful that the interest would be sufficient to overcome the constitutional attack, for that same interest could be relied on to support an array of mandatory closure rules designed to encourage victims to come forward: Surely it cannot be suggested that minor victims of sex crimes are the only crime victims who, because of publicity attendant to criminal trials, are reluctant to come forward and testify. The State’s argument based on this interest therefore proves too much, and runs contrary to the very foundation of the right of access recognized in Richmond Newspapers: namely, “that a presumption of openness inheres in the very nature of a criminal trial under our system of justice.” 448 U. S., at 573 (plurality opinion).
V
For the foregoing reasons, we hold that §16A, as construed by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, violates the First Amendment to the Constitution. Accordingly, the judgment of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court is
Reversed.
Massachusetts Gen. Laws Ann., ch. 278, § 16A (West 1981), provides in pertinent part:
"At the trial of a complaint or indictment for rape, incest, carnal abuse or other crime involving sex, where a minor under eighteen years of age is the person upon, with or against whom the crime is alleged to have been committed, . . . the presiding justice shall exclude the general public from the court room, admitting only such persons as may have a direct interest in the case.”
“The court caused a sign marked ‘closed’ to be placed on the courtroom door, and court personnel turned away people seeking entry.” Globe Newspaper Co. v. Superior Court, 379 Mass. 846, 848, 401 N. E. 2d 360, 362-363 (1980) (footnote omitted).
The court refused to permit Globe to file its motion to intervene and explicitly stated that it would not act on Globe’s other motions. App. 17a-18a.
Globe’s request was contained in a petition for extraordinary relief filed pursuant to Mass. Gen. Laws Ann., ch. 211, §3 (West 1958 and Supp. 1982-1983).
The Commonwealth’s representative stated:
“[OJur position before the trial judge [was], and it is before this Court, that in some circumstances a trial judge, where the defendant is asserting his right to a constitutional, public trial,. . . may consider that as outweighing the otherwise legitimate statutory interests, particularly where the Commonwealth [acts] on behalf of the victims, and this is literally on behalf of the victims in the sense that they were consulted fully by the prosecutor in this case. The Commonwealth waives whatever rights it may have to exclude the press.” App. 28a.
Some time after the trial began, the prosecuting attorney informed the judge at a lobby conference that she had “spoke[n] with each of the victims regarding. .. excluding the press.” Id,., at 48a. The prosecuting attorney indicated that the victims had expressed some “privacy concerns” that were based on “their own privacy interests, as well as the fact that there are grandparents involved with a couple of these victims.” Ibid. But according to the prosecuting attorney, the victims “wouldn’t object to the press being included” if “it were at all possible to obtain a guarantee” that the press would not attempt to interview them or publish their names, photographs, or any personal information. Ibid. In fact, their names were already part of the public record. See 383 Mass. 838, 849, 423 N. E. 2d 773, 780 (1981). It is not clear from the record, however, whether or not the victims were aware of this fact at the time of their discussions with the prosecuting attorney.
Justice Quirico dissented, being of the view that the mandatory closure rule of § 16A was not limited to the testimony of minor victims, but was applicable to the entire trial.
The court again noted that the First Amendment issue arising from the closure of the then-completed trial was “ ‘capable of repetition yet evading review.’” Id.., at 841, n. 4, 423 N. E. 2d, at 775, n. 4, quoting Southern Pacific Terminal Co. v. ICC, 219 U. S. 498, 515 (1911). But in contrast to the view it had taken in its prior opinion, supra, at 600, the court held that the case was not moot because of this possibility of repetition without opportunity for review.
The court found it unnecessary to consider Globe’s argument that the mandatory closure rule violated the Sixth Amendment rights of the criminal defendant who had been acquitted in the rape trial. Those Sixth Amendment rights, the court stated, were “personal rights” that, “at least in the context of this case, [could] only be asserted by the original criminal defendant.” 383 Mass., at 842, 423 N. E. 2d, at 776 (footnote omitted).
Justice Wilkins filed a concurring opinion in which he expressed concern whether a statute constitutionally could require closure “without specific findings by the judge that the closing is justified by overriding or countervailing interests of the Commonwealth.” Id., at 852, 423 N. E. 2d, at 782.
We therefore have no occasion to consider Globe’s additional argument that the provision violates the Sixth Amendment.
Justice Powell took no part in the consideration or decision of Richmond Newspapers. But he had indicated previously in a concurring opinion in Gannett Co. v. DePasquale, 443 U. S. 368 (1979), that he viewed the First Amendment as conferring on the press a right of access to criminal trials. Id., at 397-398.
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” U. S. Const., Amdt. 1.
Appellee argues that criminal trials have not always been open to the press and general public during the testimony of minor sex victims. Brief for Appellee 13-22. Even if appellee is correct in this regard, but see Gannett Co. v. DePasquale, supra, at 423 (Blackmun, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part), the argument is unavailing. In Richmond Newspapers, the Court discerned a First Amendment right of access to criminal trials based in part on the recognition that as a general matter criminal trials have long been presumptively open. Whether the First Amendment right of access to criminal trials can be restricted in the context of any particular criminal trial, such as a murder trial (the setting for the dispute in Richmond Newspapers) or a rape trial, depends not on the historical openness of that type of criminal trial but rather on the state interests assertedly supporting the restriction. See Part III-B, infra.
See Richmond Newspapers, Inc. v. Virginia, 448 U. S., at 569 (plurality opinion); id., at 596-597 (BRENNAN, J., concurring in judgment); Gannett Co. v. DePasquale, 443 U. S., at 383; id., at 428-429 (BLACKMUN, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part).
See Levine v. United States, 362 U. S. 610, 616 (1960); In re Oliver, 333 U. S. 257, 268-271 (1948); Richmond Newspapers, Inc. v. Virginia, 448 U. S., at 570-571 (plurality opinion); id., at 595 (Brennan, J., concurring in judgment); Gannett Co. v. DePasquale, supra, at 428-429 (Blackmun, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part).
See Richmond Newspapers, Inc. v. Virginia, 448 U. S., at 570-571 (plurality opinion); id., at 596 (Brennan, J., concurring in judgment); Gannett Co. v. DePasquale, 443 U. S., at 394 (Burger, C. J., concurring); id., at 428 (Blackmun, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part).
Of course, limitations on the right of access that resemble “time, place, and manner” restrictions on protected speech, see Young v. American Mini Theatres, Inc., 427 U. S. 50, 63, n. 18 (1976), would not be subjected to such strict scrutiny. See Richmond Newspapers, Inc. v. Virginia, 448 U. S., at 581-582, n. 18 (plurality opinion); id., at 598, n. 23 (Brennan, J., concurring in judgment); id., at 600 (Stewart, J., concurring in judgment).
In its opinion following our remand, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts described the interests in the following terms:
“(a) to encourage minor victims to come forward to institute complaints and give testimony. . . ; (b) to protect minor victims of certain sex crimes from public degradation, humiliation, demoralization, and psychological damage . . . ; (c) to enhance the likelihood of credible testimony from such minors, free of confusion, fright, or embellishment; (d) to promote the sound and orderly administration of justice . . . ; (e) to preserve evidence and obtain just convictions.” 383 Mass., at 848, 423 N. E. 2d, at 779.
It is important to note that in the context of § 16A, the measure of the State’s interest lies not in the extent to which minor victims are injured by testifying, but rather in the incremental injury suffered by testifying in the presence of the press and the general public.
Indeed, the plurality opinion in Richmond Newspapers suggested that individualized determinations are always required before the right of access may be denied: “Absent an overriding interest articulated in findings, the trial of a criminal case must be open to the public.” 448 U. S., at 581 (footnote omitted) (emphasis added).
“[I]f the minor victim wanted the public to know precisely what a heinous crime the defendant had committed, the imputed legislative justifications for requiring the closing of the trial during the victim’s testimony would in part, at least, be inapplicable.” 383 Mass., at 853, 423 N. E. 2d, at 782 (Wilkins, J., concurring).
It appears that while other States have statutory or constitutional provisions that would allow a trial judge to close a criminal sex-offense trial during the testimony of a minor victim, no other State has a mandatory provision excluding both the press and general public during such testimony. See, e. g., Ala. Code §12-21-202 (1975); Ariz. Rule Crim. Proc. 9.3; Ga. Code § 81-1006 (1978); La. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 15:469.1 (West 1981); Miss. Const., Art. 3, §26; N. H. Rev. Stat. Ann. §632-A:8 (Supp. 1981); N. Y. Jud. Law § 4 (McKinney 1968); N. C. Gen. Stat. § 15-166 (Supp. 1981); N. D. Cent. Code §27-01-02 (1974); Utah Code Ann. §78-7-4 (1953); Vt. Stat. Ann., Tit. 12, §1901 (1973); Wis. Stat. §970.03(4) (1979-1980). See also Fla. Stat. § 918.16 (1979) (providing for mandatory exclusion of general public but not press during testimony of minor victims). Of course, we intimate no view regarding the constitutionality of these state statutes.
The Court has held that the government may not impose sanctions for the publication of the names of rape victims lawfully obtained from the pub-lie record. Cox Broadcasting Corp. v. Cohn, 420 U. S. 469 (1975). See also Smith v. Daily Mail Publishing Co. , 443 U. S. 97 (1979).
See n. 5, supra.
Of course, for a case-by-case approach to be meaningful, representatives of the press and general public “must be given an opportunity to be heard on the question of their exclusion.” Gannett Co. v. DePasquale, 443 U. S., at 401 (Powell, J., concurring). This does not mean, however, that for purposes of this inquiry the court cannot protect the minor victim by denying these representatives the opportunity to confront or cross-examine the victim, or by denying them access to sensitive details concerning the victim and the victim’s future testimony. Such discretion is consistent with the traditional authority of trial judges to conduct in camera conferences. See Richmond Newspapers, Inc. v. Virginia, supra, at 598, n. 23 (Brennenn, J., concurring in judgment). Without such trial court discretion, a State’s interest in safeguarding the welfare of the minor victim, determined in an individual case to merit some form of closure, would be defeated before it could ever be brought to bear.
To the extent that it is suggested that, quite apart from encouraging minor victims to testify, § 16A improves the quality and credibility of testimony, the suggestion also is speculative. And while closure may have such an effect in particular cases, the Court has recognized that, as a general matter, “[ojpenness in court proceedings may improve the quality of testimony.” Gannett Co. v. DePasquale, supra, at 383 (emphasis added). In the absence of any showing that closure would improve the quality of testimony of all minor sex victims, the State’s interest certainly cannot justify a mandatory closure rule.
We emphasize that our holding is a narrow one: that a rule of mandatory closure respecting the testimony of minor sex victims is constitutionally infirm. In individual cases, and under appropriate circumstances, the First Amendment does not necessarily stand as a bar to the exclusion from the courtroom of the press and general public during the testimony of minor sex-offense victims. But a mandatory rule, requiring no particularized determinations in individual cases, is unconstitutional.
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. Chief Justice Burger
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioners in this case challenge as inadequate a school desegregation plan for Mobile County, Alabama. The county is large and populous, embracing 1,248 square miles and the city of Mobile. The school system had 73,500 pupils in 91 schools at the beginning of the 1969 academic year; approximately 58% of the pupils were white and 42% Negro. During the 1967-1968 school year, the system transported 22,000 pupils daily in over 200 school buses, both in the rural areas of the county and in the outlying areas of metropolitan Mobile.
The present desegregation plan evolved from one developed by the District Court in response to the decision of the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in Davis v. Board of School Comm’rs, 414 F. 2d 609 (CA5 1969), that an earlier desegregation plan formulated by the District Court on the basis of unified geographic zones was “constitutionally insufficient and unacceptable, and such zones must be redrawn.” The Court of Appeals held that that earlier plan had “ignored the unequivocal directive to make a conscious effort in locating attendance zones to desegregate and eliminate past segregation.” Id., at 610.
The District Court responded with a new zoning plan which left 18,623, or 60%, of the system's 30,800 Negro children in 19 all-Negro or nearly all-Negro schools. On appeal, the Court of Appeals reviewed all aspects of desegregation in Mobile County. Additional information was requested regarding earlier desegregation plans for the rural parts of the county, and those plans were approved. They are not before us now. The Court of Appeals concluded that with respect to faculty and staff desegregation the board had “almost totally failed to comply” with earlier orders, and directed the District Court to require the board to establish a faculty and staff ratio in each school “substantially the same” as that for the entire district. 430 F. 2d 883, 886. We affirm that part of the Court of Appeals’ opinion for the reasons given in Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, ante, p. 1, at 19-20.
Regarding junior and senior high schools, the Court of Appeals reversed the District Court and directed implementation of a plan that was intended to eliminate the seven all-Negro schools remaining under the District Court’s scheme. This was to be achieved through pairing and adjusting grade structures within metropolitan Mobile, without bus transportation or split zoning. The Court of Appeals then turned to the difficult problem •of desegregating the elementary schools of metropolitan Mobile. The metropolitan area is divided by a major north-south highway. About 94% of the Negro students in the metropolitan area live on the east side of the highway between it and the Mobile River. The schools on that side of the highway are 65% Negro and 35% white. On the west side of the highway, however, the schools are 12% Negro and 88% white. Under the District Court’s elementary school plan for the metropolitan area, the eastern and western sections were treated as distinct, without either interlocking zones or transportation across the highway. Not surprisingly, it was easy to desegregate the western section, but in the east the District Court left 12 all-Negro or nearly all-Negro elementary schools, serving over 90% of all the Negro elementary students in the metropolitan area.
The Court of Appeals rejected this solution in favor of a modified version of a plan submitted by the Department of Justice. As further modified after a second appeal, this plan reduced the number of all-Negro or nearly all-Negro elementary schools from 12 to six schools, projected to serve 5,310 students, or about 50% of the Negro elementary students in the metropolitan area. Like the District Court’s plan, the Court of Appeals’ plan was based on treating the western section in isolation from the eastern. There were unified geographic zones, and no transportation of students for purposes of desegregation. The reduction in the number of all-Negro schools was achieved through pairing, rezoning, and adjusting grade structures within the eastern section. With yet further modifications not material here, this plan went into effect at the beginning of the 1970-1971 school year.
The enrollment figures for the 1970-1971 school year show that the projections on which the Court of Appeals based its plan for metropolitan Mobile were inaccurate. Under the Court of Appeals’ plan as actually implemented, nine elementary schools in the eastern section of metropolitan Mobile were over 90% Negro as of September 21, 1970 (instead of six as projected), and they housed 7,651 students, or 64% of all the Negro elementary school pupils in the metropolitan area. Moreover, the enrollment figures indicate that 6,746 Negro junior and senior high school students in metropolitan Mobile, or over half, were then attending all-Negro or nearly all-Negro schools, rather than none as projected by the Court of Appeals. These figures are derived from a report of the school board to the District Court; they were brought to our attention in a supplemental brief for petitioners filed on October 10, 1970, and have not been challenged by respondents.
As we have held, “neighborhood school zoning,” whether based strictly on home-to-school distance or on “unified geographic zones,” is not the only constitutionally permissible remedy; nor is it per se adequate to meet the remedial responsibilities of local boards. Having once found a violation, the district judge or school authorities should make every effort to achieve the greatest possible degree of actual desegregation, taking into account the practicalities of the situation. A district court may and should consider the use of all available techniques including restructuring of attendance zones and both contiguous and noncontiguous attendance zones. See Swann, supra, at 22-31. The measure of any desegregation plan is its effectiveness.
On the record before us, it is clear that the Court of Appeals felt constrained to treat the eastern part of metropolitan Mobile in isolation from the rest of the school system, and that inadequate consideration was given to the possible use of bus transportation and split zoning. For these reasons, we reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals as to the parts dealing with student assignment, and remand the case for the development of a decree “that promises realistically to work, and promises realistically to work now.” Green v. County School Board, 391 U. S. 430, 439 (1968).
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: | 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 White
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The terms of the. Fourth Amendment, applicable to the States by virtue of the Fourteenth Amendment, are familiar:
“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
As heretofore understood, the Amendment has not been a barrier to warrants to search property on which there is probable cause to believe that fruits, instrumentalities, or evidence of crime is located, whether or not the owner or possessor of the premises to be searched is himself reasonably suspected of complicity in the crime being investigated. We are now asked to reconstrue the Fourth Amendment and to hold for the first time that when the place to be searched is occupied by a person not then a suspect, a warrant to search for criminal objects and evidence reasonably believed to be located there should not issue except in the most unusual circumstances, and that except in such circumstances, a subpoena duces tecum must be relied upon to recover the objects or evidence sought.
I
Late in the day on Friday, April 9, 1971, officers of the Palo Alto Police Department and of the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Department responded to a call from the director of the Stanford University Hospital requesting the removal of a large group of demonstrators who had seized the hospital's administrative offices and occupied them since the previous afternoon. After several futile efforts to persuade the demonstrators to leave peacefully, more drastic measures were employed. The demonstrators had barricaded the doors at both ends of a hall adjacent to the administrative offices. The police chose to force their way in at the west end of the corridor. As they did so, a group of demonstrators emerged through the doors at the east end and, armed with sticks and clubs, attacked the group of nine police officers stationed there. One officer was knocked to the floor and struck repeatedly on the head; another suffered a broken shoulder. All nine were injured. There were no police photographers at the east doors, and most bystanders and reporters were on the west side. The officers themselves were able to identify only two of their assailants, but one of them did see at least one person photographing the assault at the east doors.
On Sunday, April 11, a special edition of the Stanford Daily (Daily), a student newspaper published at Stanford University, carried articles and photographs devoted to the hospital protest and the violent clash between demonstrators and police. The photographs carried the byline of a Daily staff member and indicated that he had been at the east end of the hospital hallway where he could have photographed the assault on the nine officers. The next day, the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office secured a warrant from the Municipal Court for an immediate search of the Daily’s offices for negatives, film, and pictures showing the events and occurrences at the hospital on the evening of April 9. The warrant issued on a finding of “just, probable and reasonable cause for believing that: Negatives and photographs and films, evidence material and relevant to the identity of the perpetrators of felonies, to wit, Battery on a Peace Officer, and Assault with Deadly Weapon, will be located [on the premises of the Daily].” App. 31-32. The warrant affidavit contained no allegation or indication that members of the Daily staff were in any way involved in unlawful acts at the hospital.
The search pursuant to the warrant was conducted later that day by four police officers and took place in the presence of some members of the Daily staff. The Daily’s photographic laboratories, filing cabinets, desks, and wastepaper baskets were searched. Locked drawers and rooms were not opened. The officers apparently had opportunity to read notes and correspondence during the search; but, contrary to claims of the staff, the officers denied that they had exceeded the limits of the warrant. They had not been advised by the staff that the areas they were searching contained confidential materials. The search revealed only the photographs that had already been published on April 11, and no materials were removed from the Daily’s office.
A month later the Daily and various members of its staff, respondents here, brought a civil action in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California seeking declaratory and injunctive relief under 42 U. S. C. § 1983 against the police officers who conducted the search, the chief of police, the district attorney and one of his deputies, and the judge who had issued the warrant. The complaint alleged that the search of the Daily’s office had deprived respondents under color of state law of rights secured to them by the First, Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution.
The District Court denied the request for an injunction but, on respondents’ motion for summary judgment, granted declaratory relief. 353 F. Supp. 124 (1972). The court did not question the existence of probable cause to believe that a crime had been committed and to believe that relevant evidence would be found on the Daily’s premises. It held, however, that the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments forbade the issuance of a warrant to search for materials in possession of one not suspected of crime unless there is probable cause to believe, based on facts presented in a sworn affidavit, that a subpoena duces tecum would be impracticable. Moreover, the failure to honor a subpoena would not alone justify a warrant; it must also appear that the possessor of the objects sought would disregard a court order not to remove or destroy them. The District Court further held that where the innocent object of the search is a newspaper, First Amendment interests are also involved and that such a search is constitutionally permissible “only in the rare circumstance where there is a clear showing that (1) important materials will be destroyed or removed from the jurisdiction; and (2) a restraining order would be futile.” Id., at 135. Since these preconditions to a valid warrant had not been satisfied here, the search of the Daily’s offices was declared to have been illegal. The Court of Appeals affirmed per curiam, adopting the opinion of the District Court. 550 F. 2d 464 (CA9 1977). We issued the writs of certiorari requested by petitioners. 434 TI. S. 816 (1977). We reverse.
V-H HH
The issue here is how the Fourth Amendment is to be construed and applied to the “third party” search, the recurring situation where state authorities have probable cause to believe that fruits, instrumentalities, or other evidence of crime is located on identified property but do not then have probable cause to believe that the owner or possessor of the property is himself implicated in the crime that has occurred or is occurring. Because under the District Court’s rule impracticability can be shown only by furnishing facts demonstrating that the third party will not only disobey the subpoena but also ignore a restraining order not to move or destroy the property, it is apparent that only in unusual situations could the State satisfy such a severe burden and that for all practical purposes the effect of the rule is that fruits, instrumentalities, and evidence of crime may be recovered from third parties only by subpoena, not by search warrant. At least, we assume that the District Court did not intend its rule to be toothless and anticipated that only subpoenas would be available in many cases where without the rule a search warrant would issue.
It is an understatement to say that there is no direct authority in this or any other federal court for the District Court’s sweeping revision of the Fourth Amendment. Under existing law, valid warrants may be issued to search any property, whether or not occupied by a third party, at which there is probable cause to believe that fruits, instrumentalities, or evidence of a crime will be found. Nothing on the face of the Amendment suggests that a third-party search warrant should not normally issue. The Warrant Clause speaks of search warrants issued on “probable cause” and “particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” In situations where the State does not seek to seize “persons” but only those “things” which there is probable cause to believe are located on the place to be searched, there is no apparent basis in the language of the Amendment for also imposing the requirements for a valid arrest — probable cause to believe that the third party is implicated in the crime.
As the Fourth Amendment has been construed and applied by this Court, “when the State’s reason to believe incriminating evidence will be found becomes sufficiently great, the invasion of privacy becomes justified and a warrant to search and seize will issue.” Fisher v. United States, 425 U. S. 391, 400 (1976). In Camara v. Municipal Court, 387 U. S. 523, 534-535 (1967), we indicated that in applying the “probable cause” standard “by which a particular decision to search is tested against the constitutional mandate of reasonableness,” it is necessary “to focus upon the governmental interest which allegedly justifies official intrusion” and that in criminal investigations a warrant to search for recoverable items is reasonable “only when there is 'probable cause’ to believe that they will be uncovered in a particular dwelling.” Search warrants are not directed at persons; they authorize the search of “place [s]” and the seizure of “things,” and as a constitutional matter they need not even name the person from whom the things will be seized. United States v. Kahn, 415 U. S. 143, 155 n. 15 (1974).
Because the State’s interest in enforcing the criminal law and recovering evidence is the same whether the third party is culpable or not, the premise of the District Court’s holding appears to be that state entitlement to a search warrant depends on the culpability of the owner or possessor of the place to be searched and on the State’s right to arrest him. The cases are to the contrary. Prior to Camara v. Municipal Court, supra, and See v. Seattle, 387 U. S. 541 (1967), the central purpose of the Fourth Amendment was seen to be the protection of the individual against official searches for evidence to convict him of a crime. Entries upon property for civil purposes, where the occupant was suspected of no criminal conduct whatsoever, involved a more peripheral concern and the less intense “right to be secure from intrusion into personal privacy.” Frank v. Maryland, 359 U. S. 360, 365 (1959); Camara v. Municipal Court, supra, at 530. Such searches could proceed without warrant, as long as the State’s interest was sufficiently substantial. Under this view, the Fourth Amendment was more protective where the place to be searched was occupied by one suspected of crime and the search was for evidence to use against him. Camara and See, disagreeing with Frank to this extent, held that a warrant is required where entry is sought for civil purposes, as well as when criminal law enforcement is involved. Neither case, however, suggested that to secure a search warrant the owner or occupant of the place to be inspected or searched must be suspected of criminal involvement. Indeed, both cases held that a less stringent standard of probable cause is acceptable where the entry is not to secure evidence of crime against the possessor.
We have suggested nothing to the contrary since Camara and See. Indeed, Colonnade Catering Corp. v. United States, 397 U. S. 72 (1970), and United States v. Biswell, 406 U. S. 311 (1972), dispensed with the warrant requirement in cases involving limited types of inspections and searches.
The critical element in a reasonable search is not that the owner of the property is suspected of crime but that there is reasonable cause to believe that the specific “things” to be searched for and seized are located on the property to which entry is sought. In Carroll v. United States, 267 U. S. 132 (1925), it was claimed that the seizure of liquor was unconstitutional because the occupant of a car stopped with probable cause to believe that it was carrying illegal liquor was not subject to arrest. The Court, however, said:
“If their theory were sound, their conclusion would be. The validity of the seizure then would turn wholly on the validity of the arrest without a seizure. But the theory is unsound. The right to search and the validity of the seizure are not dependent on the right to arrest. They are dependent on the reasonable cause the seizing officer has for belief that the contents of the automobile offend against the law.” Id., at 158-159.
The Court’s ultimate conclusion was that “the officers here had justification for the search and seizure,” that is, a reasonable “belief that intoxicating liquor was being transported in the automobile which they stopped and searched.” Id., at 162. See also Husty v. United States, 282 U. S. 694, 700-701 (1931).
Federal Rule Crim. Proc. 41, which reflects “[t]he Fourth Amendment’s policy against unreasonable searches and seizures,” United States v. Ventresca, 380 U. S. 102, 105 n. 1 (1965), authorizes warrants to search for contraband, fruits or instrumentalities of crime, or “any... property that constitutes evidence of the commission of a criminal offense... Upon proper showing, the warrant is to issue “identifying the property and naming or describing the person or place to be searched.” Probable cause for the warrant must be presented, but there is nothing in the Rule indicating that the officers must be entitled to arrest the owner of the “place” to be searched before a search warrant may issue and the “property” may be searched for and seized. The Rule deals with warrants to search, and is unrelated to arrests. Nor is there anything in the Fourth Amendment indicating that absent probable cause to arrest a third party, resort must be had to a subpoena.
The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit expressed the correct view of Rule 41 and of the Fourth Amendment when, contrary to the decisions of the Court of Appeals and the District Court in the present litigation, it ruled that “[o]nce it is established that probable cause exists to believe a federal crime has been committed a warrant may issue for the search of any property which the magistrate has probable cause to believe may be the place of concealment of evidence of the crime.” United States v. Manufacturers Nat. Bank of Detroit, 536 F. 2d 699, 703 (1976), cert. denied sub nom. Wingate v. United States, 429 U. S. 1039 (1977). Accord, State v. Tunnel Citgo Services, 149 N. J. Super. 427, 433, 374 A. 2d 32, 35 (1977).
The net of the matter is that “[s]earches and seizures, in a technical sense, are independent of, rather than ancillary to, arrest and arraignment.” ALI, A Model Code of Pre-Arraignment Procedure, Commentary 491 (Proposed Off. Draft 1975). The Model Code provides that the warrant application "shall describe with particularity the individuals or places to be searched and the individuals or things to be seized, and shall be supported by one or more affidavits particularly setting forth the facts and circumstances tending to show that such individuals or things are or will be in the places, or the things are or will be in possession of the individuals, to be searched.” § SB 220.1 (3). There is no suggestion that the occupant of the place to be searched must himself be implicated in misconduct.
Against this background, it is untenable to conclude that property may not be searched unless its occupant is reasonably suspected of crime and is subject to arrest. And if those considered free of criminal involvement may nevertheless be searched or inspected under civil statutes, it is difficult to understand why the Fourth Amendment would prevent entry onto their property to recover evidence of a crime not committed by them but by others. As we understand the structure and language of the Fourth Amendment and our cases expounding it, valid warrants to search property may be issued when it is satisfactorily demonstrated to the magistrate that fruits, instrumentalities, or evidence of crime is located on the premises. The Fourth Amendment has itself struck the balance between privacy and public need, and there is no occasion or justification for a court to revise the Amendment and strike a new balance by denying the search warrant in the circumstances present here and by insisting that the investigation proceed by subpoena duces tecum, whether on the theory that the latter is a less intrusive alternative or otherwise.
This is not to question that “reasonableness” is the overriding test of compliance with the Fourth Amendment or to assert that searches, however or whenever executed, may never be unreasonable if supported by a warrant issued on probable cause and properly identifying the place to be searched and the property to be seized. We do hold, however, that the courts may not, in the name of Fourth Amendment reasonableness, prohibit the States from issuing warrants to search for evidence simply because the owner or possessor of the place to be searched is not then reasonably suspected of criminal involvement.
Ill
In any event, the reasons presented by the District Court and adopted by the Court of Appeals for arriving at its remarkable conclusion do not withstand analysis. First, as we have said, it is apparent that whether the third-party occupant is suspect' or not, the State’s interest in enforcing the criminal law and recovering the evidence remains the same; and it is the seeming innocence of the property owner that the District Court relied on to foreclose the warrant to search. But, as respondents themselves now concede, if the third party knows that contraband or other illegal materials are on his property, he is sufficiently culpable to justify the issuance of a search warrant. Similarly, if his ethical stance is the determining factor, it seems to us that whether or not he knows that the sought-after articles are secreted on his property and whether or not he knows that the articles are in fact the fruits, instrumen-talities, or evidence of crime, he will be so informed when the search warrant is served, and it is doubtful that he should then be permitted to object to the search, to withhold, if it is there, the evidence of crime reasonably believed to be possessed by him or secreted on his property, and to forbid the search and insist that the officers serve him with a subpoena duces tecum.
Second, we are unpersuaded that the District Court’s new rule denying search warrants against third parties and insisting on subpoenas would substantially further privacy interests without seriously undermining law enforcement efforts. Because of the fundamental public interest in implementing the criminal law, the search warrant, a heretofore effective and constitutionally acceptable enforcement tool, should not be suppressed on the basis of surmise and without solid evidence supporting the change. As the District Court understands it, denying third-party search warrants would not have substantial adverse effects on criminal investigations because the nonsuspect third party, once served with a subpoena, will preserve the evidence and ultimately lawfully respond. The difficulty with this assumption is that search warrants are often employed early in an investigation, perhaps before the identity of any likely criminal and certainly before all the perpetrators are or could be known. The seemingly blameless third party in possession of the fruits or evidence may not be innocent at all; and if he is, he may nevertheless be so related to or so sympathetic with the culpable that he cannot be relied upon to retain and preserve the articles that may implicate his friends, or at least not to notify those who would be damaged by the evidence that the authorities are aware of its location. In any event, it is likely that the real culprits will have access to the property, and the delay involved in employing the subpoena duces tecum, offering as it does the opportunity to litigate its validity, could easily result in the disappearance of the evidence, whatever the good faith of the third party.
Forbidding the warrant and insisting on the subpoena instead when the custodian of the object of the search is not then suspected of crime, involves hazards to criminal investigation much more serious than the District Court believed; and the record is barren of anything but the District Court’s assumptions to support its conclusions. At the very least, the burden of justifying a major revision of the Fourth Amendment has not been carried.
We are also not convinced that the net gain to privacy interests by the District Court’s new rule would be worth the candle. In the normal course of events, search warrants are more difficult to obtain than subpoenas, since the latter do not involve the judiciary and do not require proof of probable cause. Where, in the real world, subpoenas would suffice, it can be expected that they will be employed by the rational prosecutor. On the other hand, when choice is available under local law and the prosecutor chooses to use the search warrant, it is unlikely that he has needlessly selected the more difficult course. His choice is more likely to be based on the solid belief, arrived at through experience but difficult, if not impossible, to sustain in a specific case, that the warranted search is necessary to secure and to avoid the destruction of evidence.
IV
The District Court held, and respondents assert here, that whatever may be true of third-party searches generally, where the third party is a newspaper, there are additional factors derived from the First Amendment that justify a nearly per se rule forbidding the search warrant and permitting only the subpoena duces tecum. The general submission is that searches of newspaper offices for evidence of crime reasonably believed to be on the premises will seriously threaten the ability of the press to gather, analyze, and disseminate news. This is said to be true for several reasons: First, searches will be physically disruptive to such an extent that timely publication will be impeded. Second, confidential sources of information will dry up, and the press will also lose opportunities to cover various events because of fears of the participants that press files will be readily available to- the authorities. Third, reporters will be deterred from recording and preserving their recollections for future use if such information is subject to seizure. Fourth, the processing of news and its dissemination will be chilled by the prospects that searches will disclose internal editorial deliberations. Fifth, the press will resort to self-censorship to conceal its possession of information of potential interest to the police.
It is true that the struggle from “'which the Fourth Amendment emerged “is largely a history of conflict between the Crown and the press,” Stanford v. Texas, 379 U. S. 476, 482 (1965), and that in issuing warrants and determining the reasonableness of a search, state and federal magistrates should be aware that “unrestricted power of search and seizure could also be an instrument for stifling liberty of expression.” Marcus v. Search Warrant, 367 U. S. 717, 729 (1961). Where the materials sought to be seized may be protected by the First Amendment, the requirements of the Fourth Amendment must be applied with “scrupulous exactitude.” Stanford v. Texas, supra, at 485. “A seizure reasonable as to one type of material in one setting may be unreasonable in a different setting or with respect to another kind of material.” Roaden v. Kentucky, 413 U. S. 496, 501 (1973). Hence, in Stanford v. Texas, the Court invalidated a warrant authorizing the search of a private home for all books, records, and other materials relating to the Communist Party, on the ground that whether or not the warrant would have been sufficient in other contexts, it authorized the searchers to rummage among and make judgments about books and papers and was the functional equivalent of a general warrant, one of the principal targets of the Fourth Amendment. Where presumptively protected materials are sought to be seized, the warrant requirement should be administered to leave as little as possible to the discretion or whim of the officer in the field.
Similarly, where seizure is sought of allegedly obscene materials, the judgment of the arresting officer alone is insufficient to justify issuance of a search warrant or a seizure without a warrant incident to arrest. The procedure for determining probable cause must afford an opportunity for the judicial officer to “focus searchingly on the question of obscenity.” Marcus v. Search Warrant, supra, at 732; A Quantity of Books v. Kansas, 378 U. S. 205, 210 (1964); Lee Art Theatre, Inc. v. Virginia, 392 U. S. 636, 637 (1968); Roaden v. Kentucky, supra, at 502; Heller v. New York, 413 U. S. 483, 489 (1973).
Neither the Fourth Amendment nor the cases requiring consideration of First Amendment values in issuing search warrants, however, call for imposing the regime ordered by the District Court. Aware of the long struggle between Crown and press and desiring to curb unjustified official intrusions, the Framers took the enormously important step of subjecting searches to the test of reasonableness and to the general rule requiring search warrants issued by neutral magistrates. They nevertheless did not forbid warrants where the press was involved, did not require special showings that subpoenas would be impractical, and did not insist that the owner of the place to be searched, if connected with the press, must be shown to be implicated in the offense being investigated. Further, the prior cases do no more than insist that the courts apply the warrant requirements with particular exactitude when First Amendment interests would be endangered by the search. As we see it, no more than this is required where the warrant requested is for the seizure of criminal evidence reasonably believed to be on the premises occupied by a newspaper. Properly administered, the preconditions for a warrant — probable cause, specificity with respect to the place to be searched and the things to be seized, and overall reasonableness — should afford sufficient protection against the harms that are assertedly threatened by warrants for searching newspaper offices.
There is no reason to believe, for example, that magistrates cannot guard against searches of the type, scope, and intrusiveness that would actually interfere with the timely publication of a newspaper. Nor, if the requirements of specificity and reasonableness are properly applied, policed, and observed, will there be any occasion or opportunity for officers to rummage at large in newspaper files or to intrude into or to deter normal editorial and publication decisions. The warrant issued in this case authorized nothing of this sort. Nor are we convinced, any more than we were in Branzburg v. Hayes, 408 U. S. 665 (1972), that confidential sources will disappear and that the press will suppress news because of fears of warranted searches. Whatever incremental effect there may be in this regard if search warrants, as well as subpoenas, are permissible in proper circumstances, it does not make a constitutional difference in our judgment.
The fact is that respondents and amici have pointed to only a very few instances in the entire United States since 1971 involving the issuance of warrants for searching newspaper premises. This reality hardly suggests abuse; and if abuse occurs, there will be time enough to deal with it. Furthermore, the press is not only an important, critical, and valuable asset to society, but it is not easily intimidated — nor should it be.
Respondents also insist that the press should be afforded opportunity to litigate the State's entitlement to the material it seeks before it is turned over or seized and that whereas the search warrant procedure is defective in this respect, resort to the subpoena would solve the problem. The Court has held that a restraining order imposing a prior restraint upon free expression is invalid for want of notice and opportunity for a hearing, Carroll v. Princess Anne, 393 U. S. 175 (1968), and that seizures not merely for use as evidence but entirely removing arguably protected materials from circulation may be effected only after an adversary hearing and a judicial finding of obscenity. A Quantity of Books v. Kansas, supra. But presumptively protected materials are not necessarily immune from seizure under warrant for use at a criminal trial. Not every such seizure, and not even most, will impose a prior restraint. Heller v. New York, supra. And surely a warrant to search newspaper premises for criminal evidence such as the one issued here for news photographs taken in a public place carries no realistic threat of prior restraint or of any direct restraint whatsoever on the publication of the Daily or on its communication of ideas. The hazards of such warrants can be avoided by a neutral magistrate carrying out his responsibilities under the Fourth Amendment, for he has ample tools at his disposal to confine warrants to search within reasonable limits.
We note finally that if the evidence sought by warrant is sufficiently connected with the crime to satisfy the probable-cause requirement, it will very likely be sufficiently relevant to justify a subpoena and to withstand a motion to quash. Further, Fifth Amendment and state shield-law objections that might be asserted in opposition to compliance with a subpoena are largely irrelevant to determining the legality of a search warrant under the Fourth Amendment. Of course, the Fourth Amendment does not prevent or advise against legislative or executive efforts to establish nonconstitutional protections against possible abuses of the search warrant procedure, but we decline to reinterpret the Amendment to impose a general constitutional barrier against warrants to search newspaper premises, to require resort to subpoenas as a general rule, or to demand prior notice and hearing in connection with the issuance of search warrants.
V
We accordingly reject the reasons given by the District Court and adopted by the Court of Appeals for holding the search for photographs at the Stanford Daily to have been unreasonable within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment and in violation of the First Amendment. Nor has anything else presented here persuaded us that the Amendments forbade this search. It follows that the judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed.
So ordered.
Mr. Justice Brennan took no part in the consideration or decision of these cases.
There was extensive damage to the administrative offices resulting from the occupation and the removal of the demonstrators.
The District Court did not find it necessary to resolve this dispute.
The Court of Appeals also approved the award of attorney’s fees to respondents pursuant to the Civil Rights Attorney’s Fees Awards Act of 1976, 42 U. S. C. § 1988 (1976 ed.). We do not consider the propriety of this award in light of our disposition on the merits reversing the judgment upon which the award was predicated.
Petitioners in No. 76-1484 are the chief of police and the officers under his command who conducted the search. Petitioners in No. 76-1600 are the district attorney and a deputy district attorney who participated in the obtaining of the search warrant. The action against the judge who issued the warrant was subsequently dismissed upon the motion of respondents.
Respondents rely on four state cases to support the holding that a warrant may not issue unless it is shown that a subpoena is impracticable: Owens v. Way, 141 Ga. 796, 82 S. E. 132 (1914); Newberry v. Carpenter, 107 Mich. 567, 65 N. W. 530 (1895); People v. Carver, 172 Misc. 820, 16 N. Y. S. 2d 268 (County Ct. 1939); and Commodity Mfg. Co. v. Moore, 198 N. Y. S. 45 (Sup. Ct. 1923). None of these cases, however, stands for the proposition arrived at by the District Court and urged by respondents. The District Court also drew upon Bacon v. United States, 449 F. 2d 933 (CA9 1971), but that case dealt with arrest of a material witness and is unpersuasive with respect to the search for criminal evidence.
The same view has been expressed by those who have given close attention to the Fourth Amendment. “It does not follow, however, that probable cause for arrest would justify the issuance of a search warrant, or, on the other hand, that probable cause for a search warrant would necessarily justify an arrest. Each requires probabilities as to somewhat different facts and circumstances — a point which is seldom made explicit in the appellate cases....
“This means, for one thing, that while probable cause for arrest requires information justifying a reasonable belief that a crime has been committed and that a particular person committed it, a search warrant may be issued on a complaint which does not identify any particular person as the likely offender. Because the complaint for a search warrant is not ‘filed as the basis of a criminal prosecution,’ it need not identify the person in charge of the premises or name the person in possession or any other person as the offender.” LaFave,'Search and Seizure: “The Course of True Law... Has Not... Run Smooth,” U. Ill. Law Forum 255, 260-261 (1966) (footnotes omitted).
“Furthermore, a warrant may issue to search the premises of anyone, without any showing that the occupant is guilty of any offense whatever.” T. Taylor, Two Studies in Constitutional Interpretation 48-49 (1969). “Search warrants may be issued only by a neutral and detached judicial officer, upon a showing of probable cause — that is, reasonable grounds to believe — that criminally related objects are in the place which the warrant authorizes to be searched, at the time when the search is authorized to be conducted.” Amsterdam, Perspectives on the Fourth Amendment, 58 Minn. L. Rev. 349, 358 (1974) (footnotes omitted).
“Two conclusions necessary to the issuance of the warrant must be supported by substantial evidence: that the items sought are in fact seizable by virtue of being connected with criminal activity, and that the items will be found in the place to be searched. By comparison, the right of arrest arises only when a crime is committed or attempted in the presence of the arresting officer or when the officer has ‘reasonable grounds to believe’ — sometimes stated ‘probable cause to believe’- — that a felony has been committed by the person to be arrested. Although it would appear that the conclusions which justify either arrest or the issuance of a search warrant must be supported by evidence of the same degree of probity, it is clear that the conclusions themselves are not identical.
“In the case of arrest, the conclusion concerns the guilt of the arrestee, whereas in the case of search warrants, the conclusions go to the connection of the items sought with crime and to their present location.” Comment, 28 U. Chi. L. Rev. 664, 687 (1961) (footnotes omitted).
Petitioners assert that third-party searches have long been authorized under Cal. Penal Code Ann. § 1524 (West 1970), which provides that fruits, instrumentalities, and evidence of crime “may be taken on the warrant from any place, or from any person in whose possession [they] may be.” The District Court did not advert to this provision.
It is also far from, clear, even apart from the dangers of destruction and removal, whether the use of the subpoena duces tecum under circumstances where there is probable cause to believe that a crime has been committed and that the materials sought constitute evidence of its commission will result in the production of evidence with sufficient regularity to satisfy the public interest in law enforcement. Unlike the individual whose privacy is invaded by a search, the recipient of a subpoena may assert the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination in response to a summons to produce evidence or give testimony. See Maness v. Meyers, 419 U. S. 449 (1975). This privilege is not restricted to suspects. We have construed it broadly as covering any individual who might be incriminated by the evidence in connection with which the privilege is asserted. Hoffman v. United States, 341 U. S. 479 (1951). The burden of overcoming an assertion of the Fifth Amendment privilege, even if prompted by a desire not to cooperate rather than any real fear of self-incrimination, is one which prosecutors would rarely be able to meet in the early stages of an investigation despite the fact they did not regard the witness as a suspect. Even time spent litigating such matters could seriously impede criminal investigations.
We reject totally the reasoning of the District Court that additional protections are required to assure that the Fourth Amendment rights of third parties are not violated because of the unavailability of the exclusionary rule as a deterrent to improper searches of premises in the control of nonsuspects. 353 F. Supp. 124, 131-132 (1972). In Alderman v. United States, 394 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 O’Connor
delivered the opinion of the Court.
We confront here the problem of a “mixed” petition for habeas corpus relief in which a state prisoner presents a federal court with a single petition containing some claims that have been exhausted in the state courts and some that have not. More precisely, we consider whether a federal district court has discretion to stay the mixed petition to allow the petitioner to present his unexhausted claims to the state court in the first instance, and then to return to federal court for review of his perfected petition.
I
Petitioner Charles Russell Rhines was convicted in South Dakota state court of first-degree murder and third-degree burglary and sentenced to death. His conviction became final on December 2,1996, when we denied his initial petition for certiorari. Rhines v. South Dakota, 519 U. S. 1013. On December 5, 1996, Rhines filed a petition for state habeas corpus. App. 32. The state court denied his petition, and the Supreme Court of South Dakota affirmed on February 9, 2000, Rhines v. Weber, 2000 SD 19, 608 N. W. 2d 303. Rhines filed his pro se petition for federal habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 2254 in the United States District Court for the District of South Dakota on February 22, 2000. App. 3. Because the 1-year statute of limitations imposed by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA) was tolled while Rhines’ state habeas corpus petition was pending, see 28 U. S. C. § 2244(d)(2), he still had more than 11 months left before the expiration of the limitations period.
With the assistance of court-appointed counsel, Rhines filed an amended petition for writ of habeas corpus and statement of exhaustion on November 20, 2000, asserting 35 claims of constitutional defects in his conviction and sentence. App. 39-60. The State challenged 12 of those claims as unexhausted. Id., at 72-79. On July 3, 2002, approximately 18 months after Rhines had filed his amended federal habeas corpus petition, the District Court held that 8 of the 35 claims had not been exhausted. At this time, the AEDPA 1-year statute of limitations had run. See Duncan v. Walker, 533 U. S. 167, 181-182 (2001) (holding that the statute of limitations is not tolled during the pendancy of a federal petition). As a result, if the District Court had dismissed Rhines’ mixed petition at that point, he would have been unable to refile in federal court after exhausting the unexhausted claims. Rhines therefore moved the District Court to hold his pending habeas petition in abeyance while he presented his unexhausted claims to the South Dakota courts. On July 3, 2002, the District Court granted the motion and issued a stay “conditioned upon petitioner commencing state court exhaustion proceedings within sixty days of this order and returning to this court within sixty days of completing such exhaustion.” App. 136. In compliance with that order, Rhines filed his second state habeas corpus petition on August 22, 2002.
The State appealed the District Court’s stay of Rhines’ mixed petition to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. Relying on its decision in Akins v. Kenney, 341 F. 3d 681, 686 (2003) (holding that “a district.court has no authority to hold a habeas petition containing unex-hausted claims in abeyance absent truly exceptional circumstances” (internal quotation marks omitted)), the Court of Appeals vacated the stay and remanded the case to the District Court to determine whether Rhines could proceed by deleting unexhausted claims from his petition. 346 F. 3d 799 (2003). We granted certiorari to resolve a split in the Circuits regarding the propriety of the District Court’s “stay- and-abeyance” procedure. 542 U. S. 936 (2004). Compare, e. g., Crews v. Horn, 360 F. 3d 146, 152 (CA3 2004); and Zarvela v. Artuz, 254 F. 3d 374, 381 (CA2 2001), with 346 F. 3d 799 (2003) (case below).
II
Fourteen years before Congress enacted AEDPA, we held in Rose v. Lundy, 455 U. S. 509 (1982), that federal district courts may not adjudicate mixed petitions for habeas corpus, that is, petitions containing both exhausted and unexhausted claims. We reasoned that the interests of comity and federalism dictate that state courts must have the first opportunity to decide a petitioner’s claims. Id., at 518-519. We noted that “[b]ecause ‘it would be unseemly in our dual system of government for a federal district court to upset a state court conviction without an opportunity to the state courts to correct a constitutional violation/ federal courts apply the doctrine of comity.” Id., at 518 (quoting Darr v. Burford, 339 U. S. 200, 204 (1950)). That doctrine “ ‘teaches that one court should defer action on causes properly within its jurisdiction until the courts of another sovereignty with concurrent powers, and already cognizant of the litigation, have had an opportunity to pass upon the matter.’” 455 U. S., at 518.
Accordingly, we imposed a requirement of “total exhaustion” and directed federal courts to effectuate that requirement by dismissing mixed petitions without prejudice and allowing petitioners to return to state court to present the unexhausted claims to that court in the first instance. Id., at 522. When we decided Lundy, there was no statute of limitations on the filing of federal habeas corpus petitions. As a result, petitioners who returned to state court to exhaust their previously unexhausted claims could come back to federal court to present their perfected petitions with relative ease. See Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U. S. 473, 486 (2000) (dismissal without prejudice under Lundy “contemplated that the prisoner could return to federal court after the requisite exhaustion”).
The enactment of AEDPA in 1996 dramatically altered the landscape for federal habeas corpus petitions. AEDPA preserved Lundy’s total exhaustion requirement, see 28 U. S. C. § 2254(b)(1)(A) (“An application for a writ of habeas corpus ... shall not be granted unless it appears that... the applicant has exhausted the remedies available in the courts of the State”), but it also imposed a 1-year statute of limitations on the filing of federal petitions, § 2244(d). Although the limitations period is tolled during the pendency of a “properly filed application for State post-conviction or other collateral review,” § 2244(d)(2), the filing of a petition for ha-beas corpus in federal court does not toll the statute of limitations, Duncan, 533 U. S., at 181-182.
As a result of the interplay between AEDPA’s 1-year statute of limitations and Lundy’s dismissal requirement, petitioners who come to federal court with “mixed” petitions run the risk of forever losing their opportunity for any federal review of their unexhausted claims. If a petitioner files a timely but mixed petition in federal district court, and the district court dismisses it under Lundy after the limitations period has expired, this will likely mean the termination of any federal review. For example, if the District Court in this case had dismissed the petition because it contained un-exhausted claims, AEDPA’s 1-year statute of limitations would have barred Rhines from returning to federal court after exhausting the previously unexhausted claims in state court. Similarly, if a district court dismisses a mixed petition close to the end of the 1-year period, the petitioner’s chances of exhausting his claims in state court and refiling his petition in federal court before the limitations period runs are slim. The problem is not limited to petitioners who file close to the AEDPA deadline. Even a petitioner who files early will have no way of controlling when the district court will resolve the question of exhaustion. Thu's, whether a petitioner ever receives federal review of his claims may turn on which district court happens to hear his case.
We recognize the gravity of this problem and the difficulty it has posed for petitioners and federal district courts alike. In an attempt to solve the problem, some district courts have adopted a version of the “stay-and-abeyanee” procedure employed by the District Court below. Under this procedure, rather than dismiss the mixed petition pursuant to Lundy, a district court might stay the petition and hold it in abeyance while the petitioner returns to state court to exhaust his previously unexhausted claims. Once the petitioner exhausts his state remedies, the district court will lift the stay and allow the petitioner to proceed in federal court.
District courts do ordinarily have authority to issue stays, see Landis v. North American Co., 299 U. S. 248, 254 (1936), where such a stay would be a proper exercise of discretion, see Clinton v. Jones, 520 U. S. 681, 706 (1997). AEDPA does not deprive district courts of that authority, cf. 28 U. S. C. § 2254(b)(1)(A) (“An application for a writ of habeas corpus ... shall not be granted unless it appears that... the applicant has exhausted the remedies available in the courts of the State” (emphasis added)), but it does circumscribe their discretion. Any solution to this problem must therefore be compatible with AEDPA’s purposes.
One of the statute’s purposes is to “reduce delays in the execution of state and federal criminal sentences, particularly in capital cases.” Woodford v. Garceau, 538 U. S. 202, 206 (2003). See also Duncan, 533 U. S., at 179. AEDPA’s 1-year limitations period “quite plainly serves the well-recognized interest in the finality of state court judgments.” Ibid. It “reduces the potential for delay on the road to finality by restricting the time that a prospective federal habeas petitioner has in which to seek federal habeas review.” Ibid.
Moreover, Congress enacted AEDPA against the backdrop of Lundy’s total exhaustion requirement. The tolling provision in § 2244(d)(2) “balances the interests served by the exhaustion requirement and the limitation period” “by protecting a state prisoner’s ability later to apply for federal habeas relief while state remedies are being pursued.” Duncan, supra, at 179. AEDPA thus encourages petitioners to seek relief from state courts in the first instance by tolling the 1-year limitations period while a “properly filed application for State post-conviction or other collateral review” is pending. 28 U. S. C. § 2244(d)(2). This scheme reinforces the importance of Lundy’s “simple and clear instruction to potential litigants: before you bring any claims to federal court, be sure that you first have taken each one to state court.” 455 U. S., at 520.
Stay and abeyance, if employed too frequently, has the potential to undermine these twin purposes. Staying a federal habeas petition frustrates AEDPA’s objective of encouraging finality by allowing a petitioner to delay the resolution of the federal proceedings. It also undermines AEDPA’s goal of streamlining federal habeas proceedings by decreasing a petitioner’s incentive to exhaust all his claims in state court prior to filing his federal petition. Cf. Duncan, supra, at 180 (“[Diminution of statutory incentives to proceed first in state court would ... increase the risk of the very piecemeal litigation that the exhaustion requirement is designed to reduce”).
For these reasons, stay and abeyance should be available only in limited circumstances. Because granting a stay effectively excuses a petitioner’s failure to present his claims first to the state courts, stay and abeyance is only appropriate when the district court determines there was good cause for the petitioner’s failure to exhaust his claims first in state court. Moreover, even if a petitioner had good cause for that failure, the district court would abuse its discretion if it were to grant him a stay when his unexhausted claims are plainly meritless. Cf. 28 U. S. C. § 2254(b)(2) (“An application for a writ of habeas corpus may be denied on the merits, notwithstanding the failure of the applicant to exhaust the remedies available in the courts of the State”).
Even where stay and abeyance is appropriate, the district court’s discretion in structuring the stay is limited by the timeliness concerns reflected in AEDPA. A mixed petition should not be stayed indefinitely. Though, generally, a prisoner’s “principal interest ... is in obtaining speedy federal relief on his claims,” Lundy, supra, at 520 (plurality opinion), not all petitioners have an incentive to obtain federal relief as quickly as possible. In particular, capital petitioners might deliberately engage in dilatory tactics to prolong their incarceration and avoid execution of the sentence of death. Without time limits, petitioners could frustrate AEDPA’s goal of finality by dragging out indefinitely their federal ha-beas review. Thus, district courts should place reasonable time limits on a petitioner’s trip to state court and back. See, e. g., Zarvela, 254 F. 3d, at 381 (“[District courts] should explicitly condition the stay on the prisoner’s pursuing state court remedies within a brief interval, normally 30 days, after the stay is entered and returning to federal court within a similarly brief interval, normally 30 days after state court exhaustion is completed”). And if a petitioner engages in abusive litigation tactics or intentional delay, the district court should not grant him a stay at all. See id., at 380-381.
On the other hand, it likely would be an abuse of discretion for a district court to deny a stay and to dismiss a mixed petition if the petitioner had good cause for his failure to exhaust, his unexhausted claims are 'potentially meritorious, and there is no indication that the petitioner engaged in intentionally dilatory litigation tactics. In such circumstances, the district court should stay, rather than dismiss, the mixed petition. See Lundy, 455 U. S., at 522 (the total exhaustion requirement was not intended to “unreasonably impair the prisoner’s right to relief”). In such a case, the petitioner’s interest in obtaining federal review of his claims outweighs the competing interests in finality and speedy resolution of federal petitions. For the same reason, if a petitioner presents a district court with a mixed petition and the court determines that stay and abeyance is inappropriate, the court should allow the petitioner to delete the unex-hausted claims and to proceed with the exhausted claims if dismissal of the entire petition would unreasonably impair the petitioner’s right to obtain federal relief. See id., at 520 (plurality opinion) (“[A petitioner] can always amend the petition to delete the unexhausted claims, rather than returning to state court to exhaust all of his claims”).
The Court of Appeals erred to the extent it concluded that stay and abeyance is always impermissible. We therefore vacate the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand the case for that court to determine, consistent with this opinion, whether the District Court’s grant of a stay in this case constituted an abuse of discretion.
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.
Per Curiam.
Petitioner Gibson recovered judgment in a personal injuries action against the Lockheed Company in a United States District Court. The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed and remanded for a new trial on the ground that four instructions requested by Lockheed and refused by the trial court should have been given. 217 F. 2d 730. We granted certiorari, 349 U. S. 943, to consider the following questions:
(1) Whether Lockheed's objection to the trial court’s refusal to give its requested instructions complied with Rule 51 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
(2) Whether the refusal of the trial court to charge as requested by respondent Lockheed was prejudicial error requiring reversal.
A thorough consideration of the record convinces us that the charge as given by the trial court was both complete and correct. Cf. District of Columbia v. Woodbury, 136 U. S. 450, 466. There was no error in refusing the requested instructions. We consider this to be a case where, in the exercise of our supervisory powers over the lower federal courts, the judgment of the Court of Appeals should be reversed in the interests of justice, and that of the District Court reinstated. Accordingly, we find it unnecessary to consider the question presented as to Rule 51.
Reversed.
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 Roberts
announced the judgment of the Court, and delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I, II, III-A, and III — C, and an opinion with respect to Parts III-B and IV, in which Justice Scalia, Justice Thomas, and Justice Alito join.
The school districts in these cases voluntarily adopted student assignment plans that rely upon race to determine which public schools certain children may attend. The Seattle school district classifies children as white or nonwhite; the Jefferson County school district as black or “other.” In Seattle, this racial classification is used to allocate slots in oversubscribed high schools. In Jefferson County, it is used to make certain elementary school assignments and to rule on transfer requests. In each case, the school district relies upon an individual student’s race in assigning that student to a particular school, so that the racial balance at the school falls within a predetermined range based on the racial composition of the school district as a whole. Parents of students denied assignment to particular schools under these plans solely because of their race brought suit, contending that allocating children to different public schools on the basis of race violated the Fourteenth Amendment guarantee of equal protection. The Courts of Appeals below upheld the plans. We granted certiorari, and now reverse.
I
Both cases present the same underlying legal question— whether a public school that had not operated legally segregated schools or has been found to be unitary may choose to classify students by race and rely upon that classification in making school assignments. Although we examine the plans under the same legal framework, the specifics of the two plans, and the circumstances surrounding their adoption, are in some respects quite different.
A
Seattle School District No. 1 operates 10 regular public high schools. In 1998, it adopted the plan at issue in this case for assigning students to these schools. App. in No. 05-908, pp. 90a-92a, The plan allows incoming ninth graders to choose from among any of the district’s high schools, ranking however many schools they wish in order of preference.
Some schools are more popular than others. If too many students list the same school as their first choice, the district employs a series of “tiebreakers” to determine who will fill the open slots at the oversubscribed school. The first tiebreaker selects for admission students who have a sibling currently enrolled in the chosen school. The next tiebreaker depends upon the racial composition of the particular school and the race of the individual student. In the district’s public schools approximately 41 percent of enrolled students are white; the remaining 59 percent, comprising all other racial groups, are classified by Seattle for assignment purposes as nonwhite. Id., at 38a, 103a. If an oversubscribed school is not within 10 percentage points of the district’s overall white/nonwhite racial balance, it is what the district calls “integration positive,” and the district employs a tiebreaker that selects for assignment students whose race “will serve to bring the school into balance.” Id., at 38a. See Parents Involved VII, 426 F. 3d 1162, 1169-1170 (CA9 2005) (en banc). If it is still necessary to select students for the school after using the racial tiebreaker, the next tiebreaker is the geographic proximity of the school to the student’s residence. App. in No. 05-908, at 38a.
Seattle has never operated segregated schools — legally separate schools for students of different races — nor has it ever been subject to court-ordered desegregation. It nonetheless employs the racial tiebreaker in an attempt to address the effects of racially identifiable housing patterns on school assignments. Most white students live in the northern part of Seattle, most students of other racial backgrounds in the southern part. Parents Involved VII, supra, at 1166. Four of Seattle’s high schools are located in the north — Ballard, Nathan Hale, Ingraham, and Roosevelt— and five in the south — Rainier Beach, Cleveland, West Seat-tie, Chief Sealth, and Franklin. One school — Garfield—is more or less in the center of Seattle. App. in No. 05-908, at 38a-39a, 45a.
For the 2000-2001 school year, five of these schools were oversubscribed — Ballard, Nathan Hale, Roosevelt, Garfield, and Franklin — so much so that 82 percent of incoming ninth graders ranked one of these schools as their first choice. Id., at 38a. Three of the oversubscribed schools were “integration positive” because the school’s white enrollment the previous school year was greater than 51 percent — Ballard, Nathan Hale, and Roosevelt. Thus, more nonwhite students (107,27, and 82, respectively) who selected one of these three schools as a top choice received placement at the school than would have been the case had race not been considered, and proximity been the next tiebreaker. Id., at 39a-40a. Franklin was “integration positive” because its nonwhite enrollment the previous school year was greater than 69 percent; 89 more white students were assigned to Franklin by operation of the racial tiebreaker in the 2000-2001 school year than otherwise would have been. Ibid. Garfield was the only oversubscribed school whose composition during the 1999-2000 school year was within the racial guidelines, although in previous years Garfield’s enrollment had been predominantly nonwhite, and the racial tiebreaker had been used to give preference to white students. Id., at 39a.
Petitioner Parents Involved in Community Schools (Parents Involved) is a nonprofit corporation comprising the parents of children who have been or may be denied assignment to their chosen high school in the district because of their race. The concerns of Parents Involved are illustrated by Jill Kurfirst, who sought to enroll her ninth-grade son, Andy Meeks, in Ballard High School’s special Biotechnology Career Academy. Andy suffered from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and dyslexia, but had made good progress with hands-on instruction, and his mother and middle school teachers thought that the smaller biotechnology program held the most promise for his continued success. Andy was accepted into this selective program but, because of the racial tiebreaker, was denied assignment to Ballard High School. Id., at 143a-146a, 152a-160a. Parents Involved commenced this suit in the Western District of Washington, alleging that Seattle’s use of race in assignments violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Washington Civil Rights Act. Id., at 28a-35a.
The District Court granted summary judgment to the school district, finding that state law did not bar the district’s use of the racial tiebreaker and that the plan survived strict scrutiny on the federal constitutional claim because it was narrowly tailored to serve a compelling government interest. 137 F. Supp. 2d 1224, 1240 (WD Wash. 2001) (Parents Involved I). The Ninth Circuit initially reversed based on its interpretation of the Washington Civil Rights Act, 285 F. 3d 1236, 1253 (2002) (.Parents Involved II), and enjoined the district’s use of the integration tiebreaker, id., at 1257. Upon realizing that the litigation would not be resolved in time for assignment decisions for the 2002-2003 school year, the Ninth Circuit withdrew its opinion, 294 F. 3d 1084 (2002) {Parents Involved III), vacated the injunction, and, pursuant to Wash. Rev. Code §2.60.020 (2006), certified the state-law question to the Washington Supreme Court, 294 F. 3d 1085, 1087 (2002) {Parents Involved IV).
The Washington Supreme Court determined that the State Civil Rights Act bars only preferential treatment programs “where race or gender is used by government to select a less qualified applicant over a more qualified applicant,” and not “[programs which are racially neutral, such as the [district’s] open choice plan.” Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School Dist., No. 1, 149 Wash. 2d 660, 689-690, 663, 72 P. 3d 151, 166, 153 (2003) (en banc) (Parents Involved V). The state court returned the case to the Ninth Circuit for further proceedings. Id., at 690, 72 P. 3d, at 167.
A panel of the Ninth Circuit then again reversed the District Court, this time ruling on the federal constitutional question. Parents Involved VI, 377 F. 3d 949 (2004). The panel determined that while achieving racial diversity and avoiding racial isolation are compelling government interests, id., at 964, Seattle’s use of the racial tiebreaker was not narrowly tailored to achieve these interests, id., at 980. The Ninth Circuit granted rehearing en banc, 395 F. 3d 1168 (2005), and overruled the panel decision, affirming the District Court’s determination that Seattle’s plan was narrowly tailored to serve a compelling government interest, Parents Involved VII, 426 F. 3d, at 1192-1193. We granted certiorari. 547 U. S. 1177 (2006).
B
Jefferson County Public Schools operates the public school system in metropolitan Louisville, Kentucky. In 1973 a federal court found that Jefferson County had maintained a segregated school system, Newburg Area Council, Inc. v. Board of Ed. of Jefferson Cty., 489 F. 2d 925, 932 (CA6), vacated and remanded, 418 U. S. 918, reinstated with modifications, 510 F. 2d 1358, 1359 (CA6 1974), and in 1975 the District Court entered a desegregation decree. See Hampton v. Jefferson Cty. Bd. of Ed., 72 F. Supp. 2d 753, 762-764 (WD Ky. 1999). Jefferson County operated under this decree until 2000, when the District Court dissolved the decree after finding that the district had achieved -unitary status by eliminating “[t]o the greatest extent practicable” the vestiges of its prior policy of segregation. Hampton v. Jefferson Cty. Bd. of Ed., 102 F. Supp. 2d 358, 360 (2000). See Board of Ed. of Oklahoma City Public Schools v. Dowell, 498 U. S. 237, 249-250 (1991); Green v. School Bd. of New Kent Cty., 391 U. S. 430, 435-436 (1968).
In 2001, after the decree had been dissolved, Jefferson County adopted the voluntary student assignment plan at issue in this case. App. in No. 05-915, p. 77. Approximately 34 percent of the district’s 97,000 students are black; most of the remaining 66 percent are white. McFarland v. Jefferson Cty. Public Schools, 330 F. Supp. 2d 834, 839-840, and n. 6 (WD Ky. 2004) (McFarland I). The plan requires all nonmagnet schools to maintain a minimum black enrollment of 15 percent, and a maximum black enrollment of 50 percent. App. in No. 05-915, at 81; McFarland I, supra, at 842.
At the elementary school level, based on his or her address, each student is designated a “resides” school to which students within a specific geographic area are assigned; elementary resides schools are “grouped into clusters in order to facilitate integration.” App. in No. 05-915, at 82. The district assigns students to nonmagnet schools in one of two ways: Parents of kindergartners, first graders, and students new to the district may submit an application indicating a first and second choice among the schools within their cluster; students who do not submit such an application are assigned within the cluster by the district. “Decisions to assign students to schools within each cluster are based on available space within the schools and the racial guidelines in the District’s current student assignment plan.” Id., at 38. If a school has reached the “extremes of the racial guidelines,” a student whose race would contribute to the school’s racial imbalance will not be assigned there. Id., at 38-39, 82. After assignment, students at all grade levels are permitted to apply to transfer between nonmagnet schools in the district. Transfers may be requested for any number of reasons, and may be denied because of lack of available space or on the basis of the racial guidelines. Id., at 43.
When petitioner Crystal Meredith moved into the school district in August 2002, she sought to enroll her son, Joshua McDonald, in kindergarten for the 2002-2003 school year. His resides school was only a mile from his new home, but it had no available space — assignments had been made in May, and the class was full. Jefferson County assigned Joshua to another elementary school in his cluster, Young Elementary. This school was 10 miles from home, and Meredith sought to transfer Joshua to a school in a different cluster, Bloom Elementary, which — like his resides school — was only a mile from home. See Tr. in McFarland I, pp. 1-49 through 1-54 (Dec. 8, 2003). Space was available at Bloom, and intercluster transfers are allowed, but Joshua’s transfer was nonetheless denied because, in the words of Jefferson County, “[t]he transfer would have an adverse effect on desegregation compliance” of Young. App. in No. 05-915, at 97.
Meredith brought suit in the Western District of Kentucky, alleging violations of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The District Court found that Jefferson County had asserted a compelling interest in maintaining racially diverse schools, and that the assignment plan was (in all relevant respects) narrowly tailored to serve that compelling interest. McFarland I, supra, at 837. The Sixth Circuit affirmed in a per curiam opinion relying upon the reasoning of the District Court, concluding that a written opinion “would serve no useful purpose.” McFarland v. Jefferson Cty. Public Schools, 416 F. 3d 513, 514 (2005) (McFarland II). We granted certiorari. 547 U. S. 1178 (2006).
II
As a threshold matter, we must assure ourselves of our jurisdiction. Seattle argues that Parents Involved lacks standing because none of its current members can claim an imminent injury. Even if the district maintains the current plan and reinstitutes the racial tiebreaker, Seattle argues, Parents Involved members will only be affected if their children seek to enroll in a Seattle public high school and choose an oversubscribed school that is integration positive — too speculative a harm to maintain standing. Brief for Respondents in No. 05-908, pp. 16-17.
This argument is unavailing. The group’s members have children in the district’s elementary, middle, and high schools, App. in No. 05-908, at 299a-301a; Affidavit of Kathleen Brose Pursuant to this Court’s Rule 32.3 (Lodging of Petitioner Parents Involved), and the complaint sought declaratory and injunctive relief on behalf of Parents Involved members whose elementary and middle school children may be “denied admission to the high schools of their choice when they apply for those schools in the future,” App. in No. 05-908, at 30a. The fact that it is possible that children of group members will not be denied admission to a school based on their race — because they choose an undersubscribed school or an oversubscribed school in which their race is an advantage — does not eliminate the injury claimed. Moreover, Parents Involved also asserted an interest in not being “forced to compete for seats at certain high schools in a system that uses race as a deciding factor in many of its admissions decisions.” Ibid. As we have held, one form of injury under the Equal Protection Clause is being forced to compete in a race-based system that may prejudice the plaintiff, Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Peña, 515 U. S. 200, 211 (1995); Northeastern Fla. Chapter, Associated Gen. Contractors of America v. Jacksonville, 508 U. S. 656, 666 (1993), an injury that the members of Parents Involved can validly claim on behalf of their children.
In challenging standing, Seattle also notes that it has ceased using the racial tiebreaker pending the outcome of this litigation. Brief for Respondents in No. 05-908, at 16-17. But the district vigorously defends the constitutionality of its race-based program, and nowhere suggests that if this litigation is resolved in its favor it will not resume using race to assign students. Voluntary cessation does not moot a case or controversy unless “subsequent events ma[ke] it absolutely clear that the allegedly wrongful behavior could not reasonably be expected to recur,” Friends of Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Environmental Services (TOC), Inc., 528 U. S. 167, 189 (2000) (quoting United States v. Concentrated Phosphate Export Assn., Inc., 393 U. S. 199, 203 (1968); internal quotation marks omitted), a heavy burden that Seattle has clearly not met.
Jefferson County does not challenge our jurisdiction, Tr. of Oral Arg. in No. 05-915, p. 48, but we are nonetheless obliged to ensure that it exists, Arbaugh v. Y & H Corp., 546 U. S. 500, 514 (2006). Although apparently Joshua has now been granted a transfer to Bloom, the school to which transfer was denied under the racial guidelines, Tr. of Oral Arg. in No. 05-915, at 45, the racial guidelines apply at all grade levels. Upon Joshua’s enrollment in middle school, he may again be subject to assignment based on his race. In addition, Meredith sought damages in her complaint, which is sufficient to preserve our ability to consider the question. Los Angeles v. Lyons, 461 U. S. 95, 109 (1983).
Ill
A
It is well established that when the government distributes burdens or benefits on the basis of individual racial classifications, that aetion is reviewed under strict scrutiny. Johnson v. California, 543 U. S. 499,505-506 (2005); Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U. S. 306, 326 (2003); Adarand, supra, at 224. As the Court recently reaffirmed, “‘racial classifications are simply too pernicious to permit any but the most exact connection between justification and classification.’” Gratz v. Bollinger, 539 U. S. 244, 270 (2003) (quoting Fullilove v. Klutznick, 448 U. S. 448, 537 (1980) (Stevens, J., dissenting); brackets omitted). In order to satisfy this searching standard of review, the school districts must demonstrate that the use of individual racial classifications in the assignment plans here under review is “narrowly tailored” to achieve a “compelling” government interest. Adarand, supra, at 227.
Without attempting in these cases to set forth all the interests a school district might assert, it suffices to note that our prior eases, in evaluating the use of racial classifications in the school context, have recognized two interests that qualify as compelling. The first is the compelling interest of remedying the effects of past intentional discrimination. See Freeman v. Pitts, 503 U. S. 467, 494 (1992). Yet the Seattle public schools have not shown that they were ever segregated by law, and were not subject to court-ordered desegregation decrees. The Jefferson County public schools were previously segregated by law and were subject to a desegregation decree entered in 1975. In 2000, the District Court that entered that decree dissolved it, finding that Jefferson County had “eliminated the vestiges associated with the former policy of segregation and its pernicious effects,” and thus had achieved “unitary” status. Hampton, 102 F. Supp. 2d, at 360. Jefferson County accordingly does not rely upon an interest in remedying the effects of past intentional discrimination in defending its present use of race in assigning students. See Tr. of Oral Arg. in No. 05-915, at 38.
Nor could it. We have emphasized that the harm being remedied by mandatory desegregation plans is the harm that is traceable to segregation, and that “the Constitution is not violated by racial imbalance in the schools, without more.” Milliken v. Bradley, 433 U. S. 267, 280, n. 14 (1977). See also Freeman, supra, at 495-496; Dowell, 498 U. S., at 248; Milliken v. Bradley, 418 U. S. 717, 746 (1974). Once Jefferson County achieved unitary status, it had remedied the constitutional wrong that allowed race-based assignments. Any continued use of race must be justified on some other basis.
The second government interest we have recognized as compelling for purposes of strict scrutiny is the interest in diversity in higher education upheld in Grutter, 539 U. S., at 328. The specific interest found compelling in Grutter was student body diversity “in the context of higher education.” Ibid. The diversity interest was not focused on race alone but encompassed “all factors that may contribute to student body diversity.” Id., at 337. We described the various types of diversity that the law school sought:
“[The law school’s] policy makes clear there are many possible bases for diversity admissions, and provides examples of admittees who have lived or traveled widely abroad, are fluent in several languages, have overcome personál adversity and family hardship, have exceptional records of extensive community service, and have had successful careers in other fields.” Id., at 338 (brackets and internal quotation marks omitted).
The Court quoted the articulation of diversity from Justice Powell’s opinion in Regents of Univ. of Cal. v. Bakke, 438 U. S. 265 (1978), noting that “it is not an interest in simple ethnic diversity, in which a specified percentage of the student body is in effect guaranteed to be members of selected ethnic groups, that can justify the use of race.” Grutter, supra, at 324-325 (citing and quoting Bakke, supra, at 314-315 (opinion of Powell, J.); brackets and internal quotation marks omitted). Instead, what was upheld in Grutter was consideration of “a far broader array of qualifications and characteristics of which racial or ethnic origin is but a single though important element.” 539 U. S., at 325 (quoting Bakke, supra, at 315 (opinion of Powell, J.); internal quotation marks omitted).
The entire gist of the analysis in Grutter was that the admissions program at issue there focused on each applicant as an individual, and not simply as a member of a particular racial group. The classification of applicants by race upheld in Grutter was only as part of a “highly individualized, holistic review,” 539 U. S., at 337. As the Court explained, “[t]he importance of this individualized consideration in the context of a race-conscious admissions program is paramount.” Ibid. The point of the narrow tailoring analysis in which the Grutter Court engaged was to ensure that the use of racial classifications was indeed part of a broader assessment of diversity, and not simply an effort to achieve racial balance, which the Court explained would be “patently unconstitutional.” Id., at 330.
In the present cases, by contrast, race is not considered as part of a broader effort to achieve “exposure to widely diverse people, cultures, ideas, and viewpoints,” ibid.; race, for some students, is determinative standing alone. The districts argue that other factors, such as student preferences, affect assignment decisions under their plans, but under each plan when race comes into play, it is decisive by itself. It is not simply one factor weighed with others in reaching a decision, as in Grutter; it is the factor. Like the University of Michigan undergraduate plan struck down in Gratz, 539 U. S., at 275, the plans here “do not provide for a meaningful individualized review of applicants” but instead rely on racial classifications in a “nonindividualized, mechanical” way, id., at 276, 280 (O’Connor, J., concurring).
Even when it comes to race, the plans here employ only a limited notion of diversity, viewing race exclusively in white/ nonwhite terms in Seattle and black/“other” terms in Jefferson County. But see Metro Broadcasting, Inc. v. FCC, 497 U. S. 547, 610 (1990) (O’Connor, J., dissenting) (“We are a Nation not of black and white alone, but one teeming with divergent communities knitted together by various traditions and carried forth, above all, by individuals”). The Seattle “Board Statement Reaffirming Diversity Rationale” speaks of the “inherent educational value” in “[providing students the opportunity to attend schools with diverse student enrollment,” App. in No. 05-908, at 128a, 129a. But under the Seattle plan, a school with 50 percent Asian-American students and 50 percent white students but no African-American, Native-American, or Latino students would qualify as balanced, while a school with 30 percent Asian-American, 25 percent African-American, 25 percent Latino, and 20 percent white students would not. It is hard to understand how a plan that could allow these results can be viewed as being concerned with achieving enrollment that is “ ‘broadly diverse,’ ” Grutter, supra, at 329.
Prior to Grutter, the courts of appeals rejected as unconstitutional attempts to implement race-based assignment plans — such as the plans at issue here — in primary and secondary schools. See, e. g., Eisenberg v. Montgomery Cty. Public Schools, 197 F. 3d 123, 133 (CA4 1999); Tuttle v. Arlington Cty. School Bd., 195 F. 3d 698, 701 (CA4 1999) (per curiam); Wessmann v. Gittens, 160 F. 3d 790, 809 (CA1 1998). See also Ho v. San Francisco Unified School Dist., 147 F. 3d 854, 865 (CA9 1998). After Grutter, however, the two Courts of Appeals in these cases, and one other, found that race-based assignments were permissible at the elementary and secondary level, largely in reliance on that case. See Parents Involved VII, 426 F. 3d, at 1166; McFarland II, 416 F. 3d, at 514; Comfort v. Lynn School Comm., 418 F. 3d 1, 13 (CA1 2005) (en banc).
In upholding the admissions plan in Grutter, though, this Court relied upon considerations unique to institutions of higher education, noting that in light of “the expansive freedoms of speech and thought associated with the university environment, universities occupy a special niche in our constitutional tradition.” 539 U. S., at 329. See also Bakke, 438 U. S., at 312, 313 (opinion of Powell, J.). The Court explained that “[e]ontext matters" in applying striet scrutiny, and repeatedly noted that it was addressing the use of race “in the context of higher education.” Grutter, supra, at 327, 328, 334. The Court in Grutter expressly articulated key limitations on its holding — defining a specific type of broad-based diversity and noting the unique context of higher education — but these limitations were largely disregarded by the lower courts in extending Grutter to uphold race-based assignments in elementary and secondary schools. The present cases are not governed by Grutter.
B
Perhaps recognizing that reliance on Grutter cannot sustain their plans, both school districts assert additional interests, distinct from the interest upheld in Grutter, to justify their race-based assignments. In briefing and argument before this Court, Seattle contends that its use of race helps to reduce racial concentration in schools and to ensure that racially concentrated housing patterns do not prevent nonwhite students from having access to the most desirable schools. Brief for Respondents in No. 05-908, at 19. Jefferson County has articulated a similar goal, phrasing its interest in terms of educating its students “in a racially integrated environment.” App. in No. 05-915, at 22. Each school district argues that educational and broader socialization benefits flow from a racially diverse learning environment, and each contends that because the diversity they seek is racial diversity — not the broader diversity at issue in Grutter — it makes sense to promote that interest directly by relying on race alone.
The parties and their amici dispute whether racial diversity in schools in fact has a marked impact on test scores and other objective yardsticks or achieves intangible socialization benefits. The debate is not one we need to resolve, however, because it is clear that the racial classifications employed by the districts are not narrowly tailored to the goal of achieving the educational and social benefits asserted to flow from racial diversity. In design and operation, the plans are directed only to racial balance, pure and simple, an objective this Court has repeatedly condemned as illegitimate.
The plans are tied to each district’s specific racial demographics, rather than to any pedagogic concept of the level of diversity needed to obtain the asserted educational benefits. In Seattle, the district seeks white enrollment of between 31 and 51 percent (within 10 percent of “the district white average” of 41 percent), and nonwhite enrollment of between 49 and 69 percent (within 10 percent of “the district minority average” of 59 percent). App. in No. 05-908, at 103a. In Jefferson County, by contrast, the district seeks black enrollment of no less than 15 or more than 50 percent, a range designed to be “equally above and below Black student enrollment systemwide,” McFarland I, 330 F. Süpp. 2d, at 842, based on the objective of achieving at “all schools... an African-American enrollment equivalent to the average district-wide African-American enrollment” of 34 percent, App. in No. 05-915, at 81. In Seattle, then, the benefits of racial diversity require enrollment of at least 31 percent white students; in Jefferson County, at least 50 percent. There must be at least 15 percent nonwhite students under Jefferson County’s plan; in Seattle, more than three times that figure. This comparison makes clear that the racial demographics in each district — whatever they happen to be— drive the required “diversity” numbers. The plans here are not tailored to achieving a degree of diversity necessary to realize the asserted educational benefits; instead the plans are tailored, in the words of Seattle’s Manager of Enrollment Planning, Technical Support, and Demographics, to “the goal established by the school board of attaining a level of diversity within the schools that approximates the district’s overall demographics.” App. in No. 05-908, at 42a.
The districts offer no evidence that the level of racial diversity necessary to achieve the asserted educational benefits happens to coincide with the racial demographics of the respective school districts — or rather the white/nonwhite or black/“other” balance of the districts, since that is the only diversity addressed by the plans. Indeed, in its brief Seattle simply assumes that the educational benefits track the racial breakdown of the district. See Brief for Respondents in No. 05-908, at 36 (“For Seattle, ‘racial balance’ is clearly not an end in itself but rather a measure of the extent to which the educational goals the plan was designed to foster are likely to be achieved”). When asked for “a range of percentage that would be diverse,” however, Seattle’s expert said it was important to have “sufficient numbers so as to avoid students feeling any kind of specter of exceptionality.” App. in No. 05-908, at 276a. The district did not attempt to defend the proposition that anything outside its range posed the “specter of exceptionality.” Nor did it demonstrate in any way how the educational and social benefits of racial diversity or avoidance of racial isolation are more likely to be achieved at a school that is 50 percent white and 50 percent Asian-American, which would qualify as diverse under Seattle’s plan, than at a school that is 30 percent Asian-American, 25 percent African-American, 25 percent Latino, and 20 percent white, which under Seattle’s definition would be racially concentrated.
Similarly, Jefferson County’s expert referred to the importance of having “at least 20 percent” minority group representation for the group “to be visible enough to make a difference,” and noted that “small isolated minority groups in a school are not likely to have a strong effect on the overall school.” App. in No. 05-915, at 159, 147. The Jefferson County plan, however, is based on a goal of replicating at each school “an African-American enrollment equivalent to the average district-wide African-American enrollment.” Id., at 81. Joshua McDonald’s requested transfer was denied because his race was listed as “other” rather than black, and allowing the transfer would have had an adverse effect on the racial guideline compliance of Young Elementary, the school he sought to leave..Id., at 21. At the time, however, Young Elementary was 46.8 percent black. Id., at 73. The transfer might have had an adverse effect on the effort to approach districtwide racial proportionality at Young, but it had nothing to do with preventing either the black or “other” group from becoming “small” or “isolated” at Young.
In fact, in each case the extreme measure of relying on race in assignments is unnecessary to achieve the stated goals, even as defined by the districts. For example, at Franklin High School in Seattle, the racial tiebreaker was applied because nonwhite enrollment exceeded 69 percent, and resulted in an incoming ninth-grade class in 2000-2001 that was 30.3 percent Asian-American, 21.9 percent African-American, 6.8 percent Latino, 0.5 percent Native-American, and 40.5 percent Caucasian. Without the racial tiebreaker, the class would have been 39.6 percent Asian-American, 30.2 percent African-American, 8.3 percent Latino, 1.1 percent Native-American, and 20.8 percent Caucasian. See App. in No. 05-908, at 308a. When the actual racial breakdown is considered, enrolling students without regard to their race yields a substantially diverse student body under any definition of diversity.
In Grutter, the number of minority students the school sought to admit was an undefined “meaningful number” necessary to achieve a genuinely diverse student body. 539 U. S., at 316,335-336. Although the matter was the subject of disagreement on the Court, see id., at 346-347 (Scalia, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part); id., at 382-383 (Rehnquist, C. J., dissenting); id., at 388-392 (Kennedy, J., dissenting), the majority concluded that the law school did not count back from its applicant pool to arrive at the “meaningful number” it regarded as necessary
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.
This case presents the question of whether deductions from gross income claimed on petitioners’ 1953 and 1954 joint federal income tax returns, of $143,465 in 1953 and of $147,105 in 1954, for payments made by petitioner, Karl F. Knetsch, to Sam Houston Life Insurance Company, constituted “interest paid ... on indebtedness” within the meaning of § 23 (b) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1939 and § 163 (a) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954. The Commissioner of Internal Revenue disallowed the deductions and determined a deficiency for each year. The petitioners paid the deficiencies and brought this action for refund in the District Court for the Southern District of California. The District Court rendered judgment for the United States, and the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed, 272 F. 2d 200. Because of a suggested conflict with the decision of the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in United States v. Bond, 258 F. 2d 577, we granted certiorari, 361 U. S. 958.
On December 11, 1953, the insurance company sold Knetsch ten 30-year maturity deferred annuity savings bonds, each in the face amount of $400,000 and bearing interest at 2compounded annually. The purchase price was $4,004,000. Knetsch gave the Company his check for $4,000, and signed $4,000,000 of nonrecourse annuity loan notes for the balance. The notes bore 3%% interest and were secured by the annuity bonds. The interest was payable in advance, and Knetsch on the same day prepaid the first year’s interest, which was $140,000. Under the Table of Cash and Loan Values made part of the bonds, their cash or loan value at December 11, 1954, the end of the first contract year, was to be $4,100,000. The contract terms, however, permitted Knetsch to borrow any excess of this value above his indebtedness without waiting until December 11, 1954. Knetsch took advantage of this provision only five days after the purchase. On December 16, 1953, he received from the company $99,000 of the $100,000 excess over his $4,000,000 indebtedness, for which he gave his notes bearing 3%% interest. This interest was also payable in advance and on the same day he prepaid the first year’s interest of $3,465. In their joint return for 1953, the petitioners deducted the sum of the two interest payments, that is $143,465, as “interest paid . . . within the taxable year on indebtedness,” under § 23 (b) of the 1939 Code.
The second contract year began on December 11, 1954, when interest in advance of $143,465 was payable by Knetsch on his aggregate indebtedness of $4,099,000. Knetsch paid this amount on December 27, 1954. Three days later, on December 30, he received from the company cash in the amount of $104,000, the difference less $1,000 between his then $4,099,000 indebtedness and the cash or loan value of the bonds of $4,204,000 on December 11, 1955. He gave the company appropriate notes and prepaid the interest thereon of $3,640. In their joint return for the taxable year 1954 the petitioners deducted the sum of the two interest payments, that is $147,105, as “interest paid . . . within the taxable year on indebtedness,” under § 163 (a) of the 1954 Code.
The tax years 1955 and 1956 are not involved in this proceeding, but a recital of the events of those years is necessary to complete the story of the transaction. On December 11, 1955, the start of the third contract year, Knetsch became obligated to pay $147,105 as prepaid interest on an indebtedness which now totalled $4,203,000. He paid this interest on December 28, 1955. On the same date he received $104,000 from the company. This was $1,000 less than the difference between his indebtedness and the cash or loan value of the bonds of $4,308,000 at December 11, 1956. Again he gave the company notes upon which he prepaid interest of $3,640. Petitioners claimed a deduction on their 1955 joint return for the aggregate of the payments, or $150,745.
Knetsch did not go on with the transaction for the fourth contract year beginning December 11, 1956, but terminated it on December 27, 1956. His indebtedness at that time totalled $4,307,000. The cash or loan value of the bonds was the $4,308,000 value at December 11, 1956, which had been the basis of the “loan” of December 28, 1955. He surrendered the bonds and his indebtedness was canceled. He received the difference of $1,000 in cash.
The contract called for a monthly annuity of $90,171 at maturity (when Knetsch would be 90 years of age) or for such smaller amount as would be produced by the cash or loan value after deduction of the then existing indebtedness. It was stipulated that if Knetsch had held the bonds to maturity and continued annually to borrow the net cash value less $1,000, the sum available for the annuity at maturity would be $1,000 ($8,388,000 cash or loan value less $8,387,000 of indebtedness), enough to provide an annuity of only $43 per month.
The trial judge made findings that “[tjhere was no commercial economic substance to the . . . transaction,” that the parties did not intend that Knetsch “become indebted to Sam Houston,” that “[n]o indebtedness of [Knetsch] was created by any of the . . . transactions,” and that “[n]o economic gain could be achieved from the purchase of these bonds without regard to the tax consequences . . . His conclusion of law, based on this Court’s decision in Deputy v. du Pont, 308 U. S. 488, was that “[w]hile in form the payments to Sam Houston were compensation for the use or forbearance of money, they were not in substance. As a payment of interest, the transaction was a sham.”
We first examine the transaction between Knetsch and the insurance company to determine whether it created an “indebtedness” within the meaning of § 23 (b) of the 1939 Code and § 163 (a) of the 1954 Code, or whether, as the trial court found, it was a sham. We put aside a finding by the District Court that Knetsch’s “only motive in purchasing these 10 bonds was to attempt to secure an interest deduction.” As was said in Gregory v. Helvering, 293 U. S. 465, 469: “The legal right of a taxpayer to decrease the amount of what otherwise would be his taxes, or altogether avoid them, by means which the law permits, cannot be doubted. . . . But the question for determination is whether what was done, apart from the tax motive, was the thing which the statute intended.”
When we examine “what was done” here, we see that Knetsch paid the insurance company $294,570 during the two taxable years involved and received $203,000 back in the form of “loans.” What did Knetsch get for the out-of-pocket difference of $91,570? In form he had an annuity contract with a so-called guaranteed cash value at maturity of $8,388,000, which would produce monthly annuity payments of $90,171, or substantial life insurance proceeds in the event of his death before maturity. This, as we have seen, was a fiction, because each year Knetsch’s annual borrowings kept the net cash value, on which any annuity or insurance payments would depend, at the relative pittance of $1,000. Plainly, therefore, Knetsch’s transaction with the insurance company did “not appreciably affect his beneficial interest except to reduce his tax . . . Gilbert v. Commissioner, 248 F. 2d 399, 411 (dissenting opinion). For it is patent that there was nothing of substance to be realized by Knetsch from this transaction beyond a tax deduction. What he was ostensibly “lent” back was in reality only the rebate of a substantial part of the so-called “interest” payments. The $91,570 difference retained by the company was its fee for providing the fagade of “loans” whereby the petitioners sought to reduce their 1953 and 1954 taxes in the total sum of $233,297.68. There may well be single-premium annuity arrrangements with nontax substance which create an “indebtedness” for the purposes of § 23 (b) of the 1939 Code and § 163 (a) of the 1954 Code. But this one is a sham.
The petitioners contend, however, that the Congress in enacting § 264 of the 1954 Code authorized the deductions. They point out that § 264 (a)(2) denies a deduction for amounts paid on indebtedness incurred to purchase or carry a single-premium annuity contract, but only as to contracts purchased after March 1,1954. The petitioners thus would attribute to Congress a purpose to allow the deduction of pre-1954 payments under transactions of the kind carried on by Knetsch with the insurance company without regard to whether the transactions created a true obligation to pay interest. Unless that meaning plainly appears we will not attribute it to Congress. “To hold otherwise would be to exalt artifice above reality and to deprive the statutory provision in question of all serious purpose.” Gregory v. Helvering, supra, p. 470. We, therefore, look to the statute and materials relevant to its construction for evidence that Congress meant in § 264 (a) (2) to authorize the deduction of payments made under sham transactions entered into before 1954. We look in vain.
Provisions denying deductions for amounts paid on indebtedness incurred to purchase or carry insurance contracts are not new in the revenue acts. A provision applicable to all annuities, but not to life insurance or endowment contracts, was in the statute from 1932 to 1934, 47 Stat. 179. It was added at a time when Congress was developing a policy to deny a deduction for interest allo-cable to tax-exempt income; the proceeds of annuities were excluded from gross income up to the amount of the consideration paid in by the annuitant. See H. R. Rep. No. 708, 72d Cong., 1st Sess., p. 11. The provision was repealed by the Revenue Act of 1934, 48 Stat. 688, when the method by which annuity payments were taken into gross income was changed in such way that more would be included. 48 Stat. 687. See S. Rep. No. 558, 73d Cong., 2d Sess., p. 24.
Congress then in 1942 denied a deduction for amounts paid on indebtedness incurred to purchase single-premium life insurance and endowment contracts. This provision was enacted by an amendment to the 1939 Code, 56 Stat. 827, “to close a loophole” in respect of interest allocable to partially exempt income. See Hearings before Senate Finance Committee on H. R. 7378, 77th Cong., 2d Sess., p. 54; § 22 (b)(1) of the 1939 Code (now § 101 (a)(1) of the 1954 Code).
The 1954 provision extending the denial to amounts paid on indebtedness incurred to purchase or carry single-premium annuities appears to us simply to expand the application of the policy in respect of interest allocable to partially exempt income. The proofs are perhaps not as strong as in the case of life insurance and endowment contracts, but in the absence of any contrary expression of the Congress, their import is clear enough. There is first the fact that the provision was incorporated in the section covering life insurance and endowment contracts, which unquestionably was adopted to further that policy. There is second the fact that Congress’ attention was directed to annuities in 1954; the same 1954 statute again changed the basis for taking part of the proceeds of annuities into gross income. See § 72 (b) of the 1954 Code. These are signs that Congress’ long-standing concern with the problem of interest allocable to partially exempt income, and not any concern with sham transactions, explains the provision.
Moreover the provision itself negates any suggestion that sham transactions were the congressional concern, for the deduction denied is of certain interest payments on actual “indebtedness.” And we see nothing in the Senate Finance and House Ways and Means Committee Reports on § 264, H. R. Rep. No. 1337, 83d Cong., 2d Sess., p. 31; S. Rep. No. 1622, 83d Cong., 2d Sess., p. 38, to suggest that Congress in exempting pre-1954 annuities intended to protect sham transactions.
Some point is made in an amicus curiae brief of the fact that Knetsch in entering into these annuity agreements relied on individual ruling letters issued by the Commissioner to other taxpayers. This argument has never been advanced by petitioners in this case. Accordingly, we have no reason to pass upon it.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Affirmed.
The relevant words of the two sections are the same, namely that there shall be allowed as a deduction “All interest paid or accrued within the taxable year on indebtedness . . .
We likewise put aside Knetsch's argument that, because he received ordinary income when he surrendered the annuities in 1956, he has suffered a net loss even if the contested deductions are allowed, and that therefore his motive in taking out the annuities could not have been tax avoidance.
Petitioners argue further that in 10 years the net cash value of the bonds would have exceeded the amounts Knetsch paid as “interest.” This contention, however, is predicated on the wholly unlikely assumption that Knetsch would have paid off in cash the original $4,000,000 “loan.”
Every court which has considered this or similar contracts has agreed with our conclusion, except the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in the Bond case and one District Court bound by that decision, Roderick v. United States, 59-2 U. S. T. C. ¶ 9650. See Diggs v. Commissioner, 281 F. 2d 326 (C. A. 2d Cir.), pending on petition for certiorari (later denied, post, p. 908); Emmons and Weller v. Commissioner, 270 F. 2d 294 (C. A. 3d Cir.), pending on petitions for certiorari (later denied, post, p. 908); Haggard v. United States, 59-1 U. S. T. C. ¶ 9299; Oliver L. Williams, 18 T. C. M. 205. See also Rev. Rul. 54-94, 1954r-l Cum. Bull. 53, and the dissenting opinion of Judge Wisdom in Bond.
Section 264 (a) (2) provides:
“(a) General Rule. — No deduction shall be allowed for—
“(2) Any amount paid or accrued on indebtedness incurred or continued to purchase or carry a single premium life insurance, endowment, or annuity contract.
“Paragraph (2) shall apply in respect of annuity contracts only as to contracts purchased after March 1, 1954” (Emphasis supplied.)
The substance of the section without the italicized language was added to the 1939 Code in 1942. 56 Stat. 827.
See § 23 (b) of the Revenue Act of 1932, 47 Stat. 179, which provided:
“ (b) INTEREST. — All interest paid or accrued within the taxable year on indebtedness, except (1) on indebtedness incurred or continued to purchase or carry obligations or securities (other than obligations of the United States issued after September 24, 1917, and originally subscribed for by the taxpayer) the interest upon which is wholly exempt from the taxes imposed by this title, or (2) on indebtedness incurred or continued in connection with the purchasing or carrying of an annuity.”
The Reports are as follows:
“Under existing law, no interest deduction is allowed in the case of indebtedness incurred, or continued, to purchase a single-premium life-insurance or endowment contract. . . .
“Existing law does not extend the denial of the interest deduction to indebtedness incurred to purchase single-premium annuity contracts. It has come to your committee's attention that a few insurance companies have promoted a plan for selling annuity contracts based on the tax advantage derived from omission of annuities from the treatment accorded single-premium life-insurance or endowment contracts. The annuity is sold for a nominal cash payment with a loan to cover the balance of the single-premium cost of the annuity. Interest on the loan (which may be a nonrecourse loan) is then taken as a deduction annually by the purchaser with a resulting tax saving that reduces the real interest cost below the increment in value produced by the annuity.
“Your committee’s bill will deny an interest deduction in such cases but only as to annuities purchased,- after March I, 1954.”
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.
SECOND SUPPLEMENTAL DECREE.
The Court having, on March 30, 1983, rendered its decision on the several Exceptions to the Final Report of the Special Master herein, approving the recommendation that the Fort Mojave Indian Tribe, the Chemehuevi Indian Tribe, the Colorado River Indian Tribes, the Quechan Indian Tribe, and the Cocopah Indian Tribe be permitted to intervene, approving some of his further recommendations and disapproving others, all as specified in this Court’s opinion, 460 U. S. 605 (1983), the following supplemental decree is now entered to implement the decision of March 30, 1983.
IT IS ORDERED, ADJUDGED, AND DECREED:
A. Paragraphs (2) and (5) of Article 11(D) of the Decree in this case entered on March 9, 1964 (376 U. S. 340, 344-345), are hereby amended to read as follows:
(2) The Cocopah Indian Reservation in annual quantities not to exceed (i) 9,707 acre-feet of diversions from the mainstream or (ii) the quantity of water necessary to supply the consumptive use required for irrigation of 1,524 acres and for the satisfaction of related uses, whichever of (i) or (ii) is less, with priority dates of September 27,1917, for lands reserved by the Executive Order of said date; June 24, 1974, for lands reserved by the Act of June 24, 1974 (88 Stat. 266, 269);
(5) The Fort Mojave Indian Reservation in annual quantities not to exceed (i) 129,767 acre-feet of diversions from the mainstream or (ii) the quantity of mainstream water necessary to supply the consumptive use required for irrigation of 20,076 acres and for the satisfaction of related uses, whichever of (i) or (ii) is less, with priority dates of September 19, 1890, for lands transferred by the Executive Order of said date; February 2,1911, for lands reserved by the Executive Order of said date; provided that the quantities fixed in this paragraph, and in paragraphs 1, 2, 3, and 4 shall be subject to appropriate adjustments by agreement or decree of this Court in the event that the boundaries of the respective reservations are finally determined.
B. Paragraph 1(A) of the Decree of January 9, 1979 (439 U. S. 419, 423) is hereby amended to read as follows:
I
ARIZONA
A. Federal Establishments’ Present Perfected Rights The federal establishments named in Art. II, subdivision (D), paragraphs (2), (4), and (5) of the Decree entered March 9, 1964, in this case:
Annual
Defined Area Diversions Net
of Land(Acre-Feet) Acres Priority Date
1) Cocopah Indian Reservation 7,681 1,206 Sept. 27, 1917
2) Colorado 358,400 53,768 Mar. 3, 1865
River Indian 252,016 37,808 Nov. 22, 1873
Reservation 51,986 7,799 Nov. 16, 1874
8) Fort Mojave Indian Reservation 27,969 4,327 Sept. 18, 1890 75,566 11,691 Feb. 2, 1911
C. In addition to the mainstream diversion rights in favor of the Indian Reservations specified in Paragraph 1(A) of the Decree of January 9, 1979, as amended by Paragraph B of this decree, a mainstream diversion right of 2,026 acre-feet for the Cocopah Reservation shall be charged against the State of Arizona with a priority date of June 24, 1974.
D. Except as otherwise provided herein, the Decree entered on March 9, 1964, and the Supplemental Decree entered on January 9, 1979, shall remain in full force and effect.
E. The allocation of costs previously made by the Special Master is approved and no further costs shall be taxed in this Court, absent further proceedings after entry of this Decree.
F. The Special Master appointed by the Court is discharged with the thanks of the Court.
G. The Court shall retain jurisdiction herein to order such further proceedings and enter such supplemental decree as may be deemed appropriate.
Justice Marshall took no part in the consideration or decision of this matter.
The quantity of water in each instance is measured by (i) diversions or (ii) consumptive use required for irrigation of the respective acreage and for satisfaction of related uses, whichever of (i) or (ii) is less.
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.
Justice Alito
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case presents the question whether, under the rules set out in Teague v. Lane, 489 U. S. 288 (1989), our decision in Crawford v. Washington, 541 U. S. 36 (2004), is retroactive to cases already final on direct review. We hold that it is not.
I
A
Respondent Marvin Bockting lived in Las Vegas, Nevada, with his wife, Laura Bockting, their 3-year-old daughter Honesty, and Laura’s 6-year-old daughter from a previous relationship, Autumn. One night, while respondent was at work, Autumn awoke from a dream crying, but she refused to tell her mother what was wrong, explaining: “ ‘[D]addy said you would make him leave and that he would beat my butt if I told you.’ ” App. 119. After her mother reassured her, Autumn said that respondent had frequently forced her to engage in numerous and varied sexual acts with him. Ibid.
The next day, Laura Bockting confronted respondent and asked him to leave the house. He did so but denied any wrongdoing. Two days later, Laura called a rape crisis hotline and brought Autumn to the hospital for an examination. At the hospital, Detective Charles Zinovitch from the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Sexual Assault Unit attempted to interview Autumn but found her too distressed to discuss the assaults. Detective Zinovitch then ordered a rape examination, which revealed strong physical evidence of sexual assaults. See Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law and Order in Nevada v. Bockting, Case No. C-83110 (D. Nev., Sept. 5,1994), App. 47, 119.
Two days later, Detective Zinovitch interviewed Autumn in the presence of her mother, and at that time, Autumn provided a detailed description of acts of sexual assault carried out by respondent; Autumn also demonstrated those acts using anatomically correct dolls. Id., at 47-48; 119. Respondent was then arrested, and a state grand jury indicted him on four counts of sexual assault on a minor under 14 years of age.
At respondent’s preliminary hearing, Autumn testified that she understood the difference between a truth and a lie, but she became upset when asked about the assaults. Although she initially agreed that respondent had touched her in a way that “[she] didn’t think he was supposed to touch [her],” id., at 14, she later stated that she could not remember how respondent had touched her or what she had told her mother or the detective, id., at 19-21. The trial court, however, found the testimony of Laura Bockting and Detective Zinovitch to be sufficient to hold respondent for trial.
At trial, the court held a hearing outside the presence of the jury to determine whether Autumn could testify. After it became apparent that Autumn was too distressed to be sworn in, id., at 25-26, the State moved under Nev. Rev. Stat. § 51.385 (2003) to allow Laura Bockting and Detective Zinovitch to recount Autumn’s statements regarding the sexual assaults. App. 25-27. Under the Nevada statute, out-of-court statements made by a child under 10 years of age describing acts of sexual assault or physical abuse of the child may be admitted if the court finds that the child is unavailable or unable to testify and that “the time, content and circumstances of the statement provide sufficient circumstantial guarantees of trustworthiness.” §51.385(l)(a). Over defense counsel’s objection that admission of this testimony would violate the Confrontation Clause, id., at 27-28, the trial court found sufficient evidence of reliability to satisfy §51.385.
As a result of this ruling, Laura Bockting and Detective Zinovitch were permitted at trial to recount Autumn’s out-of-court statements about the assaults. Laura Bockting also testified that respondent was the only male who had had the opportunity to assault Autumn. In addition, the prosecution introduced evidence regarding Autumn’s medical exam. Respondent testified in his own defense and denied the assaults, and the defense brought out the fact that Autumn, unlike many children her age, had acquired some knowledge about sexual acts, since she had seen respondent and her mother engaging in sexual intercourse and had become familiar with sexual terms. Id., at 118.
The jury found respondent guilty of three counts of sexual assault on a minor under the age of 14, and the trial court imposed two consecutive life sentences and another concurrent life sentence.
B
Respondent took an appeal to the Nevada Supreme Court, which handed down its final decision in 1993, more than a decade before Crawford. In analyzing respondent’s contention that the admission of Autumn’s out-of-court statements had violated his Confrontation Clause rights, the Nevada Supreme Court looked to Ohio v. Roberts, 448 U. S. 56 (1980), which was then the governing precedent of this Court. See Bockting v. State, 109 Nev. 103, 847 P. 2d 1364 (1993) (per curiam). Roberts had held that the Confrontation Clause permitted the admission of a hearsay statement made by a declarant who was unavailable to testify if the statement bore sufficient indicia of reliability, either because the statement fell within a firmly rooted hearsay exception or because there were “particularized guarantees of trustworthiness” relating to the statement in question. 448 U. S., at 66. Applying Roberts, the Nevada Supreme Court held that the admission of Autumn’s statements was constitutional because the circumstances surrounding the making of the statements provided particularized guarantees of trustworthiness. The court cited the “natural spontaneity” of Autumn’s initial statements to her mother, her reiteration of the same account to Detective Zinovitch several days later, her use of anatomically correct dolls to demonstrate the assaults, and her detailed descriptions of sexual acts with which a 6-year-old would generally not be familiar. Bock-ting, supra, at 109-112, 847 P. 2d, at 1368-1370.
C
Respondent then filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus with the United States District Court for the District of Nevada, arguing that the Nevada Supreme Court’s decision violated his Confrontation Clause rights. The District Court denied the petition, holding that respondent was not entitled to relief under the habeas statute, 28 U. S. C. § 2254(d), because the Nevada Supreme Court’s decision was not “ ‘contrary to’ ” and did not “ ‘involv[e] an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States.’” Order in Bockting v. Bayer, No. CV-N-98-0764-ECR (Mar. 19, 2002), App. 69-70. Respondent then appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
While this appeal was pending, we issued our opinion in Crawford, in which we overruled Roberts and held that “[t]estimonial statements of witnesses absent from trial” are admissible “only where the declarant is unavailable, and only where the defendant has had a prior opportunity to cross-examine [the witness].” 541 U. S., at 59. See also Davis v. Washington, 547 U. S. 813 (2006). We noted that the outcome in Roberts — as well as the outcome in all similar cases decided by this Court — was consistent with the rule announced in Crawford, but we concluded that the interpretation of the Confrontation Clause set out in Roberts was unsound in several respects. See Crawford, supra, at 60 (“Although the results of our decisions have generally been faithful to the original meaning of the Confrontation Clause, the same cannot be said of our rationales”). First, we observed that Roberts potentially excluded too much testimony because it imposed Confrontation Clause restrictions on non-testimonial hearsay not governed by that Clause. 541 U. S., at 60. At the same time, we noted, the Roberts test was too “malleable” in permitting the admission of ex parte testimonial statements. 541 U. S., at 60. We concluded:
“Where testimonial statements are involved, we do not think the Framers meant to leave the Sixth Amendment’s protection to the vagaries of the rules of evidence, much less to amorphous notions of ‘reliability.’... Admitting statements deemed reliable by a judge is fundamentally at odds with the right to confrontation. To be sure, the Clause’s ultimate goal is to ensure reliability of evidence, but it is a procedural rather than a substantive guarantee. It commands not that evidence be reliable, but that reliability be assessed in a particular manner: by testing in the crucible of cross-examination. The Clause thus reflects a judgment, not only about the desirability of reliable evidence (a point on which there could be little dissent), but about how reliability can best be determined.” Id., at 61.
D
On appeal from the denial of his petition for writ of habeas corpus, respondent contended that if the rule in Crawford had been applied to his case, Autumn’s out-of-court statements could not have been admitted into evidence and the jury would not have convicted him. Respondent further argued that Crawford should have been applied to his case because the Crawford rule was either (1) an old rule in existence at the time of his conviction or (2) a “ ‘watershed’ ” rule that implicated “the fundamental fairness and accuracy of the criminal proceeding.” Saffle v. Parks, 494 U. S. 484, 495 (1990) (quoting Teague, 489 U. S., at 311 (plurality opinion)).
A divided panel of the Ninth Circuit reversed the District Court, holding that Crawford applies retroactively to cases on collateral review. Bockting v. Bayer, 399 F. 3d 1010, as amended, 408 F. 3d 1127 (2005). In the panel’s lead opinion, Judge McKeown concluded that Crawford announced a new rule of criminal procedure, 399 F. 3d, at 1014-1016, but that the decision was nevertheless retroactive on collateral review because it announced a watershed rule that “rework[ed] our understanding of bedrock criminal procedure,” id., at 1016 Judge Noonan concurred, but his preferred analysis differed from Judge McKeown’s. Judge Noonan believed that Crawford did not announce a new rule, 399 F. 3d, at 1022-1024, but “[a]s an alternative to [this] analysis and in order to provide a precedent for [the] court,” he “also concurred] in' Judge McKeown’s analysis and opinion,” id., at 1024. Judge Wallace, concurring and dissenting, agreed with Judge McKeown that Crawford announced a new procedural rule but argued that Crawford did not rise to the level of a watershed rule under this Court’s jurisprudence. The Ninth Circuit denied rehearing en banc, with nine judges dissenting. 418 F. 3d 1055 (2005).
The panel’s decision that Crawford is retroactive to cases on collateral review conflicts with the decision of every other Court of Appeals and State Supreme Court that has addressed this issue. We granted certiorari to resolve this conflict. 547 II S. 1127 (2006).
II
A
In Teague and subsequent cases, we have laid out the framework to be used in determining whether a rule announced in one of our opinions should be applied retroactively to judgments in criminal cases that are already final on direct review. Under the Teague framework, an old rule applies both on direct and collateral review, but a new rule is generally applicable only to cases that are still on direct review. See Griffith v. Kentucky, 479 U. S. 314 (1987). A new rule applies retroactively in a collateral proceeding only if (1) the rule is substantive or (2) the rule is a “ ‘watershed rul[e] of criminal procedure’ implicating the fundamental fairness and accuracy of the criminal proceeding.” Saffle, supra, at 495 (quoting Teague, supra, at 311 (plurality opinion)).
B
In this case, it is undisputed that respondent’s conviction became final on direct appeal well before Crawford was decided. We therefore turn to the question whether Crawford applied an old rule or announced a new one. A new rule is defined as “a rule that . . . was not ‘dictated by precedent existing at the time the defendant’s conviction became final.’” Saffle, supra, at 488 (quoting Teague, supra, at 301 (plurality opinion); emphasis in original).
Applying this definition, it is clear that Crawford announced a new rule. The Crawford rule was not “dictated” by prior precedent. Quite the opposite is true: The Crawford rule is flatly inconsistent with the prior governing precedent, Roberts, which Crawford overruled. See Davis, 547 U. S., at 825, n. 4, 834. “The explicit overruling of an earlier holding no doubt creates a new rule.” Saffle, supra, at 488.
In concluding that Crawford merely applied an old rule, Judge Noonan relied on our observation in Crawford that the holdings in our prior decisions, including those that applied the Roberts rule, had been generally consistent with the rule announced in Crawford (and with the Framers’ understanding of the meaning of the Confrontation Clause, which provided the basis for the Crawford decision). See 541 U. S., at 57-59. But the Crawford Court was quick to note that the “rationales” of our prior decisions had been inconsistent with the Crawford rule. Id., at 60. “ ‘The “new rule” principle ... validates reasonable, good-faith interpretations of existing precedents made by state courts even though they are shown to be contrary to later decisions.’” Lockhart v. Fretwell, 506 U. S. 364, 372-373 (1993) (quoting Butler v. McKellar, 494 U. S. 407, 414 (1990)). And it is stating the obvious to say that, prior to Crawford, “reasonable jurists,” Graham v. Collins, 506 U. S. 461, 467 (1993), could have reached the conclusion that the Roberts rule was the rule that governed the admission of hearsay statements made by an unavailable declarant.
Because the Crawford rule was not dictated by the governing precedent existing at the time when respondent’s conviction became final, the Crawford rule is a new rule.
III
A
Because Crawford announced a “new rule” and because it is clear and undisputed that the rule is procedural and not substantive, that rule cannot be applied in this collateral attack on respondent’s conviction unless it is a “‘watershed rul[e] of criminal procedure’ implicating the fundamental fairness and accuracy of the criminal proceeding.” Saffle, 494 U. S., at 495 (quoting Teague, 489 U. S., at 311 (plurality opinion)). This exception is “extremely narrow,” Schriro v. Summerlin, 542 U. S. 348, 352 (2004). We have observed that it is “‘unlikely’” that any such rules “‘ha[ve] yet to emerge,’ ” ibid, (quoting Tyler v. Cain, 533 U. S. 656, 667, n. 7 (2001); internal quotation marks omitted); see also O’Dell v. Netherland, 521 U. S. 151, 157 (1997); Graham, supra, at 478; Teague, supra, at 313 (plurality opinion). And in the years since Teague, we have rejected every claim that a new rule satisfied the requirements for watershed status. See, e. g., Summerlin, supra (rejecting retroactivity for Ring v. Arizona, 536 U. S. 584 (2002)); Beard v. Banks, 542 U. S. 406 (2004) (rejecting retroactivity for Mills v. Maryland, 486 U. S. 367 (1988)); O’Dell, supra (rejecting retroactivity for Simmons v. South Carolina, 512 U. S. 154 (1994)); Gilmore v. Taylor, 508 U. S. 333 (1993) (rejecting retroactivity for a new rule relating to jury instructions on homicide); Sawyer v. Smith, 497 U. S. 227 (1990) (rejecting retroactivity for Caldwell v. Mississippi, 472 U. S. 320 (1985)).
In order to qualify as watershed, a new rule must meet two requirements. First, the rule must be necessary to prevent “an ‘ “impermissibly large risk” ’ ” of an inaccurate conviction. Summerlin, supra, at 356; see also Tyler, 533 U. S., at 665. Second, the rule must “alter our understanding of the bedrock procedural elements essential to the fairness of a proceeding.” Ibid, (internal quotation marks omitted; emphasis deleted). We consider each of these requirements in turn.
B
The Crawford rule does not satisfy the first requirement relating to an impermissibly large risk of an inaccurate conviction. To be sure, the Crawford rule reflects the Framers’ preferred mechanism (cross-examination) for ensuring that inaccurate out-of-court testimonial statements are not used to convict an accused. But in order for a new rule to meet the accuracy requirement at issue here, “[i]t is . . . not enough ... to say that [the] rule is aimed at improving the accuracy of trial,” Sawyer, 497 U. S., at 242, or that the rule “is directed toward the enhancement of reliability and accuracy in some sense,” id., at 243. Instead, the question is whether the new rule remedied “an ‘“impermissibly large risk”’” of an inaccurate conviction. Summerlin, supra, at 356.
Guidance in answering this question is provided by Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U. S. 335 (1963), to which we have repeatedly referred in discussing the meaning of the Teague exception at issue here. See, e. g., Beard, supra, at 417; Saffle, supra, at 495; Gilmore, supra, at 364 (Blackmun, J., dissenting). In Gideon, the only case that we have identified as qualifying under this exception, the Court held that counsel must be appointed for any indigent defendant charged with a felony. When a defendant who wishes to be represented by counsel is denied representation, Gideon held, the risk of an unreliable verdict is intolerably high. See Mickens v. Taylor, 535 U. S. 162, 166 (2002); United States v. Cronic, 466 U. S. 648, 658-659 (1984); Gideon, supra, at 344-345. The new rule announced in Gideon eliminated this risk.
The Crawford rule is in no way comparable to the Gideon rule. The Crawford rule is much more limited in scope, and the relationship of that rule to the accuracy of the factfinding process is far less direct and profound. Crawford overruled Roberts because Roberts was inconsistent with the original understanding of the meaning of the Confrontation Clause, not because the Court reached the conclusion that the overall effect of the Crawford rule would be to improve the accuracy of factfinding in criminal trials. Indeed, in Crawford we recognized that even under the Roberts rule, this Court had never specifically approved the introduction of testimonial hearsay statements. 541 U. S., at 57-60. Accordingly, it is not surprising that the overall effect of Crawford with regard to the accuracy of factfinding in criminal cases is not easy to assess.
With respect to testimonial out-of-court statements, Crawford is more restrictive than was Roberts, and this may improve the accuracy, of factfinding in some criminal cases. Specifically, under Roberts, there may have been cases in which courts erroneously determined that testimonial statements were reliable. But see 418 F. 3d, at 1058 (O’Scannlain, J., dissenting from denial of rehearing en banc) (observing that it is unlikely that this occurred “in anything but the exceptional case”). But whatever improvement in reliability Crawford produced in this respect must be considered together with Crawford’s elimination of Confrontation Clause protection against the admission of unreliable out-of-court nontestimonial statements. Under Roberts, an out-of-court nontestimonial statement not subject to prior cross-examination could not be admitted without a judicial determination regarding reliability. Under Crawford, on the other hand, the Confrontation Clause has no application to such statements and therefore permits their admission even if they lack indicia of reliability.
It is thus unclear whether Crawford, on the whole, decreased or increased the number of unreliable out-of-court statements that may be admitted in criminal trials. But the question here is not whether Crawford resulted in some net improvement in the accuracy of factfinding in criminal cases. Rather, “the question is whether testimony admissible under Roberts is so much more unreliable than that admissible under Crawford that the Crawford rule is ‘one without which the likelihood of an accurate conviction is seriously diminished.’ ” 399 F. 3d, at 1028 (Wallace, J., concurring and dissenting) (quoting Summerlin, 542 U. S., at 352; internal quotation marks omitted; emphasis in original). Crawford did not effect a change of this magnitude.
C
The Crawford rule also did not “alter our understanding of the bedrock procedural elements essential to the fairness of a proceeding.” Sawyer, supra, at 242 (internal quotation marks omitted; emphasis in original). Contrary to the suggestion of the Court of Appeals, see 399 F. 3d, at 1019 (relying on the conclusion that “the right of cross-examination as an adjunct to the constitutional right of confrontation” is a “bedrock procedural rul[e]”), this requirement cannot be met simply by showing that a new procedural rule is based on a “bedrock” right. We have frequently held that the Teague bar to retroactivity applies to new rules that are based on “bedrock” constitutional rights. See, e. g., Beard, 542 U. S., at 418. Similarly, “[t]hat a new procedural rule is ‘fundamental’ in some abstract sense is not enough.” Summerlin, swpra, at 352.
Instead, in order to meet this requirement, a new, rule must itself constitute a previously unrecognized bedrock procedural element that is essential to the fairness of a proceeding. In applying this requirement, we again have looked to the example of Gideon, and “we have not hesitated to hold that less sweeping and fundamental rules” do not qualify. Beard, supra, at 418.
In this case, it is apparent that the rule announced in Crawford, while certainly important, is not in the same category with Gideon. Gideon effected a profound and “ ‘sweeping’” change. Beard, supra, at 418 (quoting O’Dell, 521 U. S., at 167). The Crawford rule simply lacks the “primacy” and “centrality” of the Gideon rule, Saffle, 494 U. S., at 495, and does not qualify as a rule that “alter[ed] our understanding of the bedrock procedural elements essential to the fairness of a proceeding,” Sawyer, 497 U. S., at 242 (internal quotation marks omitted; emphasis deleted).
IV
In sum, we hold that Crawford announced a “new rule” of criminal procedure and that this rule does not fall within the Teague exception for watershed rules. We therefore reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Section 51.385 provides, in relevant part:
“1. [A] statement made by a child under the age of 10 years describing any act of sexual conduct performed with or on the child or any act of physical abuse of the child is admissible in a criminal proceeding regarding that act of sexual conduct or physical abuse if:
“(a) The court finds, in a hearing out of the presence of the jury, that the time, content and circumstances of the statement provide sufficient circumstantial guarantees of trustworthiness; and “(b) The child testifies at the proceeding or is unavailable or unable to testify.
“2. In determining the trustworthiness of a statement, the court shall consider, without limitation, whether:
“(a) The statement was spontaneous;
“(b) The child was subjected to repetitive questioning;
“(c) The child had a motive to fabricate;
“(d) The child used terminology unexpected of a child of similar age; and “(e) The child was in a stable mental state.”
The State Supreme Court initially dismissed respondent’s appeal in 1989, Bockting v. State, 105 Nev. 1023, 810 P. 2d 317 (unpublished table opinion), but we granted respondent’s petition for a writ of certiorari and vacated and remanded the case for reconsideration in light of Idaho v. Wright, 497 U. S. 805 (1990), see Bockting v. Nevada, 497 U. S. 1021 (1990).
Judge McKeown then held respondent merited habeas corpus relief under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 because that statute incorporates our Teague v. Lane, 489 U. S. 288 (1989), retroactivity analysis. 399 F. 3d, at 1021-1022.
See, e. g., Lave v. Dretke, 444 F. 3d 333 (CA5 2006); Espy v. Massac, 443 F. 3d .1362 (CA11 2006); Murillo v. Frank, 402 F. 3d 786 (CA7 2005); Dorchy v. Jones, 398 F. 3d 783 (CA6 2005); Brown v. Uphoff, 381 F. 3d 1219 (CA10 2004); Mungo v. Duncan, 393 F. 3d 327 (CA2 2004); Edwards v. People, 129 P. 3d 977 (Colo. 2006) (en banc); Ennis v. State, 122 Nev. 694, 137 P. 3d 1095 (2006); Danforth v. State, 718 N. W. 2d 451 (Minn. 2006); State v. Williams, 695 N. W. 2d 23 (Iowa 2005); Chandler v. Crosby, 916 So. 2d 728 (Fla. 2005); In re Markel, 154 Wash. 2d 262, 111 P. 3d 249 (2005).
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 Rehnquist
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Appellee Dayton Christian Schools, Inc. (Dayton), and various individuals brought an action in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio under 42 U. S. C. § 1983, seeking to enjoin a pending state administrative proceeding brought against Dayton by appellant Ohio Civil Rights Commission (Commission). Dayton asserted that the Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses of the First Amendment prohibited the Commission from exercising jurisdiction over it or from punishing it for engaging in employment discrimination. The District Court refused to issue the injunction on grounds that any conflict between the First Amendment and the administrative proceedings was not yet ripe, and that in any case the proposed action of the Commission violated neither the Free Exercise Clause nor the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, as made applicable to the States by the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed, holding that the exercise of jurisdiction and the enforcement of the statute would impermissibly burden appellees’ rights under the Free Exercise Clause and would result in excessive entanglement under the Establishment Clause. We postponed the question of jurisdiction pending consideration of the merits. 474 U. S. 978 (1985). We now conclude that we have jurisdiction, and we reverse, holding that the District Court should have abstained under our cases beginning with Younger v. Harris, 401 U. S. 37 (1971).
Dayton is a private nonprofit corporation that provides education at both the elementary and secondary school levels. It was formed by two local churches, the Patterson Park Brethren Church and the Christian Tabernacle, and it is regarded as a “nondenominational” extension of the Christian education ministries of these two churches. Dayton’s corporate charter establishes a board of directors (board) to lead the corporation in both spiritual and temporal matters. App. 11. The charter also includes a section entitled “Statement of Faith,” which serves to restrict membership on the board and the educational staff to persons who subscribe to a particular set of religious beliefs. The Statement of Faith requires each board or staff member to be a born-again Christian and to reaffirm his or her belief annually in the Bible, the Trinity, the nature and mission of Jesus Christ, the doctrine of original sin, the role of the Holy Ghost, the resurrection and judgment of the dead, the need for Christian unity, and the divine creation of human beings. Id., at 5-6.
The board has elaborated these requirements to include a belief in the internal resolution of disputes through the “Biblical chain of command.” The core of this doctrine, rooted in passages from the New Testament, is that one Christian should not take another Christian into courts of the State. Teachers are expected to present any grievance they may have to their immediate supervisor, and to acquiesce in the final authority of the board, rather than to pursue a remedy in civil court. The board has sought to ensure compliance with this internal dispute resolution doctrine by making it a contractual condition of employment.
Linda Hoskinson was employed as a teacher at Dayton during the 1978-1979 school year. She subscribed to the Statement of Faith and expressly agreed to resolve disputes internally through the Biblical chain of command. In January 1979, she informed her principal, James Rakestraw, that she was pregnant. After consulting with his superiors, Rakestraw informed Hoskinson that her employment contract would not be renewed at the end of the school year because of Dayton’s religious doctrine that mothers should stay home with their preschool age children. Instead of appealing this decision internally, Hoskinson contacted an attorney who sent a letter to Dayton’s superintendent, Claude Schindler, threatening litigation based on state and federal sex discrimination laws if Dayton did not agree to rehire Hoskinson for the coming school year.
Upon receipt of this letter, Schindler informed Hoskinson that she was suspended immediately for challenging the nonrenewal decision in a manner inconsistent with the internal dispute resolution doctrine. The board reviewed this decision and decided to terminate Hoskinson. It stated that the sole reason for her termination was her violation of the internal dispute resolution doctrine, and it rescinded the earlier nonrenewal decision because it said that she had not received adequate prior notice of the doctrine concerning a mother’s duty to stay home with her young children.
Hoskinson filed a complaint with appellant Ohio Civil Rights Commission (Commission), alleging that Dayton’s nonrenewal decision constituted sex discrimination, in violation of Ohio Rev. Code Ann. § 4112.02(A) (Supp. 1985), and that its termination decision penalized her for asserting her rights, in violation of Ohio Rev. Code Ann. §4112.02(1) (Supp. 1985). The Commission notified Dayton that it was conducting a preliminary investigation into the matter, and repeatedly urged Dayton to consider private settlement, warning that failure to do so could result in a formal adjudication of the matter.
The Commission eventually determined that there was probable cause to believe that Dayton had discriminated against Hoskinson based on her sex and had retaliated against her for attempting to assert her rights in violation of §§ 4112(A) and (I). Pursuant to Ohio Rev. Code Ann. § 4112.05(B) (Supp. 1985), it sent Dayton a proposed Conciliation Agreement and Consent Order that would have required Dayton to reinstate Hoskinson with backpay, and would have prohibited Dayton from taking retaliatory action against any employee for participating in the preliminary investigation. The Commission warned Dayton that failure to accede to this proposal or an acceptable counteroffer would result in formal administrative proceedings being initiated against it. When Dayton failed to respond, the Commission initiated administrative proceedings against it by filing a complaint. Dayton answered the complaint by asserting that the First Amendment prevented the Commission from exercising jurisdiction over it since its actions had been taken pursuant to sincerely held religious beliefs. App. 103.
While these administrative proceedings were pending, Dayton filed this action against the Commission in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio under 42 U. S. C. § 1983, seeking a permanent injunction against the state proceedings on the ground that any investigation of Dayton’s hiring process or any imposition of sanctions for Dayton’s nonrenewal or termination decisions would violate the Religion Clauses of the First Amendment. App. 118— 120. The Commission filed a motion to dismiss, arguing, inter alia, that the District Court should refrain from enjoining the administrative proceedings based on federal abstention doctrines. Record, Doc. No. 9, pp. 7-8. It also filed various documents defending its action on the merits.
Without addressing the abstention argument, the District Court refused to issue the injunction. 578 F. Supp. 1004 (1984). The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed, as previously noted, holding that the exercise of such jurisdiction would violate both the Free Exercise Clause and the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. 766 F. 2d 932 (1985).
We hold that we have appellate jurisdiction under 28 U. S. C. § 1254(2) to review the decision of the Court of Appeals. That statute authorizes an appeal to this Court “by a party relying on a State statute held by a court of appeals to be invalid as repugnant to the Constitution.” This authority embraces cases holding a state statute unconstitutional as applied to the facts of the case. Dutton v. Evans, 400 U. S. 74, 76, n. 6 (1970). Here there is no doubt that the decision by the Court of Appeals satisfies this test. The court expressly held that Ohio Rev. Code Ann. §4112.02 et seq. (Supp. 1985) is repugnant to the Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses as applied to authorize the administrative body to investigate the charges against Dayton and to decide whether to impose sanctions. See 766 F. 2d, at 935, n. 5, 944, 955, 961.
Having taken jurisdiction over the decision below, we now turn to whether the District Court should have exercised jurisdiction over the case itself. We conclude that the District Court should have abstained from adjudicating this case under Younger v. Harris, 401 U. S. 37 (1971), and later cases. The Commission urged such abstention in the District Court, and on oral argument here. Tr. of Oral Axg. 7-8. Dayton has filed a postargument brief urging that the Commission has waived any claim to abstention because it had stipulated in the District Court that that court had jurisdiction of the action. We think, however, that this argument misconceives the nature of Younger abstention. It does not arise from lack of jurisdiction in the District Court, but from strong policies counseling against the exercise of such jurisdiction where particular kinds of state proceedings have already been commenced. A State may of course voluntarily submit to federal jurisdiction even though it might have had a tenable claim for abstention. See Brown v. Hotel Employees, 468 U. S. 491, 500, n. 9 (1984); Ohio Bureau of Employment Services v. Hodory, 431 U. S. 471, 479-480 (1977); Sosna v. Iowa, 419 U. S. 393, 396-397, n. 3 (1975). But in each of these cases the State expressly urged this Court or the District Court to proceed to an adjudication of the constitutional merits. We think there was no similar consent or waiver here, and we therefore address the issue of whether the District Court should have abstained from deciding the case.
In Younger v. Harris, supra, we held that a federal court should not enjoin a pending state criminal proceeding except in the very unusual situation that an injunction is necessary to prevent great and immediate irreparable injury. We justified our decision both on equitable principles, id., at 43, and on the “more vital consideration” of the proper respect for the fundamental role of States in our federal system. Id., at 44. Because of our concerns for comity and federalism, we thought that it was
“perfectly natural for our cases to repeat time and time again that the normal thing to do when federal courts are asked to enjoin pending proceedings in state courts is not to issue such injunctions.” Id., at 45 (emphasis added).
We have since recognized that our concern for comity and federalism is equally applicable to certain other pending state proceedings. We have applied the Younger principle to civil proceedings in which important state interests are involved. Huffman v. Pursue, Ltd., 420 U. S. 592 (1975); Juidice v. Vail, 430 U. S. 327 (1977); Trainor v. Hernandez, 431 U. S. 434 (1977); Moore v. Sims, 442 U. S. 415, 423 (1979). We have also applied it to state administrative proceedings in which important state interests are vindicated, so long as in the course of those proceedings the federal plaintiff would have a full and fair opportunity to litigate his constitutional claim. We stated in Gibson v. Berryhill, 411 U. S. 564, 576-577 (1973), that “administrative proceedings looking toward the revocation of a license to practice medicine may in proper circumstances command the respect due court proceedings.” Similarly, we have held that federal courts should refrain from enjoining lawyer disciplinary proceedings initiated by state ethics committees if the proceedings are within the appellate jurisdiction of the appropriate State Supreme Court. Middlesex County Ethics Committee v. Garden State Bar Assn., 457 U. S. 423 (1982). Because we found that the administrative proceedings in Middlesex were “judicial in nature” from the outset, id., at 432-434, it was not essential to the decision that they had progressed to state-court review by the time we heard the federal injunction case.
We think the principles enunciated in these cases govern the present one. We have no doubt that the elimination of prohibited sex discrimination is a sufficiently important state interest to bring the present case within the ambit of the cited authorities. We also have no reason to doubt that Dayton will receive an adequate opportunity to raise its constitutional claims. Dayton contends that the mere exercise of jurisdiction over it by the state administrative body violates its First Amendment rights. But we have repeatedly rejected the argument that a constitutional attack on state procedures themselves “automatically vitiates the adequacy of those procedures for purposes of the Younger-Huffman line of cases.” Moore, supra, at 427, n. 10. Even religious schools cannot claim to be wholly free from some state regulation. Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U. S. 205, 213 (1972). We therefore think that however Dayton’s constitutional claim should be decided on the merits, the Commission violates no constitutional rights by merely investigating the circumstances of Hoskinson’s discharge in this case, if only to ascertain whether the ascribed religious-based reason was in fact the reason for the discharge.
Dayton also contends that the administrative proceedings do not afford the opportunity to level constitutional challenges against the potential sanctions for the alleged sex discrimination. In its reply brief in this Court, the Commission cites several rulings to demonstrate that religious justifications for otherwise illegal conduct are considered by it. See, e. g., In re St. Mary of the Falls, No. 948 (1975). Dayton in turn relies on a decision of the Supreme Court of Ohio, Mobil Oil Corp. v. Rocky River, 38 Ohio St. 2d 23, 26, 309 N. E. 2d 900, 902 (1974), in which that court held that a local zoning commission could not consider constitutional claims. But even if Ohio law is such that the Commission may not consider the constitutionality of the statute under which it operates, it would seem an unusual doctrine, and one not supported by the cited case, to say that the Commission could not construe its own statutory mandate in the light of federal constitutional principles. Cf. NLRB v. Catholic Bishop of Chicago, 440 U. S. 490 (1979). In any event, it is sufficient under Middlesex, supra, at 436, that constitutional claims may be raised in state-court judicial review of the administrative proceeding. Section 4112.06 of Ohio Rev. Code Ann. (1980). provides that any “respondent claiming to be aggrieved by a final order of the commission . . . may obtain judicial review thereof.” Dayton cites us to no Ohio authority indicating that this provision does not authorize judicial review of claims that agency action violates the United States Constitution.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is therefore reversed, and the case remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
We think that any ripeness challenge to appellees’ complaint is foreclosed by Steffel v. Thompson, 415 U. S. 452 (1974), and Doran v. Salem Inn, Inc., 422 U. S. 922 (1975). Steffel held that a reasonable threat of prosecution for conduct allegedly protected by the Constitution gives rise to a sufficiently ripe controversy. 415 U. S., at 458-460. If a reasonable threat of prosecution creates a ripe controversy, we fail to see how the actual filing of the administrative action threatening sanctions in this case does not. It is true that the administrative body may rule completely or partially in appellees’ favor; but it was equally true that the plaintiffs in Steffel and Doran may have prevailed had they in fact been prosecuted.
The lower courts have been virtually uniform in holding that the Younger principle applies to pending state administrative proceedings in which an important state interest is involved. See, e. g., Williams v. Red Bank Board of Education, 662 F. 2d 1008 (CA3 1981); Grandco Corp. v. Rochford, 536 F. 2d 197, 206 (CA7 1976); McCune v. Frank, 521 F. 2d 1152, 1158 (CA2 1975); McDonald v. Metro-North Commuter Railroad Division of Metropolitan Transit Authority, 565 F. Supp. 37 (SDNY 1983) (Weinfeld, J.). Only the recent case of Martori Bros. Distributors v. James-Massengale, 781 F. 2d 1349, 1354 (CA9 1986), departs from this position, and it does so without analysis. Of course, if state law expressly indicates that the administrative proceedings are not even “judicial in nature,” abstention may not be appropriate. See Hawaii Housing Authority v. Midkiff, 467 U. S. 229, 237-239 (1984).
The application of the Younger principle to pending state administrative proceedings is fully consistent with Patsy v. Florida Board of Regents, 457 U. S. 496 (1982), which holds that litigants need not exhaust their administrative remedies prior to bringing a § 1983 suit in federal court. Cf. Huffman v. Pursue, Ltd., 420 U. S. 592, 607-611 (1975). Unlike Patsy, the administrative proceedings here are coercive rather than remedial, began before any substantial advancement in the federal action took place, and involve an important state interest.
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 Thomas
delivered the opinion of the Court.
In this case, we determine the appealability of an interlocutory order issued by a district court sitting as a court of appeals in bankruptcy.
I
In 1984, O’Sullivan’s Fuel Oil Co., Inc., filed a bankruptcy petition in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Connecticut. Although the case began as a reorganization under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code, in 1986 the Bankruptcy Court converted it into a liquidation under Chapter 7. Petitioner Connecticut National Bank (CNB) is successor in interest to one of O’Sullivan’s creditors. Respondent Thomas M. Germain is trustee of O’Sullivan’s estate.
On June 1, 1987, Germain sued CNB in Connecticut state court, seeking to hold the bank liable for various torts and breaches of contract. CNB removed the suit to the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut, which, pursuant to local rule, automatically referred the proceeding to the Bankruptcy Court overseeing the liquidation. Ger-main then filed a demand for a jury trial. CNB moved to strike Germain’s demand. The Bankruptcy Court denied CNB’s motion, In re O’Sullivan’s Fuel Oil Co., 103 B. R. 388 (Conn. 1989), and the District Court affirmed, Germain v. Connecticut Nat. Bank, 112 B. R. 57 (Conn. 1990).
CNB then tried to appeal to the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, but the court dismissed for lack of jurisdiction. 926 F. 2d 191 (1991). The Second Circuit held that a court of appeals may exercise jurisdiction over interlocutory orders in bankruptcy only when a district court issues the order after having withdrawn a proceeding or case from a bankruptcy court, and not when the district court acts in its capacity as a bankruptcy court of appeals. We granted certiorari, 502 U. S. 905 (1991), and now reverse and remand.
HH H — I
Courts of appeals have jurisdiction over [interlocutory orders of the district courts of the United States” under 28 U. S. C. § 1292. CNB contends that § 1292(b) applies by its terms in this case, and that the Second Circuit therefore could have exercised discretionary jurisdiction over its appeal. Germain argues that § 1292 does not apply at all in this case because Congress limited § 1292 through 28 U. S. C. § 158(d), which deals with bankruptcy jurisdiction. CNB responds that nothing in § 158(d) limits §1292. We agree with CNB.
Bankruptcy appeals are governed for the most part by §158. This section comprises four subsections, three of which concern us here. Subsection (a) gives the district courts authority to hear appeals from final and interlocutory orders of the bankruptcy courts. The District Court, as we have noted, had jurisdiction under this- provision to hear CNB’s appeal from the Bankruptcy Court. Subsection (b) permits the judicial council of any circuit to establish a bankruptcy appellate panel to fill the role of the district courts under subsection (a). Subsection (d), which is pivotal in this case, provides:
“The courts of appeals shall have jurisdiction of appeals from all final decisions, judgments, orders, and decrees entered under subsections (a) and (b) of this section.”
Neither this subsection nor any other part of § 158 mentions interlocutory orders entered by the district courts in bankruptcy. The parties agree, as they must, that § 158 did not confer jurisdiction on the Court of Appeals.
Germain contends that the Court of Appeals did not have jurisdiction under § 1292 either, for § 158(d), in his view, precludes jurisdiction under § 1292 by negative implication. Ger-main reasons as follows: Although §§ 1291 and 1292 appear to cover the universe of decisions issued by the district courts — with § 1291 conferring jurisdiction over appeals from final decisions of the district courts, and § 1292 conferring jurisdiction over certain interlocutory ones — that cannot in fact be so. If § 1291 did cover all final decisions by a district court, he argues, that section would render § 158(d) superfluous, since a final decision issued by a district court sitting as a bankruptcy appellate court is still a final decision of a district court. If § 158(d) is to have effect, Germain contends, then that section must be exclusive within its own domain, which he defines as the universe of orders issued by district courts sitting pursuant to § 158(a) as courts of appeals in bankruptcy. When a district court enters an order in that capacity, Germain concludes, only § 158(d) can confer jurisdiction, and if it does not, nothing else can. Germain claims to find support for his view in his reading of the legislative history of § 158(d).
Contrary to Germain’s contention, we need not choose between giving effect on the one hand to §1291 and on the other to § 158(d), for the statutes do not pose an either-or proposition. Section 1291 confers jurisdiction over appeals from “final decisions of the district courts” acting in any capacity. Section 158(d), in contrast, confers jurisdiction over appeals from final decisions of the district courts when they act as bankruptcy appellate courts under § 158(a), and also confers jurisdiction over final decisions of the appéllate panels in bankruptcy acting under § 158(b). Sections 1291 and 158(d) do overlap, therefore, but each section confers jurisdiction over cases that the other section does not reach.
Redundancies across statutes are not unusual events in drafting, and so long as there is no “positive repugnancy” between two laws, Wood v. United States, 16 Pet. 342, 363 (1842), a court must give effect to both. Because giving effect to both §§ 1291 and 158(d) would not render one or the other wholly superfluous, we do not have to read § 158(d) as precluding courts of appeals, by negative implication, from exercising jurisdiction under §1291 over district courts sitting in bankruptcy. We similarly do not have to read § 158(d) as precluding jurisdiction under §1292. While courts should disfavor interpretations of statutes that render language superfluous, in this case that canon does not apply.
In any event, canons of construction are no more than rules of thumb that help courts determine the meaning of legislation, and in interpreting a statute a court should always turn first to one, cardinal canon before all others. We have stated time and again that courts must presume that a legislature says in a statute what it means and means in a statute what it says there. See, e. g., United States v. Ron Pair Enterprises, Inc., 489 U. S. 235, 241-242 (1989); United States v. Goldenberg, 168 U. S. 95, 102-103 (1897); Oneale v. Thornton, 6 Cranch 53, 68 (1810). When the words of a statute are unambiguous, then, this first canon is also the last: “judicial inquiry is complete.” Rubin v. United States, 449 U. S. 424, 430 (1981); see also Ron Pair Enterprises, supra, at 241.
Germain says that legislative history points to a different result. But we think that judicial inquiry into the applicability of § 1292 begins and ends with what § 1292 does say and with what § 158(d) does not. Section 1292 provides for review in the courts of appeals, in certain circumstances, of “[ijnterlocutory orders of the district courts of the United States.” Section 158(d) is silent as to review of interlocutory orders. Nowhere does § 1292 limit review to orders issued by district courts sitting as trial courts in bankruptcy rather than appellate courts, and nowhere else, whether in § 158(d) or any other statute, has Congress indicated that the unadorned words of § 1292 are in some way limited by implication. “It would be dangerous in the extreme to infer . . . that a case for which the words of an instrument expressly provide, shall be exempted from its operation.” Sturges v. Crowninshield, 4 Wheat. 122, 202 (1819); see also Regents of Univ. of Cal. v. Public Employment Relations Bd., 485 U. S. 589, 598 (1988). There is no reason to infer from either § 1292 or § 158(d) that Congress meant to limit appellate review of interlocutory orders in bankruptcy proceedings. So long as a party to a proceeding or case in bankruptcy meets the conditions imposed by § 1292, a court of appeals may rely on that statute as a basis for jurisdiction.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit is reversed, and the case is remanded for proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
That section provides in relevant part:
“(a)... [T]he courts of appeals shall have jurisdiction of appeals from:
“(1) Interlocutory orders of the district courts of the United States ... or of the judges thereof, granting, continuing, modifying, refusing or dissolving injunctions, or refusing to dissolve or modify injunctions, except where a direct review may be had in the Supreme Court;
“(2) Interlocutory orders appointing receivers, or refusing orders to wind up receiverships or to take steps to accomplish the purposes thereof...;
“(3) Interlocutory decrees of such district courts or the judges thereof determining the rights and liabilities of the parties to admiralty cases in which appeals from final decrees are allowed.
“(b) 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 which would have jurisdiction of an appeal of such action 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. ...”
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 Powell
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case presents the question whether the District Court for the District of Columbia should release to respondents certain tapes admitted into evidence at the trial of petitioner’s former advisers. Respondents wish to copy the tapes for broadcasting and sale to the public. The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit held that the District Court’s refusal to permit immediate copying of the tapes was an abuse of discretion. United States v. Mitchell, 179 U. S. App. D. C. 293, 551 P. 2d 1252 (1976). We granted certiorari, 430 U. S. 944 (1977), and for the reasons that follow, we reverse.
I
On July 16, 1973, testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities revealed that petitioner, then President of the United States, had maintained a system for tape recording conversations in the White House Oval Office and in his private office in the Executive Office Building. Hearings on Watergate and Related Activities Before the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, 93d Cong., 1st Sess., 2074-2076 (1973). A week later, the Watergate Special Prosecutor issued a subpoena duces tecum directing petitioner to produce before a federal grand jury tape recordings of eight meetings and one telephone conversation recorded in petitioner’s offices. When petitioner refused to comply with the subpoena, the District Court for the District of Columbia ordered production of the recordings. In re Subpoena to Nixon, 360 P. Supp. 1, aff’d sub nom. Nixon v. Sirica, 159 U. S. App. D. C. 58, 487 P. 2d 700 (1973). In November 1973, petitioner submitted seven of the nine subpoenaed recordings and informed the Office of the Special Prosecutor that the other two were missing.
On March 1,1974, the grand jury indicted seven individuals for, among other things, conspiring to obstruct justice in connection with the investigation of the 1972 burglary of the Democratic National Committee headquarters. In preparation for this trial, styled United States v. Mitchell, the Special Prosecutor, on April 18, 1974, issued a second subpoena duces tecum, directing petitioner to produce tape recordings and documents relating to some 64 additional Presidential meetings and conversations. The District Court denied petitioner’s motions to quash. United States v. Mitchell, 377 F. Supp. 1326 (1974). This Court granted certiorari before judgment in the Court of Appeals and affirmed. United States v. Nixon, 418 U. S. 683 (1974). In accordance with our decision, the subpoenaed tapes were turned over to the District Court for in camera inspection. The court arranged to have copies made of the relevant and admissible portions. It retained one copy and gave the other to the Special Prosecutor.
The trial began on October 1, 1974, before Judge Sirica. During its course, some 22 hours of taped conversations were played for the jury and the public in the courtroom. The reels of tape containing conversations played for the jury were entered into evidence. The District Court furnished the jurors, reporters, and members of the public in attendance with earphones and with transcripts prepared by the Special Prosecutor. The transcripts were not admitted as evidence, but were widely reprinted in the press.
Six weeks after the trial had begun, respondent broadcasters filed a motion before Judge Sirica, seeking permission to copy, broadcast, and sell to the public the portions of the tapes played at trial. Petitioner opposed the application. Because United States v. Mitchell was consuming all of Judge Sirica’s time, this matter was transferred to Judge Gesell.
On December 5, 1974, Judge Gesell held that a common-law privilege of public access to judicial records permitted respondents to obtain copies of exhibits in the custody of the clerk, including the tapes in question. United States v. Mitchell, 386 F. Supp. 639, 641. Judge Gesell minimized petitioner’s opposition to respondents’ motion, declaring that neither his alleged property interest in the tapes nor his asserted executive privilege sufficed to prevent release of recordings already publicly aired and available, in transcription, to the world at large. Id., at 642. Judge Gesell cautioned, however, against “overcommercialization of the evidence.” Id., at 643. And because of potential administrative and mechanical difficulties, he prohibited copying until the trial was over. Ibid. He requested that the parties submit proposals for access and copying procedures that would minimize overcommercialization and administrative inconvenience at that time. Ibid. In an order of January 8, 1975, Judge Gesell rejected respondents’ joint proposals as insufficient. Id., at 643-644. Noting the close of the Mitchell trial, he transferred the matter back to Judge Sirica.
On April 4, 1975, Judge Sirica denied without prejudice respondents’ petitions for immediate access to the tapes. United States v. Mitchell, 397 F. Supp. 186. Observing that all four men convicted in the Mitchell trial had filed notices of appeal, he declared that their rights could be prejudiced if the petitions were granted. Immediate access to the tapes might “result in the' manufacture of permanent phonograph records and tape recordings, perhaps with commentary by journalists or entertainers; marketing of the tapes would probably involve mass merchandising techniques designed to generate excitement in an air of ridicule to stimulate sales.” Id., at 188. Since release of the transcripts had apprised the public of the tapes’ contents, the public’s “right to know” did not, in Judge Sirica’s view, overcome the need to safeguard the defendants’ rights on appeal. Id., at 188-189. Judge Sirica also noted the passage of the Presidential Recordings and Materials Preservation Act
(Presidential Recordings Act), 88 Stat. 1695, note following 44 U. S. C. § 2107 (1970 ed., Supp. V), and the duty thereunder of the Administrator of General Services (Administrator) to submit to Congress regulations governing access to Presidential tapes in general. Under the proposed regulations then before Congress, public distribution of copies would be delayed for 4% years. Although Judge Sirica doubted that the Act covered the copies at issue here, he viewed the proposed regulations as suggesting that immediate release was not of overriding importance. 397 F. Supp., at 189.
The Court of Appeals reversed. United States v. Mitchell, 179 U. S. App. D. C. 293, 551 F. 2d 1252 (1976). It stressed the importance of the common-law privilege to inspect and copy judicial records and assigned to petitioner the burden of proving that justice required limitations on the privilege. In the court’s view, the mere possibility of prejudice to defendants’ rights in the event of a retrial did not outweigh the public’s right of access. Id., at 302-304, 551 F. 2d, at 1261— 1263. The court concluded that the District Court had “abused its discretion in allowing those diminished interests in confidentiality to interfere with the public’s right to inspect and copy the tapes.” Id., at 302, 551 F. 2d, at 1261. It remanded for the development of a plan of release, but noted— in apparent contrast to the admonitions of Judge Gessell — that the “court’s power to control the uses to which the tapes are put once released... is sharply limited by the First Amendment.” Id., at 304 n. 52, 551 F. 2d, at 1263 n. 52 (emphasis in original). We granted certiorari to review this holding that the common-law right of access to judicial records requires the District Court to release the tapes in its custody.
II
Both petitioner and respondents acknowledge the existence of a common-law right of access to judicial records, but they differ sharply over its scope and the circumstances warranting restrictions of it. An infrequent subject of litigation, its contours have not been delineated with any precision. Indeed, no case directly in point — that is, addressing the applicability of the common-law right to exhibits subpoenaed from third parties — has been cited or discovered.
A
It is clear that the courts of this country recognize a general right to inspect and copy public records and documents, including judicial records and documents. In contrast to the English practice, see, e. g., Browne v. Cumming, 10 B. & C. 70, 109 Eng. Rep. 377 (K. B. 1829), American decisions generally do not condition enforcement of this right on a proprietary interest in the document or upon a need for it as evidence in a lawsuit. The interest necessary to support the issuance of a writ compelling access has been found, for example, in the citizen’s desire to keep a watchful eye on the workings of public agencies, see, e. g., State ex rel. Colscott v. King, 154 Ind. 621, 621-627, 57 N. E. 535, 536-538 (1900); State ex rel. Ferry v. Williams, 41 N. J. L. 332, 336-339 (1879), and in a newspaper publisher’s intention to publish information concerning the operation of government, see, e. g., State ex rel. Youmans v. Owens, 28 Wis. 2d 672, 677, 137 N. W. 2d 470, 472 (1965), modified on other grounds, 28 Wis. 2d 685a, 139 N. W. 2d 241 (1966). But see Burton v. Reynolds, 110 Mich. 354, 68 N.W. 217 (1896).
It is uncontested, however, that the right to inspect and copy judicial records is not absolute. Every court has supervisory power over its own records and files, and access has been denied where court files might have become a vehicle for improper purposes. For example, the common-law right of inspection has bowed before the power of a court to insure that its records are not “used to gratify private spite or promote public scandal” through the publication of “the painful and sometimes disgusting details of a divorce case.” In re Caswell, 18 R. I. 835, 836, 29 A. 259 (1893). Accord, e. g., C. v. C., 320 A. 2d 717, 723, 727 (Del. 1974). See also King v. King, 25 Wyo. 275, 168 P. 730 (1917). Similarly, courts have refused to permit their files to serve as reservoirs of libelous statements for press consumption, Park v. Detroit Free Press Co., 72 Mich. 560, 568, 40 N. W. 731, 734-735 (1888); see Cowley v. Pulsifer, 137 Mass. 392, 395 (1884) (per Holmes, J.) ; Munzer v. Blaisdell, 268 App. Div. 9,11, 48 N. Y. S. 2d 355, 356 (1944); see also Sanford v. Boston Herald-Traveler Corp., 318 Mass. 156, 158, 61 N. E. 2d 5, 6 (1945), or as sources of business information that might harm a litigant’s competitive standing, see, e. g., Schmedding v. May, 85 Mich. 1, 5-6, 48 N. W. 201, 202 (1891); Flexmir, Inc. v. Herman, 40 A. 2d 799, 800 (N. J. Ch. 1945).
It is difficult to distill from the relatively few judicial decisions a comprehensive definition of what is referred to as the common-law right of access or to identify all the factors to be weighed in determining whether access is appropriate. The few cases that have recognized such a right do agree that the decision as to access is one best left to the sound discretion of the trial court, a discretion to be exercised in light of the relevant facts and circumstances of the particular case. In any event, we need not undertake to delineate precisely the contours of the common-law right, as we assume, arguendo, that it applies to the tapes at issue here.
B
Petitioner advances several reasons supporting the exercise of discretion against release of the tapes.
First, petitioner argues that he has a property interest in the sound of his own voice, an interest that respondents intend to appropriate unfairly. In respondents’ view, our decision in Nixon v. Administrator of General Services, 433 U. S. 425 (1977), upholding the constitutionality of the Presidential Recordings Aót, divested petitioner of any property rights in the tapes that could be asserted against the general public. Petitioner insists, however, that respondents’ point is not fully responsive to his argument. Petitioner is not asserting a proprietary right to the tapes themselves. He likens his interest to that of a third party whose voice is recorded in the course of a lawful wiretap by police officers and introduced into evidence on tape. In petitioner’s view, use of one’s voice as evidence in a criminal trial does not give rise to a license for commercial exploitation.
Petitioner also maintains that his privacy would be infringed if aural copies of the tapes were distributed to the public. The Court of Appeals rejected this contention. It reasoned that with the playing of the tapes in the courtroom, the publication of their contents in the form of written, transcripts, and the passage of the Presidential Recordings Act — in which Congress contemplated ultimate public distribution of aural copies — any realistic expectation of privacy disappeared. 179 U. S. App. D. C., at 304-305, 551 F. 2d, at 1263-1264. Furthermore, the court ruled that as Presidential documents the tapes were “impressed with the 'public trust’ ” and not subject to ordinary privacy claims. Id., at 305, 551 F. 2d, at 1264. Respondents add that aural reproduction of actual conversations, reflecting nuances and inflections, is a more accurate means of informing the public about this important historical event than a verbatim written transcript. Petitioner disputes this claim of “accuracy,” emphasizing that the tapes required 22 hours to be played. If made available for commercial recordings or broadcast by the electronic media, only fractions of the tapes, necessarily taken out of context, could or would be presented. Nor would there be any safeguard, other than the taste of the marketing medium, against distortion through cutting, erasing, and splicing of tapes. There would be strong motivation to titillate as well as to educate listeners. Petitioner insists that this use would infringe his privacy, resulting in embarrassment and anguish to himself and the other persons who participated in private conversations that they had every reason to believe would remain confidential.
Third, petitioner argues that our decision in United States v. Nixon, 418 U. S. 683 (1974), authorized only the most limited use of subpoenaed Presidential conversations consistent with the constitutional duty of the judiciary to ensure justice in criminal prosecutions. The Court of Appeals concluded, however, that the thrust of our decision in that case was to protect the confidentiality of Presidential conversations that were neither relevant nor admissible in the criminal proceeding; it did not relate to uses of conversations actually introduced into evidence. Since these conversations were no longer confidential, 179 U. S. App. D. C., at 305-306, 551 F. 2d, at 1264-1265, Presidential privilege no longer afforded any protection.
Finally, petitioner argues that it would be improper for the courts to facilitate the commercialization of these White House tapes. The court below rejected this argument, holding it a “question of taste” that could not take precedence over the public’s right of access. Id., at 306, 551 F. 2d, at 1265. Petitioner rejoins that such matters of taste induce courts to. deny public access to court files in divorce and libel litigation. See, e. g., In re Caswell, 18 R. I. 835, 29 A. 259 (1893); Munzer v. Blaisdell, 268 App. Div., at 11, 48 N. Y. S. 2d, at 356. Moreover, argues petitioner, widespread publication of the transcripts has satisfied the public’s legitimate interests; the marginal gain in information from the broadcast and sale of aural copies is outweighed by the unseemliness of enlisting the court, which obtained these recordings by subpoena for a limited purpose, to serve as the vehicle of their commercial exploitation “at cocktail parties,... in comedy acts or dramatic productions,... and in every manner that may occur to the enterprising, the imaginative, or the antagonistic recipients of copies.” Brief for Petitioner 30.
C
At this point, we normally would be faced with the task of weighing the interests advanced by the parties in light of the public interest and the duty of the courts. On respondents’ side of the scales is the incremental gain in public understanding of an immensely important historical occurrence that arguably would flow from the release of aural copies of these tapes, a gain said to be not inconsequential despite the already widespread dissemination of printed transcripts. Also on respondents’ side is the presumption — however gauged — in favor of public access to judicial records. On petitioner’s side are the arguments identified above, which must be assessed in the context of court custody of the tapes. Underlying each of petitioner’s arguments is the crucial fact that respondents require a court’s cooperation in furthering their commercial plans. The court — as custodian of tapes obtained by subpoena over the opposition of a sitting President, solely to satisfy “fundamental demands of due process of law in the fair administration of criminal justice,” United States v. Nixon, supra, at 713 — has a responsibility to exercise an informed discretion as to release of the tapes, with a sensitive appreciation of the circumstances that led to their production. This responsibility does not permit copying upon demand. Otherwise, there would exist a danger that the court could become a partner in the use of the subpoenaed material “to gratify private spite or promote public scandal,” In re Caswell, supra, at 836, 29 A. 259, with no corresponding assurance of public benefit.
We need not decide how the balance would be struck if the case were resolved only on the basis of the facts and arguments reviewed above. There is in this case an additional, unique element that was neither advanced by the parties nor given appropriate consideration by the courts below. In the Presidential Recordings Act, Congress directed the Administrator of General Services to take custody of petitioner’s Presidential tapes and documents. The materials are to be screened by Government archivists so that those private in nature may be returned to petitioner, while those of historical value may be preserved and made available for use in judicial proceedings and, eventually, made accessible to the public. Thus, Congress has created an administrative procedure for processing and releasing to the public, on terms meeting with congressional approval, all of petitioner’s Presidential materials of historical interest, including recordings of the conversations at issue here.
In Nixon v. Administrator of General Services, 433 U. S. 425 (1977), we noted two major objects of the Act. First, it created a centralized custodian for the preservation and “orderly processing” of petitioner’s historical materials. Second, it mandated protection of the “rights of [petitioner] and other individuals against infringement by the processing itself or, ultimately, by public access to the materials retained.” Id., at 436. To these ends, the Act directed the Administrator to formulate regulations that would permit consideration of a number of different factors. Thus, the Act provides for legislative and executive appraisal of the most appropriate means of assuring public access to the material, subject to prescribed safeguards. Because of this congressionally pre-
scribed avenue of public access we need not weigh, the parties’ competing arguments as though the District Court were the only potential source of information regarding these historical materials. The presence of an alternative means of public access tips the scales in favor of denying release.
Respondents argue that immediate release would serve the policies of the Act. The Executive and Legislative Branches, however, possess superior resources for assessing the proper implementation of public access and the competing rights, if any, of the persons whose voices are recorded on the tapes. These resources are to be brought to bear under the Act, and court release of copies of materials subject to the Act might frustrate the achievement of the legislative goals of orderly processing and protection of the rights of all affected persons. Simply stated, the policies of the Act can best be carried out under the Act itself. Indeed, Judge Sirica — as we have noted supra, at 595-596 — referred to the scheme established under the Act in assessing the need for immediate release. 397 F. Supp., at 189; cf. United States v. Monjar, 154 F. 2d 954 (CA3 1946). But because defendants’ appeals were pending, he merely denied respondents’ petition without prejudice, contemplating reconsideration after exhaustion of all appeals. Thus, he did not have to confront the question whether the existence of the Act is, as we hold, a decisive element in the proper exercise of discretion with respect to release of the tapes.
We emphasize that we are addressing only the application in this case of the common-law right of access to judicial records. We do not presume to decide any issues as to the proper exercise of the Administrator’s independent duty under the statutory standards. He remains free, subject to congressional disapproval, to design such procedures for public access as he believes will advance the policies of the Act. Questions concerning the constitutionality and statutory validity of any access scheme finally implemented are for future consideration in appropriate proceedings. See Nixon v. Administrator of General Services, 433 U. S., at 438-439, 444-446, 450, 455, 462, 464-465, 467; id., at 503-504 (Powell, J., concurring).
Considering all the circumstances of this concededly singular case, we hold that the common-law right of access to judicial records does not authorize release of the tapes in question from the custody of the District Court. We next consider whether, as respondents claim, the Constitution impels us to reach a different result.
Ill
Respondents argue that release of the tapes is required by both the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of the press and the Sixth Amendment guarantee of a public trial. Neither supports respondents’ conclusion.
A
In Cox Broadcasting Corp. v. Cohn, 420 U. S. 469 (1975), this Court held that the First Amendment prevented a State from prohibiting the press from publishing the name of a rape victim where that information had been placed “in the public domain on official court records.” Id., at 495. Respondents claim that Cox Broadcasting guarantees the press “access” to — meaning the right to copy and publish — exhibits and materials displayed in open court.
This argument misconceives the holding in Cox Broadcasting. Our decision in that case merely affirmed the right of the press to publish accurately information contained in court records open to the public. Since the press serves as the information-gathering agent of the public, it could not be prevented from reporting what it had learned and what the public was entitled to know. Id., at 491-492. In the instant case, however, there is no claim that the press was precluded from publishing or utilizing as it saw fit the testimony and exhibits filed in evidence. There simply were no restrictions upon press access to, or publication of, any information in the public domain. Indeed, the press — including reporters of the electronic media — was permitted to listen to the tapes and report on what was heard. Reporters also were furnished transcripts of the tapes, which they were free to comment upon and publish. The contents of the tapes were given wide publicity by all elements of the media. There is no question of a truncated flow of information to the public. Thus, the issue presented in this case is not whether the press must be permitted access to public information to which the public generally is guaranteed access, but whether these copies of the White House tapes — to which the public has never had physical access — must be made available for copying. Our decision in Cox Broadcasting simply is not applicable.
The First Amendment generally grants the press no right to information about a trial superior to that of the general public. “Once beyond the confines of the courthouse, a news-gathering agency may publicize, within wide limits, what its representatives have heard and seen in the courtroom. But the line is drawn at the courthouse door; and within, a reporter’s constitutional rights are no greater than those of any other member of the public.” Estes v. Texas, 381 U. S. 532, 589 (1965) (Harlan, J., concurring). Cf. Saxbe v. Washington Post Co., 417 U. S. 843 (1974); Pell v. Procunier, 417 U. S. 817 (1974). See also Zemel v. Rusk, 381 U. S. 1,16-17 (1965).
B
Respondents contend that release of the tapes is required by the Sixth Amendment guarantee of a public trial. They acknowledge that the trial at which these tapes were played was one of the most publicized in history, but argue that public understanding of it remains incomplete in the absence of the ability to listen to the tapes and form judgments as to their meaning based on inflection and emphasis.
In the first place, this argument proves too much. The same could be said of the testimony of a live witness, yet there is no constitutional right to have such testimony recorded and broadcast. Estes v. Texas, supra, at 539-542. Second, while the guarantee of a public trial, in the words of Mr. Justice Black, is “a safeguard against any attempt to employ our courts as instruments of persecution,” In re Oliver, 333 U. S. 257, 270 (1948), it confers no special benefit on the press. Estes v. Texas, 381 U. S., at 583 (Warren, C. J., concurring) ; id., at 588-589 (Harlan, J., concurring). Nor does the Sixth Amendment require that the trial — or any part of it — be broadcast live or on tape to the public. The requirement of a public trial is satisfied by the opportunity of members of the public and the press to attend the trial and to report what they have observed. Ibid. That opportunity abundantly existed here.
IV
We hold that the Court of Appeals erred in reversing the District Court’s decision not to release the tapes in its custody. We remand the case with directions that an order be entered denying respondents’ application with prejudice.
So ordered.
Mr. Justice White, with whom Mr. Justice Brennan joins, dissenting in part.
Although I agree with the Court that the Presidential Recordings and Materials Preservation Act is dispositive of this case and that the judgment of the Court of Appeals should be reversed, my reasons are somewhat different, for I do not agree that the Act does not itself reach the tapes at issue here. It is true that § 101 (a) of the Act requires delivery to the Administrator and his retention of only original tape recordings and hence does not reach the tapes involved here. But § 101 (b) is differently cast:
“(b)(1) Notwithstanding any other law or any agreement or understanding made pursuant to section 2107 of title 44, United States Code, the Administrator shall receive, retain, or make reasonable efforts to obtain, complete possession and control of all papers, documents, memorandums, transcripts, and other objects and materials which constitute the Presidential historical materials of Richard M. Nixon, covering the period beginning January 20,1969, and ending August 9,1974.
“(2) For purposes of this subsection, the term ‘historical materials’ has the meaning given it by section 2101 of title 44, United States Code.”
“Historical materials” is defined in 44 U. S. C. § 2101 as “including books, correspondence, documents, papers, pamphlets, works of art, models, pictures, photographs, plats, maps, films, motion pictures, sound recordings, and other objects or materials having historical or commemorative value.”
Obviously, § 101 (b) has a far broader sweep than § 101 (a). It is not limited to originals but would reach copies as well. Nor is there any question that the tapes sought to be released here contain conversations that occurred during the critical period covered by § 101 (b)- — January 20, 1969, to August 9, 1974. That the tapes at issue are copies made at a later time does not remove the critical fact that the conversations on these copies, like the conversations on the originals, occurred during the relevant period. Furthermore, if the originals are of historical value, the copies are of equal significance. Otherwise, it is unlikely that there would be such an effort to obtain them.
Of course, the Administrator under the Presidential Recordings Act is not compelled to seek out every copy of every document or recording that was itself produced during the specified period of time. But surely he is authorized to receive the tapes at issue in this case and to deal with them under the terms' of the statute.
It is my view, therefore, that the judgment of the Court of Appeals should be reversed, but that the case should be remanded to the District Court with instructions to deliver the tapes in question to the Administrator forthwith.
The seven defendants were as follows: John N. Mitchell, former Attorney General and head of the Committee for the Re-election of the President; H. R. Haldeman, former Assistant to the President, serving as White House Chief of Staff; John D. Ehrlichman, former Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs; Charles W. Colson, former Special Counsel to the President; Robert C. Mardian, former Assistant Attorney General and official of the Committee for the Re-election of the President; Kenneth W. Parkinson, hired as the Committee’s counsel in June 1972; and Gordon Strachan, staff assistant to Haldeman.
Crim. No. 74-110 (DC 1974). Defendant Colson pleaded guilty to other charges before trial, and the case against him was dismissed. Strachan’s case was severed and ultimately dismissed. The jury acquitted Parkinson and found Mardian guilty of conspiracy. Mitchell, Haldeman, and Ehrlichman were convicted of conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and perjury.
The convictions of Mitchell, Haldeman, and Ehrlichman were affirmed. United States v. Haldeman, 181 U. S. App. D. C. 254, 559 F. 2d 31 (1976), cert. denied, 431 U. S. 933 (1977). Mardian’s conviction was reversed, United States v. Mardian, 178 U. S. App. D. C. 207, 546 F. 2d 973 (1976), and no further proceedings were instituted against him.
The Clerk of the District Court described the copying procedure:
“White House tape recordings were submitted to the Court pursuant to two separate subpoenas. The first group of tapes were delivered in November 1973 and the second in July and August 1974. In each instance, the Court received what purported to be the entire reel of original recording on which was found any portion of a subpoenaed conversation.
“As the time for trial in U. S. v. Mitchell, et al., CR 74-110, approached, the Court reproduced subpoenaed conversations from the original recordings, using technical assistance supplied by the Watergate Special Prosecutor. Portions of conversations and, in some cases, entire conversations which the Court had previously declared to be subject to privilege were not reproduced. Two copies of each conversation were produced simultaneously and were designated Copy A and Copy B. The Copy B series was delivered to the Special Prosecutor pursuant to the subpoenas aforementioned for use in the preparation of transcripts. Copy A series tapes were retained by the Court and later marked for identification as Government Exhibits in CR 74^110. These tapes are contained on about 50 separate reels.
“In the Government’s case at trial, some, but not all, of the Copy A series tapes were admitted into evidence. Some, but again not all, of the tape exhibits were published to the jury. Those published were played to the jury either in whole or in part. Where exhibits were not published in their entirety, the deletions had been made either by the Government on its own motion or pursuant to an order of Judge Sirica. Deletions were effected not by modifying the exhibit itself, but by skipping deleted portions on the tape or by interrupting the sound transmission to the jurors’ headphones. The exhibits remain as originally constituted, i “The jurors were provided with transcripts of the tape recorded conversations for use as aids in listening to the exhibits. These written transcripts were marked for identification as Government -Exhibits, and copies provided to the individual jurors, counsel, and news media representatives at the time the tapes were played. Deletions in the copies of transcripts used by the jurors and others matched precisely the deletions in tapes as they were published at trial.
“In many instances the Copy A series tapes introduced as Government Exhibits contain material that has not been published to the jury and others present in the courtroom.” Affidavit of James F. Davey, Nov. 26, 1974, pp. 2-3; App. 2é-25.
The District Court retains custody of the Copy A tapes, which are at issue here, and of the original recordings, which are not. The Copy B series is in the files of the Office of the Special Prosecutor, stored at the National Archives.
We note that under § 101 of the Presidential Recordings and Materials Preservation Act, 88 Stat. 1695, note following 44 U. S. C. § 2107 (1970 ed., Supp. V), the original tape recordings are subject to the control of the Administrator of General Services.
On September 17, 1974, representatives of the three commercial television networks had written informally to Judge Sirica, asking permission to copy for broadcasting purposes portions of the tapes played during the course of the trial. Judge Sirica referred this request to Chief Judge Hart, who consulted with other judges of the District Court and advised against permitting such copying. On October 2, 1974, Judge Sirica informed the network representatives that copying would not be allowed.
The three commercial networks and the Radio-Television News Directors Association filed with the District Court this formal application to copy the tapes on November 12, 1974. The Public Broadcasting System joined the application the next day. Warner Communications, Inc., filed a separate application on December 2,1974.
For a detailed discussion of the terms and validity of the Act, see Nixon v. Administrator of General Services, 433 U. S. 425 (1977).
40 Fed. Reg. 2670 (1975). Those regulations ultimately were disapproved. S. Res. 244, 94th Cong., 1st Sess. (1975), 121 Cong. Rec. 28609-28614 (1975). See also n. 16, infra.
See, e. g., McCoy v. Providence Journal Co., 190 F. 2d 760, 765-766 (CA1), cert. denied, 342 U. S. 894 (1951); Fayette County v. Martin, 279 Ky. 387, 395-396, 130 S. W. 2d 838, 843 (1939); Nowack v. Auditor General, 243 Mich. 200, 203-205, 219 N. W. 749, 750 (192
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.
Chief Justice Rehnquist
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question presented in this case is whether the Kansas Act, 18 U. S. C. §3243, confers jurisdiction on the State of Kansas to prosecute petitioner, a Kickapoo Indian, for the state-law offense of aggravated battery committed against another Indian on an Indian reservation. We hold that it does.
► — I
Petitioner, Emery L. Negonsott, is a member of the Kickapoo Tribe and a resident of the Kickapoo Reservation in Brown County, Kansas. In March 1985, he was arrested by the county sheriff in connection with the shooting of another Indian on the Kickapoo Reservation. After a jury trial in the Browm County District Court, petitioner was found guilty of aggravated battery. Kan. Stat. Ann. §21-3414 (1988). The District Court set the conviction aside, however, on the ground that the Federal Government had exclusive jurisdiction to prosecute petitioner for the shooting under the Indian Major Crimes Act, 18 U. S. C. § 1153. The Kansas Supreme Court reinstated petitioner’s conviction, holding that the Kansas Act conferred jurisdiction on Kansas to prosecute “all crimes committed by or against Indians on Indian reservations located in Kansas.” State v. Nioce, 239 Kan. 127, 131, 716 P. 2d 585, 588 (1986). On remand, the Brown County District Court sentenced petitioner to imprisonment for a term of 3 to 10 years.
Petitioner then filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U. S. C. § 2254, reasserting his claim that Kansas lacked jurisdiction to prosecute him for aggravated battery. The District Court dismissed his petition, 696 F. Supp. 561 (Kan. 1988), and the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit affirmed, 933 F. 2d 818 (1991). The Court of Appeals found the language of the Kansas Act ambiguous as to “whether Congress intended to grant Kansas courts concurrent jurisdiction with federal courts over the crimes enumerated in the [Indian] Major Crimes Act, or whether by the second sentence of the Kansas Act Congress intended to retain exclusive jurisdiction in the federal courts over those specific crimes.” Id., at 820-821. After examining the Act’s legislative history, however, the Court of Appeals resolved this ambiguity in favor of the first construction, and held that Kansas had jurisdiction to prosecute petitioner for aggravated battery. Id., at 821-823. We granted certiorari to resolve a conflict between the Courts of Appeals, 505 U. S. 1218 (1992), and now affirm.
II
Criminal jurisdiction over offenses committed in Indian country,” 18 U. S. C. § 1151, “is governed by a complex patchwork of federal, state, and tribal law.” Duro v. Reina, 495 U. S. 676, 680, n. 1 (1990). The Indian Country Crimes Act, 18 U. S. C. § 1152, extends the general criminal laws of federal maritime and enclave jurisdiction to Indian country, except for those “offenses committed by one Indian against the person or property of another Indian.” See F. Cohen, Handbook of Federal Indian Law 288 (1982 ed.). These latter offenses typically are subject to the jurisdiction of the concerned Indian tribe, unless they are among those enumerated in the Indian Major Crimes Act. Originally enacted in 1885, the Indian Major Crimes Act establishes federal jurisdiction over 13 enumerated felonies committed by “[a]ny Indian . . . against the person or property of another Indian or other person ... within the Indian country.” § 1153(a). As the text of § 1153, see n. 2, supra, and our prior eases make clear, federal jurisdiction over the offenses covered by the Indian Major Crimes Act is “exclusive” of state jurisdiction. See United States v. John, 437 U. S. 634, 651 (1978); Seymour v. Superintendent of Washington State Penitentiary, 368 U. S. 351, 359 (1962); United States v. Kagama, 118 U. S. 375, 384 (1886).
Congress has plenary authority to alter these jurisdictional guideposts, see Washington v. Confederated Bands and Tribes of Yakima Nation, 439 U. S. 463, 470-471 (1979), which it has exercised from time to time. This ease concerns the first major grant of jurisdiction to a State over offenses involving Indians committed in Indian country, the Kansas Act, which provides in full:
“Jurisdiction is conferred on the State of Kansas over offenses committed by or against Indians on Indian reservations, including trust or restricted allotments, within the State of Kansas, to the same extent as its courts have jurisdiction over offenses committed elsewhere within the State in accordance with the laws of the State.
“This section shall not deprive the courts of the United States of jurisdiction over offenses defined by the laws of the United States committed by or against Indians on Indian reservations.” Act of June 8, 1940, eh. 276, 54 Stat. 249 (codified at 18 U. S. C. §3243).
Passed in 1940, the Kansas Act was followed in short order by virtually identical statutes granting to North Dakota and Iowa, respectively, jurisdiction to prosecute offenses committed by or against Indians on certain Indian reservations within their borders. See Act of May 31, 1946, ch. 279, 60 Stat. 229; Act of June 30, 1948, ch. 759, 62 Stat. 1161.
Kansas asserted jurisdiction to prosecute petitioner for aggravated battery under the Kansas Act. Petitioner challenges the State’s jurisdiction in this regard. He contends that Congress added the second sentence of the Kansas Act to preserve the “exclusive” character of federal jurisdiction over the offenses enumerated in the Indian Major Crimes Act, and since the conduct resulting in his conviction for aggravated battery is punishable as at least two offenses listed in the Indian Major Crimes Act, Kansas lacked jurisdiction to prosecute him in connection with the shooting incident. According to petitioner, the Kansas Act was intended to confer jurisdiction on Kansas only over misdemeanor offenses involving Indians on Indian reservations. To construe the statute otherwise, petitioner asserts, would effect an “implied repeal” of the Indian Major Crimes Act. Moreover, petitioner continues, the construction adopted by the Court of Appeals below is at odds with the legislative history of the Kansas Act as well as the canon that statutes are to be liberally construed in favor of Indians.
A
“Our task is to give effect to the will of Congress, and where its will has been expressed in reasonably plain terms, that language must ordinarily be regarded as conclusive.” Griffin v. Oceanic Contractors, Inc., 458 U. S. 564, 570 (1982) (internal quotation marks omitted). In analyzing petitioner’s contentions, then, we begin with the text of the Kansas Act itself. The first sentence confers jurisdiction on “Kansas over offenses committed by or against Indians on Indian reservations ... to the same extent as its courts have jurisdiction over offenses committed elsewhere within the State in accordance with the laws of the State.” §3243. Standing alone, this sentence unambiguously confers jurisdiction on Kansas to prosecute all offenses — major and minor — committed by or against Indians on Indian reservations in accordance with state law. Petitioner does not assert otherwise. Instead, he rests his ease on the second sentence of the Kansas Act, which states that nothing in the Act shall “deprive” federal courts of their “jurisdiction over offenses defined by the laws of the United States.” Ibid. But the most logical meaning of this proviso, we believe, is that federal courts shall retain their jurisdiction to try all offenses subject to federal jurisdiction under 18 U. S. C. §§ 1152 and 1153, while Kansas courts shall have jurisdiction to try persons for the same conduct when it violates state law.
This interpretation is quite consistent with the first sentence’s conferral of jurisdiction on Kansas over all offenses committed by or against Indians on Indian reservations in accordance with state law. The Court of Appeals referred to this state of affairs in terms of Kansas courts having “concurrent jurisdiction” with federal courts over the offenses enumerated in the Indian Major Crimes Act. See 933 F. 2d, at 820-821. But the Kansas Act does not confer jurisdiction on Kansas to prosecute individuals for the federal offenses listed in the Indian Major Crimes Act; it confers jurisdiction to prosecute individuals in accordance with state law for conduct that is also punishable under federal law pursuant to the Indian Major Crimes Act. Strictly speaking, then, federal courts retain their exclusive jurisdiction to try individuals for offenses covered by the Indian Major Crimes Act, and in this sense, the Kansas Act in fact confers only concurrent “legislative” jurisdiction on the State to define and prosecute similar offenses.
Our reading of the Kansas Act is the only one that gives effect “to every clause and word of [the] statute.” Moskal v. United States, 498 U. S. 103, 109-110 (1990) (internal quotation marks omitted). Petitioner’s construction of the Act’s second sentence renders federal jurisdiction exclusive whenever the underlying conduct is punishable under federal law pursuant to either 18 U. S. C. §§ 1152 or 1153. Kansas is left, then, with jurisdiction over only those minor offenses committed by one Indian against the person or property of another. This result can hardly be reconciled with the first sentence’s unqualified grant of jurisdiction to Kansas to prosecute all state-law offenses committed by or against Indians on Indian reservations. Moreover, contrary to the assertion of petitioner, our construction of the Kansas Act does not work an “implied repeal” of the Indian Major Crimes Act. As we have noted, federal courts retain their exclusive jurisdiction to try individuals for major federal crimes committed by or against Indians in Indian country. In any event, to the extent that the Kansas Act altered the jurisdictional landscape, the alteration is not merely by implication: The Act explicitly conferred jurisdiction on Kansas over all offenses involving Indians on Indian reservations.
B
Although we think resort to secondary materials is unnecessary to decide this case, the legislative history of the Kansas Act supports our construction. Both the House and Senate Reports accompanying the Act consist almost entirely of a letter and memorandum from Acting Secretary of the Interior, E. K. Burlew, to the Chairmen of the House and Senate Indian Affairs Committees, which provide a background account of the forces leading to the enactment of the Kansas Act. See H. R. Rep. No. 1999, 76th Cong., 3d Sess. (1940) (hereinafter H. R. Rep.); S. Rep. No. 1523, 76th Cong., 3d Sess. (1940) (hereinafter S. Rep.). According to Acting Secretary Burlew, in practice, Kansas had exercised jurisdiction over all offenses committed on Indian reservations involving Indians, “even where the criminal act charged constituted one of the major offenses listed in [the Indian Major Crimes Act],” because such offenses were otherwise left unenforced by the concerned tribes (who were without tribal courts). H. R. Rep., at 4; S. Rep., at 3. The Indian tribes of Kansas did not object to this scheme, but welcomed it. When the authority of the Kansas courts to entertain such prosecutions was called into question, the tribes “expressed a wish that the jurisdiction hitherto exercised by the State courts be continued.” H. R. Rep., at 4; S. Rep., at 4. Thus, the Kansas Act was designed to “merely confirm a relationship which the State has willingly assumed, which the Indians have willingly accepted, and which has produced successful results, over a considerable period of years.” H. R. Rep., at 5; S. Rep., at 5.
Since Kansas had exercised jurisdiction over offenses covered by the Indian Major Crimes Act, and the Kansas Act was enacted to ratify the existing scheme of de facto state jurisdiction over all offenses committed on Indian reservations, it follows that Congress did not intend to retain exclusive federal jurisdiction over the prosecution of major crimes. In view of the experimental nature of the Kansas Act, Congress simply intended to retain jurisdiction over offenses already subject to federal jurisdiction under 18 U. S. C. §§1152 and 1153 in the event that the Kansas Act did not solve the identified enforcement problem (i. e., in case the State declined to exercise its jurisdiction). This explanation squares with Acting Secretary Burlew’s conclusion that, although the Kansas Act’s “proposed relinquishment of jurisdiction to the State of Kansas appropriately extends to those offenses which are provided for in existing Federal statutes as well as those which are not,” “[t]he prosecution in the Federal courts of those offenses which are now open to such prosecution will not be precluded under the bill in any particular instance where this course may be deemed advisable.” H. R. Rep., at 5; S. Rep., at 4.
Petitioner argues that Congress’ amendments to the original version of the bill which became the Kansas Act confirm that it did not intend to confer jurisdiction on Kansas over conduct covered by the Indian Major Crimes Act. As originally drafted, the bill provided “[t]hat concurrent jurisdiction is hereby relinquished to the State of Kansas to prosecute Indians and others for offenses by or against Indians or others, committed on Indian reservations in Kansas,” and explicitly stated that the Indian Major Crimes Act as well as other statutes granting federal jurisdiction over offenses committed in Indian country “are modified accordingly.” 86 Cong. Rec. 5596 (1940). Congress eventually deleted the original bill’s reference to “concurrent jurisdiction” as well as its reference to the effect of the bill on the Indian Major Crimes Act. Rather than supporting petitioner’s construction of the Kansas Act, however, we think these amendments are in accord with our reading of the statute.
The amendments to the original bill were proposed by Acting Secretary Burlew in his letter and memorandum to the committee chairmen in order to reflect more accurately the “legal situation as it now exists or as intended to be created.” H. R. Rep., at 3; S. Rep., at 2. He explained:
“The bill proposes to relinquish concurrent jurisdiction to the State of Kansas, intending thereby to give the State jurisdiction of all types of crimes, whether major or minor, defined by State law. However, the Federal Government has exercised jurisdiction only over major crimes. Therefore, strictly speaking, this is not a case of relinquishing to a State a jurisdiction concurrent with that of the United States, but a case of conferring upon the State complete criminal jurisdiction, retaining, however, jurisdiction in the Federal courts to prosecute crimes by or against Indians defined by Federal law.” Ibid.
Thus, the original bill was amended to make clear that the statute conferred jurisdiction on Kansas over more offenses than were subject to federal jurisdiction under existing federal law, and not, as petitioner suggests, to narrow the category of offenses subject to prosecution in state court to minor offenses excluded from federal jurisdiction under 18 U. S. C. § 1152.
There is no explanation in the legislative history why Congress deleted the original bill’s reference to the effect of the statute on the Indian Major Crimes Act and adopted the general language of the second sentence of §3243 in its place. But we think it is likely that Congress simply thought it preferable to refer generally to the fact that the Act did not “deprive” federal courts of their jurisdiction over offenses defined by federal law, rather than to list the specific statutes pursuant to which the Federal Government had exercised jurisdiction to prosecute offenses committed by or against Indians in Indian country. In any event, to the extent one may draw a negative inference from Congress’ decision to delete the specific reference to the effect of the Kansas Act on the Indian Major Crimes Act, we think this is too slender a reed upon which to rest departure from the clear import of the text of the Kansas Act.
c
Finally, we find petitioner’s resort to general principles of Indian law unavailing. Petitioner cites our opinion in Bryan v. Itasca County, 426 U. S. 373 (1976), for the proposition that “laws must be liberally construed to favor Indians.” Brief for Petitioner 11. What we actually said in Bryan, was that “ ‘statutes passed for the benefit of dependent Indian tribes .. . are to be liberally construed, doubtful expressions being resolved in favor of the Indians.’ ” 426 U. S., at 392 (quoting Alaska Pacific Fisheries v. United States, 248 U. S. 78, 89 (1918)). Petitioner claims that the Court of Appeals’ construction of the Kansas Act harms Indians by eliminating the historically exclusive stewardship of the Federal Government over major crimes committed by Indians in Indian country, and subjecting Indians to the possibility of dual prosecution by state and federal authorities.
It is not entirely clear to us that the Kansas Act is a statute “passed for the benefit of dependent Indian tribes.” But if it does fall into that category, it seems likely that Congress thought that the Act’s conferral of criminal jurisdiction on the State would be a “benefit” to the tribes in question. We see no reason to equate “benefit of dependent Indian tribes,” as that language is used in Bryan, with “benefit of accused Indian criminals,” without regard to the interests of the victims of these crimes or of the tribe itself. But in any event, for the reasons previously discussed, we think that the Kansas Act quite unambiguously confers jurisdiction on the State over major offenses committed by or against Indians on Indian reservations, and we therefore have no occasion to resort to this canon of statutory construction. See South Carolina v. Catawba Indian Tribe, Inc., 476 U. S. 498, 506 (1986).
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Affirmed.
Justice Scalia and Justice Thomas join all but Part II-B of this opinion.
See Youngbear v. Brewer, 415 F. Supp. 807 (ND Iowa 1976), aff’d, 549 F. 2d 74 (CA8 1977). In Youngbear, the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit upheld a lower court ruling that the State of Iowa lacked jurisdiction to prosecute the Indian defendant under a similarly worded statute conferring jurisdiction on Iowa over offenses committed by or against Indians on certain Indian reservations within the State, see Act of June 30, 1948, ch. 759, 62 Stat. 1161, for conduct punishable as an offense enumerated in the Indian Major Crimes Act, 18 U. S. C. § 1153.
The Indian Major Crimes Act provides in full:
“(a) Any Indian who commits against the person or property of another Indian or other person any of the following offenses, namely, murder, manslaughter, kidnaping, maiming, a felony under chapter 109A, incest, assault with intent to commit murder, assault with a dangerous weapon, assault resulting in serious bodily injury, arson, burglary, robbery, and a felony under section 661 of this title within the Indian country, shall be subject to the same law and penalties as all other persons committing any of the above offenses, within the exclusive jurisdiction of the United States.
“(b) Any offense referred to in subsection (a) of this section that is not defined and punished by Federal law in force within the exclusive jurisdiction of the United States shall be defined and punished in accordance with the laws of the State in which such offense was committed as are in force at the time of such offense.” 18 U. S. C. § 1153.
The Indian Major Crimes Act does not explicitly refer to the offense of aggravated battery, but it lists “assault with a dangerous weapon” and “assault resulting in serious bodily injury.” 18 U. S. C. § 1153(a). These offenses are defined at 18 U. S. C. §§ 113(c) and (f). We assume, for the sake of deciding this case, that the state-law offense for which petitioner was convicted, Kan. Stat. Ann. §21-3414 (1988), is comparable to one or both of these federal offenses.
Amici Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska et al. allege that at least one tribe, the Potawatomi Indian Tribe, opposed the Kansas Act. Brief for Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska et al. as Amici Curiae 17. According to amici, the Tribe sent a telegram to the Chairman of the House Committee on Indian Affairs, Representative W. Rogers, voicing its opposition to the Act, which was followed by an exchange of several letters. See id., at 17-18. This correspondence is not contained in the reprinted legislative history of the Act, but instead rests in the National Archives. Although one of Chairman Rogers’ letters to the Tribe states: “ ‘Your letters are being filed with the House Committee on Indian Affairs,’” id., at 17 (quoting letter of May 10, 1939), we have no way of knowing to what extent, if at all, the Tribe’s opposition to the Kansas Act was brought to the attention of other Members of Congress. Therefore, we regard the background account set forth in the House and Senate Reports as conclusive for purposes of discerning Congress’ understanding of the forces leading to the introduction of the bill which became the Kansas Act.
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 Powell
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case involves an action by a Maine railroad corporation seeking damages from its former owners for violations of federal antitrust and securities laws, applicable state statutes, and common-law principles. The complaint alleged that the former owners had engaged in various acts of corporate waste and mismanagement during the period of their control. The shareholder presently in control of the railroad acquired more than 99 % of the railroad’s shares from the former owners long after the alleged wrongs occurred. We must decide whether equitable principles applicable under federal and state law preclude recovery by the railroad in these circumstances.
I
Respondent Bangor & Aroostook Railroad Co. (BAR), a Maine corporation, operates a railroad in the northern part of the State of Maine. Respondent Bangor Investment Co., also a Maine corporation, is a wholly owned subsidiary of BAR. Petitioner Bangor Punta Corp. (Bangor Punta), a Delaware corporation, is a diversified investment company with business operations in several areas. Petitioner Bangor Punta Operations, Inc. (BPO), a New York corporation, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Bangor Punta.
On October 13, 1964, Bangor Punta, through its subsidiary BPO, acquired 98.3% of the outstanding stock of BAR. This was accomplished by the subsidiary’s purchase of all the assets of Bangor & Aroostook Corp. (B&A), a Maine corporation established in 1960 as the holding company of BAR. From 1964 to 1969, Bangor Punta controlled and directed BAR through its ownership of about 98.3% of the outstanding stock. On October 2, 1969, Bangor Punta, again through its subsidiary, sold all of its stock for $5,000,000 to Amoskeag Co., a Delaware investment corporation. Amoskeag assumed responsibility for the management of BAR and later acquired additional shares to give it ownership of more than 99% of all the outstanding stock.
In 1971, BAR and its subsidiary filed the present action against Bangor Punta and its subsidiary in the United States District Court for the District of Maine. The complaint specified 13 counts of alleged mismanagement, misappropriation, and waste of BAR’s corporate assets occurring during the-period from 1960 through 1967 when B&A and then Bangor Punta controlled BAR. Damages were sought in the amount of $7,000,000 for violations of both federal and state laws. The federal statutes and regulations alleged to have been violated included § 10 of the Clayton Act, 15 U. S. C. § 20; § 10 (b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, 15 U. S. C. § 78j (b); and Rule 10b-5, 17 CFR § 240.10b-5, as promulgated thereunder by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The state claims were grounded on § 104 of the Maine Public Utilities Act, Maine Rev. Stat. Ann., Tit. 35, § 104 (1965), and the common law of Maine.
The complaint focused on four intercompany transactions which allegedly resulted in injury to BAR. Counts I and II averred that B&A, and later Bangor Punta, overcharged BAR for various legal, accounting, printing, and other services. Counts III, IV, V, and VI averred that B&A improperly acquired the stock of the St. Croix Paper Co. which BAR owned through its subsidiary. Counts VII, VIII, IX, and X charged that B&A and Bangor Punta improperly caused BAR to declare special dividends to its stockholders, including B&A and Bangor Punta, and also caused BAR’s subsidiary to borrow in order to pay regular dividends. Counts XI, XII, and XIII charged that B&A improperly caused BAR to excuse payment by B&A and Bangor Punta of the interest due on a loan made by BAR to B&A. In sum, the complaint alleged that during the period of their control of BAR, Bangor Punta, and its predecessor in interest B&A, “exploited it solely for their own purposes” and “calculatedly drained the resources of BAR in violation of law for their own benefit.”
The District Court granted petitioners’ motion for summary judgment and dismissed the action. 353 P. Supp. 724 (1972). The court first observed that although the suit purported to be a primary action brought in the name of the corporation, the real party in interest and hence the actual beneficiary of any recovery, was Amoskeag, the present owner of more than 99% of the outstanding stock of BAR. The court then noted that Amoskeag had acquired all of its BAR stock long after the alleged wrongs occurred and that Amoskeag did not contend that it had not received full value for its purchase price, or that the purchase transaction was tainted by fraud or deceit. Thus, any recovery on Amos-keag’s part would constitute a windfall because it had sustained no injury. With this in mind, the court then addressed the claims based on federal law and determined that Amoskeag would have been barred from maintaining a shareholder derivative action because of its failure to satisfy the “contemporaneous ownership” requirement of Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 23.1 (l). Finding that equitable principles prevented the use of the corporate fiction to evade the proscription of Rule 23.1, the court concluded that Amoskeag’s efforts to recover under the Securities Exchange Act and the Clayton Act must fail. Turning to the claims based on state law, the court recognized that the applicability of Rule 23.1 (1) has been questioned where federal jurisdiction is based on diversity of citizenship. The court found it unnecessary to resolve this issue, however, since its examination of state law indicated that Maine probably followed the “prevailing rule” requiring contemporaneous ownership in order to maintain a shareholder derivative action. Thus, whether the federal rule or state substantive law applied, the present action could not be maintained.
The United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit reversed. 482 F. 2d 865 (1973). The court stated that its disagreement with the District Court centered primarily on that court's assumption that Amoskeag would be the “sole beneficiary” of any recovery by BAR. The Court of Appeals thought that in view of the railroad’s status as a “public” or “quasi-public” corporation and the important nature of the services it provides, any recovery by BAR would also inure to the benefit of the public. The court stated that this factor sufficed to support a corporate cause of action and rendered any windfall to Amoskeag irrelevant. In addition, the court noted that to permit BAR to recover for the alleged wrongs would provide a needed deterrent to “patently undesirable conduct” in the management of railroads. Id., at 871. Finally, the court confronted the possibility that any corporate recovery might be diverted to enrich the present BAR shareholders, mainly Amoskeag, rather than re-invested to improve the railroad's services for the benefit of the public. Although troubled by this prospect, the court concluded that the public interest would nonetheless be better served by insuring that petitioners would not be immune to civil liability for their allegedly wrongful conduct. Without deciding the issue, the court also suggested the possibility of devising “court-imposed limitations” on the use BAR might make of any recovery to insure that the public would actually be benefited.
We granted petitioners’ application for certiorari. 414 U. S. 1127 (1974). We now reverse.
II
A
We first turn to the question whether respondent corporations may maintain the present action under § 10 of the Clayton Act, 15 U. S. C. § 20, and § 10 (b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, 15 U. S. C. § 78j (b), and Rule 10b-5, 17 CFR § 240.10b-5. The resolution of this issue depends upon the applicability of the settled principle of equity that a shareholder may not complain of acts of corporate mismanagement if he acquired his shares from those who participated or acquiesced in the allegedly wrongful transactions. See, e. g., Bloodworth v. Bloodworth, 225 Ga. 379, 387, 169 S. E. 2d 150, 156-157 (1969); Bookman v. R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., 138 N. J. Eq. 312, 372, 48 A. 2d 646, 680 (Ch. 1946); Babcock v. Farwell, 245 Ill. 14, 40-41, 91 N. E. 683, 692-693 (1910). This principle has been invoked with special force where a shareholder purchases all or substantially all the shares of a corporation from a vendor at a fair price, and then seeks to have the corporation recover against that vendor for prior corporate mismanagement. See, e. g., Matthews v. Headley Chocolate Co., 130 Md. 523, 532-535, 100 A. 645, 650-651 (1917); Home Fire Insurance Co. v. Barber, 67 Neb. 644, 661-662, 93 N. W. 1024, 1030-1031 (1903). See also Amen v. Black, 234 F. 2d 12, 23 (CA10 1956). The equitable considerations precluding recovery in such cases were explicated long ago by Dean (then Commissioner) Roscoe Pound in Home Fire Insurance Co. v. Barber, supra. Dean Pound, writing for the Supreme Court of Nebraska, observed that the shareholders of the plaintiff corporation in that case had sustained no injury since they had acquired their shares from the alleged wrongdoers after the disputed transactions occurred and had received full value for their purchase price. Thus, any recovery on their part would constitute a windfall, for it would enable them to obtain funds to which they had no just title or claim. Moreover, it would in effect allow the shareholders to recoup a large part of the price they agreed to pay for their shares, notwithstanding the fact that they received all they had bargained for. Finally, it would permit the shareholders to reap a profit from wrongs done to others, thus encouraging further such speculation. Dean Pound stated that these consequences rendered any recovery highly inequitable and mandated dismissal of the suit.
The considerations supporting the Home Fire principle are especially pertinent in the present case. As the District Court pointed out, Amoskeag, the present owner of more than 99% of the BAR shares, would be the principal beneficiary of any recovery obtained by BAR. Amos-keag, however, acquired 98.3% of the outstanding shares of BAR from petitioner Bangor Punta in 1969, well after the alleged wrongs were said to have occurred. Amos-keag does not contend that the purchase transaction was tainted by fraud or deceit, or that it received less than full value for its money. Indeed, it does not assert that it has sustained any injury at all. Nor does it appear that the alleged acts of prior mismanagement have had any continuing effect on the corporations involved or the value of their shares.' Nevertheless, by causing the present action to be brought in the name of respondent corporations, Amoskeag seeks to recover indirectly an amount equal to the $5,000,000 it paid for its stock, plus an additional $2,000,000. All this would be in the form of damages for wrongs petitioner Bangor Punta is said to have inflicted, not upon Amoskeag, but upon respondent corporations during the period in which Bangor Punta owned 98.3% of the BAR shares. In other words, Amos-keag seeks to recover for wrongs Bangor Punta did to itself as owner of the railroad. At the same time it reaps this windfall, Amoskeag desires to retain all its BAR stock. Under Home Fire, it is evident that Amoskeag would have no standing in equity to maintain the present action.
We are met with the argument, however, that since the present action is brought in the name of respondent corporations, we may not look behind the corporate entity to the true substance of the claims and the actual beneficiaries. The established law is to the contrary. Although a corporation and its shareholders are deemed separate entities for most purposes, the corporate form may be disregarded in the interests of justice where it is used to defeat an overriding public policy. New Colonial Ice Co. v. Helvering, 292 U. S. 435, 442 (1934); Chicago, M. & St. P. R. Co. v. Minneapolis Civic Assn., 247 U. S. 490, 501 (1918). In such cases, courts of equity, piercing all fictions and disguises, will deal with the substance of the action and not blindly adhere to the corporate form. Thus, where equity would preclude the shareholders from maintaining an action in their own right, the corporation would also be precluded. Amen v. Black, supra; Capitol Wine & Spirit Corp. v. Pokrass, 277 App. Div. 184, 98 N. Y. S. 2d 291 (1950), aff’d, 302 N. Y. 734, 98 N. E. 2d 704 (1951); Matthews v. Headley Chocolate Co., supra; Home Fire Insurance Co. v. Barber, supra. It follows that Amoskeag, the principal beneficiary of any recovery and itself estopped from complaining of petitioners’ alleged wrongs, cannot avoid the command of equity through the guise of proceeding in the name of respondent corporations which it owns and controls.
B
Respondents fare no better in their efforts to maintain the present actions under state law, specifically § 104 of the Maine Public Utilities Act, Maine Rev. Stat. Ann., Tit. 35, § 104 (1965), and the common law of Maine. In Forbes v. Wells Beach Casino, Inc., 307 A. 2d 210, 223 n. 10 (1973), the Maine Supreme Judicial Court recently declared that it had long accepted the equitable principle that a “stockholder has no standing if either he or his vendor participated or acquiesced in the wrong See Hyams v. Old Dominion Co., 113 Me. 294, 302, 93 A. 747, 750 (1915). Thus, Amoskeag would be barred from maintaining the present action under Maine law since it acquired its shares from petitioners, the alleged wrongdoers. Moreover, the principle that the corporate entity may be disregarded if equity so demands is accepted by Maine precedents. See, e. g., Bonnar-Vawter, Inc. v. Johnson, 157 Me. 380, 387-388, 173 A. 2d 141, 145 (1961).
Ill
In reaching the contrary conclusion, the Court of Appeals stated that it could not accept the proposition that Amoskeag would be the “sole beneficiary" of any recovery by BAR. 482 F. 2d, at 868. The court noted that in view of the railroad’s status as a “quasi-public” corporation and the essential nature of the services it provides, the public had an identifiable interest in BAR’s financial health. Thus, any recovery by BAR would accrue to the benefit of the public through the improvement in BAR's economic position and the quality of its services. The court thought that this factor rendered any windfall to Amoskeag irrelevant.
At the outset, we note that the Court of Appeals’ assumption that any recovery would necessarily benefit the public is unwarranted. As that court explicitly recognized, any recovery by BAR could be diverted to its shareholders, namely Amoskeag, rather than re-invested in the railroad for the benefit of the public. Id., at 871. Nor do we believe this possibility can be avoided by respondents’ suggestion that the District Court impose limitations on the use BAR might make of the recovery. There is no support for such a result under either federal or state law. BAR would be entitled to distribute the recovery in any lawful manner it may choose, even if such distribution resulted only in private enrichment. In sum, there is no assurance that the public would receive any benefit at all from these funds.
The Court of Appeals’ position also appears to overlook the fact that Amoskeag, the actual beneficiary of any recovery through its ownership of more than 99% of the BAR shares, would be unjustly enriched since it has sustained no injury. It acquired substantially all the BAR shares from Bangor Punta subsequent to the alleged wrongs and does not deny that it received full value for its purchase price. No fraud or deceit of any kind is alleged to have been involved in the transaction. The equitable principles of Home Fire preclude Amoskeag from reaping a windfall by enhancing the value of its bargain to the extent of the entire purchase price plus an additional $2,000,000. Amoskeag would in effect have acquired a railroad worth $12,000,000 for only $5,000,000. Neither the federal antitrust or securities laws nor the applicable state laws contemplate recovery by Amoskeag in these circumstances.
The Court of Appeals further stated that it was important to insure that petitioners would not be immune from liability for their wrongful conduct and noted that BAR’s recovery would provide a needed deterrent to mismanagement of railroads. Our difficulty with this argument is that it proves too much. If deterrence were the only objective, then in logic any plaintiff willing to file a complaint would suffice. No injury or violation of a legal duty to the particular plaintiff would have to be alleged. The only prerequisite would be that the plaintiff agree to accept the recovery, lest the supposed wrongdoer be allowed to escape a reckoning. Suffice it to say that we have been referred to no authority which would support so novel a result, and we decline to adopt it.
We therefore conclude that respondent corporations may not maintain the present action. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed.
So ordered.
Several of the alleged acts of corporate mismanagement occurred between 1960 and 1964 when B&A, BAR’s holding company, was in control of the railroad. Liability for these acts was nevertheless sought to be imposed on Bangor Punta, even though it had no interest in either BAR or B&A during this period. The apparent basis for liability was the 1964 purchase agreement between B&A and Bangor Punta. The complaint in the instant case alleged that under the agreement Bangor Punta, through its subsidiary, assumed “all . . . debts, obligations, contracts and liabilities” of B&A.
Bangor Punta was alleged to have effected these transactions through its wholly owned subsidiary BPO. For purposes of clarity, we shall attribute BPO’s actions directly to Bangor Punta.
Rule 23.1(1), which specifies the requirements applicable to shareholder derivative actions, states that the complaint shall aver that “the plaintiff was a shareholder or member at the time of the transaction of which he complains ....’’ This provision is known as the “contemporaneous ownership” requirement. See 3B J. Moore, Federal Practice ¶ 23.1 et seq. (2d ed. 1974).
The “contemporaneous ownership” requirement in shareholder derivative actions was first announced in Hawes v. Oakland, 104 U. S. 450 (1882), and soon thereafter adopted as Equity Rule 97. This provision was later incorporated in Equity Rule 27 and finally in the present Rule 23.1. After the decision in Erie R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U. S. 64 (1938), the question arose whether the contemporaneous-ownership requirement was one of procedure or substantive law. If the requirement were substantive, then under the regime of Erie it could not be validly applied in federal diversity cases where state law permitted a noncontemporaneous shareholder to maintain a derivative action. See 3B J. Moore, Federal Practice ¶¶ 23.1.01-23.1.15 [2] (2d ed. 1974). Although most cases treat the requirement as one of procedure, this Court has never resolved the issue. Ibid.
This principle obtains in the great majority of jurisdictions. See, e. g., Russell v. Louis Melind, Co., 331 Ill. App. 182, 72 N. E. 2d 869 (1947); Klum v. Clinton Trust Co., 183 Misc. 340, 48 N. Y. S. 2d . 267 (1944); Clark v. American Coal Co., 86 Iowa 436, 53 N. W. 291 (1892); Boldenweck v. Bullis, 40 Colo. 253, 90 P. 634 (1907). See 13 W. Fletcher, Cyclopedia Corporations §5866 (1970 ed.); H. Bal-lantine, Corporations § 148 (1946 ed.).
In Home Fire, Dean Ponnd suggested that equitable principles might not prevent recovery where the effects of the wrongful acts continued and resulted in injury to present shareholders. 67 Neb. 644, 662, 93 N. W. 1024, 1031. In their complaint in the instant case, respondents alleged that "[t]he injury to BAR is a continuing one surviving the aforesaid sale [from petitioner BPO] to Amoskeag.” The District Court noted that respondents alleged no facts to support this contention and therefore found any such exception inapplicable. 353 F. Supp. 724, 727 n. 1 (1972). Respondents apparently did not renew this contention on appeal.
Similarly, as to the period before October 1964, Amoskeag seeks to recover for wrongs B&A and its shareholders did to themselves as owners of the railroad.
Conceding the lack of equity in any recovery by Amoskeag, the dissent argues that the present action can nevertheless be maintained because there are 20 minority shareholders, holding less than 1% of the BAR stock, who owned their shares “during the period from 1960 through 1967 when the transactions underlying the railroad’s complaint took place, and who still owned that stock in 1971 when the complaint was filed.” Post, at 722. The dissent would conclude that the existence of these innocent minority shareholders entitles BAR, and hence Amoskeag, to recover the entire $7,000,000 amount of alleged damages.
Aside from the illogic of such an approach, the dissent’s position is at war with the precedents, for the Home Fire principle has long been applied to preclude full recovery by a corporation even where there are innocent minority shareholders who acquired their shares prior to the alleged wrongs. See cases cited at n. 5,. supra, and accompanying text. The dissent also mistakes the factual posture of this case, since the respondent corporations did not institute this action for the benefit of the minority shareholders. See discussion at n. 15, infra.
In addition, the new Maine Business Corporation Act adopts the contemporaneous-ownership requirement for shareholder derivative actions. See Maine Rev. Stat. Ann., Tit. 13-A, §627.1.A (1974). This provision apparently became effective two days after the present action was filed. As the District Court noted, it is an open question whether Maine in fact had a contemporaneous-ownership requirement prior to that time. 353 F. Supp., at 727. See R. Field, V. McKusick & L. Wroth, Maine Civil Practice § 23.2, p. 393 (2d ed. 1970). In the absence of any indication that Maine would not have followed the “prevailing view,” the District Court determined that the contemporaneous-ownership requirement of Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 23.1 applied.
The Court of Appeals noted that its decision “is not conditioned on the devising of court-imposed limitations on the uses of any corporate recovery.” 482 F. 2d 865, 871. Counsel for respondents also admitted at oral argument that BAR had no legal obligation to use its recovery to improve the railroad’s services in order to benefit the public. Tr. of Oral Arg. 17.
The unjust enrichment of Amoskeag is inevitable. As the owner of more than 99% of the BAR shares, Amoskeag would obviously benefit from any increase in the value of its investment. Here, the increased value would be of dramatic proportions, with an influx of $7,000,000 into a railroad purchased for only $5,000,000. The dissent’s suggestion that this substantial infusion of capital, if devoted to “plant and equipment,” would not enhance “earning capacity” or “balance sheet strength” (post, at 725) will come as a surprise to regulatory bodies, railroad management, and investors.
Respondents have also conceded, both in their brief and at oral argument, that the present action could not be maintained if Amoskeag were the real party in interest, or alternatively, if only an unregulated private corporation were involved. Brief for Respondents 28-29; Tr. of Oral Arg. 19-20.
The dissent’s suggestion (post, at 723-724) that Amoskeag, a highly sophisticated investor, was defrauded in the-purchase transaction and that it has suffered an injury is without support in the record. Not even Amoskeag has ever so asserted, in either the complaint or the briefs, or at oral argument. And in granting the motion for summary judgment, the District Court expressly observed that Amoskeag did not contend that it was defrauded in the purchase transaction. 353 F. Supp., at 726. This statement has since stood uncontroverted by Amoskeag. In short, prior to the dissent today, it has never been alleged or suggested that Amoskeag did not acquire exactly what it bargained for in this transaction.
The dissent makes much of the supposed public interest in railroads and the power of a court of equity to ensure that the public will actually be benefited by any recovery. Post, at 724-725, 727-730. This argument misses the point. To begin with, the present action is, in substance, a typical derivative suit seeking an accounting from the previous controlling shareholder for various acts of corporate waste and mismanagement. It is settled law that the fiduciary duty owed by a controlling shareholder extends primarily to those who have a tangible interest in the corporation. Similarly, the recovery provided is intended to compensate, not the public generally, but those who have been injured as a result of a breach of a duty owed to them. In the present case, however, the actual beneficiary of any recovery, Amoskeag, has suffered neither an injury nor a breach of any legal duty. In short, Amoskeag has no cause of action.
The dissent argues that respondents’ complaint is based on federal antitrust and securities statutes and that such laws are designed in part to benefit the public. With that much we agree. But the statutory design has not been effectuated through the indiscriminate provision of causes of action to every citizen. Rather, these statutes create specifically defined legal duties to particular plaintiffs and vest the appropriate causes of action in them alone. Here, the statutorily designated plaintiffs are respondent corporations. But, as we have stated, these plaintiffs cannot maintain the present action because a recovery by Amoskeag would -violate established principles of equity.
As Dean Pound stated in reply to a similar argument in Home Fire:
“But it is said the defendant Barber, by reason of his delinquencies, is in no position to ask that the court look behind the corporation to the real and substantial parties in interest. . . . We do not think such a proposition can be maintained. It is not the function of courts of equity to administer punishment. When one person has wronged another in a matter within its jurisdiction, equity will spare no effort to redress the person injured, and will not suffer the wrongdoer to escape restitution to such person through any device or technicality. But this is because of its desire to right wrongs, not because of a desire to punish all wrong-doers. If a wrong-doer deserves to be punished, it does not follow that others are to be enriched at his expense by a court of equity. A plaintiff must recover on the strength of his own case, not on the weakness of the defendant’s case. It is his right, not the defendant’s wrong-doing, that is the basis of recovery. When it is disclosed that he has no standing in equity, the degree of wrong-doing of the defendant will not avail him.” 67 Neb, at 673, 93 N. W, at 1035.
Our decision rests on the conclusion that equitable principles preclude recovery by Amoskeag, the present owner of more than 99% of the BAR shares. The record does not reveal whether the minority shareholders who hold the remaining fraction of 1% of the BAR shares stand in the same position as Amoskeag. Some courts have adopted the concept of a pro-rata recovery where there are innocent minority shareholders. Under this procedure, damages are distributed to the minority shareholders individually on a proportional basis, even though the action is brought in the name of the corporation to enforce primary rights. See, e. g., Matthews v. Headley Chocolate Co., 130 Md. 523, 536-540, 100 A. 645, 650-652 (1917). In the present case, respondents have expressly disavowed any intent to obtain a pro-rata recovery on behalf of the 1% minority shareholders of BAR. We therefore do not reach the question whether such recovery would be appropriate.
The dissent asserts that the alleged acts of corporate mismanagement have placed BAR “close to the brink of bankruptcy” and that the present action is maintained for the benefit of BAR’S creditors. Post, at 726. With all respect, it appears that the dissent has sought to redraft respondents’ complaint. As the District Court noted, respondents have not brought this action on behalf of any creditors. 353 F. Supp, at 726. Indeed, they have never so contended. Moreover, respondents have conceded that the financial health of the railroad is excellent. Tr. of Oral Arg. 18.
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 Burger
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The issue on appeal is whether the State of New Hampshire may constitutionally enforce criminal sanctions against persons who cover the motto “Live Free or Die” on passenger vehicle license plates because that motto is repugnant to their moral and religious beliefs.
(1)
Since 1969 New Hampshire has required that noncommercial vehicles bear license plates embossed with the state motto, “Live Free or Die.” N. H. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 263:1 (Supp. 1975). Another New Hampshire statute makes it a misdemeanor “knowingly [to obscure] . . . the figures or letters on any number plate.” N. H. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 262:27-c (Supp. 1975). The term “letters” in this section has been interpreted by the State’s highest court to include the state motto. State v. Hoskin, 112 N. H. 332, 295 A. 2d 454 (1972).
Appellees George Maynard and his wife Maxine are followers of the Jehovah’s Witnesses faith. The Maynards consider the New Hampshire State motto to be repugnant to their moral, religious, and political beliefs, and therefore assert it objectionable to disseminate this message by displaying it on their automobiles. Pursuant to these beliefs, the Maynards began early in 1974 to cover up the motto on their license plates.
On November 27, 1974, Mr. Maynard was issued a citation for violating § 262:27-c. On December 6, 1974, he appeared pro se in Lebanon, N. H., District Court to answer the charge. After waiving his right to counsel, he entered a plea of not guilty and proceeded to explain his religious objections to the motto. The state trial judge expressed sympathy for Mr. Maynard’s situation, but considered himself bound by the authority of State v. Hoskin, supra, to hold Maynard guilty. A $25 fine was imposed, but execution was suspended during “good behavior.”
On December 28, 1974, Mr. Maynard was again charged with violating § 262:27-c. He appeared in court on January 31, 1975, and again chose to represent himself; he was found guilty, fined $50, and sentenced to six months in the Grafton County House of Corrections. The court suspended this jail sentence but ordered Mr. Maynard to also pay the $25 fine for the first offense. Maynard informed the court that, as a matter of conscience, he refused to pay the two fines. The court thereupon sentenced him to jail for a period of 15 days. He has served the full sentence.
Prior to trial on the second offense Mr. Maynard was charged with yet a third violation of § 262:27-c on January 3, 1975. He appeared on this complaint on the same day as for the second offense, and was, again, found guilty. This conviction was “continued for sentence” so that Maynard received no punishment in addition to the 15 days.
(2)
On March 4, 1975, appellees brought the present action pursuant to 42 U. S. C. § 1983 in the United States District Court for the District of New Hampshire. They sought injunctive and declaratory relief against enforcement of N. H. Rev. Stat. Ann. §§ 262:27-c, 263:1, insofar as these required displaying the state motto on their vehicle license plates, and made it a criminal offense to obscure the motto. On March 11, 1975, the single District Judge issued a temporary restraining order against further arrests and prosecutions of the Maynards. Because the appellees sought an injunction against a state statute on grounds of its unconstitutionality, a three-judge District Court was convened pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 2281. Following a hearing on the merits, the District Court entered an order enjoining the State “from arresting and prosecuting [the Maynards] at any time in the future for covering over that portion of their license plates that contains the motto ‘Live Free or Die.’” 406 F. Supp. 1381 (1976). We noted probable jurisdiction of the appeal. 426 U. S. 946 (1976).
(3)
Appellants argue that the District Court was precluded from exercising jurisdiction in this case by the principles of equitable restraint enunciated in Younger v. Harris, 401 U. S. 37 (1971). In Younger the Court recognized that principles of judicial economy, as well as proper state-federal relations, preclude federal courts from exercising equitable jurisdiction to enjoin ongoing state prosecutions. Id., at 43. However, when a genuine threat of prosecution exists, a litigant is entitled to resort to a federal forum to seek redress for an alleged deprivation of federal rights. See Steffel v. Thompson, 415 U. S. 452 (1974); Doran v. Salem Inn, Inc., 422 U. S. 922, 930-931 (1975). Younger principles aside, a litigant is entitled to resort to a federal forum in seeking redress under 42 U. S. C. § 1983 for an alleged deprivation of federal rights. Huffman v. Pursue, Ltd., 420 U. S. 592, 609-610, n. 21 (1975). Mr. Maynard now finds himself placed “between the Scylla of intentionally flouting state law and the Charybdis of forgoing what he believes to be constitutionally protected activity in order to avoid becoming enmeshed in [another] criminal proceeding.” Steffel v. Thompson, supra, at 462. Mrs. Maynard, as joint owner of the family automobiles, is no less likely than her husband to be subjected to state prosecution. Under these circumstances he cannot be denied consideration of a federal remedy.
Appellants, however, point out that Maynard failed to seek review of his criminal convictions and cite Huffman v. Pursue, Ltd., supra, for the propositions that “a necessary concomitant of Younger is that a party in appellee’s posture must exhaust his state appellate remedies before seeking relief in the District Court,” 420 U. S., at 608, and that “Younger standards must be met to justify federal intervention in a state judicial proceeding as to which a losing litigant has not exhausted his state appellate remedies,” id., at 609. Huffman, however, is inapposite. There the appellee was seeking to prevent, by means of federal intervention, enforcement of a state-court judgment declaring its theater a nuisance. We held that appellee’s failure to exhaust its state appeals barred federal intervention under the principles of Younger: “Federal post-trial intervention, in a fashion designed to annul the results of a state trial . . . deprives the States of a function which quite legitimately is left to them, that of overseeing trial court dispositions of constitutional issues which arise in civil litigation over which they have jurisdiction.” Ibid.
Here, however, the suit is in no way “designed to annul the results of a state trial” since the relief sought is wholly prospective, to preclude further prosecution under a statute alleged to violate appellees’ constitutional rights. Maynard has already sustained convictions and has served a sentence of imprisonment for his prior offenses. He does not seek to have his record expunged, or to annul any collateral effects those convictions may have, e. g., upon his driving privileges. The Maynards seek only to be free from prosecutions for future violations of the same statutes. Younger does not bar federal jurisdiction.
In their complaint, the Maynards sought both declaratory and injunctive relief against the enforcement of the New Hampshire statutes. We have recognized that although “ ‘[o]rdinarily . . . the practical effect of [injunctive and declaratory] relief will be virtually identical,’ ” Doran v. Salem Inn, supra, at 931, quoting Samuels v. Mackell, 401 U. S. 66, 73 (1971), a “district court can generally protect the interests of a federal plaintiff by entering a declaratory judgment, and therefore the stronger injunctive medicine will be unnecessary.” Doran, supra, at 931. It is correct that generally a court will not enjoin “the enforcement of a criminal statute even though unconstitutional,” Spielman Motor Co. v. Dodge, 295 U. S. 89, 95 (1935), since “[s]uch a result seriously impairs the State’s interest in enforcing its criminal laws, and implicates the concerns for federalism which lie at the heart of Younger,” Doran, supra, at 931. But this is not an absolute policy and in some circumstances injunctive relief may be appropriate. “To justify such interference there must be exceptional circumstances and a clear showing that an injunction is necessary in order to afford adequate protection of constitutional rights.” Spielman Motor Co., supra, at 95.
We have such a situation here for, as we have noted, three successive prosecutions were undertaken against Mr. Maynard in the span of five weeks. This is quite different from a claim for federal equitable relief when a prosecution is threatened for the first time. The threat of repeated prosecutions in the future against both him and his wife, and the effect of such a continuing threat on their ability to perform the ordinary tasks of daily life which require an automobile, is sufficient to justify injunctive relief. Cf. Douglas v. City of Jeannette, 319 U. S. 157 (1943). We are therefore unwilling to say that the District Court was limited to granting declaratory relief. Having determined that the District Court was not required to stay its hand as to either appellee, we turn to the merits of the Maynards’ claim.
(4)
The District Court held that by covering up the state motto “Live Free or Die” on his automobile license plate, Mr. Maynard was engaging in symbolic speech and that “New Hampshire’s interest in the enforcement of its defacement statute is not sufficient to justify the restriction on [appellee’s] constitutionally protected expression.” 406 F. Supp., at 1389. We find it unnecessary to pass on the “symbolic speech” issue, since we find more appropriate First Amendment grounds to affirm the judgment of the District Court. We turn instead to what in our view is the essence of appellees’ objection to the requirement that they display the motto “Live Free or Die” on their automobile license plates. This is succinctly summarized in the statement made by Mr. Maynard in his affidavit filed with the District Court:
“I refuse to be coerced by the State into advertising a slogan which I find morally, ethically, religiously and politically abhorrent.” App. 5.
We are thus faced with the question of whether the State may constitutionally require an individual to participate in the dissemination of an ideological message by displaying it on his private property in a manner and for the express purpose that it be observed and read by the public. We hold that the State may not do so.
A
We begin with the proposition that the right of freedom of thought protected by the First Amendment against state action includes both the right to speak freely and the right to refrain from speaking at all. See Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U. S. 624, 633-634 (1943); id., at 645 (Murphy, J., concurring). A system which secures the right to proselytize religious, political, and ideological causes must also guarantee the concomitant right to decline to foster such concepts. The right to speak and the right to refrain from speaking are complementary components of the broader concept of “individual freedom of mind.” Id., at 637. This is illustrated by the recent case of Miami Herald Publishing Co. v. Tornillo, 418 U. S. 241 (1974), where we held unconstitutional a Florida statute placing an affirmative duty upon newspapers to publish the replies of political candidates whom they had criticized. We concluded that such a requirement deprived a newspaper of the fundamental right to decide what to print or omit:
“Faced with the penalties that would accrue to any newspaper that published news or commentary arguably within the reach of the right-of-access statute, editors might well conclude that the safe course is to avoid controversy. Therefore, under the operation of the Florida statute, political and electoral coverage would be blunted or reduced. Government-enforced right of access inescapably 'dampens the vigor and limits the variety of public debate,' New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U. S. [254,] 279 [(1964)].” Id., at 257 (footnote omitted).
The Court in Barnette, supra, was faced with a state statute which required public school students to participate in daily public ceremonies by honoring the flag both with words and traditional salute gestures. In overruling its prior decision in Minersville District v. Gobitis, 310 U. S. 586 (1940), the Court held that “a ceremony so touching matters of opinion and political attitude may [not] be imposed upon the individual by official authority under powers committed to any political organization under our Constitution.” 319 U. S., at 636. Compelling the affirmative act of a flag salute involved a more serious infringement upon personal liberties than the passive act of carrying the state motto on a license plate, but the difference is essentially one of degree. Here, as in Barnette, we are faced with a state measure which forces an individual, as part of his daily life—indeed constantly while his automobile is in public view—to be an instrument for fostering public adherence to an ideological point of view he finds unacceptable. In doing so, the State “invades the sphere of intellect and spirit which it is the purpose of the First Amendment to our Constitution to reserve from all official control.” Id., at 642.
New Hampshire’s statute in effect requires that appellees use their private property as a “mobile billboard” for the State’s ideological message—or suffer a penalty, as Maynard already has. As a condition to driving an automobile—a virtual necessity for most Americans—the Maynards must display “Live Free or Die” to hundreds of people each day. The fact that most individuals agree with the thrust of New Hampshire’s motto is not the test; most Americans also find the flag salute acceptable. The First Amendment protects the right of individuals to hold a point of view different from the majority and to refuse to foster, in the way New Hampshire commands, an idea they find morally objectionable.
B
Identifying the Maynards’ interests as implicating First Amendment protections does not end our inquiry however. We must also determine whether the State's countervailing interest is sufficiently compelling to justify requiring appellees to display the state motto on their license plates. See, e. g., United States v. O’Brien, 391 U. S. 367, 376-377 (1968). The two interests advanced by the State are that display of the motto (1) facilitates the identification of passenger vehicles, and (2) promotes appreciation of history, individualism, and state pride.
The State first points out that passenger vehicles, but not commercial, trailer, or other vehicles are required to display the state motto. Thus, the argument proceeds, officers of the law are more easily able to determine whether passenger vehicles are carrying the proper plates. However, the record here reveals that New Hampshire passenger license plates normally consist of a specific configuration of letters and numbers, which makes them readily distinguishable from other types of plates, even without reference to the state motto. Even were we to credit the State's reasons and “even though the governmental purpose be legitimate and substantial, that purpose cannot be pursued by means that broadly stifle fundamental personal liberties when the end can be more narrowly achieved. The breadth of legislative abridgment must be viewed in the light of less drastic means for achieving the same basic purpose.” Shelton v. Tucker, 364 U. S. 479, 488 (1960) (footnotes omitted).
The State’s second claimed interest is not ideologically neutral. The State is seeking to communicate to others an official view as to proper appreciation of history, state pride, and individualism. Of course, the State may legitimately pursue such interests in any number of ways. However, where the State’s interest is to disseminate an ideology, no matter how acceptable to some, such interest cannot outweigh an individual’s First Amendment right to avoid becoming the courier for such message.
We conclude that the State of New Hampshire may not require appellees to display the state motto upon their vehicle license plates; and, accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the District Court.
Affirmed.
License plates are issued without the state motto for trailers, agricultural vehicles, car dealers, antique automobiles, the Governor of New Hampshire, its Congressional Representatives, its Attorney General, Justices of the State Supreme Court, veterans, chaplains of the state legislature, sheriffs, and others.
Mr. Maynard described his objection to the state motto:
“[B]y religious training and belief, I believe my 'government’—Jehovah’s Kingdom—offers everlasting life. It would be contrary to that belief to give up my life for the state, even if it meant living in bondage. Although I obey all laws of the State not in conflict with my conscience, this slogan is directly at odds with my deeply held religious convictions.
". . . I also disagree with the motto on political grounds. I believe that life is more precious than freedom.” Affidavit of George Maynard, App. 3.
At the time this suit was commenced appellees owned two automobiles, a Toyota Corolla and a Plymouth station wagon. Both automobiles were registered in New Hampshire where the Maynards are domiciled.
In May or June 1974 Mr. Maynard actually snipped the words “or Die” off the license plates, and then covered the resulting hole, as well as the words “Live Free,” with tape. This was done, according to Mr. Maynard, because neighborhood children kept removing the tape. The Maynards have since been issued new license plates, and have disavowed any intention of physically mutiliating them.
Appellees sought (a) injunctions against future criminal prosecutions for violation of the statutes and (b) an injunction requiring that in future years they be issued license plates that do not bear the state motto.
Several months elapsed between the issuance of the temporary restraining order and the hearing on the merits. This delay was occasioned by the request of the State pending consideration of a bill in the New Hampshire Legislature that would have made inclusion of the state motto on passenger vehicle license plates optional with the car owner. The bill failed to gain enactment.
The District Court refused to order the State of New Hampshire to issue the Maynards license plates without the state motto, although it noted that there was evidence on the record that New Hampshire could easily do so. 406 F. Supp., at 1389. See n. 1, supra.
As to the offense which was “continued for sentence,” see supra, at 708, the District Court found that “[n]o collateral consequences will attach as a result of it unless Mr. Maynard is arrested and prosecuted for the violation of NHRSA 262:27-c at some time in the future.” 406 F. Supp., at 1384.
If the totality of appellants’ arguments were accepted, a § 1983 action could never be brought to enjoin state criminal prosecutions. According to appellants, Younger principles bar Mr. Maynard from seeking an injunction because he has already been subjected to prosecution. As to Mrs. Maynard, they argue, in effect, that the action is premature because no such prosecution has been instituted. Since the two spouses were similarly situated but for the fact that one has been prosecuted and one has not, we fail to see where appellants’ argument would ever leave room for federal intervention under § 1983.
We note that appellees’ claim of symbolic expression is substantially undermined by their prayer in the District Court for issuance of special license plates not bearing the state motto. See n. 5, supra. This is hardly consistent with the stated intent to communicate affirmative opposition to the motto. Whether or not we view appellees’ present practice of covering the motto with tape as sufficiently communicative to sustain a claim of symbolic expression, display of the “expurgated” plates requested by appellees would surely not satisfy that standard. See n. 1, supra; Spence v. Washington, 418 U. S. 405, 410-411 (1974), United States v. O’Brien, 391 U. S. 367, 376 (1968). (Mr. Justice Brennan does not join in this note.)
Some States require that certain documents bear the seal of the State or some other official stamp for purposes of recordation. Such seal might contain, albeit obscurely, a symbol or motto having political or philosophical implications. The purpose of such seal, however, is not to advertise the message it bears but simply to authenticate the document by showing the authority of its origin.
The Chief of Police of Lebanon, N. H., testified that “enforcement of the motor vehicle laws is facilitated by the State Motto appearing on noncommercial license plates, the benefits being the ease of distinguishing New Hampshire license plates from those of similar colors of other states and the ease of discovering misuse of license plates, for instance, the use of a 'trailer' license plate on a non-commercial vehicle.” Brief for Appellants 20.
New Hampshire passenger vehicle license plates generally consist of two letters followed by four numbers. No other license plate category displays this combination, and no other category bears the state motto. See n. 1, supra. However, of the approximately 325,000 passenger plates in New Hampshire, 9,999 do not follow the regular pattern, displaying numbers only, preceded by no letters. App. 50-53.
Appellants do not explain why advocacy of these values is enhanced by display on private citizens’ cars but not on the cars of officials such as the Governor, Supreme Court Justices, Members of Congress, and sheriffs. See n. 1, supra.
It has been suggested that today’s holding will be read as sanctioning the obliteration of the national motto, “In God We Trust” from United States coins and currency. That question is not before us today but we note that currency, which is passed from hand to hand, differs in significant respects from an automobile, which is readily associated with its operator. Currency is generally carried in a purse or pocket and need not be displayed to the public. The bearer of currency is thus not required to publicly advertise the national motto.
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 Stevens
delivered the opinion of the Court.
To extinguish the last group of conflicting claims to lands lying west of the Cascade Mountains and north of the Columbia River in what is now the State of Washington, the United States entered into a series of treaties with Indian tribes in 1854 and 1855. The Indians relinquished their interest in most of the Territory in exchange for monetary payments. In addition, certain relatively small parcels of land were reserved for their exclusive use, and they were afforded other guarantees, including protection of their “right of taking fish, at all usual and accustomed grounds and stations... in common with all citizens of the Territory.” 10 Stat. 1133.
The principal question presented by this litigation concerns the character of that treaty right to take fish. Various other issues are presented, but their disposition depends on the answer to the principal question. Before answering any of these questions, or even stating the issues with more precision, we shall briefly describe the anadromous fisheries of the Pacific Northwest, the treaty negotiations, and the principal components of the litigation complex that led us to grant these three related petitions for certiorari.
I
Anadromous fish hatch in fresh water, migrate to the ocean where they are reared and reach mature size, and eventually complete their life cycle by returning to the fresh-water place of their origin to spawn. Different species have different life cycles, some spending several years and traveling great distances in the ocean before returning to spawn and some even returning to spawn on more than one occasion before dying. 384 F. Supp. 312, 384, 405. See Comment, State Power and the Indian Treaty Right to Fish, 59 Calif. L. Rev. 485, 501, and n. 99 (1971). The regular habits of these fish make their “runs” predictable; this predictability in turn makes it possible for both fishermen and regulators to forecast and to control the number of fish that will be caught or “harvested.” Indeed, as the terminology associated with it suggests, the management of anadromous fisheries is in many ways more akin to the cultivation of “crops” — with its relatively high degree of predictability and productive stability, subject mainly to sudden changes in climatic patterns — than is the management of most other commercial and sport fisheries. 384 F. Supp., at 351, 384.
Regulation of the anadromous fisheries of the Northwest is nonetheless complicated by the different habits of the various species of salmon and trout involved, by the variety of methods of taking the fish, and by the fact that a run of fish may pass through a series of different jurisdictions. Another complexity arises from the fact that the State of Washington has attempted to reserve one species, steelhead trout, for sport fishing and therefore conferred regulatory jurisdiction over that species upon its Department of Game, whereas the various species of salmon are primarily harvested by commercial fishermen and are managed by the State’s Department of Fisheries. Id., at 383-385, 389-399. Moreover, adequate regulation not only must take into account the potentially conflicting interests of sport and commercial fishermen, as well as those of Indian and nontreaty fishermen, but also must recognize that the fish runs may be harmed by harvesting either too many or too few of the fish returning to spawn. Id., at 384, 390.
The anadromous fish constitute a natural resource of great economic value to the State of Washington. Millions of salmon, with an average weight of from 4 or 5 to about 20 pounds, depending on the species, are harvested each year. Over 6,600 nontreaty fishermen and about 800 Indians make their livelihood by commercial fishing; moreover, some 280,000 individuals are licensed to engage dn sport fishing in the State. Id., at 387. See id., at 399.
II
One hundred and twenty-five years ago when the relevant treaties were signed, anadromous fish were even more important to most of the population of western Washington than they are today. At that time, about three-fourths of the approximately 10,000 inhabitants of the area were Indians. Although in some respects the cultures of the different tribes varied — some bands of Indians, for example, had little or no tribal organization while others, such as the Makah and the Yakima, were highly organized — all of them shared a vital and unifying dependence on anadromous fish. Id., at 350. See Puyallup Tribe v. Washington Game Dept., 433 U. S. 165, 179 (Brennan, J., dissenting in part).
Religious rites were intended to insure the continual return of the salmon and the trout; the seasonal and geographic variations in the runs of the different species determined the movements of the largely nomadic tribes. 384 F. Supp., at 343, 351, 382; 459 F. Supp. 1020,1079; 520 F. 2d 676, 682. Fish constituted a major part of the Indian diet, was used for commercial purposes, and indeed was traded in substantial volume. The Indians developed food-preservation techniques that enabled them to store fish throughout the year and to transport it over great distances. 384 F. Supp., at 351. They used a wide variety of methods to catch fish, including the precursors of all modern netting techniques. Id., at 351, 352, 362, 368, 380. Their usual and accustomed fishing places were numerous and were scattered throughout the area, and included marine as well as fresh-water areas. Id., at 353, 360, 368-369.
All of the treaties were negotiated by Isaac Stevens, the first Governor and first Superintendent of Indian Affairs of the Washington Territory, and a small group of advisers. Contemporaneous documents make it clear that these people recognized the vital importance of the fisheries to the Indians and wanted to protect them from the risk that non-Indian settlers might seek to monopolize their fisheries. Id., at 355, 363. There is no evidence of the precise understanding the Indians had of any of the specific English terms and phrases in the treaty. Id., at 356. It is perfectly clear, however, that the Indians were vitally interested in protecting their right to take fish at usual and accustomed places, whether on or off the reservations, id., at 355, and that they were invited by the white negotiators to rely and in fact did rely heavily on the good faith of the United States to protect that right.
Referring to the negotiations with the Yakima Nation, by far the largest of the Indian tribes, the District Court found:
“At the treaty council the United States negotiators promised, and the Indians understood, that the Yakimas would forever be able to continue the same off-reservation food gathering and fishing practices as to time, place, method, species and extent as they had or were exercising. The Yakimas relied on these promises and they formed a material and basic part of the treaty and of the Indians’ understanding of the meaning of the treaty.” Id., at 381 (record citations omitted).
See also id., at 363 (similar finding regarding negotiations with the Makah Tribe).
• The Indians understood that non-Indians would also have the right to fish at their off-reservation fishing sites. But this was not understood as a significant limitation on their right to take fish. Because of the great abundance of fish and the limited population of the area, it simply was not contemplated that either party would interfere with the other’s fishing rights. The parties accordingly did not see the need and did not intend to regulate the taking of fish by either Indians or non-Indians, nor was future regulation foreseen.. Id., at 334, 355, 357.
Indeed, for several decades after the treaties were signed, Indians continued to harvest most of the fish taken from the waters of Washington, and they moved freely about the Territory and later the State in search of that resource. Id., at 334. The size of the fishery resource continued to obviate the need during the period to regulate the taking of fish by either Indians or non-Indians. Id., at 352. Not until major economic developments in canning and processing occurred in the last few years of the 19th century did a significant non-Indian fishery develop. It was as a consequence of these developments, rather than of the treaty, that non-Indians began to dominate the fisheries and eventually to exclude most Indians from participating in it — a trend that was encouraged by the onset of often discriminatory state regulation in the early decades of the 20th century. Id., at 358, 394, 404, 407; 459 F. Supp., at 1032.
In sum, it is fair to conclude that when the treaties were negotiated, neither party realized or intended that their agreement would determine whether, and if so how, a resource that had always been thought inexhaustible would be allocated between the native Indians and the incoming settlers when it later became scarce.
Ill
Unfortunately, that resource has now become scarce, and the meaning of the Indians' treaty right to take fish has accordingly become critical. The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and the Supreme Court of the State of Washington have issued conflicting decisions on its meaning. In addition, their holdings raise important ancillary questions that will appear from a brief review of this extensive litigation.
The federal litigation was commenced in the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington in 1970. The United States, on its own behalf and as trustee for seven Indian tribes, brought suit against the State of Washington seeking an interpretation of the treaties and an injunction requiring the State to protect the Indians’ share of the anadro-mous fish runs. Additional Indian tribes, the State’s Fisheries and Game Departments, and one commercial fishing group, were joined as parties at various stages of the proceedings, while various other agencies and groups, including all of the commercial fishing associations that are parties here, participated as amici curiae. 384 F. Supp., at 327, 328, and n. 4; 459 F. Supp., at 1028.
During the extensive pretrial proceedings, four different interpretations of the critical treaty language were advanced. Of those, three proceeded from the assumption that the language required some allocation to the Indians of a share of the runs of fish passing through their traditional fishing areas each year. The tribes themselves contended that the treaties had reserved a pre-existing right to as many fish as their commercial and subsistence needs dictated. The United States argued that the Indians were entitled either to a 50% share of the “harvestable” fish that originated in and returned to the “case area” and passed through their fishing places, or to their needs, whichever was less. The Department of Fisheries agreed that the Indians were entitled to “a fair and equitable share” stated in terms of a percentage of the har-vestable salmon in the area; ultimately it proposed a share of “one-third.”
Only the Game Department thought the treaties provided no assurance to the Indians that they could take some portion of each run of fish. That agency instead argued that the treaties gave the Indians no fishing rights not enjoyed by non-treaty fishermen except the two rights previously recognized by decisions of this Court — the right of access over private lands to their usual and accustomed fishing grounds, see Seufert Bros. Co. v. United States, 249 U. S. 194; United States v. Winans, 198 U. S. 371, and an exemption from the payment of license fees. See Tulee v. Washington, 315 U. S. 681.
The District Court agreed with the parties who advocated an allocation to the Indians, and it essentially agreed with the United States as to what that allocation should be. It held that the Indians were then entitled to a 45% to 50% share of the harvestable fish that will at some point pass through recognized tribal fishing grounds in the case area. The share was to be calculated on a river-by-river, run-by-run basis, subject to certain adjustments. Fish caught by Indians for ceremonial and subsistence purposes as well as fish caught within a reservation were excluded from the calculation of the tribes’ share. In addition, in order to compensate for fish caught outside of the case area, i. e., beyond the State’s jurisdiction, the court made an “equitable adjustment” to increase the allocation to the Indians. The court left it to the individual tribes involved to agree among themselves on how best to divide the Indian share of runs that pass through the usual and accustomed grounds of more than one tribe, and it postponed until a later date the proper accounting for hatchery-bred fish. 384 F. Supp., at 416-417; 459 F. Supp., at 1129. With a slight modification, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed, 520 F. 2d 676, and we denied certiorari, 423 U. S. 1086.
The injunction entered by the District Court required the Department of Fisheries (Fisheries) to adopt regulations protecting the Indians' treaty rights. 384 F. Supp., at 416-417. After the new regulations were promulgated, however, they were immediately challenged by private citizens in suits commenced in the Washington state courts. The State Supreme Court, in two cases that are here in consolidated form in No. 77-983, ultimately held that Fisheries could not comply with the federal injunction. Puget Sound Gillnetters Assn. v. Moos, 88 Wash. 2d 677, 565 P. 2d 1151 (1977); Fishing Vessel Assn. v. Tollefson, 89 Wash. 2d 276, 571 P. 2d 1373 (1977).
As a matter of federal law, the state court first accepted the Game Department's and rejected the District Court’s interpretation of the treaties and held that they did not give the Indians a right to a share of the fish runs, and second concluded that recognizing special rights for the Indians would violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The opinions might also be read to hold, as a matter of state law, that Fisheries had no authority to issue the regulations because they had a purpose other than conservation of the resource. In this Court, however, the Attorney General of the State disclaims the adequacy and independence of the state-law ground and argues that the state-law authority of Fisheries is dependent on the answers to the two federal-law questions discussed above. Brief for State of Washington 99. See n. 34, infra. We defer to that interpretation, subject, of course, to later clarification by the State Supreme Court. Because we are also satisfied that the constitutional holding is without merit our review of the state court’s judgment will be limited to the treaty issue.
When Fisheries was ordered by the state courts to abandon its attempt to promulgate and enforce regulations in compliance with the federal court’s decree — and when the Game Department simply refused to comply- — the District Court entered a series of orders enabling it, with the aid of the United States Attorney for the Western District of Washington and various federal law enforcement agencies, directly to supervise those aspects of the State’s fisheries necessary to the preservation of treaty fishing rights. 459 F. Supp. 1020. The District Court’s power to take such direct action and, in doing so, to enjoin persons who were not parties to the proceeding was affirmed by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. 573 F. 2d 1123. That court, in a separate opinion, 573 F. 2d 1118, also held that regulations of the International Pacific Salmon Fisheries Commission posed no impediment to the District Court’s interpretation of the treaty language and to its enforcement- of that interpretation. Subsequently, the District Court entered -an enforcement order regarding the salmon fisheries for the 1978 and subsequent seasons, which, prior to our issuance of a writ of cer-tiorari to review the case, was pending on appeal in the Court of Appeals. App. 486-490.
Because of the widespread defiance of the District Court’s orders, this litigation has assumed unusual significance. We granted certiorari in the state and federal cases to interpret this important treaty provision and thereby to resolve the conflict between the state and federal courts regarding what, if any, right the Indians have to a share of the fish, to address the implications of international regulation of the fisheries in the area, and to remove any doubts about the federal court’s power to enforce its orders. 439 U. S. 909.
IV
The treaties secure a “right of taking fish.” The pertinent articles provide:
“The right of taking fish, at all usual and accustomed grounds and stations, is further secured to said Indians, in common with all citizens of the Territory, and of erecting temporary houses for the purpose of curing, together with the privilege of hunting, gathering roots and berries, and pasturing their horses on open and unclaimed lands: Provided, however, That they shall not take shell fish from any beds staked or cultivated by citizens.”
At the time the treaties were executed there was a great abundance of fish and a relative scarcity of people. No one had any doubt about the Indians’ capacity to take as many fish as they might need. Their right to take fish could therefore be adequately protected by guaranteeing them access to usual and accustomed fishing sites which could be — and which for decades after the treaties were signed were — comfortably shared with the incoming settlers.
Because the sparse contemporaneous written materials refer primarily to assuring access to fishing sites “in common with all citizens of the Territory,” the State of Washington and the commercial fishing associations, having all adopted the Game Department’s original position, argue that it was merely access that the negotiators guaranteed. It is equally plausible to conclude, however, that the specific provision for access was intended to secure a greater right — a right to harvest a share of the runs of anadromous fish that at the time the treaties were signed were so plentiful that no one could question the Indians’ capacity to take whatever quantity they needed. Indeed, a fair appraisal of the purpose of the treaty negotiations, the language of the treaties, and this Court’s prior construction of the treaties, mandates that conclusion.
A treaty, including one between the United States and an Indian tribe, is essentially a contract between two sovereign nations. E. g., Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock, 187 U. S. 553. When the signatory nations have not been at war and neither is the vanquished, it is reasonable to assume that they negotiated as equals at arm’s length. There is no reason to doubt that this assumption applies to the treaties at issue here. See 520 F. 2d, at 684.
Accordingly, it is the intention of the parties, and not solely that of the superior side, that must control any attempt to interpret the treaties. When Indians are involved, this Court has long given special meaning to this rule. It has held that the United States, as the party with the presumptively superior negotiating skills and superior knowledge of the language in which the treaty is recorded, has a responsibility to avoid taking advantage of the other side. “[T]he treaty must therefore be construed, not according to the technical meaning of its words to learned lawyers, but in the sense in which they would naturally be understood by the Indians.” Jones v. Meehan, 175 U. S. 1, 11. This rule, in fact, has thrice been explicitly relied on by the Court in broadly interpreting these very treaties in the Indians' favor. Tulee v. Washington, 315 U. S. 681; Seufert Bros. Co. v. United States, 249 U. S. 194; United States v. Winans, 198 U. S. 371. See also Washington v. Yakima Indian Nation, 439 U. S. 463, 484.
Governor Stevens and his associates were well aware of the “sense” in which the Indians were likely to view assurances regarding their fishing rights. During the negotiations, the vital importance of the fish to the Indians was repeatedly emphasized by both sides, and the Governor's promises that the treaties would protect that source of food and commerce were crucial in obtaining the Indians’ assent. See supra, at 666-668. It is absolutely clear, as Governor Stevens himself said, that neither he nor the Indians intended that the latter “should be excluded from their ancient fisheries,” see n. 9, supra, and it is accordingly inconceivable that either party deliberately agreed to authorize future settlers to crowd the Indians out of any meaningful use of their accustomed places to fish. That each individual Indian would share an “equal opportunity” with thousands of newly arrived individual settlers is totally foreign to the spirit of the negotiations. Such a “right,” along with, the $207,500 paid the Indians, would hardly have been sufficient to compensate them for the millions of acres they ceded to the Territory.
It is true that the words “in common with” may be read either as nothing more than a guarantee that individual Indians would have the same right as individual non-Indians or as securing an interest in the fish runs themselves. If we were to construe these words by. reference to 19th-century property concepts, we might accept the former interpretation, although even “learned lawyers” of the day would probably have offered differing interpretations of the three words. But we think greater importance should be given to the Indians’ likely understanding of the other words in the treaties and especially the reference to the “right of taking fish” — a right that had no special meaning at common law but that must have had obvious significance to the tribes relinquishing a portion of their pre-existing rights to the United States in return for this promise. This language is particularly meaningful in the context of anadromous fisheries — which were not the focus of-the common law — because of the relative predictability of the “harvest.” In this context, it makes sense to say that a party has a right to “take” — rather than merely the “opportunity” to try to catch — some of the large quantities of fish that will almost certainly be available at a given place at a given time.
This interpretation is confirmed by additional language in the treaties. The fishing clause speaks of “securing” certain fishing rights, a term the Court has previously interpreted as synonymous with “reserving” rights previously exercised. Winans, 198 U. S., at 381. See also New York ex rel. Kennedy v. Becker, 241 U. S. 556, 563-564. Because the Indians had always exercised the right to meet their subsistence and commercial needs by taking fish from treaty area waters, they would be unlikely to perceive a “reservation” of that right as merely the chance, shared with millions of other citizens, occasionally to dip their nets into the territorial waters. Moreover, the phrasing of the clause quite clearly avoids placing each individual Indian on an equal footing with each individual citizen of the State. The referent of the “said Indians” who are to share the right of taking fish with “all citizens of the Territory” is not the individual Indians but the various signatory “tribes and bands of Indians” listed in the opening article of each treaty. Because it was the tribes that were given a right in common with non-Indian citizens, it is especially likely that a class right to a share of fish, rather than a personal right to attempt to land fish, was intended.
In our view, the purpose and language of the treaties are unambiguous; they secure the Indians’ right to take a share of each run of fish that passes through tribal fishing areas. But our prior decisions provide an even more persuasive reason why this interpretation is not open to question. For notwithstanding the bitterness that this litigation has engendered, the principal issue involved is virtually a “matter decided” by our previous holdings.
The Court has interpreted the fishing clause in these treaties on six prior occasions. In all of these cases the Court placed a relatively broad gloss on the Indians’ fishing rights and — more or less explicitly — rejected the State’s “equal opportunity” approach; in the earliest and the three most recent cases, moreover, we adopted essentially the interpretation that the United States is reiterating here.
In United States v. Winans, supra, the respondent, having acquired title to property on the Columbia River and having obtained a license to use a “fish wheel” — a device capable of catching salmon by the ton and totally destroying a run of fish — asserted the right to exclude the Yakimas from one of their “usual and accustomed” places. The Circuit Court for the District of Washington sustained respondent, but this Court reversed. The Court initially rejected an argument that is analogous to the “equal opportunity” claim now made by the State:
“[I]t was decided [below] that the Indians acquired no rights but what any inhabitant of the Territory or State would have. Indeed, acquired no rights but such as they would have without the treaty. This is certainly an impotent outcome to negotiations and a convention; which seemed to promise more and give the word of the Nation for more.... How the treaty in question was understood may be gathered from the circumstances.
“The right to resort to the fishing places in controversy was a part of larger rights possessed by the Indians, upon the exercise of which there was not a shadow of impediment, and which were not much less necessary to the existence of the Indians than the atmosphere they breathed. New conditions came into existence, to which those rights had to be accommodated. Only a limitation of them, however, was necessary and intended, not a taking away. In other words, the treaty was not a grant of rights to the Indians, but a grant of rights from them— a reservation of those not granted. And the form of the instrument and its language was adapted to that purpose.... There was an exclusive right to fishing reserved within certain boundaries. There was a right outside of those boundaries reserved fin common with citizens of the Territory.' As a mere right, it was not exclusive in the Indians. Citizens might share it, but the Indians were secured in its enjoyment by a special provision of means for its exercise. They were given The right of taking fish at all usual and accustomed places/ and the right 'of erecting temporary buildings for curing them.’ The contingency of the future ownership of the lands, therefore, was foreseen and provided for — in other words, the Indians were given a right in the land — the right of crossing it to the river — the right to occupy it to the extent and for the purpose mentioned. No other conclusion would give effect to the treaty.” 198 U. S., at 380-381.
See also Seufert Bros., 249 U. S., at 198, and Tulee, 315 U. S., at 684, both of which repeated this analysis, in holding that treaty Indians had rights, “beyond those which other citizens may enjoy,” to fish without paying license fees in ceded areas and even in accustomed fishing places lying outside of the lands ceded by the Indians. See n. 22, supra.
But even more significant than the language in Winans is its actual disposition. The Court not only upheld the Indians’ right of access to respondent’s private property but also ordered the Circuit Court on remand to devise some “adjustment and accommodation” that would protect them from total exclusion from the fishery. 198 Ü. S., at 384. Although the accommodation it suggested by reference to the Solicitor General’s brief in the case is subject to interpretation, it clearly included removal of enough of the fishing wheels to enable some fish to escape and be available to Indian fishermen upstream. Brief for United States, O. T. 1904, No. 180, pp. 54 — 56. In short, it assured the Indians a share of the fish.
In the more recent litigation over this treaty language between the Puyallup Tribe and the Washington Department of Game, the Court in the context of a dispute over rights to the run of steelhead trout on the Puyallup River reaffirmed both of the holdings that may be drawn from Winans — the treaty guarantees the Indians more than simply the “equal opportunity” along with all of the citizens of the State to catch fish, and it in fact assures them some portion of each relevant run. But the three Puyallup cases are even more explicit; they clearly establish the principle that neither party to the treaties may rely on the State’s regulatory powers or on property law concepts to defeat the other’s right to a “fairly apportioned” share of each covered run of harvestable anadromous fish.
In Puyallup I, the Court sustained the State’s power to impose nondiscriminatory regulations on treaty fishermen so long as they were “necessary” for the conservation of the various species. In so holding, the Court again explicitly rejected the equal-opportunity theory. Although nontreaty fishermen might be subjected to any reasonable state fishing regulation serving any legitimate purpose, treaty fishermen are immune from all regulation save that required for conservation.
When the Department of Game sought to impose a total ban on commercial net fishing for steelhead, the Court held in Puyallup II that such regulation was not a “reasonable and necessary conservation measure” and would deny the Indians their “fairly apportioned” share of the Puyallup River run. 414 U. S. 44, 45, 48. Although under the challenged regulation every individual fisherman would have had an equal opportunity to use a hook and line to land the steelhead, most of the fish would obviously have been caught by the 145,000 nontreaty licensees rather than by the handful of treaty fishermen. This Court vindicated the Indians’ treaty right to “take fish” by invalidating the ban on Indian net fishing and remanding the case with instructions to the state courts to determine the portion of harvestable steelhead that should be allocated to net fishing by members of the tribe. Id., at 48-49. Even if Winans had not already done so, this unanimous holding foreclosed the basic argument that the State is now advancing.
On remand, the Washington state courts held that 45% of the steelhead run was allocable to commercial net fishing by the Indians. We shall later discuss how that specific percentage was determined; what is material for present purposes is the recognition, upheld by this Court in Puyallup III, that the treaty secured the Tribe’s right to a substantial portion of the run, and not merely a right to compete with nontreaty fishermen on an individual basis.
Puyallup III also made it clear that the Indians could not rely on their treaty right to exclude others from access to certain fishing sites to deprive other citizens of the State of a “fair apportionment” of the runs. For- although it is clear that the Tribe may exclude non-Indians from access to fishing within the reservation, we unequivocally rejected the Tribe’s claim to an untrammeled right to take as many of the steel-head running through its reservation as it chose. In support of our holding that the State has regulatory jurisdiction over on-reservation fishing, we reiterated Mr. Justice Douglas’ statement for the Court in Puyallup II that the “Treaty does not give the Indians a federal right to pursue the last living steelhead until it enters their nets.” 414 U. S., at 49. It is in this sense that treaty and nontreaty fishermen hold “equal” rights. For neither party may deprive the other of a “fair share” of the runs.
Not only all six of our cases interpreting the relevant treaty language but all federal courts that have interpreted the treaties in recent times have reached the foregoing conclusions, see Sohappy v. Smith, 302 F. Supp. 899, 908, 911 (Ore. 1969) (citing cases), as did the Washington Supreme Court itself prior to the present litigation. State v. Satiacum, 50 Wash. 2d 513, 523-524, 314 P. 2d 400, 406 (1957), A like interpretation, moreover, has been followed by the Court with respect to hunting rights explicitly secured by treaty to Indians “ ‘in common with all other persons,’ ” Antoine v. Washington, 420 U. S. 194, 205-206, and to water rights that were merely implicitly secured to the Indians by treaties reserving land— treaties that the Court enforced by ordering an apportionment to the Indians of enough water to meet their subsistence and cultivation needs. Arizona v. California, 373 U. S. 546, 598-601, following United States v. Powers, 305 U. S. 527, 528-533; Winters v. United States, 207 U. S. 564, 576.
The purport of our cases is clear. Nontreaty fishermen may not rely on property law concepts, devices such as the fish wheel, license fees, or general regulations to deprive the Indians of a fair share of the relevant runs of anadromous fish in the case area. Nor may treaty fishermen rely on their exclusive right of access to the reservations to destroy the rights of other “citizens of the Territory.” Both sides have a right, secured by treaty, to take a fair share of the available fish. That, we think, is what the parties to the treaty intended when they secured to the Indians the right of taking fish in common with other citizens.
Y
We also agree with the Government that an equitable measure of the common right should initially divide the harvesta-ble portion of each run that passes through a “usual and accustomed” place into approximately equal treaty and non-treaty shares, and should then reduce the treaty share if tribal needs may be satisfied by a lesser amount. Although this method of dividing the resource, unlike the right to some division, is not mandated by our prior cases, it is consistent with the 45%-55% division arrived at by the Washington state courts, and affirmed by this Court, in Puyallup III with respect to the steelhead run on the Puyallup River. The trial court in the Puyallup litigation reached those figures essentially by starting with a 50% allocation based on the Indians’ reliance on the fish for their livelihoods and then adjusting slightly downward due to other relevant factors. App. to Pet. for Cert. in Puyallup III, O. T. 1976, No. 76-423, pp. C-56 to C-57. The District Court took a similar tack in this case, i. e., by starting with a 50-50 division and adjusting slightly downward on the Indians’ side when it became clear that they did not need a full 50%. 384 F. Supp., at 402, 416-417 ; 459 F. Supp., at 1101; 573 F. 2d, at 1129.
The division arrived at by the District Court is also consistent with our earlier decisions concerning Indian treaty rights to scarce natural resources. In those cases, after determining that at the time of the treaties the resource involved was necessary to the Indians’ welfare, the Court typically ordered a trial judge or special master, in his discretion, to devise some apportionment that assured that the Indians’ reasonable livelihood needs would be met. Arizona v. California, supra, at 600; Winters, supra. See Winans, 198 U. S., at 384. This is precisely what the District Court did here, except that it realized that some ceiling should be placed on the Indians’ apportionment to prevent their needs from exhausting the entire resource and thereby frustrating the treaty right of “all [other] citizens of the Territory.”
Thus, it first concluded that at the time the treaties were signed, the Indians, who comprised three-fourths of the territorial population, depended heavily on anadromous fish as a source of food, commerce, and cultural cohesion. Indeed, it found that the non-Indian population depended on Indians to catch the fish that the former consumed. See supra, at 664r-669, and n. 7. Only then did it determine that the Indians’ present-day subsistence and commercial needs should be met, subject, of course, to the 50% ceiling.
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.
Opinion of the Court by
Mr. Justice Harlan,
announced by Mr. Justice Burton.
The present Copyright Act provides for a second 28-year copyright after the expiration of the original 28-year term, if application for renewal is made within one year before the expiration of the original term. This right to renew the copyright appears in § 24 of the Act:
“And provided further, That in the case of any other copyrighted work, . . . the author of such 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 suck work for a furtker 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 . . . .”
In this case, an author who secured original copyrights on numérous musical compositions died before the time to apply for renewals arose. He was survived by his widow and one illegitimate child, who are both still living. The question this case presents is whether that child is entitled to share in the copyrights which come up for renewal during the widow’s lifetime.
Respondent, the child’s mother, brought this action on the child’s behalf against the widow, who is the petitioner here, seeking a declaratory judgment that the child has an interest in the copyrights already renewed by the widow and those that will become renewable during her lifetime, and for an accounting of profits from such copyrights as have been already renewed. The District Court, holding that the child was within the meaning of the term “children” as used in the statute but that the renewal rights belonged exclusively to the widow, gave judgment for the widow. Agreeing with the District Court on the first point, the Court of Appeals reversed, holding that on the author’s death both widow and child shared in the renewal copyrights. 226 F. 2d 623. Because of the great importance of these questions in the administration of the Copyright Act, we granted certiorari, 350 U. S. 931.
The controversy centers around the words “or the widow, widower, or children of the author, if the author be not living.” Two questions are involved: (1) do the widow and children take as a class, or in order of enumeration, and (2) if they take as a class, does “children” include an illegitimate child. Strangely enough, these questions have never before been decided, although the statutory provisions involved have been part of the Act in their present form since 1870.
I.
The widow first contends that, after the death of the author, she alone is entitled to renew copyrights during her lifetime, exclusive of any interest in “children” of the author. That is, she interprets the clause as providing for the passing of the renewal rights, on the death of the author, first to the widow, and then only after her death to the “children” of the author. If the word “or” which follows “widower” is to be read in its normal disjunctive sense, this is not an unreasonable interpretation of the statute, which might then well be read to mean that “children” are to renew only if there is no “widow” or “widower.” The statute is hardly unambiguous, however, and presents problems of interpretation not solved by literal application of words as they are “normally” used. The statute must be read as a whole, and putting each word in its proper context we are unable to say, as the widow contends we should, that the clear purport of the clause in question is the same as if it read “or the widow, or widower, if the author be not living, or the children of the author, if the author, and widow or widower, be not living.”
We start with the proposition that the word “or” is often used as a careless substitute for the word “and”; that is, it is often used in phrases where “and” would express the thought with greater clarity. That trouble with the word has been with us for a long time: see, e. g., United States v. Fisk, 3 Wall. 445. In this instance, we need look no further than the very next clause in this same section of the Copyright Act for an example of this careless usage: “. . . or if such author, widow, widower or children be not living, then the author’s executors . . . .” If the italicized “or” in that clause is read disjunctively, then the author’s executors would be entitled to renew the copyright if any one of the persons named “be not living.” It is clear, however, that the executors do not succeed to the renewal interest unless all of the named persons are dead, since from the preceding clause it is at least made explicit that the “widow, widower, or children of the author” all come before the executors, after the author’s death. The clause would be more accurate, therefore, were it to read “author, widow or widower, and children.” It is argued with some force, then, that if in the succeeding clause the “or” is to be read as meaning “and” in the same word grouping as is involved in the clause in question, it should be read that way in this clause as well. If this is done, it is then an easy step to read “widow” and “children” as succeeding to the renewal interest as a class, as the Court .of Appeals held they did.
This Court has already traced the development of the renewal term in the several copyright statutes enacted in this country. See Fred Fisher Music Co. v. M. Witmark & Sons, 318 U. S. 643, where it was held that the author, during his lifetime, could make a binding assignment of the expectancy in his future rights of renewal. The first federal statute, the Act of May 31, 1790, 1 Stat. 124, did not allow renewal by anyone except the author. In 1831, however, a new Act was passed, which for the first time gave to the author’s family the right to renew after his death. Act of February 3, 1831, 4 Stat. 436. Section 2 of that Act provided:
“That if, at the expiration of the aforesaid term of years, such author ... be still living, and a citizen ... of the United States, or resident therein, or being dead, shall have left a widow, or child, or children, either or all then living, the same exclusive right shall be continued to such author ... , or, if dead, then to such widow and child, or children, for the further term of fourteen years (Italics supplied.)
It is significant that this statute, which instituted the present scheme of allowing a copyright to be renewed after the author’s death, provided for the renewal interest in the “widow and child, or children,” rather than in the widow or children separately. Petitioner concedes that under this statute the widow and children took as a class. This statute marked a major development in this phase of copyright legislation and created a system which, in its basic form, has been continued even to the present statute.
Section 88 of the Act of July 8, 1870, 16 Stat. 212, in consolidating the language of § 2 of the 1831 Act, made one important change in the language of the renewal section: the right of renewal was given to the author’s widow or children, rather than to the widow and children. The section read as follows:
“That the author, ... if he be still living and a citizen of the United States or resident therein, or his widow or children, if he be dead, shall have the same exclusive right continued for the further term of fourteen years . . . .” (Italics supplied.)
This section became § 4954 of the Revised Statutes, and was amended in 1891, 26 Stat. 1107, by deleting the requirement that the author .be a citizen or resident of the United States. The section was otherwise left intact. The present renewal provision appeared first as § 23 of the Copyright Act of March 4, 1909, 35 Stat. 1080, and was continued without change in 17 U. S. C. § 24.
Knowing, as we do, that “or” can be ambiguous when used in such a context as this, it is difficult to say that the change made in the 1870 Copyright Act had the effect of changing, as petitioner contends it did, the children’s interest from an interest shared with the widow to one which became effective only after her death. There is no legislative history, either when the 1870 Act was passed or in the subsequent sessions of Congress, to indicate that Congress in fact intended to change in this respect the existing scheme of distribution of the renewal rights. Rather, what scant material there is indicates that no substantial changes in the Act were intended. It would not seem unlikely that the framers of the 1870 statute, interested in compressing the somewhat cumbersome phrasing of the prior Copyright Act, simply deleted the words “and child” with the thought that the remaining phrase “or children” expressed precisely the same result, leaving unaffected the rights of the author’s children which had been the same for almost forty years.
We then come to the 1909 Copyright Act. By § 23 of that Act, now 17 U. S. C. § 24, there were added to those entitled to renewal rights after the author’s death — the widow or children — the author’s executors, or, in the absence of a will, his next of kin. Each of these named classes is separated in the statute by a condition precedent to the passing of the renewal rights, namely, that the persons named in the preceding class be deceased. As already noted, it is at least clear that, if the author and his widow have both died, survived by a child, that child is entitled to renew copyrights maturing during his lifetime. But if this interest were to take effect only after the death of the widow, it might be expected that the drafters of the Act would have separated “widow or widower” from “children” with the same condition precedent used in defining the succession of the other classes to the renewal rights, since it would in effect be placing the children in a class lower than that occupied by the widow or widower. Granting that the absence of this structure might simply have been due to carelessness in adding the new class to the prior renewal section, we think it may nevertheless be taken as some indication that the widow and children are to take the right to renew at the same time.
The Solicitor General has filed a helpful brief on behalf of the Register of Copyrights, as amicus curiae, in which the administrative practice of the Copyright Office is discussed. It appears that the Regulations issued under the 1909 Act, in force until 1948 (when new Regulations, not touching on this point, were issued), allowed the children of the author to apply for copyright renewals after the author’s death along with the widow or widower — that is, the children were not treated as being entitled to renewal only after the death of the widow or widower. The practice of the Copyright Office has been to register renewal claims by children during the lifetime of an author’s widow or widower, although this practice, it is frankly admitted, is more the result of a decision that there is substantial doubt over the question, rather than the result of a confident interpretation of the statute as treating widows, widowers, and children as members of one class. Although we would ordinarily give weight to the interpretation of an ambiguous statute by the agency charged with its administration, cf. Mazer v. Stein, 347 U. S. 201, 211-213, we think the Copyright Office’s explanation of its practice deprives the practice of any force as an interpretation of the statute, and we therefore do not rely on it in this instance.
Petitioner and several of the associations which have filed amicus briefs point out that the “universal” interpretation of § 24 has been that children are entitled to renewal only after the death of the widow or widower. In light of the Copyright Office practice alone, that is obviously an overstatement. Nevertheless, had there been a long-standing consistent attitude by the specialists in this field of law, and a more adequate basis for it than exists here, we might hesitate to overturn what had come to be a generally accepted view of a statute having such important consequences. But we cannot escape the conclusion that, in this instance, any such reliance on that interpretation of the Act was misplaced: the statute is far from clear, the Copyright Office has recognized its ambiguity, renewal applications have for many years been filed by children before the death of the widow or widower, and more than one qualified commentator has either expressed doubt on the question or has concluded that the widow or widower and children take as a class.
Nor is it possible for us to say, as petitioner suggests, that the only way to satisfy the congressional purpose is to hold that, during her lifetime, the widow has exclusive renewal rights. Petitioner argues that the statute, contemplating the normal situation of a widow taking care of her children, gives the widow exclusive control of the copyright on the author’s death, since she is presumably more capable of dealing with it and will more likely be in need of the copyright income. This branch of the argument, however, becomes very much diluted when it is observed that, if the deceased author be a woman, the statute disposes of the renewal rights in the same manner as if the author were a male. It is further argued that since the value of the copyright depends to an appreciable extent on the ability to convey clear publication rights, the statute should not be construed to diminish the value of the copyright by scattering its ownership, which might make it difficult to transfer clear title. One difficulty with this argument is that it ignores the 1831 statute, which, as petitioner recognizes, divided the ownership of the renewal rights between the surviving spouse of the author and his children. What we are asked to do is to avoid, on policy grounds, an interpretation of the successor statute which embodies the policy of the earlier Act, a policy which Congress saw fit to effectuate at least until 1870, and which, if changed then, was changed without any discernible display of dissatisfaction with that policy. This is not the type of case where we can use, as a guide to statutory interpretation, an unwillingness to attribute to Congress results which on their face are harsh, or present constitutional difficulties, or which are so extraordinary that clear, unambiguous wording is required. Cf. United States v. Minker, 350 U. S. 179. In view of this explicit prior legislation, this Court should not transfuse the successor statute with a gloss of its own choosing, especially where the choice between the alternative policies is as close as this one.
While the matter is far from clear, we think, on balance, the more likely meaning of the statute to be that adopted by the Court of Appeals, and we hold that, on the death of the author, the widow and children of the author succeed to the right of renewal as a class, and are each entitled to share in the renewal term of the copyright.
II.
We come, then, to the question of whether an illegitimate child is included within the term “children” as used in § 24. The scope of a federal right is, of course, a federal question, but that does not mean that its content is not to be determined by state, rather than federal law. Cf. Reconstruction Finance Corp. v. Beaver County, 328 U. S. 204; Board of County Commissioners v. United States, 308 U. S. 343, 351-352. This is especially true where a statute deals with a familial relationship; there is no federal law of domestic relations, which is primarily a matter of state concern.
If we look at the other persons who, under this section of the Copyright Act, are entitled to renew the copyright after the author’s death, it is apparent that this is the general scheme of the statute. To decide who is the widow or widower of a deceased author, or who are his executors or next of kin, requires a reference to the law of the State which created those legal relationships. The word “children,” although it to some extent describes a purely physical relationship, also describes a legal status not unlike the others. To determine whether a child has been legally adopted, for example, requires a reference to state law. We think it proper, therefore, to draw on the ready-made body of state law to define the word “children” in § 24. This does not mean that a State would be entitled to use the word “children” in a way entirely strange to those familiar with its ordinary usage, but at least to the extent that there are permissible variations in the ordinary concept of “children” we deem state law controlling. Cf. Seaboard Air Line Railway v. Kenney, 240 U. S. 489.
This raises two questions: first, to what State do we look, and second, given a particular State, what part of that State’s law defines the relationship. The answer to the first question, in this case, is not difficult, since it appears from the record that the only State concerned is California, and both parties have argued the case on that assumption. The second question, however, is less clear. An illegitimate child who is acknowledged by his father, by a writing signed in the presence of a witness, is entitled under § 255 of the California Probate Code to inherit his father’s estate as well as his mother’s. The District Court found that the child here was within the terms of that section. Under California law the child is not legitimate for all purposes, however; compliance with § 230 of the Civil Code is necessary for full legitimation, and there are no allegations in the complaint sufficient to bring the child within that section. Hence, we may take it that the child is not “adopted” in the sense that he is to be regarded as a legitimate child of the author.
Considering the purposes of § 24 of the Copyright Act, we think it sufficient that the status of the child is that described by § 255 of the California Probate Code. The evident purpose of § 24 is to provide for the family of the author after his death. Since the author cannot assign his family’s renewal rights, § 24 takes the form of a compulsory bequest of the copyright to the designated persons. This is really a question of the descent of property, and we think the controlling question under state law should be whether the child would be an heir of the author. It is clear that under § 255 the child is, at least to that extent, included within the term “children.”
Finally, there remains the question of what are the respective rights of the widow and child in the copyright renewals, once it is accepted that they both succeed to the renewals as members of the same class. Since the parties have not argued this point, and neither court below has passed on it, we think it should not be decided at this time.
For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Affirmed.
61 Stat. 652,17 U. S. C. § 1 et seq.
See Cong. Globe, 41st Cong., 2d Sess. 2680, 2854 (1870).
37 CFR, 1938, §201.24 (a): “Application for the renewal of a subsisting copyright may be filed within 1 year prior to the expiration of the existing term by:
“(1) The author of the work if still living;
“(2) The widow, widower, or children of the author if the author is not living ;
“(3) The author’s executor, if such author, widow, widower, or children be not living;
“(4) If the author, widow, widower, and children are all dead, and the author left no will, then the next of kin.”
See § 48, Copyright Office Bulletin No. 15 (1913); § 46, Copyright Office Bulletin No. 15 (1910).
See, e. g., Chafee, Reflections on the Law of Copyright, 45 Col. L. Rev. 503, 527; Kupferman, Renewal of Copyright — Section 23 of the Copyright Act of 1909, 44 Col. L. Rev. 712, 717; Tannenbaum, Practical Problems in Copyright, 7 Copyright Problems Analyzed (CCH) 7, 12 (1952). But see, e. g., Nicholson, A Manual of Copyright Practice, 195, 196; De Wolf, An Outline of Copyright Law, 66.
Petitioner also argues that since the statute does not specifically provide for an allocation, as between the widow or widower and children, of their respective interests in the renewal copyrights, it should not be read as providing for their succeeding to the renewal rights as a class. But neither did the 1831 Act provide for a division of the copyright between widow and child or children; nor does the present Act allocate the renewal rights as between those included in the term “next of kin.” The absence of such a provision, therefore, is not persuasive as an aid to interpretation of the statute.
Petitioner relies on McCool v. Smith, 1 Black 459, for the proposition that a general statutory reference to “children” means only legitimate children. The actual decision in that case, decided in 1862, concerned only the interpretation of a state statute, and we do not consider it controlling here. Cf. Hutchinson Investment Co. v. Caldwell, 152 U. S. 65, 70.
“Every illegitimate child is an heir of his mother, and also of the person who, in writing, signed in the presence of a competent witness, acknowledges himself to be the father, and inherits his or her estate, in whole or in part, as the case may be, in the same manner as if he had been born in lawful wedlock; but he does not represent his father by inheriting any part of the estate of the father’s kindred, either lineal or collateral, unless, before his death, his parents shall have intermarried, and his father, after such marriage, acknowledges him as his child, or adopts him into his family; in which ease such child is deemed legitimate for all purposes of succession. An illegitimate child may represent his mother and may inherit any part of the estate of the mother’s kindred, either lineal or collateral.”
“The father of an illegitimate child, by publicly acknowledging it as his own, receiving it as such, with the consent of his wife, if he is married, into his family, and otherwise treating it as if it were a legitimate child, thereby adopts it as such; and such child is thereupon deemed for all purposes legitimate from the time of its birth. The foregoing provisions of this Chapter do not apply to such an adoption.”
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 Blackmun
delivered the opinion of the Court.
In O’Callahan v. Parker, 395 U. S. 258, decided June 2, 1969, by a five-to-three vote, the Court held that a court-martial may not try a member of our armed forces charged with attempted rape of a civilian, with housebreaking, and with assault with intent to rape, when the alleged offenses were committed off-post on American territory, when the soldier was on leave, and when the charges could have been prosecuted in a civilian court. What is necessary for a court-martial, the Court said, is that the crime be “service connected.” 395 U. S., at 272.
O’Callahan’s military trial, of course, was without those constitutional guarantees, including trial by jury, to which he would have been entitled had he been prosecuted in a federal civilian court in the then Territory of Hawaii where the alleged crimes were committed.
O’Callahan already has occasioned a substantial amount of scholarly comment. Much of it characterizes the decision as a significant one because it is said to depart from long-established, or at least long-accepted, concepts. Some of the literature is generally approving. Some of it is generally critical. Some of it, as did the O’Callahan dissent, 395 U. S., at 284, forecasts a period of confusion for both the civil and the military courts. Not surprisingly, much of the literature is concerned with the issue of O’Callahan’s retrospectivity. Some writers assert that the holding must be applied retroactively. Others predict that it will not be so applied. Naturally enough, O’Callahan has had its references in the federal courts of appeals and in a significant number of cases in the United States Court of Military Appeals.
In the present federal habeas corpus case, instituted several years after the applicant’s conviction by court-martial, certiorari was granted “limited to retroactivity and scope of O’Callahan v. Parker... 397 U. S. 934 (1970). We thus do not reconsider O’Callahan. Our task here concerns only its application.
I
Isiah Relford, in 1961, was a corporal on active duty in the United States Army. He was stationed at Fort Dix, New Jersey.
On September 4, 1961, the visiting 14-year-old sister of another serviceman, who was on leave from his Army station at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, and who came to Fort Dix when his wife delivered a child at the base hospital, was abducted at the point of a knife from an automobile in the hospital’s parking lot as she waited for her brother. The girl was raped by her abductor.
A few weeks later, on October 21, the wife of an Air Force man stationed at McGuire Air Force Base, adjacent to Fort Dix, was driving from her home on the base to the post exchange concession, also on the base, where she worked as a waitress. As the woman slowed her automobile for a stop sign, a man gained entry to the car from the passenger side and, with a knife at her throat, commanded the woman to drive on some distance to a dirt road in the fort’s training area. She was raped there.
The second victim, with her assailant still in the automobile, was able to make her predicament known to military police. The assailant was apprehended and turned out to be Relford. He immediately admitted consensual intercourse with the victim. The next morning, after a brief interrogation, he confessed to kidnaping and raping both women.
At the time of each incident Relford was in civilian clothes.
It is undisputed that these events all took place on the military reservation consisting of Fort Dix and the contiguous McGuire Air Force Base.
Relford, in due course, was charged with raping and kidnaping each of the women, in violation of Arts. 120 and 134, respectively, of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, 10 U. S. C. §§ 920 and 934. He was tried by a general court-martial in December 1961 and was convicted on the four charges. Relford’s sentence was the forfeiture of all pay and allowances, reduction to the lowest enlisted grade, and death. The customary reference to the staff judge advocate was made and the convening authority approved. U. C. M. J. Arts. 60-65, 10 U. S. C. §§ 860-865. Upon the review by the Army Board of Review, required under the Code’s Art. 66, 10 U. S. C. §866, the conviction was sustained; the sentence, however, was reduced to hard labor for 30 years, total forfeitures, and a dishonorable discharge. The Court of Military Appeals denied a petition for review on September 24, 1963. United States v. Relford, 14 U. S. C. M. A. 678.
Relford’s case thus became final more than five and a half years prior to this Court’s decision in O’Callahan v. Parker.
In 1967, Relford, being in custody in the United States Disciplinary Barracks at Leavenworth, Kansas, filed his application for a writ of habeas corpus with the United States District Court for the District of Kansas. He alleged inadequate representation by counsel in the military proceeding. Chief Judge Stanley found no merit in the claim and denied the application. On appeal, Relford repeated the inadequate-representation claim and, for the first time, raised questions as to the admissibility of his confession, as to a lineup procedure, and as to the fairness of his military trial. The Tenth Circuit reviewed all these claims on the merits, but affirmed the District Court’s denial of relief. Relford v. Commandant, 409 F. 2d 824 (1969).
The Tenth Circuit’s opinion was filed on April 23, 1969, several weeks prior to this Court’s decision in O’Callahan v. Parker. The issue as to the propriety of trial by court-martial, perhaps understandably, was not raised before Judge Stanley or on the appeal to the Tenth Circuit; the issue, however, had been presented in O’Callahan’s chronologically earlier appeal in his habeas proceeding. See United States ex rel. O’Callahan v. Parker, 390 F. 2d 360, 363-364 (CA3 1968).
II
This case, as did O’Callahan, obviously falls within the area of stress between the constitutional guarantees contained in the Constitution’s Art. Ill, § 2, cl. 3, in the Sixth Amendment, and possibly in the Fifth Amendment, on the one hand, and, on the other, the power vested in the Congress, by the Constitution’s Art. I, § 8, cl. 14, “To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces,” with its supportive Necessary and Proper provision in cl. 18, and the Fifth Amendment’s correlative exception for “cases arising in the land or naval forces.”
Relford argues that O’Callahan’s, requirement that the crime be “service connected” before a court-martial may sit demands that the crime itself be military in nature, that is, one involving a level of conduct required only of servicemen and, because of the special needs of the military, one demanding military disciplinary action. He further states that the charges against him- — like those against O’Callahan — do not involve a level of conduct required only of servicemen. He maintains that occurrence of the crimes on a military reservation and the military-dependent identity of one of his victims do not substantially support the military’s claim of a special need to try him.
In further detail, it is stated that the Court in O’Callahan recognized that a court-martial “remains to a significant degree a specialized part of the overall mechanism by which military discipline is preserved,” 395 U. S., at 265; that military courts, of necessity, are not impartial weighers of justice, but have as their primary consideration the enforcement of the unique discipline required of a fighting force; and that, as a consequence, the court-martial must be limited to the “least possible power adequate to the end proposed.” United States ex rel. Toth v. Quarles, 350 U. S. 11, 23 (1955), citing Anderson v. Dunn, 6 Wheat. 204, 231 (1821).
It is then said that the level of conduct Relford is alleged to have violated, that is, intercourse only with consent, is the very same level required in the civilian community and is not altered by considerations of military dependency; that his alleged crimes are no more military than were O’Callahan’s; that the ability of the military to perform its mission remains the same whether the crimes with which he was charged were committed on base or off base; that any interest in the maintenance of order on the base is adequately served by apprehension of the offender and trial in a civilian court; that the on-post/off-post distinction has little meaning; that it is the nature of the crime that is important; that the crimes charged to Relford stand in contrast to purely military crimes such as desertion, absence without leave, missing movement, assaulting a superior commissioned officer, and being drunk on duty, U. C. M. J. Arts. 85, 86, 87, 90, and 112, 10 U. S. C. §§ 885, 886, 887, 890, and 912; and that only crimes of the latter type have “an immediate adverse impact upon the ability of the military to perform its mission,” and are “proper subjects for the exercise of military jurisdiction.”
Ill
In evaluating the force of this argument, the facts of O’Callahan and the precise holding in that case possess particular significance. We repeat:.O’Callahan was in military service at the time and was stationed at a base in American territory. His offenses, however, took place off base in a civilian hotel while he was on leave and not in uniform.
Mr. Justice Douglas, in speaking for the Court, said:
“In the present case petitioner was properly absent from his military base when he committed the crimes with which he is charged. There was no connection — not even the remotest one — between his military duties and the crimes in question. The crimes were not committed on a military post or enclave; nor was the person whom he attacked performing any duties relating to the military. Moreover, Hawaii, the situs of the crime, is not an armed camp under military control, as are some of our far-flung outposts.
“Finally, we deal with peacetime offenses, not with authority stemming from the war power. Civil courts were open. The offenses were committed within our territorial limits, not in the occupied zone of a foreign country. The offenses did not involve any question of the flouting of military authority, the security of a military post, or the integrity of military property.” 395 U. S., at 273-274.
We stress seriatim what is thus emphasized in the holding:
1. The serviceman’s proper absence from the base.
2. The crime’s commission away from the base.
3. Its commission at a place not under military control.
4. Its commission within our territorial limits and not in an occupied zone of a foreign country.
5. Its commission in peacetime and its being unrelated to authority stemming from the war power.
6. The absence of any connection between the defendant’s military duties and the crime.
7. The victim’s not being engaged in the performance of any duty relating to the military.
8. The presence and availability of a civilian court in which the case can be prosecuted.
9. The absence of any flouting of military authority.
10. The absence of any threat to a military post.
11. The absence of any violation of military property.
One might add still another factor implicit in the others:
12. The offense’s being among those traditionally prosecuted in civilian courts.
IV
This listing of factors upon which the Court relied for its result in O’Callahan reveals, of course, that it chose to take an ad hoc approach to cases where trial by court-martial is challenged. We therefore turn to those factors in Relford’s case that, as spelled out in O’Callahan’s, bear upon the court-martial issue.
It is at once apparent that elements 4, 6, 8, 11, and 12, and perhaps 5 and 9, operate in Relford’s favor as they did in O’Callahan’s: The offenses were committed within the territorial limits of the United States; there was no connection between Relford’s military duties and the crimes with which he was charged; courts in New Jersey were open and available for the prosecution of Relford; despite the Vietnam conflict we may assume for present purposes that the offenses were committed in peacetime and that they were' unrelated to any problem of authority stemming from the war power; military authority, directly at least, was not flouted; the integrity of military property was not violated; and the crimes of rape and kidnaping are traditionally cognizable in the civilian courts.
Just as clearly, however, the other elements, present and relied upon in O’Callahan’s case, are not at hand in Relford’s case. These are elements 1, 2, 3, 7, and 10: Relford was not absent from the base; the crimes were committed on the military enclave; the second victim, because of her duties at the post exchange and because of the fact that her abduction and the attack upon her took place as she was returning to the PX at the end of a short and approved break in her work, was engaged in the performance of a duty relating to the military; and the security of two women properly on the post was threatened and, indeed, their persons were violated.
There are still other significant aspects of the Relford offenses: The first victim was the sister of a serviceman who was then properly at the base. The second victim was the wife of a serviceman stationed at the base; she and her husband had quarters on the base and were living there. Tangible property properly on the base, that is, two automobiles, were forcefully and unlawfully entered.
Y
With the foregoing contrasting comparison of the pertinent factual elements of O’Callahan with those of Rel-ford’s case, we readily conclude that the crimes with which Relford was charged were triable by a military court. We do not agree with petitioner when he claims that the “apparent distinctions” between this case and O’Callahan “evaporate when viewed within the context of the'service-connected’ test.” We stress: (a) The essential and obvious interest of the military in the security of persons and of property on the military enclave. Relford concedes the existence of this vital interest. (b) The responsibility of the military commander for maintenance of order in his command and his authority to maintain that order. See Cafeteria & Restaurant Workers Union v. McElroy, 367 U. S. 886 (1961). Relford also concedes this, (c) The impact and adverse effect that a crime committed against a person or property on a military base, thus violating the base’s very security, has upon morale, discipline, reputation and integrity of the base itself, upon its personnel and upon the military operation and the military mission, (d) The conviction that Art. I, § 8, cl. 14, vesting in the Congress the power “To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces,” means, in appropriate areas beyond the purely military offense, more than the mere power to arrest a serviceman offender and turn him over to the civil authorities. The term “Regulation” itself implies, for those appropriate cases, the power to try and to punish, (e) The distinct possibility that civil courts, particularly nonfederal courts, will have less than complete interest, concern, and capacity for all the cases that vindicate the military’s disciplinary authority within its own community. See W. Winthrop, Military Law and Precedents 725 (2d ed. 1896, 1920 Reprint) ; Wilkinson, The Narrowing Scope of Court-Martial Jurisdiction: O’Callahan v. Parker, 9 Washburn L. J. 193, 208 (1970). (f) The very positive implication in O’Callahan itself, arising from its emphasis on the absence of service-connected elements there, that the presence of factors such as geographical and military relationships have important contrary significance, (g) The recognition in O’Callahan that, historically, a crime against the person of one associated with the post was subject even to the General Article. The comment from Winthrop, supra, at 724:
“Thus such crimes as theft from or robbery of an officer, soldier, post trader, or camp-follower... inasmuch as they directly affect military relations and prejudice military discipline, may properly be— as they frequently have been — the subject of charges under the present Article. On the other hand, where such crimes are committed upon or against civilians, and not at or near a military camp or post, or in breach or violation of a military duty or order, they are not in general to be regarded as within the description of the Article, but are to be treated as civil rather than military offenses.” (Footnotes omitted.)
cited both by the Court in O’Callahan, 395 U. S., at 274 n. 19, and by the dissent at 278-279, certainly so indicates and even goes so far as to include an offense against a civilian committed “near” a military post, (h) The misreading and undue restriction of O’Callahan if it were interpreted as confining the court-martial to the purely military offenses that have no counterpart in nonmilitary criminal law. (i) Our inability appropriately and meaningfully to draw any line between a post’s strictly military areas and its nonmilitary areas, or between a serviceman-defendant’s on-duty and off-duty activities and hours on the post.
This leads us to hold, and we do so hold, that when a serviceman is charged with an offense committed within or at the geographical boundary of a military post and violative of the security of a person or of property there, that offense may be tried by a court-martial. Expressing it another way: a serviceman’s crime against the person of an individual upon the base or against property on the base is “service connected,” within the meaning of that requirement as specified in O’Callahan, 395 U. S., at 272. This delineation, we feel, fully comports with the standard of “the least possible power adequate to the end proposed” referred to in O’Callahan, 395 U. S., at 265.
By this measure, Relford’s alleged offenses were obviously service connected. There is, therefore, no constitutional or statutory barrier and Relford was properly tried by a court-martial.
VI
We recognize that any ad hoc approach leaves outer boundaries undetermined. O’Callahan marks an area, perhaps not the limit, for the concern of the civil courts and where the military may not enter. The case today marks an area, perhaps not the limit, where the court-martial is appropriate and permissible. What lies between is for decision at another time.
VII
Having reached this result on the court-martial issue, the additional issue that the parties have argued, of O’Callahan’s retrospectivity, need not be decided. See Alabama State Federation of Labor v. McAdory, 325 U. S. 450, 461 (1945). We recognize that the retro-activity question has important dimensions, both direct and collateral, and that the Government strongly urges that the question be decided here and now. We have concluded, however, that the issue is better resolved in other litigation where, perhaps, it would be solely dis-positive of the case. We take some comfort in the hope that the present decision should eliminate at least some of the confusion that the parties and commentators say has emerged from O’Callahan.,
Affirmed.
Everett, O’Callahan v. Parker — Milestone or Millstone in Military Justice?, 1969 Duke L. J. 853; McCoy, Equal Justice for Servicemen: The Situation Before and Since O’Callahan v. Parker, 16 N. Y. L. F. 1 (1970); Nelson & Westbrook, Court-Martial Jurisdiction Over Servicemen for “Civilian” Offenses: An Analysis of O’Callahan v. Parker, 54 Minn. L. Rev. 1 (1969); Wilkinson, The Narrowing Scope of Court-Martial Jurisdiction: O’Callahan v. Parker, 9 Washburn L. J. 193 (1970); Wurtzel, O’Callahan v. Parker: Where Are We Now?, 56 A. B. A. J. 686 (1970); The Supreme Court 1968 Term, 83 Harv. L. Rev. 7, 212-220 (1969); O’Callahan v. Parker, 395 U. S. 258 (1969): New Limitation on Court-Martial Jurisdiction, 61 J. Crim. L. C. & P. S. 195 (1970); Comment, 22 Baylor L. Rev. 64 (1970); Comment, 18 J. Pub. L. 471 (1969); Comment, 21 Mercer L. Rev. 311 (1969); Comment, 7 San Diego L. Rev. 55 (1970); Comment, 15 Vill. L. Rev. 712 (1970); Comment, 21 S. C. L. Rev. 781 (1969); Note, 70 Col. L. Rev. 1262 (1970); Note, 18 Kan. L. Rev. 335 (1970); Note, 3 Loyola U. L. Rev. 188 (1970); Note, 24 U. Miami L. Rev. 399 (1970); Note, 68 Mich. L. Rev. 1016 (1970); Note, 48 N. C. L. Rev. 380 (1970); Note, 64 Nw. U. L. Rev. 930 (1970); Recent Cases, 49 Ore. L. Rev. 237 (1970); Note, 23 Sw. L. J. 948 (1969); Note, 37 Tenn. L. Rev. 421 (1970); Note, 44 Tul. L. Rev. 417 (1970); 36 Brooklyn L. Rev. 259 (1970); 19 Buffalo L. Rev. 400 (1970); 38 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 170 (1969); 31 Ohio St. L. J. 630 (1970); 22 Vand. L. Rev. 1377 (1969).
McCoy, supra; 61 J. Crim. L. C. & P. S. 195; Note, 18 Kan. L. Rev. 335; 19 Buffalo L. Rev. 400; Comment, 18 J. Pub. L. 471.
Everett, supra; Nelson & Westbrook, supra; Wilkinson, supra; Wurtzel, supra; Comment, 15 Vill. L. Rev. 712; Note, 24 U. Miami L. Rev. 399; 38 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 170; 22 Vand. L. Rev. 1377.
Comment, 22 Baylor L. Rev. 64; Comment, 18 J. Pub. L. 471; Note, 18 Kan. L. Rev. 335; Note, 23 Sw. L. J. 948; Note, 24 U. Miami L. Rev. 399; 31 Ohio St. L. J. 630.
Wilkinson, supra; Comment, 22 Baylor L. Rev. 64; Note, 64 Nw. U. L. Rev. 930.
Nelson & Westbrook, supra; Comment, 21 S. C. L. Rev. 781; Note, 3 Loyola U. L. Rev. 188, 198 n. 67; 44 Tul. L. Rev. 417, 424.
See, e. g., Latney v. Ignatius, 135 U. S. App. D. C. 65, 416 F. 2d 821 (1969); Harris v. Ciccone, 417 F. 2d 479, 488 (CA8 1969), cert. denied, 397 U. S. 1078; Gallagher v. United States, 191 Ct. Cl. 546, 423 F. 2d 1371 (1970), cert. denied, 400 U. S. 849; Silvero v. Chief of Naval Air Basic Training, 428 F. 2d 1009 (CA5 1970); King v. Moseley, 430 F. 2d 732 (CA10 1970); Zenor v. Vogt, 434 F. 2d 189 (CA5 1970).
United States v. Borys, 18 U. S. C. M. A. 547, 40 C. M. R. 259 (1969); United States v. Prather, 18 U. S. C. M. A. 560, 40 C. M. R. 272 (1969); United States v. Beeker, 18 U. S. C. M. A. 563, 40 C. M. R. 275 (1969); United States v. DeRonde, 18 U. S. C. M. A. 575, 40 C. M. R. 287 (1969); United States v. Boyd, 18 U. S. C. M. A. 581, 40 C. M. R. 293 (1969); United States v. Cochran, 18 U. S. C. M. A. 588, 40 C. M. R. 300 (1969); United States v. Chandler, 18 U. S. C. M. A. 593, 40 C. M. R. 305 (1969); United States v. Crapo, 18 U. S. C. M. A. 594, 40 C. M. R. 306 (1969); United States v. Harris, 18 U. S. C. M. A. 596, 40 C. M. R. 308 (1969); United States v. Castro, 18 U. S. C. M. A. 598, 40 C. M. R. 310 (1969); United States v. Henderson, 18 U. S. C. M. A. 601, 40 C. M. R. 313 (1969); United States v. Riehle, 18 U. S. C. M. A. 603, 40 C. M. R. 315 (1969); United States v. Williams, 18 U. S. C. M. A. 605, 40 C. M. R. 317 (1969); United States v. Paxiao, 18 U. S. C. M. A. 608, 40 C. M. R. 320 (1969); United States v. Smith, 18 U. S. C. M. A. 609, 40 C. M. R. 321 (1969); United States v. Shockley, 18 U. S. C. M. A. 610, 40 C. M. R. 322 (1969); United States v. Rose, 19 U. S. C. M. A. 3, 41 C. M. R. 3 (1969); United States v. Armstrong, 19 U. S. C. M. A. 5, 41 C. M. R. 5 (1969); United States v. Rego, 19 U. S. C. M. A. 9, 41 C. M. R. 9 (1969); United States v. Camacho, 19 U. S. C. M. A. 11, 41 C. M. R. 11 (1969); United States v. Cook, 19 U. S. C. M. A. 13, 41 C. M. R. 13 (1969); United States v. Armes, 19 U. S. C. M. A. 15, 41 C. M. R. 15 (1969); United States v. Morisseau, 19 U. S. C. M. A. 17, 41 C. M. R. 17 (1969); United States v. Peak, 19 U. S. C. M. A. 19, 41 C. M. R. 19 (1969); United States v. Plamondon, 19 U. S. C. M. A. 22, 41 C. M. R. 22 (1969); United States v. Sharkey, 19 U. S. C. M. A. 26, 41 C. M. R. 26 (1969); United States v. Weinstein, 19 U. S. C. M. A. 29, 41 C. M. R. 29 (1969); United States v. Allen, 19 U. S. C. M. A. 31, 41 C. M. R. 31 (1969); United States v. Safford, 19 U. S. C. M. A. 33, 41 C. M. R. 33 (1969); United States v. Frazier, 19 U. S. C. M. A. 40, 41 C. M. R. 40 (1969); United States v. Nichols, 19 U. S. C. M. A. 43, 41 C. M. R. 43 (1969); United States v. Hallahan, 19 U. S. C. M. A. 46, 41 C. M. R. 46 (1969); United States v. Huff, 19 U. S. C. M. A. 56, 41 C. M. R. 56 (1969); United States v. Keaton, 19 U. S. C. M. A. 64, 41 C. M. R. 64 (1969); United States v. Easter, 19 U. S. C. M. A. 68, 41 C. M. R. 68 (1969); United States v. Stevenson, 19 U. S. C. M. A. 69, 41 C. M. R. 69 (1969); United States v. Everson, 19 U. S. C. M. A. 70, 41 C. M. R. 70 (1969); United States v. Fryman, 19 U. S. C. M. A. 71, 41 C. M. R. 71 (1969); United States v. Higginbotham, 19 U. S. C. M. A. 73, 41 C. M. R. 73 (1969); United States v. Adams, 19 U. S. C. M. A. 75, 41 C. M. R. 75 (1969); United States v. Wysingle, 19 U. S. C. M. A. 81, 41 C. M. R. 81 (1969); United States v. Gill, 19 U. S. C. M. A. 93, 41 C. M. R. 93 (1969); United States v. McGonigal, 19 U. S. C. M. A. 94, 41 C. M. R. 94 (1969); United States v. Fields, 19 U. S. C. M. A. 119, 41 C. M. R. 119 (1969); United States v. Bryan, 19 U. S. C. M. A. 184, 41 C. M. R. 184 (1970); United States v. Blackwell, 19 U. S. C. M. A. 196, 41 C. M. R. 196 (1970); Mercer v. Dillon, 19 U. S. C. M. A. 264, 41 C. M. R. 264 (1970); United States v. Peterson, 19 U. S. C. M. A. 319, 41 C. M. R. 319 (1970); Gosa v. United States, 19 U. S. C. M. A. 327, 41 C. M. R. 327 (1970); Wright v. United States, 19 U. S. C. M. A. 328, 41 C. M. R. 328 (1970); Hooper v. Laird, 19 U. S. C. M. A. 329, 41 C. M. R. 329 (1970); United States v. Haagenson, 19 U. S. C. M. A. 332, 41 C. M. R. 332 (1970); In re Watson, 19 U. S. C. M. A. 401, 42 C. M. R. 3 (1970); Brant v. United States, 19 U. S. C. M. A. 493, 42 C. M. R. 95 (1970); United States v. Daniels, 19 U. S. C. M. A. 529, 42 C. M. R. 131 (1970); United States v. Wills, 20 U. S. C. M. A. 8, 42 C. M. R. 200 (1970); United States v. Lovejoy, 20 U. S. C. M. A. 18, 42 C. M. R. 210 (1970); United States v. Ortiz, 20 U. S. C. M. A. 21, 42 C. M. R. 213 (1970); United States v. Hargrave, 20 U. S. C. M. A. 27, 42 C. M. R. 219 (1970); United States v. Davis, 20 U. S. C. M. A. 27, 42 C. M. R. 219 (1970); United States v. Snyder, 20 U. S. C. M. A. 102, 42 C. M. R. 294 (1970); United States v. Morley, 20 U. S. C. M. A. 179, 43 C. M. R. 19 (1970).
Rape is specified in Art. 120 (a):
“§ 920. Art. 120. Rape and carnal
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.
We granted certiorari to decide whether the Navajo Tribe of Indians may tax business activities conducted on its land without first obtaining the approval of the Secretary of the Interior.
I
In 1978, the Navajo Tribal Council, the governing body of the Navajo Tribe of Indians, enacted two ordinances imposing taxes known as the Possessory Interest Tax and the Business Activity Tax. The Possessory Interest Tax is measured by the value of leasehold interests in tribal lands; the tax rate is 3% of the value of those interests. The Business Activity Tax is assessed on receipts from the sale of property produced or extracted within the Navajo Nation, and from the sale of services within the nation; a tax rate of 5% is applied after subtracting a standard deduction and specified expenses. The tax laws apply to both Navajo and non-Indian businesses, with dissatisfied taxpayers enjoying the right of appeal to the Navajo Tax Commission and the Navajo Court of Appeals.
The Navajo Tribe, uncertain whether federal approval was required, submitted the two tax laws to the Bureau of Indian Affairs of the Department of the Interior. The Bureau informed the Tribe that no federal statute or regulation required the Department of the Interior to approve or disapprove the taxes.
Before any taxes were collected, petitioner, a substantial mineral lessee on the Navajo Reservation, brought this action seeking to invalidate the taxes. Petitioner claimed in the United States District Court for the District of Arizona that the Navajo taxes were invalid without approval of the Secretary of the Interior. The District Court agreed and permanently enjoined the Tribe from enforcing its tax laws against petitioner.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed. 731 F. 2d 597 (1984). Relying on Southland Royalty Co. v. Navajo Tribe of Indians, 715 F. 2d 486 (CA10 1983), it held that no federal statute or principle of law mandated Secretarial approval.
We granted certiorari. 469 U. S. 879 (1984). We affirm.
II
In Merrion v. Jicarilla Apache Tribe, 455 U. S. 130 (1982), we held that the “power to tax is an essential attribute of Indian sovereignty because it is a necessary instrument of self-government and territorial management.” Id., at 137. Congress, of course, may erect “checkpoints that must be cleared before a tribal tax can take effect.” Id., at 155. The issue in this case is whether Congress has enacted legislation requiring Secretarial approval of Navajo tax laws.
Petitioner suggests that the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 (IRA or Act), 48 Stat. 984, 25 U. S. C. §461 et seq., is such a law. Section 16 of the IRA authorizes any tribe on a reservation to adopt a constitution and bylaws, subject to the approval of the Secretary of the Interior. 25 U. S. C. §476. The Act, however, does not provide that a tribal constitution must condition the power to tax on Secretarial approval. Indeed, the terms of the IRA do not govern tribes, like the Navajo, which declined to accept its provisions. 25 U. S. C. §478.
Many tribal constitutions written under the IRA in the 1930’s called for Secretarial approval of tax laws affecting non-Indians. See, e. g., Constitution and Bylaws of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe of South Dakota, Art. 4, § 1(h) (1935). But there were exceptions to this practice. For example, the 1937 Constitution and By-laws of the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe of Michigan authorized the Tribal Council, without Secretarial approval, to “create and maintain a tribal council fund by . . . levying taxes or assessments against members or nonmembers.” Art. 6, § 1(g). Thus the most that can be said about this period of constitution writing is that the Bureau of Indian Affairs, in assisting the drafting of tribal constitutions, had a policy of including provisions for Secretarial approval; but that policy was not mandated by Congress.
Nor do we agree that Congress intended to recognize as legitimate only those tribal taxes authorized by constitutions written under the IRA. Long before the IRA was enacted, the Senate Judiciary Committee acknowledged the validity of a tax imposed by the Chickasaw Nation on non-Indians. See S. Rep. No. 698, 45th Cong., 3d Sess., 1-2 (1879). And in 1934, the Solicitor of the Department of the Interior published a formal opinion stating that a tribe possesses “the power of taxation [which] may be exercised over members of the tribe and over nonmembers.” Powers of Indian Tribes, 55 I. D. 14, 46. The 73d Congress, in passing the IRA to advance tribal self-government, see Williams v. Lee, 358 U. S. 217, 220 (1959), did nothing to limit the established, pre-existing power of the Navajos to levy taxes.
Some tribes that adopted constitutions in the early years of the IRA may be dependent on the Government in a way that the Navajos are not. However, such tribes are free, with the backing of the Interior Department, to amend their constitutions to remove the requirement of Secretarial approval. See, e. g., Revised Constitution and Bylaws of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, Art. 8, § 1(r) (1975).
Petitioner also argues that the Indian Mineral Leasing Act of 1938, 52 Stat. 347, 25 U. S. C. §396a et seq., requires Secretarial approval of Navajo tax laws. Sections 1 through 3 of the 1938 Act establish procedures for leasing oil and gas interests on tribal lands. And §4 provides that “[a]ll operations under any oil, gas, or other mineral lease issued pursuant to the [Act] shall be subject to the rules and regulations promulgated by the Secretary of the Interior.” 25 U. S. C. §396d. Under this grant of authority, the Secretary has issued comprehensive regulations governing the operation of oil and gas leases. See 25 CFR pt. 211 (1984). The Secretary, however, does not demand that tribal laws taxing mineral production be submitted for his approval.
Petitioner contends that the Secretary’s decision not to review such tax laws is inconsistent with the statute. In Merrion, we emphasized the difference between a tribe’s “role as commercial partner,” and its “role as sovereign.” 455 U. S., at 145-146. The tribe acts as a commercial partner when it agrees to sell the right to the use of its land for mineral production, but the tribe acts as a sovereign when it imposes a tax on economic activities within its jurisdiction. Id., at 146; cf. White v. Massachusetts Council of Construction Employers, Inc., 460 U. S. 204, 206-208 (1983). Plainly Congress, in passing §4 of the 1938 Act, could make this same distinction.
Even assuming that the Secretary could review tribal laws taxing mineral production, it does not follow that he must do so. We are not inclined to impose upon the Secretary a duty that he has determined is not needed to satisfy the 1938 Act’s basic purpose — to maximize tribal revenues from reservation lands. See S. Rep. No. 985, 75th Cong., 1st Sess., 2-3 (1937). Thus, in light of our obligation to “tread lightly in the absence of clear indications of legislative intent,” Santa Clara Pueblo v. Martinez, 436 U. S. 49, 60 (1978), we will not interpret a grant of authority to regulate leasing operations as a command to the Secretary to review every tribal tax relating to mineral production.
Finally, we do not believe that statutes requiring Secretarial supervision in other contexts, see, e. g., 25 U. S. C. §§81, 311-321, reveal that Congress has limited the Navajo Tribal Council’s authority to tax non-Indians. As we noted in New Mexico v. Mescalero Apache Tribe, 462 U. S. 324 (1983), the Federal Government is “firmly committed to the goal of promoting tribal self-government.” Id., at 334-335; see, e. g., Indian Financing Act of 1974, 88 Stat. 77, 25 U. S. C. § 1451 et seq. The power to tax members and non-Indians alike is surely an essential attribute of such self-government; the Navajos can gain independence from the Federal Government only by financing their own police force, schools, and social programs. See President’s Statement on Indian Policy, 19 Weekly Comp. Pres. Doc. 98, 99 (Jan. 24, 1983).
Ill
The Navajo Government has been called “probably the most elaborate” among tribes. H. R. Rep. No. 78, 91st Cong., 1st Sess., 8 (1969). The legitimacy of the Navajo Tribal Council, the freely elected governing body of the Navajos, is beyond question. See, e. g., 25 U. S. C. §§ 635(b), 637, 638. . We agree with the Court of Appeals that neither Congress nor the Navajos have found it necessary to subject the Tribal Council’s tax laws to review by the Secretary of the Interior; accordingly, the judgment is
Affirmed.
Justice Powell took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
The Ninth Circuit rejected petitioner’s other contentions, which included Commerce Clause and contractual challenges to the two taxes. Petitioner has not sought review of this aspect of the Court of Appeals’ judgment.
For example, in Washington v. Confederated Tribes of Colville Indian Reservation, 447 U. S. 134, 152-154 (1980), we sustained taxes imposed on nonmembers by the Colville and Lummi Tribes even though the Tribes were not organized under the IRA.
Section 2 of the 1938 Act provides a limited exemption for tribes organized under the IRA. 25 U. S. C. § 396b. Because we conclude that the 1938 Act does not require the Secretary to review tribal taxes, however, the Navajo Tribe’s decision not to accept the IRA is irrelevant.
The Tribal Council has 88 members who are elected every four years. There are approximately 79,000 registered tribal voters, and 69% of these persons voted in the last tribal election in 1982.
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 White
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Federal Communications Commission has adopted regulations that establish technical standards to govern the quality of cable television signals and that prohibit local authorities from imposing more stringent technical standards. The issue is whether in doing so the Commission has exceeded its statutory authority.
I-H
This case deals with yet another development in the ongoing efforts of federal, state, and local authorities to regulate different aspects of cable television over the past three decades. See Capital Cities Cable, Inc. v. Crisp, 467 U. S. 691, 700-705 (1984); United States v. Southwestern Cable Co., 392 U. S. 157, 161-178 (1968). With the incipient development of cable television in the 1950’s and 1960’s from what had been more generally known as community antenna television systems, the Federal Communications Commission began to assert regulatory authority in this area. See CATV Second Report and Order, 2 F. C. C. 2d 725 (1966). In 1972, the Commission first asserted authority over technical aspects of cable television and devised technical standards to govern the transmission of broadcast signals by cable, though without pre-empting regulation of similar matters by state or local franchising authorities. Cable Television Report and Order, 36 F. C. C. 2d 143, on reconsideration, 36 F. C. C. 2d 326 (1972), aff’d sub nom. American Civil Liberties Union v. FCC, 523 F. 2d 1344 (CA9 1975). Within two years, however, the Commission became convinced from its experience with conflicting federal and local technical standards that there is “a compelling need for national uniformity in cable television technical standards” which would require it to pre-empt the field of signal-quality regulation in order to meet the “necessity to rationalize, interrelate, and bring into uniformity the myriad standards now being developed by numerous jurisdictions.” Cable Television Report and Order, 49 F. C. C. 2d 470, 477, 480 (1974). The Commission explained that a multiplicity of mandatory and nonuniform technical requirements undermined “the ultimate workability of the over-all system,” could have “a deleterious effect on the development of new cable services,” and could “seriously imped[e]” the “development and marketing of signal source, transmission, and terminal equipment.” Id., at 478-479.
In 1984, the Court approved the pre-emptive authority that the Commission had asserted over the regulation of cable television systems. We held that in the Communications Act of 1934, Congress authorized the Commission “to regulate all aspects of interstate communication by wire or radio,” including the subsequently developed medium of cable television, and that the Commission’s authority “extends to all regulatory actions ‘necessary to ensure the achievement of the Commission’s statutory responsibilities.’” Crisp, supra, at 700, quoting FCC v. Midwest Video Corp., 440 U. S. 689, 706 (1979). Although the state law that was invalidated in Crisp regulated commercial advertising on cable television, rather than the technical quality of cable television signals, the Court recognized that for 10 years the Commission had “retained exclusive jurisdiction over all operational aspects of cable communication, including signal carriage and technical standards.” Crisp, supra, at 702.
A few months after the Court’s decision in Crisp, Congress enacted the Cable Communications Policy Act of 1984 (Cable Act or Act), 98 Stat. 2780, 47 U. S. C. §§521-559 (1982 ed., Supp. IV). Among its objectives in passing the Cable Act, Congress purported to “establish a national policy concerning cable communications” and to “minimize unnecessary regulation that would impose an undue economic burden on cable systems.” 47 U. S. C. §§521(1), (6) (1982 ed., Supp. IV). The Act was also intended to “establish guidelines for the exercise of Federal, State, and local authority with respect to the regulation of cable systems” through procedures and standards that “encourage the growth and development of cable systems and which assure that cable systems are responsive to the needs and interests of the local community.” §§521(3), (2) (1982 ed., Supp. IV).
The Cable Act left franchising to state or local authorities; those authorities were also empowered to specify the facilities and equipment that franchisees were to use, provided such requirements were “consistent with this title.” Cable Act, §§624(a),(b), 47 U. S. C. §§544(a),(b) (1982 ed., Supp. IV). Section 624(e) of the Cable Act provided that “[t]he Commission may establish technical standards relating to the facilities and equipment of cable systems which a franchising authority may require in the franchise.” 47 U. S. C. § 544(e) (1982 ed., Supp. IV).
In 1985, the Commission promulgated regulations that would establish technical standards governing signal quality for one of four different classes of cable television channels and that would forbid local cable franchising authorities to impose their own standards on any of the four classes of channels. 50 Fed. Reg. 7801, 7802 (1985), 47 CFR pt. 76 (1986). The Commission eventually adopted a modified version of these regulations, which reaffirmed the Commission’s established policy of pre-empting local regulation of technical signal quality standards for cable television. 50 Fed. Reg., at 52462, 52464-52465. The Commission found its statutory authority to adopt the regulations in § 624(e) of the Cable Act, 47 U. S. C. § 544(e) (1982 ed., Supp. IV), and in 47 U. S. C. §§ 154(i) and 303(r). 50 Fed. Reg., at 52466. Petitioners (the cities of New York, Miami, and Wheaton, and the National League of Cities) sought review of the regulations in federal court, where they contested the scope of the pre-emptive authority claimed by the Commission and insisted' that franchising authorities could impose stricter technical standards than those specified by the Commission.
The Court of Appeals granted partial relief to petitioners. 259 U. S. App. D. C. 191, 814 F. 2d 720 (1987). It noted that the Commission had adopted technical standards applicable to one class of cable television channels, but had left the other three classes of channels completely unregulated. It agreed with petitioners that the Commission had acted arbitrarily and capriciously when it did not adopt technical standards for the latter three classes of channels, yet prohibited local authorities from adopting such standards and ignored the apparent conflict between these actions and the language of the Cable Act. It therefore vacated this part of the rule and remanded to the Commission for further proceedings. The court’s holding was unanimous on this point, and that part of its decision is not at issue here.
The Court of Appeals divided, however, over the propriety of the Commission’s technical standards that apply to the first class of cable channels and that pre-empt more stringent local regulations. The majority of the panel upheld preemption, ruling that Congress intended federal regulations like these to supersede local law and that the Commission acted within the broad confines of the pre-emptive authority delegated to it by Congress when it adopted the regulations with respect to this one class of channels. One judge dissented, contending that the majority had sanctioned preemption without a clear manifestation of congressional intent, contrary to this Court’s decisions. We granted certiorari, 484 U. S. 962 (1987), and we now affirm.
I — I I — I
When the Federal Government acts within the authority it possesses under the Constitution, it is empowered to preempt state laws to the extent it is believed that such action is necessary to achieve its purposes. The Supremacy Clause of the Constitution gives force to federal action of this kind by stating that “the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance” of the Constitution “shall be the supreme Law of the Land.” U. S. Const., Art. VI, cl. 2. The phrase “Laws of the United States” encompasses both federal statutes themselves and federal regulations that are properly adopted in accordance with statutory authorization. For this reason, at the same time that our decisions have established a number of ways in which Congress can be understood to have pre-empted state law, see Louisiana Public Service Comm’n v. FCC, 476 U. S. 355, 368-369 (1986), we have also recognized that “a federal agency acting within the scope of its congressionally delegated authority may pre-empt state regulation” and hence render unenforceable state or local laws that are otherwise not inconsistent with federal law. Id., at 369.
This case involves the latter kind of pre-emption, and here the inquiry becomes whether the federal agency has properly exercised its own delegated authority rather than simply whether Congress has properly exercised the legislative power. Thus we have emphasized that in a situation where state law is claimed to be pre-empted by federal regulation, a “narrow focus on Congress’ intent to supersede state law [is] misdirected,” for “[a] pre-emptive regulation’s force does not depend on express congressional authorization to displace state law.” Fidelity Federal Savings & Loan Assn. v. De la Cuesta, 458 U. S. 141, 154 (1982). Instead, the correct focus is on the federal agency that seeks to displace state law and on the proper bounds of its lawful authority to undertake such action. The statutorily authorized regulations of an agency will pre-empt any state or local law that conflicts with such regulations or frustrates the purposes thereof. Beyond that, however, in proper circumstances the agency may determine that its authority is exclusive and pre-empts any state efforts to regulate in the forbidden area. Crisp, 467 U. S., at 700; De la Cuesta, supra, at 152-154. It has long been recognized that many of the responsibilities conferred on federal agencies involve a broad grant of authority to reconcile conflicting policies. Where this is trúe, the Court has cautioned that even in the area of pre-emption, if the agency’s choice to pre-empt “represents a reasonable accommodation of conflicting policies that were committed to the agency’s care by the statute, we should not disturb it unless it appears from the statute or its legislative history that the accommodation is not one that Congress would have sanctioned.” United States v. Shimer, 367 U. S. 374, 383 (1961); see also Crisp, supra, at 700.
rH HH I — I
A
In this case, there is no room for doubting that the Commission intended to pre-empt state technical standards governing the quality of cable television signals. In adopting the regulations at issue here, the Commission said:
“Technical standards that vary from community to community create potentially serious negative consequences for cable system operators and cable consumers in terms of the cost of service and the ability of the industry to respond to technological changes. To address this problem, we proposed in the Notice to retain technical standards guidelines at the federal level which could be used, but could not be exceeded, in state and local technical quality regulations.
“After a review of the record in this proceeding, we continue to believe that the policy adopted in 1974 was effective, should remain in force, and is entirely consistent with both the specific provisions and the general policy objectives underlying the 1984 Cable Act. This preemption policy has constrained state and local regulation of cable technical performance to Class I channels and has prohibited performance standards more restrictive than those contained in the Commission’s rules. The reasons that caused the adoption of this policy appear to be as valid today as they were when the policy was first adopted.” 50 Fed. Reg., at 52464.
As noted above, the policy adopted by the Commission in 1974, which was continued in effect by the 1985 regulations, was a pre-emptive policy applying in the area of technical standards governing signal quality. 49 F. C. C. 2d, at 477-481. Since the Commission has explicitly stated its intent to exercise exclusive authority in this area and to preempt state and local regulation, this case does not turn on whether there is an actual conflict between federal and state law here, or whether compliance with both federal and state standards would be physically impossible. De la Cuesta, supra, at 153.
B
The second part of the inquiry is whether the Commission is legally authorized to pre-empt state and local regulation that would establish complementary or additional technical standards, where it clearly is possible for a cable operator to comply with these standards in addition to the federal standards. We have identified at least two reasons why this part of the inquiry is crucial to our determination of the preemption issue. “First, an agency literally has no power to act, let alone pre-empt the validly enacted legislation of a sovereign State, unless and until Congress confers power upon it. Second, the best way of determining whether Congress intended the regulations of an administrative agency to displace state law is to examine the nature and scope of the authority granted by Congress to the agency.” Louisiana Public Service Comm’n, 476 U. S., at 374. The second reason was particularly relevant in Louisiana Public Service Comm’n because there we were obliged to assess the import of a statutory section in which Congress appeared to have explicitly limited the Commission’s jurisdiction, so as to prohibit it from pre-empting state laws concerning the manner in which telephone companies could depreciate certain plant and equipment. Id., at 369-376, 379, construing 47 U. S. C. § 152(b).
We conclude here that the Commission acted within the statutory authority conferred by Congress when it preempted state and local technical standards governing the quality of cable television signals. When Congress enacted the Cable Act in 1984, it acted against a background of federal pre-emption on this particular issue. For the preceding 10 years, the Commission had pre-empted such state and local technical standards under its broad delegation of authority to “[m]ake such rules and regulations and prescribe such restrictions and conditions, not inconsistent with law, as maybe necessary to carry out the provisions of this chapter [the communications laws, Title 47 of the U. S. Code, Chapter 5],” as a means of implementing its legitimate discretionary power to determine what the “public convenience, interest, or necessity requires” in this field. 47 U. S. C. §§303 and 303(r); see also 49 F. C. C. 2d, at 481; 47 U. S. C. § 154(i). The Court’s decision in Crisp, which was handed down during the time Congress was considering the legislation that within a few months became the Cable Act, broadly upheld the Commission’s pre-emptive authority in very similar respects. 467 U. S., at 701-705.
In the Cable Act, Congress sanctioned in relevant respects the regulatory scheme that the Commission had been following since 1974. In § 624 of the Cable Act, Congress specified that the local franchising authority could regulate “services, facilities, and equipment” in certain respects, and could enforce those requirements, but § 624(e) of the Act grants the Commission the power to “establish technical standards relating to the facilities and equipment of cable systems which a franchising authority may require in the franchise.” 47 U. S. C. §§544(a)-(e) (1982 ed., Supp. IV). This mirrors the state of the regulatory law before the Cable Act was passed, which permitted the local franchising authorities to regulate many aspects of cable services, facilities, and equipment but not to impose technical standards governing cable signal quality, since the Commission had explicitly reserved this power to the Federal Government.
It is also quite significant that nothing in the Cable Act or its legislative history indicates that Congress explicitly disapproved of the Commission’s pre-emption of local technical standards. Given the difficulties the Commission had experienced in this area, which had caused it to reverse its ground in 1974 after two years of unhappy experience with the practical consequences of inconsistent technical standards imposed by various localities, we doubt that Congress intended to overturn the Commission’s decade-old policy without discussion or even any suggestion that it was doing so. To the contrary, the House Report which discusses this section of the Act portrays it as nothing more than a straightforward endorsement of current law:
“Subsection (e) allows the Commission to set technical standards related to facilities and equipment required by a franchising authority pursuant to a franchising agreement. This provision does not affect the authority of a franchising authority to establish standards regarding facilities and equipment in the franchise pursuant to section 624(b) which are not inconsistent with standards established by the FCC under this subsection.” H. R. Rep. No. 98-934, p. 70 (1984).
This passage from the House Report makes clear that the Act was not intended to work any significant change in the law in the respects relevant to this case. By noting that § 624(e) authorizes “the Commission to set technical standards related to facilities and equipment” and that it “does not affect the authority of a franchising authority to establish standards regarding facilities and equipment” that are not inconsistent with Commission standards, the House Report indicates both that Congress did not intend to remove from the Commission its longstanding power to establish pre-emptive technical standards, and that Congress did not intend to “affect the authority of a franchising authority” to set standards in these and similar matters regarding cable facilities and equipment. In particular, Congress did not manifest any intent to “affect the authority” of local franchising authorities by giving them the power to supplement the technical standards set by the Commission with respect to the quality of cable signals, a power which they generally had not been permitted to exercise for the last 10 years and which, according to the Commission’s consistent view, disserves the public interest. Petitioners insist that under §624, as evidenced by the passage from the House Report quoted above, a franchising authority may specify any technical standards that do not conflict with Commission standards and hence may set stricter standards for signal quality. But this disregards the Commission’s own power to pre-empt, an authority that we do not believe Congress intended to take away in the Cable Act. And it also disregards the Commission’s explicit findings, based on considerable experience in this area, that complementary or additional technical standards set by state and local authorities do conflict with the basic objectives of federal policy with respect to cable television — findings that the Commission first articulated in 1974 and then reiterated in 1986. See 49 F. C. C. 2d, at 478-479; 50 Fed. Reg., at 52464-52465.
In sum, we find nothing in the Cable Act which leads us to believe that the Commission’s decision to pre-empt local technical standards governing the quality of cable signals “is not one that Congress would have sanctioned.” Shimer, 367 U. S., at 383. We therefore affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
It is so ordered.
The “technical standards” established by the Commission describe, in quantitative terms, various electrical characteristics of the audio and video components of the signals delivered by the cable system to its subscribers, including such specific items as visual carrier frequency, aural center frequency, visual signal level, terminal isolation, and radiation and signal leakage. See 47 CFR §§ 76.601, 76.605 (1987).
Although the Commission recognized that “[t]he broad pre-emptive policy we are adopting today will ultimately affect all cable systems,” 49 F. C. C. 2d, at 480, it fashioned this policy to have a more gradual effect. Because “many of the pre-existing technical standards adopted by cities and states cannot be shown to adversely affect our stated goals,” the Commission decided to extend a “grandfather” approval to those technical standards that were already operational or certified to the Commission by January 1, 1975. Ibid. In addition, a mechanism was established (and remains in effect) that allows state and local authorities to impose “different or additional technical standards” if they obtain a specific waiver from the Commission. Id., at 480-481; see n. 5, infra.
At argument, petitioners contended that the question of the Commission’s statutory authority to regulate these other three classes of cable channels is properly presented to the Court in this case. Tr. of Oral Arg. 5-7, 9-10. We disagree. The Court of Appeals explicitly failed to resolve this question because it agreed “with petitioner’s alternative argument that the FCC’s . . . rulemaking was arbitrary and capricious.” 259 U. S. App. D. C. 191, 197-198, 814 F. 2d 720, 726-727 (1987). The Court of Appeals’ disposition with respect to these three classes of cable channels was to vacate those portions of the rule and to remand to the Commission for further proceedings. In their brief, moreover, petitioners refer specifically to “a vote of 2-1 [in] the Court of Appeals” in stating the questions presented, which was the disposition below only with respect to the one class of cable channels. Brief for Petitioners i.
Petitioners argue that by empowering local franchising authorities to take into account whether “the quality of the operator’s service, including signal quality . . . has been reasonable in light of community needs,” 47 U. S. C. § 646(c)(1)(B) (1982 ed., Supp. IV), Congress implicitly recognized that local franchising authorities would need a comprehensive set of additional technical standards in order to carry out this task. Yet this argument simply ignores the fact that local authorities are able to assess signal quality against the technical standards set by the Commission, which it has found are adequate to ensure “an acceptable quality of service at the worst subscriber location and thus a better quality of service to the average subscriber.” 50 Fed. Reg. 52462, 52463, n. 2 (1985). ' ”
Petitioners and other state and local authorities remain free, of course, to petition the Commission for an individualized waiver that would permit them to “impose additional or different requirements,” which they may seek to obtain by demonstrating that particular local conditions create special problems that make the federal technical standards inadequate. See 47 CFR §76.7 (1987).
Since we conclude that the Commission is authorized under § 624(e) of the Cable Act to pre-empt technical standards imposed by state and local authorities, we need not also consider whether the Commission retains the same broad pre-emptive authority in the area of cable television under §§ 4(i) and 303 of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended, 47 U. S. C. §§ 154(i) and 303, that it had exercised before the Cable Act was enacted in 1984. In adopting the regulations at issue here, the Commission claimed to possess statutory authority under those two sections of the Communications Act as well as under the new Cable Act. 50 Fed. Reg., at 52466. Petitioners claim that the Cable Act withdrew such authority from the Commission, and their claim draws some support from new language in 47 U. S. C. § 152(a) (1982 ed., Supp. IV), which states that “[t]he provisions of [the Communications Act] shall apply with respect to cable service . . . as provided in [the Cable Act].” On the other hand, the House Report suggests that this language is merely a more explicit grant of “exclusive jurisdiction” to the Commission over specified aspects of cable service, see H. R. Rep. No. 98-934, pp. 95-96 (1984), which settles matters that had occasionally been in dispute. In addition, § 303 of the Communications Act continues to give the Commission broad rulemaking power “as may be necessary to carry out the provisions of this chapter,” 47 U. S. C. § 303(r), which includes the body of the Cable Act as one of its subchapters. But since in any event the Commission possesses statutory authority to adopt the regulations at issue in this case under § 624(e) of the Cable Act, we do not decide whether the Commission’s actions are authorized on this alternative basis as well.
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 Rehnquist
delivered the opinion of the Court.
In this case we address the question left open by our decision nearly 18 years ago in Witherspoon v. Illinois, 391 U. S. 510 (1968): Does the Constitution prohibit the removal for cause, prior to the guilt phase of a bifurcated capital trial, of prospective jurors whose opposition to the death penalty is so strong that it would prevent or substantially impair the performance of their duties as jurors at the sentencing phase of the trial? See id., at 520, n. 18; Bumper v. North Carolina, 391 U. S. 543, 545 (1968). We hold that it does not.
Respondent Ardia McCree filed a habeas corpus petition in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas claiming that such removal for cause violated the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments and, after McCree’s case was consolidated with another habeas case involving the same claim on remand from the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, the District Court ruled in McCree’s favor and granted habeas relief. Grigsby v. Mabry, 569 F. Supp. 1273 (1983). A sharply divided Eighth Circuit affirmed, Grigsby v. Mabry, 758 F. 2d 226 (1985) (en banc), creating a conflict with recent decisions of the Fourth, Fifth, Seventh, and Eleventh Circuits. See Keeten v. Garrison, 742 F. 2d 129, 133-135 (CA4 1984), cert. pending, No. 84-6187; Smith v. Balkcom, 660 F. 2d 573, 576-578 (CA5 1981), modified on other grounds, 671 F. 2d 858, cert. denied sub nom. Tison v. Arizona, 459 U. S. 882 (1982); Spinkellink v. Wainwright, 578 F. 2d 582, 594 (CA5 1978), cert. denied, 440 U. S. 976 (1979); United States ex rel. Clark v. Fike, 538 F. 2d 750, 761-762 (CA7 1976), cert. denied, 429 U. S. 1064 (1977); and Corn v. Zant, 708 F. 2d 549, 564 (CA11 1983), cert. denied, 467 U. S. 1220 (1984). We granted certiorari to resolve the conflict, 474 U. S. 816 (1985), and how reverse the judgment of the Eighth Circuit.
On the morning of February 14, 1978, a combination gift shop and service station in Camden, Arkansas, was robbed, and Evelyn Boughton, the owner, was shot and killed. That afternoon, Ardia McCree was arrested in Hot Springs, Arkansas, after a police officer saw him driving a maroon and white Lincoln Continental matching an eyewitness’ description of the getaway car used by Boughton’s killer. The next evening, McCree admitted to police that he had been at Boughton’s shop at the time of the murder. He claimed, however, that a tall black stranger wearing an overcoat first asked him for a ride, then took McCree’s rifle out of the back of the car and used it to kill Boughton. McCree also claimed that, after the murder, the stranger rode with McCree to a nearby dirt road, got out of the car, and walked away with the rifle. McCree’s story was contradicted by two eyewitnesses who saw McCree’s car between the time of the murder and the time when McCree said the stranger got out and walked away, and who stated that they saw only one person in the car. The police found McCree’s rifle and a bank bag from Boughton’s shop alongside the dirt road. Based on ballistics tests, a Federal Bureau of Investigation officer testified that the bullet that killed Boughton had been fired from McCree’s rifle.
McCree was charged with capital felony murder in violation of Ark. Stat. Ann. §41-1501(l)(a) (1977). In accordance with Arkansas law, see Neal v. State, 259 Ark. 27, 31, 531 S. W. 2d 17, 21 (1975), the trial judge at voir dire removed for cause, over McCree’s objections, those prospective jurors who stated that they could not under any circumstances vote for the imposition of the death penalty. Eight prospective jurors were excluded for this reason. The jury convicted McCree of capital felony murder, but rejected the State’s request for the death penalty, instead setting McCree’s punishment at life imprisonment without parole. McCree’s conviction was affirmed on direct appeal, McCree v. State, 266 Ark. 465, 585 S. W. 2d 938 (1979), and his petition for state post-conviction relief was denied.
McCree then filed a federal habeas corpus petition raising, inter alia, the claim that “death qualification,” or the removal for cause of the so-called “Witherspoon-excludable” prospective jurors, violated his right under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to have his guilt or innocence determined by an impartial jury selected from a representative cross section of the community. By stipulation of the parties, this claim was consolidated with another pending habeas case involving the same claim, which had been remanded by the Eighth Circuit for an evidentiary hearing in the District Court. App. 9-11; Grigsby v. Mabry, 637 F. 2d 525 (1980). The District Court denied the remainder of McCree’s petition, and the Eighth Circuit affirmed. McCree v. Housewright, 689 F. 2d 797 (1982), cert. denied, 460 U. S. 1088 (1983).
The District Court held a hearing on the “death qualification” issue in July 1981, receiving in evidence numerous social science studies concerning the attitudes and beliefs of “Witherspoon-excludables,” along with the potential effects of excluding them from the jury prior to the guilt phase of a bifurcated capital trial. In August 1983, the court concluded, based on the social science evidence, that “death qualification” produced juries that “were more prone to convict” capital defendants than “non-death-qualified” juries. Grigsby v. Mabry, 569 F. Supp., at 1323. The court ruled that “death qualification” thus violated both the fair-cross-section and impartiality requirements of the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments, and granted McCree habeas relief. Id., at 1324.
The Eighth Circuit found “substantial evidentiary support” for the District Court’s conclusion that the removal for cause of “Witherspoon-exclud&tiles” resulted in “conviction-prone” juries, and affirmed the grant of habeas relief on the ground that such removal for cause violated McCree’s constitutional right to a jury selected from a fair cross section of the community. Grigsby v. Mabry, 758 F. 2d, at 229. The Eighth Circuit did not address McCree’s impartiality claim. Ibid. The Eighth Circuit left it up to the discretion of the State “to construct a fair process” for future capital trials that would comply with the Sixth Amendment. Id., at 242-243. Four judges dissented. Id., at 243-251.
Before turning to the legal issues in the case, we are constrained to point out what we believe to be several serious flaws in the evidence upon which the courts below reached the conclusion that “death qualification” produces “conviction-prone” juries. McCree introduced into evidence some 15 social science studies in support of his constitutional claims, but only 6 of the studies even purported to measure the potential effects on the guilt-innocence determination of the removal from the jury of “Witherspoonexcludables.” Eight of the remaining nine studies dealt solely with generalized attitudes and beliefs about the death penalty and other aspects of the criminal justice system, and were thus, at best, only marginally relevant to the constitutionality of McCree’s conviction. The 15th and final study dealt with the effects on prospective jurors of voir dire questioning about their attitudes toward the death penalty, an issue McCree raised in his brief to this Court but that counsel for McCree admitted at oral argument would not, standing alone, give rise to a constitutional violation.
Of the six studies introduced by McCree that at least purported to deal with the central issue in this case, namely, the potential effects on the determination of guilt or innocence of excluding “Witherspoon-exdudables” from the jury, three were also before this Court when it decided Witherspoon. There, this Court reviewed the studies and concluded:
“The data adduced by the petitioner... are too tentative and fragmentary to establish that jurors not opposed to the death penalty tend to favor the prosecution in the determination of guilt. We simply cannot conclude, either on the basis of the record now before us or as a matter of judicial notice, that the exclusion of jurors opposed to capital punishment results in an unrepresentative jury on the issue of guilt or substantially increases the risk of conviction. In light of the presently available information, we are not prepared to announce a per se constitutional rule requiring the reversal of every conviction returned by a jury selected as this one was.” 391 U. S. at 517-518 (footnote omitted).
It goes almost without saying that if these studies were “too tentative and fragmentary” to make out a claim of constitutional error in 1968, the same studies, unchanged but for having aged some 18 years, are still insufficient to make out such a claim in this case.
Nor do the three post -Witherspoon studies introduced by McCree on the “death qualification” issue provide substantial support for the “per se constitutional rule” McCree asks this Court to adopt. All three of the “new” studies were based on the responses of individuals randomly selected from some segment of the population, but who were not actual jurors sworn under oath to apply the law to the facts of an actual case involving the fate of an actual capital defendant. We have serious doubts about the value of these studies in predicting the behavior of actual jurors. See Grigsby v. Mabry, 758 F. 2d, at 248, n. 7 (J. Gibson, J., dissenting). In addition, two of the three “new” studies did not even attempt to simulate the process of jury deliberation, and none of the “new” studies was able to predict to what extent, if any, the presence of one or more “Mi/z-erspoon-excludables” on a guilt-phase jury would have altered the outcome of the guilt determination.
Finally, and most importantly, only one of the six “death qualification” studies introduced by McCree even attempted to identify and account for the presence of so-called “nullifiers,” or individuals who, because of their deep-seated opposition to the death penalty, would be unable to decide a capital defendant’s guilt or innocence fairly and impartially. McCree concedes, as he must, that “nullifiers” may properly be excluded from the guilt-phase jury, and studies that fail to take into account the presence of such “nullifiers” thus are fatally flawed. Surely a “per se constitutional rule” as far reaching as the one McCree proposes should not be based on the results of the lone study that avoids this fundamental flaw.
Having identified some of the more serious problems with McCree’s studies, however, we will assume for purposes of this opinion that the studies are both methodologically valid and adequate to establish that “death qualification” in fact produces juries somewhat more “conviction-prone” than “non-death-qualified” juries. We hold, nonetheless, that the Constitution does not prohibit the States from “death qualifying” juries in capital cases.
The Eighth Circuit ruled that “death qualification” violated McCree’s right under the Sixth Amendment, as applied to the States via incorporation through the Fourteenth Amendment, see Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U. S. 145, 148-158 (1968), to a jury selected from a representative cross section of the community. But we do not believe that the fair-cross-section requirement can, or should, be applied as broadly as that court attempted to apply it. We have never invoked the fair-cross-section principle to invalidate the use of either for-cause or peremptory challenges to prospective jurors, or to require petit juries, as opposed to jury panels or venires, to reflect the composition of the community at large. See Duren v. Missouri, 439 U. S. 357, 363-364 (1979); Taylor v. Louisiana, 419 U. S. 522, 538 (1975) (“[W]e impose no requirement that petit juries actually chosen must mirror the community and reflect the various distinctive groups in the population”); cf. Batson v. Kentucky, ante, at 84-85, n. 4 (expressly declining to address “fair-cross-section” challenge to discriminatory use of peremptory challenges). The limited scope of the fair-cross-section requirement is a direct and inevitable consequence of the practical impossibility of providing each criminal defendant with a truly “representative” petit jury, see ante, at 85-86, n. 6, a basic truth that the Court of Appeals itself acknowledged for many years prior to its decision in the instant case. See United States v. Childress, 715 F. 2d 1313 (CA8 1983) (en banc), cert. denied, 464 U. S. 1063 (1984); Pope v. United States, 372 F. 2d 710, 725 (CA8 1967) (Blackmun, J.) (“The point at which an accused is entitled to a fair cross-section of the community is when the names are put in the box from which the panels are drawn”), vacated on other grounds, 392 U. S. 651 (1968). We remain convinced that an extension of the fair-cross-section requirement to petit juries would be unworkable and unsound, and we decline McCree’s invitation to adopt such an extension.
But even if we were willing to extend the fair-cross-section requirement to petit juries, we would still reject the Eighth Circuit’s conclusion that “death qualification” violates that requirement. The essence of a “fair-cross-section” claim is the systematic exclusion of “a ‘distinctive’ group in the community.” Duren, supra, at 364. In our view, groups defined solely in terms of shared attitudes that would prevent or substantially impair members of the group from performing one of their duties as jurors, such as the “Witherspoonexcludables” at issue here, are not “distinctive groups” for fair-cross-section purposes.
We have never attempted to precisely define the term “distinctive group,” and we do not undertake to do so today. But we think it obvious that the concept of “distinctiveness” must be linked to the purposes of the fair-cross-section requirement. In Taylor, supra, we identified those purposes as (1) “guarding] against the exercise of arbitrary power” and ensuring that the “commonsense judgment of the community” will act as “a hedge against the overzealous or mistaken prosecutor,” (2) preserving “public confidence in the fairness of the criminal justice system,” and (3) implementing our belief that “sharing in the administration of justice is a phase of civic responsibility.” Id., at 530-531.
Our prior jury-representativeness cases, whether based on the fair-cross-section component of the Sixth Amendment or the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, have involved such groups as blacks, see Peters v. Kiff, 407 U. S. 493 (1972) (opinion of Marshall, J.) (equal protection); women, see Duren, swpra (fair cross section); Taylor, supra (same); and Mexican-Americans, see Castaneda v. Partida, 430 U. S. 482 (1977) (equal protection). The wholesale exclusion of these large groups from jury service clearly contravened all three of the aforementioned purposes of the fair-cross-section requirement. Because these groups were excluded for reasons completely unrelated to the ability of members of the group to serve as jurors in a particular case, the exclusion raised at least the possibility that the composition of juries would be arbitrarily skewed in such a way as to deny criminal defendants the benefit of the common-sense judgment of the community. In addition, the exclusion from jury service of large groups of individuals not on the basis of their inability to serve as jurors, but on the basis of some immutable characteristic such as race, gender, or ethnic background, undeniably gave rise to an “appearance of unfairness.” Finally, such exclusion improperly deprived members of these often historically disadvantaged groups of their right as citizens to serve on juries in criminal cases.
The group of “Witherspoon-exdudables” involved in the case at bar differs significantly from the groups we have previously recognized as “distinctive.” “Death qualification,” unlike the wholesale exclusion of blacks, women, or Mexican-Americans from jury service, is carefully designed to serve the State’s concededly legitimate interest in obtaining a single jury that can properly and impartially apply the law to the facts of the case at both the guilt and sentencing phases of a capital trial. There is very little danger, therefore, and McCree does not even argue, that “death qualification” was instituted as a means for the State to arbitrarily skew the composition of capital-case juries.
Furthermore, unlike blacks, women, and Mexican-Americans, “Witherspoon-exchid&bles” are singled out for exclusion in capital cases on the basis of an attribute that is within the individual’s control. It is important to remember that not all who oppose the death penalty are subject to removal for cause in capital cases; those who firmly believe that the death penalty is unjust may nevertheless serve as jurors in capital cases so long as they state clearly that they are willing to temporarily set aside their own beliefs in deference to the rule of law. Because the group of “Witherspoonexcludables” includes only those who cannot and will not conscientiously obey the law with respect to one of the issues in a capital case, “death qualification” hardly can be said to create an “appearance of unfairness.”
Finally, the removal for cause of “Witherspoonexcludables” in capital cases does not prevent them from serving as jurors in other criminal cases, and thus leads to no substantial deprivation of their basic rights of citizenship. They are treated no differently than any juror who expresses the view that he would be unable to follow the law in a particular case.
In sum, “Wii/ierspoo%-excludables,” or for that matter any other group defined solely in terms of shared attitudes that render members of the group unable to serve as jurors in a particular case, may be excluded from jury service without contravening any of the basic objectives of the fair-cross-section requirement. See Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U. S. 586, 597 (1978) (“Nothing in Taylor, however, suggests that the right to a representative jury includes the right to be tried by jurors who have explicitly indicated an inability to follow the law and instructions of the trial judge”). It is for this reason that we conclude that “Witherspoon-exdudables” do not constitute a “distinctive group” for fair-cross-section purposes, and hold that “death qualification” does not violate the fair-cross-section requirement.
McCree argues that, even if we reject the Eighth Circuit’s fair-cross-section holding, we should affirm the judgment below on the alternative ground, adopted by the District Court, that “death qualification” violated his constitutional right to an impartial jury. McCree concedes that the individual jurors who served at his trial were impartial, as that term was defined by this Court in cases such as Irvin v. Dowd, 366 U. S. 717, 723 (1961) (“It is sufficient if the juror can lay aside his impression or opinion and render a verdict based on the evidence presented in court”), and Reynolds v. United States, 98 U. S. 145 (1879). He does not claim that pretrial publicity, see Rideau v. Louisiana, 373 U. S. 723 (1963), ex parte communications, see Remmer v. United States, 347 U. S. 227 (1954), or other undue influence, see Estes v. Texas, 381 U. S. 532 (1965), affected the jury’s deliberations. In short, McCree does not claim that his conviction was tainted by any of the kinds of jury bias or partiality that we have previously recognized as violative of the Constitution. Instead, McCree argues that his jury lacked impartiality because the absence of “Witherspoonexcludables” “slanted” the jury in favor of conviction.
We do not agree. McCree’s “impartiality” argument apparently is based on the theory that, because all individual jurors are to some extent predisposed towards one result or another, a constitutionally impartial jury can be constructed only by “balancing” the various predispositions of the individual jurors. Thus, according to McCree, when the State “tips the scales” by excluding prospective jurors with a particular viewpoint, an impermissibly partial jury results. We have consistently rejected this view of jury impartiality, including as recently as last Term when we squarely held that an impartial jury consists of nothing more than “jurors who will conscientiously apply the law and find the facts.” Wainwright v. Witt, 469 U. S. 412, 423 (1985) (emphasis added); see also Smith v. Phillips, 455 U. S. 209, 217 (1982) (“Due process means a jury capable and willing to decide the case solely on the evidence before it”); Irvin v. Dowd, supra, at 722 (“In essence, the right to jury trial guarantees to the criminally accused a fair trial by a panel of impartial, ‘indifferent’ jurors”).
The view of jury impartiality urged upon us by McCree is both illogical and hopelessly impractical. McCree characterizes the jury that convicted him as “slanted” by the process of “death qualification.” But McCree admits that exactly the same 12 individuals could have ended up on his jury through the “luck of the draw,” without in any way violating the constitutional guarantee of impartiality. Even accepting McCree’s position that we should focus on the jury rather than the individual jurors, it is hard for us to understand the logic of the argument that a given jury is unconstitutionally partial when it results from a state-ordained process, yet impartial when exactly the same jury results from mere chance. On a more practical level, if it were true that the Constitution required a certain mix of individual viewpoints on the jury, then trial judges would be required to undertake the Sisyphean task of “balancing” juries, making sure that each contains the proper number of Democrats and Republicans, young persons and old persons, white-collar executives and blue-collar laborers, and so on. Adopting McCree’s concept of jury impartiality would also likely require the elimination of peremptory challenges, which are commonly used by both the State and the defendant to attempt to produce a jury favorable to the challenger.
McCree argues, however, that this Court’s decisions in Witherspoon and Adams v. Texas, 448 U. S. 38 (1980), stand for the proposition that a State violates the Constitution whenever it “slants” the jury by excluding a group of individuals more likely than the population at large to favor the criminal defendant. We think McCree overlooks two fundamental differences between Witherspoon and Adams and the instant case, and therefore misconceives the import and scope of those two decisions.
First, the Court in Witherspoon viewed the Illinois system as having been deliberately slanted for the purpose of making the imposition of the death penalty more likely. The Court said:
“But when it swept from the jury all who expressed conscientious or religious scruples against capital punishment and all who opposed it in principle, the State crossed the line of neutrality. In its quest for a jury capable of imposing the death penalty, the State produced a jury uncommonly willing to condemn a man to die.
“It is, of course, settled that a State may not entrust the determination of whether a man is innocent or guilty to a tribunal ‘organized to convict.’ Fay v. New York, 332 U. S. 261, 294 [1947]. See Turney v. Ohio, 273 U. S. 510 [1927]. It requires but a short step from that principle to hold, as we do today, that a State may not entrust the determination of whether a man should live or die to a tribunal organized to return a verdict of death.” 391 U. S., at 520-521 (footnotes omitted).
In Adams v. Texas, supra, the Court explained the rationale for Witherspoon as follows:
“In this context, the Court held that a State may not constitutionally execute a death sentence imposed by a jury culled of all those who revealed during voir dire examination that they had conscientious scruples against or were otherwise opposed to capital punishment. The State was held to have no valid interest in such a broad-based rule of exclusion, since ‘[a] man who opposes the death penalty, no less than one who favors it, can make the discretionary judgment entrusted to him... and can thus obey the oath he takes as a juror.’ Witherspoon v. Illinois, 391 U. S., at 519.” 448 U. S., at 43.
Adams, in turn, involved a fairly straightforward application of the Witherspoon rule to the Texas capital punishment scheme. See Adams, supra, at 48 (Texas exclusion statute “focuses the inquiry directly on the prospective juror’s beliefs about the death penalty, and hence clearly falls within the scope of the Witherspoon doctrine”).
Here, on the other hand, the removal for cause of “Witherspoon-exdudables” serves the State’s entirely proper interest in obtaining a single jury that could impartially decide all of the issues in McCree’s case. Arkansas by legislative enactment and judicial decision provides for the use of a unitary jury in capital cases. See Ark. Stat. Ann. §41-1301(3) (1977); Rector v. State, 280 Ark. 385, 395, 659 S. W. 2d 168, 173 (1983), cert. denied, 466 U. S. 988 (1984). We have upheld against constitutional attack the Georgia capital sentencing plan which provided that the same jury must sit in both phases of a bifurcated capital murder trial, Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U. S. 153, 158, 160, 163 (1976) (opinion of Stewart, Powell, and Stevens, JJ.), and since then have observed that we are “unwilling to say that there is any one right way for a State to set up its capital sentencing scheme.” Spaziano v. Florida, 468 U. S. 447, 464 (1984).
The Arkansas Supreme Court recently explained the State’s legislative choice to require unitary juries in capital cases:
“It has always been the law in Arkansas, except when the punishment is mandatory, that the same jurors who have the responsibility for determining guilt or innocence must also shoulder the burden of fixing the punishment. That is as it should be, for the two questions are necessarily interwoven.” Rector, supra, at 395, 659 S. W. 2d, at 173.
Another interest identified by the State in support of its system of unitary juries is the possibility that, in at least some capital cases, the defendant might benefit at the sentencing phase of the trial from the jury’s “residual doubts” about the evidence presented at the guilt phase. The dissenting opinion in the Court of Appeals also adverted to this interest:
“[A]s several courts have observed, jurors who decide both guilt and penalty are likely to form residual doubts or ‘whimsical’ doubts... about the evidence so as to bend them to decide against the death penalty. Such residual doubt has been recognized as an extremely effective argument for defendants in capital cases. To divide the responsibility... to some degree would eliminate the influence of such doubts.” 758 F. 2d, at 247-248 (J. Gibson, J., dissenting) (citations omitted).
Justice Marshall’s dissent points out that some States which adhere to the unitary jury system do not allow the defendant to argue “residual doubts” to the jury at sentencing. But while this may justify skepticism as to the extent to which such States are willing to go to allow defendants to capitalize on “residual doubts,” it does not wholly vitiate the claimed interest. Finally, it seems obvious to us that in most, if not all, capital cases much of the evidence adduced at the guilt phase of the trial will also have a bearing on the penalty phase; if two different juries were to be required, such testimony would have to be presented twice, once to each jury. As the Arkansas Supreme Court has noted, “[s]uch repetitive trials could not be consistently fair to the State and perhaps not even to the accused.” Rector, supra, at 396, 659 S. W. 2d, at 173.
Unlike the Illinois system criticized by the Court in Witherspoon, and the Texas system at issue in Adams, the Arkansas system excludes from the jury only those who may properly be excluded from the penalty phase of the deliberations under Witherspoon, Adams, and Wainwright v. Witt, 469 U. S. 412 (1985). That State’s reasons for adhering to its preference for a single jury to decide both the guilt and penalty phases of a capital trial are sufficient to negate the inference which the Court drew in Witherspoon concerning the lack of any neutral justification for the Illinois rule on jury challenges.
Second, and more importantly, both Witherspoon and Adams dealt with the special context of capital sentencing, where the range of jury discretion necessarily gave rise to far greater concern over the possible effects of an “imbalanced” jury. As we emphasized in Witherspoon:
“[I]n Illinois, as in other States, the jury is given broad discretion to decide whether or not death is ‘the proper penalty’ in a given case, and a juror’s general views about capital punishment play an inevitable role in any such decision.
“.... Guided by neither rule nor standard, ‘free to select or reject as it [sees] fit,’ a jury that must choose between life imprisonment and capital punishment can do little more — and must do nothing less — than express the conscience of the community on the ultimate question of life or death.” 391 U. S., at 519 (emphasis in original; footnotes omitted).
Because capital sentencing under the Illinois statute involved such an exercise of essentially unfettered discretion, we held that the State violated the Constitution when it “crossed the line of neutrality” and “produced a jury uncommonly willing to condemn a man to die.” Id., at 520-521.
In Adams, we applied the same basic reasoning to the Texas capital sentencing scheme, which, although purporting to limit the jury’s role to answering several “factual” questions, in reality vested the jury with considerable discretion over the punishment to be imposed on the defendant. See 448 U. S., at 46 (“This process is not an exact science, and the jurors under the Texas bifurcated procedure unavoidably exercise a range of judgment and discretion while remaining true to their instructions and their oaths”); cf. Jurek v. Texas, 428 U. S. 262, 273 (1976) (opinion of Stewart, Powell, and Stevens, JJ.) (“Texas law essentially requires that... in considering whether to impose a death sentence the jury may be asked to consider whatever evidence of mitigating circumstances the defense can bring before it”). Again, as in Witherspoon, the discretionary.nature of the jury’s task led us to conclude that the State could not “exclude all jurors who would be in the slightest way affected by the prospect of the death penalty or by their views about such a penalty.” Adams, 448 U. S., at 50.
In the case at bar, by contrast, we deal not with capital sentencing, but with the jury’s more traditional role of finding the facts and determining the guilt or innocence of a criminal defendant, where jury discretion is more channeled. We reject McCree’s suggestion that Witherspoon and Adams have broad applicability outside the special context of capital sentencing, and conclude that those two decisions do not support the result reached by the Eighth Circuit here.
In our view, it is simply not possible to define jury impartiality, for constitutional purposes, by reference to some hypothetical mix of individual viewpoints. Prospective jurors come from many different backgrounds, and have many different attitudes and predispositions. But the Constitution presupposes that a jury selected from a fair cross section of the community is impartial, regardless of the mix of individual viewpoints actually represented on the jury, so long as the jurors can conscientiously and properly carry out their sworn duty to apply the law to the facts of the particular ease. We hold that McCree’s jury satisfied both aspects of this constitutional standard. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is therefore
Reversed.
Justice Blackmun concurs in the result.
In Wainwright v. Witt, 469 U. S. 412 (1985), this Court emphasized that the Constitution does not require “ritualistic adherence” to the “talismanic” standard for juror exclusion set forth in footnote 21 of the Witherspoon opinion. 469 U. S., at 419, 423. Rather, the proper constitutional standard is simply whether a prospective juror’s views would “ ‘prevent or substantially impair the performance of his duties as a juror in accordance with his instructions and his oath.’” Id., at 433, quoting Adams v. Texas, 448 U. S. 38, 45 (1980). Thus, the term “Witherspoonexcludable” is something of a misnomer. Nevertheless, because the parties and the courts below have used the term “Witherspoon-excludables” to identify the group of prospective jurors at issue in this ease, we will use the same term in this opinion.
James Grigsby, the habeas petitioner with whose ease McCree’s had been consolidated, died prior to the District Court’s decision, so his ease became moot. Grigsby v. Mabry, 569 F. Supp., at 1277, n. 2. Dewayne Hulsey, a third habeas petitioner whose “death qualification” claim was consolidated with Grigsby’s and McCree’s, was found to be procedurally barred, under Wainwright v. Sykes, 433 U. S. 72 (1977), from asserting the claim. Hulsey v. Sargent, 550 F. Supp. 179 (ED Ark. 1981).
McCree argues that the “factual” findings of the District Court and the Eighth Circuit on the effects of “death qualification” may be reviewed by this Court only under the “clearly erroneous” standard of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 52(a). Because we do not ultimately base our decision today on the invalidity of the lower courts’ “factual” findings, we need not decide the “standard of review” issue. We are far from persuaded, however, that the “clearly erroneous” standard of Rule 52(a) applies to the kind of “legislative” facts at issue here. See generally Dunagin v. City
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.
Respondent, a 10th-grade student in the Rogers, Ark., School District, left school on October 21,1980, after the first period without permission, and, with four other students, consumed alcohol and became intoxicated. When he returned to school later that day to go on a band trip, he was notified that he was suspended from school. His parents were notified the next day that their son had been suspended pending a hearing before the Rogers School Board; a hearing was scheduled for October 29. At the hearing before the Board, none of the five students denied that they had been drinking, and the Board voted to expel all five for the remainder of the semester.
Respondent immediately sought injunctive relief under 42 U. S. C. § 1983 (1976 ed., Supp. IV), and the case was heard by the United States District Court for the Western District of Arkansas on December 4. The District Court decided that the School Board had violated respondent’s right to substantive due process, and ordered that he be granted credit for the semester during which he was suspended and that all references to his suspension be expunged from his school records.
The District Court’s action was based on its interpretation of the School Board’s rules and its conclusions concerning which rules the Board invoked in suspending respondent. There is no doubt that the Board had the authority to suspend respondent under §§9 and 10 of its written Policies on Pupil Suspension. Section 9 provides that the Board may suspend or expel any student “for good cause.” Section 10 defines “good cause,” and provides that it includes “sale, use or possession of alcoholic beverages or illegal drugs.” Thus it was clearly within the Board’s discretion to suspend a student for becoming intoxicated.
The District Court decided that the Board had acted under § 11 of its rules, which provides for mandatory suspension when it applies. Section 11 provides:
“For the protection of other pupils in the school grades 9-12, the school board shall expel for the remainder of the semester with loss of credit for the semester’s work any pupil whenever it has been established to the satisfaction of the board, or the superintendent, or the principal, or his assistant in charge, that the pupil has on school premises or at school sponsored activities (including trips) used, sold, been under the influence of, or been in possession of narcotics or other hallucinogenics, drugs, or controlled substances classified as such by Act 590 of 1971, as amended.”
There was conflicting testimony concerning which section the Board had invoked. The letters sent to respondent’s parents informing them of the suspension and the hearing cited both § 10 and § 11. Adams, a Board member and a lawyer, testified that he based his motion to expel McCluskey on § 10 because he had doubts about the applicability of §11. The Chairman of the Board testified that the Board had suspended students under § 11 for alcohol offenses for the past five years.
The District Court found as a matter of fact that the Board acted under §11 when it suspended respondent. It then went on to decide that § 11 did not apply to alcohol. Section 11 applies to “narcotics or other hallucinogenics, drugs, or controlled substances classified as such by Act 590 of 1971, as amended.” Act 590, Ark. Stat. Ann. §82-2602(e) (Supp. 1981), specifically exempts alcohol from its coverage; therefore, alcohol is not a “controlled substance.” Nor is it a “narcotic or other hallucinogenic.” The District Court also concluded that alcohol is not a “drug.” While technically alcohol is a drug, the District Court noted, it is not considered a drug in common parlance. For this reason, the District Court concluded, the Board had acted unreasonably by suspending respondent under § 11. It held that the Board violated substantive due process by suspending him under the mandatory terms of § 11, even though the Board had discretion to suspend him under § 10.
A divided Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed. 662 F. 2d 1263 (1981). It reviewed the District Court’s conclusion that the Board acted under § 11 rather than §10 under the clearly-erroneous standard of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 52(a), and held that the District Court’s conclusion passed muster. It also affirmed the District Court’s holding that §11 cannot reasonably be interpreted to apply to alcohol because “the express terms of section 11 apply only to ‘drugs’ and expressly exempt alcohol.” 662 F. 2d, at 1267. For this reason, the Court of Appeals concluded, Wood v. Strickland, 420 U. S. 308 (1975), was distinguishable. There this Court had stated that “§1983 does not extend the right to relitigate in federal court evidentiary questions arising in school disciplinary proceedings or the proper construction of school regulations.” Id., at 326. Although this Court had plainly stated that federal courts were not authorized to construe school regulations, the Court of Appeals concluded that Wood v. Strickland was distinguishable because the school board in that case had construed its regulations reasonably while here the Board had construed its regulations unreasonably. 662 F. 2d, at 1267. Judge McMillian dissented because he concluded that Wood v. Strickland barred federal courts from construing the school regulations involved in this case differently than the Board had construed them.
Wood v. Strickland plainly requires that the Court of Appeals be reversed. There high school girls were expelled for “spiking” a punch served at a school meeting by adding two bottles of malt liquor. The malt liquor had an alcoholic content of 3.2% and the alcoholic content of the spiked punch was estimated at 0.91%. 420 U. S., at 326. The Court of Appeals had set aside the girls’ expulsions because they had been expelled for adding an alcoholic beverage to the punch, but a state statute defined “intoxicating liquor” as a beverage with an alcoholic content exceeding 5%, and the court thought the 5% rule of the statute should apply to the school regulation. We held that the court erred in substituting its own notions for the school board’s definition of its rules:
“[T]he Court of Appeals was ill advised to supplant the interpretation of the regulation of those officers who adopted it and are entrusted with its enforcement.” Id., at 325.
The Court continued, as noted supra, by stating that
“§ 1983 does not extend the right to relitigate in federal court evidentiary questions arising in school disciplinary proceedings or the proper construction of school regulations.” Id., at 326 (emphasis added).
The Court of Appeals and the District Court plainly erred in distinguishing Wood v. Strickland on the ground that the Board’s interpretation of § 11 in this case was unreasonable while the school board’s construction of “alcoholic beverage” in Wood v. Strickland was reasonable. A case may be hypothesized in which a school board’s interpretation of its rules is so extreme as to be a violation of due process, but this is surely not that case. The Board’s interpretation of § 11 is reasonable. Contrary to the Court of Appeals, alcohol is not expressly exempted from the coverage of § 11. Section 11 covers “controlled substances classified as such by Act 590,” and Act 590 expressly exempts alcohol from its coverage. Therefore, alcohol is not a “controlled substance” under § 11. But § 11 also covers “drugs,” and, as the District Court conceded, alcohol is a “drug.” Moreover, § 11 mandates suspension of students under the influence of drugs while on school premises. Section 10, which gives the Board discretion to suspend students for drug use, is not limited in its application to drug use on school premises. It is reasonable to conclude that the regulations require suspension for any drug use, including use of alcohol, on school premises, while permitting suspension for drug use off school premises.
In any case, even if the District Court’s and the Court of Appeals’ views of § 11 struck us as clearly preferable to the Board’s — which they do not — the Board’s interpretation of its regulations controls under Wood v. Strickland. The Chairman of the Board testified that the Board had interpreted § 11 as requiring the suspension of students found intoxicated on school grounds for a number of years prior to respondent’s suspension, and it is undisputed that the Board had the authority to suspend students for that reason. We conclude that the District Court and the Court of Appeals plainly erred in replacing the Board’s construction of § 11 with their own notions under the facts of this case. Accordingly, the petition for certiorari is granted, and the judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Reversed.
The Board has since amended its regulations so as to remove all question that suspension for the remainder of the semester is mandatory if a student is intoxicated on school premises.
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.
At about 11 p. m. on July 16, 1964, petitioner was arrested after entering the yard of a home where a burglary and rape had been committed four days earlier. Petitioner, a Negro boy then 15 years old, was taken to the police station and was questioned for one or two hours. After the questioning, petitioner was placed alone in a dimly lit cell for the remainder of the night. Although petitioner refused to give even his name during the questioning, the police eventually determined his identity and notified petitioner’s mother the next day between 3:30 and 4:30 a. m. That morning, petitioner was given drinking water and was then questioned by the police; petitioner almost immediately confessed to the burglary and rape committed several days earlier at the house where he had been arrested. Shortly thereafter, an attorney retained by petitioner's mother came to the police station and talked with petitioner. Petitioner told the attorney that the confession had not been prompted by threats or promises and that he had not been frightened when he made the statement to the police.
Petitioner was indicted for first-degree burglary, an offense punishable by death under North Carolina law. Petitioner’s retained attorney discussed with petitioner and his mother the nature and seriousness of the charge. In due course, petitioner and his mother signed written statements authorizing the entry of a plea of guilty. Both petitioner and his mother were aware at the time they signed the authorization for the guilty plea that, if the plea was accepted, petitioner would receive the mandatory sentence of life imprisonment. The prosecutor and the trial judge accepted the plea. In accepting the plea on August 18, 1964, the trial court asked the petitioner if the plea was made in response to any promise or threat and petitioner answered in the negative; petitioner affirmed that he tendered the plea “freely without any fear or compulsion.” Upon acceptance of the plea, petitioner was sentenced to life imprisonment.
In 1967, petitioner, assisted by counsel, filed a petition under the North Carolina Post-Conviction Hearing Act to obtain relief from his conviction. In his petition, Parker urged that his plea of guilty was the product of a coerced confession and that the indictment to which he pleaded was invalid because members of his race had been systematically excluded from the grand jury which returned the indictment. After a hearing, the Superior Court of Halifax County found that there was no deliberate exclusion of Negroes from the grand jury that indicted petitioner and that petitioner had freely admitted his guilt and had pleaded guilty “freely, voluntarily, without threat, coercion or duress . . . The Court of Appeals of North Carolina, the highest state court in which petitioner could seek review, affirmed the conviction after reviewing not only the claims presented to the lower court but also the additional assertion by petitioner that his guilty plea was involuntary because North Carolina statutes at that time allowed a defendant to escape the possibility of a death penalty on a capital charge by pleading guilty to that charge. 2 N. C. App. 27, 162 S. E. 2d 526 (1968). We granted certiorari, 395 U. S. 974 (1969), to consider petitioner’s federal constitutional claims. For the reasons presented below, we affirm.
I
Parker would have us hold his guilty plea involuntary and therefore invalid for two reasons: first, because it was induced by a North Carolina statute providing a maximum penalty in the event of a plea of guilty lower than the penalty authorized after a verdict of guilty by a jury; and, second, because the plea was the product of a coerced confession given to the police shortly after petitioner was arrested. Neither reason is sufficient to warrant setting aside Parker’s plea.
It may be that under United States v. Jackson, 390 U. S. 570 (1968), it was unconstitutional to impose the death penalty under the statutory framework which existed in North Carolina at the time of Parker’s plea. Even so, we determined in Brady v. United States, ante, p. 742, that an otherwise valid plea is not involuntary because induced by the defendant’s desire to limit the possible maximum penalty to less than that authorized if there is a jury trial. In this respect we see nothing to distinguish Parker’s case from Brady’s.
Nor can we accept the claim that the plea was infirm because it was the product of a coerced confession. According to Parker’s testimony at the post-conviction hearing, he was denied food and water, promised unspecified help if he confessed, and denied counsel’s advice when he requested it. In the record, however, was an abundance of evidence contradicting Parker’s claim of coercion: Parker’s statements to his attorney soon after his interrogation that there had been no threats or promises and that he had not been afraid, his similar declarations in his sworn statement authorizing his plea, his answers to the trial judge at the time the plea was accepted, and his failure to complain of any mistreatment by the police until many months after he began serving his sentence. The North Carolina courts accordingly refused to credit his testimony and concluded that his confession was a free and voluntary act.
We would in any event be reluctant to question the judgment of the state courts in this respect; but we need not evaluate the voluntariness of petitioner’s confession since even if the confession should have been found involuntary, we cannot believe that the alleged conduct of the police during the interrogation period was of such a nature or had such enduring effect as to make involuntary a plea of guilty entered over a month later. Parker soon had food and water, the lack of counsel was immediately remedied, and there was ample opportunity to consider the significance of the alleged promises. After the allegedly coercive interrogation, there were no threats, misrepresentations, promises, or other improper acts by the State. Parker had the advice of retained counsel and of his family for the month before he pleaded. The connection, if any, between Parker’s confession and his plea of guilty had “become so attenuated as to dissipate the taint.” Nardone v. United States, 308 U. S. 338, 341 (1939); Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U. S. 471, 491 (1963). As far as this record reveals, the guilty plea was Parker’s free and voluntary act, the product of his own choice, just as he affirmed it was when the plea was entered in open court.
h-1
On the assumption that Parker’s confession was inadmissible, there remains the question whether his plea, even if voluntary, was unintelligently made because his counsel mistakenly thought his confession was admissible. As we understand it, Parker’s position necessarily implies that his decision to plead rested on the strength of the case against him: absent the confession, his chances of acquittal were good and he would have chosen to stand trial; but given the confession, the evidence was too strong and it was to his advantage to plead guilty and limit the possible penalty to life imprisonment. On this assumption, had Parker and his counsel thought the confession inadmissible, there would have been a plea of not guilty and a trial to a jury. But counsel apparently deemed the confession admissible and his advice to plead guilty was followed by his client. Parker now considers his confession involuntary and inadmissible. The import of this claim is that he suffered from bad advice and that had he been correctly counseled he would have gone to trial rather than enter a guilty plea. He suggests that he is entitled to plead again, a suggestion that we reject.
For the reasons set out in McMann v. Richardson, ante, p. 759, even if Parker’s counsel was wrong in his assessment of Parker’s confession, it does not follow that his error was sufficient to render the plea unintelligent and entitle Parker to disavow his admission in open court that he committed the offense with which he was charged. Based on the facts of record relating to Parker’s confession and guilty plea, which we have previously detailed, we think the advice he received was well within the range of competence required of attorneys representing defendants in criminal cases. Parker’s plea of guilty was an intelligent plea not open to attack on the grounds that counsel misjudged the admissibility of Parker’s confession.
Ill
We also have before us the question whether the indictment to which Parker pleaded is invalid because members of his race were allegedly systematically excluded from the grand jury that returned the indictment. The North Carolina Court of Appeals refused to consider the claim sinqe under North Carolina law an objection to the composition of the grand jury must be raised by motion to quash the indictment prior to the entry of the guilty plea. Because Parker had failed to raise his objection in timely fashion, relief was unavailable. This state rule of practice would constitute an adequate state ground precluding our reaching the grand jury issue if this case were here on direct review. See Fay v. Noia, 372 U. S. 391, 428-429 (1963). We are under similar constraint when asked to review a state court decision holding that the same rule of practice requires denial of collateral relief. Ibid. Whether the question of racial exclusion in the selection of the grand jury is open in a federal habeas corpus action we need not decide. Compare United States ex rel. Goldsby v. Harpole, 263 F. 2d 71 (C. A. 5th Cir.), cert. denied, 361 U. S. 838 and 850 (1959), with Labat v. Bennett, 365 F. 2d 698 (C. A. 5th Cir. 1966), cert. denied, 386 U. S. 991 (1967). See also McNeil v. North Carolina, 368 F. 2d 313 (C. A. 4th Cir. 1966).
The North Carolina Court of Appeals correctly concluded that petitioner’s plea of guilty was intelligent and voluntary, and there was an adequate basis in North Carolina procedural law for the North Carolina Court of Appeals’ refusal to consider the claim of racial exclusion in the composition of the grand jury that indicted petitioner.
Affirmed.
In North Carolina the crime of first-degree burglary is defined as follows:
“There shall be two degrees in the crime of burglary as defined at the common law. If the crime be committed in a dwelling house, or in a room used as a sleeping apartment in any building, and any person is in the actual occupation of any part of said dwelling house or sleeping apartment at the time of the commission of such crime, it shall be burglary in the first degree.” N. C. Gen. Stat. § 14^51 (1969 Repl. vol.).
The punishment for first-degree burglary is death unless the jury recommends that the penalty be life imprisonment:
“Any person convicted, according to due course of law, of the crime of burglary in the first degree shall suffer death: Provided, if the jury when rendering its verdict in open court shall so recommend, the punishment shall be imprisonment for life in the State’s prison, and the court shall so instruct the jury.” N. C. Gen. Stat. § 14-52 '(1969 Repl. vol.).
At the time petitioner’s plea was entered, North Carolina law provided that if a plea of guilty to first-degree burglary was accepted the punishment would be life imprisonment rather than death:
“(a) Any person, when charged in a bill of indictment with the felony of murder in the first degree, or burglary in the first degree, or arson, or rape, when represented by counsel, whether employed by the defendant or appointed by the court . . . , may, after arraignment, tender in writing, signed by such person and his counsel, a plea of guilty of such crime; and the State, with the approval of the court, may accept such plea. Upon rejection of such plea, the trial shall be upon the defendant’s plea of not guilty, and such tender shall have no legal significance whatever.
“(b) In the event such plea is accepted, the tender and acceptance thereof shall have the effect of a jury verdict of guilty of the crime charged with recommendation by the jury in open court that the punishment shall be imprisonment for life in the State’s prison; and thereupon, the court shall pronounce judgment that the defendant be imprisoned for life in the State’s prison.” N. C. Gen. Stat. § 15-162.1 (1965 Repl. vol.), repealed, effective March 25, 1969, N. C. Laws 1969, c. 117.
The Court: “Has anybody made you any promise or forced you in any way to make this plea?”
Petitioner: “No, sir.”
The Court: “Did you sign this plea freely without any fear or compulsion?”
Petitioner: “Yes, sir.”
The Court: “Has any person promised you anything if you do this?”
Petitioner: “No, sir.” App. 46.
N. C. Gen. Stat. §§15-217 to 15-222 (Supp. 1969).
N. C. Gen. Stat. § 7A-28 (1969 Repl. vol.).
The statute authorizing guilty pleas to capital charges was repealed, effective March 25, 1969. See n. 2, supra. As a result of the repeal, a person who is charged with a capital offense and who is not allowed to plead to a lesser charge must apparently face a jury trial and a death penalty upon a verdict of guilty unless the jury recommends life imprisonment.
In his affidavit authorizing the entry of a plea of guilty Parker stated that: “I have not been threatened or abused in any manner by any person and no promises have been made to me if I plead guilty to any charge.”
See n. 3, supra.
The North Carolina Court of Appeals noted that the prosecution may have had strong evidence against Parker in addition to the confession and that if other strong evidence existed the guilty plea could not be viewed as the product of the confession. 2 N. C. App. 27, 32, 162 S. E. 2d 526, 529 (1968).
We find nothing in the record raising any doubts about the integrity of petitioner’s admission. The following appears in the findings entered after the post-conviction hearing in the state trial court:
“[S]aid petitioner defendant freely admitted to his attorney his guilt of the crime with which he was charged, in fact said petitioner defendant Charles Lee Parker, upon cross examination at this hearing, and the Court so finds as a fact, has freely admitted his guilt of the capital offense of burglary and rape ...”
“All exceptions to grand jurors on account of their disqualifications shall be taken before the petit jury is sworn and impaneled to try the issue, by motion to quash the indictment, and if not taken at that time shall be deemed to be waived. . . N. C. Gen. Stat. §9-23 (1969 Repl. vol.).
See State v. Rorie, 258 N. C. 162, 128 S. E. 2d 229 (1962). Under North Carolina law, a guilty plea does not waive objections to racial exclusion in the selection of the grand jury if, before the plea of guilty, the defendant raises his objection in a motion to quash the indictment. State v. Covington, 258 N. C. 501, 128 S. E. 2d 827 (1963).
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.
Petitioner is the mother of a 15-year-old boy who was shot and killed by respondent Hildebrant, while respondent was acting in his capacity as a Denver police officer. Petitioner brought suit in her own behalf in state court. Respondent defended on the ground that he shot petitioner’s son as a fleeing felon using no more force than was reasonably necessary. The amended complaint asserted three claims for relief: battery; negligence; and intentional deprivation of federal constitutional rights. Although not specifically pleaded, the first two claims were admittedly based on the Colorado wrongful-death statute, Colo. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 13-21-202 (1973), and the third, on 42 U. S. C. § 1983. While petitioner alleged damages of $1,500,000, she stipulated to a reduction of her prayer for relief with respect to the first two claims, since the Colorado wrongful-death statute admittedly limited her maximum recovery to $45,000, Colo. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 13-21-203 (1973). The trial court also ruled that petitioner’s § 1983 claim was “merged” into her first claim and, accordingly, dismissed her § 1983 claim. The remaining claims went to the jury, which returned a verdict for $1,500.
On petitioner’s appeal, the Supreme Court of Colorado affirmed. 191 Colo. 1, 550 P. 2d 339 (1976). Her petition for certiorari presented a single question for review here:
“Where the black mother of a 15-year-old child who was intentionally shot and killed by a white policeman acting under the color of state law brings a suit in state court pursuant to 42 U. S. C. § 1983, what is the measure of damages? Particularly, can the state measure of damages cancel and displace an action brought pursuant to 42 U. S. C. § 1983?”
We granted certiorari to consider what was thus explicitly presented as a question of whether a State’s limitation on damages in a wrongful-death statute would control in an action brought pursuant to § 1983. 429 U. S. 1061 (1977).
The majority opinion in the Supreme Court of Colorado proceeds on the assumption that if the Colorado wrongful-death statute applied to petitioner’s claim, her recovery would be limited to $45,000. It held that this limitation did apply even to the one count of petitioner’s complaint based on 42 U. S. C. § 1983.
A necessary assumption for this position would seem to be that petitioner was suing to recover damages for injuries under § 1983 which were the same injuries as are covered by the state wrongful-death action. The question presented in the petition for certiorari is at the very least susceptible of that interpretation. But at oral argument, we were advised by counsel for petitioner that her sole claim of constitutional deprivation was not one of pecuniary loss resulting from her son’s wrongful death, such as would be covered by the wrongful-death statute, but one based on her personal liberty. Her claim was described at oral argument as a constitutional right to raise her child without interference from the State; it has nothing to do with an action for “wrongful death” as defined by the state law. Tr. of Oral Arg. 4-5; see also id., at 8-13.
An action for wrongful death, under Colorado law, is an action which may be brought by certain named survivors of a decedent who sustain a direct pecuniary loss upon the death of the decedent. It is “classified as a property tort action and cannot be classified as a tort action 'for injuries done to the person,’ ” Fish v. Liley, 120 Colo. 156, 163, 208 P. 2d 930, 933 (1949). Petitioner, however, articulates here a quite different constitutional claim which does not fit into the Colorado wrongful-death mold. While petitioner’s constitutional claim is based on an alleged deprivation of her own rights, and not on deprivation of those of her son’s, the asserted deprivation is not for any “property loss,” but, rather, for the right of a child’s mother to raise the child as she sees fit.
This claim was not set forth in the complaint, was not even hinted at in petitioner’s briefs to the Supreme Court of Colorado, and is only casually referred to in the opinion of that court. The majority opinion held that insofar as a claim for actual pecuniary loss was a property right conferred upon petitioner by the State’s wrongful-death statute, the damages recoverable under it were limited by the terms of that statute. The majority opinion also refers in passing to a constitutional liberty right in petitioner herself, but its principal thrust is that petitioner's liberty claims, as presented to that court, are “really those of her son,” and not claims personal to her. This discussion, which occurs subsequent to that portion of the opinion in which the Supreme Court of Colorado concluded that state wrongful-death remedies were incorporated into § 1983 to vindicate civil rights violations “that result in death,” does not intimate that similar limitations would exist in a § 1983 action where the alleged deprivation was that of liberty to a living plaintiff suing for a wrong done to her. We do not know how the Supreme Court of Colorado would have ruled on the damages limitation question had it found the § 1983 claim to be that of the deprivation of the mother’s right to raise the child.
We have here then a shift in the posture of the ease such that the question presented in the petition for certiorari is all but mooted by petitioner’s oral argument. The question of whether a limitation on recovery of damages imposed by a state wrongful-death statute may be applied where death is said to have resulted from a violation of 42 U. S. C. § 1983 would appear to make sense only where the § 1983 damages claim is based upon the same, injuries. This is the assumption on which the Supreme Court of Colorado proceeded in discussing whether the § 1983 claim “merged” in the wrongful-death claim. The court does not intimate, or decide, that a § 1983 claim based on an alleged deprivation such as petitioner asserts here — if the claim were otherwise cognizable — would require remedial assistance from the state wrongful-death statute or that recovery on such a claim would be limited by that statute.
Petitioner’s question presented assumes that the underlying constitutional violation necessary to support a § 1983 claim on her behalf is undisputed, and that the only question upon which petitioner takes issue with the majority of the Supreme Court of Colorado is the limitation on the amount of recovery. But it would seem possible, if not probable, that if petitioner had presented to the Supreme Court of Colorado the same claim she presented here in oral argument, that court’s opinion would not have turned on the application of the state wrongful-death statute as a limitation on recovery of damages, since the underlying § 1983 claim — deprivation of a right to raise children — is not at all the same underlying claim for which the wrongful-death action provides recompense. Whatever the merits of her constitutional liberty claim in her own right, a question on which we do not intimate an opinion, it would not seem logically to be subject to a damages limitation contained in the statute permitting survivors to recover for wrongs done to a property interest of theirs. In presenting to this Court in her petition for certiorari solely a damages issue of this nature, petitioner has wholly preter-mitted the underlying question of whether she has been deprived of any constitutional liberty interest as a result of respondent’s shooting of her son.
In sum, the damages question which petitioner presents in her petition for certiorari is only the tip of the iceberg. The question of whether she was deprived of a constitutional liberty interest of her own was neither alleged in her complaint in the Colorado trial court, presented in the petition for certiorari in this Court, nor fairly subsumed in the question that was presented. See this Court’s Rule 23 (l)(c). The writ of certiorari is therefore dismissed as improvidently granted. Belcher v. Stengel, 429 U. S. 118 (1976).
It is so ordered.
Section 13-21-202:
“When the death of a person is caused by a wrongful act, neglect, or default of another, and the act, neglect, or default is such as would, if death had not ensued, have entitled the party injured to maintain an action and recover damages in respect thereof, then, and in every such case, the person who or the corporation which would have been liable, if death had not ensued, shall be liable in an action for damages notwithstanding the death of the party injured.”
The jury had been instructed that damages in a wrongful-death action were limited to net pecuniary loss, see Herbertson v. Russell, 160 Colo. 110, 371 P. 2d 422 (1962). This loss is the financial loss sustained by petitioner as a result of the death of her son, and would include the value of any services that he might have rendered and earnings he might have made while a minor, as well as any support he might have provided after becoming an adult, less the expenses petitioner would have incurred in raising him. The award apparently included, in this case, funeral expenses. The Supreme Court of Colorado upheld the instructions and the award, 191 Colo., at 3 n. 1, 550 P. 2d, at 341 n. 1. These issues, of course, are not before us except as they might bear on petitioner’s § 1983 claim.
See n. 2, supra.
Petitioner explicitly acknowledged at oral argument that she had not brought a claim for vindication of her son’s rights; in essence, an action on his behalf. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 6, 17-18, 20. This is clear, as well, from the manner in which the complaint is drafted, as well as the parties’ perception that the closest available state statute is the Colorado wrongful-death statute, rather than the Colorado survivorship statute, Colo. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 13-20-101 (1973). See Tr. of Oral Arg. 17-18, 20. See generally C. McCormick, Law of Damages 336 (1935); 2 F. Harper & F. James, The Law of Torts §§24.1-24.3 (1956). Petitioner sued individually as the mother of the decedent and not as the administratrix of the decedent’s estate.
Petitioner apparently relies on Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U. S. 390 (1923), and its progeny as the basis for her asserted constitutional deprivation. As articulated at oral argument, petitioner’s contention appears to be: “[T]his Court has held on several occasions that a parent has a constitutional right to raise their child, and that that child cannot be taken from them without the due process of law.” Tr. of Oral Arg. 4-5.
Her complaint alleged that she was deprived of
“a. Her child’s right to life;
“b. The right to her child’s freedom from physical abuse, coercion, intimidation, and physical death; and
"c. Her right to her children’s equal protection of the laws.” App. 3. Nowhere does she allege her asserted constitutional right to raise her child.
The court was referring to the assertions in the complaint, quoted in n. 6, swpra. It then raised, and rejected, another argument in the following passage:
“Furthermore, the state did not directly attempt to restrict her own personal decisions relating to procreation, contraception, and child-rearing which are involved in Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U. S. 479 . . . (1965), and Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U. S. 390 . . . (1923). Although the death of a family member represents a loss to her, we, nonetheless, are of the opinion that § 1983 was not designed to compensate for these collateral losses resulting from injuries to others.” 191 Colo., at 9, 550 P. 2d, at 345.
Petitioner rejects the view that the claims are based on the same injuries: “The key is that the remedy ... is for the deprivation of civil rights — not for wrongful death.” Reply Brief for Plaintiff-Appellant in the Supreme Court of Colorado 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: | 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.
Respondents, inmates or former inmates of the Alabama prison system, sued petitioners, who include the State of Alabama and the Alabama Board of Corrections as well as a number of Alabama officials responsible for the administration of its prisons, alleging that conditions in Alabama prisons constituted cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. The United States District Court agreed and issued an order prescribing measures designed to eradicate cruel and unusual punishment in the Alabama prison system. The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed but modified some aspects of the order which it believed exceeded the limits of the appropriate exercise of the court's remedial powers. 559 F. 2d 283.
Among the claims raised here by petitioners is that the issuance of a mandatory injunction against the State of Alabama and the Alabama Board of Corrections is unconstitutional because the Eleventh Amendment prohibits federal courts from entertaining suits by private parties against States and their agencies. The Court of Appeals did not address this contention, perhaps because it was of the view that in light of the numerous individual defendants in the case dismissal as to these two defendants would not affect the scope of the injunction. There can be no doubt, however, that suit against the State and its Board of Corrections is barred by the Eleventh Amendment, unless Alabama has consented to the filing of such a suit. Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U. S. 651 (1974); Ford Motor Co. v. Department of Treasury, 323 U. S. 459 (1945); Worcester County Trust Co. v. Riley, 302 U. S. 292 (1937). Respondents do not contend that Alabama has consented to this suit, and it appears that no consent could be given under Art. I, § 14, of the Alabama Constitution, which provides that “the State of Alabama shall never be made a defendant in any court of law or equity.” Moreover, the question of the State’s Eleventh Amendment immunity is not merely academic. Alabama has an interest in being dismissed from this action in order to eliminate the danger of being held, in contempt if it should fail to comply with the mandatory injunction. Consequently, we grant the petition for certio-rari limited to Question 2 presented by petitioners, reverse the judgment in part, and remand the case to the Court of Appeals with instructions to order the dismissal of the State of Alabama and the Alabama Board of Corrections from this action.
So ordered.
Mr. Justice Brennan and Mr. Justice Marshall dissent.
Respondents contend that petitioners failed to raise the Eleventh Amendment issue in the District Court. The Court held in Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U. S. 651, 678 (1974), however, that “the Eleventh Amendment defense sufficiently partakes of the nature of a jurisdictional bar so that it need not be raised in the trial court . . . .”
“Whether the mandatory injunction issued against the State of Alabama and the Alabama Board of Corrections violates the State’s Eleventh Amendment immunity or exceeds the jurisdiction granted federal courts by 42 U. S. C. § 1983.”
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 Secretary of the Army, relying upon 10 U. S. C. § 652a (Act of June 4, 1920, § 1, subch. II, 41 Stat. 809, as amended) and 38 U. S. C. § 693h (Act of June 22, 1944, 58 Stat. 286, as amended), and upon Department of Defense and Army Regulations deemed to be authorized by those statutes, discharged petitioners from the Army and issued to each of them a discharge certificate in form other than “honorable.” In so doing, he took into account preinduction activities of petitioners rather than basing his action exclusively upon the record of their military service. After having exhausted available administrative remedies, petitioners separately brought these proceedings in the District Court seeking judgments declaring those determinations and actions of the Secretary to be void as in excess of his powers under the circumstances, and directing him to issue “honorable” discharge certificates to them. Being of the view that it was without jurisdiction to consider the actions, the District Court dismissed them, 137 F. Supp. 475, and the Court of Appeals affirmed, with one judge dissenting, 100 U. S. App. D. C. 190, 256, 243 F. 2d 613, 834. We granted certiorari, 353 U. S. 956 and 354 U. S. 920.
The respective contentions made here may be summarized as follows:
(1) Petitioners contend (a) that the Secretary acted in excess of his powers, because the statutes referred to did not authorize, nor support Department of Defense and Army Regulations when taken to authorize, consideration of petitioners’ preinduction activities in determining the type of discharges to be issued to them upon separation from the Army, and (b) that the action of respondent in issuing to them less than “honorable” discharges, and the action of the District Court and of the Court of Appeals in refusing review for what they thought was lack of judicial power, deprived petitioners of due process under the Fifth Amendment, and of a judicial trial under the Sixth Amendment, of the Constitution ;
(2) Respondent contends (a) that by 10 U. S. C. § 652a, Congress required that, upon separation from the Army, a former soldier be given “a certificate of discharge, ... in the manner prescribed by the Secretary of the Department of the Army . . (b) that, inasmuch as all certificates of discharge are not required to be “honorable” ones, he was authorized to, and did, prescribe various types of discharge certificates running the gamut from the accolade of “Honorable discharge” to the odious “Dishonorable discharge”; (c) that by 38 U. S. C. § 693h, Congress directed the establishment of an Army Review Board with power to review, upon its own motion or that of the former soldier, the type of discharge issued, and “to change, correct, or modify any discharge or dismissal, and to issue a new discharge in accord with the facts presented to the board,” and prescribed that “the findings thereof [shall] be final subject only to review by the Secretary of the Army”; (d) that the findings of the Board, made under those procedures so afforded to and availed of by petitioners, were final subject only to review by the Secretary of the Army; and-(e) that, therefore, such administrative procedure is exclusive and the courts are without jurisdiction to review those findings.
In keeping with our duty to avoid deciding constitutional questions presented unless essential to proper disposition of a case, we look first to petitioners’ non-constitutional claim that respondent acted in excess of powers granted him by Congress. Generally, judicial relief is available to one who has been injured by an act of a government official which is in excess of his express or implied powers. American School of Magnetic Healing v. McAnnulty, 187 U. S. 94, 108; Philadelphia Co. v. Stimson, 223 U. S. 605, 621-622; Stark v. Wickard, 321 U. S. 288, 310. The District Court had not only jurisdiction to determine its jurisdiction but also power to construe the statutes involved to determine whether the respondent did exceed his powers. If he did so, his actions would not constitute exercises of his administrative discretion, and, in such circumstances as those before us, judicial relief from this illegality would be available. Moreover, the claims presented in these cases may be entertained by the District Court because petitioners have alleged judicially cognizable injuries. Cf. Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee v. McGrath, 341 U. S. 123, 159, 160, and see Army Regulation 615-360, par. 7.
This brings us to the merits. The Solicitor General conceded that if the District Court had jurisdiction to review respondent’s determinations as to the discharges he issued these petitioners and if petitioners had standing to bring these suits, the action of respondent is not sustainable. On the basis of that concession and our consideration of the law and this record we conclude that the actions of the Secretary of the Army cannot be sustained in law. By § 652a, which provides that no person be discharged from military service “without a certificate of discharge,” Congress granted to the Secretary of the Army authority to issue discharges. By § 693h it provided for review by the Army Review Board of the exercise of such authority. Surely these two provisions must be given an harmonious reading to the end that the basis on which the Secretary’s action is reviewed is coterminous with the basis on which he is allowed to act. Section 693h expressly requires that the findings of the Army Review Board “shall be based upon all available records of the [Army] relating to the person requesting such review . . . We think the word “records,” as used in the statute, means records of military service, and that the statute, properly construed, means that the type of discharge to be issued is to be determined solely by the soldier’s military record in the Army. An authoritative construction of the congressional grant of power is to be found in the regulations of the Department of the Army. Army Regulation 615-375, par. 2 (b) states: “The purpose of a discharge certificate is to record the separation of an individual from the military service and to specify the character of service rendered during the period covered by the discharge.” (Emphasis supplied.) Moreover, the Army’s Regulation 615-360, par. 7 (which was in effect during the times here involved), further states: “Because the type of discharge may significantly influence the individual’s civilian rights and eligibility for benefits provided by law, it is essential that all pertinent factors be considered so that the type of discharge will reflect accurately the nature of service rendered. . . .” (Emphasis supplied.)
The judgments of the Court of Appeals are reversed and the cases are remanded to the District Court for the relief to which petitioners are entitled in the light of this opinion.
Reversed.
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 Burton
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The issue here is whether, in determining a net estate for federal estate tax purposes, a deduction may be made on account of a charitable bequest that is to take effect only if decedent’s childless 27-year-old daughter dies without descendants surviving her and her mother. For the reasons hereafter stated, we hold that it may not.
Louis Sternberger died testate June 25, 1947. His federal estate tax return discloses a gross estate of $2,406,541.71 and, for the additional estate tax, a net estate of $2,064,346.55. It includes assets owned by him at his death and others held by the Chase National Bank, respondent herein, under a revocable trust created by him. As the revocable trust makes provisions for charity that are, for our purposes, identical with those in the will, this opinion applies to both dispositions.
The will places the residuary estate in trust during the joint lives of decedent’s wife and daughter and for the life of the survivor of them. Upon the death of such survivor, the principal of the trust fund is payable to the then living descendants of the daughter. However, if there are no such descendants, one-half of the residue goes to certain collateral relatives of decedent and the other half to certain charitable corporations. If none of the designated relatives are living, the entire residue goes to the charitable corporations.
At decedent’s death, his wife and daughter survived him. His wife was then 62 and his daughter 27. The latter married in 1942, was divorced in 1944, had not remarried and had not had a child.
In the estate tax return, decedent’s executor, respondent herein, deducted $179,154.19 from the gross estate as the present value of the conditional bequest to charity of one-half of the residue. Respondent claimed no deduction for the more remote charitable bequest of the other half of the residue. The Commissioner of Internal Revenue disallowed the deduction and determined a tax deficiency on that ground. The Tax Court reversed the Commissioner. 18 T. C. 836. The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed the Tax Court, 207 F. 2d 600, on the authority of Meierhof v. Higgins, 129 F. 2d 1002. To resolve the resulting conflict with the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Newton Trust Co. v. Commissioner, 160 F. 2d 176, we granted certiorari, 347 U. S. 932.
The controlling provisions of the Revenue Code are in substantially the same terms as when they were first enacted in 1919 and are as follows:
“SEC. 812. NET ESTATE.
“For the purpose of the tax the value of the net estate shall be determined ... by deducting from the value of the gross estate—
“(d) Transfers for Public, Charitable, and Religious Uses. — The amount of all bequests, legacies, devises, or transfers ... to or for the use of any corporation organized and operated exclusively for religious, charitable, scientific, literary, or educational purposes . . . .” I. R. C.
The Commissioner concedes that the corporations named in the will qualify as charitable corporations under the statute. There is no doubt, therefore, that if the bequest to them had been immediate and unconditional, its value would be deductible. The question before us is what, if any, charitable deduction may be made despite (1) the deferment of the effective date of the charitable bequest until the deaths of both decedent’s wife and daughter and (2) the conditioning of the bequest upon a lack of descendants of decedent’s daughter surviving at that time. We find the answer in the Treasury Regulations, which are of long standing and strengthened by reenactments of I. R. C., § 812 (d), since their promulgation.
1. Section 81.Jf.Jf. of Treasury Regulations 105 would permit the deduction of the present value of the bequest if it were an outright bequest, merely deferred until the deaths of decedent’s wife and daughter.
In their earliest form, the predecessors of these regulations, in 1919, recognized, in plain language, the propriety of the deduction of the present value of a deferred, but assured, bequest to charity. Section 81.44 (d) of Treasury Regulations 105 does so with inescapable specificity:
“§ 81.44 Transfers for public, charitable, religious, etc., uses. . . .
“(d) If a trust is created for both a charitable and a private purpose, deduction may be taken of the value of the beneficial interest in favor of the former only insofar as such interest is presently ascertainable, and hence severable from the interest in favor of the private use. § 81.10 indicates the principles to be applied in the computation of the present worth of deferred uses, but such computation will not be made by the Commissioner on behalf of the executor. Thus, if money or property is placed in trust to pay the income to an individual during his life, or for a term of years, and then to pay or deliver the principal to the charitable corporation, or to apply it to a charitable purpose, the present value of the remainder is deductible. To determine the present value of such remainder, use the appropriate factor in column 3 of Table A or B of § 81.10. If the present worth of a remainder bequeathed for a charitable use is dependent upon the termination of more than one life, or in any other manner rendering inapplicable Table A or B of § 81.10, the claim for the deduction must be supported by a full statement, in duplicate, of the computation of the present worth made, in accordance with the principle set forth in 181.10, by one skilled in actuarial computations.” (Emphasis supplied.) 26 CFR.
The very explicitness of the above provisions emphasizes their restriction to “the computation of the present worth” of assured bequests such as are the subject of each of the illustrations and cross references in the section. The statute restricts charitable deductions to bequests to corporations “organized and operated exclusively for . . . charitable . . . purposes.” (Emphasis supplied.) Likewise, the above section of the regulations requires that the deductible value of “the beneficial interest in favor of” the designated charitable purpose be “severable from the interest in favor of the private use.” There is no suggestion in the statute or in § 81.44 of a deduction of funds other than those later to be used exclusively for charitable purposes.
2. Section 81.46 of Treasury Regulations 105 permits no deduction for a conditional bequest to charity “unless the possibility that charity will not take is so remote as to be negligible.”
Here, also, the regulations in their earliest form, in 1919, were unequivocally restrictive. It was only after court decisions had demonstrated the need for doing so that the restrictions were restated so as expressly to permit deductions of bequests assured in fact but conditional in form.
Section 81.46 now provides expressly that no deduction is allowable for a conditional bequest to charity “unless the possibility that charity will not take is so remote as to be negligible.” The whole section is significant:
“§ 81.46 Conditional bequests, (a) If as of the date of decedent’s death the transfer to charity is dependent upon the performance of some act or the happening of a precedent event in order that it might become effective, no deduction is allowable unless the possibility that charity will not take is so remote as to be negligible. If an estate or interest has passed to or is vested in charity at the time of decedent’s death and such right or interest would be defeated by the performance of some act or the happening of some event which appeared to have been highly improbable at the time of decedent’s death, the deduction is allowable.
“(b) If the legatee, devisee, donee, or trustee is empowered to divert the property or fund, in whole or in part, to a use or purpose which would have rendered it, to the extent that it is subject to such power, not deductible had it been directly so bequeathed, devised, or given by the decedent, deduction will be limited to that portion, if any, of the property or fund which is exempt from an exercise of such power.” (Emphasis supplied.) 26 CFR.
Sections 81.44 and 81.46 fully implement § 812 (d) of the code. In their early forms they were obviously mutually exclusive and easily reconcilable. The predecessor of § 81.46 confined charitable deductions to outright, unconditional bequests to charity. It expressly excluded deductions for charitable bequests that were subject to conditions, either precedent or subsequent. While it encouraged assured bequests to charity, it offered no deductions for bequests that might never reach charity. Subsequent amendments have clarified and not changed that principle. Section 81.46 (a) today yields to no condition unless the possibility that charity will not take is “negligible” or “highly improbable.” Section 81.46 (b) is equally strict. It relates to provisions whereby funds may be diverted in whole or in part to non-charitable uses, and it limits the tax deduction to that portion of each fund that cannot be so diverted. Where the principal of a bequest to charity thus may be invaded for private purposes, it is only the ascertainable and assured balance of the bequest to charity that is recognized for a tax deduction.
Respondent concedes that the chance that charity will not take is much more than negligible. Therefore, if § 81.46 (a) applies to the instant case, no charitable deduction is permissible.
Respondent claims, however, that § 81.44 covers this case. In doing so, it reads §§ 81.44 and 81.46 together and, instead of confining them to their mutually exclusive subjects, makes them overlap. It applies § 81.44 to some deferred conditional bequests. It does so in any case where it can compute, on approved actuarial standards, the degree of possibility that charity will receive the conditional bequest. Respondent then computes the present value of a corresponding percentage of the entire deferred bequest. In short, respondent claims an immediate tax deduction equal to the present value of whatever fraction of the bequest corresponds, actuarially, to the chance that charity may benefit from it.
This Court considered a somewhat comparable proposal in 1928. In Humes v. United States, 276 U. S. 487, a taxpayer sought a charitable deduction based on a bequest to charity that was conditional upon the death of decedent’s 15-year-old niece, without issue, before reaching the age of 40. To sustain the proposal, the taxpayer sought to establish actuarially a measure of the chance that charity would receive the bequest and to find authority in the Revenue Code for the deduction of the present value of a corresponding percentage of the bequest. Speaking through Mr. Justice Brandéis, this Court found the actuarial computation inadequate. It, however, did not drop the matter there. It made the following statement:
“One may guess, or gamble on, or even insure against, any future event. The Solicitor General tells us that Lloyds of London will insure against having twins. But the fundamental question in the case at bar, is not whether this contingent interest can be insured against or its value guessed at, but what construction shall be given to a statute. Did Congress in providing for the determination of the net estate taxable, intend that a deduction should be made for a contingency, the actual value of which cannot be determined from any known data? Neither taxpayer, nor revenue officer — even if equipped with all the aid which the actuarial art can supply — could do more than guess at the value of this contingency. It is clear that Congress did not intend that a deduction should he made for a contingent gift of that character.” (Emphasis supplied.) Id., at 494.
Since the above was written, there have been advances in the actuarial art. Today, actuarial estimates are employed more widely than they were then. The computations now before us illustrate that advance. They do not, however, lessen the necessity for statutory authorization for such a tax deduction. The scope of the authority required by respondent can best be appreciated if examined in the revealing light of the specific circumstances of the present case.
The Tax Court and the Court of Appeals have approved respondent’s actuarial computations as fairly reflecting the present value of one-half of a two-million-dollar residue, reduced in proportion to the chance that charity will receive it. In making this estimate, respondent has computed the present value of the deferred bequest on the basis of 4% interest compounded annually and has used the following actuarial tables:
1. To determine the joint life expectancy of decedent’s wife and daughter, the Combined Experience Mortality Table prescribed in § 81.10 of the estate tax regulations.
2. To estimate the probability of remarriage of the daughter, the American Remarriage Table, published by the Casualty Actuarial Society.
3. To estimate the chance of a first child being born to decedent’s daughter, a specially devised table which has been found by the Tax Court to have been prepared in accordance with accepted actuarial principles upon data derived from statistics published by the Bureau of the Census.
On the basis of these tables, the Tax Court finds that the present value of the charitable remainder at the death of decedent is .18384 on the dollar if computed solely on the chances of his daughter’s remarriage; .24094 on the dollar if computed on the chance that a legitimate descendant of his daughter will survive her; and .24058 on the dollar if computed on the chance that any legitimate or illegitimate descendant of his daughter will survive her. It is this last estimate that respondent seeks to apply here.
If respondent is successful, it means the allowance of an immediate and irrevocable deduction of over $175,000 from the gross estate of decedent, although respondent admits there is a real possibility that charity will receive nothing. The bequest, in fact, offers to the daughter an inducement of about $2,000,000 to remarry and leave a descendant. To the extent that this inducement reduces the actuarially computed average probability that charity will receive this bequest, it further demonstrates the inappropriateness of authorizing charitable tax deductions based upon highly conditional bequests to charity.
An even clearer illustration of the effect of respondent’s interpretation of the code readily suggests itself. If decedent had here conditioned his bequest to charity solely on the death of his daughter before remarriage, the Remarriage Table would then fix the present value of the charitable remainder at .18384 on the dollar. The taxpayer would at once receive a substantial charitable deduction on that basis. The daughter, however, would have a $2,000,000 inducement to remarry. If she did so, her action would cancel the possibility that charity would receive anything from the bequest, but it would not cancel the tax deduction already allowed to the estate. To whatever extent any person can defeat the fulfillment of any condition upon which a benefit to charity depends, to that extent the actuarial estimate that such benefit will reach charity is less dependable. The allowance of such a tax reduction as is here sought would open a door to easy abuse. The result might well be not so much to encourage gifts inuring to the benefit of charity as to encourage the writing of conditions into bequests which would assure charitable tax deductions without assuring benefits to charity.
We find no suggestion of authority for such a deduction in § 812(d). That section remains substantially the same as it was when Humes v. United States, supra, 276 U. S. 487, was decided. We also find no authorization for the deduction either in § 81.46 or § 81.44 of the regulations, as thus far discussed. This relegates respondent to the following words now in § 81.44 (d):
“If the present worth of a remainder bequeathed for a charitable use is dependent upon the termination of more than one life, or in any other manner rendering inapplicable Table A or B of § 81.10, the claim for the deduction must be supported by a full statement, in duplicate, of the computation of the present worth made, in accordance with the principle set forth in § 81.10, by one skilled in actuarial computations.” (Emphasis supplied.)
In view of the statutory emphasis upon outright bequests and the long-standing exclusion of conditional bequests by § 81.46 of the regulations (and its predecessors), we do not regard the above sentence as now invading the domain of § 81.46 by extending the deduction to conditional bequests in a manner readily open to abuse. We regard the sentence as restricted to computations of deferred, but assured, bequests. Section 81.10 (i) now deals at length with the valuation of remainders and reversionary interests and gives many examples of such computations. Every example, however, is one of the valuation of an assured bequest. The additional language in § 81.44 (d), quoted above, does not authorize the deduction, and § 81.46 prohibits it. Such specific and established administrative interpretation of the statute is valid and “should not be overruled except for weighty reasons.” Commissioner v. South Texas Co., 333 U. S. 496, 501.
This Court has not specifically faced the issue now before us since Humes v. United States, supra, but we see no reason to retreat from the views there stated. This Court finds no statutory authority for the deduction from a gross estate of any percentage of a conditional bequest to charity where there is no assurance that charity will receive the bequest or some determinable part of it. Where the amount of a bequest to charity has not been determinable, the deduction properly has been denied. Henslee v. Union Planters Bank, 335 U. S. 595, 598-600; Merchants Bank v. Commissioner, 320 U. S. 256, 259-263; and see Robinette v. Helvering, 318 U. S. 184, 189. Where the amount has been determinable, the deduction has, with equal propriety, been allowed where the designated charity has been sure to benefit from it. United States v. Provident Trust Co., 291 U. S. 272; Ithaca Trust Co. v. United States, 279 U. S. 151.
Some of the lower courts have squarely met the instant problem and denied the deduction. For example, the deduction was denied in the First Circuit where the court found that “it is not certain that the charity will take 50% of the corpus; only that it has a 50-50 chance of getting all or nothing." Newton Trust Co. v. Commissioner, 160 F. 2d 175, 181. See also, Graff v. Smith, 100 F. Supp. 42; Hoagland v. Kavanagh, 36 F. Supp. 875; Wood v. United States, 20 F. Supp. 197. The administrative practice, as evidenced here by the action of the Commissioner, has been to deny the deduction. See further, Paul, Federal Estate and Gift Taxation (1946 Supp.), 426-427.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals, accordingly, is reversed and the cause remanded for action in conformity with this opinion.
Reversed.
These provisions appear more fully in Estate of Sternberger v. Commissioner, 18 T. C. 836, 837-838.
Originally § 403 (a) (3) of the Revenue Act of 1918, 40 Stat. 1098. See also, Griswold, Cases and Materials on Federal Taxation (3d ed.), 679 et seq.; 1 Paul, Federal Estate and Gift Taxation, 638 et seq.
Its latest reenactment is in § 2055 (a) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954, 68A Stat. 390. The purpose of the deduction is to encourage gifts to the named uses. Edwards v. Slocum, 264 U. S. 61, 63; 13 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 198, 201; 28 Va. L. Rev. 387-388. Like other tax deductions, however, it must rest on more than a doubt or ambiguity. See United States v. Stewart, 311 U. S. 60, 71, and also Commissioner v. Jacobson, 336 U. S. 28, 49.
Section 408 (a) of the Revenue Act of 1942, 56 Stat. 949, added to I. R. C., § 812(d), the so-called “disclaimer provision,” whereby, under certain conditions, the renunciation of a private bequest which effectuates a gift to charity earns a charitable deduction from the decedent's gross estate.
"Art. 53. Public, charitable, and similar bequests. — . . . It does not prevent deduction . . . that the property placed in trust is also subject to another trust for a private purpose. Thus, where money or property is placed in trust to pay the income to an individual during life, and then to pay or deliver the same to a charitable corporation, or apply the principal to a charitable purpose, the charitable bequest or devise forms the basis for a deduction. The amount of the deduction, in such case, is the value, at the date of the decedent’s death, of the remainder interest in the money or property which is devised or bequeathed to charity. For the manner of determining the value of such remainder interest, see Article 20.” 21 T. D. 783-784.
Article 20 prescribed methods of determining the present worth of a remainder subject to a single life interest.
Congressional insistence upon the actual use of the funds exclusively for charitable purposes appears in the following provisions describing the bequests that are deductible:
“The amount of all bequests ... to or for the use of any corporation organized and operated exclusively for religious, charitable, scientific, literary, or educational purposes ... no part of the net earnings of which inures to the benefit of any private stockholder or individual ... or to a trustee or trustees, or a fraternal society, order, or association operating under the lodge system, but only if such contributions or gifts are to be used . . . exclusively for religious, charitable, scientific, literary, or educational purposes . . . .” (Emphasis supplied.) I. R. C., §812 (d).
“Art. 56. Conditional bequests. — Where the bequest, legacy, devise, or gift is dependent upon the performance of some act, or the happening of some event, in order to become effective it is necessary that the performance of the act or the occurrence of the event shall have taken place before the deduction can be allowed. Where, by the terms of the bequest, devise or gift, it is subject to be defeated by a subsequent act or event, no deduction will be allowed.” 21 T. D. 785.
United States v. Provident Trust Co., 291 U. S. 272. See also, Hoagland v. Kavanagh, 36 F. Supp. 875; Ninth Bank & Trust Co. v. United States, 15 F. Supp. 951.
Despite the conclusions of the Tax Court and the Court of Appeals to the contrary, the Government contends here that the proposed actuarial value of the conditional remainder to charity does not support the deduction. We do not reach that issue, but the facts material to it are as follows: The Remarriage Table is based on a study of American experience conducted by a Committee of the Casualty Actuarial Society, 19 Proceedings of the Casualty Actuarial Society (1933), 279-349. The table is based solely upon the remarriage experience of widows who, through the deaths of their husbands, become beneficiaries under workmen's compensation laws in states where they lose compensation benefits upon remarriage. The reports relied upon cover experience for policy years 1921 to 1929, inclusive. See id., at 286-288, 298. See also, Myers, Further Remarriage Experience, 36 Proceedings of the Casualty Actuarial Society (1949), 73 et seq. The specially devised table as to the probability of issue is based upon statistics, for white women in 47 states and the District of Columbia, indicating the degree of probability that such women, after they are 27 years old, will marry and have first-born children. See the following Bureau of the Census publications for 1940; Vital Statistics of the United States, Pt. II, 89; Nativity and Parentage of the White Population — General Characteristics 110; Types of Families 9. The instant computation assumes that such a child will survive its mother. 18 T. C. 836, 837-838.
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.
George Jepsen, Attorney General, State of Connecticut.
Lawrence G. Wasden, Attorney General, State of Idaho.
Lisa Madigan, Attorney General, State of Illinois.
Tom Miller, Attorney General, State of Iowa.
Brian E. Frosh, Attorney General, State of Maryland.
Bill Schuette, Attorney General, State of Michigan.
Tim Fox, Attorney General, State of Montana.
Douglas J. Peterson, Attorney General, State of Nebraska.
Peter Kilmartin, Attorney General, State of Rhode Island.
Herbert H. Slatery III, Attorney General, State of Tennessee.
Ken Paxton, Attorney General, State of Texas.
Sean D. Reyes, Attorney General, State of Utah.
Thomas J. Donovan, Jr., Attorney General, State of Vermont.
Noel J. Francisco, Solicitor General, Makan Delrahim, Assistant Attorney General, Malcolm L. Stewart, Deputy Solicitor General, Brian H. Fletcher, Assistant to the Solicitor General, William J. Rinner, Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General, Kristen C. Limarzi, Robert B. Nicholson, James J. Fredricks, Craig W. Conrath, John R. Read, Nickolai G. Levin, Andrew J. Ewalt, Attorneys, Department of Justice, Washington, DC, for Respondent United States.
Michael K. Kellogg, Aaron M. Panner, Derek T. Ho, Kellogg, Hansen, Todd, Figel & Frederick, P.L.L.C., Washington, DC, Benjamin J. Horwich, Justin P. Raphael, Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP, San Francisco, CA, Evan R. Chesler, Peter T. Barbur, Kevin J. Orsini, Rory A. Leraris, Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP, New York, NY, Laureen E. Seeger, Mark Califano, Suzanne E. Wachsstock, American Express Company, New York, NY, for Respondents American Express Company and American Express Travel Related Services Company, Inc.
Justice THOMAS delivered the opinion of the Court.
American Express Company and American Express Travel Related Services Company (collectively, Amex) provide credit-card services to both merchants and cardholders. When a cardholder buys something from a merchant who accepts Amex credit cards, Amex processes the transaction through its network, promptly pays the merchant, and subtracts a fee. If a merchant wants to accept Amex credit cards-and attract Amex cardholders to its business-Amex requires the merchant to agree to an antisteering contractual provision. The antisteering provision prohibits merchants from discouraging customers from using their Amex card after they have already entered the store and are about to buy something, thereby avoiding Amex's fee. In this case, we must decide whether Amex's antisteering provisions violate federal antitrust law. We conclude they do not.
I
A
Credit cards have become a primary way that consumers in the United States purchase goods and services. When a cardholder uses a credit card to buy something from a merchant, the transaction is facilitated by a credit-card network. The network provides separate but interrelated services to both cardholders and merchants. For cardholders, the network extends them credit, which allows them to make purchases without cash and to defer payment until later. Cardholders also can receive rewards based on the amount of money they spend, such as airline miles, points for travel, or cash back. For merchants, the network allows them to avoid the cost of processing transactions and offers them quick, guaranteed payment. This saves merchants the trouble and risk of extending credit to customers, and it increases the number and value of sales that they can make.
By providing these services to cardholders and merchants, credit-card companies bring these parties together, and therefore operate what economists call a "two-sided platform." As the name implies, a two-sided platform offers different products or services to two different groups who both depend on the platform to intermediate between them. See Evans & Schmalensee, Markets With Two-Sided Platforms, 1 Issues in Competition L. & Pol'y 667 (2008) (Evans & Schmalensee); Evans & Noel, Defining Antitrust Markets When Firms Operate Two-Sided Platforms, 2005 Colum. Bus. L. Rev. 667, 668 (Evans & Noel) ; Filistrucchi, Geradin, Van Damme, & Affeldt, Market Definition in Two-Sided Markets: Theory and Practice, 10 J. Competition L. & Econ. 293, 296 (2014) (Filistrucchi). For credit cards, that interaction is a transaction. Thus, credit-card networks are a special type of two-sided platform known as a "transaction" platform. See id., at 301, 304, 307; Evans & Noel 676-678. The key feature of transaction platforms is that they cannot make a sale to one side of the platform without simultaneously making a sale to the other. See Klein, Lerner, Murphy, & Plache, Competition in Two-Sided Markets: The Antitrust Economics of Payment Card Interchange Fees, 73 Antitrust L.J. 571, 580, 583 (2006) (Klein). For example, no credit-card transaction can occur unless both the merchant and the cardholder simultaneously agree to use the same credit-card network. See Filistrucchi 301.
Two-sided platforms differ from traditional markets in important ways. Most relevant here, two-sided platforms often exhibit what economists call "indirect network effects." Evans & Schmalensee 667. Indirect network effects exist where the value of the two-sided platform to one group of participants depends on how many members of a different group participate. D. Evans & R. Schmalensee, Matchmakers: The New Economics of Multisided Platforms 25 (2016). In other words, the value of the services that a two-sided platform provides increases as the number of participants on both sides of the platform increases. A credit card, for example, is more valuable to cardholders when more merchants accept it, and is more valuable to merchants when more cardholders use it. See Evans & Noel 686-687; Klein 580, 584. To ensure sufficient participation, two-sided platforms must be sensitive to the prices that they charge each side. See Evans & Schmalensee 675; Evans & Noel 680; Muris, Payment Card Regulation and the (Mis)Application of the Economics of Two-Sided Markets, 2005 Colum. Bus. L. Rev. 515, 532-533 (Muris) ; Rochet & Tirole, Platform Competition in Two-Sided Markets, 1 J. Eur. Econ. Assn. 990, 1013 (2003). Raising the price on side A risks losing participation on that side, which decreases the value of the platform to side B. If participants on side B leave due to this loss in value, then the platform has even less value to side A-risking a feedback loop of declining demand. See Evans & Schmalensee 675; Evans & Noel 680-681. Two-sided platforms therefore must take these indirect network effects into account before making a change in price on either side. See Evans & Schmalensee 675; Evans & Noel 680-681.
Sometimes indirect network effects require two-sided platforms to charge one side much more than the other. See Evans & Schmalensee 667, 675, 681, 690-691; Evans & Noel 668, 691; Klein 585; Filistrucchi 300. For two-sided platforms, " 'the [relative] price structure matters, and platforms must design it so as to bring both sides on board.' " Evans & Schmalensee 669 (quoting Rochet & Tirole, Two-Sided Markets: A Progress Report, 37 RAND J. Econ. 645, 646 (2006)). The optimal price might require charging the side with more elastic demand a below-cost (or even negative) price. See Muris 519, 550; Klein 579; Evans & Schmalensee 675; Evans & Noel 681. With credit cards, for example, networks often charge cardholders a lower fee than merchants because cardholders are more price sensitive. See Muris 522; Klein 573-574, 585, 595. In fact, the network might well lose money on the cardholder side by offering rewards such as cash back, airline miles, or gift cards. See Klein 587; Evans & Schmalensee 672. The network can do this because increasing the number of cardholders increases the value of accepting the card to merchants and, thus, increases the number of merchants who accept it. Muris 522; Evans & Schmalensee 692. Networks can then charge those merchants a fee for every transaction (typically a percentage of the purchase price). Striking the optimal balance of the prices charged on each side of the platform is essential for two-sided platforms to maximize the value of their services and to compete with their rivals.
B
Amex, Visa, MasterCard, and Discover are the four dominant participants in the credit-card market. Visa, which is by far the largest, has 45% of the market as measured by transaction volume. Amex and MasterCard trail with 26.4% and 23.3%, respectively, while Discover has just 5.3% of the market.
Visa and MasterCard have significant structural advantages over Amex. Visa and MasterCard began as bank cooperatives and thus almost every bank that offers credit cards is in the Visa or MasterCard network. This makes it very likely that the average consumer carries, and the average merchant accepts, Visa or MasterCard. As a result, the vast majority of Amex cardholders have a Visa or MasterCard, but only a small number of Visa and Master-Card cardholders have an Amex. Indeed, Visa and MasterCard account for more than 432 million cards in circulation in the United States, while Amex has only 53 million. And while 3.4 million merchants at 6.4 million locations accept Amex, nearly three million more locations accept Visa, MasterCard, and Discover.
Amex competes with Visa and MasterCard by using a different business model. While Visa and MasterCard earn half of their revenue by collecting interest from their cardholders, Amex does not. Amex instead earns most of its revenue from merchant fees. Amex's business model thus focuses on cardholder spending rather than cardholder lending. To encourage cardholder spending, Amex provides better rewards than other networks. Due to its superior rewards, Amex tends to attract cardholders who are wealthier and spend more money. Merchants place a higher value on these cardholders, and Amex uses this advantage to recruit merchants.
Amex's business model has significantly influenced the credit-card market. To compete for the valuable cardholders that Amex attracts, both Visa and MasterCard have introduced premium cards that, like Amex, charge merchants higher fees and offer cardholders better rewards. To maintain their lower merchant fees, Visa and MasterCard have created a sliding scale for their various cards-charging merchants less for low-reward cards and more for high-reward cards. This differs from Amex's strategy, which is to charge merchants the same fee no matter the rewards that its card offers. Another way that Amex has influenced the credit-card market is by making banking and card-payment services available to low-income individuals, who otherwise could not qualify for a credit card and could not afford the fees that traditional banks charge. See 2 Record 3835-3837, 4527-4529. In sum, Amex's business model has stimulated competitive innovations in the credit-card market, increasing the volume of transactions and improving the quality of the services.
Despite these improvements, Amex's business model sometimes causes friction with merchants. To maintain the loyalty of its cardholders, Amex must continually invest in its rewards program. But, to fund those investments, Amex must charge merchants higher fees than its rivals.
Even though Amex's investments benefit merchants by encouraging cardholders to spend more money, merchants would prefer not to pay the higher fees. One way that merchants try to avoid them, while still enticing Amex's cardholders to shop at their stores, is by dissuading cardholders from using Amex at the point of sale. This practice is known as "steering."
Amex has prohibited steering since the 1950s by placing antisteering provisions in its contracts with merchants. These antisteering provisions prohibit merchants from implying a preference for non-Amex cards; dissuading customers from using Amex cards; persuading customers to use other cards; imposing any special restrictions, conditions, disadvantages, or fees on Amex cards; or promoting other cards more than Amex. The antisteering provisions do not, however, prevent merchants from steering customers toward debit cards, checks, or cash.
C
In October 2010, the United States and several States (collectively, plaintiffs) sued Amex, claiming that its antisteering provisions violate § 1 of the Sherman Act, 26 Stat. 209, as amended, 15 U.S.C. § 1. After a 7-week trial, the District Court agreed that Amex's antisteering provisions violate § 1. United States v. American Express Co., 88 F.Supp.3d 143, 151-152 (E.D.N.Y.2015). It found that the credit-card market should be treated as two separate markets-one for merchants and one for cardholders. See id., at 171-175. Evaluating the effects on the merchant side of the market, the District Court found that Amex's antisteering provisions are anticompetitive because they result in higher merchant fees. See id., at 195-224.
The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed. United States v. American Express Co., 838 F.3d 179, 184 (2016). It concluded that the credit-card market is one market, not two. Id., at 196-200. Evaluating the credit-card market as a whole, the Second Circuit concluded that Amex's antisteering provisions were not anticompetitive and did not violate § 1. See id., at 200-206.
We granted certiorari, 583 U.S. ----, 138 S.Ct. 355, 199 L.Ed.2d 261 (2017), and now affirm.
II
Section 1 of the Sherman Act prohibits "[e]very contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States." 15 U.S.C. § 1. This Court has long recognized that, "[i]n view of the common law and the law in this country" when the Sherman Act was passed, the phrase "restraint of trade" is best read to mean "undue restraint." Standard Oil Co. of N.J. v. United States, 221 U.S. 1, 59-60, 31 S.Ct. 502, 55 L.Ed. 619 (1911). This Court's precedents have thus understood § 1"to outlaw only unreasonable restraints." State Oil Co. v. Khan, 522 U.S. 3, 10, 118 S.Ct. 275, 139 L.Ed.2d 199 (1997) (emphasis added).
Restraints can be unreasonable in one of two ways. A small group of restraints are unreasonable per se because they "'"always or almost always tend to restrict competition and decrease output."'" Business Electronics Corp. v. Sharp Electronics Corp., 485 U.S. 717, 723, 108 S.Ct. 1515, 99 L.Ed.2d 808 (1988). Typically only "horizontal" restraints-restraints "imposed by agreement between competitors"-qualify as unreasonable per se. Id., at 730, 108 S.Ct. 1515. Restraints that are not unreasonable per se are judged under the "rule of reason." Id., at 723, 108 S.Ct. 1515. The rule of reason requires courts to conduct a fact-specific assessment of "market power and market structure... to assess the [restraint]' s actual effect" on competition. Copperweld Corp. v. Independence Tube Corp., 467 U.S. 752, 768, 104 S.Ct. 2731, 81 L.Ed.2d 628 (1984). The goal is to "distinguis[h] between restraints with anticompetitive effect that are harmful to the consumer and restraints stimulating competition that are in the consumer's best interest." Leegin Creative Leather Products, Inc. v. PSKS, Inc., 551 U.S. 877, 886, 127 S.Ct. 2705, 168 L.Ed.2d 623 (2007).
In this case, both sides correctly acknowledge that Amex's antisteering provisions are vertical restraints-i.e., restraints "imposed by agreement between firms at different levels of distribution." Business Electronics, supra, at 730, 108 S.Ct. 1515. The parties also correctly acknowledge that, like nearly every other vertical restraint, the antisteering provisions should be assessed under the rule of reason. See Leegin, supra, at 882, 127 S.Ct. 2705 ; State Oil, supra, at 19, 118 S.Ct. 275 ; Business Electronics, supra, at 726, 108 S.Ct. 1515 ; Continental T. V., Inc. v. GTE Sylvania Inc., 433 U.S. 36, 57, 97 S.Ct. 2549, 53 L.Ed.2d 568 (1977).
To determine whether a restraint violates the rule of reason, the parties agree that a three-step, burden-shifting framework applies. Under this framework, the plaintiff has the initial burden to prove that the challenged restraint has a substantial anticompetitive effect that harms consumers in the relevant market. See 1 J. Kalinowski, Antitrust Laws and Trade Regulation § 12.02[1] (2d ed. 2017) (Kalinowski); P. Areeda & H. Hovenkamp, Fundamentals of Antitrust Law § 15.02[B] (4th ed. 2017) (Areeda & Hovenkamp); Capital Imaging Assoc., P.C. v. Mohawk Valley Medical Associates, Inc., 996 F.2d 537, 543 (C.A.2 1993). If the plaintiff carries its burden, then the burden shifts to the defendant to show a procompetitive rationale for the restraint. See 1 Kalinowski § 12.02[1]; Areeda & Hovenkamp § 15.02[B]; Capital Imaging Assoc., supra, at 543. If the defendant makes this showing, then the burden shifts back to the plaintiff to demonstrate that the procompetitive efficiencies could be reasonably achieved through less anticompetitive means. See 1 Kalinowski § 12.02[1]; Capital Imaging Assoc., supra, at 543.
Here, the parties ask us to decide whether the plaintiffs have carried their initial burden of proving that Amex's antisteering provisions have an anticompetitive effect. The plaintiffs can make this showing directly or indirectly. Direct evidence of anticompetitive effects would be " 'proof of actual detrimental effects [on competition],' " FTC v. Indiana Federation of Dentists, 476 U.S. 447, 460, 106 S.Ct. 2009, 90 L.Ed.2d 445 (1986), such as reduced output, increased prices, or decreased quality in the relevant market, see 1 Kalinowski § 12.02[2]; Craftsmen Limousine, Inc. v. Ford Motor Co., 491 F.3d 380, 390 (C.A.8 2007) ; Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd. v. British Airways PLC, 257 F.3d 256, 264 (C.A.2 2001). Indirect evidence would be proof of market power plus some evidence that the challenged restraint harms competition. See 1 Kalinowski § 12.02[2]; Tops Markets, Inc. v. Quality Markets, Inc., 142 F.3d 90, 97 (C.A.2 1998) ; Spanish Broadcasting System of Fla. v. Clear Channel Communications, Inc., 376 F.3d 1065, 1073 (C.A.11 2004).
Here, the plaintiffs rely exclusively on direct evidence to prove that Amex's antisteering provisions have caused anticompetitive effects in the credit-card market. To assess this evidence, we must first define the relevant market. Once defined, it becomes clear that the plaintiffs' evidence is insufficient to carry their burden.
A
Because "[l]egal presumptions that rest on formalistic distinctions rather than actual market realities are generally disfavored in antitrust law," Eastman Kodak Co. v. Image Technical Services, Inc., 504 U.S. 451, 466-467, 112 S.Ct. 2072, 119 L.Ed.2d 265 (1992), courts usually cannot properly apply the rule of reason without an accurate definition of the relevant market. "Without a definition of [the] market there is no way to measure [the defendant's] ability to lessen or destroy competition." Walker Process Equipment, Inc. v. Food Machinery & Chemical Corp., 382 U.S. 172, 177, 86 S.Ct. 347, 15 L.Ed.2d 247 (1965) ; accord, 2 Kalinowski § 24.01[4][a]. Thus, the relevant market is defined as "the area of effective competition." Ibid. Typically this is the "arena within which significant substitution in consumption or production occurs." Areeda & Hovenkamp § 5.02; accord, 2 Kalinowski § 24.02[1]; United States v. Grinnell Corp., 384 U.S. 563, 571, 86 S.Ct. 1698, 16 L.Ed.2d 778 (1966). But courts should "combin[e]" different products or services into "a single market" when "that combination reflects commercial realities." Id., at 572, 86 S.Ct. 1698 ; see also Brown Shoe Co. v. United States, 370 U.S. 294, 336-337, 82 S.Ct. 1502, 8 L.Ed.2d 510 (1962) (pointing out that "the definition of the relevant market" must " 'correspond to the commercial realities' of the industry").
As explained, credit-card networks are two-sided platforms. Due to indirect network effects, two-sided platforms cannot raise prices on one side without risking a feedback loop of declining demand. See Evans & Schmalensee 674-675; Evans & Noel 680-681. And the fact that two-sided platforms charge one side a price that is below or above cost reflects differences in the two sides' demand elasticity, not market power or anticompetitive pricing. See Klein 574, 595, 598, 626. Price increases on one side of the platform likewise do not suggest anticompetitive effects without some evidence that they have increased the overall cost of the platform's services. See id., at 575, 594, 626. Thus, courts must include both sides of the platform-merchants and cardholders-when defining the credit-card market.
To be sure, it is not always necessary to consider both sides of a two-sided platform. A market should be treated as one sided when the impacts of indirect network effects and relative pricing in that market are minor. See Filistrucchi 321-322. Newspapers that sell advertisements, for example, arguably operate a two-sided platform because the value of an advertisement increases as more people read the newspaper. Id., at 297, 315; Klein 579. But in the newspaper-advertisement market, the indirect networks effects operate in only one direction; newspaper readers are largely indifferent to the amount of advertising that a newspaper contains. See Filistrucchi 321, 323, and n. 99; Klein 583. Because of these weak indirect network effects, the market for newspaper advertising behaves much like a one-sided market and should be analyzed as such. See Filistrucchi 321; Times-Picayune Publishing Co. v. United States, 345 U.S. 594, 610, 73 S.Ct. 872, 97 L.Ed. 1277 (1953).
But two-sided transaction platforms, like the credit-card market, are different. These platforms facilitate a single, simultaneous transaction between participants. For credit cards, the network can sell its services only if a merchant and cardholder both simultaneously choose to use the network. Thus, whenever a credit-card network sells one transaction's worth of card-acceptance services to a merchant it also must sell one transaction's worth of card-payment services to a cardholder. It cannot sell transaction services to either cardholders or merchants individually. See Klein 583 ("Because cardholders and merchants jointly consume a single product, payment card transactions, their consumption of payment card transactions must be directly proportional"). To optimize sales, the network must find the balance of pricing that encourages the greatest number of matches between cardholders and merchants.
Because they cannot make a sale unless both sides of the platform simultaneously agree to use their services, two-sided transaction platforms exhibit more pronounced indirect network effects and interconnected pricing and demand. Transaction platforms are thus better understood as "suppl[ying] only one product"-transactions. Klein 580. In the credit-card market, these transactions "are jointly consumed by a cardholder, who uses the payment card to make a transaction, and a merchant, who accepts the payment card as a method of payment." Ibid. Tellingly, credit cards determine their market share by measuring the volume of transactions they have sold.
Evaluating both sides of a two-sided transaction platform is also necessary to accurately assess competition. Only other two-sided platforms can compete with a two-sided platform for transactions. See Filistrucchi 301. A credit-card company that processed transactions for merchants, but that had no cardholders willing to use its card, could not compete with Amex. See ibid. Only a company that had both cardholders and merchants willing to use its network could sell transactions and compete in the credit-card market. Similarly, if a merchant accepts the four major credit cards, but a cardholder only uses Visa or Amex, only those two cards can compete for the particular transaction. Thus, competition cannot be accurately assessed by looking at only one side of the platform in isolation.
For all these reasons, "[i]n two-sided transaction markets, only one market should be defined." Id., at 302; see also Evans & Noel 671 ("[F]ocusing on one dimension of... competition tends to distort the competition that actually exists among [two-sided platforms]"). Any other analysis would lead to "'"mistaken inferences"'" of the kind that could "'"chill the very conduct the antitrust laws are designed to protect."'" Brooke Group Ltd. v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., 509 U.S. 209, 226, 113 S.Ct. 2578, 125 L.Ed.2d 168 (1993) ; see also Matsushita Elec. Industrial Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 594, 106 S.Ct. 1348, 89 L.Ed.2d 538 (1986) (" '[W]e must be concerned lest a rule or precedent that authorizes a search for a particular type of undesirable pricing behavior end up by discouraging legitimate price competition' "); Leegin, 551 U.S., at 895, 127 S.Ct. 2705 (noting that courts should avoid "increas[ing] the total cost of the antitrust system by prohibiting procompetitive conduct the antitrust laws should encourage"). Accordingly, we will analyze the two-sided market for credit-card transactions as a whole to determine whether the plaintiffs have shown that Amex's antisteering provisions have anticompetitive effects.
B
The plaintiffs have not carried their burden to prove anticompetitive effects in the relevant market. The plaintiffs stake their entire case on proving that Amex's agreements increase merchant fees. We find this argument unpersuasive.
As an initial matter, the plaintiffs' argument about merchant fees wrongly focuses on only one side of the two-sided credit-card market. As explained, the credit-card market must be defined to include both merchants and cardholders. Focusing on merchant fees alone misses the mark because the product that credit-card companies sell is transactions, not services to merchants, and the competitive effects of a restraint on transactions cannot be judged by looking at merchants alone. Evidence of a price increase on one side of a two-sided transaction platform cannot by itself demonstrate an anticompetitive exercise of market power. To demonstrate anticompetitive effects on the two-sided credit-card market as a whole, the plaintiffs must prove that Amex's antisteering provisions increased the cost of credit-card transactions above a competitive level, reduced the number of credit-card transactions, or otherwise stifled competition in the credit-card market. See 1 Kalinowski § 12.02[2];
Craftsmen Limousine, Inc., 491 F.3d, at 390 ; Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd., 257 F.3d, at 264. They failed to do so.
1
The plaintiffs did not offer any evidence that the price of credit-card transactions was higher than the price one would expect to find in a competitive market. As the District Court found, the plaintiffs failed to offer any reliable measure of Amex's transaction price or profit margins. 88 F.Supp.3d, at 198, 215. And the evidence about whether Amex charges more than its competitors was ultimately inconclusive. Id., at 199, 202, 215.
Amex's increased merchant fees reflect increases in the value of its services and the cost of its transactions, not an ability to charge above a competitive price. Amex began raising its merchant fees in 2005 after Visa and MasterCard raised their fees in the early 2000s. Id., at 195, 199-200. As explained, Amex has historically charged higher merchant fees than these competitors because it delivers wealthier cardholders who spend more money. Id., at 200-201. Amex's higher merchant fees are based on a careful study of how much additional value its cardholders offer merchants. See id., at 192-193. On the other side of the market, Amex uses its higher merchant fees to offer its cardholders a more robust rewards program, which is necessary to maintain cardholder loyalty and encourage the level of spending that makes Amex valuable to merchants. Id., at 160, 191-195. That Amex allocates prices between merchants and cardholders differently from Visa and MasterCard is simply not evidence that it wields market power to achieve anticompetitive ends. See Evans & Noel 670-671; Klein 574-575, 594-595, 598, 626.
In addition, the evidence that does exist cuts against the plaintiffs' view that Amex's antisteering provisions are the cause of any increases in merchant fees. Visa and MasterCard's merchant fees have continued to increase, even at merchant locations where Amex is not accepted and, thus, Amex's antisteering provisions do not apply. See 88 F.Supp.3d, at 222. This suggests that the cause of increased merchant fees is not Amex's antisteering provisions, but rather increased competition for cardholders and a corresponding marketwide adjustment in the relative price charged to merchants. See Klein 575, 609.
2
The plaintiffs did offer evidence that Amex increased the percentage of the purchase price that it charges merchants by an average of 0.09% between 2005 and 2010 and that this increase was not entirely spent on cardholder rewards. See 88 F.Supp.3d, at 195-197, 215. The plaintiffs believe that this evidence shows that the price of Amex's transactions increased.
Even assuming the plaintiffs are correct, this evidence does not prove that Amex's antisteering provisions gave it the power to charge anticompetitive prices. "Market power is the ability to raise price profitably by restricting output." Areeda & Hovenkamp § 5.01 (emphasis added); accord, Kodak, 504 U.S., at 464, 112 S.Ct. 2072 ; Business Electronics, 485 U.S., at 723, 108 S.Ct. 1515. This Court will "not infer competitive injury from price and output data absent some evidence that tends to prove that output was restricted or prices were above a competitive level." Brooke Group Ltd., 509 U.S., at 237, 113 S.Ct. 2578. There is no such evidence in this case. The output of credit-card transactions grew dramatically from 2008 to 2013, increasing 30%. See 838 F.3d, at 206. "Where... output is expanding at the same time prices are increasing, rising prices are equally consistent with growing product demand." Brooke Group Ltd., supra, at 237, 113 S.Ct. 2578. And, as previously explained, the plaintiffs did not show that Amex charged more than its competitors.
3
The plaintiffs also failed to prove that Amex's antisteering provisions have stifled competition among credit-card companies. To the contrary, while these agreements have been in place, the credit-card market experienced expanding output and improved quality. Amex's business model spurred Visa and MasterCard to offer new premium card categories with higher rewards. And it has increased the availability of card services, including free banking and card-payment services for low-income customers who otherwise would not be served. Indeed, between 1970 and 2001, the percentage of households with credit cards more than quadrupled, and the proportion of households in the bottom-income quintile with credit cards grew from just 2% to over 38%. See D. Evans & R. Schmalensee, Paying With Plastic: The Digital Revolution in Buying and Borrowing 88-89 (2d ed. 2005) (Paying With Plastic).
Nor have Amex's antisteering provisions ended competition between credit-card networks with respect to merchant fees. Instead, fierce competition between networks has constrained Amex's ability to raise these fees and has, at times, forced Amex to lower them. For instance, when Amex raised its merchant prices between 2005 and 2010, some merchants chose to leave its network. 88 F.Supp.3d, at 197. And when its remaining merchants complained, Amex stopped raising its merchant prices. Id., at 198. In another instance in the late 1980s and early 1990s, competition forced Amex to offer lower merchant fees to "everyday spend" merchants-supermarkets, gas stations, pharmacies, and the like-to persuade them to accept Amex. See id., at 160-161, 202.
In addition, Amex's competitors have exploited its higher merchant fees to their advantage. By charging lower merchant fees, Visa, MasterCard, and Discover have achieved broader merchant acceptance-approximately 3 million more locations than Amex. Id., at 204. This broader merchant acceptance is a major advantage for these networks and a significant challenge for Amex, since consumers prefer cards that will be accepted everywhere. Ibid. And to compete even further with Amex, Visa and MasterCard charge different merchant fees for different types of cards to maintain their comparatively lower merchant fees and broader acceptance. Over the long run, this competition has created a trend of declining merchant fees in the credit-card market. In fact, since the first credit card was introduced in the 1950s, merchant fees-including Amex's
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.
After 16 years of service, appellant’s employment in the Philadelphia Fire Department was terminated because he moved his permanent residence from Philadelphia to New Jersey in contravention of a municipal regulation requiring employees of the city of Philadelphia to be residents of the city. He challenges the constitutionality of the regulation and the authorizing ordinances as violative of his federally protected right of interstate travel. The regulation was sustained by the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania and review was denied by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. His timely appeal is here pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 1257 (2).
The Michigan Supreme Court held that Detroit’s similar requirement for police officers was not irrational and did not violate the Due Process Clause or the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. We dismissed the appeal from that judgment because no substantial federal question was presented. Detroit Police Officers Assn. v. City of Detroit, 405 U. S. 950 (1972). We have therefore held that this kind of ordinance is not irrational. Hicks v. Miranda, 422 U. S. 332, 343-345 (1975); see War dwell v. Board of Education of Cincinnati, 529 F. 2d 625, 628 (CA6 1976).
We have not, however, specifically addressed the contention made by appellant in this case that his constitutionally recognized right to travel interstate as defined in Shapiro v. Thompson, 394 U. S. 618 (1969); Dunn v. Blumstein, 405 U. S. 330 (1972); and Memorial Hospital v. Maricopa County, 415 U. S. 250 (1974), is impaired. Each of those cases involved a statutory requirement of residence in the State for at least one year before becoming eligible either to vote, as in Dunn, or to receive welfare benefits, as in Sha.piro and Memorial Hospital. Neither in those cases, nor in any others, have we questioned the validity of a condition placed upon municipal employment that a person be a resident at the time of his application. In this case appellant claims a constitutional right to be employed by the city of Philadelphia while he is living elsewhere. There is no support in our cases for such a claim.
We have previously differentiated between a requirement of continuing residency and a requirement of prior residency of a given duration. Thus in Shapiro, supra, at 636, we stated: “The residence requirement and the one-year waiting-period requirement are distinct and independent prerequisites.”. And in Memorial Hospital, supra, at 255, quoting Dunn, supra, at 342 n. 13, the Court explained that Shapiro and Dunn did not question “ ‘the validity of appropriately defined and uniformly applied bona fide residence requirements.' ”
This case involves that kind of bona fide continuing-residence requirement. The judgment of the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania is therefore affirmed.
The Chief Justice, Mr. Justice Brennan, and Mr. Justice Blackmun would note probable jurisdiction and set the case for argument.
§ 7-401 (u) of the Philadelphia Home Rule Charter of 1951 ; § 20-101 of the Philadelphia Code (as amended); and § 30.01 of the Philadelphia Civil Service Regulations.
19 Pa. Commw. 383, 339 A. 2d 634 (1975).
In an unreported order entered on September 2, 1975, that court denied a petition for review.
Detroit Police Officers Assn. v. City of Detroit, 385 Mich. 519, 190 N. W. 2d 97 (1971).
Although there is a durational residence requirement in the Philadelphia ordinances, appellant does not have standing to challenge that requirement.
Nor did any of those cases involve a public agency’s relationship with its own employees which, of course, may justify greater control than that over the citizenry at large. Cf. Pickering v. Board of Education, 391 U. S. 563, 568 (1968); CSC v. Letter Carriers, 413 U. S. 548 (1973); Broadrick v. Oklahoma, 413 U. S. 601 (1973).
Appellant seeks review of other alleged errors as if presented in a petition for a writ of certiorari. We decline to review those issues.
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.
Petitioner was sentenced to 10 years in prison under Virginia’s recidivist statute. Va. Code, 1950, § 53-296. This statute provides that when it appears that a person convicted of an offense has been previously sentenced “to a like punishment,” he may be tried on an information that alleges “the existence of records of prior convictions and the identity of the prisoner with the person named in each.” The statute goes on to provide that the prisoner may deny the existence of any such records, or that he is the same person named therein, or both.
If the existence of the records is denied, the court determines whether they exist. If the court so finds and the prisoner denies he is the person mentioned in the records or remains silent, a jury is impaneled to try that issue. If the jury finds he is the same person and if he has one prior conviction, the court may sentence him for an additional term not to exceed five years. If he has been twice sentenced, the court may impose such additional sentence as it “may deem proper.”
Petitioner, then imprisoned in Virginia, was charged with having been three times convicted of and sentenced for a felony. He was accordingly tried under the recidivist statute; and he is now serving the sentence imposed at that trial. He brought this habeas corpus proceeding in the Virginia courts to challenge the legality of that sentence. The crux of his complaint was that he was tried and convicted without having had the benefit and aid of counsel, though he had requested one. The Law and Equity Court of Richmond denied relief; and the Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia refused a writ of error. While the grounds for the action of the Supreme Court of Appeals are not disclosed, the Law and Equity Court wrote an opinion, making clear that it ruled on the federal constitutional claim:
“As to the mandate of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, here relied upon, the converse has been adjudicated. In Gryger v. Burke, 334 U. S. 728, where release [on] habeas corpus was sought on the ground that petitioner was without counsel at his recidivist hearing, Mr. Justice Jackson said, in part, as follows (at p. 731):
“. . the State’s failure to provide counsel for this petitioner on his plea to the fourth offender charge did not render his conviction and sentence invalid.’
“This holding was adhered to in Chandler v. Fretag, 348 U. S. 3, where it was decided that, while a State is not required under the Fourteenth Amendment to furnish counsel, it cannot deny the defendant in a repeater hearing of the right to be heard by counsel of his own choice.”
The Law and Equity Court, while conceding that a proceeding under the recidivist statute was “criminal” and that in that proceeding the accused was entitled to most of the protections afforded defendants in criminal trials, concluded that petitioner was not entitled to have counsel appointed to assist him, since the proceeding was “only connected with the measure of punishment for the last-committed crime.” Cf. Fitzgerald v. Smyth, 194 Va. 681, 689-690, 74 S. E. 2d 810, 816.
We put to one side Gryger v. Burke, 334 U. S. 728, on which the Virginia court relied. In that case, identity was the only issue and the specialized circumstances seemed to a majority not to require the appointment of counsel. Under the present recidivist statute, the situation is quite different. As we have seen, the “existence” of records of prior convictions of the kind described in the statute is an issue tendered in Virginia. We said of a like issue in Reynolds v. Cochran, 365 U. S. 525, 531, “. . . 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.” In that case we also pointed out that the issue of “identity” may at times present difficult local law issues, as for example “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.” Id., p. 532.
In Reynolds v. Cochran, supra, the accused had his own lawyer and only asked for a continuance. But the holding in the case applies equally to an accused faced with an information under Virginia’s recidivist statute and who has no lawyer. It is “The nature of the charge” (Tomkins v. Missouri, 323 U. S. 485, 488) that underlines the need for counsel. In trials of this kind the labyrinth of the law is, or may be, too intricate for the layman to master. Id., pp. 488-489; Williams v. Kaiser, 323 U. S. 471, 474. Virginia has held that the validity of any of the prior convictions, used to bring the multiple-offender statute into play, may be inquired into. See, e. g., Wesley v. Commonwealth, 190 Va. 268, 272-274, 56 S. E. 2d 362, 364. These may involve judgments of conviction in any state or federal court in the Nation. Counsel, whom we appointed to represent petitioner here, has shown the wide variety of problems that may be tendered. In Virginia, a trial under this statute may present questions such as whether the courts rendering the prior judgments had jurisdiction over the offenses and over the defendant and whether these offenses were punishable by a penitentiary sentence. Wesley v. Commonwealth, supra, 190 Va., at 273, 56 S. E. 2d, at 364. In Virginia, a sentence in excess of the one the court rendering it had power to impose is “void for the excess only.” See Royster v. Smith, 195 Va. 228, 235, 77 S. E. 2d 855, 858-859. In Virginia, a court in considering whether the prior convictions afforded a proper basis on which to invoke the recidivist statute has considered whether, in a prior trial, the defendant was represented by counsel and whether it was a fair and impartial trial. Willoughby v. Smyth, 194 Va. 267, 271, 72 S. E. 2d 636, 639. In Virginia, a prior conviction that is on appeal may not be the proper basis for a recidivist charge. White v. Commonwealth, 79 Va. 611. And there appears to be a question whether two prior convictions rendered the same day or at the same term could both be used in a Virginia multiple-offender prosecution. Commonwealth v. Welsh, 4 Va. 57. See Dye v. Skeen, 135 W. Va. 90, 102-103, 62 S. E. 2d 681, 688-689.
Double jeopardy and ex post facto application of a law are also questions which, as indicated in Reynolds v. Cochran, supra, p. 529, may well be considered by an imaginative lawyer, who looks critically at the layer of prior convictions on which the recidivist charge rests. We intimate no opinion on whether any of the problems mentioned would arise on petitioner’s trial nor, if so, whether any would have merit. We only conclude that a trial on a charge of being a habitual criminal is such a serious one (Chandler v. Fretag, 348 U. S. 3), the issues presented under Virginia’s statute so complex, and the potential prejudice resulting from the absence of counsel so great that the rule we have followed concerning the appointment of counsel in other types of criminal trials is equally applicable here.
Reversed.
[For opinion of Mr. Justice Harlan, concurring in the result, see Nos. 56 and 57, Oyler v. Boles and Crabtree v. Boles, post, p. 457.]
He apparently did not appeal from the conviction. Fitzgerald v. Smyth, 194 Va. 681, 74 S. E. 2d 810, however, allows the deprivation of a constitutional right to be raised by habeas corpus.
Williams v. Kaiser, supra; Tomkins v. Missouri, supra; Townsend v. Burke, 334 U. S. 736; Hudson v. North Carolina, 363 U. S. 697; McNeal v. Culver, 365 U. S. 109.
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.
Appellant brought a class action to challenge the constitutionality of a state regulation that permitted temporary suspension of his workmen’s compensation payments without a prior hearing. He appealed an adverse judgment, but his jurisdictional statement states that after the decision below “an Order was entered by the Commission approving a lump-sum settlement of $4,243.20 in full settlement of [his] individual claim for compensation for his injury which occurred on March 15, 1971.”
In this state of the record, the motion to proceed in forma pauperis is granted, the judgment is vacated, and the case is remanded to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia to consider whether this case is moot.
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 Brennan
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This is a companion case to California v. Buzará, ante, p. 386, decided today. The State of Mississippi levied an ad valorem tax against a house trailer of the petitioner, Sergeant Jesse E. Snapp. Sergeant Snapp was stationed under military orders at Crystal Springs Air Force Base, Mississippi. He bought the trailer in Mississippi and moved it on Mississippi highways to a private trailer park near the Air Force Base where he placed it on movable concrete blocks and used it as a home. He did not register or license the trailer, or pay any taxes on it in his home State of South Carolina. He challenged the Mississippi tax as a tax on his personal property prohibited by the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Civil Relief Act of 1940, 54 Stat. 1178, as amended in 1944, § 514, 50 U. S. C. App. § 574. The Mississippi Supreme Court sustained the levy on the ground that, as applied to motor vehicles, § 514 (2) (b) conditions the nonresident serviceman’s immunity from its ad valorem tax on the serviceman’s prior payment of the fees imposed by his home State. The court reasoned that since § 514 (2) (b) “stipulates] expressly that the taxation should not be limited to privilege and excise taxes, it necessarily follows that the prohibited tax must include the only other general branch of taxation, that is, ad valorem. It is emphasized that the federal statute is meant to include ad valorem taxes as being one of the taxes for which the serviceman is immune, -provided he complies with the laws of his home state concerning registration of the motor vehicle. If he fails to so comply, as was done in this case at bar, he is no longer entitled to protection of the Act of Congress.” 250 Miss. 597, at 614-615, 164 So. 2d 752, at 760. We granted certiorari, 380 U. S. 931. We reverse on the authority of our holding today in Buzará that the failure to pay the motor vehicle “license, fee, or excise” of the home State entitles the host State only to exact motor vehicle taxes qualifying as “licenses, fees, or excises”; the ad valorem tax, as the Mississippi Supreme Court acknowledged, is not such an exaction. We thus have no occasion to decide whether the Mississippi Supreme Court was correct in holding that the house trailer was a “motor vehicle” within the meaning of §514(2)(b).
Reversed.
The relevant text of the statute is in California v. Buzard, ante, p. 388, n. 1.
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 Retailers’ Sales Tax Act of Tennessee, Tenn. Acts 1947, c. 3, imposes a sales tax on the sale of goods in Tennessee and a use tax on the use within the state of goods purchased elsewhere. Tennessee collected these taxes' from respondents who paid them under protest and then brought these suits to recover them and to enjoin future collections. Two of the respondents are private companies who are contractors for the Atomic Energy Commission and who paid use taxes; two are merchants who paid sales taxes on sales to those contractors and who passed the taxes on to them. The use taxes and the sales taxes were on articles used by the contractors in the performance of their contracts with the Commission.
The Tennessee Supreme Court held by a divided vote (192 Tenn. 150, 239 S. W. 2d 27) that the challenged taxes, though not forbidden by the Constitution, were prohibited by § 9 (b) of the Atomic Energy Act of 1946, 60 Stat. 765, 42 U. S. C. § 1809 (b). The cases are here on certiorari. 342 U. S. 847.
Sec. 9 (b) provides in part that “The Commission, and the property, activities, and income of the Commission, are. hereby expressly exempted from taxation in any manner or form by any State, county, municipality, or . any subdivision thereof.” The constitutional power .of Congress to protect any of its agencies from state taxation (Pittman v. Home Owners’ Corporation, 308 U. S. 21; Federal Land Bank v. Bismarck Co., 314 U. S. 95) has long been recognized as applying to those with whom it has made authorized contracts. See Thomson v. Pacific R. Co., 9 Wall. 579, 588-589; James v. Dravo Contracting Co., 302 U. S. 134, 160-161. Certainly the policy behind the power of Congress to create tax immunities does not turn on the nature of the agency doing the work of the Government. The power stems from the power to preserve and protect functions validly authorized (Pittman v. Home Owners’ Corp., supra, p. 33) — the power to make all laws necessary and proper for carrying into execution the powers vested in the Congress. U. S. Const., Art. I, § 8, cl. 18. Hence if the present contracts which the respondent contractors have with the United States, and the performance thereunder, are “activities” within the meaning of § 9 (b) of’ the Act, the immunity is clear. Our view is that they are and that the judgments below must be affirmed.
Respondent Roane-Anderson manages the government-owned town of Oak Ridge, Tennessee; Carbide and Carbon Chemicals operates the Oak Ridge plants for the production of fissionable materials. Their contracts antedate the Atomic Energy Act of 1946, having been originally entered into with the Manhattan District of the Corps of Engineers. Pursuant to § 9 (a) .of the Act these contracts were transferred by Executive Order to the Commission. The question whether the Commission should be empowered to employ private contractors in performance of its functions or whether the Commission should itself be the entrepreneur was an issue of national policy much discussed and debated at the time the legislation was before "the Congress. One measure, which had the backing of the War Department, would have authorized the Commission to lean heavily on private enterprise for performance of its functions. Another measure, originating in the Senate and after extensive revisions becoming the Atomic Energy Act pi 1946, contained no provision authorizing the use of contractors to the extent here involved, required the Commission to produce its own fissionable materials in its own plants by its own employees, and directed the Commission to terminate contracts previously made for the production of fissionable materials. But that bill was materially altered so as to adopt as the national policy the use of “management contracts for the operation of Government-owned plants so as to gain the full advantage of the skill and experience of American industry:” Accordingly § 4 (c) (2) of the Act authorizes the Commission “to make, or to continue in effect, contracts with persons obligating them to produce fissionable material in facilities owned by the Commission.” And § 9 (a) authorizes the transfer to the Commission of all contracts concerning the production of fissionable material. The use of private contractors is therefore one of the ways .in which the Commission is authorized to man-, age its affairs. Its activities may, in other words, be performed by it directly or through the agencies of private enterprise.
Congress uses the word “activities” in various sections of the Act, and seems each time to give it a broad sweep. The Congressional or Joint Committee constituted under § 15 is directed to study “the activities” of the Commission. The reports which the Commission is directed to submit to Congress pursuant to § 17 concern its “activities.” Section 9 (b) authorizes the Commission to make payments to state and local governments in lieu of property taxes in those areas “in which the activities of the Commission are carried on and in which the Commission has acquired property” previously subject to local taxation. In none of these sections do we find any suggestion that “activities” is used in a narrow sense to describe less than all of the functions of the Commission. The ■ meaning of “activities” as applied either to an individual or to a government agency may be broad enough to include what is done through independent contractors as well as through agents. Certainly where the pattern of conduct visualized by the Act is the use of independent contractors or agents from the field of private enterprise, the inference is strong that “activities” means all authorized methods of performing the governmental function. We find no contrary evidence from the legislative history.
In view of this conclusion we find it unnecessary to reach the problems of implied constitutional immunity involved in James v. Dravo Contracting Co., supra, and Alabama v. King & Boozer, 314 U. S. 1.
Affirmed.
Mr. Justice Black took no part in'the consideration or. decision of this case.
Executive Order No, 9816, Dec. 31, 1946, 12 Fed. Reg. 37.
See H. R. Rep. No. 1186, 79th Cong., 1st Sess.
See S. 1717 reprinted in Hearings before the Senate Special Committee on Atomic Energy, 79th Cong., 2d Sess., pp. 1-9.
S. Rep. No. 1211, 79th Cong., 2d Sess., p. 15.
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 Black
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Section 205 (e) of the Emergency Price Control Act provides that a buyer of goods at above the prescribed ceiling price may sue the seller “in any court of competent jurisdiction” for not more than three times the amount of the overcharge plus costs and a reasonable attorney’s fee. Section 205 (c) provides that federal district courts shall have jurisdiction of such suits “concurrently with State and Territorial courts.” Such a suit under § 205 (e) must be brought “in the district or county in which the defendant resides or has a place of business . . . .”
The respondent was in the automobile business in Providence, Providence County, Rhode Island. In 1944 he sold an automobile to petitioner Testa, who also resides in Providence, for $1100, $210 above the ceiling price. The petitioner later filed this suit against respondent in the State District Court in Providence. Recovery was sought under § 205 (e). The court awarded a judgment of treble damages and costs to petitioner. On appeal to the State Superior Court, where the trial was de novo, the petitioner was again awarded judgment, but only for the amount of the overcharge plus attorney’s fees. Pending appeal from this judgment, the Price Administrator was allowed to intervene. On appeal, the State Supreme Court reversed, 71 R. I. 472, 47 A. 2d 312. It interpreted § 205 (e) to be “a penal statute in the international sense.” It held that an action for violation of § 205 (e) could not be maintained in the courts of that State. The State Supreme Court rested its holding on its earlier decision in Robinson v. Norato, 71 R. I. 256, 43 A. 2d 467 (1945) in which it had reasoned that: A state need not enforce the penal laws of a government which is foreign in the international sense; § 205 (e) is treated by Rhode Island as penal in that sense; the United States is “foreign” to the State in the “private international” as distinguished from the “public international” sense; hence Rhode Island courts, though their jurisdiction is adequate to enforce similar Rhode Island “penal” statutes, need not enforce § 205 (e). Whether state courts may decline to enforce federal laws on these grounds is a question of great importance. For this reason, and because the Rhode Island Supreme Court’s holding was alleged to conflict with this Court’s previous holding in Mondou v. New York, N. H. & H. R. Co., 223 U. S. 1, we granted certiorari. 329 U. S. 703.
For the purposes of this case, we assume, without deciding, that § 205 (e) is a penal statute in the “public international,” “private international,” or any other sense. So far as the question of whether the Rhode Island courts properly declined to try this action, it makes no difference into which of these categories the Rhode Island court chose to place the statute which Congress has passed. For we cannot accept the basic premise on which the Rhode Island Supreme Court held that it has no more obligation to enforce a valid penal law of the United States than it has to enforce a penal law of another state or a foreign country. Such a broad assumption flies in the face of the fact that the States of the Union constitute a nation. It disregards the purpose and effect of Article VI of the Constitution which provides: “This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.”
It cannot be assumed, the supremacy clause considered, that the responsibilities of a state to enforce the laws of a sister state are identical with its responsibilities to enforce federal laws. Such an assumption represents an erroneous evaluation of the statutes of Congress and the prior decisions of this Court in their historic setting. Those decisions establish that state courts do not bear the same relation to the United States that they do to foreign countries. The first Congress that convened after the Constitution was adopted conferred jurisdiction upon the state courts to enforce important federal civil laws, and succeeding Congresses conferred on the states jurisdiction over federal crimes and actions for penalties and forfeitures.
Enforcement of federal laws by state courts did not go unchallenged. Violent public controversies existed throughout the first part of the Nineteenth Century until the 1860’s concerning the extent of the constitutional supremacy of the Federal Government. During that period there were instances in which this Court and state courts broadly questioned the power and duty of state courts to exercise their jurisdiction to enforce United States civil and penal statutes or the power of the Federal Government to require them to do so. But after the fundamental issues over the extent of federal supremacy had been resolved by war, this Court took occasion in 1876 to review the phase of the controversy concerning the relationship of state courts to the Federal Government. Claflin v. Houseman, 93 U. S. 130. The opinion of a unanimous court in that case was strongly buttressed by historic references and persuasive reasoning. It repudiated the assumption that federal laws can be considered by the states as though they were laws emanating from a foreign sovereign. Its teaching is that the Constitution and the laws passed pursuant to it are the supreme laws of the land, binding alike upon states, courts, and the people, “any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.” It asserted that the obligation of states to enforce these federal laws is not lessened by reason of the form in which they are cast or the remedy which they provide. And the Court stated that “If an act of Congress gives a penalty to a party aggrieved, without specifying a remedy for its enforcement, there is no reason why it should not be enforced, if not provided otherwise by some act of Congress, by a proper action in a State court.” Id. at 137. And see United States v. Bank of New York, 296 U. S. 463, 479.
The Claflin opinion thus answered most of the arguments theretofore advanced against the power and duty of state courts to enforce federal penal laws. And since that decision, the remaining areas of doubt have been steadily narrowed. There have been statements in cases concerned with the obligation of states to give full faith and credit to the proceedings of sister states which suggested a theory contrary to that pronounced in the Claflin opinion. But when in Mondou v. New York, N. H. & H. R. Co., 223 U. S. 1, this Court was presented with a case testing the power and duty of states to enforce federal laws, it found the solution in the broad principles announced in the Claflin opinion.
The precise question in the Mondou case was whether rights arising under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act, 36 Stat. 291, could “be enforced, as of right, in the courts of the States when their jurisdiction, as fixed by local laws, is adequate to the occasion . , .” Id. at 46. The Supreme Court of Connecticut had decided that they could not. Except for the penalty feature, the factors it considered and its reasoning were strikingly similar to that on which the Rhode Island Supreme Court declined to enforce the federal law here involved. But this Court held that the Connecticut court could not decline to entertain the action. The contention that enforcement of the congressionally created right was contrary to Connecticut policy was answered as follows:
“The suggestion that the act of Congress is not in harmony with the policy of the State, and therefore that the courts of the State are free to decline jurisdiction, is quite inadmissible, because it presupposes what in legal contemplation does not exist. When Congress, in the exertion of the power confided to it by the Constitution, adopted that act, it spoke for all the people and all the States, and thereby established a policy for all. That policy is as much the policy of Connecticut as if the act had emanated from its own legislature, and should be respected accordingly in the courts of the State.” Mondou v. New York, N. H. & H. R. Co., supra at 57.
So here, the fact that Rhode Island has an established policy against enforcement by its courts of statutes of other states and the United States which it deems penal, cannot be accepted as a “valid excuse.” Cf. Douglas v. New York, N. H. & H. R. Co., 279 U. S. 377, 388. For the policy of the federal Act is the prevailing policy in every state. Thus, in a case which chiefly relied upon the Claflin and Mondou precedents, this Court stated that a state court cannot “refuse to enforce the right arising from the law of the United States because of conceptions of impolicy or want of wisdom on the part of Congress in having called into play its lawful powers.” Minneapolis & St. L. R. Co. v. Bombolis, 241 U. S. 211, 222.
The Rhode Island court in its Robinson decision, on which it relies, cites cases of this Court which have held that states are not required by the full faith and credit clause of the Constitution to enforce judgments of the courts of other states based on claims arising out, of penal statutes. But those holdings have no relevance here, for this case raises no full faith and credit question. Nor need we consider in this case prior decisions to the effect that federal courts are not required to enforce state penal laws. Compare Wisconsin v. Pelican Ins. Co., 127 U. S. 265, with Massachusetts v. Missouri, 308 U. S. 1, 20. For whatever consideration they may be entitled to in the field in which they are relevant, those decisions did not bring before us our instant problem of the effect of the supremacy clause on the relation of federal laws to state courts. Our question concerns only the right of a state to deny enforcement to claims growing out of a valid federal law.
It is conceded that this same type of claim arising under Rhode Island law would be enforced by that State’s courts. Its courts have enforced claims for double damages growing out of the Fair Labor Standards Act. Thus the Rhode Island courts have jurisdiction adequate and appropriate under established local law to adjudicate this action. Under these circumstances the State courts are not free to refuse enforcement of petitioners’ claim. See McKnett v. St. Louis & S. F. R. Co., 292 U. S. 230; and compare Herb v. Pitcairn, 324 U. S. 117; 325 U. S. 77. The case is reversed and the cause is remanded for proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
Reversed.
“ (e) If any person selling a commodity violates a regulation, order, or price schedule prescribing a maximum price or maximum prices, the person who buys such commodity for use or consumption other than in the course of trade or business may, within one year from the date of the occurrence of the violation, except as hereinafter provided, bring an action against the seller on account of the overcharge. In such action, the seller shall be liable for reasonable attorney’s fees and costs as determined by the court, plus whichever of the following sums-is the greater: (1) Such amount not more than three times the amount of the overcharge, or the overcharges, upon which the action is based as the court in its discretion may determine, or (2) an amount not less than $25 nor more than $50, as the court in its discretion may determine: .... Any action under this subsection by either the buyer or the Administrator, as the case may be, may be brought in any court of competent jurisdiction. . . .” 56 Stat. 34 as amended, 58 Stat. 632, 640, 50 U. S. C. App., Supp. V, § 925 (e).
“The district courts shall have jurisdiction of criminal proceedings . . . and, concurrently with State and Territorial courts, of all other proceedings under section 205 of this Act. . . .” 56 Stat. 32, as amended, 58 Stat. 632, 640, 50 U. S. C. App., Supp. V, § 925 (c).
Pursuant to Rhode Island practice, the State Supreme Court remitted the case and the record to the Superior Court. That court then entered judgment in accordance with the Supreme Court’s opinion. It is the judgment of the Superior Court which petitioner asked us to review on certiorari. See Joslin Co. v. Providence, 262 U. S. 668, 673.
Judiciary Act of 1789, 1 Stat. 73, 77 (suits by aliens for torts committed in violation of federal laws and treaties; suits by the United States).
1 Stat. 376, 378 (1794) (fines, forfeitures and penalties for violation of the License Tax on Wines and Spirits); 1 Stat. 373, 375 (1794) (the Carriage Tax Act); 1 Stat. 452 (1796) (penalty for purchasing guns from Indians); 1 Stat. 733, 740 (1799) (criminal and civil actions for violation of the postal laws). See Warren, Federal Criminal Laws and the State Courts, 38 Harv. L. Rev. 545; Barnett, The Delegation of Federal Jurisdiction to State Courts, 3 Selected Essays on Constitutional Law 1202 (1938).
See e. g., Martin v. Hunter’s Lessee, 1 Wheat. 304, 334-337; United States v. Bailey, 9 Pet. 238, 259-260; Prigg v. Pennsylvania, 16 Pet. 539, 615; Fox v. Ohio, 5 How. 410, 438; United States v. Lathrop, 17 Johns. (N. Y.) 4 (1819). See also Warren, supra, 580-584.
U. S. Const. Art. VI. See also Ex parte Siebold, 100 U. S. 371, 392-394.
Tennessee v. Davis, 100 U. S. 257; Mondou v. New York, N. H. & H. R. Co., 223 U. S. 1; Minneapolis & St. L. R. Co. v. Bombolis, 241 U. S. 211; McKnett v. St. Louis & S. F. R. Co., 292 U. S. 230; Baltimore & O. R. R. v. Kepner, 314 U. S. 44; Miles v. Illinois C. R. Co., 315 U. S. 698; Herb v. Pitcairn, 324 U. S. 117, 121-123; 325 U. S. 77.
See n. 10, infra.
It has been observed that the historic origin of the concept first expressed in this country by Chief Justice Marshall in The Antelope, 10 Wheat. 66, 123, that “The courts of no country execute the penal laws of another . . .” lies in an earlier English case, Folliott v. Ogden, 1 H. Bl. 124 (1789), aff’d., Ogden v. Folliott, 3 T. R. 726 (1790), 4 Bro. P. C. 111. In that case the English courts refused to enforce an American Revolutionary statute confiscating property of loyal British subjects on the ground that English courts must refuse to enforce such penal statutes of a foreign enemy. It has been observed of this case that “of course they could as well have spoken of local public policy, and have reached the same result as surely.” Leflar, Extrastate Enforcement of Penal and Governmental Claims, 46 Harv. L. Rev. 193, 195 (1932). See Griffin v. McCoach, 313 U. S. 498; cf. Hines v. Lowrey, 305 U. S. 85.
See e. g., Huntington v. Attrill, 146 U. S. 657; Anglo-American Provision Co. v. Davis Provision Co. No. 1, 191 U. S. 373; Kenney v. Supreme Lodge, 252 U. S. 411.
Newman v. Geo. A. Fuller Co., 72 R. I. 113, 48 A. 2d 345.
Gen. Laws R. I. (1938) c. 500, § 28; c. 525, § 7; c. 631, § 4.
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 Black
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Elkins. Act, 32 Stat. 847, as amended, 49 U. S. C. §§ 41, 43, and the Interstate Commerce Act, 24 Stat. 380, as amended, 49 U. S. C. § 6 (7), make it unlawful for a common carrier to grant rebates to individual shippers by any device whatsoever, or to discriminate in favor of any shipper directly or indirectly. In 1941 the United States brought a complaint against appellees and several other major oil companies .and their common carrier pipeline subsidiaries claiming that the pipelines were granting illegal transportation rebates to their shipper-owners under the guise of paying dividends. Although the Government charged that no dividends at all could lawfully be granted in the same year in which a shipper-owner sent products over a pipeline, the suit was settled in date 1941 by a consent decree containing a provision which allowed a shipper-owner to receive a dividend equal to “its share of 7 percentum (7%) of the valuation” of the common carrier pipeline’s property. Any dividend in excess of this figure, however, was forbidden. That provision of the decree is before us for interpretation today.
From 1941 to 1957 appellees computed allowable dividends by taking 7% of the valuation of pipeline property and then giving each owner a proportion of this sum equal to the percentage of stock it owned. In 1957, however, the Government brought this suit against appellees claiming that the pipelines were giving, and the shipper-owners weré receiving, dividends in excess of those allowed by the decree. The Government did not contest the valuation figures used, but argued,-despite the language of the decree, that only a part of 7% of the valuation could actually be made available as dividends to stockholders. The total allowable “dividends,” it claimed, would have to be shared between stockholders and creditors. The stockholder’s (shipper-owner’s) “share” of the carrier valuation, so the argument ran, was to be the proportion which stock-investment in the carrier bore to the carrier’s total invested capital (including debt owed to third persons). Seven percent stockholder-dividends could only be computed out of this “share” of the sum, and could then be distributed to each shipper-owner in proportion to its individual stock interest. Only in this way, the Government contended, could the consent decree’s aim of preventing disguised rebates be accomplished. For only in this way would dividends be limited to a “fair” sum: 7% of the current' value of what each owner had invested in its subsidiary. The trial court rejected the Government’s interpretation, and the United States brought a direct appeal under 32 Stat. 823, as amended, 15 U. S. C. § 29, 49 U. S. C. § 45.
On consideration of the language and the history of this decree we agree with the trial court. If the decree had meant to limit dividends to 7% of the current value of a parent company’s actual investment in a subsidiary, as the Government claims, one can- hardly think of less appropriate language in which to couch,the restriction. Admittedly, by reading the word “share” to refer to a proportion of total capitalization rather than to the percentage of stock owned by a parent company, the language can be made, to support the United States’contention. But that is surely a strained construction, and cannot be reconciled, with the consistent reading given to the decree, by both the United States and appellees, from the date it was entered until 1957 — about 16 years.
In 1942, less than a year after the decree was issued, the United States consented to a supplemental order affecting oné of the pipeline companies. This order approved a plan of recapitalization for the pipeline which would at least have been highly suspect under the reading the Government today gives the decree. Significantly the supplemental order, which was agreed,to .by the official who had represented the Government in drafting the original decree, expressly stated thát the plan did not violate that judgment.'
There are also other indications that the Government’s interpretation of the decree did not, originally, differ from the one appellees urge today. For example, the 1941. decree required annual reports from each pipeline showing total earnings available to owners or stockholders and actual dividends paid. For 16 years the reports made by. the pipelines indicated that the dividends were not computed on the basis of 7% of the current value of the. owners’ investment but on the total valuation of the carriers’ properties. For' that 16 years the Government, accepted this interpretation without challenge. Yet today it renounces this long-standing acquiescence and claims that the decree imposed limits it had not previously sought to enforce.
The Government contends that the interpretation it now offers would more nearly effectuate “the basic purpose of the Elkins and Interstate Commerce Acts that carriers are to treat all shippers alike.” This may be true. But it does not warrant our substantially changing the terms of a decree to which the parties consented-without any adjudication of the issues. And we agree with the District Court that accepting the Government’s present interpretation would do just that. Cf. Hughes v. United States, 342 U. S. 353.
We do not decide the case on any question of laches or estoppel, nor do we comment on any possible modifications of the decree which might appropriately be made under Clause X of the judgmént, which continues the jurisdiction of the District Court. We merely hold that where the language of a consent decree in its normal meaning supports an interpretation; where that interpretation has been adhered to over many years by all the parties, including those government officials who drew up and administered the decree from the start; and where the trial court concludes that this interpretation is in fact the one the parties intended, we will not reject it simply because another reading might seem more consistent with the Government’s reasons for entering into the agreement in the first place. Accordingly, the judgment below is
Affirmed.
Mr. Justice Douglas dissents.
Mr. Justice Clark and Mr. Justice Harlan took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
This consent decree is discussed in detail in Hearings, Antitrust Subcommittee of the House Committee on the Judiciary, 85th Cong., 1st Sess., Part I.
Assuming a carrier has an I. C. C. “valuation” of $10,000,000, $2,000,000 of which represents stock'investments of $1,000,000 by each of, two shipper oil companies, and $8,000,000 of1 which 'represents debt because of money borrowed by the carrier from others, on the appellee-companies’ interpretation of the decree, each of the two, shipper-pwners would be entitled to “dividends” of one-half ('$1,000,000/^2,000,(500) of 7% of $10,000;000 or’ $350,000.' On the Government’s „new interpretation instead, each shipper-owner’s “share” would be one-tenth ($1,000,000/$10,000,000) of 7% of $10,000,000 or $70,000, this being 7% of each one’s actual investment of $1,000,000 in the company.
The consent decree reads: “[A]II parties hereto [have] severally consented to the entry of this final jfidgment herein without trial or adjudication of an}»' issue of fact or law herein and without admission by ahy party in respect of any such issue and in final settlement of all claims herein in issue. . . .”
Cf. Fawcus Machine Co. v. United States, 282 U. S. 375, 378; .“contemporaneous construction by those charged with the administration of the act . . . are . . . entitled to respectful consideration, and will not be overruled except for weighty reasons.”
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.
The principal question presented by the parties to these appeals is whether certain state and federal statutes violate the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses of the First Amendment by requiring religious schools unaffiliated with any church to pay unemployment insurance taxes. We do not reach this substantive question, however, holding instead that the Tax Injunction Act, 28 U. S. C. § 1341, deprived the District Court of jurisdiction to hear these challenges. Accordingly, we vacate the judgment below.
W
Last Term, in St. Martin Evangelical Lutheran Church v. South Dakota, 451 U. S. 772 (1981), this Court considered statutory and constitutional challenges to provisions of the Federal Unemployment Tax Act (FUTA), 26 U. S. C. §§3301-3311 (1976 ed. and Supp. IV). Because the present claims involve the same provisions that we interpreted in St. Martin, we recount only briefly the substance and legislative history of the relevant statutes before turning to the facts in the present cases.
A
In FUTA, Congress has authorized a cooperative federal-state scheme to provide benefits to unemployed workers. The Act requires employers to pay an excise tax on wages paid to employees in “covered” employment, but entitles them to a credit of up to 90% of the federal tax for contributions they have paid into federally approved state unemployment compensation programs. One of the requirements for federal approval is that state programs “cover” certain broad categories of employment.
Until 1970, 26 U. S. C. § 3306(c)(8) excluded from the definition of covered employment “service performed in the employ of a religious, charitable, educational, or other [tax exempt] organization.” Pub. L. 86-778, § 533, 74 Stat. 984. As a consequence, such organizations were not required to pay either federal excise taxes or state unemployment compensation taxes. In 1970, Congress amended FUTA to require state plans to cover employees of nonprofit organizations, state hospitals, and state institutions of higher education, thus eliminating the broad exemption available to nonprofit organizations. See § 3309(a)(1). At the same time, Congress enacted § 3309(b) to exempt from mandatory state coverage a narrow class of religious and educational employees, i. e., Congress exempted services performed
“(1) in the employ of (A) a church or convention or association of churches, or (B) an organization which is operated primarily for religious purposes and which is operated, supervised, controlled, or principally supported by a church or convention or association of churches;
“(2) by a duly ordained, commissioned, or licensed minister of a church in the exercise of his ministry or by a member of a religious order in the exercise of duties required by such order;
“(3) in the employ of a school which is not an institution of higher education.” Pub. L. 91-373, § 104(b)(1), 84 Stat. 698.
In 1976, Congress again amended FUTA, this time eliminating the substance of § 3309(b)(3), thereby removing the blanket exemption for school employees. See Unemployment Compensation Amendments of 1976, Pub. L. 94-566, § 115(b)(1), 90 Stat. 2670. In order to maintain compliance with FUTA, the States promptly amended their corresponding state programs. See, e. g., Cal. Un. Ins. Code Ann. §§ 634.5(a), (b) (West Supp. 1982).
B
The plaintiffs in these cases, a number of California churches and religious schools, sought to enjoin the Secretary of Labor from conditioning his approval of the California unemployment insurance program on its coverage of the plaintiffs’ employees, and to enjoin the State from collecting both tax information and the state tax. For the purposes of evaluating their statutory and constitutional claims, the District Court divided the plaintiffs into three classes of employers: Category I represents those schools that are part of the corporate structure of a church or association of churches; Category II includes schools that are separate corporations formed by a church or association of churches; and Category III includes schools that are “operated primarily for religious purposes, but which [are] not operated, supervised, controlled or principally supported by a church or convention or association of churches, i. e., an independent, non-church affiliated religious school.” Supplemental Opinion, reprinted in App. to Juris. Statement in No. 81-31, p. 71 (J. S. App.).
On September 21, 1979, the District Court granted a preliminary injunction against the State, restraining it from collecting the state unemployment tax from the Category I plaintiffs. See id., at 51. The basis for the court’s order was its conclusion that the plaintiffs were exempt from mandatory state coverage under § 3309(b)(1), and alternatively, that if they were not exempt under the terms of FUTA, collection of the tax from the plaintiffs would involve excessive governmental entanglement with religion, in violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. See J. S. App. 58-65.
In the same opinion, the District Court rejected the Federal Government’s argument that, because the state remedy was “plain, speedy and efficient,” the Tax Injunction Act, 28 U. S. C. § 1341, barred the court from granting injunctive relief. Considering first the availability of injunctive relief from the state courts, the court concluded that state statutory and constitutional provisions made such relief “at best, uncertain.” J. S. App. 66. The court then concluded that a state suit for a refund was an inadequate remedy because the plaintiffs claimed not only that their property had been taken unlawfully, but also that the “very process of determining whether any tax is due at all results in a violation of their First Amendment rights.” Id., at 67. Because this First Amendment injury was “irreparable” once the taxes had been collected, only an injunction against collection of the tax could remedy the plaintiffs’ claims. Accordingly, because there existed no “plain, speedy and efficient” remedy in the state courts, the District Court concluded that it had jurisdiction to grant injunctive and declaratory relief.
In a supplemental opinion filed June 2,1980, the court clarified its earlier opinion, stating expressly that the preliminary injunction covered only Category I plaintiffs. See id., at 71. For the same reasons that it had granted the initial preliminary injunction, however, the court extended the preliminary injunction to Category II plaintiffs. The eourt continued to deny relief to the Category III plaintiffs after concluding that they were not covered by the statutory exemptions in § 3309(b) and that the risk of excessive governmental entanglement with religion was too small to violate the Establishment Clause. J. S. App. 77-79.
Finally, on April 3, 1981, the court filed a second supplemental opinion ruling on all of the plaintiffs’ motions for permanent injunctions enjoining the State from collecting unemployment compensation taxes and the Federal Government from conditioning approval of the state unemployment compensation programs on their inclusion of the plaintiffs’ employees. See id., at 1. Considering first the statutory claims, the court concluded that Category I and Category II schools, but not Category III schools, are exempt from coverage under 26 U. S. C. § 3309(b) and the corresponding state provision, Cal. Un. Ins. Code Ann. § 634.5(a) (West Supp. 1982). J. S. App. 3-15. The court also found that the benefit entitlement decisions for employees of Category III schools risk excessive governmental entanglement with religion in violation of the Establishment Clause of the. First Amendment. Id., at 25-33. Consequently, the court held that “constitutional considerations bar the application of the scheme” to the Category III plaintiffs. Id., at 33.
Based on these findings, the court issued orders permanently enjoining the federal defendants from requiring state unemployment insurance programs to cover Category I and Category II schools as a precondition for federal approval of the state programs, id., at 47, 51, and permanently enjoining the state defendants from “collecting, or attempting to collect, unemployment compensation... taxes” from the Category I, II, or III schools. Id., at 47, 50. The court expressly held Cal. Un. Ins. Code Ann. § 634.5(a) (West Supp. 1982) unconstitutional. See J. S. App. 45, 46. The court did not issue an injunction against the federal defendants as to Category III schools because it
“has no information indicating what response, if any, the Secretary will make to the Court’s conclusion that the state defendants may not constitutionally impose the state unemployment compensation tax scheme on the Category 3 employees of non-church affiliated schools.... If the Secretary, in response to failure by the state defendants to collect unemployment compensation taxes on behalf of Category 3 employees, institutes decertification proceedings against the State of California, the parties may apply to this Court for further relief.” Second Supplemental Opinion, reprinted in J. S. App. 44, n. 39.
Following issuance of the court’s injunction, this Court decided St. Martin Evangelical Lutheran Church v. South Dakota, holding that § 3309(b)(1)(A) exempts Category I schools from mandatory coverage under the state unemployment insurance programs. Although no Category II schools were before the Court in St. Martin, the Court noted in a footnote that
“[t]o establish exemption from FUTA, a separately incorporated church school (or other organization) must satisfy the requirements of § 3309(b)(1)(B): (1) that the organization ‘is operated primarily for religious purposes,’ and (2) that it is ‘operated, supervised, controlled, or principally supported by a church or convention or association of churches.’ ” 451U. S., at 782-783, n. 12.
As a result of this opinion, the Secretary of Labor reconsidered his position and decided that both Category I and Category II schools are statutorily exempt from mandatory coverage under FUTA. Consequently, the federal defendants, as well as the state defendants, have not appealed the District Court’s injunction involving Category I and Category II schools, but only that part of the District Court order involving the Category III schools.
II
An initial matter requiring our attention is whether this Court has jurisdiction to hear these appeals. Congress has provided that
“[a]ny party may appeal to the Supreme Court from an interlocutory or final judgment, decree or order of any court of the United States... holding an Act of Congress unconstitutional in any civil action, suit, or proceeding to which the United States or any of its agencies, or any officer or employee thereof, as such officer or employee, is a party.” 28 U. S. C. §1252.
The only possible doubt regarding our appellate jurisdiction under this provision is the requirement that the District Court hold “an Act of Congress unconstitutional.”
In McLucas v. DeChamplain, 421 U. S. 21 (1975), we stated that § 1252 was an unambiguous exception to the policy of minimizing the mandatory docket of this Court. Indeed, the “language of the statute sufficiently demonstrates its purpose: to afford immediate review in this Court in civil actions to which the United States or its officers are parties and thus will be bound by a holding of unconstitutionality.” Id., at 31. Moreover, this Court has appellate jurisdiction under § 1252 “when the ruling of unconstitutionality is made in the application of the statute to a particular circumstance,... rather than upon the challenged statute as a whole.” Fleming v. Rhodes, 331 U. S. 100, 102-103 (1947) (discussing the predecessor to § 1252, Act of Aug. 24, 1937, 50 Stat. 751). See United States v. Christian Echoes National Ministry, Inc., 404 U. S. 561, 563 (1972) (per curiam); United States v. Darusmont, 449 U. S. 292, 293 (1981). Finally, § 1252 provides jurisdiction even though the lower court did not expressly declare a federal statute unconstitutional, so long as a determination that a statutory provision was unconstitutional “was a necessary predicate to the relief’ that the lower court granted. United States v. Clark, 445 U. S. 23, 26, n. 2 (1980).
In the present case, the District Court did not expressly hold § 3309(b) of FUTA unconstitutional as applied to the Category III appellees, but the effect of its several opinions and orders was to make “the United States or its officers... bound by a holding of unconstitutionality.” McLucas v. DeChamplain, supra, at 31. For example, while discussing the Establishment Clause claim of the Category III schools, the District Court held:
“Since such entanglement [involving the resolution of questions of faith and doctrine by secular tribunals] is inevitable during the benefit eligibility determination process if religious schools are brought within the scope of the unemployment compensation tax scheme, constitutional considerations bar the application of the scheme to them.” Second Supplemental Opinion, reprinted in J. S. App. 33 (emphasis added).
Examination of other portions of the court’s opinion makes clear that the court’s use of the word “scheme” refers to the combined federal and state provisions. See, e. g., id., at 26 (expressly referring to both federal and state statutory provisions in discussing the “unemployment compensation scheme”); id., at 25 (referring to the intent of Congress and the California Legislature in discussing the “unemployment compensation tax scheme”). Moreover, the District Court’s analysis leading to its order holding the California provision unconstitutional is based solely on its understanding of the operation and effect of FUTA, which of course prompted the passage of the corresponding state statute in the first place. Cf. St. Martin Evangelical Lutheran Church v. South Dakota, 451 U. S., at 780, n. 9 (holding that the Court could review the South Dakota Supreme Court’s interpretation of its unemployment compensation tax statute because its “analysis depended entirely on its understanding of the meaning of FUTA and the First Amendment”). Finally, in its second supplemental opinion, the court made clear that if the Secretary “institutes decertification proceedings against the State of California” for failing to collect unemployment compensation taxes on behalf of Category III employees, “the parties may apply to this Court for further relief,” which can only mean injunctive relief against the Secretary. J. S. App. 44, n. 39. Under these circumstances, it is clear that the Secretary is “bound by a holding of unconstitutionality,” and that this Court has jurisdiction under § 1252 to hear this appeal.
t — I HH
As we noted above, the District Court declared Cal. Un. Ins. Code Ann. § 634.5(a) (West Supp. 1982) unconstitutional and enjoined the state defendants from collecting state unemployment compensation taxes from the Category III schools. In the course of granting this declaratory and in-junctive relief, the court expressly rejected the Federal Government’s argument that the Tax Injunction Act, 28 U. S. C. § 1341, deprived the court of jurisdiction. See J. S. App. 65-69. Consequently, before reaching the merits of the ap-pellees’ claim, we must decide whether the District Court correctly ruled that it had jurisdiction under the Tax Injunction Act to issue declaratory and injunctive relief.
A
The Tax Injunction Act states simply that the district courts “shall not enjoin, suspend or restrain the... collection of any tax under State law where a plain, speedy and efficient remedy may be had in the courts of such State.” It is plain from this language that the Tax Injunction Act prohibits a federal district court, in most circumstances, from issuing an injunction enjoining the collection of state taxes. Although this Court once reserved the question, we now conclude that the Act also prohibits a district court from issuing a declaratory judgment holding state tax laws unconstitutional.
Initially, we observe that the Act divests the district court not only of jurisdiction to issue an injunction enjoining state officials, but also of jurisdiction to take actions that “suspend or restrain” the assessment and collection of state taxes. Because the declaratory judgment “procedure may in every practical sense operate to suspend collection of the state taxes until the litigation is ended,” Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Co. v. Huffman, 319 U. S. 293, 299 (1943), the very language of the Act suggests that a federal court is prohibited from issuing declaratory relief in state tax cases. Additionally, because there is little practical difference between injunctive and declaratory relief, we would be hard pressed to conclude that Congress intended to prohibit taxpayers from seeking one form of anticipatory relief against state tax officials in federal court, while permitting them to seek another, thereby defeating the principal purpose of the Tax Injunction Act: “to limit drastically federal district court jurisdiction to interfere with so important a local concern as the collection of taxes.” Rosewell v. LaSalle National Bank, 450 U. S. 503, 522 (1981). As Justice Brennan stated in his opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part in Perez v. Ledesma, 401 U. S. 82, 128, n. 17 (1971):
“If federal declaratory relief were available to test state tax assessments, state tax administration might be thrown into disarray, and taxpayers might escape the ordinary procedural requirements imposed by state law. During the pendency of the federal suit the collection of revenue under the challenged law might be obstructed, with consequent damage to the State’s budget, and perhaps a shift to the State of the risk of taxpayer insolvency. Moreover, federal constitutional issues are likely to turn on questions of state tax law, which, like issues of state regulatory law, are more properly heard in the state courts.”
See Fair Assessment in Real Estate Assn., Inc. v. McNary, 454 U. S. 100, 108-109, n. 6 (1981).
Consequently, because Congress’ intent in enacting the Tax Injunction Act was to prevent federal-court interference with the assessment and collection of state taxes, we hold that the Act prohibits declaratory as well as injunctive relief. Accordingly, the District Court in these cases was without jurisdiction to declare the California tax provision unconstitutional or to issue its injunction against state authorities unless the appellees had no “plain, speedy and efficient remedy” in the state courts.
Last Term, in Rosewell v. LaSalle National Bank, this Court had occasion to consider the meaning of the “plain, speedy and efficient” exception in the Tax Injunction Act. After reviewing previous decisions and the legislative history of the Act, the Court concluded that the “plain, speedy and efficient” exception requires the “state-court remedy [to meet] certain minimal procedural criteria.” 450 U. S., at 512 (emphasis in original). In particular, a state-court remedy is “plain, speedy and efficient” only if it “provides the taxpayer with a ‘full hearing and judicial determination’ at which she may raise any and all constitutional objections to the tax.” Id., at 514 (quoting LaSalle National Bank v. County of Cook, 57 Ill. 2d 318, 324, 312 N. E. 2d 252, 255-256 (1974)). Applying these considerations, the Rosewell Court held that an Illinois tax scheme, requiring the taxpayer to pay an allegedly unconstitutional tax and seek a refund through state administrative and judicial procedures, was a “plain, speedy and efficient remedy” within the meaning of the Tax Injunction Act. In reaching this holding, the Court specifically relied on legislative Reports demonstrating congressional awareness that refunds were the exclusive remedy in many state tax systems.
The holding in Rosewell reflects not only Congress’ express command in the Tax Injunction Act, but also the historical reluctance of the federal courts to interfere with the operation of state tax systems if the taxpayer had available an adequate remedy in the state courts. As this Court stated in Dows v. City of Chicago, 11 Wall. 108, 110 (1871), long before enactment of the Tax Injunction Act:
“No court of equity will... allow its injunction to issue to restrain [state officers collecting state taxes], except where it may be necessary to protect the rights of the citizen whose property is taxed, and he has no adequate remedy by the ordinary processes of the law. It must appear that the enforcement of the tax would lead to a multiplicity of suits, or produce irreparable injury,... before the aid of a court of equity can be invoked.”
In order to accommodate these concerns and be faithful to the congressional intent “to limit drastically” federal-court interference with state tax systems, we must construe narrowly the “plain, speedy and efficient” exception to the Tax Injunction Act.
With these cases and principles in mind, we turn to the California provisions to determine whether there exists a “plain, speedy and efficient” state remedy for the appellees’ claim.
B
There is no dispute that appellees in the present cases can seek a refund of the California unemployment tax through state administrative and judicial procedures. Once a taxpayer has sought from, and been denied a refund by, the appropriate state agency, see Cal. Un. Ins. Code Ann. §§ 1176-1185 (West 1972 and Supp. 1982), he may file an action in Superior Court for a refund of the taxes paid, raising all arguments against the validity of the tax. Cal. Un. Ins. Code Ann. § 1241 (West Supp. 1982). If the taxpayer is unsuccessful at trial, he may appeal the decision to higher state courts and ultimately seek review in this Court. Nothing in this scheme prevents the taxpayer from “raising] any and all constitutional objections to the tax” in the state courts. Rosewell v. LaSalle National Bank, 450 U. S., at 514..As the Court in Rosewell noted, the “Act contemplates nothing more.” Id., at 516, n. 19. Moreover, assuming that the appellees’ constitutional claims are meritorious, an issue on which we express no view, there is every reason to believe that once a state appellate court has declared the tax unconstitutional the appropriate state agencies will respect that declaration. See Pacific Motor Transport Co. v. State Board of Equalization, 28 Cal. App. 3d 230, 236, 104 Cal. Rptr. 558, 562 (1972) (noting that while the “relief afforded may not ‘prevent or enjoin’ or otherwise hamper present or future tax assessment or collection effort... [i]t will be presumed that the governmental agency will respect a judicial declaration concerning a regulation’s validity”). Accordingly, it appears that Rosewell is directly applicable to the present cases, and that the District Court had no jurisdiction to hear the appel-lees’ claims.
The appellees contend, however, that the California refund procedures do not constitute a “plain, speedy and efficient remedy” because their claims can be remedied only by injunc-tive relief, and that such relief is unavailable in California courts to restrain the collection of state taxes. See n. 10, supra. Injunctive relief is necessary, the appellees claim, because prior to state judicial review, the employer must meet certain recordkeeping, registration, and reporting requirements, see Cal. Un. Ins. Code Ann. §§ 1085, 1086,1088, 1092 (West 1972 and Supp. 1982), and potentially is subject to administrative benefit eligibility hearings in violation of the appellees’ First Amendment rights. The appellees thus fear that their constitutional rights will be violated before they have an opportunity to challenge the constitutionality of the unemployment tax scheme in state court.
This argument is unpersuasive. First, nothing in the California scheme precludes the appellees from challenging the unemployment tax before a benefit eligibility hearing is held for one of their former employees. As soon as an employer makes its first payment to the state unemployment insurance fund, it may file for a refund and, after exhausting state administrative remedies, seek a judicial determination of the constitutionality of the tax. If the employer ultimately prevails on his constitutional argument, the state taxing authorities can be expected to respect that court’s holding in future administrative proceedings. See Pacific Motor Transport Co. v. State Board of Equalization, supra, at 236, 104 Cal. Rptr., at 562. Thus, before any entanglement from the benefit eligibility hearings occurs, the appellees should be able to challenge the constitutionality of the state unemployment insurance taxes.
Second, while an employer may be subject to some recordkeeping and reporting requirements, or even a benefit eligibility hearing, pending the resolution of its constitutional claims in state court, it will be subject to the same burdens even if it seeks relief from the federal courts. Thus, whatever harm the appellees may suffer pending resolution of their constitutional claims, that harm is not reduced by seeking relief in federal court. Stated differently, there are no apparent advantages to federal-court relief that make state-court remedies less than “plain, speedy and efficient.”
Finally, we must keep in mind that at the time that it passed the Tax Injunction Act, Congress was well aware that refund procedures were the sole remedy in many States for unlawfully collected taxes. See S. Rep. No. 1035, 75th Cong., 1st Sess., 1 (1937); H. R. Rep. No. 1503, 75th Cong., 1st Sess., 2 (1937). Carving out a special exception for taxpayers raising First Amendment claims would undermine significantly Congress’ primary purpose “to limit drastically federal district court jurisdiction to interfere with so important a local concern as the collection of taxes.” Rosewell v. LaSalle National Bank, 450 U. S., at 522. Because we do not believe that Congress intended federal injunctions and declaratory judgments to disrupt state tax administration when state refund procedures are available, we decline to find an exception in the Tax Injunction Act for the appellees’ claims. Accordingly, because the appellees could seek a refund of their state unemployment insurance taxes, and thereby obtain state judicial review of their constitutional claims, we hold that their remedy under state law was “plain, speedy and efficient” within the meaning of the Tax Injunction Act, and consequently, that the District Court had no jurisdiction to issue injunctive or declaratory relief.
c
Despite the absence of jurisdiction in the District Court, the federal defendants urge us to consider the merits of the appellees’ First Amendment claims because of the “public interest in, and the Secretary’s need for, a definitive interpretation of 26 U. S. C. § 3309(b).” Brief for United States 21. The Government bases this argument on our decision in McLucas v. DeChamplain, 421 U. S., at 32, in which we held that “whether the District Court did or did not have jurisdiction to act, this case is properly here under § 1252.” See also Weinberger v. Salfi, 422 U. S. 749, 763, n. 8 (1975).
The Government’s argument is unavailing, however, for in McLucas and Salfi, some federal trial court had jurisdiction, whereas in the present cases, no federal district court had jurisdiction. If this Court were nonetheless to reach the First Amendment issues presented in these appeals, the litigants would have sidestepped neatly Congress’ intent and our longstanding policy “to limit drastically” federal interference in the administration of state taxes when a “plain, speedy and efficient” state remedy is available. Accordingly, we do not reach the appellees’ First Amendment claims.
The judgment of the District Court is vacated, and the cases are remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
So ordered.
The First Amendment provides in pertinent part that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” The Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses apply to the States through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. See Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296, 303 (1940); Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U. S. 1, 15 (1947).
The Act provides:
“The district courts shall not enjoin, suspend or restrain the assessment, levy or collection of any tax under State law where a plain, speedy and efficient remedy may be had in the courts of such State.”
FUTA was enacted originally as Title IX of the Social Security Act of 1935, ch. 531, 49 Stat. 639.
See 26 U. S. C. §3301.
See 26 U. S. C. § 3302 (1976 ed. and Supp. IV). Each state program receives annual approval after the Secretary of Labor finds that it complies with federal statutory standards. See 26 U. S. C. §§ 3304(a), (c) (1976 ed. and Supp. IV). The federal standards for the state programs are contained in §§ 3304 and 3309. If a state plan complies with federal standards, the State is authorized to receive a federal grant to administer the state plan. See 29 U. S. C. § 49d(b); 42 U. S. C. § 501.
See Employment Security Amendments of 1970, Pub. L. 91-373, § 104 (b)(1), 84 Stat. 697. Under §§ 3309(a)(2) and 3304(a)(6)(B), such nonprofit organizations were given the option of either making the same contribution to the state unemployment compensation fund required of other employers, or reimbursing the fund for unemployment compensation payments actually made to the nonprofit organizations’ former employees.
Although nonprofit organizations were covered by federally approved state unemployment compensation laws, they continued to be exempt from the federal excise tax on wages because the definition of “employment” in § 3306(c)(8), excluding services performed for such organizations, remained unchanged.
In its place, Congress substituted an unrelated provision.
This litigation grew out of two suits, one filed in the District Court by Grace Brethren Church et al. (Case No. CV 79-93 MRP), and the other filed in state court by the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. The Secretary of Labor successfully removed the Lutheran Church case (Case No. CV 79-162 MRP) to the District Court, which consolidated the cases for trial.
Category I and II schools comprise schools from the Lutheran Church case, see Order (filed Apr. 3, 1981), reprinted in J. S. App. 49, as well as some of the schools from the Grace Brethren case. See Order (filed Apr. 3, 1981), reprinted in J. S. App. 45. Category III schools include only schools from the Grace Brethren case. See J. S. App. 46.
California Un. Ins. Code Ann. § 1851 (West 1972) provides:
“No injunction or writ of mandate or other legal or equitable process shall issue in any suit, action or proceeding, in any court against this State or against any officer thereof to prevent or enjoin the collection of any contribution sought to be collected under this division.”
California Const., Art. XIII, § 32, provides:
“No legal or equitable process shall issue in any proceeding in any court against this State or any officer thereof to prevent or enjoin the collection of any tax. After payment of a tax claimed to be illegal, an action may be maintained to recover the tax paid, with interest, in such manner as may be provided by the Legislature.”
Despite the apparently unambiguous language of these provisions, the District Court considered the availability of injunctive relief only “uncertain” because of state decisions indicating that injunctive relief may be available when the plaintiff challenges the state tax law as being unconstitutional. See Las Animas & San Joaquin Land Co. v. Preciado, 167 Cal. 580, 587, 140 P. 239, 242 (1914) (injunction available to restrain a school district from assessing property taxes on land over which it has no authority); Bueneman v. City of Santa Barbara, 8 Cal. 2d 405, 407, 65 P. 2d 884, 886 (1937) (statutory provision precluding courts from enjoining execution of public laws for public benefit does not apply to claims that a taxing statute is unconstitutional).
More recent decisions, however, have held injunctive relief to be precluded. See Modern Barber Colleges, Inc. v. California Employment Stabilization Comm’n, 31 Cal. 2d 720, 723, 192 P. 2d 916, 918 (1948) (holding that a provision in the Unemployment Insurance Act, similar to § 1851, prohibited injunctive relief, leaving the taxpayer only with the option to pay the tax and seek a refund); Aronoff v. Franchise Tax Board, 60 Cal. 2d 177, 180, 383 P. 2d 409, 411 (1963) (holding that Cal. Const., Art. XIII, § 15, and Cal. Rev. & Tax Code Ann. § 19081 (West 1970) preclude issuance of an injunction to prevent collection of additional income taxes). Relying on Aronoff, a District Court of Appeal held that Cal. Const., Art. XIII, § 32 (which, in 1974, became the successor to § 15), and the corresponding statutory provision, Cal. Un. Ins. Code Ann. § 1851 (West 1972), prohibit the courts from enjoining the collection of unemployment insurance taxes. Lorco Properties, Inc. v. Department of Benefit Payments, 57 Cal. App. 3d 809, 815, 129 Cal. Rptr. 312, 315 (1976). Recently, in Pacific Gas & Electric Co. v. State Board of Equalization, 27 Cal. 3d 277, 279, 611 P. 2d 463, 464 (1980), the California Supreme Court held that under Cal. Const., Art. XIII, § 32, a taxpayer was barred from seeking relief compelling the state tax board to adjust the taxpayer’s real property assessments. The court expressly held that there were no equitable exceptions to this rule, id., at 282, 611 P. 2d, at 466, and reaffirmed the importance of the state policy to permit the uninterrupted collection of taxes. Cf. Pacific Motor Transport Co. v. State Board of Equalization, 28 Cal. App. 3d 230, 236, 104 Cal. Rptr. 558, 562 (1972) (noted without approval in Pacific Gas & Electric Co. v. State Board of Equalization, supra, and holding that a taxpayer could seek declaratory relief to challenge the validity of a tax regulation, but that such relief could not “ ‘prevent or enjoin’ or otherwise hamper present or future tax assessment or collection effort”).
The court also rejected the arguments offered by the Category III plaintiffs that imposition of the tax violates the Free Exercise Clause, and that the unique statutory treatment of Category III plaintiffs violates equal protection. J. S. App. 78.
The court held alternatively that if the Secretary of Labor’s interpretation of § 3309(b) were correct (i. e., Category I and II schools were not exempt from coverage), then that provision
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.
In these three petitions for certiorari, pro se petitioner Liang-Houh Shieh requests leave to proceed in forma pau-peris under Rule 39 of this Court. We deny his requests pursuant to Rule 39.8. Shieh is allowed until April 22, 1996, within which to pay the docketing fees required by Rule 38 and to submit his petitions in compliance with this Court’s Rule 33.1. We also direct the Clerk not to accept any further petitions for certiorari from Shieh in noncriminal matters unless he pays the docketing fee required by Rule 38 and submits his petition in compliance with Rule 33.1.
Shieh has abused this Court’s certiorari process. In March 1996, we invoked Rule 39.8 to deny Shieh in forma pauperis status. See Shieh v. State Bar of California, 516 U. S. 1170. To date, Shieh has filed 10 petitions in this Court in less than three years. All have been both patently frivolous and denied without recorded dissent.
' We enter the order barring prospective filings for the reasons discussed in Martin v. District of Columbia Court of Appeals, 506 U. S. 1 (1992). Shieh’s abuse of the writ of cer-tiorari has been in noncriminal cases, and so we limit our sanction accordingly. The order will not prevent Shieh from petitioning to challenge criminal sanctions which might be imposed against him. The order will, however, allow this Court to devote its limited resources to the claims of petitioners who have not abused our certiorari process.
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: | 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. Chief Justice Vinson
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case originated on October 21, 1950, when petitioner, a prisoner in San Quentin, filed an application for a writ of habeas corpus in the Supreme Court of California. That court, summarily, but with two dissents, denied the application. To review this decision, petitioner applied to this Court for certiorari. The Court granted the petition, 341 U. S. 938, and thereafter appointed counsel to represent the petitioner. 342 U. S. 805.
The Attorney General of California appeared for respondent. At the bar of this Court, he argued that the judgment of the Supreme Court of California rested on an adequate nonfederal ground. Admitting that habeas corpus is ordinarily an available means to California prisoners to challenge the constitutionality of the proceedings which resulted in their incarceration, the Attorney General told us that the writ was unavailable in this particular case, to this particular petitioner because he could have and should have presented his federal claim in an appeal from his original conviction. Counsel for petitioner vigorously opposed this contention, insisting that habeas corpus was an available remedy under California law, that the federal question was properly before the court.
This Court, of course, does not sit to determine matters of state law; nor is it the appropriate forum to resolve the argument raised by the earnest objections of the Attorney General of California.
Accordingly, we followed our precedents. We continued the cause “for such period” as would “enable counsel for petitioner to secure a determination from the Supreme Court of California as to whether the judgment herein was intended to rest on an adequate independent state ground or whether decision of the federal claim was necessary to the judgment rendered.” 342 U. S. 33, 34. (Emphasis supplied.)
Counsel for petitioner, in December 1951, duly filed in the Supreme Court of California a “Petition for Determination of Basis of Judgment” which requested an expression by that court on the issue raised by our order. Subsequently, the Clerk of this Court received a letter from the Clerk of the Supreme Court of California relative to this question. But we received no official determination of the issue from the Supreme Court of California.
We could not regard the letter from the Clerk of the Supreme Court of California as a “sufficient ‘determination’ of the question raised in our order of November 5, 1951.” Therefore, on May 12, 1952, we “further continued” the cause on our docket to enable counsel for petitioner to secure from the Supreme Court of California its official determination as requested by our earlier order. 343 U. S. 393.
Though some months have now elapsed, we still have received no advice from the Supreme Court of California. We are informed, however, that the California court advised petitioner’s counsel informally that it doubted its jurisdiction to render such a determination. And, although counsel subsequently submitted briefs to the contrary, the California court again informed counsel, through its Clerk, that it was powerless, for want of jurisdiction, to issue any further official expression on the case. It appears, then, that so long as this cause continues on our docket, counsel cannot procure that which we asked him to procure.
We granted certiorari in this case “because of a serious claim that petitioner had been deprived of his rights under the Federal Constitution.” 342 U. S. 33. This Court, alone, is the final arbiter of such a claim, and our grant of certiorari should entitle petitioner to the chance to have the matter resolved by this Court — provided that the state judgment was not based on an adequate state ground. If the state judgment was based on an adequate state ground, the Court, of course, would be without jurisdiction to pass upon the federal question. Doubt has since arisen that such, jurisdiction exists. These circumstances should not now act to deprive petitioner of his day in this Court, but they do require that we take scrupulous care, as we have so often done before, to determine our jurisdiction. This involves further delay, and in this case further delay is regrettable. But delay is necessary unless we are to resolve the jurisdictional issue by simply assuming the nonexistence of an adequate state ground though in fact one may exist.
To the end that the doubt in this case may be resolved, we vacate the judgment of the Supreme Court of California and remand the cause for further proceedings. A new judgment may be entered, and petitioner also may be informed by an official determination from the Supreme Court of California whether or not that judgment rests on an adequate state ground.
So ordered.
Loftus v. Illinois, 334 U. S. 804 (1948); Herb v. Pitcairn, 324 U. S. 117 (1945).
See Neilson v. Lagow, 12 How. 98, 109-110 (1852).
See, e. g., Jennings v. Illinois, 342 U. S. 104 (1951); Loftus v. Illinois, supra; Herb v. Pitcairn, supra. Minnesota v. National Tea Co., 309 U. S. 551 (1940); Honeyman v. Hanan, 300 U. S. 14 (1937).
Cf. Jennings v. Illinois, supra; Minnesota v. National Tea Co., supra; Honeyman v. Hanan, 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: | 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 Blackmun
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case involves a challenge to the efforts of a state commercial bank to enter the business of selling third-party commercial paper. The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (Board) concluded that such activity by state member banks is not prohibited by the Banking Act of 1933, ch. 89, 48 Stat. 162 (commonly known as the Glass-Steagall Act) because commercial paper is neither a “security” nor a “note” within the meaning of that Act and therefore falls outside the Act’s proscriptions. The District Court disagreed with the Board, but the Court of Appeals deferred to the Board’s interpretation and reversed the judgment of the District Court. Because commercial paper falls within the plain language of the Act, and because the inclusion of commercial paper within the terms of the Act is fully consistent with the Act’s purposes, we conclude that commercial paper is a “security” under the Glass-Steagall Act, and we reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
hH
During 1978 Bankers Trust Company (Bankers Trust), a New York-chartered member bank of the Federal Reserve System, began serving as agent for several of its corporate customers in placing their commercial paper in the commercial-paper market. Petitioners, the Securities Industry Association (SIA), a national securities-industry trade association, and A. G. Becker Inc. (Becker), a dealer in commercial paper, informally expressed concern to the Board about Bankers Trust’s commercial-paper activities. SIA and Becker subsequently petitioned the Board for, among other things, a ruling that Bankers Trust’s activities are unlawful under §§16 and 21 of the Act, 12 U. S. C. §§24 Seventh and 378(a)(1). Section 16 prohibits commercial banks from underwriting “securities or stock,” while §21 prohibits them from marketing “stocks, bonds, debentures, notes, or other securities.” Petitioners asserted that Bankers Trust’s activities violated both § 16 and § 21.
On September 26, 1980, the Board responded to petitioners’ request for enforcement of §§ 16 and 21 against Bankers Trust. See Federal Reserve System, Statement Regarding Petitions to Initiate Enforcement Action (1980), App. 122A (Board Statement). The Board acknowledged that Congress enacted the Act to prevent commercial banks from engaging in certain investment-banking activities, but explained that Congress did not intend the Act’s prohibitions to cover every instrument that could be characterized as a “note” or “security.” The Board expressed concern that such a broad interpretation might preclude commercial banks from maintaining many of their traditional activities. Accordingly, the Board took the position that “if a particular kind of financial instrument evidences a transaction that is more functionally similar to a traditional commercial banking operation than to an investment transaction, then fidelity to the purposes of the Act would dictate that the instrument should not be viewed as a security.” Id., at 135A. Applying this “functional analysis” to commercial paper, the Board concluded that such paper more closely resembles a commercial bank loan than an investment transaction and that it is not a “security” for purposes of the Glass-Steagall Act. Because of this determination, the Board did not consider whether Bankers Trust’s involvement with commercial paper constitutes “underwriting,” within the meaning of the Act.
Petitioners challenged the Board’s ruling in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia under, inter alia, the judicial-review provisions of the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U. S. C. §701 et seq., claiming that the ruling was contrary to law. The District Court reversed the ruling, finding that commercial paper falls within the scope of §21’s reference to “notes... or other securities.” A. G. Becker Inc. v. Board of Governors of Federal Reserve System, 519 F. Supp. 602, 612 (1981). The court also found error in the Board’s “functional analysis” because it focused exclusively on the role that commercial paper plays in the financial affairs of the issuer. This approach ignored the commercial bank’s role in the transaction, which the District Court concluded is a central concern of the Act. Id., at 615-616.
The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, by a divided vote, reversed the judgment of the District Court. A. G. Becker Inc. v. Board of Governors of Federal Reserve System, 224 U. S. App. D. C. 21, 693 F. 2d 136 (1982). The Court of Appeals’ majority acknowledged that § 21’s reference to “notes” was broad enough to include commercial paper, which is a promissory note. The court explained, however, that the term “note” was also susceptible of a narrower reading, limited to long-term debt securities closely resembling a bond or debenture but of shorter maturity. Id., at 28-29, 693 F. 2d, at 143-144. Because the legislative history of the Act indicates that the 1933 Congress sought to encourage commercial banks to invest more heavily in commercial paper than in longer-term, more speculative securities, the court concluded that Congress used the term “notes” in §21 in this narrower sense. Id., at 29-31, 693 F. 2d, at 144-146. Finally, the court endorsed the Board’s functional analysis of commercial paper and concluded that commercial paper more closely resembled a loan than a security because of its low default rate, the large denominations in which it is issued, and the sophistication of its buyers. In the Court of Appeals’ view, these features of commercial paper eliminate the concerns that moved Congress to pass the Glass-Steagall Act. Id., at 32-36, 693 F. 2d, at 147-151.
Because of the importance of the issue for the Nation’s financial markets, we granted certiorari. 464 U. S. 812 (1983).
II
The Board is the agency responsible for federal regulation of the national banking system, and its interpretation of a federal banking statute is entitled to substantial deference. As the Court states elsewhere today, “the Board has primary responsibility for implementing the Glass-Steagall Act, and we accord substantial deference to the Board’s interpretation of that Act whenever its interpretation provides a reasonable construction of the statutory language and is consistent with legislative intent.” No. 83-614, Securities Industry Assn. v. Board of Governors of Federal Reserve System, post, at 217. We also have made clear, however, that deference is not to be a device that emasculates the significance of judicial review. Judicial deference to an agency’s interpretation of a statute “only sets ‘the framework for judicial analysis; it does not displace it.’” United States v. Vogel Fertilizer Co., 455 U. S. 16, 24 (1982), quoting United States v. Cartwright, 411 U. S. 546, 550 (1973). A reviewing court “must reject administrative constructions of [a] statute, whether reached by adjudication or by rulemaking, that are inconsistent with the statutory mandate or that frustrate the policy that Congress sought to implement.” FEC v. Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, 454 U. S. 27, 32 (1981).
Although these principles establish in general terms the appropriate standard of review, this case presents an additional consideration that counsels against full deference to the Board. At the administrative level, the Board took the position that commercial paper was not a “security” within the meaning of the Act, and that, therefore, it did “not appear necessary to examine the dangers that the Act was intended to eliminate.” Board Statement, App. 140A. Before this Court, however, the Board appears to have changed somewhat the nature of its argument. The Board’s counsel now insists that the activities of Bankers Trust “involv[e] none of the ‘hazards’ that this Court identified” as the concerns at which the Act is aimed. Brief for Respondents 40. We previously have stated that post hoc rationalizations by counsel for agency action are entitled to little deference: “It is the administrative official and not appellate counsel who possesses the expertise that can enlighten and rationalize the search for the meaning and intent of Congress.” Investment Company Institute v. Camp, 401 U. S. 617, 628 (1971); see also Burlington Truck Lines, Inc. v. United States, 371 U. S. 156, 168-169 (1962). As a result, the Board’s presentation here of the policies behind the Act as they apply to this case is of less significance than it would be if it had occurred at the administrative level. Because of this apparent shift, moreover, the contours of the Board’s present position are somewhat unclear; much of the Board’s argument now addresses the particular characteristics of the commercial paper in this case, apparently leaving open the possibility that commercial paper with different characteristics would qualify as a “security” and be subject to the Glass-Steagall Act’s proscriptions. See Brief for Respondents 33-44. To the extent that the Board has changed its position from that adopted at the administrative level, its interpretation is entitled to less weight.
Ill
A
In Camp this Court explored at some length the congressional concerns that produced the Glass-Steagall Act. Congress passed the Act in the aftermath of the banking collapse that produced the Great Depression of the 1930’s. The Act responded to the opinion, widely expressed at the time, that much of the financial difficulty experienced by banks could be traced to their involvement in investment-banking activities both directly and through security affiliates. At the very least, Congress held the view that the extensive involvement by commercial banks had been unwise; some in Congress concluded that it had been illegal. Senator Glass stated bluntly that commercial-bank involvement in securities had made “one of the greatest contributions to the unprecedented disaster which has caused this almost incurable depression.” 75 Cong. Rec. 9887 (1932).
Congressional worries about commercial-bank involvement in investment-bank activities reflected two general concerns. The first was the inherent risks of the securities business. Speculation in securities by banks and their affiliates during the speculative fever of the 1920’s produced tremendous bank losses when the securities markets went sour. In addition to the palpable effect that such losses had on the assets of affected banks, they also eroded the confidence of depositors in the safety of banks as depository institutions. This crisis of confidence contributed to the runs on the banks that proved so devastating to the solvency of many commercial banks.
But the dangers that Congress sought to eliminate through the Act were considerably more than the obvious risk that a bank could lose money by imprudent investment of its funds in speculative securities. The legislative history of the Act shows that Congress also focused on “the more subtle hazards that arise when a commercial bank goes beyond the business of acting as fiduciary or managing agent and enters the investment banking business.” Camp, 401 U. S., at 630. The Glass-Steagall Act reflects the 1933 Congress’ conclusion that certain investment-banking activities conflicted in fundamental ways with the institutional role of commercial banks.
The Act’s legislative history is replete with references to the various conflicts of interest that Congress feared to be present when a single institution is involved in both investment and commercial banking. Congress observed that commercial bankers serve as an important source of financial advice for their clients. They routinely advise clients on a variety of financial matters such as whether and how best to issue equity or debt securities. Congress concluded that it was unrealistic to expect a banker to give impartial advice about such matters if he stands to realize a profit from the underwriting or distribution of securities. See, e. g., 75 Cong. Rec. 9912 (1932) (remarks of Sen. Bulkley). Some legislators noted that this conflict is exacerbated by the considerable fixed cost that a securities dealer must incur to build and maintain a securities-distribution system. Explaining this concern, Senator Bulkley, a major sponsor of the Act, described the pressures that commercial banks had experienced through their involvement in the distribution of securities:
“In order to be efficient a securities department had to be developed; it had to have salesmen; and it had to have correspondent connections with smaller banks throughout the territory tributary to the great bank. Organizations were developed with enthusiasm and with efficiency.... But the sales departments were subject to fixed expenses which could not be reduced without the danger of so disrupting the organization as to put the institution at a disadvantage in competition with rival institutions. These expenses would turn the operation very quickly from a profit to a loss if there were not sufficient originations and underwritings to keep the sales departments busy.” Id., at 9911.
Congress also expressed concern that the involvement of a commercial bank in particular securities could compromise the objectivity of the bank’s lending operations. Congress feared that the pressure to dispose of an issue of securities successfully might lead a bank to use its credit facilities to shore up a company whose securities the bank sought to distribute. See 1931 Hearings, pt. 7, p. 1064. Some in Congress feared that a bank might even make unsound loans to companies in whose securities the bank has a stake or to a purchaser of securities that the bank seeks to distribute. Ibid. Alternatively, a bank with loans outstanding to a company might encourage the company to issue securities through the bank’s distribution system in order to obtain the funds needed to repay bank loans. 75 Cong. Rec. 9912 (1932) (remarks of Sen. Bulkley). Congress also faced some evidence that banks had misused their trust departments to unload excessive holdings of undesirable securities. Camp, 401 U. S., at 633; 1931 Hearings, pt. 1, p. 237.
The Act’s design reflects the congressional perception that certain investment-banking activities are fundamentally incompatible with commercial banking. After hearing much testimony concerning the appropriate form of a legislative response to the problems, Congress rejected the view of those who preferred legislation that simply would regulate the underwriting activities of commercial banks. Congress chose instead a broad structural approach that would “surround the banking business with sound rules which recognize the imperfection of human nature that our bankers may not be led into temptation, the evil effect of which is sometimes so subtle as not to be easily recognized by the most honorable man.” 75 Cong. Rec. 9912 (1932) (remarks of Sen. Bulkley). Through flat prohibitions, the Act sought to “separate] as completely as possible commercial from investment banking.” Board of Governors of Federal Reserve System v. Investment Company Institute, 450 U. S. 46, 70 (1981) (ICI). Such an approach was not without costs in terms of efficiency and competition, but the Act reflects the view that the subtle risks created by mixing the two activities justified a strong prophylaxis. Camp, 401 U. S., at 630.
B
Sections 16 and 21 of the Act are the principal provisions that demarcate the line separating commercial and investment banking. Section 16 limits the involvement of a commercial bank in the “business of dealing in stock and securities” and prohibits a national bank from buying securities, other than “investment securities,” for its own account. 12 U. S. C. §24 Seventh. In addition, the section includes the general provision that a national bank “shall not underwrite any issue of securities or stock.” Section 5(c) of the Act, 12 U. S. C. §335, makes §16’s limitations applicable to state banks that are members of the Federal Reserve System. It is therefore clear that Bankers Trust may not underwrite commercial paper if commercial paper is a “security” within the meaning of the Act.
Section 21 also separates investment and commercial banks, but does so from the perspective of investment banks. Congress designed § 21 to prevent persons engaged in specified investment-banking activities from entering the commercial-banking business. The section prohibits any person “engaged in the business of issuing, underwriting, selling, or distributing... stocks, bonds, debentures, notes, or other securities” from receiving deposits. Bankers Trust receives deposits, and it therefore is clear that § 21’s prohibitions apply to it.
Because § 16 and § 21 seek to draw the same line, the parties agree that the underwriting prohibitions described in the two sections are coextensive, and we shall assume that to be the case. In any event, because both § 16 and § 21 apply to Bankers Trust, its activities in this case are unlawful if prohibited by either section. The language of §21 is perhaps the more helpful, however, because that section describes in greater detail the particular activities of investment banking that Congress found inconsistent with the activity of commercial banks.
It is common ground that the terms “stocks,” “bonds,” and “debentures” do not encompass commercial paper. The dispute in this case focuses instead on petitioners’ claims that commercial paper constitutes a “note” within the meaning of § 21, and, if not, that it is nevertheless encompassed within the inclusive term “other securities.” Thus, petitioners claim that the plain language of the Act makes untenable the Board’s conclusion that commercial paper is not a “security” within the meaning of the Act. Petitioners contend further that the role played by Bankers Trust in placing the commercial paper of third parties is precisely what the Glass-Steagall Act sought to prohibit.
C
Neither the term “notes” nor the term “other securities” is defined by the statute. “This silence compels us to'start with the assumption that the legislative purpose is expressed by the ordinary meaning of the words used.’” Russello v. United States, 464 U. S. 16, 21 (1983), quoting Richards v. United States, 369 U. S. 1, 9 (1962). Respondents do not dispute that commercial paper consists of unsecured promissory notes and falls within the general meaning of the term “notes.” See Board Statement, App. 131A; see also Brief for Respondents 2. Respondents assert, however, that the context in which the term is used suggests that Congress intended a narrower definition. Because the term appears in a phrase that includes “stocks, bonds, [and] debentures,” the Board insists that the Act’s prohibitions apply only to “notes [and] other securities” that resemble the enumerated financial instruments. The Board’s position seems to be that because “stocks, bonds, [and] debentures” normally are considered “investments,” the Act is meant to prohibit the underwriting of only those notes that “shar[e] that characteristic of an investment that is the common feature of each of the other enumerated instruments.” Brief for Respondents 23. Applying that criterion to commercial paper, the Board maintains that commercial paper more closely resembles a commercial loan and that it is therefore not an investment of the kind that qualifies as a “security” under the Act.
For a variety of reasons, we find unpersuasive the notion that Congress used the terms “notes... or other securities” in the narrow sense that respondents suggest. First, the Court noted in Camp that “there is nothing in the phrasing of either § 16 or § 21 that suggests a narrow reading of the word ‘securities.’ To the contrary, the breadth of the term is implicit in the fact that the antecedent statutory language encompasses not only equity securities but also securities representing debt.” 401 U. S., at 635.
There is, moreover, considerable evidence to indicate that the ordinary meaning of the terms “security” and “note” as used by the 1933 Congress encompasses commercial paper. Congress enacted the Glass-Steagall Act as one of several pieces of legislation collectively designed to restore public confidence in financial markets. See the Banking Act of 1933, ch. 89, 48 Stat. 162 (codified as amended in scattered sections of 12 U. S. C.); the Securities Act of 1933, 48 Stat. 74, 15 U. S. C. §77a et seq.; the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, 48 Stat. 881, 15 U. S. C. §78a et seq.; and the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935, 49 Stat. 803, 15 U. S. C. §79a et seq. In each of these other statutes, the definition of the term “security” includes commercial paper, and each statute contains explicit exceptions where Congress meant for the provisions of an Act not to apply to commercial paper. These explicit exceptions demonstrate congressional cognizance of commercial paper and Congress’ understanding that, unless modified, the use of the term “security” encompasses it.
The Securities Act of 1933, for example, defines the term “security” to include “any note.” 15 U. S. C. §77b(1). During the hearings on that Act, Senator Glass expressed dissatisfaction with that definition because it plainly did encompass commercial paper. With the support of the Board, he sought to amend the definition of the term to exclude commercial paper, but Congress chose instead to exempt commercial paper from only the registration requirements of the statute, see 15 U. S. C. §77c(a)(3), while preserving application of the statute’s antifraud provisions to all commercial-paper “securities.” §§77i, 77q(c). Congress passed the Glass-Steagall Act two weeks later, and throughout consideration of that Act by the same Committees of the same Congress, the eponymous Senator Glass displayed no similar concern over the ordinary meaning of the broad phrase “notes... or other securities” in §21.
The difficulty with the Board’s attempt to narrow the ordinary meaning of the statutory language is evidenced by the Board’s unsuccessful efforts to articulate a meaningful distinction between notes that the Act purportedly covers and those it does not. In other statutes in which commercial paper is exempted from securities regulation, Congress either has identified a particular feature, such as maturity period, that defines the exempted class of “notes,” or it has authorized a federal agency to define it through regulation. See n. 7, supra. The Glass-Steagall Act does neither, and the efforts by the Board and the Court of Appeals to provide a workable definition that excludes commercial paper have been fraught with uncertainty and inconsistency. The Court of Appeals concluded that the Act applies only to notes that are issued “to raise money available for an extended period of time as part of the corporation’s capital structure.” 693 F. 2d, at 143. It is not clear that such a distinction finds support even with reference to the statutory language from which it purportedly derives. There is no requirement, for example, that stocks, bonds, and debentures be used only to meet the capital requirements of a corporation, and, even if there were, the legislative history provides little evidence to suggest that such a distinction was one that Congress found significant.
The Board, in contrast, seems to have concluded that a note is covered by the Act only if the note is properly viewed as an “investment.” The Board contends that this approach requires it to consider a “cluster” of the note’s features, see Brief for Respondents 34, n. 60, such as its maturity period, its risk features, and its prospective purchasers. Stocks, bonds, and debentures display a wide range of each of these characteristics, however, and the Act’s underwriting prohibition does not demonstrate any sensitivity to the characteristics of a particular issue; the Act simply prohibits commercial banks from underwriting them all. Without some clearer directive from Congress that it intended the statutory terms to involve the nebulous inquiry described by the Board, we cannot endorse the Board’s departure from the literal meaning of the Act. The Court, in another context, has said pertinently: “Had Congress intended so fundamental a distinction, it would have expressed that intent clearly in the statutory language or the legislative history. It did not do so, however, and it is not this Court’s function ‘to sit as a super-legislature,’ Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U. S. 479, 482 (1965), and create statutory distinctions where none were intended.” American Tobacco Co. v. Patterson, 456 U. S. 63, 72, n. 6 (1982).
In this respect, we find ourselves in substantial agreement with petitioners’ suggestion that the Board’s interpretation effectively converts a portion of the Act’s broad prohibition into a system of administrative regulation. By concluding that commercial paper is not covered by the Act, the Board in effect has obtained authority to regulate the marketing of commercial paper under its general supervisory power over member banks. The Board acknowledges that “the sale of third party commercial paper by a commercial bank could involve, at least in some circumstances, practices that are not consistent with principles of safe banking.” Board Statement, App. 141A. In response to these concerns, the Board issued guidelines for state member banks explaining the circumstances in which they properly may place the commercial paper of third parties. See n. 2, supra.
Although the guidelines may be a sufficient regulatory response to the potential problems, Congress rejected a regulatory approach when it drafted the statute, and it has adhered to that rejection ever since. In 1935, for example, Congress refused to amend the Act to permit “national banks under regulations by the Comptroller of the Currency... to underwrite and sell bonds, debentures, and notes.” H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 1822, 74th Cong., 1st Sess., 53 (1935). As recently as 1980, Congress extended to the Comptroller of the Currency authority to issue such rules as were needed to “carry out the responsibilities of the office,” but expressly continued to withhold from the Comptroller the authority to issue regulations concerning “securities activities of National Banks under the Act commonly known as the ‘Glass-Steagall Act.’ ” Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act of 1980, § 708, 94 Stat. 188, 12 U. S. C. § 93a. When Congress has concluded that a particular form of notes should not be covered by the Act’s prohibitions, it has amended the statute accordingly. See Banking Act of 1935, § 303(a), 49 Stat. 707, 12 U. S. C. § 378(a)(1) (exempting mortgage notes from the coverage of § 21). In the face of Congress’ refusal to give the Board any rulemaking authority over the activities prohibited by the Act, we find it difficult to imagine that Congress intended the Board to engage in the subtle and ad hoc “functional analysis” described by the Board.
D
By focusing entirely on the nature of the financial instrument and ignoring the role of the bank in the transaction, moreover, the Board’s “functional analysis” misapprehends Congress’ concerns with commercial bank involvement in marketing securities. Both the Board and the Court of Appeals emphasized that Congress designed the Act to prevent future bank losses arising out of investments in speculative, long-term investments. This description of the Act’s underlying concerns is perhaps accurate but somewhat incomplete. “[I]n enacting the Glass-Steagall Act, Congress contemplated other hazards in addition to the danger of banks using bank assets in imprudent securities investments.” ICI, 450 U. S., at 66. The concern about commercial-bank underwriting activities derived from the perception that the role of a bank as a promoter of securities was fundamentally incompatible with its role as a disinterested lender and adviser. This Court explained in Camp:
“In sum, Congress acted to keep commercial banks out of the investment banking business largely because it believed that the promotional incentives of investment banking and the investment banker’s pecuniary stake in the success of particular investment opportunities was destructive of prudent and disinterested commercial banking and of public confidence in the commercial banking system.” 401 U. S., at 634.
At the administrative level, the Board expressly chose not to consider whether these concerns are present when a commercial bank has a pecuniary interest in promoting commercial paper. Board Statement, App. 140A. Although the Board indicates before this Court that such activities do not implicate the concerns of the Act, we are unpersuaded by this belated assertion. In adopting the Act, for example, Congress concluded that a bank’s “salesman’s interest” in an offering “might impair its ability to function as an impartial source of credit.” Camp, 401 U. S., at 631. In the commercial-paper market, where the distribution of an issue depends heavily on the creditworthiness of the issuer, a bank presumably can enhance the marketability of an issue by extending backup credit to the issuer. Similarly, as a commercial bank finds itself in direct competition with other commercial-paper dealers, it may feel pressure to purchase unsold notes in order to demonstrate the reliability of its distribution system, even if the paper does not meet the bank’s normal credit standards. Recognizing these pressures, this Court stated in Camp: “When a bank puts itself in competition with [securities dealers], the bank must make an accommodation to the kind of ground rules that Congress firmly concluded could not be prudently mixed with the business of commercial banking.” Id., at 637.
The 1933 Congress also was concerned that banks might use their relationships with depositors to facilitate the distribution of securities in which the bank has an interest, and that the bank’s depositors might lose confidence in the bank if the issuer should default on its obligations. See id., at 631; 1931 Hearings, pt. 7, p. 1064. This concern would appear fully applicable to commercial-paper sales, because banks presumably will use their depositor lists as a prime source of customers for such sales. To the extent that a bank sells commercial paper to large bank depositors, the result of a loss of confidence in the bank would be especially severe.
By giving banks a pecuniary incentive in the marketing of a particular security, commercial-bank dealing in commercial paper also seems to produce precisely the conflict of interest that Congress feared would impair a commercial bank’s ability to act as a source of disinterested financial advice. Senator Bulkley, during the debates on the Act, explained:
“Obviously, the banker who has nothing to sell to his depositors is much better qualified to advise disinterestedly and to regard diligently the safety of depositors than the banker who uses the list of depositors in his savings department to distribute circulars concerning the advantages of this, that, or the other investment on which the bank is to receive an originating profit or an underwriting profit or a distribution profit or a trading profit or any combination of such profits.” 75 Cong. Ree. 9912 (1932).
This conflict of interest becomes especially acute if a bank decides to distribute commercial paper on behalf of an issuer who intends to use the proceeds of the offering to retire a debt that the issuer owes the bank.
In addressing these concerns before this Court, the Board focuses primarily on the extremely low rate of default on prime-quality commercial paper. We do not doubt that the risk of default with commercial paper is relatively low — lower perhaps than with many bank loans. For several reasons, however, we find reliance on this characteristic misplaced. First, it is not clear that the Board’s exemption of commercial paper from the proscriptions of the Act is limited to commercial paper that is “prime.” The statutory language admits of no distinction in this respect, and the logic of the Board’s opinion must exempt all commercial paper from the prohibition on underwriting by commercial banks. Second, as described above, it appears that a bank can make a particular issue “prime” simply by extending backup credit to the issuer. Such a practice would seem to fit squarely within Congress’ concern that banks would use their credit facilities to aid in the distribution of securities.
More importantly, however, there is little evidence to suggest that Congress intended the Act’s prohibitions on underwriting to depend on the safety of particular securities. Stocks, bonds, and debentures exhibit the full range of risk; some are less risky than many of the loans made by a bank. And while the risk features of a security presumably affect whether it qualifies as an “investment security” that a commercial bank may purchase for its own account, the Act’s underwriting prohibition displays no appreciation for the features of a particular issue; the Act just prohibits commercial banks from underwriting any of them, with an exception for certain enumerated governmental obligations that Congress specifically has chosen to favor. See 12 U. S. C. §24 Seventh. The Act’s prophylactic prohibition on underwriting reflects Congress’ conclusion that the mere existence of a securities operation, “ ‘no matter how carefully and conservatively run, is inconsistent with the best interests’” of the bank as a whole. 75 Cong. Rec. 9913 (1932) (remarks of Sen. Bulkley, quoting a statement issued by the Bank of Manhattan Trust Co.).
In this regard, the Board’s focus on the fact that commercial banks traditionally have acquired commercial paper for their own accounts is beside the point. It is clearly true, as the Board asserts before this Court, that Congress designed the Glass-Steagall Act to cause banks to invest more of their funds in short-term obligations like commercial paper instead of in longer term and more speculative securities. By so doing, Congress hoped to enhance the liquidity of funds and protect bank solvency. But the authority to discount commercial paper is very different from the authority to underwrite it. The former places banks in their traditional role as a prudent lender. The latter places a commercial bank in the role of an investment banker, which is precisely what Congress sought to prohibit in the Act. See Note, A Conduct-Oriented Approach to the Glass-Steagall Act, 91 Yale L. J. 102 (1981); Comment, 9 J. Corp. L. 321 (1984).
The Board also seeks comfort in the fact that commercial paper is sold largely to “sophisticated” investors. Once again, however, the Act leaves little room for such an ad hoc analysis. In its prohibition on commercial-bank underwriting, the Act admits of no exception according to the particular investment expertise of the customer. The Act’s prohibition on underwriting is a flat prohibition that applies to sales to both the knowledgeable and the naive. Congress expressed concern that commercial-bank involvement in securities operations threatened the ability of commercial banks to act as “financial confidant and mentor” for both “the poor widow” and “the great corporation.” 75 Cong. Rec. 9912 (1932) (remarks of Sen. Bulkley). Even if purchaser-sophistication is relevant under the Act, moreover, it is not clear that commercial paper is sold only in large denominations, see Hicks, Commercial Paper: An Exempted Security Under Section 3(a)(3) of the Securities Act of 1933, 24 UCLA L. Rev. 227, 234, and n. 30 (1976), or only to sophisticated investors. See Sanders v. John Nuveen & Co., 524 F. 2d 1064 (CA7 1975), vacated and remanded, 425 U. S. 929 (1976).
Finally, it is certainly not without some significance that Bankers Trust’s commercial-paper placement activities appear to be the first of that kind since the passage of the Act. The history of commercial-bank involvement in commercial paper prior to the Act is not well documented; evidently, commercial banks occasionally dealt in commercial paper, but their involvement was overwhelmingly in the role of discounter rather than dealer. See R. Foulke, The Commercial Paper Market 108 (1931); A. Greef, The Commercial Paper House in the United States 63, 403-405 (1938). Since enactment of the Act, however, there is no evidence of commercial-bank participation in the commercial-paper market as a dealer. The Board has not offered any explanation as to why commercial banks in the past have not ventured to test the limits of the Act’s prohibitions on underwriting activities. Although such behavior is far from conclusive, it does support the view that when Congress sought to “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: | 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 Kennedy
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case stems from a market struggle that erupted in the domestic cigarette industry in the mid-1980’s. Petitioner Brooke Group Ltd., whom we, like the parties to the case, refer to as Liggett because of its former corporate name, charges that to counter its innovative development of generic cigarettes, respondent Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corporation introduced its own line of generic cigarettes in an unlawful effort to stifle price competition in the economy segment of the national cigarette market. Liggett contends that Brown & Williamson cut prices on generic cigarettes below cost and offered discriminatory volume rebates to wholesalers to force Liggett to raise its own generic cigarette prices and introduce oligopoly pricing in the economy segment. We hold that Brown & Williamson is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.
I
In 1980, Liggett pioneered the development of the economy segment of the national cigarette market by introducing a line of “black and white” generic cigarettes. The economy segment of the market, sometimes called the generic segment, is characterized by its bargain prices and comprises a variety of different products: black and whites, which are true generics sold in plain white packages with simple black lettering describing their contents; private label generics, which carry the trade dress of a specific purchaser, usually a retail chain; branded generics, which carry a brand name but which, like black and whites and private label generics, are sold at a deep discount and with little or no advertising; and “Value-25s,” packages of 25 cigarettes that are sold to the consumer some 12.5% below the cost of a normal 20-cigarette pack. By 1984, when Brown & Williamson entered the generic segment and set in motion the series of events giving rise to this suit, Liggett’s black and whites represented 97% of the generic segment, which in turn accounted for a little more than 4% of domestic cigarette sales. Prior to Liggett’s introduction of black and whites in 1980, sales of generic cigarettes amounted to less than 1% of the domestic cigarette market.
Because of the procedural posture of this case, we view the evidence in the light most favorable to Liggett. The parties are in basic agreement, however, regarding the central, historical facts. Cigarette manufacturing has long been one of America’s most concentrated industries, see F. Scherer & D. Ross, Industrial Market Structure and Economic Performance 250 (3d ed. 1990) (hereinafter Scherer & Ross); App. 495-498, and for decades, production has been dominated by six firms: R. J. Reynolds, Philip Morris, American Brands, Lorillard, and the two litigants involved here, Liggett and Brown & Williamson. R. J. Reynolds and Philip Morris, the two industry leaders, enjoyed respective market shares of about 28% and 40% at the time of trial. Brown & Williamson ran a distant third, its market share never exceeding 12% at any time relevant to this dispute. Liggett’s share of the market was even less, from a low of just over 2% in 1980 to a high of just over 5% in 1984.
The cigarette industry also has long been one of America’s most profitable, in part because for many years there was no significant price competition among the rival firms. See Scherer & Ross 250-251; R. Tennant, American Cigarette Industry 86-87 (1950); App. 128, 500-509, 531. List prices for cigarettes increased in lockstep, twice a year, for a number of years, irrespective of the rate of inflation, changes in the costs of production, or shifts in consumer demand. Substantial evidence suggests that in recent decades, the industry reaped the benefits of prices above a competitive level, though not through unlawful conduct of the type that once characterized the industry. See Tennant, supra, at 275, 342; App. 389-392, 514-519, 658-659; cf. American Tobacco Co. v. United States, 328 U. S. 781 (1946); United States v. American Tobacco Co., 221 U. S. 106 (1911); Scherer & Ross 451.
By 1980, however, broad market trends were working against the industry. Overall demand for cigarettes in the United States was declining, and no immediate prospect of recovery existed. As industry volume, shrank, all firms developed substantial excess capacity. This decline in demand, coupled with the effects of nonprice competition, had a severe negative impact on Liggett. Once a major force in the industry, with market shares in excess of 20%, Liggett’s market share had declined by 1980 to a little over 2%. With this meager share of the market, Liggett was on the verge of going out of business.
At the urging of a distributor, Liggett took an unusual step to revive its prospects: It developed a line of black and white generic cigarettes. When introduced in 1980, black and whites were offered to consumers at a list price roughly 30% lower than the list price of full-priced, branded cigarettes. They were also promoted at the wholesale level by means of rebates that increased with the volume of cigarettes ordered. Black and white cigarettes thus represented a new marketing category. The category’s principal competitive characteristic was low price. Liggett’s black and whites were an immediate and considerable success, growing from a fraction of a percent of the market at their introduction to over 4% of the total cigarette market by early 1984.
As the market for Liggett’s generic cigarettes expanded, the other cigarette companies found themselves unable to ignore the economy segment. In general, the growth of generics came at the expense of the other firms’ profitable sales of branded cigarettes. Brown & Williamson was hardest hit, because many of Brown & Williamson’s brands were favored by consumers who were sensitive to changes in cigarette prices. Although Brown & Williamson sold only 11.4% of the market’s branded cigarettes, 20% of the converts to Liggett’s black and whites had switched from a Brown & Williamson brand. Losing volume and profits in its branded products, Brown & Williamson determined to enter the generic segment of the cigarette market. In July 1983, Brown & Williamson had begun selling Value-25s, and in the spring of 1984, it introduced its own black and white cigarette.
Brown & Williamson was neither the first nor the only cigarette company to recognize the threat posed by Liggett’s black and whites and to respond in the economy segment. R. J. Reynolds had also introduced a Value-25 in 1983. And before Brown & Williamson introduced its own black and whites, R. J. Reynolds had repriced its “Doral” branded cigarette at generic levels. To compete with Liggett’s black and whites, R. J. Reynolds dropped its list price on Doral about 30% and used volume rebates to wholesalers as an incentive to spur orders. Doral was the first competition at Liggett’s price level.
Brown & Williamson’s entry was an even graver threat to Liggett’s dominance of the generic category. Unlike R. J. Reynolds’ Doral, Brown & Williamson’s product was also a black and white and so would be in direct competition with Liggett’s product at the wholesale level and on the retail shelf. Because Liggett’s and Brown & Williamson’s black and whites were more or less fungible, wholesalers had little incentive to carry more than one line. And unlike R. J. Reynolds, Brown & Williamson not only matched Liggett’s prices but beat them. At the retail level, the suggested list price of Brown & Williamson’s black and whites was the same as Liggett’s, but Brown & Williamson’s volume discounts to wholesalers were larger. Brown & Williamson’s rebate structure also encompassed a greater number of volume categories than Liggett’s, with the highest categories carrying special rebates for orders of very substantial size. Brown & Williamson marketed its black and whites to Liggett’s existing distributors as well as to its own full list of buyers, which included a thousand wholesalers who had not yet carried any generic products.
Liggett responded to Brown & Williamson’s introduction of black and whites in two ways. First, Liggett increased its own wholesale rebates. This precipitated a price war at the wholesale level, in which Liggett five times attempted to beat the rebates offered by Brown & Williamson. At the end of each round, Brown & Williamson maintained a real advantage over Liggett’s prices. Although it is undisputed that Brown & Williamson’s original net price for its black and whites was above its costs, Liggett contends that by the end of the rebate war, Brown & Williamson was selling its black and whites at a loss. This rebate war occurred before Brown & Williamson had sold a single black and white cigarette.
Liggett’s second response was to file a lawsuit. Two weeks after Brown & Williamson announced its entry into the generic segment, again before Brown & Williamson had sold any generic cigarettes, Liggett filed a complaint in the United States District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina alleging trademark infringement and unfair competition. Liggett later amended its complaint to add an antitrust claim under §2(a) of the Clayton Act, as amended by the Robinson-Patman Act, 49 Stat. 1526, 15 U. S. C. § 13(a), which alleged illegal price discrimination between Brown & Williamson’s full-priced branded cigarettes and its low-priced generics. See Liggett Group, Inc. v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., 1989-1 Trade Cas. (CCH) ¶ 68,583, p. 61,099 (MDNC 1988). These claims were either dismissed on summary judgment, see ibid., or rejected by the jury. They were not appealed.
Liggett also amended its complaint to add a second Robinson-Patman Act claim, which is the subject of the present controversy. Liggett alleged that Brown & Williamson’s volume rebates to wholesalers amounted to price discrimination that had a reasonable possibility of injuring competition, in violation of §2(a). Liggett claimed that Brown & Williamson’s discriminatory volume rebates were integral to a scheme of predatory pricing, in which Brown & Williamson reduced its net prices for generic cigarettes below average variable costs. According to Liggett, these below-cost prices were not promotional but were intended to pressure it to raise its list prices on generic cigarettes, so that the percentage price difference between generic and branded cigarettes would narrow. Liggett explained that it would have been unable to reduce its wholesale rebates without losing substantial market share to Brown & Williamson; its only choice, if it wished to avoid prolonged losses on its principal product line, was to raise retail prices. The resulting reduction in the list price gap, it was said, would restrain the growth of the economy segment and preserve Brown & Williamson’s supracompetitive profits on its branded cigarettes.
The trial began in the fall of 1989. By that time, all six cigarette companies had entered the economy segment. The economy segment was the fastest growing segment of the cigarette market, having increased from about 4% of the market in 1984, when the rebate war in generics began, to about 15% in 1989. Black and white generics had declined as a force in the economy segment as consumer interest shifted toward branded generics, but Liggett’s overall volume had increased steadily to 9 billion generic cigarettes sold. Overall, the 2.8 billion generic cigarettes sold in 1981 had become 80 billion by 1989.
The consumer price of generics had increased along with output. For a year, the list prices for generic cigarettes established at the end of the rebate war remained stable. But in June 1985, Liggett raised its list price, and the other firms followed several months later. The precise effect of the list price increase is difficult to assess, because all of the cigarette firms offered a variety of discounts, coupons, and other promotions directly to consumers on both generic and branded cigarettes. Nonetheless, at least some portion of the list price increase was reflected in a higher net price to the consumer.
In December 1985, Brown & Williamson attempted to increase its list prices, but retracted the announced increase when the other firms adhered to their existing prices. Thus, after Liggett’s June 1985 increase, list prices on generics did not change again until the summer of 1986, when a pattern of twice yearly increases in tandem with the full-priced branded cigarettes was established. The dollar amount of these increases was the same for generic and full-priced cigarettes, which resulted in a greater percentage price increase in the less expensive generic cigarettes and a narrowing of the percentage gap between the list price of branded and black and white cigarettes, from approximately 38% at the time Brown & Williamson entered the segment to approximately 27% at the time of trial. Also by the time of trial, five of the six manufacturers, including Liggett, had introduced so-called “subgenerics,” a category of branded generic cigarettes that sold at a discount of 50% or more off the list price of full-priced branded cigarettes.
After a 115-day trial involving almost 3,000 exhibits and over a score of witnesses, the jury returned a verdict in favor of Liggett, finding on the special verdict form that Brown & Williamson had engaged in price discrimination that had a reasonable possibility of injuring competition in the domestic cigarette market as a whole. The jury awarded Liggett $49.6 million in damages, which the District Court trebled to $148.8 million. After reviewing the record, however, the District Court held that Brown & Williamson was entitled to judgment as a matter of law on three separate grounds: lack of injury to competition, lack of antitrust injury to Liggett, and lack of a causal link between the discriminatory rebates and Liggett’s alleged injury. Liggett Group, Inc. v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., 748 F. Supp. 344 (MDNC 1990). With respect to the first issue, which is the only one before us, the District Court found that no slowing of the growth rate of generics, and thus no injury to competition, was possible unless there had been tacit coordination of prices in the economy segment of the cigarette market by the various manufacturers. Id., at 354-355. The District Court held that a reasonable jury could come to but one conclusion about the existence of such coordination among the firms contending for shares of the economy segment: it did not exist, and Brown & Williamson therefore had no reasonable possibility of limiting the growth of the segment. Id., at 356-358.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed. Liggett Group, Inc. v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., 964 F. 2d 335 (1992). The Court of Appeals held that the dynamic of conscious parallelism among oligopolists could not produce competitive injury in a predatory pricing setting, which necessarily involves a price cut by one of the oligopolists. Id,., at 342. In the Court of Appeals’ view, “[t]o rely on the characteristics of an oligopoly to assure recoupment of losses from a predatory pricing scheme after one oligopolist has made a competitive move is... economically irrational.” Ibid.
We granted certiorari, 506 U. S. 984 (1992), and now affirm.
II
A
Price discrimination is made unlawful by § 2(a) of the Clayton Act, 38 Stat. 730, as amended by the Robinson-Patman Act, which provides:
“It shall be unlawful for any person engaged in commerce, in the course of such commerce, either directly or indirectly, to discriminate in price between different purchasers of commodities of like grade and quality... where the effect of such discrimination may be substantially to lessen competition or tend to create a monopoly in any line of commerce, or to injure, destroy, or prevent competition with any person who either grants or knowingly receives the benefit of such discrimination, or with customers of either of them.” 15 U. S. C. § 13(a).
Although we have reiterated that ‘“a price discrimination within the meaning of [this] provision is merely a price difference,’ ” Texaco Inc. v. Hasbrouck, 496 U. S. 543, 558 (1990) (quoting FTC v. Anheuser-Busch, Inc., 363 U. S. 536, 549 (I960)), the statute as a practical matter could not, and does not, ban all price differences charged to “different purchasers of commodities of like grade and quality.” Instead, the statute contains a number of important limitations, one of which is central to evaluating Liggett’s claim: By its terms, the Robinson-Patman Act condemns price discrimination only to the extent that it threatens to injure competition. The availability of statutory defenses permitting price discrimination when it is based on differences in costs, § 13(a), “changing conditions affecting the market for or the marketability of the goods concerned,” ibid., or conduct undertaken “in good faith to meet an equally low price of a competitor,” § 13(b); Standard Oil Co. v. FTC, 340 U. S. 231, 250 (1951), confirms that Congress did not intend to outlaw price differences that result from or further the forces of competition. Thus, “the Robinson-Patman Act should be construed consistently with broader policies of the antitrust laws.” Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. v. FTC, 440 U. S. 69, 80, n. 13 (1979). See also Automatic Canteen Co. of America v. FTC, 346 U. S. 61, 63, 74 (1953).
Liggett contends that Brown & Williamson’s discriminatory volume rebates to wholesalers threatened substantial competitive injury by furthering a predatory pricing scheme designed to purge competition from the economy segment of the cigarette market. This type of injury, which harms direct competitors of the discriminating seller, is known as primary-line injury. See FTC v. Anheuser-Busch, Inc., supra, at 538. We last addressed primary-line injury over 25 years ago, in Utah Pie Co. v. Continental Baking Co., 386 U. S. 685 (1967). In Utah Pie, we reviewed the sufficiency of the evidence supporting jury verdicts against three national pie companies that had engaged in a variety of predatory practices in the market for frozen pies in Salt Lake City, with the intent to drive a local pie manufacturer out of business. We reversed the Court of Appeals and held that the evidence presented was adequate to permit a jury to find a likelihood of injury to competition. Id., at 703.
Utah Pie has often been interpreted to permit liability for primary-line price discrimination on a mere showing that the defendant intended to harm competition or produced a declining price structure. The case has been criticized on the ground that such low standards of competitive injury are at odds with the antitrust laws’ traditional concern for consumer welfare and price competition. See Bowman, Restraint of Trade by the Supreme Court: The Utah Pie Case, 77 Yale L. J. 70 (1967); R. Posner, Antitrust Law: An Economic Perspective 193-194 (1976); L. Sullivan, Antitrust 687 (1977); 3 P. Areeda & D. Turner, Antitrust Law ¶ 720c (1978) (hereinafter Areeda & Turner); R. Bork, The Antitrust Paradox 386-387 (1978); H. Hovenkamp, Economics and Federal Antitrust Law 188-189 (1985). We do not regard the Utah Pie case itself as having the full significance attributed to it by its detractors. Utah Pie was an early judicial inquiry in this area and did not purport to set forth explicit, general standards for establishing a violation of the RobinsonPatman Act. As the law has been explored since Utah Pie, it has become evident that primary-line competitive injury under the Robinson-Patman Act is of the same general character as the injury inflicted by predatory pricing schemes actionable under § 2 of the Sherman Act. See, e. g., Henry v. Chloride, Inc., 809 F. 2d 1334, 1345 (CA8 1987); D. E. Rogers Associates, Inc. v. Gardner-Denver Co., 718 F. 2d 1431, 1439 (CA6 1983), cert. denied, 467 U. S. 1242 (1984); William Inglis & Sons Baking Co. v. ITT Continental Baking Co., 668 F. 2d 1014, 1041 (CA9 1981), cert. denied, 459 U. S. 825 (1982); Malcolm v. Marathon Oil Co., 642 F. 2d 845, 853, n. 16 (CA5), cert. denied, 454 U. S. 1125 (1981); Pacific Engineering & Production Co. of Nevada v. Kerr-McGee Corp., 551 F. 2d 790, 798 (CA10), cert. denied, 434 U. S. 879 (1977); International Telephone & Telegraph Corp., 104 F. T. C. 280, 401-402 (1984); Hovenkamp, supra, at 189; 3 Areeda & Turner ¶ 720c; P. Areeda & H. Hovenkamp, Antitrust Law ¶ 720c (Supp. 1992) (hereinafter Areeda & Hovenkamp). There are, to be sure, differences between the two statutes. For example, we interpret § 2 of the Sherman Act to condemn predatory pricing when it poses “a dangerous probability of actual monopolization,” Spectrum Sports, Inc. v. McQuillan, 506 U. S. 447, 455 (1993), whereas the Robinson-Patman Act requires only that there be “a reasonable possibility” of substantial injury to competition before its protections are triggered, Falls City Industries, Inc. v. Vaneo Beverage, Inc., 460 U. S. 428, 434 (1983). But whatever additional flexibility the Robinson-Patman Act standard may imply, the essence of the claim under either statute is the same: A business rival has priced its products in an unfair manner with an object to eliminate or retard competition and thereby gain and exercise control over prices in the relevant market.
Accordingly, whether the claim alleges predatory pricing under §2 of the Sherman Act or primary-line price discrimination under the Robinson-Patman Act, two prerequisites to recovery remain the same. First, a plaintiff seeking to establish competitive injury resulting from a rival’s low prices must prove that the prices complained of are below an appropriate measure of its rival’s costs. See, e. g., Cargill, Inc. v. Monfort of Colorado, Inc., 479 U. S. 104, 117 (1986); Mat sushita Elec. Industrial Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U. S. 574, 585, n. 8 (1986); Utah Pie, 386 U. S., at 698, 701, 702-703, n. 14; In re E. I. DuPont de Nemours & Co., 96 F. T. C. 653, 749 (1980). Cf. United States v. National Dairy Products Corp., 372 U. S. 29 (1963) (holding that below-cost prices may constitute “unreasonably low” prices for purposes of §3 of the Robinson-Patman Act, 15 U. S. C. § 13a). Although Car-gill and Matsushita reserved as a formal matter the question “ ‘whether recovery should ever be available ;.. when the pricing in question is above some measure of incremental cost,’” Cargill, supra, at 117-118, n. 12 (quoting Matsushita, supra, at 585, n. 9), the reasoning in both opinions suggests that only below-cost prices should suffice, and we have rejected elsewhere the notion that above-cost prices that are below general market levels or the costs of a firm’s competitors inflict injury to competition cognizable under the antitrust laws. See Atlantic Richfield Co. v. USA Petroleum Co., 495 U. S. 328, 340 (1990). “Low prices benefit consumers regardless of how those prices are set, and so long as they are above predatory levels, they do not threaten competition____We have adhered to this principle regardless of the type of antitrust claim involved.” Ibid. As a general rule, the exclusionary effect of prices above a relevant measure of cost either reflects the lower cost structure of the alleged predator, and so represents competition on the merits, or is beyond the practical ability of a judicial tribunal to control without courting intolerable risks of chilling legitimate price cutting. See Areeda & Hovenkamp ¶¶ 714.2, 714.3. “To hold that the antitrust laws protect competitors from the loss of profits due to such price competition would, in effect, render illegal any decision by a firm to cut prices in order to increase market share. The antitrust laws require no such perverse result.” Cargill, supra, at 116.
Even in an oligopolistic market, when a firm drops its prices to a competitive level to demonstrate to a maverick the unprofitability of straying from the group, it would be illogical to condemn the price cut: The antitrust laws then would be an obstacle to the chain of events most conducive to a breakdown of oligopoly pricing and the onset of competition. Even if the ultimate effect of the cut is to induce or reestablish supracompetitive pricing, discouraging a price cut and forcing firms to maintain supracompetitive prices, thus depriving consumers of the benefits of lower prices in the interim, does not constitute sound antitrust policy. Cf. Areeda & Hovenkamp ^714.2d, 714.2f; Areeda & Turner, Predatory Pricing and Related Practices under Section 2 of the Sherman Act, 88 Harv. L. Rev. 697, 708-709 (1975); Posner, Antitrust Law: An Economic Perspective, at 195, n. 39.
The second prerequisite to holding a competitor liable under the antitrust laws for charging low prices is a demonstration that the competitor had a reasonable prospect, or, under §2 of the Sherman Act, a dangerous probability, of recouping its investment in below-cost prices. See Matsushita, supra, at 589; Cargill, supra, at 119, n. 15. “For the investment to be rational, the [predator] must have a reasonable expectation of recovering, in the form of later monopoly profits, more than the losses suffered.” Matsushita, supra, at 588-589. Recoupment is the ultimate object of an unlawful predatory pricing scheme; it is the means by which a predator profits from predation. Without it, predatory pricing produces lower aggregate prices in the market, and consumer welfare is enhanced. Although unsuccessful predatory pricing may encourage some inefficient substitution toward the product being sold at less than its cost, unsuccessful predation is in general a boon to consumers.
That below-cost pricing may impose painful losses on its target is of no moment to the antitrust laws if competition is not injured: It is axiomatic that the antitrust laws were passed for “the protection of competition, not competitors.” Brown Shoe Co. v. United States, 370 U. S. 294, 320 (1962). Earlier this Term, we held in the Sherman Act § 2 context that it was not enough to inquire “whether the defendant has engaged in ‘unfair’ or ‘predatory’ tactics”; rather, we insisted that the plaintiff prove “a dangerous probability that [the defendant] would monopolize a particular market.” Spectrum Sports, 506 U. S., at 459. Even an act of pure malice by one business competitor against another does not, without more, state a claim under the federal antitrust laws; those laws do not create a federal law of unfair competition or “purport to afford remedies for all torts committed by or against persons engaged in interstate commerce.” Hunt v. Crumboch, 325 U. S. 821, 826 (1945).
For recoupment to occur, below-cost pricing must be capable, as a threshold matter, of producing the intended effects on the firm’s rivals, whether driving them from the market, or, as was alleged to be the goal here, causing them to raise their prices to supracompetitive levels within a disciplined oligopoly. This requires an understanding of the extent and duration of the alleged predation, the relative financial strength of the predator and its intended victim, and their respective incentives and will. See 3 Areeda & Turner ¶ 711b. The inquiry is whether, given the aggregate losses caused by the below-cost pricing, the intended target would likely succumb.
If circumstances indicate that below-cost pricing could likely produce its intended effect on the target, there is still the further question whether it would likely injure competition in the relevant market. The plaintiff must demonstrate that there is a likelihood that the predatory scheme alleged would cause a rise in prices above a competitive level that would be sufficient to compensate for the amounts expended on the predation, including the time value of the money invested in it. As we have observed on a prior occasion, “[i]n order to recoup their losses, [predators] must obtain enough market power to set higher than competitive prices, and then must sustain those prices long enough to earn in excess profits what they earlier gave up in below-cost prices.” Matsushita, 475 U. S., at 590-591.
Evidence of below-cost pricing is not alone sufficient to permit an inference of probable recoupment and injury to competition. Determining whether recoupment of predatory losses is likely requires an estimate of the cost of the alleged predation and a close analysis of both the scheme alleged by the plaintiff and the structure and conditions of the relevant market. Cf., e. g., Elzinga & Mills, Testing for Predation: Is Recoupment Feasible?, 34 Antitrust Bull. 869 (1989) (constructing one possible model for evaluating recoupment). If market circumstances or deficiencies in proof would bar a reasonable jury from finding that the scheme alleged would likely result in sustained supracompetitive pricing, the plaintiff’s case has failed. In certain situations — for example, where the market is highly diffuse and competitive, or where new entry is easy, or the defendant lacks adequate excess capacity to absorb the market shares of his rivals and cannot quickly create or purchase new capacity — summary disposition of the case is appropriate. See, e. g., Cargill, 479 U. S., at 119-120, n. 15.
These prerequisites to recovery are not easy to establish, but they are not artificial obstacles to recovery; rather, they are essential components of real market injury. As we have said in the Sherman Act context, “predatory pricing schemes are rarely tried, and even more rarely successful,” Matsushita, supra, at 589, and the costs of an erroneous finding of liability are high. “[T]he mechanism by which a firm engages in predatory pricing — lowering prices — is the same mechanism by which a firm stimulates competition; because ‘cutting prices in order to increase business often is the very essence of competition...[;] mistaken inferences... are especially costly, because they chill the very conduct the antitrust laws are designed to protect.’” Cargill, supra, at 122, n. 17 (quoting Matsushita, supra, at 594). It would be ironic indeed if the standards for predatory pricing liability were so low that antitrust suits themselves became a tool for keeping prices high.
B
Liggett does not allege that Brown & Williamson sought to drive it from the market but that Brown & Williamson sought to preserve supracompetitive profits on branded cigarettes by pressuring Liggett to raise its generic cigarette prices through a process of tacit collusion with the other cigarette companies. Tacit collusion, sometimes called oligopolistic price coordination or conscious parallelism, describes the process, not in itself unlawful, by which firms in a concentrated market might in effect share monopoly power, setting their prices at a profit-maximizing, supracompetitive level by recognizing their shared economic interests and their interdependence with respect to price and output decisions. See 2 Areeda & Turner ¶ 404; Scherer & Ross 199-208.
In Matsushita, we remarked upon the general implausibility of predatory pricing. See 475 U. S., at 588-590. Matsushita observed that such schemes are even more improbable when they require coordinated action among several firms. Id., at 590. Matsushita involved an allegation of an express conspiracy to engage in predatory pricing. The Court noted that in addition to the usual difficulties that face a single firm attempting to recoup predatory losses, other problems render a conspiracy “incalculably more difficult to execute.” Ibid. In order to succeed, the conspirators must agree on how to allocate present losses and future gains among the firms involved, and each firm must resist powerful incentives to cheat on whatever agreement is reached. Ibid.
However unlikely predatory pricing by multiple firms may be when they conspire, it is even less likely when, as here, there is no express coordination. Firms that seek to recoup predatory losses through the conscious parallelism of oligopoly must rely on uncertain and ambiguous signals to achieve concerted action. The signals are subject to misinterpretation and are a blunt and imprecise means of ensuring smooth cooperation, especially in the context of changing or unprecedented market circumstances. This anticompetitive minuet is most difficult to compose and to perform, even for a disciplined oligopoly.
From one standpoint, recoupment through oligopolistic price coordination could be thought more feasible than recoupment through monopoly: In the oligopoly setting, the victim itself has an economic incentive to acquiesce in the scheme. If forced to choose between cutting prices and sustaining losses, maintaining prices and losing market share, or raising prices and enjoying a share of supracompetitive profits, a firm may yield to the last alternative. Yet on the whole, tacit cooperation among oligopolists must be considered the least likely means of recouping predatory losses. In addition to the difficulty of achieving effective tacit coordination and the high likelihood that any attempt to discipline will produce an outbreak of competition, the predator’s present losses in a case like this fall on it alone, while the later supracompetitive profits must be shared with every other oligopolist in proportion to its market share, including the intended victim. In this case, for example, Brown & Williamson, with its 11-12% share of the cigarette market, would have had to generate around $9 in supracompetitive profits for each $1 invested in predation; the remaining $8 would belong to its competitors, who had taken no risk.
Liggett suggests that these considerations led the Court of Appeals to rule out its theory of recovery as a matter of law. Although the proper interpretation of the Court of Appeals’ opinion is not free from doubt, there is some indication that it held as a matter of law that the Robinson-Patman Act does not reach a primary-line injury claim in which tacit coordination among oligopolists provides the alleged basis for recoupment. The Court of Appeals’ opinion does not contain the traditional apparatus of fact review; rather, it focuses on theoretical and legal arguments. The final paragraph appears to state the holding: Brown & Williamson may not be held liable because oligopoly pricing does not “‘provide an economically rational basis’” for recouping predatory losses. 964 F. 2d, at 342.
To the extent that the Court of Appeals may have held that the interdependent pricing of an oligopoly may never provide a means for achieving recoupment and so may not form the basis of a primary-line injury claim, we disagree. A predatory pricing scheme designed to preserve or create a stable oligopoly, if successful, can injure consumers in the same way, and to the same extent, as one designed to
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.
Ordered.
The joint motion to amend Article VI of the Decree in this case entered on March 9, 1964, is hereby granted and Article VI of said decree is hereby amended to read as follows:
VI. Within three years from the date of this decree [March 9, 1964], the States of Arizona, California, and Nevada shall furnish to this Court and to the Secretary of the Interior a list of the present perfected rights, with their claimed priority dates, in waters of the mainstream within each State, respectively, in terms of consumptive use, except those relating to federal establishments. Any named party to this proceeding may present its claim of present perfected rights or its opposition to the claims of others. The Secretary of the Interior shall supply similar information, within a similar period of time, with respect to the claims of the United States to present perfected rights within each State. If the parties and the Secretary of the Interior are unable at that time to agree on the present perfected rights to the use of mainstream water in each State, and their priority dates, any party may apply to the Court for the determination of such rights by the Court.
The Chief Justice and Mr. Justice Fortas took no part in the consideration or decision of this motion.
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.
Mr. Chief Justice
Warren delivered the opinion of the Court.
Appellees, Radio Corporation of America and National Broadcasting Company, are defendants in this civil antitrust action brought by the Government under § 4 of the Sherman Act, 15 U. S. C. § 4. After holding a preliminary hearing on three of appellees’ affirmative defenses to that action, the federal district judge dismissed the complaint. 158 F. Supp. 333. The Government appealed directly to this Court under the Expediting Act, 15 U. S. C. § 29. The principal question presented is whether approval by the Federal Communications Commission of appellees’ agreement to exchange their Cleveland television station for one in Philadelphia bars this independent action by the Government which attacks the exchange as being in furtherance of a conspiracy to violate the federal antitrust laws.
The Government’s complaint generally alleged the following facts. In 1954, National Broadcasting Company (NBC), a wholly owned subsidiary of Radio Corporation of America (RCA), owned five very high frequency (YHF) television stations. The stations were located in the following market areas: New York, which is the country’s largest market; Chicago, second; Los Angeles, third; Cleveland, tenth; and Washington D. C., eleventh. According to the Government’s allegations, in March 1954, NBC and RCA originated a continuing conspiracy to acquire stations in five of the eight largest market areas in the country. Since Philadelphia is the country’s fourth largest market area, acquisition of a Philadelphia station in exchange for appellees’ Cleveland or Washington station would achieve one goal of the conspiracy.
One Philadelphia station, WPTZ, was owned by Westinghouse Broadcasting Company. This station and a Westinghouse-owned station in Boston were affiliated with the NBC network. In addition, Westinghouse desired NBC affiliation for a station to be acquired in Pittsburgh. In order to force Westinghouse to exchange its Philadelphia station for NBC’s Cleveland station, it is alleged that NBC threatened Westinghouse with loss of the network affiliation of its Boston and Philadelphia stations, and threatened to withhold affiliation from its Pittsburgh station to be acquired. NBC also threatened to withhold network affiliation from any new VHF or UHE (ultra high frequency) stations which Westinghouse might acquire. By thus using its leverage as a network, NBC is alleged to have forced Westinghouse to agree to the exchange contract under consideration. Under the terms of. that contract NBC was to acquire the Philadelphia station, while Westinghouse was to acquire NBC’s Cleveland station plus three million dollars.
The Government asked that the conspiracy be declared violative of § 1 of the Sherman Act, 15 U. S. C. § 1, that the appellees be divested of such assets as the District Court deemed appropriate, that “such other and additional relief as may be proper” be awarded, and that the Government recover costs of the suit.
Appellees’ affirmative defenses arose out of the fact that the exchange had been approved by the Federal Communications Commission. FCC approval was required under § 310 (b) of the Communications Act of 1934, 48 Stat. 1086, as amended, 66 Stat. 716, 47 U. S. C. § 310 (b). Under that Section, appellees filed applications setting forth the terms of the transaction and the reasons for requesting the exchange. The Commission instituted proceedings to determine whether the exchange met the statutory requirements of § 310, that the “public interest, convenience, and necessity” would be served. They were not adversary proceedings. After extensive investigation of the transaction, the Commission was still not satisfied that the exchange would meet the statutory standards, and, over three dissents, issued letters seeking additional information on various subjects, including antitrust problems, under § 309 (b) of the Act. After receiving answers to the letters, the Commission, without holding a hearing, on December 21,1955, granted the application to exchange stations.
It was stipulated below that in passing upon the application, the Commission had all the information before it which has now been made the basis of the Government’s complaint. It further appears that during the FCC proceedings the Justice Department was informed as to the evidence in the FCC’s possession. It was further stipulated, and we assume, that the FCC decided all issues relative to the antitrust laws that were before it, and that the Justice Department had the right to request a hearing under § 309 (b), to file a protest under § 309 (c), to seek a rehearing under § 405, and to seek judicial review of the decision under §402 (b). See Far East Conference v. United States, 342 U. S. 570, 576; U. S. ex rel. Chapman v. Federal Power Comm’n, 345 U. S. 153, 155, 156. The Department of Justice took none of these actions. Accordingly, on January 22, 1956, after the period in which the Department could have sought review had expired, NBC and Westinghouse consummated the exchange transaction according to their contract. The Department did not file the present complaint until December 4, 1956, over ten months later.
Against this background, appellees assert that the FCC had authority to pass on the antitrust questions presented, <md, in any case, that the regulatory scheme of the Communications Act has so displaced that of the Sherman Act that the FCC had primary jurisdiction to license the exchange transaction, with the result that any attack for antitrust reasons on the exchange transaction must have been by direct review of the license grant. Relying on this premise, they then contend that the only method available to the Government for redressing its antitrust grievances was to intervene in the FCC proceedings; that since it did not, the antitrust issues were determined adversely to it when the exchange was approved, so that it is barred by principles of collateral estoppel and res judicata; and that in any case the long delay between approval of the exchange and filing of this suit bars the suit because of laches.
I.
Whether these contentions are to prevail depends substantially upon the extent to which Congress authorized the FCC to pass on antitrust questions, and this in turn requires examination of the relevant legislative history. Two sections of the Communications Act of 1934, 48 Stat. 1064, as amended, 47 U. S. C. § 151 et seq., deal specifically with antitrust considerations, Sections 311 and 313:
“Sec. 311. The Commission is hereby directed to refuse a station license and/or the permit hereinafter required for the construction of a station to any per-. son (or to any person directly or indirectly controlled by such person) whose license has been revoked by a court under section 313.
“Sec. 313. All laws of the United States relating to unlawful restraints and monopolies and to combinations, contracts, or agreements in restraint of trade are hereby declared to be applicable to the manufacture and sale of and to trade in radio apparatus and devices entering into or affecting interstate or foreign commerce and to interstate or foreign radio communications. Whenever in any suit, action, or proceeding, civil or criminal, brought under the provisions of any of said laws or in any proceedings brought to enforce or to review findings and orders of the Federal Trade Commission or other governmental agency in respect of any matters as to which said Commission or other governmental agency is by law authorized to act, any licensee shall be found guilty of the violation of the provisions of such laws or any of them, the court, in addition to the penalties imposed by said laws, may adjudge, order, and/or decree that the license of such licensee shall, as of the date the decree or judgment becomes finally effective or as of such other date as the said decree shall fix, be revoked and that all rights under such license shall thereupon cease: Provided, however, That such licensee shall have the same right of appeal or review as is provided by law in respect of other decrees and judgments of said court.”
These provisions were taken from the Radio Act of 1927 They appear to have originated in a bill drafted by Congressman White of Maine, H. R. 5589, 69th Cong., 1st Sess. What is now § 311 appeared as the third paragraph of § 2 (C) of that bill, while what is now § 313 appeared as § 2 (G). In the hearings on the bill before the House Committee, Congressman Reid of Illinois asked Judge Davis, Department of Commerce representative, whether the Secretary of Commerce had any discretion to refuse a license under § 2 (C) (now § 311) to a party which the Secretary believed to be violating the antitrust laws. The following colloquy ensued:
Judge Davis. “He has no discretion under this act.”
Congressman Reid. “They have to be found guilty first; is that the idea?”
Congressman White. “Yes. In other words, I tried to get away from placing upon the secretary the determination of a judicial question of that character. That involves, of course, a determination as to the facts; it requires a knowledge of the law and it requires an application of the law to the facts, and then it requires the exercise of judicial powers, if you leave that in his discretion, and I tried to lift it away from the secretary.”
Later on, the question arose as to what grounds were available to the Secretary to revoke licenses under § 2 (F) (now § 312). After Congressman White mentioned one statutory ground, Congressman Reid observed:
“Yes; but you’do not include unlawful combinations and monopolies and contracts or agreements in restraint of trade. That is not covered.”
Congressman White. “No; not in that section.”
Congressman Davis of Tennessee. “Those are covered in ‘G’ [now § 313].”
Congressman White. “That is a judicial question and we have left it to the courts to pass on that.”
This failure to include a provision permitting refusal of a license for antitrust violations in the absence of a judicial determination caused Congressman Davis to insert a lengthy Minority Report on H. R. 9108, which was old H. R. 5589 reintroduced by Congressman White. Consequently, when the bill (then numbered H. R. 9971) reached the floor of the House, Congressman Davis attempted to insert a number of amendments which would have strengthened the antitrust aspects of the bill. See 67 Cong. Rec. 5484, 5485. All were defeated, including an amendment to § 2 (C) (now § 311) which would have required refusal of a license to any company “found by any Federal court or the commission to have been unlawfully monopolizing” radio communication. (Emphasis supplied.) See 67 Cong. Rec. 5501-5504, 5555.
Thus, in the Senate consideration of a version of the bill, when asked whether there was “anything in the bill providing in case the applicant for a permit is found to be acting in violation of the Sherman antitrust law or controls a monopoly that the commission may pass upon the question,” Senator Dill of Washington, who was in charge of the bill in the Senate, replied:
“The bill provides that in case anybody has been convicted under the Sherman antitrust law or any other law relating to monopoly he shall be denied a license; but the bill does not attempt to make the commission the judge as to whether or not certain conditions constitute a monopoly; it rather leaves that to the court.”
Congress adjourned before any action could be taken on the bill at that session. At the next session, a Conference Committee reported out the version of the bills which became the Radio Act of 1927, with now § 311 being § 13 of the Act and now § 313 being § 15 of the Act, despite the vigorous but unsuccessful opposition of Congressman Davis in the House, see, e. g., 68 Cong. Rec. 2577, and Senator Pittman of Nevada in the Senate. See, e. g., 68 Cong. Rec. 3032, 3034.
Only one change was made in those two Sections when they were incorporated into the Communications Act. Section 311 was modified merely to authorize rather than to require the revocation of a license by the Commission after a court had found a radio broadcaster in violation of the antitrust laws, but had not ordered its license revoked, 48 Stat. 1086. In all other respects §§13 and 15 of the Radio Act were identical with, and had the same purpose as, §§311 and 313 of the Communications Act.
While this history compels the conclusion that the FCC was not intended to have any authority to pass on antitrust violations as such, it is equally clear that courts retained jurisdiction to pass on alleged antitrust violations irrespective of Commission action. Thus § 311, as originally enacted in 1934, 48 Stat. 1086, read as follows:
“The Commission is hereby directed to refuse a station license and/or the permit hereinafter required for the construction of a station to any person (or to any person directly or indirectly controlled by such person) whose license has been revoked by a court under section 313, and is hereby authorized to refuse such station license and/or permit to any other person (or to any person directly or indirectly controlled by such person) which has been finally adjudged guilty by a Federal court of unlawfully monopolizing or attempting unlawfully to monopolize, radio communication, directly or indirectly, through the control of the manufacture or sale of radio apparatus, through exclusive traffic arrangements, or by any other means, or to have been using unfair methods of competition. The granting of a license shall not estop the United States or any person aggrieved from proceeding against such person for violating the law against unfair methods of competition or for a violation of the law against unlawful restraints and monopolies and/or combinations, contracts, or agreements in restraint of trade, or from instituting proceedings for the dissolution of such corporation.” (Emphasis supplied.)
Appellees attempt to avoid the force of the italicized sentence in two ways. First, they point to its repeal in the 1952 amendments to the Act, 66 Stat. 716. That repeal was occasioned by objections from the industry that it was unfair for radio broadcasters who had been found in violation of the antitrust laws to be subject to license refusals by the Commission, even when the court as a part of its decree did not see fit to order the license revoked under § 313. See S. Rep. No. 142, 82d Cong., 1st Sess. 9. Congress accordingly repealed all of the Section following the first comma, including the italicized sentence. It apparently considered that inherent in the scheme of the Act was the right to challenge under the antitrust laws even transactions approved by the Commission, for the Conference Committee carefully noted that repeal of the italicized sentence would not curtail such a right:
“To the extent that this section of the conference substitute will eliminate from section 311 of the present law the last sentence, which is quoted above, the committee of conference does not feel that this is of any legal significance. It is the view of the members of the conference committee that the last sentence of the present section 311 is surplusage and that by omitting it from the present law the power of the United States or of any private person to proceed under the antitrust laws would not be curtailed or affected in any way.”
Thus, appellees’ reliance on repeal of the last sentence of § 311 is clearly misplaced.
Second, appellees urge that the italicized sentence as originally enacted had a very narrow scope; that it was intended to insure only that the granting of a license would not estop the Government from prosecuting antitrust violations subsequent to the transaction giving rise to the license proceeding, or of which the transaction was merely a small part. They argue that the sentence was intended to permit only actions such as in Packaged Programs v. Westinghouse Broadcasting Co., 255 F. 2d 708. But the language of the sentence cannot be naturally read in such a narrow manner, and it would take persuasive legislative history so to restrict its application. Appellees point to no such history, nor to any cases so holding.
Thus,- the legislative history of the Act reveals that the Commission was not given the power to decide antitrust issues as such, and that Commission action was not intended to prevent enforcement of the antitrust laws in federal courts.
II.
We now reach the question whether, despite the legislative history, the over-all regulatory scheme of the Act requires invocation of a primary jurisdiction doctrine. The doctrine originated with Mr. Justice (later Chief Justice) White in Texas & Pacific R. Co. v. Abilene Cotton Oil Co., 204 U. S. 426. It was grounded on the necessity for administrative uniformity, and, in that particular case, for maintenance of uniform rates to all shippers. A second reason for the doctrine was suggested by Mr. Justice Brandeis in Great Northern R. Co. v. Merchants Elevator Co., 259 U. S. 285, 291, where he pointed to the need for administrative skill “commonly to be found only in a body of experts” in handling the “intricate facts” of, in that case, the transportation industry.
Thus, when questions arose as to the applicability of the doctrine to transactions allegedly violative of the antitrust laws, particularly involving fully regulated industries whose members were forced to charge only reasonable rates approved by the appropriate commission, this Court found the doctrine applicable. United States v. Pacific & Arctic R. Co., 228 U. S. 87; Keogh v. Chicago & N. W. R. Co., 260 U. S. 156; United States Navigation Co. v. Cunard S. S. Co., 284 U. S. 474; Georgia v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 324 U. S. 439; Far East Conference v. United States, 342 U. S. 570. At the same time, this Court carefully noted that the doctrine did not apply when the action was only for the purpose of dissolving the conspiracy through which the allegedly invalid rates were set, for in such a case there would be no interference with rate structures or a regulatory scheme. United States v. Pacific & Arctic R. Co., supra; Georgia v. Pennsylvania R. Co., supra. The decisions sometimes emphasized the need for administrative uniformity and uniform rates, Keogh v. Chicago & N. W. R. Co., supra, while at other times they emphasized the need for administrative experience in distilling the relevant facts in a complex industry as a foundation for later court action. United States Navigation Co. v. Cunard S. S. Co., supra, and Far East Conference v. United States, supra, as explained in Federal Maritime Board v. Isbrandtsen Co., 356 U. S. 481, 497-499.
The cases all involved, however, common carriers by rail and water. These carriers could charge only the published tariff, and that tariff must have been found by the appropriate agency to have been reasonable. Free rate competition was modified by federal controls. The Court’s concern was that the agency which was expert in, and responsible for, administering those controls should be given the opportunity to determine questions within its special competence as an aid to the courts in resolving federal antitrust policy and federal regulatory patterns into a cohesive whole. That some resolution is necessary when the antitrust policy of free competition is placed beside a regulatory scheme involving fixed rates is obvious. Cf. McLean Trucking Co. v. United States, 321 U. S. 67. Accordingly, this Court consistently held that when rates and practices relating thereto were challenged under the antitrust laws, the agencies had primary jurisdiction to consider the reasonableness of such rates and practices in the light of the many relevant factors including alleged antitrust violations, for otherwise sporadic action by federal courts would disrupt an agency’s delicate regulatory scheme, and would throw existing rate structures out of balance.
While the television industry is also a regulated industry, it is regulated in a very different way. That difference is controlling. Radio broadcasters, including television broadcasters, see Allen B. Dumont Laboratories v. Carroll, 184 F. 2d 153, are not included in the definition of common carriers in § 3 (h) of the Communications Act, 47 U. S. C. § 153 (h), as are telephone and telegraph companies. Thus the extensive controls, including rate regulation, of Title II of the Communications Act, 47 U. S. C. §§ 201-222, do not apply. Television broadcasters remain free to set their own advertising rates. As this Court said in Federal Communications Comm’n v. Sanders Bros. Radio Station, 309 U. S. 470, 474:
“In contradistinction to communication by telephone and telegraph, which the Communications Act recognizes as a common carrier activity and regulates accordingly in analogy to the regulation of rail and other carriers by the Interstate Commerce Commission, the Act recognizes that broadcasters are not common carriers and are not to be dealt with as such. Thus the Act recognizes that the field of broadcasting is one of free competition. The sections dealing with broadcasting demonstrate that Congress has not, in its regulatory scheme, abandoned the principle of free competition as it has done in the case of railroads . . . .”
Thus, there being no pervasive regulatory scheme, and no rate structures to throw out of balance, sporadic action by federal courts can work no mischief. The justification for primary jurisdiction accordingly disappears.
The facts of this case illustrate that analysis. Appel-lees, like unregulated business concerns, made a business judgment as to the desirability of the exchange. Like unregulated concerns, they had to make this judgment with knowledge that the exchange might run afoul of the antitrust laws. Their decision varied from that of an unregulated concern only in that they also had to obtain the approval of a federal agency. But scope of that approval in the case of the FCC was limited to the statutory standard, “public interest, convenience, and necessity.” See, generally, Federal Radio Comm’n v. Nelson Bros. Co., 289 U. S. 266; Federal Communications Comm’n v. Pottsville Broadcasting Co., 309 U. S. 134; Federal Communications Comm’n v. Sanders Bros. Radio Station, supra; Federal Communications Comm’n v. RCA Communications, 346 U. S. 86. The monetary terms of the exchange were set by the parties, and were of concern to the Commission only as they might have affected the ability of the parties to serve the public. Even after approval, the parties were free to complete or not to complete the exchange as their sound business judgment dictated. In every sense, the question faced by the parties was solely one of business judgment (as opposed to regulatory coercion), save only that the Commission must have found that the “public interest” would be served by their decision to make the exchange. No pervasive regulatory scheme was involved.
This is not to imply that federal antitrust policy may not be considered in determining whether the “public interest, convenience, and necessity” will be served by proposed action of a broadcaster, for this Court has held the contrary. National Broadcasting Co. v. United States, 319 U. S. 190, 222-224. Moreover, in a given case the Commission might find that antitrust considerations alone would keep the statutory standard from being met, as when the publisher of the sole newspaper in an area applies for a license for the only available radio and television facilities, which, if granted, would give him a monopoly of that area’s major media of mass communication. See 98 Cong. Rec. 7399; Mansfield Journal Co. v. Federal Communications Comm’n, 86 U. S. App. D. C. 102, 107, 108, 180 F. 2d 28, 33, 34.
III.
The other contentions of appellees fall of their own weight if the FCC has no power to decide antitrust questions. Thus, before we can find the Government collaterally estopped by the FCC licensing, we must find “whether or not in the earlier litigation the representative of the United States had authority to represent its interests in a final adjudication of the issue in controversy.” Sunshine Anthracite Coal Co. v. Adkins, 310 U. S. 381, 403. (Emphasis supplied.) But the issue in controversy before the Commission was whether the exchange would serve the public interest, not whether § 1 of the Sherman Act had been violated. Consequently, there could be no estoppel. Res judicata principles are even more inapposite.
Similarly, there could be no laches unless the Government was under some sort of a duty to go forward in the FCC proceedings. But unless the FCC had power to decide the antitrust issues, and we have held that it did not, the Government had no duty either to enter the FCC proceedings or to seek review of the license grant.
Accordingly, the judgment of the District Court dismissing the action is reversed and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Mr. Justice Harlan concurs in the result, believing, as he understands part “I” of the Court’s opinion to hold, that a Commission determination of “public interest, convenience, and necessity” cannot either constitute a binding adjudication upon any antitrust issues that may be involved in the Commission’s proceeding or serve to exempt a licensee pro tanto from the antitrust laws, and that these considerations alone are dispositive of this appeal.
Mr. Justice Frankfurter and Mr. Justice Douglas took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
Under present FCC regulations, NBC can own no more than five stations, 47 CFR, 1958, § 3.636, so that acquisition of a new station would require that an existing one be relinquished.
Federal Communications Commission Report No. 2793, Public Notice 27067, December 28, 1955.
Commissioner Bartley dissented from the action, urging that hearings should have been held because the facts theretofore revealed by the investigation had raised “serious questions as to the desirability and possible legality of the competitive practices followed by the network in obtaining dominance of major broadcast markets.” He suggested that there was “a substantial question whether, once the Commission grants its approval to these transfers, certain provisions of the Clayton Act (viz. 15 U. S. C. Section 18) might prevent Federal Trade Commission and Justice Department from taking any effective action in the event they concluded that possible violations of the anti-trust laws were involved.” (Emphasis by the Commissioner.) Commissioner Doerfer, joined by Commissioner Mack, responded that it was unnecessary to hold a hearing because the investigation had fully revealed the facts. He concluded, however: “It is difficult to see how approval of this exchange may effectively preclude other governmental agencies from examining into this or any other transaction of the network companies.”
44 Stat. 1162. See H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 1918, 73d Cong., 2d Sess. 47, 49.
“The Secretary of Commerce is hereby directed to refuse a station license and/or the permit hereinafter required for the construction of a station to any person, firm, company, or corporation,- or any subsidiary thereof, which has been found guilty by any Federal court of unlawfully monopolizing or attempting to unlawfully monopolize radio communication, directly or indirectly, through the control of the manufacture or sale of radio apparatus, through exclusive traffic arrangements, or by any other means. The granting of a license shall not estop the United States or any person aggrieved from prosecuting such person, firm, company, or corporation for a violation of the law against unlawful restraints and monopolies and/or combinations, contracts, or agreements in restraint of trade.”
“All laws of the United States relating to unlawful restraints and monopolies and to combinations, contracts, or agreements in restraint of trade are hereby declared to be applicable to the manufacture and sale of and to trade in radio apparatus and devices entering into or affecting interstate or foreign commerce and to interstate or foreign radio communications. Whenever in any suit, action, or proceeding, civil or criminal, brought under the provisions of any of said laws or in any proceedings brought to enforce or to review findings and orders of the Federal Trade Commission or other governmental agency in respect of any matters as to which said commission or other governmental agency is by law authorized to act, any licensee shall be found guilty of the violation of the provisions of such laws or any of them, the court, in addition to the penalties imposed by said laws, may adjudge, order, and/or decree that the license of such licensee shall, as of the date the decree or judgment becomes finally effective or as of such other date as the said decree shall fix, be revoked and that all rights under such license shall thereupon cease: Provided, however, That such licensee shall have the same right of appeal or review as is provided by law .in respect of other decrees and judgments of said court.”
As then phrased, the Act was to be administered primarily by the Secretary of Commerce.
Hearings before the House Committee on the Merchant Marine and Fisheries on H. It. 5589, 69th Cong., 1st Sess. 27.
Id., at 29.
See H. R. Rep. No. 404, 69th Cong., 1st Sess. 6, 16, 23.
67 Cong. Rec. 12507.
H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 1918, 73d Cong., 2d Sess. 47, 49.
H. R. Cotof. Rep. No. 2426, 82d Cong., 2d Sess. 19.
We recently explained the nature of the doctrine in United States v. Western Pacific R. Co., 352 U. S. 59, 63-64:
“The doctrine of primary jurisdiction, like the rule requiring exhaustion of administrative remedies, is concerned with promoting proper relationships between the courts and administrative agencies charged with particular regulatory duties. ‘Exhaustion’ applies where a claim is cognizable in the first instance by an administrative agency alone; judicial interference is withheld until the administrative process has run its course. ‘Primary jurisdiction,’ on the other hand, applies where a claim is originally cognizable in the courts, and comes into play whenever enforcement of the claim requires the resolution of issues which, under a regulatory scheme, have been placed within the special competence of an administrative body; in such a case the judicial process is suspended pending referral of such issues to the administrative body for its views.’’
See, generally, 3 Davis, Administrative Law Treatise, §§ 19.05, 19.06; Jaffe, Primary Jurisdiction Reconsidered: The Anti-Trust Laws, 102 U. of Pa. L. Rev. 577; Schwartz, Legal Restriction of Competition in the Regulated Industries: An Abdication of Judicial Responsibility, 67 Harv. L. Rev. 436; von Mehren, The Antitrust Laws and Regulated Industries: The Doctrine of Primary Jurisdiction, 67 Harv. L. Rev. 929.
This followed because, in the words of Mr. Justice Brandeis in Keogh v. Chicago & N. W. R. Co., supra, at 161, "... a combination of carriers to fix reasonable and non-discriminatory rates may be illegal.” This Court in Georgia v. Pennsylvania R. Co., supra, took the position that shippers were entitled to have rates filed by carriers who were not parties to a conspiracy, even though the rates filed were the lowest which would be found to be reasonable. The risk that future filings would be at the uppermost limits of the zone of reasonableness was too great, and damage from the conspiratorial filings was presumed to flow. Of course, when the agency is permitted to exempt from antitrust coverage rates filed cooperatively, the doctrine equally applies to an attack on the alleged conspiracy. United States Navigation Co. v. Cunard S. S. Co., supra; Far East Conference v. United States, supra.
Under Title II, common carriers are required to furnish communications service on reasonable request and may charge only just and reasonable rates, § 201. Such carriers must file rates with the FCC, and can charge only the rates as filed, § 203. The Commission may hold hearings on the lawfulness of filed rates, § 204, and after hearings may itself set the applicable rate, § 205. Cf. 49 U. S. C. § 15 et seq., 46 U. S. C. § 817. In view of this extensive regulation, Congress has provided that certain actions of telephone and telegraph companies may be exempted from the antitrust laws by the Commission, § 221 (a) and § 222 (c) (1). Cf. 49 U. S. C. §§ 5(11), 5b (9) and 46 U. S. C. § 814. Such exemptions are, however, subject to review, see Federal Maritime Board v. Isbrandtsen Co., 356 U. S. 481.
This conclusion is re-enforced by the Commission’s disavowal of either the power or the desire to foreclose the Government from antitrust actions aimed at transactions which the Commission has licensed. This position was taken both before the district judge below, and in a Supplemental Memorandum filed in this Court, page 8:
“Concurrent with the jurisdiction of the Department of Justice to enforce the Sherman Act, the Commission, of course, has jurisdiction to designate license applications for hearing on public interest questions arising out of facts which might also constitute violations of the antitrust laws. This does not mean, however, that its action on these public interest questions of communications policy is a determination of the antitrust issues as such. Thus, while the Commission may deny applications as not in the public interest where violations of the Sherman Act have been determined to exist, its approval of transactions which might involve Sherman Act violations is not a determination that the Sherman Act has not been violated, and therefore cannot forestall the United States from subsequently bringing an antitrust suit challenging those transactions.”
Nor was this position taken merely for the purposes of this litigation, for it has been the view of the Commission over a period of years. See Report on Uniform Policy as to Violation by Applicants of Laws of United States, FCC Docket No. 9572 (1950), 1 Pike and Fischer, Radio Regulation, Part III, 91:495; National Broadcasting Co. v. United States, 319 U. S. 190. Since, as Mr. Justice Brandeis observed, the doctrine of primary jurisdiction rests in part upon the need for the skill of a “body of experts,” it would be odd to impose the doctrine when the experts deny the relevance of their skill.
See also Report on Uniform Policy as to Violation by Applicants of Laws of United States, FCC Docket No. 9572, 1 Pike and Fischer, Radio Regulation, Part III, 91:495.
It is relevant to note that the Commission is not expressly required to give the Government notice that antitrust issues have been raised in a §310 (b) proceeding. Compare §222 (c)(1) of the Act relating to common carriers, which expressly makes consolidations and mergers exempt from antitrust coverage if approved by the Commission, but which also expressly requires that notice be given to the Attorney General of the United States prior to approval.
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 White
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The turning of swords into plowshares has symbolized the transformation of atomic power into a source of energy in American society. To facilitate this development the Federal Government relaxed its monopoly over fissionable materials and nuclear technology, and in its place, erected a complex scheme to promote the civilian development of nuclear energy, while seeking to safeguard the public and the environment from the unpredictable risks of a new technology. Early on, it was decided that the States would continue their traditional role in the regulation of electricity production. The interrelationship of federal and state authority in the nuclear energy field has not been simple; the federal regulatory structure has been frequently amended to optimize the partnership.
This case emerges from the intersection of the Federal Government’s efforts to ensure that nuclear power is safe with the exercise of the historic state authority over the generation and sale of electricity. At issue is whether provisions in the 1976 amendments to California’s Warren-Alquist Act, Cal. Pub. Res. Code Ann. §§25524.1(b) and 25524.2 (West 1977), which condition the construction of nuclear plants on findings by the State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Commission that adequate storage facilities and means of disposal are available for nuclear waste, are pre-empted by the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, 68 Stat. 919, as amended, 42 U. S. C. § 2011 et seq.
I — I
A nuclear reactor must be periodically refueled and the “spent fuel” removed. This spent fuel is intensely radioactive and must be carefully stored. The general practice is to store the fuel in a water-filled pool at the reactor site. For many years, it was assumed that this fuel would be reprocessed; accordingly, the storage pools were designed as short-term holding facilities with limited storage capacities. As expectations for reprocessing remained unfulfilled, the spent fuel accumulated in the storage pools, creating the risk that nuclear reactors would have to be shut down. This could occur if there were insufficient room in the pool to store spent fuel and also if there were not enough space to hold the entire fuel core when certain inspections or emergencies required unloading of the reactor. In recent years, the problem has taken on. special urgency. Some 8,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel have already accumulated, and it is projected that by the year 2000 there will be some 72,000 metric tons of spent fuel. Government studies indicate that a number of reactors could be forced to shut down in the near future due to the inability to store spent fuel.
There is a second dimension to the problem. Even with water pools adequate to store safely all the spent fuel produced during the working lifetime of the reactor, permanent disposal is needed because the wastes will remain radioactive for thousands of years. A number of long-term nuclear waste management strategies have been extensively examined. These range from sinking the wastes in stable deep seabeds, to placing the wastes beneath ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, to ejecting the wastes into space by rocket. The greatest attention has been focused on disposing of the wastes in subsurface geologic repositories such as salt deposits. Problems of how and where to store nuclear wastes has engendered considerable scientific, political, and public debate. There are both safety and economic aspects to the nuclear waste issue: first, if not properly stored, nuclear wastes might leak and endanger both the environment and human health; second, the lack of a long-term disposal option increases the risk that the insufficiency of interim storage space for spent fuel will lead to reactor shutdowns, rendering nuclear energy an unpredictable and uneconomical adventure.
The California laws, at issue here are responses to these concerns. In 1974, California adopted the Warren-Alquist State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Act, Cal. Pub. Res. Code Ann. §25000-25986 (West 1977 and Supp. 1983). The Act requires that a utility seeking to build in California any electric power generating plant, including a nuclear powerplant, must apply for certification to the State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Commission (Energy Commission). The Warren-Alquist Act was amended in 1976 to provide additional state regulation of new nuclear powerplant construction.
Two sections of these amendments are before us. Section 25524.1(b) provides that before additional nuclear plants may be built, the Energy Commission must determine on a case-by-case basis that there will be “adequate capacity” for storage of a plant’s spent fuel rods “at the time such nuclear facility requires such... storage.” The law also requires that each utility provide continuous, on-site, “full core reserve storage capacity” in order to permit storage of the entire reactor core if it must be removed to permit repairs of the reactor. In short, § 25524.1(b) addresses the interim storage of spent fuel.
Section 25524.2 deals with the long-term solution to nuclear wastes. This section imposes a moratorium on the certification of new nuclear plants until the Energy Commission “finds that there has been developed and that the United States through its authorized agency has approved and there exists a demonstrated technology or means for the disposal of high-level nuclear waste.” “Disposal” is defined as a “method for the permanent and terminal disposition of high-level nuclear waste....” §§ 25524.2(a), (c). Such a finding must be reported to the state legislature, which may nullify it.
In 1978, petitioners Pacific Gas & Electric Co. and Southern California Edison Co. filed this action in the United States District Court, requesting a declaration thsjit numerous provisions of the Warren-Alquist Act, including the two sections challenged here, are invalid under the Supremacy Clause because they are pre-empted by the Atomic Energy Act. The District Court held that petitioners had standing to challenge §§25524.1(b) and 25524.2, that the issues presented by these two statutes are ripe for adjudication, and that the two provisions are void because they are pre-empted by and in conflict with the Atomic Energy Act. 489 F. Supp. 699 (ED Cal. 1980).
The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the District Court’s ruling that the petitioners have standing to challenge the California statutes, and also agreed that the challenge to § 25524.2 is ripe for review. It concluded, however, that the challenge to §25524.1(b) was not ripe “[b]e-cause we cannot know whether the Energy Commission will ever find a nuclear plant’s storage capacity to be inadequate....” 659 F. 2d 903, 918 (1981). On the merits, the court held that the nuclear moratorium provisions of §25524.2 were not pre-empted because §§ 271 and 274(k) of the Atomic Energy Act, 42 U. S. C. §§2018 and 2021(k), constitute a congressional authorization for States to regulate nuclear powerplants “for purposes other than protection against radiation hazards.” The court held that §25524.2 was not designed to provide protection against radiation hazards, but was adopted because “uncertainties in the nuclear fuel cycle make nuclear power an uneconomical and uncertain source of energy.” 659 F. 2d, at 925. Nor was the provision invalid as a barrier to fulfillment of the federal goal of encouraging the development of atomic energy. The granting of state authority in §§271 and 274(k), combined with recent federal enactments, demonstrated that Congress did not intend that nuclear power be developed “at all costs,” but only that it proceed consistent with other priorities and subject to controls traditionally exercised by the States and expressly preserved by the federal statute.
We granted certiorari limited to the questions of whether §§25524.1(b) and 25524.2 are ripe for judicial review, and whether they are pre-empted by the Atomic Energy Act. 457 U. S. 1132 (1982).
II
We agree that the- challenge to § 25524.2 is ripe for judicial review, but that the questions concerning §25524.1(b) are not. The basic rationale of the ripeness doctrine “is to prevent the courts, through avoidance of premature adjudication, from entangling themselves in abstract disagreements over administrative policies, and also to protect the agencies from judicial interference until an administrative decision has been formalized and its effects felt in a concrete way by the challenging parties.” Abbott Laboratories v. Gardner, 387 U. S. 136, 148-149 (1967). In Abbott Laboratories, which remains our leading discussion of the doctrine, we indicated that the question of ripeness turns on “the fitness of the issues for judicial decision” and “the hardship to the parties of withholding court consideration.” Id., at 149.
Both of these factors counsel in favor of finding the challenge to the waste disposal regulations in §25524.2 ripe for adjudication. The question of pre-emption is predominantly legal, and although it would be useful to have the benefit of California’s interpretation of what constitutes a demonstrated technology or means for the disposal of high-level nuclear waste, resolution of the pre-emption issue need not await that development. Moreover, postponement of decision would likely work substantial hardship on the utilities. As the Court of Appeals cogently reasoned, for the utilities to proceed in hopes that, when the time for certification came, either the required findings would be made or the law would be struck down, requires the expenditures of millions of dollars over a number of years, without any certainty of recovery if certification were denied. The construction of new nuclear facilities requires considerable advance planning — on the order of 12 to 14 years. Thus, as in the Rail Reorganization Act Cases, 419 U. S. 102, 144 (1974), “decisions to be made now or in the short future may be affected” by whether we act. “ ‘One does not have to await the consummation of threatened injury to obtain preventive relief. If the injury is certainly impending that is enough.’” Id., at 143, quoting Pennsylvania v. West Virginia, 262 U. S. 553, 593 (1923). To require the industry to proceed without knowing whether the moratorium is valid would impose a palpable and considerable hardship on the utilities, and may ultimately work harm on the citizens of California. Moreover, if petitioners are correct that §25524.2 is void because it hinders the commercial development of atomic energy, “delayed resolution would frustrate one of the key purposes of the [Atomic Energy] Act.” Duke Power Co. v. Carolina Environmental Study Group, Inc., 438 U. S. 59, 82 (1978). For these reasons, the issue of whether §25524.2 is preempted by federal law should be decided now.
Questions concerning the constitutionality of the interim storage provision, §25524.1(b), however, are not ripe for review. While the waste disposal statute operates on a statewide basis, the Energy Commission is directed to make determinations under §25524.1(b) on a case-by-case basis. As the Court of Appeals explained, because “we cannot know whether the Energy Commission will ever find a nuclear plant’s storage capacity to be inadequate,” judicial consideration of this provision should await further developments. Furthermore, because we hold today that §25524.2 is not pre-empted by federal law, there is little likelihood that industry behavior would be uniquely affected by whatever uncertainty surrounds the interim storage provisions. In these circumstances, a court should not stretch to reach an early, and perhaps premature, decision respecting §25524.1(b).
III
It is well established that within constitutional limits Congress may pre-empt state authority by so stating in express terms. Jones v. Rath Packing Co., 430 U. S. 519, 525 (1977). Absent explicit pre-emptive language, Congress’ intent to supersede state law altogether may be found from a “ ‘scheme of federal regulation... so pervasive as to make reasonable the inference that Congress left no room for the States to supplement it,’ because ‘the Act of Congress may touch a field in which the federal interest is so dominant that the federal system will be assumed to preclude enforcement of state laws on the same subject,’ or because ‘the object sought to be obtained by the federal law and the character of obligations imposed by it may reveal the same purpose.’” Fidelity Federal Savings & Loan Assn. v. De la Cuesta, 458 U. S. 141, 153 (1982), quoting Rice v. Santa Fe Elevator Corp., 331 U. S. 218, 230 (1947). Even where Congress has not entirely displaced state regulation in a specific area, state law is pre-empted to the extent that it actually conflicts with federal law. Such a conflict arises when “compliance with both federal and state regulations is a physical impossibility,” Florida Lime & Avocado Growers, Inc. v. Paul, 373 U. S. 132, 142-143 (1963), or where state law “stands as an obstacle to the accomplishment and execution of the full purposes and objectives of Congress.” Hines v. Davidowitz, 312 U. S. 52, 67 (1941).
Petitioners, the United States, and supporting amici, present three major lines of argument as to why § 25524.2 is pre-empted. First, they submit that the statute — because it regulates construction of nuclear plants and because it is allegedly predicated on safety concerns — ignores the division between federal and state authority created by the Atomic Energy Act, and falls within the field that the Federal Government has preserved for its own exclusive control. Second, the statute, and the judgments that underlie it, conflict with decisions concerning the nuclear waste disposal issue made by Congress and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Third, the California statute frustrates the federal goal of developing nuclear technology as a source of energy. We consider each of these contentions in turn.
A
Even a brief perusal of the Atomic Energy Act reveals that, despite its comprehensiveness, it does not at any point expressly require the States to construct or authorize nuclear powerplants or prohibit the States from deciding, as an absolute or conditional matter, not to permit the construction of any further reactors. Instead, petitioners argue that the Act is intended to preserve the Federal Government as the sole regulator of all matters nuclear, and that § 25524.2 falls within the scope of this impliedly pre-empted field. But as we view the issue, Congress, in passing the 1954 Act and in subsequently amending it, intended that the Federal Government should regulate the radiological safety aspects involved in the construction and operation of a nuclear plant, but that the States retain their traditional responsibility in the field of regulating electrical utilities for determining questions of need, reliability, cost, and other related state concerns.
Need for new power facilities, their economic feasibility, and rates and services, are areas that have been characteristically governed by the States. Justice Brandéis once observed that the “franchise to operate a public utility... is a special privilege which.. „ may be granted or withheld at the pleasure of the State.” Frost v. Corporation Comm’n, 278 U. S. 515, 534 (1929) (dissenting opinion). “The nature of government regulation of private utilities is such that a utility may frequently be required by the state. regulatory scheme to obtain approval for practices a business regulated in less detail would be free to institute without any approval from a regulatory body.” Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison Co., 419 U. S. 345, 357 (1974). See Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corp. v. Public Service Comm’n of New York, 447 U. S. 557, 569 (1980) (“The State’s concern that rates be fair and efficient represents a clear and substantial governmental interest”). With the exception of the broad authority of the Federal Power Commission, now the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, over the need for and pricing of electrical power transmitted in interstate commerce, see Federal Power Act, 16 U. S. C. § 824 (1976 ed. and Supp. V), these economic aspects of electrical generation have been regulated for many years and in great detail by the States. As we noted in Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Corp. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 435 U. S. 519, 550 (1978): “There is little doubt that under the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, state public utility commissions or similar bodies are empowered to make the initial decision regarding the need for power.” Thus, “Congress legislated here in a field which the States have traditionally occupied.... So we start with the assumption that the historic police powers of the States were not to be superseded by the Federal Act unless that was the clear and manifest purpose of Congress.” Rice v. Santa Fe Elevator Corp., supra, at 230.
The Atomic Energy Act must be read, however, against another background. Enrico Fermi demonstrated the first nuclear reactor in 1942, and Congress authorized civilian application of atomic power in 1946, Atomic Energy Act of 1946, see Act of Aug. 1, 1946, 60 Stat. 755, at which time the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) was created. Until 1954, however, the use, control, and ownership of nuclear technology remained a federal monopoly. The Atomic Energy Act of 1954, Act of Aug. 30, 1954, 68 Stat. 919, as amended, 42 U. S. C. §2011 et seq. (1976 ed. and Supp. V), grew out of Congress’ determination that the national interest would be best served if the Government encouraged the private sector to become involved in the development of atomic energy for peaceful purposes under a program of federal regulation and licensing. See H. R. Rep. No. 2181, 83d Cong., 2d Sess., 1-11 (1954). The Act implemented this policy decision by providing for licensing of private construction, ownership, and operation of commercial nuclear power reactors. Duke Power Co. v. Carolina Environmental Study Group, Inc., 438 U. S., at 63. The AEC, however, was given exclusive jurisdiction to license the transfer, delivery, receipt, acquisition, possession, and use of nuclear materials. 42 U. S. C. §§ 2014(e), (z), (aa), 2061-2064, 2071-2078, 2091-2099, 2111-2114 (1976 ed. and Supp. V). Upon these subjects, no role was left for the States.
The Commission, however, was not given authority over the generation of electricity itself, or over the economic question whether a particular plant should be built. We observed in Vermont Yankee, supra, at 550, that “[t]he Commission’s prime area of concern in the licensing context,... is national security, public health, and safety.” See also Power Reactor Development Co. v. Electrical Workers, 367 U. S. 396, 415 (1961) (utility’s investment not to be considered by Commission in its licensing decisions). The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), which now exercises the AEC’s regulatory authority, does not purport to exercise its authority based on economic considerations, 10 CFR § 8.4 (1982), and has recently repealed its regulations concerning the financial qualifications and capabilities of a utility proposing to construct and operate a nuclear powerplant. 47 Fed. Reg. 13751 (1982). In its notice of rule repeal, the NRC stated that utility financial qualifications are only of concern to the NRC if related to the public health and safety. It is almost inconceivable that Congress would have left a regulatory vacuum; the only reasonable inference is that Congress intended the States to continue to make these judgments. Any doubt that ratemaking and plant-need questions were to remain in state hands was removed by §271, 42 U. S. C. § 2018, which provided:
“Nothing in this chapter shall be construed to affect the authority or regulations of any Federal, State or local agency with respect to the generation, sale, or transmission of electric power produced through the use of nuclear facilities licensed by the Commission...
The legislative Reports accompanying this provision do little more than restate the statutory language, S. Rep. No. 1699, 83d Cong., 2d Sess., 31 (1954); H. R. Rep. No. 2181, supra, at 31, but statements on the floor of Congress confirm that while the safety of nuclear technology was the exclusive business of the Federal Government, state power over the production of electricity was not otherwise displaced.
The 1959 amendments reinforced this fundamental division of authority. In 1959, Congress amended the Atomic Energy Act in order to “clarify the respective responsibilities... of the States and the Commission with respect to the regulation of byproduct, source, and special nuclear materials.” 42 U. S. C. § 2021(a)(1). See S. Rep. No. 870, 86th Cong., 1st Sess., 8, 10-12 (1959). The authority of the States over the planning for new powerplants and ratemaking were not at issue. Indeed, the point of the 1959 Amendments was to heighten the States’ role. Section 274(b), 42 U. S. C. § 2021(b), authorized the NRC, by agreements with state governors to discontinue its regulatory authority over certain nuclear materials under limited conditions. State programs permitted under the amendment were required to be “coordinated and compatible” with that of the NRC. § 2021(g); S. Rep. No. 870, supra, at 11. The subject matters of those agreements were also limited by § 274(c), 42 U. S. C. § 2021(c), which states:
“[T]he Commission shall retain authority and responsibility with respect to regulation of—
“(1) the construction and operation of any production or utilization facility;
“(4) the disposal of such... byproduct, source, or special nuclear material as the Commission determines... should, because of the hazards or potential hazards thereof, not be so disposed of without a license from the Commission.”
Although the authority reserved by § 274(c) was exclusively for the Commission to exercise, see S. Rep. No. 870, supra, at 8, 9; H. R. Rep. No. 1125, 86th Cong., 1st Sess., 8, 9 (1959), Congress made clear that the section was not intended to cut back on pre-existing state authority outside the NRC’s jurisdiction. Section 274(k), 42 U. S. C. §2021(k), states:
“Nothing in this section shall be construed to affect the authority of any State or local agency to regulate activities for purposes other than protection against radiation hazards.”
Section 274(k), by itself, limits only the pre-emptive effect of “this section,” that is, §274, and does not represent an affirmative grant of power to the States. But Congress, by permitting regulation “for purposes other than protection against radiation hazards” underscored the distinction drawn in 1954 between the spheres of activity left respectively to the Federal Government and the States.
This regulatory structure has remained unchanged, for our purposes, until 1965, when the following proviso was added to §271:
“Provided, that this section shall not be deemed to confer upon any Federal, State or local agency any authority to regulate, control, or restrict any activities of the Commission.”
The accompanying Report by the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy makes clear that the amendment was not intended to detract from state authority over energy facilities. Instead, the proviso was added to overrule a Court of Appeals opinion which interpreted § 271 to allow a municipality to prohibit transmission lines necessary for the AEC’s own activities. Maun v. United States, 347 F. 2d 970 (CA9 1965). There is no indication that Congress intended any broader limitation of state regulatory power over utility companies. Indeed, Reports and debates accompanying the 1965 amendment indicate that § 271’s purpose “was to make it absolutely clear that the Atomic Energy Act’s special provisions on licensing of reactors did not disturb the status quo with respect to the then existing authority of Federal, State, and local bodies to regulate generation, sale, or transmission of electric power.” 111 Cong. Rec. 19822 (1965) (statement of Sen. Hickenlooper).
This account indicates that from the passage of the Atomic Energy Act in 1954, through several revisions, and to the present day, Congress has preserved the dual regulation of nuclear-powered electricity generation: the Federal Government maintains complete control of the safety and “nuclear” aspects of energy generation; the States exercise their traditional authority over the need for additional generating capacity, the type of generating facilities to be licensed, land use, ratemaking, and the like.
The above is not particularly controversial. But deciding how §25524.2 is to be construed and classified is a more difficult proposition. At the outset, we emphasize that the statute does not seek to regulate the construction or operation of a nuclear powerplant. It would clearly be impermissible for California to attempt to do so, for such regulation, even if enacted out of nonsafety concerns, would nevertheless directly conflict with the NRC’s exclusive authority over plant construction and operation. Respondents appear to concede as much. Respondents do broadly argue, however, that although safety regulation of nuclear plants by States is forbidden, a State may completely prohibit new construction until its safety concerns are satisfied by the Federal Government. We reject this line of reasoning. State safety regulation is not pre-empted only when it conflicts with federal law. Rather, the Federal Government has occupied the entire field of nuclear safety concerns, except the limited powers expressly ceded to the States, When the Federal Government completely occupies a given field or an identifiable portion of it, as it has done here, the test of pre-emption is whether “the matter on which the State asserts the right to act is in any way regulated by the Federal Act.” Rice v. Santa Fe Elevator Corp., 331 U. S., at 236. A state moratorium on nuclear construction grounded in safety concerns falls squarely within the prohibited field. Moreover, a state judgment that nuclear power is not safe enough to be further developed would conflict directly with the countervailing judgment of the NRC, see, infra, at 218-219, that nuclear construction may proceed notwithstanding extant uncertainties as to waste disposal. A state prohibition on nuclear con-, struction for safety reasons would also be in the teeth of the Atomic Energy Act’s objective to insure that nuclear technology be safe enough for widespread development and use— and would be pre-empted for that reason. Infra, at 221-222.
That being the case, it is necessary to determine whether there is a nonsafety rationale for § 25524.2. California has maintained, and the Court of Appeals agreed, that § 25524.2 was aimed at economic problems, not radiation hazards. The California Assembly Committee on Resources, Land Use, and Energy, which proposed a package of bills including §25524.2, reported that the waste disposal problem was “largely economic or the result of poor planning, not safety related.” Reassessment of Nuclear Energy in California: A Policy Analysis of Proposition 15 and its Alternatives, p. 18 (1976) (Reassessment Report) (emphasis in original). The Committee explained that the lack of a federally approved method of waste disposal created a “clog” in the nuclear fuel cycle. Storage space was limited while more nuclear wastes were continuously produced. Without a permanent means of disposal, the nuclear waste problem could become critical, leading to unpredictably high costs to contain the problem or, worse, shutdowns in reactors. “Waste disposal safety,” the Reassessment Report notes, “is not directly addressed by the bills, which ask only that a method [of waste disposal] be chosen and accepted by the federal government.” Id,., at 156 (emphasis in original).
The Court of Appeals adopted this reading of §25524.2. Relying on the Reassessment Report, the court concluded:
“[S]ection 25524.2 is directed towards purposes other than protection against radiation hazards. While Proposition 15 would have required California to judge the safety of a proposed method of waste disposal, section 25524.2 leaves that judgment to the federal government. California is concerned not with the adequacy of the method, but rather with its existence.” 659 F. 2d, at 925.
Our general practice is to place considerable confidence in the interpretations of state law reached by the federal courts of appeals. Cf. Mills v. Rogers, 457 U. S. 291, 306 (1982); Bishop v. Wood, 426 U. S. 341, 346 (1976). Petitioners and amici nevertheless attempt to upset this interpretation in a number of ways. First, they maintain that § 25524.2 evinces no concern with the economics of nuclear power. The statute states that the “development” and “existence” of a permanent disposal technology approved by federal authorities will lift the moratorium; the statute does not provide for considering the economic costs of the technology selected. This view of the statute is overly myopic. Once a technology is selected and demonstrated, the utilities and the California Public Utilities Commission would be able to estimate costs; such cost estimates cannot be made until the Federal Government has settled upon the method of long-term waste disposal. Moreover, once a satisfactory disposal technology is found and demonstrated, fears of having to close down operating reactors should largely evaporate.
Second, it is suggested that California, if concerned with economics, would have banned California utilities from building plants outside the State. This objection carries little force. There is no indication that California utilities are contemplating such construction; the state legislature is not obligated to address purely hypothetical facets of a problem.
Third, petitioners note that there already is a body, the California Public Utilities Commission, which is authorized to determine on economic grounds whether a nuclear power-plant should be constructed. While California is certainly free to make these decisions on a case-by-case basis, a State is not foreclosed from reaching the same decision through a legislative judgment, applicable to all cases. The economic uncertainties engendered by the nuclear waste disposal problems are not factors that vary from facility to facility; the issue readily lends itself to more generalized decisionmaking and California cannot be faulted for pursuing that course.
Fourth, petitioners note that Proposition 15, the initiative out of which §25524.2 arose, and companion provisions in California’s so-called nuclear laws, are more clearly written with safety purposes in mind. It is suggested that §25524.2 shares a common heritage with these laws and should be presumed to have been enacted for the same purposes. The short answer here is that these other state laws are not before the Court, and indeed, Proposition 15 was not passed; these provisions and their pedigree do not taint other parts of the Warren-Alquist Act.
Although these specific indicia of California’s intent in enacting §25524.2 are subject to varying interpretation, there are two further reasons why we should not become embroiled in attempting to ascertain California’s true motive. First, inquiry into legislative motive is often an unsatisfactory venture. United States v. O’Brien, 391 U. S. 367, 383 (1968). What motivates one legislator to vote for a statute is not necessarily what motivates scores of others to enact it. Second, it would be particularly pointless for us to engage in such inquiry here when it is clear that the States have been allowed to retain authority over the need for electrical generating facilities easily sufficient to permit a State so inclined to halt the construction of new nuclear plants by refusing on economic grounds to issue- certificates of public convenience in individual proceedings. In these circumstances, it should be up to Congress to determine whether a State has misused the authority left in its hands.
Therefore, we accept California’s avowed economic purpose as the rationale for enacting §25524.2. Accordingly, the statute lies outside the occupied field of nuclear safety regulation.
B
Petitioners’ second major argument concerns federal regulation aimed at the nuclear waste disposal problem itself. It is contended that § 25524.2 conflicts with federal regulation of nuclear waste disposal, with the NRC’s decision that it is permissible to continue to license reactors, notwithstanding uncertainty surrounding the waste disposal problem, and with Congress’ recent passage of legislation directed at that problem.
Pursuant to its authority under the Act, 42 U. S. C. §§ 2071-2075, 2111-2114 (1976 ed. and Supp. V), the AEC, and later the NRC, promulgated extensive and detailed regulations concerning the operation of nuclear facilities and the handling of nuclear materials. The following provisions are relevant to the spent fuel and waste disposal issues in this case. To receive an NRC operating license, one must submit a safety analysis report, which includes a “radioactive waste handling syste[m].” 10 CFR § 50.34(b)(2)(i), (ii) (1982). See also 10 CFR § 150.15(a)(1)(i) (1982). The regulations specify general design criteria and control requirements for fuel storage and handling and radioactive waste to be stored at the reactor site. 10 CFR pt. 50, App. A, Criteria 60-64, p. 412 (1982). In addition, the NRC has promulgated detailed regulations governing storage and disposal away from the reactor. 10 CFR pt. 72 (1982). NRC has also promulgated procedural requirements covering license applications for disposal of high-level radioactive waste in geologic repositories. 10 CFR pt. 60 (1982).
Congress gave the Department of Energy the responsibility for “the establishment of temporary and permanent facilities for storage, management, and ultimate disposal of nuclear wastes.” 42 U. S. C. §7133(a)(8)(C) (1976 ed., Supp. V). No such permanent disposal facilities have yet been licensed, and the NRC and the Department of Energy continue to authorize the storage of spent fuel at reactor sites in pools of water. In 1977, the NRC was asked by the Natural Resources Defense Council to halt reactor licensing until it had determined that there was a method of permanent disposal for high-level waste. The NRC concluded that, given the progress toward the development of disposal facilities and the availability of interim storage, it could continue to license new reactors. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. v. NRC, 582 F. 2d 166, 168-169 (CA2 1978).
The NRC’s imprimatur, however, indicates only that it is safe to proceed with such plants, not that it is economically wise to do so. Because the NRC order does not and could not compel a utility to develop a nuclear plant, compliance with both it and §25524.2 is possible. Moreover, because the NRC’s regulations are aimed at insuring that plants are safe, not necessarily that they are economical, §25524.2 does not interfere with the objective of the federal regulation.
Nor has California sought through §25524.2 to impose its own standards on nuclear waste disposal. The statute accepts that it is the federal responsibility to develop and license such technology. As there is no attempt on California’s part to enter this field, one which is occupied by the Federal Government, we do not find §25524.2 pre-empted any more by the NRC’s obligations in the waste disposal field than by its licensing power over the plants themselves.
After this case was decided by the Court of Appeals, a new piece was added to the regulatory puzzle. In its closing week, the 97th Congress passed the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, Pub. L. 97-425, 96 Stat. 2201, a complex bill providing for a multifaceted attack on the problem. Inter alia, 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: | 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 White
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This litigation has a protracted history in the courts below and has already resulted in one judgment and opinion by this Court. Dayton Board of Education v. Brinkman, 433 U. S. 406 (1977) (Dayton I). In its most recent opinion, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit approved a systemwide plan for desegregating the public schools of Dayton, Ohio. Brinkman v. Gilligan, 583 F. 2d 243 (1978). The Court of Appeals found that the Dayton Board of Education had operated a racially segregated, dual school system at the time of Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U. S. 483 (1954) (Brown I), and that “'[t]he evidence of record demonstrates convincingly that defendants have failed to eliminate the continuing systemwide effects of their prior discrimination” and “actually have exacerbated the racial separation existing at the time of Brown I.” 583 F. 2d, at 253. We granted certiorari, 439 U. S. 1066 (1979), and heard argument in this case in tandem with Columbus Board of Education v. Penick, ante, p. 449. We now affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
I
The public schools of Dayton are highly segregated by race. In the year the complaint was filed, 43% of the students in the Dayton system were black, but 51 of the 69 schools in the system were virtually all white or all black. Brinkman v. Gilligan, 446 F. Supp. 1232, 1237 (SD Ohio 1977). A number of students in the Dayton system, through their parents, brought this action on April 17, 1972, alleging that the Dayton Board of Education, the State Board of Education, and the appropriate local and state officials were operating a racially segregated school system in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The plaintiffs sought a court order compelling desegregation. The District Court sustained their challenge, determining that certain actions by the Dayton Board amounted to a “cumulative” violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. Id., at 1259. The District Court also approved a plan having limited remedial objectives.
The District Court’s judgment that the Board had violated the Fourteenth Amendment was affirmed by the Court of Appeals; but after twice being reversed on the ground that the prescribed remedy was inadequate to eliminate all vestiges of state-imposed segregation, the District Court ordered the Board to take the necessary steps to assure that each school in the system would roughly reflect the systemwide ratio of black and white students. App. to Pet. for Cert. 103a. The Court of Appeals then affirmed. Brinkman v. Gilligan, 539 F. 2d 1084 (1976).
We reversed the judgment of the Court of Appeals and ordered the case remanded to the District Court for further proceedings. Dayton I, supra. In light of the District Court’s limited findings regarding liability, we concluded that there was no warrant for imposing a systemwide remedy. Rather, the District Court should have “determine [d] how much incremental segregative effect these violations had on the racial distribution of the Dayton school population as presently constituted, when that distribution is compared to what it would have been in the absence of such constitutional violations. The remedy must be designed to redress that difference, and only if there has been a systemwide impact may there be a systemwide remedy.” 433 U. S., at 420. In view of the confusion evidenced at various stages of the proceedings regarding the scope of the violation established, we remanded the case to permit supplementation of the record and specific findings addressed to the scope of the remedy, id., at 418-419, but allowed the existing remedy to remain in effect on remand subject to further orders of the District Court, id., at 420-421.
The District Court held a supplemental evidentiary hearing, undertook to review the entire record anew, and entered findings of fact and conclusions of law and a judgment dismissing the complaint. In support of its judgment, the District Court observed that, although various instances of purposeful segregation in the past evidenced “an inexcusable history of mistreatment of black students,” 446 F. Supp., at 1237, plaintiffs had failed to prove that acts of intentional segregation over 20 years old had any current incremental segregative effects. The District Court conceded that the Dayton schools were highly segregated but ruled that the Board's failure to alleviate this condition was not actionable absent sufficient evidence that the racial separation had been caused by the Board's own purposeful discriminatory conduct. In the District Court's eyes, plaintiffs had failed to show either discriminatory purpose or segregative effect, or both, with respect to the challenged practices and policies of the Board, which included faculty hiring and assignments, the use of optional attendance zones and transfer policies, the location and construction of new and expanded school facilities, and the rescission of certain prior resolutions recognizing the Board’s responsibility to eradicate racial separation in the public schools.
The Court of Appeals reversed. The basic ingredients of the Court of Appeals’ judgment were that at the time of Brown I, the Dayton Board was operating a dual school system, that it was constitutionally required to disestablish that system and its effects, that it had failed to discharge this duty, and that the consequences of the dual system, together with the intentionally segregative impact of various practices since 1954, were of systemwide import and an appropriate basis for a systemwide remedy. In arriving at these conclusions, the Court of Appeals found that in some instances the findings of the District Court were clearly erroneous and that in other respects the District Court had made errors of law. 583 F. 2d, at 247. Petitioners contend that the District Court, not the Court of Appeals, correctly understood both the facts and the law.
II
A
The Court of Appeals expressly held that, “at the time of Brown I, defendants were intentionally operating a dual school system in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the fourteenth amendment,” and that the “finding of the district court to the contrary is clearly erroneous.” 583 F. 2d, at 247 (footnote omitted). On the record before us, we perceive no basis for petitioners’ challenge to this holding of the Court of Appeals.
Concededly, in the eariy 1950’s, "77.6 percent of all students attended schools in which one race accounted for 90 percent or more of the students and 54.3 percent of the black students were assigned to four schools that were 100 percent black.” Id., at 248-249. One of these schools was Dunbar High School, which, the District Court found, had been established as a districtwide black high school with an all-black faculty and a black principal, and remained so at the time of Brown I and up until 1962. 446 F. Supp., at 1245. The District Court also found that “among” the early and relatively undisputed acts of purposeful segregation was the establishment of Garfield as a black elementary school. Id., at 1236-1237. The Court of Appeals found that two other elementary schools were, through a similar process of optional attendance zones and the creation and maintenance of all-black faculties, intentionally designated and operated as all-black schools in the 1930’s, in the 1940’s, and at the time of Brown I. 583 F. 2d, at 249, 250-251. Additionally, the District Court had specifically found that in 1950 the faculty at 100% black schools was 100% black and that the faculty at all other schools was 100% white. 446 F. Supp., at 1238.
These facts, the Court of Appeals held, made clear that the Board was purposefully operating segregated schools in a substantial part of the district, which warranted an inference and a finding that segregation in other parts of the system was also purposeful absent evidence sufficient to support a finding that the segregative actions “were not taken in effectuation of a policy to create or maintain segregation” or were not among the “factors . . . causing the existing condition of segregation in these schools.” Keyes v. School Dist. No. 1, Denver, Colo., 413 U. S. 189, 214 (1973); see id., at 203; Columbus Board of Education v. Penick, ante, at 467-468. The District Court had therefore ignored the legal significance of the intentional maintenance of a substantial number of black schools in the system at the time of Brown 1. It had also ignored, contrary to Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, 402 U. S. 1, 18 (1971), the significance of purposeful segregation in faculty assignments in establishing the existence of a dual school system; here the “purposeful segregation of faculty by race was inextricably tied to racially motivated student assignment practices.” 583 F. 2d, at 248. Based on its review of the entire record, the Court of Appeals concluded that the Board had not responded with sufficient evidence to counter the inference that a dual system was in existence in Dayton in 1954. Thus, it concluded that the Board’s “intentional seg-regative practices cannot be confined in one distinct area”; they “infected the entire Dayton public school system.” Id., at 252.
B
Petitioners next contend that, even if a dual system did exist a quarter of a century ago, the Court of Appeals erred in finding any widespread violations of constitutional duty since that time.
Given intentionally segregated schools in 1954, however, the Court of Appeals was quite right in holding that the Board was thereafter under a continuing duty to eradicate the effects of that system, Columbus, ante, at 458, and that the systemwide nature of the violation furnished prima facie proof that current ségregation in the Dayton schools was caused at least in part by prior intentionally segregative official acts. Thus, judgment for the plaintiffs was authorized and required absent sufficient countervailing evidence by the defendant school officials. Keyes, supra, at 211; Swann, supra, at 26. At the time of trial, Dunbar High School and the three black elementary schools, or the schools that succeeded them, remained black schools; and most of the schools in Dayton were virtually one-race schools, as were 80% of the classrooms. “ ‘Every school which was 90 percent or more black in 1951-52 or 1963-64 or 1971-72 and which is still in use today remains 90 percent or more black. Of the 25 white schools in 1972-73, all opened 90 percent or more white and, if open, were 90 percent or more white in 1971-72, 1963-64 and 1951-52.’ ” 583 F. 2d, at 254 (emphasis in original), quoting Brinkman v. Gilligan, 503 F. 2d 684, 694-695 (CA6 1974). Against this background, the Court of Appeals held that “[t]he evidence of record demonstrates convincingly that defendants have failed to eliminate the continuing systemwide effects of their prior discrimination and have intentionally maintained a segregated school system down to the time the complaint was filed in the present case.” 583 F. 2d, at 253. At the very least, defendants had failed to come forward with evidence to deny “that the current racial composition of the school population reflects the systemwide impact” of the Board’s prior discriminatory conduct. Id., at 258.
Part of the affirmative duty imposed by our cases, as we decided in Wright v. Council of City of Emporia, 407 U. S. 451 (1972), is the obligation not to take any action that would impede the process of disestablishing the dual system and its effects. See also United States v. Scotland Neck Board of Education, 407 U. S. 484 (1972). The Dayton Board, however, had engaged in many post-Brown I actions that had the effect of increasing or perpetuating segregation. The District Court ignored this compounding of the original constitutional breach on the ground that there was no direct evidence of continued discriminatory purpose. But the measure of the post-Brown I conduct of a school board under an unsatisfied duty to liquidate a dual system is the effectiveness, not the purpose, of the actions in decreasing or increasing the segregation caused by the dual system. Wright, supra, at 460, 462; Davis v. School Comm’rs of Mobile County, 402 U. S. 33, 37 (1971); see Washington v. Davis, 426 U. S. 229, 243 (1976). As was clearly established in Keyes and Swann, the Board had to do more than abandon its prior discriminatory purpose. 413 U. S., at 200-201, n. 11; 402 U. S., at 28. The Board has had an affirmative responsibility to see that pupil assignment policies and school construction and abandonment practices “are not used and do not serve to perpetuate or re-establish the dual school system,” Columbus, ante, at 460, and the Board has a “ 'heavy burden’ ” of showing that actions that increased or continued the effects of the dual system serve important and legitimate ends. Wright, supra, at 467, quoting Green v. County School Board, 391 U. S. 430, 439 (1968).
The Board has never seriously contended that it fulfilled its affirmative duty or the heavy burden of explaining its failure to do so. Though the Board was often put on notice of the effects of its acts or omissions, the District Court found that “with one [counterproductive] exception ... no attempt was made to alter the racial characteristics of any of the schools.” 446 F. Supp., at 1237. The Court of Appeals held that far from performing its constitutional duty, the Board had engaged in “post-1954 actions which actually have exacerbated the racial separation existing at the time of Brown 583 F. 2d, at 253. The court reversed as clearly erroneous the District Court’s finding that intentional faculty segregation had ended in 1951; the Court of Appeals found that it had effectively continued into the 1970’s. This was a systemwide practice and strong evidence that the Board was continuing its efforts to segregate students. Dunbar High School remained as a black high school until 1962, when a new Dunbar High School opened with a virtually all black faculty and student body. The old Dunbar was converted into an elementary school to which children from two black grade schools were assigned. Furthermore, the Court of Appeals held that since 1954 the Board had used some “optional attendance zones for racially discriminatory purposes in clear violation of the Equal Protection Clause.” Id., at 255. The District Court's finding to the contrary was clearly erroneous. At the very least, the use of such zones amounted to a perpetuation óf the existing dual school system. Likewise, the Board failed in its duty and perpetuated racial separation in the schools by its pattern of school construction and site selection, recited by the District Court, see n. 7, supra, that resulted in 22 of the 24 new schools built between 1950 and the filing of the complaint opening 90% black or white. The same pattern appeared with respect to additions of classroom space made to existing schools. Seventy-eight of a total of 86 additions were made to schools that were 90% of one race. We see no reason to disturb these factual determinations, which conclusively show the breach of duty found by the Court of Appeals.
C
Finally, petitioners contend that the District Court correctly interpreted our earlier decision in this litigation as requiring respondents to prove with respect to each individual act of discrimination precisely what effect it has had on current patterns of segregation. This argument results from a misunderstanding of Dayton I, where the violation that had then been established included at most a few high schools. See Columbus, ante, at 458 n. 7 and 465-466; nn. 3 and 5, supra. We have found no reason to fault the Court of Appeals’ findings after our remand that a sufficient case of current, systemwide effect had been established. In reliance on its decision in Columbus, the Court of Appeals held:
“First, the dual school system extant at the time of Brown 1 embraced ‘a systemwide program of segregation affecting a substantial portion of the schools, teachers, and facilities’ of the Dayton schools, and, thus, clearly had systemwide impact. . . . Secondly, the post-1954 failure of defendants to desegregate the school system in contravention of their affirmative constitutional duty obviously had systemwide impact. . . . The impact of defendants’ practices with respect to the assignment of faculty and students, use of optional attendance zones, school construction and site selection, and grade structure and reorganization clearly was systemwide in that the actions perpetuated and increased public school segregation in Dayton.” 583 F. 2d, at 258 (footnote omitted), quoting Keyes, 413 U. S., at 201.
As we note in Columbus today, this is not a misuse of Keyes, “where we held that purposeful discrimination in a substantial part of a school system furnishes a sufficient basis for an inferential finding of a systemwide discriminatory intent unless otherwise rebutted, and that given the purpose to operate a dual school system one could infer a connection between such a purpose and racial separation in other parts of the school system.” Columbus, ante, at 467-468. See also Swann, 402 U. S., at 26. The Court of Appeals was also quite justified in utilizing the Board’s total failure to fulfill its affirmative duty — and indeed its conduct resulting in increased segregation — to trace the current, systemwide segregation back to the purposefully dual system of the 1950’s and to the subsequent acts of intentional discrimination. See supra, at 537; Columbus, ante, at 464-465; Keyes, supra, at 211; Swann, supra, at 21, 26-27.
Because the Court of Appeals committed no prejudicial errors of fact or law, the judgment appealed from must be affirmed.
So ordered.
[For dissenting opinion of Me. Justice Stewaet, see ante, p. 469.]
[For dissenting opinion of Me. Justice Powell, see ante, p. 479.]
The Court of Appeals set out the undisputed statistics:
“ ‘Enrollment data from the Dayton system reveals the substantial lack of progress that has been made over the past 23 years in integrating the Dayton school system. In 1951-52, of 47 schools, 38 had student enrollments 90 per cent or more one race (4 black, 34 white). Of the 35,000 pupils in the district, 19 per cent were black. Yet over half of all black pupils were enrolled in the four all black schools; and 77.6 per cent of all pupils were assigned to virtual one race schools. “Virtual one race schools” refers to schools with student enrollments of 90 per cent or more one race. In 1963-64, of 64 schools, 57 had student enrollments 90 per cent or more one race (13 black, 44 white). Of the 57,400 pupils in the district, 27.8 per cent were black. Yet 79.2 per cent of all black pupils were enrolled in the 13 black schools; and 88.8 per cent of all pupils were enrolled in such one race schools.
“Tn 1971-72 (the year the complaint was filed), of 69 schools, 49 had student enrollments 90 per cent or more one race (21 black, 28 white). Of the 54,000 pupils 42.7 per cent were black; and 75.9 per cent of all black students were assigned to the 21 black schools. In 1972-73 (the year the hearing was held) of 68 schools, 47 were virtually one race (22 black, 25 white); fully 80 per cent of all classrooms were virtually one race. (Of the 50,000 pupils in the district, 44.6 per cent were black).
“‘Every school which was 90 per cent or more black in 1951-52 or 1963-64 or 1971-72 and which is still in use today remains 90 per cent or more black. Of the 25 white schools in 1972-73, all opened 90 per cent or more white and, if open, were 90 per cent or more white in 1971-72, 1963-64 and 1951-52.’ ” Brinkman v. Gilligan, 583 F. 2d 243, 254 (CA6 1978) (emphasis in original), quoting Brinkman v. Gilligan, 503 F. 2d 684, 69<R695 (CA6 1974).
In the last stages of this litigation, respondents did not press their claims against the state officials. Only the Dayton Board and local officials petitioned for writ of certiorari.
The violation found by the District Court had three major components: first, the marked racial separation of students, which the Board had made no significant effort to alter; second, the utilization of optional attendance zones, in some cases racially motivated and having significant segregative effect in two high school zones; and third, the Board’s rescission of previously adopted resolutions recognizing the Board’s role in racial segregation and its responsibility to eradicate the existing pattern.
To preserve continuity, the court exempted enrolled high school students for two academic years. And the court noted that it would evaluate on a case-by-case basis any deviations from the target percentage. The court, moreover, set down certain guidelines to be followed in achieving the redistribution: (1) students would be permitted to attend neighborhood walk-in schools in those neighborhoods where the schools were already within the approved ratios; (2) students would be transported to the nearest available school; and (3) no student would be transported further than two miles or, if traveling that distance would take more time, for longer than 20 minutes. The District Court appointed a master to supervise the logistics of the plan. Certain other particulars were worked out when the master’s report was filed. The plan has now been in effect for three school years.
The three parts of the violation found by the District Court are discussed in n. 3, supra. Racial imbalance, we noted in Dayton I, is not per se a constitutional violation, and rescission of prior resolutions proposing desegregation is unconstitutional only if the resolutions were required in the first place by the Fourteenth Amendment. 433 U. S., at 413-414. Thus, the scope of liability extended no further than the use of some optional zones, which apparently had a present effect only as to certain high schools, and the rescission of the resolutions so far as they pertained to these high schools. See id., at 412.
The District Court observed that “[m]any of those practices, if they existed today, would violate the Equal Protection Clause.” 446 F. Supp., at 1236. The court identified certain Board policies as being “among” such practices: until at least 1934, black elementary students were kept separate from white students; until approximately 1950, high school athletics were deliberately segregated by race; and until about the same time, black students at one high school were ordered or induced to sit at the rear of classrooms and suffered other indignities.
Reviewing the faculty assignment and hiring practices, the District Court found that until at least 1951 the Board’s policies had been intentionally segregative. But in that year the Board instituted a policy of “dynamic gradualism” and “by 1969 all traces of segregation were virtually eliminated.” Id., at 1238-1239. Reasoning that the predominant factor in the racial identifiability of schools is the pupil population and not the faculty, the court ruled that plaintiffs had not established that past discrimination in faculty assignments had an incremental segregative effect.
Similarly, the court ruled that the plaintiff children had not shown that the Board’s use of attendance zones and transfers denied equal protection. In certain instances, segregative intent had not been satisfactorily demonstrated. In fact, the District Court reversed itself with respect to the high school optional zones it had earlier held unconstitutional. In other instances, current segregative effect had not been proved. Though another high school, Dunbar, had been created and maintained until 1962 as a citywide black high school, the District Court found that because of the increasing black population in that area Dunbar would have been virtually all black by 1960 anyway. And though until the early 1950’s black orphans had been bused past nearby white schools to all-black schools, this “arguably” discriminatory conduct had not been shown by “objective proof” to have any continued segregative effect. Id., at 1241.
The court also looked to school construction and siting practices. Although 22 of 24 new schools, 78 of 95 additions, and all 26 portable schools built or utilized by the Board between 1950 and 1972 opened virtually all black or all white, and though many of the accompanying decisions appeared to be so without any rationale as to be “haphazard,” the District Court found that the plaintiffs had not shown purposeful segregation. The court also refused to investigate whether the Board had any legitimate grounds for the failure to close some schools and consolidate others when enrollment declined in recent years. Though such a course would have decreased racial separation and saved money, the court found no evidence of discriminatory purpose in those facts. Nor did the court see any hint of impermissible purpose in the Board’s decisions in the 1940’s to supply school services for legally segregated housing projects and to rent elementary school space in such projects.
Finally, the court held that the Board’s rescission of its earlier resolutions was not violative of the Fourteenth Amendment since, in light of the court’s finding that the current segregation had no unconstitutional origin, the Board had no constitutional obligation to adopt the resolutions in the first place.
We have no quarrel with our Brother Stewart’s general conclusion that there is great value in appellate courts showing deference to the fact-finding of local trial judges. Ante, at 470-471. The clearly-erroneous standard serves that purpose well. But under that standard, the role and duty of the Court of Appeals are clear: it must determine whether the trial court’s findings are clearly erroneous, sustain them if they are not, but set them aside if they are. The Court of Appeals performed its unavoidable duty in this case and concluded that the District Court had erred. Differing with our dissenting Brothers, we see no reason on the record before us to upset the judgment of the Court of Appeals in this respect.
We do not deprecate the relevance of segregated faculty assignments as one of the factors in proving the existence of a school system that is dual for teachers and students: but to the extent that the Court of Anneals understood Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education as holding that faculty segregation makes out a prima facie case not only of intentionally discriminatory faculty assignments contrary to the Fourteenth Amendment but also of purposeful racial assignment of students, this is an overreading of Swann.
The Court of Appeals also held that the District Court had not given proper weight to Oliver v. Michigan State Board of Education, 508 F. 2d 178, 182 (CA6 1974), cert. denied, 421 U. S. 963 (1975), where the Court of Appeals had held that “[a] presumption of segregative purpose arises when plaintiffs establish that the natural, probable, and foreseeable result of public officials’ action or inaction was an increase or perpetuation of public school segregation,” and that “[t]he presumption becomes proof unless defendants affirmatively establish that their action or inaction was a consistent and resolute application of racially neutral policies.” We have never held that as a general proposition the foreseeability of segregative consequences makes out a prima facie case of purposeful racial discrimination and shifts the burden of producing evidence to the defendants if they are to escape judgment; and even more clearly there is no warrant in our cases for holding that such foreseeability routinely shifts the burden of persuasion to the defendants. Of course, as we hold in Columbus today, ante, at 464-465, proof of foreseeable consequences is one type of quite relevant evidence of racially discriminatory purpose, and it may itself show a failure to fulfill the duty to eradicate the consequences of prior purposefully discriminatory conduct. See supra, at 535.
The Board heard from the local National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and other community groups, the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, the Ohio State Department of Education, and a citizens advisory group the Board had appointed; at times the Board itself expressed its recognition of the problem and of its responsibility, though ultimately it did nothing. 446 F. Supp., at 1251-1252.
Under the policy of “dynamic gradualism” instituted in 1951, see n. 7, supra, black teachers were assigned to white or mixed schools when the surrounding communities were ready to accept black teachers, and white teachers who agreed were assigned to black schools. App. 182-Ex. By 1969, each school in the system had at least one black teacher. The District Court apparently did not think the post-1951 policy was purposeful discrimination. 446 F. Supp., at 1238-1239. We think the Court of Appeals was completely justified in finding that conclusion to be clearly erroneous on the undisputed facts. As late as the 1968-1969 school year, the Board assigned 72% of all black teachers to schools that were 90% or more black, and only 9% of white teachers to such schools. And faculty segregation disappeared completely only after efforts of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. See 446 F. Supp., at 1238.
The Court of Appeals found that the District Court had committed clear error in reversing its earlier findings of purpose as to certain optional zones, which the Court of Appeals had earlier affirmed and this Court had not set aside. 583 F. 2d, at 255.
Petitioners also contend that the respondent children have failed to establish their standing to bring this action. This challenge is dependent on petitioners1 major contentions, for if the Court of Appeals was correct that the current, systemwide segregation is a result of past unlawful conduct then respondents, as students in the system, clearly have standing.
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. Chief Justice Vinson
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Cheek Wells was killed in Alabama when a grinding wheel with which he was working burst. The wheel had been manufactured by the respondent, a corporation with its principal place of business in Pennsylvania. The ad-ministratrix of the estate of Cheek Wells brought an action for damages in the federal court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania after one year, but within two years, after the death. Jurisdiction was based upon diversity of citizenship.
The section of the Alabama Code upon which petitioner predicated her action for wrongful death provided that action “. . . must be brought within two years from and after the death . . . .” The respondent moved for summary judgment on the ground the Pennsylvania wrongful death statute required suit to be commenced within one year. In an opinion on that motion, the district judge found that the Pennsylvania statute, which was analogous to the Alabama statute, had a one-year limitation. He further found that the Pennsylvania conflict of laws rule called for the application of its own limitation rather than that of the place of the accident. Deeming himself bound by the Pennsylvania conflicts rule, he ordered summary judgment for the respondent. The Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed.
We granted certiorari limited to the question whether this Pennsylvania conflicts rule violates the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the Federal Constitution.
The states are free to adopt such rules of conflict of laws as they choose, Kryger v. Wilson, 242 U. S. 171 (1916), subject to the Full Faith and Credit Clause and other constitutional restrictions. The Full Faith and Credit Clause does not compel a state to adopt any particular set of rules of conflict of laws; it merely sets certain minimum requirements which each state must observe when asked to apply the law of a sister state.
Long ago, we held that applying the statute of limitations of the forum to a foreign substantive right did not deny full faith and credit, McElmoyle v. Cohen, 13 Pet. 312 (1839); Townsend v. Jemison, 9 How. 407 (1850); Bacon v. Howard, 20 How. 22 (1857). Recently we referred to “. . . the well-established principle of conflict of laws that ‘If action is barred by the statute of limitations of the forum, no action can be maintained though action is not barred in the state where the cause of action arose.’ Restatement, Conflict of Laws § 603 (1934).” Order of United Commercial Travelers v. Wolfe, 331 U. S. 586, 607 (1947).
The rule that the limitations of the forum apply (which this Court has said meets the requirements of full faith and credit) is the usual conflicts rule of the states. However, there have been divergent views when a foreign statutory right unknown to the common law has a period of limitation included in the section creating the right. The Alabama statute here involved creates such a right and contains a built-in limitation. The view is held in some jurisdictions that such a limitation is so intimately connected with the right that it must be enforced in the forum state along with the substantive right.
We are not concerned with the reasons which have led some states for their own purposes to adopt the foreign limitation, instead of their own, in such a situation. The question here is whether the Full Faith and Credit Clause compels them to do so. Our prevailing rule is that the Full Faith and Credit Clause does not compel the forum state to use the period of limitation of a foreign state. We see no reason in the present situation to graft an exception onto it. Differences based upon whether the foreign right was known to the common law or upon the arrangement of the code of the foreign state are too unsubstantial to form the basis for constitutional distinctions under the Full Faith and Credit Clause.
We agree with the respondent that Engel v. Davenport, 271 U. S. 33 (1926), has no application here. It presented an entirely different problem. Congress had given a statutory cause of action to seamen for certain personal injuries, placing concurrent jurisdiction in the state and federal courts. In Engel, supra, the two-year federal limitation rather than the one-year California limitation for similar actions was held controlling in an action brought in the California courts. Once it was decided that the intention of Congress was that the two-year limitation was meant to apply in both federal and state courts under our Federal Constitution, that was the supreme law of the land.
Our decisions in Hughes v. Fetter, 341 U. S. 609 (1951), and First National Bank v. United Air Lines, 342 U. S. 396 (1952), do not call for a change in the well-established rule that the forum state is permitted to apply its own period of limitation. The crucial factor in those two cases was that the forum laid an uneven hand on causes of action arising within and without the forum state. Causes of action arising in sister states were discriminated against. Here Pennsylvania applies her one-year limitation to all wrongful death actions wherever they may arise. The judgment is
Affirmed.
Mr. Justice Clark, not having heard oral argument, took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
“A personal representative may maintain an action, and recover such damages as the jury may assess in a court of competent jurisdiction within the State of Alabama, and not elsewhere for the wrongful act, omission, or negligence of any person or persons, or corporation, his or their servants or agents, whereby the death of his testator or intestate was caused, if the testator or intestate could have maintained an action for such wrongful act, omission, or negligence, if it had not caused death. Such action shall not abate by the death of the defendant, but may be revived against his personal representative; and may be maintained, though there has not been prosecution, or conviction, or acquittal of the defendant for the wrongful act, or omission, or negligence; and the damages recovered are not subject to the payment of the debts or liabilities of the testator or intestate, but must be distributed according to the statute of distributions. Such action must be brought within two years from and after the death of the testator or intestate.” Ala. Code, 1940, Tit. 7, § 123.
Purdon’s Pa. Stat. Ann., 1931, Tit. 12, § 1603.
102 F. Supp. 519 (1951).
195 F. 2d 814 (1952). See also Quinn v. Simonds Abrasive Co., 199 F. 2d 416 (1952).
344 U. S. 815 (1952).
“Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State.” U. S. Const., Art. IV, § 1, el. 1.
Cf. dissenting opinion by Mr. Justice Black, Order of United Commercial Travelers v. Wolfe, 331 U. S. 625 (1947).
Restatement, Conflict of Laws, § 603 (1934).
Cristilly v. Warner, 87 Conn. 461, 88 A. 711 (1913), overruled on another ground, Daury v. Ferraro, 108 Conn. 386, 143 A. 630 (1928); Louisville & Nashville R. Co. v. Burkhart, 154 Ky. 92, 157 S. W. 18 (1913) (dictum); Negaubauer v. Great Northern R. Co., 92 Minn. 184, 99 N. W. 620 (1904). Contra: White v. Govatos, 40 Del. 349, 10 A. 2d 524 (1939); Tieffenbrun v. Flannery, 198 N. C. 397, 151 S. E. 857 (1930); Rosenzweig v. Heller, 302 Pa. 279, 153 A. 346 (1931). See also Restatement, Conflict of Laws, § 397, Comment b, and § 605 (1934).
“This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.” U. S. Const., Art. VI, cl. 2.
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 Fortas
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Alabama levies a tax upon photograph galleries and persons engaged in photography. If the business is conducted “at a fixed location,” the tax in the large cities is $25 a year for each such location. For each “transient or traveling photographer,” the tax is $5 per week for each county, town, or city in which he plies his trade.
This case involves state assessments of the transient photographers tax against appellant and its predecessor partnership. Appellant sought a declaration from the state courts that the assessment was improper, claiming that the tax was levied upon interstate commerce, in conflict with the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. The Supreme Court of Alabama sustained the tax. 282 Ala. 221, 210 So. 2d 696 (1968). We affirm.
Appellant is a photography firm specializing in selling photographs of children. It is organized as a North Carolina corporation and its principal office and processing plant are in Charlotte, North Carolina. It has no office or place of business in Alabama, nor does it maintain an inventory there. Its activities in that State stem from a contract between appellant and J. C. Penney Co. Penney operates department stores in eight cities in Alabama, as well as elsewhere in the Nation. By the terms of the contract, as summarized in the complaint, appellant’s photographers, nonresidents of Alabama, “were at the disposal of the local Penney stores. The local store manager requested Appellant to send representatives for picture taking on specified dates.” During the period for which the tax has been assessed, appellant’s photographers were sent to J. C. Penney stores in eight Alabama cities. According to the complaint, each visit lasted two to five days, and each city was visited from one to five times a year.
The Penney stores advertised the photographic service, inviting parents to bring their children to be photographed during the visit by appellant’s photographer. Each store took the order for the photographs, arranged the time for the sitting, provided a place in the store for the temporary studio, collected the money, and delivered the pictures to the customer when completed. Appellant was paid a percentage of the receipts from the Penney stores.
Appellant’s activities were limited to taking the pictures, transmitting the exposed film to its office in North Carolina where it was developed, printed, and finished, and mailing the finished prints to the Penney stores in Alabama.
It is clear from the taxing statute itself and from the decisions of the Supreme Court of Alabama that the tax is laid upon the distinctive business of the photographer, not upon the soliciting of orders or the processing of film. Graves v. State, 258 Ala. 359, 62 So. 2d 446 (1952); Haden v. Olan Mills, Inc., 273 Ala. 129, 135 So. 2d 388 (1961). Appellant argues that since each of its photographers came into Alabama from North Carolina to ply his trade, bringing his equipment with him, and since he merely exposed his film in Alabama, the developing, printing, and finishing operation being conducted in North Carolina, his activities in Alabama are an inseparable part of interstate commerce and cannot constitutionally be subject to the Alabama license tax. Appellant relies upon familiar cases decided by this Court holding that the Commerce Clause precludes a state-imposed flat sum privilege tax on an interstate enterprise whose only contact with the taxing State is the solicitation of orders and the subsequent delivery of merchandise within the taxing State. West Point Wholesale Grocery Co. v. Opelika, 354 U. S. 390 (1957); Memphis Steam Laundry Cleaner, Inc. v. Stone, 342 U. S. 389 (1952); Nippert v. City of Richmond, 327 U. S. 416 (1946). Such taxes have a substantial inhibitory effect on commerce which is essentially interstate.
But these cases are not applicable to the present facts. In determining whether a state tax imposes an impermissible burden on interstate commerce, the issue is whether the local activity which is made the nominal subject of the tax is “such an integral part of the interstate process, the flow of commerce, that it cannot realistically be separated from it.” Michigan-Wisconsin Pipe Line Co. v. Calvert, 347 U. S. 157, 166 (1954). If, for example, a license tax were imposed on the acts of engaging in soliciting orders or making deliveries, conflict with the Commerce Clause would be evident because these are minimal activities within a State without which there can be no interstate commerce. But in the present case, the “taxable event,” as defined by the State’s courts, is “pursu[ing] the art of photography in Alabama.” Graves v. State, 258 Ala. 359, 362, 62 So. 2d 446, 448. When appellant’s photographers set up their equipment in the local stores, posed the children brought to them to be photographed, and operated their cameras, they were engaged in an essentially local activity: the business of providing photographers’ services. The essentially local character of the activity is emphasized by the intimate connection between appellant’s photographers and the local stores in which they set up their temporary studios. Engaging in such local business may constitutionally be made subject to local taxation. E. g., Alaska v. Arctic Maid, 366 U. S. 199 (1961).
It could hardly be suggested that if J. C. Penney had set up its own resident or transient photography studios, using its own employees, such a photography business would have been exempt from state licensing merely because it chose to send the exposed film out of the State for processing. The extraction of a natural resource within a State is not immunized from state taxation merely because, once extracted, the product will immediately be shipped out of the State for processing and sale to consumers. Alaska v. Arctic Maid, supra, at 203-204; Oliver Iron Mining Co. v. Lord, 262 U. S. 172, 177-179 (1923). Cf. Toomer v. Witsell, 334 U. S. 385, 394-395 (1948). A fortiori, the fact that an intermediate processing stage takes place outside the State before the pictures are returned to the State for final delivery does not make the taking of the pictures — the activity on which the tax was imposed — so inseparable a part of the flow of interstate commerce as to be immune from state license taxation. The mere substitution for J. C. Penney’s own employees of a transient photographer who comes into Alabama from North Carolina does not convert the essentially local activity of photographing the subjects into an interstate activity immune from the state privilege tax. Cf. Caskey Baking Co. v. Virginia, 313 U. S. 117 (1941); Wagner v. City of Covington, 251 U. S. 95 (1919).
Nor is the tax invalid as a discrimination against interstate commerce. Alabama’s tax is levied equally upon all transient or traveling photographers whether their travel is interstate or entirely within the State. On the record before us, there is no basis for concluding that the $5 per week tax on transient out-of-state photographers is so disproportionate to the tax imposed on photographers with a fixed location as to bear unfairly on the former. Cf. West Point Wholesale Grocery Co. v. Opelika, 354 U. S. 390 (1957); Best & Co. v. Maxwell, 311 U. S. 454 (1940). In none of the cities for which appellant’s complaint gives the details of its activities would the transient tax imposed on it have exceeded that which a fixed-location photographer would have had to pay to operate in the city. For example, in 1965,. five visits are listed to Mobile, resulting in an assessed tax of $25. This is equal to the flat rate tax which a photographer permanently located in the city would have had to pay. Since, according to the complaint, the maximum tax on appellant in any year for any city would be $25, the burden could hardly be prohibitive.
Affirmed.
For smaller towns, the rate is stepped down. The lowest rate is $3 a year for localities with fewer than 1,000 inhabitants.
Title 51, Code of Alabama § 569, prior to its amendment in 1967, read as follows:
“Photographers and photograph galleries. Every photograph gallery, or person engaged in photography, when the business is conducted at a fixed location: In cities and towns of seventy-five thousand inhabitants and over, twenty-five dollars; in cities and towns of less than seventy-five thousand and not less than forty thousand inhabitants, fifteen dollars; in cities and towns of less than forty thousand and not less than seven thousand inhabitants, ten dollars; in cities and towns of less than seven thousand and over one thousand inhabitants, five dollars; in all other places whether incorporated or not, three dollars. The payment of the license required in this section shall authorize the doing of business only in the town, city or county where paid. For each transient or traveling photographer, five dollars per week.”
No point has been made as to the identity of the taxpayer or its liability for the tax if it may be constitutionally levied.
See n. 1, supra.
Appellant asserts in its brief — but not in the complaint — that the taxes assessed for its operations in Birmingham were almost twice what a fixed-location photographer would have had to pay for the same period. Even assuming that to be true, we are not prepared to say that this relative burden is improper, given the differences between the two ways of carrying on the business.
Allegedly, there were up to five visits per year to each city, each visit extending from two to five days. The tax rate for a transient photographer was $5 for each week of operation in a locality.
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 Black
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Respondent Lewis brought this action in the Court of Claims seeking a refund of an alleged overpayment of his 1944 income tax. The facts found by the Court of Claims are: In his 1944 income tax return, respondent reported about $22,000 which he had received that year as an employee’s bonus. As a result of subsequent litigation in a state court, however, it was decided that respondent’s bonus had been improperly computed; under compulsion of the state court’s judgment he returned approximately $11,000 to his employer. Until payment of the judgment in 1946, respondent had at all times claimed and used the full $22,000 unconditionally as his own, in the good faith though “mistaken” belief that he was entitled to the whole bonus.
On the foregoing facts the Government’s position is that respondent’s 1944 tax should not be recomputed, but that respondent should have deducted the $11,000 as a loss in his 1946 tax return. See G. C. M. 16730, XV-1 Cum. Bull. 179 (1936). The Court of Claims, however, relying on its own case, Greenwald v. United States, 102 Ct. Cl. 272, 57 F. Supp. 569, held that the excess bonus received “under a mistake of fact” was not income in 1944 and ordered a refund based on a recalculation of that year’s tax. 117 Ct. Cl. 336, 91 F. Supp. 1017. We granted cer-tiorari, 340 U. S. 903, because this holding conflicted with many decisions of the courts of appeals, see, e. g., Haberkorn v. United States, 173 F. 2d 587, and with principles announced in North American Oil v. Burnet, 286 U. S. 417.
In the North American Oil case we said: “If a taxpayer receives earnings under a claim of right and without restriction as to its disposition, he has received income which he is required to return, even though it may still be claimed that he is not entitled to retain the money, and even though he may still be adjudged liable to restore its equivalent.” 286 U. S. at 424. Nothing in this language permits an exception merely because a taxpayer is “mistaken” as to the validity of his claim. Nor has the “claim of right” doctrine been impaired, as the Court of Claims stated, by Freuler v. Helvering, 291 U. S. 35, or Commissioner v. Wilcox, 327 U. S. 404. The Freuler case involved an entirely different section of the Internal Revenue Code, and its holding is inapplicable here. 291 U. S. at 43. And in Commissioner v. Wilcox, supra, we held that receipts from embezzlement did not constitute income, distinguishing North American Oil on the ground that an embezzler asserts no “bona fide legal or equitable claim.” 327 U. S. at 408.
Income taxes must be paid on income received (or accrued) during an annual accounting period. Cf. I. R. C., §§ 41, 42; and see Burnet v. Sanford, & Brooks Co., 282 U. S. 359, 363. The “claim of right” interpretation of the tax laws has long been used to give finality to that period, and is now deeply rooted in the federal tax system. See cases collected in 2 Mertens, Law of Federal Income Taxation, § 12.103. We see no reason why the Court should depart from this well-settled interpretation merely because it results in an advantage or disadvantage to a taxpayer.
Reversed.
It has been suggested that it would be more “equitable” to reopen respondent’s 1944 tax return. While the suggestion might work to the advantage of this taxpayer, it could not be adopted as a general solution because, in many cases, the three-year statute of limitations would preclude recovery. I. R. C., § 322 (b).
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.
The petition for writ of certiorari is granted and the judgment is vacated. Petitioner, a presently defunct interstate motor carrier which had its principal place of business in California, sued respondent, a shipper, in the District Court for the Northern District of Illinois for underpayment of freight charges. Respondent counterclaimed for damages to its freight. Local trial counsel was engaged for the suit by petitioner’s general counsel in Los Angeles. The trial court ultimately dismissed petitioner’s complaint and entered judgment for respondent for $11,347.52 on its counterclaim. Petitioner filed a motion for new trial, which was denied on June 28, 1961. On that date petitioner’s general counsel, who by virtue of the fact that petitioner was winding up its business during 1961 had been delegated sole responsibility for all corporate decisions with respect to pending litigation, was vacationing in Mexico and could not be reached. He did not return to this country until July 20. In view of trial counsel’s inability to contact the general counsel in order to ask whether to appeal, he instead came before the District Court in Illinois on July 13, stated his problem, and asked for an extension of time within which to appeal beyond the 30-day limit prescribed by Fed. Rules Civ. Proc., 73 (a), an extension which by the terms of the rule is limited to a period “not exceeding 30 days from the expiration of the original time herein prescribed.” Opposing counsel, having been given notice, was present. The motion judge granted an extra two weeks, until August 11. Notice of appeal was filed on August 11. The Court of Appeals initially denied a motion of respondent to dismiss the appeal, and called for briefs on the merits. The court thereafter reconsidered and dismissed the appeal, holding that a showing of “excusable neglect based on a failure of a party to learn of the entry of the judgment,” Fed. Rules Civ. Proc., 73 (a), had not been made out to the motion judge, that there was hence no basis for waiving the 30-day limit, and that the appeal was untimely filed and had to be dismissed for lack of appellate jurisdiction: 303 F. 2d 609.
The District Court properly entertained the motion here in question to extend petitioner’s time to appeal to the Court of Appeals before the initial 30 days allowed for docketing the appeal had elapsed. Fed. Rules Civ. Proc., 73 (a), which governs here, is not limited to motions made after the 30 days have expired. See 7 Moore, Federal Practice (2d ed. 1955), ¶ 73.09 [3]; North Umberland Mining Co. v. Standard Acc. Ins. Co., 193 F. 2d 951, 952 (C. A. 9th Cir. 1952); Plant Economy, Inc., v. Mirror Insulation Co., 308 F. 2d 275, 276-277 (C. A. 3d Cir. 1962). The standard applicable on such a motion, whether it is made before or after the 30 days have run, is that the movant must show “excusable neglect based on a failure of a party to learn of the entry of the judgment,” Fed. Rules Civ. Proc., 73 (a). Compare 7 Moore, supra, ¶ 73.09 [3]; Notes of Advisory Committee on 1946 Amendments to Rule 73 (a), quoted in 7 Moore, supra, ¶ 73.01 [5], at p. 3111; Knowles v. United States, 260 F. 2d 852, 854 (C. A. 5th Cir. 1958). In view of the obvious great hardship to a party who relies upon the trial judge’s finding of “excusable neglect” prior to the expiration of the 30-day period and then suffers reversal of the finding, it should be given great deference by the reviewing court. Whatever the proper result as an initial matter on the facts here, the record contains a showing of unique circumstances sufficient that the Court of Appeals ought not to have disturbed the motion judge’s ruling. The judgment is vacated and the case is remanded to the Court of Appeals so that petitioner’s appeal may be heard on its 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 Marshall
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Economic Stabilization Act of 1970 authorized the President to issue orders and regulations to stabilize wages and salaries at levels not less than those prevailing on May 25, 1970. By Executive Order, the President created the Pay Board to oversee wage and salary controls imposed under the Act’s authorization. Exec. Order No. 11627, 3 CFR 218 (1971 Comp.), note following 12 U. S. C. § 1904 (1970 ed., Supp. I). In implementing the wage stabilization program, the Pay Board issued regulations that limited annual salary increases for covered employees to 5.5% and required prior Board approval for all salary adjustments affecting 5,000 or more employees. The State of Ohio subsequently enacted legislation providing for a 10.6% wage and salary increase, effective January 1, 1972, for almost 65,000 state employees. The State applied to the Pay Board for approval of the increases, and a. public hearing was held. In March 1972, the Board denied the application for an exemption to the extent that it exceeded salary increases of 7% for the 1972 wage year. Petitioners, two state employees, sought a writ of mandamus in state court to compel Ohio officials to pay the full increases provided in the state pay act. The Ohio Supreme Court granted the writ and ordered the increases to be paid. State ex rel. Fry v. Ferguson, 34 Ohio St. 2d 252, 298 N. E. 2d 129 (1973).
After the State Supreme Court decision, the United States filed this action in the District Court to enjoin Ohio and its officials from paying wage and salary increases in excess of the 7% authorized by the Pay Board. The District Court certified to the Temporary Emergency Court of Appeals the question of the applicability of federal wage and salary controls to state employees. See §211 (c) of the Economic Stabilization Act, note following 12 U. S. C. § 1904 (1970 ed., Supp. I).
The Court of Appeals construed the Act as applying to state employees and as thus construed upheld its constitutionality. United States v. Ohio, 487 F. 2d 936 (1973). Relying on the decisions of this Court in Maryland v. Wirtz, 392 U. S. 183 (1968), and United States v. California, 297 U. S. 175 (1936), the court concluded that the interference with state affairs incident to the uniform implementation of federal economic controls was of no consequence since Congress had a rational basis upon which to conclude that the state activity substantially affected commerce. The Court of Appeals accordingly enjoined the payment of wage and salary increases in excess of the amount authorized by the Pay Board. We affirm.
I
At the outset, it is contended that Congress did not intend to include state employees within the reach of the Economic Stabilization Act and that the Pay Board therefore did not have the authority to regulate the compensation due state employees. We disagree. The language and legislative history of the Act leave no doubt that Congress intended that it apply to employees throughout the economy, including those employed by state and local governments. The Act contemplated general stabilization of “prices, rents, wages, salaries, dividends, and interest,” § 202, note following 12 U. S. C. § 1904 (1970 ed., Supp. I), and it provided that the controls should “call for generally comparable sacrifices by business and labor as well as other segments of the economy.” § 203 (b)(5). It contained no exceptions for employees of any governmental bodies, even at the federal level. The failure of the Act to make express reference to the States does not warrant the inference that controls could not be extended to their employees. See Case v. Bowles, 327 U. S. 92, 99 (1946); United States v. California, 297 U. S., at 186. Indeed, in framing the Act, Congress specifically rejected an amendment that would have exempted employees of state and local governments. 117 Cong. Rec. 43673-43677 (1971). And the Senate Committee Report makes it plain that the Committee considered and rejected a proposed exemption for the same group. S. Rep. No. 92-507, p. 4 (1971). It is clear, then, that Congress intended to reach state and local governmental employees. The only remaining question is whether it could do so consistent with the constitutional limitations on its power.
II
Petitioners acknowledge that Congress’ power under-the Commerce Clause is very broad. Even activity that is purely intrastate in character may be regulated by Congress, where the activity, combined with like conduct by others similarly situated, affects commerce among the States or with foreign nations. See Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States, 379 U. S. 241, 255 (1964); Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U. S. 111, 127-128 (1942). There is little difficulty in concluding that such an effect could well result from large wage increases to 65,000 employees in Ohio and similar numbers in other States; e. g., general raises to state employees could inject millions of dollars of purchasing power into the economy and might exert pressure on other segments of the work force to demand comparable increases.
Petitioners do not appear to challenge Congress’ conclusion that unrestrained wage increases, even for employees of wholly intrastate operations, could have a significant effect on commerce. Instead, they contend that applying the Economic Stabilization Act to state employees interferes with sovereign state functions and for that reason the Commerce Clause should not be read to permit regulation of all state and local governmental employees.
On the facts of this case, this argument is foreclosed by our decision in Maryland v. Wirtz, 392 U. S. 183 (1968), where we held that the Fair Labor Standards Act could constitutionally be applied to schools and hospitals run by a State. Wirtz reiterated the principle that States are not immune from all federal regulation under the Commerce Clause merely because of their sovereign status. 392 U. S., at 196-197. We noted, moreover, that the statute at issue in Wirtz was quite limited in application. The federal regulation in this case is even less intrusive. Congress enacted the Economic Stabilization Act as an emergency measure' to counter severe inflation that threatened the national economy. H. R. Rep. No. 91-1330, pp. 9-11 (1970). The method it chose, under the Commerce Clause, was to give the President authority to freeze virtually all wages and prices, including the wages of state and local governmental employees. In 1971, when the freeze was activated, state and local governmental employees composed 14% of the Nation’s work force. Brief for United States 20. It seems inescapable that the effectiveness of federal action would have been drastically impaired if wage increases to this sizeable group of employees were left outside the reach of these emergency federal wage controls.
We conclude that the Economic Stabilization Act was constitutional as applied to state and local governmental employees. Since the Ohio wage legislation conflicted with the Pay Board’s ruling; under the Supremacy Clause the State must yield to the federal mandate. See Public Utilities Comm’n of California v. United States, 355 U. S. 534, 542-545 (1958); Murphy v. O’Brien, 485 F. 2d 671, 675 (Temp. Emerg. Ct. App. 1973).
Affirmed.
Mr. Justice Douglas.
Less than three months after we granted certiorari, Congress allowed the Economic Stabilization Act to expire on April 30, 1974. There is therefore no continuing impediment to the payment of salary increases of the kind at issue in this case. I would therefore dismiss the writ as improvidently granted.
Title II of the Act of Aug. 15, 1970, Pub. L. 91-379, 84 Stat. 799, as amended, note following 12 U. S. C. § 1904 (1970 ed., Supp. I). The Act was extended five times before it expired on April 30, 1974.
6 CFR §§ 101.21, 201.10 (1971). See also 6 CFR §101.28 (1972).
Ohio Rev. Code Ann. § 143.10 (A) (Supp. 1972). The Act provided for salary increases for employees of the state government, state universities, and county welfare departments. Elected state officials were not included.
The Pay Board determined that the implementation of the pay increase from March 1972 to November 1972 would reduce the effective rate to 7% for the wage year November 14, 1971, to November 13, 1972. The payments in issue here therefore represent the wages and salaries that were due from January 1, 1972, when the pay increase was to take effect, to March 16, 1972. The total amount involved is $10.5 million.
Petitioners did not raise the statutory issue either in their petition for certiorari or in their brief. Rather than decide a constitutional question when there may be doubt whether there is any statutory basis for it, however, we deal first with the statutory question, which is addressed in the briefs of amici curiae seeking reversal.
Congress did provide for the exemption of certain categories of employees, such as members of the working poor, those earning substandard wages, and those entitled to wage increases under the Fair Labor Standards Act. §§ 203 (d) and (f), note following 12 U. S. C. § 1904 (1970 ed., Supp. I). See also §§ 203 (c) (l)-(3), (f)(2), (3), and (g). The various stabilization agencies have uniformly interpreted the Act to include the States within its scope, see 36 Fed. Reg. 21790, 25428 (1971); 37 Fed. Reg. 1240, 24961, 24989-24991 (1972). We have long recognized that the interpretation of a statute by an implementing agency is entitled to great weight. Udall v. Tallman, 380 U. S. 1, 16-18 (1965).
Petitioners have stated their argument, not in terms of the Commerce power, but in terms of the limitations on that power imposed by the Tenth Amendment. While the Tenth Amendment has been characterized as a “truism,” stating merely that “all is retained which has not been surrendered,” United States v. Darby, 312 U. S. 100, 124 (1941), it is not without significance. The Amendment expressly declares the constitutional policy that Congress may not exercise power in a fashion that impairs the States’ integrity or their ability to function effectively in a federal system. Despite the extravagant claims on this score made by some amici, we are convinced that the wage restriction regulations constituted no such drastic invasion of state sovereignty.
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. Chief Justice Burger
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioner was convicted by a jury on five counts of an indictment charging him with knowingly and willfully making oral threats “to take the life of or to inflict bodily harm upon the President of the United States,” in violation of 18 U. S. C. § 871 (a). The Court of Appeals affirmed, 488 F. 2d 512 (CA5 1974), and we granted certiorari to resolve an apparent conflict among the Courts of Appeals concerning the elements of the offense proscribed by §871 (a). 419 U. S. 824 (1974). After full briefing and argument, however, we find it unnecessary to reach that question, since certain circumstances of petitioner’s trial satisfy us that the conviction must be reversed.
The record reveals that the jury retired for deliberation at 3 p. m. on the second day of petitioner’s trial. Approximately two hours later, at 4:55 p. m., the jury sent a note, signed by the foreman, to the trial judge, inquiring whether the court would “accept the Verdict — 'Guilty as charged with extreme mercy of the Court.’ ” Without notifying petitioner or his counsel, the court instructed the marshal who delivered the note “to advise the jury that the Court’s answer was in the affirmative.” Five minutes later, at 5 p. m., the jury returned, and the record contains the following account of the acceptance of its verdict:
“THE COURT: We understand from a note you sent to the Court the verdict finds him guilty on all five counts but that you wish to recommend extreme mercy; is that correct?
“THE FOREMAN: Yes, Your Honor.
“THE COURT: Will you please poll the jury. (Whereupon the jury was polled and all jurors answered in the affirmative.)
“THE COURT: Let the verdict be entered as the judgment of the Court. Certainly the Court will take into consideration your recommendation of mercy, but before we can act upon the case, we will have the Probation Officer make a pre-sentence investigation report. We do not know whether the man has a prior criminal record or not and we will certainly take into account what you have recommended.” 2 Tr. 192-193.
Generally, a recommendation of leniency made by a jury without statutory authorization does not affect the validity of the verdict and may be disregarded by the sentencing judge. See Cook v. United States, 379 F. 2d 966, 970 (CA5 1967), and cases cited. However, in Cook, the Court of Appeals held that an exception to this general rule, requiring further inquiry by the trial court, arises where the circumstances of the recommendation cast doubt upon the unqualified nature of the verdict. Assuming the validity of the exception, we need not decide whether either the factual differences between the recommendation in Cook and that in the instant case, or petitioner’s failure to request further inquiry prior to the recording of the verdict, see Fed. Rule Crim. Proc. 31 (d), would suffice to distinguish the cases for purposes of appropriate appellate relief. See 8 J. Moore, Federal Practice ¶ 31.07 (2d ed. 1975). We deal here not merely with a potential defect in the verdict.
In Fillippon v. Albion Vein Slate Co., 250 U. S. 76 (1919), the Court observed “that the orderly conduct of a trial by jury, essential to the proper protection of the right to be heard, entitles the parties who attend for the purpose to be present in person or by counsel at all proceedings from the time the jury is impaneled until it is discharged after rendering the verdict.” Id., at 81. In applying that principle, the Court held that the trial judge in a civil case had “erred in giving a supplementary instruction to the jury in the absence of the parties and without affording them an opportunity either to be present or to make timely objection to the instruction.” Ibid.
In Shields v. United States, 273 U. S. 583 (1927), the Court had occasion to consider the implications of the “orderly conduct of a trial by jury” in a criminal case. The trial judge had replied to a written communication from the jury, indicating its inability to agree as to the guilt or innocence of the defendant, by sending a written direction that it must find the defendant “guilty or not guilty.” The communications were not made in open court while the defendant and his counsel were present nor were they advised of them. The jury thereupon found Shields guilty of one count with a recommendation of mercy. This Court held that a previous request by counsel for Shields and the Government that the trial judge hold the jury in deliberation until they had agreed upon a verdict “did not justify exception to the rule of orderly conduct of jury trial entitling the defendant, especially in a criminal case, to be present from the time the jury is impaneled until its discharge after rendering the verdict.” Id., at 588-589.
As in Shields, the communication from the jury in this case was tantamount to a request for further instructions. However, we need not look solely to our prior decisions for guidance as to the appropriate procedure in such a situation. Federal Rule Crim. Proc. 43 guarantees to a defendant in a criminal trial the right to be present “at every stage of the trial including the impaneling of the jury and the return of the verdict.” Cases interpreting the Rule make it clear, if our decisions prior to the promulgation of the Rule left any doubt, that the jury’s message should have been answered in open court and that petitioner’s counsel should have been given an opportunity to be heard before the trial judge responded. See, e. g., United States v. Schor, 418 F. 2d 26, 29-30 (CA2 1969); United States v. Glick, 463 F. 2d 491, 493 (CA2 1972).
Although a violation of Rule 43 may in some circumstances be harmless error, see Fed. Rule Crim. Proc. 52 (a); United States v. Schor, supra, the nature of the information conveyed to the jury, in addition to the manner in which it was conveyed, does not permit that conclusion in this case. The trial judge should not have confined his response to the jury’s inquiry to an indication of willingness to accept a verdict with a recommendation of “extreme mercy.” At the very least, the court should have reminded the jury that the recommendation would not be binding in any way. But see United States v. Davidson, 367 F. 2d 60 (CA6 1966). In addition, the response should have included the admonition that the jury had no sentencing function and should reach its verdict without regard to what sentence might be imposed. See United States v. Louie Gim Hall, 245 F. 2d 338 (CA2 1957); United States v. Glick, supra, at 494. Cf. United States v. Patrick, 161 U. S. App. D. C. 231, 494 F. 2d 1150 (1974).
The fact that the jury, which had been deliberating for almost two hours without reaching a verdict, returned a verdict of “guilty with extreme mercy” within five minutes “after being told unconditionally and unequivocally that it could recommend leniency,” United States v. Glick, supra, at 495, strongly suggests that the trial judge’s response may have induced unanimity by giving members of the jury who had previously hesitated about reaching a guilty verdict the impression that the recommendation might be an acceptable compromise. We acknowledge that the comments of the trial judge upon receiving the verdict may be said to have put petitioner’s counsel on notice that the jury had communicated with the court, but the only indication that the court had unilaterally communicated with the jury comes from the note itself, which the court correctly ordered to be filed in the record, with a notation as to the time of receipt and the court’s response. It appears, however, that petitioner’s counsel was not aware of the court’s communication until after we granted the petition for certiorari. In such circumstances, and particularly in light of the difficult task of the factfinder in a prosecution under § 871 (a), see Watts v. United States, 394 U. S. 705 (1969), we conclude that the combined effect of the District Court’s errors was so fraught with potential prejudice as to require us to notice them notwithstanding petitioner’s failure to raise the issue in the Court of Appeals or in this Court. Silber v. United States, 370 U. S. 717 (1962); Brotherhood of Carpenters v. United States, 330 U. S. 395, 411-412 (1947). Cf. United States v. Davidson, 367 F. 2d, at 63.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is accordingly reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
Reversed and remanded.
Petitioner was originally sentenced to five years’ imprisonment on each count, subject to the early parole eligibility provisions of 18 U. S. C. § 4208 (a) (2), to be followed by five years’- supervised probation on the condition that he join Alcoholics Anonymous. The sentence on the last four counts was to run concurrently and to be suspended during good behavior. Cf. United States v. Davidson, 367 F. 2d 60, 63 (CA6 1966). It appears from the record that the District Judge sought to use the confinement to afford petitioner an opportunity to be cured of his alcoholism.
At the suggestion of the Court of Appeals, petitioner moved for, and the Government did not oppose, “a reduction of the stringent sentences imposed in the District Court” under Fed. Rule Crim. Proc. 35. The motion was granted, and petitioner’s sentence was reduced to three years’ imprisonment on each count. Petitioner was released from confinement on December 24, 1974. He remains subject to five years’ supervised probation. After argument we were advised by the Solicitor General that on April 7, 1975, peti-
As in Davidson, 367 F. 2d, at 63, the trial court’s response was inconsistent with the instruction in the general charge that “punishment ... is a matter exclusively within the province of the Court and is not to be considered by the jury in arriving at an impartial verdict. . . .” 2 Tr. 190.
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
delivered the opinion of the Court.
We are called upon to determine whether the Treasury-Regulations creating a right of survivorship in United States Savings Bonds pre-empt any inconsistent Texas community property law by virtue of the Supremacy Clause, Article VI, Clause 2, of the Constitution.
The petitioner is the widower of Mrs. Mary Ida Free, and the respondent is her son by a previous marriage. Mr. and Mrs. Free were domiciled in Texas. That State follows the community property system; except in certain instances not here material, all property acquired by either spouse during marriage belongs to the community of the husband and wife. Property purchased with community property retains a community character. See Love v. Robertson, 7 Tex. 6. Although each spouse owns an undivided one-half interest in the community property, the husband is the sole authorized manager. During the years 1941 to 1945, petitioner Free, using community property, purchased several United States Savings Bonds, series “E” and “F.” The bonds were all issued to “Mr. or Mrs.” Free. Under the Treasury Regulations promulgated under 31 U. S. C. § 757c (a) which govern bonds issued in that form, when either co-owner dies, “the survivor will be recognized as the sole and absolute owner.” 31 CFR § 315.61. After Mrs. Free passed away in 1958, this controversy arose between the husband, who claimed exclusive ownership by operation of the Treasury Regulations, and the son, who, as the principal beneficiary under his mother’s will, claimed an interest in the bonds by virtue of the state community property laws. Respondent son demanded either one-half of the bonds or reimbursement for the loss of Mrs. Free’s community half interest in the bonds which was converted into petitioner’s separate property by operation of the federal regulations.
In order to resolve the controversy, petitioner Free filed suit in the District Court of Upshur County, Texas, against the respondent individually and as the executor of Mrs. Free’s estate. ' Respondent Bland filed a counterclaim. On the petitioner’s motion for summary judgment, the trial court awarded full title to the bonds to the petitioner by virtue of the federal regulations but awarded reimbursement to the respondent by virtue of the state community property laws, making the bonds security for payment. The petitioner appealed to the Court of Civil Appeals. That court affirmed the trial court’s award of full title to the petitioner but reversed the award of reimbursement to the respondent, relying upon Smith v. Ricks, 159 Tex. 280, 318 S. W. 2d 439, in which unconditional effect was given to the sur-vivorship provisions of the federal regulations governing savings bonds.
While respondent’s writ of error was pending in the Supreme Court of Texas, that court overruled the Ricks case in Hilley v. Hilley, 161 Tex. 569, 342 S. W. 2d 565. After holding that married couples in Texas would not be permitted to agree to any survivorship provision with regard to community property, the court dismissed the argument that the Supremacy Clause would compel recognition of the survivorship provisions in United States Savings Bonds with:
“It is clear that the Federal regulations do not override our local laws in matters of purely private ownership where the interests of the United States are not involved. Bank of America National Trust & Savings Ass’n v. Parnell, 352 U. S. 29.” 161 Tex., at 577, 342 S. W. 2d, at 570.
Subsequently, respondent Bland’s writ of error was granted, and the Supreme Court of Texas, acting under the authority of the Hilley case, reversed the Court of Civil Appeals and reinstated the judgment of the trial court in a per curiam opinion. Bland v. Free, 162 Tex. 72, 344 S. W. 2d 435. We granted certiorari. 368 U. S. 811.
The Supreme Court of Texas’ interpretation of the Supremacy Clause is not in accord with controlling doctrine. The relative importance to the State of its own law is not material when there is a conflict with a valid federal law, for the Framers of our Constitution provided that the federal law must prevail. Article VI, Clause 2. This principle was made clear by Chief Justice Marshall when he stated for the Court that any state law, however clearly within a State’s acknowledged power, which interferes with or is contrary to federal law, must yield. Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 210-211. See Franklin National Bank v. New York, 347 U. S. 373; Wissner v. Wissner, 338 U. S. 655; Sola Electric Co. v. Jefferson Electric Co., 317 U. S. 173. Thus our inquiry is directed toward whether there is a valid federal law, and if so, whether there is a conflict with state law.
Article I, Section 8, Clause 2 of the Constitution delegates to the Federal Government the power “[t]o borrow money on the credit of the United States.” Pursuant to this grant of power, the Congress authorized the Secretary of the Treasury, with the approval of the President, to issue savings bonds in such form and under such conditions as he may from time to time prescribe, subject to certain limitations not here material. 31 U. S. C. § 757c (a). Cf. United States v. Sacks, 257 U. S. 37. Exercising that authority, the Secretary of the Treasury issued savings bonds under regulations which provided, inter alia, that the co-owner of a savings bond issued in the “or” form who survives the other co-owner “will be recognized as the sole and absolute owner” of the bond, 31 CFR § 315.61, and that “[n]o judicial determination will be recognized which would . . . defeat or impair the rights of survivorship conferred by these regulations,” 31 CFR § 315.20. The Treasury has consistently maintained that the purpose of these regulations is to establish the right of survivorship regardless of local state law, and a majority of the States which have considered the problem have recognized this right. The respondent, however, contends that the purpose of the regulations is simply to provide a convenient method of payment. This argument depends primarily on the distinction between stating that the surviving co-owner will “be recognized as” the sole owner and stating that the surviving co-owner will “be” the sole owner. This distinction is insubstantial. The clear purpose of the regulations is to confer the right of survivorship on the surviving co-owner. Thus, the survivorship provision is a federal law which must prevail if it conflicts with state law. See Wissner v. Wissner, 338 U. S. 655.
The success of the management of the national debt depends to a significant measure upon the success of the sales of the savings bonds. The Treasury is authorized to make the bonds attractive to savers and investors. One of the inducements selected by the Treasury is the survivorship provision, a convenient method of avoiding complicated probate proceedings. Notwithstanding this provision, the State awarded full title to the co-owner but required him to account for half of the value of the bonds to the decedent’s estate. Viewed realistically, the State has rendered the award of title meaningless. Making the bonds security for the payment confirms the accuracy of this view. If the State can frustrate the parties’ attempt to use the bonds’ survivorship provision through the simple expedient of requiring the survivor to reimburse the estate of the deceased co-owner as a matter of law, the State has interfered directly with a legitimate exercise of the power of the Federal Government to borrow money.
Bank of America Trust & Savings Assn. v. Parnell, 352 U. S. 29, relied upon by the court below, does not support the result reached. The Court in that case held that, in the absence of any federal law, the application of state law to determine the liability of a converter of Federal Home Owners’ Loan Corporation bonds was permissible, because the litigation between the two private parties there did not intrude upon the rights and the duties of the United States, the effect on the only possible interest of the United States — the floating of securities — being too speculative to justify the application of a federal rule. That doctrine clearly does not apply when the State fails to give effect to a term or condition under which a federal bond is issued, as the Court there noted. “Federal law of course governs the interpretation of the nature of the rights and obligations created by the Government bonds themselves.” 352 U. S., at 34.
We hold, therefore, that the state law which prohibits a married couple from taking advantage of the survivor-ship provisions of United States Savings Bonds merely because the purchase price is paid out of community property must fall under the Supremacy Clause.
Our holding is supported by Wissner v. Wissner, 338 U. S. 655. There the Congress made clear its intent to allow a serviceman to select the beneficiary of his own government life insurance policy regardless of state law, even when it was likely that the husband intended to deprive his wife of a right to share in his life insurance proceeds, a right guaranteed by state law. But the regulations governing savings bonds do not go that far. While affording purchasers of bonds the opportunity to choose a survivorship provision which must be recognized by the States, the regulations neither insulate the purchasers from all claims regarding ownership nor immunize the bonds from execution in satisfaction of a judgment. The Solicitor General, appearing as amicus curiae, acknowledges that there is an exception implicit in the savings bond regulations, including the survivor-ship provision, so that federal bonds will not be a “sanctuary for a wrongdoer’s gains.” With this, we agree. The regulations are not intended to be a shield for fraud, and relief would be available in a case where the circumstances manifest fraud or a breach of trust tantamount thereto on the part of a husband while acting in his capacity as manager of the general community property. However, the doctrine of fraud applicable under federal law in such a case must be determined on another day, for this issue is not presently here. On the record before us, no issue of fraud was or could properly have been decided by the court below on summary judgment. There was no direct allegation of fraud in the counterclaim. Other allegations which in some circumstances might have a bearing on the subject were controverted and therefore can only be resolved by a trial on the merits. Accordingly, the judgment is reversed and the case is remanded for proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
Reversed and remanded.
Mr. Justice Frankfurter took no part in the decision of this case.
Mr. Justice White took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
Vernon's Tex. Civ. Stat., Art. 4619. See Tex. Const., Art. XVI, § 16; Vernon’s Tex. Civ. Stat., Arts. 4613-4627. Property acquired by gift, devise or descent is separate property. Vernon’s Tex. Civ. Stat., Arts. 4613-4614. Also, community property partitioned in the manner provided in Vernon’s Tex. Civ. Stat., Art. 4624a, becomes separate property. See generally Huie, Commentary on the Community Property Laws of Texas, 13 Vernon’s Tex. Civ. Stat. 1.
Vernon’s Tex. Civ. Stat., Art. 4619. See Huie, supra, note 1, at 39. The wife may have managerial power over the “special” community comprised of her income and the income from her separate property. See Bearden v. Knight, 149 Tex. 108, 228 S. W. 2d 837. Blevins, Recent Statutory Changes in the Wife’s Managerial Powers, 38 Tex. L. Rev. 55.
337 S. W. 2d 805 (Tex. Civ. App.).
“The Secretary of the Treasury, with the approval of the President, is authorized to issue, from time to time, through the Postal Service or otherwise, United States savings bonds and United States Treasury savings certificates, the proceeds of which shall be available to meet any public expenditures authorized by law, and to retire any outstanding obligations of the United States bearing interest or issued on a discount basis. The various issues and series of the savings bonds and the savings certificates shall be in such forms, shall be offered in such amounts, subject to the limitation imposed by section 757b of this title, and shall be issued in such manner and subject to such terms and conditions consistent with subsections (b)-(d) of this section, and including any restrictions on their transfer, as the Secretary of the Treasury may from time to time prescribe.”
“If either coowner dies without the bond having been presented and surrendered for payment or authorized reissue, the survivor will be recognized as the sole and absolute owner. Thereafter, payment or reissue will be made as though the bond were registered in the name of the survivor alone . . . .”
“No judicial determination will be recognized which would give effect to an attempted voluntary transfer inter vivos of a bond or would defeat or impair the rights of survivorship conferred by these regulations upon a surviving coowner or beneficiary, and all other provisions of this subpart are subject to this restriction. Otherwise, a claim against an owner or coowner of a savings bond and conflicting claims as to ownership of, or interest in, such bond as between coowners or between the registered owner and beneficiary will be recognized, when established by valid judicial proceedings, upon presentation and surrender of the bond, but only as specifically provided in this subpart.”
See, e. g., Statement of Treasury Department on Rights of Surviving Coowners and Beneficiaries of Savings Bonds, dated July 5, 1945, and fifth revision, dated October 1, 1958; Letter from the Acting Assistant General Counsel of the Treasury to the Attorney General of Missouri, June 9, 1941; Treasury Department Circular No. 530, 1935.
See, e. g., Lee v. Anderson, 70 Ariz. 208, 218 P. 2d 732; Stephens v. First National Bank of Nevada, 65 Nev. 352, 196 P. 2d 756.
See, e. g., Decker v. Fowler, 199 Wash. 549, 92 P. 2d 254. In this case the Government participated as amicus curiae in support of an application for rehearing, urging that the court had erroneously construed the regulations.
Leslie Miller, Inc., v. Arkansas, 352 U. S. 187; Standard Oil Co. v. Johnson, 316 U. S. 481; United States v. Sacks, 257 U. S. 37; United States v. Birdsall, 233 U. S. 223.
31 U. S. C. § 757c (a). See note 4, supra.
31 CFR §§ 315.20-315.23. See note 6, supra.
Brief for the United States as amicus curiae, p. 21. See also id., pp. 26-28.
See, e. g., Holmberg v. Armbrecht, 327 U. S. 392; Clearfield Trust Co. v. United States, 318 U. S. 363.
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 Kennedy
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Respondent Cal Coburn Brown robbed, raped, tortured, and murdered one woman in Washington. Two days later, he robbed, raped, tortured, and attempted to murder a second woman in Cahfornia. Apprehended, Brown confessed to these crimes and pleaded guilty to the California offenses, for which he received a sentence of life imprisonment. The State of Washington, however, sought the death penalty and brought Brown to trial. Based on the jury’s verdicts in the.guilt and sentencing phases of the trial, Brown was sentenced to death. His conviction and sentence were affirmed by the Supreme Court of the State of Washington. State v. Brown, 132 Wash. 2d 529, 940 P. 2d 546 (1997) (en banc).
Brown filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington. The District Court denied the petition, App. to Pet. for Cert. 77a-79a, 91a, but the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed. Brown v. Lambert, 451 F. 3d 946 (2006). The Court of Appeals considered, among other arguments for setting aside the capital sentence, the contention that under Witherspoon v. Illinois, 391 U. S. 510 (1968), and its progeny, the state trial court had violated Brown’s Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment rights by excusing three potential jurors — whom we refer to as Jurors X, Y, and Z — for cause. The State moved to excuse these jurors due to the concern that they could not be impartial in deciding whether to impose a death sentence. The Court of Appeals held it was proper to excuse Jurors X and Y, but agreed with the defense that it was unconstitutional to excuse Juror Z for cause. On this premise the court held that Brown’s death sentence could not stand, requiring that Brown receive a new sentencing trial more than a decade after his conviction.
We granted certiorari, 549 U. S. 1162 (2007), and we reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
I
When considering the controlling precedents, Wither-spoon is not the final word, but it is a necessary starting point. During the voir dire that preceded William Wither-spoon’s capital trial, the prosecution succeeded in removing a substantial number of jurors based on their general scruples against inflicting the death penalty. The State challenged, and the trial court excused for cause, 47 members of the 96-person venire, without significant examination of the individual prospective jurors. 391 Ü. S., at 514-515; see also Brief for Petitioner in Witherspoon v. Illinois, O. T. 1967, No. 1015, p. 4. The Court held that the systematic removal of those in the venire opposed to the death penalty had led to a jury “uncommonly willing to condemn a man to die,” 391 U. S., at 521, and thus “woefully short of that impartiality to which the petitioner was entitled under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments,” id., at 518. Because “[a] man who opposes the death penalty, no less than one who favors it, can make the discretionary judgment entrusted to him by the State,” id., at 519, the Court held that “a sentence of death cannot be carried out if the jury that imposed or recommended it was chosen by excluding veniremen for cause simply because they voiced general objections to the death penalty,” id., at 522. The Court also set forth, in dicta in a footnote, a strict standard for when an individual member of the venire may be removed for cause on account of his or her views on the death penalty. Id., at 522-523, n. 21.
In Wainwright v. Witt, 469 U. S. 412 (1985), the Court explained that “Witherspoon is best understood in the context of its facts.” Id., at 418. The Court noted that in Wither-spoon the trial court had excused half the venire — every juror with conscientious objections to capital punishment. 469 U. S., at 416. Furthermore, the state sentencing scheme under which Witherspoon’s sentence was imposed permitted the jury “unlimited discretion in choice of sentence.” Id., at 421. When a juror is given unlimited discretion, the Court' explained, all he or she must do to follow instructions is consider the death penalty, even if in the end he or she would not be able to impose it. Ibid. Rejecting the strict standard found in Witherspoon’s footnote 21, the Court recognized that the diminished discretion now given to capital jurors and the State’s interest in administering its capital punishment scheme called for a different standard. The Court relied on Adams v. Texas, 448 U. S. 38, 45 (1980), which provided the following standard: “whether the juror’s views would prevent or substantially impair the performance of his duties as a juror in accordance with his instructions and his oath.” Witt, 469 U. S., at 424 (internal quotation marks omitted).
The Court in Witt instructed that, in applying this standard, reviewing courts are to accord deference to the trial court. Deference is owed regardless of whether the trial court engages in explicit analysis regarding substantial impairment; even the granting of a motion to excuse for cause constitutes an implicit finding of bias. Id., at 430. The judgment as to “whether a venireman is biased... is based upon determinations of demeanor and credibility that are peculiarly within a trial judge’s province. Such determinations [are] entitled to deference even on direct review; the respect paid such findings in a habeas proceeding certainly should be no less.” Id., at 428 (internal quotation marks, footnote, and brackets omitted). And the finding may be upheld even in the absence of clear statements from the juror that he or she is impaired because “many veniremen simply cannot be asked enough questions to reach the point where their bias has been made ‘unmistakably clear’; these veniremen may not know how they will react when faced with imposing the death sentence, or may be unable to articulate, or may wish to hide their true feelings.” Id., at 424-425. Thus, when there is ambiguity in the prospective juror’s statements, “the trial court, aided as it undoubtedly [is] by its assessment of [the venireman’s] demeanor, [is] entitled to resolve it in favor of the State.” Id., at 434.
The rule of deference was reinforced in Darden v. Wainwright, 477 U. S. 168 (1986). There, the State had chailenged a potential juror, and the defense had not objected to his removal. Without further questioning from the trial court, the juror was excused. Id., at 178. The petitioner argued to this Court that the transcript of voir dire did not show that the removed juror was substantially impaired because the critical answer he had given was ambiguous. The Court rejected this argument. “[Q]ur inquiry does not end with a mechanical recitation of a single question and answer.” Id., at 176. Even when “[t]he precise wording of the question asked of [the venireman], and the answer he gave, do not by themselves compel the conclusion that he could not under any circumstance recommend the death penalty,” the need to defer to the trial court remains because so much may turn on a potential juror’s demeanor. Id., at 178. The absence of an objection, and the trial court’s decision not to engage in further questioning as it had prior to excusing other jurors, supported the conclusion that the juror was impaired. Ibid.
In Gray v. Mississippi, 481 U. S. 648 (1987), the Court addressed once more a case involving not the excusal of a single juror but rather systematic exclusion. The State had lodged for-cause or peremptory challenges against every juror who “expressed any degree of uncertainty in the ability to cast... a vote” for the death penalty, id., at 652, and quickly exhausted all 12 of its peremptory challenges, id., at 653. The prosecution then challenged a juror who had expressed no opposition to the death penalty and had said many times that she could return a death sentence.. The trial court denied the challenge. Id., at 654-655. Arguing that the trial court had erroneously denied certain earlier challenges for cause, and thus had forced the State to waste peremptory challenges, the prosecution sought to reopen those previous challenges. The trial court refused to do so, but removed the current juror, over objection from the defense. Id., at 655. On appeal all of the state judges agreed the juror could not be excused for cause under either the Witherspoon or the Witt standard, but the majority held it was appropriate, under the circumstances, to treat the challenge in question as a peremptory strike. 481 U. S., at 656-657.
This Court reversed, holding that the juror had been removed for cause and that she was not substantially impaired under the controlling Witt standard. 481 U. S., at 659. The error was not subject to harmlessness review, and thus the sentence could not stand. Ibid. Gray represents a rare case, however, because in the typical situation there will be a state-court finding of substantial impairment; in Gray, the state courts had found the opposite, which makes that precedent of limited significance to the instant case.
These precedents establish at least four principles of relevance here. First, a criminal defendant has the right to an impartial jury drawn from a venire that has not been tilted in favor of capital punishment by selective prosecutorial challenges for cause. Witherspoon, 391 U. S., at 521. Second, the State has a strong interest in having jurors who are able to apply capital punishment within the framework state law prescribes. Witt, 469 U. S., at 416. Third, to balance these interests, a juror who is substantially impaired in his or her ability to impose the death penalty under the state-law framework can be excused for cause; but if the juror is not substantially impaired, removal for cause is impermissible. Id., at 424. Fourth, in determining whether the removal of a potential juror would vindicate the State’s interest without violating the defendant’s right, the trial court makes a judgment based in part on the demeanor of the juror, a judgment owed deference by reviewing courts. Id., at 424-434.
Deference to the trial court is appropriate because it is in a position to assess the demeanor of the venire, and of the individuals who compose it, a factor of critical importance in assessing the attitude and qualifications of potential jurors. Id., at 428; Darden, supra, at 178. Leading treatises in the area make much of nonverbal communication. See, e. g., V. Starr & M. McCormick, Jury Selection 389-523 (3d ed. 2001); J. Frederick, Mastering Voir Dire and Jury Selection 39-56 (2d ed. 2005).
The requirements of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996,110 Stat. 1214, of course, provide additional, and binding, directions to accord deference. The provisions of that statute create an independent, high standard to be met before a federal court may issue a writ of habeas corpus to set aside state-court rulings. See 28 U. S. C. §§2254(d)(1)-(2); Williams v. Taylor, 529 U. S. 362, 413 (2000) (O’Connor, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment).
By not according the required deference, the Court of Appeals failed to respect the limited role of federal habeas relief in this area prescribed by Congress and by our cases.
II
A
In applying the principles of Witherspoon and Witt, it is instructive to consider the entire voir dire in Brown’s case. Spanning more than two weeks, the process entailed an examination of numerous prospective jurors. After the third day of the voir dire, during which few jurors were questioned, the trial court explained the process would “have to go a little bit faster.” Tr. 1398. The next day, the court reiterated this concern, for it had told the jury the trial would take no more than six weeks in order not to conflict with the Christmas holidays. Id., at 1426.
Eleven days of the voir dire were devoted to determining whether the potential jurors were death qualified. During that phase alone, the defense challenged 18 members of the venire for cause. Despite objections from the State, 11 of those prospective jurors were excused. As for the State, it made 12 challenges for cause; defense counsel objected seven times; and only twice was the juror excused following an objection from the defense. Before deciding a contested challenge, the trial court gave each side a chance to explain its position and recall the potential juror for additional questioning. When issuing its decisions the court gave careful and measured explanations. See, e. g., id., at 2601-2604 (denying the State’s motion to excuse a juror following an objection for defense); App. 97-100 (granting the State’s motion to excuse Juror X despite an objection from defense).
Before the State challenged Juror Z, the defense moved to excuse a potential juror who had demonstrated some confusion. After argument from both counsel, the trial court explained that it would be open to further questioning if one of the parties felt the juror’s position could be clarified: “I thought at first the both of you were wanting to excuse [this juror] since he seemed kind of confused to both sides, but if there really is a question, let me know and I don’t have any hesitation about bringing the juror out here and following up.” Id., at 26. Consistent with the need for an efficient voir dire, the court also told counsel: “Let me point something out to both sides. If you are going to agree on a challenge,... we can shortcut some of what happens out here.” Ibid.
Setting aside the disputed circumstances of Juror Z’s removal, the defense refrained from objecting to the State’s challenges for cause only when the challenged juror was explicit that he or she would not impose the death penalty or could not understand the burden of proof. See Tr. 1457, 1912, 2261, 2940. For other jurors, the defense objections were vigorous and, it seems, persuasive. The defense argued that the jurors’ equivocal statements reflected careful thinking and responsibility, not substantial impairment. See, e. g., id., at 1791, 2111, 2815. The tenacity of Brown’s counsel was demonstrated when, long after the trial court had overruled the defense objection and excused Juror Y, the defense moved in writing to have her returned for further questioning and rehabilitation. Id., at 3151-3154. The trial court denied this motion after argument from both parties. Id., at 3154.
The defense also lodged its own challenges for cause. In defending them against the State’s objections, defense counsel argued, contrary to the position Brown takes in this Court, that a trial court cannot rely upon a potential juror’s bare promises to follow instructions and obey the law. See, e.g., id., at 1713-1714, 1960-1961, 2772-2773, 3014-3016. With regard to one juror, defense counsel argued:
“Any time this individual was asked any questions about following the law, he will always indicate that he will. But when we look to see... his view[s] on the death penalty,... they [are] so strong that they would substantially impair his ability to follow the law and to follow his oath as a juror.” Id., at 1960-1961.
In at least two instances this argument appears to have prevailed when the trial court overruled the State’s objection to Brown’s challenge for cause.
A final, necessary part of this history is the instruction the venire received from the court concerning the sentencing options in the case. Before individual oral examination, the trial court distributed a questionnaire asking jurors to explain their attitudes toward, the death penalty. When distributing the questionnaire, the court explained the general structure of the trial and the burden of proof. It described how the penalty phase would function:
“[I]f you found Mr. Brown guilty of the crime of first degree murder with one or more aggravating circumstances, then you would be reconvened for a second phase called a sentencing phase. During that sentencing phase proceeding you could hear additional evidence [and] arguments concerning the penalty to be imposed. You would then be asked to retire to determine whether the death penalty should be imposed or whether the punishment should be life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
“In making this determination you would be asked the following question: Having in mind the crime with which the defendant has been found guilty, are you convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that there are not sufficient mitigating circumstances to merit leniency?. If you unanimously answered yes to this question, the sentence would be death.... [Otherwise] the sentence would be life imprisonment without the possibility of release or parole.” Id., at 1089-1090.
After the questionnaires were filled out, the jurors were provided with handbooks that explained the trial process and the sentencing phase in greater depth. Small groups of potential jurors were then brought in to be questioned. Before Juror Z’s group began, the court explained once more that if Brown were convicted, “there are only two penalties that a jury could return, one is life in prison without possibility of release or parole. And that literally means exactly that, a true life in prison without release or parole.” Id., at 2016.
With this background, we turn to Juror Z’s examination.
B
Juror Z was examined on the seventh day of the voir dire and the fifth day of the death-qualification phase. The State argues that Juror Z was impaired not by his general outlook on the death penalty, but rather by his position regarding the specific circumstances in which the death penalty would be appropriate. The transcript of Juror Z’s questioning reveals that, despite the preceding instructions and information, he had both serious misunderstandings about his responsibility as a juror and an attitude toward capital punishment that could have prevented him from returning a death sentence under the facts of this case.
Under the voir dire procedures, the prosecution and defense alternated in commencing the examination. For Juror Z, the defense went first. When questioned, Juror Z demonstrated no general opposition to the death penalty or scruples against its infliction. In fact, he soon explained that he “believe[d] in the death penalty in severe situations.” App. 58. He elaborated, “I don’t think it should never happen, and I don’t think it should happen 10 times a week either.” Id., at 63. “[T]here [are] times when it would be appropriate.” Ibid.
The questioning soon turned to when that would be so. Juror Z’s first example was one in which “the defendant actually came out and said that he actually wanted to die.” Id., at 59. Defense set this aside and sought another, example. Despite having been told at least twice by the trial court that if convicted of first-degree murder, Brown could not be released from prison, the only example Juror Z could provide was when “a person is... incorrigible and would reviolate if released.” Id., at 62. The defense counsel replied that there would be no possibility of Brown’s release and asked whether the lack of arguments about recidivism during the penalty phase would frustrate Juror Z. He answered, “I’m not sure.” Id., at 63.
The State began its examination of Juror Z by noting that his questionnaire indicated he was “in favor of the death penalty if it is proved beyond a shadow of a doubt if a person has killed and would kill again.” Id., at 69. The State explained that the burden of proof was beyond a reasonable doubt, not beyond a shadow of a doubt, and asked whether Juror Z understood. He answered, “[I]t would have to be in my mind very obvious that the person would reoffend.” Id., at 70. In response the State once more explained to Juror Z, now for at least the fourth time, that there was no possibility of Brown’s being released to reoffend. Juror Z explained, “[I]t wasn’t until today that I became aware that we had a life without parole in the state of Washington,” id., at 71, although in fact a week earlier the trial judge had explained to Juror Z’s group that there was no possibility of parole when a defendant was convicted of aggravated first-degree murder. The prosecution then asked, “And now that you know there is such a thing... can you think of a time when you would be willing to impose a death penalty...?” Id., at 71-72. Juror Z answered, “I would have to give that some thought.” Id., at 72. He supplied no further answer to the question.
The State sought to probe Juror Z’s position further by asking whether he could “consider” the death penalty; Juror Z said he could, including under the general facts of Brown’s crimes. Ibid. When asked whether he no longer felt it was necessary for the State to show that Brown would reoffend, Juror Z gave this confusing answer: “I do feel that way if parole is an option, without parole as an option. I believe in the death penalty.” Id., at 72-73. Finally, when asked whether he could impose the death penalty when there was no possibility of parole, Juror Z answered, “[I]f I was convinced that was the appropriate measure.” Id., at 73. Over the course of his questioning, he stated six times that he could consider the death penalty or follow the law, see id., at 62, 70, 72, 73, but these responses were interspersed with more equivocal statements.
The State challenged Juror Z, explaining that he was confused about the conditions under which death could be imposed and seemed to believe it only appropriate when there was a risk of release and recidivism. Id., at 75. Before the trial court could ask Brown for a response, the defense volunteered, “We have no objection.” Ibid. The court then excused Juror Z. Ibid.
III
On federal habeas review, years after the conclusion of the voir dire, the Court of Appeals granted Brown relief and overturned his sentence. The court held that both the state trial court’s excusal of Juror Z and the State Supreme Court’s affirmance of that ruling were contrary to, or an unreasonable application of, clearly established federal law. 451 F. 3d, at 953. The Court of Appeals held that the Supreme Court of Washington had failed to find that Juror Z was substantially impaired; it further held that the State Supreme Court could not have made that finding in any event because the transcript unambiguously proved Juror Z was not substantially impaired. For these reasons, explained the Court of Appeals, the trial court’s decision to excuse Juror Z was contrary to the Witherspoon-Witt rule despite Brown’s failure to object. Each of the holdings of the Court of Appeals is wrong.
A
As part of its exposition and analysis, the Court of Appeals found fault with the opinion of the Supreme Court of Washington. It stated that although the State Supreme Court had held that Jurors X and Y were substantially impaired, the same “finding is missing from the state court’s discussion” of Juror Z’s excusal. 451 F. 3d, at 950. The Court of Appeals therefore held “[t]he Washington Supreme Court in this case applied the wrong standard with respect to Juror Z.” Id., at 953, n. 10. This is an erroneous summary of the State Supreme Court’s opinion. The state court did make an explicit ruling that Juror Z was impaired. In a portion of the opinion entitled “Summary and Conclusions,” the court held: “The trial court properly exercised its discretion in excusing for cause prospective jurors [X, Y, and Z] during voir dire. Their views would have prevented or substantially impaired their ability to follow the court’s instructions and abide by their oaths as jurors.” Brown, 132 Wash. 2d, at 631, 940 P. 2d, at 598, 599. It is unclear why the Court of Appeals overlooked or disregarded this finding, and it was mistaken in faulting the completeness of the Supreme Court of Washington’s opinion.
Even absent this explicit finding, the Supreme Court of Washington’s opinion was not contrary to our cases. The court identified the Witherspoon-Witt rule, recognized that our precedents required deference to the trial court, and applied an abuse-of-discretion standard. 132 Wash. 2d, at 601, 940 P. 2d, at 584. Having set forth that framework, it explained:
“[Brown] did not object at trial to the State’s challenge of [Juror Z] for cause. At any rate, [Juror Z] was properly excused. On voir dire he indicated he would impose the death penalty where the defendant ‘would reviolate if released,’ which is not a correct statement of the law. He also misunderstood the State’s burden of proof... although he was corrected later. The trial court did not abuse its discretion in excusing [Juror Z] for cause.” Id., at 604, 940 P. 2d, at 585.
The only fair reading of the quoted language is that the state court applied the Witt standard in assessing the excusal of Juror Z. Regardless, there is no requirement in a case involving the Witherspoon-Witt rule that a state appellate court make particular reference to the excusal of each juror. See Early v. Packer, 537 U. S. 3, 9 (2002) (per curiam). It is the trial court’s ruling that counts.
B
From our own review of the state trial court’s ruling, we conclude the trial court acted well within its discretion in granting the State’s motion to excuse Juror Z.
Juror Z’s answers, on their face, could have led the trial court to believe that Juror Z would be substantially impaired in his ability to impose the death penalty in the absence of the possibility that Brown would be released and would reoffend. And the trial court, furthermore, is entitled to deference because it had an opportunity to observe the demeanor of Juror Z. We do not know anything about his demeanor, in part because a transcript cannot fully reflect that information but also because the defense did not object to Juror Z’s removal. Nevertheless, the State’s challenge, Brown’s waiver of an objection, and the trial court’s excusal of Juror Z support the conclusion that the interested parties present in the courtroom all felt that removing Juror Z was appropriate under the Witherspoon-Witt rule. See Darden, 477 U. S., at 178 (emphasizing the defendant’s failure to object and the judge’s decision not to engage in further questioning as evidence of impairment).
Juror Z’s assurances that he would consider imposing the death penalty and would follow the law do not overcome the reasonable inference from his other statements that in fact he would be substantially impaired in this case because there was no possibility of release. His assurances did not require the trial court to deny the State’s motion to excuse Juror Z. The defense itself had told the trial court that any juror would make similar guarantees and that they were worth little; instead, defense counsel explained, the court should listen to arguments concerning the substance of the juror’s answers. The trial court in part relied, as diligent judges often must, upon both parties’ counsel to explain why a challenged juror’s problematic beliefs about the death penalty would not rise to the level of substantial impairment. Brown’s counsel offered no defense of Juror Z. In light of the deference owed to the trial court the position Brown now maintains does not convince us the decision to excuse Juror Z was unreasonable.
It is true that in order to preserve a Witherspoon claim for federal habeas review there is no independent federal requirement that a defendant in state court object to the prosecution’s challenge; state procedural rules govern. We nevertheless take into account voluntary acquiescence to, or confirmation of, a juror’s removal. By failing to object, the defense did not just deny the conscientious trial judge an opportunity to explain his judgment or correct any error. It also deprived reviewing courts of further factual findings that would have helped to explain the trial court’s decision. The harm caused by a defendant’s failure to object to a juror’s excusal was described well by a Washington appellate court in a different case:
“When a challenge for cause is made, opposing counsel can object either on the grounds that it is facially insufficient or that the facts needed to support it are not true. [Defendant] did neither. Had [defendant] objected immediately to the State’s challenge for cause, the court could have tried the issue and determined the law and the facts. Because [defendant] did not timely object to the excusal of Juror 30, the court had no opportunity to remedy whatever factual questions were in the mind of [defendant's] counsel.” State v. Taylor, No. 16057-2-III etc., 1998 WL 75648, *5 (Wash. App., Feb. 24, 1998) (unpublished opinion) (citations omitted).
The defense may have chosen not to object because Juror Z seemed substantially impaired. See 451 F. 3d, at 959 (Tallman, J., dissenting from denial of rehearing en banc). Or defense counsel may have felt that Juror Z, a basketball referee whose stepbrother was a police officer, would have been favorable to the State. See App. 68, 74; 451 F. 3d, at 953, n. 9 (reasoning that “defense counsel declined to object because he was glad to get rid of juror Z. After all, Z had described himself as pro-death penalty.... Defense counsel must have thanked his lucky stars when the prosecutor bumped Z”). Or the failure to object may have been an attempt to introduce an error into the trial because the defense realized Brown’s crimes were horrific and the mitigating evidence was weak. Although we do not hold that, because the defense may have wanted Juror Z on the jury, any error was harmless, neither must we treat the defense’s acquiescence in Juror Z’s removal as inconsequential.
The defense’s volunteered comment that there was no objection is especially significant because of frequent defense objections to the excusal of other jurors and the trial court’s request that if both parties wanted a juror removed, saying so would expedite the process. In that context the statement was not only a failure to object but also an invitation to remove Juror Z.
We reject the conclusion of the Court of Appeals that the excusal of Juror Z entitles Brown to federal habeas relief. The need to defer to the trial court’s ability to perceive jurors’ demeanor does not foreclose the possibility that a reviewing court may reverse the trial court’s decision where the record discloses no basis for a finding of substantial impairment. But where, as here, there is lengthy questioning of a prospective juror and the trial court has supervised a diligent and thoughtful voir dire, the trial court has broad discretion. The record does not show the trial court exceeded this discretion in excusing Juror Z; indeed the transcript shows considerable confusion on the part of the juror, amounting to substantial impairment. The Supreme Court of Washington recognized the deference owed to the trial court and, contrary to the Court of Appeals’ misreading of the state court’s opinion, identified the correct standard required by federal law and found it satisfied. That decision, like the trial court’s, was not contrary to, or an unreasonable application of, clearly established federal law.
IV
Brown raises two additional arguments that rely upon Washington state law. He first contends we should not consider his failure to object because Washington state, law does not require a defendant to object to a challenge to a potential juror. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 35 (“As to the... failure to object... we have admitted that what [defense counsel] said was I have no objection.... But [they] all knew that this issue could be raised for the first time on appeal”). In addition he asserts that even if Juror Z’s statements indicated that he would base his decision upon the risk of Brown re-offending, that requirement was consistent with the state sentencing scheme.
For the reasons explained above the defense’s failure to object in this case has significance to our analysis even on the assumption that state law did not require an objection to preserve an error for review in the circumstances of this case. The Supreme Court of Washington, however, noted Brown’s failure to object, suggesting it had significance for its own analysis. Brown, 132 Wash. 2d, at 604, 940 P. 2d, at 585. This is consistent with Washington law, which permits a party to “except” to the opposing party’s challenge of a juror for cause, Wash. Rev. Code § 4.44.230 (2006), and gives appellate courts discretion to bar “any claim of error which was not raised in the trial court” unless that error is a “manifest error affecting a constitutional right,” Wash. Rule App. Proc. 2.5(a) (2006). See also 13 R. Ferguson, Washington Practice: Criminal Practice and Procedure § 4908, p. 432 (3d ed. 2004) (“In general, issues not raised in the trial court will not be considered for the first time on appeal. It is the purpose of this general rule to give the trial court an opportunity to correct the alleged error. Accordingly, it is the duty of counsel to call the trial cóurt’s attention to the alleged error...” (footnotes omitted)).
The Supreme Court of Washington also held that Juror Z misstated Washington’s sentencing law. Brown, supra, at 604, 940 P. 2d, at 585. It is not for us to second-guess that determination, and our conclusion is, in any event, the same as that court’s. Juror Z did not say that the likelihood of Brown’s harming someone while in prison would be among his sentencing considerations. Rather, the sole reason Juror Z expressed for imposing the death penalty, in a case where the accused opposed it, was whether the defendant could be released and would reviolate. That is equivalent to treating the risk of recidivism as the sole aggravating factor, rather than treating lack of future dangerousness as a possible mitigating consideration. See Wash. Rev. Code § 10.95.020 (2006) (setting forth aggravating factors); §10.95.070 (setting forth future dangerousness as one of eight mitigating factors).
For these reasons, we are not persuaded to depart from the Supreme Court of Washington’s determination of the state law at issue or to ignore Brown’s failure to object.
* * *
Capital defendants have the right to be sentenced by an impartial jury. The State may not infringe this right by eliminating from the venire those whose scruples against the death penalty would not substantially impair the performance of their duties. Courts reviewing claims of Witherspoon-Witt error, however, especially federal courts considering habeas petitions, owe deference to the trial court, which is in a superior position to determine the demeanor and qualifications of a potential juror. The Court of Appeals neglected to accord this deference. And on this record it was error to find that Juror Z was not substantially impaired. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the 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.
Me. Justice Clark
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This action was brought in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois under § 4 of the Clayton Act to recover treble damages for injuries alleged to have been suffered by reason of a conspiracy in restraint of trade in violation of the Sherman Act, § l. Plaintiffs, petitioners here, are Emich Motors Corporation, a former dealer in Chevrolet cars, and its related finance company, U. S. Acceptance Corporation. Respondents are General Motors Corporation and its wholly owned subsidiary finance company, General Motors Acceptance Corporation (GMAC).
Prior to this action respondents had been convicted in the Federal District Court for the Northern District of Indiana on an indictment charging them, and certain of their officers and agents who were acquitted, with a conspiracy in restraint of interstate trade in General Motors cars. At trial in the instant case petitioners were permitted to introduce the antecedent criminal indictment, verdict and judgment as evidence under § 5 of the Clayton Act, which provides in part that
“A final judgment or decree rendered in any criminal prosecution or in any suit or proceeding in equity brought by or on behalf of the United States under the antitrust laws to the effect that a defendant has violated said laws shall be prima facie evidence against such defendant in any suit or proceeding brought by any other party against such defendant under said laws as to all matters respecting which said judgment or decree would be an estoppel as between the parties thereto . ...”
A judgment for petitioners was reversed by the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit partly on the ground that the trial court erred in the use it permitted the jury to make of evidence derived from the prior criminal proceeding. 181 F. 2d 70 (1950). We granted certiorari, limiting review to important questions as to the scope of § 5 of the Clayton Act. 340 U. S. 808 (1950), rehearing denied 340 U. S. 894 (1950).
I.
The relevant facts as to the criminal prosecution against respondents may be stated briefly. The charge of the indictment was summarized on appeal as follows:
. . paragraph 34 charges ... a conspiracy to restrain unduly the interstate trade and commerce in General Motors automobiles. Paragraph 35 states that the purpose of the defendants was to monopolize and control the business of financing the trade and commerce in new and used General Motors automobiles. Paragraph 70 alleges that dealers have complied with the defendants’ coercive plan in order to save substantial investments in their businesses, paragraph 71 states that the effect of the conspiracy has been to restrain and burden unreasonably the interstate trade and commerce in General Motors automobiles, and paragraph 72 is a restatement of paragraph 34.
“The specific conduct embraced within the illegal concert of action is described in paragraphs 36 to 67 of the indictment . . . : (1) Requiring dealers to promise to use GMAC exclusively as a condition to obtaining a franchise for the sale, transportation and delivery of automobiles; (2) Making contracts for short periods and cancellable without cause, canceling or threatening to cancel such contracts unless GMAC facilities are used; (3) Discriminating against dealers not using GMAC by refusing to deliver cars when ordered, delaying shipment and shipping cars of different number, model, color and style; (4) Compelling dealers to disclose how they finance their wholesale purchases and retail sales, examining and inspecting dealers’ books and accounts in order to procure this information, and requiring dealers to justify their using other financing media; (5) Giving special favors to dealers using the wholesale and retail facilities of GMAC; (6) Granting special favors to GMAC which are denied to other discount companies ; (7) Giving dealers a rebate from the GMAC finance charge paid by the retail purchaser, in order to induce use of GMAC financing facilities; and (8) Compelling dealers to refrain from using other finance companies by all other necessary, appropriate or effective means.”
The criminal case was submitted to the jury with instructions that the Government need not prove all of some twenty-six acts alleged in the indictment as the means of effecting the conspiracy. The jury rendered a general verdict finding the corporate defendants guilty and acquitting all individual defendants. Maximum fines were assessed against each of the corporations. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed. United States v. General Motors Corp., 121 F. 2d 376 (1941). This Court denied certiorari, 314 U. S. 618 (1941), rehearing denied 314 U. S. 710 (1941).
Among the almost 50 dealers and former dealers whose testimony the Government introduced in the criminal action was Fred Emich, who owned or controlled the corporations which are petitioners here. On the criminal appeal the Court of Appeals thus reviewed his testimony:
“Fred Emich was a Chevrolet dealer at Chicago, Illinois, from 1932 to 1936 and he owned his own finance company to facilitate his purchases and sales, a course of business conduct which displeased GMAC. He received unordered cars and trucks in 1933, and the city manager of Chevrolet informed him that shipment of unordered cars would cease as soon as he would give some of his time sales finance paper to GMAC. He gave GMAC around 10% of his business in 1934 and became acquainted with the visits of GMAC and Chevrolet representatives. The zone manager warned him at the 1935 contract renewal meeting to the effect that if he expected to continue as a Chevrolet dealer he had better use GMAC at least 50%. Again he experienced difficulties with Chevrolet. This time cars of wrong colors and models were shipped to him and unordered accessories in great quantities were forced upon him. In addition he was required to send blank checks to the factory before cars were shipped to him. He was told by the GMAC representative that these problems would disappear if he used GMAC. In 1936 Emich was given his ‘last warning/ the zone manager telling him that he was going to make an example of Emich for his failure to use GMAC. Not long thereafter Emich was cancelled as a dealer, and he appealed to the president of General Motors where he pleaded that in a period of four years he had done a gross business of around $3,000,000. The president of General Motors told him that he had been cancelled because he did not use GMAC, that it was the policy of the corporation to require dealers to use GMAC, and that if Emich would not agree to use GMAC it would be useless for the president of General Motors to discuss his reinstatement . ...”
II.
In their complaint petitioners allege that respondents unlawfully conspired in restraint of interstate trade in General Motors cars; that the conspiracy so alleged is the same as that charged against respondents and of which they were convicted in the antecedent criminal action, a copy of the indictment therein being attached as an exhibit; that pursuant to this conspiracy respondents injured petitioners’ businesses by one or more of the unlawful acts set forth in said indictment, more particularly by terminating or cancelling or threatening to terminate or cancel the dealer franchise contracts of Emich Motors, which had financed the purchase or sale of cars through U. S. Acceptance Corporation rather than through GMAC. Respondents deny any conspiracy; they admit cancellation of the franchises but assert that such action was justified by Emich Motors’ failure to perform certain obligations thereunder, as well as its persistence in a course of conduct inimical to the interest of General Motors in promoting the sale of Chevrolet cars.
In order to establish their prima facie case under § 5, petitioners offered in evidence the six-volume record of testimony and exhibits in the criminal case. The court held it inadmissible as evidence for the jury, with certain exceptions not important here. However, over respondents’ objection, the court admitted, as exhibits to go to the jury, the indictment, verdict and judgment of conviction in the criminal case.
In his instructions the trial judge summarized the criminal indictment, the complaint of petitioners, and respondents’ answer. He then instructed that the
“. . . judgment in the criminal proceedings ... is admitted as evidence in this case as prima facie evidence that [respondents] did enter into an unlawful conspiracy in violation of the anti-trust laws ... in the manner described in the indictment . . . .”
After explaining the term “prima facie evidence,” the court then summarized § 5 of the Clayton Act and charged that
“. . . it was not necessary for the government to prove all of the acts alleged in the separate sections of the indictment. . . . nor is it necessary for the plaintiffs to prove all the acts charged in the indictment for you to find that the conspiracy alleged did exist.
“The judgment in the criminal case was admitted in evidence in this case, pursuant to the law to which I have just referred, for the purpose of the plaintiff making a prima facie case against the defendants as to one of the issues of this case and only and solely for the purpose of defining, describing, and limiting the scope of the judgment on the verdict which was entered in that case, namely, the conspiracy to violate the anti-trust laws.
“The burden is on the plaintiffs of establishing by a preponderance of the evidence that they were injured by the defendants pursuant to or in the course of a conspiracy and in order to recover damages for the cancellation of the Chevrolet franchises they must prove by a preponderance of the evidence including the criminal judgment that the defendants entered into a conspiracy to compel the use of General Motors Acceptance Corporation by agreeing among themselves, among other things, to cancel dealers who failed or refused to use General Motors Acceptance Corporation to a satisfactory extent and that the franchise of Emich Motors Corporation was cancelled by reason of and pursuant to said conspiracy and not because of the things alleged by defendants as the reasons for such cancellation, and to recover any damages for the failure of defendants to deliver any Chevrolet automobiles, plaintiffs must establish that defendants as part of the conspiracy agreed among themselves to withhold or delay delivery of automobiles to dealers who refused or failed to use the services of General Motors Acceptance Corporation to a satisfactory extent and that the defendants actively failed to deliver or delayed shipments of cars to plaintiffs pursuant to and as a part of said alleged conspiracy.” (Emphasis supplied.)
The jury returned a verdict for petitioners which resulted in judgments for $1,236,000 treble damages. The court assessed $257,358.10 as costs and attorneys’ fees.
The Court of Appeals concluded that under § 5 the criminal judgment was prima facie evidence “that defendants had been guilty of a conspiracy to restrain dealers’ interstate trade and commerce in General Motors cars for the purpose of monopolizing the financing essential to the movement of those cars.” 181 F. 2d at 75. It approved the trial court’s ruling as to the inadmissibility in evidence of the entire record of the criminal case, but criticized the use of the indictment as an exhibit to the complaint, as well as certain references to the indictment in the opening statement and closing argument of petitioners’ counsel to the jury. It held that serious error was committed when the indictment was sent to the jury as an exhibit and the trial court “told the jury that it could look to it [the indictment] to ascertain the means and the acts committed in furtherance of the conspiracy . . . .” The court observed that “it was unnecessary for the Government to prove . . . any of the acts or means, except for the purpose of establishing venue, in order for the jury in the criminal proceeding to find defendants guilty,” and that “such acts and means are not to be considered as established by the finding of guilt.” It. concluded that the use of the indictment as evidence was aggravated by the instruction of the trial judge last quoted and italicized in part, supra, p. 565.
III.
The issue we must determine, as defined in our order granting review, is “whether the Court of Appeals erred in construing § 5 of the Clayton Act ... as not permitting: (a) the admission in the instant case of the indictment in the antecedent criminal case against respondents, nor (b) the judgment therein to be used as evidence that the conspiracy of which respondents had been convicted occasioned Emich Motors’ cancellation.”
In considering the application of § 5 in this case we are confronted with five differing interpretations. The broadest construction is urged by petitioners who contend that the criminal judgment is prima facie evidence that Emich Motors’ franchises were cancelled pursuant to the unlawful conspiracy, and that the entire record in the criminal case should be admissible in this action. The view of the trial judge differs only in that he would not permit the record in the criminal case, beyond the indictment, verdict and judgment, to go to the jury. The United States as amicus curiae takes a more contracted position, urging in its brief that the judgment is prima facie evidence of the conspiracy and also of the performance of such acts in accomplishing it as the jury in the criminal case, in rendering a verdict of guilty, necessarily found to have occurred, the latter to be determined by the trial judge in the treble-damage suit from the entire record in the criminal case. In its view the trial court under appropriate instructions may submit the criminal pleadings to the jury in order to- assist it in understanding the charge as to what was determined by the criminal conviction. The Court of Appeals construes the section still more narrowly, holding the judgment prima facie evidence only of conspiracy by respondents. It concludes that none of the record in the criminal case should be exhibited to the jury, although the trial judge may examine it “as an aid in determining or defining the issues presented by the earlier case . . . 181 F. 2d at 76. Finally, respondents contend that the indictment charged a single conspiracy to perform some twenty-six different acts; that since the Government did not offer evidence to support all of the acts and was required to prove only one of them, it is impossible upon a general verdict of guilty to determine on which of the various acts the jury based its verdict; that consequently the judgment has no relevance here.
IV.
Section 5 of the Clayton Act was adopted in response to a recommendation by President Wilson that Congress “agree in giving private individuals . . . the right to found their [antitrust] suits for redress upon the facts and judgments proved and entered in suits by the Government where the Government has . . . sued the combinations complained of and won its suit . . . 51 Cong. Rec. 1964. Congressional reports and debates on the proposal which ultimately became § 5 reflect a purpose to minimize the burdens of litigation for injured private suitors by making available to them all matters previously established by the Government in antitrust actions. See H. R. Rep. No. 627, 63d Cong., 2d Sess. 14; S. Rep. No. 698, 63d Cong., 2d Sess. 45; 51 Cong. Rec. 9270, 9490, 13851. The intended application and extent of such evidentiary benefits is not revealed by legislative materials, except that they should follow equally from prior criminal prosecutions and equity proceedings by the Government. By its terms, however, § 5 makes a prior final judgment or decree in favor of the United States available to a private suitor as prima facie evidence of “all matters respecting which” the judgment “would be an estoppel” between the defendants and the United States. We think that Congress intended to confer, subject only to a defendant’s enjoyment of its day in court against a new party, as large an advantage as the estoppel doctrine would afford had the Government brought suit.
The evidentiary use which may be made under § 5 of the prior conviction of respondents is thus to be determined by reference to the general doctrine of estoppel. As this Court has observed, that “principle is as applicable to the decisions of criminal courts as to those of civil jurisdiction.” Frank v. Mangum, 237 U. S. 309, 334 (1915); Sealfon v. United States, 332 U. S. 575, 578 (1948). It is well established that a prior criminal conviction may work an estoppel in favor of the Government in a subsequent civil proceeding. United States v. Greater New York Live Poultry Chamber of Commerce, 53 F. 2d 518 (S. D. N. Y. 1931), affirmed sub nom. Local 167 v. United States, 291 U. S. 293 (1934); Farley v. Patterson, 166 App. Div. 358, 152 N. Y. Supp. 59 (1915); see State v. Adams, 72 Vt. 253, 47 A. 779 (1900) ; 2 Freeman, Judgments (5th ed. 1925), § 657. Such estoppel extends only to questions “distinctly put in issue and directly determined” in the criminal prosecution. See Frank v. Mangum, supra, at 334; United States v. Meyerson, 24 F. 2d 855, 856 (S. D. N. Y. 1928). In the case of a criminal conviction based on a jury verdict of guilty, issues which were essential to the verdict must be regarded as having been determined by the judgment. Cf. Commonwealth v. Evans, 101 Mass. 25 (1869). Accordingly, we think plaintiffs are entitled to introduce the prior judgment to establish prima facie all matters of fact and law necessarily decided by the conviction and the verdict on which it was based.
The difficult problem, of course, is to determine what matters were adjudicated in the antecedent suit. A general verdict of the jury or judgment of the court without special findings does not indicate which of the means charged in the indictment were found to have been used in effectuating the conspiracy. And since all of the acts charged need not be proved for conviction, United States v. Socony-Vacuum Oil Co., 310 U. S. 150 (1940), such a verdict does not establish that defendants used all of the means charged or any particular one. Under these circumstances what was decided by the criminal judgment must be determined by the trial judge hearing the treble-damage suit, upon an examination of the record, including the pleadings, the evidence submitted, the instructions under which the jury arrived at its verdict, and any opinions of the courts. Sealfon v. United States, supra; cf. Oklahoma v. Texas, 256 U. S. 70 (1921).
In the criminal case it was the Court of Appeals’ undisturbed determination, which we accept here, that the jury verdict was firmly rooted in a finding of coercive conduct on the part of respondents toward General Motors dealers to force the use of GMAC facilities. That court, in commenting on the sufficiency of the evidence, said that “the jury finding of coercion is supported by the evidence. The coercive practices were many and varied . . . and directly aimed to compel dealer-purchasers to use GMAC in financing the wholesale purchase and retail sale of General Motors cars. . . . Undoubtedly the jury was warranted in attaching the coercion label to the action thus adopted by the appellants.” United States v. General Motors Corp., 121 F. 2d 376, 397 (C. A. 7th Cir. 1941). The same conclusion was reached by this Court in Ford Motor Co. v. United States, 335 U. S. 303 (1948), where it was required for another purpose to determine what was necessarily found by the jury verdict in the criminal proceeding against General Motors and GMAC.
We are, therefore, of opinion that the criminal judgment was prima facie evidence of the general conspiracy for the purpose of monopolizing the financing of General Motors cars, and also of its effectuation by coercing General Motors dealers to use GMAC. To establish their prima facie case it therefore was necessary for petitioners only to introduce, in addition to the criminal judgment, evidence of the impact of the conspiracy on them, such as the cancellation of their franchises and the purpose of General Motors in cancelling them, and evidence of any resulting damages. From this it follows that the Court of Appeals was in error when it held that the judgment was prima facie evidence only of a conspiracy by respondents.
What issues were decided by the former Government litigation is, of course, a question of law as to which the court must instruct the jury. It is the task of the trial judge to make clear to the jury the issues that were determined against the defendant in the prior suit, and to limit to those issues the effect of that judgment as evidence in the present action. As to the manner in which such explanation should be made, no mechanical rule can be laid down to control the trial judge, who must take into account the circumstances of each case. He must be free to exercise “a well-established range of judicial discretion.” Nardone v. United States, 308 U. S. 338, 342 (1939). He is not precluded from resorting to such portions of the record, including the pleadings and judgment, in the antecedent case as he may find necessary or appropriate to use in presenting to the jury a clear picture of the issues decided there and relevant to the case on trial. Cf. Eastman Kodak Co. v. Southern Photo Material Co., 295 F. 98, 101 (C. A. 5th Cir. 1923), affirmed 273 U. S. 359 (1927). A similar discretion must be exercised in approving the attachment of a copy of the indictment as an exhibit to the complaint.
In summary the trial judge should (1) examine the record of the antecedent case to determine the issues decided by the judgment; (2) in his instructions to the jury reconstruct that case in the manner and to the extent he deems necessary to acquaint the jury fully with the issues determined therein; and (3) explain the scope and effect of the former judgment on the case at trial. The court may, in the interest of clarity, so inform the jury at the time the judgment in the prior action is offered in evidence; or he may so instruct at a later time if, in his discretion, the ends of justice will be served.
The case is remanded to the Court of Appeals with directions to modify its judgment to conform with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Mr. Justice Minton took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
38 Stat. 731, 15 U. S. C. § 15.
26 Stat. 209, 15 U. S. C. § 1.
38 Stat.731, 15 U.S.C. § 16.
United States v. General Motors Corp., 121 F. 2d 376, 383 (C. A. 7th Cir. 1941).
United States v. General Motors Corp., 121 F. 2d 376, 396 (C. A. 7th Cir. 1941).
See also McLaren, The Doctrine of Res Judicata as Applied to the Trial of Criminal Cases, 10 Wash. L. Rev. 198, 200 (1935).
In the Ford case it was stated that the “plain effect” of the instructions in the criminal action against General Motors and GMAC was “to draw a line between such practices as cancellation of a dealer’s contract, or refusal to renew it, or discrimination in the shipment of automobiles, as a means of influencing dealers to use GMAC, all of which fall within the common understanding of ‘coercion,’ and other practices for which ‘persuasion,’ ‘exposition’ or ‘argument’ are fair characterizations. . . . The trial judge used the word ‘coercion’ to summarize practices which, if the jury found them to exist, would call for a verdict against General Motors. He used the words ‘persuasion,’ ‘exposition’ and ‘argument’ to describe conduct which, in common usage, is not ‘coercion’ and therefore would not support such a verdict. Nothing in other portions of the judge’s charge erases or blurs this line of distinction.” 335 U. S. at 316-319. Relevant portions of the instructions are set forth at p. 316, n. 3.
In deciding that under § 5 the criminal judgment against respondents may be admitted as prima facie evidence only of the fact of conspiracy and of the use of coercive methods in carrying it out, we do not intend to preclude its admission for such other purposes, apart from § 5, as the general law of evidence may permit. Petitioners contend that the judgment may be considered by the jury as evidence of respondents’ intention in cancelling the Emichs’ franchises. Cf. Wigmore, Evidence (3d ed. 1940), §§ 302-304; American Medical Association v. United States, 76 U. S. App. D. C. 70, 87-89, 130 F. 2d 233, 250-252 (C. A. D. C. Cir. 1942), affirmed 317 U. S. 519 (1943). Whether this contention is correct and, if so, whether such evidence would establish prima facie an illegal motive are questions beyond the scope of our present review.
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 Souter
delivered the opinion of the Court.
In this case we return again to the history and geography of the Ohio River valley, as we consider the location of the boundary of the Commonwealth of Kentucky with the State of Illinois. We hold it to be the line of the low-water mark along the river’s northerly shore as it was in 1792.
I — I
In July 1986, Illinois sought leave to file a bill of complaint against Kentucky, invoking this Court’s original jurisdiction to resolve a disagreement about the location of the common boundary of the two States. See U. S. Const., Art. Ill, §2. Illinois asked the Court to declare “the boundary line ... to be the low-water mark on the northerly shore of the Ohio River as it existed in 1792,” Report of Special Master 1-2, and to enjoin Kentucky “from disturbing in any manner the State of Illinois or its citizens from the peaceful use, and enjoyment of all land, water and jurisdiction within the boundaries of Illinois as established by the Court,” id., at 2. We granted leave to file the bill of complaint, 479 U. S. 879 (1986), and appointed the Honorable Robert Van Pelt as Special Master.
In its answer to the complaint, Kentucky denied that the boundary was the 1792 line and claimed it to be the river’s northerly low-water mark “as it exists from time to time.” The answer raised the “affirmative defenses” of acquiescence and laches, and invoked certain “principles of riparian boundaries.” Report of Special Master 2.
The parties spent the next three years in discovery and, after submitting evidence to the Special Master in January 1990, were granted additional time to develop the evidentiary record on Kentucky’s claim of prescription and acquiescence. After receiving this evidence in April 1990, the Special Master submitted a report to this Court, which was ordered filed. 498 U. S. 803 (1990).
The Special Master recommended that we (1) determine the boundary between Illinois and Kentucky to be the “low-water mark on the northerly side of the Ohio River as it existed in the year 1792”; (2) find that the record fails to “support the Commonwealth of Kentucky’s affirmative defenses”; (3) find that the construction of dams on the Ohio River has caused “the present low-water mark on the Illinois side of the river [to be] farther north than it was in 1792”; and (4) order the two States’ common boundary to be determined, “as nearly as [the 1792 line] can now be ascertained, . . . either (a) by agreement of the parties, (b) by joint survey agreed upon by both parties, or (c) in the absence of such an agreement or survey, [by the Court] after hearings conducted by the Special Master and the submission by him to the Court of proposed findings and conclusions.” Report of Special Master 48-49.
Kentucky has filed exceptions to the Special Master’s report. While Kentucky challenges many of the factual findings, its primary dispute is with the conclusion that Kentucky has failed to prove its claim, styled as an affirmative defense, that under the doctrine of prescription and acquiescence the boundary is the low-water mark as it may be from time to time.
II
A
We agree in large measure with the Special Master’s report. The threshold issue presented in this case was resolved in Ohio v. Kentucky, 444 U. S. 335 (1980), in which we held that Kentucky’s boundary with Ohio was the northerly low-water mark of the Ohio River as it was in 1792. We based that holding on the history of Virginia’s 1784 cession to the United States of the lands “northwest of the river Ohio” and Kentucky’s succession to Virginia’s northwest boundary upon reaching statehood in 1792. Id., at 337-338. We relied on the prior opinion in Indiana v. Kentucky, 136 U. S. 479, 518-519 (1890), in which Justice Field, for a unanimous Court, reviewed this history and held that Kentucky’s boundary with Indiana followed the low-water mark on the northerly shore of the Ohio River “when Kentucky became a State.” Ibid. The same history and precedent that supplied the general rule for determining the boundary separating Kentucky from its neighboring States of Ohio and Indiana on the Ohio River also govern the determination of Kentucky’s historical boundary on that river with Illinois.
Kentucky has, indeed, conceded that “if this case were before the Court simply as a matter of law, Ohio v. Kentucky . . . would be controlling precedent.” Exceptions of Commonwealth of Kentucky 9 (emphasis in original). Kentucky’s exceptions assume, rather, that the case does not turn on the issue of law decided in Ohio v. Kentucky, but on the “factual issue of acquiescence which Kentucky has raised as an affirmative defense on the question of its boundary with Illinois.” Exceptions of Commonwealth of Kentucky 9-10. Kentucky contends that it has long asserted, and Illinois has acquiesced in the assertion, that the common boundary of the two States is the low-water mark of the Ohio River, not as it was in 1792, but as it may be from time to time.
Although Kentucky has styled its acquiescence claim an affirmative defense, this “defense,” if successfully proved, would not only counter Illinois’ boundary claim but also establish Kentucky’s own position. To do this on a theory of prescription and acquiescence, Kentucky would need to show by a preponderance of the evidence, first, a long and continuous possession of, and assertion of sovereignty over, the territory delimited by the transient low-water mark. Longstanding “[possession and dominion are essential elements of a claim of sovereignty by prescription and acquiescence.” Georgia v. South Carolina, 497 U. S. 376, 389 (1990). Kentucky would then have the burden to prove Illinois’ long acquiescence in those acts of possession and jurisdiction. As we stated in Oklahoma v. Texas, 272 U. S. 21, 47 (1926), there is a “general principle of public law” that, as between States, a “long acquiescence in the possession of territory under a claim of right and in the exercise of dominion and sovereignty over it, is conclusive of the rightful authority.” See also Georgia v. South Carolina, supra, at 389 (“[L]ong acquiescence in the practical location of an interstate boundary, and possession in accordance therewith, often has been used as an aid in resolving boundary disputes” between States).
The record developed before the Special Master in this case fails to support Kentucky’s claim of sovereignty by prescription and acquiescence. After a thorough review of the voluminous evidence presented by both States, the Special Master concluded that Kentucky had proved neither long and continuous action in support-of its claim to a boundary at the northerly low-water mark as it might be from time to time, nor Illinois’ acquiescence in that claim. While Kentucky’s many exceptions to the extensive factual findings on these issues do not merit discussion seriatim, an examination of a few will indicate the evidentiary support generally for the Special Master’s conclusions.
The Special Master first assessed the evidence bearing on Kentucky’s exercise of dominion. According to Kentucky’s view of the boundary, for example, any permanent structure extending out over the water from the river’s northern bank would be within Kentucky’s territory and subject to its taxing power, one of the primary indicia of sovereignty. The record in this case, however, shows that Kentucky has imposed a property tax on only 3 of the 15 structures that extend out, into, or over the water from the Illinois shoreline. Of the three affected taxpayers, one who received a Kentucky tax bill for property extending south into the river was also taxed on the same structure by Illinois, and another paid the Kentucky bill only under protest, “claiming that the property [taxed was] within the State of Illinois.” Report of Special Master 37. The remaining 12 structures extending south into the river from Illinois have never been taxed by Kentucky.
Kentucky advanced what it took to be a stronger claim to having exercised exclusive taxing jurisdiction right up to the transient low-water mark by offering evidence of its ad valo-rem taxation of barges and other watercraft traveling on the river. But this evidence simply fails to speak directly to the boundary issue in this case. Vessels traveling the river usually follow a sailing line charted by the United States Army Corps of Engineers which, for most of the stretch in question, is either close to the center of the river or near the Kentucky shore. Illinois does not dispute that the sailing line, like most of the river, is within the boundary and jurisdiction of Kentucky. Id., at 38. The territory in question, rather, is thought to be a comparatively narrow sliver of the Ohio along its northerly shore, where barges and watercraft would rarely venture. As to the sliver, Kentucky’s acts of taxation have been, at best, equivocal, and the Special Master was accordingly correct when he observed that the fact of Kentucky’s taxation of barges “traveling on the Ohio River within the acknowledged jurisdiction of Kentucky, does not support Kentucky’s claim of exclusive jurisdiction of the entire breadth of the river.” Ibid.
This evidence of Kentucky's failure to engage in consistent and unequivocal acts of occupation and dominion does not stand alone, however, for we are concerned not only with what its officers have done, but with what they have said, as well. And what they have said has, in several instances, supported Illinois’ claim. The Legislative Research Commission of the Kentucky General Assembly and the Attorney General of Kentucky have each taken the position in the recent past that Kentucky’s northern border is the 1792 low-water mark. An Information Bulletin issued by the Legislative Research Commission in December 1972 states that “‘Kentucky’s North and Western boundary, to-wit, the low-water mark on the North shore of the Ohio River as of 1792 has been recognized as the boundary based upon the fact that Kentucky was created from what was then Virginia.’” Id., at 15. An earlier opinion by the Commonwealth’s Attorney General issued in 1963 asserted that the “‘law, of course is that the boundary line between the states of Indiana and Kentucky is the low-water [mark] on the north shore of the Ohio as it existed when Kentucky became a state in 1792.’” Id., at 12. These statements came to our attention in Kentucky’s last boundary case in this Court, where we found it “of no little interest” in deciding Ohio v. Kentucky, 444 U. S., at 340-341, that these “Kentucky sources themselves, in recent years, have made reference to the 1792 low-water mark as the boundary.” It is hardly of less interest this time.
Just as this representative evidence fails to indicate any longstanding exercise of occupation and dominion of the disputed area by Kentucky, the record is equally unsupportive of the claim of Illinois’ acquiescence. It is true that the Illinois Constitution of 1818 described the State’s boundary with Kentucky on the Ohio River simply as following “along its north-western shore,” Ill. Const., Preamble (1818), and the same description was employed in the State Constitutions of 1848 and 1870, see Ill. Const., Art. I (1848), Ill. Const., Art. I (1870). But these are verbatim recitations of the congressional language describing Illinois’ boundary in the State’s Enabling Act of April 18, 1818, ch. 67, 3 Stat. 428, and the Special Master correctly reasoned that “[w]hat Congress intended to be the southern boundary of Illinois, was the same southern boundary granted the states of Ohio and Indiana when they were formed. . . . Illinois, like Ohio and Indiana, was created from the territory ceded by Virginia to the United States. ...” Report of Special Master 28. Although the current version of the Illinois Constitution, adopted in 1970, omits any description of the State’s boundaries, the 1870 Constitution’s language remained the reference point in the most recent Illinois case dealing with the State’s river' boundary that has come to our attention. See People ex rel. Scott v. Dravo Corp., 10 Ill. App. 3d 944, 944-945, 295 N. E. 2d 284, 285 (1973), cert. denied, 416 U. S. 951 (1974).
The courts of Illinois, indeed, for some time took an even less hospitable view of Kentucky’s interests than the Illinois Constitution did. In Joyce-Watkins Co. v. Industrial Comm’n, 325 Ill. 378, 381, 156 N. E. 346, 348 (1927), the State Supreme Court adopted a theory that would have ratchetted the boundary line forever southward toward the deepest point of the river, by holding the boundary to be the low-water mark on the northerly shore of the river at the “point to which the water receded at its lowest stage.” This description of the boundary was followed by Illinois courts until at least 1973, see People ex rel. Scott v. Dravo Corp., supra, and while it plainly conflicts with our decisions in Indiana v. Kentucky, 136 U. S. 479 (1890), and Ohio v. Kentucky, supra, its use over nearly 50 years shows that Illinois did not acquiesce in any claim by Kentucky to a low-water mark that might edge northward over time.
Such was the force of the evidence adduced, and such was its failure to support Kentucky’s claim of prescription and acquiescence.
B
Kentucky’s other affirmative defenses are likewise unavailing. The Special Master correctly observed that the laches defense is generally inapplicable against a State. See Block v. North Dakota ex rel. Bd. of Univ. and School Lands, 461 U. S. 273, 294 (1983) (O’Connor, J., dissenting) (collecting authorities); Guaranty Trust Co. v. United States, 304 U. S. 126, 132-133 (1938); cf. Weber v. Board of Harbor Comm’rs, 18 Wall. 57, 70 (1873) (statutes of limitations generally not applicable to State). Although the law governing interstate boundary disputes takes account of the broad policy disfavoring the untimely assertion of rights that underlies the defense of laches and statutes of limitations, it does so through the doctrine of prescription and acquiescence, see generally Georgia v. South Carolina, supra, which Kentucky has failed to satisfy.
Kentucky’s affirmative defenses based on the “principles of riparian boundaries, including accretion, erosion and avulsion,” require no extended consideration, for Kentucky concedes that these would affect the ultimate boundary determination only if it prevailed on the issues of prescription and acquiescence. Exceptions of Commonwealth of Kentucky 48-49 (“It is Kentucky’s position that if it prevails on its affirmative defense of acquiescence, then the well-recognized principles of accretion, erosion and avulsion would obviously apply to a current shoreline boundary as it may change from time to time”). We have previously held as much, concluding that “the well-recognized and accepted rules of accretion and avulsion attendant upon a wandering river” have no application to Kentucky’s Ohio River boundary because of the “historical factors” stemming from the cession by Virginia of the land northwest of the river to the United States. Ohio v. Kentucky, supra, at 337.
Kentucky’s final exception to the Special Master’s report goes to the finding in Part III.C. that construction of dams on the river has permanently raised its level above that of 1792, consequently placing the present low-water mark on the Illinois side farther north than it was in 1792. Kentucky calls any question about the relative locations of the 1792 line and today’s low-water mark premature, and we agree. Indeed, the Special Master himself suggested that this issue might, if necessary, “be determined at a later date,” Report of Special Master 47, after he had made further recommendations to resolve any disputes the parties may have about the exact location of the 1792 line.
Ill
The exception of the Commonwealth of Kentucky to Part III.C. and Recommendation (3) of the report of the Special Master, as to the effect of modern dams on the level of the Ohio River, is sustained. Kentucky’s other exceptions are overruled. The report, save for Part III.C. and Recommendation (3), is adopted, and the case is remanded to the Special Master for such further proceedings as may be necessary to prepare and submit an appropriate decree for adoption by the Court, locating the 1792 line.
It is so ordered.
In June 1988, we appointed a new Special Master, Matthew J. Jasen, Esq., to replace Judge Van Pelt, who had died in April 1988. 487 U. S. 1215.
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.
Per Curiam.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals, 528 P. 2d 1208, is vacated and the cause remanded for further consideration in light of General Electric Co. v. Gilbert, 429 U. S. 125 (1976), and Nashville Gas Co. v. Satty, ante, p. 136, and for consideration of possible mootness.
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 Sotomayor
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case presents the question whether a plaintiff can state a claim for securities fraud under § 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, 48 Stat. 891, as amended, 15 U. S. C. § 78j(b), and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Rule 10b-5, 17 CFR §240.10b-5 (2010), based on a pharmaceutical company’s failure to disclose reports of adverse events associated with a product if the reports do not disclose a statistically significant number of adverse events. Respondents, plaintiffs in a securities fraud class action, allege that petitioners, Matrixx Initiatives, Inc., and three of its executives (collectively Matrixx), failed to disclose reports of a possible link between Matrixx’s leading product, a cold remedy, and loss of smell, rendering statements made by Matrixx misleading. Matrixx contends that respondents’ complaint does not adequately allege that Matrixx made a material representation or omission or that it acted with scienter because the complaint does not allege that Matrixx knew of a statistically significant number of adverse events requiring disclosure. We conclude that the materiality of adverse event reports cannot be reduced to a bright-line rule. Although in many cases reasonable investors would not consider reports of adverse events to be material information, respondents have alleged facts plausibly suggesting that reasonable investors would have viewed these particular reports as material. Respondents have also alleged facts “giving rise to a strong inference” that Matrixx “acted with the required state of mind.” 15 U. S. C. § 78u-4(b)(2)(A) (2006 ed., Supp. IV). We therefore hold, in agreement with the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, that respondents have stated a claim under § 10(b) and Rule 10b-5.
I
A
Through a wholly owned subsidiary, Matrixx develops, manufactures, and markets over-the-counter pharmaceutical products. Its core brand of products is called Zicam. All of the products sold under the name Zicam are used to treat the common cold and associated symptoms. At the time of the events in question, one of Matrixx’s products was Zicam Cold Remedy, which came in several forms including nasal spray and gel. The active ingredient in Zicam Cold Remedy was zinc gluconate. Respondents allege that Zicam Cold Remedy accounted for approximately 70 percent of Matrixx’s sales.
Respondents initiated this securities fraud class action against Matrixx on behalf of individuals who purchased Matrixx securities between October 22, 2003, and February 6, 2004. The action principally arises out of statements that Matrixx made during the class period relating to revenues and product safety. Respondents claim that Matrixx’s statements were misleading in light of reports that Matrixx had received, but did not disclose, about consumers who had lost their sense of smell (a condition called anosmia) after using Zicam Cold Remedy. Respondents’ consolidated amended complaint alleges the following facts, which the courts below properly assumed to be true. See Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U. S. 662, 678 (2009).
In 1999, Dr. Alan Hirsch, neurological director of the Smell & Taste Treatment and Research Foundation, Ltd., called Matrixx’s customer service line after discovering a possible link between Zicam nasal gel and a loss of smell “in a cluster of his patients.” App. 67a~68a. Dr. Hirsch told a Matrixx employee that “previous studies had demonstrated that intranasal application of zinc could be problematic.” Id., at 68a. He also told the employee about at least one of his patients who did not have a cold and who developed anosmia after using Zicam.
In September 2002, Timothy Clarot, Matrixx’s vice president for research and development, called Miriam Linschoten, Ph.D., at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center after receiving a complaint from a person Linschoten was treating who had lost her sense of smell after using Zicam. Clarot informed Linschoten that Matrixx had received similar complaints from other customers. Linschoten drew Clarot’s attention to “previous studies linking zinc sulfate to loss of smell. ” Ibid. Clarot gave her the impression that he had not heard of the studies. She asked Clarot whether Matrixx had done any studies of its own; he responded that it had not but that it had hired a consultant to review the product. Soon thereafter, Linschoten sent Clarot abstracts of the studies she had mentioned. Research from the 1930’s and 1980’s had confirmed “[z]inc’s toxicity.” Id., at 69a. Clarot called Linschoten to ask whether she would be willing to participate in animal studies that Matrixx was planning, but she declined because her focus was human research.
By September 2003, one of Linschoten’s colleagues at the University of Colorado, Dr. Bruce Jafek, had observed 10 patients suffering from anosmia after Zicam use. Linschoten and Jafek planned to present their findings at a meeting of the American Rhinologic Society in a poster presentation entitled “Zicam® Induced Anosmia.” Ibid, (internal quotation marks omitted). The American Rhinologic Society posted their abstract in advance of the meeting. The presentation described in detail a 55-year-old man with previously normal taste and smell who experienced severe burning in his nose, followed immediately by a loss of smell, after using Zicam. It also reported 10 other Zicam users with similar symptoms.
Matrixx learned of the doctors’ planned presentation. Clarot sent a letter to Dr. Jafek warning him that he did not have permission to use Matrixx’s name or the names of its products. Dr. Jafek deleted the references to Zicam in the poster before presenting it to the American Rhinologic Society.
The following month, two plaintiffs commenced a product liability lawsuit against Matrixx alleging that Zicam had damaged their sense of smell. By the end of the class period on February 6, 2004, nine plaintiffs had filed four lawsuits.
Respondents allege that Matrixx made a series of public statements that were misleading in light of the foregoing information. In October 2003, after it had learned of Dr. Jafek’s study and after Dr. Jafek had presented his findings to the American Rhinologic Society, Matrixx stated that Zicam was “ 'poised for growth in the upcoming cough and cold season’ ” and that the company had “'very strong momentum.’ ” Id., at 72a-74a. Matrixx further expressed its expectation that revenues would “ 'be up in excess of 50% and that earnings, per share for the full year [would] be in the 25 to 30 cent range.’” Id., at 74a. In January 2004, Matrixx raised its revenue guidance, predicting an increase in revenues of 80 percent and earnings per share in the 33- to 38-cent range.
In its Form 10-Q filed with the SEC in November 2003, Zicam warned of the potential “‘material adverse effect’” that could result from product liability claims, “ ‘whether or not proven to be valid.’” Id., at 75a-76a. It stated that product liability actions could materially affect Matrixx’s “ ‘product branding and goodwill,’ ” leading to reduced customer acceptance. Id., at 76a. It did not disclose, however, that two plaintiffs had already sued Matrixx for allegedly causing them to lose their sense of smell.
On January 30,2004, Dow Jones Newswires reported that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was “ ‘looking into complaints that an over-the-counter common-cold medicine manufactured by a unit of Matrixx Initiatives, Inc. (MTXX) may be causing some users to lose their sense of smell’ ” in light of at least three product liability lawsuits. Id., at 79a-80a. Matrixx’s stock fell from $13.55 to $11.97 per share after the report. In response, on February 2, Matrixx issued a press release that stated:
“All Zicam products are manufactured and marketed according to FDA guidelines for homeopathic medicine. Our primary concern is the health and safety of our customers and the distribution of factual information about our products. Matrixx believes statements alleging that intranasal Zicam products cause anosmia (loss of smell) are completely unfounded and misleading.
“In no clinical trial of intranasal zinc gluconate gel products has there been a single report of lost or diminished olfactory function (sense of smell). Rather, the safety and efficacy of zinc gluconate for the treatment of symptoms related to the common cold have been well established in two double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized clinical trials. In fact, in neither study were there any reports of anosmia related to the use of this compound. The overall incidence of adverse events associated with zinc gluconate was extremely low, with no statistically significant difference between the adverse event rates for the treated and placebo subsets.
“A multitude of environmental and biologic influences are known to affect the sense of smell. Chief among them is the common cold. As a result, the population most likely to use cold remedy products is already at increased risk of developing anosmia. Other common causes of olfactory dysfunction include age, nasal and sinus infections, head trauma, anatomical obstructions, and environmental irritants.” Id., at 77a-78a (internal quotation marks omitted).
The day after Matrixx issued this press release, its stock price bounced back to $13.40 per share.
On February 6, 2004, the end of the class period, Good Morning America, a nationally broadcast morning news program, highlighted Dr. Jafek’s findings. (The complaint does not allege that Matrixx learned of the news story before its broadcast.) The program reported that Dr. Jafek had discovered more than a dozen patients suffering from anosmia after using Zicam. It also noted that four lawsuits had been filed against Matrixx. The price of Matrixx stock plummeted to $9.94 per share that same day. Zicam again issued a press release largely repeating its February 2 statement.
On February 19, 2004, Matrixx filed a Form 8-K with the SEC stating that it had ‘“convened a two-day meeting of physicians and scientists to review current information on smell disorders’” in response to Dr. Jafek’s presentation. Id., at 82a. According to the Form 8-K: “ ‘In the opinion of the panel, there is insufficient scientific evidence at this time to determine if zinc gluconate, when used as recommended, affects a person’s ability to smell.’” Ibid. A few weeks later, a reporter quoted Matrixx as stating that it would begin conducting “‘animal and human studies to further characterize these post-marketing complaints.’ ” Id., at 84a.
On the basis of these allegations, respondents claimed that Matrixx violated § 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act and SEC Rule 10b-5 by making untrue statements of fact and failing to disclose material facts necessary to make the statements not misleading in an effort to maintain artificially high prices for Matrixx securities.
B
Matrixx moved to dismiss respondents’ complaint, arguing that they had failed to plead the elements of a material misstatement or omission and scienter. The District Court granted the motion to dismiss. Relying on In re Carter-Wallace, Inc. Securities Litigation, 220 F. 3d 36 (CA2 2000), it held that respondents had not alleged a “statistically significant correlation between the use of Zicam and anosmia so as to make failure to public[ly] disclose complaints and the University of Colorado study a material omission.” App. to Pet. for. Cert. 50a. The District Court similarly agreed that respondents had not stated with particularity facts giving rise to a strong inference of scienter. See 15 U. S. C. § 78u-4(b)(2)(A). It noted that the complaint failed to allege that Matrixx disbelieved its statements about Zicam’s safety or that any of the defendants profited or attempted to profit from Matrixx’s public statements. App. to Pet. for Cert. 52a.
The Court of Appeals reversed. 585 F. 3d 1167 (CA9 2009). Noting that “ ‘[t]he determination [of materiality] requires delicate assessments of the inferences a “reasonable shareholder” would draw from a given set of facts and the significance of those inferences to him,’ ” id., at 1178 (quoting Basic Inc. v. Levinson, 485 U. S. 224, 236 (1988); some internal quotation marks omitted; alterations in original), the Court of Appeals held that the District Court had erred in requiring an allegation of statistical significance to establish materiality. It concluded, to the contrary, that the complaint adequately alleged “information regarding the possible link between Zicam and anosmia” that would have been significant to a reasonable investor. 585 F. 3d, at 1179,1180. Turning to scienter, the Court of Appeals concluded that “[withholding reports of adverse effects of and lawsuits concerning the product responsible for the company’s remarkable sales increase is ‘an extreme departure from the standards of ordinary care,’ ” giving rise to a strong inference of scienter. Id., at 1183.
We granted certiorari, 560 U. S. 964 (2010), and we now affirm.
II
Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act makes it unlawful for any person to “use or employ, in connection with the purchase or sale of any security... any manipulative or deceptive device or contrivance in contravention of such rules and regulations as the Commission may prescribe as necessary or appropriate in the public interest or for the protection of investors.” 15 U. S. C. §78j(b). SEC Rule 10b-5 implements this provision by making it unlawful to, among other things, “make any untrue statement of a material fact or to omit to state a material fact necessary in order to make the statements made, in the light of the circumstances under which they were made, not misleading.” 17 CFR § 240.10b-5(b). We have implied a private cause of action from the text and purpose of § 10(b). See Tellabs, Inc. v. Makor Issues & Rights, Ltd., 551 U. S. 308, 318 (2007).
To prevail on their claim that Matrixx made material misrepresentations or omissions in violation of § 10(b) and Rule 10b-5, respondents must prove “(1) a materia] 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.” Stoneridge Investment Partners, LLC v. Scientific-Atlanta, Inc., 552 U. S. 148, 157 (2008). Matrixx contends that respondents have failed to plead both the element of a material misrepresentation or omission and the element of scienter because they have not alleged that the reports received by Matrixx reflected statistically significant evidence that Zicam caused anosmia. We disagree.
A
We first consider Matrixx’s argument that “adverse event reports that do not reveal a statistically significant increased risk of adverse events from product use are not material information.” Brief for Petitioners 17 (capitalization omitted).
1
To prevail on a § 10(b) claim, a plaintiff must show that the defendant made a statement that was “misleading as to a material fact.” Basic, 485 U. S., at 238. In Basic, we held that this materiality requirement is satisfied when there is “ ‘a substantial likelihood that the disclosure of the omitted fact would have been viewed by the reasonable investor as having significantly altered the “total mix” of information made available.’” Id., at 231-232 (quoting TSC Industries, Inc. v. Northway, Inc., 426 U. S. 438, 449 (1976)). We were “careful not to set too low a standard of materiality,” for fear that management would “‘bury the shareholders in an avalanche of trivial information.’” 485 U. S., at 231 (quoting TSC Industries, 426 U. S., at 448-449).
Basic involved a claim that the defendant had made misleading statements denying that it was engaged in merger negotiations when it was, in fact, conducting preliminary negotiations. See 485 U. S., at 227-229. The defendant urged a bright-line rule that preliminary merger negotiations are material only once the parties to the negotiations reach an agreement in principle. Id., at 232-233. We observed that “[a]ny approach that designates a single fact or occurrence as always determinative of an inherently fact-specific finding such as materiality, must necessarily be overinclusive or underinclusive.” Id., at 236. We thus rejected the defendant’s proposed rule, explaining that it would “artificially ex-clud[e] from the definition of materiality information concerning merger discussions, which would otherwise be considered significant to the trading decision of a reasonable investor.” Ibid.
Like the defendant in Basic, Matrixx urges us to adopt a bright-line rule that reports of adverse events associated with a pharmaceutical company’s products cannot be material absent a sufficient number of such reports to establish a statistically significant risk that the product is in fact causing the events. Absent statistical significance, Matrixx argues, adverse event reports provide only “anecdotal” evidence that “the user of a drug experienced an adverse event at some point during or following the use of that drug.” Brief for Petitioners 17. Accordingly, it contends, reasonable investors would not consider such reports relevant unless they are statistically significant because only then do they “reflect a scientifically reliable basis for inferring a potential causal link between product use and the adverse event.” Id., at 32.
As in Basic, Matrixx’s categorical rule would “artificially exelud[e]” information that “would otherwise be considered significant to the trading decision of a reasonable investor.” 485 U. S., at 236. Matrixx’s argument rests on the premise that statistical significance is the only reliable indication of causation. This premise is flawed: As the SEC points out, “medical researchers... consider multiple factors in assessing causation.” Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 12. Statistically significant data are not always available. For example, when an adverse event is subtle or rare, “an inability to obtain a data set of appropriate quality or quantity may preclude a finding of statistical significance.” Id., at 15; see also Brief for Medical Researchers as Amici Curiae 11. Moreover, ethical considerations may prohibit researchers from conducting randomized clinical trials to confirm a suspected causal link for the purpose of obtaining statistically significant data. See id., at 10-11.
A lack of statistically significant data does not mean that medical experts have no reliable basis for inferring a causal link between a drug and adverse events. As Matrixx itself concedes, medical experts rely on other evidence to establish an inference of causation. See Brief for Petitioners 44-45, n. 22 We note that court's frequently permit expert testimony on causation based on evidence other than statistical significance. See, e. g., Best v. Lowe’s Home Centers, Inc., 563 F. 3d 171, 178 (CA6 2009); Westberry v. Gislaved Gummi AB, 178 F. 3d 257, 263-264 (CA4 1999) (citing cases); Wells v. Ortho Pharmaceutical Corp., 788 F. 2d 741, 744-745 (CA11 1986). We need not consider whether the expert testimony was properly admitted in those cases, and we do not attempt to define here what constitutes reliable evidence of causation. It suffices to note that, as these courts have recognized, “medical professionals and researchers do not limit the data they consider to the results of randomized clinical trials or to statistically significant evidence.” Brief for Medical Researchers as Amici Curiae 31.
The FDA similarly does not limit the evidence it considers for purposes of assessing causation and taking regulatory action to statistically significant data. In assessing the safety risk posed by a product, the FDA considers factors such as “strength of the association,” “temporal relationship of product use and the event,” “consistency of findings across available data sources,” “evidence of a dose-response for the effect,” “biologic plausibility,” “seriousness of the event relative to the disease being treated,” “potential to mitigate the risk in the population,” “feasibility of further study using observational or controlled clinical study designs,” and “degree of benefit the product provides, including availability of other therapies.” FDA, Guidance for Industry: Good Pharmacovigilance Practices and Pharmacoepidemiologic Assessment 18 (2005) (capitalization omitted), http:// www.fda.gov/downloads/RegulatingInformation/Guidances/ UCM126834.pdf (all Internet materials as visited Mar. 17, 2011, and available in Clerk of Court’s case file); see also Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 19-20 (same); FDA, The Clinical Impact of Adverse Event Reporting 6 (1996) (similar), http://www.fda.gov/downloads/safety/ MedWateh/UCM168505.pdf. It “does not apply any single metric for determining when additional inquiry or action is necessary, and it certainly does not insist upon ‘statistical significance.’” Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 19.
Not only does the FDA rely on a wide range of evidence of causation, it sometimes acts on the basis of evidence that suggests, but does not prove, causation. For example, the FDA requires manufacturers of over-the-counter drugs to revise their labeling “to include a warning as soon as there is reasonable evidence of an association of a serious hazard with a drug; a causal relationship need not have been proved.” 21 CFR § 201.80(e). More generally, the FDA may make regulatory decisions against drugs based on post-marketing evidence that gives rise to only a suspicion of causation. See FDA, The Clinical Impact of Adverse Event Reporting, supra, at 7 (“[A]chieving certain proof of causality through postmarketing surveillance is unusual. Attaining a prominent degree of suspicion is much more likely, and may be considered a sufficient basis for regulatory decisions” (footnote omitted)).
This case proves the point. In 2009, the FDA issued a warning letter to Matrixx stating that “[a] significant and growing body of evidence substantiates that the Zicam Cold Remedy intranasal products may pose a serious risk to consumers who use them.” App. 270a. The letter cited as evidence 130 reports of anosmia the FDA had received, the fact that the FDA had received few reports of anosmia associated with other intranasal cold remedies, and “evidence in the published scientific literature that various salts of zinc can damage olfactory function in animals and humans.” Ibid. It did not cite statistically significant data.
Given that medical professionals and regulators act on the basis of evidence of causation that is not statistically significant, it stands to reason that in certain cases reasonable investors would as well. As Matrixx acknowledges, adverse event reports “appear in many forms, including direct complaints by users to manufacturers, reports by doctors about reported or observed patient reactions, more detailed case reports published by doctors in medical journals, or larger scale published clinical studies.” Brief for Petitioners 17. As a result, assessing the materiality of adverse event reports is a “fact-specific” inquiry, Basic, 485 U. S., at 236, that requires consideration of the source, content, and context of the reports. This is not to say that statistical significance (or the lack thereof) is irrelevant — only that it is not dispositive of every case.
Application of Basic’s “total mix” standard does not mean that pharmaceutical manufacturers must disclose all reports of adverse events. Adverse event reports are daily events in the pharmaceutical industry; in 2009, the FDA entered nearly 500,000 such reports into its reporting system, see FDA, Reports Received and Reports Entered in AERS by Year (as of Mar. 31, 2010), http://www.fda.gov/Drugs/ GuidanceComplianceRegulatorylnformation/Surveillance/ AdverseDrugEffeets/ucm070434.htm. The fact that a user of a drug has suffered an adverse event, standing alone, does not mean that the drug caused that event. See FDA, Annual Adverse Drug Experience Report: 1996, p. 2 (1997), http://druganddevicelaw.net/Annual%20Adverse%20Drug %20Experience%20Report%201996.pdf. The question remains whether a reasonable investor would have viewed the nondisclosed information “‘as having significantly altered the “total mix” of information made available.’ ” Basic, 485 U. S., at 232 (quoting TSC Industries, 426 U. S., at 449; emphasis added). For the reasons just stated, the mere existence of reports of adverse events — which says nothing in and of itself about whether the drug is causing the adverse events — will not satisfy this standard. Something more is needed, but that something more is not limited to statistical significance and can come from “the source, content, and context of the reports,” supra, at 43. This contextual inquiry may reveal in some cases that reasonable investors would have viewed reports of adverse events as material even though the reports did not provide statistically significant evidence of a causal link.
Moreover, it bears emphasis that § 10(b) and Rule 10b-5(b) do not create an affirmative duty to disclose any and all material information. Disclosure is required under these provisions only when necessary “to make... statements made, in the light of the circumstances under which they were made, not misleading.” 17 CFR §240.10b-5(b); see also Basic, 485 U. S., at 239, n. 17 (“Silence, absent a duty to disclose, is not misleading under Rule 10b-5”). Even with respect to information that a reasonable investor might consider material, companies can control what they have to disclose under these provisions by controlling what they say to the market.
2
Applying Basic’s “total mix” standard in this case, we conclude that respondents have adequately pleaded materiality. This is not a case about a handful of anecdotal reports, as Matrixx suggests. Assuming the complaint’s allegations to be true, as we must, Matrixx received information that plausibly indicated a reliable causal link between Zicam and anosmia. That information included reports from three medical professionals and researchers about more than 10 patients who had lost their sense of smell after using Zicam. Clarot told Linschoten that Matrixx had received additional reports of anosmia. (In addition, during the class period, nine plaintiffs commenced four product liability lawsuits against Matrixx alleging a causal link between Zicam use and anosmia.) Further, Matrixx knew that Linschoten and Dr. Jafek had presented their findings about a causal link between Zicam and anosmia to a national medical conference devoted to treatment of diseases of the nose. Their presentation described a patient who experienced severe burning in his nose, followed immediately by a loss of smell, after using Zicam — suggesting a temporal relationship between Zicam use and anosmia.
Critically, both Dr. Hirsch and Linschoten had also drawn Matrixx’s attention to previous studies that had demonstrated a biological causal link between intranasal application of zinc and anosmia. Before his conversation with Linschoten, Clarot, Matrixx’s vice president of research and development, was seemingly unaware of these studies, and the complaint suggests that, as of the class period, Matrixx had not conducted any research of its own relating to anosmia. See, e. g., App. 84a (referencing a press report, issued after the end of the class period, noting that Matrixx said it would begin conducting “ ‘animal and human studies to further characterize these post-marketing complaints’”). Accordingly, it can reasonably be inferred from the complaint that Matrixx had no basis for rejecting Dr. Jafek’s findings out of hand.
We believe that these allegations suffice to “raise a reasonable expectation that discovery will reveal evidence” satisfying the materiality requirement, Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U. S. 544, 556 (2007), and to “allo[w] the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged," Iqbal, 556 U. S., at 678. The information provided to Matrixx by medical experts revealed a plausible causal relationship between Zicam Cold Remedy and anosmia. Consumers likely would have viewed the risk associated with Zicam (possible loss of smell) as substantially outweighing the benefit of using the product (alleviating cold symptoms), particularly in light of the existence of many alternative products on the market. Importantly, Zicam Cold Remedy allegedly accounted for 70 percent of Matrixx’s sales. Viewing the allegations of the complaint as a whole, the complaint alleges facts suggesting a significant risk to the commercial viability of Matrixx’s leading product.
It is substantially likely that a reasonable investor would have viewed this information “‘as having significantly altered the “total mix” of information made available.’” Basic, 485 U. S., at 232 (quoting TSC Industries, 426 U. S., at 449). Matrixx told the market that revenues were going to rise 50 and then 80 percent. Assuming the complaint’s allegations to be true, however, Matrixx had information indicating a significant risk to its leading revenue-generating product. Matrixx also stated that reports indicating that Zicam caused anosmia were “ ‘completely unfounded and misleading’ ” and that “ ‘the safety and efficacy of zinc gluconate for the treatment of symptoms related to the common cold have been well established.’” App. 77a-78a. Importantly, however, Matrixx had evidence of a biological link between Zicam’s key ingredient and anosmia, and it had not conducted any studies of its own to disprove that link. In fact, as Matrixx later revealed, the scientific evidence at that time was “ ‘insufficient... to determine if zinc gluconate, when used as recommended, affects a person’s ability to smell.’” Id., at 82a.
Assuming the facts to be true, these were material facts “necessary in order to make the statements made, in the light of the circumstances under which they were made, not misleading.” 17 CFR §240.10b-5(b). We therefore affirm the Court of Appeals’ holding that respondents adequately pleaded the element of a material misrepresentation or omission.
B
Matrixx also argues that respondents failed to allege facts plausibly suggesting that it acted with the required level of scienter. “To establish liability under § 10(b) and Rule 10b-5, a private plaintiff must prove that the defendant acted with scienter, 'a mental state embracing intent to deceive, manipulate, or defraud.’ ” Tellabs, 551 U. S., at 319 (quoting Ernst & Ernst v. Hochfelder, 425 U. S. 185, 193-194, and n. 12 (1976)). We have not decided whether recklessness suffices to fulfill the scienter requirement. See Tellabs, 551 U. S., at 319, n. 3. Because Matrixx does not challenge the Court of Appeals’ holding that the scienter requirement may be satisfied by a showing of “deliberate recklessness,” see 585 F. 3d, at 1180 (internal quotation marks omitted), we assume, without deciding, that the standard applied by the Court of Appeals is sufficient to establish scienter.
Under the PSLRA, a plaintiff must “state with particularity facts giving rise to a strong inference that the defendant acted with the required state of mind.” 15 U. S. C. § 78u-4(b)(2)(A) (2006 ed., Supp. IY). This standard requires courts to take into account “plausible opposing inferences.” Tellabs, 551 U. S., at 323. A complaint adequately pleads scienter under the PSLRA “only if a reasonable person would deem the inference of scienter cogent and at least as compelling as any opposing inference one could draw from the facts alleged.” Id., at 324. In making this determination, the court must review “all the allegations holistically.” Id., at 326. The absence of a motive allegation, though relevant, is not dispositive. Id., at 325.
Matrixx argues, in summary fashion, that because respondents do not allege that it knew of statistically significant evidence of causation, there is no basis to consider the inference that it acted recklessly or knowingly to be at least as compelling as the alternative inferences. “Rather,” it argues, “the most obvious inference is that petitioners did not disclose the [reports] simply because petitioners believed they were far too few... to indicate anything meaningful about adverse reactions to use of Zicam.” Brief for Petitioners 49. Matrixx’s proposed bright-line rule requiring an allegation of statistical significance to establish a strong inference of scienter is just as flawed as its approach to materiality.
The inference that Matrixx acted recklessly (or intentionally, for that matter) is at least as compelling as, if not more compelling than, the inference that it simply thought the reports did not indicate anything meaningful about adverse reactions. According to the complaint, Matrixx was sufficiently concerned about the information it received that it informed Linschoten that it had hired a consultant to review the product, asked Linschoten to participate in animal studies, and convened a panel of physicians and scientists in response to Dr. Jafek’s presentation. It successfully prevented Dr. Jafek from using Zicam’s name in his presentation on the ground that he needed Matrixx’s permission to do so. Most significantly, Matrixx issued a press release that suggested that studies had confirmed that Zicam does not cause anosmia when, in fact, it had not conducted any studies relating to anosmia and the scientific evidence at that time, according to the panel of scientists, was insufficient to determine whether Zicam did or did not cause anosmia.
These allegations, “taken collectively,” give rise to a “cogent and compelling” inference that Matrixx elected not to disclose the reports of adverse events not because it believed they were meaningless but because it understood their likely effect on the market. Tellabs, 551 U. S., at 323, 324. “[A] reasonable person” would deem the inference that Matrixx acted with deliberate recklessness (or even intent) “at least as compelling as any opposing inference one could draw from the facts alleged.” Id., at 324. We conclude, in agreement with the Court of Appeals, that respondents have adequately pleaded scienter. Whether respondents can ultimately prove their allegations and establish scienter is an altogether different question.
* * *
For the reasons stated, the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is
Affirmed.
According to the complaint, Matrixx securities were traded on the NASDAQ National Market. App. 99a.
At oral argument, counsel for the United States, which submitted an amicus curiae brief in support of respondents, suggested that some of these statements might qualify as nonactionable “puffery.” Tr. of Oral Arg. 51-52. This question is
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.
These cases present a question expressly reserved in NLRB v. Gissel Packing Co., 395 U. S. 575, 595, 601 n. 18 (1969).
In Linden respondent union obtained authorization cards from a majority of petitioner’s employees and demanded that it be recognized as the collective-bargaining representative of those employees. Linden said it doubted the union’s claimed majority status and suggested the union petition the Board for an election. The union filed such a petition with the Board but later withdrew it when Linden declined to enter a consent election agreement or abide by an election, on the ground that respondent union’s organizational campaign had been improperly assisted by company supervisors. Respondent union thereupon renewed its demand for collective bargaining; and again Linden declined, saying that the union’s claimed membership had been improperly influenced by supervisors. Thereupon respondent union struck for recognition as the bargaining representative and shortly filed a charge of unfair labor practice against Linden based on its refusal to bargain.
There is no charge that Linden engaged in an unfair labor practice apart from its refusal to bargain. The Board held that Linden should not be guilty of an unfair labor practice solely on the basis “of its refusal to accept evidence of majority status other than the results of a Board election.” 190 N. L. R. B. 718, 721 (1971).
In Wilder there apparently were 30 employees in the plant, and the union with 11 signed and two unsigned authorization cards requested recognition.as the bargaining agent for the company’s production and maintenance employees. Of the 30 employees 18 were in the production and maintenance unit which the Board found to be appropriate for collective bargaining. No answer was given by the employer, Wilder, and recognitional picketing began. The request was renewed when the two unsigned cards were signed, but Wilder denied recognition. Thereupon the union filed unfair labor practice charges against Wilder. A series of Board decisions and judicial decisions, not necessary to recapitulate here, consumed about seven years until the present decision by the Court of Appeals. The Board made the same ruling as respects Wilder as it did in Linden’s case. See 198 N. L. R. B. 998 (1972). On petitions for review the Court of Appeals reversed. 159 U. S. App. D. C. 228, 487 F. 2d 1099 (1973). We reverse the Court of Appeals.
In Gissel we held that an employer who engages in “unfair” labor practices “ ‘likely to destroy the union’s majority and seriously impede the election’ ” may not insist that before it bargains the union get a secret ballot election. 395 U. S., at 600. There were no such unfair labor practices here, nor had the employer in either case agreed to a voluntary settlement of the dispute and then reneged. As noted, we reserved in Gissel the questions “whether, absept election interference by an employer’s unfair labor practices, he may obtain an election only if he petitions for one himself; whether, if he does not, he must bargain with a card majority if the Union chooses not to seek an election; and whether, in the latter situation, he is bound by the Board’s ultimate determination of the card results regardless of his earlier good faith doubts, or whether he can still insist on a Union-sought election if he makes an affirmative showing of his positive reasons for believing there is a representation dispute.” Id., at 601 n. 18.
We recognized in Gissel that while the election process had acknowledged superiority in ascertaining whether a union has majority support, cards may “adequately reflect employee sentiment.” Id., at 603.
Generalizations are difficult; and it is urged by the unions that only the precise facts should dispose of concrete cases. As we said, however, in Gissel, the Board had largely abandoned its earlier test that the employer’s refusal to bargain was warranted, if he had a good-faith doubt that the union represented a majority. A different approach was indicated. We said:
“[A]n employer is not obligated to accept a card check as proof of majority status, under the Board’s current practice, and he is not required to justify his insistence on an election by making his own investigation of employee sentiment and showing affirmative reasons for doubting the majority status. See Aaron Brothers, 158 N. L. R. B. 1077, 1078. If he does make an investigation, the Board’s recent cases indicate that reasonable polling in this regard will not always be termed violative of § 8 (a)(1) if conducted in accordance with the requirements set out in Struksnes Construction Co., 165 N. L. R. B. [1062], 65 L. R. R. M. 1385 (1967). And even if an employer’s limited interrogation is found violative of the Act, it might not be serious enough to call for a bargaining order. See Aaron Brothers, supra; Hammond & Irving, Inc., 154 N. L. R. B. 1071 (1965). As noted above, the Board has emphasized that not ‘any employer conduct found violative of Section 8 (a)(1) of the Act, regardless of its nature or gravity, will necessarily support a refusal-to-bargain finding,’ Aaron Brothers, supra, at 1079.” 395 U. S., at 609-610.
In the present cases the Board found that the employers “should not be found guilty of a violation of Section 8 (a) (5) solely upon the basis of [their] refusal to accept evidence of majority status other than the results of a Board election.” 190 N. L. R. B., at 721; see 198 N. L. R. B., at 998. The question whether the employers had good reasons or poor reasons was not deemed relevant to the inquiry. The Court of Appeals concluded that if the employer had doubts as to a union’s majority status, it could and should test out its doubts by petitioning for an election. It said:
“While we have indicated that cards alone, or recognitional strikes and ambiguous utterances of the employer, do not necessarily provide such ‘convincing evidence of majority support’ so as to require a bargaining order, they certainly create a sufficient probability of majority support as to require an employer asserting a doubt of majority status to resolve the possibility through a petition for an election, if he is to avoid both any duty to bargain and any inquiry into the actuality of his doubt.” 159 U. S. App. D. C., at 240, 487 F. 2d, at 1111.
To take the Board’s position is not to say that authorization cards are wholly unreliable as an indication of employee support of the union. An employer concededly may have valid objections to recognizing a union on that basis. His objection to cards may, of course, mask his opposition to unions. On the other hand he may have rational, good-faith grounds for distrusting authorization cards in a given situation. He may be convinced that the fact that a majority of the employees strike and picket does not necessarily establish that they desire the particular union as their representative. Fear may indeed prevent some from crossing a picket line; or sympathy for strikers, not the desire to have the particular union in the saddle, may influence others. These factors make difficult an examination of the employer’s motive to ascertain whether it was in good faith. To enter that domain is to reject the approval by Gissel of the retreat which the Board took from its “good faith” inquiries.
The union which is faced with an unwilling employer has two alternative remedies under the Board’s decision in the instant cases. It can file for an election; or it can press unfair labor practice charges against the employer under Gissel. The latter alternative promises to consume much time. In Linden the time between filing the charge and the Board’s ruling was about 4y2 years; in Wilder, about 6% years. The Board’s experience indicates that the median time in a contested case is 388;days. Gissel, 395 U. S., at 611 n. 30. On the other hand the median time between the filing of the petition for an election and the decision of the Regional Director is about 45 days. In terms of getting on with the problems of inaugurating regimes of industrial peace, the policy of encouraging secret elections under the Act is favored. The question remains — should the burden be on the union to ask for an election or should it be the responsibility of the employer?
The Court of Appeals concluded that since Congress in 1947 authorized employers to file their own representation petitions by enacting §9 (c)(1)(B), the burden was on them. But the history of that provision indicates it was aimed at eliminating the discrimination against employers which had previously existed under the Board’s prior rules, permitting employers to petition for an election only when confronted with claims by two or more unions. There is no suggestion that Congress wanted to place the burden of getting a secret election on the employer.
“Today an employer is faced with this situation. A man comes into his office and says, ‘I represent your employees. Sign this agreement, or we strike tomorrow.’ Such instances have occurred all over the United States. The employer has no way in which to determine whether this man really does represent his employees or does not. The bill gives him the right to go to the Board under those circumstances, and say, T want an election. I want to know who is the bargaining agent for my employees.’ ” 93 Cong. Rec. 3838 (1947) (remarks of Senator Taft).
Our problem is not one of picking favorites but of trying to find the congressional purpose by examining the statutory and administrative interpretations that incline one way or another. Large issues ride on who takes the initiative. A common issue is, what should be the representative unit? In Wilder the employer at first took the position that the unit should be one of 30 employees. If it were 18, as the union claimed (or even 25 as the employer later argued), the union with its 13 authorization cards (assuming them to be valid) would have a majority. If the unit were 30, the union would be out of business.
Section 9 (c)(1)(B) visualizes an employer faced with a claim by individuals or unions “to be recognized as the representative defined in §9 (a).” That question of representation is raised only by a claim that the applicant represents a majority of employees, “in a unit appropriate for such purposes.” §9 (a). If there is a significant discrepancy between the unit which the employer wants and the unit for which the union asked recognition, the Board will dismiss the employer’s petition. Aerojet-General Corp., 185 N. L. R. B. 794 (1970); Bowman Bldg. Products Div., 170 N. L. R. B. 312 (1968); Amperex Electronic Corp., 109 N. L. R. B. 353 (1954); Wm. Wood Bakery, Inc., 97 N. L. R. B. 122 (1951). In that event the union, if it desired the smaller unit, would have to file its own petition, leaving the employer free to contest the appropriateness of that unit. The Court of Appeals thought that if the employer were required to petition the Board for an election, the litigable issues would be reduced. The recurring conflict over what should be the appropriate bargaining unit, coupled with the fact that if the employer asks for a unit which the union opposes his election petition is dismissed, is answer enough.
The Board has at least some expertise in these matters and its judgment is that an employer’s petition for an election, though permissible, is not the required course. It points out in its brief here that an employer wanting to gain delay can draw a petition to elicit protests by the union, and the thought that an employer petition would obviate litigation over the sufficiency of the union’s showing of interest is in its purview apparently not well taken. A union petition to be sure must be backed by a 30% showing of employee interest. But the sufficiency of such a showing is not litigable by the parties.
In light of the statutory scheme and the practical administrative procedural questions involved, we cannot say that the Board’s decision that the union should gó forward and ask for an election on the employer’s refusal to recognize the authorization cards was arbitrary and capricious or an abuse of discretion.
In sum, we sustain the Board in holding that, unless an employer has engaged in an unfair labor practice that impairs the electoral process, a union with authorization cards purporting to represent a majority of the employees, which is refused recognition, has the burden of taking the next step in invoking the Board’s election procedure.
Reversed.
At the conclusion of the strike Linden refused to reinstate two employees it alleged to be supervisors and therefore unprotected by the Act. The Board found that to be an unfair labor practice. Thereupon Linden reinstated the two employees and this issue was not tendered to the court below. 159 U. S. App. D. C. 228, 234, 487 F. 2d 1099, 1105 (1973).
Section 8 (a)(5) of the National Labor Relations Act provides:
“(a) It shall be an unfair labor practice for an employer—
“(5) to refuse to bargain collectively with the representatives of his employees, subject to the provisions of section 9 (a).” 49 Stat. 453, as amended, 61 Stat. 141, 29 U. S. C. § 158 (a) (5).
See n. 4, infra.
The long series of rulings is described in the opinion of the Court of Appeals, 159 U. S. App. D. C., at 229-232, 487 F. 2d, at 1100-1103. Wilder did not petition for certiorari. No. 73-1234, which we granted, is the petition of the Board, but for convenience it is referred to herein as the Wilder case.
Thirty-seventh Annual Report of the National Labor Relations Board 13 (1972).
Section 9 (c)(1)(B) provides:
“(1) Whenever a petition shall have been filed, in accordance with such regulations as may be prescribed by the Board—
“ (B) by an employer, alleging that one or more individuals or labor organizations have presented to him a claim to be recognized as the representative defined in section 9 (a);
“the Board shall investigate such petition and if it has reasonable cause to believe that a question of representation affecting commerce exists shall provide for an appropriate hearing upon due notice. Such hearing may be conducted by an officer or employee of the regional office, who shall not make any recommendations with respect thereto. If the Board finds upon the record of such hearing that such a question of representation exists, it shall direct an election by secret ballot and shall certify the results thereof.” 61 Stat. 144, 29 U. S. C. §159 (c)(1)(B).
S. Rep. No. 105, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., 10-11 (1947); 93 Cong. Rec. 3838 (1947).
Section 9 (a) provides:
“Representatives designated or selected for the purposes of collective bargaining by the majority of the employees in a unit appropriate for such purposes, shall be the exclusive representatives of all the employees in such unit for the purposes of collective bargaining in respect to rates of pay, wages, hours of employment, or other conditions of employment . . . 49 Stat. 453, as amended, 61 Stat. 143,29 U. S. C. § 159 (a).
NLRB v. Savair Mfg. Co., 414 U. S. 270, 287 n. 6 (1973) (White, J., dissenting).
We do not reach the question whether the same result obtains if the employer breaches his agreement to permit majority status to be determined by means other than a Board election. See Snow & Sons, 134 N. L. R. B. 709 (1961), enf’d, 308 F. 2d 687 (CA9 1962). In the instant cases the Board said that the employers and the unions "never voluntarily agreed upon any mutually acceptable and legally permissible means, other than a Board-conducted election, for resolving the issue of union majority status.” 190 N. L. R. B., at 721; see 198 N. L. R. B., at 998.
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: | G | 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.
These cases are before us on direct appeal from the decision of a three-judge District Court in the Southern District of New York, enjoining the Federal Communications Commission from enforcing certain provisions in its rules relating to the broadcasting of so-called “giveaway” programs. The question presented is whether the enjoined provisions correctly interpret § 1304 of the United States Criminal Code, formerly § 316 of the Communications Act of 1934. This statute prohibits the broadcasting of “. . . any lottery, gift enterprise, or similar scheme, offering prizes dependent in whole or in part upon lot or chance . ...”
The appellees are national radio and television broadcasting companies. They are, in addition, the operators of radio and television stations licensed by the Commission. Each of the appellees broadcasts, over its own and affiliated stations, certain programs popularly known as “give-away” programs. Generally characteristic of this type of program is the distribution of prizes to home listeners, selected wholly or in part on the basis of chance, as an award for correctly solving a given problem or answering a question.
The rules challenged in this proceeding, §§ 3.192, 3.292, and 3.656 of the Commission’s Rules and Regulations, were designed to prevent the broadcast of such programs. The rules are identically worded and apply, respectively, to standard radio broadcasting (AM), FM radio broadcasting, and television broadcasting. Paragraph (a) of each rule provides that “An application for construction permit, license, renewal of license, or any other authorization for the operation of a broadcast station, will not be granted where the applicant proposes to follow or continue to follow a policy or practice of broadcasting . . . ,” programs of a sort forbidden by § 1304. Paragraph (b) provides that a program will fall within the ban
“. . . if in connection with such program a prize consisting of money or thing of value is awarded to any person whose selection is dependent in whole or in part upon lot or chance, if as a condition of winning or competing for such prize:
“(1) Such winner or winners are required to furnish any money or thing of value or are required to have in their possession any product sold, manufactured, furnished or distributed by a sponsor of a program broadcast on the station in question; or
“(2) Such winner or winners are required to be listening to or viewing the program in question on a radio or television receiver; or
“(3) Such winner or winners are required to answer correctly a question, the answer to which is given on a program broadcast over the station in question or where aid to answering the question correctly is given on a program broadcast over the station in question. Eor the purposes of this provision the broadcasting of the question to be answered over the radio station on a previous program will be considered as an aid in answering the question correctly; or
“(4) Such winner or winners are required to answer the phone in a prescribed manner or with a prescribed phrase, or are required to write a letter in a prescribed manner or containing a prescribed phrase, if the prescribed manner of answering the phone or writing the letter or the prescribed phrase to be used over the phone or in the letter (or an aid in ascertaining the prescribed phrase or the prescribed manner of answering the phone or writing the letter) is, or has been, broadcast over the station in question.”
After promulgation of the rules, the present actions were brought by the appellees. The District Court sustained the Commission’s general authority to adopt such rules, and sustained subdivision (1) of paragraph (b) as a correct interpretation of § 1304. But, with one dissent, the court held that subdivisions (2), (3), and (4) were beyond the scope of § 1304 and hence invalid. The court was of the view that § 1304 applied only to contest programs requiring contestants to contribute a “price” or “thing of value.” We noted probable jurisdiction and consolidated the cases for argument.
Like the court below, we have no doubt that the Commission, concurrently with the Department of Justice, has power to enforce § 1304. Indeed, the Commission would be remiss in its duties if it failed, in the exercise of its licensing authority, to aid in implementing the statute, either by general rule or by individual decisions. But the Commission’s power in this respect is limited by the scope of the statute. Unless the “give-away” programs involved here are illegal under § 1304, the Commission cannot employ the statute to make them so by agency action. Thus, reduced to its simplest terms, the issue before us is whether this type of program constitutes a “lottery, gift enterprise, or similar scheme” proscribed by § 1304.
All the parties agree that there are three essential elements of a “lottery, gift enterprise, or similar scheme”: (1) the distribution of prizes; (2) according to chance; (3) for a consideration. They also agree that prizes on the programs under review are distributed according to chance, but they fall out on the question of whether the home contestant furnishes the necessary consideration.
The Commission contends that there is such consideration; in its brief, it urges that these programs
. . are nothing but age old lotteries in a slightly new form. The new form results from the fact that the schemes here are illicit appendages to legitimate advertising. The classic lottery looked to advance cash payments by the participants as the source of profit; the radio give-away looks to the equally material benefits to stations and advertisers from an increased radio audience to be exposed to advertising.”
It contends that consideration in the form of money or a thing of value is not essential, and that a commercial benefit to the promoter satisfies the consideration requirement:
. . Where a scheme of chance is successfully designed to reap profits for its promoter, there will ultimately be consideration flowing from the participants, and it is of no consequence whether such consideration be direct or indirect. In either event, the gambling spirit — the lure of obtaining something for nothing or almost nothing — is exploited for the benefit of the promoter of the scheme.”
As against this claim the appellees insist that something more is required than just a benefit to the promoter; that the participation of the home audience by merely listening to a broadcast does not constitute the necessary consideration.
Section 1304 itself does not define the type of consideration needed for a “lottery, gift enterprise, or similar scheme.” Nor do the postal lottery statutes from which this language was taken. The legislative history of § 1304 and the postal statutes is similarly unilluminating. For guidance, therefore, we must look primarily to American decisions, both judicial and administrative, construing comparable antilottery legislation.
Enforcing such legislation has long been a difficult task. Law enforcement officers, federal and state, have been plagued with as many types of lotteries as the seemingly inexhaustible ingenuity of their promoters could devise in their efforts to circumvent the law. When their schemes reached the courts, the decision, of necessity, usually turned on whether the scheme, on its own peculiar facts, constituted a lottery. So varied have been the techniques used by promoters to conceal the joint factors of prize, chance, and consideration, and so clever have they been in applying these techniques to feigned as well as legitimate business activities, that it has often been difficult to apply the decision of one case to the facts of another.
And so it is here. We find no decisions precisely in point on the facts of the cases before us. The courts have defined consideration in various ways, but so far as we are aware none has ever held that a contestant’s listening at home to a radio or television program satisfies the consideration requirement. Some courts — with vigorous protest from others — have held that the requirement is satisfied by a “raffle” scheme giving free chances to persons who go to a store to register in order to participate in the drawing of a prize, and similarly by a “bank night” scheme giving free chances to persons who gather in front of a motion picture theatre in order to participate in a drawing held for the primary benefit of the paid patrons of the theatre. But such cases differ substantially from the cases before us. To be eligible for a prize on the “give-away” programs involved here, not a single home contestant is required to purchase anything or pay an admission price or leave his home to visit the promoter’s place of business; the only effort required for participation is listening.
We believe that it would be stretching the statute to the breaking point to give it an interpretation that would make such programs a crime. Particularly is this true when through the years the Post Office Department and the Department of Justice have consistently given the words “lottery, gift enterprise, or similar scheme” a contrary administrative interpretation. Thus the Solicitor of the Post Office Department has repeatedly ruled that the postal lottery laws do not preclude the mailing of circulars advertising the type of “give-away” program here under attack. Similarly, the Attorney General— charged directly with the enforcement of federal criminal laws — has refused to bring criminal action against broadcasters of such programs. And in this very action, it is noteworthy that the Department of Justice has not joined the Commission in appealing the decision below.
It is true, as contended by the Commission, that these are not criminal cases, but it is a criminal statute that we must interpret. There cannot be one construction for the Federal Communications Commission and another for the Department of Justice. If we should give § 1304 the broad construction urged by the Commission, the same construction would likewise apply in criminal cases. We do not believe this construction can be sustained. Not only does it lack support in the decided cases, judicial and administrative, but also it would do violence to the well-established principle that penal statutes are to be construed strictly.
It is apparent that these so-called “give-away” programs have long been a matter of concern to the Federal Communications Commission; that it believes these programs to be the old lottery 'evil under a new guise, and that they should be struck down as illegal devices appealing to cupidity and the gambling spirit. It unsuccessfully sought to have the Department of Justice take criminal action against them. Likewise, without success, it urged Congress to amend the law to specifically prohibit them. The Commission now seeks to accomplish the same result through agency regulations. In doing so, the Commission has overstepped the boundaries of interpretation and hence has exceeded its rule-making power. Regardless of the doubts held by the Commission and others as to the social value of the programs here under consideration, such administrative expansion of § 1304 does not provide the remedy.
The judgments are
Affirmed.
Mr. Justice Douglas took no part in the decision of these cases.
18 U. S. C. § 1304 (derived from former § 316 of the Communications Act of 1934, 48 Stat. 1088-1089, repealed by 62 Stat. 862, 866):
“Whoever broadcasts by means of any radio station for which a license is required by any law of the United States, or whoever, operating any such station, knowingly permits the broadcasting of. any advertisement of or information concerning any lottery, gift enterprise, or similar scheme, offering prizes dependent in whole or in part upon lot or chance, or any list of the prizes drawn or awarded by means of any such lottery, gift enterprise, or scheme, whether said list contains any part or all of such prizes, shall be fined not more than $1,000 or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.
“Each day’s broadcasting shall constitute a separate offense.”
Examples of the “give-away” programs involved here are “Stop the Music” (American Broadcasting Company), “What’s My Name” (National Broadcasting Company), and “Sing It Again” (Columbia Broadcasting System).
“Stop the Music” is described in American’s complaint in No. 117 as follows: The home contestants are called on the telephone during the program. On the radio version, home contestants are selected at random from telephone directories. On the television version, home contestants are selected by lot from among those listeners who express in advance, through postcards sent to the network, their desire to participate. On both the radio and television versions, however, the home contestant is not required to be listening to the broadcast at the time he is called in order to participate. When called, the home contestant is asked to give the title of a musical selection that has just been played. In the event he was not listening, or for some other reason desires to have the tune repeated, the master of ceremonies hums or sings it to him over the telephone. If he answers correctly, he receives a merchandise prize; if not, he gets a less valuable “consolation” prize and a member of the studio audience is then given an opportunity to win the merchandise prize by identifying the same tune. If the home contestant answers correctly, he receives, in addition to the merchandise prize, an opportunity to identify another tune, called the “Mystery Melody.” If he identifies this tune, he wins the “jackpot” prize, usually valued at several thousand dollars. Should he fail to identify the “Mystery Melody," another home contestant is called and the process is repeated. Additions to the “jackpot” prize are made each week so long as the “Mystery Melody” remains unidentified.
“What’s My Name” is described in National’s complaint in No. 118 as follows: Prizes are awarded to contestants for correctly identifying famous persons on the basis of clues given by the master of ceremonies and in a short skit performed by professional actors. All but one of the contestants on the program are chosen from members of the studio audience. The remaining contestant is chosen at random from postcards sent in by listeners, and is called on the telephone during the program. For answering the telephone, he is awarded a watchband manufactured by the sponsor of the program and is also given the opportunity to win a valuable “jackpot” prize in Government bonds by identifying the famous person described in the “jackpot” clues. If the home contestant fails to make a correct identification, the amount of the “jackpot” is added to the “jackpot” for the following week’s program. The subject of the “jackpot” clues, however, is changed every week.
“Sing It Again” is described in Columbia’s complaint in No. 119 as follows: Performers sing a popular song and then repeat it but this time with parody lyrics describing some person, place, or event. Contestants, selected at random from telephone directories, are called by long distance telephone during the program. If the contestant correctly identifies the subject described by the parody lyrics, he wins a merchandise prize and an opportunity to win a “jackpot” prize by identifying the “Phantom Voice,” the voice of a famous but unrevealed person. Clues as to the identity of the “Phantom Voice” are given on the program and on other programs broadcast over the same network. The “jackpot” is increased week by week until the correct identification is made. If the home contestant fails to identify the subject of the parody lyrics, he receives a “consolation prize,” and a member of the studio audience is given the opportunity to answer and win the merchandise prize.
47 CFR, 1952 Cum. Supp., §§ 3.192, 3.292, 3.656. The language of the rules is broad enough to cover contest programs drawing contestants solely from members of the studio audience. In the court below, however, the Commission took the position that such coverage was not intended, and the controversy was delimited to programs involving the distribution of prizes to contestants participating from their homes. 110 F. Supp. 374, 381.
The actions were brought under § 402 (a) of the Communications Act of 1934, 48 Stat. 1093, 47 U. S. C. § 402 (a); 28 U. S. C. §§ 1336, 1398, 2284, 2321-2325; and § 10 of the Administrative Procedure Act, 60 Stat. 243, 5 U. S. C. § 1009. Pub. L. No. 901, 81st Cong., 2d Sess., 64 Stat. 1129, 5 U. S. C. § 1031, has since changed the procedure under § 402 (a), but is inapplicable to actions commenced prior to its enactment.
110 F. Supp. 374.
346 U. S. 808.
The Commission is authorized by § 4 (i) of the Communications Act to “make such rules and regulations, and issue such orders, . . . as may be necessary in the execution of its functions”; by § 303 (r) to “Make such rules and regulations and prescribe such restrictions and conditions, not inconsistent with law, as may be necessary to carry out the provisions of this chapter”; by § 307 (a) and § 309 (a) to grant station licenses and license renewals “if public convenience, interest, or necessity” would thereby be served; by § 312 (a) to revoke a license for a violation of any regulation authorized by the Act. 48 Stat. 1068, 47 U. S. C. § 154 (i); 50 Stat. 191, 47 U. S. C. § 303 (r); 48 Stat. 1083, 47 U. S. C. § 307 (a); 48 Stat. 1085, 47 U. S. C. § 309 (a); 48 Stat. 1086-1087, 47 U. S. C. § 312 (a). The “public interest, convenience, or necessity” standard for the issuance of licenses would seem to imply a requirement that the applicant be law-abiding. In any event, the standard is sufficiently broad to permit the Commission to consider the applicant’s past or proposed violation of a federal criminal statute especially designed to bar certain conduct by operators of radio and television stations. And if this consideration is a proper one in individual eases, there is no reason why it may not be stated in advance by the Commission in interpretative regulations defining the prohibited conduct with greater clarity. See National Broadcasting Co. v. United States, 319 U. S. 190, 222-224; cf. Southern Steamship Co. v. National Labor Relations Board, 316 U. S. 31, 46-47.
A typical “lottery” is a scheme in which tickets are sold and prizes are awarded among the ticket holders by lot. See Stone v. Mississippi, 101 U. S. 814. A typical “gift enterprise” differs from this in that it involves the purchase of merchandise or other property; the purchaser receives, in addition to the merchandise or other property, a “free” chance in a drawing. See Horner v. United States, 147 U. S. 449. But whatever may be the factual differences between a “lottery,” a “gift enterprise,” and a “similar scheme,” the traditional tests of chance, prize, and consideration are applicable to each. We are aware of no decision, federal or state, which has distinguished among them on the basis of their legal elements.
Section 1304 is one of five sections — § 1301 through § 1305 — which constitute “Chapter 61 — Lotteries” of Title 18. Section 1305, added in 1950, exempts certain "fishing contests” from the operation of the other four sections. Section 1301 prohibits the importing or transporting of lottery tickets; § 1302, the mailing of lottery tickets and related matter; § 1303, the participation in lottery schemes by postmasters and postal employees; and § 1304, the broadcasting of lottery information. These four sections use the same terminology— “any lottery, gift enterprise, or similar scheme, offering prizes dependent in whole or in part upon lot or chance.” This language first appeared in the 1909 amendments to the federal lottery laws. 35 Stat. 1129, 1130, 1136. It was adopted verbatim in § 316 of the Communications Act of 1934, which was the first federal statute to ban the broadcasting of lotteries. With only slight modifications not material here, § 316 became § 1304 of the Criminal Code in the 1948 revision of Title 18.
For the early history of lotteries in this country, see Spofford, Lotteries in American History, at p. 171 of 1892 Report of American Historical Association, S. Misc. Doc. No. 57, 52d Cong., 2d Sess.
See S. Rep. No. 1620, 80th Cong., 2d Sess. (1948); H. R. Rep. No. 304, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., p. A99 (1947); S. Rep. No. 781, 73d Cong., 2d Sess., p. 8 (1934); H. R. Rep. No. 1850, 73d Cong., 2d Sess. (1934); H. R. Rep. No. 1918, 73d Cong., 2d Sess., p. 49 (1934) ; S. Rep. No. 564, 72d Cong., 1st Sess., p. 10 (1932); H. R. Rep. No. 221, 72d Cong., 1st Sess., p. 8 (1932); S. Rep. No. 10, Part 1, 60th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 23 (1908); H. R. Rep. No. 2, Part 1, 60th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 22 (1908).
In the only previous decision on the legality of a “give-away” program of the type involved here, a state trial court held that the program did not constitute a lottery because the consideration element was lacking. Clef, Inc. v. Peoria Broadcasting Co., Equity No. 21368, Circuit Court of Peoria County, Illinois (1939).
Similarly, cases under the postal lottery laws (see note 9, supra) appear to be uniform in requiring a “valuable” consideration for a “lottery, gift enterprise, or similar scheme.” See Garden City Chamber of Commerce, Inc. v. Wagner, 100 F. Supp. 769 (E. D. N. Y.), stay denied, 192 F. 2d 240 (C. A. 2d Cir.); Post Publishing Co. v. Murray, 230 F. 773 (C. A. 1st Cir.), cert. denied, 241 U. S. 675. But cf. dictum in Brooklyn Daily Eagle v. Voorhies, 181 F. 579, 581-582 (C. C. E. D. N. Y.).
A leading case is Maughs v. Porter, 157 Va. 415, 161 S. E. 242; see also State ex rel. Regez v. Blumer, 236 Wis. 129, 294 N. W. 491. Contra, Cross v. People, 18 Colo. 321, 32 P. 821; cf. Garden City Chamber of Commerce, Inc. v. Wagner, 100 F. Supp. 769 (E. D. N. Y.), stay denied, 192 F. 2d 240 (C. A. 2d Cir.). For critical commentary on the Maughs decision, supra, see Notes, 18 Va. L. Rev. 465 and 80 U. of Pa. L. Rev. 744; Pickett, Contests and the Lottery Laws, 45 Harv. L. Rev. 1196, 1206.
E. g., Affiliated Enterprises, Inc. v. Waller, 40 Del. 28, 5 A. 2d 257; Affiliated Enterprises, Inc. v. Gantz, 86 F. 2d 597 (C. A. 10th Cir.). Contra, e. g., Darlington Theatres, Inc. v. Coker, 190 S. C. 282, 2 S. E. 2d 782; Affiliated Enterprises, Inc. v. Rock-Ola Mfg. Corp., 23 F. Supp. 3 (N. D. Ill.).
Some of the programs involved here (e. g., “Stop the Music,” described in note 2, supra) do not even make this requirement. As a practical matter, however, few home contestants on a “give-away” program would be in a position to answer correctly the questions asked of them unless they listened to the program.
In 1949 the Solicitor ruled that material relating to “Stop the Music” (described in note 2, supra) would be mailable. In 1950 he ruled that material relating to a comparable contest conducted on the program “Truth or Consequences” would be mailable. While earlier rulings on a “give-away” program called “Mu$ico” had been to the contrary, the Solicitor in 1949 informally advised that the material relating to the program would be mailable. These unreported rulings were made part of the record below.
In accord with these rulings, the Solicitor in 1947 had instructed local postmasters that at least “an expenditure of substantial effort or time” was required in order to find an enterprise to be a “lottery, gift enterprise, or similar scheme.” The instructions provided:
“In order for a prize scheme to be held in violation of this section, it is necessary to show (in addition to the fact that the prizes are awarded by means of lot or chance) that the ‘consideration’ involves, for example, the payment of money for the purchase of merchandise, chance or admission ticket, or as payment on an account, or requires an expenditure of substantial effort or time. On the other hand, if it is required merely that one’s name be registered at a store in order to be eligible for the -prize, consideration is not deemed to be present.” (Italics added.) Postal Bulletin, Feb. 13, 1947. The italicized language, supra, was judicially confirmed in Garden City Chamber of Commerce, Inc. v. Wagner, 100 F. Supp. 769 (E. D. N. Y.), stay denied, 192 F. 2d 240 (C. A. 2d Cir.). In 1953, on the basis of the Garden City case and the District Court decision in this case, the Solicitor issued new instructions further narrowing the meaning of “an expenditure of substantial effort or time.” Postal Bulletin, June 4, 1953.
Apparently no prosecutions have ever been instituted under either the former § 316 of the Communications Act or the present § 1304 of the Criminal Code. In a series of letters made part of the record below, the Chairman of the Commission in 1940 urged the Attorney General to institute criminal proceedings against a number of stations because of their broadcasting of “give-away” programs similar to those involved here. In response to each letter, the Attorney General advised that “careful consideration has been given to this matter and it has been concluded that no action is warranted by this Department.”
See note 16, supra.
In a letter made part of the record below, the Chairman of the Commission in 1943 urged the Senate Interstate Commerce Committee to approve a proposed amendment to § 316 of the Communications Act, later to become § 1304 of the Criminal Code. The proposed amendment would have retained the existing language as to “any lottery, gift enterprise, or similar scheme,” but would have extended the prohibition to “any program which offers money, prizes, or other gifts to members of the radio audience (as distinguished from the studio audience) selected in whole or in part by lot or chance.” No action was ever taken on the proposal.
Cf. United States v. Halseth, 342 U. S. 277, 280-281.
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 Stevens
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Since 1980, the Immigration and Nationality Act has provided two methods through which an otherwise deportable alien who claims that he will be persecuted if deported can seek relief. Section 243(h) of the Act, 8 U. S. C. § 1253(h), requires the Attorney General to withhold deportation of an alien who demonstrates that his “life or freedom would be threatened” on account of one of the listed factors if he is deported. In INS v. Stevic, 467 U. S. 407 (1984), we held that to qualify for this entitlement to withholding of deportation, an alien must demonstrate that “it is more likely than not that the alien would be subject to persecution” in the country to which he would be returned. Id., at 429-430. The Refugee Act of 1980, 94 Stat. 102, also established a second type of broader relief. Section 208(a) of the Act, 8 U. S. C. § 1158(a), authorizes the Attorney General, in his discretion, to grant asylum to an alien who is unable or unwilling to return to his home country “because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.” § 101(a)(42), 8 U. S. C. § 1101(a)(42).
In Stevie, we rejected an alien’s contention that the § 208(a) “well-founded fear” standard governs applications for withholding of deportation under 1243(h). Similarly, today we reject the Government’s contention that the § 243(h) standard, which requires an alien to show that he is more likely than not to be subject to persecution, governs applications for asylum under § 208(a). Congress used different, broader language to define the term “refugee” as used in § 208(a) than it used to describe the class of aliens who have a right to withholding of deportation under § 243(h). The Act’s establishment of a broad class of refugees who are eligible for a discretionary grant of asylum, and a narrower class of aliens who are given a statutory right not to be deported to the country where they are in danger, mirrors the provisions of the United Nations Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, which provided the motivation for the enactment of the Refugee Act of 1980. In addition, the legislative history of the 1980 Act makes it perfectly clear that Congress did not intend the class of aliens who qualify as refugees to be coextensive with the class who qualify for § 243(h) relief.
I
Respondent is a 38-year-old Nicaraguan citizen who entered the United States in 1979 as a visitor. After she remained in the United States longer than permitted, and failed to take advantage of the Immigration and Naturalization Service’s (INS) offer of voluntary departure, the INS commenced deportation proceedings against her. Respondent conceded that she was in the country illegally, but requested withholding of deportation pursuant to § 243(h) and asylum as a refugee pursuant to § 208(a).
To support her request under § 243(h), respondent attempted to show that if she were returned to Nicaragua her “life or freedom would be threatened” on account of her political views; to support her request under § 208(a), she attempted to show that she had a “well-founded fear of persecution” upon her return. The evidence supporting both claims related primarily to the activities of respondent’s brother who had been tortured and imprisoned because of his political activities in Nicaragua. Both respondent and her brother testified that they believed the Sandinistas knew that the two of them had fled Nicaragua together and that even though she had not been active politically herself, she would be interrogated about her brother’s whereabouts and activities. Respondent also testified that because of her brother’s status, her own political opposition to the Sandinis-tas would be brought to that government’s attention. Based on these facts, respondent claimed that she would be tortured if forced to return.
The Immigration Judge applied the same standard in evaluating respondent’s claim for withholding of deportation under § 248(h) as he did in evaluating her application for asylum under § 208(a). He found that she had not established “a clear probability of persecution” and therefore was not entitled to either form of relief. App. to Pet. for Cert. 27a. On appeal, the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) agreed that respondent had “failed to establish that she would suffer persecution within the meaning of section 208(a) or 243(h) of the Immigration and Nationality Act.” Id., at 21a.
In the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, respondent did not challenge the BIA’s decision that she was not entitled to withholding of deportation under § 243(h), but argued that she was eligible for consideration for asylum under § 208(a), and contended that the Immigration Judge and BIA erred in applying the “more likely than not” standard of proof from § 243(h) to her § 208(a) asylum claim. Instead, she asserted, they should have applied the “well-founded fear” standard, which she considered to be more generous. The court agreed. Relying on both the text and the structure of the Act, the court held that the “well-founded fear” standard which governs asylum proceedings is different, and in fact more generous, than the “clear probability” standard which governs withholding of deportation proceedings. 767 F. 2d 1448, 1452-1453 (1985). Agreeing with the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, the court interpreted the standard to require asylum applicants to present “ ‘specific facts’ through objective evidence to prove either past persecution or ‘good reason’ to fear future persecution.” Id., at 1453 (citing Carvajal-Munoz v. INS, 743 F. 2d 562, 574 (CA7 1984)). The court remanded respondent’s asylum claim to the BIA to evaluate under the proper legal standard. We granted cer-tiorari to resolve a Circuit conflict on this important question. 475 U. S. 1009 (1986).
I — I HH
The Refugee Act of 1980 established a new statutory procedure for granting asylum to refugees. The 1980 Act added a new § 208(a) to the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, reading as follows:
“The Attorney General shall establish a procedure for an alien physically present in the United States or at a land border or port of entry, irrespective of such alien’s status, to apply for asylum, and the alien may be granted asylum in the discretion of the Attorney General if the Attorney General determines that such alien is a refugee within the meaning of section 1101(a)(42)(A) of this title.” 94 Stat. 105, 8 U. S. C. § 1158(a).
Under this section, eligibility for asylum depends entirely on the Attorney General’s determination that an alien is a “refugee,” as that term is defined in § 101(a)(42), which was also added to the Act in 1980. That section provides:
“The term ‘refugee’ means (A) any person who is outside any country of such person’s nationality or, in the case of a person having no nationality, is outside any country in which such person last habitually resided, and who is unable or unwilling to return to, and is unable or unwilling to avail himself or herself of the protection of, that country because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion... 94 Stat. 102, 8 U. S. C. § 1101(a)(42).
Thus, the “persecution or well-founded fear of persecution” standard governs the Attorney General’s determination whether an alien is eligible for asylum.
In addition to establishing a statutory asylum process, the 1980 Act amended the withholding of deportation provision, § 243(h). See Stevic, 467 U. S., at 421, n. 16. Prior to 1968, the Attorney General had discretion whether to grant withholding of deportation to aliens under § 243(h). In 1968, however, the United States agreed to comply with the substantive provisions of Articles 2 through 34 of the 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. See 19 U.S.T. 6223, 6259-6276, T.I.A.S. No. 6577 (1968); see generally Stevie, supra, at 416-417. Article 33.1 of the Convention, 189 U.N.T.S. 150, 176 (1954), reprinted in 19 U.S.T. 6259, 6276, which is the counterpart of §243(h) of our statute, imposed a mandatory duty on contracting States not to return an alien to a country where his “life or freedom would be threatened” on account of one of the enumerated reasons. See infra, at 441. Thus, although § 243(h) itself did not constrain the Attorney General’s discretion after 1968, presumably he honored the dictates of the United Nations Convention. In any event, the 1980 Act removed the Attorney General’s discretion in § 243(h) proceedings.
In Stevie we considered it significant that in enacting the 1980 Act Congress did not amend the standard of eligibility for relief under § 243(h). While the terms “refugee” and hence “well-founded fear” were made an integral part of the § 208(a) procedure, they continued to play no part in § 243(h). Thus we held that the prior consistent construction of § 243(h) that required an applicant for withholding of deportation to demonstrate a “clear probability of persecution” upon deportation remained in force. Of course, this reasoning, based in large part on the plain language of § 243(h), is of no avail here since § 208(a) expressly provides that the “well-founded fear” standard governs eligibility for asylum.
The Government argues, however, that even though the “well-founded fear” standard is applicable, there is no difference between it and the “would be threatened” test of § 243(h). It asks us to hold that the only way an applicant can demonstrate a “well-founded fear of persecution” is to prove a “clear probability of persecution.” The statutory language does not lend itself to this reading.
To begin with, the language Congress used to describe the two standards conveys very different meanings. The “would be threatened” language of § 243(h) has no subjective component, but instead requires the alien to establish by objective evidence that it is more likely than not that he or she will be subject to persecution upon deportation. See Stevie, supra. In contrast, the reference to “fear” in the § 208(a) standard obviously makes the eligibility determination turn to some extent on the subjective mental state of the lien. “The linguistic difference between the words ‘well-ounded fear’ and ‘clear probability’ may be as striking as that jetween a subjective and an objective frame of reference.
.. We simply cannot conclude that the standards are identi:al.” Guevara-Flores v. INS, 786 F. 2d 1242, 1250 (CA5 1986), cert. pending, No. 86-388; see also Carcamo-Flores v. INS, 805 F. 2d 60, 64 (CA2 1986); 767 F. 2d, at 1452 (case below).
That the fear must be “well-founded” does not alter the obvious focus on the individual’s subjective beliefs, nor does it transform the standard into a “more likely than not” one. One can certainly have a well-founded fear of an event happening when there is less than a 50% chance of the occurrence taking place. As one leading authority has pointed out:
“Let us... presume that it is known that in the applicant’s country of origin every tenth adult male person is either put to death or sent to some remote labor camp.... In such a case it would be only too apparent that anyone who has managed to escape from the country in question will have ‘well-founded fear of being persecuted’ upon his eventual return.” 1 A. Grahl-Madsen, The Status of Refugees in International Law 180 (1966).
This ordinary and obvious meaning of the phrase is not to be lightly discounted. See Russello v. United States, 464 U. S. 16, 21 (1983); Ernst & Ernst v. Hochfelder, 425 U. S. 185, 198-199 (1976). With regard to this very statutory scheme, we have considered ourselves bound to “ ‘assume “that.the legislative purpose is expressed by the ordinary meaning of the words used.”’” INS v. Phinpathya, 464 U. S. 183, 189 (1984) (quoting American Tobacco Co. v. Patterson, 456 U. S. 63, 68 (1982), in turn quoting Richards v. United States, 369 U. S. 1, 9 (1962)).
The different emphasis of the two standards which is so clear on the face of the statute is significantly highlighted by the fact that the same Congress simultaneously drafted § 208(a) and amended § 243(h). In doing so, Congress chose to maintain the old standard in § 243(h), but to incorporate a different standard in § 208(a). “ ‘[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, supra, at 23 (quoting United States v. Wong Kim Bo, 472 F. 2d 720, 722 (CA5 1972)). The contrast between the language used in the two standards, and the fact that Congress used a new standard to define the term “refugee,” certainly indicate that Congress intended the two standards to differ.
I — l I — I
The message conveyed by the plain language of the Act is confirmed by an examination of its history. Three aspects of that history are particularly compelling: The pre-1980 experience under § 203(a)(7), the only prior statute dealing with asylum; the abundant evidence of an intent to conform the definition of “refugee” and our asylum law to the United Nations Protocol to which the United States has been bound since 1968; and the fact that Congress declined to enact the Senate version of the bill that would have made a refugee ineligible for asylum unless “his deportation or return would be prohibited by § 243(h).”
The Practice Under § 203(a)(7).
The statutory definition of the term “refugee” contained in § 101(a)(42) applies to two asylum provisions within the Immigration and Nationality Act. Section 207, 8 U. S. C. § 1157, governs the admission of refugees who seek admission from foreign countries. Section 208, 8 U. S. C. § 1158, sets out the process by which refugees currently in the United States may be granted asylum. Prior to the 1980 amendments there was no statutory basis for granting asylum to aliens who applied from within the United States. Asylum for aliens applying for admission from foreign countries had, however, been the subject of a previous statutory provision, and Congress’ intent with respect to the changes that it sought to create in that statute are instructive in discerning the meaning of the term “well-founded fear.”
Section § 203(a)(7) of the pre-1980 statute authorized the Attorney General to permit “conditional entry” to a certain number of refugees fleeing from Communist-dominated areas or the Middle East “because of persecution or fear of persecution on account of race, religion, or political opinion.” 79 Stat. 913, 8 U. S. C. § 1153(a)(7) (1976 ed.). The standard that was applied to aliens seeking admission pursuant to § 203(a)(7) was unquestionably more lenient than the “clear probability” standard applied in § 243(h) proceedings. In Matter of Tan, 12 I. & N. Dec. 564, 569-570 (1967), for example, the BIA “found no support” for the argument that “an alien deportee is required to do no more than meet the standards applied under section 203(a)(7) of the Act when seeking relief under section 243(h).” Similarly, in Matter of Adamska, 12 I. & N. Dec. 201, 202 (1967), the Board held that an alien’s inability to satisfy § 243(h) was not determinative of her eligibility under the “substantially broader” standards of § 203(a)(7). One of the differences the Board highlighted between the statutes was that § 243(h) requires a showing that the applicant “would be” subject to persecution, while § 203(a)(7) only required a showing that the applicant was unwilling to return “because of persecution or fear of persecution.” 12 I. & N., at 202 (emphasis in original). In sum, it was repeatedly recognized that the standards were significantly different.
At first glance one might conclude that this wide practice under the old § 203(a)(7), which spoke of “fear of persecution,” is not probative of the meaning of the term “well-founded fear of persecution” which Congress adopted in 1980. Analysis of the legislative history, however, demonstrates that Congress added the “well-founded” language only because that was the language incorporated by the United Nations Protocol to which Congress sought to conform. See infra, at 436-437. Congress was told that the extant asylum procedure for refugees outside of the United States was acceptable under the Protocol, except for the fact that it made various unacceptable geographic and political distinctions. The legislative history indicates that Congress in no way wished to modify the standard that had been used under § 203(a)(7). Adoption of the INS’s argument that the term “well-founded fear” requires a showing of clear probability of persecution would clearly do violence to Congress’ intent that the standard for admission under §207 be no different than the one previously applied under § 203(a)(7).
The United Nations Protocol.
If one thing is clear from the legislative history of the new definition of “refugee,” and indeed the entire 1980 Act, it is that one of Congress’ primary purposes was to bring United States refugee law into conformance with the 1967 United Nations Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, 19 U.S.T. 6223, T.I.A.S. No. 6577, to which the United States acceded in 1968. Indeed, the definition of “refugee” that Congress adopted, see supra, at 428, is virtually identical to the one prescribed by Article 1(2) of the Convention which defines a “refugee” as an individual who
“owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it.”
Compare 19 U.S.T. 6225 with 19 U.S.T. 6261. Not only did Congress adopt the Protocol’s standard in the statute, but there were also many statements indicating Congress’ intent that the new statutory definition of “refugee” be interpreted in conformance with the Protocol’s definition. The Conference Committee Report, for example, stated that the definition was accepted “with the understanding that it is based directly upon the language of the Protocol and it is intended that the provision be construed consistent with the Protocol.” S. Rep. No. 96-590, p. 20 (1980); see also H. R. Rep., at 9. It is thus appropriate to consider what the phrase “well-founded fear” means with relation to the Protocol.
The origin of the Protocol’s definition of “refugee” is found in the 1946 Constitution of the International Refugee Organization (IRO). See 62 Stat. 3037. The IRO defined a “refugee” as a person who had a “valid objection” to returning to his country of nationality, and specified that “fear, based on reasonable grounds of persecution because of race, religion, nationality, or political opinions...” constituted a valid objection. See IRO Constitution, Annex 1, Pt. 1, § Cl(a)(i). The term was then incorporated in the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, 189 U.N.T.S. 150 (July 28, 1951). The Committee that drafted the provision explained that “[t]he expression ‘well-founded fear of being the victim of persecution...’ means that a person has either been actually a victim of persecution or can show good reason why he fears persecution.” U. N. Rep., at 39. The 1967 Protocol incorporated the “well-founded fear” test, without modification. The standard, as it has been consistently understood by those who drafted it, as well as those drafting the documents that adopted it, certainly does not require an alien to show that it is more likely than not that he will be persecuted in order to be classified as a “refugee.”
In interpreting the Protocol’s definition of “refugee” we are further guided by the analysis set forth in the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Handbook on Procedures and Criteria for Determining Refugee Status (Geneva, 1979). The Handbook explains that “[i]n general, the applicant’s fear should be considered well founded if he can establish, to a reasonable degree, that his continued stay-in his country of origin has become intolerable to him for the reasons stated in the definition, or would for the same reasons be intolerable if he returned there.” Id., at Ch. II B(2)(a) §42; see also id., §§37-41.
The High Commissioner’s analysis of the United Nations’ standard is consistent with our own examination of the origins of the Protocol’s definition, as well as the conclusions of many scholars who have studied the matter. There is simply no room in the United Nations’ definition for concluding that because an applicant only has a 10% chance of being shot, tortured, or otherwise persecuted, that he or she has no “well-founded fear” of the event happening. See supra, at 431. As we pointed out in Stevic, a moderate interpretation of the “well-founded fear” standard would indicate “that so long as an objective situation is established by the evidence, it need not be shown that the situation will probably result in persecution, but it is enough that persecution is a reasonable possibility.” 467 U. S., at 424-425.
In Stevic, we dealt with the issue of withholding of deportation, or nonrefoulement, under § 243(h). This provision corresponds to Article 33.1 of the Convention. Significantly though, Article 33.1 does not extend this right to everyone who meets the definition of “refugee.” Rather, it provides that “[n]o Contracting State shall expel or return (‘refouler’) a refugee in any manner whatsoever to the frontiers or territories where his life or freedom would be threatened on account of his race, religion, nationality, membership or a particular social group or political opinion.” 19 U.S.T., at 6276,189 U.N.T.S., at 176 (emphasis added). Thus, Article 33.1 requires that an applicant satisfy two burdens: first, that he or she be a “refugee,” i. e., prove at least a “well-founded fear of persecution”; second, that the “refugee” show that his or her life or freedom “would be threatened” if deported. Section 243(h)’s imposition of a “would be threatened” requirement is entirely consistent with the United States’ obligations under the Protocol.
Section 208(a), by contrast, is a discretionary mechanism which gives the Attorney General the authority to grant the broader relief of asylum to refugees. As such, it does not correspond to Article 33 of the Convention, but instead corresponds to Article 34. See Carvajal-Munoz, 743 F. 2d, at 574, n. 15. That Article provides that the contracting States “shall as far as possible facilitate the assimilation and naturalization of refugees....” Like § 208(a), the provision is prec-atory; it does not require the implementing authority actually to grant asylum to all those who are eligible. Also like § 208(a), an alien must only show that he or she is a “refugee” to establish eligibility for relief. No further showing that he or she “would be” persecuted is required.
Thus, as made binding on the United States through the Protocol, Article 34 provides for a precatory, or discretionary, benefit for the entire class of persons who qualify as “refugees,” whereas Article 33.1 provides an entitlement for the subcategory that “would be threatened” with persecution upon their return. This precise distinction between the broad class of refugees and the subcategory entitled to § 243(h) relief is plainly revealed in the 1980 Act. See Stevic, 467 U. S., at 428, n. 22.
Congress’ Rejection of S. 64.3.
Both the House bill, H. R. 2816, 96th Cong., 1st Sess. (1979), and the Senate bill, S. 643, 96th Cong., 1st Sess. (1979), provided that an alien must be a “refugee” within the meaning of the Act in order to be eligible for asylum. The two bills differed, however, in that the House bill authorized the Attorney General, in his discretion, to grant asylum to any refugee, whereas the Senate bill imposed the additional requirement that a refugee could not obtain asylum unless “his deportation or return would be prohibited under section 243(h).” S. Rep., at 26. Although this restriction, if adopted, would have curtailed the Attorney General’s discretion to grant asylum to refugees pursuant to § 208(a), it would not have affected the standard used to determine whether an alien is a “refugee.” Thus, the inclusion of this prohibition in the Senate bill indicates that the Senate recognized that there is a difference between the “well-founded fear” standard and the clear-probability standard. The enactment of the House bill rather than the Senate bill in turn demonstrates that Congress eventually refused to restrict eligibility for asylum only to aliens meeting the stricter standard. “Few principles of statutory construction are more compelling than the proposition that Congress does not intend sub silentio to enact statutory language that it has earlier discarded in favor of other language.” Nachman Corp. v. Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, 446 U. S. 359, 392-393 (1980) (Stewart, J., dissenting); cf. Gulf Oil Corp. v. Copp Paving Co., 419 U. S. 186, 200 (1974); Russello v. United States, 464 U. S., at 23.
IV
The INS makes two major arguments to support its contention that we should reverse the Court of Appeals and hold that an applicant can only show a “well-founded fear of persecution” by proving that it is more likely than not that he or she will be persecuted. We reject both of these arguments: the first ignores the structure of the Act; the second misconstrues the federal courts’ role in reviewing an agency’s statutory construction.
First, the INS repeatedly argues that the structure of the Act dictates a decision in its favor, since it is anomalous for § 208(a), which affords greater benefits than § 243(h), see n. 6, supra, to have a less stringent standard of eligibility. This argument sorely fails because it does not take into account the fact that an alien who satisfies the applicable standard under § 208(a) does not have a right to remain in the United States; he or she is simply eligible for asylum, if the Attorney General, in his discretion, chooses to grant it. An alien satisfying §243(h)’s stricter standard, in contrast, is automatically entitled to withholding of deportation. In Matter of Salim, 18 I. & N. Dec. 311 (1982), for example, the Board held that the alien was eligible for both asylum and withholding of deportation, but granted him the more limited remedy only, exercising its discretion to deny him asylum. See also Walai v. INS, 552 F. Supp. 998 (SDNY 1982); Mat ter of Shirdel, Interim Decision No. 2958 (BIA Feb. 21, 1984). We do not consider it at all anomalous that out of the entire class of “refugees,” those who can show a clear probability of persecution are entitled to mandatory suspension of deportation and eligible for discretionary asylum, while those who can only show a well-founded fear of persecution are not entitled to anything, but are eligible for the discretionary relief of asylum.
There is no basis for the INS’s assertion that the discretionary/mandatory distinction has no practical significance. Decisions such as Matter of Salim, supra, and Matter of Shirdel, swpra, clearly demonstrate the practical import of the distinction. Moreover, the 1980 Act amended § 243(h) for the very purpose of changing it from a discretionary to a mandatory provision. See supra, at 428-429. Congress surely considered the discretionary/mandatory distinction important then, as it did with respect to the very definition of “refugee” involved here. The House Report provides:
“The Committee carefully considered arguments that the new definition might expand the numbers of refugees eligible to come to the United States and force substantially greater refugee admissions than the country could absorb. However, merely because an individual or group comes within the definition will not guarantee resettlement in the United States.” H. R. Rep., at 10.
This vesting of discretion in the Attorney General is quite typical in the immigration area, see, e. g., INS v. Jong Ha Wang, 450 U. S. 139 (1981). If anything is anomalous, it is that the Government now asks us to restrict its discretion to a narrow class of aliens. Congress has assigned to the Attorney General and his delegates the task of making these hard individualized decisions; although Congress could have crafted a narrower definition, it chose to authorize the Attorney General to determine which, if any, eligible refugees should be denied asylum.
The INS’s second principal argument in support of the proposition that the “well-founded fear” and “clear probability” standard are equivalent is that the BIA so construes the two standards. The INS argues that the BIA’s construction of the Refugee Act of 1980 is entitled to substantial deference, even if we conclude that the Court of Appeals’ reading of the statutes is more in keeping with Congress’ intent. This argument is unpersuasive.
The question whether Congress intended the two standards to be identical is a pure question of statutory construction for the courts to decide. Employing traditional tools of statutory construction, we have concluded that Congress did not intend the two standards to be identical. In Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837 (1984), we explained:
“The judiciary is the final authority-on issues of statutory construction and must reject administrative constructions which are contrary to clear congressional intent. [Citing cases.] If a court, employing traditional tools of statutory construction, ascertains that Congress had an intention on the precise question at issue, that intention is the law and must be given effect.” Id., at 843, n. 9 (citations omitted).
The narrow legal question whether the two standards are the same is, of course, quite different from the question of interpretation that arises in each case in which the agency is required to apply either or both standards to a particular set of facts. There is obviously some ambiguity in a term like “well-founded fear” which can only be given concrete meaning through a process of case-by-case adjudication. In that process of filling “‘any gap left, implicitly or explicitly, by Congress,’” the courts must respect the interpretation of the agency to which Congress has delegated the responsibility for administering the statutory program. See Chevron, supra, at 843, quoting Morton v. Ruiz, 415 U. S. 199, 231 (1974). But our task today is much narrower, and is well within the province of the Judiciary. We do not attempt to set forth a detailed description of how the “well-founded fear” test should be applied. Instead, we merely hold that the Immigration Judge and the BIA were incorrect in holding that the two standards are identical.
Our analysis of the plain language of the Act, its symmetry with the United Nations Protocol, and its legislative history, lead inexorably to the conclusion that to show a “well-founded fear of persecution,” an alien need not prove that it is more likely than not that he or she will be persecuted in his or her home country. We find these ordinary canons of statutory construction compelling, even without regard to the longstanding principle of construing any lingering ambiguities in deportation statutes in favor of the alien. See INS v. Errico, 385 U. S. 214, 225 (1966); Costello v. INS, 376 U. S. 120, 128 (1964); Fong Haw Tan v. Phelan, 333 U. S. 6, 10 (1948).
Deportation is always a harsh measure; it is all the more replete with danger when the alien makes a claim that he or she will be subject to death or persecution if forced to return to his or her home country. In enacting the Refugee Act of 1980 Congress sought to “give the United States sufficient flexibility to respond to situations involving political or religious dissidents and detainees throughout the world.” H. R. Rep., at 9. Our holding today increases that flexibility by rejecting the Government’s contention that the Attorney General may not even consider granting asylum to one who fails to satisfy the strict § 243(h) standard. Whether or not a “refugee” is eventually granted asylum is a matter which Congress has left for the Attorney General to decide. But it is clear that Congress did not intend to restrict eligibility for that relief to those who could prove that it is more likely than not that they will be persecuted if deported.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Affirmed.
We explained that the Court of Appeals’ decision had rested “on the mistaken premise that every alien who qualifies as a ‘refugee’ under the statutory definition is also entitled to a withholding of deportation under § 243(h). We find no support for this conclusion in either the language of § 243(h), the structure of the amended Act, or the legislative history.” INS v. Stevic, 467 U. S., at 428.
Compare Carcamo-Flores v. INS, 805 F. 2d 60 (CA2 1986); Guevara-Flores v. INS, 786 F. 2d 1242 (CA5 1986), cert. pending, No. 86-388; Cardoza-Fonseca v. INS, 767 F. 2d 1448 (CA9 1985) (case below); Carvajal-Munoz v. INS, 743 F. 2d 562, 574 (CA7 1984); Youkhanna
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 Whittaker
delivered the opinion of the Court.
We here review petitioner’s conviction under 2 U. S. C. § 192 for willful failure to comply with a subpoena of the House of Representatives commanding him to produce certain records of the Civil Rights Congress before a Subcommittee of the House Committee on Un-American Activities. The principal question presented is whether the evidence justified the trial court’s rulings that the records called for by the subpoena were in existence, subject to petitioner’s control, and pertinent to the Committee’s inquiry.
The relevant evidence was as follows. Having knowledge that the Civil Rights Congress had been declared a subversive organization by the Attorney General — indeed, having itself earlier found that organization to be a subversive one — and having reason to believe that petitioner was its Executive Secretary, the House Committee on Un-American Activities caused a subpoena of the House of Representatives to be issued and served upon petitioner commanding him to appear before its Committee on Un-American Activities, or a subcommittee thereof, at a stated time and place in Detroit, Michigan, on February 26, 1952, and there to produce “all records, correspondence and memoranda pertaining to the organization of, the affiliation with other organizations and all monies received or expended by the Civil Rights Congress . . . [and] then and there to testify touching matters of inquiry committed to said Committee . . .
Upon the opening of the hearings before the Subcommittee at Detroit on February 26, 1952, the chairman made a public statement, saying, among other things, that earlier Committee hearings had “disclosed a concentration of Communist effort in certain defense areas of the country,” consisting in part of keeping “the national organization of the Communist Party and the international Communist movement fully advised of industrial potentialities” in such areas, and that “[tjhere is no area of greater importance to the Nation as a whole, both in time of peace and in time of war, than the general area of Detroit,” and he concluded with the statement that: “The purpose of this investigation is to determine first, whether there has been Communist activity in this vital defense area, and if so, the nature, extent, character and objects thereof.”
Accompanied by counsel, petitioner appeared before the Subcommittee at the time and place commanded by the subpoena, and the following colloquy occurred:
“Mr. Wood [the chairman]: Mr. McPhaul, the committee has heretofore served upon you a subpoena duces tecum, to produce certain records and documents. Are you prepared to respond to that subpoena?
“Mr. Wood: . . . Will you answer my question, Mr. McPhaul. Are you prepared to produce the documents and papers that have been called upon for you to produce under the subpoena?
“Mr. McPhaul: Mr. Wood, I refuse to answer this or any question which deals with the possession or custody of the books and records called for in the subpoena. I claim my privilege under the fifth amendment of the Constitution.
“Mr. Tavbnner [Committee counsel]: I would like to ask the witness if he has any other reason for refusing to produce the documents called for in the subpoena?
“Mr. Wood : In order to complete the record, Mr. McPhaul is it in response to this subpoena that has just been read that you now. decline, for the reason you have stated, to produce the documents and books and records therein called for?
“Mr. McPhaul: I have stated the reasons, for the record.
“Mr. Wood : Is it in response to this subpoena that you refuse to answer?
“Mr. McPhaul: That is my answer that I have just given.
“Mr. Wood : To this subpoena?
“Mr. McPhaul: To that subpoena; yes.”
Petitioner was then sworn, and, after submitting a prepared statement and answering a few preliminary questions, the following occurred:
“Mr. Tavenner: The question is as to whether or not you are refusing to produce the records directed to be produced under the subpoena?
“Mr. McPhaul: My answer to that is, I refuse to answer this or any questions which deal with possession or custody of the books and records called for in this subpoena. I claim my privilege under the fifth amendment of the United States Constitution.
“Mr. Tavenner: My question to you was not answered by that statement, in my judgment. My question was whether or not you are refusing to produce the records which you were directed to produce under this subpoena?
“Mr. McPhaul: I have answered it in this statement.
■
“Mr. Tavenner: No sir. You have stated that you refuse to answer any questions pertaining to them. I have not asked you a question that pertains to them. I have asked you to produce the records. Now, will you produce them?
“Mr. McPhaul: I will not.”
Following receipt of the Subcommittee's report of these occurrences, the House certified the matter to the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan for initiation of contempt proceedings against petitioner, and he was indicted on July 29, 1954. After denial of his motion to dismiss the indictment, petitioner entered a plea of not guilty and the case was put to trial before a jury. The Government offered and there was received in evidence those portions of the transcript of the Detroit hearings which we have mentioned, various House documents authorizing the initiation of this proceeding, and a letter on the letterhead of the Civil Rights Congress, dated February 16,1952, over petitioner’s name, and what purported to be his signature, as Executive Secretary.
Petitioner offered no evidence, but moved for a directed verdict of acquittal substantially on the grounds asserted in his motion to dismiss the indictment (see note 3) and on the further grounds that the Government had failed to adduce any evidence sufficient to show that the records called for by the subpoena were in existence and in petitioner’s possession or control at the time he was served with the subpoena or that they were pertinent to the Subcommittee’s inquiry. The motion was denied, and thereupon petitioner requested the court to charge the jury, in substance, that unless they found from the evidence and beyond a reasonable doubt that the records called for by the subpoena were in existence and in petitioner’s custody or control at the time the subpoena was served upon him, they should find him not guilty. The court refused that request and, instead,- charged the jury not to consider “whether the records and documents designated in the subpoena were actually in existence or under the possession or control of the defendant, because if the defendant had legitimate reasons for failing to produce the said records, he should have stated his reasons for non-compliance with the subpoena when he appeared before the said subcommittee.”
The jury found petitioner guilty, and he was fined the sum of $500 and sentenced to imprisonment for a period of nine months. The Court of Appeals affirmed, 272 F, 2d 627, and we granted certiorari, 362 U. S. 917.
Petitioner’s principal contentions here are that there was no evidence showing that the records called for by the subpoena were in existence or, if it may be said that there was, that those records were in petitioner’s possession or subject to his control, and the trial court therefore should have sustained his motion for a directed verdict of acquittal or, at the minimum, should have submitted those matters to the jury for resolution.
It is of course true that “[a] court will not imprison a witness for failure to produce documents which he does not have, unless he is responsible for their unavailability, cf. Jurney v. MacCracken, [294 U. S. 125], or is impeding justice by not explaining what happened to them, United States v. Goldstein, 105 F. 2d 150 (1939),” United States v. Bryan, 339 U. S. 323, 330-331. But, so far as the record shows, petitioner has never claimed— either before the Subcommittee, the District Court, or the Court of Appeals, and he does not claim here — that the records called for by the subpoena did not exist or that they were not in his possession or subject to his control. Rather, his claim, first raised at his contempt trial more than two years after his appearance before the Subcommittee, is that the Government failed to show that he could have produced the records before the Subcommittee, notwithstanding he has never claimed he could not produce them.
We think the Court’s decision in United States v. Bryan, 339 U. S. 323, is highly relevant to these questions. For it is as true here as it was there, that “if [petitioner] had legitimate reasons for failing to produce the records of the association, a decent respect for the House of Representatives, by whose authority the subpoenas issued, would have required that [he] state [his] reasons for noncompliance upon the return of the writ.” Id., at 332. Such a statement would have given the Subcommittee an opportunity to avoid the blocking of its inquiry by taking other appropriate steps to obtain the records. “To deny the Committee the opportunity to consider the objection or remedy it is in itself a contempt of its authority and an obstruction of its processes. See Benan v. Krieger, 289 U. S. 459, 464-465 (1933).” His failure to make any such statement was “a patent evasion of the duty of one summoned to produce papers before a congressional committee [, and] cannot be condoned.” Id., at 333.
The Government’s proof at the trial thus established a prima facie case of willful failure to comply with the subpoena. The evidence of the Subcommittee’s reasonable basis for believing that the petitioner could produce the records in question, coupled with the evidence of his failure even to suggest to the Subcommittee his inability to produce those records, clearly supported an inference that he could have produced them. The burden then shifted to the petitioner to present some evidence to explain or justify his refusal. Morrison v. California, 291 U. S. 82, 88-89. But he elected not to present any evidence. In these circumstances, there was no factual issue, respecting the existence of the records or his ability to produce them, for resolution by the jury.
The Fifth Amendment did not excuse petitioner from producing the records of the Civil Rights Congress, for it is well settled that “[b]ooks and records kept 'in a representative rather than in a personal capacity cannot be the subject of the personal privilege against self-incrimination, even though production of the papers might tend to incriminate [their keeper] personally.’ United States v. White, 322 U. S. 694, 699 (1944).” Rogers v. United States, 340 U. S. 367, 372. And see Curcio v. United States, 354 U. S. 118, 122-123. Similarly, there is no merit in petitioner’s argument that he could not have advised the Subcommittee that he was unable to produce the records without thereby inviting other questions respecting the records and thus risking waiver of his privilege against self-incrimination. See Curcio v. United States, 354 U. S. 118. Nor does the rule of Blau v. United States, 340 U. S. 159, excuse one subpoenaed to produce records in a representative capacity, United States v. White, 322 U. S. 694, from asserting inability to produce the records if, at a later contempt trial for failure to produce the records, he expects to put the Government to proof on that matter.
Inasmuch as petitioner neither advised the Subcommittee that he was unable to produce the records nor attempted to introduce any evidence at his contempt trial of his inability to produce them, we hold that the trial court was justified in concluding and in charging the jury that the records called for by the subpoena were in existence and under petitioner’s control at the time the subpoena was served upon him.
Petitioner next contends that the evidence was not sufficient to show that the records called for by the subpoena were pertinent to the inquiry. In the first place, petitioner made no objection to the subpoena before the Subcommittee on the ground of pertinency, see Barenblatt v. United States, 360 U. S. 109, 123, but we need not rest decision on that score, for here “pertinency” was clearly shown. The stated purposes of the hearing were to determine “whether there has been Communist activity in this vital defense area [Detroit], and if so, the nature, extent, character and objects thereof.” Earlier Subcommittee hearings had “disclosed a concentration of Communist effort in certain defense areas of the country,” consisting in part of keeping “the national organization of the Communist Party and the international Communist movement fully advised of industrial potentialities” in such areas, and the Subcommittee also had reason to believe that the Civil Rights Congress was being used for subversive purposes. The subpoena called for “all records, correspondence and memoranda” of the Civil Rights Congress relating to three specified subjects: (1) The “organization of” the group, (2) its “affiliation with other organizations,” and (3) “all monies received or expended by [it].” It would seem clear enough that the auspices under which the Civil Rights Congress was organized, the identity and extent of its affiliations, the source of its funds and to whom distributed would be prime considerations in determining whether the organization was being used by the Communists in the Detroit area. If the Civil Rights Congress was affiliated with known Communist organizations, or if its funds were received from such organizations or were used to support Communist activities in the Detroit area, those facts, it is reasonable to suppose, would be shown by the records called for by the subpoena, and those facts would be highly pertinent to the Subcommittee’s inquiry. It thus appears that the records called for by the subpoena were not “plainly incompetent or irrelevant to any lawful purpose [of the Subcommittee] in the discharge of [its] duties,” Endicott Johnson Corp. v. Perkins, 317 U. S. 501, 509, but, on the contrary, were reasonably “relevant to the inquiry,” Oklahoma Press Publishing Co. v. Walling, 327 U. S. 186, 209.
Finally, petitioner contends that the subpoena was so broad as to constitute an unreasonable search and seizure in violation of the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution. “[A]dequacy or excess in the breadth of the subpoena are matters variable in relation to the nature, purposes and scope of the inquiry,” Oklahoma Press Publishing Co. v. Walling, supra, at 209. The Subcommittee’s inquiry here was a relatively broad one — whether “there has been Communist activity in this vital defense area [Detroit], and if so, the nature, extent, character and objects thereof” — and the permissible scope of materials that could reasonably be sought was necessarily equally broad.
It is not reasonable to suppose that the Subcommittee knew precisely what books and records were kept by the Civil Rights Congress, and therefore the subpoena could only “specif [y] . . . with reasonable particularity, the subjects to which the documents . . . relate,” Brown v. United States, 276 U. S. 134, 143. The call of the subpoena for “all records, correspondence and memoranda” of the Civil Rights Congress relating to the three specified subjects describes them “with all of the particularity the nature of the inquiry and the [Subcommittee’s] situation would permit,” Oklahoma Press Publishing Co. v. Walling, supra, at 210, n. 48. “[T]he description contained in the subpoena was sufficient to enable [petitioner] to know what particular documents were required and to select them accordingly,” Brown v. United States, supra, at 143. If petitioner was in doubt as to what records were required by the subpoena, or found it unduly burdensome, or found it to call for records unrelated to the inquiry, he could and should have so advised the Subcommittee, where the defect, if any, “could easily have been remedied,” United States v. Bryan, supra, at 333. This subpoena was not more sweeping than those sustained against challenges of undue breadth in Endicott Johnson Corp. v. Perkins, 317 U. S. 501, and Oklahoma Press Publishing Co. v. Walling, 327 U. S. 186.
Under these circumstances, we cannot say that the breadth of the subpoena was such as to violate the Fourth Amendment.
, 7 Affirmed.
“Every person who having been summoned as a witness by the authority of either House of Congress to give testimony or to produce papers upon any matter under inquiry before either House, or any joint committee established by a joint or concurrent resolution of the two Houses of Congress, or any committee of either House of Congress, willfully makes default, or who, having appeared, refuses to answer any question pertinent to the question under inquiry, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, punishable by a fine of not more than $1,000 nor less than $100 and imprisonment in a common jail for not less than one month nor more than twelve months.”
See note 4.
Petitioner’s motion to dismiss challenged the indictment on the grounds, among others, (1) that it failed to state “the relationship, if any, between the defendant and the Civil Rights Congress whose records defendant was required to produce,” or that they “were subject to the control or in the custody of the defendant”; (2) that it failed to state facts showing “the inquiry [to be] within the purview of the” Subcommittee, “and the relevancy and materiality to [the] inquiry of the records called for in the subpoena”; and (3) that the scope of the subpoena violated “defendant’s rights under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution.”
The letter — taken from the Subcommittee’s files — was on the letterhead of the Civil Rights Congress, dated February 16, 1952— just 10 days prior to the Detroit hearing — over petitioner’s name, and what purported to be his signature, as Executive Secretary. Despite the identity of names and the rule that “identity of names is prima facie evidence of identity of persons,” Stebbins v. Duncan, 108 U. S. 32, 47, the trial court, upon petitioner’s objection, excluded the exhibit from consideration by the jury but received it for his own consideration in respect to the questions of law presented.
See also the companion case of United States v. Fleischman, 339 U. S. 349, which is equally relevant to these questions.
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.
This case concerns the extent to which contribution between joint tortfeasors may be obtained in a maritime action for personal injuries. The S. S. Karina, a vessel owned and operated by respondent Fritz Kopke, Inc., and under time charter to respondent Alcoa Steamship Co., was loaded at Mobile, Alabama, with palletized crates of cargo by petitioner Cooper Stevedoring Co. The vessel then proceeded to the Port of Houston where longshoremen employed by Mid-Gulf Stevedores, Inc., began to load sacked cargo. The Houston longshoremen had to use the top of the tier of crates loaded by Cooper as a floor on which to walk and stow the Houston cargo. One of these longshoremen, Troy Sessions, injured his back when he stepped into a gap between the crates which had been concealed by a large piece of corrugated paper.
Sessions brought suit in the District Court against Kopke and Alcoa (hereinafter collectively the Vessel) seeking to recover damages for his injuries. The Vessel filed a third-party complaint against Cooper alleging that if Sessions was injured by any unseaworthy condition of the vessel or as the result of negligence other than his own, such condition or negligence resulted from the conduct of Cooper and its employees. The Vessel also filed a similar third-party complaint against Mid-Gulf.
Prior to trial, Mid-Gulf and the Vessel apparently entered into an agreement under which Mid-Gulf would indemnify the Vessel against any recovery which Sessions might obtain. Pursuant to this agreement, Mid-Gulf was dismissed as a third-party defendant and Mid-Gulf's attorneys were substituted as counsel for the Vessel.
The case then went to trial, after which the District Court, which sat without a jury, orally announced its findings of fact and conclusions of law. The court found that the Vessel's failure either to make adequate arrangements to assure that the stow would not move and leave spaces in the course of its trip from Mobile to Houston or to put some type of dunnage on top of the stow had resulted in an unsafe place to work and unseaworthy condition. The court found that Cooper was also negligent in not stowing the crates in a manner in which longshoremen at subsequent ports could safely work on top of them. Finding it difficult from the evidence to “evaluate exactly the responsibility between the shipowner on the one hand and Cooper on the other,” the District Court divided the liability equally between the Vessel and Cooper. Judgment was entered allowing Sessions to recover $38,679.90 from the Vessel and allowing the Vessel to recover $19,-339.95 from Cooper.
Cooper appealed, asserting that the District Court's award of contribution in a noncollision maritime case was in direct conflict with this Court’s decisions in Halcyon Lines v. Haenn Ship Corp., 342 U. S. 282 (1952), and Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. Erie Lackawanna R. Co., 406 U. S. 340 (1972). The Court of Appeals rejected this contention, relying on prior decisions of the Fifth and Second Circuits to the effect that the apparent prohibition against contribution in noncol-lision maritime cases announced in Halcyon and Atlantic was inapplicable where the joint tortfeasor against whom contribution is sought is not immune from tort liability by statute. See Horton & Horton, Inc. v. T/S J. E. Dyer, 428 F. 2d 1131 (CA5 1970), cert. denied, 400 U. S. 993 (1971); Watz v. Zapata Off-Shore Co., 431 F. 2d 100 (CA5 1970); In re Seaboard Shipping Corp., 449 F. 2d 132 (CA2 1971), cert. denied, 406 U. S. 949 (1972). The Court of Appeals found this principle applicable here since Sessions, in addition to suing the Vessel, could have proceeded directly against Cooper as the latter was not his employer and, therefore, not shielded by the limited liability of the Longshoremen's and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act, 33 U. S. C. § 905. 479 F. 2d 1041 (CA5 1973). We granted certiorari to consider this question, 414 U. S. 1127 (1974), and now affirm.
Where two vessels collide due to the fault of each, an admiralty doctrine of ancient lineage provides that the mutual wrongdoers shall share equally the damages sustained by each. In The North Star, 106 U. S. 17 (1882), Mr. Justice Bradley traced the doctrine back to the Laws of Oléron which date from the 12th century, and its roots no doubt go much deeper. Even though the common law of torts rejected a right of contribution among joint tortfeasors, the principle of division of damages in admiralty has, over the years, been liberally extended by this Court in directions deemed just and proper. In one line of cases, for example, the Court expanded the doctrine to encompass not only damage to the vessels involved in a collision, but personal injuries and property damage caused innocent third parties as well. See, e. g., The Washington, 9 Wall. 513 (1870); The Alabama, 92 U. S. 695 (1876); The Atlas, 93 U. S. 302 (1876); The Chattahoochee, 173 U. S. 540 (1899). See generally The Max Morris, 137 U. S. 1, 8-11 (1890). In other cases, the Court has recognized the application of the rule of divided damages in circumstances not involving a collision between two vessels, as where a ship strikes a pier due to the fault of both the shipowner and the pier owner, see Atlee v. Packet Co., 21 Wall. 389 (1875), or where a vessel goes aground in a canal due to the negligence of both the shipowner and the canal company, see White Oak Tramp. Co. v. Boston, Cape Cod & New York Canal Co., 258 U. S. 341 (1922). See also The Max Morris, supra, at 13-14. Indeed, it is fair to say that application of the rule of division of damages between joint tortfeasors in admiralty cases has been as broad as its underlying rationales. The interests of safety dictate that where two parties “are both in fault, they should bear the damage equally, to make them more careful.” The Alabama, supra, at 697. And a “more equal distribution of justice” can best be achieved by ameliorating the common-law rule against contribution which permits a plaintiff to force one of two wrongdoers to bear the entire loss, though the other may have been equally or more to blame. See The Max Morris, supra, at 14.
Despite the occasional breadth of its dictum, our opinion in Halcyon should be read with this historical backdrop in mind. Viewed from this perspective, and taking into account the factual circumstances presented in that case, we think Halcyon stands for a more limited rule than the absolute bar against contribution in noncollision cases urged upon us by petitioner.
In Halcyon, a ship repair employee was injured while making repairs on Halcyon’s ship. He sued Halcyon for damages, alleging negligence and unseaworthiness. Since the employee was covered by the Longshoremen’s and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act, 33 U. S. C. §§ 901-950, he was prohibited from suing his employer Haenn. Nevertheless Halcyon impleaded Haenn as a joint tort-feasor seeking contribution for the judgment recovered by the employee. We granted certiorari in Halcyon to resolve a conflict which had arisen among the circuits as to whether a shipowner could recover contribution in these circumstances. See 342 U. S., at 283-284, and n. 3. One court had held that the employer’s limitation of liability vis-á-vis its employee under the Harbor Workers’ Act barred contribution. See American Mutual Liability Insurance Co. v. Matthews, 182 F. 2d 322 (CA2 1950). Another Circuit had held that the Act did not bar contribution, see United States v. Rothschild Int’l Stevedoring Co., 183 F. 2d 181 (CA9 1950), and yet a third Circuit, in the case reviewed in Halcyon, had permitted contribution but limited it to the amount which the injured employee could have compelled the employer to pay had he elected to claim compensation under the Act. 187 F. 2d 403 (CA3 1951).
Before this Court, both parties in Halcyon agreed that “limiting an employer’s liability for contribution to those uncertain amounts recoverable under the Harbor Workers’ Act is impractical and undesirable.” 342 U. S., at 284. The Court also took cognizance of the apparent trade-off in the Act between the employer’s limitation of liability and the abrogation, in favor of the employee, of common-law doctrines of contributory negligence and assumption of risk. Id., at 285-286. Confronted with the possibility that any workable rule of contribution might be inconsistent with the balance struck by Congress in the Harbor Workers’ Act between the interests of carriers, employers, employees, and their respective insurers, we refrained from allowing contribution in the circumstances of that case.
These factors underlying our decision in Halcyon still have much force. Indeed, the 1972 amendments to the Harbor Workers’ Act re-emphasize Congress’ determination that as between an employer and its injured employee, the right to compensation under the Act should be the employee’s exclusive remedy. But whatever weight these factors were properly accorded in the factual circumstances presented in Halcyon, they have no application here. Unlike the injured worker in Halcyon, Sessions was not an employee of Cooper and could have proceeded against either the Vessel or Cooper or both of them to recover full damages for his injury. Had Sessions done so, either or both of the defendants could have been held responsible for all or part of the damages. Since Sessions could have elected to make Cooper bear its share of the damages caused by its negligence, we see no reason why the Vessel should not be accorded the same right. On the facts of this case, then, no countervailing considerations detract from the well-established maritime rule allowing contribution between joint tortfeasors.
Our brief per curiam opinion in Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. Erie Lackawanna R. Co., 406 U. S. 340 (1972), is fully consistent with this view. In that case a yard brakeman, employed by Erie, brought suit for injuries sustained while working on a boxcar owned by another railroad, Atlantic, while the boxcar was being transported on a carfloat barge owned by Erie. The accident was allegedly due to a defective footboard and handbrake of the boxcar and the plaintiff sued Atlantic for its negligence in supplying defective equipment. Atlantic sought contribution from Erie on the ground that its negligence was also a factor in causing the injury. The District Court denied contribution, relying on Halcyon. The Court of Appeals affirmed and we granted certiorari because it initially appeared that the decision was inconsistent with the Courts of Appeals' decisions in Horton, Watz, and Seaboard, supra, which had allowed contribution, notwithstanding Halcyon, in situations where the party against whom contribution was sought was not entitled to the limitation-of-liability protections of the Harbor Workers’ Act. After oral argument, however, it appeared that the case was factually indistinguishable from Halcyon. Erie, against whom contribution was sought, was the plaintiff’s employer, and in Pennsylvania R. Co. v. O’Rourke, 344 U. S. 334 (1953), we recognized that a railroad employee injured while working on a freight car situated on a carfloat in navigable waters was subject exclusively to the Harbor Workers’ Act. Erie was therefore entitled to the limitation-of-liability protections of the Harbor Workers’ Act, just like the employer in Halcyon.
Petitioner argues, however, that this protection was ephemeral in Atlantic since, under Jackson v. Lykes Bros. S. S. Co., 386 U. S. 731 (1967), the injured employee in Atlantic could have sued Erie, the shipowner-employer, for unseaworthiness of the vessel. See also Reed v. The Yaka, 373 U. S. 410 (1963). But the fact that Erie may have been subject to a suit based on unseaworthiness for damages caused by defective boxcar appliances, compare The Osceola, 189 U. S. 158, 175 (1903), with Gutierrez v. Waterman S. S. Corp., 373 U. S. 206, 213 (1963), did not make it a joint tortfeasor subject to a contribution claim. Contribution rests upon a finding of concurrent fault. Erie's liability, if any, for unseaworthiness of its vessel would have been a strict liability not based upon fault. In other words, even if Erie were negligent, its injured employee was entitled to claim compensation from it under the Harbor Workers’ Act, and Erie was accordingly entitled to the protective mantle of the Act’s limitation-of-liability provisions. And to the extent Erie was not negligent but nevertheless subject to a suit on a seaworthiness theory, Erie was not a joint tortfeasor against whom contribution could be sought. See Simpson Timber Co. v. Parks, 390 F. 2d 353 (CA9), cert. denied, 393 U. S. 858 (1968).
In sum, our opinion in Atlantic was not intended to answer the question posed by the present case, as its failure to discuss Horton, Watz, and Seaboard indicates. Rather, Atlantic proves only that our decision in Halcyon was, and still is, good law on its facts.
Affirmed.
Mr. Justice Stewart took no part in the decision of this case.
This suit was commenced prior to the enactment of the 1972 amendments to the Longshoremen’s and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act, 33 U. S. C. §§ 901-944 (1970 ed., Supp. II), and all parties agree that the amendments are therefore not applicable. Accordingly we need not decide whether Sessions’ suit against the Vessel or the Vessel’s third-party complaints against Cooper or Mid-Gulf could be brought under the Act, as amended. See § 905 (b).
Petitioner suggests that the Vessel cannot recover contribution because it has already been fully indemnified for the judgment under its agreement with Mid-Gulf. See W. Prosser, Law of Torts §§ 48-49 (4th ed. 1971). But this suggestion rests on a faulty construction of the agreement between the Vessel and Mid-Gulf. The latter agreed to indemnify the Vessel only to the extent necessary after trial of the lawsuit, and the assumption of the parties was that Mid-Gulf would step into the Vessel’s shoes both to defend the suit brought by Sessions and to prosecute the third-party complaint against Cooper.
Since the District Court concluded that the only apportionment of fault it could reach on the evidence in this ease was an equal division, we have no occasion in this case to determine whether contribution in cases such as this should be based on an equal division of damages or should be relatively apportioned in accordance with the degree of fault of the parties. Cf. The Max Morris, 137 U. S. 1, 15 (1890). See also Jacob v. New York City, 315 U. S. 752 (1942); Socony-Vacuum Oil Co. v. Smith, 305 U. S. 424 (1939) ; The Arizona v. Anelich, 298 U. S. 110 (1936). See generally Staring, Contribution and Division of Damages in Admiralty and Maritime Cases, 45 Calif. L. Rev. 304, 340-344 (1957).
The Vessel also cross-appealed, contending that the District Court should have allowed it full indemnity from Cooper. The Court of Appeals rejected this argument, relying on the District Court’s finding that the Vessel’s “conduct precluded its full recovery on the indemnity claim because it failed to fulfill its primary responsibility under its arrangement with Cooper to assure that some type of dunnage was placed on top of the cargo.” 479 F. 2d 1041, 1042. Cf. Weyerhaeuser S. S. Co. v. Nacirema Operating Co., 355 U. S. 563, 567 (1958). The Vessel did not file a petition for a writ of certiorari to seek review of this aspect of the Court of Appeals’ judgment, and we therefore lack jurisdiction to consider its contention that it is entitled to recover full indemnity on the basis of Ryan Stevedoring Co. v. Pan-Atlantic S. S. Corp., 350 U. S. 124 (1956).
The lower courts have generally not read Halcyon as petitioner suggests, and have continued to recognize a right of contribution in noncollision maritime cases. See, e. g., Crain Bros., Inc. v. Wieman & Ward Co., 223 F. 2d 256 (CA3 1955); Moran Towing Corp. v. M. A. Gammino Constr. Co., 409 F. 2d 917 (CA1 1969); Coca Cola Co., Tenco Div. v. S. S. Norholt, 333 F. Supp. 946 (SDNY 1971); Dow Chemical Co. v. Tug Thomas Allen, 349 F. Supp. 1354 (ED La. 1972); Bilkay Holding Corp. v. Consolidated Iron & Metal Co., 330 F. Supp. 1313 (SDNY 1971); American Independent Oil Co. v. M. S. Alkaid, 289 F. Supp. 329 (SDNY 1967); Cities Service Refining Corp. v. National Bulk Carriers, Inc., 146 F. Supp. 418 (SD Tex.1956).
Under the 1972 amendments, an employee injured on a vessel can bring an action against the vessel for negligence, but the vessel’s liability will not be based upon the warranty of seaworthiness or breach thereof. And where the vessel has been held hable for negligence "the employer shall not be liable to the vessel for such damages directly or indirectly and any agreements or warranties to the contrary shall be void.” 33 U. S. C. § 905 (b) (1970 ed., Supp. II). The intent and effect of this amendment were to overrule this Court’s decisions in Seas Shipping Co. v. Sieracki, 328 U. S. 85 (1946), and Ryan Stevedoring Co. v. Pan-Atlantic S. S. Corp., 350 U. S. 124 (1956), insofar as they made an employer circuitously liable for injuries to its employee, by allowing the employee to maintain an action for unseaworthiness against the vessel and allowing the vessel to maintain an action for indemnity against the employer. See H. R. Rep. No. 92-1441, pp. 4-8 (1972); S. Rep. No. 92-1125, pp. 8-12 (1972).
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 Burger
delivered the opinion of the Court.
We granted certiorari to decide whether the National Labor Relations Board may exclude from a collective-bargaining unit employees who are relatives of the owners of a closely held corporation that employs them, without a finding that the employees receive special job-related benefits.
I
Respondent Action Automotive, Inc., is a retail automobile parts and gasoline dealer with stores in a number of Michigan cities. Action Automotive is a closely held corporation owned equally by three brothers, Richard, Robert, and James Sabo. The Sabo brothers are actively involved in the daily operations of the business. They serve as the corporation’s officers, make all policy decisions, and retain ultimate authority for the supervision of every department.
In March 1981, the Retail Store Employees Union, Local 40 (the Union), filed with the Board a petition requesting that a representation election be held among Action Automotive’s employees. Action Automotive and the Union agreed to elections in two bargaining units — one consisting of employees at the company’s nine retail stores, and the other comprising clerical employees at the company’s headquarters. The elections were held on May 29, 1981, and the Union received a plurality of votes in each unit; enough ballots were challenged by each side, however, to place the outcome of the elections in doubt. We are concerned only with the Union’s challenge to the ballots of Diane and Mildred Sabo.
Diane Sabo is the wife of Action Automotive’s president and one-third owner, Richard Sabo. She works as a general ledger clerk at the company’s headquarters in Flint, Michigan. She resides with her husband and both work at the same office. Unlike other clerical workers, she works part time and receives a salary. She also is allowed to take breaks when she pleases, and she often spends her break in her husband’s office.
Mildred Sabo is the mother of the three Sabo brothers who own and manage Action Automotive. She is employed as a full-time cashier at the company’s store in Barton, Michigan. Mildred Sabo lives with James Sabo, secretary-treasurer of the corporation, and she regularly sees or telephones her other sons and their families. She earns 25 cents per hour more than any other cashier, but she is also one of the company’s most experienced cashiers.
In light of these facts, the Board’s hearing officer concluded that Diane Sabo’s interests are different from those of other clerical employees in the company’s headquarters, and that Mildred Sabo’s “interests are more closely aligned with management than with the employees of Action Automotive.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 36a. He reached this conclusion without finding that Diane and Mildred. Sabo enjoy special job-related benefits. Believing that such a finding was not a prerequisite to excluding the two women from the bargaining units, the hearing officer recommended that the Union’s challenge to their ballots be sustained.
The Board adopted the hearing officer’s recommendations and, after all qualified votes were counted, certified the Union as the exclusive bargaining representative for the two units. When Action Automotive refused to bargain, the Union filed charges with the Board. The Board, relying on its earlier certification decision, found that Action Automotive had violated §§ 8(a)(1) and (5) of the National Labor Relations Act (Act), 61 Stat. 140, 141, 29 U. S. C. §§ 158(a)(1) and (5), and ordered the company to bargain with the Union. 262 N. L. R. B. 423 (1982).
The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit denied enforcement of the Board’s order. 717 F. 2d 1033 (1983). The panel, apparently feeling bound by the Circuit’s prior decisions, see, e. g., NLRB v. Hubbard Co., 702 F. 2d 634 (1983), held that the Board had no authority under § 9(b) of the Act to exclude employees from a bargaining unit based solely on their close family relationship with those who own and operate the business. The court held that an employee’s family ties may be a factor justifying exclusion from a bargaining unit only “when the employee receive[s] job-related benefits or other favorable working conditions which flow from the relationship.” 717 F. 2d, at 1035. Under this standard, the court concluded that there was insufficient evidence that Diane and Mildred Sabo enjoy special job-related benefits, and that the Board erred in excluding them from the units.
The Sixth Circuit’s holding conflicts with the decisions of other Circuits and restricts the Board’s statutory authority to define bargaining units. We granted certiorari, 466 U. S. 970 (1984), and we reverse.
II
Section 9(b) of the Act vests in the Board authority to determine “the unit appropriate for the purposes of collective bargaining.” 61 Stat. 143, 29 U. S. C. § 159(b). The Board’s discretion in this area is broad, reflecting Congress’ recognition “of the need for flexibility in shaping the [bargaining] unit to the particular case.” NLRB v. Hearst Publications, Inc., 322 U. S. 111, 134 (1944). The Board does not exercise this authority aimlessly; in defining bargaining units, its focus is on whether the employees share a “community of interest.” See South Prairie Construction Co. v. Operating Engineers, 425 U. S. 800, 805 (1976) (per curiam); 15 NLRB Ann. Rep. 39 (1950). A cohesive unit— one relatively free of conflicts of interest — serves the Act’s purpose of effective collective bargaining, Pittsburgh Plate Glass Co. v. NLRB, 313 U. S. 146, 165 (1941), and prevents a minority interest group from being submerged in an overly large unit, Chemical Workers v. Pittsburgh Plate Glass Co., 404 U. S. 157, 172-173 (1971).
The Board has long hesitated to include the relatives of management in bargaining units because “their interests are sufficiently distinguished from those of the other employees.” Louis Weinberg Associates, Inc., 13 N. L. R. B. 66, 69 (1939). From the earliest days of the Wagner Act, ch. 372, 49 Stat. 449 et seq., until 1953, the Board automatically excluded close relatives of a manager or owner of a closely held company. See, e. g., Jerry and Edythe Belanger, 32 N. L. R. B. 1276, 1279, and n. 4. (1941). This bright-line approach was abandoned, however, in International Metal Products Co., 107 N. L. R. B. 65, 67 (1953), and now the Board considers a variety of factors in deciding whether an employee’s familial ties are sufficient to align his interests with management and thus warrant his exclusion from a bargaining unit.
For instance, a relevant consideration is whether the employee resides with or is financially dependent on a relative who owns or manages the business; such an employee is typically excluded from the unit. See, e. g., Pandick Press Midwest, Inc., 251 N. L. R. B. 473, 473-474 (1980). The greater the family involvement in the ownership and management of the company, the more likely the employee-relative will be viewed as aligned with management and hence excluded. See factors listed in NLRB v. Caravelle Wood Products, Inc., 466 F. 2d 675, 679 (CA7 1972). The Board, of course, is always concerned with whether the employee receives special job-related benefits such as high wages or favorable working conditions. See, e. g., Holthouse Furniture Corp., 242 N. L. R. B. 414, 415-416 (1979). When other criteria satisfy the Board that the employee-relative’s interests are aligned with management, however, he may be excluded from the unit even though he enjoys no special job-related benefits. E. g., Marvin Witherow Trucking, 229 N. L. R. B. 412, 412-413 (1977).
Our review is limited to whether the Board’s practice of excluding some close relatives who do not enjoy special job-related benefits has a “reasonable basis in law.” NLRB v. Hearst Publications, Inc., supra, at 131. In reviewing Board decisions, we consistently yield to the Board’s reasonable interpretations and applications of the Act, see NLRB v. City Disposal Systems, Inc., 465 U. S. 822, 829-830 (1984); Sure-Tan, Inc. v. NLRB, 467 U. S. 883, 891 (1984). Indeed, the Board’s orders defining bargaining units are “rarely to be disturbed.” Packard Motor Car Co. v. NLRB, 330 U. S. 485, 491 (1947).
The Board’s policy regarding family members, although not defined by bright-line rules, is a reasonable application of its “community of interest” standard. Close relatives of management, particularly those who live with an owner or manager, are likely to “get a more attentive and sensitive ear to their day-to-day and long-range work concerns than would other employees.” Parisoff Drive-In Market, 201 N. L. R. B. 813, 814 (1973). And it is reasonable for the Board to assume that the family member who is significantly dependent on a member of management will tend to equate his personal interests with the business interests of the employer. Ibid. The very presence at union meetings of close relatives of management could tend to inhibit free expression of views and threaten the confidentiality of union attitudes and voting. See generally ibid.; NLRB v. Hendricks County Rural Electric Membership Corp., 454 U. S. 170, 193-194 (1981) (POWELL, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part).
It can be argued that the Board’s policy is overbroad — that excluding from bargaining units only those family members who receive special job-related benefits adequately serves the Act’s objectives. However, we do not make labor policy under § 9(b); Congress vested that authority in the Board, which brings its extensive experience in the administration of the Act to bear on questions of unit determinations. See NLRB v. Hendricks County Rural Electric Membership Corp., supra, at 190; Packard Motor Car Co. v. NLRB, supra, at 492-493. We do not require “mathematical precision,” NLRB v. Hearst Publications, Inc., supra, at 133, and are not prepared to second-guess the Board’s informed judgment that a bargaining unit’s community of interest may be diluted by circumstances other than divergent job-related benefits.
The Board’s decision to exclude some family members is not inconsistent with the fundamental structure or policies of the Act. Congress knows how to limit the Board’s discretion to define collective-bargaining units. For example, § 9(c)(5) of the Act states that “the extent to which the employees have organized shall not be controlling” in determining whether a unit is appropriate. 29 U. S. C. § 159(c)(5). By contrast, there is no express direction that the Board define bargaining units only by reference to job-related benefits such as wages and working conditions. We are not authorized to bind the Board in ways not mandated by Congress.
Action Automotive’s extensive reliance on § 2(3) of the Act is misplaced. Section 2(3) excludes from the Act’s definition of “employee” “any individual employed by his parent or spouse.” 61 Stat. 138, 29 U. S. C. § 152(3). Such a person is completely outside the scope of the statute and may not invoke its protection. See, e. g., Campbell-Harris Electric, Inc., 263 N. L. R. B. 1143, 1143-1144, enf’d, 719 F. 2d 292 (CA8 1983). Family members who fall within the Act’s broad definition of “employee,” however, have no statutory right to be included in collective-bargaining units under § 9(b). The Board is free to exclude from bargaining units persons who are statutory “employees” otherwise protected by the Act. See, e. g., Hendricks County Rural Electric Membership Corp., supra, at 190.
Nor does the Board’s policy of excluding close relatives of management without a showing of special job-related benefits run afoul of the Act’s mandate that the Board remain “wholly neutral” as between the contending parties in representation elections, see NLRB v. Savair Mfg. Co., 414 U. S. 270, 278 (1973). Strictly speaking, the Board does not exclude a family member from a bargaining unit because he is likely to vote against the union. Rather the family member is excluded, if at all, because the Board determines on the basis of objective factors that he lacks common interests with fellow employees who are not so related. In some cases the Board’s policy may have the effect of favoring union representation; however, a disparate impact does not violate the principle of neutrality. Indeed, virtually every Board decision concerning an appropriate bargaining unit — e. g., the proper size of the unit — favors one side or the other.
The Board, in applying its general policy to the facts of this case, did not abuse its discretion. Diane Sabo resides with her husband, the president and one-third owner of Action Automotive; Mildred Sabo, the mother of the three owners, lives with one of her sons. All three owners are closely related and actively involved in running the business on a day-to-day basis. Diane Sabo works at the same office with her husband and occasionally takes her coffeebreaks in his office. Mildred Sabo has daily contacts with her sons. Certainly their participation in the collective-bargaining units would be viewed with suspicion by other employees. On these facts, the Board could reasonably conclude that Diane and Mildred Sabo’s interests are more likely to be aligned with the business interests of the family than with the interests of the employees.
We hold that the Board did not exceed its authority in excluding from collective-bargaining units close relatives of management, without a finding that the relatives enjoy special job-related privileges. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Reversed.
The vote in the unit consisting of retail store employees was 20-18; the vote in the clerical unit was 4-3.
The Board, disagreeing with the hearing officer, found that Diane Sabo does enjoy special job-related benefits. The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit set aside this finding, and the Board, for purposes of review in this Court, no longer rests its decision on this ground.
See NLRB v. H. M. Patterson & Son, Inc., 636 F. 2d 1014 (CA5 1981); Linn Gear Co. v. NLRB, 608 F. 2d 791 (CA9 1979); NLRB v. Caravelle Wood Products, Inc., 504 F. 2d 1181 (CA7 1974).
The Board’s policy is not undermined by the fact that it has modified and refined its position; an agency’s day-to-day experience with problems is bound to lead to adjustments. See NLRB v. Bell Aerospace Co., 416 U. S. 267, 294-295 (1974).
Compare Parisoff Drive-In Market, Inc., 201 N. L. R. B. 813 (1973) (excluding children of corporation’s vice president and significant shareholder), with Pargas of Crescent City, Inc., 194 N. L. R. B. 616 (1971) (including wife of local manager with no ownership interest).
At least since International Metal Products Co., 107 N. L. R. B. 65 (1953), the Board has not excluded an employee simply because he was related to a member of management.
In the context of corporations, the Board has limited the § 2(3) exclusion to the children or spouses of an individual with at least a 50% ownership interest. See Cerni Motor Sales, Inc., 201 N. L. R. B. 918 (1973). The Board’s decision in this case, therefore, is not premised on the view that Diane and Mildred Sabo are not “employees” within the meaning of § 2(3).
The Court of Appeals implicitly recognized as much by noting that employee-relatives may be excluded from a unit if they receive job-related privileges.
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: | G | 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 question presented by this case is whether the State of California may require a federally licensed Indian trader, who operates a general store on an Indian reservation, to obtain a state liquor license in order to sell liquor for off-premises consumption. Because we find that Congress has delegated authority to the States as well as to the Indian tribes to regulate the use and distribution of alcoholic beverages in Indian country, we reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
l-H
The respondent Rehner is a federally licensed Indian trader who operates a general store on the Pala Reservation in San Diego, Cal. The Pala Tribe had adopted a tribal ordinance
permitting the sale of liquor on the reservation providing that the sales conformed to state law, and this ordinance was approved by the Secretary of the Interior. See 25 Fed. Reg. 3343 (1960). Rehner then sought from the State an exemption from its law requiring a state license for retail sale of distilled spirits for off-premises consumption. When she was refused an exemption, Rehner filed suit seeking a declaratory judgment that she did not need a license from the State, and an order directing that liquor wholesalers could sell to her. The District Court granted the State’s motion to dismiss, ruling that Rehner was required to have a state license under 18 U. S. C. § 1161, which provides that liquor transactions in Indian country are not subject to prohibition under federal law provided those transactions are “in conformity both with the laws of the State in which such act or transaction occurs and with an ordinance duly adopted by the tribe having jurisdiction over such area of Indian country....”
The Court of Appeals reversed the District Court, holding that § 1161 did not confer jurisdiction on the States to require liquor licenses. The court held that “18 U. S. C. § 1161 preempts state licensing and distribution jurisdiction over tribal liquor sales in Indian country.” 678 F. 2d 1340, 1351 (1982). In deciding the pre-emption issue, the court focused on two aspects of §1161. First, it held that “there is insufficient evidence to show that Congress intended section 1161 to confer on the states regulatory jurisdiction over on-reservation liquor traffic.” Id., at 1343. The court reasoned that the liquor transactions at issue were governed exclusively by federal law, and that if Congress wished to remove “its veil of preemption,” it needed to do so by an express statement that the State had jurisdiction to impose its licensing requirement. Ibid. Second, the court held that “section 1161 has preemptive effect” because Congress provided for tribal ordinances that were to be certified by the Secretary of the Interior and published in the Federal Register. Id., at 1348-1349,1349, n. 18. In this way, “the regulatory authority of the tribes... was safeguarded by federal supervision.” Id., at 1349.
II
The decisions of this Court concerning the principles to be applied in determining whether state regulation of activities in Indian country is pre-empted have not been static. In Worcester v. Georgia, 6 Pet. 515, 560 (1832), Chief Justice Marshall wrote that an Indian reservation “is a distinct community, occupying its own territory, with boundaries accurately described, in which [state laws] can have no force....” Despite this early statement emphasizing the importance of tribal self-government, “Congress has to a substantial degree opened the doors of reservations to state laws, in marked contrast to what prevailed in the time of Chief Justice Marshall,” Organized Village of Kake v. Egan, 369 U. S. 60, 74 (1962). “[E]ven on reservations, state laws may be applied unless such application would interfere with reservation self-government or would impair a right granted or reserved by federal law.” Mescalero Apache Tribe v. Jones, 411 U. S. 145, 148 (1973).
Although “[f]ederal treaties and statutes have been consistently construed to reserve the right of self-government to the tribes,” P. Cohen, Handbook of Federal Indian Law 273 (1982 ed.) (hereafter Cohen), our recent cases have established a “trend... away from the idea of inherent Indian sovereignty as a bar to state jurisdiction and toward reliance on federal pre-emption.” McClanahan v. Arizona State Tax Comm’n, 411 U. S. 164, 172 (1973) (footnote omitted). The goal of any pre-emption inquiry is “to determine the congressional plan,” Pennsylvania v. Nelson, 350 U. S. 497, 504 (1956), but tribal sovereignty may not be ignored and we do not necessarily apply “those standards of pre-emption that have emerged in other areas of the law.” White Mountain Apache Tribe v. Bracker, 448 U. S. 136, 143 (1980). We have instead employed a pre-emption analysis that is informed by historical notions of tribal sovereignty, rather than determined by them. “[Cjongressional authority and the ‘semi-independent position’ of Indian tribes... [are] two independent but related barriers to the assertion of state regulatory authority over tribal reservations and members.” Bracker, 448 U. S., at 142. Although “[t]he right of tribal self-government is ultimately dependent on and subject to the broad power of Congress/’ id., at 143, we still employ the tradition of Indian sovereignty as a “backdrop against which the applicable treaties and federal statutes must be read” in our pre-emption analysis. McClanahan, supra, at 172. We do not necessarily require that Congress explicitly pre-empt assertion of state authority insofar as Indians on reservations are concerned, but we have recognized that “any applicable regulatory interest of the State must be given weight” and “ ‘automatic exemptions “as a matter of constitutional law” ’ are unusual.” Bracker, supra, at 144 (quoting Moe v. Salish & Kootenai Tribes, 425 U. S. 463, 481, n. 17 (1976)).
The role of tribal sovereignty in pre-emption analysis varies in accordance with the particular “notions of sovereignty that have developed from historical traditions of tribal independence.” Bracker, supra, at 145. These traditions themselves reflect the “accommodation between the interests of the Tribes and the Federal Government, on the one hand, and those of the State, on the other.” Washington v. Confederated Tribes of Colville Indian Reservation, 447 U. S. 134, 156 (1980). However, it must be remembered that “tribal sovereignty is dependent on, and subordinate to, only the Federal Government, not the States.” Id., at 154. “The sovereignty that the Indian tribes retain is of a unique and limited character. It exists only at the sufferance of Congress and is subject to complete defeasance.” United States v. Wheeler, 435 U. S. 313, 323 (1978) (emphasis added). See also Confederated Tribes, supra, at 178-179 (opinion of Rehnquist, J.).
When we determine that tradition has recognized a sovereign immunity in favor of the Indians in some respect, then we usually are reluctant to infer that Congress has authorized the assertion of state authority in that respect “ ‘except where Congress has expressly provided that State laws shall apply.’” McClanahan, supra, at 171 (quoting U. S. Dept, of the Interior, Federal Indian Law 845 (1958) (hereafter Indian Law)). Repeal by implication of an established tradition of immunity or self-governance is disfavored. Bryan v. Itasca County, 426 U. S. 373, 392 (1976). If, however, we do not find such a tradition, or if we determine that the balance of state, federal, and tribal interests so requires, our pre-emption analysis may accord less weight to the “backdrop” of tribal sovereignty. See Confederated Tribes, supra, at 154-159; Mescalero Apache Tribe, supra.
A
We first determine the nature of the “backdrop” of tribal sovereignty that will inform our pre-emption analysis. The “backdrop” in this case concerns the licensing and distribution of alcoholic beverages, and we must determine whether there is a tradition of tribal sovereign immunity that may be repealed only by an explicit directive from Congress.
We begin by noting that there is nothing in the record to indicate that a federally licensed Indian trader like Rehner may sell liquor for off-premises consumption only to members of the Pala Tribe. Indeed, the State contends, and Rehner does not dispute, that Rehner, or any other federally licensed trader, may sell liquor to Indian and non-Indian buyers alike. See Brief for Petitioner 81; Tr. of Oral Arg. 14. To the extent that Rehner seeks to sell to non-Indians, or to Indians who are not members of the tribe with jurisdiction over the reservation on which the sale occurred, the decisions of this Court have already foreclosed Rehner’s argument that the licensing requirements infringe upon tribal sovereignty.
If there is any interest in tribal sovereignty implicated by imposition of California’s alcoholic beverage regulation, it exists only insofar as the State attempts to regulate Rehner’s sale of liquor to other members of the Pala Tribe on the Pala Reservation. The only interest that Rehner advances in this regard is that freedom to regulate alcoholic beverages is important to Indian self-governance. To the extent California limits the absolute number of licenses that it distributes, state regulation may effectively preclude this aspect of self-governance. See Brief for Respondent 63-74. Rehner relies on our statement in United States v. Mazurie, 419 U. S. 544, 557 (1975), that the distribution and use of intoxicants is a “matte [r] that affect[s] the internal and social relations of tribal life.”
Rehner’s reliance on Mazurie as establishing tribal sovereignty in the area of liquor licensing and distribution is misplaced. In Mazurie, we held that “independent tribal authority is quite sufficient to protect Congress’ decision to vest in tribal councils this portion of [Congress'] own authority” to regulate commerce with the Indians. Ibid, (emphasis added). We expressly declined to base our holding on whether “independent [tribal] authority is itself sufficient for the tribes to impose” their own liquor regulations. Ibid, (emphasis added).
The reason that we declined is apparent in the light of the history of federal control of liquor in this context, which must be characterized as “one of the most comprehensive [federal] activities in Indian affairs....” Cohen, at 307. Unlike the authority to tax certain transactions on reservations that we have characterized as “a fundamental attribute of sovereignty which the tribes retain unless divested of it by federal law or necessary implication of their dependent status,” Confederated Tribes, 447 U. S., at 152, tradition simply has not recognized a sovereign immunity or inherent authority in favor of liquor regulation by Indians. The colonists regulated Indian liquor trading before this Nation was formed, and Congress exercised its authority over these transactions as early as 1802. See Indian Law, at 381. Congress imposed complete prohibition by 1832, and these prohibitions are still in effect subject to suspension conditioned on compliance with state law and tribal ordinances.
Although in Indian matters Congress usually acts “upon the assumption that the States have no power to regulate the affairs of Indians on a reservation,” Williams v. Lee, 358 U. S. 217, 220 (1959), that assumption would be unwarranted in the narrow context of the regulation of liquor. In addition to the congressional divestment of tribal self-government in this area, the States have also been permitted, and even required, to impose regulations related to liquor transactions. As a condition of entry into the United States, Arizona, New Mexico, and Oklahoma were required by Congress to enact prohibitions against the sale of liquor to Indians and introduction of liquor into Indian country. Several States, including California, pursuant to state police power, long prohibited liquor transactions with Indians. These state prohibitions indicate that “ ‘absolute’ federal jurisdiction is not invariably exclusive jurisdiction.” Kake Village, 369 U. S., at 68. Indeed, we have recognized expressly that “[t]he federal prohibition against taking intoxicants into this Indian colony does not deprive the State of Nevada of its sovereignty over the area in question. The Federal Government does not assert exclusive jurisdiction within the colony. Enactments of the Federal Government passed to protect and guard its Indian wards only affect the operation, within the colony, of such state laws as conflict with the federal enactments.” United States v. McGowan, 302 U. S. 535, 539 (1938) (footnote omitted; emphasis added).
This historical tradition of concurrent state and federal jurisdiction over the use and distribution of alcoholic beverages in Indian country is justified by the relevant state interests involved. See Confederated Tribes, supra, at 156. Rehner’s distribution of liquor has a significant impact beyond the limits of the Pala Reservation. The State has an unquestionable interest in the liquor traffic that occurs within its borders, and this interest is independent of the authority conferred on the States by the Twenty-first Amendment. Crowley v. Christensen, 137 U. S. 86, 91 (1890). Liquor sold by Rehner to other Pala tribal members or to nonmembers can easily find its way out of the reservation and into the hands of those whom, for whatever reason, the State does not wish to possess alcoholic beverages, or to possess them through a distribution network over which the State has no control. This particular “spillover” effect is qualitatively different from any “spillover” effects of income taxes or taxes on cigarettes. “A State’s regulatory interest will be particularly substantial if the State can point to off-reservation effects that necessitate state intervention.” New Mexico v. Mescalero Apache Tribe, 462 U. S. 324, 336 (1983).
There can be no doubt that Congress has divested the Indians of any inherent power to regulate in this area. In the area of liquor regulation, we find no “congressional enactments demonstrating a firm federal policy of promoting tribal self-sufficiency and economic development.” Bracker, 448 U. S., at 143 (footnote omitted). With respect to the regulation of liquor transactions, as opposed to the state income taxation involved in McClanahan, Indians cannot be said to “possess the usual accoutrements of tribal self-government.” McClanahan, 411 U. S., at 167-168.
The court below erred in thinking that there was some single notion of tribal sovereignty that served to direct any pre-emption analysis involving Indians. See 678 F. 2d, at 1348. Because we find that there is no tradition of sovereign immunity that favors the Indians in this respect, and because we must consider that the activity in which Rehner seeks to engage potentially has a substantial impact beyond the reservation, we may accord little if any weight to any asserted interest in tribal sovereignty in this case.
B
We must next determine whether the state authority to license the sale of liquor is pre-empted by federal law. Bracker, supra, at 142; McClanahan, supra, at 172. The court below held that § 1161 pre-empted state regulation of licensing and distribution, and that the reference to state law in § 1161 was not sufficiently explicit to permit application of the state licensing law.
We disagree with both aspects of the court’s analysis. As we explained in Part II-A above, the tribes have long ago been divested of any inherent self-government over liquor regulation by both the explicit command of Congress and as a “necessary implication of their dependent status.” Confederated Tribes, 447 U. S., at 152. Congress has also historically permitted concurrent state regulation through the imposition of criminal penalties on those who supply Indians with liquor, or who introduce liquor into Indian country. Therefore, this is not a case in which we apply a presumption of a lack of state authority.
The presumption of pre-emption derives from the rule against construing legislation to repeal by implication some aspect of tribal self-government. See Bryan v. Itasca County, 426 U. S., at 391-392; Morton v. Mancari, 417 U. S. 535, 549-551 (1974). Because there is no aspect of exclusive tribal self-government that requires the deference reflected in our requirement that Congress expressly provide for the application of state law, we have only to determine whether application of the state licensing laws would “impair a right granted or reserved by federal law.” Mescalero Apache Tribe, 411 U. S., at 148; Kake Village, 369 U. S., at 75. Our examination of § 1161 leads us to conclude that Congress authorized, rather than pre-empted, state regulation over Indian liquor transactions.
The legislative history of § 1161 indicates both that Congress intended to remove federal prohibition on the sale and use of alcohol imposed on Indians in 1832, and that Congress intended that state laws would apply of their own force to govern tribal liquor transactions as long as the tribe itself approved these transactions by enacting an ordinance. It is clear that by 1953, federal law curtailing liquor traffic with the Indians came to be “viewed as discriminatory.” Indian Law, at 382. As originally introduced, the bill that was later to become § 1161 was intended only to “[t]o terminate Federal discriminations against the Indians of Arizona.” See Hearings on H. R. 1055 before the Subcommittee on Indian Affairs of the House Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, 83d Cong., 1st Sess. (Jan. 6, 1953) (Hearings), reprinted in App. to Brief for Petitioner A-4. In hearings on this original bill, Representative Rhodes of Arizona, speaking on behalf of Representative Patten, who introduced the bill, stated that the sole purpose of the bill was to eliminate federal prohibition because it was discriminatory and had a detrimental effect on the Indians. He also commented that the bill would permit Arizona to amend its Constitution to remove the state prohibitions on sale of liquor to Indians and on introduction of liquor into Indian country. At these same hearings, Dillon S. Myer, Commissioner of the Bureau of Indian Affairs of the Department of the Interior, submitted a revision of the bill proposed by Representative Patten. This revision was different from the original bill in a number of respects, the most important of which for present purposes is that the revision applied to all States, and not just to Arizona. In the context of discussing the bill, Commissioner Myer stated: “We certainly do not intend to try to revise State laws regarding Indians or anyone else, and it should be clear that is provided.... [The revision] is intended to eliminate all of the sections in the statutes which discriminate against Indians and at the same time not interfere with State laws, and at the same time provide opportunity for the tribes to have prohibition on the reservation if they wish to, if it is not covered by State law.” Id., at A-26 — A-27.
In a later hearing, the Department of the Interior submitted an unofficial report in which it was again urged that federal Indian liquor prohibition be ended generally, and not just in Arizona, as long as liquor “transactions are in conformity with the ordinances of the tribes concerned and are not contrary to state law.” See Hearings (May 6, 1953), reprinted in App. to Brief for Petitioner A-54. Representative D’Ewart read into the record a telegram sent by the Chairman of the Navajo Tribal Council. The telegram indicated that the Navajo people supported the “anti-discrimination bill” as a measure to ensure “equal rights.” Id., at A-59.
Representative Patten, the sponsor of the original bill, stated that “if this bill were passed to remove all discrimination, the Indians would still have to comply with State law in every regard....” See Hearings (June 2, 1953), reprinted in App. to Brief for Petitioner A-69. Representative Patten’s remarks are particularly valuable in determining the meaning of § 1161. As the sponsor of the bill, Representative Patten’s interpretation is an “'authoritative guide to the statute’s construction.’” Bowsher v. Merck & Co., 460 U. S. 824, 832 (1983) (quoting North Haven Board of Education v. Bell, 456 U. S. 512, 527 (1982).
The House Report explained the bill as eliminating discrimination caused by legislation “applicable only to Indians.” H. R. Rep. No. 775, 83d Cong., 1st Sess., 2 (1953). It included an official report of the Department of the Interior stating that federal prohibition would be lifted only if liquor “transactions are in conformity with the ordinances of the tribes concerned and are not contrary to State law.” Id., at 3. The Senate Report also expressed these sentiments: “if this bill is enacted, a State or local municipality or Indian tribes, if they desire, by the enactment of proper legislation or ordinance, to restrict the sales of intoxicants to Indians, they may do so.” S. Rep. No. 722, 83d Cong., 1st Sess., 1 (1953) (emphasis added).
It is clear then that Congress viewed § 1161 as abolishing federal prohibition, and as legalizing Indian liquor transactions as long as those transactions conformed both with tribal ordinances and state law. It is also clear that Congress contemplated that its absolute but not exclusive power to regulate Indian liquor transactions would be delegated to the tribes themselves, and to the States, which historically shared concurrent jurisdiction with the Federal Government in this area. Early administrative practice and our prior decision in United States v. Mazurie, 419 U. S. 544 (1975), confirm this understanding of § 1161.
As noted above, the Bureau of Indian Affairs of the Department of the Interior was heavily involved in drafting the revised bill that eventually became § 1161. In a 1954 administrative opinion, ironically rendered in response to California’s interpretation of § 1161, the Department’s Solicitor stated plainly that the Bureau contemplated that liquor transactions on reservations would be subject to state laws, including state licensing laws. Specifically, the Solicitor stated:
“The fact that a tribe in California may by ordinance authorize the sale of liquor on its reservation in packages for consumption only off the premises where it is sold would not, in my opinion, impinge upon the foregoing authority of the State Board of Equalization to license sales of liquor on such reservation for consumption both on and off the premises where the liquor is sold. In such circumstances, if any person so licensed by the State were to sell liquor on the reservation for on-premises consumption in accordance with his license, presumably he would he immune from State prosecution and, thus, the license issued by the State agency would be fully effective insofar as State law is concerned” Memo. Sol. M-36241 (Sept. 22, 1954), Liquor — Tribal Ordinance Regulating Traffic Within Reservation, 2 Op. Solicitor of Dept, of Interior Relating to Indian Affairs 1917-1974, pp. 1648, 1650 (emphasis added).
In the Department of the Interior’s Indian Law, at 382-383, the Solicitor, citing the 1954 opinion, stated that “if a tribal ordinance permits only package sales on a reservation for consumption off the premises, a State license to sell for consumption on the premises will give protection only against State'prosecutions, but not against Federal prosecutions under section 1156.” (Footnote omitted; emphasis added.)
Both Rehner and the court below believed that § 1161 was merely an exemption from federal criminal liability, and affirmatively empowered neither Indian tribes nor the State to regulate liquor transactions. See 678 F. 2d, at 1345; Brief for Respondent 9. Our decision in Mazurie, supra, at 554, rejected this argument with respect to Indian tribes, and there is no reason to accept it with respect to the State. In Mazurie we held that in enacting § 1161 Congress intended to delegate to the tribes a portion of its authority over liquor transactions on reservations. Since we found this delegation on the basis of the statutory language requiring that liquor transactions conform “both with the laws of the State... and with an ordinance duly adopted” by the governing tribe (emphasis added), we would ignore the plain language of the statute if we failed to find this same delegation in favor of the States. Rehner argues that Mazurie merely acknowledged that Indian tribes “possessed independent authority” over liquor transactions. Brief for Respondent 67. As we noted in the context of our discussion of the doctrine of tribal sovereignty, we expressly declined to base our holding in Mazurie on the doctrine of tribal self-government; rather, we held merely that the tribal authority was sufficient to protect the congressional decision to delegate licensing authority. See 419 U. S., at 557. It cannot be doubted that the State’s police power over liquor transactions within its borders is broad enough to protect the same congressional decision in favor of the State.
The thrust of Rehner’s argument, and the primary focus of the court below, is that state authority in this area is preempted because such authority requires an express statement by Congress in the light of the canon of construction that we quoted in McClanahan: “‘State laws generally are not applicable to tribal Indians on an Indian reservation except where Congress has expressly provided that State laws shall apply.’” 411 U. S., at 170-171 (quoting Indian Law, at 845). As we have established above, because of the lack of a tradition of self-government in the area of liquor regulation, it is not necessary that Congress indicate expressly that the State has jurisdiction to regulate the licensing and distribution of alcohol.
Even if this canon of construction were applicable to this case, our result would be the same. The canon is quoted from Indian Law, at 845. In that same volume, the Solicitor of the Interior Department assumed that § 1161 would result in state prosecutions for failing to have a state license. See id., at 382-383. Whatever Congress had to do to provide “expressly” for the application of state law, the Solicitor obviously believed that Congress had done it in § 1161. Indeed, even in McClanahan, we suggested that § 1161 satisfied the canon of construction requiring that Congress expressly provide for application of state law. In discussing statutes that did satisfy the canon, we cited § 1161 and stated that “state liquor laws may be applicable within reservations.” 411 U. S., at 177, n. 16. More important, we have consistently refused to apply such a canon of construction when application would be tantamount to a formalistic disregard of congressional intent. “We give this r,ule [resolving ambiguities in favor of Indians] the broadest possible scope, but it remains at base a canon for construing the complex treaties, statutes, and contracts which define the status of Indian tribes. A canon of construction is not a license to disregard clear expressions of tribal and congressional intent.” De-Coteau v. District County Court, 420 U. S. 425, 447 (1975). See also Andrus v. Glover Construction Co., 446 U. S. 608, 619 (1980). In the present case, congressional intent is clear from the face of the statute and its legislative history.
We conclude that § 1161 was intended to remove federal discrimination that resulted from the imposition of liquor prohibition on Native Americans. Congress was well aware that the Indians never enjoyed a tradition of tribal self-government insofar as liquor transactions were concerned. Congress was also aware that the States exercised concurrent authority insofar as prohibiting liquor transactions with Indians was concerned. By enacting §1161, Congress intended to delegate a portion of its authority to the tribes as well as to the States, so as to fill the void that would be created by the absence of the discriminatory federal prohibition. Congress did not intend to make tribal members “super citizens” who could trade in a traditionally regulated substance free from all but self-imposed regulations. See 678 F. 2d, at 1352 (Goodwin, J., dissenting). Rather, we believe that in enacting § 1161, Congress intended to recognize that Native Americans are not “weak and defenseless,” and are capable of making personal decisions about alcohol consumption without special assistance from the Federal Government. Application of the state licensing scheme does not “impair a right granted or reserved by federal law.” Kake Village, 369 U. S., at 75. On the contrary, such application of state law is “specifically authorized by... Congress... and [does] not interfere with federal policies concerning the reservations.” Warren Trading Post Co. v. Arizona Tax Comm’n, 380 U. S. 685, 687, n. 3 (1965).
H-I
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 18 U. S. C. § 1151 defines “Indian country” as “(a) 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, (b) all dependent Indian communities within the borders of the United States whether within the original or subsequently acquired territory thereof, and whether within or without the limits of a state, and (c) all Indian allotments, the Indian titles to which have not been extinguished, including rights-of-way running through the same.”
There is some confusion among the parties and amici as to whether the court below held that the tribes had exclusive jurisdiction over the licensing and distribution of liquor on reservations irrespective of the identity of the vendor. Although we acknowledge that the decision below is somewhat ambiguous in this respect, we construe the opinion as applying only to vendors, like Rehner, who are members of the governing tribe.
The California licensing scheme is found in Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code Ann. § 23000 et seq. (West 1964 and Supp. 1983).
Section 1161 provides in full:
“The provisions of sections 1154,1156, 3113, 3488, and 3618, of this title, shall not apply within any area that is not Indian country, nor to any act or transaction within any area of Indian country provided such act or transaction is in conformity both with the laws of the State in which such act or transaction occurs and with an ordinance duly adopted by the tribe having jurisdiction over such area of Indian country, certified by the Secretary of the Interior, and published in the Federal Register.”
Rehner appealed to the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and, before a three-judge panel of that court rendered a decision on the appeal, two more cases arose presenting similar issues. The Ninth Circuit then scheduled argument en banc for all three cases. The companion cases were Muckleshoot Indian Tribe v. Washington, No. 79-4403, and Tulalip Tribes v. Washington, No. 79-4404 (CA9). These cases involved, inter alia, state sales taxes imposed on reservation liquor transactions, an issue not discussed or relied upon by the court below in this case. The court remanded these two companion cases to the District Court in the light of Washington v. Confederated, Tribes of Colville Indian Reservation, 447 U. S. 134 (1980).
The court also rejected the argument, made by one of the parties in the companion cases, that the Twenty-first Amendment permitted the States to exercise regulatory jurisdiction over liquor transactions on reservations. Because we base our holding on § 1161, we do not reach the issue whether the Twenty-first Amendment permits the State to exercise jurisdiction over liquor transactions on reservations. We also do not consider whether the State effectively has authority to regulate licensing and distribution of liquor transactions on reservations under any other statute. See 28 U. S. C. § 1360 (1976 ed. and Supp. V); 18 U. S. C. § 1162. At oral argument, both Rehner’s attorney and counsel for the United States as amicus curiae suggested that the State had broad powers to enforce “substantive” state liquor laws on reservations through 18 U. S. C. § 1162. See Tr. of Oral. Arg. 31-32, 40. See n. 18, infra.
Finally, we reject Rehner’s suggestion that this case has become moot because California now permits wholesalers to sell to unlicensed persons on Indian reservations. See Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code Ann. §23384 (West Supp. 1983). At oral argument, the State confirmed that despite this statutory change, the licensing requirement is still in effect. Tr. of Oral Arg. 19.
In Moe v. Salish & Kootenai Tribes, 425 U. S. 463 (1976), we held that a State may impose a nondiscriminatory tax on non-Indian customers of Indian retailers who conducted their businesses on the reservation, and that the State may require that the Indian retailer enforce and collect this tax. We upheld the tax on non-Indians in Moe even though we recognized that in “ ‘the special area of state taxation, absent cession of jurisdiction or other federal statutes permitting it, there has been no satisfactory authority for taxing Indian reservation lands or Indian income from activities carried on within the boundaries of the reservation....”’ Id., at 475-476 (quoting Mescalero Apache Tribe v. Jones, 411 U. S. 145, 148 (1973)). In Confederated Tribes, we said of the tax upheld in Moe that “[s]uch a tax may be valid even if it seriously disadvantages or eliminates the Indian retailer’s business with non-Indians.... [because] the Tribes have no vested right to a certain volume of sales to non-Indians, or indeed to any such sales at all.” 447 U. S., at 151, and n. 27. In Confederated Tribes, we also held that Indians resident on the reservation but nonmembers of the governing tribe “stand on the same footing as non-Indians resident on the reservation” insofar as imposition of tax on cigarette sales is concerned. Id., at 161. Regulation of sales to non-Indians or nonmembers of the Pala Tribe simply does not “contravene the principle of tribal self-government,” ibid., and, therefore, neither Rehner nor the Pala Tribe has any special interest that militates against state regulation in this case, providing that Congress has not pre-empted such regulation.
As Cohen notes: “Restriction on traffic in liquor with the Indians began in early colonial times. The tribes themselves at various times have sought to control liquor use, and it is worthy of note that the first federal control measure was enacted, at least in part, in response to the verbal plea of an Indian chief to President Jefferson in 1802. That measure was not a criminal law and depended on civil regulation of trafficking. The first prohibitions were enacted in 1822 and 1832, monetary penalties were added in the Trade and Intercourse Act of 1834, and imprisonment was added in 1862.
“Since 1834 federal law has specifically penalized both the introduction of liquor into Indian country and the operation of a distillery therein. Possession of liquor in Indian country has been a separate crime since 1918....
“The 1834 Act also prohibited selling (or otherwise conveying) liquor to an Indian in Indian country; 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: | 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 Rehnquist
delivered the opinion of the Court.
In Dunn v. United States, 284 U. S. 390 (1932), this Court held that a criminal defendant convicted by a jury on one count could not attack that conviction because it was inconsistent with the jury’s verdict of acquittal on another count. We granted certiorari in this case to determine whether the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit correctly enunciated an exception to Dunn when it overturned respondent’s convictions. 467 U. S. 1203 (1984).
In 1982, respondent Betty Lou Powell’s husband, Ron Powell, aided by his 17-year-old son Jeff and others, was operating a lucrative cocaine and methaqualone distributorship from the Powell home near San Diego, Cal. Federal authorities tapped the Powells’ telephone pursuant to a court order, and many conversations were recorded, including at least four which indicated that respondent was playing a minor role in the drug distributorship. Three of these conversations indicated that respondent was helping her husband and son to distribute drugs and to collect money owed for drugs sold. The fourth involved a conversation with a travel agent in which respondent booked an airline ticket for her husband in an assumed name. In April 1982, Ron Powell learned of the wiretap and notified his son, who called respondent and told her to leave home and drive to Los Ange-les. Respondent was followed by FBI agents, who after some difficulty managed to stop respondent and arrest her. A search of the car uncovered, inter alia, 2 kilograms of cocaine, 2,700 methaqualone tablets, a pistol, a machine gun, 2 silencers, and $30,000 cash.
Respondent was indicted by a grand jury in the Southern District of California for 15 counts of violations of federal law. Ten of these counts alleged transgressions of the federal narcotics laws; a jury convicted respondent of only three of these, and acquitted her of the others. Count 1 of the indictment charged respondent with conspiring with her husband and 17-year-old son, and others, “to knowingly and intentionally possess with intent to distribute cocaine.” Four of the “overt acts” listed in support of this conspiracy were the above-mentioned telephone conversations. Count 9 charged respondent with possession of a specific quantity of cocaine with intent to distribute it. The jury acquitted respondent of Counts 1 and 9. Counts 3, 4, 5, and 6 charged respondent with the compound offenses of using the telephone in “committing and in causing and facilitating” certain felonies — “conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute and possession with intent to distribute cocaine” — in violation of 84 Stat. 1263, 21 U.. S. C. § 843(b). The jury convicted her of Counts 3, 4, and 5, and acquitted her of Count 6.
On appeal respondent argued that the verdicts were inconsistent, and that she therefore was entitled to reversal of the telephone facilitation convictions. She contended that proof that she had conspired to possess cocaine with intent to distribute, or had so possessed cocaine, was an element of each of the telephone facilitation counts; since she had been acquitted of these offenses in Counts 1 and 9, respondent argued that the telephone facilitation convictions were not consistent with those acquittals. The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit agreed. 708 F. 2d 455 (1983). The court first rejected the Government’s contention that the verdicts could be viewed as consistent because the jury might have found respondent guilty of facilitating a conspiracy other than the conspiracy outlined in Count 1; the court concluded that it was “not convinced that there is evidence to support the government’s claim . . . .” Id., at 456. The court then cited United States v. Bailey, 607 F. 2d 237, 245 (CA9 1979), cert. denied, 445 U. S. 934 (1980), and United States v. Hannah, 584 F. 2d 27, 28-30 (CA3 1978), for the proposition that a conviction under 21 U. S. C. § 843(b) must be reversed “when the conviction on the underlying conspiracy count is reversed.” 708 F. 2d, at 456.
The Government petitioned for rehearing, arguing that the court had ignored the rule of Dunn v. United States, supra, that inconsistent verdicts in criminal trials need not be set aside, but may instead be viewed as a demonstration of the jury’s leniency. The court issued another opinion, stating that the Ninth Circuit “follows the Dunn rule,” but spelling out in more detail the court’s view that situations where a defendant has been convicted under § 843(b) but acquitted of the felony he is charged with facilitating consititute exceptions to the rule, and that in those situations the § 843(b) conviction must be reversed. 719 F. 2d 1480 (1983).
The Court of Appeals explained that an acquittal on the predicate felony necessarily indicated that there was insufficient evidence to support the telephone facilitation conviction, and mandated acquittal on that count as well. The court went on to reject more explicitly the Government’s argument that the jury might have found a different predicate felony than the conspiracy charged in Count 1; it noted that the case simply had not been presented to the jury under such a theory. We granted certiorari to address whether the Court of Appeals in this case, and other of the Courts of Appeals, see Hannah, supra; United States v. Brooks, 703 F. 2d 1273, 1278-1279 (CA11 1983), have acted consistently with Dunn in recognizing exceptions to the rule of that case.
The defendant in Dunn was tried pursuant to a three-count indictment charging violations of the federal liquor laws. The first count alleged that the defendant had maintained a common nuisance by keeping intoxicating liquor for sale at a specified place; the second and third counts charged unlawful possession, and unlawful sale, of such liquor. The jury convicted defendant of the first count and acquitted him of the second and third. On review, this Court rejected the claim that the defendant was entitled to discharge because the verdicts were inconsistent. Speaking through Justice Holmes, the Court stated:
“Consistency in the verdict is not necessary. Each count in an indictment is regarded as if it was a separate indictment. Latham v. The Queen, 5 Best & Smith 635, 642, 643. Selvester v. United States, 170 U. S. 262. If separate indictments had been presented against the defendant for possession and for maintenance of a nuisance, and had been separately tried, the same evidence being offered in support of each, an acquittal on one could not be pleaded as res judicata of the other. Where the offenses are separately charged in the counts of a single indictment the same rule must hold. As was said in Steckler v. United States, 7 F. (2d) 59, 60:
“ ‘The most that can be said in such cases is that the verdict shows that either in the acquittal or the conviction the jury did not speak their real conclusions, but that does not show that they were not convinced of the defendant’s guilt. We interpret the acquittal as no more than their assumption of a power which they had no right to exercise, but to which they were disposed through lenity.’” Dunn, 284 U. S., at 393.
Fifty-three years later most of what Justice Holmes so succinctly stated retains its force. Indeed, although not expressly reaffirming Dunn this Court has on numerous occasions alluded to its rule as an established principle. Thus, in United States v. Dotterweich, 320 U. S. 277, 279 (1943), the rule was invoked to support a jury verdict finding the president of a corporation guilty of introducing adulterated or misbranded drugs into interstate commerce, but acquitting the corporation of the same charge. And more recently, in Harris v. Rivera, 454 U. S. 339 (1981), this Court again reaffirmed the Dunn rule in the course of holding that a defendant could not obtain relief by writ of habeas corpus on the basis of inconsistent verdicts rendered after a state bench trial. This Court noted that Dunn and Dotterweich establish “the unreviewable power of a jury to return a verdict of not guilty for impermissible reasons.” Harris v. Rivera, supra, at 346. See also Standefer v. United States, 447 U. S. 10, 22-23 (1980).
These decisions indicate that this is not a case where a once-established principle has gradually been eroded by subsequent opinions of this Court. Nevertheless, recent decisions in the Courts of Appeals have begun to carve exceptions out of the Dunn rule. See Brooks, supra; United States v. Hannah, 584 F. 2d 27 (CA3 1978). See also United States v. Morales, 677 F. 2d 1 (CA1 1982) (overturning a conspiracy conviction where the defendant was acquitted of all the “overt acts” charged in support of the conspiracy). In addition to evidencing a general displeasure with allowing inconsistent verdicts to stand under some circumstances, these courts have distinguished Dunn on the ground that, where the predicate felony count and the telephone facilitation count are each submitted to the jury, the counts are “interdependent” and each count cannot be regarded as “as if it [were] a separate indictment.” See Hannah, supra, at 30.
In so stating, these courts may be attempting to distinguish Dunn on its facts, or they may mean to take issue with Dunn’s statement that “[i]f separate indictments had been presented against the defendant. . . and had been separately tried ... an acquittal on one could not be pleaded as res judicata of the other. ” The latter statement, if not incorrect at the time, see United States v. Oppenheimer, 242 U. S. 85, 87 (1916), can no longer be accepted in light of cases such as Sealfon v. United States, 332 U. S. 575 (1948), and Ashe v. Swenson, 397 U. S. 436 (1970), which hold that the doctrine of collateral estoppel would apply under those circumstances. Respondent argues that this defect in Dunn’s rationale precludes the rule’s application in this case; indeed, respondent urges that principles of res judicata or collateral estoppel should apply to verdicts rendered by a single jury, to preclude acceptance of a guilty verdict on a telephone facilitation count where the jury acquits the defendant of the predicate felony.
We believe that the Dunn rule rests on a sound rationale that is independent of its theories of res judicata, and that it therefore survives an attack based upon its presently erroneous reliance on such theories. As the Dunn Court noted, where truly inconsistent verdicts have been reached, “[t]he most that can be said ... is that the verdict shows that either in the acquittal or the conviction the jury did not speak their real conclusions, but that does not show that they were not convinced of the defendant’s guilt.” Dunn, supra, at 393. The rule that the defendant may not upset such a verdict embodies a prudent acknowledgment of a number of factors. First, as the above quote suggests, inconsistent verdicts — even verdicts that acquit on a predicate offense while convicting on the compound offense — should not necessarily be interpreted as a windfall to the Government at the defendant’s expense. It is equally possible that the jury, convinced of guilt, properly reached its conclusion on the compound offense, and then through mistake, compromise, or lenity, arrived at an inconsistent conclusion on the lesser offense. But in such situations the Government has no recourse if it wishes to correct the jury’s error; the Government is precluded from appealing or otherwise upsetting such an acquittal by the Constitution’s Double Jeopardy Clause. See Green v. United States, 355 U. S. 184, 188 (1957); Kepner v. United States, 195 U. S. 100, 130, 133 (1904).
Inconsistent verdicts therefore present a situation where “error,” in the sense that the jury has not followed the court’s instructions, most certainly has occurred, but it is unclear whose ox has been gored. Given this uncertainty, and the fact that the Government is precluded from challenging the acquittal, it is hardly satisfactory to allow the defendant to receive a new trial on the conviction as a matter of course. Harris v. Rivera, supra, indicates that nothing in the Constitution would require such a protection, and we therefore address the problem only under our supervisory powers over the federal criminal process. For us, the possibility that the inconsistent verdicts may favor the criminal defendant as well as the Government militates against review of such convictions at the defendant’s behest. This possibility is a premise of Dunn’s alternative rationale — that such inconsistencies often are a product of jury lenity. Thus, Dunn has been explained by both courts and commentators as a recognition of the jury’s historic function, in criminal trials, as a check against arbitrary or oppressive exercises of power by the Executive Branch. See, e. g., United States v. May- bury, 274 F. 2d 899, 902 (CA2 1960) (Friendly, J.); Bickel, Judge and Jury — Inconsistent Verdicts in the Federal Courts, 63 Harv. L. Rev. 649, 652 (1950). Cf. Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U. S. 145, 155-156 (1968).
The burden of the exercise of lenity falls only on the Government, and it has been suggested that such an alternative should be available for the difficult cases where the jury wishes to avoid an all-or-nothing verdict. See Bickel, supra, at 652. Such an act is, as the Dunn Court recognized, an “assumption of a power which [the jury has] no right to exercise,” but the illegality alone does not mean that such a collective judgment should be subject to review. The fact that the inconsistency may be the result of lenity, coupled with the Government’s inability to invoke review, suggests that inconsistent verdicts should not be reviewable.
We also reject, as imprudent and unworkable, a rule that would allow criminal defendants to challenge inconsistent verdicts on the ground that in their case the verdict was not the product of lenity, but of some error that worked against them. Such an individualized assessment of the reason for the inconsistency would be based either on pure speculation, or would require inquiries into the jury’s deliberations that courts generally will not undertake. Jurors, of course, take an oath to follow the law as charged, and they are expected to follow it. See Adams v. Texas, 448 U. S. 38 (1980). To this end trials generally begin with voir dire, by judge or counsel, seeking to identify those jurors who for whatever reason may be unwilling or unable to follow the law and render an impartial verdict on the facts and the evidence. But with few exceptions, see McDonough Power Equipment, Inc. v. Greenwood, 464 U. S. 548, 556 (1984); Smith v. Phillips, 455 U. S. 209, 217 (1982), once the jury has heard the evidence and the case has been submitted, the litigants must accept the jury’s collective judgment. Courts have always resisted inquiring into a jury’s thought processes, see McDonald v. Pless, 238 U. S. 264 (1915); Fed. Rule Evid. 606(b) (stating that jurors are generally incompetent to testify concerning jury deliberations); through this deference the jury brings to the criminal process, in addition to the collective judgment of the community, an element of needed finality.
Finally, we note that a criminal defendant already is afforded protection against jury irrationality or error by the independent review of the sufficiency of the evidence undertaken by the trial and appellate courts. This review should not be confused with the problems caused by inconsistent verdicts. Sufficiency-of-the-evidence review involves assessment by the courts of whether the evidence adduced at trial could support any rational determination of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. See Glasser v. United States, 315 U. S. 60, 80 (1942); Fed. Rule Crim. Proc. 29(a); cf. Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U. S. 307, 316, 319 (1979). This review should be independent of the jury’s determination that evidence on another count was insufficient. The Government must convince the jury with its proof, and must also satisfy the courts that given this proof the jury could rationally have reached a verdict of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. We do not believe that further safeguards against jury irrationality are necessary.
Respondent contends, nevertheless, that an exception to the Dunn rule should be made where the jury acquits a defendant of a predicate felony, but convicts on the compound felony. Such an “exception” falls almost of its own weight. First, the acceptability of this exception is belied by the facts of Dunn itself. In Dunn, the defendant was acquitted of unlawful possession, and unlawful sale, of liquor, but was convicted of maintaining a nuisance by keeping unlawful liquor for sale at a specified place. The same evidence was adduced for all three counts, and Justice Butler’s dissent persuasively points out that the jury could not have convicted on the nuisance count without finding that the defendant possessed, or sold, intoxicating liquor. Dunn, 284 U. S., at 398. Respondent’s exception therefore threatens to swallow the rule.
Second, respondent’s argument that an acquittal on a predicate offense necessitates a finding of insufficient evidence on a compound felony count simply misunderstands the nature of the inconsistent verdict problem. Whether presented as an insufficient evidence argument, or as an argument that the acquittal on the predicate offense should collaterally estop the Government on the compound offense, the argument necessarily assumes that the acquittal on the predicate offense was proper — the one the jury “really meant.” This, of course, is not necessarily correct; all we know is that the verdicts are inconsistent. The Government could just as easily — and erroneously — argue that since the jury convicted on the compound offense the evidence on the predicate offense must have been sufficient. The problem is that the same jury reached inconsistent results; once that is established principles of collateral estoppel — which are predicated on the assumption that the jury acted rationally and found certain facts in reaching its verdict — are no longer useful.
This problem is not altered when the trial judge instructs the jury that it must find the defendant guilty of the predicate offense to convict on the compound offense. Although such an instruction might indicate that the counts are no longer independent, if inconsistent verdicts are nevertheless reached those verdicts still are likely to be the result of mistake, or lenity, and therefore are subject to the Dunn rationale. Given this impasse, the factors detailed above— the Government’s inability to invoke review, the general reluctance to inquire into the workings of the jury, and the possible exercise of lenity — suggest that the best course to take is simply to insulate jury verdicts from review on this ground.
Turning to the case at hand, respondent argues that the jury could not properly have acquitted her of conspiracy to possess cocaine and possession of cocaine, and still found her guilty of using the telephone to facilitate those offenses. The Government does not dispute the inconsistency here. For the reasons previously stated, however, there is no reason to vacate respondent’s conviction merely because the verdicts cannot rationally be reconciled. Respondent is given the benefit of her acquittal on the counts on which she was acquitted, and it is neither irrational nor illogical to require her to accept the burden of conviction on the counts on which the jury convicted. The rule established in Dunn v. United States has stood without exception in this Court for 53 years. If it is to remain that way, and we think it should, the judgment of the Court of Appeals must be
Reversed.
Respondent twice eluded the agents before eventually being stopped. She succeeded the second time by running her car into an agent and an FBI vehicle.
Of the remaining five counts, four charged illegal possession of firearms. Respondent was acquitted of all these. The last count charged her with making false statements in her petition for court-appointed counsel. Respondent was convicted on this count, and her conviction was affirmed on appeal. 708 F. 2d 455, 457 (CA9 1983). The count is not in issue here.
Title 21 U. S. C. § 843(b) provides in part:
“(b) It shall be unlawful for any person knowingly or intentionally to use any communication facility in committing or in causing or facilitating the commission of any act or acts constituting a felony under any provision of this subchapter or subchapter II of this chapter. Each separate use of a communication facility shall be a separate offense under this subsection.”
The lower courts seem to agree that the Government must prove, as an element of a § 843(b) offense, the commission of the felony that the accused is charged with facilitating. See United States v. Ward, 696 F. 2d 1315, 1319 (CA11), cert. denied, 461 U. S. 934 (1983); United States v. Watson, 594 F. 2d 1330, 1342-1344 (CA10 1979).
For purposes of our review the Government has conceded that the verdicts are inconsistent.
After so stating, the court concluded: “We adhere to our statement in our opinion that there is insufficient evidence to support the convictions on Counts 3, 4, and 5 . . . .” 719 F. 2d, at 1481. Respondent seizes upon this language, and similar language in the original opinion, to argue that the Ninth Circuit actually determined upon independent review of the record that the evidence was insufficient as a matter of law, under Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U. S. 307 (1979). A review of the statements in context proves that respondent’s argument is unsupportable. The court was merely expressing its opinion that the jury’s acquittals on the predicate offenses required a finding of insufficient evidence on the compound offenses. We do not believe that its somewhat cryptic reliance on United States v. Bailey, 607 F. 2d 237, 245 (CA9 1979), indicates the contrary. Neither Jackson nor the sufficieney-of-the-evidence test were even cited.
Respondent alternatively urges us to conduct our own independent review of the record. It is not clear whether respondent preserved a sufficiency-of-the-evidence claim below, but in any event the Court of Appeals did not pass upon the claim, and we decline to address it in the first instance. For similar reasons we decline to address the other claims that respondent has urged in support of affirmance.
In Standefer v. United States, 447 U. S. 10 (1980), this Court invoked concerns similar to those expressed above in refusing to apply the doctrine of nonmutual collateral estoppel to preclude prosecution of an aider and abettor where a jury had already acquitted the principal. Citing Dunn, we emphasized that through lenity, compromise, or mistake the jury might have reached an irrational result in the prior trial, which result was not subject to review at the Government’s instigation. Under those circumstances we refused the protection of nonmutual collateral estoppel where the protection had as its basis the assumption that a criminal jury had acted in a rational manner. 447 U. S., at 22-23.
Nothing in this opinion is intended to decide the proper resolution of a situation where a defendant is convicted of two crimes, where a guilty verdict on one count logically excludes a finding of guilt on the other. Cf. United States v. Daigle, 149 F. Supp. 409 (DC), aff’d per curiam, 101 U. S. App. D. C. 286, 248 F. 2d 608 (1957), cert. denied, 355 U. S. 913 (1958).
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 White
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Borden Company, respondent here, produces and sells evaporated milk under the Borden name, a nationally advertised brand. At the same time Borden packs and markets evaporated milk under various private brands owned by its customers. This milk is physically and chemically identical with the milk it distributes under its own brand but is sold at both the wholesale and retail level at prices regularly below those obtained for the Borden brand milk. The Federal Trade Commission found the milk sold under the Borden and the private labels to be of like grade and quality as required for the applicability of § 2 (a) of the Robinson-Patman Act, held the price differential to be discriminatory within the meaning of the section, ascertained the requisite adverse effect on commerce, rejected Borden’s claim of cost justification and consequently issued a cease-and-desist order. The Court of Appeals set aside the Commission’s order on the sole ground that as a matter of law, the customer label milk was not of the same grade and quality as the milk sold under the Borden brand. 339 F. 2d 133. Because of the importance of this issue, which bears on the reach and coverage of the Robinson-Patman Act, we granted certiorari. 382 U. S. 807. We now reverse the decision of the Court of Appeals and remand the case to that court for the determination of the remaining issues raised by respondent Borden in that court. Cf. Federal Trade Comm’n v. Anheuser-Busch, Inc., 363 U. S. 536, 542.
The position of Borden and of the Court of Appeals is that the determination of like grade and quality, which is a threshold finding essential to the applicability of § 2 (a), may not be based solely on the physical properties of the products without regard to the brand names they bear and the relative public acceptance these brands enjoy — “consideration should be given to all commercially significant distinctions which affect market value, whether they be physical or promotional.” 339 F. 2d, at 137. Here, because the milk bearing the Borden brand regularly sold at a higher price than did the milk with a buyer’s label, the court considered the products to be “commercially” different and hence of different “grade” for the purposes of § 2 (a), even though they were physically identical and of equal quality. Although a mere difference in brand would not in itself demonstrate a difference in grade, decided consumer preference for one brand over another, reflected in the willingness to pay a higher price for the well-known brand, was, in the view of the Court of Appeals, sufficient to differentiate chemically identical products and to place the price differential beyond the reach of § 2 (a).
We reject this construction of § 2 (a), as did both the examiner and the Commission in this case. The Commission’s view is that labels do not differentiate products for the purpose of determining grade or quality, even though the one label may have more customer appeal and command a higher price in the marketplace from a substantial segment of the public. That this is the Commission’s long-standing interpretation of the present Act, as well as of § 2 of the Clayton Act before its amendment by the Robinson-Patman Act, may be gathered from the Commission’s decisions dating back to 1936. Whitaker Cable Corp., 51 F. T. C. 958 (1955); Page Dairy Co., 50 F. T. C. 395 (1953); United States Rubber Co., 46 F. T. C. 998 (1950); United States Rubber Co., 28 F. T. C. 1489 (1939); Hansen Inoculator Co., 26 F. T. C. 303 (1938); Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., 22 F. T. C. 232 (1936). These views of the agency are entitled to respect, Federal Trade Comm’n v. Mandel Brothers, Inc., 359 U. S. 385, 391, and represent a more reasonable construction of the statute than that offered by the Court of Appeals.
Obviously there is nothing in the language of the statute indicating that grade, as distinguished from quality, is not to be determined by the characteristics of the product itself, but by consumer preferences, brand acceptability or what customers think of it and are willing to pay for it. Moreover, what legislative history there is concerning this question supports the Commission's construction of the statute rather than that of the Court of Appeals.
During the 1936 hearings on the proposed amendments to § 2 of the Clayton Act, the attention of the Congress was specifically called to the question of the applicability of § 2 to the practice of a manufacturer selling his product under his nationally advertised brand at a different price than he charged when the product was sold under a private label. Because it was feared that the Act would require the elimination of such price differentials, Hearings on H. R. 4995 before the House Committee on the Judiciary, 74th Cong., 2d Sess., p. 355, and because private brands “would [thus] be put out of business by the nationally advertised brands,” it was suggested that the proposed § 2 (a) be amended so as to apply only to sales of commodities of “like grade, quality and brand.” (Emphasis added.) Id., at 421. There was strong objection to the amendment and it was not adopted by the Committee. The rejection of this amendment assumes particular significance since it was pointed out in the hearings that the legality of price differentials between proprietary and private brands was then pending before the Federal Trade Commission in Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., 22 F. T. C. 232. By the time the Committee Report was written, the Commission had decided Goodyear. The report quoted from the decision and interpreted it as holding that Goodyear had violated the Act because “at no time did it offer to its own dealers prices on Goodyear brands of tires which were comparable to prices at which respondent was selling tires of equal or comparable quality to Sears, Roebuck & Co.” H. R. Rep. No. 2287, 74th Cong., 2d Sess., p. 4.
During the debates on the bill, Representative Pat-man, one of the bill’s sponsors, was asked about the private label issue. His brief response is wholly consistent with the Commission’s interpretation of § 2 (a), 80 Cong. Rec. 8115:
“Mr. TAYLOR of South Carolina. There has grown up a practice on the part of manufacturers of making certain brands of goods for particular chain stores. Is there anything in this bill calculated to remedy that situation?
“Mr. PATMAN. ... I have not time to discuss that feature, but the bill will protect the independents in that way, because they will have to sell to the independents at the same price for the same product where they put the same quality of merchandise in a package, and this will remedy the situation to which the gentleman refers.
“Mr. TAYLOR of South Carolina. Irrespective of the brand.
“Mr. PATMAN. Yes; so long as it is the same quality. . . .”
The Commission’s construction of the statute also appears to us to further the purpose and policy of the Robinson-Patman Act. Subject to specified exceptions and defenses, § 2 (a) proscribes unequal treatment of different customers' in comparable transactions, but only if there is the requisite effect upon competition, actual or potential. But if the transactions are deemed to involve goods of disparate grade or quality, the section has no application at all and the Commission never reaches either the issue of discrimination or that of anticompeti-tive impact. We doubt that Congress intended to foreclose these inquiries in situations where a single seller markets the identical product under several different brands, whether his own, his customers’ or both. Such transactions are too laden with potential discrimination and adverse competitive effect to be excluded from the reach of § 2 (a) by permitting a difference in grade to be established by the label alone or by the label and its consumer appeal.
If two products, physically identical but differently branded, are to be deemed of different grade because the seller regularly and successfully markets some quantity of both at different prices, the seller could, as far as § 2 (a) is concerned, make either product available to some customers and deny it to others, however discriminatory this might be and however damaging to competition. Those who were offered only one of the two products would be barred from competing for those customers who want or might buy the other. The retailer who was permitted to buy and sell only the more expensive brand would have no chance to sell to those who always buy the cheaper product or to convince others, by experience or otherwise, of the fact which he and all other dealers already know — that the cheaper product is actually identical with that carrying the more expensive label.
The seller, to escape the Act, would have only to succeed in selling some unspecified amount of each product to some unspecified portion of his customers, however large or small the price differential might be. The seller’s pricing and branding policy, by being successful, would apparently validate itself by creating a difference in “grade” and thus taking itself beyond the purview of the Act.
Our holding neither ignores the economic realities of the marketplace nor denies that some labels will command a higher price than others, at least from some portion of the public. But it does mean that “the economic factors inherent in brand names and national advertising should not be considered in the jurisdictional inquiry under the statutory ‘like grade and quality’ test.” Report of The Attorney General’s National Committee to Study the Antitrust Laws 158 (1955). And it does mean that transactions like those involved in this case may be examined by the Commission under §2 (a). The Commission will determine, subject to judicial review, whether the differential under attack is discriminatory within the meaning of the Act, whether competition may be injured, and whether the differential is cost-justified or is defensible as a good-faith effort to meet the price of a competitor. “[TJangible consumer preferences as between branded and unbranded commodities should receive due legal recognition in the more flexible ‘injury’ and ‘cost justification’ provisions of the statute.” Id., at 159. This, we think, is precisely what Congress intended. The arguments for exempting private brand selling from § 2 (a) are, therefore, more appropriately addressed to the Congress than to this Court.
The Court of Appeals suggested that the Commission’s views of like grade and quality for the purposes of § 2 (a) cannot be squared with its rulings in cases where a seller presents the defense under § 2 (b) that he is in good faith meeting the equally low price of a competitor. In those cases, it is said, the Commission has given full recognition to the significance of the higher prices commanded by the nationally advertised brand “in holding that a seller who reduces the price of his premium product to the level of his non-premium competitors is not merely meeting competition, but undercutting it.” 339 F. 2d, at 138.
The Commission, on the other hand, sees no inconsistency between its present decision and its § 2 (b) cases. In its view, the issue under § 2 (b) of whether a seller’s lower price is a good-faith meeting of competition involves considerations different from those presented by the jurisdictional question of “like grade and quality” under § 2 (a).
We need not resolve these contrary positions. The issue we have here relates to § 2 (a), not to § 2 (b), and we think the Commission has resolved it correctly. The § 2 (b) cases are not now before us and we do not venture to decide them. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. T, . , ,
T, , It is so ordered.
Section 2(a) of the Clayton Act, 38 Stat. 730 (1914), as amended by the Robinson-Patman Act, 15 U. S. C. § 13 (a) (1964 ed.), provides in pertinent part:
“It shall be unlawful for any person engaged in commerce, in the course of such commerce, either directly or indirectly, to discriminate in price between different purchasers of commodities of like grade and quality, where either or any of the purchases involved in such discrimination are in commerce, where such commodities are sold for use, consumption, or resale within the United States or any Territory thereof or the District of Columbia or any insular possession or other place under the jurisdiction of the United States, and where the effect of such discrimination may be substantially to lessen competition or tend to create a monopoly in any line of commerce, or to injure, destroy, or prevent competition with any person who either grants or knowingly receives the benefit of such discrimination, or with customers of either of them: Provided, That nothing herein contained shall prevent differentials which make only due allowance for differences in the cost of manufacture, sale, or delivery resulting from the differing methods or quantities in which such commodities are to such purchasers sold or delivered
A proviso to §2 of the original Clayton Act excepted price discrimination “on account of differences in the grade, quality, or quantity of the commodity sold . . . .” 38 Stat. 730 (1914).
The commentators are somewhat divided on the dispute involved in this case. Supporting the Commission’s view are the Report of The Attorney General’s National Committee to Study the Antitrust Laws 158 (1955); Austin, Price Discrimination and Related Problems under the Robinson-Patman Act 39 (2d ed. 1959); Patman, The Robinson-Patman Act 27 (1938); Edwards, The Price Discrimination Law 31, 463-464 (1959); Seidman, Price Discrimination Cases, reprinted in 2 Hoffmann's Antitrust Law and Techniques 409, 424-428 (1963). Contrary views are expressed by a minority of the Attorney General’s Committee; in Rowe, Price Discrimination Under the Robinson-Patman Act 75 (1962); and in Cassady & Grether, The Proper Interpretation of “Like Grade and Quality” within the Meaning of Section 2 (a) of the Robinson-Patman Act, 30 So. Cal. L. Rev. 241 (1957).
Mr. H. B. Teegarden, who was then counsel to the United States Wholesale Grocers Association, and who apparently played a large part in drafting the bill, Hearings on H. R. 4995 before the House Committee on the Judiciary, 74th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 9, supplemented his oral testimony with a letter addressed in part to the proposed amendment:
“To amend the bill by inserting ‘and brands/ after the words ‘commodities of like grade and quality/ as suggested by Judge Watkins, although it may seem harmless at first sight, is a specious suggestion that would destroy entirely the efficacy of the bill against larger buyers. So amended, the bill would impose no limitation whatever upon price differentials, except as between different purchasers of the same brand. But where goods are put up under a private brand, there can only be one purchaser, namely the one for whom the brand is designed. Neither Kroger nor any independent could use an A. & P. private brand of canned fruit, for example; and to so amend the bill would leave every manufacturer free to put up his standard goods under a private brand for a particular purchaser and give him any price discount or discriminations that he might demand.
“Under the Patman bill as it stands, manufacturers are still free to put up their products under private brands; but if they do so for one purchaser under his private brand, then they must be ready to do so on the same terms, relative to their comparative costs, for a competing purchaser under his private brand; and unless that equality of treatment is required and assured, the discriminations at which the bill is aimed cannot be suppressed.” Id., 2d Sess., at 469.
Borden argues that it spends large sums to ensure the high quality of its Borden brand milk on customers’ shelves, inferring that there really is a difference between its'own milk and the milk sold under private labels, at least by the time it reaches the consumer. Of course, if Borden could prove this difference, it is unlikely that the case would be here. The findings are to the contrary in this case and we write on the premise that the two products are physically the same at the time of consumer purchase. Borden’s extra expenses in connection with its own milk are more relevant to the cost justification issue than to the question we have before us.
The market acceptability test would hardly stop with insulating from inquiry the price differential between proprietary and private label sales. That test would also immunize from the Act sales at different prices of the same product under two different producer-owned labels, the one being less advertised and having less market acceptability than the other. And if it is “consumer preferences,” dissenting opinion, p. 648, which create the difference in grade or quality, why should not Borden be able to discriminate between two purchasers of private label milk, as long as one label commands a higher price from consumers than the other and hence is of a different grade and quality? In this context perhaps the market acceptability test would be refined to preclude this differential on the grounds that Borden’s customer, as distinguished from the consumer, will not pay more than his competitor for private label milk and therefore the milk sold by Borden under one private brand is really of the same grade and quality as the milk sold under the other brand even though ultimate consumers will pay more for one than the other. Taking this approach, if Borden packed for one wholesale customer under two private labels, one having more consumer appeal than the other because of the customer’s own advertising program, Borden must sell both brands at the same price it charges other private label customers because all such milk is of the same grade and quality. At the same time, the customer buying from Borden under two labels could himself sell one label at a reduced price without inquiry under § 2 (a) because the milk in one container is no longer of the same grade arid quality as that in the other, although both the milk and the containers came from Borden. Such an approach would obviously focus not on consumer preference as determinative of grade and quality but on who spent the advertising money that created the preference — Borden’s customer, not Borden, created the preference and hence the milk is of the same grade and quality in Borden’s hands but not in its customer’s. The dissent would exempt the effective advertiser from the Act. We think Congress intended to remit him to his defenses under the Act, including that of cost justification.
This is not, of course, a helpful suggestion to those who thinP the congressional remedy would be “very difficult if not impossible” and who thus prefer the more “reasonable approach” through the courts. See Cassady & Grether, supra, n. 3, at 277.
Section 2 (b), 15 U. S. C. § 13 (b) (1964 ed.), provides as follows:
“Upon proof being made, at any hearing on a complaint under this section, that there has been discrimination in price or services or facilities furnished, the burden of rebutting the prima-facie case thus made by showing justification shall be upon the person charged with a violation of this section, and unless justification shall be affirmatively shown, the Commission is authorized to issue an order terminating the discrimination: Provided, however, That nothing herein contained shall prevent a seller rebutting the prima-facie case thus made by showing that his lower price or the furnishing of services or facilities to any purchaser or purchasers was made in good faith to meet an equally low price of a competitor, or the services or facilities furnished by a competitor.”
The Court of Appeals relied upon Callaway Mills Co., sub nom. Bigelow-Sanford Carpet Co., CCH Trade Reg. Rep. Transfer Binder, 1963-1965, ¶ 16,800; Anheuser-Busch, Inc., 54 F. T. C. 277 (1957); Standard Oil Co., 49 F. T. C. 923 (1953); and Minneapolis-Honeywell Regulator Co., 44 F. T. C. 351 (1948). Borden adds Gerber Products Co. v. Beech-Nut Life Savers Co., 160 F. Supp. 916 (D. C. S. D. N. Y. 1958).
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 |
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